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The uprising witnessed in As-Suwayda ended quickly with the victory of Sheikh Al-Aql, Hikmat Al-Hijri. Unusually, al-Assad’s authority quickly absorbed the event, and news spread of an apology to Sheikh Al-Hijri and the release of the young man, whose arrest was the first spark of the problem. Sheikh Al-Hajri called the head of the Military Intelligence Division, Wael Al-Ali, to free the young man.
And Sheikh Al-Hajri is known for his good relationship with the authority of the lion, and is seen as the closest to him among the four great Sheikhs of Aql. Therefore, what happened in its entirety can be placed in the basket of internal discord which is similar to what is happening here and there among pro-Assad loyalists, but it remains surprising that the insult was issued by the current head of the Military Intelligence Branch. , something that his predecessor in office, Wafiq Nasser, who became famous for his vulgarity, brutality and the rise of his elements with large operations of intimidation, murder and kidnapping, did not do.
On the part of protesters in solidarity with the sheikh, the tearing of photographs of Bashar al-Assad came as if it had become a protest tradition in Suwayda, and it is not ruled out that this was issued even by supporters of the sheikh in his loyalty to power, not only from emergency solidarity activists or solidarity with those who aspire to exacerbate the dispute. Insulting Bashar al-Assad amounts to holding him personally responsible, as if they saw the head of the intelligence branch as a mere employee of it. As for insulting an ally of authority, it does not surprise those who see the whole context, because it is the perseverance of the latter in putting his strength and power to the test. This was the case during Assad’s glory days.
A few months after the outbreak of the revolution in 2011, the news of the Shabiha of the Fourth Division, who raided a house in the Damascus countryside and began harassing his friends, became common. Most likely, the trampling of the image is not due to the supposed rivalry between its leader Maher and his brother. The direct reason is his desire to steal the contents of the house regardless of the affiliation of the unfortunate owner, and the exercise of this. power derives directly from Maher al-Assad, not from that trampled image.
Hafez al-Assad’s days, especially before embarking on the inheritance project, were prominent in those authoritarian fiefdoms whose members owed more loyalty to their immediate leader than to him. The most prominent example was the loyalty of the Defense Brigade elements to “Leader Rifaat”, and if some of them saw their loyalty to Hafez as a logical extension of their loyalty to Rifa’at, others would limit their loyalty to Rifa ‘ . whom they consider most worthy of leadership. In addition to Rifaat, members of Special Units used to see Ali Haider as their leader and their current strong example, while Hafez al-Assad was nothing more than the idea of murky authority, and even within special units, a An officer like Hashem Mualla could emerge as the commander of a regiment whose elements obeyed to the point of being thrown into a minefield, which is a famous factual incident. In addition, Shafiq Fayyad had his fiefdom called Third Division, with the presence of other candidates and fiefdoms that had stopped growing by inheritance.
As it stands militarily, al-Assad forged ties with inherited civilian structures, both sectarian and tribal. On the sectarian side, the Christian sects and the Druze sect attend, because they are religiously institutionalized sects and have recognized personal status laws, as opposed to doctrines that do not have a special human rights status, such as the Ismailis, Alawites and Shiites. twelve. As for the Sunni majority, it is broader than sectarian institutionalization, and Assad opted to build economic interests with the remnants of urban capital and tribes in the desert and the countryside to the cities, that is, in the two structures. that the Baath Party literature promised to attack.
The Druze, as in other fiefdoms, have a minority of individuals ruled by direct loyalty to Assad’s authority. There is an intermediate loyalty, which is the strongest and most durable, here you must find the direct authority and its small or medium profits. From the beginning, the authority of Assad wove the relationship with the great chiefs, and it is known that the heads of sects and some heads of tribes had “the privilege” of having direct contact with the officials of the palace dedicated to managing their affairs, while They were in The background that is not absent is a rod of terror for an authority that was once omnipotent.
In the eighties, the father’s authority relied mainly on the military fiefdoms to confront the Brotherhood, but he also increased his closeness to “sectarian and tribal” civilian leaderships, and the level of his intervention increased to subjugate these leaders, or get rid of some of them to attract more loyal leaders. Faced with the revolution, the son’s authority accumulated his arsenal of previous alliances and the first new military and paramilitary fiefdoms were established, so that his war was supported by clear and direct interests, within a realistic understanding of his emptiness of values, and the end of the era of using slogans to lie, the moment of truth has come.
Loyalty to Bashar might have been the last incentive, if any, for a large bloc of those who defended him. Perhaps its current importance lies in its survival as the formal address of the scattered fiefdoms here and there, some of which have been linked directly to Tehran or Moscow. In the example of As-Suwayda, and also in neighboring Daraa, we have seen on many occasions how Bashar’s representatives are empowering Russian officials in negotiations with local, sectarian or tribal leaders, an indication of their weakness as a separate force. terror and their lack of loyalty among the people. For example, it loses to Sheikh Hekmat al-Hajri, who is seen as the most loyal sheikh of the mind, and this scenario can be repeated wherever there is a local force organized around leadership that gains “for whatever reason” strong loyalty that overcomes formal loyalty to Assad.
The time when Al-Assadiya had a monopoly on violence and a monopoly on relations with foreign forces is over, and this is a valuable additional weakness that Moscow and Tehran do not want to give up. Bashar’s ability to retaliate remains in keeping with gang logic, and this has been used in recent years with enough abundance to demonstrate its futility as a means of recovering what was lost in madness.
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