Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview Shmuel Bar ...

390 S. BarFigure 3. Heads of the Syrian Security Appartuses and their dates of appointment. Air Force Intelligence (AFI) (Idarat al-Mokhabarat al-Jawiyya) was the predominantapparatus under Hafez al-Asad and was responsible for operations against the Islamicopposition and terrorist operations abroad (e.g., the attempt to bomb an El-Al aircraftin London in 1986). 86Though these agencies are nominally subordinate to different commands (the militaryand the Interior Ministry), they in fact operate under the direct control of the president.Like their formal lines of command, the formal division of tasks between them is of littlerelevance. The different security services always have maintained a certain level of competition,and this is encouraged by the president. They monitor each other no less than theydo the general public. The real indication of the relative predominance of one or another ofthe services is the intimacy of the head of that service with the president.Since Bashar’s rise to power and the subsequent changes in the command of the securityapparatuses, the rivalry between them seems to have worsened. In March 2005 the conflictbetween Asef Shawkat (who had just been appointed as Head of DMI) and Ghazi Kana’an(Minister of Interior) over areas of authority in northern Syria came to the surface.The “Young Guard” in Government. The Syrian government (the cabinet) is a body that“manages” the country but does not “rule” and has never held any real power. In the daysof Hafez al-Asad it was populated by Ba’th loyalists who did not presume to have any realinfluence on the decisions of the regime, but at the same time were not “technocrats” inthe sense that they had the professional backgrounds to perform their ministerial duties.In this sense, the Bashar era has changed the picture. The government, per se, is still notprivy to any real decision making on strategic matters or on areas relating to intelligence.However, it appears that economic ministers do have more power over their specific areasof responsibility.Like other components of the regime, the government was characterized by stagnation.Prime Minister Mohammad al-Zu‘bi was in the post for thirteen years, until March2000. The government began a process of rejuvenation toward the beginning of Bashar’s