When I started asking around about Iranian-sponsored Shiitization upon my return to Damascus, I immediately ran into some kind of imaginary barrier and a great deal of obfuscation. First, Othaina took me to see Syrian parliamentarian Mohammed Habash, the head of Damascus’s Islamic Studies Center whom I had interviewed the previous year on Islam in Syria. Habash said that talk of conversions was “Wahhabi propaganda”—a reference to the conservative version of Sunni Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival and America’s chief ally. A little later in the interview, however, Habash added that Shiitization was a “phenomena, especially in the Jazeera.” Instead of converting, Habash said that they were, in fact, returning to their Shiite roots.
It was a story many journalists knew well, but without the geographical context. The previous month, Shiites had celebrated Ashura, the commemoration of the slaying of the prophet Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussein in 680 CE at Karbala, situated in present-day Iraq, by forces that were loyal to the Damascus-based Umayyad caliphate. Its leader, Yazid I, a traditional Sunni from outside Muhammad’s family, ordered Hussein’s decapitation, mounted his head on a pike, and paraded it alongside surviving members of his family throughout the empire. After brief stops in Kufa and Mosul, the procession headed through the Jazeera to Aleppo, then south toward the Syrian cities of Idlib and Homs before ending the journey in Damascus.
The spectacle backfired, however, turning Hussein’s cause into a local crusade. Small Shiite communities sprouted up along the procession’s route and were later joined by Sunni tribes from southern Iraq who were familiar with Shiite customs. Some built maqaam, or shrines; other Shiite communities in Syria gathered around the tombs of Ahl al-Bayt (the family of the prophet Muhammad). During the Ottoman caliphate (1415–1918), which was overwhelmingly Sunni, many Shiites in these communities converted to the dominant Sunni Islam to avoid harassment and discrimination. Now, according to Habash, they were converting back.
I asked Habash if he could introduce me to a few converts. Looking flustered, Habash said that he “met some a few years ago, but [he] didn’t know where they were.” When I asked him if he knew of any converts in the aftermath of the Israel-Hezbollah War, Habash looked out of the window over my shoulder and said no.
Still confused, I asked Leila and Othaina to arrange an interview with Syria’s grand mufti, Ahmad Badr al-Din Hassoun. A few minutes into the interview, I asked him if reports of Shiitization were true. Hassoun, smiling from ear to ear, said that there were no conversions, as there were in fact no differences between Muslims in Syria. Reading the puzzled look on my face, Hassoun added that there were only different schools of thought. Traditionally, Syrians followed either Hanafi or Shafi’i schools of Islamic jurisprudence, but Syria’s small Shiite population, which was estimated to account for less than 1 percent of the population, followed the Ja’afari school—the same one followed in Iran. Hassoun estimated that around 7 to 8 percent of Syrians now adhered to the Ja’afari school. When I asked him if this included the country’s ruling Alawite minority—an obscure offshoot of Shiite Islam—Hassoun replied, “No,” followed by a big smile.5
Othaina next took me to see Imam Ja’afar as-Sadiq, the leader of a hawza (a Shiite school) near the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab outside Damascus. After two cups of coffee and a pleasant chat, Sadiq told me that most of his students were originally Shiites from Iraq who follow Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, based in Najaf. As for converts, Sadiq said that he could not allow interviews with them for fear of their safety. “There are a lot of Salafists in this country who might kill them.” Instead, Sadiq referred me to the newly built hawza of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
A few days later, Othaina told me that he had tried to contact the Khamenei school many times, but to no avail. I began to worry: without an interview with at least one convert, the magazine would likely kill the story. I also knew that if I did not come up with answers from “on the ground,” other, more alarmist reports of Shiitization were likely to continue, beating the war drums for a strike against Syria at a time when US forces were at a turning point in dealing with the insurgency.
After a few more days, Othaina entered my office and announced, “We have hit a dead end.”
“I know how to find a convert,” said Samah, a thirty-year-old woman from the mountains overlooking the Syrian city of Homs, who worked at Syria Today. “My husband is Shiite, and his best friend just converted.”
Othaina suddenly looked uncomfortable and began fidgeting in his seat. Sensing that he thought he would lose his eight-hundred-dollar fee if he failed to find a convert himself, I assured him that he would be my translator. This statement helped, but it didn’t resolve whatever was on his mind. Despite his unease, the next day we met the Syrian, Bilal—a thirty-four-year-old recent convert to Shiite Islam. Bilal said that he had converted to obtain spiritual freedom through the practice of ijtihad—individual interpretation of the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Muhammad. But at the same time, Bilal said that he had converted shortly after Hezbollah’s summer war with Israel. When I asked him if the timing had anything to do with the conflict, he didn’t indicate one way or the other.6
Whether for his own reasons or the fact that Othaina—a Syrian he didn’t know—was beside me, his vagueness made it clear to me that the Syrian regime preferred some kind of tactical ambiguity on this story. It also helped me understand the limits of reporting in Syria. While I had great access to the country (and could therefore sell stories to the outside world), this was mitigated by Syrians’ reticence to fully explain their relationship with Iran. While Syria was seemingly accepting of Iran’s spreading influence, it didn’t want anyone to measure it.
The Democratic Party leadership, which was now in full control of the US House and Senate, rejected Bush’s Iraq plan. Prominent Democratic politicians, including Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid, rejected the surge proposal almost immediately, while a number of White House hopefuls, including the then favored senator Hillary Clinton, as well as Barack Obama and Joe Biden, voiced opposition to the plan.
Obama, in a televised interview at the Capitol, said, “I am not persuaded that an additional twenty thousand troops will solve the situation there. In fact it could do the reverse, as it takes pressure off the Iraqi parties to arrive at the political solution every observer believes is the solution to the problems we face there.”7
The alternative, as outlined the previous August in what became known as the “Biden Plan,” advocated “maintaining a unified Iraq by decentralizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis their own regions.” While this solution would be underpinned by guaranteeing minority Sunnis a share of Iraq’s oil revenue, promoting a jobs program, and convening an international conference that would produce a “regional non-aggression pact,” the plan’s cornerstone was the rapid withdrawal of US forces by the end of 2007. The plan intended to tap into a groundswell of opposition to the war, as poll numbers at the time indicated that up to 60 percent of Americans opposed the surge and an even higher percentage opposed the war. As a rapid withdrawal from Iraq would require cutting a political deal with Syria and Iran, Democratic Party White House hopefuls advocated engagement with Damascus and Tehran without preconditions.8
Finally, on March 31, the new House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, dropped the diplomatic bombshell that Syria was waiting for. When she arrived in Jerusalem on the first leg of a tour of the region, Pelosi’s office released a statement saying, “As recommended by the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan delegation led by Speaker Pelosi intends to discuss a wide range of security issues affecting the United States and the Middle East with representatives of governments in the region, including Syria.”9 The delegation included a number of senior House officials, including Democratic representative Tom Lantos, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; Henry Waxman of California; Louise Slaughter of New York; Nick Rahall of West Virginia; Keith Ellison of Minnesota; and Republican representative David Hobson of
Ohio. The Bush administration immediately dubbed the announcement “a really bad idea.”10
In Damascus, however, Syrians began to prepare for the first of what they hoped would be many visits by US officials to break Syria out of its diplomatic isolation. Imad Moustapha, dubbed the “loneliest ambassador in Washington” due to his isolation at the Syrian embassy on Wyoming Street in Washington’s northwest quarter, returned to Damascus to prep Assad for Pelosi’s arrival.
At the offices of Syria Today, the staff was elated. Only a little over a year before, Damascenes had whispered about power struggles at the top and Bashar’s possible fall from power as the chaos following the Hariri murder swept the country’s political scene. Pelosi’s visit, combined with America’s failing prospects in Iraq and the 2006 Lebanon War, strengthened the idea in Syria that Bashar was once again a political horse worth betting on. When an invitation to the US embassy showed up at Syria Today for the delegation’s reception, Leila slapped the invitation against the palm of her hand, looked at me, and said, “The Americans are coming!”
The next day, the streets of Damascus were blocked off as Pelosi’s motorcade whizzed along the main route to Damascus’s Souk al-Hamidiyya, the main covered market where Syrians had peddled their wares for centuries. Syrian television showed Pelosi, along with the rest of the delegation, browsing through the market stands, smiling and meeting Syrian shop owners. It also showed clips of Pelosi meeting with President Assad at the Republican Palace overlooking the Syrian capital.
What exactly transpired in the talks was open to interpretation. Pelosi told reporters after the meeting that she had brought a message from Prime Minister Olmert that he was “ready to engage in peace talks” with Syria and that the delegation expressed its “interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria.” In a New York Times article, Pelosi and her delegation were quoted as urging Assad to stop his support for militants, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and jihadi fighters to Iraq. The House Committee on Foreign Affairs chairman Tom Lantos—long a critic of Syria and a chief backer of tightening sanctions on Syria—said that he asked Assad how a man “of his intelligence and knowledge of the world could have common cause with President Ahmadinejad of Iran, who has denied the Holocaust and calls for the elimination of Israel.” Pelosi added that “we came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace.”
Pelosi’s statements immediately drew criticism from Bush himself. “Sending delegations hasn’t worked,” he said. “It’s just simply been counterproductive.” A little later, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe was more blunt: “Unfortunately, that road [to Damascus] is lined with victims of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the victims of terrorists who cross from Syria into Iraq. It’s lined with the victims in Lebanon, who are trying to fight for democracy there. It’s lined with human rights activists trying for freedom and democracy in Syria.”11
Pelosi’s statements also drew qualified criticism from Israel as well. Olmert’s office issued a statement almost immediately after Pelosi’s press conference saying that “although Israel is interested in peace with Syria, that country continues to be part of the axis of evil and a force that encourages terror in the entire Middle East.”
At a reception that night at the US ambassador’s residence in Abou Roumaneh, Damascus’s elite rubbed shoulders with the delegation, whose members whispered to the diplomats about the possibility of lifting US sanctions on Syria and the need for more delegations. It was a far cry from the tense atmosphere a year earlier, when Syrians invited to US embassy functions received calls from Syrian security officers ordering them not to attend, which was an apparent attempt at revenge for US isolation of the Syrian embassy in Washington.
The next morning, the lead editorial of the Washington Post, entitled “Pratfall in Damascus,” attacked Pelosi—it accused Pelosi of falling for Assad’s “propaganda” by quoting a statement from Olmert’s office that said, “A number of Senate and House members who recently visited Damascus received the impression that despite the declarations of Bashar Assad, there is no change in the position of his country regarding a possible peace process with Israel.” The op-ed added that “thanks to the speaker’s freelancing, Mr. Assad was getting mixed messages from the United States…. Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off UN charges that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime minister [Rafik Hariri].” Finally, the Washington Post accused Pelosi of “attempting to introduce a new Middle East policy that directly conflicts with that of the president. We have found much to criticize in Mr. Bush’s military strategy and regional diplomacy. But Ms. Pelosi’s attempt to establish a shadow presidency is not only counterproductive, it is foolish.”12
However, it wasn’t just Democrats who sought engagement with Syria. The Iraq Study Group had recommended engaging Syria and Iran in order to stabilize Iraq. While the Bush administration was clearly reticent to publicly embrace Syria as Pelosi had, the White House decided to honor the ISG’s recommendations by engaging Syria solely on the issue of Iraq. Secretary of State Rice broke the Bush administration’s two-year isolation policy on May 4, 2007, when she met Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallem on the sidelines of a fifty-nation summit in Sharm el-Sheikh dedicated to Iraqi reconstruction. The details of the meeting have not been made public, but the main American issue concerned the movement of foreign fighters into Iraq from Syria. According to interviews with US diplomats, Moallem’s main request concerned securing parts to repair Syria’s aging fleet of Boeing and Airbus commercial aircraft that had been blocked by US sanctions.13
This marked the first of many signals from the Assad regime that US sanctions were having a deeper impact than first thought. Both diplomats described the meeting as positive, with Rice calling the discussion “professional” and “businesslike,” and Moallem “frank” and “constructive.” Rice later told CNN, “We have no desire to have bad relations with Syria. Of course, we want to have better relations with Syria.”14 Whatever was agreed, a few days later US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell told reporters that Syria had acted recently against the flow of foreign fighters.15 What that actually meant was anyone’s guess.
As American diplomats waited to see what Syria might do regarding Iraq, the regime of Bashar al-Assad consolidated its authoritarian grip on power at home. On April 25, Anwar al-Bunni—the Syrian civil-society activist who was arrested a mere thirty minutes after the UN Security Council approved Resolution 1680 on demarcating the Lebanese border—was sentenced to five years on charges of “spreading false information.”
Activists saw this as a signal to Europe, as al-Bunni had tried to open a civil-society-awareness center with EU funding, only to see the center shut down a few days after its public opening (which had been attended by the EU’s representative to Syria). On May 11, 2007, Kamal Labwani—a civil-society activist and dissident who had been arrested on November 8, 2005, upon his arrival at Damascus’s international airport—was sentenced to twelve years’ hard labor. More than anyone, Labwani was associated with the Bush administration’s plans to topple the Syrian regime because of his meeting with officials from the White House the day after the announcement of the first Mehlis report into the murder of Rafik Hariri.
Finally, on May 13, the regime sentenced perhaps the country’s most prominent dissident and architect of the Damascus Declaration, Michel Kilo, to three years in prison on charges of “spreading false news, weakening national feeling, and inciting sectarian sentiments.”16 For years, Kilo had been tolerated by the Assad regime because he was a Christian from Latakia, the capital of the Alawite-dominated coast. His connections, combined with his insights on the regime’s problems and Syrian civil society, had made him a key resource for most foreign diplomats.
The sentences angered diplomats and journalists in Damascus. In the year leading up to them, the Syrian regime had virtually par
aded the dissidents before foreign diplomats attending their trials in the Old Justice Palace next to the Souk al-Hamidiyya, the main market in Damascus’s Old City. I had attended Kilo’s last trial earlier that spring. After making a mix of journalists and diplomats wait for over three hours, courtroom officials opened the doors—specifically for foreigners only. Inside, Kilo was kept in a large cage in front of the judge. After a few minutes of deliberation, the judge announced that the case could not be tried in that court and referred the case to another judge. As the doors to the courtroom swung open again and we were escorted out by uniformed security officers, each of us shook Kilo’s hand through the bars of the cage. Kilo, who had grown a thick mustache since I had last interviewed him a month before his arrest, smiled widely and thanked us. We never met again.
With President Assad’s opponents in jail and the United States once again engaging Damascus, the way was clear for the regime to prepare for Assad’s reelection to a second seven-year term as president. Syria’s constitution stated that parliament must approve a candidate for president, who then in turn must be approved in a national referendum. In the last referendum in July 2000—a year after the death of his father, Hafez—Bashar had won the referendum with an approval rate of more than 97 percent of ballots cast.
In the weeks leading up to the new referendum, scheduled for May 27, posters with a stylized black-and-white photo of Assad began appearing on bus stops and billboards throughout the Syrian capital. The poster’s background featured a thumbprint—the mark that voters had to make on each ballot in the “Yes” or “No” box. The thumbprint’s ink was red, white, and black and adorned with two green stars—a replica of the Syrian flag. Below the image, in big red Arabic script, read the word “Mnhibak,” which roughly translates from the Syrian Arabic dialect as “You are our beloved.” As the posters multiplied, my Syrian friends mentioned under their breath that Iraqi refugees in Syria found the posters confusing, as “Mnhibak” in Iraqi dialect means “We don’t like you.”
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