The Council of Five Build a Deep State

The 'council of five' controls Syria's chief offices of state and will shape the Third Syrian Republic. Their success depends on institutionalising their vision and broadening participation in phases.

The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on December 8th marked not only the end of a brutal dictatorship but the beginning of Syria’s most ambitious state-building project since its independence. This project made great strides last week on January 29th with the ‘Victory Conference’ held between various armed factions and Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (“HTS”).

Some of the key announcements:

1. The position of President of the Syrian Arab Republic was officially transferred to Ahmad Al-Shara for the transition period;

2. The abolition of armed factions, including HTS, and folding them into the state;

3. The dissolution of the Assad regime-era constitution (2012), Ba’ath party, intelligence services, and parliament;

4. And the creation of a transitionary legislative council by Al-Shara in the near future.

A day later on January 30th, exactly fifty four days since December 8th and the end of fifty four years of Assad dynastic rule over Syria, Al-Shara directly addressed the Syrian people for the first time in his new capacity as President. He paid homage to those who fought, suffered, and were martyred throughout the revolution, and laid out a roadmap for Syria, with current priorities being: the pursuit of fugitives of the regime and the establishment of transitional justice, establishing civil security across the country, uniting Syria under one state (the northeast remains under PKK occupation), the creation of strong state institutions, and laying the foundations for Syria’s economic reconstruction. Al-Shara also confirmed plans for the national dialogue conference (still without a date) to be followed by a ‘constitutional declaration’ to guide the transitional phase.

These decisions were expected and mostly formalised the current situation with regards to Al-Shara’s role as leader of Syria. It also raised more questions about the formulation of Syria’s new constitution, democratic elections, civil society’s role and shape in the new Syria, and other relevant issues—of which few details are forthcoming. Syria’s transition government is working under a ‘fog of war’ as they attempt to establish basic security, economic activity, and some semblance of state institutions before making firm commitments to these questions—commitments it cannot hope to meet as long as Syria’s institutions remain in their destroyed state.

The language of state-building should not be restricted to democratic elections and civil society alone. Syria’s success will depend a great deal on the state capacity it builds in the coming years, which in turn will require functional institutions staffed through rigorous, meritocratic selection processes, and aligned elite coordination to keep the ship of state on course. Much of this coordination will come from Al-Shara and his ‘council of five’—As’ad Al-Shaybani, Anas Khattab, Ali Keda, and Marhaf Abu Qasra—whose wartime governance in Idlib and toppling of the regime has positioned them as architects of the ‘Third Syrian Republic’, and occupying the chief offices of state:

1. Al-Shara, as President

2. Khattab, as minister of intelligence

3. Al-Shaybani, as minister of foreign affairs

4. Keda, as minister of interior

5. Abu Qasra, as minister of defence

Amid questions around expanding political participation in Syria, it should be expected that the council will continue to occupy these offices for the foreseeable future and form something akin to a ‘deep state’, ensuring that the government continues towards long-term strategic objectives.

The term deep state has deeply negative connotations and is mostly associated with third world tinpot dictatorships, but is arguably an important reservoir of state capacity for sovereign nations—democratic or otherwise. The deep state provides strategic depth for political power to operate on long-term horizons and not risk disruption by the vicissitudes of four-or-five year election cycles. This tends to take form in a complex web of relationships within permanent government bureaucracies, intelligence services, and select non-state actors. There is an awkward balance to be managed between these two often competing objectives, but not one that is alien to western liberal democracies, whose deep states form bipartisan consensus on issues ranging from finance to foreign policy.

The objective of the council is to build enough strategic depth within the Syrian state to withstand the extreme security threats and challenges Syria currently faces, chief among them being potential counter-revolutions—the most successful of which often come from within the ‘deep’ part of the state itself. Building a state imbued with the principles of the Syrian revolution will be crucial if Syria is to avoid the counter-revolutions that thwarted democracy in Egypt and Tunisia, which were led by their deep states against elected parties. The mistake of democratic movements in Egypt and Tunisia was to quibble over democratic elections and the design of new constitutions while the economy floundered and the deep state mobilised (along with regional allies) against them. If Syria is to attempt a political transition in these early stages without basic state institutions and a broken economy, the country will become very susceptible to counter-revolutionary efforts led internally or externally, and prove inflexible in responding to various threats ranging through ISIS, the PKK, and Assad regime remnants. A democratic system requires stability, and that stability is provided through a state’s strategic depth.

In any case, these are early days and the uncertainty has naturally raised questions about Syria’s political transition and whether the council will open access to positions of power to others who are not factionally or ideologically associated with the council (such as through prior membership of HTS, or participation in the revolution more widely—naturally, former members of the regime who committed crimes against the Syrian people are not included in any case).

For now, Al-Shara fits the classical definition of dictator—a temporary magistrate with extraordinary powers who was appointed to address a specific crisis in the Roman Republic—but he is not a tyrant. Al-Shara and his council have demonstrated a remarkable capacity to augment their vision for Syria and will likely command a national consensus for that vision at the ballot box in several years’ time if the current public sentiment, largely supportive, continues at these levels. Additionally, they have a demonstrated belief in the concept of shura, or consultation.

What does this all mean for Syria’s transition? With the soft deadline for Syria’s current government looming in March, we should expect to see significant changes with ‘outsiders’ (i.e. non-HTS) appointed to positions in the government cabinet for the first time, and perhaps many more positions opened up lower down the rung. I expect that economic decision-making will be one of the fastest areas to open up to outsiders. While the council will retain control over critical ministries such as defence, intelligence, interior, and foreign affairs, the early appointment of Maysaa Sabreen, Syria’s first female central bank governor, signals a calculated openness to outside expertise on matters pertaining to the economy, particularly based on Syria’s immediate need for economic reconstruction and the council’s lack of expertise in that capacity.

As participation broadens, Syria’s government should be wary of two threats: the rise of rentier economic elites, and the lack of institutionalisation of power.

It is extremely important that economic participation is institutionalised and designed in a manner prevents the replication in Syria of the regional trend of rentier elites establishing systems of extraction and stymying economic growth. Economic participation comes hand-in-hand with political participation and this needs to be emphasised as much as democratic elections. Syria’s neighbour Lebanon is a case in point: voting can be very ineffective against entrenched oligarchic interests, and only a strong state can restrain the worst depredations of rentier elites.

Another threat Syria faces is the lack of institutionalisation of power. In Syria and the wider region, power is located in personalities and networks of patronage, something that the Assad regime took to the extreme. The progress that Syria makes should be measured in how far its new leaders can institutionalise their vision such that it exists beyond their grasp. Al-Shara has repeatedly stated that they have adopted a ‘state mentality’ to these issues. The council of five succeeded against the odds to not just survive in Idlib but eventually liberate Syria from the regime in large part because they eventually understood that they had to become the state.

The council’s challenge now is two-fold: build Syria’s state to ensure long-term stability, and balance their revolutionary legitimacy with a phased transition to functional, participatory governance—a delicate equilibrium that will determine if the council of five’s institution-building can outlast their personalities.

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