Review Essay

The Lion in Spring? Three Takes on Syria
through the Presidential Lens

Andrea L. Stanton

Alan George, Syria: Neither Bread Nor Freedom. London and New York:
Zed Books, 2003; Flynt Leverett, Inheriting Syria: Bashar’s Trial by Fire.
Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2005; David Lesch, The New
Lion of Damascus: Bashar al-Asad and Modern Syria. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2005.

Since Hafez al-Asad’s death in June 2000, Syria has spent more time in the
international spotlight than perhaps ever before, due primarily to the Bush
administration’s interest in the country’s relations with four of its neighbors:
Iran, Iraq, Israel, and Lebanon. This interest has spurred the publication of
several “contemporary issues” books analyzing the country’s political situa-
tion and aimed at English-speaking policymaking, analyst, diplomatic, and
journalistic communities in the United States and elsewhere. Three of the
most talked-about analyses are Alan George’s Syria: Neither Bread Nor
Freedom, Flynt Leverett’s Inheriting Syria: Bashar’s Trial by Fire, and
David Lesch’s The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar al-Asad and Modern
Syria. These three books have become well-known “recommended reads”
for policymakers working on Syria and have circulated around the European
and American diplomatic, non-governmental organization (NGO), and busi-
ness circles in Damascus.

Like most of the books published on Syria since the 1970s, these three
focus on the president, and for good reason: the intense presidential person-
ality cult that characterized Syria under Hafez al-Asad (reigned 1971-2000)

Andrea L. Stanton is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History, Columbia University,
New York.



has continued into his son Bashar’s presidency, albeit in a softened form
(fewer photos in public places and less frenzied “great leader” rhetoric).
Those looking to explain current Syrian policies and to forecast future devel-
opments do so by concentrating their analyses on the president – in this case,
the son of the legendary and much-scrutinized Hafez. The transition from a
regime led by a man about whom decades of information and analysis had
been collected to one led by his relatively unknown son has produced a
sense of uncertainty and lack of knowledge among American policymakers,
foreign service officials, and journalists. For many seeking to understand
Syria’s present and likely future, the primary questions to answer are: Who
is Bashar and what has influenced his development as a political leader?
What are his objectives as regards ideological, domestic, and foreign rela-
tions concerns? How strong is he vis-à-vis other regime officials, and what
capacity does he have to make his objectives prevail? 

Published in the past three years – in mid-2003, spring 2005, and win-
ter 2005, respectively – George, Leverett, and Lesch all analyze the regime
through this presidential lens. In the case of the first two, the differences in
publication dates, analytic approaches (George focuses on the emergent civil
society movement; Leverett takes a more holistic view), and George’s pes-
simistic versus Leverett’s essentially hopeful attitude regarding the Syrian
regime’s capacity for change, result in two distinct portraits of the country
and two divergent predictions for its future. Lesch’s extraordinary closeness
to Bashar as his subject results in a more muddied analysis but a sympa-
thetic portrait of Bashar the man, which may be useful in its own way for
those trying to puzzle their way through the actions of such a personality-
driven regime.

Neither Bread Nor Freedom evaluates the Syrian regime through
the “Damascus Spring” of mid-2000 to 2001, the hopeful first months of
Bashar’s presidency. The first half of the book chronicles the civil society
movement’s rise, flowering, and ultimate suppression. This loose coalition
of secular and Islamist opposition forces united around the promotion of
democracy, transparency, and the rule of law. The second half examines the
country’s civil institutions and their co-option by the regime: the Baath Party;
the People’s Assembly; the legal system; the print, radio, and televised media;
and the public education system. 

For the author, the ways in which these institutions have been twisted to
help the regime ensure its perpetuation, rather than to serve as state-society
mediators, indicate the Syrian political system’s bankruptcy. Maintaining
itself for its own sake, rather than to serve some larger goal, has become its

Stanton: The Lion in Spring? 85



raison d’être. Therefore, regime hardliners reject all reforms for fear that any
loosening will threaten the entire system. While the continued efforts of civil
society activists allows some degree of optimism, there will be little change
unless Bashar, whom George sees as a moderate favoring limited reforms,
is able to consolidate his power so that he can sideline the hardliners.

Although George’s sympathies clearly lie with the civil society move-
ment activists, his analysis produces the sobering conclusion that democracy
may be merely a side issue. It is the Syrian regime’s ability to provide bread,
not freedom, upon which its future depends. Moreover, as he points out,
there is no material evidence to prove that economic liberalization either
requires or necessarily engenders political liberalization. The steady but slow
progress of government legislation regarding banking, taxation, private
enterprise, and insurance bears out Bashar’s stated prioritization of pursuing
economic reforms over and before political reforms. 

While it can also be seen as a tool for de-emphasizing the need for
political liberalization, this economic focus reflects the reality that the
country needs significant foreign investment and enterprise capital to reverse
its long-standing decline in living standards and to provide adequate
employment for its steadily increasing population. As George remarks, for-
eign investors require transparency and the rule of law only in the commer-
cial realm. In his conclusion, he states: “Depressing as it may be for lovers
of freedom and democracy, it would seem that bread can be made without
freedom” (p. 171). In short, political reforms may come – but there are no
guarantees.

Inheriting Syria analyzes the Syrian regime through the lens of American
foreign policy, arguing that a poor understanding of Bashar’s leadership
objectives and his capacity for action domestically and regionally has pro-
duced an ineffectual Syrian policy and, in fact, has caused a serious deterio-
ration in Syrian-American relations. A better understanding of these realities
would foster a policy that would allow the United States to realize its goals
regarding the ongoing war in Iraq, the Arab-Israeli peace process, the war on
terror, and Lebanon – four areas in which Leverett sees a great opportunity
for Syria to play a cooperative, rather than obstructionist, role. 

The book begins with an explanation of the “Syrian paradox”: Why
does such a small, economically weak, ethnically and religiously divided
country play such a major role in Middle Eastern politics? Its geographic
centrality, when combined with Hafiz al-Asad’s strategic combination of con-
trol over Lebanon, leadership in the Arab-Israeli conflict, cultivation of both
moderate and “rogue” states as allies, and maintenance of working relations

86 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 23:2



with the United States, make it a powerful, if complicated, inheritance for
Bashar. 

The book considers Hafiz al-Asad’s “legacy” (the institutions, patterns
of governance, and foreign and domestic strategic objectives that he estab-
lished) and its influence upon Bashar, whom Leverett sees as balancing two
impulses: those of “loyal son” and moderate reformer. A chronological
analysis of Bashar’s domestic performance shows that he favors gradual
change but is unwilling to confront the regime’s hardliners when they reject
proposed reforms. Regionally, he has attempted to follow his father’s for-
eign policy “script” while adapting to the changing world situation due to
the al-Aqsa intifada, 9/11, the war on Iraq, and the 2005 assassination of for-
mer Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Concluding that Bashar is “engageable,” Leverett urges the Bush admin-
istration to swallow its reluctance to partner with a long-term state sponsor
of terror. He proposes a “conditional engagement” that lays out clear targets
for reversing what the United States considers problematic Syrian behaviors,
along with tangible rewards for meeting these targets and serious repercus-
sions for not doing so. A careful analysis of Bashar’s capacity for action will
enable these to be set – and met – without compromising his credibility at
home or in the region. The result will be a policy with potential to address
the United States’ regional objectives as well as those specific to Syria.

The New Lion of Damascus addresses many of the same questions as
Leverett’s book: It defines Bashar as a man and as a leader, and analyzes
what his performance thus far says about his future development as a leader
and his ability to weather the current domestic and international crises fac-
ing Syria. For Lesch, these are much more personal questions for, as he
states in his introduction, his primary interest was to find out first-hand who
Bashar really is. Given this approach, his research relies heavily on inter-
views with the president and those close to him: a mix of “new guard” gov-
ernment figures like Imad Moustapha (current ambassador to the United
States) and Bouthaina Shaaban (current Minister of Expatriates), and per-
sonal friends from childhood. 

The quotes and stories about Bashar at different moments in his life
add an engaging human element to the text and are a nice change from the
analyses of Bashar’s public speeches, particularly his first one as president,
upon which all three authors rely. However, they also lead the author to
hyper-personalize Bashar’s domestic and foreign policy decisions, relating
them in an almost pop-psychology manner to influences in his childhood or
adolescence. Moreover, Lesch’s evident sympathy for Bashar leads him to

Stanton: The Lion in Spring? 87



overemphasize the virtues of his character (e.g., kindness, moral probity,
and sincerity of purpose) while blaming his less-than-liberal turn in the
post-Damascus Spring crackdown as the product of heavy pushing by cor-
rupt regime stalwarts. At times, he veers dangerously toward the apolo-
getic, as with his soft-pedaling of the severely repressive conditions that
characterized Hafez al-Asad’s Syria or his criticism of Syria’s stateless
Kurdish population for being dissatisfied with the whispers of citizenship
laws to come.

Lesch loses focus midway through the book, with a chapter on Syria as
a “rogue state” and its relations with the United States. Like many observers
today, he believes passionately that the Bush administration has made
numerous policy mistakes with respect to the Arab world generally and to
the three related issues of Syria and Lebanon, Syria and Israel, and Syria
and Iraq. He devotes pages to analyzing neo-conservative think tank and
administration views, policies, and actions vis-à-vis the region, arguing that
misconceptions about Syria, coupled with a strong preference among neo-
conservatives for Israel to dominate the region, have produced misguided
and counterproductive policies. His passion is sincere and his analysis is
solid, but this analysis belongs in a different book, one that would focus less
on “Bashar al-Asad and modern Syria” and more on American policymak-
ing, as Leverett’s book does. A more consistent focus would also strengthen
his recommendations, which shift back and forth between changes to
American policy and changes in Syrian governance.

The difference in publication dates between the three books gives
Leverett and Lesch the artificial advantage of appearing more au courant in
their analyses. It is jarring, for example, to read in George’s book that the
self-proclaimed new champion of Syrian democracy, the recently defected
vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam, directed the regime’s 2001 repression
of the civil society movement. However, George’s book offers a diagram of
how Syrian institutions function, a lucid history of the Syrian Baath party,
an insightful deconstruction of the presumed relationship between the eco-
nomic and political spheres, and the consequences of this for Syria. The
longer timeline of Leverett’s book allows him to give a comprehensive pré-
cis of Hafiz al-Asad’s foreign policy, strategically and tactically, as well as a
cogent analysis of Bashar’s domestic and international performance during
his first five years as president. Likewise, the additional two years allows
Lesch to discuss the effects on Bashar’s presidency of the ongoing insur-
gency in Iraq on American-Syrian relations as well as the impact of Hariri’s
assassination and Syria’s 2005 withdrawal from Lebanon.

88 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 23:2



George has been criticized for his all-or-nothing assessment, while
Leverett has been accused of excessive optimism. The slow but onward
progress of economic reform, coupled with the late 2005 signing of several
major foreign investment contracts with private-sector players (e.g., the
Emirati real estate development firm EMAAR) supports George’s decou-
pling of economic and political liberalization. Meanwhile, the events of the
past year may make Leverett seem Pollyannaish on a regime that has seized
every opportunity to antagonize (rather than cooperate with) the interna-
tional community vis-à-vis the Hariri assassination. However, given evi-
dence that sticks alone have not changed Syria’s behavior, his prescription
for a conditional engagement grounded in a clear and concrete carrots-and-
sticks policy provides a proactive and hopefully more productive approach
not only for American policymakers, but also for the NGO and business
communities active in Syria today. 

Lesch’s book, with its frequent references to Bashar’s personality, life
experiences, and character, makes another type of contribution. It presents
Bashar as his best self, as seen by Lesch or perhaps the man himself. Such
a view may prove useful for those Americans and Europeans trying to work
with him and his government in business and politics by providing insight
into his character as well as his leadership objectives. At the same time,
Lesch’s warm relationship with Bashar, which, judging by his invitation to
visit Syria even after the book’s publication, appears to be both sincere and
lasting. Moreover, it may allow the criticisms he makes in it to receive a
presidential hearing. 

One of Lesch’s most cogent recommendations is for Bashar and his wife
Asma to seek out opportunities to serve as the public faces of Syria. They
should court the international media spotlight as a means of promoting the
country in all of its western-friendly aspects, much as King Abdullah of
Jordan and his wife Queen Rania are doing. From King Abdullah’s role as
host of the Discovery Channel’s 2002 special on “Jordan: The Royal Tour”
to Queen Rania’s latest appearance on “Oprah” this May, the Jordanian
royal couple has worked tirelessly to present a modern, western, woman-
friendly, and religiously tolerant image of the country to the American and
the international community. Without being either insincere or facile in their
approach, Bashar and Asma could do much the same for Syria. While
George and Leverett have each written books to help the American and inter-
national communities in their dealings with the president of Syria, Lesch’s
may be the only one that allows the president to help himself.

Stanton: The Lion in Spring? 89