Ever since the disengagement agreement in the Golan Heights in 1974 – and what it included in terms of military procedures binding to both the Syrian and Israeli sides – and the deployment of UN forces to observe both sides of the border, it has no longer been expected for the Syrian army to engage in direct confrontation with the Israeli army at the border between the two sides. Such a possibility has been increasingly excluded despite the warlike language of strategic balance and of choosing the time for confrontation, after Damascus declared that peace with Israel was its strategic choice, in the sense that anything else falls within the framework of improving the conditions of such peace. Thus, the Syrian army has returned to its barracks, and has not come out of them except on internal security missions, whether in Syria or in Lebanon. Even when the Syrian army clashed with the Israeli army during the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, this took place while it was on internal security missions. This new function of the Syrian army does not mean that it has not outfitted itself with advanced equipment in preparation for a potential military confrontation with Israel which certain circumstances could impose. However, it does reveal the political substance that makes use of this power in a certain direction. This explains the bloody way in which it is being used in Syrian cities, as it had in the past been used in Hama and in Lebanon to deter protests that had raised demands of freedom, pluralism and democracy. This also explains how such authorities understand protests and demands as threats to national security. In other words, bringing in the army in such a manner, in addition to the praise that has been bestowed on it for performing such a task, in effect negates everything that was said to be measures of reform, such as lifting the state of emergency, granting a presidential pardon to political prisoners, forming the National Dialogue Committee, and forming another committee to set down new laws for the media, political parties and elections. All of those measures remained within a constitutional framework that voids them of their meaning, and that is why they have had no impact on the course of events, which – on the contrary – began to widen and become more entrenched in terms of demands. This in turn led to additional army troops being brought in on the domestic scene. Thus, shifting the army's function from protecting the national borders to protecting the regime's policies is increasingly turning into a predicament rather than a solution to the crisis. Within such a framework, the regime justifies such a shift in the army's function by the presence of “armed fundamentalist groups” and by facing the threat of the establishment of a fundamentalist regime in the country, based on a few armed confrontations, statements by members of the opposition and chants at protests, and despite the fact that many other voices who are active in the protest movement stress the peaceful nature of this movement and the secular nature of the state. Most likely the “threat of a fundamentalist state” is much more of a need for the authorities than a true fact of reality. But let us assume that Syria is indeed exposed to such a threat. The likelihood of confronting it would then lie in moving quickly towards reinforcing the secular nature of the state and establishing constitutional pluralism, not in widening the gulf between the state's security institutions and the protesters and members of the opposition, then allowing the confrontation to slip gradually into armed conflict and civil war, which only increases the threat of fundamentalists taking advantage of the political situation to expand their influence at the expense of the movement for a secular state. All of the measures of reform have failed to bring Syria out of its predicament, because they did not rise to causing a positive shock within public opinion, one that would make people hope that they could restore their freedom of expression, lead a decent life and achieve their ambitions of pluralism, democracy and standing up to totalitarianism in all its forms, including fundamentalism. Such a shock can only be produced by the regime, through direct executive measures that would restore the army's neutrality in the internal conflict, withdraw government and security militias from the streets and release those who have been detained immediately, and through issuing executive decrees for constitutional reform that would consecrate political freedoms as well as the secular and pluralistic nature of the state. Only with this can the country be brought out from the vicious circle of violence to the world of politics, and move quickly from current tension and historical vengeance to building one country for everyone.
