End of regime – ‘the most likely outcome is disappointment’

But it's no reason to yield to pessimism

(Publicity images)

“Gradually and then suddenly.” That’s how power drained from the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria a week ago. It’s how Ernest Hemingway’s described the onset of bankruptcy in The Sun Also Rises (1926, p. 136). It’s how the writer and political theorist Anne Applebaum summed up the fate of dictators, when their systems of governance are bankrupted by their actions. The theme is also laced throughout the accounts that Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson make in their analysis in Why Nations Fail (2012a; see also 2012b).

There’s something salutary as well as disgusting in such circumstances, in the way that vomiting seems to purge not just the stomach but the whole body of toxins. It gives us a chance to try something beneficial – and not just for oneself. The “suddenly” element is the cure.

It happens too in corporations, when a CEO is ejected from an organisation is on the brink of collapse, or hopefully a bit before that.

• In corporations and states, it helps if the heave comes before the toxin is so prevalent that the immune system of the organisation or polity is so compromised that it cannot cope. Consider the cases of Enron, Wirecard and Carillion, when it was too late.

• Corporations may just die, but polities cannot, not entirely. Consider the cases of Libya after Qaddafi and Zimbabwe after Mugabe.

Some commentators see a chance that regime change in Syria presents an opportunity, and not just to reset Syria for the benefit of its citizens, including the many who have fled to other countries, often far from its borders. For example, Syria has been a conduit for Iranian influence in other states. Because Israel’s military campaign has weakened Hezbollah, Lebanon might begin to function as a state again, might just recover from the damage done by seeing its autocracy collapse four years ago, when a fertiliser storage facility exploded and when there wasn’t even a rebel force to take power. “Might.” “Might just.” Maybe. But maybe not.

But the problem – and the tricky part – comes during the phase when “gradually” applies, when something could be done and isn’t. How do we – outsiders or insiders – prevent the gradual slide into an impossible position? The answer in all these cases seems to be the remedy implicit in Applebaum’s warning: Resist autocracy early. Easier said than done.

Simon McDonald, a former senior civil servant in the British Foreign Office and now a member of the House of Lords, told the BBC on December 9 of his worry for the future in Syria, and in general in cases of regime collapse, as we saw in the so-called “Arab Spring” in 2011. “The most likely outcome is disappointment,” he said. But it didn’t stop him from dwelling on the benefits that might arise from the opportunities of regime change. Optimism despite lack of evidence isn’t a bad thing. Worst would be despair that leads us not to see possibilities and try to seize them.

In Syria, Lebanon, in many other states on our minds now, what we see too much of is …

Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. A. (2012a). Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. London: Profile Books.

Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. A. (2012b). Why states fail. Foreign Policy, July-August, 89-91.

Hemingway, E. (1926). The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.