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DE RUEHDM #0531/01 0401606
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O 091606Z FEB 06
FM AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7022
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE
RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD 0628
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC

C O N F I D E N T I A L DAMASCUS 000531 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
PARIS FOR ZEYA; LONDON FOR TSOU 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/12/2015 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER KISL KDEM SY
SUBJECT: THE MUSLIM BROTHERS IN SYRIA, PART II:  COULD THEY 
WIN AN ELECTION HERE? 
 
REF: A) DAMASCUS 0517 B) 05 DAMASCUS 1231 C) 05 
     DAMASCUS 1286 D) 05 DAMASCUS 1377 
 
Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Stephen A. Seche, per 1.4 b,d. 
 
¶1.  (U) This is the second of two cables that assess the 
potential power of the Muslim Brothers in Syria. 
 
¶2.  (U) PART II.  REASONS FOR THE EXAGGERATED ESTIMATES OF 
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD INFLUENCE 
 
¶3.  (C) Summary:  Most estimates of potential Muslim Brother 
support range between ten and thirty percent of the Syrian 
population, with many contacts insisting that even these 
estimates are inflated.  Nonetheless, a non-MB, moderate 
Islamist political bloc, possibly allied with Syrian 
businessmen, which combines "the power of money" and "the 
Islamic street," could do very well in any free elections in 
Syria (although current conditions indicate that the 
likelihood of such a scenario is fairly remote).  Contacts 
insist that the Asad regime -- highly unlikely to allow such 
elections -- has contributed in a variety of ways to the 
perception of exaggerated potential influence of the Muslim 
Brothers in Syria.  End Summary. 
 
¶4.  (C) MB/SIMILAR-GROUPING SEEN TAKING 10-30 PERCENT: 
Taking into account minority demographics (35 percent of the 
Syrian population), Islamist cleavages, and other details 
(see Ref A), most observers here assess that the Muslim 
Brothers, or another Islamist group representing them, could 
attract a maximum of 30 percent support in Syria.  Many, like 
recently released Damascus Spring detainee XXXXXXXXXXXX (who had 
a dalliance with the MB for a year in the mid 1960's and 
knows them well) argue that an MB-oriented political grouping 
in Syria would get no more than ten percent. 
 
¶5.  (C) MINORITY VOTE COULD BLOCK EXTREMISTS:  While most 
agree that Syria's compact minorities could and would prevent 
any MB or other radical Islamist electoral takeover (assuming 
free elections), there is less consensus about the impact of 
this minority vote if a more moderate Islamic bloc, led by 
the current Islamic establishment, allied itself politically 
with merchant/business elites in the major cities.  Political 
observers as diverse as XXXXXXXXXXXX, a influential Sunni 
sheikh at the XXXXXXXXXXXX institute, and XXXXXXXXXXXX, a 
Christian Ba'athist reformer, insist that a moderate 
Islamist-businessmen bloc (not including the MB or other 
radicals) would be unbeatable in any free elections because 
of the combination of money and "the Islamic street."  That 
Islamic street would be controlled by the Islamic network of 
mosques and institutes run by people like XXXXXXXXXXXX and 
establishment Sunni sheikhs.  XXXXXXXXXXXX insists that while 
that the Christians, for example, would not vote for "the 
Islamists," they would, under the influence of money and 
advertising, vote for "the merchants."  (Comment:  We have 
received no indication from our business contacts that such a 
political coalition is viewed as viable at the present time.) 
 
 
¶6.  (C) EXAGGERATION OF MB POWER CONTINUES:  Despite the 
constraining factors, the potential electoralappeal of the 
Muslim Brotherhood (or some repackaged party resembling it) 
continues to elicit fear and exaggerated assessments of what 
would happen in any democratic scenario in Syria.  One 
generally well-informed contact insisted that MB support in 
any free elections "would be massive."  These assessments 
have been buttressed by alarmist scenarios that 
fundamentalism is somehow "taking over" in Syria.  Much of 
the exaggeration has been unintentional, while some of it 
(from quarters sympathetic to the SARG) has been deliberate. 
 
¶7.  (C) EXAGGERATION FED BY RISE OF ISLAMISM: A critical 
element leading to this exaggeration has been the Islamist 
revival that has occurred in Syria, as it has throughout much 
of the Arab world over the past few decades.  A small part of 
that growth in religious feeling, as reflected in Syria, has 
been fundamentalist in nature, fed by SARG despotism, 
economic despair, the conflict in Palestine, revulsion at 
regime cronyism and corruption, and other factors including, 
more recently, the war in Iraq and the sense among some in 
the Muslim community that the U.S.-led war against terror 
represents part of a "crusade against Islam." Some 
fundamentalist groups have taken up arms in Syria (usually as 
a part of efforts to join the insurgency in Iraq) and in the 
past year, have been exposed to episodic, violent SARG 
crackdowns.  (Note:  The most recent incident occurred in 
early February, on the outskirts of Damascus, with SARG 
 
security forces reportedly killing one armed fundamentalist 
and confiscating weapons and explosives.) 
 
¶8.  (C) However, most of that Islamist wave in Syria has not 
been violent or even fundamentalist.  It is true that the 
number of people attending Friday prayers seems to have risen 
substantially, that the number of young women wearing the 
Islamic scarf (hijab) continues to increase at a similar 
rate, and that Islam in general is a more powerful force in 
public life in Syria than it was 40 years ago (for a review 
of this rise in Islamist sentiment in Syria, see refs A, B, 
and C.) 
 
¶9.  (C) MB POWER EXAGGERATED BY LACK OF FREEDOM:  There are 
other factors that have also contributed to the exaggerated 
sense of potential political power of the Muslim Brothers. 
Many argue that over forty years of authoritarian Ba'athist 
rule have contributed to this exaggerated sense of how 
powerful the Muslim Brothers must be.  According to Christian 
MP XXXXXXXXXXXX, Syrian political players do not fear the 
Islamists.  If there were freedom and elections, their real 
weaknesses would show.  In XXXXXXXXXXXX’s view, academics and 
journalists, among others, have misread the Syrian political 
scene in making their assessments of the MB's power. 
Dissident XXXXXXXXXXXX concurs, noting that "in the shadow of 
freedom, they are weak.  They can't really do politics.  They 
have no political program," as opposed to a religious agenda, 
he insisted.  According to human rights activist XXXXXXXXXXXX, if the MB were as powerful as many think, they 
would not have repeatedly altered their political program 
towards less extreme positions to try to make themselves more 
palatable to Syrians. 
 
¶10.  (C) Contacts assert that the maximalist projections of 
MB potential power are based on current assessments of the 
appeal of Islam in Syrian society today and are inevitably 
inflated because the SARG has systematically suppressed any 
secular political or cultural organizing.  As XXXXXXXXXXXX notes, 
"there are 10,000 mosques in Syria where Muslims can gather 
at will to discuss issues.  If I get together with five 
secular people in my home, the government breaks it up and 
threatens to arrest people."  According to this view, the 
Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic trends in Syria have 
profited from a situation of tolerance for "anything Islamic" 
in society (except overt political organizing) and 
intolerance for anything secular.  Even the assessment that 
the Muslim Brotherhood -- or some repackaged grouping that 
would include them -- could get as much as 30 percent of the 
vote in any free election held is false, argue many, caused 
by the media, by the government, and by the "forced absence" 
of secular forces.  Recently released Damascus Spring 
detainee XXXXXXXXXXXX, with a background in pan-Arabist 
politics, assessed that whatever vote total the Muslim 
Brotherhood received in any initial free elections (he 
posited 20-25 percent), that support would drop by 50 percent 
in subsequent elections, in the face of democratization and 
political competition from secular groups once again able to 
organize on a level playing field. 
 
¶11.  (C) REGIME ALSO CONTRIBUTING:  While most observers 
would agree that political despotism has quietly nourished 
conservative Islamist political tendencies, others see a more 
active SARG hand, led by the security services, manipulating 
the internal scene to encourage the perception that only the 
secular Asad regime stands between a takeover by the Islamist 
hordes.  Most observers point out that the rise in Islamism 
in Syria has occurred under a secular government that is 
carefully manipulating Islamist tendencies -- as it did in 
the run-up to the February 4 riots in Damascus -- to send the 
message to the West that the Asad regime is a bulwark against 
a fundamentalist takeover.  While the SARG is focused and 
relatively aggressive in its efforts to suppress armed 
fundamentalists in Syria, some contacts insist that the 
security services regularly meet separately with different 
groups, encouraging fundamentalist tendencies on the one 
hand, for example (while suppressing them -- even violently 
-- on the other), or pressing religious leaders to push a 
certain message in the mosques (while SARG officials position 
themselves to appear as secularists struggling to counter a 
surge of religious conservatism). 
 
 
 
 
SECHE