Frances Itani The Company We Keep

[Chieko Boteler]

Inthe absence of a negotiated settlement, there is unlikely to be a clear stopping point to the conflict. But while more violence undoubtedly lies ahead, there is increasing focus domestically and internationally on how to pick up the pieces. Rebuilding could make daily life more livable and enable refugees to return. The challenge is that reconstruction is not just about roads and bridges. It is a deeply political process through which the Assad government can retrench its power. And that leaves few options for the United States and other Western governments, which had hoped to see Assad leave the presidency, to contribute.

Post-conflict reconstruction has its origins in the Marshall Plan after World War II, but the international community has been increasingly focused on it since the Cold War. Reconstruction is not just about physical rebuilding. When conceived as a broad process of political and social transformation, reconstruction can lay a foundation for more stable and legitimate governance.[3],[4] In the short term, reconstruction efforts can improve quality of life for civilians and make it possible for refugees to return. In the long term, reconstruction can keep conflict from restarting or terrorism from taking root.[5] Reconstruction is never an easy or straightforward process. At its best, it looks like Japan, where American occupiers oversaw the creation of a constitutional order combined with economic revitalization.[6] At its worst, reconstruction looks like Iraq and Afghanistan, where the United States has hemorrhaged billions of dollars trying to reshape institutions and restore security amid ongoing conflict.[7]

On a national level, the Assad government is well underway in its effort to strengthen its grip on post-war Syria. The legislature approved a bill that will impose a 10 percent tax on civilians to contribute to reconstruction.[19] It is attempting to rein in loyalist militias and incorporate rebels from recaptured territories into its forces.[20] The regime has strengthened the authority of the Ministry of Awqaf to crack down on religious expression, circumscribing space for future political mobilization.[21]

Assad is also creating a legal architecture to literally reconstruct the country according to his own vision, benefiting his allies and displacing his adversaries.[22] Decree 66, passed in 2012, allows the government to redesign informal housing areas by selling them to developers, who can evict owners or residents without recourse after a 30-day notice period. This and accompanying laws could permanently dispossess many refugees and internally displaced people, just 9 percent of whom have adequate property title deeds with them.[23]

The Syrian government is selectively applying Decree 66 to destroy and resettle former opposition strongholds, often to implement urban plans that predated the civil war.[24] The flagship Decree 66 project in Damascus is in Basateen al-Razi, a site of anti-government protest that the government is transforming into a gleaming new development.[25] The vision to redevelop the area dates back to 2007. Homs and Aleppo similarly have proposals to use Decree 66 as a blueprint to destroy and redevelop opposition-held parts of their cities, often with the guidance of pre-2011 plans as well.[26],[27],[28]

Anna Mysliwiec is a master in public policy student at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She previously worked at the National Democratic Institute, where she managed programs that supported civic activists and local councils in opposition-controlled areas of Syria.

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