BEIRUT — The uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad is eviscerating the country’s economy, threatening to hit hard at the business community and prosperous merchant classes, which the embattled regime relies on to help retain its grip on power.
About two months of violent protests across the country have shuttered businesses, driven away tourists and thrust Mr. Assad’s regime into an unprecedented political quagmire that found its roots in the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.
Economic growth that was about 3.5 percent in fiscal 2010 is contracting by 3 percent in fiscal 2011, according to some estimates.
That spells trouble for the British-trained president, who spent years shifting the country away from the dreary socialism espoused by his father and, in the process, helped boost a new and vibrant merchant class that transformed Syria’s economic landscape even as the regime’s political trappings remained unchanged.
So far, the monied classes have clung to the sidelines, but if the economic squeeze reaches them, it could be a game changer, analysts say.
“If [the opposition] can do enough to paralyze the Syrian economy - as it is now paralyzed - the government will slowly fail,” Joshua Landis, director of the University of Oklahoma’s Center for Middle East Studies, told the Associated Press in an email.
The regime already is suffering, both domestically and before the international community. Its brutal crackdown on dissent has killed more than 1,000 people since mid-March, human rights groups say, while key revenue sources such as tourism are drying up.
If business comes to a halt, private enterprises go bankrupt and the government cannot pay state employees, there will be very little to prop up the regime.
Aside from the internal troubles, Mr. Assad’s government faces external pressures.
The U.S. and the European Union have imposed sanctions on the regime, which could hasten serious economic damage in Syria. On Monday, the EU froze assets and banned visas for Mr. Assad and nine members of his regime, and new U.S. sanctions also target Mr. Assad and senior aides.
But for now, the opposition has yet to bring out the middle and upper-middle classes in Damascus and Aleppo, the two economic powerhouses.
“The monied classes have too much to lose from prolonged instability, and the opposition cannot offer them any convincing scenario for a peaceful transition to democracy or regime change,” said Mr. Landis, who runs an influential blog called Syria Comment. “They fear instability above regime repression.”
Since the uprising began in mid-March in the impoverished southern province of Daraa, massive protests have been taking place every week in relatively poor areas.
The catalysts mirror the factors that fueled the unrest elsewhere in the Arab world - high unemployment, a wide disparity in income distribution and a high cost of living, among others. A drought hitting parts of the country displaced tens of thousands of people from farming areas, putting more pressure on the economy.
While the country saw an upsurge in credit growth, private banking, trendy stores and coffee shops as part of the economic liberalization, the benefits of the reform in Syria, like in Egypt and Tunisia, failed to trickle down.
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