Do Syrians Dare to Maintain Permanent Neutrality?

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On May 15, 1955, Austrian Foreign Minister Leopold Figl announced in the marble hall of the Belvedere Palace in Vienna, "Austria is free!" These words etched themselves into the national memory of the country, and then he raised the text of the "State Treaty" from the balcony of the palace in front of the crowds.

For ten years, Austria remained divided among four occupation zones, and its capital Vienna was divided into four sectors, patrolled by jeep-driving soldiers: Americans, British, French, and Soviets. None of the occupiers wanted to leave Austria to their bitter rivals. A unilateral withdrawal would be a gift to the competitor, but staying was a draining endeavor with no horizon. This is, almost literally, the equation of Syria today.

Syria, as I have written repeatedly, is no longer just a collapsing state, nor a state left to its people to recover, but rather it is kept preserved in a refrigerator until the regional conflicts are resolved: external heirs keep it alive because its death disrupts their calculations, but they keep it sick as its recovery threatens to reclaim what they have taken from its body.

Ankara wants a security depth in the north, Tel Aviv wants a disarmed south, and the Gulf capitals seek a stable and prosperous east away from Tehran, while Moscow finds a cheap foothold in the Mediterranean, and Washington sees it as a regional platform to use against its adversaries without consuming its soldiers and resources. As for Tehran, it will not disappear; it is waiting at the door.

For every external heir, there is a client inside, funded by: a current, a network, a faction, or a Syrian component that fears for its existence. The result is that the medicine offered by the intervening powers is nothing but a type of the same disease. So, is there an exit other than death or guardianship?

History suggests a third answer that is rarely raised in the Syrian discussion: complete and permanent neutrality.

What is required is not the neutrality of the weak imposed by external agreements, but the neutrality of a state that consciously decides to leave the arena where others play, to declare that it is not a pawn in anyone's game.

In February 1934, the Social Democrats and Christian conservatives fought a bloody civil war in the streets of Vienna. However, after many of them were released from Nazi prisons, they quickly announced their social contract with the document "Spirit of the Camp Road," in which they proclaimed a broad national coalition, sharing the state instead of fighting over it!

Thus, reconciliation within preceded neutrality outside. Without it, every occupier in Vienna would have found a party or component to call upon.

Austria did not gain its independence because the occupiers felt pity for its situation. Khrushchev was not aiming for a communist Austria as much as he feared an Atlantic Austria that would connect West Germany with Italy and cut the flank of the Eastern Bloc. The West did not aspire to more than the withdrawal of the Red Army from the heart of Europe.

Neutrality, here, was a national Austrian decision that established a balance of regional power: each side lost the card of Austria, but gained the certainty that its opponent would not win it.

In the "Moscow Memorandum" - April 1955, the Austrian delegation pledged Austria's neutrality, but it was soon ratified by Parliament in October, alongside a comprehensive national social contract.

Neutrality was not imposed on the Austrians; rather, they declared it among themselves first and by their own will, and imposed it on the world. Thus, it became the date of their national holiday.

Then Austria quickly began to reap the benefits of its neutrality: Vienna hosted the International Atomic Energy Agency and OPEC, then became a third headquarters for the United Nations after New York and Geneva, and transformed, during Bruno Kreisky's era, into a mediator knocking on the doors of both East and West.

Neutrality was not isolation, but rather a diplomatic and economic capital to be invested. This is precisely what Syria needs, which is suffocated by a lack of trust: for its geographical location, which has brought armies to it, to become a resource that attracts investment.

Switzerland's story was not different! Switzerland was a battleground for others. In 1799, the armies of France, Austria, and Russia fought on its land, and the Russian general Suvorov traversed its rugged Alpine passes to chase the French armies. In the end, the European powers recognized its permanent neutrality in Paris in 1815. A neutral Switzerland is cheaper for everyone than a dependent Switzerland open to conflict.

The deeper Swiss lesson is the internal lesson: a country with four languages and two sects, which fought a brutal civil war in 1848, but just one year later produced a federal constitution that made diversity a national contract rather than an excuse.

But history reminds us that neutrality not supported by national consensus and civil peace quickly collapses, as seen in Laos and Lebanon. Hezbollah did not ask anyone's permission to go to Syria, turning neutrality into an excuse, a pretext, and a cover for upcoming wars.

So that neutrality does not become just a piece of paper!