Syria’s two highest-profile defectors have been hitting the diplomatic circuit. They’re lobbying foreign capitals in search of support for their candidacy as potential leaders of any future Syrian transitional government, whether arising peacefully through a political process or violently through a long war between the Free Syrian Army and government forces. 

Manaf Tlass, a former brigade commander in the Syrian Republican Guard, arrived unannounced in Jordan on September 8 for private talks. According to political insiders, he met with senior Jordanian officials and possibly King Abdullah II as well, though anonymous official sources say he sat down with other Syrian military defectors in the kingdom. Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Riyad Hijab, who defected in early August, met the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, and the diplomatic adviser to the French president, Paul Jean-Ortiz, in Paris on September 19. 

But attention is focused on the wrong people. The senior Syrian official to keep an eye on is the current Syrian vice president, Farouk al-Sharaa, who has rarely been seen in public since July 2011. Some opposition figures privately view him as a suitable “president-in-waiting” based on Article 92 of Syria’s revised constitution, which provides for the vice president to assume power for an interim period of sixty days should the presidency fall vacant. Others argue that at seventy-three, Sharaa is too old, autocratic, and aloof to serve as interim president. But among opposition political circles inside Syria, he is emerging as a likely compromise candidate to head, or at least be part of, any transitional government. 

A Syrian Joe Biden

Farouk al-Sharaa’s position cannot be analyzed properly without tracing the development of his career since the outbreak of the Syrian uprising in March 2011. From the outset he made it known to his close associates, as well as friends in the opposition, that he was opposed to the use of violence, especially after the Syrian Army was called into action in his native Deraa in April. 

Sidelining the Vice President

Transitional Reshuffle

Far from retiring into obscurity or defecting, Sharaa made a statement on August 29 that sounded wholly unlike someone preparing himself for political obscurity. He welcomed the mission of the new joint United Nations and Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, and emphasized that violence needs to stop on all sides. He gave a nod to Kofi Annan’s six-point plan and the recommendations of the Geneva Conference on June 30, without going into detail. That plan, it must be remembered, called for a transitional governing body composed of members of the current Syrian government and opposition figures. This body would run the country in parallel with Assad for one year, during which time it would prepare for free parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in 2013. Sharaa made an open gesture toward Iran by emphasizing the need to include it in any effort to resolve the Syrian crisis, and welcomed the formation of a “Contact Group” composed of Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.