Only in the chapter on social policy does it address rebuilding the municipal services that would restore day-to-day normalcy to the population . This gives a clear indication as to the priorities within the report . It also , within its text , assumes ( through the omission of a contrary position ) that the civil population will trust or want to communicate with the state-level government . This is not a safe assumption in any country mentioned thus far .
As in Iraq , the government of Syria is run by the ostensibly secular Ba ’ ath party . As in Iraq and the rest of the examples , gaining and maintaining political leadership and low-level municipal positions alike requires party membership . The first result of Bremer ’ s de-Ba ’ athification policy was to eject political apparatchiks from office , along with every teacher , engineer and civil official who knew how to rebuild and run these mundane , day-to-day functions critical to civil society . Comparatively few of those officeholders were ideologically aligned with the Hussein regime in such a way that would preclude them from working towards a democratic Iraq . While there may be some saboteurs left behind in a post-Assad Syria , the benefit to be gained from identifying , retaining and reforming the moderates far outweighs the potential damage done by ideological hardliners .
Garner included planning for insecurity within his Unified Mission Plan for Post- Hostilities Iraq : “ The potential for instability will likely exist for some time after the war is over . The most probable threat will come from residual pockets of fanatics , secessionist groups , terrorists and those would seek to exploit ethnic , religious , and tribal fault lines for personal
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