A model leader for Syria?

Historians often haggle over whether leaders drive events or ideas do. And scholars will certainly do so again regarding Moaz al-Khatib of Syria.

He is a moderate Islamic preacher and well-respected activist for freedom who was chosen last week to lead a grand coalition of opponents to the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad.

He has been all but anointed by most Arab nations, France, and Turkey – and perhaps soon by the Obama administration – as a legitimate successor to Mr. Assad. For now, though, he serves as a potential galvanizing leader for a revolution mired in extreme violence and drifting away from its democratic roots and toward jihadist terrorists.

Mr. Khatib is a unique creature of his culture, much like Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar (Burma) and the late Corazon Aquino in the Philippines. He carries the credibility of being a victim of repression, having been jailed many times for his pro-democracy views and injured by a bomb. Yet he carries few grudges as he clings to a higher view of humanity as redeemable and reconcilable.

Take, for example, his statement to a crowd near Damascus soon after the Syrian uprising began last year: “My brothers, we lived all our lives, Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites, and Druze, as a one-hearted community. And with us lived our dear brothers [Christians] who follow Jesus, peace be upon him. We should adhere to this bond between us and protect it at all times.”

A lover of metaphors from his years as a Sunni preacher in Damascus’s historical Umayyad Mosque, he recently painted this image of a tolerant and inclusive Syria to come: “Any garden is so nice if full of flowers of all kinds.”

Khatib’s background and oratory may not only help heal a fragmented opposition, but also convince Syria’s Alawite religious minority that it can safely withdraw its support from an Alawite-dominated regime.

“I say to you that Alawites are closer to me than many other people I know,” he said Sunday after being elected president of the National Coalition for Revolutionary Forces and the Syrian Opposition. “When we talk about freedom, we mean freedom for every single person in this country.”

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