Bashar al-Assad has been President of Syria since 2000. His time in power has been overshadowed by a dreadful civil war that started in Syria in 2011 and is still ongoing. Bashar has attracted both the ire and the support of various international powers, with the Western alliance putting increasing pressure on regime to make concessions to the Opposition, but Vladimir Putin’s Russia seeking to gain leverage in the Middle East by keeping Assad in place. In doing so, Putin was successful; Assad is still in power in Syria, though his regime is a shadow of its former self.
You’ll notice that this is one of two episodes I’ve put out this weekend, the other being on North Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski. The reason I have decided to pair these episodes is because they show, in different ways and with different results, the consequences of the West neglecting people on the edges of their sphere on influence.
Whilst this neglect has had visibly worse effects for Syria than for North Macedonia, there are clear similarities in the way the Western alliance looked at Syria in the first half of the last decade, and the way in which the EU is taking North Macedonia for fools, so please do listen to that one, too.
My guest thinks it could have; he is Jihad Yazigi (@jihadyazigi), Editor in Chief of the Syria Report, and visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Bashar al-Assad has been President of Syria since 2000. His time in power has been overshadowed by a dreadful civil war that started in Syria in 2011 and is still ongoing. Bashar has attracted both the ire and the support of various international powers, with the Western alliance putting increasing pressure on regime to make concessions to the Opposition, but Vladimir Putin’s Russia seeking to gain leverage in the Middle East by keeping Assad in place. In doing so, Putin was successful; Assad is still in power in Syria, though his regime is a shadow of its former self.
You’ll notice that this is one of two episodes I’ve put out this weekend, the other being on North Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski. The reason I have decided to pair these episodes is because they show, in different ways and with different results, the consequences of the West neglecting people on the edges of their sphere on influence.
Whilst this neglect has had visibly worse effects for Syria than for North Macedonia, there are clear similarities in the way the Western alliance looked at Syria in the first half of the last decade, and the way in which the EU is taking North Macedonia for fools, so please do listen to that one, too.
My guest thinks it could have; he is Jihad Yazigi (@jihadyazigi), Editor in Chief of the Syria Report, and visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Hello and welcome to the hated in the dead with Tom Leeman. The subject of today's episode is one of the most reviled dictators of the 21st century so far. Bashar Al Assad has been the president of Syria since 2000. Following the death of his father Hafez, who had ruled the country since 1970. Bashar has time in power has been overshadowed by the dreadful, grinding civil war that started in Syria in 2011, and is still ongoing. This has been no ordinary Civil War, starting in 2013. Assad attracted both the iron and the support of international powers, with the Western alliance putting increasing pressure on the regime to make concessions to the opposition. But Vladimir Putin's Russia seeking to gain leverage in the Middle East by keeping Assad in power. Putin was successful in this. Assad is still in charge in Syria, though his regime is a shadow of its former self. It is generally accepted that President Obama choked in dealing with Assad, in spite of promising to intervene in Syria if Assad used chemical weapons against his own people. When this happened, the Obama administration did not intervene, a terrible show of decisiveness that fatally damaged the West's clout in the conflict. Obama's dithering is indisputable. What is up for discussion is whether he could have really affected the situation on the ground. My guest today thinks he could have he is jihad Egee, Editor in Chief of the Syria report and visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. You'll notice that this is one of two episodes I've put out this weekend. The other being on North Macedonian Prime Minister, Nicola Gretzky. The reason I have decided to pair these episodes is because they show in different ways and with different results, the consequences of the West, neglecting people on the edges of their sphere of influence. There are clear similarities in the way the Western Lyons looked at Syria in the first half of the last decade, and the way in which the EU is taking North Macedonia for fools. So please do listen to that one, too. But for now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to introduce Bashar Al Assad. Hi, jihad, how are you? Hi, Tom. Thank you all fine, fine. I hope you are well. I'm very well. Jihad. We're talking about Bashar Al Assad today. He was born in Damascus in 1965. And was the son of somebody who would I think it's fair to say would change Syria forever. Who was Bashar Al Assad's father? Hmm, interesting question. So have the latter was so the president of Syria from 1970 to 2000. You could, you could argue that he is the the sir. He's the longest serving head of states and series independence. He was at the same time and extreme, brutal dictator. But he probably is the one also that he put an end to quite a long era of political destabilisation and stability rather in Syria, since it since the country's independence, anti-conservative until he took power. He was the son of peasants, an Army officer, a very much a son of his generation. So contrary to his son, who was born in the city in the capital, Hafiz was born in a small village, in the coastal mountains. Over Latakia, he took over power by force. He was a military officer, a member of Bath party, which was a socialist, a nationalist party. And he managed actually to transform Syria not only to become a stable state, but also a major player across the Middle East. Famously, British journalists, Patrick seal had written a book in the early 1960s of Syria. And he called the book The struggle for Syria. He described this Syria as a country being very unstable and over which many regional and international players were, you know, acting to control it. And then he wrote another book in 1990, which was essentially a biography of Hobbes and asset which he called the struggle for the Middle East. We're basically said, the struggle for Syria is over half the Assad won it. And he transformed Syria into a major player in the Mideast region, controlling Lebanon, through his control of Lebanon, having a major say in the Palestinian Israeli conflict, and having built a big network of ties and relations with other regional actors, such as Iran. So that was half an asset. That's interesting. It sounds first and foremost, like quite a successful regime in some ways. But I think there's always been a caveat that Hafez Al Assad's regime was a pretty brutal he was a very brutal dictator, he slaughtered 1000s and 1000s of civilians in the city of Hamas in 1982. To keep control of power, he also ruled a stage which became increasingly corrupt. And when he passed away, in 2000s, he was at the same time, an extremely powerful and influential actor, and player but also someone who terrified his population. His major opponent, Riyadh, a Tarik, who stayed in prison for in solitary confinement for over 15 years if I'm not wrong, called Syria, the kingdom of silence. People were so terrified and afraid of speaking or saying anything. And if Syria is where it is today, it is, to some extent, a consequence of having assets, policies, certainly, his habits destroyed any space for public, any public space for negotiation for discussion. He destroyed any chance for for the country having some, if not democratic, because he was even his predecessors were not democratic, of course, but even for any sort of, you know, other political actor except for him. So he was extremely, extremely brutal, and you cannot dissociate his role from what is happening today in Syria. I think one of the things that demonstrates the totality of the control he had on Syria is the fact that he intended for Syria to become an indeed made eventually Syria a sort of almost a hereditary monarchy, or certainly a hereditary presidency. One of the interesting things about his son, Bashar, the person that we're talking about principally today, as he wasn't supposed to be president, Halfords, eldest son died in a car crash in 1994, when Bashar was 29. What was Bashar doing at this point? And has he spoken much about the effect that his elder brother's death had on him? Just to go back to what you're saying, half is made actually of Syria, hereditary Republic. And that's probably the first in the world or the very first in the world. And he almost set an example for other dictators in the region and around, including, for instance, in Egypt, where Mubarak was also trying to push for his son to succeed him, or Qaddafi was also seeking for his son to succeed him. So half a strike first with his first son, Bassett, who, as you said, died in a car accident in Damascus. At the time, his younger brother Bashar was in the UK, he was specialising he was studying ophthalmology with an objective of being a doctor. So very far from politics or from the for the military. And after basses death happens, asked Bashar to come back to Damascus, which indicates how far half as one was willing to go to make sure that it was one of his children who was succeeding him. And in a way it also reflects the failure of half is that he was incapable of seeing the future of Syria outside his own family and his own children. So Bashar was a was a was studying was a doctor, he stayed he had when he was asked to come back to Damascus. He had been in London for around 10 Mark, certainly not enough to get much of British culture. To the extent that when he came back actually in Syria, and when he became president, I do remember that is the first interviews he gave, the questions that were asked to him in English had to be translated to him in Arabic for him to understand it that's intriguing. I was planning on asking you about this. I was going to suggest perhaps that it was quite a strong British connection. No Not so much. You know, first of all, I mean, that's, you know, the fact that Bashar was, I mean, all this at one point when he took over power, Western media and Western politicians would describe Bashar as being, you know, very westernised. And having adopted some of the West liberal, if not policies, at least convictions. And in a way, if you want that was portrayed as a means for a lot of countries to Well, first, there was a good PR and communication campaign from the Syrian regime, which needed to build ties with the with the West to, for its economy, and for a variety of reasons, we can talk about this later. But it was also a way justification for many in Europe, to to explain why they were seeking to rebuild ties with Bashar. But obviously, when first of all, you go to any country to any other country than yours, when you are over 30 years of all, because when actually he was in the UK was 33 Your whole upbringing, your own culture is the one from you know, the one where you the country you are in, during your children's years, and your you know, and on top of that he spent only a few months in the UK, barely enough to get used to the country to get a few contacts, to learn a few things is this label of a sort of British connection, perhaps something that you could attribute more to his wife. His wife was certainly a British citizen. So she's British very much. But this label was attributed to him actually, before he got married. And while while his wife, then if you want to increase a bit that that, you know, played a role in increasing that Labour if you want or giving it more importance. Initially, I think it was very much the idea behind it was, if you want to associate Bashar with the West in a way or another, and that suited both Bashar and Western countries that wanted to build ties with him, of course, asthma played a role in that. Ironically enough, I mean, today, you would, you could argue that, that Asma has adopted the culture of the Assad regime, and has been influenced by the way it functions much more than its her British upbringing. So it really works the other way around. Hafez died in 2000. Bashar accordingly became president straight after you've mentioned a couple of times in your responses that the West were quite keen to build ties with this new, younger Syrian president. Can you give a bit of context about why did the West want to build these ties? It suggests that relations had not been very good. Yeah, of course, I mean, half has had I mean, Syria was since the early 1960s, as part of the broader socialist bloc, right? It had socialist economic policies, central planning, it was an ally of the Soviet Union. And so after the fall of the Soviet Union, half has tried to rebalance a bit is relations. But at the time, Bashar arrived to power you had if you want a number of factors that were encouraging, at least the Syrians to build ties with the verse and vice versa. What happened if you want, Tom is when the Soviet bloc collapsed, Syria and a lot of other countries actually faced a number of problems. Cuba is a typical example, if you want Cuba, Cuba's economy collapse entirely after the fall of the Soviet Union. But Syria was saved by two factors which helped have the Assad gained time. First of all, the Syrian Government discovered oil, or rather, British and French companies discovered oil to the north in the northeast, which enabled Syria to increase its oil production, increase its fiscal revenues, and so gain sometimes, in addition to that you had the first Gulf War between after Saddam invaded Kuwait, Syria aligned with the US. And what happened is that the many Gulf countries, some Western countries and Japan provided significant financial help to the Syrian government. So if you want the Syria did not have to face the impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union throughout most of the 1990s. Now, during the end of the 1990s decision had changed, oil production was going down. aid from the Gulf had largely dried, dried up. Syria's population was increasing enormously, very quickly. And the Syrian government knew it needed to liberalise to change something to attract foreign investment. At the same time from the West, Syria was if you want an because as I told you, I mean, thanks to if you want, but half the asset policies made of Syria, a very major player in the region. And everybody knew that if you wanted the peace deal between Syria between the Middle East and Israel, you needed the Syrian Israeli agreement. And Syria was also an ally of Iran, which oppose Israel. So if you want for the West, Syria was a country that you could bring Syria to your site, you change significantly the map of the Middle East, it's important to understand that the map of the Middle East at the time was very different from today, with the powerful countries where Syria, as I said, even the Gulf countries did not build ties with Israel, as long as Syria, you know, did not negotiate a peace deal with the with the Israelis. So having Syria on your side was important for many countries in the West, and the Syrians themselves needed the West to for financial for investment, basically. Syria is a Muslim country, the acids, I think we claim that they run a secular regime. Do you are the secular? Is that a way that you would describe them jihad? Or does that need some nuance? No, of course, it needs new ones. So Syria is part of the country, which is part of the both Arab and Muslim world and of the Mediterranean civilization, if you want culturally, I'm talking. We should not forget that. I mean, today we see it, we may think of these terms, but in the 1960s and 70s, when half as the bath party arrived to power, you were, it was a period of decolonization, of socialist ideas of struggle for the freedom of the people around the world. So Syria would ally with a lot of non Muslim countries against Muslim countries, if these Muslim countries were, say, pro American, they would so the you, you did not choose your alliances based on you know, whether the other country was a Saudi Muslim country or not. Now, having said that, Syria society was probably, I mean, yeah, serious population has some attributes of the broader societies in the Muslim world, the relation between men and when women, for instance, you have the cultural references, Damascus was the capital of the Umayyad Empire centuries ago. So also these played a role, you could describe Syria as the country where religion, there is a relatively limited role. I mean, is, is is is barely mentioned in the constitution of the country. So where society is relatively conservative, and therefore some attitudes are conservatives, social ones. I'm not sure of the political ones, you could describe it that way. So it was it was not though secular in the very strict definition of the terms. And the way the French would adopt it, in the sense that, for example, in the Constitution that was adopted in 1973, the Sharia was described as the main but not the only source of jurisdiction. The President, however, had to be a Muslim. Other than that, in the political life, you had little formal differentiation between Syrians, Muslim and non Muslim, the Constitution says nothing about the division of power. And you had a lot of historically a lot of major Syrian leaders who are Christians, for example. But what you had, however, is communities. And that's, that's quite different from being having adopting the Sharia, for example. So you had people for whom their religious committee was relatively important. And so this is something you took into account when you were ruling the country. Meaning if you want people to be on your side, you have to take this factor into account in the same way, for example, where you They also took into account the geographic distribution. So for example, in every government, you'd have to have a few guys from Aleppo, a few from their resort in the east, and you would have to have a few Christians and a few rules and mostly Muslims and so so this was taken into account even though it was not formalised. So And surely I didn't play really role an important role. So alcohol is freely sold and drunk in the country. Christian celebrations are official holidays for the government, for example. So the if you want the communitarian aspect, the second aspect in a way is more important than the religious aspect per se. I hope I'm not sure if I'm clear enough. No, that's that's certainly clear. I think what you're But suggesting is that there are many, many different points of contestation and lines of division within this country. I think the thing that merits Assad's appearance on this podcast, which is mostly about controversial contested world leaders, the reason everybody knows who Bashar Al Assad is, is the Syrian civil war. And we'll come to discussing the war in more detail in a second. But first, Assad was in power for about 10 years before the unrest that led to the Civil War kicked off in 2011. The unrest didn't evolve in a vacuum. If you if you look at those 10 years, can you point to some trends that emerged across bashers time in power that led to this breaking point in 2011? Yeah, yeah. I think one of the important things we have to take into account is the fact that, you know, very early on you in this podcast, you mentioned the fact that Bashar was born in Damascus. And I think what we have here is, really, I mean, the death of half as and the arrival of Bashar also brought a generational change. In the rule of power in in Damascus, you had before we had Hafez and all these officers commanding the security services, that what a bit from the same extraction than half as they were also originally from the rural from the countryside, they were from the bath party, they were from the army and the security services, when Bashar came to power. So the Security Service did keep control, of course, control completely. The I mean, keep are the leading power in the country, but you have Bashar brought with him, a number of people of his generation, the sons of the officers, or of the Allied senior officials of the government. These children like Bashar were born in Damascus, were largely disconnected from their countryside, wanted to do business not to fight, wanted to go on, you know, to spend. We're also the sons of the neoliberal age, if you want in certain in a certain sense. Now, the arrival of Bashar coincided or if you want not coincide, Bashar pushed for liberalisation of the economy, at the beginning, and for a reduction in political pressure. So there was some the general atmosphere in Syria was lighter than during the half days. You had, you could find in Syria, a lot more consumer products and items. It was easier to open a business, myself, to give you a simple example, I moved back to Syria, or I never really grew in Syria, but my father left Syria decades ago, but I went to Syria in 2005. A lot of Syrians from the upper middle classes, who were abroad came back to Syria. However, what also happened is that you had part of the policies that Bashar pursued was a reduction in the involvement of the state in supporting the farming sector, reduction in the role of the state as a major, how would I put it enabling if you want people to climb the social ladder, which was something very important previously. And so the reduction of the presence of the state in a variety of areas did create some discontent. For instance, there is a lot of reference to the drought that affected Syria in the period between 2007 2009. And a lot of people attribute the beginning of the uprising to that. But actually, the drought signalled a major drought came on top of a significant reduction in state support to large segments of the of the country. So that played, I think, an important role in the deterioration in social and economic conditions in the country. So there was a sort of prolonged austerity period, which sort of became the normal level of state intervention in the end. Exactly, exactly. That's exactly you want to properly that's exactly what happened. This does not mean that in the cities, that you had some improvement in at least as I said, for the upper middle classes, and there was also if you want, I think there were maybe some expectations, also, I mean, if you have to go back to how the uprising began, I think the there have been expectations of more significant if provement. That did not really materialise even in particular, in terms of political liberalisation, that never really materialised at the beginning of Bashar Assad. There were some suggestion that he would open up the political space. We should never really occurred. So you have austerity. And on the one hand, you have a political system that is not flexible at all. And I think all of that if you want to help explain a bit what what happened in 2011. And if you look at the late 2000s, the years immediately preceding the start of the Civil War, where was our sads relationship with the West by this stage? Well, his his relation with the West improved significantly, in the first five years of his rule, he visited an enormous number of countries, France, the UK, Spain, to the extent that even put in a couple of years ago, few years ago, when he was asked about his ties to Bashar, he was he was, he was arguing that actually Bashar visited the West more than he did visit Moscow, which is not wrong, although he doesn't say much of the street, the current situation, but anyway, now you had one moment, which was 2005, when the Syrians when repeated had at the Lebanese pm died in a car bomb. The attack is widely attributed to the Syrian regime, although eventually it is Hezbollah commanders that were condemned. But I mean, the series are quite clearly involved into that. And that led to a series of deterioration in Bashar styes, with France, which is a major actor in the Levant region, and more broadly, in the in the Middle East. And that situation stayed that way for a couple of years up to 2000 7008. And the French, so to build back ties with the Syrian regime. So the relations had slightly improved again. So he was certainly seen, if you look at investment, for instance, ties were certainly good. And so the the relations were relatively good, actually, the Syrians were also even considering signing an Association Agreement with the EU, which is a specific type of agreement tying Mediterranean countries with with with the EU. So you could say that there are relatively good actually, if we turn to the unrest, and it's obviously takes place within the wider context of the Arab Spring, what were the first rumblings of disquiet in Syria? What happened? Well, that was an it's a, you know, a moment I was I was in Damascus, myself when the uprising began. And it was certainly a moment of great excitement and enormous hope, really. The uprising, actually, if you want the first event, was a protest in front of the Libyan embassy. And on March 15 2011, in Damascus, it was a silent actually ascertain, rather than a protest. Then you had a demonstration in the city of Daraa, on March 18 2011, which was a Friday, and where six people were shut down by the security services. So that created outrage. And then there was the, during the burial of the six people who died, another number of another men were also shot and killed. The first few weeks of the protests, were did not ask for a photo of the regime, contrary to Egypt, or Tunisia. And that's because people were so terrified, actually, in Syria, it was still unbelievable, that people would dare to go to the streets. Even in February 2011, Bashar Assad gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal, when he was asked about the possibility of the uprising spreading to Syria, and he was answering, there is no way it's going to spread here because our position towards the Arab Israeli conflict is close to what our people think and be, you know, believe in, so why are they going to protest against us? In other words, he was blaming the Egyptians or the Tunisians for being closer to the west or the Israelis, if you want. So the first few weeks, so no demand for the fall of the regime, but for the reform of the regime. And then gradually, with the repression increasing, and people realising that the regime was in no real mood for compromise, you had demand for reform of the regime. It's also striking to mention that among the first few buildings that will burn down were the local offices in the US, which had actually suffered from that. If you want Tom and this is important take into account that I was a historical stronghold of the bath party. It's a farming is mostly a rural area where agriculture was important, and where the lot of actually officials civilian officials from the government came from there are, for example, the former and the current Syrian minister of foreign affairs are from Daraa and they are mostly Sudanese. But it is the area that says most are among the area that lost a lot from the change in policies of the by the by the regime. So So one of the first big thing that was burned down by protesters were the local branch of Syria tell Syria tell being one of the two mobile phone operators and which the company was owned by Danny Macaluso is Michael Wolf, who is the maternal cousin of Bashar Al Assad. And he's probably one of the most hated business figures in Syria at the time. So it was very symbolic that the company's local branch would be burned out. But the the protests were actually overwhelmingly peaceful. I mean, there was obviously nobody was shooting anywhere, except for the regime killing down protesters, the protesters were not holding arms or anything. And so gradually, it escalated, you had more and more protests in other parts of the country, including in Damascus. So that's how it all began. This was 2011. The the sort of protests, riots eventually sort of begin to take on the form of a more conventional as civil war through the rest of 2011 and into 2012. When was it? Do you think that the West begin to really sour on Assad? That's a good question. Actually. I mean, one of the first statement coming from the US administration at the time, in March or April, was from Hillary Clinton, who was the Secretary of State at the, at the time, saying that Bashar was someone was a guy we could work with. And if you want, a lot of Western countries were at the same time, you know, asking the regime to change his behaviour. But we're also quite worried about how the situation was evolving, because it was quite violent quite very quickly, in the sense of I mean, the repression was violent. Quickly, as I said, from the first day, the regime shot people to something you didn't see in other countries. Even the Turks that were at the time were very close to the Syrian regime. That photo Blue was the Turkish foreign minister visited Damascus, I think something like 15 times between March 2011, and August 2011. So the Europeans began putting sanctions on the regime in May or June 2011. But there were still really sanctions against the head of say that the head of the security services, and they were still pushing for the regime to make some concessions to talk to people. And, you know, I was there. And I think a lot of I was I talked to a lot of diplomats at the time, they were quite, they weren't really sure of what to do. They were also like everyone else, very surprised by the fact that the events, I mean, the protests took place in Damascus, a lot of people didn't think that this could ever happen. And they start putting some small pressure on the regime to make some reforms. And gradually, gradually, things evolve. And as they thought they thought there was so there was no turning back. They eventually took much more serious, you know, sanctions against it. Yes, and I think from memory, the year 2013 was quite a significant one for various reasons that the violence in Syria got considerably worse, over the first sort of six or eight months of that year. And in I think, August 2013, David Cameron, the British prime minister suggested or sort of brought to the table the idea of of some sort of intervention in Syria, and he lost a vote in the British House of Commons to to gain authority for that. Why was David Cameron and to some extent, Barack Obama, the American president at the time, why were they angling for a more direct intervention by this stage? Okay, thank you for asking me this question, Tom. Because it reminds me that a lot of people today, me things that I take for obvious, unnoticed, necessarily obvious today. What happened in August 2013, is that the Syrian regime attacked with chemicals, one of the suburb of Damascus, as you said, by 20, by the summer of 2013, the conflict had gone much more violent. The opposition had armed to kind of weapons. Half of Aleppo was under the control of the opposition, and there was really a war. You could then call it really a civil war. So what happened in August 2013 Is that the regime bombed with chemicals, the hooter which is the eastern suburb of Damascus, killing more than 1000 people, I mean, a very large number of civilians. Until then, the Barack Obama the US administration had said, We will not What intervened in Syria at any cost, except if the regime uses chemicals, chemical weapons, chemical weapons are our red line. And if that happens, we are going to intervene. And so what happened in the summer of 2013, is that following the attack, a lot of people thought the Americans would react, the intervention in the case of Syria was never anywhere close to any classic way of intervention in the sense of sending troops or anywhere close to that. The idea was that the Americans and other western countries allies with bombed some specific sides of the Syrian army, to make clear that, you know, there were limits, the regime could not go beyond. So the David Cameron put to vote in the House of Commons decision resolution, not not to send British troops, but to intervene military to use aircrafts, basically to bomb and he the vote was negative. The French however, we're very much ready to go and bomb. And Obama, unfortunately, for Syria, because I think this is really a very important moment, the Syrian conflict. And it has some repercussions, I think up to today, in other conflict, we can talk about this later. But eventually the US administration was never really interested in the Syrian conflict for the Americans or Syria was really not an important, you know, conflict. And the Americans tried to buy time a lot. And so Obama delayed delayed delayed decision, until eventually, the Russians came forward and said, well, let's rather than you attacking, let's negotiate with the Syrian regime and force the Syrian regime to give up his chemical weapons, which so the Russians eventually reach a deal with the Americans, which were really expecting something if you want to relieve them from their commitment to bomba in case they either regime crosses red line. So what happened eventually, the student gave up most, although apparently not all, their weapons, the US never attacked. And what happened was just the Syrian regime, the Syrian conflict, evolving into, you know, full fledged war across all the country with the rise, you know, with the expansion of Islamic State, and everything else. Well, that's the next question. I wanted to ask you. I mean, this is the thing that makes the Syrian conflict both so interesting. And so confusing, is that there are there's there's certainly more than two sides. Definitely three, and many would argue more than three. And the third side that is in this conflict sort of emerged, I think mostly after August 13, which was, which was ISIS, the Islamic State, the British and the Americans. Eventually, after the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, decided that they wanted to, they wanted to conduct airstrikes in Syria. And this time, the British Parliament gave David Cameron their acquiescence to do so. In a speech to the House of Commons at that point, he famously claimed that there were 70,000, moderate rebels that were awaiting Western help in Syria. It was a claim that bore a lot of resemblance to blaze WMD, in launch in 45 minutes, claimed before the invasion of Iraq in 2002. Can you go a bit more into who the opposition actually work? And do you think that you can pull out any source of real coherence to this opposition to Assad? No, I think you can. I mean, the problem, Tom, of course, is that today, we are looking at the conflict from the current lengths, and we you know, we fail to see how things evolve. Then, as I said, I mean, the the the decision by the Americans not to react to the chemical attack was a major turning point in the conflict. Because eventually, what did that say? Obama basically told us that you can do whatever you want, with your population. We don't. We don't we don't care about it. Do whatever you want. We don't care. But please don't use the chemicals, because that would force me to do something. So if you want help me not to intervene, if you want. And, and what happened, I think, as its chemical attack were a way of testing the Americans. He got the answer. But he also understood clearly that he could move ahead with an escalation against the opposition. And the opposition, at the same time understood that there was no hope from the west. And if you want there was really a collapse of most non radical Islamist opposition groups in 2013, in Vienna for the 13th, of which there were many, they were not structured in a single army if you want. We would call them the Free Syrian Army, but they were comprised of a variety of groups, which were, as the Syrian population is overwhelmingly relatively conservative religiously, but with no specific Islamic agenda. Some of them did have one. But they weren't. I mean, if you want the evidence from people researching the area does not indicate that the organisation with a radical Islamist agenda were really the majority of the groups, far from that. But the collapse of the decision of the Americans not to intervene, actually strengthened enormously, the most radical groups, which basically whose discourse was basically there is no hope with the West, the only hope is radical Islam. That's the only way we bring down these other you know, they bring down the regime. So a lot of people actually left the opposition groups during that period of time. Now, in 2014, what you had moderate rebels, I don't know what that means. Well, I think what he meant to say, was non jihadi, non takfiri, groups organisation that do not have a Global Islamic agenda. And I think it was actually the case. And I think it is still the case, actually, today of why wide variety you have you do have some Islamic groups, non tech theory, you have neither Islamic non takfiri groups, and you have the most radical groups, of course, a slightly different question to ask, though, would be not just whether these people are moderate. And I'd think that the whole point of that of why that has become famous is because of how mushy it sounds, moderate rep, you know, 70,000, moderate rebels. The other question that would need to be asked, though, is, do you think that there was a way in which the West could have intervened in the conflict in a way that would have had a reasonable chance of supporting these people to the point where they could actually effectively oppose and I suppose eventually overthrow Bashar Al Assad? I think, to give you a very basic example, Tom, in 2013, I was in Beirut at the time. And we had a lot of information for people, I know that I'm talking of the period just after the chemical attack. And as we were waiting in American attack on Syrian regime, Syrian army bases, there were a lot of reports of Syrian officers sending their family to the coast of panic among the Syrian regime. I do think, an attack by the American and the French, two or three days of bombing, which are to tell the message to Assad, there are limits to what you can do. Now you negotiate. And I think at that point, you certainly had the means to force the regime into making significant concessions to be I mean, I can give you another example which to justify this in 2012, when for the first time the UN had a role in negotiating a deal, the Syrian regime did accept the initiative by the UN, which would have eventually, which theoretically, at the time, could have eventually push it to significant concessions, because in 2012, the regime did feel very weak. In other words, what I'm saying is that when you want to fight an enemy, and force it into some compromise, you have to it does not mean does not want to negotiate, you have to force you have to weaken him, to weaken him significantly. So you didn't need at all to fight the regime and to force a military, military fights over Damascus over the country of Damascus. But you force the regime into negotiating, you weaken him into negotiation, and then you get him to the table. And that was certainly very much possible at the time. But this was really a lost opportunity. And then it became much more complicated to do anything. I think the ideal solution really up to this day, is to weaken the regime to force it to negotiation, not to destroy the regime, and certainly not to destroy the state as the Americans did in Iraq, as we all know, the consequences of that. But the big problem, Tom, if you want, and that was the big debate in 2013. Is that people, a lot of people in the West. For them. The example of intervention is Iraq. Was Iraq. Yeah. Are you intervene, you are going to get Iraq. So we don't intervene anywhere? Well, if you if you do intervene, you get Iraq. If you don't intervene at all, you get Syria today. You see, and that's how you have to look at it. It's a good line. I want to ask you about the other actor in this, which is there'll be other than sort of domestic actor in this, which is ISIS. I think a very a big problem that the West had in Syria was that they never really decided what they wanted. To achieve they're not really in 2013. Nor in 2015. They were always or eventually sort of nominally anti Assad, both anti Assad and anti ISIS. As somebody who's who's sort of looking at this from the outside ISIS, I think pose a larger and scarier threat than Assad. I can understand that as a Syrian, you might not feel the same way about that. Do you think that this civil war was from the west point of view, a choice between Assad and ISIS? No, no, of course, it wasn't. I mean, and I, of course, do understand what you say and do too, if you want. Imagine Miko the French president famously said ISIS is our enemy. Bashar is the enemy of the Syrian people, which I think was a mistake from him. But anyway, that's what he said. But quite clearly, in terms of immediate impact on the west, the short term immediate impact, I mean, ISIS did bomb, a European capitals in order to kill, you know, European, young men and women who were, you know, partying. And so this is understandable. The real issue, Tom here is how you look in the the timeline, if you want and how, what we're really looking at the medium to long term, for a very long time, there was in an investment in, in Europe, on strong regimes controlling their population, what is called stability, if you want, basically, you have a guy whom you can call, and you can ask to do this or that it controls the population. And clearly what happened in the Arab world, the past decade, which is fundamentally very transformation, transformation and for the societies is extremely violent, and has had a lot of consequences, of course, for most of their other population there, but also on the west, through the refugee, for instance, oh, the bump of ISIS. I don't think this, the policy of controlling the population of the material through brutal regime is a long term solution for the West. And we have seen the consequences now. I mean, the after all, the uprisings and the consequence of the uprising, which are Taliban are the consequence, also, to some extent, of the brutality of the rules of those that are ruling these countries. But also, if you look at other ways, I mean, the the big refugee flow, is, to some extent, a consequence of ISIS. To some extent, as I was saying, the consequence of the collapse of the Army, if you want, of extreme brutality of the conflict, which left no opportunity, I do think that in the long term, and this is a difficult political sell in the West, because, of course, the horizon is always the next election. So it's always to three or four years for most politician, because that's how politics works here. But in the long term, there is an objective interest in, in the rule of state, in these countries, in stable societies built on, you know, the rule of state the rule of law, sorry, I meant I said, the rule of settlement, the rule of law. So, country is being ruled by law, and not by brutal force is my understanding the long term long term assets and interests of the West, you have to accept that these countries being your neighbours, moving from one stage to another is going to take time and create instability, and that you are going to face one one day another, the consequences. But I would doubt very much. I mean, if you just look down at the level of the population growth in this part, this part of the world, I doubt very much that you're not going to face some additional troubles in these regions. And you won't be able to solve them to end them with only with the only answer being brutality, brute force, you know, you can't just be brutal with the population, you need to find the solution to make political concessions to open the public space at the political space. And this can be done only and that's really the interest of the West, and that's big can only be done through political change. So I do you think it's also the interests of the West, that these regimes be removed? I think it is the interests of the West and also the countries. I mean, Tripoli revolution Tama always, nobody has an interest in revolutions by The way we all have an interest in in, you know, in gradual change, reform revolution has happened because all other ways of changing a system are closed. So then it you know, it erupts and explodes. So I think that's how we have to look at it, we really have to push these regimes to reform, but reformed significantly changed significantly. And that means giving up power except accepting that rulers are accountable. So though I do think that that, that even the West has a very strong interest of getting getting rid of acid and other brutal dictators, but the consequences will be fat long term. Yeah, and many turns in the road along the way, it was the stasis that the West sort of stumbled into over Syria also attracted another major power in the world into that region, which was Russia. You obviously mentioned that Hafez regime was a sort of client of the Soviet Union, looking forward to the present day. Given what's going on in Ukraine at the moment, Putin was often seem to have had a sort of foreign policy success in Syria. If assuming that you think that he did have a foreign policy success there, do you think that when the history books are written about the war in Ukraine, historians will see in Syria and the fact that the West sort of fumbled its cards over Syria, do you think that people will look back and see that as a cause for the war in Ukraine that this was such a great psychological victory for Vladimir Putin, that he felt that he could test the West further? Interesting. Now, just to make clear rhetoric, yeah, to make it clear, Tom Hafez was not really a client of the Soviet he was an ally. And I'm saying this because really, he had succeeded in gaining real autonomy from the Soviet Union. He was he was a strong ally, but he had real margins of manoeuvres. Obviously, Syria is a major point is political success of Vladimir Putin's Syria, or rather, Russia has control for Russia. Russia's presence in Syria, is what makes Russia again a global player. Because if you want anti Russia, it sorry until 2015, and the contract details the Russian intervention in Syria, Moscow only intervened in very close neighbourhood in countries around the Georgia Abkhazia that Chania Syria was the first time in decades since the fall of the Soviet Union, that Russia intervene in the country far from its borders. And in the country in a conflict, which is very internationalised, even before it intervened. So this made of this makes a fresher, global player again, in certain sense, and not only a regional player, if the Russians lose Syria, they become again, a regional player, as I think either Obama or the American officials had had mentioned it, or midsize player, that control of Syria made them a problem because now they're present in the Mediterranean. They have a border, the border, a NATO country from its southern border, which is Turkey. Turkey is a NATO country and Syria is a border, you know, is on this border. They have Syria is on the border with Israel, and also a major player in in a certain way in the US, you know how the influence of the pro Israeli lobby is in the Congress, a major player in the whole Middle East region, which is obviously the main centre of oil and gas production, so putting control over Syria made of its of its country, again, a global player. So that's one aspect. The other aspect you're mentioning is, of course, very true. Although Syria was not the only example it was but one of many cases where putting so his intervention in another country, not generating any reaction from the west, to some extent even being welcomed by the West, if you want that, and because in a sense, today, the Russians can negotiate with the Iranians, and that can be perceived positively by some actors in the West. But if you have if you had put his intervention in Syria, to his later intervention in Kazakhstan, the most recent one, I you understand that, of course, Syria was an important act in the Russians believe that their interventions in in foreign In other countries would not generate any reaction from the west. Of course, Putin made his terrible mistake of invading Ukraine. Because of course, Ukraine is a totally different thing if you want that Syria, but of course, Syria was was very, very important in that. It was also, of course, don't forget, and the Russians said it very cynically, Syria was a scene for them, to try their weapons, and sell them around the world. And I'm sure they tried many weapons, they tested their many weapons that they're using. Now, again, in Ukraine. It was also a scene where Putin tested his capacity to influence local actors, you should see the number of instances were putting really practically humiliated Bashar, physically in front of the TV screens. And so it was really a test for many, many other things area to bring this conversation back to Assad. Syria has obviously been through a dreadful, more than decade of Civil War. The Civil War isn't isn't over. What sort of country is Assad presiding over? I think it's basically assumed that he's here to stay now, at least in the short term, but what sort of country has he got left? Good question. You remember a time I was telling you that half the assets arrive into power, accession to power. And his strategic perception of the of serious position in the region enabled him to end what we used to go to call the struggle for Syria, basically, Syria being a scene where other actors played, he transformed Syria into an actor into in other countries in the Middle East. I would argue that Bashar has brought back his country to the struggle for Syria, he has if you want, basically, first of all, he has lost control over Lebanon. And we didn't talk about this, of course, we didn't have time to. But in 2005, the Syrians were sitting army was forced to withdraw from Lebanon, which was a major, major failure of the Syrian foreign policy, because control over Lebanon was probably the most significant success of his father half is. So he loves Lebanon in 2005. And then since 2011, he lost control over large parts of Syria. And now he is largely dependent on Russian and Iranian influence and control over this part of Syria that he's still in charge of nominally, as I told you, he is frequently humiliated by Putin. But he can't do anything because he knows how much he depends on him. So half besar, sorry, controls now around two thirds of the geographic series, geographic area, and probably around the same rate in terms of population, he has left a country, which is largely destroyed, whose social fabric is unfortunately largely destroyed. He is leaving a country that he, as you said, in the short term, he's he's most likely to remain in power. I have more doubts about his capacity to remain in power in the longer term. But that's a different story. Of course, I think it's a country which it will be very difficult to rebuild, in terms of its infrastructure, but also in terms of national project, the series have to create a new national project. And I think we are we are going to face many challenges doing that. I suppose the significance of what you're saying is that in some ways, he's not really in power at all is. I'm not sure if he can say that. I think it would. He is now one of many other local actors in Syria. While he was by very far, I mean, there was no one contesting his role or influence in any way. 2011. Now, of the local Syrian actors, he is the most powerful because he's probably he controlled most land, among others, but as all other Syrian actors, they're all dependent on foreign support and influence. And in a way, Tom, you call the Syrian war, a civil war, which I think is to some extent, correct. But you can also call it regional and global conflict through proxies through local proxies. I think this is also one aspect of the conflict she had Thank you very much. That's been a fascinating discussion of a of man but also of a civil war, which is the you know, defined, you know, the world in my lifetime, certainly, so far. If people want to read more about Syria, or if people want to follow you, and your the work that you do, where can they go? Right, thank you. So I published two websites one called the Zero report, which is, which has a paywall, unfortunately In which is the key dedicated to the economy, there is economy. We look at it from different angles. And you have another website, which is much more accessible, which is the Syrian observer, where we translate the Syrian press opposition and regime into English we publish every day. It's free of charge. And I think it is a very useful way to get introduced to Syria. Great. She had Thank you very much. Thank you, Tom. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to the hated in the dead. If you've enjoyed this podcast, follow it on Spotify and Apple podcasts. And for good measure. Leave us a review. You can also follow the hated in the dead on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, so you never miss new content.