Syrian Rebels Win - Now What?

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Uh Syria, our subject for tonight, is

one of the most remarkable stories in

world affairs in years. Uh the Syrians,

as you will remember, uh from 2011,

staged a popular revolution. Um it was

part of the Arab Spring.

uh six seven six countries altogether

took part in the Arab Spring and Syria

was really the last of them in uh March

of

2011. For 14 years the re the ruling

government, the uh Bashar al-Assad uh

staged a war against its own people. And

then last December, rebel forces threw

out the dictator and his dynasty. And if

you can believe it, they were in power

for a half a century plus one family

rule. So now, and to tell you about how

remarkable this uh event is, um it is it

is conceivable that Syria could become

the first real democracy in the Arab

world. Uh but a lot of people

incl have doubts. uh they center in part

on the uh on the new leader Akmmed

al-Sharah and his and his and especially

on his pedigree pedigree for he led

al-Qaeda uh the jihadist militia in the

internal war against uh Bashar al-Assad.

was obviously not the only leader. Um,

and he was not the only jihadist leader.

Um, he wasn't part of ISIS. I should

make it really clear, but he was the

leader of the al-Qaeda branch known as

the Nusra

front. So, the question tonight is uh uh

now what where is Syria heading? I can't

think of anyone who is so wellinformed

on Syria as our speaker. Uh, Robert Ford

served as the US ambassador to Syria

from 2011 to

2014 at the time of the national

uprising. Um, I knew him. I I was a

reporter actually covering the war in

Syria and I knew him as a as one of

those rare diplomats who really had his

ear to the ground. He listened to the

voice of Syrians. Um, and that got him

in deep trouble with the Assad regime

which staged demonstrations against him

and threatened his safety. He had to

close the embassy in February 2012,

barely a year after he got there, but he

kept up his ties with the Syrian

opposition ever since. And when the

regime fell last December, he was well

plugged in. Uh he's a career diplomat,

uh one of those that group of esteemed

individuals in the in public service who

who care about the world and the

American role in the world.

He served previously as ambassador to

Algeria, deputy ambassador to

Iraq. The these are these were tough

assignments, let me tell you. Um and he

held high diplomatic posts in Turkey,

Egypt, and Bahrain. I have one, two,

three big messages. The first is going

to be what to do about this guy who is

the new president of Syria. Um, second,

I want to talk about the biggest

challenges in Syria, including Israel.

And third, I want to talk about what

should we, the Americans, be doing,

what's my recommendation. So, all of

that in 30 minutes and then and then I

look forward to some questions. So,

first, this guy, as Roy said, was in

al-Qaeda and Iraq. Um, I was in Iraq

between 2000. I started there in 2003

um and served until 2010 with 20 months

off for good behavior um when they made

me ambassador to Algeria. But then Condi

Rice sent me back to Iraq again. So

during that time, this guy who's now the

president of Syria, that's him on the

left in his al-Qaeda

guys. and he was a senior al-Qaeda

commander up in northern Iraq in a city

called Mosul. Um for Americans who were

in Iraq, you might remember Mosul was

one of the worst, nastiest places. Um

the State Department actually lost five

diplomatic personnel in two different

car bombs up in Mosul during that time.

And hundreds of American soldiers were

killed or injured up in that Mosul area

by this guy and his fighters.

So starting in 2023,

uh a British non-government organization

uh which specializes in conflict

resolution invited me to help

them bring this guy out of the terrorist

world and into regular politics. Um and

at first I have to tell you I was very

leerary of going. I sort of had images

of me in an orange jumpsuit with a knife

to my throat. Um but after talking to

several people who had gone in and one

of whom had met him um I decided to take

the chance and so the first time I met

him this guy's name um is nom was Abdul

uh Golani um but his actual name is

Ahmed Shara which he only revealed to

the world after he captured Damascus in

the blitzkrieg of December 2024 about 5

months months ago. Um, first time I met

him, I sat down next to him and I'm

literally as close as I am to Roy and I

said, this is all in Arabic. I said,

"Never in a million years could I

imagine that I would be sitting next to

you, long beard, in fatigues." And he

looked at me, he speaks very softly, and

he said, "Well, Anna, me neither." And

we went on and actually had a pretty

civil conversation. I I share this

because he said something which really

piqued my interest. He never apologized

never apologized for the terrorist

attacks in Iraq or in Syria, although

there were many fewer in Syria. Never

apologized. But he also said, you know,

now I am governing an opposition held

area of northwest Syria, and I am

learning that the tactics and the

principles that I was following in Iraq

do not apply when you actually have to

govern 4 million people. And they had 2

million residents of that area of Syria.

and then another 2 million refugees who

had come there from other parts of

Syria. So they had a population of 4

million. He said I am learning that to

govern you have to make compromises. I

was very struck by that. So that was in

March 2023 just over two years ago.

Um, we went back a second time in

September. And oh, I forgot to mention

both times I went, we also met the

Syrian Christian communities up in those

areas. The many, many had fled. Most had

fled, but there were still some

Christians there. We asked them, "How's

life? How, you know, this guy's a

jihadi. How how is it?" And they said

the the guy who is now the bishop of

Aleppo, Syria's second largest city at

the time was not the bishop. Um but he

was kind of their spokesman. He said,

you know, it was a lot worse five or six

years ago. It's much better now because

his people are more disciplined and they

are actually beginning to return houses

that were seized from us. They are

beginning to return agricultural lands

that were seized from us during the

worst of the fighting of the Civil War.

We went back in September to see how

that was going. Were they still getting

their lands back and we met the now

Bishop Hana and um we met a probably 20

other Christian people in the room and

we said, "How's it going?" And they

said, "All of our houses have been

returned." I'm like, "Wow, that's

amazing. How many houses are we

talking?" And they said about 50. I'm

like, whoa, that's that's pretty good.

Um, and I and I said, "What about the

agricultural lands?" And they said, "All

pieces have been returned except one." I

said, "Well, what's with the one?" And

they said, "We don't know exactly, but

there's some kind of a dispute about

it." So before we left that time, I

asked him, I said, "What's with the one

piece of land hasn't been returned? What

are your staff telling you about it?"

And he said, "I know what you're talking

about." out and he said, "It's been

seized by one of our armed groups." He

was in a head of the coalition. I said,

"Well, how come it hasn't been

returned?" He said, "Well, we're trying

to convince them." I thought, "Trying to

convince them? You're like, you know,

you're the guy with the guns. Tell

them." I said to him in Arabic, "Compel

them." And he said, "I would rather do

this politically rather than pick a

fight, armed fight with this group."

Why am I telling you this long story?

Because now in Syria, if you're

following the news, you would know that

there were killings up in the the

Mediterranean coast in March with the

minority Alawi community and there's

been fighting just outside of Damascus

the last few days.

Shada has sent in, this guy has sent in

forces, but he is not opening fire and

attacking militias that are only loosely

under his command. Nor is he attacking

militias that are rejecting the rule of

Damascus. He's trying to bring people

into rooms and talk to them. This is not

the way al-Qaeda is supposed to run the

world. No, I'm not kidding. Tony Blinken

called me in December when the

government fell and I'm sitting up in

Maine. It was a heavy snowstorm actually

and I'm sort of wondering like this is

surreal. I'm sitting in my living room

watching snow and Tony Blinkin is

calling me and asking what to do about

Syria. So he said you know Robert what

should we do? Should we talk to him?

What do you think? He knew that I had

met Shara twice in 2023 because I had

informed them and um he said well what

do you think of him? I said, "Well, I

just don't think he's he's not the kind

of al-Qaeda guy we think of with

al-Qaeda." Um, so here are some examples

of things he's doing which lead me to

think he's something different. I mean,

first of all, that's his

wife. How many of you ever saw a picture

of Osama bin Laden's

wife? How many of you ever saw a picture

of the head of ISIS's wife, Ayad Bedi?

He knew Ayad Baghdadi. He worked with

him in

Iraq. That's her there in this

particular picture there in the Hajj.

But she's very clearly identified in by

the media as Mrs. Shara and he's

introduced her to the media. This is not

done in Salify hardline salify

traditional jihadi circles. It is not

done. Never never. She's actually like

hosted meetings with civil society

organizations in the media. This is not

done. It's simply never done. Okay.

Next, I'm going to give you just a

little bit of Islamist

ideology. Salafi

jihadi. The legitimacy of a government.

The legitimacy of a government. Here in

the United States, it comes from

elections and the

constitution. If you are an al-Qaeda

salify jihadi, the legitimacy of a

government does not come from elections

because elections elect people who make

laws. And they say people are fallible.

And so the only infallible source for

legitimacy is God and God's law. the

Sharia. If you call for elections, they

would say, "You are an

infidel." That's why there were no

elections, for example, in

Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden was never

calling for elections. And al-Qaeda,

this guy, rejected elections, totally

rejected elections in Iraq. And I was

there organizing elections with the

American government. And he rejected

him. is like blowing up polling

stations. And he did not apologize for

it. I want to emphasize that. I told

Blinken he did not apologize for these

things. But about a month ago, he said,

"We're going to hold elections in Syria.

It's not going to be right away. It's

going to be in three or four years, but

we will hold

elections." You cannot be a Salafi

jihadi and call for elections. It just

doesn't work. So something is going on

here that's not your normal al-Qaeda

guy. He invited a group of American

Jewish

people to go who had Syrian origin. I

think the Syrian

American

citizen American citizen group called

Syrian Emergency Task Force that was

doing humanitarian and such things. When

the government fell, they then contacted

an American Syrian Jewish group and

said, "How would you like to visit

Damascus?" They hadn't been to Damascus

in like 50 years because the previous

government, the Assad family government,

the Sopranos of the Middle East, they

booted all the Syrians out, killing

quite a few in the process. So this

family said, "We would love to go." And

they were this picture is from

midFebruary. They had not been there in

50 years. It was a conscious decision to

do that. Do you think Osama bin Laden

would have had Ayad Baghdadi? No way. He

would have murdered

him. So they're talking about doing

another trip and organizing money to

renovate the Jewish synagogue in

downtown Damascus. I I I you can hear

the surprise in my voice. Sha had has

has been very clear he doesn't want to

fight a war with the Israelis. He keeps

saying we need time to rebuild. We need

we need peace. Our country is devastated

by a 12-year civil war. We must have

peace. So the Israelis not only occupied

the demilitarized zone, Henry

Kissinger's demilitarized zone, they

went even beyond it. The green areas on

that map are the Israelis incursions

into Syria. Occupation, not incursions.

They're staying there. They've actually

gone in and seized additional Syrian

territory. All of this in December and

January. So when Shada

invites a Jewish group to come to

Damascus, they meet the deputy foreign

minister. They're treated well. They go

to the synagogues. They held a service.

At the same time, the Israelis are doing

this. Do you see how he's sending a

message, but the Israelis are responding

with a different message? And then, as

you said, the Israelis then have

said there's a minority Drews

community. They're Muslims, but of a

different denomination, if you will.

They live over in this area. The

Israelis have said, "We we will take it

upon ourselves to protect them." Now,

mind you, the Israelis never, I want to

emphasize this, never used their air

force to protect civilians when the

Assad government was bombing them

throughout Syria for 12 years. Not one

time did the Israeli Defense Forces ever

hit the Syrian air force bases or Syrian

munition camps. Never. in order to

protect civilians. They attacked Iranian

troop concentrations in Syria, but never

moved to protect civilians. So, this is

quite a policy change. And what are the

Israelis doing? They're very open about

it. Um, their finance minister,

Schmotrich, the day before yesterday

said, "We need to keep Syria weak and

divided." And so, that is that's the

Israeli policy. They want to keep it

weak and divided. So, this is my first

bit of advice for the Trump

administration. And I wrote this in a

foreign affairs

article about two months

ago. The Turks are big friends of the

Syrian government of Ahmed

Shada. There you can see the Turkish

president when he met Shada after Shara

captured Damascus and became the

president.

The

Turks are talking about setting up a

defense agreement with the new Syrian

government and even putting Turkish

fighter jets on bases inside Syria. And

the point of it is and then the Turks

are very open about it to defend Syrian

airspace. Now, who's violating Syrian

airspace? Well, the Americans are in the

east, but that's a different issue. But

it's mostly the Israelis as the event

yesterday had. It is not impossible that

Israel and Turkey are going to start

shooting at each other in Syria. It's a

It is a genuine

possibility. Zoom up 30,000 ft. Even

take Syria out of it. In the wake of the

Gaza war and what happened in Lebanon,

the weakening of Hezbollah, the

weakening of Hamas, the weakening of

Iran, Israeli military superiority in

the region now is greater than at any

time in the past. There is no country,

there is no combination of countries in

the Middle East that can threaten

Israel's existence now. It's finished.

They have they have complete military

superiority.

However, Turkey is an upand cominging

military power in the Middle East and

they won a big victory with their allies

taking Damascus and the Turks have

things like drones. If you followed the

Ukraine war, you know that the

Ukrainians use to very good effect

Turkish drones. The Turks make their own

fighter aircraft. The Turks make a large

variety of defense equipment and they're

selling it. And actually, they're doing

pretty well. And so if Henry Kissinger

was looking at this, he'd say, "We have

two military powers that have never

fought each other, but that are now

coming into contact in a place they

never came into contact before, Syria.

This is

dangerous." Do you see what I'm saying?

So were I Donald Trump, I think I would

ask Mr. Whitito when he's finished with

Ukraine and Iran. Easy jobs. Um maybe to

work on this to keep the Israelis and

the Syrians, I mean sorry, the Israelis

and the Turks from fighting each other

over the largely prostate body of Syria,

especially when the Israelis are taking

very provocative actions and the Turks

are responding to those provocative

actions by saying, "We're going to help

the Syrians." You can just kind of see

where this is going. And I don't think

the Israelis and the Turks in my

experience have almost no experience

talking to each other about Syria.

Almost none. I went to Syria in January.

Um I met Ahmed Shara uh the president.

Then when I saw him in the presidential

palace um I said never in a million

years did I expect to see you here. And

he kind of grinned and he said, "Well, I

like to keep surprising you, Mr.

Ambassador.

I he has a sense of humor. I don't

normally think of al-Qaeda as having a

sense of humor, but anyway. So,

um on that trip, I kind of walked around

Damascus a lot. Um we were there for

about 10 days. This is uh the second

half of January. And one of the things

that happened is in contrast to when

Assad was there, the Sopranos, um, and

people were terrified to talk to me

because they didn't want to have the

secret police go over and say, "What was

the American ambassador doing in your

shop? What was the ambassador doing

talking to you? What were you saying to

him?" And hauling them in for

questioning, usually with a beating in

the process. Now, people were like

coming up to me as I'm walking down the

street. I was really surprised. And

they'd say, "Aren't Aren't you the

American ambassador? weren't aren't you

Robert Ford. I was shocked. And I'm not

mean I don't mean like it happened three

times. I mean like every time I walked

around every five minutes someone would

come up to me. So this is a picture what

someone else took and I said, "Please

send me a copy." I was sitting in a cafe

having coffee and talking to the guy in

the green sweater who is the cafe owner.

His name is Raphael. He's a Syrian

Christian. And I was asking him, "Are

you nervous about the president?" You

know, and his al-Qaeda connections. So

he would say, "Yeah, we're nervous. So

far so good, but yeah, we're nervous."

These other two people perfectly. I

mean, they're just they came in. They

saw us talking. They sat down. They're

not secret police. They're just They

heard we're talking about politics. They

want to join in. The guy in the front

whips out his camera because he's going

to take a

selfie. So this never happened during

the Assad government. Never. Never.

Never. There's a freedom of expression

which is quite remarkable and Raphael in

the center the cafe owner was pretty

critical of Ahmed Shada the president

and and these guys are witnesses to it

and they the the one with the beard

closest to me he was not so critical.

The one with the scarf that was getting

ready to do the selfie his name was

Marcel also a Christian he was even

sharp more sharply critical than Raphael

was. So, in the old days, the secret

police would have picked them up and

jailed them, but they're not even

worried about it now. It's it's really a

change. I don't know, Roy, if it's going

to become a democracy, but it certainly

has freedom of speech, and this is now 3

months ago, but my Syrian friends who

are there, as well as journalists that

I'm talking just exchanged emails a

couple of uh hours ago with the Dutch

journalists there. Actually, it was over

signal, but I hope Peter Hez didn't see

it.

Um, and she was saying, "No, no, people

are still, it's like it was in January.

It hasn't changed." This is a map from

about a month ago, I guess a little

more, almost two months now. Um, who

controls what in Syria? I got to leave

the mic.

Um, we still have out

here about 1,400 American soldiers. How

many of you knew that? Oh, a few did.

Okay, good.

trick. I mean, here's here's the

question. When did they go? When did

they first go to Syria? Anybody know?

2000.

Yeah. The Obama administration. They

went in no, sorry, February 2015. They

have now been there for more than 10

years. What is their mission?

Well, they Obama sent them there to

fight ISIS because at the time ISIS

controlled all of

this. ISIS has pretty much beaten. In

2019, they lost their last territory.

Now they kind of operate in 3Z's and

four Zs and an occasional 5Z and they do

ambushes and they do an occasional car

bomb, but they don't they don't control

any territory. They don't have oil wells

like they used to that generated

hundreds of millions of dollars. They

don't have big stashes of cash all over

the place. They're sort of trying to

survive. You can read about this if

you're interested. Just Google on the

internet office of the inspector general

defense department operation inherent

resolve which is the name of the

military operation. And you can read the

assessments of the American military

itself which says al-Qaeda no longer

presents a threat to the United

States. But we're still there and we've

I mean this is now 10 years.

The oil cliff is um right over here and

over here and and we're not talking

about like Saudi Arabia oil or

Venezuela. It's there by Middle East

standards. This is small oil.

Ah, next

slide. I didn't plant cliff

there. So, I I think all of us as

American citizens when we send American

troops overseas on some military

mission, we need to ask these three

questions. I'm not going to read them,

but the last one I think is the most

important. This Syrian Democratic Forces

is a a a Syrian Kurdish militia among

others. It's called democratic because

that's what the American military told

them to call

themselves. I'm not kidding. You can

Google that too and look at it on

YouTube. A general admitted it. Okay, so

let's look at

this. This is a picture of them. This is

after they seized a city from ISIS. This

picture is from 2017. So this is eight

years ago. Anybody know who the guy in

yellow

is? His name is Ojelon. He is the head

of the Kurdish Workers Party. It's on

the American government terrorism list.

It's on the European Union's terrorism

list. And it's on, of course,

Turkeykey's terrorism list. and they

have committed numerous terrorist

attacks in Turkey including a bombing at

the Estambul airport and a bombing at

the Ministry of Interior in Ankura. Uh

that was three years ago and

just a year and a half ago they did

paragliders like Hamas over the border

from Syria and attacked a um military

technology institute in southern Turkey.

So here they are with the American help

because the Americans facilitated this

recapture of this city with a little

parade. Understand who we are working

with. We've been there 10 years. As I

said, ISIS, according to the American

military's own estimates, is not a

threat. I don't know when this is going

to end, but it is very clear that why we

are there now is to protect that

militia. And the militia has set up its

own government in northeastern Syria.

The whole area in the purple is

controlled by that Kurdish Workers Party

affiliate militia in Syria with American

air

cover. American air force flies multiple

missions a day over that area. The Turks

are furious because they say that is a

safe haven for people that come into

Turkey to attack. Every time there's an

attack, the Turks complain to Washington

and to the US military. The Turks would

really despise the American military for

enabling this. They're so angry at the

American military. Um, and the Americans

say, "We'll look into that." And nothing

changes. Really, I mean, I'm serious.

So, do I think this is the question we

all need to ask as Americans. Do we

owe the Syrian Democratic Forces an

indefinite military commitment and

indefinite

protection? Two things to think about.

Number one, they were great allies

against ISIS. I want to be very clear

about that. They were brave fighters.

They're very organized. They responded

extremely well to working with the

American military. That's why the

American military loves them so much.

Um, they really helped in the war on

ISIS. They took 11,000 casualties

fighting ISIS. 11,000 dead, not just

casualty. 11,000 dead. They sacrificed a

lot. This was all controlled by ISIS.

Now it's not. It's essentially

controlled by that militia with the

American military behind

them. Do we owe

them? Do we owe them? Because I hear

members of Congress say that a lot. We

owe them. I'm sorry. I'm a realist. We

owe nothing to foreigners. We owe only

to ourselves. However, there are often

times when we share interests. There are

often times when we share interests and

we should work with them. I don't care

if it's NATO or if it's South

Korea,

whatever. If we share an interest, then

obviously work with them. But right now,

ISIS is gone. ISIS was a problem for

that Kurdish militia. They were

attacking Kurdish cities and Kurdish

towns. They were killing Kurds. Of

course, they wanted American help. They

were right to want American help, and we

did help them. But now that's

essentially

finished. So, do we need to stay there?

Do we still share an interest? And do we

have a national interest in getting in

the middle of a war between Turkey with

a population of 90 million and one of

the G20 biggest economies in the world

and this particular militia. Do we

really want to be in the middle of

that? I I I'm you can read my foreign

affairs article and you'll see what I

think. The good news is

that former

al-Qaeda in January said to me, you

know, when we were in control of

northwest Syria when I first met you, he

said, that population was all Sunnis,

Sunni Arab Muslims, he said, and we

could kind of govern them in a certain

way and like we wouldn't let the

Christians, we gave them their homes.

back, but we wouldn't let their churches

ring church bells because that would

kind of annoy the the Muslims in the

neighborhoods. So, we told him not to do

it. He said, "But now we're in control

of Damascus and the whole country,

essentially the whole country. We can't

govern that way because we have to deal

with all these other groups, which we

didn't have to in north of Syria." He

said to me, "We will have to govern in a

totally different way corresponding to

the way Syria itself is multicultural

and multi-religious, multithnic." I said

like, "Wow, that is not what a Celopy

jihadi would say." I actually said to

him, "How come you didn't say that

before?" Like in 2022, 2023, the war

might have ended much earlier. And he

said, 'Well, it was it's hard to

convince the soldiers who think they're

fighting for something. He said, 'We

have to convince them. I remembered the

story about the piece of agricultural

land in 2023. We're having to convince.

So, here's an example. This is the

Kurdish commander. This is our guy. This

is our guy. Muslim

Abdi Shada signed a deal with him a

month ago which said, "We're not going

to fight each other. We're going to

merge eastern Syria, back into the rest

of Syria peacefully. We're going to

merge the militias back into the Syrian

army. The Kurdish militia is going to be

merged. Um they'll be paid. We're going

to merge the administrations in eastern

Syria with the rest of Syrian, and we're

going to do it peacefully. Now, of

course, the devil is in the details, but

so far so good. They've actually turned

over several Kurdish neighborhoods in

that second largest city of Aleppo I

mentioned. Um, and although the worst

and

hardest work is still well ahead of

them, I have to say so far so good on

this. Okay, next slide. So, even if we

owe the Syrian militia, I'm not sure we

still need our troops there.

Okay, last point is on sanctions. This

is just a list of the kinds of sanctions

we have on Syria. Um, and they they're

essentially designed to the

Syrian economy. Some of these are really

old. They go back to

1979. I was a I was a student at Johns

Hopkins in Homewood in 1979. So, and you

can see like 79 was essentially designed

no foreign aid, no military exports.

2004 they further limited trade and

investment and they gave specific

reasons 1979 sponsor of terrorism which

they were Syrian government was helping

Palestinian terror groups like um the

PFLP and the PFLPG and I mean yeah they

were absolutely they were sponsor

2004 the Congress passed this act this

was George W. Bush, the invasion of

Iraq, the Syrians are helping people

like Ahmed Shar sneak into Iraq to fight

the Americans. So the Congress responded

and Bush signed this law, George W. Bush

and they listed the reasons why they're

increasing sanctions, human rights

abuses, occupation of Lebanon,

corruption, WMD, weapons of mass

destruction because the the Sopranos

Assad government had a big chemical

weapons program and they had a they for

a time were building a nuclear reactor

as well with North Korean help. Um they

were giving aid to the jihadis in Iraq

as I mentioned and they were buying

Saddam's oil which was breaking a United

Nations sanctions regime. So they listed

all these justifications to further

limit trade and

investment. Next slide. And then there

were more sanctions when I was there. Um

especially in Washington. Um we

increased

sanctions. We targeted Syrian officials.

It was great to like put Mrs. Assad on

the list. Um, we targeted the central

banks so that they couldn't you they not

only could they not use dollars but you

couldn't they couldn't like get dollars

from somebody else and buy third country

stuff. That was not allowed. We we

essentially shut down their oil exports

and we just said not only is we limiting

trade but now we're just banning it. So

that was in 2011 because of the civil

war and the atrocities the Syrian

government was committing in civil war.

And then in 2019, there were still more

sanctions during the Trump

administration, which are called

secondary sanctions, where, for example,

if you're a Saudi investment company and

you want to invest in Syria, the US

Treasury could come in and say, "All of

your dollar accounts around the world

are frozen." That has a tendency to make

the Saudi investment company say, "Oh,

well, we're not that interested in Syria

after all." Um, so Ahmed, when I met him

in January, can you go back the other

way? He said, "We're not sponsoring

terrorism anymore. That's over. We're

not doing

that." And they just arrested a bunch of

Palestinian militants two weeks

ago.

So he said, "Human rights abuses. I

mean, ambassador, walk around, see what

you think." Well, I told you about the

freedom of speech, etc. There were

protests in Damascus while I was there.

The Syrian police watched, didn't

shoot. People are organizing civil

society groups. The government is just

letting them. So, occupation of Lebanon,

well, that ended in 2005, so that's

certainly not the case. Corruption,

well, I'm sure there's corruption in

Syria, but is that a reason to put

sanctions on a country? I mean there's

corruption everywhere including here in

the United States. So weapons of mass

destruction SHA has invited the United

Nations agency specializing in chemical

weapons to come to Syria and do

inspections of any site they choose and

anything they find will be turned over

to the United

Nations. Aid to jihadis in Iraq. Well,

the war is over and and he's not sending

aid to jihadis anyway and buying

Saddam's oil. Well, that's very old

history. He said, "Why are you still

keeping these sanctions? Like, the

reason they were put there is gone."

Next

slide. The civil war is over. Why are

you putting sanctions on us because of

the civil

war? He made a strong pitch for the

sanctions to be ended. And I noticed

their foreign minister was in New York

over the weekend and he said the same

thing. If you Google Syrian foreign

minister in New York, you'll see a

statement he made where he said, "We

want to have good relations with the

United States, but we must see these

sanctions

end. The destruction of the country."

This is a a town called Marat Nan. It

had a population before the war of about

100,000. I visited it. When we visited

at this time, former 100,000 people when

we were there, we didn't stay long. We

drove through the streets for about 10

minutes. We saw three people in 10

minutes in a city that had had 100,000.

I mean, there was not a building that

wasn't damaged. There are suburbs of

Damascus that are absolutely flattened.

They look like Gaza. So, they they need

access not to American foreign aid

because he knows he's not going to get

any. They just want the sanctions lifted

so that other companies are not afraid

to invest or give them aid. For example,

the Saudis or the Kuwaitis or the

Emiratis or the Gutaries under American

sanctions, those secondary sanctions I

mentioned from

2019, those countries could fall under

sanctions. And so they're hesitating.

Everybody's looking at Washington to

say, "What are you doing about the

sanctions?" And so far, I have to tell

you, the Trump administration is not

doing anything. you're just kind of

watching.

So, I think I'm going to stop there

because I've talked a long time. Yeah.

Much longer than I should have. So,

let's go to questions. Yeah. Major

supporters for the Assad regime were uh

Iran, Russia, and Lebanese Hezbollah,

right? Could you bring us up to date

with those three? Where where are they

now? Are they trying to horn in and play

a role or are they all shaken so badly

that that the Assad are gone? Do they do

they have a strategy? So the Iranians,

let me give you this. So the Iran and

sorry I'm I'm out of control, Roy. Um,

so the

Iranians, first I have to say Ahmed

Shada sees it as one of his life's

duties to defend

Sunni Muslims against the Iranian

Persian

Shia. He just views that as like one of

his like things that's one of his

missions in life. And so he really I

mean he may not like the Americans very

much, but he really hates the Iranians.

So he essentially booted them out,

closed the embassy and and ejected them.

The Iranians still have contacts because

they were big friends, as Roy mentioned,

of the Assad government, the Sopranos.

And in fact, they have sent weaponry and

money to some

anti-government groups up in the on the

on the Mediterranean coast, which was

one of the reasons for that fighting up

there. I am not going for an instant to

justify the murder of Alawi civilians at

the hands of some of the um former rebel

groups, Sunni rebel groups um which

Shada should have had under better

control. I sometimes think I wish he

would use the stick more than the

political carrot.

Um but for the most part, Iranian

influence is much much much less.

And the Israelis were constantly bombing

Iranian targets um over between 2000 I

got to get my dates right between 2015

and 2024. And they're really not bombing

any Iranian targets because there aren't

any. So um Hezbollah was decimated

during the war in Lebanon. Uh their

leader was killed and many fighters were

killed and many ammunition bump dumps

were killed were blown up. Um, the

Israelis have a terrific intelligence

service and they have remarkably

detailed information about not only the

Iranians but also Hisba and so Hisba is

very weak too. The

Russians, the Israelis are not bombing

the Russians in the Middle East.

However, the Russians are totally

preoccupied with Ukraine and had

actually brought down the number of

Russian soldiers and equipment fighter

planes stationed in Syria. That's one of

the reasons Shada's blitzkrieg in

December, he captured the whole country

in 11 days. Uh that's why it worked so

well. In fact, I asked Sh, I said, you

know, you had to be surprised that you

were here, that you're here. Never in a

million years I think you'd be here. You

must be surprised. And he said, I told

you in 2023 we were going to take

Damascus. I said, yeah, I heard you say

it. I said, but I didn't believe it. And

you have to be surprised that you're

here. And he said, 'I always thought

we'd get here.' And he kind of

sheepishly grinned, but I didn't think

we'd get here this fast. And and I said,

you know, why? And he said, 'Well, he

said, the regime was really corrupt.

Their soldiers didn't want to fight, and

the Russians and the Iranians were

greatly weakened. What about Assad? Um,

does Shar want to seek

uh, you know, war crimes, trial, bring

him back? I I And what is happening with

him in Russia? Yeah.

So, um the Syrian government did make a

formal request to the Russian uh

government to return uh Assad and the

Russians said no. And I think the

Russians I my guess is this is the

calculation in Moscow. Um we don't

particularly like Bashar Lassad. When I

was ambassador and John Kerry and I or

Hillary Clinton and I met the Russians,

they never said they liked Bashar

Lassad. they just kind of said, "Yeah,

he's dumb and brutish, but he's the best

thing there is for Syria." So, I mean,

it was not a rousing endorsement of of

their ally. Um, so I think they kind of

have him and they'd rather not, but

they're thinking if they turn him back

over to the Syrian government where for

sure they would hang him. uh then

they're going to lose credibility with

their allies in other parts of the world

like Libya or for example um there

aren't that many Russian allies left to

be honest. Um and in the Middle East

there are very few I think they would

like to build their credibility as

reliable and so I don't think they're

going to turn them over. I don't think.

And in the meantime, because the

Americans aren't lifting their the

sanctions, Shada is just desperate for

liquidity in the banking system and the

Russians had the contract to print

Syrian money. I should have brought

some. Um, so like a they've had terrible

inflation. And so the Russians print

money and Sha said, "Could you fly the

bank notes, the money notes into

Damascus because we need cash." And so

the Russians have made several big like

these great big military transports

flying in literally like crates of cash.

When I was in Damascus in January, um I

cashed $100 at a money changer. And I'm

not making this up. It was a stack of

bills about that thick. It like it

wouldn't fit easily in my pocket. It had

this huge bulge. It looked like I had a

pistol. So, um, the Russians are looking

for angles to get in good with the new

Syrian government, even though the

Russians were involved in bombing

hospitals and bombing bakeries and

bombing schools. And I mean, they

committed war crimes during the civil

war. And I don't think Sha has any love

for him. And I know his fighters don't

because I got to talk to some of them

while we were, you know, moving around

and they were my bodyguards. my

bodyguards, the terrorists, and

um and we would talk to them like, you

know, Muhammad, how did you get started

in all of this? He said, well, the

Russians bomb my family's house and we

were mad. And so he took up arms.

Um so the Russians, Marco Rubio in his

confirmation hearing in front of Senate

said, "We need to talk to the new

government because if we don't, the

Russians will use it to as an opening to

reestablish their influence." And he was

exactly right. Rubio was exactly right

in his Senate foreign relations uh

confirmation hearing, but they're not

doing anything. Who who is the larger

threat to Syria today? Is it Turkey or

is it Israel?

Well, the larger threat is neither. The

largest threat is all these uncontrolled

militias that Shada has only nominal

control over. Think about Libya. What

did what happened in Libya in 2012?

There's a long fight, long fight, bombs,

etc. Finally, Gaddafi is overthrown and

for a brief time there was a a single

Libyan government and then the militias

which were never brought under control

began to set up their own regional

governments where they were in power and

and then the civil war started up again.

And and it still hasn't been fully

resolved.

My worry about Syria, Robbie, is that

it'll it'll end up like Libya. And I

know Shah is thinking about that because

we talked about it a little bit, but he

said, you know, I have to move very

slowly and then just another poke at me.

You know, the the sanctions make it

harder because if we had jobs and we had

an economy that was growing and we were

rebuilding, it would be easier to take

the fighters and give them jobs where

they're not holding guns, but they're

rebuilding.

not he's not all wrong.

So beyond

that, I don't think Israel is going to

like run in and take Damascus because we

didn't want to take Damascus in 2012.

I'll be honest with you, we talked about

it in the White House and we all agreed

who wants to run Syria. We don't. And I

think I think the Israelis must be

having that conversation. So they too

are talking about, you know, a divided,

weak Syria, like militias in control of

different parts of the country. That's

their vision. I mean, it might be good

for Israel, especially after they're so

traumatized by what happened, the terror

attack, the murder of 1,200 Israelis

October 7th, 2023. I I think they've

lost a little bit of perspective.

Um, but they think a divided Syria, even

though it would likely help ISIS

rebuild, it would likely spurn the

creation of other terror groups, it will

certainly increase refugee flows again.

Um, it'll be a source of instability.

Yet again, I don't know why that's in

Israel's interest, but you know, after

October 7th, they have a different way

of looking at things. But who's the

larger problem? Is it Turkey or is it

Israel?

Frankly, I think it's normal for a

sovereign country that's coming out of a

civil war to get another country to help

it rebuild. And the Turks want to do

that. They know there's going to be

money involved once the Americans remove

the sanctions. So, I don't think

Turkeykey's like going to take over

Syria.

Um, it's easy for me to imagine that

while the Israelis won't try to govern

Damascus, the Israelis might try to like

help the Kurds declare independence in

the east and help the Drews declare

independence down here and maybe help

the Alawise up here just to keep the

country divided. Kind of a Libya model,

something like that.

Um the interesting thing is there Shada

had a lot of support when they got rid

of Assad. People were like finally you

know the the sopranos are gone and we

can speak and we can we have freedoms

personal freedoms civil freedoms and

they had hope that maybe finally

rebuilding would start. Now, if

rebuilding doesn't start, people's

expectations are up here. And if the

reality is down here, that gap is

dangerous. So far, I haven't seen any

other figure emerge yet in Syria that

would replace him. Um, and and his like

his fighters, the ones we met. Um, it

was pretty funny. They would like say,

"See, I've got this new meme on my

phone." and it was like Ahmed shot

profile or something like that. It was

very funny. So I mean I think within his

own group he has a lot of standing

still. They must be kind of wondering

like why is he showing pictures of his

wife? But I there isn't anybody there

clear to replace him. There is no

Ayatollahi in the wings waiting to take

over is how I would say it. Could he be

the victim of an assassination?

Absolutely. That's easy to imagine.

Um, who would replace him then? We go

back to the Libya scenario.

I sometime I sometimes wonder if the US

speaking to I sometimes wonder if the US

shouldn't be more interventionist.

I think about um 2008 2014 in Ukraine

um Egyptian Arab Spring uh when you were

in

Damascus um lots of examples when if

we'd stepped in and done something early

on we might not have Syria turn into a

Somalia. You have a sense how I how I

might think about that issue? Yeah.

I all I can say is I've spent um a long

long time in Iraq. Um and I and people

like me were really against the Iraq

war. Most of the Arabic speaking

diplomats in the State Department were

totally against the war, which is why

Donald Rumsfeld tried to keep us out of

it.

Um we can't fix these countries. We

cannot fix these countries. The the

solution to Syria is in Syria. It's not

even in Turkey and it's not in Israel.

It's not in Saudi Arabia. It's in Syria.

The what we can do that I think is

helpful is is encourage people to come

together and talk with each other, which

in many cases culturally they have never

done before. Um, when Shahada met Muslim

Abdi, that picture I showed of him

signing the deal with the Kurdish

general, there had been no conversations

between the government in Damascus and

the Syrian Kurdish community for 50

years. I mean, I'm not making that up.

The Assad government said they're not

even Syrians. They wouldn't even give

them passports.

So bringing people together and sort of

you know encouraging them to work

forward, training um activists in terms

of how to like organize, how to become

um financially viable, um how to

organize themselves. I think that's

useful, but you don't want them to be

dependent on the Americans forever,

which happened in Iraq. I mean, they

they never learned the skills you need

to organize. And, you know, we'd say,

"Well, I need to be paid." I say, "Well,

maybe you need to organize a group of

volunteers first." The mentality of,

"No, we need to pay people." We're like,

"Well, if you don't have money, you got

to have volunteers." We have to like

that's that kind of training we do. I

think it's great. Um Yale University

where I taught for eight years has a

program where they bring people for a

semester, activists from around the

world and they just they let them study

at Yale and they have a lot of

conversations with Americans about how

do civil society operate, how do

political parties operate, how do

newspapers operate, media companies,

social media, etc.

enabling people who can bring change in

their own countries as opposed to doing

it ourselves. You don't want someone

like me in the end really organizing an

election or a political that's I will

always make a hash of it. We can

facilitate things like removing

sanctions. Oh yeah. Yeah. Let them have

their to do. Absolutely. I mean I would

use the word cliff. I would use the word

enable. So we have one question from the

Zoom from our uh member Robert Ruby. He

has a message. He thanks you for uh the

useful analysis regarding Israel and

Turkeykey's past and current engagements

and their possible future clashes. Uh he

has a question though about Syria's

future. Um since the country has zero

experience with even highly imperfect

democracy, is it reasonable to expect to

expect HTS or any other rebel faction to

aim for and protect democratic

practices? Yeah.

So u Mr. Ruby, that's a fantastic

question. Uh I, by the way, HTS is the

name of um uh Ahmed Shada's armed group,

Rebel Faction. It stands, it's an Arabic

acronym

for Sham, the um organization to

liberate Syria. So, I don't think we can

expect Syria to turn into a democracy

next year or the year after. I I first

of all, they don't even have political

parties.

uh they have no experience organizing

political parties. They have no

experience doing a party agenda, doing a

party platform. They they have no

experience with that. They have no

experience of how a a party in Damascus

could

have party offices around the country.

The there was a bath party in Syria, but

it was never actually in control. the

military was always in control and it

was sort of a figurehead

um fig leaf not a figurehead a fig leaf

but it had no decisionmaking authority

and its members knew it. So basically it

was there for networking. I would

compare the bath party to sort of like

skull and bones at Yale. It was a kind

of a a society where they would all do

each other favors.

So going forward, that's why I don't

think they need to rush to elections.

The Americans rushed to elections in

Iraq and it turned out very badly. I do

think they can relatively quickly get

used to the idea of not jailing people

for free speech.

I do think they can get used to

relatively quickly um respecting the

right for peaceful protest. And they

were doing that in January when I was

there. There were two demonstrations

that I saw. One was civil service

employees complaining that they hadn't

gotten paid. Very fair thing to

demonstrate about. And the other was um

a group of civil society activists who

were afraid that the government was

going to clamp down on them. It hasn't

yet, but they were worried about it. And

so they organized a protest and again

the police laid back. That kind of

experience needs to continue. We need

when like there were two US congressmen

in Syria the week before last. I hope

they raise that and said you did good.

Keep it up. It'll help build relations

with the United States. It'll help that

sanctions issue sooner or later. when

the president of France, when the prime

minister of of uh Spain go, I hope they

encourage not elections, not political

parties, not democracy. They just say

protect those basic rights that are

enshrined in the United Nations Charter

of Universal Human Rights, the one that

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote after World War

II with help from an Indian lawyer and

some others. So if we could just get

that baseline about civil and political

liberties established over a period of

three, four years, which we never did in

Iraq and never did in Afghanistan. If we

could just get that and get an an a

level of rule of law and

accountability, then I think we could

have elections and maybe you could begin

to build something serious. But it would

take years. Given the need for

facilitation, conflict resolution, and

collaborative problem solving, have we

lost any of our soft power by the

dismantling of the United Institute of

Peace?

Uh, not only have I mean, have we lost

some of it, we've lost almost all of it.

And it's a conscious decision taken by

the administration just doesn't want to

get involved in this stuff. But it's

it's a it's a death blow really to

American soft power. I mean I I have to

be frank. So I I have some sympathy for

the Trump administration wanting to

reduce our commitments abroad. I I do.

But this I would have thought you would

use cheap soft power instead of

expensive military power. I mean just

the cost of soft power is so much less.

Um, I I taught at Yale and one of the

slides I used to put up in front of my

undergraduates was um the cost to

operate an F-16 per hour. Back then was

F-16s, not F-35s. And the cost to

operate an F-16, pilot, maintenance,

training, all of that, building the

airplane, the cost to operate per hour

is $60,000.

So for $60,000 you can fund a couple of

students to go to a state university to

learn the kinds of stuff I was talking

about. And you know when they do a

mission it's not a you know one hour

mission. It's you know a couple hours.

They fly out an hour or two and then

they come back an hour or two. So the

mission for one airplane usually is like

two

$250,000. Well that adds up real quick

in a month. So can I do I have time for

a story? Sure. Okay. So, when I was when

Candi sent me back to Iraq, I told her

this story,

um because I was I was annoyed that she

was sending me back to Iraq. And so, oh,

sorry, uh Condandy Rice, the Secretary

of State for George W. Bush.

So, right before I she called me back to

Washington to send me to Baghdad again,

um I had visited I was the American

ambassador in Algeria, North Africa. And

I had visited um a university um right

up on the Algerian Moroccan border. And

I had served in Algeria during the

Algerian civil war in the mid 1990s. And

it was a terrible civil war between a

ruthless, nasty army and a ruthless,

vicious Islamist insurgency. And

approximately 150,000 Algerians died in

this civil war. It's 30 years ago now,

but it was really bad. Um, and the

university that I went

to later when I came back as the

ambassador had been a hotbed of Islamist

insurgency. And the day of my visit and

we were going to visit um distance

learning programs in engineering and

nursing which we had set up with the

university in TMON at a total cost, I'm

not making this up, of $100,000. That's

in 2008.

And the day of the bombing uh or the day

of the visit, the Israelis bombed Gaza

really hard. This is in 2008. And El

Jazer and Elbia, the Arabic TV networks

were full of blood and gore on TV. And

I'm going to an Arab university that

morning. And I said to my assistant,

"Whatever we do, we go in real quiet." I

told the bodyguards, "You all are

staying here. We're taking one single

car with one single bodyguard. We're

going to tippytoe into the university.

We're going to see these two distance

learning because I had never heard of

this. I mean, at that time, it was me,

the dumb ambassador. I didn't I just

wanted to see it. And then we're going

to tippy toe back out. And she said,

"Yes, sir." So, we drive up to the

university and there's this like big

reception line. And I turned to my

sister. I said, "Damn it. This is

exactly what I didn't want." And we I

get out of the car and the mayor is

there and the governor and there's a

little girl with flowers and the whole

thing and and I said, "Oh, we're going

to all go to the distance learning

class." And he was like, "Oh, no, no,

we're going to the main

auditorium." I'm like, "Oh, no. We're

not going to the main auditorium. That's

the last thing I want to do." I had

images of like tomatoes and rocks and

protesting students.

Exactly. Shoes. I turned to my

assistant. I said, "Damn it. this is

exactly what I didn't want. And she's

like, I told her I'm sorry. So, we go

into this big room. I It would be like

four times the size of this room, full

of students, full of them. I mean, it

must have been hundreds and hundreds.

And I'm just waiting for the shoe to

drop. And they stood up and cheered. And

I'm

like, I literally my jaw dropped. And

remember, we're fighting in Iraq at this

time. We're like killing Iraqi

civilians, too. And they're cheering.

And I turned to the university professor

and I

said, "Why are they cheering? Like what

is this?" And he said, "Well, it's

because of your engineering and nursing

department." I said, I said, "Explain. I

I came to see them, but like what is

it?" And he said, "Mr. Ambassador," he

said, "we had 20 graduates from the

engineering program with your university

in Missouri." And I'm like, "Yeah,

yeah." And he said, "All 20 got jobs."

He said the nursing

graduates 20 of them from North Carolina

North Carolina. Yeah. He said they all

got jobs. He said remember Mr.

Ambassador youth unemployment in Algeria

is 70%. For people to get jobs like that

is unbelievable. He said but it's

because they they are able to say we

have an American education. He said,

"Now I have a long waiting list for

English students, people to study

English so they can get into these

programs." He said, "This is," he said,

"that's why they're cheering." I turned

to Amanda and I said, "This cost

$100,000." She said, "Yes." Yesterday,

she's like terrified. I said, "This is

the best goddamn thing I've ever seen in

the foreign service." So I told this

story to

Candi and I said we need another 100,000

for the principal university in

eastern Algeria near the Tunisian border

which was also a hot bed of Islamist

radicalism during the civil war. Condi

Rice looked at me and said oh Robert

that's such a nice story but we don't

have any money for that. I said, "Madam

Secretary, I am asking for

$100,000 is all we are spending." I knew

the number because I'd already been in

Iraq.

$750 million per day in

Iraq. I only want

$100,000 one time. She said, "Oh,

Robert, we just don't have the

money." How do you beat Islamic

radicalism?

Now, the good news is being a sneaky

ambassador, I did get the money. But

it's the mentality, the American

mentality. We fix the threat problem by

bombing. That I have to tell you

personally, I think is a losing

strategy. I think your stories are great

and I think your insights are great and

I think your overview is great. I think

that we've all learned something about

Syria and not just Syria. So, uh,

ambassador and and I think your images

of the skull and bones society and the

Sopranos, uh, who are no longer in power

in Syria are memorable. Uh, thank you

indeed. And we in the Baltimore Council

are really lucky to have had you

tonight. Thank you.

[Applause]

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