Good evening from a chilly Oxford and the Middle East centre, my name is Eugene Rogan and it's my great pleasure to welcome you all to the seventh in our webinar series addressing the dictatorship syndrome in the Middle East. Our subject tonight will be addressed by two of the best people you could hope to hear speak on the subject. We're very pleased to be welcoming Dr. Lina TEEB, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House.
Dina's joining us from Beirut tonight. And Jeremy Bowen, Middle East editor of the BBC, who will be speaking to us from Wales. Their subject, why Syria still matters, why Assad is still there. Lina, get us started on tonight's conversation. Thank you so much for having me. And thanks to well, I can see one hundred people so far on a Friday afternoon joining to hear about Syria. A few people have heard me say this over the last few years whenever there are events in Syria.
I'm off to speak up with very good turnout. I say thank you for remaining interested. A lot of people seem to think that Syria is just a conflict that is running in the background that doesn't deserve attention, what we're saying today is serious still matters. It is whether we like it or not, a shared responsibility for the West and for the regional powers, as well as, of course, all kinds of Syrian actors.
And if I were to say who I would regard as being my top priority when it comes to responsibility for Syria amongst all international actors, I am not going to pick Russia or Iran. I am actually going to pick the United States. So it's a pleasure to be hosted tonight. Shortly after the US election are announced. After a bit of a delay, just shed some light on what I've perceived when it comes to the Syrian conflict and U.S. foreign policy.
I think for me, as someone who has been working on Syria for over a decade, there was a missed opportunity during the Obama administration for the United States to play a seminal role in steering what was then a mere crisis, not a conflict. We're talking early days in 2011 when the Assad regime was starting to use violence against its own people.
There was an opportunity for the United States to try to exert diplomatic pressure to steer that crisis towards some sort of resolution of what we saw was different. We saw lots of good rhetoric on the part of President Barack Obama saying Assad must go. Later on saying the use of chemical weapons would be a red line for the Obama administration. But unfortunately, that was not coupled with action.
We know that the threat to use force were chemical weapons to be used, was not materialising any time soon. During Obama's term, and even under Trump's administration, similar threats only materialised and the launch of a handful of missiles that did not really do much to change the course of the conflict.
So while I go back to the days of the Obama administration to put primary diplomatic blame on the United States for not having the political will to try to steer the Syrian crisis toward some sort of settlement, I will also say the Trump administration did not really diverge greatly from that of the Obama administration when it comes to handling the Syrian conflict.
What we've seen in both administrations is a path of disengagement on part of the United States and towards the end of Trump's administration, meaning, you know, let's say the last two years or so, we have seen this engagement materialise in having Syria become a component of the United States Iran strategy, rather than having a distinct stand alone policy on Syria on part of the United States.
Whenever I spoke to policymakers in Washington about this, they mentioned the maximum pressure strategy on Iran as being one of the things that are done about Syria. Of course, that doesn't mean that it's all doom and gloom when it comes to U.S. behaviour regarding the Syrian conflict. One of the positives, in my view, under the Trump administration is the Caesar Act, which is the act about sanctions.
And these sanctions are not just about Syrian entities involved with the Assad regime, but anyone, Syrian or not, who is basically doing business with the Assad regime. And I think this is very important. And it's it's part of the reason why these sanctions, though, you know, the Assad regime tries to spin them as hurting the people of Syria. Ultimately, it is the Assad regime that is hurting the people of Syria.
The sanctions may have played a very, very small role, but the devastation was already there. And Assad is responsible for the financial crisis in Syria is not really because of sanctions. And even Assad himself admitted that not too long ago, around two weeks ago. So the Chesire act is a positive step, but this is their act. And sanctions anyway, do not end conflict. What you need is diplomatic engagement with Russia.
So although I say the United States could have been a change maker in the course of the crisis, unfortunately, us this engagement over the years paved the way for Russia to enter the Syrian domain and become the power broker in the spotlight. So 2015 onwards on the ground, Russia is the most influential foreign actor in Syria. And it did this because it saw an opportunity to assert itself, could be be the international community and visibly the United States in particular.
So today we are in a situation in which I look at the United Nations. And I see a peace process that is really not going anywhere, but that the United States and its allies are interested in keeping alive. And that is, of course, important, because even if the U.N. cannot steer the conflict towards a resolution, you still need the U.N. peace process for when there is international political will to steer the conflict into a resolution.
You need the U.N. so that there can be a mechanism for implementing whatever deal is broken. So that is important. And it's important that the United States is supportive of that when it comes to military intervention. Those days are long gone. I don't think there's going to be any appetite even under the new incoming Biden administration, which is widely seen as being perhaps more into interventionism than the Trump administration.
But we can see indications of this with the selection of the foreign policy team, mainly the incoming secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, who spoke in May about failure on part of the Obama administration to steer the Syrian conflict towards a resolution and failing basically that the Syrian people resulting in the refugee crisis and other things. But that doesn't mean that the incoming administration is going to be interested in military intervention.
Another thing that is important is that the incoming U.S. administration, mainly Biden, is not really enamoured with Russia. And this is a positive step because under President Trump, we've seen, let's say, not much of a strong stance regarding Russia's activities in Syria. And I don't think President Biden would take the same line.
So what I'm saying is, despite the criticisms, despite this engagement, there are things that could be built on what the new administration coming into power in January and the United States sanctions. Yes, they would not end the conflict, but they are hurting. They are hurting Iran, actually, because some of Iran's allies and proxies are obviously doing business with the Syrian regime here. I'm talking, for example, about Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Syrian business people and profiteers are also, you know, are used by the regime to circumvent sanctions. And the more than that, it's cost widely, the more people are killed. And which makes things a bit difficult for the regime financially, which can be used as leverage by the international community to try to push for a political transition. The U.N. process, despite all the difficulties, is not that it is still, you know, kind of there.
This is important. But I think the key question for me, if I were to be a Washington watcher regarding Syria is will the U.S. finally take that step to engage Russia in a bilateral discussion on Syria? Because unfortunately, the solution to the Syrian conflict is not on the ground in Syria. It is international. And why this matters, why resolving the conflict matters? It's because the refugee crisis around the world.
The rise of ISIS, the issues like terrorism, you know, that the West is concerned with are symptoms and outcomes of the conflict. And so I've seen a lot of resources being spent to tackle the refugee issue and terrorism. But unless you tackle the source of the problem, you're just going to put a Band-Aid on the situation. And that's not going to work long term. And we're only going to just repeat the same cycle of violence and grievances.
And so Syria does matter. And the failure on part of the international community has played a huge role in letting Assad stay in power. So this is just what I have to say for now. And I look forward to the rest of the conversation. Thank you. Leader, thank you so much. You got us off to a brilliant start. We clearly are in a moment of transition and change.
And I think everyone's first question when it comes to the new administration of the U.S. and their policies towards the Middle East is how they're going to respond to the newly assertive position of Russia. You've given us some vision that there could be a hopeful outcome to this. And I'd like to cling to any straw of hope that I could get. But before I leap on straws of hope. I'd like to invite Jeremy Bowen to give us his views and then we'll come back to discuss further.
Jeremy, over to you. Thanks. Usually I'm a journalist. I didn't do it. At least not easily masterly, Lena, of course. So I'm not going to try to repeat those great points, particularly those ones at the end, about why it still matters. So I could talk a little bit about my experiences in Syria since the war started.
I've been a pretty regular visitor, which hopefully I'll try and throw some light on the theme of a lot of this is dictatorship, the appeal, the continuing appeal of the dictator, despite everything. So let me start. Well, with a flashback, 2006, the the war in which Hezbollah in Lebanon fought the Israelis to a standstill. Now, if you think back to that time, those were those of you old enough to remember.
You'll know that. You'll remember that Nasrallah became the rock star of the whole region as a result of that Arab countries, but not too far behind because he had helped him out an awful lot. Was Bashar al Assad not long after I was in Lebanon for that war. But then not long afterwards, I was in the West Bank. I was in Ramallah. And there's a sketch artist in the main square in the middle of the town.
And his face, you know, his hit sketches the whole time, four years have been Arafat, of course, and NASA. They had a big new hit that year, which was Nasrallah, but not far behind was Bashar al-Assad. Assad was a man who had credibility. He seemed to be. He stood up against Israel. He was the the leader of a new generation people were talking about. The old guys were getting out. And while he hadn't quite delivered any of the reforms that he talked about a lot, he still he talked a good game.
And, yeah, they'd be coming along, but not just yet. You know, at that time, getting to Damascus was not difficult. You could from my point of view, I could get visas. I saw Assad a couple of times whenever I spoke to Assad. There always be some private time in advance. You'd sit in a room in a. room before the interview with the cameras. And so you sit without cameras, without his guys.
And the way he always came over, because, of course, his slightly, you know, geeky look belied the fact that he really believed, I think all was working very hard to believe that he was like his father, that he was sitting in the middle of the web. That he was he understood what was going on. And he kept saying, I am pragmatic. I will do what is best for Syria. I will do what is best for the Syrian people. Damascus was, of course, the police state. Was it as muscular as ever.
But people could have fairly decent lives. It was full of Iraqi refugees who were coming in from at the time was a horrendous situation over the border. And Assad was there and promising what was going on. So let's fast forward a little bit to the beginning of the uprisings, 2011.
Now, again, there was an assumption that that perhaps after those first incidents and those terrible first scenes in Daraa in the south, that Assad this will be the moment and there was a key speech as well that he was going to make. And lots of Syrians said to me, you know, he's been yeah, he's a flawed character, but he's the best we've got. And he's and this is his chance. But he didn't say he'd double down on troubled down on the the assaults on his own people.
And, you know, we know what happened after that. But it was a time that the say in Damascus, I'm one of the few journalists who is able to go to both sides, both the regime's side and the rebel side in Damascus, particularly in the early years when it was possible across the frontlines to go cross into Duma at the very beginning, 2012, you just drive down the road and leave behind the final regime checkpoint.
And then after about half a mile, there would be guys with the other flag, with the other Syrian flag and guns and big demos. And, you know, this was not far from the centre of Damascus. So that was there was a feeling, you know, we all had this assumption that he would get that extra push and he would go the way of his predecessors in Tunisia and in Egypt. But, you know, Gadhafi was fighting back at the time. And what was the acid test there?
What really changed it? NATO and some of the Gulf countries gave the rebels an air force and the rebels in Syria at that time, what things might have been different had they had an air force, but they didn't. And of course, I said senior had created a much stronger regime. I think as well, an anti coup regime, Alawi's and other minorities didn't like the alternatives that they were being presented with. And and I was trolled every time I put this on the BBC or on social media, on Twitter.
Assad had throughout genuine support from important groups in that country without which his regime, no matter how how cleverly allies from the home village had been put into positions of power or families that they knew. The fact is that without people who were prepared to fight for him, he wouldn't have survived. And this is before the big foreign interventions. I've spent quite a bit of time with the Syrian Arab army in various places.
I always felt that the narrative that they were collapsing when the Russians invaded was a bit overdone and later invited in. A bigger problem was rather overdone. They weren't big and they weren't very powerful, but they were prepared to fight and they retain their cohesion and they still have which after that many years of war, they were still a disciplined force. You go to their positions and they wouldn't be, you know, with armies.
These things matter. You know, they were well-run. They were clean. They weren't piles. They'd be burning their garbage. They weren't using the next room as a latrine. The way that many of the rebels I've been with over the years and different countries behave. They were behaving like an army. And that I think. And yeah, of course, it's well documented that plenty of people did not want to be conscripted and did a great deal to escape that.
But there were enough people who had to carry a gun for him. And I went to a few funerals in Alawi villages on the coast and it reminded me very, very much of the atmosphere in visit villages in Croatia and in Montenegro and Croatia, particularly actually during the Yugoslav wars, these people on the coast of the Mediterranean. Tight knit village communities, everybody turning out, everybody crying. And I felt the these and these were not educated people, genuine support for the dictator.
The guy who they were prepared to bleed for. Of course, later on. There was resentment that, you know, if you ever I don't vintage you ever looked at Instagram on the extraordinary photographs that running actually sun used to post from Dubai. My God, you know, his abs, the oil he put on them, his Ferrari's private jets girls. Yeah. I mean, you name it. And these guys were fighting and dying for his family.
Yet they continue to do it. And I think a lot of them felt it was a genuine fight for survival. And there was a guy called Moxa Lamani, who was a U.N. official who was part of their team, their senior. And one of his main jobs was to talk to a lot of the rebel groups from Damascus.
He was online the whole time with them. And I remember talking to him and he was he said he said on the record, I'm not spilling anything, that he used the word genocide to describe what he felt was the risk that those communities on the coast risked if the jihadi groups got to them. That's why they fought. They fought because they thought that they didn't fight. They'd die. Of course, things became you became a mini world war, didn't it? And we've got plenty of time to go into all of this.
But for these opening remarks, I just want to tell you what it was like at that big turning point. And I absolutely agree, Lina, with the fact that the the US had its chances and it chose the Obama administration chose not to take it. Of course, international diplomacy was deadlocked. The Security Council was deadlocked. That's why they're at that dialogue. If it ever happens between the US and Moscow is really, really important.
But after those chemical attacks and the red line comment was much talked about. Then I was. I found my husband to have a visa and I went to say I went to Damascus. And we were waiting to get bombed. And I had a call in our office in the. We get a room. Get rooms at the at the Four Seasons Hotel where the U.N. is based. Is good security there, principally in that period. I was always worried some would try and drove a truck into the front lobby.
So the fact that they had good security to stop that sort of thing happening was a definite plus. Anyway, the phone went and I thought it was a very senior member of the regime inviting me to the working palace that they had in the centre of the city for a talk. And I thought it's got to be that asset into we've been asking for so long. In fact, we dig out one that is two years later. And this person got me in and said. Really nervously said, Jeremy, are you following on TV for years?
You have been bombed by the Americans in various different cities. What's it like? What's it going to be like? And this person was really nervous. So I said, well, first of all, don't don't be in this building because this is one they might well destroy. And they were already they aren't stupid. They were emptying their bases of troops. They were expecting to be hammered. And this official, really senior very close to Asad was really nervous.
And after it didn't happen, the relief was incredible. They thought that they had that basically that Obama had blinked. They'd stared him out. And after that, I really felt that their attitude changed. No. And that, of course, you know, I'm going to shut up in a minute, but not to go through this sorry history of what happened ever since then. But it was a moment that could have happened.
And as a former U.S. defence secretary said to me, he said, look, I said I worked for a number of different presidents. And he said, and as the US president, I gave Obama this message. And I said, as as U.S. president, you carry a very big gun. And if you pull that gun out of your holster and you load the gun and you point the gun, you've got to be able to prepare to fire the gun.
He wasn't prepared to fire the gun, wouldn't have ended the war. But there were certainly groups who were not extremists in the jihadi sense in the suburbs of Damascus who were planning to follow up those attacks with their own attacks. And things would have been different. I not saying they even would have been better, but they would have been different if that had happened. What ifs. Well. Listen, that's that's my opening spiel done.
I think I think my time's running out for that. So let's open it up to two questions. Thank you very much. Jeremy. And I don't think you deserve to be trolled for stating the obvious, which is one of the reasons why Assad survived for so long, is because there was actually a broad base of support for the man.
But I'd like to interrogate that a little further, because looking at Syria from the perspective of 2020, it would seem that Syrians were either loyal or opposition out of fear either way, that if you were of a certain demographic, if you were from the Baath Party, if you are Alawi, if you are Christian, your biggest fear was that with the fall of the regime would come a kind of hypercharged jihadi insurgents army that would take the government and victimise you.
And so it wasn't necessarily that it was out of conviction for Bashar, his methods. It was out of fear of the opposition.
And of course, the opposition was in desperate fear of the horrendous treatment that the state meted out to those who opposed it, whether it was what went on in Daraa, what went on in jails, what went on with children like Hamza, you know, across the 10 years of this conflict or nearly 10 years of this conflict, a catalogue of horrors that agenda, tremendous fear in the hearts of everyone.
One of the themes running through the dictatorship syndrome analyst Rani's essay is this notion of a complicity between a society enabling its dictators. And I wonder whether Syria in that sense is the exception, that it's not society that is enabling so much of society, either fearful of the dictator or fearful of the opposition being absent, neutralised. I wonder if you would need to both reflect on that. Yeah, well, if I just pick up if you like the.
I absolutely agree. I couldn't agree more. The nexus of fear that is extraordinary. And there are people who people I would speak to regular in Damascus who'd say, look, I'm just going to try and ride this one out. Christians, for example, who'd say, of course, the thought of some of these guys coming into the city terrifies me. But I hate Bashar and I hate his regime. I wanted to go. But for the time being, we're just going to try and have to survive here and see what we can do.
And yes, on the other side, there was enormous fear of of what the regime was capable of doing. I was at the aftermath of some barrel bombs in the Damascus suburbs. The destruction was phenomenal. You know, buildings still on fire. Bodies. I mean, you name it. I saw all of that while I interviewed, I said on the subject an interview that was carried in its entirety. I was part of the deal on twenty three minutes on Syrian TV. I said, look, this is Homs. This is documented.
You know, this video of them landing. I've seen them myself. And he absolute denied it. Barrel bombs. He said we have bombs with bullets. We don't have barrel bombs. Nothing like that. So, yeah, I think that there was this idea. I suppose there are people there in the regime who benefited from the regime, who, of course, are complicit in its continuation and in the way that the the Assad clan have made Syria their family business for 50 years.
But why have so many Syrians try to get out of the country? Because they thought that whatever was waiting for them was not going to be as bad as what it was they were they were getting away from at home. Yeah, that nexus of fear is absolutely a driver of people's views, of the power of the state. And the barrier of fear did fall for a while, but they did a great deal to redirect it.
Lynn, I got to actually divert you to the sort of great power scenarios that you were dealing with of a new administration, putting America back. Set a stage into the discussion of Syria's future. And the question here really is imagine a Biden administration that has learnt the lessons of what Obama got wrong and that was willing to engage and was actually willing to engage with Russia, not in the kind of sycophantic way that Trump has done, but as a kind of hard player.
You're still dealing with a Syria in which there is no prospect of a post Bashar post Baathist government. How can even America under Biden, working with Russia, under Putin, try to move towards a meaningful resolution of the conflict under the status quo? Well, I mean, conflicts like this do not have one. Victor. The thing is, the Assad regime has been trying to present itself as the sole victor in the conflict. Of course, with Russia by its side and also maybe to a lesser degree, Iran.
But it's a situation in which the only way out is going to have to be a political transition based on compromise. And that compromise does not mean Assad himself staying in power. The compromise means, as Jeremy said, recognising that there are some elements in Syria that are supportive of this regime, whether out of conviction or coercion or fear. But they are that. And without them, I think the regime would have fallen. But they contributed.
They are not the primary factor. Why the regime is still in place. I think on the ground, the Russian military intervention is why the regime did not collapse militarily. But they are there. There is segment of the population and their voices need to be represented. So there's, you know, no denying that any future peace scenario has to include elements from the opposition, the broad spectrum of political opposition and these elements that are currently perhaps in power in Syria.
So what I'm saying is a deep ossification scenario, like the one we saw in Iraq, is not going to be the best path forward for Syria because we've seen what that does and other contexts. So you have this compromise? I personally think Russia would accept such a compromise because Russia ultimately cares more about its own influence in Syria, and that is not something that is really completely antagonistic to U.S. interests.
Believe it or not, I don't think the United States will mind Russia having a naval base in Syria. I don't think the United States minds, if Russia continues to have influence in Syria on the ground. And let's not forget that Russia had political influence in Syria even before the conflict. But it just used the conflict to increase its own profile. I mean, relations between the Assad regime. On the opposite side of the Shah's father and the Soviet Union back in the day, go way back.
And this relationship does not stop when Bashar al-Assad took over. And it continues. So you can't reverse that. Just like with Iran, you can't just say, let's kick the Iranians out of Syria. That's impossible. The influence is grassroots and long. So this is what I imagine happening, a compromise solution. I think as long as Russia feels it has maintained its influence, it would be acceptable to it.
But the issue right now is there's nothing that incentivises Russia or the Assad regime, for that matter, to compromise. Why would they when they feel that things are kind of going relatively well? Of course, they financial situation now. And Syria is getting to, as I said, put some pressure which can be used as leverage. But that alone is not going to be the leverage you need to use it as leverage, meaning the international community, mainly the US needs to instrumentalise this leverage.
You can't just get out of economic pressure and let things run their course. That's not how it works. So let's see if the new administration is going to use these available tools.
They all that, but they have not been used strategic. The thing is, it's very hard to see what's going to be in it for the Americans if they use their diplomatic capital to try and broker a resolution to a country like Syria where they don't actually have any interests in order to enhance Russia at Iran's position in a country where they do. It may actually be just a formula that has the Biden administration say, we'd rather not go there.
Well, to be honest, the fines show that the Middle East in general is rather low on the list of priorities for the U.S. administration and even for us and the UK. I mean, if you look at the letter that Dominic Raab just and the Sharia champion doesn't even really mention the Middle East.
And so I think, unfortunately for people like myself who want the Middle East to be central, you know, to foreign policy agendas all over the world, we are seeing China becoming more of a pressing issue, for example. However, that doesn't mean that the Middle East is going to be completely ignored. And that's because these outside players are there in the region. I'm just saying we have to be also a bit modest in terms of our expectations.
There's potential. They can do it whether they will do it. It's a whole other story. I can add something to that, if you like. You know, the only power that can remove Assad are the Russians. They have an intimate relationship with the Syrian military, as Lina said, going back generations.
If you go into, as I've done quite a lot of times, into the offices of generals in the Ministry of Defence in Damascus, you see military textbooks in Russian momentos of the time that they spent training as young lads in terms of the skies and on the either side, a 60 or in senior positions in the days of the Soviet Union. And more recently, you see the badges of the unit.
Senior military people love to give each other souvenirs, batches of Russian units and a ceremonial vodka bottles probably as well in the desk drawer. And so what I'm saying is the Russians know intimately who's who in the Syrian military. So here's a scenario. If they decided that things were unravelling in a way that didn't help them in Syria, maybe some kind of a continuing resurgence or reconstitution of ISIS, that continuing trouble in the south.
They might say, well, maybe we need another guy at the top and they're capable of doing it. And if that person then appealed to those constituencies that support the Assad clan, the Assad regime, then you never know it's possible. But there's another scenario, which is that all of those things become a running sore for the Russians and for Iran, that Syria is not an asset for them, that it becomes complicated and difficult.
And it could well be that the Americans who got their hands full, as we know, in loads of places, and not least in the Middle East, you know, we've seen Iran taking another little ratchet up today. They may say, well, let them stew for a while, then we'll see what happens. We're reaching the point now where I'm going to have to yield the floor because I can see the questions piling.
We promised our audience that we're going to give them a good twenty five minutes of the session where they get to put the questions to you. So I have a lot of rejoinders to come back on, but out of great self-control, I hand over to my colleague Osama Lousily, who will now be sharing the questions from the question board. Osama, over to you. Thank you, Eugene. And thank you both, Lena and Jeremy for really an eye opening reflections from people who are very deeply involved,
in some cases actually calling in from the region. There are going to be lots of questions there. Over over 120 people in attendance. I apologise to a number of you in advance because you're bringing in lots, lots of interesting questions, and I'm pretty sure when I'm going to get to all of them. But let me begin with two questions, which are, in a sense a counterpoint to one another. This is a very polarising topic, as we can imagine. So these come from two kind of polar opposites.
One is from Damon Loveless, who I understand is a commander in the US Navy and a fellow at Antony's college. He asks, Why do regional partners take more responsibility to resolve the conflict that is having impacts on their countries, refugees, trade issues, terrorism, spill-over, etc.? As a counterpoint to that. I have Yassmin mother saying the dictatorship didn't come to come to power in the Middle East in a vacuum. There is a history of colonialism, arbitrary borders.
The idea of the U.S. military intervention could solve problems created by foreign intervention is a novel idea. Question what do speakers think of Unan Capones views? Who uses a materialist approach to the development of the Arab Spring and the Syrian uprising focussing on change and changing class dynamics in Middle Eastern society? So two very different perspectives, I think. And I'd leave it to either of you to begin. Really? Or perhaps I should nominate you again.
Don't worry. Yes. Thank you. Here we are. OK. Why don't regional partners take more responsibility to resolve the conflict? Well, who are we talking about when we say regional partners? I mean, if we're thinking about who has been affected, according to the question, in terms of refugees, trade issues, et cetera, we're talking Jordan, Lebanon, really these two plus Turkey? Well, Turkey is one of the active actors in the conflict itself.
It approaches the Syrian conflict from my perspective, from the prism of the Kurdish question. This is its primary motivation. And therefore, resolving the conflict actually is not necessarily in Turkey's interest because it's not yet done.
Its business would be with the Kurdish issue. It is still very concerned that the Kurds are being given privileges by the international community because of the involvement of Kurdish militias in the fight against ISIS, for example, alongside the International and Chadash coalition. Turkey is concerned that the Kurds might have an autonomous region near its border, which is Turkey's southern border, obviously on Syria.
So Turkey is not going out on its own trying to resolve the conflict when it comes to Jordan. Jordan really is a country that bases its foreign policy on trying to stave off instability rather than being proactive. It has its national stability as a key priority. But at the same time, it knows that it cannot step on the toes of, say, Saudi Arabia to try to play a more active, proactive, interventionist role in Middle East conflicts.
And therefore, it's not likely to, you know, take any proactive measures on its own when it comes to Qatar and Saudi Arabia. They were two countries that for a long time tried to steer the conflict towards a path that would support their own interests and failed both of them because Assad is still there. They felt they could topple him by supporting all kinds of armed groups and also by supporting the political opposition in Syria.
Sadly, neither of these tracks worked for them. And so, you know, there's not much they can do. And so when it comes to, you know, these regional partners, we have to remember at the end of the day, all these actors got involved in Syria, not because they care so much about the well-being of the Syrian people, but because they saw in the Syrian situation an opportunity to increase their own regional influence or to support their own national interests and agendas.
And in a way, the refugees and terrorism, et cetera, are things, you know, they have been dealing with, but they're not enough for them to completely change the track. Plus, even if they did try, it is not an.
Hands to steer this conflict to a resolution. And then as an example here, we have to think that Saudi Arabia and Iran 2015 was trying to set up something called the yard conference to bring together elements of the political opposition in Syria that at the time had been in disagreement with one another. It tried to have a unified platform. And as soon as it announced around spring time that it was going to do that.
Russia intervenes militarily in Syria in September 2015 and completely derailed Saudi Arabia's plans. So they don't have the leverage, they don't have the ability. And as I said, ultimately they care about their national interests. I'll chip in on the other side of the question. And if you're right, I absolutely agree that the Western interventions in the region over well more than a century have been absolutely destructive.
There is a long, long charge sheet in terms of what Western countries have done, you know, starting with our own Britain and then moving on. But in a sense, where we are, where we are and in terms of the idea that American intervention could help deal with a mess that overall in the region, American intervention has helped to create. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense when you put it that way.
But. The kinds of things that in those early years of the war in Syria, that rebel fighters who weren't jihadists, who weren't jihadi groups, who would probably be beheaded and would say things like, look. We are not international. We don't want an international jihad. What we want is a country that looks a bit like Turkey is the kinds of things I would say spend a lot of time talking to these guys. And what they would say was, we just like America. Give us some weapons, please.
And of course, in 2011, there was a precedent, which was Libya, and they saw what had happened in Libya and Libya, of course, at that point had not descended deep into the pit that it's in. There was still some hope there. And there was a feeling that, you know, with a push, maybe these guys might go on. The other part of the question to the point that was made about the Arab uprisings 2011. I am not familiar with the go polls work, so I can't comment directly on that.
But I did spend an awful lot of time talking to people and writing about it and actually being there in 2011. And subsequently, I was every day of the occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo. I was spent months in Libya on the regime side, actually, but also talking to people who don't like the regime, of course, which they were legions, Bahrain and Tunisia.
And I felt that one of the strongest motivations for what was going on, the strongest drive, I should say, was the demographic one, which is a lot of young people. Very high proportion of the population is under the age of 30 who saw a system which might have been able to give their fathers or grandfathers something but couldn't give them anything and everything they wanted and was enriching systems that were enriching themselves,
that were repressive. And they wanted something different because they felt that at a time when the national Kate was shrinking, more and more of it was being taken by corrupt oligarchic structures and their slice was going and they could see their eyes have been opened to the outside world. You know, for reasons we well know, the world has changed. Digital communications, social media was starting, though I think TV was more influential than the likes of Facebook.
I think they wanted better lives. And I think that what is interesting of the protests that we've seen in the last couple of years is that those factors are still very much there. But it's a little bit of a new generation, of course, because those people have been on the streets in Baghdad, Beirut, where kids in 2011, hard to believe, are true. Thank you. I mean, there are so many sort of questions, a lot of them very, very thoughtful and coming from eminent scholars in some cases.
And I'm going to ask you to forgive me for asking you to consider even 10. So the next question, I'm going to give a question to Lina and then I'll give a question to. Because he's right. He explicitly addressed to you, sir. So Diana Gilliver asks and she's a Russian sort of academic based.
Its intentness here. She has a two part question. So I'm going to ask the second part of question, because I think this is something which is a Russian perspective, which is not always seen in your presentation. You explained why Syria is important because the terrorism threat faced by the West as one of those sort of concerns. What about the threat of radicalism in Russia?
So this is, you know, a perspective we don't hear very often, given that Russian Muslim still giant radicals in Syria and so on. And I'm just going to take this opportunity also to ask Jeremy a question which is directed at you. How much Obama not taking action in Syria was or how much of Obama not taking action in Syria was a post Iraq war syndrome a situation rather than any careful calculation?
And what would have been, you know, the destruction and devastation if he had acted in your estimation? So, Lena, if you can go first, please. On the Russia question, yes, sure. I mean, there's no denying that there are Russian fighters joining jihadist groups in Syria, like many other fighters who have come from all over the world to do the same thing. However, we have to also qualify.
This is not the case that Russia intervened in Syria because it wants to protect itself from these jihadists at home. If anything, let them go to Syria and die. If is the way I see the Russian government dealing with the situation, they are allowing them to go and fight in Syria. And so here we have further instruments of ization of the Syrian conflict as a way for Russia to deal with this domestic radicalisation issue. However, not on Russian land. Thank you for that very brief.
And Jeremy. Right. I'll do I'll be brief as well. Yes. The Iraq hangover was a very, very marked reason for their reluctance to get involved, not just in the White House, but in the U.S. Congress. And, of course, don't forget, there was a crucial vote in the House of Commons. It's ironic that on the eve of the 2003 invasion, the Americans said to Blair, you know, it it's tough stuff is tough for you. We don't need you can go. We go without you. But when Britain wasn't there cheering them on.
Suddenly Obama was starting to feel lonely, knowing that he, too, had agreed to a political process in the in the US Congress about that. So, you know, and his heart wasn't in it. And of course, why was it politically unpopular? Because of the legacy. People said, well, look, Iraq is just next door. We don't get involved in that kind of thing. Again, in terms of the destructive power of the Americans is remarkable. They can break a lot of things if they want to.
And even their idea of the time it was talked about some kind of fairly lightweight series of operations. But I don't think those really do lightweight. Their idea of lightweight is most people a day of heavy weight. And had they chosen to really punish and damage the military infrastructure of of Asad, they could have done it in a couple of nights.
Thank you again, Jeremy, for sort of being very concise. And I'm going to switch gears and ask a question which has come a. In about Libya's connexion to this, either of you are welcome to sort of take this. How has the NATO intervention in Libya impacted the action taken by the U.S. and Turkey and Syria? Is this directly related to the principle of R to P.? I'm not actually familiar with the terminology.
Well, I'll take it RTP, its responsibility to protect, which is basically to authorise military intervention for the sake of protecting civilians. Ultimately, if you don't intervene, things would be worse. And this is a big moral dilemma and a policy dilemma because it comes with great costs. And the Libyan intervention is a factor that did play out in the U.S. decision to intervene because the Libyan intervention was authorised internationally. It was not like the Iraq invasion of 2003.
It was there. The problem with it, though, is that, yes, it got rid of Gadhafi. However, it was not coupled with a comprehensive stabilisation strategy for Libya. So it ended up closing. In my view, devastation in Libya, which, of course, local Libyan factors played a role. And however, this led to what I see as an erroneous framework through which many policymakers in the West view Middle East conflicts. In general, they say it's the Middle East. Damned if you do.
Damned if you don't. It's a quagmire. And look at Iraq. Look at Libya. Look what military intervention does. It does not work. And they use it as if to say or imply that Libya and Syria and Iraq are all basically the same. And I always try to remind these policymakers that there are very different circumstances in each of these scenarios. And you can't use just because it happens to be the Middle East.
You can't use one country to make an assumption about how things will play out in another country. And you can't say, see, military intervention doesn't work when you have not planned any strategy beyond just military action. And this is something that I keep reminding people about when it comes to ISIS right now, that, yes, ISIS is militarily largely defeated. But you have not addressed the full picture, the economic and political and social drivers that lead people to embrace such a thing.
So we're not done yet with a phenomenon like ISIS because we have not yet addressed the big picture comprehensively and strategically. So this is the key issue when it comes to military intervention. It is never enough on its own. And sadly, in the context of the Middle East, it has largely failed because it has never been part of a wider comprehensive strategy for stabilisation.
Thank you. I mean, I suspect this is quite a challenging conversation to have because there's so much bipartisan theatre left and right, almost agreement on the in a sense, quasar Orientalist decentralising of the entire Middle East is following this quagmire theory, so to speak. And I think there needs to be a lot of Soul-Searching, in a sense, in policymaking circles about these sorts of questions as well.
I'm going to ask a question specifically directed at Jeremy, actually, from someone by the name of Milans sets me as far as I can. I hope I pronounce it correctly. So do you think that, again, we're coming back to Russia? Do you think that Russia has not got enough control over Iran to be able to remove Assad even if it chooses to?
This is at least the perception of many Russian experts, and Russia's interventions have been driven in part from ideological factors and the will to showcase its reliability as an ally. So taking into these into account, how does the US engage with Russia on Syria?
Well, let me just say on one thing on that on the to the Libya hangover, one thing the Russians are really irked about was the fact that they felt that the Security Council rubber stamp they gave the consent on the Security Council to action in Libya was over, interpreted and taken too far by Western countries. There's real anger about that. And they were well, I was in Tripoli.
They had various diplomatic missions of their own, quite impressive people on them, trying to ply their amphora unsuccessfully in terms of the eye. It's so difficult to know just where subtle things like relations or the deep level between Russia and Iran are that I can only speculate about all of that. I certainly think it would be very hard to do things like that without the consent of of Iran.
But I think those two countries are quite capable, even though they don't see eye to eye on loads of things. Russia and Iran are capable clearly of working together because they do de facto in Syria. So, no, I doubt that if the Russians wanted to remove Assad, I don't see why they would want to at the moment. But if they wanted to do, they would probably have to make a case to the Iranians. And I'm strongly of the belief that I'm quite a realist on these things and my particular beliefs.
And I do think that those countries will be pushing to uphold their own. And if Iran felt it was in their own interests, I. They are in love with the Assads in the same way that the Russians, are they useful? Thank you very much. A little conscious of the time and we are sort of coming to the end. And more questions as tends to happen in these cases with each of your responses, your eliciting further questions.
I'm going to read a question from an anonymous attendee. Perhaps, Lena, you could start with this. Why are questions of Syrian state of state formation, sorry, and institution building not being asked in Syria? And instead, we only focus on how to resolve the conflict internationally. What is the form of political institutions that we can create in case a compromise happens?
Given the political, ethnic, religious polarisation of Syria of the Syrian people because of the conflict and primarily because of the Assad regime? Such a good question. I have to say. Unfortunately, look at Iraq. The question of state building is only just beginning. Even, you know what, a decade and a half or more since the invasion and the regime change.
Unfortunately, state building, which, as you know, the question said is very crucial, is a long term thing that requires policymakers to think beyond six months, one year, even five years. And unfortunately, in general, policy internationally is never really based on long term planning like that.
And so this is one of the huge shortcomings. I think when it comes to Western policymaking in particular, that these are questions that are really crucial, are just overlooked because they just take too long. And in general policy, it seems to be tied to the term in which someone is serving or the objectives of a particular project that is being funded by X Development Department or whatever where in the world. So, yes, it is absolutely the elephant in the room. Thank you.
I mean, I unfortunately, I think we have come to an end. I I guess, Jeremy, if you wanted to comment a little on this from a realist perspective, as you were saying, you can feel free to kind of have the last word before handing over to you. If that's right. I'm very reluctant. I shouldn't use words like that in front of people who deal with the currency of these things in academia every day.
My son is in the process of applying for university, so. For history. So I've been talking about things like that with him. I think it's very contaminated, my brain waves. Listen, I just thank you very much for these brilliant questions and for inviting me on llena. Fantastic contributions. One thing I yeah. One thing I would end with, actually, sometimes I do hear regarding, you know, the villainous mainstream media and their baleful role in the region that the.
Why have they forgotten about Syria? Why don't they do more about Syria? Do they realise that? I would love to do more about Syria. But guess what? They won't let us in. On the regime side, we used to able to get visas and now they won't give us visas. Partly things we've done, partly things that they they feel later that we'd just be too much of a pain, I think. And on the those other areas, you know, in the north, it's much, much harder now with Turkey moving around the area.
Regime troops moving around the area. There were people who regularly went across and there have been people. Are there ways of getting into it? But it's really quite difficult. And, you know, negotiations with East. Yes. Not easy. So, you know, believe you me, we would like to do more. I would do stuff the whole time. But we we can't and this is one of the awful things at the moment about actually trying to cover the region.
There are loads of countries where we just physically can't get in. And that's a problem. And it's not because we don't want to. Well, I think on that note, in the hope that you will be able to get back in, you and the diplomats and the academics and the aid agencies and most of all the Syrian people themselves will be able to get back in. I'd like to thank our speakers Jeremy Bowen and Lina TEEB for truly an enlightened discussion tonight.
It's been such a pleasure to be with you. I'd like to thank all Simon Azami for it is very deft handling of tonight's questions. I'd like to thank Stacey Churcher for managing all the technology for us. And I'd like to invite all of you to come back next week when we welcome Edgett General Kunlun, who will finish our survey of the dictatorship syndrome with the logic of chaos, the pattern of dictatorships. Join us next week here from Oxford. Good night.