The last time we spoke was in May 2011, before these peaceful demonstrations in Syria turned into a fierce civil war. you described a beautiful country, much of which has now been destroyed. almost half a million people have died and more than six million have fled syria as refugees. nearly as many have become internally displaced. at the time, I was naively optimistic; You seemed to know it was going to end badly. For people who haven’t read your latest book yet, can you explain how we got to where we are now?
The image is quite simple. everyone who had any knowledge of syria should have known in advance that trying to topple the regime would lead to a bloodbath. I predicted that in the 1996 edition of my first book on Syria, The Syrian Power Struggle. But opponents of the regime were very optimistic, or rather too optimistic, in part because of the so-called Arab Spring, which resulted in the voluntary resignation of President Mubarak of Egypt and President Ben Ali of Tunisia. On top of that, there was the attack on Libya, where the regime was overthrown thanks to foreign intervention. but the power structure of the syrian regime is quite different from that of egypt or tunisia, and the syrian opposition was apparently still unaware of the coming disaster.
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Syrians who opposed the regime thought that they would also receive help from abroad. In July 2011, that first year, the US and French ambassadors visited Hama to watch the demonstrations. their presence was interpreted as support, because normally, under such a dictatorship, one does not speak publicly with the opposition. then gradually the peaceful demonstrations—well, not everyone was peaceful—were overshadowed by radical Islamist movements. they saw the so-called Arab Spring developments in the region as an excellent opportunity to present themselves as viable alternatives in their efforts to spread the rule of Islam.
Several countries then began to intervene. First, they tried to mediate, but then they began to intervene indirectly by providing billions of dollars in arms shipments and other aid. turkey opened its borders to let weapons from the north through.
every country that supported the opposition militarily had their own favourites. however, they did not coordinate effectively to oppose the regime. which prevented the opposition from becoming stronger. they have been defeated now, to a large extent, but even after seven years they are not quite united.
“Little by little, what started peacefully became very bloody, as expected”
The main point is that the opposition did not get enough support from abroad to topple the regime. and then, when the opposition was able to put the regime in real danger in 2015, the Russians stepped in to prevent the regime’s overthrow. the Iranians were already there. what was a civil war for a short period turned into a proxy war. Little by little, what started peacefully turned very bloody, as expected.
so, in fact, what happened is that opposition support, from (mainly) the us, turkey, saudi arabia and qatar, led to a prolongation of the war. the opposition couldn’t win, but these countries kept sending them weapons.
One of the key issues was that from the very beginning, US secretary of state hillary clinton said that president bashar al-assad had to go. Western countries kept saying this because they were convinced that it was right for him to go. they supposedly based his policy on moral principles. but being on the right side of justice doesn’t mean you can achieve what you want. They said that Assad had to go, but they were not prepared to provide the necessary means to help him do so. they didn’t tailor their goals to their limited means, but they nonetheless kept saying they wanted assad gone.
it is a detail, but not unimportant, that in June 2012 there was the so-called geneva declaration that was agreed by all parties, including the Russians. the key point in that statement was that there should be a transitional governing body with full executive powers, in which people from the Syrian government and opposition and other parties could participate. he didn’t say anything about the president, but hillary clinton said immediately afterward that the president couldn’t be a part of syria’s future. and most countries rejected any type of dialogue with the regime, except through the united nations. meanwhile, the opposition claimed that they wanted a political solution, but that the regime had to go. if it is negotiated with a stronger party, it will not be achieved. if you say, ‘I want to negotiate with you but at the end of our negotiations you will have to leave and we will bring you to justice (in other words, you will be executed)’, it will not work. that is something very elementary. It will only work if you can defeat the regime militarily, but this turned out to be impossible.
also, during the demonstrations, there were many people who shouted that the regime should be overthrown and the president executed. these are goals for which I don’t think he is allowed to protest in most western countries. you are asking “peacefully” for something very unpeaceful. it doesn’t work anyway.
It would have been better to stick strictly to the gin declaration formula. that is not to say that the regime, in that case, would have negotiated, but it was not seriously attempted due to additional demands or preconditions that were (predictably) rejected by the regime that was in a stronger position. both sides apparently ruled out a compromise, including a real power-sharing.
Now you have a situation where the regime will simply try to take back all the Syrian territories. but it is complicated because in the northwestern province of idlib there are still many armed groups. some are related to al qaeda. others belong to the Free Syrian Army. however, others are remnants of opposition military groups that have been defeated in other parts of the country and later deported to idlib province. they are not going to surrender voluntarily because they have no prospects. and the regime is not going to negotiate with opposition parties that, in its opinion, are about to be defeated or have already been defeated in other parts of the country.
turkey is occupying parts of the north. turkey has also supported some of the military groups in idlib in the northwest. but one of the results of the foreign military intervention is that the strongest syrian kurdish party, the pyd, has been able to gain control of much of the north. they were very instrumental in defeating the Islamic state. As a result, they are friends of the United States. but since these syrian kurds are also friends of the pkk, the strongest kurdish party in turkey, the turks don’t want them there. if they achieve some kind of autonomy within syria, which is their goal, it would affect the kurds in turkey. Even if they don’t get autonomy, which they most likely won’t, it has already affected the situation of the Kurds in Turkey and other parts of the region.
none of the countries that have interfered in syria has gotten anything positive out of it. they have only received something negative in return. This foreign military interference has resulted in more terrorism and the presence of the Islamic State in Syria, thanks also to the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It has caused a large number of refugees and great instability.
“Being on the right side of justice doesn’t mean you can get what you want.”
so my original point of view, and not much has changed, is that it is better to do nothing than to do the wrong thing. if nothing had been done, the regime would probably have been able to suppress the opposition much sooner. there would have been perhaps 30,000 dead. now there are 500,000 dead, with al-asad still in power, and the country in ruins.
opposition groups should have thought about it more than once before starting their revolution. but this is easier said than done. things don’t work that way because the revolution was largely spontaneous, it happened thanks to the Arab spring and social factors like poverty, drought and also severe repression. but as i put it in the arabic edition (2018) of my new book on syria, if you want to defeat and kill a lion (assad means ‘lion’ in arabic), you must be well prepared beforehand to be stronger and better armed . match, to avoid being defeated and committing suicide.
all this does not mean that even if assad wins the war, and goes there, there will be peace. after so many dead, so many people who have fled, after so much destruction, the situation is now much, much worse than it was at the start of the syrian revolution in march 2011. they have to rebuild the country. Even if they have enough money to do it, they don’t have the number of people to do the work, the technicians, the builders. many people forget that.
socially it has been destroyed or damaged so much that most of the people inside syria will probably put up with the situation for now and not do anything against the regime, because the situation is already bad enough. perhaps they will wait for another opportunity to start another revolution in the future that they might hope will be more successful (and less disastrous). and the current disastrous situation in syria is a very bad recipe for creating stability and peace. In any case, many refugees outside of Syria will keep the flame of revolution burning because they want to get rid of the regime even more now.
A lot of refugees are scared to go home, aren’t they? many ran away to avoid military service and will get into trouble if they return.
On paper there have been several types of amnesties. if these are genuine, then they can return, but of course they would be conscripted into the army, just as they had to serve before. furthermore, the amnesty does not apply to “criminal activities” and the regime’s concept of what is criminal is very broad. if you have opposed the regime you will probably be in trouble.
there are so many syrians outside of syria who have shown their colors through social media. if he shows a Syrian flag with three stars, he is opposition, if he shows a flag with two stars, he is supposedly with the regime. and the regime is writing down what all these people say abroad.
I know some people who got into a lot of trouble because when they got together with some friends and acquaintances something was said against the president. informants were present. they not only arrested the people who criticized him, but also some of those who did not speak out against them. Apparently being neutral is not always enough, you have to explicitly say that you are against those who are against the president.
If I were Syrian, I wouldn’t dare to go back. you have no guarantee that you will be treated fairly. Furthermore, according to one of the authors I have recommended, Fabrice Balanche, Assad does not even want many of the people who have fled to return. syria was already relatively overpopulated before the syrian revolution and was suffering from severe economic problems, unemployment, severe drought, water shortages, and other problems that helped trigger the syrian revolution. in balanche’s analysis, it will be easier for al-assad to have a few million fewer people when he starts to rebuild the country, certainly if those people are against him.
since you just mentioned fabrice balanche, let’s start with his book. it is called sectarianism in the syrian civil war (2018) and it has many very interesting maps. his point of view, I think, is that already in the 1990s civil war was inevitable. can you explain why some people thought that?
In the period between 1976 and 1982, a military branch of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood began killing Alawites. their goal was to overthrow the regime and polarize Syria on a sectarian basis. This culminated in the Hama massacre in 1982, where some 30,000 people were killed. it was perhaps another example of Sunni Islamists imagining that they can win because they are the majority of the population. but being a majority means nothing when the real instruments of power are in the hands of people from the Alawite minority.
since then a civil war, or at least a reckoning, seemed inevitable. just as it may be inevitable that in the future, it is impossible to say when, of course, there may be a new uprising. there are so many people who do not want to reconcile; they want to settle accounts because there are so many dead people.
“If I were Syrian, I wouldn’t dare to go back. You have no guarantee that you will receive reasonable treatment.”
I chose Fabrice Balanche’s book because it is very clear about sectarianism. sectarianism is downplayed by many, not only academics but also by many people in syria. they say it doesn’t play a role, or that the other side is sectarian but we are not. Many Sunnis and opponents say that the sectarian factor is not important to them, as far as their own motivations are concerned.
but the dynamics of the conflict mean that sectarianism has to be important, because the instruments of power and repression are mainly, if not all, in the hands of the Alawites. The elite units of the Syrian Arab Army, including the Republican Guard and the Tiger forces, the security services, and the pro-regime armed militias that have been established, such as the Shabbiha, are recognizably dominated by Alawites. not only are they Alawi, but most of the key people are.
although balanche clearly acknowledges that there are all kinds of other factors that are important, he emphasizes that the sectarian issue cannot be ignored. it is an actual factor. he demonstrates this through the use of explanatory maps. he shows how the opposition areas were mainly Sunni, while the non-opposition areas were mainly inhabited by minorities. It doesn’t mean that all these people are motivated by sectarianism, but hardly any deserters from the army were Alawites or other minorities. balanche is proving all this based on solid facts and statistics.
People may argue that it is an oversimplification to say that it is “Sunni vs. Alawites”. it is indeed a simplification, but when it comes down to it, one of the most important things is who has the power, and these are the Alawites. (Do not say “the” Alawites, because many Alawites are opposed to the regime).
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when balanche began his in-depth research in syria in 1990, he already noted that the country’s sectarian divisions were evident. The Alawite community was the backbone of Hafiz al-Assad’s classic patronage system: in exchange for political support, they received material benefits that only increased their sectarian loyalty. the regime knew very well how to stir up the Islamist threat to strengthen Alawite loyalty. however, this privileged relationship increasingly frustrated sections of the majority Sunni population, especially those suffering from deteriorating living conditions. As a result, civil war, Balanche observed, seemed inevitable in the long run.
since the start of the syrian revolution, in 2011, fabrice balanche has been saying that the regime is very durable and could not be overthrown easily. i was saying the same thing this was at the stage of the conflict where people who predicted that assad would have a long political life were accused of being pro-assad, just because they said his chances of survival were high. Balanche was working at the time at the University of Lyon, but was reportedly disqualified from a high-level position there only because his views on the Syrian regime’s chances of survival, which turned out to be completely correct (!), were not They were liked and rejected (on the grounds that this review was wishful thinking). he now he works at the washington institute for near eastern politics.
This book is available electronically, but I have a print version. I prefer that in terms of seeing all 70 color maps and such.
but to recap, balanche says that sectarianism was an essential factor in this civil war: the fact that the alawis, who are only about 11 percent of the population, have been in power all these years and have done very fierce things to remain in power.
yes. this book clearly demonstrates sectarianism in a way that no one else has, certainly not with detailed maps, showing demographic developments, sectarian changes, tribal and ethnic groups, military developments, refugees, changes in the composition of the population in different cities, neighborhoods, regions. and so on.
by the way, balanche uses a broad definition of sectarianism, denoting not only religious communities, but also ethnic and tribal groups. “cult”, in this book, is described as any social group whose members share a common identity and are able to create a strong bond of solidarity. ‘sectarianism’, in this sense, also includes ethnic groups, such as Kurds and Turkmen.
Let’s move on to the next book on your list, which sounds fascinating. it’s by david lesch and it’s called syria: the fall of the house of assad (2013).
This book is still very current. when you read it, i just reread all the parts i had underlined (and there were a lot), the whole analysis of it is very well argued and sophisticated. david lesch told me that “the fall of the house of al-assad” was the subtitle the editor wanted, but if you read the preface you will see that he himself thought that the al-assad regime might very well survive the internal uprising. /p>
david lesch is, to my knowledge, the only foreign academic who has had extensive personal access to president bashar al-assad. in fact, he wrote an earlier book on the bashar al-assad regime, called the new lion of damascus. The second book of his is important to me, because it gives an insight into the mentality and inner workings of the regime. Lesch has pointed out, for example, that the power accumulated over the years by the Syrian mukhabarat (intelligence services) has led to systematic recklessness, which backfired on the regime.
for example, he writes about how he once went to damascus to interview the president, but was detained and interrogated for three hours. and he said, ‘but I’m going to see the president!’ This was an indication that in Syria the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, and they don’t seem to care. The intelligence services were acting on their own initiative, and this, according to Lesch, meant that a disconnect developed that is both dangerous and an abdication of authority. it means the president doesn’t always have full control over them.
another thing lesch mentions is that the regime doesn’t like to be told what to do, and doesn’t like to make concessions when under pressure. but what i pointed out in my book is that bashar al-assad also does not like to give in when he is in a position of strength.
The book is quite personal, isn’t it? As we can see from the title of her previous book, she had high hopes for Bashar. In the preface, he talks about the “fall” of al-assad in the metaphorical sense, which is Bashar al-assad’s “journey to the dark side”.
he is very disappointed with assad. he got to know assad quite well and even tried to message him with policy suggestions at the start of the revolution. David Lesch later accepted that to stay in power, Bashar al-Assad had to play by Syrian rules. he points out that the regime cannot be reformed, because then it would undermine itself. Knowledge of it and evaluation of the internal workings of the regimen is a very important aspect of this book.
lesch is going to publish another book next year (2019), titled syria: a modern history. I have read the manuscript. his next book is much more general, starting from the earliest times, through Roman and Ottoman times to now. is an excellent and balanced analysis of contemporary Syrian history, allowing readers to access and understand the vast complexities of contemporary Syria. Those interested in the Syrian revolution can concentrate on the last part, where he summarizes his analysis and conclusions of what has happened since the publication of his previous work, and what he hopes will happen with this revolution and the future prospects for Syria.
I am fascinated to read about Bashar al-Assad’s mentality, because as a non-Syrian expert, that has been one of the most difficult things for me to understand. i thought he was basically a uk based ophthalmologist, propelled to power only by the death of his older brother. but in his book he points out that he only spent 18 months in the united kingdom. he is a product of syria.
In general, people have tended to see the Syrian revolution mainly from the perspective of the opposition and have neglected the realities of the regime, except for its cruel dictatorial aspects. that is what is also missing in several books. They take the regime for granted. they don’t look at how the regime is, in fact, extremely strong due to sectarian, family and other loyalties.
People would have done better to know more about the regime, because if you want to defeat your adversary, you must know. That’s what you’ll find in both Lesch’s and Fabrice Balanche’s books.
now we are talking about books published after 2011. last time we talked about books from another era, the hidden treasures of damascus and a novel. but of the books that have been published after 2011, many side with the opposition or the regime. it is very important to look at books that are not on the side of either of the two, but to observe in a neutral way. that’s what lesch’s book does.
let’s move on to his next book, which is by christopher phillips. This is called The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East (2018).
if you consider the war in syria as a proxy war, this is, i would say, the best book. it is the first book to advance the thesis that much of this foreign interference has prolonged the war rather than helping to win or shorten it. in the book phillips also gives a very good analysis of the islamic state(s). points out that he had ‘many fathers,’ and that if the al-assad regime took responsibility, so did his many international enemies, including western countries, turkey, qatar, saudi arabia and others, who on previous occasions supported tendencies that led to that move and it would not have stood a chance if the Iraqi regime of President Saddam Hussein had not been overthrown during the US-British invasion in 2003.
“None of the countries that have interfered in Syria have gotten anything positive out of it. they have only received something negative in return”
phillips also discovered, through interviews, that at one point president obama wanted to declare that president assad should resign. At the time, several people thought that Assad could fall at any moment, so the US president felt that he had to make a statement before that happened, just to be ‘on the right side of history’. this influenced all kinds of other politicians, because they just echoed what obama had said. But the US ambassador in Damascus at the time advised that he should only demand Assad’s resignation if he too can impose it. this is another element in war: politicians making demands they cannot implement. For example, if they threaten military action and then don’t do it, it’s better not to threaten, because you lose all credibility.
this book by christopher phillips seemed to me to be one of the best books i have read on this period, particularly the international factor. is very versatile.
since we spoke so many years ago, i know a little more about syria because my husband and i have had syrian refugees living with us. Now they have moved on and moved on with their lives, but we still have many Syrian friends. I had a sense of helplessness about the war on their part, that all these international actors have taken it over and that it is not really in the hands of the Syrians anymore. So would you agree with them that foreign involvement has made this war worse?
certainly. also, it means that for a solution you will need an agreement between the countries that have been involved in syria. some have become involved for strategic interests. some, like the Americans and the Israelis, want the Iranians to go away. the Turks do not want any powerful Kurdish elements on their border. what phillips writes, and me too, by the way, is that his interference has added fuel to the fire. they intensified the fire of war through their actions and not even in a coordinated way!
the opposition says: “if the russians had not interfered, we would have won the war against assad a long time ago”. an opportunity. they wouldn’t have gotten as close as they did.
many people or politicians talk about russia or america or turkey or qatar and saudi arabia. fewer people talk about the Syrians themselves. Whichever side you are on, the Syrian people have been victims of all this. but foreign observers often do not involve them in these discussions. if this were just debates, it would be different. but 500,000 people are dead. there are so many victims, there is so much destruction.
That is why it is better to admit that the war against the regime is being lost. but like i said, even if assad takes idlib back, there will still be big problems because the united states and various other countries will pursue their own perceived interests.
let’s move on to his next book, the syrian jihad (2017) by charles lister, and the role that islamic extremism has played in this civil war. He writes, “Syria has become home to the largest, most complex, and possibly the most powerful collection of Sunni jihadi movements in modern history.”
You’re probably right about that. he even predicts that they will play a role for decades to come. I don’t agree with everything Lister says in his book, but this is, to my knowledge, the most detailed study of Islamist opposition groups. For that alone it is an important book.
there are often discussions about who are the moderates and who are the radicals. Lister argues that in the past there were still many moderate individuals and groups, but now, behind the scenes, many of those moderate groups have begun to take many of the same political positions as their Syrian Islamist compatriots. The problem is that in a war that has lasted seven years and can last even longer, people cannot remain completely moderate.
And, of course, moderation is a relative concept. you can have restraint in political thinking, you can have restraint in the way you fight, etc. It is not always very clear what “moderate” means. In the West, in general, Islamists are seen as radical, and they are. but if you ask robert fisk about moderates and radicals, he would completely disagree with charles lister on this point.
still this book is a very good way to get a better idea of how the islamic state came about: first as al qaeda in iraq then as the islamic state in iraq then as the islamic state in iraq and syria and then the Islamic state without any additions. they are now considered a movement that is not geographically restricted.
lister also addresses the issue that Western countries supported these so-called moderate groups. but in their battles against al-assad, these moderates would sometimes have to work together with the islamists simply for opportunistic or strategic reasons. this happened, for example, if there was an attack by the regime or in a certain area where both radical Islamist organizations and the generally more moderate Free Syrian Army were located together. in such cases, the moderates involved faced a military choice: they could either die refusing to cooperate with the radical Islamic organizations, or they could survive but would later be accused of collaborating with the extremists. so temporarily and purely for non-ideological reasons they worked together.
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“The problem is that in a war that has lasted seven years and can last even longer, people cannot remain completely moderate.”
Western countries do not want to continue supporting moderate groups if they work together with radical Islamist organizations, much less the group that represents al Qaeda (hay’at tahrir al-sham, formerly called jabhat al-nusra). but if Western countries do not support these so-called moderates, the indirect consequence is that they will be weakened against Islamist groups. so that’s one of the topics the lister discusses.
This book is also a historically important survey. I found it to be a very useful book when I was working on my most recent book. that is true for all of these books that i am recommending, they are the books that i find most helpful in gaining a better understanding of the situation in syria, as well as my own experiences with the country over many years, most recently as the dutch special sent to syria .
extremists get a lot of press coverage because what they do is horrible. In your opinion, are these jihadists really a very important component in the civil war?
yes, they are a very important component. they began to overshadow the other more moderate groups, already from the beginning, from the beginning of the Syrian revolution. the most powerful groups that remain are the most radical Islamist groups. so the strongest group is the one now calling itself hay’at tahrir al-sham. another strong islamist movement is ahrar al-sham. and then there is jaysh al-islam, some of whose fighters were deported to idlib province after their defeat east of damascus. then there are many other smaller Islamist opposition groups. According to Lister, in 2015 at least 150,000 insurgents within up to 1,500 operationally distinct armed groups were involved in different levels of fighting in Syria. some were within larger umbels and fronts and others existed entirely independently.
interestingly, ahrar al-sham, an islamist movement, together with the islamist jaysh al-islam and the muslim brotherhood, signed the riyadh declaration of december 2015. that declaration was a major and moderate commitment that said syria would to be a pluralistic country where ethnic and religious groups would not be discriminated against and everyone would be equal. but the more radical Islamic groups do not really regard non-Sunni Muslims and Christians as equals. however, for political reasons, these opposition groups became salonfähig or eligible to participate in the “higher bargaining council” because they signed that agreement. the leader of jaysh al-islam, muhammad ‘allush, was at that time even appointed as the ‘chief negotiator’ of the opposition delegation for the negotiations with the regime in geneva.
but that does not mean that if these radical groups had won the war they would have adhered to these agreements. that is something completely different. charles lister worked at the brookings institution in qatar and ran many track ii meetings of the syrian opposition, which were taking place in parallel with the intra-syrian peace talks. In this context he met with many representatives of these military groups.
I did too, in my role as Special Envoy for Syria. I not only met people from these armed opposition groups, but also found out what they really thought. They may have signed the Riyadh Declaration, but what they said in those Track II meetings gave a clearer picture of their real thinking.
And what did they really think and want?
in riyadh, the core identity and goal was to be syrian. no other identity was going to be more important than being Syrian. but then during the track ii meetings, some people, from the islamic stream within the free syrian army, said: ‘yes, but we must also be very clear that syria is part of the arab nation and part of the islamic world. the revolution cannot achieve its objective if the Islamic element is not present”. then the Kurdish representative would say: “yes, but we already agreed on something else in Riyadh”. then another Kurdish representative would say: “good. if you say you belong to the Arab nation, then I must say we belong to the Kurdish nation of more than 50 million people,’ and so on. this is how some of these meetings took place.
here some of them said things quite different from what their leaders had agreed to in riyadh and showed that, in practice, they would not fully subscribe to these principles. because if the regime had ever been overthrown, it would have been overthrown by the military and not by civilians. and the military are these people from ahrar al-sham, jaysh al-islam, the free syrian army and others. they would have been the ones to decide what was going to happen and what wasn’t.
so you have the world on paper and the world as it really is.
Do you know any Syrians who have joined these groups? inside syria, what kind of people are attracted to join islamist groups?
Syria already had huge economic problems, and the war has made things much worse. to survive, many had to join the military and join the group that paid the most. for example i know of people from the free syrian army who went to al qaeda or left early because they paid more. there is a continuous movement. at one point hay’at tahrir al-sham and ahrar al-sham were the strongest military opposition groups. the first wanted to incorporate the other. they refused. then they began trying to get others’ military to side with them. many changed groups not for ideological reasons, but for practical reasons, to keep their families alive. because after seven years of destruction and war, they barely have anything to live on. this is a phenomenon that has continually generated shifting alliances.
many of these alliances are what we call marriages of convenience. it is only for a certain strategic, pragmatic and temporary purpose. look at the regime and the kurds, the pyd in the north. Assad has provided them with weapons, not because he likes them, but because he can use them against his other enemies. Assad has also been accused of cooperating with IS. if he did, it was primarily as a kind of war economy, with limited means, to weaken as many of his opponents as possible. then when one group is eliminated, the other group that has helped them can be the next target. my guess is that if all the other groups are wiped out and the kurdish pyd is still there, then assad won’t say: ‘thank you for your cooperation against the others! you want autonomy, well, you’ve earned it’. or maybe assad could temporarily give them some sort of autonomy if that would be useful to him to use against turkey. but these are alliances not of friendship but of perceived military necessity for that day or period.
Let’s turn to your latest book, The Alawites of Syria (2015), edited by Michael Kerr and Craig Larkin. if you want to understand syria, presumably it is very important to understand this minority, whose members have been in power for so long.
There are several books about the Alawites. some only deal with the Alawite religion, for example, or with a specific aspect. This book deals with the history and political role of the Alawites, with twelve chapters by various highly reputable authors. Some of them have published individual books on the Alawites, such as Stefan Winter, Fabrice Balanche, and Leon Goldsmith. Other authors are well known for their long experience and their books on Syria under the Baathist regime, such as Raymond Hinnebusch and Carsten Wieland. Wieland served for several years as the lead expert for the internal Syrian talks at the office of the UN Special Envoy for Syria in Geneva and is therefore also aware of most of the internal political developments that took place in this field.
There is a chapter by Raphaël Lefèvre, not primarily about the Alawites, but about one of their greatest enemies, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. and then there are chapters by two journalists that seemed very good to me. One is from Aron Lund, who is one of the best journalistic writers on Syria today.
stefan winter’s chapter is about the alawites in the ottoman period. points out that Alawites have always been portrayed in history as a persecuted minority. winter, however, gives a different view. he says that the Alawites were generally tolerated in the mountains and were not persecuted all the time as some allege, that is an unwarranted cliché.
so if you read this book, you will find a wide variety of writings about Alawites in Syria. they also write about religion, which in itself is not so crucial. for the Alawites, it is more about social loyalty, the social cohesion of certain groups. On this whole issue of sectarianism, many non-Alawis regard Alawites as unbelievers or heretics.
some chapters are better than others, but it has a very rich combination of chapters from a variety of high-quality authors. they also provide guidance on further reading if you want to read more on this topic.
In the context of the civil war, because the regime is dominated by the Alawites, there is a temptation to present them as the bad guys of the conflict. but the Alawite community has also been greatly affected by the war. In places like tartus, families have lost parents, they have lost brothers, they have lost children. It has also cost them a lot.
This is perhaps one of the weakest points of the regime, that so many people from the Alawite community have been killed. it is the Alawites who are fighting on the front lines. Sunnis also fight in large numbers, of course, because the composition of the regular army is a reflection of Syrian society with its Sunni majority; but when it comes to very sensitive operations, where the regime really has to fully trust the military, they are mainly Alawites. Since they are so heavily represented in the elite units of the armed forces, they will naturally kill a lot of people. there were weekly funeral processions in the Alawite villages. at a certain point, they were banned, because it gave too negative an image of the regime.
The regime, in a way, forces Alawites to be loyal, because if their Sunni opponents were to win, the future of many Alawites, including those who oppose the regime, could be very bleak. it is for their very survival that they have to be loyal to the regime, even if they are against it.
In terms of the future, I think the danger to the regime from within may be greater than from without. it is from the Alawites, who know the inner workings of the regime and who are themselves part of the fabric, that the greatest potential threat to the regime resides. but of course anyone suspected of being against the regime or cooperating with others against it will be immediately executed or imprisoned because the regime has spies everywhere. there is almost no one who dares to raise his head.
“Nelson Mandela does not exist in Syria.”
but speaking of tartus and the coast, that’s another interesting thing to come out of fabrice balanche’s book. in the middle of the last century, these coastal cities were overwhelmingly Sunni. so latakia, baniyas and tartus were majority sunni and the countryside was majority alawi. but due to migration over the past 50 years under the Alawi-dominated Baathist government, most of these towns have now become Alawites.
another important point is that many people, including sunnis, from idlib, aleppo or many other places, who have fled the war, have fled to the so-called alawite areas, because they hoped it would be safer there than anywhere else place . they fled to the regime with the expectation that they would be safer there than in any other war zone.
Your book, Destroying a Nation, is excellent and has a very analytical approach. you try to assess whether this war could have been avoided and so on. but from the preface, and also from our last conversation, i know that you also like syria very much as a country. How do you feel about everything that has happened?
Of course, I love the people of Syria very much. During my frequent visits, I got to know Syrians as friendly and charming, open-minded, tolerant and respectful heirs to rich civilizations.
When I talk about refugees, I can talk in particular about the Netherlands, where the refugees are doing very well, in general. but it has been such a difficult time. in damascus they have been bombed from the outskirts, but in general life has continued there. but in many places across the country — in aleppo, homs, hama, deraa, raqqa — there has been war and destruction everywhere. apart from the many refugees outside syria, there are millions of internally displaced people. they are in shock. the rancor against the regime is so great that I hardly see any possibility of reconciliation, especially under the current dictatorship. And who could lead the reconciliation? There is no Nelson Mandela in Syria. after all this death and destruction, it may be generations before you can speak of any kind of normalization.
I am sure that the regime will continue trying to maintain its current power structure, because it is its main guarantee to remain in power. they will use the most draconian measures against their opponents. that’s what they’ve been doing for over half a century, only now it’s on a much larger scale.
The economic situation of the Syrian people is extremely difficult. there is a lot of corruption and embezzlement, people who have a habit of pressuring other people to get money. they are Syrians against other Syrians. undoing this is very difficult. loyalty to the regime depends largely on favoritism, on money, on fear. and all this interference from foreign countries, even if originally well-intentioned, has just brought more disaster.
To end on a somewhat more positive note, I would like to underline that Syrians are a resilient people. they have endured and survived many challenges in the past. and even though the current crisis may be their greatest challenge yet, and it may even take generations to overcome the current disaster, in my opinion the Syrians are bound to overcome it, if their past experiences are anything to go by. For this reason, I share the conclusion of the new book by David Lesch: ‘In the end, I bet on the Syrians’.
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