Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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A conversation now on Syria and the future of the Middle East.
Benham Ben Taliblou is back with us.
He's a senior fellow specializing in the Middle East at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Let's start with what factors will determine what comes next in Syria after the fall of Assad, and what role could the United States play here in the coming weeks and months?
Well, it's a pleasure to be back with you, and happy holidays to you and the viewers.
Listen, there's nothing short of historic than what's going on in Syria right now.
For over half a century, the Assad family has ruled that country from Damascus.
And really, since 2011, 13 plus years now, there's been various evolutions of the revolution which started peacefully, became armed.
Assad really opened the gates to make sure that there was no secular, democratic, liberal, peaceful opposition, that it would be armed Islamists, jihadists, and that led into the Syrian civil war, the whole host of foreign interventions that we're seeing, and the fall of Assad.
Historically, after less than two weeks since HTS Ayatahir Sham, a designated U.S. terrorist organization, as well as some other Turkish-backed rebels from the north of Syria, really moved speedily south, I would still say that we are in merely the next phase of the Syrian civil war.
There is still fighting between various militia, proxy, and terror groups in that country today.
There is still no central authority today, despite attempts there for a transitional government and a transition council to be created.
So there are really long-standing fights over who will govern, how will they govern, and what will the relationship between the government and the governed be in that country, between Arabs, between Kurds, between Turks, between ethnic minorities and religious minorities.
So explain who those various groups are and who's backing them, whether it's the United States or other regional allies, and how that plays out.
Sure.
So up until very recently, the Assad regime, Assad himself, an Alawite, a minority sect of Islam, more heterodox than Orthodox, you could say, was backed by two large state patrons, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation.
And in Syria, Russia had historically what really the Russian Empire had wanted for many years, which is a warm water port.
They had that at Tartus, and then later on they had an airbase as well at Hamim.
Basically, this was Russia's foothold into the Middle East, and it had been a partner of the Assad regime and the Assad family for really half a century, both under the Soviet Union as well as under the Russian Federation.
Both Iran and Russia surged to bail out Assad, Iran really starting indirectly in 2012, directly in 2013, and Russia more directly in 2015.
Now, there's been a whole host of other groups like the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces, who are largely but not exclusively Kurdish, backed by the United States.
When the U.S. was looking for a partner in Syria to pick, it wasn't prioritizing who would pick to fight Assad.
It was prioritizing who would they pick to fight this other armed terrorist group that we all know called ISIS.
And the SDF and the Kurds have led the U.S.-backed fight against ISIS in the region.
But there was formerly like the Free Syrian Army.
That was defected Assad regime officers that had been disbanded.
Some of that moved into the SNA, the Syrian National Army.
Those were Turkish-backed, largely Arab and sometimes Turkmen rebels that the Turkish government had really used, as you could say, as a proxy or an auxiliary.
These Turkish-backed forces have been used not just in Syria, but in other places where President Erdogan of Turkey has a foreign policy interest as well.
Unless we forget, of course, there's ISIS.
Unless we forget, of course, there's what's left of the Iran-backed militia infrastructure, which up until recently had been concentrated in the east and been moving to be co-located in the west with Assad regime and Lebanese Hezbollah.
And last but certainly not least, and I'm sure there's more, but I wanted to cram in as much of the alphabet soup as we could into the present.
And before we get to HTS, Hayatar Rasham, and Mr. Jolani, who all eyes are on this individual who led the charge against Damascus, is the U.S. force presence, which is about 900-ish in southeast Syria, located at the garrison at Tanf, where they have a large deconfliction zone.
If you remember, the Trump administration actually sought in the past to pull out these troops.
In the end, that did not happen.
And all eyes will be on the incoming Trump administration as the Syrian civil war continues into this more political phase.
What role will the U.S. play?
And will the U.S. begin by trying to leverage the threat of withdrawal as other actors are looking to double down, particularly Turkey, which is a NATO country.
Remind folks what the U.S. force is doing there right now and what have they been doing amid this drive onto Damascus and Assad fleeing.
Well, amid the drive on Damascus, they've essentially been sitting there since Damascus fell.
However, the U.S. has had airstrikes against ISIS positions in central and eastern Syria, much like the Israelis have had targeted airstrikes against what's left of Assad's chemical weapons and military infrastructure.
So in the face of a collapse of central authority, the pro-status quo, the pro-Western countries are taking their shots right now to make sure that whatever emerges in Syria can at least be slightly controlled or the worst of the worst can be contained.
But you mentioned under what authority the U.S. force presence was there.
The U.S. was there to fight ISIS.
So this was part of the counter-ISIS campaign.
And the U.S. have played a pretty powerful role there, both thwarting some of the ISIS advances from Iraq into Syria as really supporting the counter-ISIS campaign on the ground and on the air from that base in eastern Syria.
We're going to go into more of this with Benim Ben Taliblou of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies this morning.
I want to give you a chance to call in and ask your questions, though.
A lot's happened in Syria and it has a lot of impact in the region.
Wanted to take this time to allow you to call in and ask the questions that you've been wondering.
Phone lines to do so split as usual this morning.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
Democrats 202-748-8000.
Independents 202-748-8002.
A minute ago, you mentioned Mr. Jalani explain who he is.
What do we need to know about the head of HTS?
And here, forgive me, I'll be tipping my hand as to how I see this individual.
He remains subject to a U.S. bounty.
He has a U.S. bounty on his head.
He is currently the head of HTS Hayat Hari Rasham, a designated terrorist organization.
He's led manifestations of formerly al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups in Syria, beginning with Jeyped al-Nusra.
Then that really collapsed in 2016.
There was a 2017 rebrand.
And then beyond that 2017 rebrand, you have the group, which is really more of a coalition or constellation of some Salafi jihadist organizations who were actually effective fighters against the Assad regime as well as pushing back and really hiding from Russian forces during the peak period of Russian airstrikes in Syria.
So Jolani really cut his teeth on this issue.
He's had close ties with al-Qaeda in the past.
Really, since 2016, there's been this footse of disavowing.
And much like everything else in Washington, where you stand in life depends on where you sit.
There are many people who take this disavowing very seriously.
Starting from 2016, some of those people actually end up saying, well, look, how come the U.S. has had targeted airstrikes on a whole host of al-Qaeda officials, not just in Syria, but in Iraq, but really around the world, but has never touched this individual despite having a bounty?
Does that mean there is some laissez-passe or some covert relationship there?
Sometimes that line of thinking can get into conspiracy if taken to its fullest conclusion.
But nonetheless, it does raise questions.
How come this person was allowed to kind of remain on the battlefield while having a bounty on his head?
And also, conversely, what role should the U.S. play going forward?
Because all the talk now about Mr. Jolani is how he views minorities, ethnic and religious, in that country, how he views the relationship with Israel, and how he views the relationship with the outside world.