Piecing Together What Happened in Syria
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I'm Andrew Schwartz, and you're listening to The Truth of the Matter, a podcast by CSIS where we break down the top policy issues of the day and talk with the people that can help us best understand what's really going on.

To get to the truth of the matter and make sense of Syria and the fall of its dictator, Bashar al-Assad, we have with us one of my absolute favorite guests ever on the podcast. CSIS is Norm Rule. Norm, of course, ran programs for our intelligence agencies in the Middle East for a very long time in his career, and he now lends his expertise to CSIS. Norman, thank you so much for being here today. My pleasure, Andrew. It's always good to speak with you. So, Norm,

I've got so many questions, but I want to start with just a little bit of chronology. What led up to this? Who are the people that have toppled Assad? And this didn't come out of nowhere. This came out of a lot of things. And I think a lot of people are trying to piece this all together. Can you give me some of your thoughts on this? That's a complicated question that would require a response that would go far beyond

the time of this podcast. So maybe I'll respond by talking about just a couple of the actors that enabled Assad to survive, how they managed that relationship, and then how they failed to manage it that resulted in Assad's collapse. When the Arab Spring occurred throughout the region and the Assad government came under great pressure, Iran's Quds Force responded to the entire region. And in general, it failed.

It failed to have any success with the monarchies. It failed to have any impact in North Africa. But its big success was in sustaining the regime of Bashar al-Assad. However, in order to do that, they incurred quite a few losses and losses.

The Supreme Leader of Iran has always been quite clear that the Quds Force will not fight battles for proxies. Iran fights to the last proxy. And the Quds Force was faced with a serious dilemma. They lacked air power. They lacked

artillery, they lacked some battle space management skills. They needed another proxy. So Qasem Soleimani went to Moscow, spoke with Putin, and obtained an increase in Russian commitment to Syria. And very quickly, Iran with ground forces

Lebanese Hezbollah, Afghans, Paks, some Quds Force leadership, and Russians with airpower, some artillery, some other tools, pushed back on proxies who lacked heavy capacity. The oppositionists were able to take villages, but once they took a village, armored vehicles would come in and they lacked anti-armor capacity. Public reports, which I neither confirm nor deny,

state that the United States and regional allies temporarily tried to involve themselves in this effort, but the Obama administration pulled out.

So, Assad survives. Now, Assad survives in a broken country where you have eventually Daesh, and I won't spend much time on that other than saying Daesh now as a piece of that country. You have Kurds who joined with the U.S. to push back against Daesh. You have the Turks. You have Islamists in the Northwest. And then you have

another group south of Damascus, close to the Jordanian border. And the conflict remained relatively, I don't want to say static, because about 100 people were dying a week and often more during this period. But once we have the situation of the last couple of years, particularly the last year, some dramatic events happened.

Lebanese Hezbollah, of course, was destroyed as a strategic threat to Israel. Russia is being consumed by its criminal war against Ukraine. But nonetheless, each maintained a presence inside of Syria. But something significant did happen regarding Iran. Israel undertook a series of increasingly aggressive actions against Iranian leadership. And in essence, what they did was they eradicated some of the most experienced,

aggressive, bureaucratically connected officers in the Quds Force. And if you add to that the death of Qasem Soleimani as a result of American military attack. During the Trump administration, yeah. During the Trump administration. You now have a Quds Force that is missing experience. And it's not just missing experience. When these guys went to their graves, they took their Rolodexes with them. And these are people who had to work with multinationals, Afghans, Paks, Lebanese, Russians, Syrians, different

different languages, different weapons capacities, and that experience disappeared. What was left was deemed sufficient. The Russians were still there with air power and armored support. I've read that this is reminiscent. So Haifus al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad's father, the first dictator in their line, came in on the heels of the Six-Day War when Syria and the other Arab nations were defeated by Israel.

There's some eerie parallels to this, that Israel defeating Hamas, Israel defeating Hezbollah, Israel engaging in Iran, as you just said. Is this a similar situation of history repeating itself a bit? Well, I think it's similar in that you had actors in Syria under Hafez al-Assad, Hafez al-Assad and other Arab countries who believed they had sufficient military capacity to contain, confront, and defeat an adversary when that wasn't the case.

And that's important because as you look at what happened at Aleppo, this is often described in the press as an opposition lightning offensive. And that's true. And by the way, this is a cause for celebration for the Syrian people. This is a cause for celebration for all the Syrian refugees who have a chance to return.

and some small measure of justice for the people who suffered under that regime. But to be clear, this was not a successful military operation by Hayat Tahrir al-Shem, the headquarters of the liberation of the Levant. Also known as HTS. Also known as HTS. They faced very little opposition going south.

So you had in front of them, and this is important, your listeners should think of the geography here. You have Syria's most important cities, Aleppo, Homs, and Damascus, the most critical geography in Syria to sustain the regime. The Russians, the Syrians, and the Iranians are joined together to block HTS from moving south. They failed. They failed, and that demonstrates poor intelligence.

It not only demonstrates poor intelligence, but more so it shows that they lacked a plan to say what happens if an unexpected catastrophe occurs. They only had one job. They weren't distracted by events in Ukraine. These guys work eight hours a day, you know, doing their job in Syria. They didn't have a what happens if the HTS comes south and breaks through.

And the result was they didn't seem to be able to develop that coordination. This shows bureaucratic and leadership rot in Russia and in Iran. Syria was never expected to fight in an effective manner without its two partners. But these two partners...

they failed to live up to their reputations. That's an important point you're making. It's not that Iran and Russia have been distracted, as some are saying. It's this institutional rot in both places that you're really pointing to. Yes, because it is true that strategically, Iran has had other challenges and problems, as had Russia. But for the commanders of Syrian, Iranian, Russian forces,

in that territory, they don't spend much of their days worrying about an operation in Ukraine or an operation that's going on in Gaza. They do have basic military responsibilities that they've got to achieve, and they have the tools to do so. Remember, Iran has approximately 20,000

Afghans and Paks in country. Not the best troops, but they're good enough to delay and support some operations. The Russians had artillery, aircraft, and armored vehicles in country. So they had a capacity to respond to a rather tight geography, and they failed to do so. And this wasn't because Ukraine is going on or something's happening against the Houthis.

These guys weren't very good and they failed to do their jobs. And the Assad regime paid the price for that failure. All right. Let's talk about HTS and its leadership and

They do have a history and currently are listed on the United States list of terrorists. So, you know, I want to get to the United States and what our interests are here and what some of the biggest unknowns are for us. But first, let's just talk about who HTS is. The Syrian prime minister said that he's going to work with them for a very smooth transition to power. Who are we now going to be dealing with?

You know, Hayat al-Tahrir al-Shemsh, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, was an offshoot of al-Qaeda. Its leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jilani, is a former militant extremist. The group broke away from al-Qaeda, and since 2016, they have made multiple efforts to demonstrate that they were not associated with terrorism. Nonetheless, they remain designated as a terrorist group by the United States and other countries.

I think there's a $10 million price on Jalani's head, but they have undertaken a number of steps to demonstrate that they have indeed separated themselves from that history. And lest we think that this is the first time that has happened,

the United States engaged Yasser Arafat, who also at one time certainly was considered to be a terrorist and had a lot of blood on his hands as well. But moving past that, we have since the collapse of the opposition's efforts in 2016, HTS was generally located in the province of Idlib in the northwest. Some relations unspecified with the Turks, but generally this was their chance to run a province.

And they ran it as a state, and they tried to run it in a relatively organized fashion. And they did it in a way that was not extreme. As they moved into Aleppo, they did a number of positive things. They put the word out to Christians and met Christians, saying, we are not going to harass you, we're not going to disturb you. Live your life as you wish. There were reports that even a Christian religious leader would be made mayor, at least temporarily, of Aleppo. Not very Al-Qaeda-like.

Not very al-Qaeda-like. There are reports that they have issued guidance to their members to say, do not harass women over dress code violations. Again, not very al-Qaeda-like. There are reports that they sent back-channel message to the Israelis saying, your enemies are our enemies. And they've done some internet videos on this. I've even seen a video where they are rolling out an antique Torah that Bashar al-Assad apparently had in his basement, something you wouldn't issue unless you were trying to send a message.

Now, this said, they have a lot to prove.

And this group is not homogenous. It's not a monolith. I've also seen video where members have stood in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and they have stated their next target is the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Israel, Jerusalem. So you've got the possibility of splinter groups. So this group has got to prove that it is capable of acting in a normal fashion and not being an extremist organization, which means it's got to take action to constrain or punish extremists.

We're too early in the game to see if they'll be able to do this, but they're certainly going to be watched to do this. Now, if I can just pull that thread a little bit, because for the United States, this remains a concern. President Biden mentioned the risks and the concerns we have with Syria. And the United States and Israel have each undertaken actions to prevent the

extremists from taking over Syria, which would be a catastrophic success. The United States has undertaken military operations against more than 70 ISIS sites in eastern Syria. Important because in the last year, ISIS has shown troubling signs of resurgence. So this will prevent ISIS from taking advantage of

the departure of the Syrian army. Israel has done two things. They have undertaken the greatest number of attacks on Syrian territory by air since the 1973 war. They have destroyed or attempted to destroy Syria's long-range missile programs, its missile factories, its chemical weapons holdings, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, all the things you wouldn't want to fall into the hands of a militant Islamic organization. And last, the Israelis have moved further into the Golan area

and the neutral zone to give them a better position to prevent any infiltration or approach by militants. All that is prudent. So again, right now, the question is, will regional actors be able to constrain Hayat Tahrir Hashem's HTS so that it doesn't become true to its roots, but rather true to its promises? That's fascinating. And I saw reports this morning that the Israeli Defense Forces actually had commandos in winter camouflage on skis

patrolling the area. So this is very serious to Israel, of course, and they're going to do everything they can to put up a security buffer between them and what is now Syria. Correct. And it would be imprudent to predict where this will go because there are so many variables. That's not possible. But what we can say about Syria right now is it's still dominated by five or six groups. The Kurds, the Syrian Defense Forces that oppose the Kurds, ISIS,

the southern groups near Daraa, HTS, a group dominated by the Turks in the north as well. This fractured country hasn't gone away. The question is, does the departure of Assad now give an opportunity for these groups to speak to each other? In the best of circumstances, this would be a long-term, complicated, and certainly not wrinkle-free process.

And the United States will have some role in this. But really, this is where you pull in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar, even Turkey, to just say, how do they manage those engagements to encourage Syrians to pull together? And all those entities have slightly different interests, too. So that complicates things even further. Absolutely. Norm, I wanted to ask you, though, what is the United States? You know, we're going through a transition right now.

from the Biden administration to the incoming Trump administration. What is the United States' hope to happen here? Avoid catastrophe, avoid the rise of a militant Islamic state next to Israel on the border of Jordan, next to Iraq, in a country already that has a large...

very troubling ISIS presence. That's got to be our number one goal. Our second goal is to keep Iran from reconstituting its logistics, transportation, training, equipment lines to extremists in Lebanon, as well as in the West Bank through its weapons smuggling operations that conducts through Jordan.

So, in essence, ceasing Syria being a destabilizing factor in the region. And last, to pull together Syria to the extent possible so that its people, who have suffered so terribly, millions of people, we're talking refugees in so many countries, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, have a chance to return home and build the lives that they are entitled to have in the international community should support. This said, that's a regional problem.

Now, we can support this with money, with some guidance, with some logistics. But our job should be to work against ISIS in an international way because we're best at that. And to support Israel, to allow it to protect itself and to protect its borders, to make sure that Jordan has what it needs to do the same thing, to encourage Turkey to have a much lighter hand in Syrian events than some expect it will have.

But beyond that, to just do what we can to push the various actors to come to their own agreements. This must be a Syrian solution aided by American support. But the DNA must be Syrian.

Norm, final question. You've been so generous with your time and your analysis. You know, yes, regional conflict, to be sure. But there's a larger picture here, and that involves the United States, Israel, and Iran. It seems like this might be a time where Israel and the United States might want to send Iran a further message that their activities in the region, their nefarious activities in the region, need to come to an end.

So there can be a greater peace and a greater prosperity in the region.

What do you think about Israel and the United States considering these options? Do they have good options? And is this something that's even on the table? So let me start broad and work in. You're correct. This has regional implications. And although not mentioned, I'll touch briefly on Russia. Russia needs the two naval bases to maintain its Mediterranean fleet efficiently. Now it's going to have to turn to Egypt and try to strike a deal or perhaps Algeria.

It needs to use the air bases so that it can handle Libya and support its operations in Africa. The ripples on the Russian-African side are going to play out for a long time. Regarding Iran itself, it's had a catastrophic period of time, beginning really with the death of Qasem Soleimani. Since that time, Iran has demonstrated that a lot of its narrative has been myths.

Iran will defend its proxies if they're ever under attack. The proxies will dogpile Israel if Iran is ever under attack. If Israel starts a war with Iran, America will be part of that war and the region will be in flames. Iran will never be attacked the way it was attacked during the Iran-Iraq war. All of these proved to be myths. So if you're sitting in Tehran right now, this is what you know.

Your ring of fire around Israel and the Gulf states, it's gone. It might be reconstituted over some years, but it's very, very weak and it's heavily damaged. And that reconstitution can be blunted by proper international support. More so, your economy is in poor shape, 60% inflation in some ways, terrible unemployment. You have a restive population that gave no credibility to previous elections.

and you have a very unpopular government. Your leader is aging. The Supreme Leader is going to be 86 this year, and he's in poor health. So you have a leadership transition underway. For Iran right now, you need stability. You don't need additional pressures.

That situation provides an opportunity for the United States and Israel and other partners to, in essence, do what we must do to, first, make sure Iran does not reconstitute this regional violence where it kills people. But we've got to do something to address Iran's extraordinarily dangerous nuclear program. Iran is behaving exactly like a country that's trying to build a nuclear program

but hasn't quite made the final decision. Thus far, the world has been behaving exactly as if we don't care beyond tweets and statements from diplomats that carry no weight.

So right now, we have a couple of different options to approach this. Many have suggested this is the time to attack Iran's nuclear program, not because it can be completely destroyed forever, but because it will show Iran and other countries you can't build a weapon. That has many risks and many positive outcomes, but that argument is there. There is another opportunity here.

It could be that if you're in Tehran, you say just as 2013 and '14 was a time when we said we had to come to the table for some kind of deal, not because we were going to give up our nuclear program, but because we're going to buy time. What if the Iranians saw this collapse of their Western programs, their economic leadership problems,

as a reason to seek a deal with the Trump administration. Now, I think you're going to see arguments in the West on both sides of this. What is most important, however, is

that we cannot let Iran think that we want to deal more than Iran wants to deal. It must perceive that it will face military strikes, not only if it builds a nuclear weapon, but if it attacks Americans and American personnel. If it does not see that itself is at risk at present, then we don't have a red line. At that point, Iran may cross whatever red lines we think we have, and we can actually

find ourselves in the conventional war we all wish to avoid. So the Trump administration, I think, is a very new dynamic, and it's a powerful element of Iranian thinking in the near term. I do think one more thing about Iran and the region. Iran is going to push diplomacy. It's going to try to keep the proxies alive, and that means ceasefires.

Iran may even encourage Hamas to release hostages. And Hamas, having lost Syria, Hezbollah, pretty much everyone they had, Iran, may be likely to do so. And Iran may encourage this. So we have a complicated diplomatic dynamic. And the Trump administration and the Biden administration has some very complicated, difficult decisions. One challenge we'll face, and I'll close on this, is that the Biden administration is in its final weeks.

It does not have a broad team to do this. This is exactly the type of situation that requires serious experience, serious focus, serious long-term attention. You can't get that from a Biden administration. The Trump administration has yet to build these teams. So this is a challenging time for us all. Norm, I can't thank you enough for all this. Really appreciate it. And I'm sure we'll be talking in the days to come. Thank you.

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