Podcast: Syria, The Rise and Fallout of the House of Assad with Sam Dagher

TRANSCRIPT: Syria, The Rise and Fallout of the House of Assad with Sam Dagher

Sam Dagher:

This is a family that's been in power for 50 years. The father had his coup in 1970, and then he bequeathed power to his son in 2000. So this is their motto, I would say, either they stay in power or the country burns.

Ian Bremmer:

Hi, I'm Ian Bremmer, and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. It's an audio version of what you can find on public television where I analyze global topics, sit down with big guests, and make use of little puppets. This week I sit down with Sam Dagher, a senior correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, who reported from inside Syria from 2012 to 2014, was even jailed for a short time while there. He's out with a new book about the rise of the Assad family and today I'll ask him what that family story says about the devastated state of Syria today. Let's get to it.

Announcer:

The GZERO World is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company. Imagine a bank without teller lines where your banker knows your name, and its most prized currency is extraordinary client service. Hear directly from First Republic's clients by visiting FirstRepublic.com.

Ian Bremmer:

I am delighted to be here with Sam Dagher, writes for the Atlantic, and also a fairly meaty tome that just came out Assad Or We Burn the Country. You were there. You were even imprisoned for a while. This was not your title, this was someone else's title. When did you see this?

Sam Dagher:

Well, this is the regime's slogan. I saw it on the walls of the opposition towns and neighborhoods that had been retaken by the regime with the help of Iran and Russia. So what would happen after they would reconquer these areas, the militias would go in, loot all the homes, then set them on fire, and then spray this graffiti on the walls. "Assad, or we burn the country." And I think it really distills the mentality of this regime over a 50-year period. So you have to keep in mind this is a family that's been in power for 50 years. The father had his coup in 1970, and then he bequeath power to his son in 2000. So this is their motto, I would say. This is their guiding principle. Either they stay in power or either the country burns, and it's the way they deal with their own people and the way they deal with the outside world as well.

Ian Bremmer:

And having spent a lot of time on the ground and experienced this revolution and war, what surprised you? What's a principle message that the media was not covering? That the average person watching the show doesn't actually understand.

Sam Dagher:

A few people know this. The father faced a similar challenge in the late 70s and early 80s. It wasn't only Islamist insurgents. When people think of that era, they immediately think of the Muslim Brotherhood and its armed wing that was challenging the regime, but there was actually a secular protest movement against the regime. But like his son 30 years later, he went after the peaceful protestors first. He wanted to get those people out of the picture and then say, "I'm fighting a war on terrorism," exactly as his son did. For me, that was the most revealing aspect of it.

Ian Bremmer:

And was it equally effective? Were the tactics similar?

Sam Dagher:

Very similar. Very similar, but obviously the devastation under the son was way... You could say a hundred times more. With the father, it culminated in one massacre in a town called Hama, where estimates ranged anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000. But with the son, basically, you had a Hama in every neighborhood, in every town that rose up against the regime.

Ian Bremmer:

I remember when the power was transferred to Bashar and no military background, eye doctor, certainly the hope was that he would be more oriented towards the West. Question I would have is how does the fact that he didn't have that military loyalty, that military command, hadn't come through the ranks? How did that affect the brutality? How did it affect the autonomy of individuals? And also where you got your information for the book, right, was one of his colleagues from the military?

Sam Dagher:

Absolutely, his childhood friend from the Tlass family. So the Tlass and the Assads practically built this regime together. It was the fathers, you had Hafez al-Assad and Mustafa Tlass. They built this regime. But to go back about how Bashar ended up where he did without having the military background. Yes, obviously he didn't work for that power, the father did, and the father just handed it over to the son. But initially, the heir was the eldest son called Bassel al-Assad, and he was killed in a car crash in '94. So basically, and you see that in the book, I devoted an entire chapter about the making of the heir, the new heir Bashar. So he's summoned from London and he has to go through this grooming process. And the first order of business is to actually enroll in the military academy.

Even though, as you said, he has zero background, zero inclination, and obviously a lot of the regime insiders, the hardliners, were like, hold on a second, what are you doing? Why does it have to go to this son of yours? Maybe we understood the eldest son who had the military experience and the military aptitude, yes. But this son who was marginalized, who was on the fringe, in fact, he wanted to stay in London. He was studying to be licensed to actually work as an ophthalmologist in London. And suddenly he's summoned back and he's prepared to be the heir. And yes, I mean you have to remember the context of this period, the '90s, the Clinton administration. I mean Bill Clinton thought that Hafez al-Assad would be through Syria and his, I would say partnership because that's how he kind of framed it at the time, that he would be able to have comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. And obviously we all know the talks that were going on between the Israelis and the Syrians.

So in that context, Hafez was sending the message to the Americans, chiefly, "Let me take care of my own power. I will engage in peace talks, but don't interfere in what I'm doing domestically." And I think the Clinton administration went along with that. In fact, at the funeral of Hafez al-Assad, the dad, when he died in 2000, Madeline Albright was there, and you see that there's a scene in the book, and she meets with Bashar al-Assad for 15 minutes. And then she comes out and declares to the media, "I'm comforted by the fact that he's going to take the same path as his father." And the regime insider is the people from the Tlass family who are the main character in the book, Manaf Tlass and his father, they breathed a sigh of relief. They said, "Well, this is US benediction to the transfer of power to the son."

Ian Bremmer:

And of course, that didn't go so well for them. When the uprisings start, on the one hand this is coming on the back of all of these Arab Spring uprisings. On the other hand, as you say, the Syrians and Bashar Assad's father had been through this before. So how does the regime think about it? How do they respond? How is it different from what we saw in Egypt, for example, and the ouster of Mubarak?

Sam Dagher:

Well, immediately they gave the shoot to kill orders. They wanted to scare people off the streets. And there's new information in my book that the shoot to kill orders were coming directly from Bashar al-Assad his brother Maher, who heads the fourth division. This is an elite division of the army, and also their cousin Hafez Makhlouf, he's an intelligence chief. So the orders were coming directly from these people saying, "Shoot and kill, because that's the only way to scare people off the streets."

Ian Bremmer:

Shoot, to kill the unarmed civilian demonstrators.

Sam Dagher:

Absolutely.

Ian Bremmer:

Which did indeed happen.

Sam Dagher:

Absolutely.

Ian Bremmer:

And the demonstrations were kind of snuffed out in relatively short order.

Sam Dagher:

Absolutely. Every attempt by the protestors in Damascus, in other major cities like Homs, like Daraa, to actually occupy a square, because they were looking to Egypt and saying to themselves, "We want a Tahrir Square, just like in Cairo, where we'd be able to protest." And every attempt by them was snuffed out with bullets and blood. There were a couple of attempts in Damascus. There was absolute carnage. They just opened fire on civilians who were just trying to occupy a square in Damascus. They did the same thing in Hons, and the orders were coming from the family. And then, if you remember, there was a period when they actually occupied a square in Hamma, and that's the US and the French ambassadors visited, and the protestors thought that maybe that would offer them some protection, but he ended up assaulting the people who were in the square and killed a few hundred people. And then Obama came out and said, he has to leave at that moment.

Ian Bremmer:

Bashar said "Must go. Must go." Yeah. It's still there, obviously. What was your experience there on the... We always hear the talk about the support that was given to the regime by the Russians, the support that was given to the regime by the Iranians. What was your experience of that? How did you see that when you were on the ground?

Sam Dagher:

Well, when I was on the ground, it was mainly the Iranians, because I went in the fall of 2012. If you remember, in the summer of 2012, the Americans and the Europeans were saying "It's over." In fact, Hillary Clinton said, "The writing is on the wall. Now we have to figure out which country's going to take him." You'll see a scene in my book where they're debating in Geneva whether a Latin American or an African country will take Bashar. But obviously that's where the Iranians entered into the picture. They took the lead in defeating this rebel offensive on Damascus in the summer of 2012. And then it culminated in the killing of Bashar's own brother-in-law. And I have evidence that the killing of the brother-in-law was ordered by Bashar because his loyalties became suspect that maybe he was working out a deal with the West to be an alternative to Bashar.

Ian Bremmer:

When they decide that they're going to just go hard and immediately against their people, and it works, and they have clear support from the Iranians on the ground. They have clear diplomatic support and soon military support from the Russians. What do you think, if you were advising the Obama administration at that time, as someone who's been inside this country, what do you say we should do?

Sam Dagher:

Back then?

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah.

Sam Dagher:

I think the least we could have done is to have some sort of a safe haven in the north. I think that would've been a sound idea. It would've perhaps given people-

Ian Bremmer:

A no-fly zone.

Sam Dagher:

A no-fly zone. I think that would've been doable. It would've stemmed this tide of the refugees that were going into Turkey. At least they would had a safe zone in northern Syria. I think that was doable. But again, I think the thinking in the Obama administration at the time that this was a slippery slope towards an Iraq like intervention.

Ian Bremmer:

Now you've been on the ground in the Kurdish controlled north since, do they feel friendless? Do they feel forsaken by everyone? Do they feel like they have a shot at sort of stemming the Assad regime in any way?

Sam Dagher:

Again, when we talk about the Kurds, I think we have to be very careful because there were a fair number of Kurds that were actually with the uprising in the beginning, particularly when it was mainly peaceful. The Kurds you're referring to are the YPG, which are an effect, an affiliate, an extension of the PKK, the-

Ian Bremmer:

In Turkey.

Sam Dagher:

In Turkey.

Ian Bremmer:

And the Turkish government considers them to be terrorists.

Sam Dagher:

Exactly. But we saw them as the most effective force in the fight against ISIS back in 2014.

Ian Bremmer:

And they continue to be nominally allied to the United States.

Sam Dagher:

Yes. But for them, I actually, I would say I was one of the first reporters to go into the area when the Americans started supporting them. If you remember, there was that offensive on Kobani in 2014. And they dropped weapons by air to them weapons.

Ian Bremmer:

And there were women fighting.

Sam Dagher:

Exactly.

Ian Bremmer:

And people showed that. Yeah, of course.

Sam Dagher:

And I met with a lot of their leaders back then. This was really, really the very, very early beginning of it. And they were quite frank with me. They said, "Look, we cut a deal with the regime with Bashar al-Assad. In fact, they cut a deal with Bashar and Iran. You have to remember, Iran is in the regime. So they're involved in every key decision that was made, 2011 onward. So they cut a deal with Iran and Bashar to manage their own affairs in this oil rich corner of north northeast corner of Syria. And in exchange, they promised the regime to allow the flow of oil to the regime from that region. And also the regime kept the airport in that area. Till this day, the regime is still at the airport and also a security presence in one of the major cities there in called Qamishli in northeast Syria.

So that was the bargain, because Bashar, in fact, at the time, was facing so many challenges on so many fronts. A number of cities were up in arms against him. So he wanted to focus on Damascus, defending Damascus, defending Aleppo, the big cities. And he was saying like, "Okay, I'll come back to this area later." So the Kurds took over and they saw an opportunity basically to team up with the Americans because everybody was against them. It was the Turks, the rebels were against them, the opposition, because they saw them as puppets of the regime or stooges of the regime. And so everybody was against them. So they said, "Why don't we team up with the Americans to fight ISIS in the hopes of this partnership, eventually allowing us to have our own autonomous zone." And that's what they told me. They said "We're in it the hopes that eventually will have our own cantons," they called them.

Ian Bremmer:

So we've been through this extraordinary humanitarian collapse with half of the country, fully displaced with towns and cities in some cases destroyed. Now that Assad has reestablished control over almost all of the country, can you normalize? What's the process of rebuilding and what's the process, can people move back that had been chased out by this regime?

Sam Dagher:

People are moving back, but do they support the regime? No. The majority are just realists. They say "He's being defended by the Russians and the Iranians, militarily." The Americans and the Europeans, for all intents and purposes want him there. I mean, again, that's the perception on the part of the Syrians, that he's gassing people, he's committing massacres. He's targeting hospitals as he and the Russians have been doing the past few weeks and nobody's coming after him. He has some sort of, again, in the eyes of a lot of Syrians, he has immunity. So-

Ian Bremmer:

Tacit support.

Sam Dagher:

Tacit support. So they say, "What can we do? It's not up to us." So they've kind of reconciled themselves the fact that there's nothing they could do. And for them, they see what Syrians who left the country had to go through. The indignity, the humiliation, particularly in the region in countries like Lebanon, Jordan, and also in Europe.

Ian Bremmer:

And the danger.

Sam Dagher:

And danger. Yeah. So they say, "Maybe we should just stay home." And yes, the regime is back. The regime is awful. It's worse than before. One resident Van Damascus told me, "The regime's military boot is on top of our heads again, there's nothing we can do. It's the same fear that we were living in under before." People are being arrested in a lot of the areas that are reverting back to regime control, anyone who had suspected of having protested or taken part in any anti regime activities is being arrested against.

Ian Bremmer:

So no prospects of meaningful social instability going forward.

Sam Dagher:

It's a fractured country in a fractured society at the moment. And I think the only hope we have is if we have meaningful justice and accountability, some sort of process of where people who've committed war crimes, mainly the regime and also others pay for these crimes, are made to be held accountable for these crimes. I think that's the first step towards any-

Ian Bremmer:

Is there any reason to believe that that is remotely plausible?

Sam Dagher:

At the moment? No. I mean, you see the Russians and the Chinese blocking any attempts in the Security Council to refer the regime to the International criminal court. There are these cases now being brought against the regime in Germany and France. But again, there's a limit how far these cases can go.

Ian Bremmer:

Sam Dagher-

Sam Dagher:

Thank you.

Ian Bremmer:

... thank you very much.

Sam Dagher:

Thank you.

Ian Bremmer:

That's our show this week. We'll be right back here next week. Same place, same time. Unless you're watching on social media, in which cases, it's wherever you happen to be. Don't miss it. In the meantime, check us out at gzeromedia.com.

Announcer:

The GZERO World is brought to you by our founding sponsor, first Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company. Imagine a bank without teller lines where your banker knows your name and its most prized currency is extraordinary client service. Hear directly from First Republic's clients by visiting firstrepublic.com.

Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.