Gilbert Achcar: How to rebuild and unify Syria when state apparatus 'is much like the one in Libya?

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00:00If we can just move on to Gilbert Achka to just reflect on that.

00:06He's a Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental

00:10and African Studies at SOAS.

00:11Thanks for joining us, Gilbert.

00:13We just heard there from Danimaki, from Damascus, about speaking to that rebel fighter, if we

00:21could say, who just said that it's all about taking out Assad and letting the politics

00:27take over.

00:28Can those words be trusted?

00:32I'm not sure, unfortunately.

00:34I'm not sure we can trust anything like this, because actually it's not the first time that

00:40Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTC as it is now known, has tried to give an impression of moderation.

00:52But this has not prevented the situation in the Idlib province, where they were dominating,

00:59to turn into a mass movement demanding the downfall of Giuliani, the leader of HTC, and

01:09protesting against repression, against conditions created there.

01:13So it's normal, in a sense, that they try to be reassuring, and at the time when they

01:19are spreading much beyond their ability, because as a military force they are not large

01:28enough to control all of Syria.

01:30And so they had to show this kind of moderation also to facilitate the downfall of the regime,

01:38because people then had some confidence in getting rid of the regime forces.

01:45But this is not enough to give any real confidence in what might happen in the future.

01:56Is democracy a possibility, though?

01:59Well, let us wish so, but HTC is definitely not a democratic force, and Syria is a total

02:10patchwork today.

02:11I mean, before speaking of democracy or anything like this, just look at what it is.

02:16I mean, aside from the part of Syria that is occupied by Israel since 1967, and we know

02:25that Israel is seizing now the present condition into expanding into the buffer zone that existed

02:35in the Golan, we are seeing Israel bombing some military facilities in Syria to prevent

02:44the rebels from seizing them.

02:47You have this HTC territory.

02:49You have Turkish-controlled territory.

02:52You have a big part of Syria, the northeast, which is under the control of the Kurdish

02:59movement.

03:00You have some sections in the south where you have rebel forces linked to the United

03:05States or backed by the United States, and you have a province, that of Suida, where

03:10you have a genuine, this is the only one, where you have a genuine popular uprising

03:14from the local population.

03:16And so how will you be able to connect all this, unify all this, I mean, leaving aside

03:24the Israeli-occupied part of Syria, and establish any kind of, well, first state, two, and second

03:33democracy?

03:34This is a big question.

03:35And how to rebuild a state apparatus, because the kind of state apparatus that you have

03:40or you had in Syria until now is much more like the one you had in Libya.

03:48And when it collapsed, with the collapse of the dictatorship in Libya, you saw what you

03:54got.

03:55It was, and still is, extremely difficult to rebuild.

03:58There is no unified Libyan state, and that's the big question about Syria for the future.

04:03Gilbert, thanks so much.

04:04I'm going to turn to Catherine Norris-Trent, because you were nodding your head, remembering

04:09Libya.

04:10Oh, yes.

04:11Very much fresh in your mind.

04:13In terms of similarities and in terms of the same emotions, is this going to be the same

04:21or is there a space where this can really be something different and a new future for

04:27Syria?

04:28Well, we've got to hope for Syria that it doesn't go down the Libyan route because that

04:31today is still in chaos, 13 years, nearly 14 years after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

04:40I was in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, the night that the rebels drove into town there

04:45and the Libyan forces melted away.

04:48And they were tearing down the posters of Gaddafi, much as we've seen people tearing

04:52down the posters of Assad and knocking over statues of his father.

04:58And there was this initial sense of elation and positivity.

05:02Elections were organised.

05:03There were female candidates.

05:06Civil society started springing up.

05:08And yet it descended into chaos, very, very sadly, and it still is today, despite wonderful

05:13civil society activists and lots of initiatives.

05:16These warring militias and power struggles between different tribes, people from different

05:21areas, hasn't stopped.

05:24And so today it is a security danger zone, very difficult to move around the country,

05:31basically split into different parts.

05:33Now, there are differences between the Libyan experience and what's happening in Syria.

05:38Libya was mainly united on a sectarian front.

05:41It was only mainly Sunni, a few Sufis who were the target of some abuse, but they didn't

05:47have that.

05:48And yet they still managed to go to war.

05:50I mean, Gaddafi had the divide and rule situation.

05:54He'd mastered that.

05:55So he'd created these warring tribes.

05:57We'll have to wait and see whether the different parts of Syria's very diverse population can

06:03come together.

06:04There are Christians, there are Alawites, there are Druze, there are Sunnis, and these

06:08different militia as well now have different aims.

06:11And what had been uniting them until present was the common enemy of Assad.

06:16Now that he's gone and very suddenly they haven't had a chance to plan for a day after,

06:21will they be able to stick together?

06:22Of course, sorry, I forgot the Kurds also further in the northeast of Syria.

06:27It's a very, very complex picture.

06:29But they've had time to see what happened in Libya and other states like that where

06:33things have gone very badly wrong.

06:35And so many Syrian people, of course, don't want that.

06:38There are not perhaps the same international interference.

06:42This is being done.

06:43I mean, there are international players, don't get me wrong.

06:45But I think to a different extent.

06:48And there are Syrian actors on the ground who are trying to seize power rather than

06:52just bringing in a new political class completely from abroad, from exile.

06:57So perhaps there are reasons to hope.

06:59But it's dangerous ground.

07:00And I, again, sincerely hope it doesn't go down the Libyan road.

07:03We do hope that there's an education from that experience in the region and also for

07:08external players, as you mentioned, like Washington and the United States.

07:12We have had some reaction from Joe Biden, the current sitting U.S. president.

07:17This is exactly what he had to say regarding the situation.

07:21After 13 years of civil war in Syria, more than half a century of brutal authoritarian

07:27rule by Bashar Assad and his father before him, rebel forces have forced Assad to resign

07:34his office and flee the country.

07:37This regime brutalized and tortured and killed literally hundreds of thousands of innocent

07:43Syrians.

07:44The fall of the regime is a fundamental act of justice.

07:48It's a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria to build

07:53a better future for their proud country.

07:56It's also a moment of risk and uncertainty.

07:58An historic opportunity.

07:59That's how Joe Biden has phrased it.

08:01And we can get more reaction on that with Fraser Jackson, our Washington correspondent.

08:05Fraser, Joe Biden also saying the U.S. will work with its partners there to help Syria

08:10manage the risk of Syria without Assad.

08:15How are we looking at Washington's involvement, especially given the words of Donald Trump,

08:22which are somewhat contrary?

08:24Yeah, well, of course, Joe Biden's words are clearly important.

08:30He's still president for the next six weeks, but he is also president only for the next

08:34six weeks.

08:35So a lot of people will be looking also at what Donald Trump has said.

08:38Now, he has sent out a couple of posts on his platform, Truth Social.

08:44He gave one in the immediate aftermath of the news that broke late last night.

08:50And he said Assad is gone.

08:52He has fled the country.

08:53And then he took a rather rare swipe at Russia.

08:56He said his protector, Russia, was not interested in protecting him any longer.

09:01He said as well, Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine

09:06and a bad economy and the other because of Israel and its fighting success.

09:10He then continued, I know Vladimir Putin well.

09:13This is his time to act.

09:15Well, of course, those words somewhat echoed by Joe Biden, especially the weakened state

09:21of Iran and Russia.

09:23Joe Biden taking credit almost for the fact that these these three powers, mainly Hezbollah,

09:30Iran and Russia, could not really come to the defense of Assad anymore because of U.S.

09:36intervention in places like Israel, backing them up with weapons and also Ukraine.

09:42Joe Biden, of course, is on the way out.

09:44He has just six weeks left of his presidency, and he's looking to try to cement his legacy

09:49in the American in American history.

09:52So this is one brick of the wall that he will be building to to lay out his legacy.

09:58And that has also been backed up by various senior administration officials that we are

10:03talking to as well.

10:04So the future of the American picture in the Middle East as well also coming into focus.

10:10But we're going to be waiting to hear from Donald Trump more because, of course, it's

10:13him that it's he that is going to be in charge of the Oval Office come January 20th.

10:18President Jackson, thanks so much.

10:19We're going to head back to Gilbert now and just ask him for a reflection on that.

10:24It does seem that Gilbert has, in fact, departed the scene.

10:28But Catherine, in terms of those security interests in Syria now for the likes of the

10:34United States and the likes of Russia, is there now a worry with HTS or do you think

10:39they'll be able to consolidate their military bases?

10:42How do we see that playing out?

10:44Yeah.

10:45So both the U.S. and Russia are likely very worried about what happens next.

10:49Let's start with Russia.

10:50We've mentioned their military bases.

10:52They have a significant presence in the Latakia province in the northwest of Syria along the

10:58Mediterranean coast.

10:59So a big military port, a naval port on the coast in Tartus, which is basically their

11:04logistics link to their Wagner presence in Libya and in African countries in the Sahel.

11:11So that's countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, places like that.

11:17So they basically need that in order to maintain that presence.

11:20If they lost it, it would pose some huge logistical problems.

11:24And then they have the military airport outside of Latakia.

11:28What happens to that?

11:29Will they lose that?

11:30Apart from losing prestige, they have a lot to lose militarily and strategically.

11:37The U.S., it's estimated, has around 900 troops in Syria.

11:40Now, they're up in more of the northwestern kind of area where there are Kurdish-backed

11:47fighters from the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Force, is their name, this force backed by

11:53the U.S.

11:54And they have some very strategic assets in the area they control.

11:59So they've been fighting ISIS, the Islamic State group, and they have prisons full of

12:03ISIS prisoners.

12:05What happens to them afterwards?

12:06Are those people going to be set free?

12:08Where do they go?

12:09A big security concern, perhaps, as well, going forward.

12:13And there are the all-important oil and gas fields in that part of Syria, but a telling

12:19slip there.

12:20And revenue from those has basically been going to the U.S.

12:24The U.S. will want to try and control that.

12:27People in the State Department and the Pentagon may want to control that, despite what Donald

12:30Trump says.

12:31We'll see who wins out there.

12:32Well, let's take that question to Fraser once again.

12:35Fraser, Catherine Norris Trent there just saying that oil very much still in the sights

12:40of Washington and Syria.

12:43Is that going to be playing a part in what the Trump administration decides to do?

12:47Well, let me tell you what we've been hearing from government officials, current administration

12:53officials.

12:54Again, Donald Trump is very unpredictable.

12:55We don't really know what his stance is going to be.

12:58He's said on Truth Social that it's not the U.S.'s problem, that they shouldn't get involved.

13:02But of course, that could also change on a dime.

13:04So what we're looking at now is what the current administration has said about the U.S. deployment

13:10there in Syria.

13:11We heard there from Catherine that we have about 900 U.S. troops currently stationed

13:16in northeastern Syria.

13:17They have been there to protect those oil fields, but also to ensure that ISIS, the

13:22Islamic State, doesn't flourish there once again.

13:25We got off a call with a senior administration official who told us that as long as they

13:30are there and they've also spoken to the Trump administration and the Trump administration

13:34seems to be on the same page, that these troops will not be going anywhere because they are

13:38worried about those Islamic State fighters coming out of the ground once again.

13:44Now, we also got a word from this SAO that there have been significant strikes from the

13:49U.S. on the same day that this toppling of Assad took place.

13:54There was a gathering, we are told, of over 75 Islamic State fighters and contacts there

14:00that have been thwarted by the U.S.

14:0275 individual targets were targeted by this strike from the U.S. which involved over 140

14:09munitions fired by F-15 fighters as well as B-52 bombers and A-10 planes as well.

14:15So the U.S. still making sure that the U.S. involvement is still there, still active,

14:21but of course they were also engaging with other parts of the Syrian landscape to ensure

14:26a peaceful transfer of power now that the Assad regime has been toppled.

14:30And Washington senior sources say Syria's future will be written by Syrians.

14:34There's going to be no blueprint from Washington, this just coming out.

14:38Fraser, thank you so much and Catherine, again, thank you and thank you to all our guests.

14:43There's more coming up on Syria here on France 24, so please stay tuned for the latest.

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