Transcript of the video:

Helena Cobban (00:00:04):

Hello? Oh hello? Well, I don't know. Can people see me? Yes, we, we can hear you. Okay. Thank you. Good. Well, we have almost 40 participants. More, more than 40 at this point. So thank you all for joining me. I'm Helena Cobban. I'm the president of Just World Educational, and this is the third webinar in our series, Commonsense on Syria. I'm delighted to welcome you all. Oh, people are flocking in, that's great because I'd asked people to come early. Our special guest today Ms. Mona Yacoubian of the US Institute of Peace has to leave at 1:50. So I'm really glad that you, we have so many people. Now, I'm not going to do my usual long preamble at the beginning of this session because Mona has to leave at around 1:50. So we'll dive straight into the conversation and do we, what do we have in our chat screen?

Helena Cobban (00:01:20):

Okay. Now, just a quick note here. When attendees want to intervene, could you do so through the chat, not through the q and a. And we will have hopefully about 15 minutes for your questions of Mona Yacoubian after she has talked and before she needs to leave. And after that, actually, after she's left, I will do my preamble as a post-amble. If you see what I mean. So okay, Mona, you have a, a very distinguished record working at the US Institute of Peace, and in the US Agency for International Development with a specialty on Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan. You also recently well, I guess this was in 2017, you published this very thoughtful consideration of the Obama administration's policy on, on Syria, and all the information about you and your publications and everything is in the chat box.

Helena Cobban (00:02:30):

So I, without further ado, let me welcome you to our webinar. Thank you so much. So our webinar series here, we really do want to have a broad variety of views, and one of the things we are very pleased about is that we've been able to model for people how you can actually explore differences over Syria without getting into vitriol and name-calling, which has been a very thing in the, in this town, Washington, DC where we are both speaking from. So I'm gonna start right in with your that, that paper that you wrote in 2017 and I'm gonna share the framing that you did for that. Oh, I'm so bad at this sharing thing. Okay. I'm not gonna share anything. I actually had it written. Oh, I'm really bad at this stuff. Okay.

Helena Cobban (00:03:35):

So basically in your paper, you identified about five critical junctures, right? In the Obama Administration's policy toward, oh, there it is. It's on the back. I can now share it this way. This is like the old fashioned way of doing sharing. So those are the five critical junctures. Now I have them on a slide, and I will actually share the slide on our resource section later. So the first critical juncture was in August, 2011 when President Obama stated publicly, president Assad must step aside. That was in response to the mounting protests and the tough Syrian countermeasures. So, could you explore or share a little bit and I want this to be as succinct as possible how you felt that critical juncture was handled when Obama explicitly called for regime change.

Mona Yacoubian (00:04:37):

So first to be, just to give a little bit more background on that Holocaust Museum project, because my paper was one of several that were commissioned to, to ask the question at various critical junctures in policymaking, had the Obama administration chosen a different path, would that have yielded a better outcome with respect to civilian casualties and atrocities? So I, I think it's important to understand sort of the context in which those, those questions were being asked. Secondly, of course, the paper engages in counterfactuals and, and counterfactuals are by their nature speculative. The fact of the matter is none of us know what would have happened if Obama had chosen path A or alternative B versus alternative A. So, just, just a little bit of kind of context in terms of, so that decision in, in the way I frame it, is perhaps the most consequential decision that the Obama administration took with respect to Syria.

Mona Yacoubian (00:05:48):

Of course, it happened in the context of the Arab uprisings. I don't really like referring to that period as the Arab Spring, but really more the Arab uprisings. And in particular, following both President Mubarak of Egypt and President Ben Ali of Tunisia agreeing to leave power in a relatively bloodless fashion. There was growing pressure on Obama to make a statement about Syria. And this came about, as you note, in August of 2011. By this point, there had been a number of peaceful protests in, not only in the South in Daraa where the, where the uprising began, but across Syria. But fairly quickly the Assad regime began to put those protests down using brutal force. And so I think, you know, why this was consequential and why this was so important is that it, I think President Obama himself, and I quote him in the paper, in a long interview he did for the Atlantic, his understanding of the statement was that it was a moral statement.

Mona Yacoubian (00:07:01):

It was a statement about being on the right side of history, but it was less about regime change and more about standing with those Syrians demanding a better future for themselves, demanding a better government. And what the paper notes is that however, he, however the statement was made, however the statement was intended, it was certainly perceived as a call for regime change. And that had all kinds of implications in terms of prospects for diplomacy and where diplomacy would go but also in terms of sort of expectations on, on the part of Syrian opposition figures and others. But the fact of the matter is, from day one, I think there was deep ambivalence on the part of the Obama administration with respect to any sort of direct military involvement in Syria. And he, he has underscored from the outset that he did not view that statement as the first step toward invading the country and deposing the Assad regime. That's the presidency.

Helena Cobban (00:08:10):

It strikes me as a little bit naive to think that the president of a powerful country can stand up and say that another president has to leave and said, well, no, it's just a sort of a, a moral statement. It doesn't have policy consequences because as you rightly said, well, I think you were right to identify that in a sense, as the, the ur issue, the big issue from which all else flowed. But it did raise expectations amongst the Syrian oppositionists that they would receive the same kind of support that I mean, in Libya,

Mona Yacoubian (00:08:48):

Well, exactly, you, you, you took the word outta my mouth, because I think people often look at, I didn't mean to cut you, you off, Helena. No,

Helena Cobban (00:08:55):

No, no. <Laugh>

Mona Yacoubian (00:08:57):

You, you know, people often think about Syria and what happened in Syria, noting they feel that the president and his administration was reviewing it through the lens of Iraq. And through what happened in, of course, Obama came out as being opposed to regime change in Iraq in 2003, my research showed that in fact, he was more deeply influenced by what happened in Libya, and in particular, the decision, the UN NATO decision supported by UN Security Council resolution to establish a no-fly zone in Libya, following the threat by Qaddafi to you know, go and find people in their homes and execute people and so forth, that this was a humanitarian responsibility to protect mission, as we all know. It fairly quickly evolved into what became essentially de facto regime change. And what's

Helena Cobban (00:10:00):

Actual regime change? I mean, it was NATO planes that, you know, bombed Qaddafi's convoy and forced him.

Mona Yacoubian (00:10:09):

Well, I, I, you know, it was Libyan militias on the ground who chased him down and caught him in a spider hole and, and brutally executed him. That was not the intent of the, it was not, it was obviously not a regime change mission by, by the statute under which it was approved again and had NATO participation. The Russians, I believe they abstained, they did not after

Helena Cobban (00:10:37):

I think the Russians in the Chinese abstained.

Mona Yacoubian (00:10:39):

And the Russians regret that

Helena Cobban (00:10:41):

It was a security council permitted

Mona Yacoubian (00:10:44):

That's right.

Helena Cobban (00:10:45):

No-fly zone. But I think there is a problem with how you enforce a no-fly zone without using military force, because of course, you have to use military. Well,

Mona Yacoubian (00:10:55):

Of course, no, a no-fly zone by definition requires the use of military force, no question about it. But to what end and to what extent does that mission, is there a slippery slope, as it were, where the mission begins to morph into something beyond a no-fly zone or where the mission unleashes repercussions that no one has control over, which I would argue is exactly what happened in Libya. And Obama references Libya quite a bit when he talks about Syria. What I found fascinating in my research was that this decision in Libya, the overhang, I call it the Libya overhang, it impacted every one of the key protagonists in Syria. It certainly had an influence on Bashar Assad who sees what happens in Libya and says, absolutely no way is that going to happen here.

Helena Cobban (00:11:52):

And, and it had an effect on the Russians and Chinese, who absolutely, we said, we will never let one of these, what's called an R2P responsibility to protect humanitarian interventions, go through the security council again, because it was kind of what happened in Libya was the death of the R2P doctrine as effective

Mona Yacoubian (00:12:16):

I think that, I think that may well be correct, but it absolutely impacted Russia's decision making. It, they doubled down on their desires to ensure that Assad not get ousted from power for the Russians, this is about sovereignty. This is about their deep opposition to external regime change. And frankly, it end ended up, I would argue, rendering the UN Security Council essentially ineffective when it comes to the conflict in Syria, which is, which is an enormous downfall of, of the, of kind of how, what, what, what sorts of opportunities were available to, to help impact this conflict in a more positive way. It also impacted the Syrian opposition who took a very different lesson from the no-fly zone. And I remember this in my own conversations with Syrian opposition elements, who said, well, there's a no-fly zone in Libya. There will be one coming for us any day now. So, and of course, as I said, for Obama, I think he looked at what happened, and I think there's a quote in the paper where he talks about having felt that he had opened a Pandora's box and that everything was done according to plan in Libya, and yet look where we ended up. So I think the impact of Libya, sorry, can't, can't be overestimated in terms of how, for all of the protagonists in the conflict,

Helena Cobban (00:13:41):

You're quite right. And I just think that there's very few people in Syria today, or few Syrians outside of Syria who would look at what has happened in Libya over the last nine years and say, gee, I wish we had what Libya had, because that was actually even more disastrous than what Syria, I mean, Syria at least has a function in government, and, you know, something like areas of the country in obviously Covid-19 affected, sanctions affected, but something like, you know, a normal life that, that nobody in Libya can currently enjoy.

Mona Yacoubian (00:14:22):

So, I'm, I'm sorry, I'm reading the <laugh>. I'm looking at the comments that are coming in noting that a slim grasp of the intent of the US enforcing the no-fly zone. So I'm not, I'm not, it'd be, I mean, at some point, I really do wanna hear from folks out there, but look, I think

Mona Yacoubian (00:14:43):

To me, it's still extremely unclear how the United States as a leader in the world. And I, I still believe that the US has, should and can play a leading role for good in the world. How to respond to the sort of the, the atrocities and the indiscriminate use of force by the Assad regime against civilians. That has been the case in Syria. To include the use of chemical weapons against his own people, to include the use of, of barrel bombs and so forth. These are, these are documented, not by me, but by the, by the UN. And so to me and again, I'm not necessarily saying that regime change is the answer, in fact, I, I don't think that is the answer, nor do I think it's, it's possible. However, I would like to understand better from those that are, that are that pushback on this notion. What, what, what response should the international community make in the face of government's perpetrating atrocities against their people?

Helena Cobban (00:15:54):

Well, it, it's a, a big problem, and there are a lot of governments that do that. I, I think one of the issues clearly is well, there, in my view, there are a lot of questions about the authorship of chemical weapon attacks.

Mona Yacoubian (00:16:14):

Say it again, sorry.

Helena Cobban (00:16:15):

There are a lot of questions about the authorship of chemical weapon attacks. From 2013 until now, I mean, professor Ted Postel from MIT had very critical analysis of the of what the, the administration here was saying about the 2013 attack.

Mona Yacoubian (00:16:38):

But again, I think on that one, the UN came through using direct in from direct evidence from the ground collected from

Helena Cobban (00:16:45):

<Crosstalk>, and we have since seen some evidence of the UN process itself being corrupted in the OPCW.

Mona Yacoubian (00:16:53):

Well I think we're, we're gonna,

Helena Cobban (00:16:56):

We're gonna get to that.

Mona Yacoubian (00:16:57):

That's gonna be really,

Helena Cobban (00:16:58):

We're actually gonna talk about that on, on, and on Saturday. Yes. There, there were, there was, you know, repression, overreaction, killings by the, by the government in Syria. But the question is, for us as Americans, what is our responsibility? What should we be doing, you know, in the face of such things happening in other countries? And I think we can agree on that.

Mona Yacoubian (00:17:24):

Correct.

Helena Cobban (00:17:26):

So moving on.

Mona Yacoubian (00:17:28):

I do want to say, I do think in, in this world of fake news and alternate facts and so forth there have to be sources that objective reporting that we, we can all agree on as the basis upon which to have a conversation or a discussion. And the OPCW is a UN organization. And again, there were UN inspectors on the ground that directly took evidence with respect to the attack in 2013. And the, and frankly, the fact that it provoked the, the cooperation it did between the US and Russia to actually get the, a large majority of the stockpile out of Syria is important. I'm not saying that the Assad regime is the sole perpetrator. I'm seeing comments of the use of chemical weapons. In fact, we have evidence of extremist groups on the ground, ISIS in particular using CW and chlorine gas in particular, maybe some of the other extremist groups. So let me be clear about that. However, I think the preponderance of those CW attacks have been undertaken by the Assad regime. And this is an international norm that has been transgressed that needs to be understood and addressed, quite frankly, for, for us to have peace and stability in the world going forward. I'm not professing to have the answers, but I do think we need to at least be able to talk about this with a common level of objective reporting on it. Otherwise, we're gonna be talking past one another.

Helena Cobban (00:19:11):

I agree with that. And I certainly think it was great that Obama did not bomb in 2013 that at that time, and until now, there's no clear evidence that it was the government that had used the chemical weapons and the outcome where the Russians and the Obama administration cooperated on removing all the chemical weapons from the country was a great outcome, because that sort of cleared the air, if you like, although it left Syria very vulnerable to the massive arsenals of unconventional weapons that Israel has, for example. And we've seen Israel intervening quite a lot in, in Syria, and not that Syria would respond with chemical weapons, but I, I know that the Syrian government feels very, very vulnerable having gotten rid of this, of the CW arsenal, which it did. So I want to move along to the question of ISIS, because that was the big next thing that happened. In essence, we need to look at the, the origins and the emergence of ISIS, and then at the reaction mm-hmm.

Mona Yacoubian (00:20:27):

<Affirmative>.

Helena Cobban (00:20:28):

So how, how, what did, what's, what's your thinking about that?

Mona Yacoubian (00:20:31):

Well, my take on the origins of ISIS is that ISIS emerged out of the ashes of Al-Qaeda in Iraq that ISIS at its core was an Iraqi organization at least from its early leadership. Even, you know, the al-Baghdadi the head of the former, was, was he's killed though, was Iraqi, and that we saw it come out of emerge from the chaos in Iraq. That was that was sort of evolving in part propelled by the very sectarian approach that then Prime Minister Maliki took toward the Sunni community lack of effective governance on the ground, et cetera. The US withdrawal from Iraq. There's lots of debate about that. In 2011. My own sense is that had the US been able to play a stabilizing role and pivot to one that's more, more focused on governance issues, or at least enabling an environment for local governance, perhaps that might have had a, a more positive impact.

Mona Yacoubian (00:21:49):

In any event, I think it's clear that ISIS emerged from the ashes of Al-Qaeda and Iraq, but then very quickly spread into Syria and took advantage of the security vacuums that were emerging in far eastern Syria, where the Assad regime had essentially, in many ways, sort of withdrawn de-facto. You had some elements of the so-called Free Syrian Army that took control of places like Raqqa, but very quickly they were overwhelmed by ISIS. And then we had at one point, ISIS occupying at least the third of Syria and the capital of its so-called caliphate being based in Raqqa, they committed all kinds of atrocities which I think are well documented during the time of their occupation of, of, of Syria, many, many atrocities and, and many people suffering from trauma to this day as a result of the time that they spent under ISIS rule.

Mona Yacoubian (00:22:49):

And I should note, and of course, there were also the executions of Americans on the ground. This is what prompted now the, this is what prompted direct US military intervention in Syria for the first time. It is important to underscore that, that there had been no direct military intervention in Syria. You noted the decision not to undertake standoff strikes in 2013, following the, the sarin gas attack in, in August. We can talk a bit about the decision to arm the rebels, which I note in that paper. And to my mind, that was a, that was a real mistake that did not yield positive results when Obama decides to intervene directly militarily. It is when Americans are being killed in Syria, and they had the videos of the beheadings, et cetera. This is what prompted the the, the, the creation of the global coalition, the first strikes in far eastern Syria that eventually evolved into a much more concerted effort to oust ISIS from Syria and Iraq.

Helena Cobban (00:23:59):

And in essence, that could have been an opportunity for all the anti ISIS forces to join together. I mean, when, when the US military went into Northeastern Iraq to combat ISIS, it was with the kind of tacit or negotiated agreement of the Russians and the Syrians who were also fighting against ISIS. And you had a very interesting, I mean, the, the Russians really increased their military presence in 2015.

Mona Yacoubian (00:24:35):

Yes. But not in response to ISIS, to be clear.

Helena Cobban (00:24:38):

Well, well, they have supported the, the Syrian army fighting ISIS to a large degree.

Mona Yacoubian (00:24:46):

Well, but I, I think

Helena Cobban (00:24:47):

The Syrian army, the Syrian army was confronting ISIS in many cities.

Mona Yacoubian (00:24:51):

Well, again, I think, I think it's undisputed. And this is by Russians themselves. And I've participated in quite a few track two discussions with Russians. The decision in 2015 to intervene militarily was in the interest of propping up the Assad regime. There are a couple periods over the course of this conflict when the Assad regime has come close to collapsing. One was in 2013 and that actually prompted a doubling down by Iran and Hezbollah and allied militias on the ground. And then the second time when I was serving in government at this time was in 2015. And that's what prompted the Russians to come in with the full military force, largely air not only to Tartus, but to construct this force in Khmeimim.

Helena Cobban (00:25:43):

Right. And, and, and that actually turned the tide of the Civil War, I would argue in Assad's favor.

Helena Cobban (00:25:48):

But, but could it not have been an opportunity for all sides to work together to combat ISIS rather than doing so in parallel? I mean,

Mona Yacoubian (00:25:56):

Oh, yes, of course. But I think, again, if you talk to US government officials who were serving at the time, the feeling was that the, the Russians far from going after ISIS, were going after. And again, I don't let, we're going after I will put in quotation marks, so-called moderate rebel forces, not ISIS. And again, I think that can be documented just by the extent of where the bombing and all those kinds of things were taking place. Those were not areas that were held by ISIS. ISIS had a very limited, if any, presence, quite frankly, and around Aleppo, as I noted from the outset, ISIS was largely based in the eastern part of Syria. Palmyre would be an important exception. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> to that. But the Russians really came in. I mean, again, I think, think this is not disputed by the Russians themselves. The Russians came in to shore up the Assad regime.

Helena Cobban (00:26:50):

So my question is, why was the Obama administration still determined to pursue regime change?

Mona Yacoubian (00:26:58):

They weren't, I would argue that things, and I put that in the paper, and then again, I was, I was in the government at the time. I think things shifted. I think things, already began to shift beginning in 2014 when the military intervention to unseat ISIS began, and I think I call it in the paper, it was sort of, and again, having served in in government at the time, there was a bit of schizophrenia. There was, there was definitely some strong, some deep incoherence in the strategy. Was the policy to unseat Assad, or was the policy to eliminate ISIS? And I think Obama in his, his own, his own deep sense was ISIS was the priority. ISIS represented a threat to US national security interests and ISIS must be defeated. And there was no question in my mind, a pivot at that, starting in 2014, late 2014, and then I would argue becoming much more concerted in 2015 and into 2016, as soon as the Russians came in, in 2015, any notion of any sort of military intervention in Syria in order to unseat Assad was gone.

Mona Yacoubian (00:28:27):

Arguably, it was never there. As I said it, he, president Obama opted not to undertake strikes in 2013, despite having made the, laid, laid out, the red line, et cetera. So I would argue that there was a great deal of strategic incoherence in the policy, which frankly remains. And it probably would have been more helpful to be clear about the goals that the, that the, the goal in Syria is to, is to unseat ISIS, is to eliminate ISIS. But that, that didn't, that didn't go anywhere. But, but I would argue that regime change already was beginning to fade to the extent it was ever front and center in the policy. There was this idea, just by this last one, again, I don't subscribe to this strategy working, but the idea was to pressure Assad to the table. Of course, Assad's never gonna negotiate his demise.

Mona Yacoubian (00:29:35):

And that was one significant flaw. Another which I point early in the paper, and I'm seeing, you know, maybe from some of those that are, that are commenting that are from Syria the notion from Assad from day one that the threat that he felt was existential as a minority as a minority ruling in Syria, that even on that day when the young boys were scrolling the graffiti in Daraa, that was existential to Assad, I don't think the US government had a full understanding or appreciation of that. And so, if the stakes are existential, if it's, if it's stay in power or die I don't think there's much space in between. And there certainly was no notion of negotiating a transitional governing body and all these other things that just wasn't gonna happen.

Helena Cobban (00:30:25):

Now, you know, you and I have talked about this a lot. Well, not a lot, but at various times, especially at the beginning when we were both on a search for common ground working group on mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, the Middle East, and I'm, I remember you talking about Syria in ways that I disagreed with at that time. But I, I want to say it's really good for us to have this conversation because there has been far too little actual probing conversation on Syria amongst people who disagree in this country. There's been too much vitriol and name calling, and I really appreciate it. In your Holocaust Museum paper that you, you actually note this and you say the Syria debate often was stifled both inside and outside government by a tyranny of the crowd, particularly on the question of the conflict versus the Assad regime as the driver of the killing.

Helena Cobban (00:31:19):

And, you know, I sense that you wanted the conflict to end <laugh> and you say for its part, the think tank community at times functioned as an echo chamber, which I completely agree with. So, you know, it's good for us to be able to have this more open conversation. I'm hoping that the elves whom we have behind the scenes wrangling the questions. We have Dr. Alice Rothchild, who's a medical doctor, and is on our board, and who is with us from Seattle. Alice, do you have a couple of the questions that you can summarize for us?

Alice Rothchild (00:32:01):

Sure. I mean, there's a lot of commentary going on in the chat box, so I have to try to extract from the commentary. I think one of the questions that's come up regards, what was Obama's motivation in terms of, you know, calling for regime change the no-fly zone, and how this related to his wanting to protect US interests and particularly corporate US interests in this region.

Mona Yacoubian (00:32:29):

So let me first thank Helena for noting that last part of my paper in which I noted the echo chamber quality. And frankly, I think it's accelerated by social media. And I believe that very firmly, and that's one of the reasons I wanted to come here today, because I think it's really important that we all expose ourselves to a variety of perspectives. The conflict in Syria is so complex that I don't think any one perspective has all of the answers. And I do think that the polarization of the issue, and I said to Helena before we started, I've worked on the Middle East for 25, almost 30 years now. I've never encountered a more polarizing topic than that of the conflict in Syria. And that's saying a lot <laugh>. And so I, I'm glad that we're having this conversation. In terms of Obama, again, I, I think that Obama, you know, and perhaps mistakenly was viewing Syria as part of the so-called Arab Spring.

Mona Yacoubian (00:33:30):

I don't think there was sufficient appreciation for how Syria different from Egypt and Tunisia, remember that, that famous statement of leading from behind. And the idea was, oh, if we, and it was naive. I, I, you know, I think it was naive, and I think many of, of us working on Syria, I was not actually working on Syrian government at the time, but many, but I, I caught myself as part of these, didn't fully appreciate the dynamics inside Syria. That, that, and, and the fact that there were many, not just Assad, but many minorities who felt quite threatened by an opposition that while it had a multis sectarian quality to it was clearly tending more toward an armed opposition. It clearly became one that was less and less welcoming of, of minorities. So, but I think, I think the fact is there were no clear US national security interests implicated at that time in 2011, hence the, this, this ambivalence about what we should be doing in Syria. It was more a notion of catalyzing peaceful protests on the ground, that this should be something that's organic, this should be something that comes from within. What I don't think any of us fully appreciated was the extent to which Assad was going to be so deeply threatened by that and would respond with the disproportionate use of force that he has used.

Alice Rothchild (00:35:08):

Could you address, there are a number of questions about the validity of the chemical weapons charge and the validity of the idea of to protect as a framework together?

Mona Yacoubian (00:35:19):

Well, I responsibility to protect is something that is a doctrine that I only am aware of through the work that I've done. I'm not an expert on it. I think it's, look, so for me, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a very vexing and challenging issue that I would not pretend to have the answers to. Clearly what happened in Libya did not go well. And I do think that the use of force brings with it all kinds of unforeseen consequences that that one has to have a healthy appreciation for. On the CW here, I think we're just gonna have to agree to disagree if people don't accept a UN report that notes the use of sarin gas in 2013 and, and then subsequently, and quite frankly prior as well, by the way I, you know, I don't, I don't, I, I don't, I can't, I think that's just so we have to agree to disagree. But from my vantage point, as an analyst who's followed Syria quite closely, there's no question in my mind that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons against innocent civilians. There were, as I said, just to be clear to your audience, there are also documented instances of armed extremist groups also using chemical weapons, whether it's chlorine gas there's questions about ISIS, and this is perhaps more in Iraq having a, a mustard gas capability. But I, i, I ca I simply will not step off of that analytic judgment.

Alice Rothchild (00:37:01):

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And in terms of the US sanctions, I know we're moving a little ahead. I don't know whether anyone to go there. But you know, with the coronavirus coming and the potential catastrophe in a country that has already been devastated and its healthcare system ruins can you speak to that and the whole issue of US sanctions as a policy

Mona Yacoubian (00:37:25):

Deeply, deeply worried about the

Mona Yacoubian (00:37:33):

the, about coronavirus in Syria. I actually wrote a piece recently, maybe two weeks ago, looking more broadly at the question of coronavirus and its impact on forcibly displaced populations. But this also affects those living in Syria. I think the Assad regime initially was reluctant to acknowledge the presence of coronavirus in Syria. The reporting I hear is that it's being dramatically under-reported. There are huge issues with it as well in Lebanon. And I, I worry very much about the wellbeing of Syrian people across the country with this virus now rearing its head. And unfortunately, what we've seen is that the Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, the, the virus is just starting in those places. So this is only the beginning of the beginning in terms of sanctions, and this is certainly a, a question that's been raised quite a lot with respect to Iran which has suffered enormously under with the coronavirus.

Mona Yacoubian (00:38:43):

My own my own sense is when, when humanitarian issues are at play yeah, that sanctions need to be certainly sanctions that would in any way, shape or form inhibit or impede a government's ability to care for its citizens. Those sanctions should be waived. We are all one world and this idea that somehow the, the, it's okay for the virus to be in Syria or Iran, no, I absolutely couldn't disagree with that more. And as someone, frankly, who spent a few years working at a humanitarian government agency, USAID I feel very strongly actually that the international community needs to do everything it can to help address the spread of coronavirus to fragile places like Syria because that it is a catastrophe in the making.

Helena Cobban (00:39:40):

I I think I'll just jump in here quickly because I was going to come to sanction, so I'm glad that Alice asked that question. Syria has been under US sanctions continuously since 1979. And these have tightened over the years, including just three weeks ago, the US Congress, with massive support from both houses and both parties tightened the sanctions on Syria. I mean, it seems outrageous that in the middle of a coronavirus epidemic, and let's face it, every government at the beginning either downplays the, the problem and our own government is not is not an exception to that or doesn't know how to react, doesn't know how to do the reporting. So, you know, if the Syrian government with its, you know, that is laboring under sanctions, has been slow to do the coronavirus reporting, I don't think we should, you know, point fingers. But now we have both the UN Secretary General and the Pope calling for a worldwide ceasefire so that all the governments of the world can work together to combat coronavirus. Do you think that's going to fly in, in Syria?

Mona Yacoubian (00:40:58):

I, I think it is a fantastic question. It's something I'm actually turning my attention to because I, to, to my mind as someone who works in an organization where our mission is peace and peace building the Secretary General's call, which was echoed by Geir Pedersen, specifically for Syria, and where at least, least one protagonist on the ground the Kurdish led SDF have called for a ceasefire in view of the existential threat posed to all by the virus. From my perspective, I, I think this is a very important potential opening for diplomacy. And I'm actually in the midst of doing some research to try and understand, are there any past instances in which things like epidemics and epidemics are interesting because they implicate everybody, my survival and your survival and those in Syria's survival and everyone else's survival, they're all interconnected. It is a collective problem, and it demands a collective solution.

Mona Yacoubian (00:42:02):

Can this open the way for, at a minimum, a very meaningful humanitarian pause? And maybe that what that means is that there's access for humanitarian assistance granted across the country, and in exchange there is a lifting of sanctions as they pertain to those sectors and spheres of Syrian society. Maybe that's what it looks like. It's actually a good idea, something I'm gonna think about more when I get off this call, but I think this is an important moment that should be fully explored for whether there's an opportunity to help deescalate the conflict in Syria for the, for the good of all on the ground.

Helena Cobban (00:42:45):

I'm really delighted to hear that Geir Pedersen is, has echoed that for Syria, Geir Pedersen, for people who are on the call, who don't, who don't know who he is, he is the UN's special representative for Syria. And he, back in October, November, convened the first gathering of a a group of I think 150 opposition Syrians, 150 pro-government Syrians, and 150. It's

Mona Yacoubian (00:43:13):

It's 50-50-50. 150 total.

Helena Cobban (00:43:17):

Okay. Yeah. So, so divided in equal three equal parts, correct. The government, the opposition, or a large portion of the opposition and civil society. So, you know, if he can pull that kind of a peace process forward now, it would be really wonderful. Yes. He didn't get a, he didn't get a whole lot of support from Washington.

Mona Yacoubian (00:43:40):

No, I haven't heard, listen, <laugh>, I don't think I <laugh>. Oh, no, I haven't seen that. No, I, I look like other countries. I think we are also in the throes of this in a very scary way. And quite frankly, our, our curve, our epidemic curve is steeper and worse than any other country in the world. And so perhaps there's an inward, there's a more of an inward turning. I think that this is, these kinds of things are important. I mean, this is a moment where we need to think as an international community where we need to frankly dust off notions of multilateral cooperation which we have not seen too much of over the last few years. From my perspective, this pandemic is a reminder more than anything else of how interconnected our world is and how a notion of going it alone or isolation or a turning inward is simply not possible.

Alice Rothchild (00:44:43):

So this is another question. Is it public information that many foreign states, including the US have armed and supplied foreign and domestic armed deposition in Syria? And do you think the Syrian government has any right to defend itself?

Mona Yacoubian (00:44:58):

So is it public information is, is important, is an important distinction? So it is certainly public information that the United States has provided support to the Syrian democratic forces, which are Kurdish commanded and have a strong heavy Kurdish influence, but also have Arab elements in, in it as well. And that's very open knowledge. And it is all in the, in the in the mission of, of countering ISIS. Prior, I would direct you to reporting by fairly well established and, and well well-respected organizations like the New York Times that have reported covert funding for rebel groups whose mission was to overthrow the Assad regime. There is reporting subsequently that notes that, that, that under president Trump, that funding has ceased. And so according to the reporting, the US no longer is covertly funding rebel groups whose mission it is to overthrow the Assad region. I hope I've answered that.

Alice Rothchild (00:46:25):

Okay. Oh, should I, so one questioner says, so is it a conditional humanitarian concern around the sanction relief? So no sanction relief unless Syria leaves Al-Qaeda in control of Idlib.

Mona Yacoubian (00:46:43):

<Laugh>. I need to think about this more in terms of, again, for me, what's fascinating is this idea with the epidemic of, of what sanctions relief would look like. And no, I, again, I I think Idlib, we, we haven't really touched on Idlib and Idlib is, is is very concerning. It's concerning both in terms of the extremist elements that are there, but it's also concerning because there are 3 million civilians there. And it's a, it's a, a governant that has doubled in size because of the numbers of IDPs internally displaced people who have fled other parts of Syria to take refuge there. And frankly, Idlib is in many ways the scariest place for where Coronavirus could take off because its health facilities have been destroyed because you have crowding and civilians pushed up against the border with Turkey, the border with Turkey is closed. A majority of these civilians are women and children. So no, I think the question would be what does sanctions relief look like that would help address the suffering and the potential harm that this virus could cause across Syria, across Syria, not just in areas like Idlib, but also in areas that are in control of the under the control of Syrian government.

Helena Cobban (00:48:11):

We have time for one more.

Alice Rothchild (00:48:13):

Okay. Given that Biden may be the parent democratic nominee, what might, might we expect Syrian policy to be if we have regime change at home in November?

Mona Yacoubian (00:48:23):

<Laugh> <laugh>? Well, what's interesting is, believe it or not, there, there's been a lot of consistency across both from the Obama to the Trump administration in terms of how it's looked at Syria. As I said, I think from at the beginning of this discussion there's been quite a bit of strategic incoherence, a lot of ambivalence, a lot of lack of kind of clarity about why Syria matters to us, what we should we be, what should we be doing? And certainly a desire to get out of Syria either not get in it in the case of Obama or get out of it in the case of, of Trump. So what would a, is it the question as of a viewing it, what would a Democrat administration do in the case of Syria? And I think here it's quite frankly, it's gonna really depend on what the world looks like.

Mona Yacoubian (00:49:18):

Honestly, come January of 2021, we are in the midst of a crisis that frankly pales in comparison to any of the other global crises we have faced since the beginning of this millennium. And I think we should not we, we should be very careful not to underestimate how significant the consequences are going to be of this pandemic, not only for this country, but for those countries in the Middle East and North Africa. What the world looks like when whomever is sworn in in January, 2021, is a big question mark. And how Syria fits into that is a question as well. I would hope that whichever administration it is, it will be one that is willing to engage in that part of the world, but engage from the vantage point of the need to deescalate conflict and to help bring peace and stability to that very, very troubled region.

Helena Cobban (00:50:20):

So Mona, I guess your time, well, you had told us 1:50, you need to make a hard exit, but I really wanna thank you very much. I want everybody else on the call to stay because we're going to carry on the discussion a little bit without you. But thank you so

Mona Yacoubian (00:50:36):

Much. And now, now you can, everybody can tear apart all the things I said <laugh>.

Helena Cobban (00:50:40):

No, I don't think that's gonna happen, but there will be a, there could be a robust discussion for

Mona Yacoubian (00:50:45):

I'm sure. I hope there is. I hope there is. And and thank you so much for including me. I've enjoyed

Helena Cobban (00:50:50):

It. And, and you know, really, again, my thanks for you coming and, and helping us to model how people can jointly explore these very difficult issues while remaining respectful, friendly, and civil to each other. Thank you.

Mona Yacoubian (00:51:04):

Thank you so much. Let's hope this is this is a, a harbinger of things to come.

Helena Cobban (00:51:09):

Yep. Take care in this terrible crisis.

Mona Yacoubian (00:51:12):

Indeed. You too. Stay well everyone. Bye-Bye.

Helena Cobban (00:51:17):

So okay. Woo, that was very, very interesting and I urge people to go and look, especially at the executive summary and the conclusions of, I mean, that's the quick way to read any book is to just look at the first chapter and last chapter. And I expect people do it with my books too. So okay. Now we're gonna have a poll and we're gonna have some visuals and some discussions. So first of all, let me try yet again to pull up a, okay. A visual. Oh my God, I have no idea what, okay, here we are. <Laugh>, breathe. <Laugh>. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. One of these days I will get this business of, ah, there we go. Yes. Share.

Helena Cobban (00:52:15):

Okay. This is what we have coming up. In terms of the upcoming sessions April the fourth, this Saturday Western media's role, including on the chemical weapons issue. We will have Max Blumenthal and a Syrian person living in exile in, in Germany called Kevork Almassian. So the two of them we seem to be having quite a heavy emphasis on Armenians here, which is fine. Okay, let me try and pull something else up. This is something.

Alice Rothchild (00:52:55):

Stop sharing, stop sharing it and then put a new one up.

Helena Cobban (00:52:59):

Oh, thank you so much for being like my guru here. Stop share. Okay. And then pull a new one up. Okay. yes, I wanted people to know about the timeline that Mona talked about. I made a short link for it and I'm kind of interested in this in the timeline.

Helena Cobban (00:53:23):

I was just looking at the early portions of it, and this is just to remind people who are not familiar with the Syrian conflict, but there are these two flags. The existing flag of the government is the one with the red stripe and the green stars. That is the one that the, the current government uses. And actually back then, in August of 2011, part of the, the, the Syrian opposition called the Syrian National Council also used that flag. But then I think they, they shifted to the flag with the green stripe, which was introduced in July of 2011 by the free Syrian army. So you see the green flag being used by the secular opposition a lot more now. But I also had a short link there for the for the timeline and I had something else that I wanted to share, but, oh gosh. Okay. Oh, yes, this is what I was going to really, yes, this is what I was going to share at the beginning. How do I get to, okay, I will get there.

Helena Cobban (00:54:45):

Thank you all for your patience. A quick, a slow romp through Helena's slides here. Okay, so this slide, I actually, these are the two books that I wrote on Syria back in the day. And it, so I thought they provided a sort of a, an introduction to a, a backstory of US intervention in Syria. So my 1991 book about the superpowers and the Syrian Israeli conflict came out just as the Cold War collapsed. Bad timing, but it kind of, it, it explored how Syria and Russia and the Soviet Union back in the day were, were opposed to the US and Israel. And of course, Israel has always been a huge factor in, in Syrian politics. And then in the 2000, in my 2000 book, I looked at how the US, which was the global, the sole global superpower in the 1990s, the US had worked to broker a Syria, Israel peace on Israel's terms.

Helena Cobban (00:55:57):

But at that time, US Syrian relations were not as hostile as they had been earlier. That's the point I was trying to make. And then in 2001 to 2003, you can see that there was again, some cooperation between Washington and Syria. But President Bush still pursued the longtime US goal of regime change, including by funding some opposition groups. And in 2009, president Obama chose to continue that funding. And that was a point I was, that was all going to be the introduction to what Mona was saying about the Obama administration's policies. So I, I think it may still be helpful to have that kind of backstory in mind. And I have another one somewhere here. Oh my lord.

Alice Rothchild (00:56:54):

Do you have your poll?

Helena Cobban (00:56:56):

I I, why don't I put the poll out while I fill around with this? Thank you <laugh>. Okay. The poll, launch poll. People can, you can answer as many as you want of these. Okay. And I'm really looking forward to seeing how people answer.

Alice Rothchild (00:57:25):

I think not everyone's gonna know what the Astana peace process is or have a good,

Helena Cobban (00:57:30):

Well, it's the one that Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Syria have been pursuing. I guess I lost the word pursuing there. Sorry. So, okay. I can now share this screen. Thanks to everybody who's participating in the poll. It's great. And this is some more short links that we've created.

Alice Rothchild (00:58:10):

You have to take down the poll.

Helena Cobban (00:58:11):

Oh, okay. Thank you, <laugh>. Okay, so I'll, I'll leave you with a poll for another 10 seconds. 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And your last choice on the poll, it ends. Okay, good. Whew. Thank you. And so now I'm sharing just something we have, as you probably know, been videotaping this session. And we videotaped the earlier two sessions. We plan to videotape all of the sessions, 10 sessions of this webinar series. As the videos come out and we get them pretty speedily, we will put them onto this resource page, Bit.ly/Syria-resources. And then we did more extensive polling during the first two sessions and you can find the results of those and other performance results from the first two sessions at that other link. So I kind of get carried away sometimes with all this making short links and such. But anyway, Alice, would you like to

Alice Rothchild (00:59:32):

Ask another question?

Helena Cobban (00:59:33):

Yeah. And maybe we could have somebody else from the, from maybe Rick Sterling from our board could come on and help answer.

Alice Rothchild (00:59:46):

Well there were, there were some questions about the role of Iran and Russia in this whole saga, because they've been mentioned a little bit, but not in any major way.

Helena Cobban (00:59:59):

Well, I, what I'm seeing here is like, is there a way to talk more about the Russian Iranian peace plan mm-hmm. <Affirmative> which I think there would be I wish Mona were still here, <laugh>, but basically in September of 2018 the Russians and the Iranians and the Turks started a peace process. And this is significant because obviously the Russian and Iranian governments both support the Syrian government and the Turkish government has been always a huge supporter of the Syrian opposition. So if you could get these kind of superpower or not superpower, regional power brokers together, Russia and Turkey and Iran, then hopefully they could encourage their allies and friends in the Syrian political spectrum to get together and, and the, the, the war. This is a fairly familiar process. I, I lived during the, in Lebanon during the Civil War there for six years and there were, it was a lot of outside intervention there. And it, in the end it was the Saudis and the Syrians who got together and sort of ramp things down. So yeah, hopefully I've, I've been following the Russian Turkish negotiations quite a lot and fundamentally those are the two that need to do this. The Iranians, I think would more or less go ahead with whatever the Russians agreed.

Alice Rothchild (01:01:32):

Okay. And then there's a question about the whole ending of sanctions and how that relates to the release of the tens of thousands of detainees in regime prisons and an to torture, an extra judicial killings. Where does that all fit in?

Helena Cobban (01:01:47):

Gosh and the age of coronavirus when <laugh> governors and and prison bosses in our own country are releasing people from prisons? Who the heck knows? Honestly I know that, you know, wherever there are detainees and there are detainees who are held by the Syrian government, there are some held by, by the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces. There's thousands being held by the Syrian Democratic Forces who are ISIS remnants. And there are detainees being held by the, the de-facto powers in the Idlib enclave. So, you know, detainees all have a terrible life already. Coronavirus, who knows, honestly, <laugh>, I just think from my perspective, lifting the sanctions is the big thing to do and, and moving as speedily as possible toward ending the conflict. And that does require Turkish, big Turkish buy-in because Turkey is the country that permitted the armed men and their, their weapons and money to flood into the country, into northern Syria for the first, well until now, but especially in the first seven years of the conflict. And, and Turkey is going to have to spend a big, be the main power that brings those very extremist jihadi who are in Idlib under control.

Alice Rothchild (01:03:28):

So it's 11:04. Are you ready to

Helena Cobban (01:03:32):

I think we should probably wrap this up now. I really want to thank everybody who's been a part of this process and urge you two or three things. One is if you click on end meeting rather than just like leaving, if you click on end meeting, you will get an evaluation, a little evaluation form, and it would be great if you could fill that out because that will help us to make the webinar series better for the, for the coming sessions. Then if you can tell your friends about the coming sessions on Saturday Max Blumenthal and Kevork Almassian, and then Wednesday and Saturday for the following three or four weeks as well. We will let you know who the, who the featured speakers will be. And have I missed anything out, Alice?

Alice Rothchild (01:04:26):

No, I think, you know, people should know that we're playing with various ways that we can continue the many, many conversations that are occurring on the chat. You know, when people write paragraphs, it's not possible for me to just gel out one question from that. So we're exploring as a group ways to continue that very rich conversation.

Helena Cobban (01:04:45):

Thank you. Yeah, that's a great reminder. And actually on the evaluation, there's a, there's a little section for comments and questions and if you, if you want us to engage with you on your comments and questions, there's a you can put your email in there and then we will know how to, but we won't know how to if you don't <laugh>. So anyway, once again in these really terrible days, I've got a squealing of ambulances here. We live on a main ambulance route and it's getting a little scary here. It's scary in a lot of cities around the world right now. A lot of countries around the world. But because we're all at home, we can do some learning. And for you, Alice in Seattle and for everybody here, wish you all the best and hope to see you next Saturday. Bye then. Thank you.