The Dispatch Podcast - Assad's Reckoning | Interview: Jonathan Spyer

Episode Date: December 7, 2024

Jamie is joined by Jonathan Spyer—director of research at the Middle East Forum and writer for the Jerusalem Post—to explain the insurgency in Syria. The Agenda: —Syria post-ISIS —The fall of Assad’s regime? —Lessons from Israel and Gaza —Syrian Kurds —Turkey’s interests in Syria —Proxy War or Local Uprising? —What should happen next? The Dispatch Podcast is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including members-only newsletters, bonus podcast episodes, and weekly livestreams—click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. My guest today is Jonathan Spire. He is an editor of the Middle East quarterly, a columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He has a PhD from my alma mater, the London School of Economics, or at least one of my alma maters. Most importantly, he is an expert in Syria, has traveled to the region during the Syrian Civil War, reported extensively from the ground there. And with news events that took many by surprise, including Jonathan himself, of the Syrian rebel group taking over Aleppo, I thought I'd bring him on to try to figure out what is going on in Syria. Many Americans haven't paid much attention to Syria, myself included, with the news in recent days of a rebel group rapidly taking parts of the country that caught many people by surprise. I brought Jonathan in to give us an overview of what has happened since most stopped paying attention in Syria, what is happening now, and what might happen next. So without further ado, I give you Mr. Jonathan Spire. Jonathan Spire. Dispatch podcast. Thank you very much, Jeremy. Thanks for inviting me. Jonathan, most Americans, I think, probably stopped paying attention to Syria when ISIS seemed to

be defeated. And embarrassingly so, I stopped paying as close attention as well. I know that you probably have been paying attention this entire time. So when we see the news of recent days of a rebel force taking over Aleppo, we're a little confused what exactly is going on, which is why I have you on here. So let's just begin, Jonathan, maybe explaining what has been going on in Syria from the time that we declared victory, American-infled victory against ISIS to now. And if you want to use this moment to explain kind of your experience in Syrac, since I know you've traveled there during the Civil War, this would be a good opportunity for that. Well, yeah, with regards So what's been going on since the last ISIS territorial holdings were lost, which was in late

2019, of course, in Bahruz, which was a town in the lower Euphrates River Valley. That was kind of the last town that ISIS lost. And, you know, the disappearance of ISIS or the defeat of ISIS was very important because what has existed since then in Syria is essentially three territorial enclaves or areas of control, all of which have been supported or underwritten by a powerful outside actor or actors. And that's important because ISIS, among many other things. Obviously, ISIS was a brutally evil, dreadful organization. What it also was, was it was an organization that wasn't dependent on state support from outside. So from that point of view, it's an interesting thing. When ISIS disappeared, that was the last enclave that was not

dependent on state support from outside vanished. And henceforth, what has existed in Syria are three enclaves or areas of control, all of which are supported by power. for states from outside. And those three enclaves are one, the thing that calls itself the Syrian government. And I had never got used to or never accepted this kind of shift, which has taken place over the last four years where everybody started calling the Assad regime, the Syrian government. Again, I said, no, it's not the Syrian government. It's a brutal dictatorship called the Assad regime. It doesn't deserve to be called the government. It is simply an area of control, among other areas of control in Syria. So there was the Assad regime, supported by Russia and Iran.

there was of course Syria east of the Euphrates controlled by the Syrian Kurds and underwritten by the United States and the global coalition against ISIS. And then in the northwest of the country, there was kind of a gathering of the remnants of the Sunni Arab and Islamist rebellion in an area of control underwritten by Turkey. And what has happened in the course of the last week or so, and I must say that I did not in any way predict this and I'm not really aware of any other analysts of Syria that did. So we were as much in a certain sense taken by surprises as everybody else. What has happened is a offensive or rather, in fact, two offensives, two military offensive come erupting out of that area, which by the way was only around 10% of the totality of Syrian territory. It's quite a bit more now, of course, but it was only 10% just a couple of weeks ago. Two offensives. And the most important one, heading south, organized by a thing called Hayatah al-Shahm, which is the former

Jabata Nusra, which is the former franchise of the Al-Qaeda network in Syria, outwards, conquering the entirety of Idlib province, first of all, then heading into Aleppo province, conquering, of course, very dramatically the city of Aleppo, which is Syria's second city, sometimes called the capital of Syria's north.

And then further south, and just yesterday, they took rapidly taking the city of Hamar, the capital of Hamer province, And now the HCS are pushing further south towards the city of Homs. That's their next target. And that's basically where we are now. It's been an astonishing a few days, frankly. I mean, it's difficult to explain to sort of non-Syria buffs, so to speak, just how dramatic

this is. You know, Aleppo was never entirely in rebel hands all the way through the Civil War. He asked me about my own experiences. One of those was reporting inside Aleppo with the rebellion in the summer of 2012 when the rebellion was reaching its height. And even then, the rebellion only controlled half of Aleppo, the eastern part of the city. And now, within just days, the entirety of Aleppo fall into the HTS Sunni jihadis. So a very, very profoundly dramatic moment, I think, for everybody looking at Syria. I want to get into who exactly the rebellion is composed of in their ideology.

But first, you know, a lot of people on Twitter who haven't been following Syria started, you know, saying that this could be the fall of the Assad regime. Are they anywhere close? Is that anywhere close to happening here? Well, I don't think it's quite close yet, but I do want to say that I was kind of among those people, you know, telling people to calm down kind of thing who were talking that way, let's say, 48 hours ago.

Once Hammer has fallen, things are in play in a very serious way indeed, because if the HTS, if the Sunni Islamists or rebels or whatever we want to call them, you know, push further south and take Homs and then take Kasserer as well, south-west of Homs. Then they're in Dane, they're close to sort of cutting off the Syrian coastal area from Damascus. And at that point, you know, then the remaining territories of Assad are kind of cut in two. So they're not there yet, but if they get to that point, then the Assad regime will really be in serious trouble.

And the next target, once they've taken Homs, will be, you know, heading south down the highway towards Damascus. So it really doesn't look good for the Assad regime at all. It doesn't mean that the Assad regime is on the verge of falling yet. No, it's not. But these are very, very dark days for the Assad regime. And I would say that unless the Iranians and the Russians come in in a very serious way now on behalf of the Assad regime, it really is going to be in danger. I tend to think that will happen because I just find it hard to believe that Iran in particular will simply sit back and allow Assad to fall. But yeah, you know, if things are really looking not good for Assad right now,

he needs the help of his friends very quickly to avert the possibility of disaster for him. I believe you're speaking from Israel now. Another quitter report, again, it's hard to tell what's true, especially when you're not covering the subject so long so you don't know who's tweeting, who knows what they're talking about, was that perhaps Assad through Saudi Arabia had reached out to Israel to come to his age.

Is that possible at all, you know, a realignment like that, that he's now looking to Israel to save him? I mean, I read those reports as well, you know, I don't know what happens, of course, everything behind the scenes, but I find it rather hard to believe. There has been an enormous amount, by the way, of disinformation flowing around the internet from both sides. You're probably aware, for example, that regime, both social media and official regime media, also in Syria and also in Iran, was claiming just a couple of days ago that I was. Muhammad al-Jolani, the head of Haytathar Shama, had been killed in Idlib. And this was all over pro-Iran regime media. So in their kind of little echo chamber for about a day, it was like taken as truth. Yeah, he's dead. And it's just, it's just going to be a while for everyone else submits it. So, you know, there's a kind of fog of lies and misinformation all the way

around. And I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if I was a regime or Iranian disinformation merchant, one of the messages I might like to have running around the internet was, yeah, actually Israel is about to come in, you know, to support the rebellion. Because, of course, as you know, one of the rules in our region, especially in country like Syria or Iraq, is that, you know, my enemies, so to speak, are always being supported by Israel and the Jews. That's the way it works. The Assad regime claims that the rebels are supported by Israel and the Jews. The rebels claim that the Assad regime supported by Israel and the Jews. That's kind of the way it works. So I don't think we should necessarily give an excessive amount of seriousness to that.

I think there is some concern, however, in Israel regarding the advance of the rebels, which I've become aware of in recent days, which is that Hamar province is home to some of the facilities for the development of Syrian chemical weapons. And there is some concern that if Hayat Tahrir Hasham takes over those facilities, what that could mean. This, after all, is an organization. I mean, Hayat Tahrir Hasham, which, as late as 2016, was still the official franchise of the al-Qaeda network in Syria. So, you know, Israel is watching that very carefully, and there is real concern about that.

But the notion of Israel intervening in order to sort of prop up the Assad regime, if it was about to fall, no, I think that's probably a step too far. Well, let's talk about Hayat Thir al-Sham and Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. When I, I believe I looked it up, I last talked to you over a decade ago about the Syrian Civil War. and at the time a lot of Western media would talk about the moderate rebels

and what I think you discussed at the time when they mean what they're referring to are varying degrees of Islamists maybe from the Muslim Brotherhood to Al Qaeda or ISIS

This gentleman Jalani who I'm just learning about myself seems to have been a member of ISIS or at one point or associated or Al Qaeda

and he claims to a moderate who is this guy What does he believe and what does his organization believe? Yeah, so it's a really interesting question, and I think a very important one right now to be considered in a little bit of rigorous detail because the career of Abu Mohammed al-Zulani is one of the more remarkable ones of the Syrian Civil War,

or maybe you could even say the most remarkable. And the thing which has constantly struck me again and again over the years is like how on earth is this guy still alive? Because all the other people who were kind of in his circle, are long since dead, really. You know, the Syrian war has taken a great call after all of Sunni jihadis,

who up until, you know, a week ago, we kind of thought we're on the losing side. Now it's less certain. Obama Jolani is a Syrian. His real name is not Jolani, but he's called Al Jolani because his parents, so we were told were refugees from the Golan, Sunni Arab refugees from the Golan area,

or Jolan, of course, in Arabic. And he is a former member of Al-Qaeda, and he was a member of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and he was, in fact, sent by al-Qaeda in Iraq into Syria at the beginning of the war to create a franchise of the network in Syria. Now, it's worth noting this, because al-Qaeda, of course, is in any case a barbarous and murderous organization, but even by the standards of al-Qaeda,

the al-Qaeda franchisee in Iraq was often regarded as being, you know, among the most sectarian and brutal of manifestations of the network, If you remember, the late Abu Mustafa al-Zarqawi was the leader of that network. And he was famous for really quite astonishing acts of sectarian brutality, especially against Iraqi Shia. So Abu Muhammad al-Jolai is coming out of that circle, and he's coming to Syria to set up a franchise on its behalf. And he sets up the organization called Japatan Nusra,

which you probably remember as being a very significant insurgent organization inside the rebellion in the mid-years, I would say, of the war. And then he splits from al-Qaeda in Iraq, and because al-Qaeda in Iraq sends in Islamic State, of course, and he refuses to sort of pledge allegiance to Islamic State. And here we have a parting of the ways between Islamic State, which, of course, declares the caliphate in the summer of 2014, and kind of goes to war against reality in a certain sense.

Jabotan Nusra, which much more begins to adapt itself, and this is the interesting moment, really, begins to adapt itself to the political realities of the insurgency, working with other insurgent groups and very, very importantly, beginning to work in close cooperation with the government of Turkey. And that's the reason why we have this reality

up until a couple of weeks ago where you had this 10% of the country guaranteed by the Turks in which the remnants of the rebellion had gathered and unlike other organizations that had been absorbed by the Turks into a framework they'd created, specifically the Syrian National Army

or Jaishalwatini, which is ruling a northern part of enclave. Hayat Dahlia Shama had kind of remained independent, had created its own exclusively governed area, which is in the southern part of the Turkish guaranteed enclave in Idler province, where it set up its own government, which had called the Syrian Salvation government. So Abu Muhammad al-Jolani appeared to be walking this strange tightrope in which his organization, by the way, is a registered terrorist, a designated terrorist organization, not only by the United States and Europe, but also by Turkey.

And nevertheless, at the same time as being a designatory organization by Turkey, he was also kind of living under Turkish guarantees and clearly cooperating on a certain level with the Turkish authorities. So he'd strangely imagine to walk this tie up. And then in 2016, the official break with Al-Qaeda, which means that what Abu Mohammed al-Jolani has been running in Idlib province for the last now nearly a decade is a kind of de facto Sunni Islamist enclave living under very strict Sunni Islamic rule and proclaiming itself to be the legitimate government of Syria and now apparently launching a bid to actually bring that aspiration into reality. I want to dig deeper in there, but first, just a clarification. You mentioned that his last name

Jolani is kind of like Galani. So are you saying that his family is originally from modern day where Israel is today, the Golan Heights, or am I misinterpreting that? That's what we're told. Yeah, I'm not sure how true. That's because, of course, you know, being a from the Zolan might be a sort of claim, you know, maybe they're not necessarily true. But yeah, as you know, in 1967, when Israel conquered the Golan Heights, there was, you know, of quite large number of Syrian population, which then withdrew and sort of left back to Syria. Obviously, the Dru's population did not, and they're still in Syria, but non-Drews, Syrians, inconsiderable numbers left the Golan of that time.

So, yes, what I've heard and what I'm aware of is that Aboumhammedo Zulani claims that his parents were among those people. Well, that's an interesting biographical point that seems might be relevant to Israel. I want to dig deeper before getting to what the motivations of Turkey and some of these other foreign actors are into the rule of Zulani. I've read that Jolani says he's less extreme than, say, Saudi Arabia's Islamic rule in Idlib, region. I read, Jelani has allowed women not to wear the veil and smokers to keep their habit looser than the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. He put out a press release after capturing Aleppo saying diversity is our strength. Yes, that's right. Is this moderation to the extent this is moderate for that region? It's not probably exactly moderate for the West. But is this

moderation real or is it pragmatic until he gets to a point of control? Do we have any sense of what his real ideological moorings are? I mean, the thing is that the guy, you know, join the al-Qaeda network. That's his background. So, you know, he comes from a Salafi jihadi, you know, extreme Sunni-Islamist origin. But yeah, you're right to point this out. I mean, if there is now some years of, you know, of proof, so to speak, of him doing de facto governance of Idlib province, and sure, if we're comparing it to, for example, the stringency

of the Islamic States, which would probably be the natural comparison, because those are the circles, you know, they emerge from the same circles that he emerged from. Yeah, there are differences. It's true that he hasn't banned smoking, for example, which Islamic State did ban, you know. So these are examples where, you know, it doesn't mean that he's a liberal, but it does mean there is a difference in his levels of government. So, you know, we can compare it. I mean, Hamas comes from a very, among the Palestinians, comes from a very, very different

ideological origin than Abu Mohammed al-Junani. It comes from the Muslim Brotherhood, of course. But nevertheless, we can think of it on a gradation, you know, in which you would think about the Hamas enclave in Gaza, think about the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and the and the Hayatahir Shah experience of governance being kind of somewhere between the two. You know, it's certainly not as extreme as the other example of Salafi jihadi governance we have in the Levant over the last decade, which is, of course, a Islamic State. Yeah, a very significant differences. As to why he's doing that and what he wants in the longer term,

I think people can, I think we can only speculate about that, of course, because we can't be in his mind. But one thing I would say is that it's important, and it's, I guess, the Israeli experience here a little bit, maybe does come into relevance here, you know, mistaking sort of tactical pragmatism on the parts of Sunni Islamists or Sunni jihadis, mistaking that for a kind of strategic flexibility is, I think, a mistake that Israel made with regard to Hamas in Gaza, and I would not recommend any of us to make the same mistake with regard to this guy. Well, in fact, you tweeted out a video of a rebel saying, I guess one of his men, or at least under his

command, we will kill all the Azidi men, take their wimpin as slaves, and teach their children Islam, we will also kill every Druze who refuses to convert to Islam. I mean, when we're talking moderation, I guess that would be a degree of moderation to something worse.

But is that representative, do you think, of his view? Well, first of all, with regard to Yazidis, you know, you need to be aware in terms of the kind of theology of these guys, that there's a difference between the Yazidis and people of the book, yeah, because these Edis are regarded as pagans, and pagans, therefore, are seen as outside of any protection in the hands of its law. I mean, the views of Salafi jihadis.

As I say, generally, I think we should be very suspicious. I mean, yeah, you're right. There was this announcement made in Aleppo. There was a subsequent announcement made with regard to Kurds as well, sorry, with regard to Alois as well, rather in recent days. So, you know, yeah, they're putting this stuff out. He's a smart guy, and he understands that, you know, he doesn't want to bring the whole world down on him just when he's getting somewhere. But yeah, as I said, and I guess I can only really repeat what I said, because this is my view, and it's clearly expressed. Israel made the mistake with regard to Hamas of mistaking tactical flexibility, for strategic flexibility. I recommend we do not make that mistake with

regard to al-Mah, so I hope that's a clear answer. You mentioned these Edis are not people of the book. Christians in theory, I guess, are people of the book, although it depends on whether they believe in the Trinity or not. I think that might be an open debate, which would make them not people of the book, because most, I think Christians do believe in the Trinity. But how, you know, the Christians in Syria in Aleppo, do we know how he has treated them so far? So far, well, again, it's difficult because there have been, you know, there's so much disinformation around. You're probably aware there have been some clips of Christians in Aleppo saying, oh, yeah, okay, this is, this seems to be, you know, not so bad and all.

What I am aware of is that many Christians have taken refuge in the remaining Kurdish neighborhood of Aleppo, which is Sheikh Maksud. And I think that, you know, is probably an indicator. I tend to think that what HTS's advance will bring, and I think we're seeing this, by the way, in Homs right now, in real time, if you look at the filming of people of panicked crowds leaving Homs, you know, what we'll see is that many, most people who are not Sunni Arab Syrians will leave in the wake of Hayat Tahrir Hasham as it advances. So I think most people won't, I can I put it,

most people won't stick around to test the theory of Abu Mohammed al-Jurani's moderation, and I think they're probably right to not do so. Well, one of the issues in this region is sometimes, you know, you don't have very good choices for friends. So if you're Israel or the United States, do you want Assad in power or do you want Jalani in power? I mean, is there a preference here? Could you work with Jalani? I mean, it's, you know, there's not many great options in Syria at the moment. Absolutely.

I mean, I think that, you know, obviously the crowd that the West and truly the U.S. Department of Defense have found possible to create a very successful relationship with other Syrian Kurds and specifically the Syrian Democratic forces who are in control of 30% of the country. There, I think you have quite, you know, in a way, if I might put it that way, quite a rare example of the West actually doing successful proxy warfare. That's one of the things the West generally hasn't done well. In the case of Syrian Kurds, it has done it well and that's a legitimate and lasting relationship. Yeah, with regard to Syria, west of the Euphrates, so sweet, there isn't really any great choices. I think from an Israeli point of view, which I can maybe

better speak to. The logic will be that there's no proof. If these two sides want to tear chunks out of each other, frankly, and in so doing weaken one another, then that's not bad at all, you know, and if it turns out that Al-Mahmad Lazzanadi gets a little bit southwards and cuts off his bollas and Iran's arm's route through to Al-Coseer and into Lebanon, then that's pretty good as well, you know, so if they can weaken one another and each one can not quite be entirely victorious, that's, I think, not a bad outlook from an Israeli point of view. The fact is that Israel, as you mentioned at the beginning, I'm sorry, Syria, as you mentioned at the beginning, has been divided de facto now in a kind of frozen conflict since 2020. And from an Israeli point of view, Israel be, excuse me, once again, Syria being divided de facto is not a bad outcome.

So if Syria stays divided, but what happens is that, you know, the Sunni Islamist enclave grows and Assad's enclave shrinks, that's not a bad outcome from an Israeli point of view. I don't think anybody in Israel ought to be hoping for Abu Muhammad al-Zulani to roll into Damascus, and I assume that nobody is hoping for that, because after all, yeah, Assad's not good, but a resurgent, angry, new Sunni-jahadi state on Israel's borders is almost certainly not a good thing, and I think it would not be something which Israel ought to be encouraging or is encouraging or is hoping for. With regard to the United States, again, I think it's the same thing. you know, a resurgence of Sunni jihadism in the Levant will not be good for American interests and will be not good or will not be good for American allies' interests either.

You mentioned the Syrian Kurds, and I think a lot, by the last time a lot of Americans heard about, I remember hearing about the Syrian Kurds is when Donald Trump was president and he had a phone call with Erdogan and Turkey and decided to pull out American troops from helping the Kurds. My understanding is that there's still American troops there, though. How many American troops are in Syria now? Where are they? And the Syrian Kurds, what is their view of the U.S. after that famous phone call? Yeah, the number, the official number which is given of United States service people in Syria is 900.

I suspect it's slightly more than that. And most people think it's slightly more than that. They are deployed essentially in two areas. One area, which is the larger area that I guess that we're discussing, is the Kurdish-dominated. Encliffe, which comprises about 30% actually of Syria's in total territory. So it's no small area. It's the entirety of Syria east of the Euphrates. And then there is another base further west, close to the border with Jordan, called Altanif, which is controlled by a rebel group who kind of work in cooperation with the United States. And there are American and allied personnel

there training those rebels. And that's an important spot as well, because what it does, because the Americans maintain, and their ally, retain a kind of fire zone around that base, which covers the road heading from east to west, which means that the Iranians, insofar as they might try to use that road to bring armaments westwards for Hezbollah, whoever else, are subject to finding those destroyed, so they're not able to use that road. They have to use roads further north. So those shus eras, it's the entirety of Syria-eastern Euphrates, that's the main part. And then there's the TANF base as well, somewhat first.

the West. That's where the Americans are deployed. And what did the Kurds think about what took place in 2019? Yeah, look, I mean, I think all of us remember that that was kind of a testimony to the somewhat chaotic way that the first Trump administration sometimes did policymaking because, yeah, the announcement of withdrawal was made. And then as a result of that, the Turks launched a kind of incursion into the Kurdish control area. And then the reversal was kind of walked back by the administration and it turned out the administration didn't intend in fact to entirely pull out all the American service people what exactly happened behind the scenes I don't know but the decision was kind of partially reversed with the end result where when the dust settled and I actually

was covering was reporting on the on the thing on that is inside Syria at the time what happened was the Turks had kind of carved out a little chunk into the formerly Kurdish area but the Kurdish area largely remained intact and has remained intact now half a decade later up until this day And you say the Kurds have about 30% of Syria right now. Presumably, I would guess that they don't want more. They're happy with their territory. They wouldn't be a potential ally to consolidate the country. Well, they've actually lost a little offensive in recent days of their own.

It's kind of interesting because there's a little area of about seven villages, which are east of the Euphrates in Derrassau province, which is in the southern part of the Kurdish-controlled area. and the Kurds kind of want to clean up, clean up the lines, so to speak. They want to push the Iranian-supported forces west of the Uphrates in their entirety. So they've actually been fighting in those areas in recent days. And I think they're hoping to clear up the line. Beyond kind of straightening out the line, yeah, I tend to think that's right.

I don't envisage the in the event, let's say, if Holmes falls and then Al-Zolani's forces are pushing southwards towards Damascus, do we imagine that the Kurdish forces will then sort of push west of the Euphrates and seek to kind of grab more territory in the area? No, I don't think so. And I especially don't think so because I mentioned at the beginning, there's another offensive going on, no of Hayatah Lir Shaham out of the Turkish-supported enclave, but by another organization called Jaishuatini or Syrian National Army. And they've been attacking Kurdish areas, in fact, to the east of that enclave. So the Kurds are busy facing a potentially quite large Kurdish refugee issue of Kurds and other, indeed, non-Kurdish Syrians, making their way into the Kurdish-controlled areas.

In other words, I think the Kurds are going to have quite a lot to think about without getting into the notion of sort of massively expanding their enclaves, which by the other, I think they don't want. They don't really want to control Derazor either in lots of ways because Delazor has a majority Arab population and a Kurdish-dominated enclave trying to handle sort of restive Arab majority province. is, like, not something which the Kurds necessarily will wish to get into. Let me discuss kind of the foreign players that you alluded to that are operating here. Turkey, you said Turkey is one of the supporters of Jalani and his organization. I would guess, presumably, to attack the Kurds? What is Turkey's interest there in supporting Jalani? Well, first of all, with regard to, I should mention that the Zajalwatini, the Syrian National Army,

which is the other sort of rebel or Sunni Islamist force inside that enclave, is pretty much a Turkish production. Whereas the Syrian National Army was basically created by Turkey. What Turkey did was it sort of pulled together all the remaining small rebel militias of northern Syria and kind of corralled them under a single banner, so to speak, and that's what that Syrian National Army is. And unsurprisingly, as you hinted at,

what that army is currently busy doing, is it's busy attacking the Kurds, and that's not surprising because I think that Turkey or Erdogan's primary goal, or indeed it's not just that I think it, it's that they say it, primary goal is to end what they regard as the PKK enclave or PKK state-lit on Turkey's borders, which is the Syrian Kurdish enclave. So yeah, I think that's the matter of most urgency for them. But I think what they also want to do is they want to help their allies push southwards. I think what they've found is that, you know, they would, they've been willing in the past to normalize with the Assad regime or to reestablish relations, and they found

that Assad has been unwilling to normalize with them because Assad has said, no, no, no, you have to withdraw your forces in their entirety from Syria before we can normalize. So I think what they're kind of wanting to do, initially at least, is to sort of, you know, put some pressure on Bashar Assad. I'm not sure if they have maybe been as surprised as the rest of us, by the extent of Ajalani's advances, you know, certainly we've all been surprised by it's possible it would seem to me that the Turks have been as well. So I would suspect that they themselves are also gathering, you know, gathering their thoughts as to what they actually want with all this. And I think this is a resolve of some Turkish master plan. I think what it is, is that what Azzalani

and his guys found was they were kind of kicking at a door and they found the door was rotten, much more rotten than they had maybe envisaged. And as a result, the regime seems to be falling back constantly at the moment. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind.

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Hezbollah, Russia, all supporting Assad. What would it say Jonathan, if they can't back him up. If Assad falls or more territory is taken and the efforts of Iran and Russia to the extent they're able to mount any effort doesn't work. What would that say about Assad? What would it say about Husbalah, Iran and Russia? Yeah, I mean, for Assad, I think what he would mean, what he would say about him was that either he gets, you know, hanged on a lamp post in Damascus, or he and Asma and the family are probably going to be spending the rest of their lives in Russia. But with regard to what he would mean for Iran more broadly, it would be a disaster for

them. And frankly, it would be a disaster coming in the wake of a whole series of really serious setbacks that they've had in the course of the last year, beginning with, obviously, the effective destruction of the Hamas enclave in Gaza following the October 7 massacre, going on to the effective defeat of his Bola, in which his Bola agrees contrary to its stated goal, to unilaterally abandon Hamas in Gaza and made a separate ceasefire with Israel after its entire leadership have effectively been decimated.

And going on, I would say, to take in the conventional missile exchanges between Israel and Iran in the court on two occasions in the course of the last year, in which the last Israeli attack, which destroyed Iran's air defences in October 26th, has not yet,

and we're now already, after all, into mid-in-December, has not yet received any Iranian response. And the region notices that, especially because the Iranians issued all kinds of blood-curdling threats following the October 26 Israeli attack, but I haven't followed that up with anything. So it's been not a very good few months for what likes to call itself the resistance axis. I mean, the Iran-led regional alliance. And if Assad falls, that is nothing less than a strategic disaster for the Iranians, because what it does is it will leave Hezbollah isolated there on the Mediterranean, no longer with that land corridor from which they are able to receive.

Iranian assistance from Iran, of course, through Iraq, which Iran still does remain dominant in, then it would go through Syria and to Lebanon. If the Sunni Islamists take Syria, that then kind of cuts the Iranian land empire in the Levant into two, and it will be nothing short of a strategic disaster for Islamic Republic of Iran. We mentioned the U.S. has supported the Kurdish forces. In the past, during the beginning of the Civil War, there was some support from the U.S., Saudi, UAE for the rebel forces. Are they still there supporting, if not Jalani, some other rebel force, or is that no longer the case? Yeah, no, that's no longer the case.

I mean, what very notably what United Arab Emirates in particular has been pushing in recent years and then bringing Saudi Arabia along in its wake over the course of the last year or so was reconciliation with the Assad regime. or United Arab Emirates. The line that Mahmah bin Zaid and United Arab Emirates have been pushed for a number of years now is no, the civil wars over Assad won. We are pragmatists.

So it's time to start tempting Assad towards normality by normalizing with him diplomatically, encouraging the Europeans also to normalize with him diplomatically, and then encouraging him to and then helping him to receive economic aid in return for that. And by the way, there were plenty of people or a number of people here in Israel, people close to power, who signed up for that as well, and who had the idea that Assad could

be induced through financial and diplomatic inducement to abandon the Iranians to cause the Iranians to leave Syria and then to normalize. I always thought that the whole thing was pie in the sky, but in any case, the Emirates have been pushing that now for around half a decade. And, you know, it was kind of the game, the name of the game, so to speak, in terms of people who talked about Syrian diplomacy, up until about a week ago, now that all looks like a very long time ago. But no, sure, the United Arab Emirates and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia got out of the game of supporting the Syrian rebellion already around half a decade ago when it became clear, at least so they thought, and so we all thought also, really, that the Syrian rebellion

had effectively run out of steam, and all that was left of it was a little enclave guaranteed by the Turks in 10% of the country, way up there in the northwest of it, of the country. So, Jonathan, I'm going to just close on this. What do you think is next? What should we hope for? And, you know, what are the potential risks for Israel, for the United States, for the West? I mean, my own view, as I kind of hinted out before, is that it would not be in the interest of either Israel or the West for either of these forces to be entirely victorious. It's certainly not a good thing, of course, for Iran, Hezbollah and Assad to be entirely victorious, I guess for kind of obvious reasons. But my own view would be that, you know, an Islamist Turkey supported Islamist militia coming to power in Syria is also likely to be a recipe for disaster. That will not then be. a regime, an Abu Mohammed al-Jolani regime in Damascus, so to speak, it is not going to be regimes looking to reconcile with the West and be part of the kind of positive developments in the region represented by such initiatives as the Abraham Accords and so on. This will be an angry, new Sunni Islamist regime hungry for further victories, and that should not be

something which we will be wishing for. So, yeah, I think that, you know, a situation in which the lines solidify once again, maybe along a different arrangement to the one we've known, is 2020, would probably be the optimal situation from the point of view of the West and of Israel. I'm not sure at all whether that's going to be what's going to happen, but that I think would be the best possible outcome of the events of the last days, the very dramatic events of the last days I should have had. John Féry, just one final question I should have asked about Jolani to begin with. I forget the term that I've seen used, that he is, it's called internal jihad.

Not internal personally, but just in Syria. then maybe he's learned from others that being too grandiose in your vision. He's just looking to control Syria as opposed to expert the jihad to other places in Middle East and to the West. What do you know of that and do you believe it? First of all, I think, no, I think there is something to that. I mean, I think there is, you know, it's notable not only in terms of his declarations, but also in terms of the activities of his organization over the last half decade or so, that they have not been looking to, that they obviously cut off from al-Qaeda in 2016,

and they've not been looking to be part of actions outside of Syria. That's true. Do I believe that will necessarily last, or we can kind of take that to the bank? No, I do not. The guy's background is in Salafi jihadism of the most extreme kind. Firstly, secondly, I assume, and again, it almost astonishes me to hear myself saying this as though it's a realistic possibility, because two weeks ago, would have sounded like science fiction. But if we can imagine a situation in which Abu Muhammad

Zulani's forces take Damascus, well, they're interested in jihad just within the context of Syria. I'm sure they also regard the Golan Heights as part of Syria. So you can say you can take that thought where it naturally follows, right? It means that a resurgent triumphant Jolani with a resurgent, warlike, new victorious Sunni jihadi regime will almost certainly be looking to get into the business of fighting for what he would regard as conquers. Syrian land. I think that's something which we can be quite certain of. For that reason, as I said before, you know, him making some gains against Assad is just fine. Him and Assad continue to tear each other apart is just fine too. Him being completely victorious would be very, very bad

for Israel and I think also for the broader West. Jonathan Spire, thank you for joining the Dispatch Podcast. Thanks very much, James. You know, I'm going to