The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 120. The New President of Syria: Trump, Palestine, and having a $10 million bounty on your head (Ahmed al-Sharaa)

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

How did Ahmed al-Sharaa go from an imprisoned al-Qaeda fighter to the leader of Syria? What is the psychological impact of living a secret life for over twenty years? What is the future of Syria? Ahmed al-Sharaa joins Rory and Alastair to discuss all this and more. TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to receive early access to Question Time episodes to live show tickets, enjoy ad-free listening for both TRIP and Leading, receive our exclusive newsletter, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and join our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [e-mail] Translators - Ibrahim Kadouni & Gerard Russell Hani Tayfour - Director (RealStudio Production) Siham Alobede Technical supervisor (RealStudio Production) Ahmad Jalal Alkilani - Cameraman (RealStudio Production) Hasan Ajlany - DOP Hassan Jabri - Sound Engineer Mohamad Hamami - Sound Technician Assistant Bilal Altabakh - Lighting Technician Chahine Jebara - Lighting Technician Hadi Alali - Local Producer Video editor: Josh Smith Assistant producer: Alice Horrell Producers: Nicole Maslen Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor, Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's the restispolics.com. Welcome to the rest is politics leading with me, Rory Stewart. And with me, Alistair Campbell. And you're about to listen to an interview that Roy and I did a few days ago in Damascus, in the Palace of the People, as Basha Allah Assad insisted on calling it, which is now occupied by a man that many of you will know as Al Jalani, but actually is called now President Ahmed al-Shara. And a really, really interesting interview. We ended up having longer with him than we expected to. It came about because one of his people had heard Rory and I talking about him on the podcast, and we'd said that we'd love to interview him, and then they got in touch through the foreign ministry,

and we then met the foreign minister in Davos, talked about when and how we might get there and do the interview, flew to Beirut, got driven to Damascus, and then after a long way, while he was in Saudi Arabia seeing Mohammed bin Salman and others, up to the palace at 10.30, started the interview at Tappas, at night and we left there roughly just before 1 o'clock. I'd been there before when Assad was empowered. I'd say the security even greater in terms of the ins and outs and taking

away our phones, taking away our passports. Pretty ghastly place in many ways. I think there's only so much marble you can take in. I don't think Mr. and Mrs. Assad had much in the way of taste. But, you know, we talked about all sorts of different things. you know, what we couldn't do was kind of explain everything that we were talking about as we went. Some of the history you just have to take for granted. So Rory, before we get going, why don't you just do one of your famous explainers about who this guy is and kind of how he got to where he's got to? And then that will maybe help people understand better the conversation that we have.

Well, first thing to be said is that Ahmed al-Shara or Aboumahemad al-Jalani was one of the most wanted terrorists in the world with a $10 million US bounty on his head. He joined al-Qaeda Iraq 22 years ago, was the Emir for al-Qaeda in Syria, in other words the boss, and therefore it was not until very recently that anyone could begin to get any real information about him. He lived, as you would expect, as a highly wanted international terrorist, a life of extreme secrecy. Almost nothing was known about his wife, about his children, and even very well-informed commentators, if you go back through articles a few years ago, get his age wrong, get his place of birth wrong, get his family wrong.

Get his name wrong sometimes. Get his name wrong. And so it's only really in the last 60 days since he exploded out of this small territory up in northwest Syria. And in a matter of days, with almost no opposite. swept through from Aleppo to Damascus, capturing the whole country and becoming president, that he's emerged into the limelight, and we've begun to put together some of the facts of his life. So, born in Saudi Arabia, where his family were living in exile, they were originally from the Golan Heights,

a part of Syria now occupied by Israel. His father, who was an engineer from a middle-class family, returned to Damascus when Ahmed al-Shara was eight or nine years old, it seems, and his father was involved in pretty liberal Arab nationalist demonstrations against the old Assad government, which in fact was in place for almost 50 years, Syria ruled for 50 years by Assad father and son. Participated in something called the Damascus Spring, and you'll hear when you listen to the interview. We try to use this as a way of getting him to talk about the difference between his ideology and his father's because his father tried to lead a sort of more liberal nationalist rebellion, as opposed to an Islamist rebellion.

2003, at the age of 19, the young Ahmad al-Shara, who was then a media student at the university, crossed the border into Iraq and joined al-Qaeda Iraq in its opposition, its fight against the U.S. and British invasion and occupation. Al-Qaeda Iraq, I first came across because I was in the UN building in Baghdad, meeting UN officials. I had had lunch in the canteen. I left. I went back to my hotel and was due to come back again that afternoon. And in the intervening hour, Al-Qaeda Iraq drove a suicide truck straight up against the side of the building, killed a dozen people, injured hundreds. And I returned. to find this entire building blown up. The guy that had served me at lunch was dead. The head of the

UN had been killed as the building fell on his head. And quite quickly, this organization, which Amid al-Shara joined, developed a reputation under its boss, a Jordanian hard man, petty criminal in his late teens called Ebel Musab al-Zakawi. And he got a reputation for soaring off people's heads, basically posting snuff videos of killing Americans and also for letting off big bombs, not just against the UN, but also killing a big Shia cleric and starting a civil war against the Shia in Iraq. And the idea was, from Zalcarbi's point of view, and he'd been a fighter in Afghanistan and he'd met bin Laden, he'd met Zawahari, was that by creating a massive violent civil war between Sunni and Shia, he could combine total chaos.

in Iraq with attacks against the occupation forces. Just jumping in there, Roy, it's probably worth pointing out for listeners when they get to the point where he talks about the efforts that he always went to as a fighter and a warrior to avoid civilian casualties, that it's quite hard to square that, either with the bountry on his head or with the suicide bombing, the car bombings, etc. So we're talking about a level of violence that the people will know of. about, but which now he's clearly trying to talk down in terms of his role. Yes.

Because what you're going to see is somebody who's trying to project himself as a political leader now rather than the military figure that clearly has been for most of his life. Yeah, and he says in the interview that he's interested in sitting down with us in much more detail to talk through how al-Qaeda operated in Iraq, how the factions work, why he broke from them. And I guess he's trying to say that he, along with actually some of the leadership, including Zawahari, who has bin Laden's deputy in Afghanistan, thought that Zakawi, the leader of al-Qaeda Iraq, went too far. And the end of the story is that having been put in prison by the Americans, he was held in a series of American prisons, which I knew quite well, because again, one of the

ironies of this interview is that you were, of course, very, very deeply involved with Tony Blair and George Bush in the initial decision to invade Iraq. And I was on the ground at the same time as Ahmed al-Shara, 2003-4-5 in Iraq. So the prison that he was held in was a prison I knew. And one of the things I knew about that prison was that the Americans who were inputting data kept getting people's names wrong. And sure enough, one of the reasons this guy was released is that he was incorrectly recorded as an Iraqi Kurd and was released from prison.

He then joined what went on to become ISIS, who came close to. al-Baghdadi but at the point at which al-Baghdadi sent him across the Syrian border with a tiny group of people five or six people he was sent off to open the franchise in Syria open al-Qaeda Syria he fought and tried to hold Aleppo lost Aleppo his organization began changing names began being called Jebeltaon-Nusra and eventually HTS and along the way he broke with ISIS and Daesh and and the break was very dramatic. It was a hugely risky moment. He was told to come into line and join an idea of a great caliphate across the Iraqi-Syrian border. He instead decided to go straight over al-Baghdadi's

head, right back to al-Qaeda central, to the new head of al-Qaeda, the guy that had replaced bin Laden after bin Laden's death, and pledge allegiance directly to him. And this then led to a war between him and Daesh, in which an enormous number of his own fighters were killed, he lost Aleppo, he retreated back. And that is really as much as I know about him. And really, the world itself doesn't know much more than these outlines. And it would be fascinating. I'm going to hand back to you now.

But fascinating at some point to see if we could take him up on the offer to really understand this. Because, of course, what he will say, I think, is that ISIS went too far, that he didn't agree with the attacks on the Shia. He didn't agree with the attacks on civilians. He may not have agreed with some of the snuff videos. He may have had a different relationship with the foreign fighters. And therefore, he's doing something which for a Western audience will sound very, very, very bizarre, which is that he's presenting al-Qaeda as being the sort of more moderate, sensible fringe, and ISIS as the crazier edge.

And I suppose a big warning here, which is like our interview with Jerry Adams, he's lived a secret life. There's no way of checking his statements. There's no reason particularly to believe that he's being honest about his early life. In fact, every reason to believe that he may wish to misrepresented it. And we're trying to draw him out. And over on that to you, on the challenges that interview. The thing I would say, rather than it being necessarily dishonest,

because as you say, we don't know. We don't know the full story of his life. We don't know of all the organizations he was involved. And when we don't know why. we talked to him a lot about when he was in prison. We don't know why when he was in prison, he was suddenly alighted upon by other leaders as a man who could clearly be a leader of when he came out, which is exactly what happened. He essentially came out of prison and was one of the leaders. And of course, we know from Irish terrorism that, you know, I do see quite a lot of

parallels here, but prison in a sense becomes a kind of education ground. When you're in there with other people in for the same thing and you're learning, you're swapping ideas. He talked about the history that he learned while he was there. But I think it's interesting, you said there about when the Americans invaded Iraq, when people hear the interview, he talks about the Americans entering Iraq. He mentions at one point the Israeli state, which I suspect for most of his life, he's not recognized. And he talks about Israeli state.

He talks about thousands and thousands of Palestinians who were killed. He's not saying who were butchered by the evil, vicious enemy. So he's definitely, I would argue, softening his language. And I think this is part of, and I suspect the reason why he's done the podcast with us, is because he wants to reach a Western audience. They're obviously keen to get sanctions lifted. They want to get unprescribed as a terrorist organization. And the fact is that since he did explode, as you say, from Idlib,

affected this bloodless victory, Assad fleeing with his wife and now settled in some palace in Russia, he's since then been projecting himself as a politician. And it's very interesting, for example, you were talking there about the story, but actually even when we try to drill in on the more general jihadi elements and the causes they were fighting and the battle in Europe, up and taking out diplomats and all that. He's fixated completely in his argument about Syria. It's almost like I was doing this to train, to learn, to get ready to come back and take, get rid of Assad and take over Syria. And of course, the other thing that we talk about is the

challenges of Syria now. I mean, this is a country that's in a real mess. We spent a few days there and, you know, it's amazing and the people are unbelievably resilient, but the country is in an absolute mess and this guy now has to try to turn things around. But one of the things that I think is happening is having to say different things to different audiences. He still does have the jihadi elements who maybe some of them will be very upset with him, some will still want to believe in it. He does have the public opinion who basically just want their electricity to work. They want to stop having to carry cash around in plastic bags because the inflation is so rampant. And of course he wants international leaders to believe that he is.

a man of peace that can be trusted, that can be respected, and that way he gets sanctions lifted. So he's speaking to so many different audiences here. Final point for me, I thought what she said there was very interesting about the change of language, because of course, if you see how Archaida Iraq spoke in 2003-4, the language that he would have learned, it would have been the crusader conspiracy with greater Israel, you know, for the extermination of the Muslim people, and it would all be couched in these grand historical terms. they also believed in these incredible sort of ideas that was going to be a final last battle at a place called Dabik, where the Christian crusaders would finally be cancelled.

And what's happened now is that a bit like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the war on terror seems to have meant, and there's a brilliant articles by Hassan Hassan on this, who's the leading authority on al-Qaeda Iraq and Daesh, that what's happened is that a loss of these leaders have decided. to shift from international jihad, focusing on the enemy in the United States, to creating their own states and focusing within their own borders. So the sense is, I'm going to focus on Syria. I'm not going to get into arguments about Lebanon. I'm not getting into arguments about Israel. I'm not getting into arguments about Iraq. I'm not even getting into fights with Turkey. I'm just focusing on Syria. But as you said, he's doing it in a very, very different way to the Taliban because so far at least, Damascus, as we found when we were walking through it, is very much still a place where women have heads uncovered, where you can drink alcohol,

where there's a big Christian community. And that will be a challenge, presumably, eventually with hardliners and his own organization, because they will think, wait a second, we spent 22 years fighting. People have gone and literally again and again, hundreds of us have blown ourselves up to fight for the, creation of an Islamic state for Sharia for a particular Salafi vision. And now he's talking about a sort of multi-ethnic state which recognizes lots of minority religions and allows what would be seen by some of his supporters at pretty liberal Western social codes. So what kind of pragmatist is he? How much does he change? And how on earth does he make this transition from being

secret terrorist to public politician? And before we get to the interview, just a few people to thank. We had a fantastic crew of Syrians who were looking after us and who were filming, beautifully filmed, I have to say. The new Syrian presidential team has got the hang of where to put the flags and how to get the best angles and all that stuff. We had a couple of interpreters in the room who helped us get through the interview. But since then, we've actually had it translated by probably the finest Arabic speaker in Britain, which is Gerard Russell, who brought and I both worked with in the past, and also a Syrian called Ibrahim Kaduni. So I think we've really gone the extra mile, as they say, to make sure that this is translated

as well as it can be. And often, as Gerard often says, that sometimes it's what is not said that is as interesting as what is said. And the final shout out, I think we should give Rory, we did hear from more than one person out there about the role that Jonathan Powell's intermediate organ. organization have played. Jonathan Powell, who was Tony Blair's chief of staff, then set up this amazing charity intermediate, which is about sort of trying to resolve conflict around the world, who's now Kyr Starma's national security advisor. But we heard from media people, NGO people,

and from Syrian now government people that Jonathan and his team had been very important in this part of this journey from Alshara and others, from, if you like, war to what they're now trying to do, which is build peace. Here's the interview. You've just been in Saudi Arabia. Tell us what you were doing there, what you were hoping to achieve and what you did achieve. In the name of Allah, the most beneficent, the most merciful. Welcome to Damascus. To begin with, Saudi Arabia is where I was born. And I had always dreamed of going back there. That's at a personal level. Speaking as a head of state, I wanted my first visit to be to a major Arab country. And so, when I received an urgent

invitation from the Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, I took him up on it right away, because I thought it was a good idea for my first visit to be to Saudi Arabia. It's a country with a special status and influence in our region. that's that of the montyga. Does it not feel very strange to be the president now?

You're in this palace that Assad was in you've been a fighter, you've been a prisoner, you've been a warrior, you've been a leader,

and now you're president. Does this not feel very, very strange? I was a fighter, but it wasn't because I wanted to fight. And today,

I am the president, but it's not because, cause I wanted to be president. Syrians endured terrible oppression for 60 years. During the past 14 years, their society

has been systematically destroyed. People were displaced, murdered, killed with chemical weapons and tortured in the regime's presence. The regime did not take up on any of the political solutions

that were offered to it. It refused to meet any of the people's demands. After things escalated and fighting began, it was offered lots of political solutions from regional countries and the international community, but it refused any political solution and continued to destroy Syrian society. So we say in English that the child is father of the man and sometimes we feel that our childhood helps to make us. Can you share anything about your childhood and the values of your childhood that helped you become the person you are today?

My family comes originally from the Golan, now occupied by the Israeli state. I was born in Saudi Arabia, I lived in Damascus, then went to Iraq and finally came back to Syria for the sake of the blessed Syrian revolution. So my life had many stages, and during this journey I was introduced to many ideas. In my childhood, I was like any other child. I lived in a neighborhood that was well of middle class or upper middle class. I went to elementary school in Damascus, then middle school and high school. After that, during my first year in college, war broke out in Iraq. I felt that I had to go there. Our region, generally back then, was going through a difficult time.

This was when the Intifada was happening in occupied Palestine, and many Palestinians were killed, especially in 2000 and 2001 and 2002. I'm from a sort of a political family. My father had been a political refugee in Iraq, and he wrote about political issues for Saudi and Syrian newspapers. We talked about politics in our home. Your father was a leading figure in the Damascus Spring, and in the end, the Damascus Spring was not successful.

What lessons did you learn from that failure? Was the problem for the Damascus Spring ideological or tactical? Generally, there is a lot. a strong political culture in Arab societies. But ordinary people have no experience of practical politics because Arab regimes don't let them take part in it. And without that experience, they can't have a correct practical understanding

of political reality. Also, in a country like Syria, there wasn't any forum for engaging in practical politics. So the Damascus Springs, Spring was born dead. You were in Iraq as a fighter for three years and then in prison for five years. What was it like being in a prison? How did that change you?

What did it teach you? And how did you become this figure that rose so quickly through the ranks of the various organizations that involved in the insurgency? As I mentioned, back then, I was 19 years old. or so when I started to realize just how much oppression there was in Syria and the wider region. The Palestinian Intifada had a big impact on me psychologically. I felt the need to learn and I read a lot about Damascus and Syria, the incredible depth of its history and the great civilization it represents, as it is the first city known to humans. I often walked through

the alleyways of old Damascus, and I could feel history speaking from every corner. But at the same time, I could see the state of the country and the appalling way that the former government was running the country. I felt pain for the burden that Damascus carried, and how the regime was abusing Syrian society and this ancient city. I believe that this regime should fall. But at that time, We didn't have the means or the experience. So I decided to go to wherever I could gain some experience. This was at the same time that the Americans were preparing to enter Iraq.

There was a strong Arab and Islamic reaction against what the Americans were doing. So I had two reasons for going there. First, I saw it as an opportunity to learn and gain valuable experience by witnessing a total war so that I could return to Syria and benefit from the knowledge I would gain. Secondly, I was driven by the passion and youthful spirit I had

to defend the people of Iraq from occupation. You may not understand that, but you have to remember that I was a young man then and I had a particular mindset. So I went to Iraq and were, with various different groups. Eventually these groups one by one started to shrink and merge into Al-Qaeda and that is how I found myself with Al-Qaeda. And tell us about life in prison. In Iraq I was put in prison early on. I was sent to the infamous Abu

Arab prison where people were being tortured. Then I moved to Bukha prison. After that I was moved to Kropa prison in Baghdad and finally to Taji prison before being released. So during this tour of prisons, I got to know a lot of people and I was myself becoming more politically mature. So I came to see that there was a big difference between what I stood for and some of the ideas that I was hearing from other prisoners, which were really shocking to me. I mean, this was at a time when sectarian conflict was causing a lot of problems in Iraq, and I had no part in that at all. Even inside prison, I did not operate the same way as others.

As a result, I came in for criticism from some of the other prisoners who believed in what later became ISIS's ideology. During my time in Iraq, especially while in prison, I focused on planning my return to Syria. Even before the revolution began, I took to a few people, particularly some Syrians, who were also in prison. It was by fate that I was released

just two days before the Syrian revolution started. As soon as I could, I quickly made arrangement and went back to Syria. I had said some conditions beforehand. First, that we would not. repeat the Iraq experience in Syria. We wouldn't take part in any kind of sectarian war. Our focus was going to be on fighting the regime. I came to Syria with a small group of people, about five or six of us. In a year, this number grew to five thousand and I had reached

across almost all Syrian provinces. Al-Qaeda in Iraq were surprised to see it. that. Then they wanted to do in Syria what they had done in Iraq, which I strongly opposed. This led to a major conflict between us, during which more than 1,200 of my people were killed, and I lost 70% of my forces. We regrouped, we stayed focused on fighting the regime, we also had to tackle some threats on the margin from ISIS and the groups like that. It's strange for me sitting with you because we were both in Iraq together in 2003, but we were on different sides. I was part of the American-British occupation,

and you were fighting for Al-Qaeda against the occupation. And I never imagined I would sit down like this to talk to you in this way. What do you reflect over time on this experience and looking back over these years on that moment? This question needs a very long answer. It would take about 10 episodes like this one. I'm willing to have that discussion, but given my current position, a brief answer to such a large question would expose Syria to much criticism. I don't want to put Syria in that situation. right now. I'm fully prepared to answer all your questions and also add some points you may not be

aware of. But we would need ample time to do justice to this question. Both of us have been over this very strange journey over 22 years. What do you think it says about the fact we can now sit down and talk when 22 years ago we were fighting? What does this mean about the world. What is crucial is that policies should be looked at again. Policies need to be reviewed if we are to avoid making the same mistakes. I often changed my own decisions based on what I saw around me. I saw things happening that I did not like and I looked again at how we were doing things. I wasn't a big powerful decision maker then, but neither was I just that. passionate young man who found himself a member of Al-Qaeda.

At the same time, Western policies towards the Middle East at that time were the wrong policies and needed to be changed. And we don't want the peoples of the region to bear the consequences of poor decisions every 10 years. Would you say now you want to project yourself to the world as a man of peace? and how do you intend to build relations with countries that remain very, very suspicious? In our region, we are tired of war, and especially in Syria. Humanity cannot live without peace and security.

That's what people look for, not war. So, there are many things that can bring people together and lead to peaceful solutions without resorting to fighting. What unites us as a humanity in peace is far greater than what divides us in war. Mr. President, there's a practical challenge, which is inside HTS, the old HTS, were many different movements. And some of them are more extreme. And some of them maybe would be angry that you're sitting down with someone like me. How do you manage, as you become the president, all these old factions, even the more extreme ones? I think saying that sitting here with you wouldn't be allowed is a big exaggeration. It's not as bad as that.

I used persuasion and dialogue with all these people until we agreed on a proper and suitable formula so that we could live side by side and achieve the goals of the revolution. Many people agreed on this and through experience, awareness and extensive dialogue and discussion, we reached very positive results without having to fight each other. Some of the people we've been talking to today think that your first statements were very, very positive, very inclusive, but now want to see when is the National Congress going to come, when can they be guaranteed the Constitution,

and when might they hope to see elections? Do you have a clear time frame in your mind, Syria, we're going through many stages. Syria is going through many stages. The priority was to stabilize the government to prevent the state institutions from collapsing. We had the Idlib government ready to take over once we seized Damascus. We allowed three months for this. Then we will move to the next phase involving a constitutional declaration, the National Congress,

and the appointment of the presidency. We appointed a president through international conventions after consulting constitutional experts. The victorious forces appointed the president, abolished the previous constitution, and dissolved the former parliament. Now we will move to national dialogue, which will involve a wide range of people,

leading to recommendations that paved the way for the declaration of a new constitution. A temporary parliament will be formed and this parliament will establish a constitutional committee to draft the new constitution. The parliament will make sure the legislature. Mr. President, it must feel to you like a miracle.

You've been here 55 days and you went from Idlib suddenly to running the whole country. What was it like in those first few days? What surprised you? What was the most difficult thing about it? What have you learned most about yourself in the last 55 days? We established all the institutions in Idlib that we would need, and we fully prepared ourselves for government. In terms of security and institutions and services, I was certain that a day would come when we would be in Damascus. Two or three years ago, I would say in my speech that we would enter Damascus and the Lippo, and I would say this wasn't just to raise morale.

I was speaking based on data. I relied on data to analyze our own strength. The social cohesion we had in Idlib and compared that with the regime's situation, its economic collapse, societal fragmentation, and the condition of its army, as well as the interference of foreign countries inside the government. Mr. President, when I was a politician, I found it very difficult to go from speaking quite a theoretical way. And then later I realized that in the world of social media, Twitter, Facebook, I needed to open up and show my personality more. Is this something that you find a challenge? Is it difficult going from being in a secret organization to

than having to share more of your personality with your people. Each stage has its own circumstances. In Idlib, I engaged openly with people managing their affairs and meeting all segments of society. So I was a political figure then too, though not to the extent that I am now in Damascus. As you know, there is a different discourse in times of war and in times of peace.

It depends on the circumstances and what is needed and what is required of people in each stage. So for example, I've learned to speak about my children. I have two sons, seven and nine. Are you going to be able to talk about your sons and your family? Will this be part of being president? Certainly, in the position I hold today, my family will naturally be part of their picture.

I don't mean they will be involved in the work itself, but people have the right to know who my family is, who my children are, and how we live. The requirements of the presidency in Syria today are different from just managing Idlib, and I believe this is a part of the role. Can you tell us a little bit about your children, their personalities, their ages?

I have one wife, although the media often says I have more, but I have just one, and I have three children. We have shared living through hardships, but I made sure to shield them from any potential danger. Before we entered Damascus, I kept any information about them private, as the situation was tough. The war was still ongoing, and security concerns required a case. extreme caution. But in other Sudan, in Damesh, you'll have different.

Okay, let's just take a quick break. Back in a minute. Hey, this is Michael and Hannah from Goalhangers, The Rest is Science. This episode is brought to you by Cancer Research, UK. We often think of beating cancer as treatment,

but imagine stopping it before it begins. After years of work, Cancer Research UK scientists are launching a clinical trial of lung vacs, the first vaccine designed to prevent

lung cancer. It builds on TracerX, the world's largest cancer evolution study, which tracked lung cancer cells over many years to uncover the disease's earliest warning signs. Lung Vax is designed to train the immune system to spot these signs early on, destroying faulty cells before cancer develops. So it's not treatment, but preventative, with the potential to stop lung cancer before it starts. The first stage of the trial starts this year, focus on people at higher risk. It shows what long-term research makes possible. For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit cancer research UK.org forward slash the rest is science. Hi everybody, it's Dominic Samaruk here from

The Rest is History. Now, some of you may have heard me on your show, The Rest is Politics when Rory was away and I was filling in and enjoying Alistair Campbell's tremendous banter. I'm back to tell you about our new series on the rest of history, which is all about Britain in the 1970s, a period with a lot of uncanny resemblances to our own. So right now we're living through a moment when oil shocks generated by war in the Middle East are rippling through the world economy, when Britain feels like it's sunk in a bit of a malaise, people are arguing about Europe, the government has got a few issues with the trade unions, and we have a kind of, I suppose you'd say, government. I suppose you'd say government.

a governing elite, a kind of political class that is really struggling to come to terms with all of these issues. And people are asking if Britain is governable at all. So there are a lot of parallels between that Britain that I'm describing, which is our Britain and the Britain of the mid-1970s. So in this series that's coming out on the rest is history, we're looking at these and other issues. We'll be talking about the rise of Margaret Thatcher, obviously a colossal figure in our political life even now, whether you love her or loathe her. And we'll be talking about the very first Brexit referendum of 1975, a subject that I'm sure Rory and Alistair will have strong opinions about. We'll be talking about the fall of the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, and we'll be talking

about one of the grimest moments in Britain's economic history, the moment in 1976 when we had to go cap in hand, as people said at the time, to the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, for a then-record bailout. Now, if that sounds good to you, how could it not sound good you. Of course it sounds good to you. We have a clip for you to listen to at the end of this episode. And if you want to hear more, just search for The Rest is History wherever you get your podcasts. Some of the people we've spoken to today, they describe you, I don't know if this translates well, but they describe you as a control freak. Somebody has to be in control. Do you identify with that? And do you feel that in your position you have to be in control?

A person's not able to be in control. A person's can't really. evaluate themselves. It's better to leave judgment to others than to speak about one's own qualities. I like work to be done well and for those doing it to be conscious of their responsibilities. It is not about control. Every task needs to be guided by strong moral values to be done properly. Given the challenge we have been through, if we hadn't maintained those values, we wouldn't be where we are today. For example, when we were advancing towards Damascus through Aleppo, Hamas and Homs, we had a big force of fighters and Syria was deeply divided due to the regime's actions. A major issue could have easily arising, putting national

peace at a great risk. If there hadn't been control and respect for leaders, decisions, people might have taken actions that would have harmed the public and destabilized social order. I had multiple responsibilities, including military leadership and community management. Military leadership requires a high level of discipline and control, while community management demands a totally different approach. I don't rule society with military theories. It is a civilian matter that involves distinct methods and tools, unlike military tactics. What is you, Donald Trump? In the Middle East, there are many different views on President Trump during his return from 2016-2020.

I believe that Trump has brought positive messages. during his current administration. He is focused on domestic policy and revitalizing the U.S. economy. He is also interested in peace building in the Middle East, as it has caused quite a bit of instability over the past two decades. I view this as a promising start from President Trump and a positive approach to both the Middle East and future U.S. policy in the region. I am optimistic that if the ideas proposed during his campaign become reality,

he will play a big role in achieving global peace, especially in my opinion if he ends the war between Russia and Ukraine. Two things that seem to be very serious about Donald Trump. Number one is that he seems to be talking about the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. He's talking about moving Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan. And then the second is the question of sanctions against Syria. What are your opinions on these two things? I believe no power can drive people from their land.

Many countries have tried to do it and they have all failed, especially during the recent war in Gaza over the past year and a half. The people endured pain, killing and destruction. yet they refused to leave their land. Over 80 years of this conflict, all attempts to displace them have failed. Those who left have regretted their decision. The Palestinian lesson that every generation has learned

is the importance of holding on to their land. It would be neither wise nor morally or politically right for Trump to lead an effort to force Palestinians out of their land. in my view. Why is he pushing Mexicans out of America now? He is doing the same thing. I believe this is a serious crime that will ultimately fail. And sanctions?

Sanctions against Syria? Sanctions were imposed on the previous regime during its systematic crimes, including mass killings. Some documents were made public and the US react. by imposing sanctions. Now that we have dismantled the regime and its presence, these sanctions should be lifted, as there is no justification for them

after the fall of the regime. What are you doing to get those sanctions lifted? What's your strategy to get those sanctions lifted? There is a strong international consensus with everyone who has visited Damascus recently agreeing that sanctions should be lifted. Syria is currently facing major security challenges and one of the direct solutions is through economic development. That is what we are focusing on now. Without economic growth there can be no stability and without

stability we risk creating an environment that fosters chaos and insecurity. All of these issues are interconnected and must be addressed together. Mr. President, which country's economic model interests you most? For example, Singapore, Malaysia. Can you name one country which you're looking at? And what are you learning from it in terms of economic management? I've reviewed several countries that have experienced economic growth, like Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Brazil at certain points, and Rwanda, which overcame significant challenges to its development. Each country has its unique context shaped by its specific challenges and

stage of development. While we can draw valuable lessons from these examples, we shouldn't blindly replicate them. Instead, we need to adapt and blend these lessons to create an approach that fits Syria's unique situation. We're going to come to a situation. Is there any part of you that is overawed, overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge? You've got a country with a shattered economy, electricity supply difficult, oil supplies difficult, public services and employment, you've got a massive challenge.

Is there not a part of you that just thinks, I wish somebody else was doing this? Yes, we inherited an exhausted country and the regime destroyed everything before we took it over. But this is the challenge we, Syrians, must face. We must rebuild our country and we do not shy away from this responsibility. There are many issues. But a clear mind tells us we must separate them and address them one by one

and set priorities. so we can succeed and grow. Nothing is impossible. Despite difficulties, with God's will, we, as Syrians, are capable of rising up, rebuilding our country and making it a regional and a global success story in the future. God willing.

Mr. President, one challenge is that many of the people from the old security service police and army have now left. And it reminds me a little bit of debarthification in Iraq. And debarthification in Iraq was a big problem because the security, the army and intelligence, went into the resistance and started fighting the government. How are you going to deal with this problem? Because even today in Damascus, many of the policemen are from Idlib.

First of all, there are big differences between the situation in Syria, and in Iraq. Comparisons always show up big differences. First, I did not dissolve the Syrian army without having an alternative. I brought the alternative with me, an existing institution and a military academy that produces officers. There were many defected former officers who are now gradually rejoining the current Ministry of Defense. The former regime's army did not resemble the the Iraqi army. It was fragmented with many militias and foreign interventions from Iran and Russia. The army was fragmented and collapsed. A large number of young men were fleeing Syria to escape

mandatory conscription. So the army did not have much significance for Syrians. Today, I did not impose mandatory conscription in Syria. Instead, I opted for voluntary enlistment and today, thousands are joining the new Syrian army. When you were a fighter, did you do anything that you regret? I was very careful to ensure that no civilians were harmed in our battles, despite widespread popular calls to target the cities and villages held by the regime. Just as they relentlessly bombed towns and cities outside, their control, we refused to do the same. For nearly 14 years, we endured systematic

bombing of our villages and towns without ever retaliating against the regime in kind. I focused on targeting the regime's core strengths, such as the army and the security forces and other groups it relied on to fight the people. I avoided any side battles all together. It's natural for a person to make mistakes and then correct them. It is very important to be at peace with oneself, to review one's actions at every stage, identify mistakes, and most importantly, not repeat them. This has been my approach to our work. I don't claim to be free of mistakes.

Quite the opposite. We made some mistakes, but they never read. the point of harming civilians. What is the psychological impact of living a life which has been secret for 20 years? What does that mean for your mind, your body, your soul to have to live a secret life for 20 years? It wasn't secret in the sense of being hidden and out of sight around the clock. I had a lot to do with daily meetings all day round, along with the time allocated for public relations. I wasn't hiding in the way some might imagine, except in certain

situations involving battles or war, which required caution. Hence, I did not live a life isolated from people at all. I lived alongside them while keeping some matters confidential. Now, in my new position, I don't mind sharing this with everyone because the world conditions we faced before have completely changed and we are in a new face today. But there was a $10 million bounty on your head. It must have been very difficult to trust people if the American government was going to pay someone $10 million for killing you. It must have been stressful. I mean, stressful. It must have been very difficult.

Idlib was very open to people. I would meet with delegations from abroad and had many interactions with journalists. I also had regular meetings with universities, professors, and various ministries. I was committed to serving the people, defending them, building institutions, and working towards reaching Damascus to topple this regime

and set the Syrian people, free. While performing my duties, I did not give much consideration to the $10 million bounty. I didn't believe anyone would seek this bounty by killing a person who was dedicated to serving the people. Do you still consider yourself to be a revolutionary? I believe that a revolutionary mindset cannot build a country. You need a different mindset when it comes to building a country and managing an entire society. For me, the revolution in its previous sense ended with the overthrow of the regime. Now, we have moved on to a new phase, which involves rebuilding the country, economic development, striving for regional stability and security,

reassuring neighboring countries, and establishing strategically. relationships between Syria and Western countries, as well as regional countries. Did you always want to be president? Even when you were a fighter, were you thinking this is part of politics? I want to go and I want to run the country. Are you thinking that back then? Whoever lives through an experience like ours doesn't care much about what positions they get. We are living in times where the leaders.

makes the position. It is not the position that makes the leader. We faced major challenges, and we needed a high level of moral integrity to reach where we are today. Aiming for the presidency as an end goal is the wrong mentality. We focus on serving the people, regardless of the position we hold. Final question for me. When you see what the Western media says about you, what makes you angry and what do you think they don't understand about what you're doing? I don't maybe have time to follow Western media. But Syria is a crucial country with a strategic location that has a global impact. Previously, the regime intentionally displaced people to Europe and the trafficked Capagon to both Europe and the region.

It also used Damascus as a base for steering broader instability in the region. Because of the very negative role that certain other countries were playing inside Syria. Today, Syria's situation has changed drastically, becoming a new region with a promising future. It will play a major role in regional stability, sustained through economic development. Syria will also be a key hub in sectors like agriculture, industry and trade. It is situated on the historic Silk Road. Trade between East and the West will again thrive. The West should reconsider its view of Syria from this angle.

Mr. President, thank you. We really appreciate it. And very good luck on your trip to Turkey tomorrow. A discussion like this requires us to be a bit more relaxed. I mean more than this. Today they took advantage of our fatigue. Next time, I will come well-rested and fully awake. Naim-am-am-mehah, and jakekuh, inshallah, next time we can sit down.

Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Well, Alastair, it was quite an event. I mean, sitting there with him and his beautiful gold tie-in suit, and both of us implicated in the Iraq. Iraq war and him as an al-Qaeda, Iraq man now become a presidential leader. It was also, I suppose, probably for listeners, frustrating in bits. I mean, I think as he makes this transition from secret terrorist to public politician, there's still many things he's not opening up about.

I think you said afterwards that one of the things were striking is that we're the first people, I think, who've got him to admit on record that he has three children. But we still don't know, you know, are they boys, they girls, what are they're ages? And I tried a couple of times to prompt him on that. And boy, was he not quite sharing what the details those things are. But I think this goes back to this point of being on a journey. He actually said, and you said when we were there that the wives, and he was very adamant, he only has one wife, because there are still all these rumours that he has several wives, and he's adamant he's got one wife and three children. But you were making the point that wives and children, of, you're making the point that wives and children,

these leaders are seen as legitimate targets. And therefore he went to great lengths to make sure nobody knew not just who they were, but where they were. But he's now saying, so for example, when we were there, he did an event with his wife. His brother, who's the health minister, which itself raises one of two questions. But while we were there, he and his wife, who was a Russian, went to the opera and was sort of fated as they arrived as they were being. seen, because people were fascinated to see this guy out with his wife. So I think they accept that is going to become part of this. What I thought was fascinating was how you said in the interview at one point, look, this is a bit weird for me because essentially I'm paraphrasing, you lot were trying

to kill me and you felt that we were trying to kill you. And although he says he doesn't speak English, I could tell that he was understandly your question, even before the interpreter came in. But I think even on stuff like that, he was basically saying, okay, I could really get into a long justification of why I fought in Iraq, why you people were the aggressors, etc. But he just kind of took a deep breath, sat back and started to talk about the future again, very, very political. And I mean, doubtless, there'll be people in his team who will be cross with our tone. But we really hope that we can follow through on his offer, which is that he's offered to do a 10-part series with us on Al-Qaeda. On the history of and the various formulations. If he's serious about that, it would be unbelievable because he is the most senior surviving member of al-Qaeda worldwide.

I mean, he's almost the only person who can give us a blow-by-blow. I mean, most of the other leadership are dead. Yeah, they've all been killed. Yeah. His immediate final boss, I mean, obviously Baghdaddy was killed. Abou Mwasa-Aqawi was killed. Bin Laden was killed. But the man that he eventually pledged allegiance to, who was called Zawahari,

was killed by the Americans in Kabul quite recently, after, of course, having lost a wife and children in various different attacks, which relates to your previous point. There's also, I thought, going back to our days in government, what it really reminds me of these kind of interviews in their sort of stiffness and their small clues is something that we used to call Sovietology, which is when the Kremlin was that it's most guarded, you'd have people peering at exactly who was appearing on the podium at the National Day parades and who was up and who was down. So we're really getting into these sort of tiny micro moments. For example, this very moving moment where he talks about how beautiful the history of old Damascus is and how he used to walk the streets and look at the buildings. And history pours out of every wall.

Talking in a much more sort of poetical language. But then when you ask him to talk about his father and his father's revolutionary struggle, he suddenly begins sounding like a sort of of 1960s revolutionary theorist. He says, this is not the moment. I don't know how the Arabic was eventually translated, but something like not a moment of revolutionary praxis. You know, the Hagellian moment had not yet arrived, rather than what I was hoping I would draw out, which is saying, you know, in the end, there needed to be a religious element. You can't just do it on a secular basis. Arab nationalism is finished. I thought what he was trying to say, though, was that, well, my father was wrong, but he just didn't realize it, but he didn't want to say that his father was wrong, because he wanted to respect his

respect his father. I guess the fundamental question that was sort of playing around in my head the whole time. I did keep thinking of Jerry Adams and Martin McGuinness and not because of any, you know, sort of weird comparison, but just can you go from, as I believe

Adams and McGuinness did, and I know that some people still won't accept that, but can you go from being somebody who really believes that violence is the way to achieve your objectives, actually to say, that was then, now is now, and with him in particular, and this maybe applies more to

Martin McGuinness than Jerry Adams, because McGinnis became an actual politician with actual political power, is whether you can not just make that move psychologically, but just as important, can you persuade other people that that is real? Because these world leaders that he's now trying to talk to and persuade to lift sanctions or going to Saudi and trying to get financial support, whatever it might be, he's got to persuade them that he is genuine in taking a different path. And I think one of the big giveaways there is that moment when I'm trying to get him to focus on his experience in Iraq and he says, this is too complicated, there's too much nuance here, can we do a 10-part series on it? And that I think relates to your point about different audiences.

There is huge pressure on him to say to people like us, I completely reject a lot of my former terrorist comrades. And, you know, he might even be tempted, who knows, to say to people like us, look, these people in the end went too far, they were extreme, they were fundamentalist, they were unrealistic, they didn't understand the modern world. But he can't say that because he's also got another audience, which is his fighters who've been with him for over 20 years. And he doesn't want to insult them. We saw that with a Jerry Adams interview. I noticed, you know, when I tried to say to Jerry Adams, look, I understand, you know, you might want to have killed someone like me. who was briefly a young soldier when you were fighting, but do you regret killing civilians and the

Brighton bombing? And he basically said no. And the reason presumably he says no is that he feels a huge allegiance to the people who fought with him. And he wouldn't want the headline to be. Jerry Adams says that what the IRA did in the 1980s was wrong. So yeah, final question for you, Alice. I mean, I guess the obvious thing that will happen with this interview is that there will be a lot of people, presumably the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail, I can predict immediately, will say, we are terrorist sympathizers who've just given a huge platform to the former head of al-Qaeda Syria and allowed him to speak and we weren't tough enough, we didn't challenge him enough, and that we're like a George Galloway going out to see Saddam Hussein. What was it Galloway said

about Saddam Hussein again? I salute your strength, your courage and your indefatigability. That's right. We didn't do that. We did not do that. I don't know. about that. It's his age-old problem. And I think one of the things I like about doing this podcast and doing the interviews the way that we do them, I've been so through the pain barrier with most of our media. I don't care what they think about the way we do the interview. We got more time than we expected. But if we, I think if we'd have just sort of said, okay, then come on, tell us, how many suicide bombers did you send into action? He's going to say what he said anyway. And, you know, you and I both raised an eyebrow when he said, you know, I always made sure that

that civilian population was protected, etc., etc., etc. So it's quite hard to square all that. Look, the other thing I think people should be aware of is that his past we know about, and the people we spoke to in Syria, lots of the people we spoke to in Syria, so listen, we know who he was, we know what he was, but let me say he is better than what we had

because what we had, we had no hope that things were ever going to improve because they were just de kleptocratic dictatorship, what we have now, at least we have a bit of hope that it can be different. And the question then is how much time does he have as a, quote, normal political leader to try to get a country on its feet? This economy has been absolutely shattered. And the stakes couldn't be higher. So my Syrian friends who are absolutely secular, liberal, utterly opposed to that terrorist tradition, are saying, the guy a chance, you've got to give him a chance. It's the only chance we've got. We have to

lift sanctions. We have to take this opportunity and a sort of warning us not to spend our whole time saying nobody can change, this guy's the terrorist, because their view is if you take that line, Syria is completely doomed. Yeah, absolutely. I think the other thing that some of the experts would have been maybe listening for that they would want to have heard more about is the route to elections still I think quite vague. The interpreter in the room did look slightly terrified when translated by a question about whether he was a control freak. I think the interpreter was worried that they would think that was their view rather than our view. But we did hear that a lot, didn't we? We heard a lot of people saying this is a guy who has to be in control. But when he

did cross the border with a handful of people, very interesting, one of them was the foreign minister that I mentioned, who we met in Davos, and he was in the room while the interview was going on, and they are clearly very, very close. I mean, they were talking before, they were talking afterwards, the fact that he was there. So I think that's a very, very interesting and important relationship that people will be keeping an eye on, as it were. Anyway, I hope people enjoyed that. I hope that if they found it interesting, educative, and anything else, I hope he's sincere when he says that he'd like us to go back and do 10 episodes on the history of Al-Qaeda. Thank you, Alistair. Bye-bye.

See you soon. Bye.