State of Affairs in Syria and U.S. Foreign Policy Implications

Transcription

1 State of Affairs in Syria and U.S. Foreign Policy Implications BOKHARI: Hi, my name is Kamran Bokhari, I m a senior fellow with the Center for Global Policy. Welcome to CGP s podcast series. Today, our guest is Charles Lister, who is a senior fellow with the Middle East Institute, and has written a the book on the Syrian insurgency, and I thank him for joining us today. Hi, Charles. LISTER: Hey Kamran, thanks for having me. BOKHARI: My pleasure. So let s start big picture. Let s start from where we are today. So, we have the fall of Aleppo. We re now past Astana. We are also at a point where the Trump Administration is expected to make some policy shift vis a vis Syria. The Russians are involved and the Turks are getting involved. So, where are we heading big picture? LISTER: Well, big picture, everything is changing, I think as you suggest. Things have been changing for a while. I think the U.S. election and the expectation that things were going to change in some way gave an opportunity for other states elsewhere, namely Russia in particular, to sort of have an opportunity to change dynamics on the ground in advance of this political change we re seeing here in Washington. Fundamentally what happened in terms of this really significant shift in terms of undermining the opposition s kind of long term credibility, certainly as a more moderate force, is a real policy reversal on Turkey s side. In a sense, Turkey and Russia came together because the United States was perceived as either not sufficiently interested in determining the trajectory of things on the ground or it didn t have the necessary leverage to follow through on its positions. And so, Turkey essentially stepped in and, to put in bluntly, sold Aleppo in exchange for being able to intervene in northern Aleppo s countryside against both the Islamic State and also the Kurdish YPG. And that basically led to the fall of Aleppo city as we saw it late last year, and that has completely transformed the dynamics on the ground, it s completely transformed the political dynamics. And now, as you suggested, we saw the political meeting in Astana, in Kazakhstan, and actually not an awful lot came out of that meeting, but what it does really underline is that Russia, at least for now, is the party that is really leading this process. What s fascinating for me as someone who watches the Syrian insurgency is actually for the first time Russia seems to have some leverage over the opposition and a limited amount of opposition trust in Moscow s efforts here. For the first time, you re now hearing publicly I used to hear it privately, but you re hearing publicly armed groups saying, the Russians are giving us something, or, the Russians are saying they ll be able to secure us certain rights and guarantees, and for that reason, we re engaging in this process. This is the kind of public rhetoric you never heard from the armed opposition before. And, of course, another thing that Russia s doing which the United States wasn t, is prioritizing armed group involvement in the political process, rather than the kind of exiled political opposition, which always failed to kind of have that leverage over the armed groups. So, we re seeing a real transformation in advance of the Trump Administration coming into power and determining what their policy will be on Syria. Honestly speaking, I don t think we really know what Trump s going to do on Syria. He s now talking about safe zones, but that might, in fact, be outside of Syrian territory rather than inside, and therefore having pretty minimal impact in terms of the conflict. Trump says he wants to reach out to the Russians, but most of his political appointees seem very averse

2 to doing that. So, I really don t think we quite know where that s going yet, but for now, our eyes should be on this kind of Russian process and how exactly it links into the UN process in Geneva. We just heard the Russians announce that that meeting in Geneva has just been postponed from February 8 th until at least the end of February, so that might suggest there s some tension there between the UN process and the Russians, it might not, but for certain, there s a lot more unanswered questions right now than answered questions. BOKHARI: Thanks, that s a great overview. So, I want to kind of pick your brain on each one of the aspects that you talked about. So, let s start with the Turkish Russian dynamic. From a superficial view of things, it would appear that Russia and Turkey have nothing in common when it comes to Syria. Russia is supporting the Assad Regime; the Turks, despite the loss of Aleppo and despite the fact that its proxies are very weak at this moment, hasn t given up on the idea that the Assad Regime has to go, or there has to be some sort of regime change in Damascus. So, how do you see these two sides getting along and working together, given there is no arrangement that we can think of where both sides needs can be satisfied? LISTER: The easiest way of answering that, I think, is to suggest that, before the Turks and the Russians kind of succeeded in terms of their rapprochement and then started working together before all of that there was a perception within most regional states in the Middle East and also within Russia that the U.S. wasn t necessarily throwing all of its cards into determining its own policy interests in Syria. In other words, for the U.S., it was all mostly about ISIS and in terms of resolving the Syrian situation, they were trying very hard politically, but there wasn t very much weight behind that. I think what we ve seen Turkey and Russia do is fill that vacuum. But they re filling that vacuum based really solely on each of their own respective interests. And as you say, there are at least until now, fundamental contradictions in terms of those two respective interests. And, yes, at least for now, the Turks do still insist on the Assad Regime being transitioned or removed from power at some point in the future. I expect the Turks are going to become a little bit more flexible on that position. We re already hearing indications, for example, that the United Kingdom is starting to reconsider that stance. I think it s an inevitability, right? It s no longer credible, I think, for any knowledgeable and experienced policymaker or analyst like myself to say there is no solution until Assad leaves because there s no foreseeable way that that s going to happen without a seriously dramatic change from the United States, which I just don t think is coming. So I think what the Turks are doing is hedging, in a way. You know they filled that vacuum that was suggesting to them the U.S. wasn t sufficiently interested in supporting Turkey s interests in Syria by making a short to medium term deal with the Russians. But that doesn t by any means mean that the Turks have given up on, as you say, their policy objective of removing Assad from power yet. It just means they ve made a deal for a certain period of months which would fit their policy interests in terms of blocking the Kurds from sealing up this kind of contiguous Rojava zone of territory in northern Syria, and it allowed, on the Russian perspective, them to seal their own interests in Aleppo. But where that goes from here, you know, as I say, I still don t think we can be certain yet. But those contradictions aren t going to go away unless some other major deal is made. And that s where I think that recent events in Idlib, in terms of infighting, and the fact that al Qaeda s basically de facto affiliate Jabhat Fateh al Sham is now turning its guns on its own military allies, or the allies it s had for the last five years, and I think a lot of that suggests a fear, at least within JFS that perhaps the Turks next deal 2 C harles Lister, Middle East Institute

3 will be on the fate of Idlib. And that deal might be a little different. It might not be necessarily selling Idlib to the regime and to the Russians and to the Iranians, but it might be turning the opposition s guns against al Qaeda. And I think what we ve seen is a pre emptive move by al Qaeda here to try and deter or prevent that scenario from coming true. Whether or not they ve succeeded in that is an open question at this point. But I think that does speak to where the Turks are now looking and it s definitively the case that Turkey has increasingly spoken more aggressively against Jabhat al Nusra, now JFS, than they have done in the past. Even six months ago, we started to hear rather clearly indications from Ankara that al Qaeda s presence in Syria was no longer excusable was no longer in Turkey s interests. And I think only now we re starting to see that really come up into the open in the terms of defining new dynamics on the ground. BOKHARI: Great, so, let me pick up on something you mentioned in terms of the Turks desire to continue to seek regime change. Battle spaces determine what is negotiated your battlefield realities. At this point big picture, there are three Syria s: There is a Syria of ISIS; there is a Syria of the regime; there is a Syria which is Rojava, which is of the Kurds. The rebels (A) are very factionalized; (B) their territorial holds are scattered all over the place they don t have a core, other than Idlib, and Idlib is in question because of Jabhat Fateh al Sham s presence and domination of that landscape. This is something that I ve been advocating, or at least considering wouldn t it be in Turkey s interest to mobilize the rebels to go after ISIS territory and have a foothold from where you can balance the terms of engagement? From where you can now deal with the regime, whether on the battlefield or at the negotiating table, from a position of relative strength? What do you make of that possibility happening and is it even possible? LISTER: I mean I think it is possible. In fact, I think the original intention behind the Euphrates Shield intervention in northern Aleppo was at least in part that. It was not just I mean it was primarily motivated by Turkish desire to confront the Kurdish YPG and ISIS, both of which were creating a much more immediate and dangerous national security threat to Turkey. But whilst that was the primary objective, the secondary one was very clear behind the scenes, speaking to all of the armed groups that joined the Euphrates Shield operation. The secondary objective was to reopen a front with the regime in northern Aleppo and, perhaps more importantly, to create an alternative opposition territory in northern Syria that was devoid of al Qaeda s influence, that was under Turkish protection a de facto safe zone in which the political opposition s interim government would in the future be able to establish an office inside Syria with that kind of Turkish support and protection. In other words, to provide an alternative to Idlib, which the regime was doing its very best to label Jihadistad. I think the situation in Idlib is more complicated than that, but for sure there is a chance for which the established regime could gain some understanding in terms of labeling Idlib that with the rest of the international community. But I think very much that was Turkey s intention. I think there is a chance for that actually to start to develop again, probably in 2017, but we should also remember southern Syria. Two thirds of southern Syria underneath Damascus is still controlled by the opposition. I mean, it s a frozen conflict, mostly because Jordan has essentially cut off supplies to the opposition because it wanted a stable border, but two thirds of southern Syria is under opposition control, and that s not going to end any time soon. Although these groups are strangled by their lack of support from abroad, they control that territory and the regime is, in my argument, incapable of taking back most of that territory without a significant sort of Russian backed regime offensive. And I don t Recorded January 27,

4 think that s going to happen because King Abdullah in Jordan has essentially made an agreement with Vladimir Putin who I hear now they get along very well personally that that status quo situation will remain the case for the long term in Syria. So, southern Syria, with foreign support, perhaps with U.S. support, could also create another one of these de facto more moderate opposition safe zones under moderate control, in which case we ll start talking about four or five zones in Syria rather than three. But a lot of this depends on what the U.S. posture toward the opposition as a whole is and a lot of it depends on the countries who hold those borders obviously, Jordan and Turkey. As I say, I think everyone right now I mean King Abdullah is arriving in Washington today or tomorrow, I think everything depends on how those states perceive the Trump Administration and its policies in the region. As I say, that is very much an open, unclear picture right now. BOKHARI: So, you mentioned the Trump Administration, and I think it s useful now to discuss that. I may be completely wrong on this, but my read is that the Trump Administration isn t really interested in the rebellion versus the Assad Regime. It s really focused on degrading, destroying ISIS, which is a campaign promise of President Trump. I can see some sort of a deal with both Russia and Turkey that allows for the degradation of ISIS. So, there could be some form of quid pro quo on Ukraine and the Russian interests in terms of sanctions on Russia because of Ukraine in exchange for Russia working through the Assad Regime and perhaps by extension, Iran, to put military pressure on ISIS. And, of course, Turkey is also going to be part of this equation in some shape or form. So, I think that we can t expect much in terms of regime change in Syria from the United States, but how do you see this playing out in terms of the actual ability to roll back ISIS strength in Syria? LISTER: I think the scenario you paint is definitely a credible one, it s certainly possible, definitely everything that President Trump has said in the past six months would indicate that that would be his policy preference. I think a lot depends on what kind of president Donald Trump s going to be. Is he going to be a president, in many ways like Barack Obama, who knew for himself what he wanted to do in most policy situations and in many respects, his decisions went rather than necessarily the positions of some of his advisers who were often saying things contrary to what he desired himself? And if Trump is like that, then I think we will see that scenario begin to be tested. Whether or not it will succeed is another question. But if Trump isn t like that, and in fact his political appointees in the State Department and the DoD, in the CIA and elsewhere, are given more authority in terms of drumming up and determining policy positions, then I m skeptical that we ll see that partnership with Russia and the regime spell out. I mean, I think what we have heard from most of these appointees is a great deal of skepticism in terms of how much we can trust Russia to follow through on any kind of deal we make with them. I think we ve seen that before in the Syrian context, and the broader GOP base is intrinsically cynical about the Russian government and how much we should trust them. So, if Trump does try to pursue this, and however his NSC National Security Council and everything is made up, if he tries to pursue it, he s going to come up against some obstacles, both in Syria and in his own party base and in his own administration. For sure, I think if it works out, we would probably see, at least in the immediate term, an enhanced fight against ISIS, but the bigger question for me has always been long term. 4 C harles Lister, Middle East Institute

5 You know, fighting ISIS or any terrorist organization, or any extremist organization anywhere in the world, isn t just about the military fight. It s about creating an alternative a social alternative, a political alternative, and a religious alternative that is more credible to the local population and to the kind of people that would otherwise be interested in joining an organization like this. And the fundamental problem that the Trump Administration is going to face is that an overarching Assad victory led by and supported by the United States, Iran, and Russia, is most definitely not going to be creating that more viable alternative, not just in terms of the fight against ISIS, but we mustn t also forget al Qaeda in Syria, which the Obama Administration has focused increasingly heavy upon toward the end of its time in power, and which drone strikes continue to target their forces in northern Syria. And that organization, specifically putting aside the fact that they re fighting with the opposition at the moment that organization s narrative for the last five years has been focused much more heavily on embedding itself in the revolutionary narrative. In other words, the anti Assad narrative. If there s any terrorist or extremist organization that is best suited, best situated to benefit from that kind of American Russian Iranian alliance against terrorism, it s al Qaeda. And I fear that if we do pursue that policy objective, we will directly be empowering al Qaeda in Syria, which in my view is much more dangerous in the longterm because it s demonstrated it s much more capable of learning lessons. It s much more capable in terms of demonstrating some extent of pragmatism in the short term in order to secure its long term objectives, and that I fear a great deal. And in that respect, there s two more things I wanted to say. Two relatively simple things. President Trump will soon find out, in terms of his broadest foreign policy, but especially on Syrian, you cannot fight terrorism anywhere in the world without incorporating the rest of that country and all of its different dynamics into the picture. Fighting ISIS is not just about fighting ISIS. There are dozens of other challenges he will face in Syria and Iraq that are intrinsically linked with the fight against ISIS. He has to deal with the regime issue. He has to deal with the opposition issue. He has to deal with al Qaeda. He has to deal with the refugees. He has to deal with Turkey and Jordan and Lebanon and Israel, etc., etc. And all of those cannot be done in isolation from the fight against ISIS, and likewise, vice versa. And the second thing is, he cannot pursue a rapprochement and a close relationship with Russia without dramatically empowering Iran, which Trump and every single one of his appointees has said is an absolute no. They will not do anything to empower Iran. They re all Iran skeptics. And he ll very quickly realize that by teaming up with Russia, he will be empowering Iran s long term kind of power in the region more than any kind of U.S. president or leader anywhere else in the world will have ever done before. And, how does he square that circle is probably the biggest question in my mind. BOKHARI: Absolutely, and I think that there is an ironic logic here that you re pointing out, but at the end of the day, I don t think that the Trump Administration, or for that matter, any administration in Washington or elsewhere, is interested in sort of that long term view. Unfortunately, we live in a world where there are short term interests. The president s, according to Fox News, popularity ratings are pretty low, and this is starting out. That means he has only his core. He needs to make sure that that support does not drop, and so for that he has to deliver on his promises and, when you look at capabilities, what are the possibilities to degrade and destroy ISIS, because that is his focus, and his supporters are not interested in the big picture that you talked about. Should you have to have a political framework in which to bring the rest of the country in so as to keep ISIS and al Qaeda out. So, I think that at the end of the day, there is a question to be asked, and that is, Can the rebels, militarily, do they have the wherewithal to take on both al Qaeda in Idlib and at the same time push against ISIS? Recorded January 27,

6 because this is what the U.S. is interested in. The United States is not interested in regime change right now; it s interested in showing that we promised the destruction of ISIS and here we are delivering at least the perception. Your thoughts? LISTER: The first thought is, we are already delivering those promises. Trump doesn t have to do anything except continue the existing policy to continue to show results against ISIS. He can try and accelerate it and we may get more results. Of course, I m a big believer in democracy, and I would never question it, but it s one of the biggest down sides in terms of security policy that electoral politics doesn t allow or very rarely allows for that long term view. In any policy, it doesn t have to be foreign policy. It doesn t allow very easily for a president or a prime minister or what have you to adopt that long term view because it s politically risky, but the reality is that unless we start to adopt that long term view, we re just going to have to engage in this region with exactly the same problems. Therefore, I guess, simply put, Trump s going to have to deal with whether he wants to secure short term political victories or his long term legacy as a successful president in fighting against terrorism and extremism together. And he s going to have to continue to confront that kind of challenge. He does have certain people in his administration who have been fighting this fight for a long time. General Flynn, with whom I have many criticisms, does say specifically himself, he and many of his appointees on the National Security Council are people who have been fighting terrorism for 15 years. That ought to give him the perspective that means it s not just about the military victories from Day 1 to Day 60. It s about the military political social cultural religious victories that you win over a five year period that necessitate not having to, then, continue to go back to Syria or Iraq or anywhere else to continue to just fight. Do I have a hope that this administration will embrace that long term view? No. But I will continue to say that it should because I strongly think that that s the case. As I say, that s going to be one of the biggest challenges he faces. BOKHARI: D you see the rebels as a force you point out that others have not focused on, so it s either the rebellion or it s ISIS, it s a very binary view, but I ve seen you advocate the view, Look guys, let s not take the eye off al Qaeda; it s there. So, do you see the rebels able to degrade al Qaeda in Idlib and elsewhere, considering that there s organic linkages between the rebels and Jabhat Fateh al Sham, and at the same time show the international community that, Look, we are partners in the fight against ISIS. So far, the rebels have not touched ISIS by and large. LISTER: Well, I would push back on that. The armed opposition were the first people to fight ISIS in Syria. The armed opposition unified under one command in January 2014, and fought ISIS and forced it out of 4½ provinces in 8 weeks. 4½ provinces in 8 weeks. Basically, what happened, ISIS became an active actor in Syria in April/May 2013, when it essentially announced it was expanding from Iraq into Syria. It attempted to subsume Jabhat al Nusra under its ranks. That failed, but nevertheless, ISIS became an active actor in Syria. It spent like three or four months trying to work alongside the opposition. It fought a number of successful battles with the opposition in Aleppo, but very quickly ISIS emerged as an actor that was only interested in its own interests. It started to force the opposition out of areas of territory; it began to assassinate rival 6 C harles Lister, Middle East Institute

7 opposition commanders, including hardline Islamists. And in a sense, by late 2013, ISIS had made an enemy an avowed enemy of the opposition. The entirety of the opposition, eventually including al Qaeda. So, what happened, literally January the 1 st, 2014, a whole swathe of smaller opposition groups unified into a number of larger movements, like Jaish al Mujahideen, which we hear an awful lot about today, and Haraka Hazim, and various others, and these big unifications led to a publicly announced offensive to force ISIS out of all opposition territories. And by late February, early March, ISIS had withdrawn or been defeated in all of Latakia, all of Idlib, half of Aleppo province, half of Hama province, most of Homs province, where they were before, and, for a time, some of Deir ez Zor in eastern Syria, although they eventually took that back. That was, compared to, the YPG led effort against ISIS, with non stop U.S. air support, a tremendously more significant victory. We don t hear about it because it s an inconvenient fact for the Obama Administration to acknowledge the fact that the rebels have in the past been very successful in fighting against ISIS and are ardently opposed to ISIS, and that continues very much to this day. There s a great fear of ISIS coming back to opposition territories. There have been ISIS sleep cells who have blown themselves up in opposition armed groups across western Syria for months and months and months now. So, it s a great fear. And in fact, the opposition is still fighting ISIS today in northern Aleppo s countryside alongside the Turkish military. They re still fighting ISIS in southern Syria, and they continue on a very sporadic basis just because they re apparently very peripherally located next to ISIS in other areas in the center of the country and in the mountains along the Lebanese border. So, they ve been fighting ISIS every single day since January 2014, so for three years, they have been fighting this terrorist organization, so the line that the opposition doesn t and hasn t fought ISIS is just demonstrably not the case. The unfortunate reality, which I ve written about in the past, is that we are still talking about the opposition they are the opposition to the Assad Regime. These are people, many of them ordinary people, who picked up guns because of the Assad Regime s violent suppression of protests, in order to create a political change in their country. These are people who, almost every single one of them, many of whom I know, have lost family members, they ve all lost their homes, they re essentially all internally displaced people, whilst fighting in a sense, now, a losing battle against the Assad Regime. That s why the United States attempt to train and equip rebels to fight ISIS failed is because all the U.S., all we did was to say to these rebels, Please leave Province A and move to Province C and do our bidding in fighting ISIS. But these were people who would literally, in order to have done that, would have to wave goodbye to their wife and children and move to the other side of Syria to fight for the Americans, and leave their local fight to other people. It s no wonder Syrians said no, because everything for them is about their local fight, and it s a desperate fight. For most of the fight they ve been barrel bombed, they ve had chlorine gas at one point, they had proper chemical weapons dropped on them. And throughout all of that, they complain about having insufficient support from the international community. So, with that aside, is it theoretically possible that we could enhance the opposition s fight against, first, ISIS? Yes, but we re going to have to give them something for it other than just asking them to do it, Recorded January 27,

8 which is what we ve been doing so far. We re going to have to talk to them about safe zones and the protection of their own families and the protection of refugees and internally displaced people. And unless we start giving them some of that, I m afraid we re going to have an answer, which is no again. We have to think of this from a human angle. We can t just be selfish Americans and expect other people on the other side of the world to do our bidding for nothing. Do I expect the opposition to turn its guns on al Qaeda? It has become a lot more possible now than it was before, mostly because of al Qaeda s actions against the opposition in the last few days. The difficulty is we re still going to face the fact that they are the opposition. They still are determined to fight against the regime. And they re struggling to fight al Qaeda right now. It s not an easy fight. Al Qaeda has demonstrated for years how successful it is on the battlefield, and they are continuing to demonstrate that in their fight against the opposition in northwestern Syria right now. So, again, if we want them to do what we want them to do, which is to fight terrorism, rather than to continue their fight against the regime, we have to create a credible alternative for them. We have to protect their people, we have to protect their families, and we have to give them a more viable alternative than what is, as I say, right now their losing battle against the regime and the fact that they are being taken over by terrorists. These are stubborn people who have lost so much over the last six years. Having lost so much, they re not the kind of people who are going to back down and just give everything up. They re not going to drop their guns and say, We give up. Most of them are never going to do that. But they may switch their focus at least partially in another direction if we give them a reason to do so. But they re not going to just do something that we ask them to. That s why the decoupling issue of them being so tightly coupled with al Qaeda linked groups in terms of fighting Assad was always such an issue. All we said was, We demand that you leave those front lines, but for them that meant leaving a front line open for the Assad Regime to take back because suddenly it would be much weaker. It was completely illogical to them. And we never offered them any kind of guarantees or any kind of incentives for doing that. So, we have to wrap our heads around this and, this administration, I hope, will continue the Obama Administration s process of engaging with armed group leadership, and I was involved in a lot of that for three years. As much as those dialogues were very difficult, at least they were exchanging opinions. And different envoys from the U.S. and Europe and elsewhere were able to hear the on the ground situation, were able to hear the explanations, for why, at times, the rebels and the opposition, weren t doing everything we wanted them to do, but why they were doing what they felt they needed to do on a day to day basis to survive. And that contact s extremely important. BOKHARI: Thank you, and you and I can continue to talk at length and hours can fly by, but we don t have the time. Lastly, we re in 2017, January s almost done, the next 11 months What will you be watching for in Syria? What are those sort of big picture items that you are looking at? LISTER: Well the fight against ISIS is going to be one. I mean, for starters, when does the fight for Raqqa really start? I mean we ve heard these announcements, The fight for Raqqa has begun, but they haven t. So, when does that start? Who is involved? Do the Turks get a place? At this point, I think it s unlikely, but a lot depends on whether the Trump Administration and his various appointees think it s in 8 C harles Lister, Middle East Institute

9 our interests to include the Turks, because they could easily spoil the process if they don t get a seat at the table. Another big one, which we may or may not see develop this year, but certainly in the future, I think we will, is whether or not Russia and Iran diverge. At the moment, Russia and Iran singularly both want, in a sense, Assad to survive. But they want that for very different reasons. Russia is much more, behind the scenes, flexible on the fate of Assad, but of course Russia wants its own interests secured in Syria. And if Russia really goes for it in this political process, and really buys in and gets some leverage with the opposition, I think we could start to see the Russians offering incentives to the opposition that completely contradict Iran s objectives in Syria. And already, in fact, in Astana, we saw indications of the Russians diverging from Iran, and very specifically blaming the regime for all of the violations of the cease fires and for using al Qaeda as an excuse falsely in certain areas of the country for imposing sieges and what have you. So already we ve seen indications that there is some potential divergence there between Russia and Iran. Now that s something that a Trump Administration could exploit. If we did throw all of our cards in with Russia, we could then square that circle of still isolating Iran, but that would be a very, very messy process. Iran has by far more leverage on the ground in terms of leverage over the Assad Regime, and in terms of ground forces, and there s no easy solution to overcoming that. So, those are two things I see, and then the third one is the fate of the opposition. I think the opposition, at least in northern Syria, will continue to decline in both capacity and in terms of credibility, unless, dare I say it, unless it turns its guns definitively on this al Qaeda group, Jabhat Fateh al Sham, and its few remaining allies, with international support. And unless it does that, I do fear by the end of 2017, in northern Syria, at least, there won t be much opposition that we as the Western world will continue to want to engage with. And that is something we need to avoid, because the alternative is, of course, that opposition doesn t go away, they just become less nice people that we don t want to work with. That s a threat; that s not something we want to live with. But the only way of avoiding that is to acknowledge their demands and find some way of feeding them into a broader picture. BOKHARI: Thank you, Charles. Thank you for your time. Folks you ve been listening to the Center for Global Policy broadcast series. Our guest today was Charles Lister. Please continue to follow us online at Good day! Recorded January 27,