EXPERT INTERVIEW — The headlines would have seemed fanciful two weeks ago: “Rebel Army Ousts Assad” - “The Fall of Assad” – “Assad Flees to Russia” – or our own, from Sunday: “Syria’s Political Earthquake – and What Comes Next.”
On the day after a coalition of rebel groups marched into Damascus and ended the five-decade rule of Bashar al-Assad and his father, the late dictator Hafez al-Assad, the answers to those “What comes next” questions are at the heart of the Syrian story – for the country itself and the volatile geography it occupies.
What comes next for the rebel movement itself, which routed the Assad regime in ten days and has pledged to work with the sitting Prime Minister to set up a transition government? Even if that comes to pass, can such a government tame the competing factions – many of them armed – that dot the country? Beyond Syria’s borders, what will neighbors Turkey and Israel do? What will become of the Russian presence in Syria, given that country’s long record of fighting on Assad’s behalf, and the air and naval bases it still maintains in the country? And what will the United States do – given its interests (and its 900 troops) in Syria?
Cipher Brief Managing Editor Tom Nagorski spoke Monday with Gary Grappo, who served as Ambassador to Oman and held high-level posts in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and at the State Department. Amb. Grappo answered these and other questions – and outlined the twin paths that Syria might take in the days and months ahead: one leading to a new civil war, the other to an utterly new regime in Syria that may actually answer to its people. "That's the rose-colored lens view," Amb. Grappo said. "It's not impossible."
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Nagorski: Did you ever think this day would come where you'd read this headline – that Assad was overthrown?
Amb. Grappo: Well, the day was certainly going to come. I was just not certain I'd be around to see it. And what is most shocking to me is that for a very long time, many of us who were steeped in Syria lore, so to speak, in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs had anticipated that the fall of the Assad regime would be an especially bloody one. And if you just speak of the last 11 or 12 days, certainly there was loss of life, but nothing on the level that we would have expected. Of course, this was preceded by 13 years of very bloody, punishing, devastating civil war in that country.
Nagorski: It’s early days, of course, but for the first 24 or 36 hours or so, as you point out, it hasn't looked that violent. Why do you think that is?
Amb. Grappo: Several factors. First of all, Assad was abandoned by his principal backers, Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia, for reasons we all know. Iran was too distracted by its own security, its vulnerability having been brutally exposed by Israel. Russia, of course, is very distracted by the war in Ukraine, which is demanding ever greater amounts of resources, not to mention troops. And Hezbollah, for a couple of reasons: Number one, they themselves have been devastated by Israel; number two, Assad had anticipated, no doubt, that Hezbollah would come to his aid as they had back in 2012. But Syria did not come to Hezbollah's side when they were being pummeled by Israel. And so what goes around comes around, and they decided to sit this one out.
Nagorski: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) were a jihadist group with links to Al-Qaeda. They fought Americans in Iraq. From what they have said, they long ago not only broke ties with Al Qaeda but changed their ideology to a more pragmatic one. How much do you know about them? How worried should we be about them?
Amb Grappo: I am concerned. It is true that [the HTS leader] Abu Mohammed Al-Golani appears to have taken a more pragmatic approach over the last five to 10 years, during his leadership of HTS up in the Idlib province, which is in northwest Syria, trying to dampen some of the more extremist elements of Islamism that they had previously followed under both the Islamic State as well as Al-Qaeda. And some initial signs suggest that maybe he has followed up on that. He's issued warnings and announcements about respecting Christians, the Alawites, the Kurds, et cetera.
The group that he leads, not only HTS, but other groups that fell under this large collection of rebels, were all united in their objective of removing the Bashar al-Assad regime. Well, they've done that. And what typically happens in circumstances like this – we've seen it before – is that the centrifugal forces driven by desires for power, for wealth, to claim their share of the spoils, creates the basic elements of another civil war. And we've seen that sadly in the Balkans in the 1990s, we've seen it in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and Iraq. And this is why it's so important that the United States, moderate Arab countries, Turkey and Israel find a way to come together and reach out to the new leadership in Damascus.
All of those countries have been handed an extraordinary opportunity. As I said earlier, Iran and Russia have abandoned [Syria]. They've pulled up stakes in Syria for the first time. There's an opportunity to move Syria into the camp of moderate Arab states, which is what we should strive for. I think it would be a little naive to try and foist a Jeffersonian democracy on a country that has absolutely no familiarity or history with democracy, but certainly a country that fosters stability within the country as well as in the region. And that should be our objective.
Nagorski: Were you surprised, heartened or something else that the rebels' first order of business, other than military, was to reach out to the prime minister in Syria? They seem to have a dialogue underway. We're hearing words like “transition government,” maybe elections. These aren't what you typically would think of for an organization that at one point espoused the creation of a caliphate in the region.
Amb. Grappo: Exactly. And these are the first really encouraging signs that they may indeed get it, that there's no future in an Islamist caliphate that imposes an extreme version of Islam on a population that is very disparate, and has different views about what their country should be. Trying to promote a caliphate – and I haven’t heard them making that claim – would just create conditions for civil war.
So those are really positive signs. And the rest of the world, and most especially, Turkey, Israel, moderate Arab states, the United States, Europeans, should be encouraging and promoting that.
Moreover, I think we have the possibility to incentivize a new leadership in Damascus. The various estimates for needed humanitarian aid and investment to rebuild a very devastated country are on the order of $200 billion. If there's going to be any chance of attracting that kind of investment and support, these countries are the ones who can do it. And they should lay down some pretty clear conditions on what they expect in terms of governance inside Syria and its external behavior.
Nagorski: Back then to the U.S. and, to use your phrase, what they can do with this “extraordinary opportunity.” It’s complicated, at least in the short term, by the fact that HTS still is on the State Department terrorism list. What are some of the things you think need to happen?
Amb. Grappo: The United States and other countries have ways of reaching out to al-Golani and perhaps others to start moving in the right direction. Turkey most definitely does. Turkey probably has the most influence with HTS at the moment. And we should be talking to the Turks.
We all have a shared interest in seeing stability within Syria. There are other armed factions that were not part of this movement. There are the Syrian Democratic Forces, principally the Kurds up in the Northwest. There is the Syrian National Army, which is basically a militia group that's armed and backed by Turkey, which controls areas along the northern border with Turkey. And then we have smaller militia groups down in the south that had been supported by Jordan. They were the ones, I believe, who captured Daraa, near the Jordanian border. So we're going to have to start reaching out to these countries that have that kind of influence and start encouraging all of them to move in a shared direction. And that's going to be hard.
Mounting a war against a dictator like Assad, and uniting forces behind that, is comparatively easy compared to forming a government. So now is the hard part. And now is when the countries that I've been mentioning need to come together to help promote and encourage positive movement, because we're at a dangerous point. This could break down into a civil war that would be in no one's interest. And moreover, it would create conditions for the return of players we really don't want to see, i.e. Hezbollah, Iran, Russia, and perhaps the Islamic State, which remains in Syria in various pockets in the central and eastern desert.
Nagorski: So that's the bad side of the ledger looking forward. Back to your “extraordinary opportunity,” what's a realistic hope, a good outcome that you think is reasonable to hope for at this point?
Amb. Grappo: I've heard and read reports that al-Golani, the head of HTS, is a great admirer of Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in Saudi Arabia. And ignoring for the moment some of the egregious missteps of MBS during the initial period after he was named Crown Prince, he's done some really remarkable things in Saudi Arabia. And those are undeniable, both on the social reform side as well as the economic side. Of course, not much at all on the political side. I'm not necessarily saying that he should follow in the footsteps of MBS, but picking up on some of the things that MBS has done to genuinely improve the lot of Saudis, and in this case, Syrians.
What I'm looking for is someone who tamps down extremism inside the country, who is able to form a leadership that brings these various groups, particularly the armed groups, together willingly in order to form some form of government, even if it may not be democratic. And with that stability, they can begin to attract the kind of humanitarian aid and most investment they need to rebuild the country. And that's going to create, then, stability in a country that's often been referred to as the fulcrum of the Middle East. It just connects with everywhere – Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and not too far away, countries like Saudi Arabia and certainly Iran. Joining this fold of moderate Arab states, we might be able to create the kind of stability in the region I don't know that we've ever seen. And from that, good things can then follow.
That's the rose-colored lens view. It's not impossible. But it also will require a concerted effort from these countries to reach out to whatever leadership emerges in Syria to promote movement in that direction. And I think the U.S. definitely needs to be a key part of it.
Nagorski: What do you think is the more likely outcome right now – your rose-colored hope, or civil war?
Amb. Grappo: At this initial stage, it's very hard to see how things are going to play out tomorrow, much less next week, next month, the ensuing months. I think al-Golani will certainly have his hands full in trying to get some of these other groups to not necessarily lay down their arms, but to stop fighting one another.
I'm also concerned about remnants of the Syrian army still having access to weapons, much like we confronted in Iraq when we disbanded the Iraqi army and they ended up forming their own terrorist organization that was a nemesis of ours for years. That could easily happen in Syria as well.
And then finally, I'm worried about Turkey and, to a lesser extent, also Israel, perhaps trying to take advantage in the border areas. We've seen Israel do some things already – clearly it was in their security interest to take those measures. They're now temporarily occupying Syrian land they've never claimed before, to the east of the Golan Heights. And that may be understandable during this uncertain period, but at some point they need to make clear that they are going to withdraw. And similarly, the Turks have to make clear that they have no claim on Syrian territory. Then a really hard thing for Turkey will be finding a way to work with the Kurds of Turkey.
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