Syria After Assad: What Led Here and What Lies Ahead

Joining us again is Charles Lister, a senior fellow and director of the Syria Initiative at the Middle East Institute (MEI), where his research focuses on Syria, terrorism, and insurgency across the Levant. In this episode of At the Boundary, Lister breaks down both the history and the sequence of events that reshaped Syria. He details Bashar al-Assad’s sudden flight to Russia to the rise of Syria’s new President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a figure who was once designated terrorist with a $10m bounty but is now engaging with diplomats from over 70 countries.

This discussion takes a look at the following:

· The “Rush to Damascus” and Assad’s unexpected downfall.

· Ahmed al-Sharaa’s foreign policy success and his mixed domestic policy performance.

· The effect of lifting sanctions and Syria’s economic recovery.

· Southern Syria’s clashes, the Druze, and Israel’s intervention.

· The future of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and U.S. counter-ISIS operations.

· The U.S. policy on Syria moving forward.

· How the region now views Syria as the key to unlocking a more stable and prosperous Middle East.

Charles Lister unpacks Syria’s past to help us understand its present and why there may finally be reason to hope for a better future.

Links from the Episode:

• Cyber Bay Registration Link 

• "Building Trust in Digital Response: The Role of Chatbots in Cybercrime Prevention" Decision Brief  

• "Our Knowledge of the Taliban as Guide for US Policy" JSS Article by Dr. Marvin G. Weinbaum

• 2025 Notes from Cambridge Blog

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.

A "boundary" is a place, either literal or figurative, where two forces exist in close proximity to each other. Sometimes that boundary is in a state of harmony. More often than not, that boundary has a bit of chaos baked in. The Global and National Security Institute will live on the boundary of security policy and technology and that's where this podcast will focus.

The mission of GNSI is to provide actionable solutions to 21st-century security challenges for decision-makers at the local, state, national and global levels. We hope you enjoy At the Boundary.

Look for our other publications and products on our website publications page.

Transcript

Jim Cardoso: 0:00

Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of at the boundary, the podcast from the global and national security Institute at the University of South Florida. I'm Jim Cardoso, Senior Director for GNSI, and your host for at the boundary. Today on the show, we're bringing back a guest we previously interviewed almost a year ago. Charles Lister is one of the world's foremost experts on Syria. We said during our last conversation we wanted to have him back and with that country again embroiled in conflict and turmoil, we thought now would be a good time before we bring him in. However, we wanted to remind you that registration is open for cyber Bay 2025 some of the nation's leading cybersecurity AI and national security experts will be gathering in downtown Tampa. It's scheduled for October 13 to the 15th, and it'll be a can't miss event. Featured speakers include Jen easterly, the former director of the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, Arne Bellini, the managing partner of Bellini capital and the benefactor for the newly created USF Bellini College of AI cybersecurity and computing and our own executive director, retired Marine Corps General, Frank McKenzie, we'll drop a registration link in the show notes. Keep an eye out as well for the newest GNSI decision brief titled building trust in digital response, the role of chatbots in cyber crime prevention. It comes out next week, along with the latest issue of the GNSI newsletter. If you haven't already, go to our website and subscribe so you don't miss future issues of our monthly newsletter, or just click the link in the show note. All right, let's welcome our special guest today. Joining us today from the UK is Charles Lister, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, where he's also the director of their counter terrorism and Syria programs, Charles, welcome back to out the

Unknown: 2:04

boundary. Thanks so much for having me, Jim, it's good to be back. So

Jim Cardoso: 2:08

let's dive into it. Obviously, your area of expertise has been pretty active recently, but going back a little bit, Bashar Al Assad fled from power in December 2024 at the time, that was an incredibly unexpected event, but I think there were some expectations as to what would happen going forward. What's big and been the biggest surprise for you?

Unknown: 2:30

Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, certainly a lot has happened in Syria over the last eight months or so. You know, I think retrospectively, just a note, as someone who lives and breathes Syria on an almost 24/7 basis. Certainly, the speed of Assad's departure and downfall was unquestionably unexpected. Definitely, no one saw that coming in 10 days, although I think also retrospectively, there were a lot of clues that things were beginning to unravel. And I think, you know, one of the really big lessons for me as someone, as I say, who does pay attention to this, you know, every hour of the day is that, you know, paying real attention to all the granular details really does reveal some of those really significant trends. And there were big warning signs in the second half of last year that that something quite significant was happening. And so looking towards the future, and what kind of surprises I had, and have had, I suppose, over the last seven or eight months. I mean, the I'd probably put them in in a sequence. The first one was what I have called the rush to Damascus. So it took a matter of a handful of days for Assad to flee on a private jet to Russia and a leader of a long time jihadist movement to assume the leadership and Presidency of the country. It took a handful of days for that to happen before countries were flooding to Damascus, and over the past seven months, at my count, we've had over 70 governments around the world come to Damascus for official engagements with this transitional authority. And I have not been able to find any comparison, any comparison that comes anywhere close in a post conflict environment where we have seen so much of the international community flood to a capital city and to engage with it, with a transitional government, and that's before we take into consideration, you know, who's at the top of this transitional government, and their kind of controversial, or as President Trump has called, their strong histories. So the rush to Damascus was the first one. And of course, the US was was part of that rush, as was the Europeans and others. The second one, as a sequence, is the subsequent basically what what would should be called the normalization of Syria's new transitional government in the international community, and the speed with which that's happened. And. Um, you know, Syria is now right back in at the highest levels of the United Nations. It's back in all of the multinational bodies. It has been basically fully reintegrated into the world in a way that we haven't seen in at least 60 years. So for Syria, it's totally historic. But again, I struggle to find a comparative case study where an international pariah state of the level that Syria was has basically been fully reintegrated into the world in the space of six months. So the speed of that normalization was was certainly a surprise, and certainly something quite significant. And then the third 1/3, and last one is again in sequence, President Trump's decision to dramatically pivot away from, frankly speaking, everything that everyone he had appointed into positions in foreign and national security policy, and he did a complete 180 degree against all of their advice, and fully engaged and normalized US relations with this transitional government in Syria. So the first half of that sort of third surprise was Trump's pivot, and then the second half of it is a real lesson for us, which is what I have called Trump rules. You know, when President Trump decides that something's going to happen, it happens, and it happens very fast. And so many of my friends who work on sanctions policy and, you know, sanctions analysis, they can't come anywhere close to us to a case study where the America's biggest and most complex sanctions regime against Syria has basically almost entirely been removed in the space of about three months. I mean, there's just literally no, no comparison. So when President Trump decides something is going to happen, and in his words, he gives, He wants to give Syria a chance to recover, and of course, we can maybe come to talk about why he wants to do that, then it happens. And it happens really fast. And everyone he'd appointed who was deeply, deeply against this before he met President Ahmad Al Shara in Saudi Arabia, rallied around the flag, and are now, you know, essentially, I guess, cautiously, cheerleading the exact same policy of engagement. So those would be my three surprises. Well,

Jim Cardoso: 7:15

President Trump has proven he's sometimes willing to go in his own separate way, and sometimes it works out well, and sometimes it remains to be seen, but it is interesting. And I think the speed, you all three, one thing they shared is the speed at which things are happening. And I think we're gonna, we're gonna try to hit a little bit about US policy and your thoughts on that later on. But first, at the beginning, you talked about, you know, the new leader there. You know, what is your assessment of Amman al showers leadership in Syria thus far. I mean, this guy, he's gone from a designated global terrorist with 110 or was it a$10 million bounty on his head, to meeting the world's diplomats up to the, you know, up to the number of 70 countries. As you said, What's your assessment of that album so far?

Unknown: 7:59

Well, I think his kind of scorecard is is split in in in two parts. One is his kind of foreign policy, and one is his domestic policy. And I think on foreign policy, he's barely put a foot wrong. And again, that that helps to explain the speed with which everything has happened on day one, when he walked into Damascus, given who he was, he instantly was saying the right things. He was talking in the language of, you know, traditional mainstream political transitions. You know, I joked very early on in the transition in Syria that if someone had written the dummy's guide to a political transition. He Ahmed al Shara was literally ticking off each box one by one. So he said all of the right things. He structured the transition in most of the right ways. And I think given a who he is, who was around him when he walked into Damascus, the movement that he still led when he walked into Damascus, the fact that we now have we've gone from what was called a caretaker government, which was entirely his men, to what's now the transitional government, where, for only four out of 23 members of the transitional government are His people, and the rest of them are genuine professional technocrats. You know, I had a meeting the other day with the governor of Syria's Central Bank, who spent most of his career working for Ernst and Young all around the world and with the New York Fed. You know, the technocratic base of the transitional government now is a really encouraging sign, and that has obviously given the international community the confidence to engage in the rapid way that they have. And of course, he's also had what He has called a no problems policy in the region, and that's mostly directed towards Israel, and that's a whole nother sort of topic of conversation we could potentially come to Israel has. Plenty. Israel has plenty of concerns and has done plenty of things, but Ahmed al Shara has done precisely nothing in response. The biggest thing he's done to the Israelis in the last seven months is file a complaint at the Security Council about Israeli airstrikes. So again, in terms of kind of a vote of confidence to give the rest of the international community the confidence to continue to engage. He's done those right things on the foreign policy level, on the domestic it's a different picture. It's more gray than black and white. He has had clear some successes. The fact that he has accomplished, by and large, the fully lifting of sanctions by the international community against Syria is and will continue to have a really significant economic benefit to the people who have, of course, suffered immeasurably on a humanitarian level for so long. But we have had these bouts of really major conflict, internal conflict, sectarian conflict, mass killings, and to an extent, if I put on my very cold analyst hat on, these things were inevitable, and not because Ahmed al Shara was the transitional president, but because of how what Syria looks like after 14 years of civil conflict and more than 50 Years of minority dictatorship rule, which Basically weaponized minority communities against other minorities, minorities against majorities. This, this instability that we're continuing to see is, in a cold way, inevitable. His response to it, though, has not been up to scratch. There needs to be a lot more of a demonstration of justice and accountability for for crimes, not just crimes committed by the former regime, but also by men under the Ministry of the new Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior. And although I think we're starting to see some of this change, he and his government also need to be much more flexible in the way that they negotiate with some of, again, what I'm calling the kind of unresolved territorial issues in Syria that the Northeast sway in the south areas that are basically out of government control. He's embraced a pretty zero sum posture in those negotiations, and there needs to be some flexibility, because if they don't get resolved, we're going to continue to see these major flare ups of violence. So it's a mixed bag. On the domestic level, I could give you 20 other examples foreign policy overwhelming success. Let's

Jim Cardoso: 12:25

and so let's Great answer. And thank you so much. It's a great that's a great insight. Let's dive a little bit more into the domestic side and bring it up to the to the current as you said, in southern Syria and suede it's been the site of deadly clashes, widespread reports of human rights violations and abuses started with the pro government forces and the Druze, and then spread to the local Bedouin tribes confronting the Jews as well. What if you could maybe a little primer on what drove the enmity between these factions? And you may need to touch a little bit on the Druze, because I think a lot of people listening may not be fully familiar with who the Jews are and how they're comprised.

Unknown: 13:02

Yeah. So, as with everything on Syria, it's complicated, so I'll try to, I'll try to make it as sort of simple as,

Jim Cardoso: 13:09

that's why we have you on the show Charles, to make the complicated easy to understand.

Unknown: 13:14

I'll try. I'll try, perhaps, to go through a little bit of the chronology, but also pick out some of the core kind of drivers and things. I mean, first of all, the Druze are a religious minority group with their with their roots within, within the Islamic faith, but have branched out a long, long, long, long time ago into their own sort of religious foundations. They are spread between parts of Syria parts of Lebanon. They have a presence in Israel too, which plays into why Israel has embraced this kind of desire to protect the Druze, mostly due to domestic Israeli concerns, rather than necessarily primarily the concerns of Druze outside. But so they're a minority group. They're predominantly based in this southern province or governorate called sweder. And in being the dominant community there in this province, the Druze have historically, always, over decades, embraced the idea that they pursue a kind of an extent of semi autonomy. They even under the Assad's sweder under Drew's leadership was afforded a lot more sort of Decentralized Governance. They had a lot more control over their local local governance. And so under this transition, the Druze have expected those same kind of rights or that that same kind of status. How did things begin? So on the night of July the 11th, a Druze man was driving a pickup truck full of vegetables from Damascus to suede suede south of Damascus, about an hour's drive, and he was stopped on the side of the road by a handful of Ben. Gunmen who you know, forced him out of the vehicle, beat him up and stole his his truck and vegetables. So to start with a relatively minor incident in the whole scope of things. The following morning, in retaliation for that Drew's gunman kidnapped a bunch of Bedouin men, and hours later, Bedouin gunmen kidnapped a bunch of Druze men, and we had 24 hours of tit for tat kidnappings between Druze and Bedouin communities, both of which are based in sweder. So this was not a kind of Syria conflict. This was very hyper localized tensions and hostilities between Swedish Bedouin community and Sweden's Druze community go back decades. So they have been at loggerheads over land ownership, control of smuggling routes. It should be said here that sweder, I mean, Syria as a country, has been riven by smuggling for a very, very long time, very powerful smuggling industry, and Sweden was a really core historical part of the smuggling trade into Jordan through the sweder desert. And so both components of the Bedouin community and components of the Druze community have been fighting over smuggling routes, smuggling access and land ownership for a long time. So really, most of these tensions emanate from that. It's got nothing to do with religion. It's everything to do with land, history and politics. Having said that, when these tit for tat kidnappings began to escalate into more direct conflict, after about 36 hours, we were in a place where, again, the transitional government in Syria has zero presence in sweder. They never went in after Assad fell, they afforded sweder The same sort of status they had before. They were attempting to negotiate what they call kind of integration agreement whereby sway unites into the rest of the country and becomes part of the transition. But they weren't there yet. So all of this was playing out while the government was on the outside. I think, in retrospect, the government was clearly, I think, saw sis, to an extent, as an opportunity. In other words, it allowed chaos to unfold between these two local communities to press the idea that if Syria is going to stabilize, the government has a responsibility to enforce law and order, and the government is the only actor who should have the responsibility to enforce law and order. So again, not to make it too complicated, but while that kidnapping was happening on that day, July the 12th, there was a meeting between Syria and Israel in Azerbaijan, mediated by America and Turkey, and in that meeting, I know for a fact a significant portion of that meeting was dedicated to a discussion around what was called the sovereign rights of a transitional government in Syria. And the Syrian delegation wanted to get the Israelis to confirm that it was the government's responsibility to enforce law and order when localized conflict develops. And according to a third country observer who was in the room, who I spoke to, the Israelis, did say, Yes, of course, that's your right. You know, any government has the has the responsibility and the right to, you know, have a monopoly over monopoly over the use of force and to enforce law and order. So 24 hours after that meeting, the government made a decision that it was going to go in, and it was going to go into swada and intervene before doing so, they consulted all privately, of course, with all of the Druze leadership in sweder. They consulted with the with the United States. They consulted with Jordan, and they sent a message through the US to Israel to say, we intend to intervene in 12 hours. And then they did so within 10 minutes of government forces going in on July the 14th into Sweden, crossing the provincial line, they were ambushed by Druze militiamen, 10 Syrian government soldiers were rounded up on the side of the road and executed, and then their dead bodies were used for celebratory photographs, which swiftly went viral on social media. And then eight other soldiers were stripped to their underwear, marched to a nearby village, lined up alongside a wall and shot that was that one incident was basically the kind of cases, belly thing that turned this into a major conflict. The government then saw that it, or perceived it, had been betrayed. It had, you know, done all those consultations. Nobody had said no. And then instantly they were, they were ambushed. And this, this sort of small scale massacre happened on the highway as they went in. So the government went all out. They went, this is, you know, this has to be dealt with. This is a kind of coup against the government. And that was when we started to see some of the crimes being committed. Then Israel intervened in a. Way that they framed it as to protect the Druze community. The Israeli intervention basically made this entire conflict zero sum for everybody. Though, the Druze saw this as their one chance to draw a line in the sand and say, We will forever be at least semi autonomous. We do not recognize and we don't respect the transitional government. The government of Syria, saw this as their only opportunity to draw a line in the sand and say, No, we are the government and we have the responsibility. And then the Bedouin saw this as a kind of fight for their existence. All of that also fueled crimes and atrocities on all sides. And there were crimes and atrocities on all sides the government forces conducted extra judicial executions, Drew's militiamen, beheaded dead bodies and posted photographs up online. They also have been proven to have executed a number of children, burnt Bedouin villages. It was grim, really, really ugly, and cutting a long, long, long long story short, because now we're only halfway through the chronology, it's only been US led mediation that has also involved the Saudis, the Jordanians and the Turks that have managed to get us to where we are now, which is a cease fire. There's no solution here. Everyone has just stopped fighting. The lines have been drawn. Sweden remains outside of government control. And whereas, you know, three weeks ago, most Druze leaders in sweder were very open and supportive of the idea of making a compromise with Damascus, most of them have now come out of this whole chapter, you know, very, at least for now, very against that idea. So we've actually backtracked from some of the more soft, constructive place we were a few weeks ago. And meanwhile, several 1000s and 1000s of the Bedouin minority community in Sweden have been evacuated, likely permanently, and for many Syrians who have been displaced multiple times throughout the conflict, the imagery of being forced onto busses and then leaving to live somewhere else has a really, kind of dangerous, evocative history. So I really, really worry here that if there isn't more third party mediation to actually resolve this, not just a cease fire, but actually resolve Swedish status in Syria, that this is just a pause, and we are going to see more ugly bouts of fighting continue, particularly as this is the Bedouin community. They have tribal links throughout the country, and the tribes will always mobilize to protect their sort of tribal brethren elsewhere in the country, which is exactly what happened in the last few days of this of this conflict story. That was a lot, but hopefully it was simple to simple to follow. It was

Jim Cardoso: 22:45

actually, and, you know, I mean, you can pull a lot of things up online and read through them, but that was, I mean, that was a fantastic, you know, one shot overview of where it's gone, kind of taken into, you know, an account the long term, the long term animosity, and how it bubbled over, and how sometimes just one seemingly minor spark event turns into something that almost that could become overwhelming. And then you enter the Israelis as well. And let's talk about that a little bit. So the Israelis ended the conflict, and you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu described that to Israel's commitment to prevent harm to the Druze in Syria. But I think, I think you'd agree there's indications that reasons for Israel's actions are a little more nuanced. Can you talk to that?

Unknown: 23:27

Yeah, well, I mean, obviously it's a subject of debate, but I mean, there is a Druze minority in Israel, which is, which is a pretty influential minority. I mean, they play, they have consistently dedicated themselves, probably more heavily than almost any community in Israel to the IDF and and and regionally, when Druze related issues have have developed across the region, in Syria and Lebanon elsewhere, they have been a very loud kind of voice pressuring the Israeli government to do something about it. And so my read, at least, is that Israel's primary concern here, particularly given the fact that it's still at war in Gaza, is still conducting military actions in Lebanon, and it's still conducting military actions in Syria, the last thing they need is a kind of internal revolt within a significant community that contributes so heavily towards the IDF. So I think domestic politics played a very significant role here, the added one of and you know, to put it very bluntly, is that the current Israeli government, and it has said this, has zero trust in Syria's transitional authority, you know, not despite President Trump's embrace, despite, you know, everything that we talked about in the first The first question around those surprises and serious integration, Israel's posture is it does not trust this government. And you know, as the Israeli Foreign Minister just said, I think, yesterday or the other day, he called it another, you know, jihadist government. So, so there's no trust. Yeah. And so even if there was a meeting in Azerbaijan, which there was in which they were both on the same table, by the way, they're going to meet again in a couple of days time. So this is going to be like the fourth meeting they've had in a week. So despite the fact that there is all of this dialog going on, the public posture is hostile, and as a result of that, Israel has demanded that all of southern Syria be fully demilitarized, which, you know, is never going to happen. No government, even a weak, vulnerable transitional government, is going to accept the idea that it has to allow its entire southern, you know, corner, southern region of the country, to basically be lawless. It's never going to happen. So we are in this kind of awkward balance whereby the Syrian Government does have military forces in the south and they are combating Iranian proxies, and what have you, which should be the ingredients for trust building, but the Israeli posture is hostility. And I think Israel saw this as an opportunity too to draw a line against the government. And I think if it's, if I want to avoid sounding conspiratorial here, I think they also saw this as a trap for this transitional government, a trap into which, you know, the Syrian authorities would step in. They would intervene, Israel would then intervene on the top and they basically humiliate the transitional government. Put it in a very awkward position for Syrian government forces to withdraw, which they now have. And sort of, you know, place Damascus in a much more tricky, pressured spot than it was before. And of course, they continue to show that they could conduct airstrikes with impunity. I mean, they hit the Ministry of Defense on live TV, which, incidentally, you know, it has to be said, Never happened while the Assad regime was killing hundreds of 1000s of people in Syria. And so I think, yes, politics was playing more of a role here than just protecting civilian life in Syria.

Jim Cardoso: 27:01

And you know, not to just add to the complexity, but it is Syria, after all. At the same time this is going on now, there's also discussion about the Syrian Democratic Forces getting them reintegrated in the Syrian army. And there's us demands at the SDF they surrender all their weapons and withdraw from the key cities which SDS has rejected. I mean, where do you see the SDF role going in Syria. Yeah.

Unknown: 27:23

So, I mean, this is, again, I think I said this a little earlier, these kind of unresolved territorial issues. There's really two. It's the Northeast controlled by the SDF, and it's and it's the southern governor of Sweden. These issues are existential for Syria's transition. They have to be resolved. You know, a Syrian transition cannot, in my view, at least survive into the long term when 30% of its territory remains outside of its control. You know, some significant period of time after after it takes authority, and we're now nearly on month eight. So they have to be resolved. We're also in a place where the United States, the Trump administration, and all of Europe and all of the Middle East, excepting Israel plus China plus Russia plus basically the rest of the international community, are full square ahead and behind the idea that Syria must reunify, and that Damascus must have a monopoly over the use of force, and that all armed groups of varying kinds in Syria must integrate, must either demobilize, or must integrate into the ministry of defense. And that picture says, tells you one thing, the SDF must dissolve and must integrate into the state. But of course, as you know, you know, after nearly a decade of significant us support and in which you know, the US government and the US military has has, you know, been by the SDF side every single day for basically 10 years, the SDF is finding it very, very difficult that to accept the idea that they're going to have to, I guess, let go of some of their gains that they have made in terms of status in order to make that deal. And again, if I'm if I put my cynical hat on, I think they're playing a waiting game, a kind of delaying game, in the hope that somehow this transition in Syria falls apart, and then they still keep their status in the Northeast. But they are under real pressure from the US to make this deal, and including by their longtime US military partners, who are telling them, You got to make this deal, and Ambassador Thomas Barak, President Trump's appointee to be the point man on Syria has given them really strict ultimatums where the last one of which is by the end of August, you guys have got to make a deal. You will no longer be able to count on our full support and backing. And this and the US position on that is, is for one very simple reason, which is, if this deal doesn't get done, Syria. Entire transition may start to fall apart. And as far as you know, President Trump's strategic vision for the region is concerned, you know, more integration, more economic interaction, of course, more peace and stability. A transition in Syria will likely determine whether or not the Middle East looks like that or not. What happens in Syria has never stayed in Syria. Its geographic place in the heart of the Middle East literally defines whether or not the economies of Jordan and sorry, Jordan and Iraq and Lebanon and Turkey all get to benefit or not. And they will define whether or not the Middle East can establish new interconnectivity with the with Europe and through the Mediterranean and all of this, it all depends on Syria, and so that is why the SDF is under so much pressure. But they're not budging. To be frank about it, they really are not budging, at least not yet. But do you

Jim Cardoso: 30:55

think that realistically, they can hold out indefinitely? Is it just a matter of time or I mean, where do you see this going in the near future?

Unknown: 31:04

Well, I if calm heads prevail, the SDF will realize that the clock is ticking here. I mean, last week, US special forces undertook their second counter ISIS raid alongside Syrian government troops. Now they didn't make a lot of noise about it. The language in CENTCOM statement was a little vague, but they were coordinating a joint operation against ISIS, and it was the second one we've seen in several weeks. And for the SDF, that's like alarm bells ringing in both their ears that, you know, the sort of the sands are starting to shift a little bit. There's also the blunt reality that the SDF economy in the northeast of Syria, they're basically bankrupt. Their budget over the last several years has increasingly been in a significant deficit, and so financially, in terms of being able to provide for the people of northeastern Syria, insisting on remaining autonomous is just unsustainable. It is just not going to work. And when Syrians in northeastern Syria are looking at what's happening in Damascus, you know, there was a delegation of more than 150 of Saudi Arabia's most wealthy people in Damascus a week ago, and they signed 47 contracts worth more than six and a half billion dollars. And those are contracts, not mo use that money, that investment, that development and reconstruction, is going to be happening in territories controlled by the transitional government, but it's not going to be happening in the north, in the SDF, held northeast, or, for that matter, in sweder in the south, either until all of Syria reunites. And so despite the instability, despite all of the challenges associated with you know who this transitional government is, is led by at the top, the trajectory we're on here is, hopefully, if we're all optimistic, a path for Syria's recovery. And all Syrians should benefit from that, but they can. That will only happen if all of these sides come to the table and all of them are willing to make concessions and compromises. And like I say, we're not there yet, but I think increasingly it's going to dawn on the SDF that really they have no choice. And the deal on the table from Damascus is the last thing I'll say a deal on the table from Damascus isn't a really bad one. You know, the Biden administration, before Assad fell, was pushing the SDF to make a deal with Assad's regime. The deal Assad had on the table was way worse than what's currently on the table from this transitional government in terms of rights for the Kurds, in terms of Kurdish language rights, cultural rights, in terms of seats within the government itself, influence within the parliament, proportional, proportional disbursement of revenues and everything else. It's a much better deal on the table. Now the problem is, of course, is they don't trust the transitional government, and that's the that's the other thing. So with us guarantees that may be our way over that wall,

Jim Cardoso: 34:08

and that's a great transition as we start to wind down. The podcast been a fascinating conversation. But what do you see as the you know talk us through the US positions, and you have been talking about that through the podcast, where do you see us policy going forward now?

Unknown: 34:24

Yeah, well, I think President Trump made a gamble on this, and the gamble was to align himself with the rest of the region, and the rest of the region sees Syria as the key to unlocking a much more prosperous, peaceful, integrated region. And of course, that quite aligns with the way that President Trump wants to see the world. He wants to see money being and money and business and exchange being the path to to stability and prosperity. And so he. Has basically aligned himself with the region, but it was a gamble, because it's a controversial transition, or transitional government. It's also, frankly speaking, it's a transition that is that faces the most unbelievable structural challenges at a societal level, an economic level, at a physical, practical destruction level. Everything else is almost an unprecedented transitional challenge. But I think given the fact that he has so publicly aligned himself with this, I still struggle to see a path where he changes his mind and backtracks, in large part because he would then lose the rest of the region for good. And again, sort of to broaden out the conversation a little bit here. You know, Trump administration still speaks publicly about wanting to broaden the Abraham Accords, for example. Now, you know, the prospects of Syria going into the Abraham accords is still way away. I think the best we can hope for is kind of a de escalation or a security agreement, but not impossible in the long term. But I tell you, what, if the US and Israel, because right now, Israel is the spoiler in Syria as a country, but if the US and Israel become a joint spoiler for Syria's transition, then the idea that anyone else in the region is going to join the Abraham accords ever will basically be off the table. The region sees Syria as their biggest strategic opportunity in 50 years. So we cannot sort of understate just how much of a stake the region has placed on this Syrian transition. And so for that reason, too, I don't see President Trump, you know, doing 180 degree shift and turning against what's, you know, the transition that's in place. But their challenge now is more complicated than it was a few months ago. The decision a few months ago was to engage, to meet, to normalize, to lift sanctions. And those things have all happened now. The challenge now is to lend us credibility mediation to resolving some of these really, really thorny territorial and political issues inside the country. And the Frank matter is the Saudis, the Jordanians, the Turks, are all trying mediation themselves. But the real progress that we've seen in terms of mediation and negotiation in recent months has only ever been when the US has been the front at the table. And so, yeah, the challenge is different. Now I think Thomas Barak has been amazingly dynamic in his position. He is constantly on the move. He's, frankly speaking, looks like he's doing way more in his role as special envoy on Syria than he is as ambassador to Turkey. Syria seems to be like a real, real passion for him, given the opportunity. And I think that's good. We have to have an empowered and dynamic front person, man or woman in this role, and I think Tom Barak fits that very well, but it's going to have to be sustained. This can't just be a matter of saying, right, we've normalized and reintegrated them into the world. Job done. Good luck Syria. Best of luck and hope things work out. Then things are not going to work out. The big challenges lie ahead now in terms of helping to reintegrate the country itself,

Jim Cardoso: 38:18

you know, but what I hear as I listen to you, is what I would call cautious optimism, that in a region that really hasn't had much cause for optimism for years, there may be again that that light at the end of the tunnel that people talk about, but that at least there is a pathway to some level of stability in a region that's experienced just nothing but difficult times for years, under under a despotic regime and with a humanitarian crisis, which you talked about last time you're on the podcast. But you'd say there may be, you know, some things got to happen, no question about that. But there is a positive way ahead.

Unknown: 39:00

Yeah, yeah, there is, I mean, I mean, to make it sort of personal, you know, I've spent 14 years of my life being deeply pessimistic and in a very dark place about Syria and and, yes, with Assad's removal and with international engagement, there is finally a chance to be cautiously optimistic. We have to be optimistic, because I think the benefits of this all working out will be genuinely historic and transformative, not just for Syria, but for the rest of the region. And really, really transformative. You know, there is a reason why, you know, half of the Middle East that is, and has always been, for many, many years, outright hostile to political Islam is now championing, championing Ahmed al shara, the former leader of al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. I mean, there's a reason for that. You know, some of Ahmad Al Shara is biggest champions are the leadership of the UAE, which, you know, if anyone who knows anything about the Middle East, would have come as a huge surprise. Yes, but there is a reason for that one. Ahmed al Shara is pretty pragmatic, and as very senior US Intel people have told me, still seen as the only person in Syria who could potentially hold this all together, given all of the challenges. But it's also given it's also a result of this huge, transformative opportunity that the Middle East has been presented with, if Syria can be made to work, if this transition can succeed, can widen, can improve itself over time, and so, you know, again, I think, given all of the my attempt to be optimistic here, you know, I have to always sort of remind listeners that there's no papering over the very many troubling issues that are going on inside Syria too. There's no papering over the reality that there are, you know, weaker foreign fighters from China who are now part of the Ministry of Defense, by the way, with American permission. So also weird, you know, blue sky place to be. But you know, not papering over any of these enormous challenges and the crimes that have been committed against civilians in the last six or seven months. But as someone who's worked on Syria for so long, we are also in a place where, in a very cold way, all of this, all of those more nasty things, were always inevitable. You know, we could have had Thomas Jefferson running and running the presidency in Damascus, we would still have massacres, sectarianism and what have you that that's going to be in Syria for a long time to come. But the key is, is that on a slow and long trajectory, things get a little bit better over time, and we are in that place. Things have got a little bit better. You know, every single day for the last seven and a half months. And in political transition terms, we're only seven months in. That's really early days, and the amount of progress that they have made is stunning. But they do have very real issues and challenges under the surface. And I don't want to sort of paper over any of that. Those are all very, very real, and there are real issues there. But yes, with an eye to that strategic vision, I have to be still optimistic that we're still pointing in the right direction.

Jim Cardoso: 42:11

Well, I appreciate that while a lot of people are trying to bring order to the chaos of Syria, you are able to bring order to the chaos of what we know about Syria and how we understand Syria, and I'm good. I am hopeful that we have another opportunity to speak, maybe a year from now, and maybe there is a reason for continued optimism in that conversation we have in the future. But for today, looking to wrap up the podcast. Any any final thoughts as we as we go?

Unknown: 42:41

No, no, I don't think so. I think, I think it's just yeah. It's this rare opportunity to try to be optimistic about something in the future. But it's also inevitably being the Middle East. It's one of those cases where nothing's black and white. Nothing's perfect, for sure, nothing is perfect. But you know, when I speak to so many people, you know, ordinary people who don't work in our world. And I mentioned that I work on the Middle East, their instant, you know, gut responses, oh, God, you know. Why do you do that? It's, it's chaos, it's conflict, it's, you know, terrorism is whatever you know. This is one of those real chances where acknowledging all the bad and all the challenges, there is a chance to see a better future. And it's not just a better future for Syria, it's a better future for the region. And I think, you know, we've all got to keep our eyes on that long term horizon here, whilst everything still looks chaotic and messy and in some respects quite bad, every now and then, we've got to keep our eye on that, on that long term vision, because if we don't, then it's all hopeless. And so that's that's why I remain cautiously optimistic.

Jim Cardoso: 43:46

Charles Lister, thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Jim. Thank you. Thanks to Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and director of their counter terrorism and Syria programs. We couldn't ask for a better person to help explain what's going on in Syria right now and the regional and global implications. We always enjoy having Charles on the podcast. Next week on at the boundary, our guest will be Dr Marvin Weinbaum, also a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and a leading scholar on Afghanistan. Dr Weinbaum wrote an article for our most recent issue of the Journal of strategic security, a special issue focused exclusively on Afghanistan. His article examines us dealings with the Taliban and how we can chart a path to a successful national policy in that nation. Thanks for listening today. You like the podcast, please subscribe and let your friends and colleagues know, and if you have an idea for a future podcast, we'd love to hear from you. There's a link in the show notes to get in touch with us. You can follow genocide or LinkedIn and X accounts at USF, underscore GNSI, and check out our website as well at usf.edu/gnsi, as I mentioned before, when you're there, don't forget to subscribe to our. Monthly newsletter that's going to wrap up this episode of at the boundary. Each new episode will feature global and national security issues we found to be insightful, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall, just worth talking about, I'm Jim Cardoso, and we'll see you at the boundary. You.