June 6, 2023 • 26 mins
Syria is back in the 22-nation Arab League bloc after more than a decade of isolation. So what does this mean for countries outside the region, like the US? Bloomberg managing editor Sylvia Westall and reporter Daniel Flatley join guest host Rosalind Mathieson to talk about the impact of Syria’s reinstatement
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Shah aside is attending the Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia.
Su Al Asad is back on the international seat.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Sure Alasad has been welcomed back to an Arab League
summit in Saudi Arabia today.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
On the big take, Syria is back in the Arab League.
So what does it mean for the rest of the world.
I'm Roslin Mathieson in for wes Kasova.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
This morning, President Obama called on Assad to step aside
and announced the strongest set of sanctions to date targeting
the Syrian government.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
That was US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton back in
twenty eleven, declaring that the Syrian president Basha al Assad
must go for the brutal attacks he carried out on
his own people. Fast forward though to twenty twenty three,
and Asad is still very much in charge. Not only that,
but he's got a seat back at the Tabe the
region with the Arab League. So what happened? I'm joined
(01:05):
now by Daniel Flatley, Bloomberg's national security reporter in Washington, DC,
and Sylvia Westall, who's Bloomberg's managing editor for Economy and
Government in Dubai. Sylvia. I'd like to start with you
on this, and I guess the first question really is why,
after all this time did the Arab League make that
decision to readmit assad, what or who really was sort
(01:27):
of the driver behind that decision.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
The way in which the Arab League described it is
that they wanted Syria to start participating in meetings and
they felt that this was a good way to help
resolve the crisis that came from the war in Syria,
and they wanted to talk about the flight of refugees
for neighboring countries, drugs smuggling across the region. So that's
the kind of official reason why they did this after
(01:50):
more than a decade. But why really they did this. Well,
you've got Saudi Arabia as hosting the meeting, and the
uae AN ally of Saudi Arabia behind the scenes has
been really pushing for Syria to be reinstated to the
Arab League. So the big Gulf countries have been pushing
for this, and they've both been trying to clear up
their backyards in recent years. They've been reaching out to
(02:10):
regional actors, they've been making kind of friends with old foes,
and it's part of a sort of shift in foreign
policy that we've seen in the region, and so pretty
much the UA was pushing this quite strongly for a while,
and it looks like it sort of convinced Saudi Arabia
to come on board and explain why this would be beneficial.
I mean, the UA generally is worried about Iranian influence
in the region, and so the way that the UA
(02:32):
was sort of arguing this to other Arab countries was
that we need to bring Syria back into the Arab fold.
We need it to be reinstated, as you know, an
Arab country that we deal with, Otherwise we allow it
to become a country, an Arab country which is heavily
influenced by Iran and Russia. So that was the way
that the uas have argued to Arab countries to do this.
But I think overall it was about diplomatic pragmatism and
(02:55):
this sort of shift towards countries in the Middle East,
trying to set a kind of foreign per se that's
quite independent, interesting and pragmatic.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
But in a ways doul view is it sort of
more symbolic also than anything else. What does the Arab
League actually do?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
The Arab League is The main diplomatic body that comprises
Arab states is this twenty two nation block. It was
established more than eighty years ago and it really wields
little kind of political heft on the world stage. It's
not a major decision making body, but it does reflect
the Arab view. So this measure carries important symbolic weight.
(03:31):
And I think back when the Arab League decided to
suspend Syria's membership in twenty eleven. One of the reasons
the Arab League gave was that Syria hadn't adhered to
a peace initiative that the Arab League came up with
a few months before. When the Arab League suspended Syria,
they said that Syria had failed to end the bloodshed
caused by the government crackdowns, because at that time it
(03:53):
wasn't a war, it was more of an uprising that
the government had really cracked down on. You've got the
example elsewhere in the Middle East, Arab countries taken kind
of more muscular stance when it comes to conflicts such
as in Yemen. Very different, but you actually had countries
getting involved militarily. But with Syria, wasn't that this was
kind of the biggest diplomatic step it could take, and
the military side was left to countries like Iran, Russia
(04:15):
and so on, and to an uprising that morphed into
a war.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
And we will rewind back, i think, in a little
bit to talk about again the origins of this conflict
and also where it is now, where does this war lie?
But I wanted to bring in Daniel and ask you
about the US here, because it wasn't just the Arab
League that was watching this closely and reacting. We had
the US government from twenty eleven onwards saying essentially that
(04:42):
Asad needed to go. Can you talk a little bit
about the relationship between the US and Syria and the
evolvement of the US more broadly in this kind of
international campaign that we saw evolve against Asad.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
The US has certainly put a tremendous amount of economic
pressure on Syria over the last dozen or so years
since twenty eleven, as you mentioned, and it's done that
in concert with the EU, the UK and some of
its other allies. This is a good illustration of a
sort of full throated, targeted sanctions campaign that didn't necessarily work.
(05:19):
If your goal is to remove someone from power or
to achieve some measure of regime change. Obviously that hasn't happened,
and the events of the last month or so have
shown that if you can withstand the pressure long enough,
you can be in some sense of the word successful
and be welcomed back into some of these multilateral institutions.
(05:40):
So I think it's sort of a failure to a
certain extent of the sanctions policy. On the other hand,
this is sort of the paradox of sanctions, and also
one of the weak points is that it doesn't necessarily
always work when you're trying to achieve these sorts of
political ends. It can exert a tremendous amount of economic pressure,
and certainly it's made life more challenging for the ruling
(06:03):
regime in Syria with ASAD, but also for the people there,
and it's forced USAD to turn to Russia and Iran
for support. But it really hasn't achieved that political end
of removing him from power. So it's a good illustration
of some of the limits of those tools.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Well, that was the striking thing. Really. You had a
US president saying out loud that a leader or another
country needed to go, and he said it more than once.
As did others in his administration.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
It is absolutely imperative for the international community to rally
and send a clear message to President assad that it
is time for a transition, It is time for that
regime to move on, and it is time to stop
the killing of Syrian citizens by their own government.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
But what was the US interest in Syria? Why did
they get so involved? Was it countering terrorism? Islamic terrorism
in the region. Was it economic? Was it sort of
the knock on geopolitical effects in the Middle East? What
drew the US in so significantly to this issue.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
I think it was a number of things. Really. I
think that the stated objective was countering terrorism, and certainly
during the height of the counter ISIS campaign, Syria was
an important country and important area of operations for the
US military. I think that more broadly, the US has
tried to remain engaged in the region beyond its traditional partners,
(07:29):
and I think it also wanted to play a role
in trying to tamp down what senior officials may have
viewed as the potential spread of a humanitarian disaster. I mean,
Syria has actually been labeled a state sponsor of terrorism
since the late seventies by the US. So the US
has had a long standing interest in the region, and
(07:49):
I think part of their policy there was to try
to keep a lid on it, so to speak. And
also there was the proxy fights and wars going on
where the US was trying to counter to a certain
extent Russia, although they were nominally cooperating on some of
the counter asis stuff, and also the Iranian influence in
the region.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Since then, the US has called on other leaders to
go including the Russian president Vladimir Putin for his war
in Ukraine, but also the US. At the time Dan
laid out some pretty clear red lines on Syria.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
We have been very clear to the outside regime but
also to other players on the ground that a red
line for US is we start seeing a whole bunch
of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would
change my calculus, that would change my equation.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
And yet there's widespread evidence that he did use them
against his own people. Is it a mistake for the
US to be laying out red lines that other countries
simply blow right through.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Part of the problem with making those types of promises,
laying out those red lines is that you have to
follow up with force and that has become a real
issue for the US, a country that's not in the
mood to get involved in foreign entanglements at this point
in time. So I think that you know, to the
extent that it's a mistake or not, I may leave
that for the policy makers to determine, but it certainly
(09:15):
makes it a lot harder to back away from those
red lines or to exercise some measure of strategic control,
because if you're calling for President Putin to be removed
from power or assad in Syria, you may run into
some issues there when that doesn't happen. And so I
think that going forward you may see policymakers be a
(09:37):
little bit more circumspect in how they talk about these things.
On the other hand, you also want to lay out
some clear directives and lines, and these are political statements
as much as they are military statements or sort of
declarations of policies. It's kind of hard, I think, for
politicians to resist making strong statements on those points.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
When you think about twenty eleven, in the time, of course,
the US caught in a protracted conflict in Iraq with
sort of mixed results and similarly bogged down arguably in Afghanistan.
Did this impact the perception of the US as a
powerbroken not just in the Middle East but globally at
the time.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
It's hard to argue that it didn't, although there have
been a number of things that have happened since then
that arguably have had a bigger impact, including the withdrawal
from Afghanistan by the US in twenty twenty one. It's
been a certainly a mixed results situation for the last
twenty years of US involvement in the Middle East. It's
hard to argue anything else, and I think that what
(10:36):
it shows to a great extent is that, with the
exception of what's happening right now in Ukraine, the US
has really turned away from a lot of these entanglements
abroad or tried to, although it's you know, it's hard
to argue that the US hasn't continued a lot of
posturing and a lot of preplacement of forces in many
(10:58):
countries around the world. I think part of what we're
seeing here is the changing polarity of the world, going
from perhaps a unipolar power arrangement with the US at
the top, to something that's a little bit more multipolar,
with China exerting an outsize influence in the Pacific region,
and then Saudi Arabia really playing a big role in
(11:20):
the Middle East, perhaps bigger than the US would like
or had anticipated.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Coming up the international efforts to contain usade, and what
if any road lies ahead for peace in Syria. Let's
just discuss a little bit the countries who've been on
the other side, particularly helping ARSA's government to buy until
(11:47):
at least recently military equipment, Russia's sending military equipment to Syria,
other countries as well. Who's been on the other side
of the coin in terms of either economic or military
support for Syria.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
I could say, certainly Russia has been supplying Syria with
weapons and arms and munitions. Iran has provided a lot
of material support as well, And I think that you
sort of have now, of course, the political support of
the Arab League and of Saudi Arabia and sort of
it giving a sad way back into this community. So
(12:21):
I think all of those things have made it, I
guess I should say, have made it more difficult for
the US and the sanctioning coalition to really have an impact.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
If we sort of loop back to the Arab League decision,
this sort of mainly symbolic decision. I mean, it kind
of disregards US reservations. The US spoke out very strongly
against Assyria being reinstated to the Arab League, and at
least here in the region, the senses that it really
reflects the US waning influence on the Middle East more broadly,
(12:50):
and this sort of growing willingness of US allies to
forge their own alliances and political path It's something that
might reflect for US policy in other places too, So
I think that's quite interesting, and I think it obviously
was a win for Iran in Russia. Russia back this
plan the Arab League. You know, they've obviously supported Assads militarily,
but they would need regional help to rehabilitate him diplomatically
(13:14):
and eventually help rebuild this country. So that's sort of
where I think the thinking is. Perhaps for Russia in particular,
it's got this other war that it's fighting in Ukraine,
and Syria is still actually sucking up quite a bit
of its military space and time. Russia controls the skies
in parts of Syria, it's you know, involved in border
(13:36):
crossings and so on. So I guess for Russia, it
was seen as something that perhaps was distracting from its
main conflict, and bringing in the Arab League, bringing in
wealthy Arab countries to this problem would help perhaps move
things forward or at least further down the lines, secure
diplomatic rehabilitation for Assad and also money to reconstruct the
(13:58):
country at some point, but obviously sanctions make that difficult.
That's something that there is discussions about the reconstructions of Syria.
How can money get in of there's sanctions and how
all these countries navigate that.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
One particular actor has been Saudi Arabia, And I wanted
to ask you Sylvia because they do share Arab identities
and yet they're quite different.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yes, So I guess you know the question when sada
Aba hosted this summer and hosted Assad in May on
the same day as Ukrainian presidents Lensky, what was really
in it for Saudi Arabia? Why did they do this?
So I think one way to explain it is that
Saudi Arabia is keen to be seen as an important
economic and police call leader under Muhamma bin Salman. It's
(14:41):
wanting to play the role of conflict mediator and it's
important for the crown prints to make sure that regional
problems don't hold back his plans to transform his economy.
So that was the reasoning behind negotiations or discussions with Iran,
because they're worried about Iran derailing its plans. But also
that comes into Syria. So I think it's a again
this tying up of loose ends. And I think also
(15:02):
it's important to think about how Russia is one of
the main backers of the Syrian government, and Russia's an
important country for Saudi Arabia to cooperate with on energy.
They're both in the OPEC plus A lines, so I
think there was this sort of balancing of different needs
and that sort of pragmatism. So I think it was
more about that than about kind of deep ties that
(15:22):
they have with Syria. It's more about pragmatism on foreign policy.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
In the moment, I wanted to ask about the state
of the war right now in Syria, because of course,
over a decade in it seems like the global attention
has shifted, and no doubt also heavily focused on Russia's
invasion of Ukraine, but there's still a conflict going on
in Syria. Things are not resolved. Even with Assad's readmission
(15:48):
to the Arab League and the sense that he's back
at the table. What is the status of things in
Syria right now? Are there peace talks going on?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
So there is a pro going on broken by the
United Nations, that's been going on for a while. It
hasn't been getting very far. There is a sort of
map for talks for a representative government for the way
in which Syria would be governed, but that's really sort
of trundling along in the background, and there hasn't been
(16:19):
much progress on that front. On the ground, you've basically
got Syria divided into three areas of control. So you
have the government controlling the capital Damascus and the main
cities in the country, and then there areas that are
under control of the PYD and the YPG, so these
are sort of Kurdish political and military forces. That's in
(16:41):
the north. And then you have the Idlib breed in
which borders also the Turkish border, and that's controlled by
opposition forces, the sort of grouping different groups, and that's
the area that in particular the US has been concerned
about because of Islamic extreamists operating in that area. That's
sort of where we are on the ground, and different
(17:01):
countries involved in the conflict back different solutions going forward,
whether it's to kind of keep the status quo or
have one controlling all, whether that means the military or
on the ground or local administrations, and that's sort of
where the talks are right now about what that would
look like.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
And speaking of another country, of course, with a vested
interest in what's happening in Syria, We've talked a little
bit about China, but I'm curious, Daniel, your perspective on this.
What's the role of China in all of this, and
how much the countries like the US need to factor
in the activities of China when it comes to Syria
and beyond in the region.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
It's a great question, And I was just sort of
thinking about this listening to Sylvia that a lot of
times the US will view these very difficult conflicts through
a US lens and sort of fail to see the
regional and the local complications. And I think that China
has been sort of sitting back to a certain extent
(17:57):
as the US and others have gotten more heavily in
terms of sanctions and even in some cases some military
involvement in Syria, but certainly China is an important partner
for Saudi Arabia. It's an important partner for a lot
of wealthy countries in the Middle East as they build
out their infrastructure and seek to diversify their portfolios beyond energy,
(18:18):
and I think that the US does feel concerned about
that to a certain extent because traditionally, especially in the
case of Saudi Arabia, the US has been heavily involved
economically with that country in particular, but many of the countries,
the Gulf States in the Middle East, the US, despite
the OPEC plus decision last year where Saudi cut oil
(18:40):
production and some of the other things that the US
has not liked in terms of what Saudi Arabia has done,
the US is still very much interested in being in
business with Saudi Arabia, and that goes kind of both ways.
I think Saudi Arabia is probably feeling with regard to
the US that hey, we're no longer a client state.
We're wielding our own economic power here in this region,
(19:00):
and if you want to come and play in our backyard,
you need to do it on our terms. And so
I think that that is kind of an illustration of
how both the US and China dynamic has changed a
lot of what's going on around the world.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
After the break. What are the geopolitical implications of Syria's
readmission for the region and powers feather Afield Silva wanted
to ask you about the recent visit of the Ukrainian
President Vladimir Zelenski, where he stopped off at the Arab
(19:35):
League meeting on his way to the Group of Seven
summit in Japan. It was an interesting dynamic, the idea
of him being there at the same table in a
way as the Syrian president USAD and I wondered your
impressions of that meeting and what did he get out
of this visit if anything, and what about the Arab
countries on the flip side.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yes, it was an interesting grouping of people and quite
an odd scene where you had actually Zelenski in this
SA kind of ceremonial hall addressing Arab leaders, including Assad
who've just been welcome back in I guess you know.
Zelensky has been touring different countries to try and continue
to highlight what's happening in Ukraine, to look for support,
(20:13):
whether it's diplomatic or military or political. So on his side,
I guess maybe in the back of his mind is
the idea that when it comes to reconstruction again, these
wealthy Gulf countries in particular might be involved in that.
I think it's also perhaps looking at the ways in
which countries aligned. So I think there's a shared concern
(20:35):
in the region with Ukraine in terms of grain supply
and supply of grains to the market. In the Arab world,
you have Egypt, which is the world's biggest wheat importer,
and countries in the region have been very concerned about
how a Egypt's economy has been affected by Russia's invasion
of Ukraine and on the impact of higher grain costs.
(20:57):
So I think there's perhaps a shared topic for discussion
in terms of the flow of grain to global markets
and what role perhaps in the future, or at least
in discussion, the Middle East could play in that. But
it was quite an awkward meeting because you've got Asad
who's backed by Russia in the rim with Zelenski, and
I thought that was an interesting dynamic In terms of
(21:19):
Sauly Arabia, it was again, as I said previously, just
about Saudi Arabia being able to host to world leaders
two men of war, if you like, very different wars
in very different ways, but it brought them together in
the same room to discuss conflict and ways out of conflict.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
And as you say, two men at war, very different wars.
But it does feel as though what's happening now in
Ukraine really has a knock on effect with Syria also
in the ways that you've talked about Sylvia, but also Daniel,
there's a question in a way of Europe in all
of this, because Europe has faced waves of refugees from
Syria that have come through Turkey. There were fears, obviously
(21:58):
with the recent earthquake there'd be another exodus from Syria
and in terms of the outlook for Syria itself, can
you coat with another wave of refugees from that area
given they're taking in so many refugees from Ukraine at
the same time, do you see a risk that the
mood sort of hardens on Syria as part of this
again just as time goes on.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Well, I think that there's an interesting dynamic going on
here across the region, both in Europe and in the
Middle East, where you do have these ongoing humanitarian crises,
and they do put stress and strain on the political
systems of even some of the more developed countries. And
I think that there could be an adverse reaction to
(22:41):
the continued flow of refugees across borders. But I think
one of the things to keep in mind with all
of this is that each situation is somewhat different. And
when we were talking about sanctions, one thing that came
to mind is you mentioned Turkey, and you mentioned some
of these other countries and the impact of refugee flows
and sanctions and all of these economic measures on them.
(23:03):
And I think that if the lesson potentially for Asad
that if you just hang on long enough, you can
make it through this economic onslaught. I think it's a
little bit of a different calculation For Iran. The question
of as to whether Iran will remain isolated is kind
of open. The administration has sort of made some overtures there,
and what ultimately happens with Syria, I think will be
(23:26):
determined by a lot of what Sylvia had mentioned earlier.
These complicated situation, a humanitarian crisis complicated by a natural disaster,
and a lot of complicated set of interests, and at
the end of the day, the US may find itself
moving away from some of the red lines that it
imposed earlier, simply because there may be no other solution
(23:47):
than to seek some sort of multilateral agreement in a
way to resolve some of these crises. So, I mean,
I think that things are going to get certainly more
complicated rather than less complicated as time goes on. But
certainly some interesting develops over the last month or so.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Daniel, Do you see there could be any change in
the strategy of the US government depending on who wins
the twenty twenty four presidential election. Obviously, at this stage
we're potentially looking at a rerun between the current president
Joe Biden and the former president Donald Trump. Would you
imagine that policy on SIRI could change as a result
of that.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
I mean, I think certainly if Biden wins, things will
remain largely the same. I would anticipate it could be
some changes at the margins a rematch between Biden and
Trump if Trump were to win. It's hard to say.
When Trump was in office in twenty eighteen, there were
some airstrikes in Syria that he had ordered, and so
to a large extent, I think it depends on who
his advisors are. And just to sort of throw a
(24:43):
wrench into the works here, let's say that it's a
Biden DeSantis matchup, and if ron DeSantis, another Republican front runner,
were to get into office, that could be a completely
different scenario, because he's made some comments on Ukraine and
other areas of the world that are a bit different
from both of them. It's an open question, but I
think that the general tenor of the policy will not
(25:04):
change all that much, simply because once sanctions are in place,
they're very hard to remove, and I think that that
will be politically difficult no matter who's president.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Daniel and Sylvia, thank you very much for your time.
Thank you thanks for listening to us here at The
Big Take, a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For
more shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen, and we'd love to hear from you.
Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg
(25:34):
dot net. Our supervising producer is Vicky Bergolina, Our senior
producer is Katherine Fink. Frederica Romniello is our producer. Our
associate producer is zaann Absidiki. Hilda Garcia is our engineer.
Original music by Leo Sidrin. I'm Roslin mathieson in today
for wes Kusova. We'll be back tomorrow with another big take,
(26:00):
Do Do bo b
Shah aside is attending the Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia.
Su Al Asad is back on the international seat.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Sure Alasad has been welcomed back to an Arab League
summit in Saudi Arabia today.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
On the big take, Syria is back in the Arab League.
So what does it mean for the rest of the world.
I'm Roslin Mathieson in for wes Kasova.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
This morning, President Obama called on Assad to step aside
and announced the strongest set of sanctions to date targeting
the Syrian government.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
That was US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton back in
twenty eleven, declaring that the Syrian president Basha al Assad
must go for the brutal attacks he carried out on
his own people. Fast forward though to twenty twenty three,
and Asad is still very much in charge. Not only that,
but he's got a seat back at the Tabe the
region with the Arab League. So what happened? I'm joined
(01:05):
now by Daniel Flatley, Bloomberg's national security reporter in Washington, DC,
and Sylvia Westall, who's Bloomberg's managing editor for Economy and
Government in Dubai. Sylvia. I'd like to start with you
on this, and I guess the first question really is why,
after all this time did the Arab League make that
decision to readmit assad, what or who really was sort
(01:27):
of the driver behind that decision.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
The way in which the Arab League described it is
that they wanted Syria to start participating in meetings and
they felt that this was a good way to help
resolve the crisis that came from the war in Syria,
and they wanted to talk about the flight of refugees
for neighboring countries, drugs smuggling across the region. So that's
the kind of official reason why they did this after
(01:50):
more than a decade. But why really they did this. Well,
you've got Saudi Arabia as hosting the meeting, and the
uae AN ally of Saudi Arabia behind the scenes has
been really pushing for Syria to be reinstated to the
Arab League. So the big Gulf countries have been pushing
for this, and they've both been trying to clear up
their backyards in recent years. They've been reaching out to
(02:10):
regional actors, they've been making kind of friends with old foes,
and it's part of a sort of shift in foreign
policy that we've seen in the region, and so pretty
much the UA was pushing this quite strongly for a while,
and it looks like it sort of convinced Saudi Arabia
to come on board and explain why this would be beneficial.
I mean, the UA generally is worried about Iranian influence
in the region, and so the way that the UA
(02:32):
was sort of arguing this to other Arab countries was
that we need to bring Syria back into the Arab fold.
We need it to be reinstated, as you know, an
Arab country that we deal with, Otherwise we allow it
to become a country, an Arab country which is heavily
influenced by Iran and Russia. So that was the way
that the uas have argued to Arab countries to do this.
But I think overall it was about diplomatic pragmatism and
(02:55):
this sort of shift towards countries in the Middle East,
trying to set a kind of foreign per se that's
quite independent, interesting and pragmatic.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
But in a ways doul view is it sort of
more symbolic also than anything else. What does the Arab
League actually do?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
The Arab League is The main diplomatic body that comprises
Arab states is this twenty two nation block. It was
established more than eighty years ago and it really wields
little kind of political heft on the world stage. It's
not a major decision making body, but it does reflect
the Arab view. So this measure carries important symbolic weight.
(03:31):
And I think back when the Arab League decided to
suspend Syria's membership in twenty eleven. One of the reasons
the Arab League gave was that Syria hadn't adhered to
a peace initiative that the Arab League came up with
a few months before. When the Arab League suspended Syria,
they said that Syria had failed to end the bloodshed
caused by the government crackdowns, because at that time it
(03:53):
wasn't a war, it was more of an uprising that
the government had really cracked down on. You've got the
example elsewhere in the Middle East, Arab countries taken kind
of more muscular stance when it comes to conflicts such
as in Yemen. Very different, but you actually had countries
getting involved militarily. But with Syria, wasn't that this was
kind of the biggest diplomatic step it could take, and
the military side was left to countries like Iran, Russia
(04:15):
and so on, and to an uprising that morphed into
a war.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
And we will rewind back, i think, in a little
bit to talk about again the origins of this conflict
and also where it is now, where does this war lie?
But I wanted to bring in Daniel and ask you
about the US here, because it wasn't just the Arab
League that was watching this closely and reacting. We had
the US government from twenty eleven onwards saying essentially that
(04:42):
Asad needed to go. Can you talk a little bit
about the relationship between the US and Syria and the
evolvement of the US more broadly in this kind of
international campaign that we saw evolve against Asad.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
The US has certainly put a tremendous amount of economic
pressure on Syria over the last dozen or so years
since twenty eleven, as you mentioned, and it's done that
in concert with the EU, the UK and some of
its other allies. This is a good illustration of a
sort of full throated, targeted sanctions campaign that didn't necessarily work.
(05:19):
If your goal is to remove someone from power or
to achieve some measure of regime change. Obviously that hasn't happened,
and the events of the last month or so have
shown that if you can withstand the pressure long enough,
you can be in some sense of the word successful
and be welcomed back into some of these multilateral institutions.
(05:40):
So I think it's sort of a failure to a
certain extent of the sanctions policy. On the other hand,
this is sort of the paradox of sanctions, and also
one of the weak points is that it doesn't necessarily
always work when you're trying to achieve these sorts of
political ends. It can exert a tremendous amount of economic pressure,
and certainly it's made life more challenging for the ruling
(06:03):
regime in Syria with ASAD, but also for the people there,
and it's forced USAD to turn to Russia and Iran
for support. But it really hasn't achieved that political end
of removing him from power. So it's a good illustration
of some of the limits of those tools.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Well, that was the striking thing. Really. You had a
US president saying out loud that a leader or another
country needed to go, and he said it more than once.
As did others in his administration.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
It is absolutely imperative for the international community to rally
and send a clear message to President assad that it
is time for a transition, It is time for that
regime to move on, and it is time to stop
the killing of Syrian citizens by their own government.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
But what was the US interest in Syria? Why did
they get so involved? Was it countering terrorism? Islamic terrorism
in the region. Was it economic? Was it sort of
the knock on geopolitical effects in the Middle East? What
drew the US in so significantly to this issue.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
I think it was a number of things. Really. I
think that the stated objective was countering terrorism, and certainly
during the height of the counter ISIS campaign, Syria was
an important country and important area of operations for the
US military. I think that more broadly, the US has
tried to remain engaged in the region beyond its traditional partners,
(07:29):
and I think it also wanted to play a role
in trying to tamp down what senior officials may have
viewed as the potential spread of a humanitarian disaster. I mean,
Syria has actually been labeled a state sponsor of terrorism
since the late seventies by the US. So the US
has had a long standing interest in the region, and
(07:49):
I think part of their policy there was to try
to keep a lid on it, so to speak. And
also there was the proxy fights and wars going on
where the US was trying to counter to a certain
extent Russia, although they were nominally cooperating on some of
the counter asis stuff, and also the Iranian influence in
the region.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Since then, the US has called on other leaders to
go including the Russian president Vladimir Putin for his war
in Ukraine, but also the US. At the time Dan
laid out some pretty clear red lines on Syria.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
We have been very clear to the outside regime but
also to other players on the ground that a red
line for US is we start seeing a whole bunch
of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would
change my calculus, that would change my equation.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
And yet there's widespread evidence that he did use them
against his own people. Is it a mistake for the
US to be laying out red lines that other countries
simply blow right through.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Part of the problem with making those types of promises,
laying out those red lines is that you have to
follow up with force and that has become a real
issue for the US, a country that's not in the
mood to get involved in foreign entanglements at this point
in time. So I think that you know, to the
extent that it's a mistake or not, I may leave
that for the policy makers to determine, but it certainly
(09:15):
makes it a lot harder to back away from those
red lines or to exercise some measure of strategic control,
because if you're calling for President Putin to be removed
from power or assad in Syria, you may run into
some issues there when that doesn't happen. And so I
think that going forward you may see policymakers be a
(09:37):
little bit more circumspect in how they talk about these things.
On the other hand, you also want to lay out
some clear directives and lines, and these are political statements
as much as they are military statements or sort of
declarations of policies. It's kind of hard, I think, for
politicians to resist making strong statements on those points.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
When you think about twenty eleven, in the time, of course,
the US caught in a protracted conflict in Iraq with
sort of mixed results and similarly bogged down arguably in Afghanistan.
Did this impact the perception of the US as a
powerbroken not just in the Middle East but globally at
the time.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
It's hard to argue that it didn't, although there have
been a number of things that have happened since then
that arguably have had a bigger impact, including the withdrawal
from Afghanistan by the US in twenty twenty one. It's
been a certainly a mixed results situation for the last
twenty years of US involvement in the Middle East. It's
hard to argue anything else, and I think that what
(10:36):
it shows to a great extent is that, with the
exception of what's happening right now in Ukraine, the US
has really turned away from a lot of these entanglements
abroad or tried to, although it's you know, it's hard
to argue that the US hasn't continued a lot of
posturing and a lot of preplacement of forces in many
(10:58):
countries around the world. I think part of what we're
seeing here is the changing polarity of the world, going
from perhaps a unipolar power arrangement with the US at
the top, to something that's a little bit more multipolar,
with China exerting an outsize influence in the Pacific region,
and then Saudi Arabia really playing a big role in
(11:20):
the Middle East, perhaps bigger than the US would like
or had anticipated.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Coming up the international efforts to contain usade, and what
if any road lies ahead for peace in Syria. Let's
just discuss a little bit the countries who've been on
the other side, particularly helping ARSA's government to buy until
(11:47):
at least recently military equipment, Russia's sending military equipment to Syria,
other countries as well. Who's been on the other side
of the coin in terms of either economic or military
support for Syria.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
I could say, certainly Russia has been supplying Syria with
weapons and arms and munitions. Iran has provided a lot
of material support as well, And I think that you
sort of have now, of course, the political support of
the Arab League and of Saudi Arabia and sort of
it giving a sad way back into this community. So
(12:21):
I think all of those things have made it, I
guess I should say, have made it more difficult for
the US and the sanctioning coalition to really have an impact.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
If we sort of loop back to the Arab League decision,
this sort of mainly symbolic decision. I mean, it kind
of disregards US reservations. The US spoke out very strongly
against Assyria being reinstated to the Arab League, and at
least here in the region, the senses that it really
reflects the US waning influence on the Middle East more broadly,
(12:50):
and this sort of growing willingness of US allies to
forge their own alliances and political path It's something that
might reflect for US policy in other places too, So
I think that's quite interesting, and I think it obviously
was a win for Iran in Russia. Russia back this
plan the Arab League. You know, they've obviously supported Assads militarily,
but they would need regional help to rehabilitate him diplomatically
(13:14):
and eventually help rebuild this country. So that's sort of
where I think the thinking is. Perhaps for Russia in particular,
it's got this other war that it's fighting in Ukraine,
and Syria is still actually sucking up quite a bit
of its military space and time. Russia controls the skies
in parts of Syria, it's you know, involved in border
(13:36):
crossings and so on. So I guess for Russia, it
was seen as something that perhaps was distracting from its
main conflict, and bringing in the Arab League, bringing in
wealthy Arab countries to this problem would help perhaps move
things forward or at least further down the lines, secure
diplomatic rehabilitation for Assad and also money to reconstruct the
(13:58):
country at some point, but obviously sanctions make that difficult.
That's something that there is discussions about the reconstructions of Syria.
How can money get in of there's sanctions and how
all these countries navigate that.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
One particular actor has been Saudi Arabia, And I wanted
to ask you Sylvia because they do share Arab identities
and yet they're quite different.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yes, So I guess you know the question when sada
Aba hosted this summer and hosted Assad in May on
the same day as Ukrainian presidents Lensky, what was really
in it for Saudi Arabia? Why did they do this?
So I think one way to explain it is that
Saudi Arabia is keen to be seen as an important
economic and police call leader under Muhamma bin Salman. It's
(14:41):
wanting to play the role of conflict mediator and it's
important for the crown prints to make sure that regional
problems don't hold back his plans to transform his economy.
So that was the reasoning behind negotiations or discussions with Iran,
because they're worried about Iran derailing its plans. But also
that comes into Syria. So I think it's a again
this tying up of loose ends. And I think also
(15:02):
it's important to think about how Russia is one of
the main backers of the Syrian government, and Russia's an
important country for Saudi Arabia to cooperate with on energy.
They're both in the OPEC plus A lines, so I
think there was this sort of balancing of different needs
and that sort of pragmatism. So I think it was
more about that than about kind of deep ties that
(15:22):
they have with Syria. It's more about pragmatism on foreign policy.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
In the moment, I wanted to ask about the state
of the war right now in Syria, because of course,
over a decade in it seems like the global attention
has shifted, and no doubt also heavily focused on Russia's
invasion of Ukraine, but there's still a conflict going on
in Syria. Things are not resolved. Even with Assad's readmission
(15:48):
to the Arab League and the sense that he's back
at the table. What is the status of things in
Syria right now? Are there peace talks going on?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
So there is a pro going on broken by the
United Nations, that's been going on for a while. It
hasn't been getting very far. There is a sort of
map for talks for a representative government for the way
in which Syria would be governed, but that's really sort
of trundling along in the background, and there hasn't been
(16:19):
much progress on that front. On the ground, you've basically
got Syria divided into three areas of control. So you
have the government controlling the capital Damascus and the main
cities in the country, and then there areas that are
under control of the PYD and the YPG, so these
are sort of Kurdish political and military forces. That's in
(16:41):
the north. And then you have the Idlib breed in
which borders also the Turkish border, and that's controlled by
opposition forces, the sort of grouping different groups, and that's
the area that in particular the US has been concerned
about because of Islamic extreamists operating in that area. That's
sort of where we are on the ground, and different
(17:01):
countries involved in the conflict back different solutions going forward,
whether it's to kind of keep the status quo or
have one controlling all, whether that means the military or
on the ground or local administrations, and that's sort of
where the talks are right now about what that would
look like.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
And speaking of another country, of course, with a vested
interest in what's happening in Syria, We've talked a little
bit about China, but I'm curious, Daniel, your perspective on this.
What's the role of China in all of this, and
how much the countries like the US need to factor
in the activities of China when it comes to Syria
and beyond in the region.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
It's a great question, And I was just sort of
thinking about this listening to Sylvia that a lot of
times the US will view these very difficult conflicts through
a US lens and sort of fail to see the
regional and the local complications. And I think that China
has been sort of sitting back to a certain extent
(17:57):
as the US and others have gotten more heavily in
terms of sanctions and even in some cases some military
involvement in Syria, but certainly China is an important partner
for Saudi Arabia. It's an important partner for a lot
of wealthy countries in the Middle East as they build
out their infrastructure and seek to diversify their portfolios beyond energy,
(18:18):
and I think that the US does feel concerned about
that to a certain extent because traditionally, especially in the
case of Saudi Arabia, the US has been heavily involved
economically with that country in particular, but many of the countries,
the Gulf States in the Middle East, the US, despite
the OPEC plus decision last year where Saudi cut oil
(18:40):
production and some of the other things that the US
has not liked in terms of what Saudi Arabia has done,
the US is still very much interested in being in
business with Saudi Arabia, and that goes kind of both ways.
I think Saudi Arabia is probably feeling with regard to
the US that hey, we're no longer a client state.
We're wielding our own economic power here in this region,
(19:00):
and if you want to come and play in our backyard,
you need to do it on our terms. And so
I think that that is kind of an illustration of
how both the US and China dynamic has changed a
lot of what's going on around the world.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
After the break. What are the geopolitical implications of Syria's
readmission for the region and powers feather Afield Silva wanted
to ask you about the recent visit of the Ukrainian
President Vladimir Zelenski, where he stopped off at the Arab
(19:35):
League meeting on his way to the Group of Seven
summit in Japan. It was an interesting dynamic, the idea
of him being there at the same table in a
way as the Syrian president USAD and I wondered your
impressions of that meeting and what did he get out
of this visit if anything, and what about the Arab
countries on the flip side.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yes, it was an interesting grouping of people and quite
an odd scene where you had actually Zelenski in this
SA kind of ceremonial hall addressing Arab leaders, including Assad
who've just been welcome back in I guess you know.
Zelensky has been touring different countries to try and continue
to highlight what's happening in Ukraine, to look for support,
(20:13):
whether it's diplomatic or military or political. So on his side,
I guess maybe in the back of his mind is
the idea that when it comes to reconstruction again, these
wealthy Gulf countries in particular might be involved in that.
I think it's also perhaps looking at the ways in
which countries aligned. So I think there's a shared concern
(20:35):
in the region with Ukraine in terms of grain supply
and supply of grains to the market. In the Arab world,
you have Egypt, which is the world's biggest wheat importer,
and countries in the region have been very concerned about
how a Egypt's economy has been affected by Russia's invasion
of Ukraine and on the impact of higher grain costs.
(20:57):
So I think there's perhaps a shared topic for discussion
in terms of the flow of grain to global markets
and what role perhaps in the future, or at least
in discussion, the Middle East could play in that. But
it was quite an awkward meeting because you've got Asad
who's backed by Russia in the rim with Zelenski, and
I thought that was an interesting dynamic In terms of
(21:19):
Sauly Arabia, it was again, as I said previously, just
about Saudi Arabia being able to host to world leaders
two men of war, if you like, very different wars
in very different ways, but it brought them together in
the same room to discuss conflict and ways out of conflict.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
And as you say, two men at war, very different wars.
But it does feel as though what's happening now in
Ukraine really has a knock on effect with Syria also
in the ways that you've talked about Sylvia, but also Daniel,
there's a question in a way of Europe in all
of this, because Europe has faced waves of refugees from
Syria that have come through Turkey. There were fears, obviously
(21:58):
with the recent earthquake there'd be another exodus from Syria
and in terms of the outlook for Syria itself, can
you coat with another wave of refugees from that area
given they're taking in so many refugees from Ukraine at
the same time, do you see a risk that the
mood sort of hardens on Syria as part of this
again just as time goes on.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Well, I think that there's an interesting dynamic going on
here across the region, both in Europe and in the
Middle East, where you do have these ongoing humanitarian crises,
and they do put stress and strain on the political
systems of even some of the more developed countries. And
I think that there could be an adverse reaction to
(22:41):
the continued flow of refugees across borders. But I think
one of the things to keep in mind with all
of this is that each situation is somewhat different. And
when we were talking about sanctions, one thing that came
to mind is you mentioned Turkey, and you mentioned some
of these other countries and the impact of refugee flows
and sanctions and all of these economic measures on them.
(23:03):
And I think that if the lesson potentially for Asad
that if you just hang on long enough, you can
make it through this economic onslaught. I think it's a
little bit of a different calculation For Iran. The question
of as to whether Iran will remain isolated is kind
of open. The administration has sort of made some overtures there,
and what ultimately happens with Syria, I think will be
(23:26):
determined by a lot of what Sylvia had mentioned earlier.
These complicated situation, a humanitarian crisis complicated by a natural disaster,
and a lot of complicated set of interests, and at
the end of the day, the US may find itself
moving away from some of the red lines that it
imposed earlier, simply because there may be no other solution
(23:47):
than to seek some sort of multilateral agreement in a
way to resolve some of these crises. So, I mean,
I think that things are going to get certainly more
complicated rather than less complicated as time goes on. But
certainly some interesting develops over the last month or so.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Daniel, Do you see there could be any change in
the strategy of the US government depending on who wins
the twenty twenty four presidential election. Obviously, at this stage
we're potentially looking at a rerun between the current president
Joe Biden and the former president Donald Trump. Would you
imagine that policy on SIRI could change as a result
of that.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
I mean, I think certainly if Biden wins, things will
remain largely the same. I would anticipate it could be
some changes at the margins a rematch between Biden and
Trump if Trump were to win. It's hard to say.
When Trump was in office in twenty eighteen, there were
some airstrikes in Syria that he had ordered, and so
to a large extent, I think it depends on who
his advisors are. And just to sort of throw a
(24:43):
wrench into the works here, let's say that it's a
Biden DeSantis matchup, and if ron DeSantis, another Republican front runner,
were to get into office, that could be a completely
different scenario, because he's made some comments on Ukraine and
other areas of the world that are a bit different
from both of them. It's an open question, but I
think that the general tenor of the policy will not
(25:04):
change all that much, simply because once sanctions are in place,
they're very hard to remove, and I think that that
will be politically difficult no matter who's president.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Daniel and Sylvia, thank you very much for your time.
Thank you thanks for listening to us here at The
Big Take, a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For
more shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen, and we'd love to hear from you.
Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg
(25:34):
dot net. Our supervising producer is Vicky Bergolina, Our senior
producer is Katherine Fink. Frederica Romniello is our producer. Our
associate producer is zaann Absidiki. Hilda Garcia is our engineer.
Original music by Leo Sidrin. I'm Roslin mathieson in today
for wes Kusova. We'll be back tomorrow with another big take,
(26:00):
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