Conflicted S1 E5 - Syria

CONFLICTED

S01E05

Thomas Small Welcome back to Conflicted. The last episode was dedicated to the Yemeni Civil War, an intractable conflict that continues to ravage the lives of the Yemeni people. Today, we're going to talk about, perhaps, the greatest tragedy of modern times, the Syrian civil war. In this war, you'll certainly notice a lot of the same players involved. It is a highly complicated civil war. And we're going to try to help you understand how on Earth serious leader, Bashar al-Assad, asset and the world let this beautiful country and its people get caught in the dangerous crossfire between government and terrorists and foreign interest.

Aimen Dean Syria wasn't known for extremism or for this kind of brutality and bloodshed. This is foreign and alien to it. And this is why, whenever, basically, I see jihadists, you know, and jihadist sympathizers, you know, whether they are in Europe or North America, in the Middle East or South Asia. and they keep telling me about Bashar this, Bashar this, Bashar that, you know, the first thing I tell them, "Shut up. You and people like you empowered him."

Thomas Small Stick with us. 

This is Conflicted. 

Here we are again, dear listener. I'm here as always with Aimen Dean, author of Nine Lives: My Life as MI6's Top Agent Inside al-Qaeda. Nine Lives: My Time as MI6's Top al-Qaeda—. 

Aimen Dean Oh, dear. You have put me in trouble now. 

Thomas Small Author – author – author of Nine Lives: My Time as MI6's Top Agent Inside al-Qaeda. Aimen Dean, welcome as always. And I'm Thomas Small, co-producer of Path of Blood, a documentary film about Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda. 

Today, we will be discussing the great tragedy of modern times, the Syrian civil war. The last episode, we devoted to the Yemeni Civil War, a tragic conflict that is extremely complicated, in which Iran plays an important role, the Gulf states play an important role, the international community plays an important role. Today, we will be talking about another tragic civil war, the Syrian civil war, with many of the same players on the stage—Iran, the United States, Sunni jihadists, Shia militants, the Gulf states, and, in this case, Turkey as well.

Aimen Dean Russia.

Thomas Small Ugh. And, of course, Russia. It's an extremely complicated story, the Syrian civil war, much more complicated than even this podcast can do justice to. But we will do our best. 

So, to talk about Syria is a difficult thing. It's a complicated country. Its history is very complicated. The current president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, came to power in 2000, following the death of his father Hafez al-Assad, who had been dictator of the country for thirty years. For the first three years or so Bashar al-Assad's rule, the West, in particular, was encouraged. It thought that Bashar al-Assad would introduce liberal reforms and would dial down some of the oppressive police state aspects of his regime. This was called the Damascus Spring. These hopes proved to be ill-founded when, following the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Bashar al-Assad returned to the old ways of the Assad dynasty. He doubled down on oppression of his own people. He facilitated jihadist moving into Iraq to help undermine American efforts there. And by 2011, his people had had enough. They rose up against him, demanding reform. When he rejected those demands and instead ordered his police to fire on the crowds, the uprising became a rebellion, which was quickly infiltrated by Sunni jihadist on the one side, Iranian radicals on the other, and the whole country descended into anarchy and death and destruction. 

Aimen, tell us again, briefly, what is Iran's geostrategic aim in the region and why would it focus on Syria? 

Aimen Dean We have to remember that when we are dealing with the Iranian regime, we're not dealing with an ordinary political entity. We are dealing with a leadership of a country that believes passionately in religious ideology and eschatology. 

Thomas Small [unintelligible]. These are—. These prophecies, again, that you've been mentioning, the prophecies of the end times, and, somehow, these end times prophecies plays in – in Syria. 

Aimen Dean Indeed. And that's why I have to beg the indulgence of a Western audience when they hear, you know, prophecies. When they hear the phrase "eschatology," they immediately become cynical. But the answer is: Do not try to analyse the mindset of the Iranian regime through your own religious scepticism and cynicism. No. You know, if you try to apply your own pragmatist Western-based cynicism and scepticism, then you will fail to understand the motives and the strategic engines of the Iranian regime. 

Thomas Small So, what you're saying is some people in the West might think that the Iranian regime employs religious rhetoric in order to further strictly pragmatic aims, but they don't really believe it. Because who could really believe that nonsense? That's what you're saying the West needs to get over and realise that the Mullahs, the Iranian regime really believes this. 

Aimen Dean Yes, they do believe this nonsense. I mean, we—. This is what we have to, you know. emphasize. You know, the rallying cry of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, of the Hezbollah, the Lebanese Hezbollah brigades, of the battalions of the Houthis in Yemen, of the Shia militias in Iraq, in Syria, and elsewhere in the world, their rallying cry is: "Labaik ya, Mahdi." You know? "We are here for you, Mahdi."

Thomas Small The Mahdi, which is a sort of end-of-times figure who comes, what, on a white horse, carrying a sword to vanquish the enemies of Islams?

Aimen Dean Oh, the enemies of the Shia Islam, I would say.

Thomas Small In this case. 

Aimen Dean In this case. Yeah.

Thomas Small In– in the eyes of the Iranians, the Shia. Yeah.

Aimen Dean Exactly. And, you know, the saviour figure. So, you know—. And this is why when, you know, the entire political system in Iran is based on the Mahdi. I know many people will be sceptical, but actually, you know, the system is called Wilayat al-Faqih, which, basically, you know, for those who read Lord of the Rings trilogy, you know, you have an absent king. And so, in his stead, there is a steward. 

Thomas Small That's right. So, yes, the ancient kingdom of Ghandour has languished without a king for centuries. And in the king's place, a steward has sat on a little chair just beside the king's throne. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely. So, what you have here is that the Grand Ayatollah of Iran, Ali Khamenei and Khomeini before him, actually, they are called Wilayat al-Faqih, which their mission is to just sit there, deputising on behalf of the absent imam, the Mahdi, who disappeared twelve hundred years ago and – when he was only a baby or, I think, he was 40 years old, according to Shia theology. And he's prophesised to emerge again when the Shia are in dire need of him. 

You know, the entire political system is based on that. The title of the Grand Ayatollah, his mission, the – what is written into the constitution of Iran is actually all based on deputising on behalf of that absent imam, the twelfth imam who disappeared twelve hundred years ago. 

Thomas Small And when twelfth imam, the Mahdi returns, he's going to return to Syria?

Aimen Dean He's going to return to a place which is between Syria and Iraq. And the idea is that, from there, he will use the armies that are based in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, who are his supporters, to invade the Hejaz, the western part of Saudi Arabia where Mecca and Medina, the two holy cities in Islam, are located. So, therefore, Iran's strategy was that the Mahdi could only appear if all the Shia of the regions are united under one banner and one goal, which is the Islamic revolution, which will place armies that are in Yemen and in Syria and in Iraq. 

And, actually, during the Houthi war and the Syrian war, many of the discussions emerged among the Shia militias. And you can see it online, everywhere. It centres around the fact that we are fulfilling the prophecies of the end of time. Even Assad of Syria features heavily in the prophetic texts, modern prophetic texts of the Grand Ayatollahs in Iran.

Thomas Small Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, he will no doubt to take up a certain amount of the – of our time today, because he's a very important figure. But first I'd like to just talk about Syria. Not the Syria of prophecy, but the Syria of everyday reality. I lived in Syria for a year in 2007, 2008, during my university degree.

Aimen Dean Well, that's just one year before I visited myself.

Thomas Small Oh, my goodness. Well, you – you – you've been haunting me my whole life, Aimen. Just shadowing me like a, you know, like a – like an unlucky penny. I don't know. That's a mixed metaphor. 

Aimen Dean You have no idea what I had in my mind for you. 

Thomas Small Oh, no. [unintelligible]. I know a podcast. When I lived in Syria ten years ago—. And it's amazing to think, ten years ago, Syria was, to those of us visiting it, a haven of stability, friendliness, sectarian, cooperation, and peace. None of us would have thought that, within four years, the country was going to descend into what is arguably the most tragic civil war in – in modern Middle Eastern history, I think, without a doubt. Would you say—? How would you characterise the Syrian civil war?

Aimen Dean I would say it is. Not just only the most tragic civil war, but I would say it's the most unnecessary war to have ever occurred, you know, in modern Middle Eastern history. And – and, you know, when you compare that to Iraq, which was the most unnecessarily invasion ever, you know, that's saying something.

Thomas Small It's a double whammy. The most unnecessary invasion on one side of the Levant and the most unnecessary civil war on the other side, creating this petri dish of chaos. I mean, it's hard to imagine actually how the region will escape from it. 

Aimen, tell me, as an Arab, as a Muslim, what is Syria to the average Arab and Muslim? 

Aimen Dean If you asked me about Syria, I would say is that sitting here represents, to every Arab, the glories of the Umayyad dynasty. 

Thomas Small The Umayyad dynasty. The first great—.

Aimen Dean Dee-nasty, not die-nasty. 

Thomas Small Is that true? I'm an American. I—.

Aimen Dean Yeah. Yeah. I don't – I don't care if I'm American. You are in the UK. Here, you are supposed to say dee-nasty, not die-nasty. 

Thomas Small Listen, I spent every – every day after – after school watching reruns of Dynasty. It was die-nasty. 

Anyway, the Umayyad dynasty, the first great, let's say, secular dynasty. How would you describe it? The first great—. 

Aimen Dean Royalist dynasty.

Thomas Small The first great royalist dynasty.

Aimen Dean In Islam.

Thomas Small In Islam, in Muslim history. Centred on Damascus and ruling much of the known world at the time.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. The greatest extent of the early Muslim empire happened during the Umayyad dynasty when Damascus was the centre of the Muslim world. So, Damascus is synonymous with great architecture, with great intellectual renaissance. And at the same time, Damascus and the whole of Syria, including Aleppo and Homs, [unintelligible], many of the great cities there, are synonymous with the great heroes who resisted the crusades Saladin, Nūr al-Dīn, Imad al-Din Zengi, and all of these wonderful figures from, you know, Muslim and Arab history. After this, that—. 

You know, in modern time, you know, Syria is synonymous with amazing cuisine, synonymous with brilliant music and also with drama. I mean, you know, many of the drama and comedies that used to come out of Syria in terms of, you know, TV, production, and films up until 2011, up until the beginning of the civil war, they were catching up with the Egyptians and they were projected to replace the Egyptians as the most prolific in terms of production and in terms of viewership.

Thomas Small Something else that made Syria not – not – not entirely unique, but very special, I would say, in the Middle East is its demographic diversity. It was an extremely diverse country. It is an extremely diverse country. Yes, they're all Arabic-speaking. They're all Arabs. But within that umbrella, there – there was a tremendous diversity in terms of sect, in terms of class, in terms of ethnicity. 

Aimen Dean And history. I'll tell you something. You have Sunni Arabs. You have Kurds. You have Arab who are Ala- – Alawites. You know, a more—. A fringe sect of Shia Islam. You have Shia Muslims. You have Ismailis. And, in fact, the centre of Ismailis is in the world, in the whole world, whether they are in East Africa or in India or in Europe or in North America, their centre is a small town in Syria called so Salamiya. 

Thomas Small You have the Druze.

Aimen Dean The Druze, of course, in the – in the south.

Thomas Small And all sorts of Christians as well.

Aimen Dean Oh.

Thomas Small You have an Orthodox Christian, Syriac Christians, Catholic Christians. Even Pentecostal is Christians these days. 

Aimen Dean Oh, don't forget the Armenians.

Thomas Small And Armenians. 

Aimen Dean I—. Absolutely. I mean, you know, not to for- – forget also that we have Kildanians. You know, we have Assyrians. And, in fact, the language, the mother tongue of Jesus, you know, it still survives to this day in Syria and spoken, you know, among many Syrians.

Thomas Small Yes. Aramaic.

A Aramaic.

Thomas Small The Aramaic language. It's the only place where it's still spoken in some villages. I mean, I hope it's still spoken, my goodness. 

Aimen Dean There were—. There was a village called Jacobi. Another village called—.

Thomas Small Malula. 

Aimen Dean And Malula. And also [place]. All of these villages, you know, Aramaic, and, sometimes – sometimes, they call it Syriac, you know, was spoken and beautifully. And you can listen to the hymns. You know? So, basically—.

Thomas Small Oh, I remember when I was touring Syria and I visited Malula and I went to a monastery up in the hills above Malula, and the priest there showed me the altar, which actually was a pagan altar. It had been a pagan altar before it was converted to a Christian altar. And he said, "Would you like me to recite the Lord's prayer in Aramaic for you, i.e., the language that the Lord himself, if you like, would have recited originally?" That was a very powerful moment. 

Aimen Dean Indeed. I still remember it and I actually memorised it by heart.

Thomas Small Did you?

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small You are a poster child—. 

Aimen Dean [foreign language]. I mean—. And—. Yeah. And so—. 

Thomas Small Poster child for ecumenical harmony and peace, you former al-Qaeda member. 

Aimen Dean So – so – so, of course, Syria, you know, was diverse. And, you know, there was great harmony there. But the problem is all of this was a charade. 

Thomas Small Well, not a charade. It was all held in, I would say, extremely taut tension by a regime…

Aimen Dean Mmhmm. 

Thomas Small …a Ba'athist regime run by the Assad family for the Assad family and for the Alawite sect of the Assad family, which ended up smashing the country to pieces.

Aimen Dean Indeed

Thomas Small . So, who is Bashar al-Assad? Why has he become now a byword for dictatorship and bloodletting? This man, in addition to being a psychopath and an extremely ugly man, lived in London for several years, where he trained as an eye doctor. Lived, you know, in Northwest London. Very, very nice, civilised, middle-class area. Ended up falling in love with a Syrian British woman who grew up here, a nice West London girl with a cut glass accent, who is now the first lady of Asma al-Assad. A very strange contradiction, really. On the one hand, a nice British or Anglicised middle-class family, a doctor working on Harley Street, and, at the same time, a psychopathic dictator of Syria. 

Aimen Dean Well, shall I tell you about another evil eye doctor. Ayman al-Zawahiri?

Thomas Small Oh. Maybe it's a problem with eye – with – with eye doctors. 

Aimen Dean Yeah. Yeah. The leader of al-Qaeda is an eye doctor. 

Thomas Small Eye doctors, we've got your number.

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small So, Bashar al-Assad, he's famously soft-spoken. If you look at him, he's – he's a bit of a pencil neck, actually. He doesn't seem so scary. 

Aimen Dean Well, you see, this is a problem with narcissistic psychopaths, is that they do not appear to you to be willing to sacrifice a whole nation in order for them to stay in power. You know, don't forget the man wasn't actually going to be the successor. 

Thomas Small That's true. He had his older brother, Bassel al-Assad, who was groomed to succeed the, father Hafez al-Assad. Bassel al-Assad, he died in a car crash in Damascus. He was a famously reckless driver and, famously, a psychopath. He was supposed to be the psychopath, not Bashar.

Aimen Dean Indeed. But don't forget the entire family is just a family of psychopaths. And I now, I will tell you why. First of all, we have to go back to the 1966 when, you know, you have the Ba'ath Party coming to power in Syria. Hafez al-Assas became the defence minister. And then, in 1970, he staged a coup and became the president. Hafez al-Assad, the greatest survivor of Middle Eastern modern politics. And the trouble is that he held onto power so much and he allowed his fellow minority Alawites to become powerful in the cabinet, in the army…

Thomas Small The army. 

Aimen Dean …the intelligence services. So, they know they have, you know, taken over most of the important apparatus of power within Syria. So, it became a rule of minority. Power resided with the Alawites. 

Thomas Small And within the Alawites, with the family, it was very much a mafia state in that – in that regard. 

Aimen Dean Just like Saddam Hussein in Iraq. You know, it's simple. It's like carbon copies of each other. One is a Ba'ath Party, but Sunni in terms of its, you know, makeup, in terms of power. And, in Syria, it was the Ba'ath Party, but Alawite in its makeup, with dependence on some other minorities, like the Christians and the Druze and the Ismailis.

Thomas Small One thing that's often brought up in Hafez al-Assad's favour is that not only did he bring to power the minority, Alawites, but he also protected all the other minorities in Syria. And to this day, the minorities of Syria—Christians, Armenians, Druze, as we said—they tend to support, but Bashar al-Assad to this day, despite all the destruction that's going on. 

Aimen Dean Well, the problem is, if the protection of the minorities against the majority happen not through consensus means but by brute force, this is not a treatment. 

It's just painkillers. Painkillers. And then the pain would come back again. Many people don't understand that, in Hama, in 1982—.

Thomas Small I'm glad you brought that up, 'cause I wanted to bring that up now.

Aimen Dean Yeah. 

Thomas Small That the – the sort of – the sort of uncompromising response of Bashar al-Assad to the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011 was foreshadowed by his father's response, in 1982, to a Muslim Brotherhood inspired uprising in the city of Hama, where quite infamously, Hafez al-Assad ordered his brother, Rifaat…

Aimen Dean Rifaat. Yes.

Thomas Small …to utterly destroy and crush that rebellion, resulting in tens of thousands of civilian deaths and the leveling of much of that city in 1982. So, Bashar al-Assad's response to the Arab Spring could have been foreseen. And another thing about the Hama massacre of 1982 that's quite instructive, I would say, is that it was a Muslim Brotherhood uprising that the Syrian state under Hafez al-Assad Hoff crushed. You have, in that conflict, in 1982, a similar ideological conflict of – of the one that, at least in rhetorical terms, is going on in Syria now. That between a sort of Sunni Islamist movement and the "secularism" of the al-Assad state, of the Ba'ath Party state. What does secularism mean in the context of the Ba'ath Party? And why—? And – and do you think that it is fair to hold up the secularism of – of a state like Syria before it collapsed as a – as a great achievement?

Aimen Dean You see, this is one of the debates that divides people the world over when it comes to Middle East politics. The Syrian Ba'ath Party, and they will say, "Oh, my God. It is secular. We must support it, because secular equals good." And they see the Muslim Brotherhood and anyone else basically, and they say, "Oh, they are religious. Oh, my God. Then, they are so bad.": Because religious movement equals bad. And this is where this oversimplification of the ideological, you know, tectonic plates in the Middle East that's pushing against each other, you know, result in myopic and inaccurate analysis of what happened in Syria. 

Not all seculars in the Arab world are good. Look at Saddam. He was secular. And look how many people he killed and gassed and everything and all of that. And in the name of Arab nationalism. And the Ba'ath Party, look at them. Basically, they are all secular, you know, in Syria. And yet, look how many people they have killed and caused to kill. The problem here is not about "secular equal good" and "religious equal bad." You know, it's far more complex than that. Sometime, you have religious people who have more respect for democratic process and human rights than their secular counterparts. And that the most vicious dictators in the Middle East actually were secular in their outlook. Look at Gadhafi. Look at Mubarak. Before him, Gamal – Gamal Abdel Nasser and look at Hafez al-Assad and look at Saddam Hussein. All of them are secular.

Thomas Small Sure. But you might say, if the greatest threat of all is some sort of Taliban-style government rolling across the Middle East, then perhaps you need an authoritarian secularist to crack some skulls and break some eggs to prevent an even worse evil from – from establishing itself.

Aimen Dean This is why I always say that between the two wolves, you know—. So, you have a wolfpack there and you have a wolfpack here, and they are are fighting each other. And what's happening is that the world is divided, cheering, you know, for one side against another. And I was saying no. No. You know, there are other alternatives, you know, especially when it comes to the fact that I'm an unabashed monarchists. Because monarchies tend to behave better. 

Look at Morocco, less resources than Syria. And yet, basically, the living standards and Morocco are better than in Syria. We have to ask ourselves why. The system of governance, it seems to be more resilient and less prone to torture, imprisonment, and brutal tactics. 

You know, the king of Jordan, no one is going to – going to call him a dictator, even though he is, actually, in all sense of the word "dictator." That is where people got it wrong as far as Bashar al-Assad. They saw his secularism and they viewed it as a virtue when, in fact, actually, it is not a virtue. 

Thomas Small  There's a tragic irony with – in the story of Bashar al-Assad, because when he came to power following his father Hafez's death in 2000, the first three years or so of his rule in Syria was known as the Damascus Spring, when it seemed that Bashar al-Assad was going to liberalise slightly, was going to open up more to the West, was going to bring Syria back into the fold of the international community from its self-imposed isolation and strident anti-Israeli rhetoric and all that sort of thing. That, in the end didn't happen. And it's possible to say that one of the reasons it didn't happen was because of that other tragic war in the Middle East, the invasion of Iraq, at which point, Bashar al-Assad thinks, "Hmmm, I'm probably going to be next here. Why should I be playing along with America? These neo-cons are clearly threatening me." Do you feel that that was a turning point for Bashar al-Assad, the Iraq War?

Aimen Dean Yes. And also, don't forget that many people don't understand that, you know, while Bashar was, you know, of course, basically a secular dictator, his greatest ally in the region was the theocratic government of Iran, because of the fact that, while he is secular on paper, but because he belongs to a minority that belonged to a fringe Shia sect, he asked that he saw in Iran a great ally and a protector.

So, this is where the irony comes when people say, "But Bashar is so secular." No. And, in fact, that is why when the Iraq, Bashar decided to pull two strings here. His alliance with Iran made him allow many of al-Qaeda members to actually come and pass through Syria and then get into—.

Thomas Small Yes. Let's – let's – let's go into this in great detail…

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small …'cause it's actually a wonderful story. I mean…

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small …because Bashar al-Assad oversaw a secularist regime, at least on paper, and because Sunni jihadists, in particular, and Muslim Brotherhood-influenced revolutionaries were a threat to that regime, they languished in Syrian prisons. Come the Iraq War, Bashar al-Assad, in collusion with the Iranian regime, is – is what people understand today, agreed to release those jihadists from Syrian prisons and facilitate their entry into Iraq in order to discomfit the American forces there. 

And not only that, but from all around the world, jihadists who went to Iraq to fight, to join al-Qaeda in Iraq, under Zarqawi, as we discussed two podcasts ago, they came via Damascus, and the Syrian regime facilitated that movement. Is that right? 

Aimen Dean Absolutely. In fact, you know, I happened to have met one of the grandees of the Syrian redeem, you know, who later defected and against Bashar al-Assad. He was the son of the former defence minister class. And so, when I talked to him, he confessed. He said, "Yes, we did it. We did it, because, basically for us, we wanted to make sure that the project for the Americans in Iraq never succeed." 

Then, don't forget the other string I was talking about, you know, Assad pulled the first string, which is the Iranian alliance. But the second string here was the fact that the Ba'ath Party in Iraq was still ideologically, you know, linked to the Ba'ath Party in Damascus. And, of course, they lost that power. So, many of the Ba'ath Party members fled to Syria. And there, they—.

Thomas Small So, ISIS—. So, Iraqi Ba'athists fled to Syria…

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small …where they regrouped, where they – where they also conspired against the American occupying [crosstalk].

Aimen Dean Absolutely. So, you know, basically, Bashar al-Assad was playing both sides,. was playing the Ba'athists, you know, the Iraqi Ba'athists who resided in Syria. And also he was—. He, you know—. He played the, you know, the Iraqi. So, the Iraqi al-Qaeda members and also the foreign al-Qaeda members who were coming, and he facilitated their entry into Syria. 

Thomas Small When Bashar al-Assad was facilitating foreign fighters into going into Iraq to attack the Americans there in 2006, around 2005, 2006, you were still an MI6 double agent.

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small Were you working in any direct way on countering that or – or—. I mean, how – how did – how did the Western intelligence agencies counter that – that conspiracy? 

Aimen Dean Well, it's simple. I mean, we discovered, at the time, that Syria was the root from as early as 2004. How? Because what happened is, of course, many people who were in Saudi Arabia and in Kuwait and in Bahrain—. And these are the countries I was monitoring at the time. I was monitoring of activities in these countries. Whenever you have a new young man recruited and wants to go to Iraq, where would he go? You would immediately find that there are certain people, who I knew personally in Bahrain, in Kuwait, who would hand over small pieces of paper with instructions and phone numbers. And all of them are where? In the Damascus. 

So, I'm talking about one example, two or ten or twenty. I'm talking about dozens of examples here.

Thomas Small But Bashar al-Assad, by allowing this jihadist activity to take place inside Syria in those years, he was really laying the foundations for the destruction of his own country. Because, in the end, these jihadists, they came back to Syria and began fighting him. So, the Arab Spring, of course, afflicted many countries throughout the Middle East. In Syria, it played out in a unique way. Protests began in the south of the country, but quite quickly it descended into violence. What happened?

Aimen Dean Well, I'll give you my take on what really happened here. They—.

Thomas Small Well, first, give us the official narrative.

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small And then, undermine that narrative, if you wish.

Aimen Dean The official narrative is that there is a conspiracy by Saudi Arabia, by Qatar, by Turkey, by the Muslim Brotherhood, by the US, by the European Union, by Jordan, even, by Israel. So, all of these powers. In fact, you know, the – the – the city TV used to call it the globalist conspiracy to topple the regime there. And what many people don't understand that no one had any interest of the regime actually falling. No one. Even the Saudis and the Qataris. No one wanted that to happen, actually. They wanted just to punish Bashar for everything he did, the killing of the prime minister of Lebanon in 2005 as – as a nation of so many Lebanese pro-Saudi and pro-Gulf politicians. But that's another story. But no one wanted him to be toppled. 

So, what happened here is that they said these protests in Daraa, which is the first city to experience protests [crosstalk].

Thomas Small In the south of Syria.

Aimen Dean Yeah. In late March of 2011. What happened there? According to the people, they were saying the three young kids, they were taken into custody for mischievous behaviour. They were just kids from a poor neighbourhood. There were young boys around the age of eleven, twelve, or thirteen. And then, their bodies were found ditched somewhere.

Thomas Small Mutilated. 

Aimen Dean Yes. And raped. By the way, you know, there has been many instances, many numerous documented instances, of rogue police officers in Syria kidnapping and raping young boys. 

Thomas Small Hmmm.

Aimen Dean And that was rampant. And no one can deny that. Because the people themselves would admit it happened. So, of course, what happened is that the atmosphere of the Arab Spring, the fall of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt convinced people of Daraa that, "Look, do we have to put up with this anymore?" 

Thomas Small "Do we have to put up with Bashar al-Assad's policemen raping our boys?"

Aimen Dean Exactly. So, what happened is when the uprising in – in Daraa, it was actually directed at the local police. And they sent a delegation to Damascus to meet Bashar al-Assad to say, "Reign in your – in your police. The Arab world is changing, and you have to change. And your police need to be less impressive. Less powers of the police. That's how it all started. 

Thomas Small Which, it seems to me, a perfectly legitimate thing for the people to do.

Aimen Dean Exactly. Because I've been to Syria. You've been to Syria. You see how the police were behaving with impunity, taking bribes from people, you know, oppressing people. If you are a police officer, it's just—. Basically, your salary, it's just, you know, like a tip. The rest of your income actually come from bribes. So, the city a was incredibly corrupt police state, you know. Don't forget. It's the only country in the world almost where, undemocratically, a son succeeded his father as a president. The second one was North Korea. It wasn't like a bastion of democracy and human rights and [crosstalk].

Thomas Small Certainly not. No one would claim that.

Aimen Dean No one. Yeah. So, you know, the – the people said, "Well, enough is enough." Because the atmosphere in the Arab world was that of freedom.

Thomas Small So, what happened? They say, "Enough is enough." They sent a delegation to Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. What does he do?

Aimen Dean Bashar promised them to do everything right. And then, as soon as they returned, [unintelligible] were arrested. And this is basically when things started to get more ugly. People went more into the streets and started to infect other cities, where—. Then, in Homs, there was another young boy who was kidnapped by the police. Hamza Ali Al-Khateeb. Very famous case. Kidnapped, raped, and his body was dumped into the rubbish. And the police station that done it said, "If you keep protesting, we will kidnap more boys and do it." They don't understand that the world is changing and there is social media. And, you know, and this kind of tit-for-tat, "If you do this, we will do that," it's no longer applicable. People will rebel. 

Thomas Small And quite soon after, the rebellion started. The regime turned their guns on the crowds.

Aimen Dean Exactly. So, what happened here is that, you know, the protests all around the country were not anti-Bashar. Actually, it was more anti-government repression. So, their demands in the first three months, I still remember. And people unfortunately have short memories, they think basically that they wanted to topple the regime. No. The demands were the repeal of Article VIII of the constitution, which is that the Ba'ath Party is the only party that is allowed to be, you know, empowered or—. 

Thomas Small So, they – they wanted more political pluralism. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. Which is fair enough. 

Thomas Small It seems to me. 

Aimen Dean Yeah. And also, they demanded that the seventeen security agencies to be, you know, more merged into one or two or three agencies, and more – with more oversight, because every agency thought they are immune and they could kidnap boys or take bribes or arrest people at a whim and disappear them without any trace.

Thomas Small They wished for the state security apparatus to be disempowered.

Aimen Dean Indeed. 

Thomas Small So, political pluralism, less state oppression.

Aimen Dean Yeah. And the political prisoners. 

Thomas Small Now, what does that mean though? Because political prisoners in Syria, I mean, aren't these, the jihadists we were talking about? Does that – does that mean that, already amongst this movement, there was a – there was a Sunni jihadist undercurrent?

Aimen Dean Oh, no. There were so many different, you know, types of political prisoners, you know. Even sometimes comedians and, you know – you know, and even artists. Like, you know, we are part of the political prisoner movement. Sometimes, children, unfortunately. You know, there was a, a young teenage girl, sixteen-year-old. She was fifteen when she was arrested and seventeen when she was executed. [name]. She was living in Egypt. She had the blog where she was reminding Bashar al-Assad of his democratic promises when he came to power. 

Thomas Small During the Damascus Spring. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. You know, when she arrived back in Syria, she was arrested at the age of fifteen. [name], her name. She was arrested at the age of fifteen for writing a blog. And then, they decided to put her on trial in front of a military tribunal for being a spy for the Israelis. And she gave information to the Israelis, which enabled, you know, a, you know, the Israelis to target, you know, a – an intelligence officer of the Syrians, and he became paralysed for life, which is completely pathetic [unintelligible]. 

Thomas Small Clearly—. Yeah. Clearly, these are trump charges

Aimen Dean And then, she was executed. 

Thomas Small Unbelievable.

Aimen Dean Yeah. 

Thomas Small So, the protesters were in fact appealing to their president, Bashar al-Assad, to make these very reasonable reforms. But instead…

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small …he switches the psychopath button in his mind and he orders his men to fire into the crowds. And within months, the whole movement is militarised. 

Aimen Dean There as a sentence he uttered just one month after the beginning of the uprising. After one month or less than that, he gave a speech to parliament.

Well, I mean, to the appointed parliament, as you know, in Syria. And in that speech—. You know, I was listening to him so intently. Of course, basically, I was trying to see where will he go, which direction he will take. And one sentence, just one sentence, in my opinion, inaugurated the whole civil war. Because he said—. Of course, at the time there were about seven hundred, eight hundred thousand people on the streets of Syria. After—. Out of about, you know, twenty-five million, you know, population. So, it was still easily containable. 

He said that "from the videos of the protests, we have identified sixty-four thousand protestors who we believe are criminals and we will arrest them, and justice will be done." That is, in my opinion, the stupidest, most idiotic, dangerous sentence ever uttered in modern Middle Eastern history. When there are eight hundred thousand people on the streets, and you are saying, "We have identified sixty-four thousand," each and every one of these eight hundred thousand will never come back home. That you have basically inaugurated civil war, because you told them, "Keep on protesting, keep on being violent, keep on, you know, this uprising, because if you go back home, you will have the secret prisons treatment." And Bashar's prisons are very infamous, unfortunately, for being nothing but death factory. 

Thomas Small He undermined the possibility that these protests could have resulted in something like reform. 'Cause he wasn't interested in reform.

Aimen Dean Not – not just only not interested in reform. You know, when you threaten the protesters on the street that possibly all of you will be in prison—because none of them know which one of them is part of the sixty-four thousand—you give them a point of no return. You—. You give—. You put them in a – on a path where there is no return. 

Thomas Small The Syrian civil war did quickly devolve into total violence on all sides. And I'll have to ask us to sort of skip forward three or four years to when the civil war was raging at its most violent. We have a battlefield scenario where there are myriad Sunni jihadist groups, myriad so-called moderate revolutionary groups, although who these people are has never been entirely clear to anyone. You have Bashar al-Assad's forces. You have Hezbollah in Lebanon, providing troops to Bashar al-Assad to fight the Sunni jihadist. You have Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders overseeing that Bashar al-Assad effort. You have Afghan Shia mercenaries shipped in by the Iranian regime to Syria to provide further troops. It's a total shit storm. And at the same time, you have foreign powers—the United States, the EU, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar—on the opposition side to Bashar al-Assad, coordinating, mis-coordinating. And then, in the midst of all this, you have ISIS arise. 

Let's talk about these jihadists. 

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small Why such a patchwork? Why such a kaleidoscope of jihadist groups fighting each other, fighting the regime, fighting the Americans. What was going on? 

Aimen Dean You see, the greatest calamity that Syria suffered after Bashar al-Assad, you know, was the arrival of al-Qaeda. When my wife asked me, you know, "Could you tell me in one sentence what went wrong with Syria?" So, I told her, "al-Qaeda came to town."

Thomas Small Now, tell us that story. 

Aimen Dean Yeah. Well, you see, Bashar was partly responsible for that in two ways, one before the war and one after the war.

Thomas Small Before the war, as we – as we said, he released al-Qaeda prisoners and such like people from prison and – and sent them to the Iraq, where they regrouped and came back to bite him in the butt. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. The second way after the war in which the way he responded to the uprising, which was moderate at the beginning, with violence, led to people, you know, trying to find—. "Okay. Who will protect us? Who will actually, you know, be the force that could actually force Assad us to re-evaluate his options?" [crosstalk].

Thomas Small And they turned to al-Qaeda, which was called, initially, in Syria, the Nusfra Front.

Aimen Dean  Exactly. Jabhat al-Nusra…

Thomas Small Which—.

Aimen Dean …which means the support front. 

Thomas Small And it was – it was—. The—. So, the Nusfra Front was an al-Qaeda franchise, if you like. But at the very—. At the beginning, not everyone knew that. Is that right? They was—. They had done a pretty good job of – of – of hiding their al-Qaeda affiliation.

Aimen Dean I knew. 

Thomas Small Well, yeah. You're not – you're not just everybody.

Aimen Dean But I knew, because, immediately, I started to notice. Because, don't forget, after I left the service of MI5 and MI6 2006, I became a banker, as many listeners would have known by now. And because I was a banker, I was always, you know, in the banking section, which monitored terrorism finance. 

Around November, December of 2011, just about seven, eight months after the beginning of the uprising, that there are certain, the financials in Kuwait, in Bahrain, in Qatar started some movement of collecting money for certain groups. And that's when I started to become suspicious that something is not right. And I remember, even at a great risk to me, I went all the way to Kuwait at the beginning of 2012 and even attended one of these fundraising meetings… 

Thomas Small Wow

Aimen Dean …which was risky, but I just wanted to—.

Thomas Small Risky, because, at that point, you – there was already the fatwa against you.

Aimen Dean Exactly. 

Thomas Small Your former al-Qaeda, you know, brothers were – were – were going to kill you. 

Aimen Dean So, I thank God there were hundreds basically in that big tent erected, you know, near one of the [foreign language] in Kuwait, basically. So—.

Thomas Small So, you're saying you went to a – you went to a – a – a jamboree in Kuwait specifically oriented towards raising money for terrorists in Syria.

Aimen Dean Well, tThey didn't call them terrorists. They called them basically, you know, a, you know, the cause of jihad in Syria against the tyrant Bashar al-Assad.

Thomas Small Right. 

Aimen Dean And funny enough—funny enough—I started listening to the speakers, and they were talking about eschatology. 

Thomas Small Oh, the prophecies.

Aimen Dean Again. Again. 

Thomas Small Goodness gracious.

Aimen Dean Among them were, you know, [name]. You know, he was—. He's a famous Salafist cleric in Kuwait. Among them was Hammad Ali, one of the famous supporters of al-Qaeda in Iraq. In fact, in al-Qaeda [crosstalk]. 

Thomas Small Now, why are these – why are these people able to come out in the open and Kuwait and say these things? Why aren't these people in prison, Aimen?

Aimen Dean Because not far away, just about fifteen, sixteen kilometres away in Kuwait— I'm not kidding you—in Kuwait, just at, you know, at the same week, there was another big tent that—. Yes. I'm not kidding. There was another big tent, another [unintelligible] gathering of Shia Kuwaitis, raising funds for, you know, militants to go and fight in Syria alongside Bashar al-Assad. 

Thomas Small So – so, Gulf funding was funding both sides. 

Aimen Dean Yes. 

Thomas Small Yes. It's—. The Syrian civil war has been a sort of solvent that has – that has caused national identities, other identities to wither away, and the sectarian identities are all that's left. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. And, actually, you know, to give an example, you know, I'm a Bahraini.

Thomas Small Yeah.

Aimen Dean And my nephew and cousin, both of them are Bahrainis. You know, my nephew, Ibrahim, was – he was only nineteen and my cousin, Abdurrahman, he was only twenty. Abdurrahman went to fight with Jabhat al-Nusra.

Thomas Small With al-Qaeda in Syria?

Aimen Dean With – with al-Qaeda in Syria. And he died there in May 2013, in Damascus.

Thomas Small I'm sorry to hear that. That's very sad. 

Aimen Dean Then, my nephew went. First, he was tempted to join ISIS, but I, after many Skype calls, you know, myself, his father, I mean, basically we convinced him not to join them. Basically, like, you know, just try to go somewhere else. And he joined another more moderate group, which belonged to [unintelligible], another, you know, Muslim Brotherhood offshoot, of the insurgents. And he died there in September of 2013. 

There are two Bahrainis, but there we're not the only two Bahrainis, from Bahrain, to fight and die there. There were other trainees who were from the other side, Shia Bahrainis…

Thomas Small Shia. Shia Bahrainis. 

Aimen Dean …who fought alongside Hezbollah and Bashar al-Assad. So, there are Kuwaitis fighting Kuwaitis and Bahrainis fighting Bahrainis and Saudis fighting Saudis in that conflict. It is—. You know, with the arrival of al-Qaeda, which brought with it, of course, ISIS, after that, and their purest Sunni jihadist ideology, and because they came not from al-Qaeda central—they came from al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was known at the time as the Islamic State of Iraq—and then, when they break rock away from al-Qaeda as a whole, in 2013, they announced that, "Oh, al-Nusra, these people in Syria, they are ours." And that caused al-Nusra to split, with two-thirds going to ISIS and one-third remaining, you know, which basically grew up later, of course.

Thomas Small It's quite complicated. But the takeaway is that ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria are essentially the same organisation. They just had picked… 

Aimen Dean Split.

Thomas Small They had picked a fight with each other. 

Aimen Dean Yeah. They split in May 2013.

Thomas Small When I was in Syria, one of the monasteries that I visited there, Mar Musa, not far from Damascus, not far from Malula, in fact, where Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, is still spoken. It was a Roman Catholic monastery, and it's Abbott, Father Paolo, in Italian Franciscan, if I'm not mistaken, who had really worked hard for twenty years to form close relations with the Sunnis, with the Shia, with all the different groups in the vicinity. And the mo- – the monastery had become a place of pilgrimage for all these groups. When the Syrian civil war started, Father Paolo very famously refused the Vatican's demand that he – that he leaves Syria because it was too dangerous, 'cause he wanted to remain a spokesman for sectarian unity in Syria. In the end, he was kidnapped and beheaded by ISIS. 

Aimen Dean And that's the tragedy. You see, Syria wasn't known for extremism or for this kind of brutality and bloodshed. And this is foreign and alien to it. And this is why, whenever, basically, you know, I see jihadists, you know, and jihadist sympathizers, you know, whether they are in Europe or North America, in the Middle East or South Asia, and they keep telling me about Bashar this, Bashar this, Bashar that, you know, the first thing I tell them, "Shut up. You and people like you empowered him." He was about to fall. Many people defected. Even his own prime minister, Riyad Hijab, left him in March of 2012. Many people were leaving him. His army was – started – started to disintegrate. And it was clear that he either concede reforms or give up. He might lose, but what saved him was al-Qaeda.

Thomas Small The arrival of al-Qaeda. The arrival of al-Qaeda on the scene gave him a rhetorical victory. He could always say, "I'm defending Syria from al-Qaeda."

Aimen Dean Exactly. al-Qaeda did not start. They just arrived and taken advantage of that war, and, as a result, turned the war from a war of liberation in order to bring about some sort of a better Syria into a conflict that is based on sectarian jihadism. 

Thomas Small What about these moderate rebels, Aimen? We – we heard, especially here in Britain, because the UK was always going to support the moderate – the moderate rebels in the Syrian civil war. Who were these moderates?

Aimen Dean At the beginning, they were mostly soldiers from al-Assad army who actually defected.

Thomas Small The Free Syrian Army.

Aimen Dean Indeed. And many of them had purely nationalistic aspirations. Many of them were not just only Sunnis, but also they had Druze and Christians. 

Thomas Small So, what happened to the Free Syrian Army? 

Aimen Dean They were taken over by, you know, and marginalized by the jihadist and the ideological, you know, groups that were linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Thomas Small So, you say jihadists both infiltrated the Free Syrian Army and also attacked the Free Syrian Army and defeated them on the battlefield.

Aimen Dean Well, not just only that. But actually, more or less, just like what happened if you listen to the podcast on Iraq, when we talked about Zarqawi. What Zarqawi was money – was money, but also the name of al-Qaeda and the name of jihad. And so, they were able to cannibalize other groups, including the Free Syrian Army. So, it's just pure cannibalism on the part of the jihadists that marginalized the moderate rebels completely.

Thomas Small And what role did the Gulf states play in all of this? Because, you know, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Emirates, they're often accused of fueling the bloody mess of Syria with money, with – with – with weapons. What's – what's the truth there?

Aimen Dean Well, the truth that is that it happened. And in fact—. You know, I'm not going to deny it. It happened. The Qataris we're supporting [name]. The Saudis were supporting Jamal Maarouf and Hazim. You know, it's a group called Hazim. And they supported Unit 13. They supported Unit 49. You know, the Turks, of course, they supported Nūr al-Dīn Zengī group. And others they supported the [unintelligible], the TIP or the Turkistan Islamic Party. You know, we will talk about them in the next podcast.

So – so, in a sense, you know, all of this was not coordinated. And at the same time, many of them, while they were moderate, but they were not moderate enough. They still had this stingy of either jihadism or Muslim Brotherhood, you know, ideology about them. 

Thomas Small But, surely, some of these Gulf states also supported al-Qaeda directly, ISIS directly. That's what we're always told. 

Aimen Dean No.

Thomas Small None of them did?

Aimen Dean None of them. See, you know—. You know, I – I always basically had—.

Thomas Small How can we believe you, Aimen, actually? I mean, surely, you're just – you're just, you know, you're just – you're just a – an apologist for Gulf – for Gulf states.

Aimen Dean No. Of course not. I'm not an apologist for anyone. I'm apologist only for the truth. And, for me, I am a ex-spy and, after that, a financial banking investigator, which means that I follow the money. And whenever someone challenged me on this and says, "The Saudis are supporting ISIS and al-Qaeda, the Qataris as supporter – supporting ISIS and al-Qaeda. The Americans actually are supporting and creating ISIS and al-Qaeda."

Thomas Small These are all the accusations?

Aimen Dean Yeah. And I would say to everyone, "Look, I have spent eleven years of my life in the banking sector. Before that, eight years of my life as a spy against terrorist groups. So, unless if you have with you, you know, official transactions, banking transactions, or any other form of transactions that I can take actually to court, then, please, do not utter this nonsense." Why? Because I have followed terrorism finance for nineteen years of my life. 

Thomas Small And you're saying there's no hard evidence that Gulf state supported either ISIS or al-Qaeda in Syria?

Aimen Dean If you have—. If you are, as a listener, have an evidence, I will actually guarantee you hundreds of thousands of pounds of – in payment from many lawyers who want to hold these countries to account and demand justice for the victims, whether they are in North America or Europe. If you have evidence, come forward. You don't, then it's not there. 

If you hear about me buying a Lamborghini and basically living in one of the machines in Beverly Hills, it means that I finally found the evidence. [crosstalk].

Thomas Small That's the lottery ticket. That's the lottery ticket. The proof we've all been looking for.

Aimen Dean Yes. Because if it happened, I would be a rich man by now. But it never happened. They were supporting groups that are not related to al-Qaeda or ISIS. They did, but these groups cannot be classified as terrorists, because they were not classified as terrorists by the US Treasury or by the EU. 

Thomas Small And in—. But—. And sadly, indirectly, the support of these other groups may have led to the empowerment and aggrandizement of al-Qaeda and ISIS when al-Qaeda and ISIS conquered those groups and expropriated the funds and the weapons that had been given them. So, it was blow back. 

Aimen Dean Indeed. Absolutely. And that's why, you know, all of these countries stopped completely, you know, by, I would say, the end of 2016. That's it. All the support dried out.

Thomas Small They realised that their support for other jihadist groups, other resistance groups in Syria had backfired. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. First, the Americans told them stop. And they also stopped on their own volition, as well as the fact that the Americans decided that the best one to fight ISEs are not those so-called moderate, you know, Syrian groups. They are useless. The only ones who can do that were the Kurds.

Thomas Small America empowered the Kurds. Now, that allows me to ask a question about America in the Syrian civil war and, especially, the former president, Barack Obama, often accused of waffling in his response to that conflict, accused of – of drawing his red lines beyond which he said Bashar al-Assad would not be allowed to – to pass, but then Bashar al-Assad would transgress the red line, and – and Obama would do little or nothing. What is your estimation of America's intervention or lack of intervention in the Syrian civil war, especially given the fact that you say America's intervention in Iraq was such a disaster?

Aimen Dean You see, the problem of the Syrian conflict is that it was a victim of the Iraq War in many ways, of the radicalization that took place in Iraq, which basically sent ISIS and al-Qaeda from Iraq back to Syria. But also, because in Iraq, the West was over-committed. In Syria, because of what happened in Iraq, the West was under committed. And what Syria needed, especially—especially—that window, between November 2011 and June of 2012. That window, if the Americans used it wisely, all what – all what was needed was just two American submarines and seventy-two Tomahawk missiles raining on Bashar al-Assad's security and military apparatus. And his own army would have ditched him immediately. There would have been a coup. And his vice president, Sunni yet secular and Ba'athist, Farouk al-Sharaa, would have become president. And the Syrian civil war would have ended before it even started. 

Thomas Small So, why didn't Barack Obama order the Tomahawks to – to rain down?

Aimen Dean Because he was a chicken.

Thomas Small He was a chicken?

Aimen Dean Yes. 

Thomas Small Okay. Expand on that. 

Aimen Dean Okay. The problem with Barack Obama is that he was always a hesitant leader when it come to world events. You know, this is why Putin took advantage of Obama's hesitation on the world stage. And he supported, of course, stupidly, the Arab uprising, especially against Mubarak. But then he did not want to intervene. 

He was always anti-intervention. 

Thomas Small But what about Libya? We intervened in Libya. Why did we intervene in Libya, but not in Syria? Oil?

Aimen Dean No. There was more to it than that. Barack Obama wanted to appease the Iranians over the nuclear deal, and he wanted to negotiate a nuclear deal with them. Antagonising them on Syria meant that he would lose Iran forever. So, for the sake of that nuclear deal, which is gone now, anyway—.

Thomas Small 'Cause Trump has vetoed it. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. 

Thomas Small Or he has abrogated it. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely. So, for the sake of that deal, he hesitated on Syria so much that this hesitation cost the Syrians and the world, especially Europe, with the waves of migration, a lot of great pain.

Thomas Small And, finally, Russia. Russia intervened in the Syrian civil war on the side of Bashar al-Assad to protect its naval base in Tartus, on the Mediterranean Coast, to project its own influence in the Middle East further, to take advantage of Barack Obama's hesitation and, in general, Obama's withdrawal of American influence from the region. And in alliance with Iran, Russia has ended up being the major player in that part of the world. No one would have foreseen this ten years ago. 

Aimen Dean Of course not. And that's the problem with, you know, the fact that Barack Obama's foreign policy was absolutely disastrous as far as the Middle East was concerned. Because he could have put an end to this war. Even – even if he really, really forced Bashar al-Assad into a corner, he could have forced him to concede at least some reforms. But, unfortunately, he decided to sit on the side lines and allow this, you know, to happen. Why—?

S; And does – does Russia now call the shots in the region then? 

Aimen Dean Well, not in the region, but in Syria, at least. And I want to raise another issue: how to show the globalist thing of it. There are two people—two people—I blame personally for sending Syria into this chaos even further because of their constant interference—theological, ideological interference—with the uprising in Syria. Abu Qatada, the Jordanian cleric, who was based here in the UK for more than thirteen years. Possibly even more. Actually, no. Twenty years, almost. And he went to Jordan after he left the UK, of course, when he was extradited to Jordan. And there, the Jordanians, you know, allowed him to have his own Twitter account and online presence. And he kept talking about "You must do this. You mustn't do that. You must do this. Don't agree to democracy. Don't agree to pluralism. Don't agree to do [crosstalk] harmony." 

Thomas Small He's addressing the Syrian uprising, is he?

Aimen Dean Absolutely. And he just kept along with the other snake, Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, who was also responsible for informing the ideology of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia in the early days, which, you know, informed your film, Path of Blood. He—. Both of them, you know, your put their poisons into the mind of the young people in Syria who were, you know, protesting based on, you know, civil rights demands and turned all of this into ideological battlefield over jihadist ideology purity. 

Thomas Small So, when you said at the beginning of the episode that the Syrian civil war was the most preventable civil war in the Middle Eastern history, is it because al-Qaeda didn't need to have arrived on the scene?

Aimen Dean I would say it was preventable because of several facts. One, Assad did not need to use repression or violence against his own people. 

Thomas Small No.

Aimen Dean He could have just conceited fewer reforms, and the number of protestors would have plummeted from the hundreds of thousands to only a few thousands, which then he can deal with. But he could have conceded reforms. Some people would say, "Oh, no. The protesters would have kept on." No. I will say no. Because we have two other countries where, when reforms were promised, the protesters went home—Jordan and Morocco. Both of them led by young people. King Abdullah of Jordan and King Mohammed VI Morocco both conceded the reforms and, in both cases, the protesters went home. 

Thomas Small So, Bashar could have conceded reforms. What – what else? 

Aimen Dean He did not need to utter that sentence, the most fateful sentence in the Syrian history when he said that "there are sixty-four thousand people we identified. We will let us them." That was wrong. You know, you just forced them to stay on the streets and then become militants. 

Thomas Small Okay. And three?

Aimen Dean And three, al-Qaeda did not need to come there.

Thomas Small When you say they did not need to come there, but who—. No. How—? Who is going to sit down with al-Qaeda and talk sense into them? They did need to go there in their own minds, because of the prophecies, because of everything they'd been working towards for twenty years. 

Aimen Dean Ah, yes, the prophecies. The bloody prophecies. I mean, basically, I—. you know, I wish, really, these prophecies never existed. 

Thomas Small So, Aimen, al-Qaeda didn't have to come to Syria. Sure. Certainly, Bashar al-Assad didn't have to respond the way he did. But now, what is it, seven years later, is it safe to say Bashar al-Assad, despite being the asshole that he is, has won the war and will be on his throne in Damascus for the time being?

Aimen Dean No. If this is winning, what is losing? Seven hundred thousand people dead. Thirteen million people displaced. The entire country ravaged, destroyed. The infrastructure is non-existent. It will cost $500 billion, half a trillion dollars, to rebuild the whole thing. If this is winning, God knows what losing is. 

Thomas Small But he's in power. 

Aimen Dean Well, at what cost and at what price? And the question is: Maybe he won the war, can he win the peace? Because why? Still, a quarter of the country is in the hands of the Kurds, and they are not going to play ball with him. They are not going to give up the sovereignty, the sovereignty they had won. One quarter of the entire Syrian territory is in the hands of the YPG, the Kurds who fought so hard against ISIS onslaught, the massacres that ISIS has committed against them, and the enslavement of many as eighty women among them. 

So, do you think they will just roll over and give up everything they have? Because, basically, Assad was repressing the Kurds also. Denying them their language. Denying them—. Denying three million of them citizenship, even. So, now that they have been empowered, they have an army almost the size of two hundred thousand fighter, do you think they are going to give all this up and go back to being subservient to Assad? 

Thomas Small So, what you're really saying is the war is not over.

Aimen Dean No.

Thomas Small It's too early to declare a victor. 

Aimen Dean No. This is why I would say, basically, that Assad has won back about seventy per cent of the territory, because twenty-five per cent is in the hands of the Kurds and five per cent still in the hands of al-Qaeda and their allies in Idlib. So, we are not there yet. Because don't forget three and a half million people live under al-Qaeda's rule in Idlib and other jihadist groups and roughly another three to three-and-a-half million live under the rule of the Kurds. Everything that is basically east – north of the Euphrates is under the hands of the Kurds. So, the idea that he won, well—. And don't forget he won the war, but with the help of so many foreign mercenaries. One day, they have to go back. Their salaries are just draining the Iranian and Syrian coffers. One day, they will have to go back to their families and homelands. And then, Assad will not have enough manpower to control even the territories that he has won.

Thomas Small Aimen, you say that Bashar al-Assad's military strength has relied almost entirely on mercenaries for a while now, mercenaries who will eventually return home. Of course, al-Qaeda militants and other Sunni jihadist militants, they also have a tendency, eventually, to return home, which is what we're going to be talking about in the next podcast. What is the world to do about the phenomenon of jihadists, battle-hardened, ideologically-committed jihadists returning home? 

This episode of Conflicted was produced by Jake Warren and Sandra Ferrari. Original music by Matt Huxley. If you want to hear more of Conflicted, make sure you search for us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you download yours.