Bashar al-Assad has been President of Syria since 2000. His time in power has been overshadowed by a dreadful civil war that started in Syria in 2011 and is still ongoing.  Bashar has attracted both the ire and the support of various international powers, with the Western alliance putting increasing pressure on regime to make concessions to the Opposition, but Vladimir Putin’s Russia seeking to gain leverage in the Middle East by keeping Assad in place. In doing so, Putin was successful; Assad is still in power in Syria, though his regime is a shadow of its former self. 

You’ll notice that this is one of two episodes I’ve put out this weekend, the other being on North Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski. The reason I have decided to pair these episodes is because they show, in different ways and with different results, the consequences of the West neglecting people on the edges of their sphere on influence. 

Whilst this neglect has had visibly worse effects for Syria than for North Macedonia, there are clear similarities in the way the Western alliance looked at Syria in the first half of the last decade, and the way in which the EU is taking North Macedonia for fools, so please do listen to that one, too. 

My guest thinks it could have; he is Jihad Yazigi (@jihadyazigi), Editor in Chief of the Syria Report, and visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.