Alex Andreou talks to former diplomat and host of the Behind The Lines podcast, Arthur Snell, to try and construct some order out of the recent chaos in Syria. Who are the good guys? What does this mean for Israel? How exposed is Iran? Is it an opportunity for the Kurds to carve out a state? What is Türkiye's agenda? How does this impact Russia and Putin in both practical and reputational terms? What is next for Assad?

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“Who can rebuild a country, after a devastating civil war, while also rebuilding its society? That expertise might not exist. But it seems that, if people feel that they have ownership and that they’re not being manipulated by outside forces, there’s a higher chance of this thing going better.”

“If you look at how HTS ruled in Idlib - which became a considerable mini-state, because a lot of Syrians were displaced there, so it ended up with 4.5m people living there - it was a dictatorship, but not in the business of chemical weapons or cleansing, and more recently they have allowed other minorities to practice their faith and have a measure of rights.”

“I think we have to accept that the different bits of Syria that are under different groups’ control, are very unlikely to want now suddenly to be under the control of Damascus again - particularly the Kurds who have a pretty organised setup in the Northeast. So, one would hope that the pragmatism we’ve seen so far from HTS and Julani, that has seen him go on this journey from full-blooded islamist to something a bit more open-minded, might extend to saying: Syria doesn’t work very well as a centralised state and actually you need a measure of federalism and particularism.”

“What happens when people go back home and someone else is living in their house? What happens to teenagers of fourteen and fifteen years of age who have never been to Syria? They were born in refugee camps and that is all they know. How do all those returning integrate back ‘home’?”

"It is a reminder that Russia doesn't always win. It's an important psychological point for all those who, rightly, fear Russian encroachment, that Russia doesn't always get its way and can be overextended, like everyone else."

BEHIND THE LINES PODCAST

The latest episode of Arthur's podcast is here.

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With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global.

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