Why Syria Still Matters and Why Assad is Still There (Transcript)

Dr Lina Khatib, Director, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham, Jeremy Bowen (Middle East Editor, BBC News) give a talk on Syria and it's current political situation. Chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan (St Antony's College, Oxford). After nine years of civil war, the prospects for regime change in Syria seem more remote than ever. Its society dispersed and its economy shattered, Syria remains a central state in the Middle East. Regional stability cannot be restored while Syria’s conflict rages, yet the gulf separating the warring sides seems unbridgeable so long as Bashar al-Asad remains in power. In this webinar, Dr Lina Khatib, Director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House, and Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East Editor, will discuss the contemporary struggle for Syria and Assad’s survival

Speaker biographies:

Jeremy Bowen (Middle East Editor, BBC News)

I have been with the BBC since 1984 and have reported extensively from the Middle East since 1990. For the purposes of this session on Syria - I did the last major interview of Bashar al Assad in 2015, the third time I interviewed him. I've done many reporting assignments in Syria before the war and since it started, on both sides of the front line. My reporting of the Syria war won various journalism awards, including interview of the year from the Royal Television Society for the Assad interview - also in the US I received an Emmy and a Peabody award for Syria reporting.

Dr Lina Khatib

Dr Lina Khatib leads the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. She was formerly director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut and co-founding Head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

Her research focuses on the international relations of the Middle East, Islamist groups and security, political transitions and foreign policy, with special attention to the Syrian conflict. She is a research associate at SOAS, was a senior research associate at the Arab Reform Initiative and lectured at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has published seven books and also written widely on public diplomacy, political communication and political participation in the Middle East. She is a frequent commentator on politics and security in the Middle East and North Africa at events around the world and in the media.