>>Good morning an welcome to Global Perspectives.

I'm David Dumke.

Here in studio we are joined by Owen Kirby who is a veteran Middle East expert who has worked with the State Department, USAID, International Republican Institute, and currently is a nonresident fellow for the University of Central Florida's Global Perspectives program.

Welcome to the show, Owen.

>>David, thank you very much.

Pleasure to be here.

>>You've recently been on a trip, a fact finding trip to Syria, which you were reporting to to Congress on the conditions there.

What's going on in Syria right now?

This is a country that has been at civil war since 2014.

You saw Bashar al Assad fall from power in December.

What's going on in the ground today?

>>It's a - David, it's really a mixed bag.

On the one hand, there's tremendous optimism, huge expectations in the country that things will improve, particularly in the wake of, President Trump's lifting of sanctions both on the country but also on Ahmed al-Sharaa the current president.

But it's a it's a country that's really divided.

It's a tale of two countries, as I was discussing yesterday with you, on the one hand, you have former regime controlled territories that didn't suffer as much the brunt of the conflict over the past decad plus decade and a half, almost.

And then you have the parts of the country that seriously were devastated by the Civil War.

50% of the population was displaced.

Half of that displacement, was to refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan and Turkey.

And then, of course, the migrant flo or refugee flow up into Europe.

You have decimated infrastructure, real lack of housing stock for any refugees or displaced to come back to.

So it's a it's a, you know, very fragile situation.

And not only the infrastructure and the humanitarian issues, you still have ongoing tensions on the periphery.

You have the Kurds in the northeast who are existing today under a U.S.

military security blanket.

You have the Alawites on the coast, the former sort of, you know, the bedrock or the of the Assad regime.

And in the South, you have Arab tribes and you have Druze, a Shia offshoot.

These are all sources of, of of tension in the country.

And of course, you have plenty of spoilers both inside and outside.

The Russians and the Turks, of course, have their issue and their allies in the country.

Israel is involved in support of the Druze in the south.

So it's a real tinder keg.

And at the moment there's an absence of, I think, effective international engagement.

>>So let me ask you, who is Ahmed al-Sharaa?

This this leader who has emerged from the rubble of Syria and is now currently the head of the government.

So to speak.

>>I mean, I think if we were to take the sort of PR campaig that he's been on for the past 5 or 6 months at face value, he looks like a moderate Islamic, political figure, perhaps not unlike President Erdogan in Turkey.

I think the reality is he is a militia leader.

He is someone who spent time, I think it was in the Boka prison in Iraq.

He was one of many, foreign jihadis who entered Iraq after the US invasion.

And he ended up in a in a US, prison there.

He returned to, to Syria after being released or escaping.

I forget which on it was from, from that prison.

And he joined the uprising against Bashar al-Assad.

So for the past I mean, for almost entire life, his professional life, at least, he's been a militia leader and a fighter.

And of course, his his party was an affiliate of al-Qaida, a publicly declared branch of al-Qaida in Syria.

So today, he wears a suit.

His beard is a little trimmed, but I think he scratched the surface.

You still have someone who is schooled and who has roots in that ideology.

And that way of thinking.

>>So it's fair to say it remains to be see where his long term trajectory as a political leader as opposed to a militia leader.

>>Yeah.

Of course.

I mean, you know, he seems to be very pragmatic from what I hear.

I mean, I did not meet with him, but from those who I've spoken with and who I met in Syria who have dealt with him directly.

They say he listens.

He listens carefully.

He, he has he's a little more open, perhaps, than people expected of him.

But at the same time, he is surrounded by some hardcore jihadist tendencies.

I mean, his troops were not what the the troops in under him that took Damascus back in December weren't a homogenous entity.

It included a lot of foreign fighters, Chechens, Afghans, Uighurs.

This is a very mixed bag.

These are global jihadists.

They have now been, for the most part, absorbed into the you, into the new Syrian Army.

There are no countries that want to take them, their home countries, of course, are not interested in seeing them return.

So he is not fully in control of, you know, the system that he has now established.

>>So the president - Syria was subject, of course, to heavy sanctions from for that was a legacy from the Assad regime and the nature of the civil war there, which was very, very brutal.

You suddenly saw the Donald Trump lift the sanctions early this yea and meet with Ahmed al-Sharaa.

How did that happen?

And and what does that mean for U.S.

policy toward Syria?

>>This is a very good question.

I thin if you were an outside observer, I think if you're even sitting in the US State Department, the announcement, the lifting of sanctions, which occurred when President Trump was on a trip to the Gulf, he was in Saudi Arabia.

It came as a surprise.

The US had conditioned any discussion of the lifting of sanctions on a number of things, obviously, respect for human rights and respect for minorities and the expulsion of the foreign fighters.

These things did not happen.

They did not occur prior to that.

Conditions were not met prior to the announcement of the lifting of sanctions.

By all accounts, even President Trump's own admission.

This was in return to, you know, this is in response to a request from Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Took a lot of people by surprise.

There is no plan in place behind it.

And I think, the U.S.

government is still scrambling to figure out how to implement both the lifting of the sanctions.

But any form of form of assistance or response to these moves.

>>You've had, of course, some some members of Congress and others kind of go through UN and other fact-finding missions and kind of at least creating dialog.

But I guess getting bac to the point of what is the U.S.

want out of Syria?

You were in a chaotic series in a chaotic neighborhood right now.

You have a war going on in Gaza.

The West Bank is very unsettled.

Bombings in Lebanon, Iraq is hardly a beacon of stability given things going on.

So what does the U.S.

want from Syria?

>>Stability.

You know, this is not this is no longer the sort of the freedom agenda era.

This is not the the you know, the period of George Bush's freedom agenda which, of course, I'm familiar with.

This is a different time.

The U.S.

is overextended across the world.

Obviously, resources are limited for us to fully engage.

So bottom line, we we want stability.

It's not about democracy building or promotion.

It's about stabilizing Syria, which, of course, has been a source of instability in the region for some time.

What that will look like at the end of the day, I don't know, people talk about federation but I don't believe that the Civil War and the uprising agains the Assad regime was undertaken for feder-- you know, for some sort of decentralized or federated system.

So if we have stability, if we have Syria, no longer an exporter or promoter of instability or terrorism in the region, then I think that's a net plus for everyone.

>>Is it likely to be stabl though you you yourself had said when you visited how devastated it was.

There's been estimates of just how unbelievable the devastation is.

A moonscape is how it's most frequently described.

So you're talking about a long period of economic reform efforts and kind of building needs to take place before there's at least a minimal economy that can stabilize the situation.

What can be don realistically in this situation?

>>Yeah.

I mean, you know, honestly, the lifting of sanctions is not sufficient.

The lifting of sanctions hopefully will lead to inward investment, direct foreign investment.

Just in the past week alone, we've seen the announcement of several large infrastructure projects, mainly backed by the Emirates countries and the Saudis.

But it's not sufficient.

This is going to take that sort of trickle down economic benefit.

It's going to take a long time to realize the needs of the average person.

To stabilize the country today, we need, or Syria needs, frankly, a concerted effor by the international community, assuming that the international community wants to stabilize the country to.

You know, to extend benefits, you know, services to the public.

The estimates right now for total reconstruction of the country are upwards of a trillion dollars.

So this is this mone is not going to come overnight.

There's probably a limit to what the Gulf is going to inves in stabilization of the country.

So I think the West, the led by the US, needs to look at what it's going to take to stabilize, to reconcile and rebuild.

>>So even if the West was going to do that and start investing, the situation on the ground itself, you're describing Syria with different pocket of Alawites and Druze and Kurds and Muslims of different variety, both Shia and Sunni, as well as Christians and and even a small Jewish population.

>>That's correct.

>>How does this culture survive in this interim period?

>>Yeah.

Previously, I mean, the uprising was against the Assad regime.

The initial peaceful protests in 2011 were for reform, for change not the overthrow of the regime.

When the regime responded with violence.

Then the protests became weaponized and militarized.

Today, with Assad gone and an al-Qaida ish entity replacing it, the prospects I think of much more sectarian divisions in the country coming to the fore are not insignificant.

The Alawites, the Druze, the Kurds, they look Christians even look very suspiciously or warily at this new government, given its origin within the al-Qaida, ideology.

So the the Ahmed al-Sharaa the president is saying a lot of good things.

But again, going back to his origins ideologically, militarily, there's a lot of distrust in the country.

And this, I think, makes those communities which are most vulnerable also susceptible to outside interference and spoilers.

>>So the situation between Syria and Israel, this is a relationship that really has been and war footing for decades.

But of course, it's changed in recent months since you had this new government come to power, if you will, or at least assume power.

Maybe that's a better, better term for it.

But you have a lot of bombing, and some of it is involving the areas that are under Druze, Druze control.

The Jewish population is majority.

How is Israel play into Syria?

And how is kind of that dynamic of the conflict between Syria and Israel changed here in the last couple of years?

>>Yeah, I mean, during the Assad era, which was 50 odd years, there was a certain modu operandi on the border, certain, stability, let's say that stability, of course, that that old understandin and arrangement has been upset.

It's been turned on its head.

You know, we spoke about the Druze and the Kurds and Christians and Alawites inside Syria looking, you know, warily at the new regime.

You can only imagine how Israel is viewing the new regime.

I don't think Israel at the moment is willing to give too much of the benefit of the doubt to a regime that stems from, you know, al-Qaida ideology.

So they're very, very wary and concerned about troops, the new Syrian army deploying to the near the Golan Heights o into the south of the country.

So they've established a broader security buffer, let's say, in the south of the country.

And given that the Druz population was divided between Syria, Israel and Lebanon during the post-World War One, carving up, of the region, Israel has an interest, obviously, you the, the Druze community in Israel serves in the military.

And of course, is very concerned itself.

It has members of in the Knesset and they're concerned about their, their, you know, their comrades, in the south of Syri and what they're dealing with.

Obviously in the last month or so, we saw not only just tensions, but outright conflict between the new Syrian Army and the Druze community and the Druze community i Israel is concerned about that.

And that gives a certain justification for Israel to expand its operations.

>>You your last the last job you held in government was was heading the Office of Transition Initiatives at the at the at USAID, which is that office does not exist anymore.

>>Correct?

>>That's correct.

And there's been obviously a lot of cuts to State Department and diplomatic corp and USAID as an entire entity.

Does the United States have the tools it needs to deal with a situation like Syria right now?

>>I think the US government could regenerate or revive those tools if it saw fit.

The resources still exist somewhere.

But but sadly, the the architecture in this, in the systems, that were in place USAID, my old office OTI within USAID, these have been dismantled and the staff have all been, let's say retired.

So it's it's not an ideal time if you're a U.S.

diplomat in the region and you're tasked with addressing either the situation in Syria today or the situation in Lebanon which I both of which I consider historic opportunities to try to resolve, you know, historic tensions and conflicts.

But the tools are absent.

The tools have been dismantled.

So it's a it's a tremendous challenge, I think, for the U.S., but I, I don't think there's, any other option but to try to revive these assets, revive these tools and to deploy them effectively.

>>You've spent most of your professional caree working on Middle East issues.

Obviously, Syria and Lebanon, as well as Palestine, Israel, some in Egypt, Iraq, you you were you you did quite a bit of work there.

And a lot of that effort, especially during the George W Bush administration.

But but in other administrations, too, was promoting democracy in one way or another.

And human rights and some of that, some of that nature.

Looking back on i now, it's clear that the United States is not promoting those things at the moment.

Should they be?

And how do you judge the success or failures of those efforts in previous administrations?

>>I mean, I think the strength of, you know, the U.S.

diplomatically abroad has been historically the fact that it was, you know for much of the post-World War Two period, tethered to ideals, tethered to democracy and human rights, even if we weren't outwardly and aggressively pushing for or pursuing them, as was the case, perhaps during the the administration of George W Bush, at least our, you know, the US was seen as both an exemplar and a guarantor.

Of certain universal values and principles.

Today.

It's, that may not be the the image that we're, you know, we're projecting.

It may not be driving our foreign policy anymore.

I think we should be, of course.

I think the world is still looking to the United States to be, you know, at the vanguard of, at least supporting if morally, if nothing else, the certain values we can critique the approaches of variou administrations over the years, particularly starting from th administration of George W Bush, but no doubt, U.S., the U.S.

vision and posture globally was strengthened by that alignment with universal values.

International laws, international treaties.

That's no longer the case today, sadly, or at least that situation is diminishing.

>>Can you think of examples where American assistance, whether it's military or economi or otherwise, was very effective in the Middle East that you saw and examples where it wasn't effective?

>>Can we expand this and look, look globally?

>>Sure.

Yeah, sure.

>>I mean, I've been asked this question before and and I think many people have had the examples of I think Iraq and Afghanistan seem to shade, you know, the U.S.

experience in, in track record.

But obviously, if you look at the post-World War Two period, you look at Japan, you look at South Korea, you look at, Western Europe, then fast forward.

You look at, you know, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union and U.S.

assistance to former Warsaw, bloc countries, successful and it was a two way street.

And most of these instances, you had both countries and populations that were eage to embrace the West and Western values and Western culture and Western political ideals.

Unfortunately, in the Middle East, particularl after the invasion, after 9/11, you didn't have you didn't hav populations that had been free or freed to consider what they wanted for their own countries.

And yet the United States approached those countries and pushed a vision for them that perhaps they weren't ready for, or at the very least, the countries hadn't come to consensus around.

If you look at Eastern Europe, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, you had a population that maybe without a lot of thought, they at least wanted to embrace the West.

They were familiar with it.

They could see it.

They shared certain cultural antecedents and affinities.

The Middle East is not had that period of of peace and stability, where populations and governments together can consider like what is it we want?

What is our vision for the future?

And in came America with here's your vision, take it.

And obviously it was not successful.

>>So if that effort by the United States was not successful and you were talking earlier in the case of Syria about outside actors being involved and this isn't just in Syria's, in most of the countries in the region, there's always been outside actors and involved for the economic reasons of oil and energy politics, as well as the reasons the crossroads of the world always, always has been.

Do you se that without kind of clear U.S.

leadership in regional affairs even if they weren't successful at least there was leadership there without U.S.

involvement to the same extent today.

Is there a vacuum in the region and who will fill that if so?

>>I think, you know, over the past decade, decade and a half, as we've seen sort of the retrenchment by the United States, the retreat from the United States for for a host of reasons, some of them, you know, driven by us, US population's own sort of frustrations with th the expenditure, the the waste or of treasure and blood in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It was natural, I think, for the for the American population to want to see a refocus on nation building here in the United States.

So the region was left, to a large extent and again, since 2010, to deal with its own problems.

So the lack in, in, in that in the, in the lack of U.S.

leadership, US sort of, protection of this strategic framework on security and stability.

Countries in the region pursued their own agendas.

So when Syria collapsed, you could you know, you'd look at who was backing which, which militias, who was backing, which would be political leaders, opposition leaders.

And there wasn't consensus.

There wasn't one way.

You look at Libya with Turkey and Qatar supporting the the internationally recognized government in Tripoli, but Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates supporting the state based in Benghazi, so there isn't one agreed upon consensual sort of framework anymore.

You have multiple frameworks, multiple agendas.

And I think we see the results.

We see Yemen no longer functioning state.

Libya is not a functioning state.

Syria.

It's too early to tell.

Iraq has its own problems.

And so the U.S.

retreat has allowed other players to come into the vacuum and try to impose their own sort of vision on what the the Middle East or the future the Middle East should look like.

>>Looking at.

Has the U.S.

had a coherent does the U.S.

have a coherent strategy now, or is it just kind of cautious retreat and limited engagement?

>>Well, I think we should be straight that whateve we're looking at in the region today in terms of the U.S.

posture, the U.S.

interests, the the resources w that are being brought to bear.

It's not it's not new policy.

It's a continuation of old policy.

Policy, perhaps that I would say started with the Obama administration as a response to the foreve wars of the Bush administration and the freedom-- >>Pivot to Asia.

>>Pivot to Asia.

Sure.

So from the Obama administration through the first Trump administration, the Biden administration, the policies, and to the current administration, the policy has been fairly consistent.

We've reduced our level of engagement, we've reduced our resources.

We reduced our objectives.

I think stability and maintaining the status quo has become the polic in the Middle East over the past decade and a half, and we're there today.

It's no different.

>>So we we look at this region today.

And you were describing some of some of the countries with different problems, and you didn't it was not a that wasn't the end of the list.

You also have Yemen.

You have Iran recently go, you know, going going through change are likely to go through more.

You have Sudan, you have Egypt with some economic problems.

You have obviously what's going on with Israel and Palestine right now.

Is there any reason for optimism in this region as you look forward, say ten years?

What what pillars could come?

What pillar, what could be the key pillars to a more stable, area in the future?

>>I mean, I think effective international engagement, that is looking at proper development and, and partnership, whether it's trade, It's educational exchange.

I mean, there's a whole host o of opportunities in the region.

It's a it's a young population, 70% or more of the population across the region is under the age of, of 35.

They're clued in to the, you know, the what's happening, the global developments.

I mean, one of the things I heard when I was in Syria this past May is this young people I spoke to met with the young population who feels like they've been left behind, that under Assad, they have been they've left, they've lost opportunities.

They've been left out of, global changes economically, you know technologically, educationally.

And they're eager to embrace it.

And, you know, funnily enough, the United States is held in high regard right now by the Syrian population, the Syrian population, particularly after Trump's announcement of lifting of sanctions, is looking towards the United States to help.

And this is kind o a unique situation for the U.S.

to find itself in a region where you have a populatio that wants to embrace the U.S.

and wants to be a partner, and we just need to we need t respond effectively and smartly.

This is one of the, you know, sort of the dilemmas today when you when you advocate engagement with Syria, it makes people think, oh you mean along the lines of Iraq and Afghanistan?

No.

>>Nation building.

>>Nation building.

No, no.

Syria doesn't need nation building.

It needs help.

The Syrian people need help.

Lebanon doesn't need U.S.

intervention and nation building there.

These are old proud.

These are old nations.

These are civilizations and they're proud.

And they just need our help.

But unfortunately, the timing of these historic changes in Syria and Lebanon have occurred at a time when the United States is retreating even further from its from global engagement, at a time when the, you know, the architecture of post-World War Two, you know, whether it's a Marshall plan or, or, you know, similar that architecture of support and assistance not to impos but to help has been dismantled.

So it we're really in a bind.

But there's tremendous opportunity in the region.

>>Owen Kirby.

Thank you so much for joinin and sharing your observations.

>>Thank you so much.

>>And thank you for joining us.

We'll see you again next week on another episode of Global Perspectives.