Dr. Nader Hashemi:

I am glad Deputy Crowe mentioned Kobani because we often hear there is no military solution to the crisis in Syria, only a political solution. I am of a different view. In my view there needs to be a political solution but a political solution can only be arrived at if we have a military component to it. Kobani is a perfect test case for that. To say that there is no military solution to Syria is basically to abandon the people of Kobani to the ISIS fighters. Kobani has been effectively saved in the past few weeks because of the significant support that has been given to it as a result of US air strikes, sending in Kurdish fighters and drops of armaments. That has shifted the tide.

When we started looking at this particular city, it looked as if it was about to fall but because of significant military support, the tide of the war has shifted and things look much better for the people of Kobani. I think that particular model needs to be applied in other parts of Syria as a way of pressuring the Assad regime to come to the negotiating table. President Assad is not going to come to the negotiating table and negotiate anything unless he is forced to do so. I think that is the broader model. That is what the French proposal was all about. It is not something I am coming up with, the French Foreign Minister has a military-political plan for Kobani on the table right now.

With respect to Turkey's role, it has conflicting roles in the region. It has its own Kurdish minority problem. It also has a broader regional set of interests. Turkey has been trying to leverage its geographic position to get the US to commit to a much more serious long-term political plan for the future of Syria. Turkey effectively told the Obama Administration that it would come to the rescue of the people of Kobani on the condition that the US would agree to a no fly zone and for the US to go after the Assad regime and do what should have been done some three and a half years ago. President Obama for reasons that we can talk about, has been very reluctant to get into a deeper engagement with respect to dealing with the political solution in Syria. In my view that has to do with the negotiations that are going on with Iran. We can talk about that, should the Deputy wish to do so.

Turkey's position is that of a regional power. I am of the view that there will not be a solution to Syria unless Turkey is brought on broad. We have to consider Turkey's geographical position and its relationship with Western countries. Turkey is destined to play an important role. Turkey has to be part of the broader solution in terms of how we solve this broader crisis of ISIS. To ignore Turkey is to make the ISIS crisis much more difficult.