Dr. Thomas Pierret:

I thank members for their questions and will try to address as many as I can. I apologise if my expertise is such that I am better at answering certain of them than I am at addressing others. In giving my response, I will try to link certain issues together.

Several speakers referred to the role of the West, and there was reference to al-Qaeda, Islamists, suicide bombers and so on. In my view, Western policy on Syria was defined once and for all in the autumn of 2011, when we did not have a single visible Islamist fighter on the ground in Syria. In August of that year Assad was starting to use his military and it was obvious he was building towards the use of artillery in due course. The military opposition at that time consisted of small groups of military defectors; one did not see any Islamists around. At the same time, the NATO Secretary General and Ms Hillary Clinton were insisting there would not be any military intervention in Syria. That is a statement we heard every single week in the autumn of 2011 and it was a disastrous message to send to Assad at that time. He was being told, in effect, that he was free to do whatever he wanted, which is precisely what he had begun to do by late January 2012. The Islamist threat simply did not arise at that time and cannot now be used as an excuse by the West for its inaction. The policy was being defined very early on and was very clear by virtue of its contrast with what happened in Libya. There the message was that it was not acceptable for Gadaffi to use his military against rebel strongholds, whereas, in Syria, Assad was allowed to do exactly the same without suffering any type of retaliation.

Then we come to the famous red line.

The Vice Chairman spoke of the helplessness of the global community in dealing with this situation but we see that the only moment Assad agreed to change his policy was when faced with a credible military threat. It is the only thing that has worked so far. The only dramatic move he made since 2011 was under a very serious and credible military threat. Therefore, I do not think it is true to say we cannot do anything. If the same kind of threat was formulated with regard to barrel bombings, forced starvation and all of that, we could secure some resources.
That leads me to the dreaded issue of the Russian role and whether it is positive. I personally think, and this is strong wording, that the deal for chemical weapons was shameful. It removed the most dangerous weapon from the scene as far as we know but we have now heard of new chemical attacks and they seem real because they have been mentioned by both the opposition and regime media. Each side is blaming the other for the attacks. I have good reason to think that the regime is best placed to carry out chemical attacks. Apart from the fact that the implementation of the deal is perhaps not complete, it opened a period of several months during which Assad was given free rein to do absolutely anything he wanted and, I would even say, he was encouraged to do it for the simple reason that the military factories that produce chemical agents in Syria are located in the hinterland, mostly around Damascus and Aleppo. In order to transfer these weapons to the port of Latakia and have them destroyed, the regime had to secure the strategic roads linking the hinterland to the coast. That led to bloody battles that entailed forcing thousands out of their homes and barrel bombings of towns, which wiped certain towns off the map, all with some kind of beneficial blessing of the international community because that was necessary to implement the deal. It was very problematic. After that deal, we saw the implementation of the policy of starvation. The message sent out was very negative. The message was that as long as Assad got rid of Syria's chemical weapons he could do anything else, including starving the people. I am not that grateful to Russia for its role in that respect.
That leads me on to humanitarian measures, the issue of UN resolutions and the partial end to the siege of Homs. As was said by one of the members of the committee, the implementation of these measures is very limited for the simple reason that the implementation of these humanitarian measures for besieged areas remains much too heavily dependent on the regime's goodwill, which, in many places, is still preventing food from coming in. That is why I am personally in favour of a much more forceful approach such as humanitarian corridors that would be protected by UN military forces. With regard to some of the people who left the besieged areas in Homs a few weeks ago, males aged between 18 and 50 were arrested and some of them have disappeared. It is shameful that happened literally under the eyes of UN personnel.
I mentioned the issue of radical Islamists who were not there at the start of the conflict but who grew in strength throughout 2012 to a large extent by exploiting the helplessness of the international community. I remember when the organisation al-Nusra - the front of support - issued its first statement in January 2012. At the time it was a tiny network comprising a few dozen or a hundred people. It was a very minor complement of the armed opposition. Its first statement was very critical of the United states and Turkey and the reason for its criticism is complicated. I remember it was perceived extremely badly among the opposition at large, and not only by the moderate opposition. Most rebels found it ridiculous at the time to focus attacks on western countries when the real enemy was Assad and his allies and many rebels were still hoping they could get support from the West. These radical movements and their entire western discourse gradually took root because of that context and because of that feeling of abandonment by the international community.
What did the rebels do about it? The members will have heard about internal fighting among the rebels which are internal divisions among them and I think that is very good. The organisation being followed by the mainstream rebels, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, is essentially a destructive one which has its own agenda which has very little to do with the Syrian revolution. Its agenda is one of a murderous utopian dream of having an Islamic state across the border between Iraq and Syria with complete disregard for the basic aspirations of Syrians to have freedom and dignity. The regime it is trying to establish is certainly very harsh and repressive. One of the most dangerous things it was doing was that it was sealing off the country from the outside world. In 2012 a large number of Western reporters were coming into Syria and reporting from rebel controlled areas. That completely stopped in 2013 because any foreigner getting into Syria was abducted by this organisation which was consistently working against the interests of the opposition in that respect. At least this organisation has now been expelled from certain regions between north and western Syria and this has re-opened contact with Turkey. I think this is good.
Reference was made to a possible line of balance between Russia, Iran and western countries. I do not see that kind of balance there at the moment in the sense that the support provided by Russia and Iran is much more significant and dedicated than western support. With regard to the countries that support the opposition overall, we frequently hear about the rivalry between Qatar and Saudi Arabia - which are supporting the same people - and there are rivalries undermining the unity of the national coalition. That is well known. Western countries are not exactly on the same line as the Gulf countries. There are not the same divisions among the allies of the Assad regime. They have a very clear and well-defined objective. They want Assad to remain where he is and they are doing everything they can to achieve that. There is a major imbalance in the kind of support each side receives. To connect the issue of the transitional body, I do not think the transitional body is a way to achieve a solution. That is the final product but the question is how we get there. How do we get the parties to accept the establishment of a transitional body? I do not think it is a problem for the opposition, the political opposition, or even for significant elements of the military opposition. It is interesting that before the Geneva talks earlier this year, military groups were saying, "Do not go to Geneva; if you go there you will be traitors", but during the talks we had several rather encouraging statements by military organisations, including Islamist ones, but not radical jihadist ones, I suspect, encouraged in that respect by Qatar, which is not always playing a negative role.

We are not very enthusiastic about Geneva but if one can achieve something there that is okay. In that respect I do not think the problem is on the side of the opposition. There was a question of whether the opposition would agree to a deal with Assad but that would not be a deal or a compromise. One cannot have a compromise with Assad remaining in power. That would be total victory by Assad. The compromise in my view would be what was outlined in Geneva I, namely, a transitional body with elements of the former regime and elements of the opposition but not Assad remaining on top because that would not be a deal; that would be just a victory disguised as transition. The problem is that the regime is totally opposed to the idea of transition so I do not think we are getting anywhere close to that solution, which is why I am so pessimistic about diplomacy. I am sorry if I did not answer clearly. I do think that military options could be part of the solution. They would of course not solve everything. There would be many problems but if we want to break the stalemate and protect civilians it might force Assad and his allies - perhaps not Assad; I do not think he will ever change his calculation. He is in a bunker and he will remain in the bunker until the end but there are people in the region who I think would be ready to take a more flexible approach.

In the last days of August when everyone was expecting a strike against Syria I heard from western diplomats that many high-ranking officials in the regime were getting in touch with western governments seeking a way out because they thought the boat was sinking and that it was the time to leave it. Once they realised that the US was not serious about the threat they just back-tracked. They are people who have no affection for Assad. They know where he led the country but they make a very rational calculation. They think that if the regime is there to stay because no one is really serious about putting an end to it then they will stick with Assad because that is the safest option because they have families and interests in Syria.

I am looking for other issues I might not have addressed. Reference was made to Kurdish political forces. That is a tricky issue. The problem is that there was a Russian idea to have three kinds of groups of representatives of the opposition; one would be the national coalition which was backed by western and Gulf countries and Turkey; one would be what they called the internal opposition, which I think is not a very accurate term because its main figure lives in Paris, but to put it simply, it refers to the opposition that is acceptable from the point of view of the regime; the third group is Kurdish nationalists. The problem is that they would not be representative of all Kurds; it would be the dominant military force among the Kurds, which is called the PYD which has an armed branch called YPG. It is a group that has historically had relatively close ties to the regime, which is very powerful because it is linked to the PKK in Turkey which means it has weapons, training and credibility on the ground but there are other Kurdish groups which do not share that political approach and especially their readiness to co-operate with the regime. Kurds have the right to be represented in negotiations but the way the representation is designed must be very delicate and should be handled with the greatest care rather than serving the agenda of the regime.

There was a question about the regional impact and refugees. The Western approach was that perhaps it could not do much to solve the conflict but at least it could try to contain it. At least that was the US view. I am not generalising to include all western governments. That was misguided. The refugee crisis is one thing that clearly shows we cannot contain the conflict. It is good to help refugees in neighbouring countries but if the refugees keep flowing in and if we do not address the source of the problem it is hypocritical and eventually useless.

The kind of regional impact it can have varies widely from one country to another. I am not too concerned about a country like Turkey, which is a large and relatively wealthy country and can deal with an influx of refugees, but Lebanon, on the other hand, is a very worrying case. How can a country of 4 million remain stable with 1 million refugees, which is an insane number, and especially with all the political problems Lebanon has? It is reluctant to welcome refugees. There is a problem with sectarian violence in Lebanon. Pretty much all Syrian refugees are Sunni Muslims and that is an issue. In the 1940s when the Palestinians arrived in Lebanon that was already seen as a problem especially by Christian politicians at the time because it was creating an imbalance in the population and now one has this new even larger influx of Syrian refugees with no guarantee they will be able to go home any time soon because many of them come from regions especially around Homs where the regime is not at all eager to see them back. The situation in Lebanon is very worrying. Jordan is in between. It is not as unstable and does not have the same potential for ethnic or sectarian strife as Lebanon but at the same time it is a rather poor country with limited resources. One could ask how it could cope in terms of water supply with such a massive increase in population. I will stop at that point. I am happy to answer further questions.