I was detained by Assad’s secret police, but I have no time for Syria’s rebels

The Syrian civil war that the world had tried to hope away and forget has again erupted into international headlines. And the West will, again, seek to find one side to praise and support.

In 2011, as the civil war emerged from a series of violent convulsions of predominantly Sunni Syrians pushed beyond endurance by Assad’s murderous regime, I travelled from Baghdad to the Kurdish regions to better understand the dynamics of the conflict. At the time, I was an Australian diplomat, working as the deputy head of mission in Iraq.

Syrian President Bashar Assad.Credit: AP

What I found reminded me of the song by The Clash. Assad – if he stays there will be trouble; if he goes it could be double. I had no sympathy for Assad’s regime, having been briefly detained and questioned by Assad’s secret police in 2006 while travelling privately around Syria, but personal prejudices had to be weighed with an appreciation for the complexity of the conflict.

What quickly became clear is that Syria and its conflict is a mosaic of combatants rather than a dichotomy of good versus evil. Loyalties usually reflect a person’s religion or ethnicity. The Sunnis hate the Iran-aligned Assad regime; Assad himself is the inheritor of atrocities by his father’s regime against the Sunni, including the destruction of Hama and slaughter of many of its inhabitants in 1982; the Kurds want an autonomous homeland; and the Turkmen are no friends to Assad or extremist Sunnis.

Imposed upon this conflict of ingrained animosity and multiple combatants is the geostrategic game of external parties who seek advantage and/or defend their interests. The list is long, and that is just for those publicly declared to be involved: Russia supports Assad, is happy to frustrate the US, gain access to a Mediterranean port, and strengthen bonds with Iran; Turkey wants to block an independent Kurdish state that may support Kurdish aspirations in Turkey and support ethnic Turks. Qatar and Saudi Arabia support the Sunni rebels, and were famously backers of hardline Sunni insurgents at the beginning of the war who morphed into Islamic State; Israel would like to help all parties to lose in a protracted stalemate; and the US is anti-Assad, anti-Sunni fundamentalists, cautious of Kurdish aspirations and passingly mindful of the role of Turkmen.

Three-dimensional chess played at speed and with malice. But wait, there’s more …

Joe Biden learnt from Barack Obama the danger of declaring red lines in a conflict sparse of wholesome heroes, and accordingly studiously avoided meaningful engagement. However, a new administration under Donald Trump is poised to seize control of Washington, and the longstanding shibboleths of US administrations that have guided US paralysis may be thrown to the wind.

Take, for example, Tulsi Gabbard – picked by President-elect Trump as director of national intelligence. Gabbard travelled to Syria in 2017 and met Assad, and has subsequently said Assad is “not an enemy of the United States” because it does not pose a direct threat to the US. Further, she has reportedly opposed conflict with Syria and Iran, urged the removal of US forces from Syria, and warned against Turkish aggression against the Kurds in Syria.

Gabbard seems to reflect not just a loss of continuity in Washington’s thinking on Syria, but rather its complete inversion.

Then there is Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defence. US House Speaker Mike Johnson declared Hegseth “brings a fresh perspective to a Pentagon that has lost sight of its mission …” That might normally be an expected platitude by the speaker talking up the excitement of a new administration, but in this case, it is likely an understatement of significant proportions.

Hegseth, as a media commentator, has been frank with his views, from questioning why the US funds “the anti-American UN”, to disputing the appropriateness of Turkey’s inclusion in NATO. He further argues that, rather than complying with the Vienna Conventions governing the conduct of conflict, the US military should be “ruthless”, “uncompromising” and “winning our wars according to our own rules”.

Any one of these statements would be a matter of concern. Collectively, Hegseth’s views should alarm America and its allies. On Syria, his declaration that “if you love America, you should love Israel” perhaps gives insight to the prism through which Hegseth will view the conflict. In that case, assisted stalemate in Syria may be his preferred outcome.

For now, observers may think they can view the conflict in Syria through a telescope – safely at a distance, with the subject capable of detailed observation enabling confident prediction. However, it is more likely that the instrument is not a telescope but a kaleidoscope. Rotate the tube and a new image comes into view, placing prediction on par with alchemy.

In 2006, as I backpacked through Syria, I stayed longer than planned in the ancient and important city of Aleppo, marvelling at the Umayyad Mosque, the Citadel and Souk. Now, Aleppo is again the scene of battle in a conflict seemingly incapable of humane resolution. It’s tragic.

David Livingstone is a former Australian diplomat and an international security and strategy specialist. He served as deputy head of mission in Iraq between 2011 and 2012.