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Speaker 1: People in Syria waking up right now to a completely

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Speaker 1: different and changed country. They're celebrating the fall of its

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Speaker 1: longtime president, Basher Alissad, who has fled to Russia. He's

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Speaker 1: now basically an asylum seeker in Moscow. And there are

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Speaker 1: emotional scenes coming out of one of the country's most

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Speaker 1: notorious prisons where prisoners have been freed, their families reunited.

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Speaker 1: Robert Ford was the US ambassador to Syria, and he

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Speaker 1: joins us now, great having you on the program.

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Speaker 2: It's my pleasure to be with you.

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Speaker 1: Let's start with how quickly this happened? How did we

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Speaker 1: not see it coming?

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Speaker 2: I think because the Syrian Civil War had greatly diminished

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Speaker 2: levels of violence and the lines of control didn't change much,

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Speaker 2: and Oasad controlled all of the major cities, and the

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Speaker 2: opposition was making no significant gains on the ground over

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Speaker 2: a period of years. So it just appeared that the

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Speaker 2: civil war bit by bit was winding out.

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Speaker 1: And yet we say he was in control of these areas.

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Speaker 1: He clearly wasn't.

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Speaker 2: Well. I think in a sense he was, but his

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Speaker 2: control was very brittle, and so when pushed, that is

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Speaker 2: to say, like when a serious armed opposition attack came,

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Speaker 2: his soldiers didn't stand and fight. Instead, they ran away.

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Speaker 1: Biden, it seems to be taking some form of credit

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Speaker 1: for what's happened there, saying that the US strategy on

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Speaker 1: Russia and Iran is having an effect to you.

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Speaker 2: By that, no, it's in it, well, I should I

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Speaker 2: shouldn't be so category. The Americans were not helping Ukraine

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Speaker 2: in it any way because of Syria. It's sort of

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Speaker 2: a happy coincidence that it worked out that way by product.

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Speaker 2: And similarly, when the Israelis really bloodied his ballah in Lebanon,

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Speaker 2: they weren't doing it because of Syrians or to help

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Speaker 2: Syrians get rid of an awful, brutal dictator. The Israelis

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Speaker 2: kind of bloodied his bulla of years earlier, if that's

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Speaker 2: what they were interested in. Instead, it's just a happy

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Speaker 2: coincidence out of what was going on in the Lebanon War,

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Speaker 2: which in itself was connected to Kasa.

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Speaker 1: You've lived here between two thousand and eleven twenty twelve,

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Speaker 1: before the embassy was closed, that the US embassy was closed,

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Speaker 1: you were the US ambassador to Syria. What happens next?

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Speaker 1: We've seen when dictators fall, like you know, saddamu Sain

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Speaker 1: in Iraq. What happens afterwards? What do you think is

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Speaker 1: going to happen next?

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Speaker 2: I know what I hope, which is that the armed

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Speaker 2: opposition factions and the political groups that are behind them

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Speaker 2: will come together in some kind of a broad coalition

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Speaker 2: government and as a transitional government and be able to

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Speaker 2: rule the country, perhaps with something like a ruling counselor

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Speaker 2: or a ruling a trio or I don't know what.

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Speaker 2: The Syrians are going to have to work that out.

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Speaker 2: My worry, of course, is that instead of coming together

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Speaker 2: in an inclusive coalition, they'll start fighting each other now

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Speaker 2: that they no longer have a common enemy. And that's

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Speaker 2: that would be something closer to example Libya.

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Speaker 1: And that's not something we want to repeat. Robert Ford,

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Speaker 1: thank you very much for your time. Robert Ford was

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Speaker 1: the US ambassador to Syria. He was there from twenty

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Speaker 1: eleven until the embassy was closed, as you heard me

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Speaker 1: say in twenty twelve. Continued as ambassador, though in absentia,

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Speaker 1: until twenty fourteen. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,

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