Lawfare Daily: The State of Syria, with Charles Lister

On Friday, March 6, Laugh Fair and Georgetown Law are bringing together leading scholars,

practitioners, and former government officials for installing updates to ECPA, a half-day event on what's broken with the statute and how to fix it. The event is free and open to the public in person and online. Visit LaughFairMedia.org/EQPAEvent. That's LaughFairMedia.org/ECPAEvent for details and to register. Moment conflict moved into SDF core areas. The Arab tribes flipped in 12 hours and almost overnight.

75 to 80% of the SDF territory had flipped to government control almost without a bullet being fired. And that was kind of the death now in terms of the SDF being able to maintain itself as a

significant actor on the stage and it basically forced them into the integration agreement we see today.

It's the Laugh Fair podcast. I'm Scott R. Eberton. Here with Charles Lister, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. Does it make sense for American military bases to still be in SDF-controlled Northeastern Syria? Not very much. Does it make sense however that the US military and the intelligence community seek to invest in a more government-to-government relationship through Damascus to explore continuing to pursue shared interests. Yes.

“And that's what we're seeing. Today we're talking about the end of the US military presence in Syria.”

And what it says about the state of the country. So Charles, I think it's fair to say Syria has been through what might be the most dramatic 15 months that I can imagine in terms of a country's transformation. We went from the collapse of the Assad regime which had, you know, overseen, instigated, participated in a brutal civil war, brutal campaigns suppression in the country for over a decade. Collapse suddenly and unexpectedly in December of 2024. We see the resistance movement that pushed it aside,

set up a government that rapidly establishes a transitional government in March of 2025 that then gets a fair amount of international legitimacy. It's been several months getting degrees of recognition for the international community, establishing itself as transitional government, having normalization withdrawal of sanctions, re-engaging with the global economy, and working on internal reconciliation with some stops and starts.

Then earlier this year we saw a big obstacle come up in that front with the other big actor. I would say in Syria the Syrian Democratic Forces. That has now led to and apparently impending, and I should say, to the US security presence in the country that's been there for a better part, more than a decade at this point. So let's start by catching our listeners up to where we were at the beginning of the year before this kind of latest instigating conflict

“arose in January. Where was the transitional government in the state of Syria at the end of 2025?”

And what were the big outstanding questions and challenges that were still facing it?

Well, I mean, in terms of challenges, a million and one, and the list will continue,

Syria after 14 years of civil conflict, brutal civil conflict, and more than 50 years of rule by the Assad Dynasty has faces immeasurable challenges. But at the end of 2025, I mean, first year of the transition, 2025 was I think what I would sort of loosely term the year of Syria is kind of coming out from the cold. Foreign policy was clearly the foremost priority for the very fragile transitional government, getting Syria back onto the international stage, as you say,

re-acquiring a semblance of international legitimacy, trying to reintegrate into the global economy through sanctions removal. And I think, you know, by and large, that was mostly accomplished. I mean, in fact, it was accomplished far more so than any of us would have expected when, you know, Ahmad Al-Shara, former Al-Qaeda commander named himself transitional president. I don't think anyone would have imagined that within 12 months Syria would be where it was on

the international stage with over-office meetings and addresses to the UN General Assembly and

“everything else. So I think, I think having accomplished that, Syria went into the beginning of”

2026, knowing that it was going to need to focus much more inwardly on all of its domestic issues. And that's where this issue of the SDF was a particular challenge. It's also where, frankly, 2026 is going to be, in my view, the year of the economy. If Syria cannot prove to its people that it's going to get the economy back onto its feet, it's going to face increasing protests and instability as a result of the persistent humanitarian crisis, you know,

nearly 90% of the population still live under the poverty line in Syria today. So the removal

that towards the end of the year, once all of those foreign policy accomplishments had been achieved

“and sort of consolidated and Syria and its unusual government felt secure in that new status.”

It sought to resolve some of those internal issues. One being, yes, the economy back to being much more sensitive issues like the SDF, which controlled at that point 25% of the country, about 80% of Syria's natural assets and natural resources, significant border crossings with neighbouring countries and was very much clearly seen as an issue that needed to be resolved. And so I'll close out this long answer by saying, in 2025, there was a process of US mediator talks between

the Syrian government and the SDF aimed at peacefully resolving this issue by peacefully and sort of diplomatically integrating the SDF into the state. Long, long, long, very complicated story short,

those US mediator talks never resulted in an agreement being implemented and I emphasize that latter

part because in October last year there was an agreement made around a table with US officials and, in fact, French officials on the other side of the table. But for a number of reasons, the SDF particularly refused to publicly declare itself as supporting that agreement, mostly due to internal issues. And as a result of that, we ended up seeing things flare up quite significantly at the beginning of this year. So this question of integration and autonomy, I guess,

how two interrelated questions there have always been so fundamental to the question of the SDF, because the SDF for folks who may not remember, while it's an effort to put a kind of non-sectarian framing around what was predominantly a Kurdish military force that became a governing entity over a good part of the region, the Rojava government, regional government, that work closely with the United States and the kind of ISIS campaign and had pretty strong security leadership

“released over the United States up until this past year, I think it's fair to say with some”

stops and starts during the first Trump administration. So talk to us about what this integration looks like, what's the pressure points in the negotiation between the central government and the SDF? The SDF has, as I recall, the president, I'm wrong, even under the, when the side was still in power, they said, we don't want to separate from the Syrian state, but we want a degree of self-government in autonomy within the Syrian state. So what if there are demands better and what has the

transitional government been able to give them and what haven't they been able to give them? Yeah, I mean, that's exactly it. So throughout for many years, we've had the SDF as the military entity and then we've had what they called their autonomous administration of North and East Syria, which was their kind of governing front and the word autonomous being the key one here. So

their objective has always been, at least on paper, not succession, not break away, but political

“autonomy or administrative autonomy, as they've often worded it. And I think that the key issue here”

is, you know, if I rewind in my life and in a formal life, played very significant role in a in a big kind of track 1.5 process speaking with Syrians from all sides, including from the regime and everything in between. And at that time, and throughout the entirety of Syria's conflict, the only thing you could get every single person to agree on no matter where they stood on the conflict was the idea that Syria would never be broken up. So even at the height of military conflict,

everyone could only agree on that one point that Syria needed to remain a cohesive state, even if it was divided and, you know, and in the midst of conflict. And so the definition of autonomy

has always been, you know, the definition of the SDF's seeking autonomy has always been this big

big crunch point. What do they really mean by that? Do they mean having their own government? Do they mean having being part of a central government, but having more control over how they govern their areas? You know, where does that interpretation lie? And that really was at the crux of the disagreement amongst the US mediated negotiations in 2025 was where, where do you draw the line? Ahmed Alshara as the transitional president came in, basically wanting to replicate what Syria

has known for decades, which is this strong central leader that seeks to have, you know, total control over matters, you know, left right and center. And of course, we had the SDF seeking to have a very different model. Sometimes the word federalism has been thrown out there too, and for many Syrians in other parts of the map, federalism sounds like a slippery slope towards breakaway states. So it's it's it's less been about, you know, strict interpretations of words and much more about

perceptions, you know, again, to rewind and then I'll come to more to the present, you know, right after Assad fell my first trip into Syria at the time. I was struck by, and I traveled all

the word that people were using. In the alawait coastal, you know, region on the Mediterranean, I'd live in Aleppo down in the south everywhere. And so suddenly the interpretation of the perception of what the SDF was seeking became much more important than perhaps what they really

were seeking. And again, that's probably was the reason why the negotiations ultimately failed

is because there was very little trust that the SDF meant that they didn't want to break away. Everyone feared that it was just another step towards, you know, pushing in that direction.

“Where are we now that there is an integration agreement in place? I think, you know, have to say,”

are coming on the heels of the of the conflict that did develop between these two actors at the beginning of this year. I wasn't particularly optimistic that we would see a sort of smooth integration process, but I have to say so far so good, both sides despite their significant differences and their history of hostility have been extremely patient, very pragmatic, very calm, very understanding, when there have been difficulties, for example, around the sort of famed Kurdish town of Kobani,

which didn't integrate immediately in the way that it was originally designed to in the agreement. They thought that, you know, both actors thought outside of the box about ways to build confidence and then we've seen things move forward. So actually remarkable progress, still a long way to go,

but really encouraging early signs. And I think ultimately that still tells us that the vast majority

of Syrians, even when they hold diametrically opposite political opinions, have had enough with conflict and that they are when push comes to shove and this really did take some pushing and shoving, people are willing to try their very best to put their differences aside for the sake

“of not returning to hostilities. And I think that's, you know, as as low a bar as that is,”

that's still what we're gripping onto in the hope that this will continue to be a smooth process. There are, I should say, tensions and there are still very significant bumps along the road that are likely coming. And in fact, there's been some clashes just this morning before we recording this. And so, you know, we should all go into this with open eyes, but encouraging early signs nonetheless. So let's dwell a moment on what exactly the military conflict changed and kind of what

what precipitated it. Because it happened very quickly and frankly for our American zoomers, which is probably the majority of our audience, it happened at the exact same time as the U.S. intervention in Caracas and the Capture of Maduro, or overlapping in the media kind of envelope after that. So fell off the front pages for a lot of people. Whereas I think a few years ago, something like this happening in Syria would be very much better news and a much more

directing pact at the higher farm policy priorities for the administration. So we know this outbreak of hostility started in January. What exactly was the objective of the two sides? Because the transition primarily, you know, the concern about occupation was it tied mostly to the STF fact that the STF had come into control of areas of Don Kurdish areas, areas like that were strategically

“important, like there is or their natural resources and other urban centers. So what was the motivation”

or the objectives of the government going into this military campaign? Yeah. So I mean, there are two things that I would highlight as important background. One of them to reiterate the fact that

we'd had these talks throughout most of 2025 and that ultimately, I mean, there was U.S. imposed

deadlines of August 2025, then it was October 25 and then it was December 2025 for these talks to come to an agreement. Of course, all three of those deadlines passed without a publicly announced agreement. It was fairly well known that around the table, the core framework of the agreement had already been agreed, but nothing had been agreed publicly. So the first thing to bear in mind is that that was the background and increasingly kind of frustrated failure of a significant investment

of Syrian and international resources to make these talks succeed had failed. By the end of December, I'll give you this sort of personal note. I had meetings with, let's say, very senior Syrian government officials going right up to the top in early December and separately an unprovoked or unprompted, both of them said to me, Plan B, that means the military option, Plan B is now back on the table. That was early December. So it was very clear that even when we had

still technically a few more weeks left to meet the final US deadline, the Syrian government was thinking that they were going to have to turn to a military option. So that's the first bit of background. The second bit of background was that in the midst of all of these negotiations,

was Arab majority territories. And throughout the period of time where the SDF was controlling

“these territories and that this goes back many years, way prior to Assad's fall, it was open secret”

that there was significant and increasing tensions between the Arab communities being ruled by the SDF and the SDF sort of overall leadership, which is predominantly Kurdish. After Assad fell, those tensions spiked significantly. Those Arab communities wanted to be part of the rest of the country and the SDF's refusal or perceived refusal to agree to an integration agreement was fueling those tensions very significantly. So from the summer of 2012 until the end of

25 over 800 Arab men were arrested by the SDF, simply for having photographs of Ahmad Alshara on their cell phones. So cell phones would be checked at checkpoints and if you had any photographs associated with the Syrian government, you were arrested. So real uptick in those tensions. So those two things, the failure of the talks and the rising internal tensions fed together

into a dynamic in which basically, as 2026 began, it was only going to take the tiniest little spark

to see significant conflict arise. As it happened, it didn't begin in the core SDF held areas of the country. It started into small districts of Aleppo city, which was still controlled by SDF linked militia men and women. Technically speaking, up to go too much into the weeds, but earlier in 2025, those two districts had been part of an agreement negotiated by the Americans between the government and Damascus and the SDF whereby military SDF forces were to withdraw from

those city districts. And the only people left should be what was called the SAE, which is like local police local security forces, only with light weapons. After that agreement, the government had consistently been insisting that there were still SDF military forces in those areas and that there were still heavy weapons. So it was a kind of grating continued frustration or allegation by the government that the SDF had violated this agreement. Long story short,

that's where we ended up seeing conflict begin. Very clearly, the SDF did still have heavy weapons in those districts because the conflict there was particularly severe minimal casualties, but heavy heavy clashes. And within four or five days, the government took control of those districts,

“the SDF was forced to withdraw. And I think that was kind of a straw that broke the camel's back,”

the extent to which we would see conflict then spread to Core SDF held areas in the northeast

was then just inevitable. And the only other thing I would say here is as a sort of third part of

the background that I should have mentioned is that as a result of those rising tensions between Arab communities ruled by the SDF and the SDF itself, the government in maybe I think maybe August last year made a decision to appoint what they called a presidential envoy to the tribes. And basically, this was an individual whose job it was was to build relationships with tribes across the country. The original impetus for this was to avoid what we saw happen in the Druze

area of Sweden and the South where really the tribes just tribal militias took matters into their own hands and were responsible for a significant amount of atrocities that happened in that area in July last year. But as it happened, this tribal envoy ended up building a significant amount of leverage with the tribes in eastern Syria under SDF control. So the government internally was very confident that if and when conflict arose with the SDF, they had all the tribes on hand,

all the tribes had basically quietly pledged their allegiance to Damascus, if and when that happened.

So the government was overconfident, extremely confident that if it took the decision to do this, it would win. And that's, you know, to be blunt, that's exactly what we saw happened. The moment conflict moved into SDF core areas, the Arab tribes flipped in 12 hours and almost overnight 75 to 80% of the SDF territory had flipped to government control, almost without a bullet being fired. And that was kind of the death now in terms of the SDF being able to maintain itself as a significant

actor on this stage. And it basically forced them into the integration agreement we see today. So talk to us about a little bit more about this integration agreement and where it leaves the SDF both in and the conflict. The SDF isn't completely out of business. There are parts of the country. It still controls core Kurdish parts. But obviously has lost the the hold it had on a lot of

“very important strategic areas for so long having controlled 25% sometimes more than that of the state.”

As a whole, we know that we've seen a couple of high level of point E's recently. We've seen military commander appointed from somebody who's at least reported being associated with the Kurds,

steps being made in this direction. What does this agreement envision in terms of what autonomy or

“self-government or anything? We're looking like that looks like for the Kurds and how far does it go?”

What does it mean for that last redoubt of Kurdish control that's in the country? Yeah, well, I mean, I would say, I mean, I'll come to the agreement and what's being implemented now and what its vision is. But this is where I would start again by saying that there is a core difference in interpretation over what this agreement should end up sort of resulting in. Core difference interpretation between the government and the SDF, or at least parts of the SDF,

which I think could still become a big stumbling block going forward. But in the letter of the

agreement and per every US official who's had a role in negotiating it, it is basically that

the SDF will essentially dissolve itself into the state. So not that SDF personnel or people who were SDF personnel are suddenly going to become unemployed and have no role. They will all be remain in their jobs as either soldiers or as police or as civil servants, but they will no longer be under an autonomous administration or SDF umbrella. They will be under a government ministry umbrella.

“But in the letter of the agreement, that's what should happen. So people stay in all their roles,”

but they are fully government actors, not SDF actors. So the idea of autonomy here has kind of gone out the window, per the letter of the agreement. The difference in interpretation is that there are some within the SDF who are continuing to say this agreement has achieved them autonomy. And it hasn't to be blunt, it hasn't. But that's where this difference has emerged. But in terms of actually what's happening on the ground. So the SDF as per the agreement has been granted

four military brigades within the Ministry of Defense, three of them in Hasache in the Far North East of the country, and one in Aleppo around Kobani which would be integrated into pre-existing MOD division in Aleppo. And of course those brigades will be fully staffed fully by SDF fighters

the SDF's local security unit, which is basically a kind of militarized police called the Asayesh,

are being folded into the Ministry of Interior. So their salaries will be paid by the MOI. They will be commanded officially under an umbrella of the Ministry of Interior, but they will remain in their posts. That both of those processes of integration have already begun. So the whole list of personnel that the SDF wants to be part of those brigades are now being vetted by the Ministry of Defense and Damascus. Those people are already wearing Syrian Ministry

of Defense uniforms rather than their SDF uniforms. The commanders of those brigades have already been named and identified. So progress on the military front in terms of the Asayesh, the kind of local security forces. They are already teaming up with joint checkpoints with Syrian government Ministry of Interior personnel, particularly joint checkpoints in more sensitive areas between Kurdish majority areas and Arab majority areas. That's been very positive, although I would add that's all

those joint checkpoints have also been a source of increasing protest by Arab majority communities, saying that they do not accept the presence of Kurdish personnel at those joint checkpoints. And so that could easily become if that increases and increasingly sensitive position that could threaten a return to some level of hostilities. And then on the civil level, we've already seen a significant integration in terms of health. So the Ministry of Health is now officially in control

of all hospitals and medical clinics in Kurdish majority areas of the Northeast. The Ministry of Education has issued a public order for every curriculum, every level of the schooling system in Syria to be translated fully into Kurdish for implementation at the beginning of the next school year, which will have beginning the fall. That's been a very positive step, but it's also triggered other disagreements. The SDF wants to have more Kurdish language instruction than the government

“is currently offering, which I think is two hours a week, and the SDF wants more Kurdish language”

instruction than that. So there's progress, but when it comes to the devil in the details, there's still some level of disagreement. And as you say, we've had senior level appointments being made. So the governor of Hasake is an SDF official himself now, Nordadina Ahmed, a couple days ago, the Ministry of Defense announced a new level of appointments of so-called commanders of different regions of the country, north-east, south and west, and centre,

a significant step from the government, because this guy, I see Panhamo, is very controversial, widely alleged to have been responsible for a number of suicide bombings in civilian areas of government control during the conflict with Assad, and the Turks certainly don't like him very much either. So a significant message by Damascus that it's willing to make some significant concessions. But again, his appointment has triggered significant protests in those border regions where

you have Arab communities bordering Kurdish communities, significant protests demanding that he be, you know, fired or dismissed from his new appointment. So it's been not without difficulty,

but in terms of decisions and implementing steps of integration, it's all been basically positive,

“so far. And that I think tells you that at the leadership level, they're both being very pragmatic.”

The challenges with the population who aren't quite as pragmatic about things, and that's where I think we'll continue to see, you know, people rubbing up against each other and, and these occasional spikes in intentions and potentially some level of hostilities from no and then. So a unique aspect of Syrian conflict generally, but in particular, the Kurdish element of it in recent years is that it isn't strictly internal. We've seen at least two major regional and major powers play a pretty

intrusive role in the setting aside, you know, Iran and proxies, and that sort of question as well.

I want to talk to the United States, ultimately, that's a big part of this particularly for our

audience. Before I do that, let's talk about the Turks who you just mentioned, who, of course, you know, engage in military intervention in northern Syria because of concerns about the STF,

“you know, five or six years ago, over that now, I guess. Had been, I believe, still is holding”

parts of northern Syria, or at least maintaining military presence there as a kind of hangover for that intervention. What was their posture during the conflict and has their posture been towards both this rapprochement and the controversial aspects of it, and particularly in terms of the degree to which the STF is going to be allowed some continued autonomy, either within the

government structure or alongside it. Yeah. So, I mean, this has always been the kind of key kind

of elephant in the room amongst the negotiations in 2025, the conflict in 2026 and now the integration in 2026. And I think the sort of complicating factor or the new factor in all three of those phases over the last 14, 15 months is that Turkey's been engaged domestically in its own peace process with the PKK. And of course, its long accusation against the STF is that its Kurdish component was the Syrian wing of the PKK. And for the record, it is, and it was named that by the CIA,

by the State Department and everybody else, when we made the decision to work with them. So, as a sort of matter of fact, it is, and it was, but that's always been the core of the issue. But because of Turkey's decision to explore this peace process with the PKK domestically, it's, it's willingness or the strategic rationale for remaining, you know, flat out hostile to the STF was far reduced by that. If they continue to, you know, persist in hostile action

against the STF, then its own peace process domestically would immediately have been discovered. So, I guess by chance, almost those two dynamics ran in parallel over the last 15 months and have helped a lot. I mean, throughout 2025, Turkey undertook zero hostile actions against the STF. For a first time in a long time, and that helped create the conditions for what Kurd or should have been, you know, a successful negotiation process to secure the STF's integration into the state.

It's certainly helped. Having said that, though, by the time 2025 ran out and there had been no

“successful diplomatic agreement, I think there was no question that when we saw the hostilities”

develop in early January this year, I think there's no question that Turkey did some things to help the Syrian government speed the process along. So, not necessarily that Turkey said right, time for military action, but when the Syrian government made that decision, I think there's no question Turkey provided ISR support to the Syrian government. I think no question they probably provided intelligence and some kind of strategic guidance on, you know, the sequencing

of a military campaign. In part, I think, because they didn't want it and it wasn't in Turkey's interest to be a messy conflict. They want it to be short and sharp, make the point and finish it. So, that domestically, that PKK piece process could continue, and that ultimately, there would still be a peaceful resolution at the end of all of this, which is, at least for now, where we are. So, from Turkey's perspective, it's got most of what it wanted out of all of this, which is

east of Syria, which has forced it to integrate into a state with which Turkey has a strong relationship,

“which means that it is safe enough from Turkey's perspective. It also hasn't damaged the piece”

process domestically with the PKK. So, again, from Turkey's perspective, so far so good, minimal

damage done, and it's getting what it wanted out of Syria all along, which was never a complete

expulsion of the SDF or the PKK, but a situation in which they were no longer unilaterally governing a quarter of the country. I'm Theresa and my feelings and all entrepreneurs started a choppy-fi-a-folke right through. I, when the choppy-fi is already on the first day, and the platform makes me no problem. I have a lot of problems, but the platform is not a step from. I have the feeling that the choppy-fi-i-replatform continues to be optimized,

everything is super, simply integrated and balanced. And the time and the money that I can no longer invest in, for everything in the vaccine. To the other country that has played a central role in supporting the SDF, as it assumed control over such a big swath of Syria, when it moved into Derizor, to take it to be clear from control of the Islamic State at the time. That was done with air support, and the SDF

is able to contain maintained control of the country for so long, even in the face of such as Saudi regime, from Russian mercenaries and others, Park as a US air support. We know that the United States relationship with the SDF has oscillated weakened, I think, in the last few years, certainly compared to the high days of 2015-2016, and particularly under this administration, which very quickly has had this kind of rapprochement with the new government.

At least relatively quickly, from my perspective, in Damascus, has always put a new

question saying, "How long, how sustainable is this?" So now we're getting these reports about US troops leaving the country, again, who've been there more than a decade at this point,

“or at least, I think, approaching it. That's what the US troops been operating there more than a decade,”

leaving the country by April. How is that? How are we envisioning the kind of US security presence or participation in the country? I believe I've seen reports about other US military components working with the new transitional government's armed forces, and having engagement there. Obviously, we had the Commander-in-Chentcom visit in a very high profile, visit towards the end of last year. So there is still US military engagement very, very much. So, but as a shifting from the SDF to the

new central government, is there going to be some remaining ties there? And in particular, what happens to the counter ISIS mission? That was the legal and policy foundation for everything in the United States has really been done in Syria for the last 12 years. Yeah, I mean, so this is a key question. I think, as soon as Assad fell, I mean, we were at the tail end of the Biden administration, and to give them their credit,

given the fact that they were very much on their way out. The Biden administration and the state department, Barbara Lee for the time as the Assistant Secretary for Near East, you know, made the swift decision to get to Damascus as fast as possible, meet with, you know, Ahmad Al-Shara at the time, who, you know, an hour before Barbara Lee for Rive, still had a $10 million bounty on his head, but as she arrived, that had been removed. But it can immediately made the decision that,

and this is a wider conversation than perhaps we're having here, but immediately made the decision that the fall of the Assad's presented a historic opportunity, that despite how unusual and potentially problematic the nature of some of this transitional government was, if we could make Syria stable, it would unquestionably have positive ripple effects across the rest of the region. And so again, to give the Biden administration credit, they made the decision to move very quickly in,

which takes me to point to the US military, which after the Biden administration left and when

the Trump administration came in, we have what we always have in a transition period, which is,

you know, not much of a policy on very much as a transition get settled and figures out what it wants to do on things. And in that kind of vacuum, St. Com in particular, US Central Command, whether they would, you know, publicly describe it in this way, I don't know, but basically took US diplomacy on themselves in Syria. It became St. Com's job de facto to become the representatives

“of the US government in exploring this new relationship. And so to give them huge credit, I think”

they were the ones that filled that gap. They did it very effectively. They earned and bought bought, you know, not financially, but they earned and bought early trust in Damascus with, again, very unusual, you know, transitional government. And I think that helped a lot. So by the spring of 2025, as I understand from American sources, not Syrian, in the spring of 2025, we started to give

to Damascus to test their willingness and their ability to go after shared threats. And the first

“one was a network of Iranian, Iranian-linked Syrian clans in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border that”

had been the linchpin of the IRGCs weapons smuggling network into and through Syria. And as was described to me, within 24 hours, the Syrian Ministry of Interior mocked up every single tunnel, every warehouse, every clan leader was captured alive for interrogation. And again, as it was described to me, they did as good a job as we could have done, they being the Syrians. And that started to create confidence that, again, despite the unprecedented unusual nature of some of this transitional

government, there was a reason to explore a security relationship with it to pursue these shared interests. And I say all of that, as background to say, that gave the US government, including

St.com, which had always been the linchpin of the relationship with the SDF, a very different strategic

framework with which to view the Syrian lens with which. In other words, it didn't make strategic sense for us to continue to overwhelmingly prioritize a relationship with a non-state actor that was already a complicated one given the Turkey dynamic we discussed earlier. And even despite the controversial nature of Damascus, it did make sense that we pursued a relationship with a sovereign government with which we have many other opportunities suddenly become available

than working with a non-state militia. And so that became the primary priority. So we maintained what's always been called a tactical transactional temporary relationship with the SDF, but there was a significant investment in exploring a deepening relationship with Damascus.

“And so where are we today? In that transition process. The only way it was ever going to be a”

transition for the United States was if there was an SDF's integration into the state, which thankfully now appears to be happening. So in that scenario, does it make sense for American military bases to still be in SDF controlled Northeastern Syria? Not very much. Does it make sense, however, that the US military and the intelligence community seek to invest in a more government-to-government relationship through Damascus to explore continuing to pursue shared interests? Yes. And that's

what we're seeing. So there is now, in Iraq, in fact, in the headquarters of Operation Inherent Resolve, which runs the counter ISIS campaign, there is what's called the Damascus Coordination Center, which is a dedicated mechanism for OIR Syria coordination. By the way, there are several Syrian military officers in that coordination center. The first kind of outfit of its kind. That's the new framework for the US Syrian security relationship. There are continuing efforts in cooperation

with the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Damascus to find not necessarily a military base, but a compound from which, you know, J. Salkans, so-called Special Operations Forces, along with the CIA and others, can operate in and out of in Damascus to continue to institutionalise their relationships with Syrian Ministry of Interior, the General Intelligence Directorate, those are the entities in Syria that go after ISIS, not the Ministry of Defense. And so yeah,

it's evolving. But it's evolving in the way that it would always have evolved in any other context.

The relationship goes through the government, not with militias, but hopefully that government will have incorporated the SDF as that militia. And then we have maybe even an easier path into those institutional relationships I described. Do we have a sense of what we think the operational profile of our efforts in Syria is likely to be moving the forward? I mean, we saw

“I think it was a Hawkeye strike in operation take place in January. I think more or less”

in the midst of kind of the central Syrian government, SDF conflict, that was kind of a, you know, framed as a retributive strike for a bombing in December that killed some of your service members, as well as some Syrian partner forces that I recall, is that what we should expect moving forward in Syria, kind of like we talked about Afghanistan after you've tripled with all their focus on air power, drones, working at a distance, or is there a real possibility, we'll still

see special forces soldiers, or maybe even substantial military forces be deployed to Syria, but this time with the consent of the Syrian government. Yeah, I mean, I think if you asked me that question two or three months ago, I'd probably have given you a different answer than I do today, in part because yes, that one attack in December that left several U.S. service members dead, did emanate from an individual whose job it was to be part of an arms depot within the

some question marks over the extent to which the Syrian government being so relatively, you know,

young and fresh and very ragged around the edges was ready for that kind of formalised bilateral military relationship, but then far more significant than that I would say was the conflict with the STF. So even though everything I just described about, you know, Sankong filling the diplomatic gap and figuring out that the relationship was going to need to change and should change, that doesn't take away the more, I don't want to sort of underplay it here, but that doesn't take away the kind

of emotional response that hasn't been made public, but there is deep frustration and to an extent some anger within the U.S. military about the fact that the STF was militarily attacked

“and basically militarily defeated by the Syrian government. So great frustration and I think that's”

dented the relationship somewhat. I think it will certainly recover and I haven't heard anything from OIR itself that would suggest that there is any reduction or change in its engagement with Damascus, but at the senior leadership level certainly it's damaged the relationship at least in the

interim. But ultimately, yeah, we may not see special forces on the ground, but they will be in

an out of Syria, I think, unquestionably, I mean they continue to be in an out of Damascus coming mostly from Jordan, and certainly the U.S. intelligence community will maintain a constant presence in Damascus as they basically already do, working in hand with their sort of Syrian partners. So I think all of that is to be assumed as to be taken for granted. I think top level, we're looking at more over the horizon, quote on quote, activities, more of a focus on

“capacity building, so building the capacity of Syrian government entities to take over more”

responsibility for for counterterrorism, countering organized crime, you know, keeping an eye on Iran. That's a long-term effort, and again, to put it into context, the Ministry of Interior just to reassert is the primary entity in Syria that is responsible for all of those challenges. The Ministry of Interior six months ago was still buying desktop computers and printers, because there was basically none in the building when they took over in December 2024. This was

the Ministry of Interior was the most powerful government entity in Syria. It had files on

eight and a half million people in the country, allegedly wanted for any number of, you know, political crimes, in other words, being against the regime. Every single one of those eight and a half million files was paper. There was no digital infrastructure, there was no computer system, nothing. So when we're talking about capacity building here, we're not just talking about military training and what have you, we're talking about plastering the walls, providing Wi-Fi, you know, everything

from the bottom up is required to get these actors where we would expect them to be. That's not to say they're incapable of doing some of the jobs we would need them to be doing now, which they seem to be quite capable at, at, tactically, but structurally they need a great deal of help. And I think there is a lot of conversation within OIR and other circles about how we could be helpful in providing some of that more structural assistance. And then I'll, I'll just end by saying,

you know, I mentioned over the horizon, in other words, air strikes launched from outside of Syria.

“I think that will certainly continue, but the ISIS threat in Syria today isn't a threat that”

is easily dealt with by air strikes. In other words, ISIS is no longer hiding out in Syria's deserts. They're in the towns and the cities. This is now much more of an urban threat. This is the big adaptation ISIS has undertaken over the last six to nine months. That means that yes, the owners will be on Syrian personnel to be collecting the intelligence, to be acting on it, to be launching, you know, raids. It's much more of an emphasis on law enforcement as well as

intelligence. But there is still a role that the US can play in assisting that, too, with, you know, intelligence personnel on the ground, with special forces on the ground, but it's different than everything we've been doing for the last 10 years. So there is one big part of the counter-ISIS effort that the SDF was still playing in integral role and beyond just actually targeting ISIS and stuff that was still ongoing. But they had probably married responsibility for operating the number of

major detention facilities that have been housing a lot of people detained in relation to supporting the Islamic State during that conflict. As some cases have been detained for a very, very long time at this point, many people born into and being raised in those facilities. You also have, of course, you know, refugee camps like our whole, the kind of famous slash infamous refugee camp that had become both a little bit of a nest for Islamic State and affiliate sort of sentiments

took over. So you had a US military presence there until recently that did eventually hand it over to the central government. In both of these cases, what do we think is going to happen to these both vulnerable populations, but also populations that carry with them potentially substantial

“security risk. We know the Islamic State targets prisons. It certainly has an Iraq, I believe,”

in Syria as well, as a way to bolster their numbers and bolsters supporting and get people out. And here, you know, in the midst of the transition, it seems like a lot of people have kind of been lost track of, or at least according to media accounts, we don't know where our numbers are them are, more the refugee side, I think than a detainee side to some extent both. So what is it actually happening in regards to these populations, topic of problem is it and what's being done to

try and mitigate some of those risks and harms? Yeah, so you're right to raise it and you're right to differentiate between detainees, in other words, male fighters of previously male fighters of ISIS, and, you know, displaced people primarily women and children. So I'll tackle them separately. When it comes to the detainees, you know, the SDF managed anywhere between 12 and 20 prison

“facilities in Northeastern Syria at different times, housing upwards of 9,000 ISIS male fighters”

from a plethora of countries around the world. And the decision was made quite early on this year that it was, we were going to have to move a significant chunk of those male detainees outside of Syria because there was very little confidence that that time amidst conflict between the SDF and the government. There was little confidence that the ceasefires we were managing to negotiate every now and then were going to hold and there was very little confidence that in the midst of major

hostilities, those prison facilities were going to remain a priority for the SDF. The SDF is always

said, you know, if our existence comes into question, our priority is not going to be to guard the prisons or the camps, it's going to be to protect our own, you know, lines of defense. So again, long story short upwards of five and a half thousand of those men were flown mostly and some bust to Iraq. And they are now in one single prison facility in Iraq where, and again, Iraqi commentary on this from the government varies, where either they are all going to be prosecuted

or investigated and prosecuted and sentenced or where some of them will be prosecuted and sentenced and others will hopefully be repatriated to their countries of origin. So a little unclear as to what their ultimate fate will be, but a significant chunk upwards of two thirds of all of the male detainees are now in Iraq. The rest that are still in Syria are Syrians and they remain in facilities controlled by the SDF, for now, or SDF personnel, although as I understand as part of

the integration agreement, those prisons will still ultimately be folded under Syria's Ministry

of Interior, albeit that the guards and the personnel working there will remain the same people who were working there before, who were SDF or Asayi Shun and other Kurdish forces. So there will still be that latent two and a half thousand or so Syrian ISIS detainees that will need to be held continued detention, which poses continued questions around the fact that most of them are being held arbitrarily, so there's been no kind of due process, whether the Syrian government

“will seek to try to initiate due process investigations and prosecutions. I think remains to be seen.”

Right now they certainly don't have the resources to do that, but I do know for a fact that that's their principal position is many of these men unquestionably are bad guys, but we don't believe that it is sort of just to hold them arbitrarily. So I think that's clearly them hinting at the idea that there needs to be process at some point. Then we come to the more displaced populations of almost predominantly women and children. So we had Al-Hall, which was a camp

that originally held about 75,000 people who had come out of ISIS controlled areas, again, almost all of them women and children, and then we had a much smaller camp in the northeast called Al-Raj, where about two and a half thousand women and children currently reside and almost

all of them are third country nationals, so they're not Syrians and they're not Iraqis.

In the context of the fighting that happened earlier this year, Al-Hall, sorry, the big camp, which by then only held about 20,000 people due to significant returns to Iraq, local releases in Syria, changed hands. Let's just say, because I've done a lot of work on this over the last few weeks, let's just say accounts on exactly what happened conflict or there's no unifying agreement on exactly what took place during that change of control. What we definitely know is that there

was at least five or six hours in which nobody controlled Al-Hall and then the government forces arrived to take control because the SDF left. Long story short though, Al-Hall is no longer. There is no

in an ITP camp in rural Aleppo called Akbarhan, a much better equipped ITP camp that just happened

to have been empty and ready. It has WiFi, you know, some of the units even have the ability to have air conditioning units, you know, so it's much better organized, it's much better equipped. And so roughly three thousand former residents are now there. The vast majority of the rest of them are out free somewhere, presumably all in Syria. Now, there appears to have been more of a, I've dare to say, process because it was chaos. But there appears to have been some

process amidst some of the either escapes or releases by government forces. And I say that because the UN, UNHCR in particular, has over the last few weeks, suddenly started revealing the extent to which it staff in other areas of Syria are working with people who had either escaped or being purposefully released from Al-Hall, providing them with humanitarian assistance in cooperation with Syrian government ministries, particularly the health ministry in the education ministry,

to ensure that, for example, their children have places in local schools, that their local communities are accepting them back into their communities of origin, that they have, you know, access to running water to electricity. So there appears to have been some process in at least

“some of the releases. But I think no question the government made the decision very early on,”

and this is probably the most important point, is that the actors who now represent the Syrian

government have a wildly different perspective about these camps than the SDF or frankly the US government. The US government had consistently presented Al-Hall and Al-Raj as a security threat one two and three, and then perhaps number four five and six was it was a humanitarian issue and it was a legal issue and a diplomatic one. The Syrian government says they are basically a humanitarian travesty. The fact that we had at one point, 75,000 women and children, and I should say about

60 percent of that was children under the age of 12, in prison camps with basically no facilities, whatsoever, cholera, tuberculosis, everything you could, you know, hope not to have in an IDP camp

was there, was a total travesty of, you know, humanitarian and legal justice. And so the government

made it very, very clear that they did not see these camps as just and that they wanted to see these camps emptied. And it may very well have been that either formally or informally, they made that decision very early on that these women and children were victims and that they should just be allowed to make their way out. And I suspect there was a good deal of that towards the end. But now we're going to have the test to close out my very, very long answer. Now we're going to have

the test as to whether or not we were right to consider it or the US government was right to consider it a security threat one two and three, or whether others saying that this was more of a humanitarian issue were right. We don't know the answer to that yet. What I can say is weeks later after the breakout or after the closure of the camp, there haven't been any security implications from it. The women and the children have gone very quiet back to their areas of origin or into other camps.

There's been no security repercussions yet, but it's early days. So, you know, TBD to be determined,

“I think for now. So, that is definitely one thing. I think we, and for US policy makers, school”

policy makers will have our eyes on. In our last few moments, for out of time, for our conversation, talk to us about what you're looking at. You mentioned that you think 2026 is the year of the economy, 2025 is the year of foreign policy, now are the year of the economy. But you are at the same time, still dealing with these very significant internal political and foreign political interwoven, interconnected considerations regarding the SDF. We only briefly got that done.

Other sectarian conflicts. We know we've had sectarian violence evolving, alloys, and parts of Syria, and Drew's communities has been a point of tension with Israel, including some hostilities with Israel under the New Government. So, talk to us, where are the big flashpoints? What are you looking for? Where are the red flags? And where are

“you looking for for good signs of positive trajectory? Yeah, I mean, all of the above. I think,”

I think the way I think I framed at the very beginning, 2025 was the year where Syria's government focused outwardly on trying to secure its place in the world, and now 2026 will be the year where it has to focus inwardly on resolving or dealing with a lot of those internal issues. The economy is going to be the biggest one because it affects everything else, from minority concerns, humanitarian conditions, questions of everything, rely on the economy being able to recover. And so I think

Now, can Syria benefit from those significant moves, which basically ended at the end of 2025

“in terms of sanctions removal. But beyond that, there are still geopolitical challenges. Yes,”

Israel is one of them. You know, it should be reiterated that you're right to say there's been hostilities, although the Syrian government has not acted in a hostile fashion towards Israel even once. But we've had over 2,000 ground incursions and air and artillery strikes by Israel in 14 months. So, squaring that away, and again, this is something that the Trump administration has sought to mediate. And we had a positive round of talks in Paris, France, and on January this year,

but none since. And I don't think that's because there's no confidence in the talks, but obviously Iran and other issues have sort of taken over. But since that round of talks, I should add that

Israel has halved its rate of ground incursions into Syria. So, that doesn't happen by accident.

That has that rate of ground incursions has consistently been at half the level since January

“the 6th than it was in the last four or five months of 2025. So, that was clearly an Israeli decision”

to de-escalate, which is good. But there's still no deal. There's still no security agreement, which is what the US government has been trying to negotiate. Link to that, there's the issue of the Druze and Swader. That's the only now territory of the country that is outside of government control. It's a small corner of the country relatively insignificant. There's no resources there, but from Damascus's perspective, it wants to have all of Syria under government control and

authority. And that remains very much unanswered. It's a standoff between those two entities. I would describe it though as an untenable standoff. The government is willing to wait. It's perspective on this is quite cold. It's perspective is, if they don't want to talk, if they refuse to engage in dialogue, so be it. You know, they're not going to get to benefit from the recovery and the rest of the country. And the only time when they will is when they're

willing to talk and find some kind of a negotiated solution. And in the meantime, Wild Damascus waits. And I should say again, the US and the Trump administration has been trying to mediate on this file, too. Tensions within Swader within this region are growing. Tensions within the Druze community are growing. There have been a number of targeted killings, a number of arrests, within the Druze community, because the current de facto leadership refuse any level of dialogue.

So anyone found to have been secretly communicating with the government is then more or less disappeared. There have been a number of big Druze defections to the government in the last few weeks as a result of all of these tensions. So we may be heading towards some situation where it comes to a crunch point. Hopefully not to hostilities. Hopefully to diplomacy and to talks. But that's certainly going to be another potential flash point. And then, you know, just beyond

that, I would just say the bigger questions around transitional justice, the extent to which the government can demonstrate an ability and an unwillingness to see justice served. Both for crimes committed during serious conflict, but also crimes committed since Asad's fall, will be something that particularly minority communities will be watching for very closely. And certainly the government hasn't really achieved much on that front until now. Again, most, I don't think that's

really due to a will. It's due to a lack of resources. The only area of the country where salaries have been increased is judges, because the government is desperate to try to recruit judges to be able to undertake some of the trials that they need to do publicly in front of the population. So there's lots of different challenges. And most of them now are much more domestic than they are outwardly facing. Well, that is a lot for us to watch for in the months to come. But we're out of

time for today. We'll have to revisit it in a future episode until then. Charles is very thank you for joining us here today on The Law Fair Podcasts. Sure thing, thank you so much for having me.

“The Law Fair Podcasts is produced by The Law Fair Institute. If you want to support the show”

on Listened Free, you can become a law fair material supporter at lawfairmedia.org/support. Supporters also get access to special events and other bonus content we don't share anywhere else. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review us where we listen. It really does help. And be sure to check out our other shows, including RASH Security, allies, the aftermath, and escalation. Our latest law fair presents podcast series about the war in Ukraine.

You can also find all of our written work at lawfairmedia.org. The podcast is at

by Jan Patchett with audio engineering by me. Our theme song is from Alabama Music. And as always,

thank you for listening.