UK government was informed on shift of dynamics in Syria a year ago

UK government was informed on shift of dynamics in Syria a year ago

Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee hears witnesses on situation in Syria in wake of Assad regime's fall

By Mehmet Solmaz

BIRMINGHAM, England (AA) — The British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee held a session in which it discussed the situation in Syria in the wake of the fall of the Assad regime in December.

Speaking as a witness, Lina Khatib, an associate fellow for the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the Chatham House, told the committee that she was not surprised by the collapse of the Baath regime on Dec. 8.

“I was not shocked because I knew that it was going to happen, simply because I was in touch with people inside Syria who were part of the plan, and also some other actors outside who were seeing this and anticipating that the regime was just really hollow.

“When most of the western world was assuming that the regime was pretty solid, even though it had shrunk, the people in the region and on the ground were seeing things and acting very differently.”

Khatib argued it surprised those who felt comfortable with the dominant narrative that this was a regime that had been resilient. She said those who misread the situation were not paying enough attention to what was happening on the ground, “because Syria was no longer a policy priority or even a media priority.”

When asked about what Britain or the Foreign Office, in particular, could have done had they known about the change of dynamics or predicted the fall of the regime, Khatib said she had already informed the government.

“I did tell the Foreign Office what I knew in February 2024 and I did tell them in writing. So for the record, I did relay all the information that I had about what was going on in Syria.

“It's just that, to be honest, at that time, like many other countries in Europe, the US, Syria was just not a priority. So even if you receive information about things changing on the ground, ultimately, if it's not a foreign policy priority for the country, this information is only going to be filed away as, oh, this person told us this.”

Simon Collis, the last British ambassador to Syria who closed the British embassy in Damascus in February 2012, told the committee that it was obvious the Baath regime could not continue ruling for long periods of time but the speed of the events that led to fall of the regime had shocked him like many others.

“There had been four years of the frozen conflict from 2020. And of course, their reliance, their heavy reliance on support from Iran, from Lebanese Hezbollah, and from Russia. After the conflict in Ukraine began, Russia was distracted. After the Gaza conflict began, Hezbollah was decimated, and Iran fell back so the regime's external pillars of support were not there.”

Collis says even many people inside Syria did not expect the events to unfold so quickly.

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