The Syrian Cataclysm

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Episode: The Syrian Cataclysm
Date: January 5, 2017
Host: Dorothy Wickenden
Guest: Jon Lee Anderson

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Overview

This episode, titled "The Syrian Cataclysm," delves into the collapse of Syria after five years of civil war, focusing on the fall of Aleppo to the Assad regime. Dorothy Wickenden interviews veteran war correspondent Jon Lee Anderson, who shares on-the-ground insights from Syria and analyses the failures and consequences of U.S. and Western policy in the Middle East. The conversation covers the complexities of the Syrian opposition, the regional impact of Syria’s destruction, and possible lessons for American intervention—or non-intervention—in international crises.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Scale and Impact of the Syrian Catastrophe

Timestamps: 01:34–04:11

• Anderson compares the devastation of Aleppo—and Syria at large—to historic wartime destruction.
  • “Those friends I have who did go, you know, evoked Dresden in the case of Aleppo. ...What I've seen over the past five years ...the scale of the destruction, the killing, the cruelty, the no consequences, total war approach have left a country reeling to a degree that I don't think we've seen in modern times.” (03:01 — Jon Lee Anderson)
• The Syrian war’s shockwaves include the refugee crisis destabilizing Europe, the rise of ISIS, and Western incapacity to respond effectively.

2. Understanding the Rebels and Breakdown of Control

Timestamps: 04:11–06:25

• The nature of the Syrian opposition in 2012 was heterogeneous, marked by warlordism, ethnic suspicions, and lack of unified leadership.
  • “The so-called Free Syrian army...felt that it didn't tell us enough. ...In one village after the other, some as little as four or five miles apart from you, had a different response. As central control of the country broke down, we saw a region just being torn apart with Islamists as well.” (05:08 — Jon Lee Anderson)
• Anderson recounts encountering a variety of groups and loyalties—smugglers, Kurds, Turkmen—highlighting confusion over whom to trust or support.

3. U.S., NATO, and the “Leading from Behind” Doctrine

Timestamps: 06:25–08:31

• The Obama administration was often criticized for its cautious approach, especially compared to the Libya intervention.
• Behind-the-scenes, U.S. officials sought Anderson's advice on arming rebels—with anti-aircraft missiles—reflecting the “serious discussion” and uncertainty in policymaking.
  • “Someone there came out and asked me directly if what I had seen on the ground in Syria gave me enough confidence that if I were in the decision making position to do so, would I give them manpads, that is to say, heat seeking anti-aircraft missiles? ...I couldn't think of who I would align myself with.” (07:13 — Jon Lee Anderson)
• Ultimately, the administration settled for sanctions and a restrained approach, which Anderson critiques as largely symbolic and ineffective.

4. Comparing Libya and Syria — The Limits of Western Intervention

Timestamps: 09:02–11:25

• Western “light footprint” policy in Libya, meant to avoid Iraq-like entanglement, led to anarchy and a proliferation of arms across the region.
  • “They had decided they would go for what they call a light footprint. ...What they did in Libya was their idea that this was a light footprint meant that they would do a remote control war and then essentially do no follow through.” (09:44 — Jon Lee Anderson)
• U.S. sanctions and calls for leaders to step down resulted only in leaders digging in and seeking new alliances (“Assad looked for muscle and he got it”).
• Short-term regime change led to long-term chaos.

5. Iraq: The Struggle Against ISIS and Long-Term Uncertainty

Timestamps: 11:25–13:01

• The campaign to retake Mosul from ISIS is expected to be bloody and protracted.
• Deeper questions remain about the viability of Iraq as a state post-intervention.
  • “It's likely that Mosul will be retaken by western backed forces. But then you're still going to have an issue of should Iraq be a single state, really?” (12:22 — Jon Lee Anderson)
• The U.S. now plays a secondary, “mopping up” role after prior intervention failures.

6. The Trump Era and Shifting U.S.–Russia Dynamics

Timestamps: 13:01–14:55

• Trump’s proposals during the campaign—rapid military intervention, no-fly zones, courting Putin—are dissected.
• Anderson notes: aligning with Putin on ISIS effectively means supporting Assad.
  • “Effectively Trump by siding with Putin and only talking about ISIS, is effectively siding with Assad as well. So who has the planes? You know it's not ISIS. So a no fly zone would have worked at a certain point of the war and may have curbed the worst excesses of the Assad regime.” (13:53 — Jon Lee Anderson)
• Possible missed opportunities for earlier U.S.–Russia cooperation (e.g., after chemical weapons crisis in 2013).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the unprecedented destruction in Syria:

  • “What I've seen over the past five years ...the scale of the destruction, the killing, the cruelty, the no consequences, total war approach have left a country reeling to a degree that I don't think we've seen in modern times.” (03:01 — Jon Lee Anderson)

• On U.S. dilemmas on arming rebels:

  • “Someone there came out and asked me directly if what I had seen on the ground in Syria gave me enough confidence that if I were in the decision-making position to do so, would I give them manpads... I couldn't think of who I would align myself with.” (07:13 — Jon Lee Anderson)

• On post-intervention chaos:

  • “Once Libya fell and Gaddafi fell, that country became the arms shipment bonanza for the rest of the [region]. ...Nobody was stopping those ships.” (10:37 — Jon Lee Anderson)

• On Iraq’s future:

  • “It's an 80-year-old country that has bled itself and the region since it was turned into one country by the Brits. There are arguments that it should be dismembered.” (12:41 — Jon Lee Anderson)

• On Trump and Putin:

  • “Lately I've been wondering, can Trump be as dumb as he seems? ...Maybe he's trying to outsource, sweeten Putin. ...Putin's gone from being, as Obama ...called him, a guy with adolescent behavior in charge of a second rate power... to being, you know, Mr. Big.” (13:29 — Jon Lee Anderson)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction and Obama’s 2011 warning to Assad: 01:16–02:18
• Scale of Syrian devastation and refugee consequences: 02:53–04:11
• Dynamics among rebels in early Aleppo: 04:18–06:25
• U.S. policy dilemmas—arming rebels: 06:25–08:31
• Libya comparison and aftermath: 09:02–11:25
• Iraq, Mosul offensive, questions on statehood: 11:25–13:01
• Trump, Putin, and future U.S. approaches: 13:01–14:55

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Closing Thoughts

The episode paints a grim portrait of the consequences of both action and inaction in Syria and the surrounding region, questioning the effectiveness of American and Western policy and the capacity to predict or control the aftermath of intervention. Anderson’s on-the-ground perspective and skepticism provide a sobering, nuanced look at the “cataclysm” that Syria represents—both as a human tragedy and as a marker of shifting global power and policy failures.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

This is the Political Scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about Politics. It's Thursday, January 5th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of the New Yorker. Back in May 2011, Barack Obama spoke at the State Department of the extraordinary change across the Middle east, offering a strong warning to President Assad of Syria.

[C]

The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition to democracy. President Assad now has a he can lead that transition or get out of the way. The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests. It must release political prisoners and stop unjust arrests. It must allow human rights monitors to have access to cities like Daraa and start a serious dialogue to advance a democratic transition. Otherwise, President Assad and his regime will continue to be challenged from within and will continue to be isolated abroad.

[B]

This week, after five years of civil war, rebel forces in Aleppo were defeated by the Assad regime. John Lee Anderson is here to discuss that catastrophe and whether the United States could have helped to change the outcome. Hi John Lee, welcome back.

[D]

Hi Dorothy. How are you?

[B]

I'm well. You have Been reporting from the region since the start of the Iraq war and before that and since about wars and their aftermaths in Central America and Africa. Have you ever seen anything like what has been unfolding in recent months in Aleppo?

[D]

No, personally, I haven't. I didn't cover the Chechen war in the 90s in which the city of Grozny, the capital of Chechenia, was devastated. Those friends I have who did go, you know, evoked Dresden in the case of Aleppo. I mean, I saw the beginning of the destruction, but what I've seen over the past five years, and of course it's not just Aleppo, it's city after city in Syria, including the very suburbs of Damascus. The scale of the destruction, the killing, the cruelty, the no consequences, total war approach have left a country reeling to a degree that I don't think we've seen in modern times. And we've seen the outflow of the devastation of Syria in the Mediterranean and with the huge influx of refugees and into Europe over the past two years, in turn destabilizing the eu, the rise of isis, a general sense of incapacity in the west, the rise of Putin. Of course, we must include Iraq because in turn it reignited that. It's a kind of perfect storm situation. And of course it's the one we all have our eye on, because it seems to be the one where everything falls apart.

[B]

Let's go back to 2012, which I believe is the last time you were there, reporting from the eastern suburbs of Aleppo.

[D]

That's right. Just as the rebels took Aleppo. Yeah, I went in there.

[B]

Take us back to that moment. Because people have such a hard time keeping track of what was happening when and who the rebels were at that time. And then we can talk about how administration policy went from there.

[D]

Yeah. In the summer of 2012, fighting had begun. You know, in the previous year, protests had spread across the country. Savage response by security forces had led to fighting. Soldiers had defected with their weapons to the protesters. It began to be a kind of street fighting situation in a number of cities. I was actually in Damascus when the rebels took its suburbs initially too, at the beginning of that year in 2012.

[B]

And who were the rebels at that point?

[D]

Well, good question, because the so called Free Syrian army, which became the kind of, you know, catch all brand for the rebels, it felt that it didn't tell us enough. And in the short time we spent in northern Syria, in the Aleppo countryside and in the city itself, we encountered one group after the other and lots of mutual suspicions. We spent A day with a warlord on the very border with Turkey who told us he was receiving aid from money to buy guns from the uae. He had been a smuggler. He was very open about this. He was a mafioso, right? While we were with him, Kurds had come out of the hills and were asking him for weapons. Other Syrians we were with told us later how suspicious they were of these Kurds. We went to a Turkmen village where people literally fled from us, they were so terrified. It was interesting to see that in one village after the other, some as little as four or five miles apart from you, had a different response. As central control of the country broke down, we saw a kind of a whole region that was just being torn apart with Islamists as well. So it was difficult to know who was who.

[B]

When NATO intervened in Libya, many conservatives wondered why not Syria? And the Obama administration came under great ridicule, actually. In fact, one administration official described the policy to our colleague Ryan Lizza as leading from behind. And that became this phrase that conservatives immediately adopted and still use as shorthand for the administration's approach to intervention. But there seems to have been a reason why the administration and NATO were willing to bombard Libya and were more reticent about getting involved in some of these extremely dangerous confrontations that you were in the midst of.

[D]

Not that much later, it's true what you're saying. And after that trip in August, July and August 2012, I had occasion that fall to talk to people in the White House and someone there came out and asked me directly if what I had seen on the ground in Syria gave me enough confidence that if I were in the decision making position to do so, would I give them manpads, that is to say, heat seeking anti aircraft missiles? I was quite surprised by that. But I took that to mean that there was a serious discussion going on and in fact there was about that precise thing. And of course I assumed they had intelligence assets and were trying to find out the best way they could to maybe control the situation and prevent the Assad regime from obliterating the various rebel bastions in civilian held cities like Homs and others around the country. And in the end they chose the route of sanctions, which in a sense they're symbolic because of course pretty much any regime can evade sanctions. These were very kind of lawyerly responses to a situation that was getting out of control. But at the time, having been there myself, I tried to think what would I do? And I couldn't think of who I would align myself with.

[A]

America is changing and so is the world.

[D]

But what's happening in America isn't just.

[B]

A cause of global upheaval.

[D]

It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[A]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington D.C. i'm.

[B]

Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.

[A]

Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[D]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

You also spent a lot of time in Libya. You've gone back several times, including not all that long ago, and you reported about the complete and total anarchy there. Now, that was at the time, because Gaddafi was toppled, that was considered a success. But now there isn't all that much to choose from, it would seem, between the anarchy in Libya and the mass slaughter of civilians in Syria, at least in terms of what the United States and our allies can do in the region to prevent humanitarian crises and the spread of radical Islam.

[D]

I mean, I feel that mistakes were made. You know, intelligent people couldn't come up with appropriate responses. One thing I discovered in talking with the Obama administration, Cameron and Sarkozy governments, they were so reactive to the Bush years, the overwhelming interventions that failed in Iraq particularly, but also Afghanistan, you know, the ineffectiveness of the kind of overwhelming war machine that they had decided they would go for, what they call a light footprint. Well, history could have told them that you can't really intervene militarily and then not mop up afterwards. So in a sense, what they did in Libya was their idea that this was a light footprint meant that they would do a remote control war and then essentially do no follow through. Privately, many of the people who are involved in these decisions as recently as a year and a half year ago, were very apologetic because they're aware just what a disaster Libya is. Once Libya fell and Gaddafi fell, that country became the arms shipment bonanza for the rest of the. And in fact, at one point in 2013, Dorothy, I was invited by a Libyan friend to go on an Islamist arms ship from Libya to Syria and actually considered it. Again, this is a different time. But you know, nobody was stopping those ships. You know, in the end, that lawyerly response of sanctions calling for people to step down resulted in them digging in. There was a sense of betrayal in the air over the Libya and Gaddafi episode. You know, Assad looked for muscle and he got it. And you know, they only know one form of war and that is total war.

[B]

Yes, I want to be sure that we get to what's going on in Iraq right now, which is US Troops back in Iraq in an offensive to retake the city of Mosul from isis. And it looks like it's going to be months. How is that going? And given your own experience in Iraq, what do you expect?

[D]

I mean, the fact that they've managed to rustle up a posse brave and strong enough to stand and fight in Iraq is a good thing. You know, this is a country that had a very humiliated and devastated army for a long time. Thus when ISIS invaded the country in 2013 and took over the Sunni triangle, including Mosul, the army just fled. But Mosul is a very big city with large semi urban areas and rural areas around it. It's street by street fighting, as you said, it's going to take months and it's going to be ugly. It's likely that Mosul will be retaken by western backed forces. But then you're still going to have an issue of should Iraq be a single state, really? It's an 80 year old country that has been bled itself and the region since it was turned into one country by the Brits. There are arguments that it should be dismembered. We're entering kind of a new terrain in which the US Has a, it's not a secondary role in the Middle east, but in a sense, you know, it's a mopping up exercise following a disastrous intervention by the US Everything in.

[B]

The world has changed with the election of Donald Trump and his bizarre relationship with Putin. Trump has said that he will send in troops. This is what he said during the campaign to knock them out fast in Syria. He's also called for a no fly zone, which Clinton also was calling for. What do you foresee, given what seems to be Trump's limitless confidence in restarting a dialogue with Putin?

[D]

Lately I've been wondering, can Trump be as dumb as he seems? You know, maybe he's also trying to outsource, sweeten Putin. And once they finally sit down together, say, okay, you guys are doing this, you can't do that. Give me this. And you know, that could have an effect. Let's see. Putin's gone from being, as Obama frankly sneeringly called him, a guy with adolescent behavior in charge of a second rate power. I think it was something like that, to being, you know, Mr. Big. He's taking advantage of this interregnum in which Obama's very much been a lame duck. And of course, knowing that Trump is coming, he's moving pawns all across the chessboard. A no fly zone at this point. What for? Effectively Trump by siding with Putin and only talking about ISIS, is effectively siding with Assad as well. So who has the planes? You know it's not isis. So a no fly zone would have worked at a certain point of the war and may have curbed the worst excesses of the Assad regime. If, on the other hand, we had truly partnered with the Russians when we formed an alliance to extract the chemical weapons in 2013, maybe making a kind of realpolitik decision to leave Assad in place, it's possible that we could have prevented the rise of isis.

[B]

Sorry to have to end it on that sobering note, but we'll come back to this in coming months. Thank you so much, John Lee.

[D]

You're welcome, Dorothy.

[B]

John Lee Anderson, a staff writer, is the author of many books, including the Fall of Baghdad and Che Guevara A Revolutionary Life. This has been the Political Scene from the New Yorker. You can subscribe to this and other New Yorker podcasts by searching for the New Yorker in your podcast. Apply. You can find more political analysis and commentary on newyorker.com or on the New Yorker Today app. A great way to read the New Yorker on your mobile device, available at no extra charge from the App store [e-mail] today. Tell us what you thought of this podcast. Rate and review the political scene on itunes. This podcast is produced by Alex Barron. For newyorker.com I'm Dorothy Wickenden.

[E]

Right now, we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Waltz, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy jr. Charlemagne, the God, and so many more. That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour. Wherever you listen to podcasts.

[D]

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