The German premier daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung just published a long interview (in German) with the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Below is a translation by me of four of the twenty nine questions and answers:
Q: How long will the war take?
A: Since its first days I get asked when the crisis will end. My answer was that the crisis could last a long time. Because the external factor is obvious. An internal crisis either gets totally solved or develops into a civil war. Neither happened here. The reason for that is the external factor which is keen to prolong the crisis militarily and politically.
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Q: There are centrifugal powers in Syria. Some regions of the country orientate themselves to neighboring countries. Will the borders within the Levant change?
A: If you take the cap stone from a stone arc – and Syria is the cap stone, then the whole arc will collapse. Every gaming with the borders of the region means the creation of a new map. This has a domino effect no one can control. It is possible that one of the great powers will start this process. But nobody will be able to stop such a process at a defined point. In today's Middle East new social contours – denominational and (ethnic-)national, next to the political borders. They make the situation complicate. No one can imagine how the region will look. It will likely be a map for uncountable wars in the Middle East and possibly elsewhere which no one will be able to stop.
Q: How will the regional order look in the coming years?
A: When we exclude the scenario of a destructive division of Syria, I believe in a different, positive scenario. The first challenge is the restoration of security and stability, the second the reconstruction. But the biggest and most important challenge is to stand against extremism. One can observe in some societies of this region a shift towards extremism and a distancing from moderation, especially in matters of religion. The question is if we can we achieve to reposition these societies towards their historical position. Some speak of tolerance, some say its co-existence. If someone is tolerant he may suddenly no longer tolerate the other. It also not just pure co-existence but the assembly of the parts of society. That has characterized this region. The other challenge is the reform we want to achieve. The constant question is which is the best political system that keeps our society together – a presidential or a half-presidential system? The parliamentarian one? What is the fitting system of parties? We can not have religions parties here – neither christian nor muslim. For us religion is an invitation for personal believe, not an instrument to make politics. The most important is to accept the other. If one does not do that there can be no democracy even if we have the best constitution and the best laws.
Q: What is the meaning of secularism in a surrounding in which islamic tendencies gain in strength?
A: The Middle East is a region bound to ideology. The Arabic society has two pillars. One is pan-Arabism and the other is Islam. Nothing else has this significance. For us in Syria secularism means the freedom of the religions: Christians, Muslims and Jews with all their manifold denominations. The secularism is necessary for the unity of the society and for the sense of citizenship. There is no alternative to that as, at the same time, the religions in this region are very strong. That is nice and not bad. Bad is when fanaticism changes into terrorism. Not every fanatic is a terrorist, but every terrorist is a fanatic. That is why I say: The concept of a secular state is that everyone has the right to freely practice his religion. Nobody will be treated differently because of religion, denomination or race.
—End of FAZ translation —
Other parts of the interview are about the history of the crisis, Hizbullah and Qusayr, chemical weapons, the external powers and the Geneva process. Most of these questions but the last have been covered in previous interviews and the answers have not changed. On Geneva Bashar Assad warns that there are many who have interests in sabotaging the Geneva process. These are external forces but also the so called opposition which gets handsomely paid and fed as long as the crisis keeps going. What Assad wants to achieve in Geneva is a compact to prohibit foreign weapons and fighters to come to Syria. If that could be achieved the conference would be a successful one. If that can not be achieved the crisis will spread throughout the region. A more detailed draft of Syria's aims in that conference can be found at Qifa Nabki.
