The Destruction of Syria: Harry Berger & Kevork Almassian (PREVIEW)

## A quiet coronation: how a terrorist franchise became a government The conversation at the heart of this discussion insists that what looks like a chaotic collapse of Syrian governance is, in fact, the culmination of a deliberate, long-running policy. Rather than an organic victory of an indigenous opposition, the exchange frames the replacement of one regime by militias once branded as terrorists as the planned endgame of a multilateral regime-change project. The story traced in the dialogue is not only about battlefield shifts but about diplomatic rehabilitation, legal rebranding, and the geopolitical normalization that follows when states decide a formerly useful proxy should become a legitimate partner. What emerges is a portrait of Syria as a theatre where covert operations, open funding, and international calculation have produced not merely a new government but a new regional alignment—one whose humanitarian and legal fallout has been largely sidelined in mainstream human-rights discourse. ## From covert aid to overt power: the mechanics of external intervention A central strand of the exchange lays out how covert and overt Western actions converged to empower extremist factions. The narrative points to early intelligence assessments that recognized Islamist and jihadist groups as the driving force of the insurgency. Faced with that reality, Western policy is described as bifurcated: a publicly touted effort to train “moderates” alongside a secret program that supplied weapons and training to more radical elements. Military operations rooms in neighboring states became distribution hubs for armaments and advisors, and regional sponsors—states with varied motives—acted as financial conduits. The result, as the discussion frames it, was predictable: weapons and institutional support flowed into networks that proved adaptable and adept at exploiting the war’s fragmentation. The exchange stresses that this was not an accidental empowerment. It was a strategic calculation with multiple sponsors playing different roles—some funding, some hosting logistics, some providing diplomatic cover. When insurgent commanders who had once been vilified in public documents later ceased to be treated as outcasts in diplomatic corridors, the conversation suggests, the trajectory from proxy warfare to de facto statehood had been set in motion long before the final assault on Damascus. ## Rebranding a jihadist force: legal labels and political utility Much of the discussion is given over to how legal and rhetorical categories were shifted to facilitate the integration of an extremist force into the fabric of regional politics. Rebranding, the dialogue argues, is crucial: organizations initially identified with al-Qaeda were reconstituted under new names and presented as pragmatic, even moderate, actors. This semantic transformation served two purposes. First, it allowed foreign powers to engage—overtly or tacitly—with groups they could not publicly endorse under their earlier labels. Second, the shift provided the diplomatic breathing room required for broader normalization once those groups advanced militarily. The legal unlisting of prominent leaders is discussed as the culmination of that process. Removing “terrorist” designations, the conversation claims, is not a neutral act of administrative housekeeping. It is an enabling decision: a signal that prior constraints—sanctions, travel bans, financing restrictions—can be relaxed or repealed. The effect is to turn erstwhile non-state actors into interlocutors and, ultimately, into governing actors whose authority can be recognized. The conversation stresses that such recognition is seldom spontaneous; it is the product of political calculations about what new alignments serve broader strategic aims. ## The human consequences: civilians, minorities, and the politics of displacement Beneath the strategic maneuvers, the exchange foregrounds stark human consequences. As militias once designated as extremist assume governing power, the conversation details a pattern of persecution and legal reclassification that bears on minority communities and vulnerable populations. One example highlighted is the erosion of civil and social rights for groups who had enjoyed equal status under the previous regime—particularly Palestinians living in Syria. The shift from being treated as citizens to being legally designated as residents, the conversation points out, removes protections and narrows options for social welfare, healthcare, and education. Such legal redefinitions have material repercussions: limited mobility, reduced access to services, and a formalized second-class status that facilitates displacement. The dialogue also draws attention to the atmosphere of fear among communities associated with the former government. Reports of mass violence, killings, and coercive population movements are discussed not as collateral damage but as instruments of consolidation—ways for new rulers to impose authority, ethnically or politically reshape contested territories, and advance geostrategic aims such as demographic engineering near key frontiers. The point made is blunt: regime change in practice rarely ends at a change of flag; it often continues through the imposition of new social hierarchies and the legal marginalization of groups deemed hostile or less useful to the new order. ## Geopolitics and the new regional order: normalization, alignments, and proxy diplomacy The conversation situates Syria’s upheaval within a broader regional realignment in which states that once opposed each other find common cause in reshaping the Levant. The exchange contends that the same powers that supported insurgent groups have also worked to normalize their presence for strategic reasons—whether to counter rival influence, to manage refugee flows, to secure border zones, or to undermine allied nonstate actors. Part of this process is diplomatic: states that previously denounced certain actors gradually recalibrate public stances to accommodate emergent realities, facilitating reintegration into regional bargaining systems. This normalization is portrayed as transactional and contingent. Governments are said to extract commitments—formal or informal—from newly empowered actors in return for recognition or tacit support. Demands may include severing ties with regional resistance movements, excluding militant networks from border access, or aligning with a nascent “moderate” Arab camp that accepts normalization with Israel. The conversation suggests that such bargains bend local agency toward broader strategic priorities, sometimes at the cost of long-standing alliances and social contracts within Syria itself. ## Accountability and the silences of human-rights institutions A recurring theme is the purported failure of human-rights organizations and international institutions to squarely confront these transformations. The exchange questions why so many NGOs and watchdogs focus on selective abuses while remaining silent about structural sponsorship, the logistics of armament flows, and the accountability of foreign governments that enabled militants’ rise. The conversation suggests that institutional blindness—or worse, complicity—stems from political pressures and funding relationships that make certain narratives inconvenient. This critique includes a call for a more comprehensive accounting of responsibility that goes beyond battlefield atrocities to include policies of external support. The argument is that genuine accountability must encompass the full chain of decisions—from the architecture of covert programs and diplomatic cover to the legal unlisting of violent actors. Without that scope, justice becomes piecemeal: individual crimes are highlighted while the enabling environment that made those crimes possible is left unexamined. ## Forward-looking dilemmas: what a durable peace would require The discussion closes on

The Destruction of Syria (Preview) Interview Previews. For the full video go to Harry Berger's channel: https://www.youtube.com /@UCeag14aVf8WZioxPEn8jzJQ Follow and Subscribe to Harrison Berger on Substack at https://bergerposts.Substack.com This Video in full: https://youtu.be/RaBRCUgFJOU? si=Q7zXT0OYU24hiskt Our shop: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com ------------------- Kevork Almassian is a political analyst from Syria who predicted years ago that US support for terror groups like Al Nusra front would lead to the replacement of Syrian President Assad with violent extremist groups. Even though Almassian was proven correct, he was swiftly punished and deported from Germany, which had granted him amnesty as a Syrian Refugee. Because he expressed the supposedly wrong opinions about Syria, the German government made a special exception to their refugee laws in order to expel him from the country for his heresy against the CIA/NATO regime change narrative We talk about what has happened to Syria since Jolani’s takeover, who is responsible, and why few human rights organizations seem to care at all Follow and Subscribe to Kevork Almassian at @SyrianaAnalysis Follow and Subscribe to Harrison Berger on Substack at https://bergerposts.Substack.com #M2 Hello everybody, Pascal here from Neutrality Studies, and my colleague and friend Harry Berger has a new interview out, this time with the Syrian analyst and commentator Kevork Almassian on what is currently happening in Syria. As I did before, I will show you the first 10 minutes as a teaser. If you're interested in the entire discussion, go over to Harry's own channel, No Tribe. It will be linked in the description below. Have a look at the entire thing. Here you go. #M3 Kevork Almassian is a political analyst from Syria who predicted years ago that U.S. support for terror groups like al-Nusra Front would lead to the replacement of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with violent extremist groups. Even though he was proven correct, as he objected to that war, he was swiftly punished. He was deported from Germany, which had granted him amnesty as a Syrian refugee, because he expressed supposedly wrong opinions about Syria. The German government made a special exception to their refugee laws in order to expel him from the country for his heresy against the CIA-NATO regime change narratives. We talk about what happened to Syria since Jolani's takeover, who's responsible, and why so few human rights organizations seem to care at all. The United States this past week removed former al-Qaeda terrorist and current president of Syria, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, from the list of foreign terrorists. This comes seven months after Jolani and his militias overthrew the Assad government, something which was celebrated across the West as a victory for democracy. And I'm sure that there are some in Syria who feel that way. Many do -- 1 of 4 -- not, especially Alawites, who fear for their safety because of ongoing massacres perpetrated by what are now the Syrian government's own militias that are loyal to President Jolani. I want to talk later about how we got to this point, to discuss the 14-year-long so-called Syrian civil war. But what was your initial reaction to the decision by Western governments like the United States and UK to remove the terrorist designation for Jolani and to recognize his government of former al-Qaeda terrorists? #M1 Personally, I wasn't surprised at all. I wasn't shocked, I wasn't surprised because I have followed the Syrian war from its inception in 2011, and I have read the leaked documents of American officials and how they saw and perceived the Syrian war. I will just give you some examples. In 2012, the American Defense Intelligence Agency prepared a report with their evaluation of the conflict in the country, which by 2012 was already a hot war. It was an insurgency, and there were multiple sides fighting against the Syrian government, or the former Syrian government. And the evaluation of the American Defense Intelligence Agency was that the driving force behind the insurgency against Assad were the Muslim Brotherhood, Takfiri jihadists, and the al-Qaeda in Iraq groups. Knowing this information, Barack Obama put his signature on the CIA covert operation in Syria called Timber Sycamore in order to arm and train these radical groups in Syria. Now, it was a covert operation—it was secret—because in parallel they had a public training program run by the Pentagon, and the Pentagon said, "We're arming the moderate rebels." So they needed another parallel program, a covert, secret one, through which they could and would supply weapons, ammunition, and training to the more radical groups in the country. So because of this U.S. military support, which came through two military operations rooms in Turkey and in Jordan—in Turkey, it was called MOM, and in Jordan, it was called MOC—those military operations rooms consisted of the Saudis, Qataris, Turks, Jordanians, Americans, and Brits. So they funneled all these weapons into the country, and it ended up mostly in the hands of the al- Nusra Front. Al-Nusra Front is a franchise of al-Qaeda led by Jolani. Jolani was later described as a potential ally of the United States by none other than Jake Sullivan, because Jake Sullivan sent an email to his former boss, Hillary Clinton, saying basically, quote, "Al-Qaeda is on our side in Syria." Later, in 2014 and 2015, when Jolani's army occupied the borders between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights, which are now under the occupation of Israel, the Israeli forces did not fire a single bullet against Jolani's army. On the contrary, they carried out hundreds of airstrikes against Syrian army positions, but zero against Jolani's army. On the same side, the Israelis also received these al- Qaeda forces into the Golan Heights field hospitals, gave them medical treatment, logistical support, light weapons, and cash. And those are the words of the UN; those are the words of the Israeli press. I'm not bringing any personal analysis on this side. So we have these two secret documents from 2012. We have Jolani occupying the borders with the Golan Heights and receiving Israeli support. -- 2 of 4 -- In 2021, when the U.S. started rebranding al-Qaeda into what is called HTS, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, because they needed to present Jolani as a civilized person who could lead Syria into democracy, the former U.S. special envoy to Syria, James Jeffrey—who served under both the Democrats and the Republicans—said, and I'm quoting him, that Jolani's army is an asset for the U.S. strategy in Syria. So, taking all this into consideration and seeing how the regime change war ended and unfolded into Jolani coming into power, all these indications lead us to believe that the U.S., despite its designation of Jolani or his organization as a terrorist, has provided him with tangible, consistent, and continuous support—not only from the United States, but also its allies in the region, namely Qatar. Qatar was the biggest donor and financial supporter of Jolani's army. Then comes Turkey. The Saudis were not supporting Jolani much because they had other proxy groups, such as Jaysh al- Islam (Islam's Army) and Ahrar al-Sham. So the Qataris, the Americans, and the Turks played an instrumental role in bringing Jolani to power. Now that he has come to power, they cannot normalize him, they cannot endorse him or accept him as a legitimate government unless they remove this bounty over his head and also lift the sanctions against him. Now, the most important information that your respected audience should know is that people think Jolani came to power and afterwards accepted the American diktats, but that's not the case. Jolani, before he came to power in October 2024, had already accepted the American diktats. I think this was on the 10th or the 20th of October 2024, when the Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman al- Safadi, came to Damascus. He brought a list of demands from the Americans, saying, "Look, the Americans and Israelis have killed Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, who was your very close friend and ally. This could be an opportunity for you to make your historic shift and join the moderate Arab camp." And what is the moderate Arab camp? It is Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE—Arab countries that have normalized ties with Israel, whether tacitly or publicly. They are evolving under the umbrella of US foreign policy goals in the region. So Assad rejected this offer from the American and Israeli side. And only three weeks later, Jolani attacked Aleppo. So those are not coincidences at all. This is very important, because they would not have greenlit Jolani to attack Aleppo and then advance to Damascus unless they were sure that he had already signed and accepted the American diktats. And those are: one, normalize ties with Israel; and two, end any sort of support to Palestinian resistance groups or Lebanese resistance groups, close their offices in Syria, kick them out of the country, and seal the borders with Hezbollah—which Jolani had done, all of them. Besides this, now this is very important because under Assad's rule, the Palestinians were equal to Syrians. So they could receive free medical healthcare and free education, and they were treated as Syrians in the country. Now, Jolani has revoked this status from them, and they are no longer called Syrian Palestinians. They are now called Palestinian residents, which means they are no longer considered equals to the Syrians. -- 3 of 4 -- And this is also one of the important aspects, because Israel wants to block the way for any future call for the Palestinians to return to their home country. They are trying to kick out more Palestinians from Palestine, especially from Gaza, and Jolani is cooperating in this case. Finally, Hezbollah is a very, very important case for both Jolani and Israel, and they have found a mutual enemy in this. Yesterday—on Sunday, I believe—Jolani was in Baku and met with Aliyev. There, he also met with Israeli security officials, and they're coordinating to see if they can wage a joint attack against Lebanon, namely against Hezbollah, in the coming weeks. That's why we now have lots of discussion and turmoil inside Lebanon itself. People are fearful of Jolani's Al Qaeda army basically attacking Lebanon. So I'm not surprised. My reaction is, yeah, they were on the same boat, and they have succeeded in this regime change operation. Now they have crowned the person who basically acted as an asset for the American strategy in the region. -- 4 of 4 --