Syria after Assad will need help: former US ambassador

WASHINGTON

The removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will create a “wobbly” government that needs help, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria said Tuesday.

Speaking before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Robert Ford drew parallels between the aftermath of the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the potential future for Syria.

“Just as the wobbly government in Iraq ... needed help, that will be the case also in Syria,” he said while giving testimony on US strategy in Iraq and Syria.

The idea that Daesh would take over after the Assad was "wrong on multiple levels" and there was "quite a bit of hope" for Syria, he said.

"As big as the Islamic State is in Syria, it is actually not the biggest force fighting Assad right now. The other elements of the opposition are actually much bigger than the Islamic state."

Ford acknowledged that Daesh was "a quasi state," that built support, recruited and replaced fighters who were killed, and he noted that the U.S.-led coalition should seek "a sustainable solution over the long-term".

Although progress has been made militarily in Iraq in the fight against Daesh, two challenges remained, according to Ford.

Iraqi and Kurdish regional governments are dependent on oil revenues but the crude prices have weakened the fight against Daesh.

"Some of their peshmerga fighters had not been paid for three months," he said.

Added to that is the problem of the "politics of national reconciliation," Ford said, as he urged Sunni Arab leaders in the region to decentralize.

Ford said he was "less optimistic" about the fight against Daesh in Syria, noting that although some progress was achieved in northeastern Syria, the fighters against Daesh there -- Syrian Kurds -- had a "separate political agenda".

The ambassador believes that first on the Kurdish agenda is "autonomy", then the fight against Daesh, and stressed that those priorities would not help national reconciliation because there were groups from different ethnic backgrounds in the region.

"That does not help build local Sunni indigenous forces to contain the Islamic state," he said.

Also testifying was former CIA chief Michael Morell who said he had "no doubt" that Daesh was pursuing chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons.

"I'm concerned that as long as they have a safe haven, they will have the space," he said.