Fmr. Ambassador Robert Ford: “The military force to my mind is no longer serving a useful purpose it costs about two and a half to three billion dollars a year I’d much rather see that funding used for higher priority needs elsewhere”

@aaronjmate on Twitter

Fmr. Ambassador Robert Ford: “The military force to my mind is no longer serving a useful purpose it costs about two and a half to three billion dollars a year I’d much rather see that funding used for higher priority needs elsewhere”

04:52
government trying to get the iranians
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out
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trying to limit the russian influence um
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the military force to my mind is no
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longer serving a useful purpose it costs
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about
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two and a half to three billion dollars
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a year i’d much rather see that funding
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used
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for higher priority needs elsewhere so i
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think the
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military forces should leave they
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probably need to leave
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in such a way as to not cause confusion
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the way the donald trump
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idea of withdrawal did there needs to be
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close consultation with the
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syrian kurdish militia with which we
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partnered against isis
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we need to talk to the russians about it
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how they would come in
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uh to help chase the remaining pockets
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of isis here there
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but it’s not something we have sanctions
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is a different
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question aaron um i think a lot of it is
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emotional here in the united states
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there’s a desperate desire for justice
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after all the war crimes committed in
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syria and uh i think getting rid of the
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sanctions has been
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a much harder uh
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battle to fight in the congress the
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sanctions have very strong
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approval in congress and i think the
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first step in that is to say
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what are the sanctions actually
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achieving
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well one thing the sanctions aren’t
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achieving is you know starving the
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syrian people
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after all the suffering they’ve already
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gone through and i’m wondering if
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you think we have any
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right at this point to be sanctioning a
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country that
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we helped immiserate you know this was a
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war that we were involved in through the
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cia timber sycamore program the
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proxy war i mean do we have a
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responsibility actually for
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the chaos that happened in syria and
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then accordingly
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what right do we have to sanction a
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suffering country
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i think it’s important uh two things
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there number one
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um syria’s economy was suffering well
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before
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the civil war and it was suffering as
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one of the reasons
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the civil war broke out is uh there were
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large segments of syrian society that
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were not benefiting
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uh from the syrian economy and so they
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joined into the protest marches
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way back when this started ten years ago
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uh
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let’s not forget that the syrian economy
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has been mismanaged for decades
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um with respect to what the sanctions
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are doing now yeah i think the sanctions
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are adding
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to the problems of the syrian economy
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and they’re adding to the problems of
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regular syria
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look the sanctions are designed to cut
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back
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on foreign currency inflows into syria
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the syrian exchange rate has plummeted
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now
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it’s largely wiped out whatever was left
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in the syrian
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middle class uh it’s reduced
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the amount of investment coming into
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syria that means fewer jobs
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which then has an impact on the syrian
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labor market in terms of unemployment
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and wages
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i think it would be foolish for uh an
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american official to say that the
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sanctions
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don’t have any impact on regular syrians
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i was
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in iraq after the american invasion
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there i went in a few months after our
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soldiers did
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and there was no iraqi middle class to
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speak up by them
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sanctions over a period of years against
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to sit down with the same government had
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wiped out
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this iraqi middle class and i think our
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sanctions are doing the same
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in syria but that does not relieve
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responsibility of the bashar al-assad
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government both for
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militarizing the entire uprising that
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dates back to
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2001 and does not uh absolve the outside
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government for
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the economic mismanagement and
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corruption
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uh which afflict syria to this day
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well it’s true there is corruption it’s
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true there’s corruption in many states
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but
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not every state has massive amounts of
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death and refugees
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and i see that as a consequence of a war
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and on that front you know in terms of
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the militarization of the conflict let
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me ask you about that you know
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in initially 10 years ago there were
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protests especially
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in damascus opposing the restriction of
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freedoms
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calling for the release of political
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prisoners but there also was
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as i understand it i wasn’t there but
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from what i’ve read there were
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violent attacks on the syrian army as
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well i’m
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wondering is you being on the ground
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back then when you first started to see
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the protests becoming militarized and
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this turning
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from some protests against an autocratic
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regime into
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a armed uh
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military militarized war
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yeah it’s a fair question so i was on
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the ground and i led a team of american
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diplomats
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uh several of whom like me speak arabic
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uh and we also worked closely with a
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number of other embassies including the
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japanese embassy the danish embassy the
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british and french embassy
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uh and this is what we saw aaron