The Professor Joshua Landis teaches modern Middle Eastern history and politics and writes on Syria and its surrounding countries. He writes “Syria Comment”, a daily newsletter on Syrian politics that attracts some 3,000 readers a day. It is widely read by officials in Washington, Europe and Syria. Dr. Landis regularly travels to Washington DC to consult with the State Department and other government agencies. He is a frequent analyst on TV and radio. Most recently he has appeared on the Jim Lehrer News Hour, Charlie Rose Show, CNN, Fox News, and has been widely quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, LA Times, and comments frequently for NPR and BBC radio. He has spoken at the Brookings Institute, USIP, Middle East Institute, and Council on Foreign Relations. He was educated at Swarthmore (BA), Harvard (MA), and Princeton (PhD). He has lived over 14 years in the Middle East and received numerous grants to study in the region, including three Fulbright grants and one from the Social Science Research Council.We frequently contact the professor Landis to discuss the situations of the Middle East and in particular about Syria, and he replied to our questions in this exclusive interview to Gulan Magazine as the following:

* The violence of Syrian regime against its people is reaching the level of genocide; this comes after Assad’s promise to the Russian foreign minister to stop the violence, why Assad is applying genocide on its nation?
- Because he wants to rule the country like Saddam Husain before him I guess and also like the Christians in Lebanon and like the Jewish in Palestine.

* Assad's regime are attacking public services as you see water and electricity and this is a disaster for the people in this cold winter, until when the international community is going to accept this violence?
- I think the international community has made it very clear they do not mean to intervene militarily were they did in Iraq or Libya, they may arm the Syrian opposition but they aren’t sending airplanes to bomb the Syrian army.

* The international community wants to agree to let Assad to leave peacefully the authority, on the other hand Russia tries to persuade Assad to step down from the authority, to what extend Russia will be successful?
- No I don’t think either both I think the Assad will not step-down voluntarily I think he will or he is the last of the minoriterian states. In another word; we saw long and violent war in Iraq as we saw we through down the machines and we prepared power of course America helped. In Lebanon the Muslims unsealed the Christians from the superior position in fifteen years of civil war. In Palestine the Jews displaced the Muslims in many years of war and become majority so in each of these three states the minority power locked by the colonials from governments but it took many years to stabilize each country and Iraq the country is not yet stable the Sunnis are still fighting the sheets and in Syria as I predict it looks like if it follows the same path as Lebanon Iraq and Palestine it will take many years for this to settle down again and for new government to be formed and for fighting to end and stability to return to Syria and it will be a very difficult long hard passage as every Iraqi knows, I expect he will go down fighting but the Syrian opposition has to build itself into a fighting force with united leadership and a capability to defeat the Syrian regime on its own which is going to be very difficult as we know in Iraq with Americans destroying Saddam Husain but Iraqi opposition.

* But can we supply the Syrian opposition with weapons?
- Yes I thing the weapons are beginning to get to the Syrian opposition I think the foreign countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq, and Lebanon will begin to send more money and more arms to the Syrian opposition and they will become stronger and stronger and already with only small arms they have been able to destabilize the Syrian government and take big territories not hold them forever but the government clearly much weakened and we see people crossing the boarders, smugglers and outside fighters are crossing the boarder there is no way to stop this constant inflow of weapons and money.

* The whole world is reaching to the fact that the Syrian regime neither can make reforms nor can step down peacefully how is it possible to rescue the Syrian nation?
- Yes I think they have to face their own military and I think what we see is increasingly this will turn to a sectarian war that the Sunni opposition will demand and shape Sunnis who continue to work in the government jobs who continue to fight for this regime and then increasingly this turn to otherwise against Sunnis in the same way that Iraq the civil war in Iraq took two years to begin and it wasn’t till Zarqawi bombed the Al-Asker mosque and the real sectarian war started again in Iraq and violence went to the ruff and in Syria we are just see the beginning I think of this fraction of Sunnis at the government but this will grow faster and faster and it will weakened the Syrian regime.

* Do you expect international community to intervene by military means?
- I don’t think it will I think that most outside powers have come to the conclusion that the Syrian opposition will win with time that this Assad regime is finished the US state department said that he is a dead man walking the Israeli defense minister Barak said that in two weeks Assad will fall the head of the Muslim brotherhood in Syria said in may that Assad will fall in three months many people, all the leaders of the foreign countries are saying that Assad can fall in months I don’t think this is true but I do believe he will fall so they have come to the conclusion at least that they have to say they have come to the conclusion that he is going to fall without their help. They don’t have to intervene into this very difficult internal Syrian war they may give weapons, money in order to help the opposition but I don’t believe that they will intervene with airplanes or heavy armor and their armies to overturn Assad the way they did in Iraq or Libya because they believe that Assad will fall anyway so they are going to achieve their objectives one way or the other.

* Can Assad use Kurds in this situation?
- Well I think that this is one of the elements that make many Syrians anxious about revolution as the state collapses it’s quite possible that the Syrian Kurds would ask for national recognition and to succeed from Syria and to join Kurdistan and to become a larger Kurdistan with their brothers in Iraq instead of staying with the Arabs in Syria this is caused quiet tension not only between us as Kurds but between the revolutionary forces of the Syrian national council and the Kurds as well.

* Last Question: To what extend the changes of Assad’s regime may have reactions in the whole area?
- Yes; obviously there is change from Shiite to Sunni, from pro-Iran to pro-Saudi Arabia, from Hezbollah to anti- Hezbollah to anti-Israel, the going on issue will be a problem for the future government as it is from the past but already. Mr. Ghalyun the president of the Syrian national council said the new Syria would not going to war against Israel would not use violence means for resistance to try to get back the Golan heights so this demonstrates a very big change for the region.


Transcription: Mahmud Samih