Jeremy Pressman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, and Coordinator of Middle Eastern Studies at Connecticut University. The Professor Pressman (MIT, PhD) studies international relations, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Middle East politics, and U.S. foreign policy. He is writing a book on force and diplomacy in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Pressman has held fellowships at Harvard University, the University of Sydney, and the Humanities Institute at the University of Connecticut. Pressman previously worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. We contacted the Professor Pressman to discuss the current situations in the Middle East; and in particular the Syrian situation and he replied to our questions in an exclusive interview to Gulan Magazine as the following:

* The International community has two options, either Assad steps down peacefully or the Syrians should end the revolution but none of the options are possible. In your view; is it possible to keep silence toward the Syrian case?
- I'm not sure that there is only two chooses; I think there is a lot of chooses. I think that what we are going to see is rather than the international community speaking with one voice, we are going to see what we have seen over the last few months; which is many countries being very upset by what is going on in Syria, in fact most countries in the world – as we saw with the United Nations’ General Assembly’s vote – most countries in the world rejected what the Assad regime is doing, and I think this will continue for a while until to see the minority countries that aren’t ready to sanction broad international action, but I don’t think that would means sort of wars, I think what we are going to see some countries continuing to do things like speaking out against what Assad’s regime is doing, countries potentially providing training, personnel, funding or arms, countries providing refuge, and few countries like Turkey, Iraq, or Jordan, as you know geographically; there are material cost here, there are issues that has to be faced regardless of what the international community deciding to do. So; I think it is like the economist choice of either or; I think that there is many countries involved, and they are going to make many different choices.

* Assad’s forces still powerful; the violence is still increasing and more people are getting killed on daily bases, and the Assad regime is killing civil people with no mercy, meanwhile no country is supporting the Syrian opposition. In your view: why this is happening? Do you think that the countries feel afraid of supporting the opposition or the Syrian people?
- There have been efforts to take broad international actions and block, but countries continuing to support Syria, like when the United Nations’ Security Council tried to take action, Russia and China blocked a resolution. So; I don’t think it is from the lack of effort or interest. I just think there is only limited number of mechanisms you have. If the Security Council want to take action you can go and pass the General Assembly resolution, but that doesn’t operatively have that much impact. So; when you have a few countries that have the veto they will use it, in many times in the past the United States has been willing to veto in the international actions. In this particular case about Syria it was Russia and China that they were willing to veto. So; I don’t think it is silent, I can speak to the most of the U.S. debate; I think the United States debate the possibility of intervention in Syria and about what is going on in Syria is pretty intense right now, I think it’s overshadow somewhat by the debate about U.S. and Iran. But I do think that there is a firm of debate in the U.S. among the foreign policy community about what to do about Syria and about if they continue to be voices who are speaking out in favor of the idea of military intervention or some other kind of direct action. I'm not saying that’s going to win the day, but I don’t think the debate is over, at least in the United States, and I think that there are other countries in the world that continue to be concern about it.

* Russia and China are supporting Assad, therefore; many experts believe that the other countries like United States, the EU, the Arab league and Turkey as well can collectively take a decision apart from UN, similar to the case of Iraq. In your view; do you think that it is possible to make decisions outside the United Nations?
- There is a lot of history of the last decade of the U.S. has been deeply involved in a number of different military interventions; such as Iraq and Afghanistan, obviously you know this. So; I think for the U.S. there is a different historical legacy here that’s going to make people somewhat renascent to get involved, that said: “the U.S. get involved in Libya, and it might be more something like that rather a deeper kind of involvements like the U.S. had in Iraq. It is difficult to circumvent the UN, but it is not impossible. And for that kind of possibility; I think that some people in the United States are waiting for the Arab League to take the lead, and will not want to get out ahead of the Arab league in this particular case for whatever reasons. If I were in the Syrian opposition I might not be happy with that; people are dying on a daily bases. People are paying the price. But I think there is some reluctant to get out ahead of the Arab League. The Arab League sent the Arab League Mission to Syria. And now it is a question of what the next step is going to be. I think we didn’t see that yet.

* Turkey is the most effective neighboring country to Syria and it has the highest level of trading, it was expected for Turkey to play an essential role but Turkey completely with drown in this case, to what extent do you think that Turkey’s role important for changing Syrian regime?
- I'm not sure. I would say that one pathway to exerting pressure on the Assad’s regime is with the help of Turkey. Obviously; Turkey in a crucial geographic position, if the humanitarian crisis continues to deepen and unfold and the refugees crisis get even worse than it is, then Turkey is going to be directly implicated by that. I don’t know; I'm not sure to what direction Turkey wants to go, I only want to say that there may be other ways to try to influence what is going on in Syria beyond just Turkey. And I think that’s important from the general point; that other countries are going to continue trying think of how they can influence these events, not just the United States, but also France, and Russia as well even they oppose international intervention, and Iraq. So; there is a lot of different players here and it is hard to know what the conciliation forces would be. Again; if I were in the Syrian opposition I would be disappointed at the slow-pace of the international involvement.

* Many observers think that the United States is worry about Syria after Assad because the successor of Assad is not clear yet. In your view; to what extent do you agree with this? Do you think it is fair to let things go on this way only because they don’t know whose going to replace Assad?
- I think there is some concern about that, but I haven’t seen evidence that – at least in the United States – about that decisive issue. As I said; I think there is a lot of history of U.S. intervention in the Middle East and there is concern about yet another deep intervention. Is there concern about what is follow Assad? Sure, but there is also simple narrative in the U.S. is that; what follow Assad is a Syrian regime that would not be friendly with Iran. So; kind of a counterbalancing, I think you are right; there is some concern about who would follow Assad. But there is also an assumption – whether it is right or wrong, I don’t know – but there is often an assumption in the U.S. debate that; he who follows Assad would be better in geopolitical terms, because it is likely to be a Sunni regime that would be not aligned with Iran. I don’t know if that’s correct or not. But that’s the assumption that the U.S. debate.

* Last Question: Saudi Arabia is in favor of the change of Assad’s regime, but it used to support the Bahrain regime to stay in power, in your view; how do you interpret this? Don’t you think that the outsiders are behaving in accordance with their interests?
- Saudi Arabia is making a geopolitical decision, not a prodemocracy decision. They are not opposed to Assad because they want to see democracy and human rights across the region; they are opposed to Assad because Assad has been allied to Iran, one of the Saudis’ adversary. So; the concern is geopolitical, it is absolutely also about national interests and pushing democracy. That’s what is going on; it is just a tool to be use in this particular case.


Transcript: Mahmud Samih