Neri Zilber: 0:04

Shalom and welcome to the Israel Policy Pod. I'm Neri Zilber, a journalist based in Tel Aviv and a policy advisor to Israel Policy Forum. We have a great episode for you this week with Barbara Leaf joining us. Barbara was, of course, the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs until very recently in the Biden administration, which, in plain English, means she was the top US diplomat for the entire Middle East, stretching from Morocco to Iran.

Neri Zilber: 0:30

Barbara spent over 30 years in the Foreign Service, across multiple tours in the Balkans and the Middle East, holding senior posts at State and the White House and serving as ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. She was also a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy a few years back where full disclosure we first met. This was a really fascinating conversation about what it was like at the very top of the US administration on October 7th and during most of the Gaza war, the ongoing ceasefire for hostage talks and day after plans for Gaza, and at the end we even got into Syria and what it's like right now in Washington under the Trump administration. Like I said, a great episode. Let's get to Barbara Leaf. Hi, barbara, welcome to the Israel Policy Pod.

Barbara Leaf: 1:19

Hi, neri, it's great to be on at last.

Neri Zilber: 1:23

At last. Yes, a few false starts, but I'm really thrilled to have you on for many reasons, not least of which you were at the very top of the Biden administration until very recently, dealing with Middle Eastern affairs and, fair to say, crises, not least October 7th and the Gaza war, which we'll get into in a second, trust me. But I wanted to start here, barbara, with maybe a more personal reflection. It's now been just over two months since you finished up and the Trump administration took over. Hopefully you've taken time off, gone on vacation, had time to rest, but I'd love to get a sense of what your last job as Assistant Secretary of State was like, especially in the 15 months from October 7th 2023 to January 20th 2025. In other words, behind the scenes, in the room, on the plane. What's a job like that like, day to day, during a major global crisis, especially?

Barbara Leaf: 2:21

Well, thanks for the mouthful of a question and I will try to give you something coherent as a response, naria, although there are days when I reflect back, and pretty much every day these days I reflect back a lot on that 15 months, but it's as you say, it's that 15 months that was really the crucible. And there were days, frankly, when I felt like I was no longer the assistant secretary of Near Eastern Affairs, I was the assistant secretary of Gaza and there was a certain, as we say, quoting that Bill Murray movie, there was a sort of groundhog day, all over again quality to my life, which is to say that, starting with the trip that I took off on with Secretary Blinken and his team on October 11th, so the Wednesday after that terrible Saturday, I was on a constant, to use another metaphor, constant hamster wheel of travel, largely to the same places, which was to say the Arab quint capitals, the Arab quint as we called them Saudi Arabia, uae, qatar, egypt, jordan and then, of course, israel and out to the West Bank to see the Palestinians, which was quite a contrast to my earlier period, my initial period as assistant secretary, when I was really working to get my arms around the region, in a sense, and renew my acquaintance with a lot of different foreign leaders across the region and see all my people, all my posts. So the hamster wheel, as I call it, was such that every couple of weeks either I was going forward on the trip, sometimes with Brett McGurk, sometimes solo, or more often with Secretary Blinken, as we ground forward on a set of policy efforts which were well, they were grinding, they were hard, laborious, everything was hard in that 15 months. But I'll take you back to that first trip, if I might, which was first of all started off with almost with a bang, which was to say I was up on the hill at about 7 am on Wednesday getting in a classified briefing to the full Senate and the full House with Undersecretary for Political Affairs, toria Newland. At the Congress's request, at the members' request, we were giving them a sort of a full classified briefing on what had occurred on October 7th, what the administration was proposing to do, et cetera. And then I was to go straight out to Andrews, joint Air Base Andrews, to catch up with the secretary's team and get on the plane and get off on our trip. And as I finished up and we were of course in this setting where for two plus hours we were without comms, we had no idea what was happening out in the world. And when we came out, toria said gee, this is strange. Everybody's saying you know the boss has gone over the White House, but nobody knows why. And the boss meaning Secretary Blinken.

Barbara Leaf: 5:40

Well, as it turned out, and he caught up with us belatedly out at Andrews, there was a very rapid huddle that morning because, as it all became public later, there was a near-death experience, if you will, of a second big front opening up that day between Israel and Hezbollah. Now Hezbollah had started firing rockets and so forth on the 8th, so quickly joined the fight, as it were, with Hamas. But this was what was hanging in the air was the possibility that Israel would turn and launch a full-scale assault in fear that what they saw coming was something similar from the Lebanese side of the border. Anyway, long story short, that was a sort of hair-raising start to our trip. Of course it was averted.

Barbara Leaf: 6:34

The White House and the Secretary and President were all on the phone and sorted things with Prime Minister Netanyahu and his team and clarified that there was in fact not coming what they thought was coming. So we took off on that trip that was really rapidly thrown together and sort of almost instinctively, if you will, with the thinking that these were the five core partners that we would want to, first and foremost, get in a huddle with, compare notes, with try to align approaches with in terms of what was developing in Israel and in Gaza. And, of course, in the first instance, it was to show just a massive, visible show of support for the Israeli people, for the Israeli government, at this time of really severe trauma.

Neri Zilber: 7:30

Right, and we're going to get into many of those issues in just a moment, trust me, and I'm curious in terms of the travel to the region, obviously meeting with key stakeholders, obviously here in Arab capitals, in terms of the, shall we say, dialogue back in Washington, especially at the very top of the administration and this is a hypothetical question, Barbara but in terms of the president's senior foreign policy team, how do you all coordinate and manage and speak to each other? How?

Barbara Leaf: 8:13

do you all coordinate and manage and speak to each other? Or, put another way, how should senior aides to the president communicate with each other on such sensitive matters during a crisis? Classified phone calls, meetings in the situation room? Of course, across classified email. I assume you're prodding me in terms of signal gate. Yeah, these were extraordinarily sensitive issues and extraordinarily perilous time Because, as we saw rapidly, if you go back and look at the early public remarks, the thing that the secretary flagged, that other senior officials flagged early on, was their determination, our determination to prevent all-out war and an opening up of a front on every side. So providing the requisite support of every nature was key. And those were sensitive issues which were captains in classified channels for the most part. I mean, you use obviously people use messaging apps to check in and say, hey, have you arrived yet? Hey, what's the mood, Things like that. But you keep your sensitive topics to classified channels, which is often the case.

Neri Zilber: 9:34

Right, I had to ask because it's still front and center in the news and on people's minds. So, having someone who recently served in a senior position, I'm sure many of our listeners are curious as to how you actually would communicate with your peers in the administration.

Barbara Leaf: 9:54

I had a secure phone in my office. I had a secure classified system for both reading cable traffic and for secure email traffic, or secure email traffic. So there was that, which was the typical way that I would be talking across the administration or I'd nip upstairs to see senior officials in person, again in a class-wide setting, or I'd go over to the White House when there was a meeting, or we would have a secure video conference.

Neri Zilber: 10:24

Right. That all makes a lot of sense to me, maybe not to others. Let's get into the brass tacks, and you alluded to some of these issues, and I wanted to start really with the US-Israel relationship in the context and shadow of the Gaza war. Look, from first-hand experience, being here on the ground, there was definitely this amazing sense of gratitude, appreciation and love I'll say it towards President Biden. In the early stage of the war, he really saved Israel's bacon, kosher bacon. But still In the first few weeks after October 7th, when things were really dicey, especially, like you said, things like a potential second front opening up, a real second front, an invasion opening up by Hezbollah.

Neri Zilber: 11:11

But at some point the sentiment here seemed to turn, especially at the very top of the Israeli government. So were you and the other administration officials? Were you aware of this shift? And the other administration officials? Were you aware of this shift? How do you explain it now, in retrospect, a few months away from it? The simple answer may be just simple ingratitude by the Israeli prime minister. My words, not yours. But how do you actually explain the evolution of the US-Israel relationship, given where it started right after October 7th?

Barbara Leaf: 11:44

relationship, given where it started right after October 7th? Yeah, big, big question and I don't think I can give a neat and tidy response to that. It's a vast question and if I pick it apart, I would say, first and foremost, what never flagged was President Biden's unstinting, really emotional but also hard-nosed foreign policy, foreign policymakers' determination to support Israel and the Israeli people and, of course, the Israeli government insofar as he could. That never flagged. There were very scratchy conversations which, by and large, he and the administration kept out of the public domain. Of course I can't speak to the leaky nature of the Israeli side of the equation.

Neri Zilber: 12:35

Yeah, it may have been coming from one side more than the other.

Barbara Leaf: 12:37

Yeah, but I mean, there was just an unstinting determination on his part to support Israel through this terrible trial and, of course, it wasn't a one-week, 11-day sort of trial such as we'd all gone through in May of 2021, just a scant few months after we settled into office. This was something that everybody recognized from the outside was going to be seismically different. So, yeah, there were tough, scratchy, angry conversations at times, but the president was determined that we were going to stay the course in critical support. And, mind you, part of the determination not to be too leaky about that discord was the concern about deterrence. This was a to the best of our ability and I think we were largely successful.

Barbara Leaf: 13:34

This was a contained, multi-front war. I say contained because it risks, of course, right at the outset, exploding into an actual two-front full-on kinetic war. That would have been devastating and would have been extraordinarily hard to, if you will put it back in the box. So deterrence was a key concern all the way along, in other words, that you not let a lot of visible daylight be seen by the adversaries and enemies that were looking to take advantage or to demoralize the public or to demoralize the forces, etc. It was tough. I can't speak for the Israeli side of the equation I mean for Prime Minister Netanyahu and how he looks at the relationship or how he looks at Joe Biden but I can speak for how the president looked at the issue.

Neri Zilber: 14:31

And in terms of the no daylight policy, which was very clear and it did serve a larger strategic purpose, like you said, to deter Israel's enemies, especially Iran and others. Purpose, like you said, to deter Israel's enemies, especially Iran and others, from kind of pressing the advantage if they thought the US commitment to Israel's security wasn't robust. But do you think now, with the benefit of hindsight, that no daylight policy was maybe taken too far or taken advantage of by the Netanyahu government too?

Barbara Leaf: 15:04

far, or taken advantage of by the Netanyahu government. Well, look, I have 35 plus years of diplomatic effort behind me and what I've learned from my first assignment in Port-au-Prince, in Haiti, all the way through, is that every country, small or great, has enormous agency, even the smallest and seemingly most fragile. It's what I call the tyranny of the weak. They can or refuse to go along. They can, whether for because of public will or the government's will to kind of persist, they can absolutely flout what larger, greater, more powerful countries want.

Barbara Leaf: 15:50

Of course, israel had enormous agency, notwithstanding its vulnerability, its sense of acute vulnerability in the wake of the attack of October 7th and the attacks which were extraordinarily difficult for the IDF to contain and turn around over the course of several days.

Barbara Leaf: 16:11

So Israel had agency, too, to make decisions that we very much disagreed with, and I, the coulda, woulda, shoulda question always hangs over you in such crises, but especially when they're 15 months long, can I go back and say, well, we shouldn't have done that, we should have done that?

Barbara Leaf: 16:31

Yeah, I could, and yet we were collectively making the best decisions we could at any given moment, with extraordinarily conflicting, shall we say, interests, objectives, and then context, which was fraught, and certainly as the corner rounded as we rounded the corner rather, on the conflict in the winter into the spring of 2024, that became a more heated set of issues because of the Rafah operation and the extreme levels of deprivation that the Gazans, the Gazan Palestinians, were suffering. So no easy answer to that one and I'm not ducking it. I don't have an answer to it because I know that you know, the easy answer all along was we'll just cut off the arms or just hold back on X or Y. Well, that's a blunderbuss and, as I say, deterrence was a strategic concern. Still, you can hold up a given arms shipment and the country will still do what a country is going to do.

Neri Zilber: 17:43

And I mean I'll say so, you don't have to. Also, the US was heading into an election year and it became a very fraught domestic political issue as well.

Barbara Leaf: 17:52

I mean yes, of course, from all sides. No question, no question. That was, in no small part, a lot of the heat, as well as the campus protests. So, yeah, all of these factors had to weigh heavily every day, especially on the shoulders of the president himself. But, as I said earlier, he had an unstinting, fixed purpose, which was to see Israel through this crisis one way or another, give his best advice. Sometimes that was a brutal conversation, and it wasn't just the president. Obviously, there were many, many different channels of that advice giving, and historians are going to judge, of course, not only the Americans. The historians will judge, of course, how the Israeli government maneuvered through all of this.

Neri Zilber: 18:43

Indeed government maneuver it through all of this Indeed and I hope American historians will make their own analyses. But I think, when the dust settles on my end over here, I think Israeli historians and I think the Israeli public will be very grateful that Joe Biden was the president on October 7th and after October 7th, just in terms of his commitment to Israel and Israel's security. And, like you said, barbara, states have agency. It's true in the Israeli context, it's definitely true in the Palestinian context and it's true in many other parts of the world. I think, from the outside, looking in, especially at how policy and foreign policy is made in Washington, it's very easy just to say well, why doesn't the US just dictate to this or that country on this or that issue to get things done? I think this isn't a new thing. This goes back years and decades. It's easier said than done to get countries to do what you want them to do, even close allies.

Barbara Leaf: 19:42

That's right, neri. And I will just say, as an amateur historian myself, or at least a history lover, avid history reader, israel itself will bear the burden of the choices its leadership made or didn't make all along the way. That, in effect, is going to be the more telling cost, the more telling price. A friendly government, even the closest friendly government, yeah, we could have cut off arms sales, we could have done X and Y and Z, but ultimately the price will not be in an arms shipment here or there, held or not held. The price will be how Israel eventually gets out of this crisis. And that is where agency I mean agency is both the ultimate privilege, ultimate responsibility, ultimate burden.

Neri Zilber: 20:31

Yeah, especially since it's quote unquote, our crisis and our burden and the US is thousands of miles away. That's right. That's also something people forget, shifting gears. But staying on Gaza, barbara, I have to ask about the ceasefire for hostage talks in retrospect and then we'll get, hopefully, to the current moment. But looking back to last year, as I understand it, there are two competing understandings. Shall we call it for what happened in the summer and fall of 2024 and why we didn't get a deal until this past January, at the cost, it has to be said, of several hostages' lives. One side has fully and solely blamed Hamas for ducking a deal and hardening its terms during that time period. The other side of the debate pins the blame more on Netanyahu, due to domestic political considerations and various machinations, and especially hardening Israel's terms in the early part of that summer and then, in the fall, making the Philadelphia corridor and other issues the bedrock of Israeli security. I have to ask what's your understanding of what really happened last year inside the Gaza talks and especially to get the hostages back?

Barbara Leaf: 21:43

Look, I mean there are myriad factors that weighed on the talks throughout the course of the summer and into the fall and weighed heavily on the prospects for a breakthrough. I would say there's no question that Hamas had a major piece, had a major role in that, and until now Hamas is the ultimate villain of the piece. Let us never forget, and Hamas too, even as a non-state actor, enjoys tremendous agency and it has chosen to exercise it most often negatively, most often in saying no or in obstructing or what have you take the military and civilian leadership and so forth struggled throughout that period with an ultimate sort of unanswered question, which I think hung over everything and still does, which is where does the prime minister want to go ultimately with Gaza? Now he has begun to articulate something a little more defined, I guess you would say, in this last week or so, suggesting possibly an indefinite Israeli reoccupation not clear, certainly an eternal Israeli security overwatch. But you know, as those negotiations stumbled along, that was a period during which separately, but not unlinked, obviously running along in parallel tracks, we were attempting to put together, and put together with our friends the Israelis, a practical kind of roadmap for post-conflict arrangements, security, governance, reconstruction, et cetera, which ultimately has to take you to. What is Gaza supposed to be, other than this battered piece of real estate with 2 million suffering people? What is its part in the Palestinians' future? They know what Gaza is supposed to be, which is a piece that is politically and otherwise conjoined with the West Bank and is sort of the stepping stone to a state.

Barbara Leaf: 24:20

The prime minister was never clear. And why does that matter? Because, as you recall, that three-stage construct that the president announced at the end of May, embedded in that first phase I think it was day 22, was to be the kickoff of discussions about what phase two would be. But phase two would only occur with the agreement of the parties on those post-conflict arrangements. Which is to say, does the idf withdraw all the way out? Does certainly the war ends? Because phase three was really just, if you will, the kind of mopping up phase of return of the last of the remains that had been held, but all the living would be returned in phase two. But phase two itself would only be able to kick off with that post-conflict set of arrangements agreed.

Barbara Leaf: 25:20

I don't think, I don't know if the prime minister has a clear vision. He did not articulate it throughout that period and senior officials acknowledge that to us. So it did make things extraordinarily difficult, certain that, much as we were all thrilled to see the agreement on January 17th and then the kickoff on January 19th of phase one of the ceasefire, I had no confidence. In fact, I was quite confident in the opposite direction. I had no confidence that phase two would ever get started, because you have to begin a serious conversation about those post-conflict arrangements and there's a fundamental conflict embedded in that.

Barbara Leaf: 26:16

If I could just add what you've heard me say before, I always found it illogical that Hamas should be the party at the table for those discussions on phase two. Why would you want to discuss the arrangements for post-conflict security, governance, et cetera, with the party that brought this terrible, precipitated this terrible conflict? Why should Hamas have a vote? It should be a representative of the Palestinian people, but it should I mean, in my mind it's the logical thing as a Palestinian authority, however battered and imperfect, a vessel of governance that is, that would have been, in my mind, the logical partner at the table and that would have, with the right political kind of discussions. In bringing in the other Arab states would have had a squeezing effect on Hamas. That isn't there right now.

Neri Zilber: 27:21

And I'll just tie that to. I mean, it's interesting about the stage two and tying it obviously to a real post-war order, or understanding the Palestinian Authority, like you said, should have a role, and I assume this is part of your many, many discussions with the Arab Quintet, the five Arab states that also put forward and have been putting forward their own plan for a day after post-war order in Gaza. So tying it to stage two and obviously the end of the war and stage three, what would that post-war order look like with input and other resources by the Arabs and the Palestinian Authority, which, to be clear, yes, this current Israeli government does not want to see the Palestinian Authority back in Gaza. It also obviously doesn't want to see Hamas there, and so we're kind of in this limbo period.

Barbara Leaf: 28:14

Yeah, and I mean what's going to break the impasse? I mean, how does I come back to the question of how does Israel escape a terrible fate which is to go back into Gaza, which, frankly, I think Hamas would love nothing better than to see the IDF come back in and be a target, get sunk into a quagmire where the IDF is clearing and re-clearing and re-clearing the same pieces of territory, as we saw over the 15 months from the spring on. So you have to have something to break all of that. Well, if you look at all of the discussions that have generated plans of one kind or another, and plan is a very loose approximation for what they are. But the conceptual frameworks, the Egyptian plan, is not very, very different from the principles and the framework that Secretary Blinken laid out on January 14th at the Atlanta Council in Washington DC, which is to say, you take on board sort of a hybrid confection with the PA as a central piece of it to reestablish proper governance. There are various ideas about the security piece of it, but what you do want everybody agrees on is that the PA security forces they have been, as the Palestinians often bleakly said to me and others.

Barbara Leaf: 29:41

You know, we're Israel's partner on the West Bank, why can't we be its partner in Gaza? Who else is going to do the kind of job? This is my question who else is going to do the kind of job that has to be done just in terms of basic policing and so forth? I'm not talking about terrorism raids, even on Hamas, but if you're going to ensure that Hamas as a movement and as a military and political organization does not recapture, over time, its standing even if it's not its October 6th strength and standing, but it's trying even now, is trying to demonstrate to the Palestinians of Gaza, first and foremost, and secondarily to the Israeli government and the Israeli public, that Hamas is there, present and will retake its role, how do you ensure that doesn't happen. Well, it is not merely a military question, and that's been clear over 18 months now. It is a political question. You have to squeeze them out and you have to offer an alternative. And if you insist on keeping the PA out and with other Palestinian factions, I mean you effectively cede the field to Hamas, so it's a dead end. Cede the field to Hamas, so it's a dead end.

Barbara Leaf: 31:09

But all of these Arab states and I mean every one of them, including the UAE, which is, of course, most acerbically critical of current PA leadership. All of them formulate ideas that have the PA as a key player in the immediate post-conflict peace and that, ultimately, the PA is the governing and security actor over time.

Neri Zilber: 31:33

Right, and this is, I think, a key point no PA, no Arab state input. That's right. In a post-war order, and that's not a minor point. So you're well, there's no one really else left, except maybe the IDF. Yeah, it's not a minor point. So you're well, there's no one really else left except maybe the IDF.

Barbara Leaf: 31:47

That's right, that's right.

Neri Zilber: 31:49

And just to be clear for our listeners, I believe Barbara is laying out here is door number one, which would not only end the war, it would also get the hostages back and set up at least the possibility of some kind of realistic post-war order in Gaza.

Neri Zilber: 32:07

That's not where we're at at the moment. So I'd have to ask about door number two, which is that, as we all know, the first stage of the ceasefire ended over a month ago and you were right, barbara there was no follow-on stage two, and Israel has obviously restarted the war and its offensive against Hamas is now expanding from the air and also on the ground. Do you believe that the current position put forward by the Israeli government with, I think it's fair to say, the backing of the Trump administration, is a realistic diplomatic path? Ie, they're now demanding that Hamas soften, capitulate, cave vis-a-vis its longstanding positions and just release hostages without a guarantee it'll end the war. Knowing what you know about the dynamic of these negotiations, going back now a year and a half, do you think this course of diplomacy has a chance to succeed, at least to get a month or two ceasefire in return for X number of hostages, if not to end the war?

Barbara Leaf: 33:12

Well, I mean Neri to say the obvious, but I will a clock is ticking.

Barbara Leaf: 33:17

And that clock is the lives of those remaining hostages. So of 59 still named, maybe 24 are living. It's all very uncertain. From one week to another One doesn't really know, or even the best intelligence with certainty. So there is that clock that is moving inexorably. You overlay active military operations, especially if, as is being discussed, you have a really a very large resumption of ground operations. Then there is obviously greater risk and peril to the hostages themselves and with very little certainty or confidence that the IDF will be able to rescue them or that this will work fast enough as a pressure point on Hamas to bring you to that next phase of exchanges, I hope, of course, every day that there will be a breakthrough. I'm just not confident that those clocks are working at the same speed and certainly Hamas has a ghastly resilience to all of this military pressure, in no small part because, a large part because they have a rabbit warren of places to go to and leaving, of course, the public exposed but themselves largely out of firing range.

Neri Zilber: 34:50

I'm not confident at all okay, well, neither am I, but I suppose this is, this is not the plan.

Barbara Leaf: 34:57

So but I guess what I would say, nary, is you know, rather than be hostage to all of those clocks that are moving as they will, I mean you need something bold and different, something out of the box, out of the box thinking, and I say that for the Israelis. I mean, I'm out of government service and I'm free to give my unsolicited advice to any government broadcast, but I would say it requires really out of the box thinking that will reverse or will turn the tables on Hamas. Hamas is very comfortable in this kind of setting. It is. It goes back to the, you know, the resistance flag that it wraps itself in. It's comfortable with this context. Israel is the one that is bearing the brunt of it all the IDF and the government and the public and so on.

Barbara Leaf: 35:52

Hamas simply doesn't have the same sort of pressure points. So you've got to turn the tables on Hamas and put it under a kind of unbearable political squeeze that it hasn't been under, frankly, all of this time. And that requires again I mean, I'll come back to the mantra you know I've been pushing for many, many months which is you put at the table a different partner. Why should Hamas be your partner for deliberating over the course of post-conflict security and governance arrangements. Why should Hamas have a vote? Hamas may feel it will exercise a vote indirectly putting pressure on people, but why should you give it an overt role of any kind? And, by the way, at the end, if you've been able to somehow get back all the hostages but you can't get back the bodies, or people die, et cetera, at the end you still have the fundamental question what is the disposition of Gaza?

Neri Zilber: 37:03

Right, the thought experiment I mean comes to my mind quite often. But if there were no hostages, right, you would still need a plan for post-war Gaza.

Barbara Leaf: 37:12

That's exactly right.

Neri Zilber: 37:14

Okay, we'll be right back after this brief message.

Speaker 3: 37:21

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Neri Zilber: 38:19

Barbara, shifting gears to another issue very much in the news and, I believe, very much near and dear to your professional heart Syria.

Barbara Leaf: 38:27

Yes.

Neri Zilber: 38:28

Your last diplomatic trip in December was to Syria to meet with Ahmed al-Shara, the new ruler in Damascus, formerly known as Mohammed al-Jolani. I have to ask what was your impression of the man? What was your impression of the new regime that took over in Syria and the prospects for the country's future?

Barbara Leaf: 38:51

I know these are big questions, but you're uniquely placed to give insight on them analyst that day, as much as you know, a diplomat proffering a set of messages and so forth. And you know I scrutinized him, I listened carefully to every word. I, you know, reviewed his body language in the course of a number of exchanges. That couldn't have been comfortable for him. That couldn't have been comfortable for him. And, of course, I had talked to a whole set of Syrians ahead of meeting with Ashara civil society actors, our own embassy staff, who have fearlessly in some cases, but courageously, kept our installation secure during these many years when we've been gone. And, of course, I met with the White Helmets, another fearless set of actors. So I had a lot of information garnered that day. I'd also spent a week in Amman preparing for the trip and talking to a lot of other folks, including people who were going in ahead of me, european and other diplomats, talking to other regional officials and so forth. Anyway, long story short, I've said, and I still find it the right analysis he is. Ultimately, he came across as a thoroughgoing pragmatist, as a thoroughgoing pragmatist, a political leader, not just a military leader. So much has been made of his. You know what he's wearing on any given day. I think that's not incidental to the way he is transitioned and again transitioned in the most remarkable fashion, with speed, speed that he did not expect to have to operate in. Let's remember when he and his coalition of fighters set off for Aleppo as they have said themselves, their objective was Aleppo and they spent a lot of time mapping out how they would govern, secure etc. But they were not planning to go further than Aleppo and what they found was it fell, just fell into their arms and they turned southward. And you know, it was the old, you know hot knife cutting through butter analogy of just moving down towards Damascus with virtually no effort at resistance by the regime's forces. So he didn't expect to come into Damascus on December, I guess it was the 9th or 10th Assad, you know, fled ignominiously on December 8th and he came in a day or so later after southern militias had moved in to secure the city.

Barbara Leaf: 41:46

So a thoroughgoing pragmatist. Why do I say that? He had obviously and remember this was only 12 days after the fall he had clearly put a lot of thought into what he termed should be the new Syria. Now, was this his own thinking? Was it based on sort of the public clamor meeting with people as he was at that point.

Barbara Leaf: 42:14

You know it's a mix of things, but he clearly, as many analysts who have tracked him in HTS over the years told me, he had clearly moved down a road away from his transnational jihadist origins as a fighter, as a young man who went to Iraq two months ahead of the US invasion to prepare to fight the Americans. He had traveled that long road away from the ISIS predecessor, al-qaeda in Iraq to turn his back on them, viewed them as an enemy, said so to me, had turned on al-Qaeda, the other jihadists transnational jihadist organization he'd made common cause with. And he strikes me now as somebody who is very much a Syrian Islamist nationalist. Now I am tracking closely. You know developments in Syria every day, as many people are, and the evolution continues in terms of governance, transparency and so forth, and there's a high bar for him to meet.

Barbara Leaf: 43:31

But I am impressed by the degree to which he is putting so much personal effort into outreach within Syria to all of its different communities, as well as the outreach that he and his foreign minister are doing for regional countries, including, importantly, iraq, which you know, given Iraq's difficulties all those years of Bashar al-Assad having basically fed this stream of foreign fighters into Iraq to fight the Iraqis not just the Americans, but I mean Assad fed that conflict in Iraq.

Barbara Leaf: 44:13

And of course, the disappearance, the eclipse of Iran and its proxies in Syria in a sort of an earthquake of a moment really shook actors, political and militia actors in Iraq. And that first week I did two trips to Baghdad, one ahead of the secretary and then one with Secretary Blinken, before we went to Jordan for a ministerial with other countries and before I went to Damascus. The Iraqis were staggered by what had occurred next door. As a Shia-majority country, they were anxious and alarmed by the Alawite community now displaced from power and now presumably being very vulnerable. They were concerned about Shia religious sites and so forth. But I have watched this effort on both sides to really connect with each other, which I think is really fundamental to the prospects of Syria stabilizing and Iraq stabilizing further. So so far so good, but still a long, long way to go.

Neri Zilber: 45:28

Undoubtedly, and I just have to ask again on a more personal level, I think you were the first US diplomat to visit Damascus. In what? Since 2012? Yes, suss out this new ruler in Damascus. But I'm sure he was also very curious, excited, maybe even happy, that a senior US diplomat was actually coming and meeting with him, right?

Barbara Leaf: 45:57

Yep, and I mean it was evident that he had both cleared his entire afternoon for us and would have stayed indefinitely. I had to bring the conversation to a close after an hour and a half because we had to get back on the road before dark. But it was also clear that he had done an enormous amount of preparation and thinking about the conversation. So he was very well prepared and he was very engaging on every topic. In other words, no matter how difficult the topic or how difficult my message was, he engaged and engaged forthrightly and with good humor. I would say he does not strike me as a joking, a lighthearted, joking kind of guy, but he cracked a smile a number of times and it was a very cordial conversation. That's what was so striking, including in the parts where we were talking about Israel and what Israel was doing. And he rather plaintively asked could we help in getting Israel to get back on its side of the 1974 demarcation line? 1974 demarcation line.

Barbara Leaf: 47:12

But that was one of the many points at which I sort of metaphorically closed my eyes and remind myself I was speaking to a Syrian official because he was non-polemical, you know, did not? You know, hafez al-Assad was famous for starting every conversation with let me tell you about 1948. And and and, of course, he and his son were extremely polemical in every sense about Israel, publicly and privately. Shadrach was very matter-of-fact in discussing it and matter-of-fact in discussing the fact that the new Syria had no quarrel with Israel, had no fight, didn't want any fight, and he intended that the new Syria would be a good neighbor to everyone, including to Israel, and that he would not allow groups, whether it's Hezbollah, palestinian groups, iran, iranian-backed militias, he would not allow them to use Syria as a launching pad for attacks against Israel. So it was, to my mind, one of the more striking pieces of our conversation because of the matter of factness, about the way he spoke of Israel and the desire not to have any fight.

Neri Zilber: 48:26

That's not a minor point and since this is the Israel policy pot, I have to follow up and ask, given what Israel has done since early December in Syria moving in across the border from the Golan Heights, taking over this kind of new security zone, declaring, as Netanyahu has, that he wants all of southern Syria demilitarized, still striking various military assets and sites all across the country both as a former senior US diplomat and as a Middle East analyst, what do you think about this new hardline Israeli approach to the new Syria?

Barbara Leaf: 49:09

Well, look, I think it risks stirring up the kind of agitation and animosity that wasn't there then and still is there only in very localized places. The sort of outreach or suggested desire to be overwatched for the security of the Druze also, I think, actually puts them in a very difficult position, and one that you know. It's clear from Druze leaders' commentary that they were uncomfortable with, that. They don't want a separate, special relationship with Israel. In this context, in this context, when there are these various assertions about intent and about longevity of intent to stay on a large piece of Syrian territory, let alone to say that all of southern Syria has to be demilitarized, I think, look, in our trade there are many ways to get at your security and there are many channels for that, and I would hope that those channels would be used. I'm not talking about diplomatic channels, obviously, but that there would be channels used to both understand and convey intent and find a way forward.

Barbara Leaf: 50:35

I would hate to see kind of a stirring up of attention, of anti-Israeli sentiment and attention, where there isn't any. And I will tell you, the thing that you hear constantly from Syrians, inside as well as outside, is this issue of wanting unity again, that they haven't enjoyed unity across society, across ethnic and sectarian religious communities. I mean, you have to remember that the Assad spent a lot of time and effort keeping the country very divided and setting communities against each other. So there's a sort of a vehemence to the public's expression of the desire to knit back up again and a kind of hostility to foreigners talking to them about their quote minorities and yes, it is a mosaic of minority communities with a large sunny majority. But there is nonetheless a real sensitivity in Syria and you get this from Syrians, expatriate communities. They want the chance to knit things back up together and that's a long, long task and that requires external actors, all of them in the region to not foster things in the opposite direction.

Neri Zilber: 52:01

Fascinating answer, I have to say, really interesting, barbara. Last question before we wrap up on an issue closer to where you are and not so close to where I am at the moment, but Washington under President Donald Trump I have to ask you're still there and you're still obviously plugged in. What is the mood like in DC right now in foreign policy, national security circles, especially given the I mean what's the right word Purge, dismantling, complete undermining of what we had come to know as the US government's kind of foreign policy, foreign aid, national security apparatus? Give us some insight for those of us not in DC anymore, about how you view what the past two months.

Barbara Leaf: 52:52

Okay, well, look, this is. You know, this is an extraordinarily tough time in this town for those who are well, not just national security focused. I mean, it goes much beyond that. There were a whole set of layoffs announced this week for people in the public health sector, and that's you know. State, nsc, white House, department of Defense, the IC community in its full breadth, it's just the core actors. It is disorienting, and that starts with the dismantling of USAID.

Barbara Leaf: 53:42

And look, anybody who has served in state, run an embassy, been part of an embassy team where there was a large AID mission, or worked in Washington alongside AID, you know a couple things. You know that there are just extraordinary people who've worked in that organization, who've devoted their lives to the mission of that organization and who and who integrate sacrifice to themselves, to their health, to their families, to their safety, often to carry out a mission of not just development but humanitarian assistance across a very disordered and dangerous world. And at the same time, you know, no question, there were plenty of programs that you could take a you know a seasoned eye to and say does this really fit within the bounds of what we want to do, even in this bilateral relationship with country X, let alone step back and say does it really make sense to be in this business, in this particular sector anymore? But you know, that kind of really methodical review was not done, unfortunately. So it's been pretty shattering, of course, to folks in the national security community to watch this, because AID and the assistance that comes with it, it's just a critical, critical tool set Along with defense, along with diplomacy.

Barbara Leaf: 55:10

You've got development and all the things that fit under it and we've massively shrunk that down and I think that's going to hurt us, there's no question. And the Chinese boy, they're all about exploiting that hurt in large swaths of be it Africa or the Middle East, where we will no longer have programs of any size or substance. And then there's a question just overhanging in a large part where is this all going? So great uncertainty, I will just say, because I have tons of friends across the NATSAC community. You know they are great public servants and they are tenaciously doing their jobs in very difficult circumstances. And it's always been the case with state. You know the adage has been that we don't really have a constituency as such in the public. Folks in Washington understand what we do as diplomats, members of Congress to some degree understand, but we don't have constituency.

Neri Zilber: 56:18

Right.

Barbara Leaf: 56:19

So maybe that's part of it, but I think it's also. Things have moved at such speed that there hasn't been time for the public to catch up. So we'll see, but it's a very uncertain time and I'm concerned, as always, with how it affects our core national security interests, including overseas, in such difficult situations in which my colleagues operate now, in which my colleagues operate now.

Neri Zilber: 56:46

Indeed, and I guess all of our fears is that it's not over yet. So, like you said, it's a question of where this is all going and how far this new administration wants to take it. And yes, it's oftentimes very difficult to explain to lay people, people outside of DC, the American public, the exact importance of a forward-leading, robust international presence, whether it be diplomatic, developmental, defense, military, to be engaged in the world. And I think that's going to be a major loss, not just for the US but for the entire globe, as we may find out. Barbara, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much for your time and insights. We didn't even talk about Lebanon or Iran, all the other-.

Barbara Leaf: 57:37

There's so much and this is why I said you know, I felt like the Assistant Secretary of Gaza, because that was my life for 15 months, but notwithstanding that, I did manage to get to Algeria and Morocco late last year. I did work on other issues, so invite me back and we'll talk about those other issues.

Neri Zilber: 57:56

We'll have you back on for sure, barbara, and thank you again, take care.

Barbara Leaf: 57:59

Thank you.

Neri Zilber: 58:01

Okay, thanks again to Barbara Lee for her generous time and insights. Also a special thanks to our producer, jacob Gilman, and to all of you who support Israel Policy Forum's work. Do consider making a donation to Israel Policy Forum, so keep being a credible source of analysis and ideas on issues such as these that we all care deeply about, including this podcast. And, most importantly, thank you for listening.