Syrian dictator ‘always welcome here’, Tony Blair said

Syrian ruler Bashar Al-Assad “would always be very welcome here”, Tony Blair told an Arab monarch in July 2000, declassified files show.

Blair made the comment to Bahrain’s King Hamad a month after Assad assumed power in Damascus following the death of his father, Hafez.

“We needed to help build Bashar’s confidence”, Blair told Hamad, one of Britain’s key allies, at a meeting in Downing Street.

Bashar Assad had just secured his place as the new dictator of Syria having been “elected” in a referendum winning 99.7% of the vote.

Briefing notes prepared by No.10 Downing Street for Blair’s meeting with Hamad stated: “Bashar off to a good start in Syria … Believe that Bashar is serious in pursuing his late father’s strategic decision for peace and UK stands ready to help if requested”.

Blair soon made good on the suggestion to help Bashar. Yet eleven years later, Britain was conducting a covert campaign to overthrow its erstwhile ally.

Helping Hafez

In fact, the UK had already been courting Bashar’s father, Hafez, who had ruled Syria with an iron fist for the previous three decades until his death in June 2000.

Blair’s foreign minister, Derek Fatchett, visited Damascus within a month of Labour’s election victory in May 1997 and foreign secretary Robin Cook followed suit the following year.

By then, the UK was even promoting military relations with the notoriously repressive Syrian regime. In 1998, HMS Marlborough became the first Royal Navy frigate to visit Syria in 48 years, followed by other ships in 1999 and 2000.

In June 1999, Blair invited Bashar to visit the UK “in any capacity he chooses”, in an offer made through Lord Levy, the prime minister’s personal envoy, during a meeting with Hafez in Damascus.

The Syrian dictator was “very appreciative” of the offer, according to the UK records.

Making contact with Bashar would be “useful” since he was “perhaps its future president”, and could give the UK “influence” with Syria over the Middle East peace process, documents state.

‘A lot of vision’

Middle East minister, Peter Hain, was in Damascus a few weeks before Hafez died, and held discussions with Bashar.

Hain gave the UK parliament a glowing report of the new Syrian ruler, saying he had “a lot of vision and a modern outlook” and was “well placed to lead Syria forward” especially in “modernising” the economy.

Blair’s closest ally, Peter Mandelson, also undertook the trip to Damascus in January 2001, holding a “private” meeting with Bashar.

Mandelson later wrote that he had “the most relaxed and honest exchange I am ever likely to have with a foreign head of state”, describing Bashar as “an intelligent and cultured individual”.

Mandeslon convinced himself that Bashar “is looking for a fresh paradigm for his country that will rescue it from economic backwardness without plunging it into political chaos”.

While opposing the shelter Syria was giving to Hamas and Hezbollah, Mandelson saw Bashar as a moderate being challenged by Islamist fundamentalists.

‘Nasty dictatorship’

In early 2001, as the US State Department was still designating Syria as a sponsor of terrorism, the Foreign Office was speaking of its “good relations with Syria”. It noted that “contacts with the Syrian President have focused on improving bilateral co-operation and on moving forward the Middle East peace process.”

Later that year, Blair became the first UK prime minister to visit Syria and said in Damascus that the UK was trying to “work together as partners”.

Bashar was honoured with a visit to Britain in 2002, given the full red carpet treatment and visiting the Queen.

Britain’s ambassador to Syria, Henry Hogger, wrote at the time: “I know that our main concern is to try and fix in advance the handling of difficult media issues (e.g. why are we cosying up to this nasty dictatorship that locks up its own MPs?)”

Very little information has emerged about intelligence contacts between the UK and Syria at this time. However, Declassified discovered files showing that in 2004 senior MI6 officials wanted help from Bashar to stop terrorists entering Iraq at a time when US troops were coming under attack from fighters with links to Al Qaeda.

A government briefing note for Blair noted that the UK was “pushing the Syrians hard to accept a visit from a team of senior officials” from MI6, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence to address this issue.

This was said to be “the beginnings of an intelligence relationship which we hope will bear fruit.”

“Why are we cosying up to this nasty dictatorship that locks up its own MPs?”

‘Secular state’

Under Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, the Labour government continued to court Bashar’s regime. Ministers visited Damascus in 2008 and 2009, and Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Mualem visited London in July 2009.

Foreign secretary David Miliband saw the Syrian government as a source of “stability” in the Middle East, saying that “it’s very important that we continue to engage countries like Syria, which wants to be a secular state at the heart of a stable Middle East”.

Miliband’s visit to Syria in November 2008 coincided with “increased repression” in the country, Human Rights Watch commented, also criticising Syria’s “system of forced disappearances” and lack of independent media.

The Syrian regime’s repression had never troubled Whitehall too much. But by the time of the ‘Arab spring’ in early 2011, and after a popular uprising began in Syria in March that year, which Bashar brutally repressed, UK officials spotted an opportunity to remove him as part of their attempted reshaping of the Middle East.

The UK joined a campaign to overthrow the Syrian regime, in cooperation with its allies the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. Military training and weapons were given to armed opposition forces who were often collaborating with jihadist groups, in effect supporting and empowering them.

After a brutal war, which was prolonged by the international meddling promoted by Britain and its allies, Bashar was overthrown in December last year, mainly by a force led by prominent Al Qaeda operative, Ahmed Al-Shuraa (also known as Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani) who is now the country’s leader.

UK – and US and French – diplomats have already met Al-Shuraa and therefore maybe about to go through a fresh cycle of, for now, backing another favoured hardline ruler in Damascus.