Inflation bringing the syrian pound from 3,000 to a single u. S. Dollar. Small businesses are closing. Imports are plumeting and those living under the poverty line at 80 are increasing in number. An average monthly salary now reportedly buys a large bag of lemons. Government corruption has tweeted weak crisis and some humanitarians are warning of a potential famine this winter. While lebanon remains mired, the rollout of the turkish lyra to a third of the population in the northwest could be the nail in the coffin for what remains of the Syrian Regimes economy. In a podcast released last week, danny mackey focuses on the internal, that igt might represent a more dangerous threat to assad than any military threat seen in recent years. And yet, as its scitizens face dire conditions, the regime has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent weeks on new fighter jets from russia and Armored Vehicles and its purposely burned widespreads of land in the country. Fueled by these economic and now political frustrations, syrias community have taken to the streets in recent weeks holding bold protests and expressing bold sol didarity. Protests have been seen in the southern government, where an expanding insurgency is developing. In the desert, isis is resurging and discontent and criticism for the regime are emerging more clearly than at any point since 2011. So might these sanctions, teamed up with diplomacy, force iranian backers back into compromise or serve to exacerbate rising human suffering across the country . These and many more questions will be up for debate and to take part in this discussion, im really thrilled to introduce our panelists. First, we have ambassador james jeffrey, the special representative for syria engagement and coalition to defeat isis. Ambassador jeffrey has held senior positions across the u. S. Government including as Deputy National security adviser and as ambassador in iraq and turkey. Next, we have a syrian born writer and political analyst who holds a seat on the boards of the day after project in the Syrian Economic Forum and was an associate fellow at chat ham hou house. A and as a former detainee and torture victim, hes also a syria fellow at the center for transitional justice, where his work focuses on political imp z imprisonment in syria. B welcome. Finally, in terms of the format for today, each panelist will begin with five minutes of opening remarks followed by a moderated discussion. This is live on zoom, live stream and live on cspan. To the many people worldwide dialed into this event on zoom, id encourage you to submit questions using the q a feature which you should see on your screens. For those on the phone, you can submit questions by emailing them to events. Feel free to submit questions at any point during the event. Ill do my very best to work them into discussion. I understand were currently scheduled to hold this event for an hour. If the quantity of questions is as many as we expect, we may push a little bit beyond that time, but well play things by ear. But to kick off the discussion, bas a bas jeffre ambassador jeffrey, thank you for taking the time to speak with us. Its good to be back. We did a lot of Work Together including on syria back in times past when i had another existence. Im sure most of you have seen the secretary of states and secretary of treasurys statements on the act last week in some of the commentaries and fact sheets. So i wont get into the details. What i want to do is to explain why the act is important. How we are going to implement it and what the next steps are. Most importantly, start with the title as charles said. The its the civilian protection act of 2019. It is designed to protect the Syrian People from assad in two way s. Directly in the introduction by calling on the end to strikes against the Syrian People then more generally, to require participation in the political process under the u. N. , thats the 22 resolution 2254 process. Which is the american policy and we do not deviate and i order from that. It is not regime change. Its not a separate deal from anybody. Its the u. N. Process we are supporting everywhere we can include ing with this legislati. Its not the first sanctions action against syria. Weve had a set of them. Mainly executive orders, but this is important first of all because it is a law. It is a law that was not only passed by congress and signed by President Trump, its a law that passed overwhelmingly, almost unanimously, in both houses. Thats very important because it reflects that syria policy in the United States today covers all parts of the u. S. Political system. From the right to the left. From republicans to democrats. From people who think very differently than other things on the need to do more on syria. Because this is such a terrible conflict for its own population, the latest statistics ive seen are the that only a little over a third of the population is now under assads active control. A little less than a third are refugees in turkey, lebanon and jordan, who have done an amazing job taking care of those people, and some in europe. Then almost a third are also in areas of regime control in the northwest and northeast. So, that is a telling point on where assad is today. We, secondly, see this legislation as give iing us mor powerful tools to go after those cronies and oligarchs who are supporting assad and assad and his family themselves as you see pr from the first list of sanctions weve rolled out. All those were under the executive order, but were going to target these people with the caesar act. Our goal is not to topple the economy. Assad is more than capable of doing that. Hes doing a e terrific job of pushing the pound into irrelevance and undercutting what is left of the syrian gdp. Rather, it is to inflict real pain on the people around assad and get them to understand this pain doesnt go away until they change their policies. That involves either breaking off support for the regime or a list of seven thing that is the regime has to do for the regime as a whole no longer to be sanctioned. That involves no longer besieging the Syrian People, no longer performing them, dealing with war criminals, encouraging refugees to return, and on and on. Another thing that we expect from the Syrian Government is to stop threatening the neighborhood. Be it by allowing or ignoring the terrorist threat that has grown up in that country. Charles again mentioned isis was on the march again in those areas we dont control. Be it use of chemical weapons, be it the weaponization of refugees, be it inviting in iran with its regional agenda or inviting in russia with a different but equally troubling agenda. The syrian conflict has suck ed in five outside armies including the u. S. , the turkish and a third country neighbor that i wont mention because it usually wants to keep its participation at a significant quiet. But we have to resolve all of these geo Strategic Issues as well as the humanitarian issues before we can move forward next, the caesar act has very strong humanitarian provisions that require us in the u. S. Government to explain to congress and insure in our actual sanctions target thag we do not undercut the humanitarian efforts underway. United states will be pledging a significant amount at the eu pledging conference for humanitarian aid at the end of this month. Already with over 10. 6 billion, were the biggest humanitarian contributor. That will not stop in this covid19, but we will continue these sanctions because of their nature, they allow us to secondary sanctions. They target specific areas. In one sense, money laundering, the central bank, which is important, although its been sanctioned in other areas, but also the aviation industry. Particularly military aviation, energy industry, construction industry. We want to make it clear to anybody who wants to rebuild assads syria, that that cannot happen without caesar sanctions until we have a political process. Now, what are we going to do with all of this . In looki ining at the larger pie right now, and charles mentioned much of this, first of all, we see an economic free fall of the assad regime. Larnlly through his own beheir and the collapse of the Banking System in lebanon. Sebl secondly, we see his military offensive has still made it. In idlib, he was stopped in his tracks by a counteroffensive. The u. S. Has not left the northeast. The president is in a way talking about withdrawals from afghanistan made clear that while well eventually withdraw from syria, nothing is on the table right now. And the third country i mentioned, is in many respects, being more effective, particularly at targeting iranian and threatening syrian targets. So military situation isnt that great. Finally, on the accountability front, which is so important in this conflict. Were seeing a great deal of support from secretary general gutierrez, who spoke out in written form in his reply to the outrageous and shameful 2504 resolution that cut two of the four humanitarian cards into syria, calling for those or at least the one in the northeast, to be reinstated, and pointing out the obvious, that the Syrian Government is going to do nothing significant to allow humanitarian deliveries in areas it does not control. We have seen the border inquiry called by the secretary general condemning the regime and indirectly, the russians, for exploiting the passing of information, cord nants and others on safe areas that were then subsequently bombed. Weve seen the opcw with this iit condemnation of the regime for three attacks in the spring of 2017 with chemical weapons, blaming not only regime forces, but saying this had to be agreed to and ordered by the top levels of the government. So thats the fourth thing. Along with the military situation, the economy, our sanctions, and accountability that we believe will allow us to press the russians for a negotiated settlement under 2254. Thank you, charles. Ambassador, thank you very much for those opening remarks. I think well go to katapa next. Thank you so much for being with us. Of course. Thank you so much, charles. Thanks for organizing this and for a ambassador jeffrey at the state department to really establish this communication for the people to explain what the caesar act, what the steps are. As you said, this is a really important step towards accountability. Especially for disappearance in syria. A lot of people look at first disappearance is going to be a a side effect of the conflict in syria, but in reality, this has been going on for as long as the party was established in syria. As long as 1963 when the first, when they came into power. When i look specifically at the design of the syrian and how basically, the Syrian Regime has design ed the laws specifically to funnel all of those detainees through illegal system that would put them in prison for years. So this is not just a side issue, organized issue. I think its great that were putting the step forward towards you know free ago lot of people of war crimes, torture and killing of detainees and maybe hopefully bring some hope ft. Families of tens of thousands in syria. Of course, what is coming ahead of us, i think there are two challenges. The first one is to control the narrative regarding syria. The caesar act. Again, i respect ambassador jeffreys and the last week and reaching out to talk a about the act and address the concerns syrians have. I almost seen him every day last week talking to different syrian communities, addressing their questions. Because the Syrian Regime will continue to bank on sanctions to justify its economic failure, its important to continue these efforts, and to listen and to hear, to control the narrative that is reaching the Syrian People. That would be by continuing reach out to the Syrian People, but also by listening to the syrians and seeing how the side effects of the act will affect the lives of ordinary syrians and try to mitigate those effects. But whether theres changes through the sanctions, this is really important to tell the Syrian People that the act is targeting those who are committing crimes and not targeting the lives of ordinary syrians. The second challenge is to adapt, to make sure, actually, that the caesar act and sanctions resulting from the caesar act are actually cierring their goal. So make sure we have a very responsive Sanction Program. If you look at the Sanction Program today out of almost over 300 syrian individuals listed on the sanctions list, we have 270 individuals, for example, from the Research Center working on chemical weapons. If we want to make sure that actually the caesar act are in effect and we are targeting people who are behind detaining syrians, behind torturing syrians, we need to expand and look into those individuals in every Intelligence Center and every secret prison to make sure we have those individuals, those who are directly responsible for those horrific acts weve seen. Thank you, charles. Thank you so much for placing that into some very important context. Reen, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me and i think i have a good point on which to start, which is to follfo follow up. The narrative on the sanctions is extremely important for syrians to understand why this is necessary and how it could possibly benefit them, but also to counter the other narratives, which is that everything that the regime has done has been to save the country, has been to save syrians, and none of this would have happened had it not been for those sanctions and for this fantasy of regime change conspiracy. I think its very important to remind those people, whether they are knee jerk reactions, who say that anything the u. S. Does must be bad or they are pure ignorance about what the regime has done. We imagine that the economy and that was done by this regime, from turning a socialist, closed economy, into a socalled open economy, but only for a certain segment of society. So while they launched into this crony capitalism, no concurrent measures were taken to make sure that the normal economy for everybody else was going on, so that means that people saw subsidies begin to be reduced. Without something to make up for them and the subsidies were needed because under the father for 30 years, everything was closed and the only way that people could access anything from gas to bread, needed to be subsidized so i think we need to look at these issues to understand even if the sanctions were removed, we would not be getting the normal involvement of a government of a normal government with the people. I want to mention that if anybody has been policing the Syrian People, it has been the regime for all these years. In the news lately has been the price or the fee of 800 for an passport. This is not new. The regime has always made syrians pay for the privilege of going to syria. Just by way of example, i can tell you thatven young men who have never lived in syria, but who come from syrian heritage, and wanted to visit their country, would have to pay 5, 10 or 15,000 to be exempt from the military. This has gone for years. The import fees on cars until 2005, the import tax, the duty, was 255 and we can name numerous examples of how it has always been the syrians who had to pay this heavy price to be able to participate in daily life. So this is an answer to the you know, to the naysayers who say that the sanctions hurt the people. Im not going to pretend they cannot hurt the people, they can, and thats why my position when i look at the situation today, is to say that the sanctions alone are not enough and ambassador jeffrey mentioned they would be political pressure to move on with 2254 and i think this is and this is the key point that we are only against the regime enablers but at the same time theres only one way out of this and if we dont call it regime change, we can at least call it political transition which is precisely what 2254 is about and finally i would say about the sieges that the regime has carried out repeatedly, not just in syrian cities but i remind you that when the regime had to with draw very quickly after the assassination in 2005 it imposed a blockade on lebanon. And its to think that this is because of these sanctions. Thank you for those really important opening comments as well. All three of you said things that compliment each other but give very important different perspectives or overlapping perspectives. Quite clearly its no secret to you that the legislation sparked quite a debate within the community thats following syria and events elsewhere in the middle east. And having an overly negative effect on this civilian population. All three of you have addressed why that argument by itself is potentially problematic but i wanted to ask you about the fact that, you know, sanctions of any kind can have unintended consequences. And is there or are there any plans or actions underway to try to prevent any of the unintended consequences. Theres been talk about whether they should bailout the economy and and last week to make up for the inflation being seen in damascus so thats one example. The other thing that struck my mind is being included in the sanctions. Her syria trust for development is engaged in very Strong Language and requirements. We will adhere fully to them. We have no intention of targeting anything that delivers humanitarian assistance anywhere in syria. The first thing that were doing aside from articulating the policy is ensuring that we can make an additional large contribution to the humanitarian needs of syria beyond the 10. 6 billion we have already given. And some of that flows to regime areas. I want to repeat that. Aid to individuals and stabilization and reconstruction funding that will be exploited by the regime to build their happy holiday luxury resorts and thats what we are opposed to. Not humanitarian assistance. These were announced three days ago. The incredible collapse of the syrian pound and the other economic problems that syria faces cannot be blamed upon the sanctions. Thirdly we are looking at ways that we can enhance our stabilization assistance. For example, in the northeast, there are 50,000,000 or actually 54 million notified on assistance to areas there. Targeted on minorities and religious groups but basically it will help the entire situation and were looking at various other options that finally humanitarian and low level stabilization activities that could help the people and empowering this regime anymore are among the first things that we would consider were we to see assad and his allies and embrace a permanent ceasefire. Embrace a real role for the Constitutional Committee. Cooperate with us on going after the real terrorists rather than claiming the population of terrorists and attacking them and releasing detainees in large numbers. The russians, the iranians and syrians know our agenda. They know what were willing to do and its up to them to take a step in that direction. Thank you. Thank you. Just to follow up with a number of questions or some version of this question which is that u. S. Policy obviously shifted in recent years to call for a behavioral change in the regime rather than essentially regime change. But the language is fairly tough or at least its being perceived as fairly tough and the question generally thats being asked is, is the regime able to meet requirements or demands and still survive or do they add up to a regime change. What might that add on . Well, first of all, i know the regime attacks it today. And nonetheless, the criteria that it lists as hitting the regime out from under the criteria do not include the demise of assad. And we can see whether it will be under this leader and the people around him. We dont know. Its a standard. It is consistent and this is important with 2254 in the security counsel that passed it. Its not in the business of regime change or at least not anymore for good reason given what has happened to some and its all of these behaviors. Thank you very much. Im just wondering what your take is on how it has been and i have seen lots of different opinions as to whether its a good or a bad thing both in regime and opposition areas and also as an extension of that, sort of having come from syria, how does the regime how do you think the regime will see this . Does the regime take this seriously . Or will it continue to look at this in the very way that it has to military threats . Over the last nine years. So first, people are preserving it. I mean, to be honest, theyre like responses to ending on where people are currently. But to talk about the vast majority under it, a lot of people are afraid of the act. Because as you said for so many years, it has been going on for a month. And theyre finding their relatives today. They have been at least 6,000 of the photos have been released until the beginning of this year. So its kind of like theres this discovery and at the same time process of fear because as i said the Syrian Government and the Syrian Regime is controlling what the act is. Its banking to say all of this economic failure because of the war and the past nine or ten years its all because of the act and another thing, this is a challenge for the regime itself but its banking on the cesar act to justify its failure because of its commitments to russia and iran. In the past year or so, there has been a big shortage of medicine and pharmaceuticals in the syrian market. They have been using the narrative as a result of the act because of the american sanctions and in reality the regime signed many contracts actually with syrian Companies First to give them access to hospitals and the ministry of health. At the same time its actually prevenlted syri prevented syrian pharmaceutical factories and continuing to work. Its pushing syrian businesses out of this market because iran wants the control of, like so many things in syria and wants to control the pharmaceutical business in syria. And i think that it was really important that the cesar act included those that will push to fund and support the efforts of accountability. This should include specific efforts of people that are by any other parties. And if were talking today about they have not been able to see the photos for the past four years, they do not have knowledge of this for the past four years and then we actually have a problem when it comes to account ability and we need to address this problem and fund and support the organizations. This is why all of these exercises by Different Civil Society organizations and such as among the day after why theyre working so hard to continue informing syrians and telling them what rights they would have. How syrians see it is important. Those who are under regime control are of course still able to see International Media but its very easy to believe that everything bad happening to them is because the world just wont leave them alone and its difficult for them to find proof to the contrary. And the lebanese are as worried as most syrians are. It is because they dont have enough outlet. So the narrative is important. And they need to be translated by syrians to syrians. So there is a parallel theme. Theres fear and theres also ignorance because even if they were to go and download the cesar act its difficult to understand it. The regime is a spiteful regime. It will try to sting you from another. So we know that the first reaction is increasing the suffering of the people. To show their people. And being as they want them to be nor that they are ready to change some of their behavior and have to remember that some of those actions that they are required to take cost them nothing. Like the release of 130,000 detainees is not something that is going to shake the regime. So they are banking on the fact that the desperate people that are looking ahead to the be afraid while they can eat watermelon and fruit will not be able to heat their homes or to have enough to feed their children in the coming months. This is what the regime is banking on. We need education and we need pressure to continue. Thank you so much for those really important answers. I have a few things to follow up with you. Ill quickly go back to ambassador jeffrey first. Ambassador, two interlinked questions, again coming primarily from the audience. One is one that you have been asked already. Is the u. S. Prepared to sanction allies in the region or europe or elsewhere that decide to still reengage financially or engage financially with the regime and secondly, there was some expectation that some sanctions would target russia. Russia seemingly has got away by and large from u. S. Sanctions so far since intervening in 2015. They established the parameters within which an administration can act. Anything that falls within these parameters is sanctionable. Its conditional. It does it explicitly as i said earlier. And in another way the diplomatic purpose and rational for doing these things. And so for an entity to be sanctioned being a syrian entity or somebody elses entity, a government and individual are an institution refirm. And our Foreign Policy goal of stopping attacks on civilians and pushing the regime toward the political process, pushing the rejum toward meeting the criteria that are layed out in the 7 subparagraphs in the legislation and thats what we will do. You mentioned in the comments the phrase Civil Society. And one of them has been the proposal to engage with socall socalled mutual Civil Society or Civil Society organizations within regime held areas within a way of assisting Syrian People amid the conflict without assisting or benefitting the regime. I just wondered if you could give your perspective on whether or not whether from an american or european perspective thats a feasible approach or if its something that frankly the regime would be able to take advantage of in whatever circumstances. And it will be rekindled by the end of august. Huge numbers of small groups and small organizations have been working quitely over the years and ill add to that that theres now a third element which is the Civil Society organizations which have been spout sprouting all over europe because of the large number of refugees. Refugees that while they are making a new life in germany and austria and britain in france keep an eye on syria. This is a place they want to go back to. When you join all of these three together and you put you crunch the numbers, you realize that this is a huge percentage of syrianbe society. So yes i do believe theres a parallel way. I dont know if we can call it a track two or if there is a road map to that but in addition to the political avenue, there is a need to involve these people and bigger organization can lead the way in that. And bringing the voices and the opinions of even these people working not only on the process to democracy and transition and the empowerment of women on the idea of citizenship, of separating the state from a number of other issues. So this i think is something that should be seriously considered hopefully by the governments who are involved in seeing it through. I think that you saw the arrest of a man in germany just today. A former military intelligence doctor being accused of crimes against humanity and of course in terms of the language of u. S. Policy. I just wondered, again, from a syrian perspective, how important is this . Why does it come when it comes now . Is this too little too late . Do you see this going toward the longterm effects that most of the Syrian Community wants to see . I know that they disappeared in the 90s and 80s. Some of them actually still have hope that the relatives are still somewhere and would end the presence. And theres always hope. At least theyll be either able to know the relatives by checking the photos or by actually looking for some, lets say, you know, this for what they have been going through for the past ten years. A lot of times when we talk about the issue, we focus on what it is and the detention that torture itself in many cases, the killing, but we in many cases, we also forget about what the families are going through, whether its emotional. A lot of people, were talking about families that dont have access to funding. That dont have access to inheritance because for some reason even when their relatives are killed under torture, they still with hold their information and still with holds their death certificate so the families are just living in limbo and on one hand they know through word of mouth that their relatives are probably dead but on the other hand, they actually have no clue whether they are officially dead or not. Whether theyre 100 dead or not. So the hope is that hopefully this will push the Syrian Government to put pressure on the regime to release at least some information about what is happening. Its full accountability for the past ten years but at least theyre still hoping that there will be some openings when it comes to the fate of those that still disappeared. Whether theyre alive or dead. Thank you. The scale every time that you say it, the scale of the issue is hard to fathom. I have a couple of questions for you. One comes from someone inside syria. Who has challenged the policy by saying, by targeting or at least the first sections by targeting the Syrian Regimes elite. You are pressuring people that dont care about syrian citizens. Are you pressing the wrong button. So thats one question from inside syria. And another one from the senior from an opposition figure, she has asked is it actually possible to measure the effect of our sanctions against the regime . And differentiate that from the effect of regime behavior or regime policies whether it be damaging effects or positive effects. First of all, of course we sanction regime leaders. Wanted them to be very aware of that. Whatever their motivations are anticipating. Being welcome back to the community having candlelight dinners in paris, traveling to disneyworld, thats all off. And furthermore what we have seen in country after country is that as part of their motivation it is the amassing of huge fortunes and we are pretty suspicious that thats thez u c with assad and his cronies as well and we want them to realize that those can be in various ways. So that is an incentive for them to rethink their ways. Also its this financial side of what we need for the totalitarian reseem and its very, very important. And understanding how they exercise control over their followers. Its the hundreds and thousands of people who emulate them, who bask in the sun of their lives and go in as a minor participant in their golf courses and this kind of thing. We want them to know that theres no financial future that they want to plug into which is the International World as long as they continue that. And what was the second question . Thats a little bit different. I have so many questions coming through im losing track. How would you go about differentiating the effects . How would you mention the effects . In 51 years of doing this in government, i have never seen any kind of policy. And what were doing now in syria which can give you a scientific level answer to that question. Or this campaign will produce 21 of the impact that will lead to x happening. It doesnt work like that. What i ask everybody is look at this situation from assads eyes. Is he better off today . Than he was a year ago . The whole purpose of the syrian Foreign Policy approach that mike pompeo and President Trump and the rest of us are taking is to ensure that that answer is no and that in 2021 the answer will be even further no. Thats the only way to do one of two things. The thing we prefer which is to have them change their policies and accept the u. N. Political compromise process but failing that we want to make sure that they do not benefit from their war crimes. They do not benefit from their aggression. They do not benefit from this litany of horrific things they have inflicted on the Syrian People, on the region and on europe since 2011. That day will be mired in this thing and they will be thinking ever more that this is not going to end well. So we have one or two alternatives. They are discouraged and are not able to exploit anything that they have achieved. Thats the worst case scenario. Theres a question that i want to ask you in a bit. I wonder if you can just expand more in anyway that you can on two things. The u. S. Governments. How likely do you think it would be that the suffering that you just described in your last comments within the regime will cause moscow to have a change of heart and treat negotiations in a more serious way. I think that thats more important because it gets to this. Again, the whole policy is based on making the other side pay an ever growing cost for what it is doing without achieving final success. If theyre willing to continue paying those costs without a final success because they hope that despite the bipartisan nature of the syrian policy and the vote, for example, the caesar act, maybe in november well get a new leadership, who knows. We dont know that but the argument that were making in all of these channels and some of them are public. We went last may. Secretary prompeo and us. We did a press conference and we layed this all out publicly. Its not a secret. This is a policy that were pursuing. And it offers advantages visa vi an all in. Or some kind of superficial performer signing up to a political process that has no substance to it. Even though we have a Constitutional Committee and we have a meeting on the last week of august. We still do not see a legitimate election is a regime sponsored election. And until we see real seriousness and real eagerness to engage with us on a compromised solution. Now the other thing that characterizes our approach is that were not demanding total victory. Were not saying that assad has to go. Were saying that whoever is in charge of that government has to change its behavior. That gets to the first question. Now also were not saying that the russians have to go. Even our demand that iran leaves syria which is a very important demand, thats in the context of we want to see the military situation return to 2011 when there was only one outside force in syria and while we would prefer the russians not to be there its not part of our policy not to try to get them out. Now in terms of the unity of the Syrian Government, thats hard to measure. In dealing with the Syrian Government and following what they were doing in 2007, with the nuclear site on the north korean one i was impressed with how little anybody other than extremely tight circle around assad knew about these actions. And that probably characterizes a lot of what is going on. Theres many beneficiaries of what assad is doing. Theres no doubt and they form a level or a circle of support. His inner circle is very tight. We have seen them in it. Everybody knows with his brother in the Fourth Armored Division versus units that are more associated with the russians. There are some frictions and this is not something that we can claim to know in great detail or something that were hanging our policy on. Its some what unrelated but hopefully you can both touch on them. The first one is the Constitutional Committee mentioned in the caesar act and related to the ask. How important do you think well, first of all what is going on with the Constitutional Committee these days . How important do you think syrians see the Constitutional Committee in terms of advancing the kind of agenda that we have talked about over the last hour . And the second question is about remittances. Looking at sanctions in general and particularly the seize czca. Do you have concern and understand the concern surrounding the continued ability to continue to send money into relatives inside the country and if so, what kind of action would you expect or demand at this point . And why dont you kick things off this time. Well, to begin with, the remittances, it is really of no import what the caesar act, you know, decides on it. And my own family is in damascus and they take this money and the official Exchange Rate which means that if you send somebody in your family 200 they end up getting Something Like 40 in syrian pounds. So its not just the sanctions so were not managing. Syrians are not managing to effectively help families left in syria. So that should be Constitutional Committee to be very blunt, i believe that most syrians see this as and its not a bad thing. It does fall within and most allies in the region as well have put the regime change on the back burner and it has to go on the back burner. So frankly for most syrians ambassador jeffrey i believe was mentioning how many people are in each area. If were talking about a third under assad and 2thirds outside of the control of assad then if we just take the simple majority, which is where most elections and most changes happen and it believes more pressure has to be imposed on the regime remembering this regime only responds to credible threats. Whether under the father or the son. He nearly got into a war with turkey in 1998 because of his refusal to expel and in 2005, only the credible threat of some kind of action after the assassination let the syrian troops with draw lead to withdrawal from syrian troops. We dont talk about it anymore. Now to their credit the opposition accepted that and are working at putting their believes and manifestos and goals and missions and values on the table. And precisely able to have their own socalled elections. Its very important to note that when i say that were not advocating regime change, i mean regime change by international or american action. And listed in our policy then well embrace the regime or government or whatever we call it. Thats the criteria. Its up to the people of syria to decide who will lead syria. Right now they do not have a voice. Our political process gives them a pass to that voice. They take actions of preventing syrians from preventing money. So even though it does not effect individual syrians, private actors do their own thing. This is something that we actually need to address and we really need to be i see a lot of the questions and a lot of people are still asking what are the effects . How are civilians going to be effected. And we need to be honest with the Syrian People. The Syrian Regime is hijacking the Syrian People and like driving downhill and what theyre trying to do is basically either to stop that bus from going downhill or send the Syrian People off. Are there going to be negative effects of any Sanction Programs . Of course. Naturally, of course. The thing is that Sanction Programs from the 80s or the 90s are so different from Sanction Programs today. They got much smarter. They have minimal effects on civilians when it comes to sanctions on individuals. The thing is is that the caesar act is a powerful tool and every now and then theres going to be a new sanctions list. Today so far we know that theyre going to be effected and the right answer to tell the Syrian People is that we dont know what the effects are going to be. This is the point that i agree with. But what we can do and thats actually what i mentioned is important to have a very responsive sanction. What we can do is actually once we implemented the sanction list is to look at its effects on the Syrian People. Look how things have changed and then basically fix accordingly. Try it whether its through exceptions. Whether its to change the list itself but we have to be honest with the Syrian People that we will not know the effects until each sanction list is implemented. But its something again, its something necessary to do to stop the Syrian Regime from taking the Syrian People host e hostage. Ill start with one being mentioned a number of times related to lebanon. Does the u. S. Government expect or is it prepared to deal with potential consequences on the lebanese economy, on Syrian Refugees inside lebanon . I guess this goes to remittances but also theres a question here from the New York Times mentioning the lebanese banks put a blanket ban on all syrians opening up Bank Accounts in lebanon. Is there a lebanon angle consciously or unconsciously to the sanctions and is there anything that the u. S. Government plans to do to assuage these kinds of effects for the refugee populations . And obviously not just in lebanon but lebanon is what is being mentioned a number of times . First of all, i deal with syria. Not lebanon or other countries apart from those countries involvement in syria. Refugees are one area where lebanon has been extremely generous and extremely helpful and we work from time to time with the lebanese government on actions related to syrians including when and whether they should go back and such. But we are not certainly im not participating in any efforts to have any impact on the lebanese economy, on the lebanese Banking Sector. And i havent seen any indication anybody else is. I think that this is what the lebanese Banking Sector has done to itself. And again, the United States is works closely with the lebanese government on this and a whole series of issues in terms of the refugee population. Again we continue to support humanitarian assistance to refugees both inside and outside of syria and to the efforts by and of course theres some impact on the financial collapse of the syrian pound. We are concerned about that in the northeast and indirectly even in the northwest although turkey as you know has introduced the turkish lyra as a way to respond to the problems there. So theres a lot of things that were looking at. This is something that as i said, its independent. We dont think caesar will augment it dramatically but its something that we are concerned about. Ambassador, thank you. One other question, theres a bunch of questions that have come in about the central bank and assessments about whether or not its involved in money laundering. The questions have asked whether the u. S. Government has come to an assessment on that. Whether thats still something thats under judgment. The u. S. Government has been cast in the legislation to do that assessment. The assessment is not yet complete. Straightforward answer. Then to a tough question. What if this doesnt work . What if the regime doubles down. What if it takes a north korea route. It builds a wall and isolated it from the rest of the world as citizens continue to suffer but have no other or no better option. Is the u. S. Prepared whether the administration changes in a few months time or not . Is the u. S. Prepared to sustain this kind of attritional longterm policy into the long haul . I wonder if maybe i can just get your personal opinion on that . My personal opinion is as follows. First of all, a north korea scenario i think would be difficult given the relative openness of syria and its population to the arab world and secondly to the International Community over the past basically several centuries. And secondly. The one charm of north korea is i know of no country in our entire Regional Security system in asia that wants to be like north korea or wants to have anything like what happens in north korea happen to it. Its been facilitated by two outside powers. Iran and russia without whom either assad would not be in power today or would have to take a very different approach to the mass opposition of his own public. They have to decide whether it is going to add to their luster, add to their in essence this is what they are doing, alternative to an american lead collective security system. By showing the world their product. A north korea in the middle of the middle east. We think that that will not make them particularly attractive as someone as you knew, 911 in the middle east. If you call 911 and what you will end up with is the next syria as it looks today as you put it, the north korea of the middle east if it goes that route. Then we think that that, their ambitious project to totally change to their favor the middle east. We havent talked much about that. Thats a reality. Different end goals but united in opposing our Current System. And the region Current System security in the middle east and the more attractive they can make their alternative the more likely theyll have success. Ambassador thank you so much. Well move toward closing and im going to ask one final question. Or maybe you can take your pick between two questions. And the first one is a difficult one where do you think we might be 6 to 12 months from now as Deputy Assistant secretary has suggested were about to enter the summer of caesar sanctions. Perhaps you can suggest what is missing on western or International Policy on syria. What more can be done to further the cause that is already underway. Letter it. Make it more efficient or even reverse it. Should i start . Sure, please go ahead. I am quite pessimistic that we are or at least im not as optimistic. I dont know if ambassador jeffrey was projecting some optimism that the Syrian Regime does not want to end up like north korea. It does not. But it also has a lot of tools i think in 6 to 12 months if theres no parallel threat we will be where we are today. The regime will never leave. It is a regime that must be made to leave that must be removed by force but the point i would like to make now is that we forget who are the allies of the regime. Were talking about hezbollah and a number of iraqi malitia all around the region and this would not be the first time he uses hezbollah or other small actors in the region to inflame the region around him. So they will throw fire bombs around them and see what happens because they always calculate that when the region is in trouble, there is no way of solving it. So you have to go back to the Syrian Regime and it will hold on and manage to secure itself. Its only weakness is securing the livelihood of the loyalists. Z that the Syrian People whether they are in despair is not going to change much to the equation. This is where we bring back the region and i am afraid that with only these saijss as tough as they may be, its not enough. Thank you. I think that its easier. For the past ten years, syria has proved us all wrong when it comes to expectations. But i think what is really important, specifically from policy making perspective whether in europe or in the United States, its to actually move from reactive policy making to active policy making. Its to push under and i feel that until today we are still pushed. This policy is still driven by whatever our policy toward iran is. We dont know whats going to happen next. In the next year in the United States. So no matter what their policy toward iran is whether to keep sanctions or lift them or to be friends with iran or not that syria has its own policy. The policy on syria focuses on the suffering of the Syrian People but also on the wishes and hopes of the Syrian People. And not only a group of the Syrian People, the majority of the Syrian People. I think thats what if we can move from this proactive policy i think a lot of things would be better in syria. Thank you so much. Ambassador green, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with all of us and our audience. To our audience, thank you so much for a huge number of questions and i did my best to include as many of them as possible into the discussion. But this wont be the last event on syria. I can promise you there will be many more. So please keep your questions and contacts coming but in the meantime, thank you so much, everyone for being here and lets hope that syria sees some brighter days in the future. Thank you and goodbye. Thank you, charles. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. President trump welcomes polish president to the white house today. The two leaders will hold a joint press conference from the white house rose garden at 3 30 p. M. Eastern. Watch that lye live on cspan 3. First ladies, influence and image on American History tv examines the private lives and the public roles of the nations first ladies through interviews with top historians. Tonight, we look at Caroline Harrison and ida mckinley. In 1889 she was the first sitting first lady with a speech. She was a very strong supporter of womens suffrage. Watch first ladies influence and image tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan 3. Every saturday night American History tv takes you to College Classrooms around the country for lectures in history. Why do you all know who Lizzie Borden is and raise your hand if you ever heard of this murder . The jean harris murder trial before this class . The deepest cause where we will find the true meaning of the revolution was in this transformation that took place in the minds of the american people. So were going to talk about both of these sides of this story here right . The tools, the techniques of slave owner power and well also talk about the tools and t techniques of power that were practiced by enslaved people. Watch history professors lead discussions with their students on topics ranging from the American Revolution to september 11th. Lectures in history on cspan 3 every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv and lectures in history is available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. Were back and joining us is dr. Michael lewis that is here to discuss with us the spread of covid19 and how it compares to previous outbreaks like sars. Dr. Lewis, good morning. Good morning. How are you doing today . I am doing just fine. So first of all, tell us what you do now and then describe for our audience about your work tracking sars and bird flu in asia. Well, i am a practicing