Million people are trapped in the city this week the United Nations warned of an impending humanitarian catastrophe with thousands of casualties and the risk of mass flight by those who cant get out of germany and other western countries are considering retaliatory action should syrias military resort to poison gas during an offensive is its live the socalled endgame in syria and what happens after the end those are the questions we want to address in quadriga and these are our guests my sume melanie is of syrian origin and she works on d. W. s arabic show she believes the battle for it live could be the endgame for rebels in syria but its legacy could start a new hard time for both turkey and europe. And were very glad to have been posted on the program once again hes a commentator for the daily newspaper and he says germany. We should join the allied military coalition to prevent a massacre by the syrians russians and iranians in its better late than never and finally its also a pleasure to have michelle little back with us once again hes a middle eastern expert and author of several books about the region he says assad will stay in power for the next conflict within syria are already looming so let me start out by asking all of you to talk a little bit about the Current Situation in syria and in particular in it live and my soon to you first of all what are you hearing from Family Friends acquaintances in syria both about what theyre expecting to happen and about the situation is live in particular well first of all i come from a place in syria which hasnt witnessed the war actually because i come from latakia on the talkie i was saved during the last seven years. But you know i can tell you that most of people in syria are tired from the war so they the Syrian Regime or maybe the war managed to let them reach a point where they only think about their own survival so that they are really sad about what is going to happen and live but they dont think much about the about it because they are so consumed about their daily struggle to survive under a very bad Economic Situation even in the safe places of syria and maybe because they say they see no way out of this situation theyre living in michel that is let me ask you about a potential way out the air attacks have actually let up in the last couple of days and this follows appeals by everybody from the u. N. Secretary general to turkish president to one for russia and syria not to press ahead with an offensive is it possible that those appeals has been heard could a full out assault still be avoided for. Difficult to say in theory yes the russians have made it clear that they want to eliminate all of these jihadi fighters in the region of it look so theres a strong likelihood that they were go for military action but at the same time theyre of course also worried that their image is getting tarrant and they would try probably to pursue a salami tactics of imus say so so go step by step and then see whats going to happen the conflict in syria is very complex because we do not only have a civil war that has been going on over the past years we also have a proxy wall that is taking place there in syria and that makes it so difficult for this war turned and very much afraid that the suffering of the syrians will not come to an end in the burn your future i want to talk about that proxy situation a little bit more shortly but. Ellen posner we heard from my son how weary people in syria are of this conflict certainly that is true for those who are witnessing it from the far weve seen bloodshed and western in action for seven years now why should it live be any different why does the battle for it live matter and why should the west care at this point well actually we havent seen western inaction we destroyed isis in syria which the russians and the Syrian Government who claimed to be doing fighting terrorists didnt what they did was besieged different cities then let the east the jihadi fighters as go to live now theyve created a situation where there eighty thousand fighters among them ten thousand radical jihadists in a big killing box right and and they want to just eliminate them all and that and that and i think thats. Because thats the that is the endgame the creation of this killing box thats why we need to do something we need to stop it you say yes and your statement your Opening Statement said we need to intervene the west needs to intervene to prevent casualties but in fact the western and interventions that youve talked about were aimed at i yes or at most at retaliation after chemical weapons attacks and we havent really intervened to prevent casualties yet youre right and while we prevented i think genocide of the u. C. D. Population for instance that was very definitely one of the things that the americans british french and their iraqi allies prevented for and they could i sorry prevented. To say weve done nothing would be really under playing. What the west has achieved the the unfortunate thing is that we have done nothing to stop assad and i agree with you in the end. Were going to see russia stablished as a major power and we in spite of everything weve done is bought to the fact that were the only people whove ever done anything its real terrorists the west are going to be marginalized before we picked up i see myself getting into position to address that but let me say let us just briefly take a closer look at the situation in libya itself before we pick up some of the issues that there has just raised we have a short report on the situation in the city and its region. The people of it live are facing an imminent military offensive and theyre preparing for the worst anyone who can is getting out those who remain are seeking shelter in makeshift bunkers. And still made it three million civilians live here half of them displaced from elsewhere in syria also digging in here are about ten thousand mostly islamist rebels the bombs are meant for them many observers are afraid that poison gas may be used. You risk of course many deaths of civilian people of innocent people which would be. Terrible a humanitarian catastrophe syria is in ruins hundreds of thousands are dead and millions on the run when the offensive starts as many as half a million more could flee will repeat aleppo spate. As were just heard there the rebels make up a disproportionately small share of the population of this area at the moment why is the government so determined in its own words to liberate it lip were talking about over three million civilians ten thousand rebels i mean was a different place and other places in cities in syria. And homes and and many other places where the regime insisted. Evacuating almost everyone who doesnt want to cooperate with them and send them to its i think this ten thousand rebels and are very useful and very useful and very. Convenient for the regime to wreak take the place of the reason the province of idlib again because its the last stronghold of the a position and anyone who is saying no to this regime. I dont think its the number of the extremist islamist which is bad enough but its the Syrian Regime and russia behind it who has the plan from the very beginning from the first hand of retaking every single piece of syria which they dont have the full control on because it is before the shelling began the Syrian Government said that it wants to avoid civilian casualties we heard the u. N. Warning in that report of a potential bloodbath can and how can civilian casualties still be avoided well its very difficult to say nobody knows whats going to happen and i think the civilians are going to pay a very high price that is without the question i mean we have seen that in other areas of conflict in syria as well the regime is very brutal in defending its power it makes no compromises whatsoever the error in the western conception in my view when it comes to the warring parties in syria is simply that they believe that there are good guys who are waging the war in a more humane way who are going and willing to establish a new syria which is not really in the making for the time being and this is Different Reasons we do not only have the situation in syria itself that we have to look at we also have to have to note that syria is in the middle of a geostrategic whole struggle between Different Actors and it is very very important to understand this it is the western countries especially the United States but also the European Union plus turkey and the gulf arab states that decided to top of the regime of Bashar Al Assads when the revolt in syria started in two thousand and eleven not because he is a brutal dictator which of course he is but because they want to install a regime that is pro western rather than pro russian however both the russians the iranians and the chinese were not willing to have the wests succeed in syria and in the end they were more. Stroup smarter in understanding the setup of the syrian conflict and they managed to for the regime to regain control of most of the country ok i want to pick up on that in the moment bringing it back to ad lib itself what would you expect from the rebels themselves would you expect them to use the civilians essentially as hostages and shields the jihadi rebels totally they will do so they have been doing so in the past weeks already they do not care about civilian casualties they are no different in their mentality from those Holding Power in damascus and it was a strong era of western countries to support these people believing that they could bring about change in syria these jihadi fighters where they where do they come from i mean its quite amazing to see that most of these jihadi fighters are close to al qaida nevertheless these parties have been supported in the past by the gulf arab states by turkey and also by the western countries who let turkey and the gulf arab states do whatever they please they were if i may say so useful idiots who know of course a problem for everybody because the turks turkey is not willing to accept these people as refugees if these ten thousand people left there would be no need for a struggle for it from the point of view of the regime but the turks of course on of willing to take these people and because it would mean creating a domestic problem for talk itself and indeed imposing their turkey has now closed its border to to Northern Syria in other words to it live what do you see as the potential implications of an all out offensive in libya in terms of the kind of regional politics that michele he does is talking about but also in terms of course of refugee flows. Well. One short correction there eighty thousand fights is more or less in italy of whom ten thousand are the kind of jihadist you talked about but seventy thousand people who took up arms because the regime oppressed them and not because the west used them as as idiots as you say useful idiots against assad so i think we need to and these are the people we should be worried about these are people who took up arms after they had been oppressed who in other you know who we would call resistance fight as if it were in france or somewhere like that you know who in the noble tradition of fighting fascist regime and we owe them right but how to separate them now from the jihadist because its been assads policy to mix them all up together and it did honestly i dont know quite for i dont know. But there has to be some way of separating those whom we owe to those whom we have been fighting in the rest of syria its true that weve been using our qaeda and so on against against us and weve been fighting the real terrorists all along weve fought them in iraq we fought them in the in the fought them all the way to the. Baghdad where they were the russians the syrians did nothing but how to do this concrete lee i really dont know but it has to be a concerted effort which is why i feel we cant stand aside we need to talk to the we need to talk the americans we need to talk to the british and french and develop a strategy that well talk in just a minute about what that might look like but just now focusing on turkey if you would you predicted in your Opening Statement hard times for both turkey and the west and turkey has been warning very anxiously of a flow of refugees that would dwarf anything weve seen so far in the syrian war should the all out battle for it live. Begin to think thats right well not only turkey also the un warned of first seven hundred million refugees leaving the country of the attack really starts and it is started out seven hundred thousand sorry. Yes and turkey is passing through the worst economical crisis since two thousand and two i think so its really without the will of defending turkey or anyone its not able to take in any refugee more injured there might be a chance to relocate some of these refugees to the north of syria our you fred shields the Free Syrian Army which is supported by turkey. Which is controlling. There there would be a chance to relook relocate these refugees to this place in syria but its not a solution i think the west should stay in dialogue with turkey because of its own interest because the the tragedy of the strategy the tragedy sorry the catastrophe is on the way im afraid were not were not able to do anything to stop it but if we are thinking about our own interest here in europe we should talk about about that with turkey and see how we could do the less. Worst scenario out of it so lets talk to other ones coming to germany in a couple of days and see what they want to less thing let things be not so bad as they are going to be meanwhile of course western countries are talking with one another about whether and how to intervene in syria if syria and russia should move ahead with an offensive the if is whether chemical weapons are used even germany which has been traditionally reluctant to commit forces out of area is now in talks with the u. S. And other allies about whether it would participate in military action in the event of the use of chemical weapons lets hear uncle americal on the subject. I thought about what simply to maintain that we can look the other way if chemical weapons are used somewhere in violation of an International Convention cannot be our response either. All our responses will always be based on the german constitution and parliamentary obligations thats absolutely clear it cannot be the german position to simply say no no matter what happens in the world i had to say. We share leaders what purpose would be served by joint western action in the case in case of a threat of the use of chemical weapons has it achieved results in the past and would german participation make sense no it wouldnt make sense but we need to understand the reasoning behind this discussion which is of course theres theoretical discussion because so far the regime has not used chemical weapons i mean of course the regime is willing to do anything to defend its power weve seen that in the past and they might use it but on the other hand and used april it was also claimed that the syrians that the regime had used chemical weapons and until this very day we have no proof whatsoever why is this discussion so important the basic issue of this in my view is that the worst mainly the United States in this context is not willing to concede if i may say so defeat to the russian side lets be very frank when it comes to the survival of the regime of bashar assad regardless of what is going to happen and look in the next weeks of days the regime will stay in power and russia iran and china are the winners in this geopolitical monopoly if you wish against the west and neither Political Force in the United States nor in europe is really willing to concede defeat and therefore we need to find new solutions in order to weaken the russians and especially the iranians because thats the next drawing of violence that we are going to see we have already seen it although its not very much comment on a report on and western media there is already a proxy war another one going on in syria between israel and iran and this. Props was going to heat up in the next weeks and were going to see more problems of this nature lets first of all stay with the question of western intervention advocated it in your Opening Statement but do you really believe that past actions to retaliate for the use of chemical weapons have achieved anything no i dont believe it a toll what i advocated time and time again that wasnt my idea was to was a no fly zone in Northern Syria were true allows civilians refugees but also fighters to civilians to be resettled in five days to regroup. And this is what turkey demanded all the time complete out on was let down time and time again by his socalled allies by us so no i dont think that. That it will really help but i do agree with mr lew does that. We and you saw this with mark over the what are seldom seen are like this all the time we dont want to concede total defeat and i think thats a perfectly natural and correct reaction its too late really but its better late than never is it though i mean isnt that just purely symbolic then meissen male and isnt there a level of hypocrisy here that we talk about intervening if there are chemical weapons we are already the u. S. Backed fighters in syria are right now pursuing their own endgame against is. So we get into the action against i guess we get in the action with chemical weapons are involved but we dont do anything when barrel bombs fall when conventional weapons kill thousands and thousands of civilians so what symbolic western action here make as it is your hypocrisy as you say its a pure hypocrisy and i mean bashar assad and his allies killed much more people using bombs then the two or three times which we suspected him having or having used chemical weapons i think its the point is more about claiming more power. For germany and our set up also left on the line Germany Defense minister said that in april this year we are now trying to attain a permanent seat in the Security Council and the u. N. And. This puts us in front of us new jobs on the International Level and which means we might be able to join any military action in syria she said it like very frankly at the beginning of this year its more about our interests and germany and europe and about claiming our michaud that is do you think that the German Government would even be able to persuade its Junior Coalition partner the social democrats and the german people to go along polls this week showed seventy four percent of germans oppose any german involvement in this conflict absolutely thats a very important number that you quote there its. Seventy four seventy five percent that means most germans are against it and they seem to have the right instinct because a military intervention in syria would be dangerous we have seen this in april when there was supposed comical attack that was linked to the regime of Bashar Al Assad maybe he was in charge maybe he was not responsible we simply do not know we havent had any evidence to this very day but nevertheless the americans started to bomb syria in retaliation for this and it was very very dangerous especially due to the tweeting tweeted messages of donald trump when he when he challenge the russians saying our our weapons would come smart and they would destroy what we want to destroy the russians made it very clear theres a red line and if you cross this red line its going to become dangerous so there is a potential that this conflict in syria which is bad enough. Will lead to an escalation between the United States and russia because the russians will it here to this regime the reason this is a very important point that you mention the no fly zone that is of course a good argument but the russians would never have accepted this neither the chinese and you know. Well why because that except that this in the case of libya and the result of this was that he was toppled so from that moment moment on when the russians and chinese whether we like their policies or not when theyre understood how the west plays its going theres not one inch of conceding anything to the west and the syrians pay the price for that the time youre up wasnt threatened by a new refugee wave we are talking about a new era now a new this time and the gun is obviously threatening and he is going to do what he threatened we asking our title whether its live could be end game and we also asked and what happens afterward so id like to make it brief cut and go to that question we have very little time remaining on the clock own posner the u. N. Envoy for the middle east for syria is now trying a last ditch effort at keast talks what leverage does the west have what if anything could it still do the u. S. Ambassador to the u. N. Is playing the money card could that make a difference no. The only the only money that counts the only counts that counts in syria as in most of the middle east is power and military power at that thats the only thing that counts as weve seen in syria and so we have to get engaged its a very dangerous game i agree but we you know if youre a big power like germany if youre the west if so much is at stake you have to take the risk and i think with the first thing we need to do is to state clearly that we will react to any Chemical Attacks and then we take the game from there but i think we should if we if we if we simply draw as michael said simply standing by and do nothing in the end would have the refugees will have. The three powers you mentioned in charge of syria and the next thing would be lebanon there be retaking lebanon to the syrians have never wanted to give up they were already got. I mean theyre basically hof in power there anyway so no it wont end there thats a point you want and that my son you made a similar point in your Opening Statement that the end game essentially would be the beginning of something new optimists say the end game could assure in a phase of rebuilding allowing refugees finally to return to syria do you think that really is in the all that far away from rebuilding anything in syria the conflict is still going on and its just shifting to another place in the world. Thanks to all of you for being with us today and thanks to all of you for tuning in and see you sir. Im going to. The body. That they took me and they laid me on the ground wire ribs go up and jump on me and i feel my ribs breaking. And he said a lot in seems that you dont want to confess you will confess if you dont confess well kill you if that a lot that. 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