00:00And many policy makers thought, well Assad won, there is no war, things are working.
00:07Things were not working.
00:08And we've been worrying about this for years, that the fact that there is no intense violence
00:13doesn't mean that the conflict is over.
00:16What we had is a cessation of hostility that was contingent on very delicate regional agreements
00:23between different regional and international powers.
00:29So the rebel groups that started this offensive is a coalition that has different Syrian armed
00:35groups, but at the heart of it, there is HGS, which is Designated Terrorist Organization.
00:42But it's very well organized, very ideologically driven, and was able to pull this together.
00:48However, they spread very quickly and very thin.
00:53And I think very quickly they're going to realize it's beyond their capacity to maintain
00:57these areas, and most importantly, to govern them.
01:00It appears that the regional conditions made it more possible for them.
01:07The fact that Iran has been weakened, Hezbollah has been also weakened, its presence inside
01:13Syria, and there seemed to be a green light coming from Turkey as well for this to happen.
01:19I think all together kind of created the right condition for them to just go in.
01:26But again, they were ready.
01:27So they were planning for this for a long time.
01:31I think Bashar al-Assad will continue to rely on Iran and Russia.
01:36But what did they do to him in the last few days?
01:39Not much.
01:40If anything, the Iranian forces withdrew and left the city of Aleppo exposed.
01:44We haven't seen an early Russian intervention.
01:47Iraq, Iran is much weaker right now.
01:52So its ability to rely on them is limited.
01:57Those people, especially in the city, overnight their life has changed.
02:01They were living under a state actor, whether they liked it or not, and now suddenly it's
02:05non-state actor.
02:06What's going to happen to you?
02:07To all your life?
02:09If you're a university student, what's going to happen to your degree, to your classes?
02:13Life changed overnight, and they're very, very worried.
02:16We need to think of those people, see how we can help them, and particularly in helping
02:21them to take charge of their own city.
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