STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
As Syria emerges from civil war, the many sides of that conflict have to figure out how to live together in one nation. How do you do that without seeking the natural instinct for revenge and retribution? Mona Yacoubian says this is the tension that Syrians now face. She is vice president of the Middle East and North Africa Center at the United States Institute of Peace. And she's been talking with Leila, who's done her own reporting in Syria, as you know, talking about justice, accountability, reconciliation and healing.
MONA YACOUBIAN: Well, I think what's essential is to have a transparent process established where those who have grievances are able to put them on the table. I think it's important to understand that, clearly, there are many associated with the regime, particularly in leadership positions, with blood on their hands who need to be held accountable for the horrific atrocities that have been committed over the course of this now almost 14-year-long civil war.
But at the same time, we know that there are also many who were simply caught up without a choice. I'm thinking here about lower-level conscripts and others. And for them, it's important to have an off-ramp, which this new government is attempting to provide through these reconciliation centers, where those who assert that they were not involved in direct crimes committed who turn in their guns are then also given an amnesty. And so it is important to have both of these elements.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
You know, I covered Iraq for a long time, and so much that Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, the new leaders in town, have done is the opposite of what the Americans did in Iraq, right?
YACOUBIAN: Yes.
FADEL: General amnesty for people who worked for Assad's regime if they didn't have blood on their hands. Bureaucrats still coming to work. You point out the reconciliation centers that were set up where soldiers can deposit their weapons and get civilian ID cards. And these soldiers, as you mentioned, were conscripts that made maybe $1 a month and were forced to fight for the army for years. Are these the right steps towards true reconciliation?
YACOUBIAN: Oh, I think it's essential. I mean, you see there is clearly a lesson learned from Iraq's horrific experience with de-Baathification, a decision taken very early on, and which I think was proven to be a strategic error of incalculable damage. Without providing that essential off-ramp, it allowed for, really, the blooming of a Sunni insurgency in Iraq. You had those who felt that they weren't accepted. They were angry, and they were armed.
And so it's clear that Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham has learned that lesson. I think the other really important measure that was - has been taken early on was this promise to minority communities - be they Christians, Alawites, Kurds and others - that they would be welcome in a new Syria, which, given Syria's mosaic of different ethnicities and religions, is essential for that forward movement.
FADEL: That's true, but we've also seen some of that vigilantism already started - you know, a man lynched in Latakia, unarmed Assad loyalists in uniforms shot in the streets without due process. The killing of members of the Alawite sect. I mean, I think of this young woman I met. She was just 23, four of her brothers disappeared by the Assad regime, all on vague charges of terrorism.
She's convinced they're dead. She's looking at tortured dead bodies, trying to find them. And in the middle of the street, she started screaming, we were killed because we're Sunni. Now the Sunnis will come kill the Shias and the Alawites, who she blames for what's happened. So how do you deal with that without endangering the reconciliation process or dismissing the pain?
YACOUBIAN: Certainly, elements that undertake a score settling in others need to be dealt with very quickly by the authorities, by HTS, to ensure that those kinds of practices are not accepted, are not going to continue, because it's a very dangerous sign that could well be sort of a prelude to a descent back into sectarian violence and even civil war. At the same time, it is essential that those who have been wronged, whose family members have been disappeared or killed, have a platform for laying down those charges.
We've seen in the past, for example, truth and reconciliation commissions, and this was an essential part of South Africa's successful transition out of its civil conflict. And I think in Syria, this is going to be essential, that there is a place and a space for people to speak their truth.
FADEL: Ahmed al-Sharaa, the new leader of Syria, has said it will take as long as four years to hold elections. Syrians also have to draft a new constitution, reform the judicial system. That's a lot of time. Can justice wait that long?
YACOUBIAN: Well, this is the other key set of tensions, and that is the pressures of time. And frankly, the longer that time goes on without demonstrable progress, the greater the chances that these efforts will fail.
FADEL: As somebody who studies these transitional processes - reconciliation, peace building - does Syria have a good chance?
YACOUBIAN: Unfortunately, the record of transitions from civil war, from authoritarian regimes, certainly in the Middle East, isn't a great one. But I think the one thing that to me seems evident is that the Syrian people themselves, having suffered through nearly 14 years of civil war, more than 50 years of an authoritarian regime are determined not to fall back into civil war. To me, that is the most powerful dynamic at play, is a desire by the Syrian people themselves to birth a new Syria.
FADEL: Mona Yacoubian is vice president of the Middle East and North Africa Center at the United States Institute of Peace. Thank you so much for your time.
YACOUBIAN: Thank you.
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