Peter Ford served in the UK Foreign Ministry for many years including being UK Ambassador to Bahrain (1999-2003) and  then Syria (2003-2006). Following that, he was representative to the Arab world for the Commissioner General of United Nations Relief and Works Agency. He was interviewed by Rick Stering on Jan 6, 2025. RS: Why do you think the Syrian military and government collapsed so rapidly? Peter Ford: Everybody was surprised but with hindsight, we shouldn’t have been. Over more than a decade, the Syrian army had been hollowed out by the extremely dire economic situation in Syria, mainly caused by western sanctions. Syria only had a few hours of electricity a day, no money to buy weapons and no ability to use the international banking system to buy anything whatsoever. It’s no surprise that the Army was run down. With hindsight, you might say the surprise is that the Syrian government and Army were successful in driving back the Islamists. The Syrian Army forced them into the redoubt of Idlib four or five years ago. But after that point, the Syrian army deteriorated, became less battle ready on the technical level and also morale. Syrian soldiers are mainly conscripts and they […]