Blair used Mandelson to court Syrian dictator

In November 2001, Peter Mandelson wrote an article in the Independent about the visit he paid to Syria’s new dictator, Bashar Assad, in January of that year.

The then Northern Ireland secretary claimed that “politics had nothing to do with my plans, except in the sense that I wanted a short break before the resumption of intensive negotiations in Northern Ireland”.

In fact, declassified files available at the National Archives show the visit was anything but private. Mandelson carried a message from then prime minister Tony Blair who was trying to court the Syrian dictator.

Blair’s foreign policy adviser at the time was John Sawers, who would go on to become chief of MI6.

Sawers wrote to Mandelson in December 2000 saying that Blair “has suggested that, just in case the friends with whom you are staying privately in Syria arrange for you to meet President Bashar, you should be equipped with a brief message from him to the President”.

Blair’s message to Assad acknowledged “my close friend and political ally, Peter Mandelson” before welcoming the discussions the two rulers had on the Middle East peace process the previous October.

Blair said: “Please let me know if you believe there are any specific steps that I or the British government can take to contribute to that goal.”

Mandelson had earlier informed the Foreign Office he wished to travel to Syria “on holiday”, a claim that barely seems credible. He was “anxious to avoid both official and particularly press attention” for his visit, Foreign Office official Christopher Prentice wrote.

Mandelson’s meeting with Bashar Assad, on 4 January 2001, was arranged at the last minute, according to Prentice. Mandelson wrote in his article that Assad’s invitation to call at his home was “unexpected”.

Prentice also notes that, while the summons from the Syrian palace came on 3 January, “Mr Mandelson did not inform anyone in the embassy of the planned meeting”.

‘Intelligent and cultured’

Mandelson wrote in the Independent about his visit that he had “the most relaxed and honest exchange I am ever likely to have with a foreign head of state”.

Assad was “an intelligent and cultured individual” who “is looking for a fresh paradigm for his country that will rescue it from economic backwardness without plunging it into political chaos”.

Bashar Assad had come to power in July 2000 following the death of his father, Hafez, who had ruled the country with an iron fist since 1971.

Blair’s first phone call with Bashar in October 2000 was intended to “establish personal contact with the new president”, John Sawers wrote by way of briefing to his boss. “In conversation you might commend Assad’s approach to economic reform and offer British help”, he suggested.

Sawers only briefly acknowledged the political repression in Syria, writing that “there are signs of more freedom of speech, and slightly less direction of the media, all of which is state run”.

“He’s starting from a low base, but moving in the right direction”, Sawers assured Blair.

“We believe Bashar, who studied for a year in Britain, is keen for Britain’s help in achieving economic reform and modernisation of the Syrian economy”, agreed Sherard Cowper-Coles, then the principal private secretary to foreign secretary Robin Cook.

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‘Figure of stability’

When Hafez died in June 2000, Blair wrote a letter to Bashar saying that “as president your father was a crucial figure of stability in the Middle East”, and invited Bashar to visit Britain.

Sawers admitted in an internal note on Hafez’s death that he “could not be described as a friend of the West”. He mentioned the massacre his regime conducted in Hama in 1982, when the city was bombarded for a month to quell an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood, killing at least 20,000 people.

Sawers also noted that “the Syrians were responsible for attempting to blow up the Israeli jumbo jet over London in 1986”.

Yet, in April 2000, Blair was writing directly to Hafez’s prime minister, Muhammad Miro, asking for an “even stronger bilateral relationship that we want to build with Syria”.

‘Discreet contact’

The previous year, UK officials were so keen to court the ruler’s son that Blair’s envoy Lord Levy told Hafez Assad in a meeting in Damascus that Bashar was invited to visit the UK.

“We could build the visit entirely to suit Dr Bashar”, a write up of the meeting stated. “[Hafez] Assad was very appreciative”, it added.

The UK was keen on “some discreet contact” with Bashar by 1999 because he was “perhaps its future president.”

Blair had long sought to court Hafez when he was dictator in Damascus, partly to encourage Syrian support for the Middle East peace process.

The prime minister wrote an extraordinary letter to the Syrian ruler in April 1999 “expressing my congratulations following your recent re-election as President”. In fact, Hafez was the only candidate in that “election” and won with 100% of the vote, Syrian officials claimed.

Bashar Assad would go on to largely continue the censorship and repression from which Syrians had suffered in previous decades.

A major uprising that began in 2011 as part of the ‘Arab Spring’ was brutally repressed by his regime, and the UK then spotted an opportunity to remove Assad as part of their attempted reshaping of the Middle East.

The UK then joined a campaign to overthrow the Syrian regime, in cooperation with its allies the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

After a brutal war, which was prolonged by the international meddling promoted by Britain and its allies, Bashar was finally overthrown in December 2024, mainly by a force led by prominent former Al Qaeda operative, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, who received help from MI6.

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