Caroline Rose writes:

Many years ago, in Beirut, I learned the first of many lessons about the Assad regime’s constructed counternarcotics narrative — something that simultaneously sustained the regime’s internal power structure and also fueled its very collapse.

I was conducting some final fieldwork on a little-known (at least at that time) drug trade in an amphetamine-type stimulant called Captagon, which was quickly gaining popularity in the Middle East. The trip was part of a policy report that was initially designed to explore the relationship between the Islamic State group and the Captagon trade but evolved into a broader examination of other actors such as the Assad regime, its cronies and Hezbollah.

Captagon’s production hub was primarily anchored in Syria and Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley, in areas that were either prohibited or difficult to access for a team of researchers with a tiny project budget, no security and a generous record of public critique against the Assad regime. So Beirut it was, a city on the fringes but offering a treasure trove of information. Our trip would feature a tour of meetings with university academics, health care and counternarcotics practitioners, political analysts and governmental officials. We would also co-organize a private workshop with a local partner organization where we would present findings on the Captagon trade and foster an honest, substantive discussion on the actors involved. Or so we thought.

The morning of our workshop, I was greeted in the conference hotel lobby by a middle-aged man lingering by the coffee and water station. “We took a taxi from Damascus!” he exclaimed, as my eyes drifted to his name card, which read “Ministry of Health — Syrian Arab Republic.” I suddenly realized that there was a last-minute guest added to the participant list, likely by the local co-host, to the surprise and shock of my research team. I hoped that he wouldn’t know that I was one of the authors of the translated draft report he was holding in his right hand — a draft that cited multiple instances of regime complicity in the illicit trade of drugs like hashish and Captagon. But he did, remarking with a disconcerting smile: “I read your report. I have thoughts.” I noticed the draft in his hand had handwritten notes in red pen. “Why don’t you extend your trip and come to Damascus? It is a short drive, about two hours. I can arrange meetings with ministry officials to discuss your findings.” My heart was in my throat, but I managed to nod, hoping he was at the wrong conference. He was not.

After dumping my coffee in the trash — that was enough adrenaline for the morning — and entering the conference area, I encountered my next surprise. On the right leg of the U-shaped conference table, Mr. “Why don’t you come to Damascus” was seated next to a small handful of Hezbollah officials who were, similarly, not on the original participant list. Across from them was a line of academics, activists and analysts, either pale as ghosts or amused by the irony of being stuck in a half-day workshop about Captagon with the trade’s implicated actors. Suddenly, the Syrian Ministry of Health representative took to the center of the room with a microphone. He gestured to the technical assistant to display his slideshow “He’s speaking?” my research team murmured to our co-host. “Yes, just some brief remarks to frame the discussion — they said just five minutes.”

I’ll never remember exactly how long the Ministry of Health official spoke. The “opening remarks” were likely around an hour, but it felt like an eternity as a collection of academics, regional experts, health care practitioners and humanitarian workers were lectured by a governmental official about an illicit trade that their government, its ruling family and security partners systematically sponsored. The official breezed through slides about the regime’s strong track record of imprisoning drug-dependent individuals, how the country was a “victim” of the drug trade, and how “terrorist rebels” from opposition-held areas were the primary agents seeking to undermine stability and regional order. The presentation ended with no questions and successfully ran out the clock to lunchtime, giving my team under an hour to present our very different findings.

In the moment, it was mortifying. But looking back, the experience was an important lesson that put the regime’s masterful gaslighting about counternarcotics on full display. It was the first time that I had a front-row seat to the regime’s developing narrative about the Captagon trade — an illicit enterprise that the regime built into a powerful industry that loosely held its power structure together over the next six years but also contributed to its swift downfall. [Continue reading…]