How Blair's bromance with Syria's Assad turned sour

Syria's deposed president Bashar al Assad wasn't always condemned as a pariah by the UK government.

This week, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer welcomed his fall, declaring Syrians had "put up with his brutal regime for far, far too long".

But it was a different story back in the early days of Assad's regime, when Tony Blair made extraordinary efforts to court him.

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He visited Syria, the president visited the UK and met the Queen and it was later reported that Assad was even considered for an honorary knighthood.

All this was because when he succeeded his father, Hafez al Assad, as president in 2000, Mr Blair regarded him as a moderniser and reformer he could do business with.

And so, in diplomatic moves that would later have been unthinkable, Mr Blair visited Damascus in 2001 and then welcomed him to Downing Street in 2002.

Relations between the UK and Syria were so cordial in those days that Assad was even given the honour of a meeting with the Queen during his visit to London.

But the Blair courtship began before the young Assad succeeded his late father. Just months after Labour's 1997 election victory, the government's Middle East minister, Derek Fatchett, was sent to Syria.

The following year, then foreign secretary Robin Cook visited and during Mr Blair's first term there were more ministerial visits, including by Mr Blair's closest ally Peter Mandelson.

Labour minister Peter Hain told parliament in 2000 that Assad was a leader with "a lot of vision and a modern outlook" who knew Britain well and was "well placed to lead Syria forward".

And after Mr Mandelson visited Syria in 2001, he claimed Assad was an "intelligent and cultured individual" who wanted to rescue his country "from economic backwardness".

To be fair, Mr Mandelson also said the UK and Syria disagreed on the subjects of Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas.

There were military links too. In 1998, HMS Marlborough became the first Royal Navy frigate to visit Syria in 48 years, followed by HMS Edinburgh in 1999 and HMS Northumberland in 2000.

And when Mr Blair visited, shortly after his second landslide election victory in 2001, it was the first-ever visit to Syria by a British prime minister. But there was more bonhomie to come.

In December 2002, Assad and his new wife, British-born Asma Akhras, visited Britain and met the late Queen and the then Prince Charles, before lunching with Mr Blair at 10 Downing Street.

During a four-day visit in which he received the full red carpet treatment, the president was also treated to a banquet at the Mansion House in the City of London by the Lord Mayor.

But the Blair-Assad bromance was not to last.

By 2006, Mr Blair was accusing Syria and Iran of supporting terrorism and warning they must choose whether to "come into the international community and play by the same rules as the rest of us" or to "be confronted".

And in 2011, a decade after Mr Blair's visit and a year after David Cameron became prime minister, the cordial relationship between the UK and Syria came to an abrupt end.

The Assad regime massacred young Arab Spring protesters and launched a crackdown that triggered the full-scale civil war that reached its climax last weekend.

In 2013, Mr Cameron proposed UK military intervention in Syria, but in one of the most humiliating setbacks of his premiership, he lost a Commons vote by 285 to 272, with dozens of Tory MPs rebelling.

This week, Sir Keir told MPs at Prime Minister's Questions: "We all welcome the fall of Assad and I hope that this can be a much-needed turning point for Syria, but that is by no means guaranteed."

Nearly 25 years ago, Blair hoped Bashar al Assad's accession would also be a turning point for Syria. What followed back then, however, confirms that Sir Keir is right to be cautious about the future.