ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Mouaz Moustafa and his family left the city of Damascus in 1995. He was a teenager then. He studied in the United States and made a life here, becoming executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force. And tonight, for the first time in many years, he is boarding a flight that will lead him back to the city where he was born. He will arrive in a Damascus that transformed overnight - no longer ruled by Bashar al-Assad. And before he goes to the airport, he is here in the studio with us. Thank you so much for taking the time.
MOUAZ MOUSTAFA: Absolutely. So excited to be here and excited to be able to say that I'm going to Damascus. I mean, these are words I couldn't imagine saying. I feel like I won't believe it till I see it.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
MOUSTAFA: I almost don't want to, like, jinx myself, but I also want to declare it to the world - Damascus is free.
SHAPIRO: Yeah. What are you going to do the first thing when you arrive, when you land on that soil?
MOUSTAFA: I'm going to kiss the ground. I'm going to kiss that soil that I've dreamed of going back to for so long and the soil that's about to welcome millions of refugees from the Middle East and Europe and elsewhere, for Syrians to come back to a finally safe Syria.
SHAPIRO: I have no personal connection to Syria, and I was glued to the news this weekend. What have the last couple days been like for you?
MOUSTAFA: Oh, my gosh. It has been surreal, overwhelming joy and elation, a lot of crying. A lot of heartbreak 'cause I'm watching on loop all these videos of women, children, men have been in these horrible concentration camps for years, you know, being tortured in the worst ways. I invite everyone to learn about a hero named Caesar (ph), who, soon enough, maybe can use his real name if he wants to.
But imagine the worst concentration camps, gulags, prisons where people don't even see sunlight. Where - there was one girl that was 4 years old came away at 14 years old when she was liberated. Watching them come out and knowing that it took so long to save them because the world stood by made me sad. But then I remembered that because it was the Syrians who freed themselves, now we can decide our own future without any outside intervention - not from the Gulf states, not from Iran or Russia, not from Europe or the United States or anyone. Now Syrians can have the self-determination that they bled and fought for.
SHAPIRO: As you see these huge numbers of people released from Syrian prisons, are there specific democracy advocates or activists or people you've worked with who you are waiting to see if they emerge?
MOUSTAFA: (Crying) I have an uncle who is my compass in life. You know, sometimes in our families, you have one person who just - you really get along with - you know? - like, more than best friends. When the revolution started in 2011, I wanted to advocate for freedom and democracy in Syria, as people were peacefully protesting, no violence - by the dictator's own admission - for 12 months. But my mom told me not to talk to my family for their own protection. And that made me sad, but it made me really sad not to talk to my uncle because he was like my best friend.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
MOUSTAFA: After I took John McCain to Syria in 2013 or so, my uncle and his wife, his little kids - who was 1 year old at the time, Omar (ph), 4-year-old Maria (ph), 14-year-old Sally (ph) - they were all taken. Thank God, we were able to find a way to get my aunt and my nephews and nieces home. But my uncle, I learned, at least - 'cause I tried to help others, including Americans. You know, we're looking for Austin Tice now, you know, to come home to their families - I think he's dead. But I still have some hope. Maybe in one of these dungeons, when we open them, that he may still be there.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
MOUSTAFA: But I don't know if I'm lying to myself or not. But in Syria, the people in jails are the people that should be free. And the people that were jailing them are the people that should be in jail.
SHAPIRO: Yeah. Let me give you a tissue.
MOUSTAFA: Thank you. I'm sorry.
SHAPIRO: Of course. No, no, no.
MOUSTAFA: I just - that you asked...
SHAPIRO: Don't apologize.
MOUSTAFA: ...And that's the first person that...
SHAPIRO: Yeah. Of course.
MOUSTAFA: ...Came to mind, and I just...
SHAPIRO: I understand.
MOUSTAFA: ...Really love him.
SHAPIRO: Take a moment. Take a moment.
MOUSTAFA: If you met him, like, you would love him so much (crying).
SHAPIRO: Yeah, take as much time as you need.
MOUSTAFA: I'm good.
SHAPIRO: OK. Your organization, the Syrian Emergency Task Force, runs schools and camps for displaced people in many different parts of the country. There's one camp called Rukban, where 8,000 Syrians have lived for years in very poor conditions because of a blockade by the regime. What are you hearing from people there today?
MOUSTAFA: Well, Rukban is a story that should be a movie even before its most recent liberation, or at least the breaking of the siege around it. But for the last two years, I've been working with U.S. military forces just on, like, a verbal agreement that we can do all we can to provide aid to 8,000 civilians besieged by Iran, Russia, Assad and with Jordan and Iraq having their borders sealed. So in the middle of the desert, imagine for a decade, no school, no doctor, nothing. And the only people that can help them is a small NGO supported by donations of American communities across the U.S., working with the U.S. military that has a base next to that camp. And so we were able to try to keep them alive.
And I got a call from them saying, Mouaz, the U.S. partner force, the Syria Free Army (ph), has taken all the checkpoints and liberated them around the camp. The siege is broken for the first time in a decade. Not only that, the U.S. partner force, the Syria Free Army, went and liberated the towns where those people are from, and now people are preparing to go back home. And they said, thank you to the American people, to the Syrian Emergency Task Force and to the United States military for keeping us alive long enough to be able to go home. And if you hadn't done that, you know, we thought, how long can we keep up? We just needed a few months. We didn't know. And now they can...
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
MOUSTAFA: ...Go home alive thanks to American doctors - volunteered to fly on Chinooks in American bases and land in the desert and save babies long enough for them to go home.
SHAPIRO: What are your hopes and fears for what the next phase will be for your country?
MOUSTAFA: My fear is outside intervention, intervention by authoritarian states, whether they may be our allies or enemies in the region that want to see, you know - they are afraid of democracy. You know, they want to see, like, another military dictator or something. As you know, there are no Arab democracies. And Syria - and this is a fact - is the closest country to being on the path of democracy than any other Arab country. And that's a huge deal. So making sure that countries that didn't help us in our fight against a dictator do not intervene now and in any way hinder our road to a country for its people, by its people.
SHAPIRO: The role of the United States in the next phase of Syria could be crucial. And I hear you just ran into White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on the street (laughter).
MOUSTAFA: Yeah. I was sitting in my car in front of my office over at the Willard office building, and I see him walking. So I kind of left the car quickly and ran over, and I was like, Jake - he's met me before and stuff. And - yeah. That was a crazy coincidence.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) What did we say to each other?
MOUSTAFA: Oh, well, I was - first of all, I was like, this is a godsend. Here's the national security adviser.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) Right.
MOUSTAFA: Right? You're about to go to Damascus. There are jails in Syria - dungeons that we still haven't figured out how to open doors. We still haven't figured out how to get to rooms in what tunnel systems. We need rescue teams. We need intelligence. We need folks that can help us figure out how to free every civilian that is still in these gulags, as the Assad regime and Iranian jailers ran away.
But I told Jake, our top priority, and for me as an American, is Austin Tice. Austin is an amazing human being who went to Syria in 2012 in order to report to the world on the plight of the Syrian people in their revolution against their tyrant. And he was taken by the Assad regime, as other Americans have been.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
MOUSTAFA: And other Americans have been tortured and executed. I don't know if Austin's alive or dead, and God willing, he's alive. Let's get Americans home. Let's get Austin home. God willing, he's alive.
SHAPIRO: Mouaz Moustafa, it's so good to talk to you. Have a good flight home to Damascus, and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Thank you.
MOUSTAFA: Thank you, sir. Thank you.
SHAPIRO: He is executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force.
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