Dareen Khalifa, Senior Syria Analyst for International Crisis Group

Exclusive Interview by Diala Ghneim

CV in Brief

Education:

- MA Human Rights & Public Policy, University College London (UK)

- BA Political Science, Cairo University (Egypt)

Career so far:

- Senior Syria Analyst at International Crisis Group

- Syria Advisor for The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD)

- Deputy Director, The Day After (TDA)

- Syria Area Manager, Adam Smith International (ASI)

- Project Manager, Democracy Council (DC)

- Regional Growth Coordinator, Amnesty International (AI)

- Program Officer, National Council for Human Rights

Date of Interview: March 3, 2021

Dareen Khalifa is a Senior Analyst at the International Crisis Group working on Syria. Dareen has 15 years of experience working on the Middle East, with a particular focus on sub-state armed groups, local governance, and civil society. She has worked on the Syrian conflict in a number of roles since 2013, regularly traveling to Iraq and Syria to engage with various civilian and armed actors on initiatives to mitigate conflict. Dareen appears regularly on television, radio and in print as a commentator on Middle East affairs. She has an MA in Human Rights and Public Policy from University College London.

Three Pieces of Advice

• Get over your fear of public speaking.

• Be part of supportive women networks and promote each other’s work. But also have strong male allies, especially when you are younger.

• Do not shy away from letting people know who you are and what you are doing.

Tell me about your background and upbringing and how it led to your current career?

I am Egyptian, born and raised in Cairo. I studied political science in undergrad and was politically active as a student. My first real job right after graduation was within the human rights education field and it entailed me traveling all over Egypt. Egypt was under President Mubarak at the time, and it was a tight and highly securitized environment, but there was still some space for civil society to operate.

As time passed, I quickly grew disillusioned by what we could achieve in such a highly corrupt political environment. I also realized that I needed a fresh perspective, so I wanted to pursue a higher education out of Egypt. I really wanted to gain a different experience and have different exposures. But I could not afford to study abroad so I applied to every single scholarship I came across and eventually I got a scholarship to study in the United Kingdom. My degree focused on human rights and public policy. After graduation, I worked for Amnesty International in London focusing on the Middle East and North Africa.

During this time, the popular wave of uprisings across the Middle East started turning into violent bloody conflicts. People were being crushed and I thought that I needed to move back to the region where I could add more value. I also believed I should take a more hands on job, so I did. And that is when I started working on Syria.

Do you regard the Arab Spring as a turning point in your professional life?

The Arab Spring played a major role in why I decided to pursue this career path; how quickly it deteriorated and how fast it changed the political climate of the region. It was hard to accept the reality of what the Arab Spring has become. The vision we all had prior to 2011 did not materialize and it made me realize we needed a different approach to dealing with the power balance in the region. The Arab Spring really shaped my understanding of how I wanted to engage in policy. That is when my interest in conflict resolution grew. I became particularly interested in ‘on the ground’ mediation with all stakeholders.

How did your previous career experiences lead you to your current job as a political analyst with the International Crisis Group (ICG)?

Before joining ICG, I was working for a Swiss private diplomacy organization that helps conflict parties settle their differences. No matter how problematic certain parties to a conflict were, we had to speak to them, hear them and incorporate their perspectives when mediating conflict. It was a challenging job, but I really enjoyed doing it, and it equipped me well for working with ICG.

Syria has been a very polarizing conflict, even for non-Syrians. And very few organizations have access and relations to all parties of the conflict. My previous employer, the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and ICG have been in a very unique position because they managed to keep access to Syria and relations to all parties of the conflict. Both organizations shared the same objective of conflict prevention.

I met my predecessor at ICG when we were both working on finding ways to deescalate Turkish-Kurdish relations during and after the war against ISIS. He told me that he was leaving his job and strongly encouraged me to apply. He was incredibly supportive of my candidacy and of my work. I was however very reluctant to apply for the job and was quite intimidated by ICG’s profile. I did not think for a second that ICG would hire an Arab woman for a senior analyst job. But they did, and thankfully since then, I have not been the last.

Many women face imposter syndrome. As women we tend to shy away from applying for jobs in the policy community because we underestimate our qualifications. We are more reluctant to promote ourselves and our work as much as our male counterparts do. And unfortunately, there remains many structural issues that lead even the most progressive of Western institutions to give more and better opportunities to men over women and to Western analysts over people from the region.

Could you tell our readers about the International Crisis Group - what does the organization do and how did you decide it was a good fit for your career?

The International Crisis Group (ICG) is an independent organization working to shape policies that can build peace and/or end war. Our reports aim to sound the alarm to prevent deadly conflict and our analysis relies on firsthand interviews with all parties of a conflict. It has always been my dream job to work in an organization like ICG because of its unique access to different conflict parties - and its ability to combine expert field research, analysis, and engagement with policymakers across the world.

We talk to all sides and in doing so we build on our role as a trusted source of field-centered information for conflict parties and external actors. It is not an easy job and it requires taking risks and pursuing an uncomfortable lifestyle.  But it is definitely a very rewarding one in terms of the knowledge and experience one gains while doing it.

These factors give our analysis quality and uniqueness. As a student I always read ICG’s work and was always in awe of their quality research. Their reports featured groundbreaking interviews with government officials and designated terrorists. I found that refreshing. I’ve always wanted to talk to everyone and hear their sides of the story to understand the situation better. It does not matter whether I agree with the individuals I am talking to you or not - what matters is listening and empathizing, while maintaining analytical integrity. That is what attracts me to ICG and what keeps me going.

What happens after a report is written and edited?

After the report is produced, I would say that 50% of my time is spent advocating the report’s content. I spend time talking to policy makers and stakeholders, discussing with them our analysis and advocating for actionable steps. Policy makers appreciate ICG’s work as they get to hear firsthand accounts from analysts who have visited areas and spoken to people that they might have not been able to reach themselves.  They also appreciate how ICG tries to put out policy prescriptions and roadmaps based on conversations with various parties to de-escalate conflict.

In the context of Syria, I regularly sit with Syrians from across the political spectrum but also with American, Russian, Iranian, Turkish, and European officials. I need to adjust my tone and recommendations according to the person sitting in front of me. I also need to quickly summarize my analysis and focus most of the time on the specific recommendations relevant to them. I consider this form of communication an ‘Art’ and I am constantly learning on the job.

We regularly get feedback from policy makers complementing our work and stating its utility to them. But we also get pushback. We are often criticized for putting non-state armed groups, or designated groups on an equal footing with internationally recognized governments. We regularly get criticized by States who make a case for their right to monopolize the use of force and do not appreciate us advocating for all parties to ceasefires.  We also get criticism from civil society groups who point out that we often prioritize ending conflict over issues of rights and justice. It is not an easy job, but we try to focus on bringing in new information, new perspectives, and new policy recommendations. It is an uphill battle.

Can you elaborate on your current role as the Senior Syria Analyst for the International Crisis Group- what is your typical and not so-typical day like?

I have been with ICG for two years now and I joined the team during a critical time in Syria. The former Trump administration was attempting to pull-out US troops from north east Syria, Turkey was planning an incursion against Kurdish-led forces, and Russia was starting its offensive on Idlib. It was a tragic time for the conflict and a rough one for those working on it. I spent a lot of time in Syria, Washington DC, Ankara and Moscow – speaking to officials and recommending new courses of action.

An ICG analysts role extends beyond publishing reports. In the course of my job, I need to coordinate loads of interviews and organize meetings, speak to the media and brief stakeholders and donors to socialize them with our ideas. There is a lot of the behind-the-scenes work, a lot of listening and a lot of learning.

Syria is a multi-dimensional conflict with a wide range of local, regional and international actors involved in it.  While many of those parties do not directly speak to each other, I need to constantly engage with all of them, building enough trust so that they would continue talking to us.

Another challenging part of the job is the writing process. You need to consolidate your findings and pick and choose what needs to go into the report and what will be left out. And as analysts, we tend to want to include all the information we gathered which would turn a report into a book. So, we need to prioritize, and it is often the case that an interview you think is groundbreaking and you have traveled hours to do, gets pushed to a footnote for the sake of keeping a report concise.

What are some accomplishments you are most proud of during your time with ICG?

I am very happy to have been able to build on ICG’s already outstanding access by opening channels of communication with one of the hardest to reach groups in Syria. During one of my trips to Idlib, in northern Syria, I interviewed the commander of Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, a former al Qaeda affiliate and also the most internationally wanted man in Syria today (the U.S. has a $10 million bounty on his head).

I published an analytical short piece based on the meeting , titled ‘The Jihadist Factor in Syria’s Idlib: A Conversation with Abu Muhammad al-Jolani’ . The piece set a page view record for ICG and it was widely shared and discussed among Syrians and Western policy makers. It was a very difficult piece to write because I had to caveat it considerably, while also being fair in capturing the whole picture. The interview certainly steered criticism by those who are opposed to engaging with such problematic groups. One critic was adamant on how my piece did not have a gender lens to it. And while that might be true, isn’t the fact that this interview was conducted and written by an Arab woman, an accomplishment in and of itself?

Would you say you have come upon challenges- professional and otherwise- owing to your identity as an Egyptian Arab woman working in international politics and if so, how have you negotiated that aspect of your experience?

There are many layers to these challenges, but there are also advantages. Being perceived as a “non-threatening young woman” who speaks the local language, often leads interviewees to open up easier and become more comfortable in conversations. Another advantage is that there is a lot of shared history and a lot of common culture references across the region that helps me connect easier with Syrians. The people I meet with in Syria do not seem to mind that I am a young woman, on the contrary I think it makes them more appreciative of my visits. Ultimately, they want to be heard and listened to and will always take the time to explain their perspectives to someone who took the risk of coming to them in Syria.

The field is also overwhelmingly male dominated and Western. These particular reasons cause many think tanks to produce and reinforce Western-centric views and prescriptions. It’s often tough to navigate the fact that I am mostly the only woman in the room or the one woman on a panel. Additionally, it's a field that requires a lot of travel, working beyond normal hours, and taking security risks which is hard for both men and women but obviously more for women. There is always an extra layer of challenge in working in a war zone as a woman. The physical and security risks are higher and many of the places we visit are not necessarily designed to receive women. I am very lucky to have a supportive partner that has been helping me navigate these structural difficulties, which would have otherwise been impossible.

Have you ever faced any comments related to your age as a young woman working in the field?

Absolutely, if only I get a coin every time an older man tells me “it’s complicated, let me explain it to you”- usually about topics I have spent years researching.  As I mentioned I rarely get that from people in Syria but I do get it from peers. As a woman from the region, I get told that I am “too emotionally invested” and that I need to look at the “bigger picture”, which is in a lot of cases euphemism for looking at things from a Western-centric view.

In your opinion, what are the ‘must-have’ skills needed for women to work in your field?

Many of the skills I currently possess came with time. I learned a lot on the job, but one of the most important skills to have in the field is to grow thicker skin to criticism. It might not be a skill per se but it is an absolute requirement to be able to take active part in policy conversations. If you want to shake the debate you will have to tackle controversial issues and you will never be able to satisfy everyone. So take criticism well and don’t let it put you off.

Another major ‘must-have’ is effective communication. The ability to summarize complex and nuanced ideas for non-subject matter experts is key. Adjusting tone and language to an audience while keeping it straightforward enough for everyone to follow is essential, especially in conversations with policy makers who may not have the time to listen to extensive analytical details.

A final skill that women working in the policy field must have is self-confidence. Do your research very well, always prepare your key talking points, and present them confidently. If you’ve done your research, you don’t need to qualify what you are saying by stating that this is “your opinion” or “how you feel”, just lay the facts as they are, confidently. Encourage, support and promote other women to do the same.

To close out the interview, could you suggest three pieces of advice that may add value to young female professionals in your field? 

1. Get over your fear of public speaking. Don’t turn down invitations to speak because you don’t think you are an expert on the subject, instead ask the organizers if you can focus on the things you are specialized on.  Pitch your ideas to editors and reach out to the media and journalists.  

2. Be part of supportive women networks and promote each other’s work. But also have strong male allies, especially when you are younger. There are great men out there who are conscious of gender dynamic at workplaces and will speak out. Look out for those men.

3. Do not shy away from letting people know who you are and what you are doing. Women rarely promote their own work. I personally find it very difficult to market myself, but women need to do that more. So, speak and write about your work and accomplishments. Promote it both externally to the world, and internally to your bosses.