The synagogue in Damascus is a detail John Kiriakou offers as first-hand evidence for a claim about religious minorities in Syria, and as the ground for a forecast he states in the language of betting.
What he saw
Discussing the fate of Syria’s minority communities after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Kiriakou corrected an interlocutor on the Alawites — “actually Bashar al-Assad was an Alawite Muslim” — and gave a figure for the Christian population: “there are some estimates that put the Christian community in Syria at more than 5%.”[1]
The synagogue is introduced as personal knowledge rather than reporting: “I’ve been to Syria. I went to a to an operating practicing Jewish synagogue in Damascus. There’s still a Jewish community in Damascus.”[1]
The forecast
What follows is stated as a wager he would decline. “if I were a betting man, I would not bet money on the safety of Christians or Jews or Alawites or any other religious minority in Syria. Not under this government or any other government.”[2]
Kiriakou keeps the judgement on Assad and the judgement on minority protection separate, and refuses to let either soften the other. “For for all of his faults, and Bashar al-Assad was a monster” — and then, after his interlocutor agreed that Assad was a monster — “But for all of his faults, he at least protected religious minorities. And that’s that’s all out the window now.”[2]
Damascus recurs in Kiriakou’s own account of his travels: he has also described viewing what is venerated as the head of John the Baptist, held in a silver coffin at the Umayyad Mosque, during his CIA career.[1]