--- title: Ceasefire With Syria Says Former U.K. Defence Chief description: The U.K.'s former chief of staff says Russia and Syrian President are needed in the fight against ISIS canonical: https://time.com/4117843/ceasefire-syria-uk/ author: Tara John article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-11-18T12:32:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T12:43:34.476Z article:section: World og:title: Ceasefire With Syria Says Former U.K. Defence Chief og:description: The U.K.'s former chief of staff says Russia and Syrian President are needed in the fight against ISIS og:url: https://time.com/4117843/ceasefire-syria-uk/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9619389c142423e1/698871a4a988ca8d4a6b55a4/ceasefire-syria-defense-chief.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Chief Of The General Staff General Sir David Richards At The Cenotaph In London og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ceasefire With Syria Says Former U.K. Defence Chief twitter:description: The U.K.'s former chief of staff says Russia and Syrian President are needed in the fight against ISIS twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9619389c142423e1/698871a4a988ca8d4a6b55a4/ceasefire-syria-defense-chief.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # West Should Make Peace With Assad to Defeat ISIS, Says Ex-Army Chief by [Tara John](/author/tara-john/) ## Tara John Nov 18, 2015 12:32 PM CUT  Chief Of The General Staff General Sir David Richards At The Cenotaph In London Chief Of The General Staff General Sir David Richards At The Cenotaph In LondonMark Cuthbert—UK Press/Getty Images by [Tara John](/author/tara-john/) ## Tara John Nov 18, 2015 12:32 PM CUT The U.K.’s former army chief David Richards says opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should cease their fire against him to concentrate on defeating ISIS. Richards believes Assad’s forces, Hizballah and Syria’s Iranian backers are in the best position to lead the charge against ISIS in Syria, [he told the _BBC_.](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06pbty9 "undefined") “The real issue is can you use the one army that’s reasonably competent which is President Assad’s army? In that respect I personally would see a ceasefire being agreed in the way people are now talking, allowing potentially Assad’s army and Hezbollah and their Iranian backers and others to turn their attention on Isis in a sequential operation. After that the politics would kick in and you would have to do something about the residual political structure within Syria” Richards told the _BBC_ on Tuesday. His also called the U.K.’s war aims ‘contradictory,’ and hopes that the British Prime Minister David Cameron and allied nations will broker a deal with Russia in dealing with ISIS. “At the moment we’ve got contradictory war aims. We want to deal with ISIS but we also want to get rid of Assad at the same time. I personally don’t think that’s plausible. Any general will tell you you need to have unity of purpose and clear aims in a war. That muddies those aims,” he said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4117843/ceasefire-syria-uk/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4117843/ceasefire-syria-uk/"},"headline":"West Should Make Peace With Assad to Defeat ISIS, Says Ex-Army Chief","datePublished":"2015-11-18T12:32:32.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T12:43:34.476Z","description":"The U.K.'s former chief of staff says Russia and the Syrian President are needed in the fight against ISIS","url":"https://time.com/4117843/ceasefire-syria-uk/","keywords":["U.K."],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9619389c142423e1/698871a4a988ca8d4a6b55a4/ceasefire-syria-defense-chief.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tara John","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tara-john/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9619389c142423e1/698871a4a988ca8d4a6b55a4/ceasefire-syria-defense-chief.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Chief Of The General Staff General Sir David Richards At The Cenotaph In London","caption":"Chief Of The General Staff General Sir David Richards At The Cenotaph In London","creditText":"Mark Cuthbert—UK Press/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/u-k/","name":"U.K."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4117843/ceasefire-syria-uk/","name":"West Should Make Peace With Assad to Defeat ISIS, Says Ex-Army Chief"}}]}] ```