In this episode, we discuss why we should get involved in Syria and why we shouldn't. We explain the Syria conflict from our analysis, then bring in KT McFarland to talk about why we need to get involved.
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00:03:04.000Some remarkable news happened this weekend.
00:03:06.000While we were doing our event at Mar-a-Lago and presenting to donors, I was keeping an eye on this story that I've cared about for the last decade.
00:03:14.000Now, I'm by no means an expert, but It doesn't require expertise to necessarily understand this from at least a 30,000-foot view, which is Syria has fallen.
00:03:24.000And for those of you that remember, back almost 14 years ago was the beginning of the Syrian Civil War.
00:03:52.000And of course, Russia would come in, the very, very close to Syria for pipeline reasons and many others, and would always have Bashar al-Assad's back.
00:03:59.000And there were many moments throughout the last 14 years where it looked as if Bashar al-Assad was on shaky ground.
00:04:10.000It seemed as if the Syrian civil war has kind of become a cold war.
00:04:14.000The rebels were largely in exile, that they didn't have a lot of gusto, they didn't have really what it took to be able to eventually topple the Assad regime.
00:04:26.000Now remember, the Assad regime is a family dynasty dating back 50 or 60 years.
00:06:00.000However, when you replace that person, what do you get from?
00:06:07.000Well, with Saddam Hussein, you got the rise of ISIS and, of course, American taxpayers that had to pour hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq and didn't even do a good job of that.
00:07:53.000And even some members of the U.S. Congress, including Republicans, are celebrating that this terrorist is now controlling a rather major country.
00:08:08.000With a lot of Christian history, with a significant Christian population, yet we were told for years by Lindsey Graham and by John McCain and the warmongers in the Republican Party that the rebels are the best people ever, the Kurds are wonderful, and that we need to give them armaments, and that as long as we fight Assad, things are great.
00:08:30.000The D.C., Uniparty warmongering machine oversimplifies highly complex tribal histories, cultural battles, to try to make it seem as if it is a black and white, good versus evil circumstance, when in reality, the truth in foreign policy is almost always found in the nuance.
00:08:54.000Our support for Syrian rebels caused Christians to fall from about 10% of Syria's population to just about 2% of Syria's population due to the ethnic cleansing and genocide.
00:09:07.000Syria is one of the oldest Christian communities on the planet, and now it's on the brink of extinction.
00:09:13.000So be very careful which side you are cheering for here.
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00:11:33.000So this guy I think I've met before, can we get that picture of Joe Wilson from South Carolina?
00:11:38.000I mean, I'm sure he votes in ways that I would like, but you must call out nonsense and quite honestly BS in your own party when you see it.
00:11:48.000So Joe Wilson, next to an American flag and a Ukrainian flag, separate issue.
00:11:53.000I mean, when Blake sent this to me last night, I was...
00:12:00.000So this is Joe Wilson, who puts on social media, not just mentioning it, but he's holding up the rebel flag, saying, celebrating December 8th as the day the brutal Assad regime fell.
00:12:57.000The road ahead will not be easy, but the Syrian people have shown tremendous perseverance and hope from the beginning, even as the world failed them.
00:13:05.000Again, I didn't go to college, but you just have to pay a little bit of attention to have the fundamental misunderstanding.
00:13:12.000The equation in the Middle East, whether it be what we did in Iran to displace the Shah, again, Saddam Hussein in Libya, is typically this.
00:13:21.000And there's almost not been an exception.
00:13:23.000The strong man falls because we want to spread democracy.
00:13:27.000The radical Islamic factions are more willing to use outforce terror, brute force, intimidation, and they tend to be very, very charismatic.
00:13:40.000And so they use Wahhabism or some sort of sister of that, of extremely radical Islamic interpretation of theology to rally the masses, and you get something way worse than what you had before.
00:13:55.000And so I'll be honest, Joe Wilson, your tweet here is not going to age well.
00:14:53.000He says, Where close to 600,000 Russian soldiers lay wounded or dead in a war that should never have started.
00:15:10.000Now, let me just say, Donald Trump mentioning how many Russians have died is actually rather morally courageous in D.C. because everyone seems really afraid to say that both sides are losing human beings.
00:15:20.000Anyway, I found that to be noteworthy.
00:15:22.000Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now.
00:15:25.000One, because of Ukraine and a bad economy, and that is actually true.
00:15:28.000One of the reasons why Assad fell is because of how Russia, Iran, and Syria's economy has fallen apart.
00:15:35.000Likewise, Zelensky and Ukraine would like to make a deal to stop this madness.
00:15:38.000They've ridiculously lost 400,000 soldiers and many civilians.
00:15:41.000That's a million people unnecessarily that have died.
00:15:44.000There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin.
00:15:46.000Too many lives are being needlessly wasted.
00:16:27.000Because Russia's tied up in Ukraine, Obama didn't force the red line in the sand, but now, like possibly Assad himself being forced out, do not get involved.
00:16:34.000Everybody, that is a phenomenal sign for this incoming administration.
00:16:37.000Because you better believe there's clamoring neocons on Capitol Hill that want Donald Trump to say that we're going to have airstrikes and all sorts of military intervention.
00:16:46.000President Trump says, no, this is not our fight.
00:16:48.000President Trump is showing the promises he made on the campaign trail are things that will be acted into policy.
00:17:00.000We're all feeling pretty good about where our country's headed right now, but I'm concerned.
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00:18:07.000It's been too long since we had an opportunity to chat.
00:18:10.000So KT, I would love your opinion on what's happening in Syria and whether or not you believe America and our government, our military should get involved.
00:19:13.000Because President Trump's energy policy will push the price of oil down, which is their major revenue source.
00:19:19.000And then he's going to reimpose the sanctions on Iran.
00:19:22.000So Iran will be really wounded, economically particularly.
00:19:26.000And Iran has a great population, well-educated, internet savvy.
00:19:31.000And the population of Iran, every 10 years or so, pops up and tries to overthrow the mullahs.
00:19:37.000And the Obama administration and then the Biden administration, oddly enough, sided with the mullahs.
00:19:41.000I think President Trump will side with the people of Iran.
00:19:44.000I do think that Iran's leaders have to look at what's just happened to Haibas al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad.
00:19:51.000They've been toppled in a matter of minutes because their own people didn't stand up to them, stand up for them.
00:19:57.000And you've got to think that the mullahs look at that and think, yikes, could we be next?
00:20:01.000So, can you explain for the audience, because I want to make sure we don't pass over this, can you just explain what you mean by a multi-sided civil war, Turkey's involvement, who are the rebels, who are the Kurds, who is Assad?
00:20:15.000Take a little bit of time here just to educate our audience.
00:20:18.000I mean, most Americans would struggle to probably Find Syria on a map and even, you know, know Damascus versus Aleppo.
00:20:27.000I mean, even a presidential candidate, Gary Johnson, didn't know Aleppo.
00:22:00.000It got back into Syria and an involvement in the region, and Russia cares about it because Russia's been using Syrian ports and airfields To do the Russian operations coming out of Africa.
00:22:15.000But at the same time, Russia's had to prop up a corrupt incompetent leader, Assad.
00:22:20.000And the Iranians have an interest too, because they've used Syria as their transshipment point to get weapons from Iran into Hezbollah to kill Israelis and try to destroy Israel.
00:22:33.000So Russia and Iran Outside powers have an interest in Syria.
00:22:38.000They don't care about Syria, but they care about the real estate in Syria.
00:22:42.000So they've cropped up this corrupt incompetent leader, Bashar al-Assad, for years.
00:22:49.000Now Russia's weakened because Russia's preoccupied.
00:23:03.000Israel has gone after Hezbollah and Hamas, the Houthis.
00:23:08.000And so Iran is weakened in the region, and Iran is economically weakened.
00:23:13.000Now, when Trump was in office the first time, he understood the power of economics.
00:23:18.000And he understood if you could bankrupt Iran, if you could get them to the point where they have no real money, they won't have any money to pay for wars against Israel.
00:23:27.000They won't have money to pay for terrorists, and they'll have a hard enough time staying in power and keeping their own jobs, some of us, because they have to feed their own people.
00:23:35.000So if you look now, where is Iran, where is Russia?
00:24:22.000So that's a really important point that I want to emphasize here, which is the way the media is framing it is, okay, the government fell and now this new group controls all of Syria.
00:24:51.000And then there'll probably be subgroups and subterritories.
00:24:53.000I mean, a very messy and fluid situation.
00:24:57.000Yeah, I mean, probably one of the major groups is the one supported by Turkey, who says, well, we used to be al-Qaeda, but we're not really al-Qaeda anymore.
00:25:31.000And so for access to their oil, we had to pick and choose countries that we liked and didn't like in the Middle East.
00:25:36.000If you fast forward today, we don't need their oil.
00:25:40.000America, because of American resources and really technological entrepreneurial capabilities, we've realized that we have oil and natural gas in the rocks right under our feet.
00:25:51.000And we have more oil and natural gas than any other country in the world.
00:25:55.000We can power the world for hundreds of years just using our oil and natural gas.
00:26:02.000And we can produce it cheaper, simpler, easier, safer, cleaner, better than any other country.
00:26:09.000So our interest in the Middle East is no longer we need their oil for our economy.
00:26:14.000Well, in fact, our interest should be we'll replace the Middle East as the world's hub of energy.
00:26:20.000We'll not only have our own and be energy independent, but if you listen to President Trump, he keeps saying this word energy dominant.
00:26:56.000And it's the more you know, the more you realize how little you know when you thought you knew it all.
00:27:00.000So that could best summarize Middle Eastern tribal politics.
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00:28:07.000I do want to ask you, though, about Iran and something that you said.
00:28:11.000I'd love to just address some concerns that I would potentially have and work through it, which is, if the current Iranian regime falls, do we have guarantees that what will come after would necessarily be better?
00:28:25.000I only say that because it seems in the Middle East, whatever is replaced is not always better.
00:28:28.000It seems to get more radical, not more Western.
00:28:44.000I've got to assume that if Israel was clever enough to do the attacks on Hezbollah and Hamas leadership, but particularly Hezbollah leadership in downtown Tehran, that they have sufficient connections with the underground in Iran of the people who want the pro-democracy movement, the that they have sufficient connections with the underground in Iran of the people who want the pro-democracy movement, the And so maybe that helps.
00:29:08.000We do not belong with troops on the ground anywhere near this stuff.
00:29:12.000And we should not be picking winners and losers.
00:29:14.000So what happened, whether it was in Iraq or Afghanistan, go back to Vietnam.
00:29:18.000Every time we get in the middle of somebody else's civil war and start picking winners and losers, we're always the losers.
00:30:39.000And President Trump, one of the reasons he keeps saying drill, baby, drill, is he's going to take the price of oil, which is now, what, about $80 a barrel, thanks to Biden?
00:30:48.000Donald Trump is going to unleash the American energy industry.
00:30:51.000Oil and natural gas prices will go way down.