The Middle East is a dangerous place. There's a lot of sectarian violence, and often the best option is still a really bad option when it comes to governance, seeing who's in charge, and who can keep the peace. One of the key cases of this is Syria, where a country descended into a sectarian war.
00:03:44.000But what are the major players in that region that are really creating the level of conflict we're seeing today?
00:03:51.020Well, there are kind of two angles that we can approach that from.
00:03:57.760One angle is to look at the ethnic and sectarian diversity on the ground there.
00:04:04.460And that has some historical background, which perhaps I can tap on here.
00:04:10.540Then there are the different groups themselves that have emerged from that context that are contributing to the fragmented nature of the country and the situation that they're facing there.
00:04:26.700So Syria, historically going far, far back, you can go back to the Hittites and the Egyptians, north and south of this region and the conflict of empires there.
00:04:39.140But more recently, you had the Ottoman Empire there.
00:04:42.060And the Ottoman Empire is, of course, Sunni.
00:04:45.420The majority of Muslims on earth are Sunni.
00:04:50.040But there are, of course, minority groups like the various flavors of Shia.
00:04:54.620And some of those get very strange, like the Druze and the Alawites in terms of their belief, which include things like reincarnation.
00:05:02.360The Alawites, for example, recognize a trinity.
00:05:53.100And so when the Ottomans arrived there, they had a system that was, we gloss it in the West, as a millet system, a system of nations.
00:06:03.480And this system basically left a certain amount of control over affairs to the separate ethnic groups.
00:06:13.460And they each had their own religious leaders.
00:06:17.220So, you know, in terms of taxes or military conscription and the rest, the Ottomans came in and, you know, hammered everyone to get what they wanted.
00:06:24.660But in terms of how they handled things like civil disputes to some extent, things having to do with property, marriage, inheritance, these different communities, these nations or millet would be allowed to kind of take care of their own things under their religious leaders.
00:06:43.460And so I wanted to bring that up because you can already see that there's kind of a decentralization with these different communities.
00:06:51.540And in the absence of any kind of ethnic or religious uniformity across the territory, which, you know, only became a nation as we understand it roughly 100 years ago, you had people being forced to come together in their neighborhoods within a given city.
00:07:14.420So one neighborhood might be Armenian, another one might be Alawite, you know, for example, or Kurdish, or you have a Kurdish or Alawite region, as we see with the northeastern portion of the country being under the control of U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, or the coastal regions where you've got the Russian air base and naval base.
00:07:39.700And a lot of the Christians and Alawites where there's violence right now, that was the coastal regions had more of the minorities.
00:07:49.220So you've got a background already for there to be considerable disunity or the, or as we should add, the opportunity to stick a lever into it, to pry it apart based on the principle of, you know, divide and conquer or divide and rule.
00:08:06.460So sorry to, sorry to stop you there, but the thing, the phenomenon you're describing is so important and it is so foreign to, I think most people in the West, most modern people.
00:08:19.920I think it's worth taking a minute to just break it down, not even the specifics of this, you know, this scenario, but just the general idea you're discussing.
00:08:28.080So the militant system is one designed to allow an empire to rule many different peoples or what were classically called nations.
00:08:38.680And today, most people think of nations as nation states, that the nation and the state, the nation and the country are the same thing.
00:08:48.180But that's not been the case through much of human history.
00:08:51.960When a empire was ruling many different nations, ethnically diverse, religiously diverse, linguistically diverse peoples, really your only options were to go in and homogenize those regions, bring them under one understanding, or provide them a certain level of autonomy, allow them to keep their traditions, their religion, their language, but have them kick up to the empire.
00:09:18.180Right. The Romans in many cases did this. It was varying degrees across their territories. But this is a very classic system, but it is very foreign to the current, I think, American or even European understanding of nations.
00:09:34.500And so I think this causes a lot of confusion because people will say, oh, well, you know, you'll hear the Western media say, oh, he's killing his own people in a country.
00:09:43.960And the answer is no, he's not. He doesn't see it that way. This leader does not see other peoples, other nations as his nation, just because they happen to be inside the state territory.
00:09:55.960The formal borders recognized by some international body somewhere doesn't mean they are the same people sharing the same community and understanding.
00:10:07.460And that, I think, is very difficult for people because so often in these highly diverse areas, the only way to hold them together is to have this overarching strong government or strong man, a dictator of some kind, who can cut through the differences between these peoples and give each one, you know, at least their say in their area while still keeping a strong hand over them in general.
00:10:33.340It sounds brutal to a lot of people in the West, but in many ways, it's the only way to maintain that kind of equilibrium between the different nations, the different peoples inside an area.
00:10:45.460So, yeah, I just wanted to stop and clarify that because for a lot of people, that might be the first time they've heard about that or the understanding that dynamic.
00:10:54.800And I want the going into the discussion of these these factions to for people to grasp that this is how many areas of the world had been ordered previously.
00:11:05.020And when we shake that up, when we create this expectation of kind of modern states, we're often ignoring this dynamic that has a very historically robust, you know, kind of legacy throughout the existence of these areas.
00:11:20.820Yes. And as I pointed out before, this can be a regional division, this can be a division in terms of a city.
00:11:31.160You know, there's one city in particular that has the majority of the Circassians that live in Syria are in that one city.
00:11:39.400You know, there are cities that are more associated with Alawites, more associated with a Sunni population.
00:11:45.800Or, as I said, it can come down to the label, excuse me, to the level of neighborhoods where, you know, people jealously guard their turf.
00:11:55.600And that is a very, very common thing across the Middle East.
00:12:00.320You have to think of it as along the lines of gangs of New York in terms of, you know, perhaps that's a bit too lurid.
00:12:08.380But the basic idea is that they really resolutely defend their neighborhood.
00:12:13.660They're very territorial about it because it's the one place where they can exert some sort of territorial control within this framework.
00:12:22.200And, you know, when a strong man does come along and impose some sort of order on it, it is very fragile.
00:12:28.680And the opportunities, as I said, for Divide et Impera, you know, to divide and rule are many.
00:12:36.940So to come back all the way around to your question about, you know, what sort of groups we have going on there.
00:12:43.640Well, as many people will know, the group currently in charge was most recently called Hayat Tahrir Asham, which is, you know, an organization that ultimately came out of Al-Qaeda, you know, whatever Al-Qaeda might be.
00:13:04.360Maybe that's something deeper to dig into.
00:13:06.760We probably don't have the scope for here, but basically they were considered under the name of Al-Nusra Front to be a sort of Syrian affiliate of Al-Qaeda.
00:13:19.100But over the years, they have changed their name many times.
00:13:24.240They've gone through a sort of mummer's farce of becoming more liberal, less conservative, less intolerant, these sorts of things.
00:13:37.780But the leader of Syria at this point is a guy who had the nom de guerre, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda.
00:13:46.860He now goes by Al-Qaeda, and he came out of Al-Nusra Front and HTS.
00:13:54.700And he has considerable militia forces behind him.
00:14:04.040I believe it's the Free Syrian Army, which is backed by the Turks, and they operate more in the area of the northwest near the Turkish border.
00:14:15.340There are Kurdish forces, the YPG, and they make up the majority of what are called the Syrian Defense Forces, and these are backed by the United States.
00:14:30.340They control the primary food and energy-producing regions of Syria.
00:14:35.800Once the United States got control there, they kept it in order to choke off the economics and energy situation and food for the Syrians in order to bring Assad down.
00:14:48.720You've got Hezbollah, who came in in order to back Assad while he was still in power during that period of civil war.
00:14:59.960That ran from, I believe, 2011 forward.
00:15:04.540Now, a lot of people would ask, well, why are the Turks backing one group?
00:15:08.720Why are the Iranians backing another group?
00:15:11.600It all gets very, very complicated, but the Turks, who formerly governed there as the Ottomans, the artists formerly known as the Ottomans,
00:15:21.820they're Sunni, overwhelmingly majority Sunni, as is the population in Syria.
00:15:28.680And so they see that as the best way to deal with the situation.
00:15:32.820Now, Assad, who was in power, comes from the Alawite minority, and they are very loosely considered Shiites.
00:15:40.440For your viewers, the real difference between Sunni and Shia simply comes down to whether or not you believe that the community of believers should be led by caliphs who were chosen by the community in some respect or its elites,
00:15:56.020or whether it should come down through bloodlines, which are people who were descended or allegedly descended from the prophet and are thought to carry some sort of mystical charge as a result of that.
00:16:11.940And they have more of an idea of, you know, prophet, not prophet, but, well, we don't need to get into all of that.
00:16:20.280The basic idea is that that's the fundamental division and, you know, how they have the joke about there's no Baptist sect, too small not to schism again and yet again.
00:16:30.060And that's what you see with the Shiites.
00:16:32.140So the Iranians are one branch of Shiites.
00:16:36.260The Alawites are another one, a very much smaller one.
00:16:39.740But given that situation where they're surrounded by this majority Sunni Muslim population and, you know, in the Middle East, they tend to cleave together and to help each other out.
00:16:52.800And so Iran developed relationships with Assad and in particular in order to balance the situation with Israel.
00:17:04.380So let's let's if we can let since you've mentioned him several times here, can we give a little background on Bashar al-Assad?
00:17:12.640Because so much of the developments that have happened now obviously come with the toppling of his regime.
00:17:18.840Many people called for it over and over again, world leaders working for it, all kinds of sanctions, you know, saying, you know, he's this guy using chemical weapons, wiping out his own people.
00:17:30.340All this all this, you know, kind of understandable, you know, given some of the actions he took in their hostility towards him.
00:17:39.100However, ultimately, people like Tulsi Gabbard, you know, kind of warned that if you toppled Assad as bad as he might be, that there would be very serious consequences.
00:17:48.140So can we can we just kind of work in who Assad was, where he came from, how he came to power, what his role was before he was deposed?
00:17:59.340Yes. Well, we'd have to start with his father, if I have all of this straight in my mind.
00:18:04.500Basically, there were you had after after World War One, you had the prior to the end of World War One and the armistice that was signed with the Turks who were among the central powers.
00:18:20.420The Ottomans were ruling there. And then after this, you had the French and British mandates in the region as a result of, you know, as many of our viewers will be aware, you know, Mark Sykes and Monsieur Picot, the Sykes-Picot agreement.
00:18:38.260You know, the French and the British decided to divvy up that region.
00:18:42.340And then there was a period of French control, the French mandate, and then eventually the nation of Syria was recognized.
00:18:50.640And it was a sort of tumultuous period because it didn't have a foundation to be in a nation.
00:18:56.560You know, it's sort of like when you look at parts of the map in Africa, where you see these enormous straight lines, you know, running, you know, longitudinally or whatever.
00:19:07.140You can tell that that was a map drawn somewhere else by European in order to create a nation, very often with sort of built in perforations so that if there were trouble, if there was trouble of any kind in the future, they could stick a lever into it and split it apart, as we saw arguably in 2011.
00:19:25.720But, um, so Syria, um, was not a stable place.
00:19:30.720Eventually, uh, this Ba'athist guy, uh, Assad's father, I believe it's Hafez Assad, uh, he comes in and establishes a control.
00:19:39.340There were a series of coups, uh, I believe that he came in and, uh, in the seventies and sort of established his power at that point.
00:19:47.500Um, and he comes from the Alawite minority.
00:19:51.100And, uh, that of course was not appreciated by many of the, the, the different communities.
00:19:57.880The minorities basically came together around him and said, well, we'll throw in our lot because we minorities need to stick together against this overwhelming Sunni, uh, majority.
00:20:08.000But you were left with a Sunni majority in Syria that felt, uh, to some extent, uh, disenfranchised.
00:20:14.420Now the country was relatively stable, um, uh, certainly by, by the standards of the region, uh, for quite some time, but, uh, Assad, uh, passed away.
00:20:27.560And, um, I believe if I'm, if I'm not mistaken, uh, the son that he had chosen, uh, to be the leader, um, died and, uh, that necessitated his, uh, second son having to be called in.
00:21:18.620Many of our viewers will remember this.
00:21:20.440And, you know, you had, uh, all sorts of, uh, violence in the streets and the rest.
00:21:25.240And then the, the government, you know, began to wobble a bit and armed groups were brought in, uh, uh, many people say, and it seems quite evident, you know, supported by the, uh, United States, uh, in some cases via, uh, Turkey.
00:21:41.680But other, uh, Arab states, uh, were involved with this because they're Sunni and they don't have, uh, much, uh, much tolerance for, uh, for an Alawite run government.
00:21:56.320Um, so Ba'athists, it's, uh, it's, uh, I don't want to get it all into it, but basically you've got groups of what amount to Arab national socialists.
00:22:07.300Um, they, they come, uh, sort of, uh, on the model of Ataturk establishing a Republic as a transitional thing.
00:22:17.640Uh, the de-emphasis of Islam and Sharia at the level of government.
00:22:22.880Um, uh, protection, uh, of minorities, all of it being guaranteed by the military.
00:22:32.240People will, uh, remember that sort of thing.
00:22:34.220So the, the Arab leaders have slowly been cutting out all the Ba'athists.
00:22:38.180All the remaining Ba'athists have, uh, been removed.
00:22:41.100The United States, of course, is central to this.
00:22:43.560You know, um, uh, Saddam Hussein was a Ba'athist, you know, um, uh, Assad was one of the, uh, the last of them, if not the, uh, the last of them.
00:22:53.760So he, he fell and, uh, his, his, his country, uh, descended into chaos.
00:23:01.000Um, so, well, I have that not in, in quite the right order.
00:23:09.520He was propped up by the Russians and, uh, that went fairly well, but, uh, you know, um, compared to how it could have gone.
00:23:18.260And the issue is that, why were the Russians, uh, propping him up specifically?
00:23:24.560What was their interest in propping him up?
00:23:26.720Well, you had the Suez crisis in the fifties.
00:23:29.660And, uh, at that point, Russia began to get, uh, or the Soviet union, I should say, began to get more involved in the Middle East as a counterbalance there against the West and out of concern for energy and, you know, regional opportunities and influence.
00:23:44.800And so they became, uh, an ally of, uh, of Syria, uh, in that period.
00:23:53.660And they had investment, um, uh, indeed, Russia had historically gotten involved, uh, culturally, so to speak in defending Orthodox communities in Syria.
00:24:04.880So there had been some history of that.
00:24:07.260Um, but, uh, they were a cold war ally is the, the, the short answer.
00:24:12.360And so you, you had, uh, during this period of the, uh, the, the Arab spring and the descent of Syria and the greater and greater chaos, you ended up with a de facto partition of the country.
00:24:27.760Um, and you, uh, so you had, uh, so you had the Kurdish, uh, forces in the, uh, Northeast, you had, uh, uh, Turkish backed forces that came down into, uh, Idlib.
00:24:39.260Um, you have, uh, the Hezbollah forces that came over from Lebanon.
00:24:46.460So the country was sort of carved up into zones.
00:24:49.160The primary ones being the area where the Syrians with Russian support were able to carve out, um, or, or to restore, uh, control.
00:24:59.220And then, and that was primarily the coast and, uh, Damascus, um, and then eventually Aleppo.
00:25:06.520Um, but the, uh, the Kurdish, uh, us backed, uh, Kurdish forces in the Northeast, as I said, took control over the energy and the, the grain, the bread basket essentially of the country.
00:25:17.560And the Turks pushed down from the North into the area of Idlib and the rest.
00:25:22.620And it's very complex picture because the Turks are concerned about the Kurds and fighting with them, but backing militants who are going after the, uh, government in Damascus.
00:25:32.740Um, and then you have the, uh, the Iranians and the Russians and the remnants of the Syrian government, uh, cooperating in order to hold all of these, uh, people at bay.
00:25:45.760So what ultimately drove, uh, Western governments to want to see the fall of Bashar al-Assad?
00:25:55.540Was it just his relationship with Russia?
00:25:58.280Uh, what, what, what was the overarching desire?
00:26:02.280I mean, if he's a guy who's at least to some extent providing, uh, you know, uh, a, um, some kind of guidance in a region that otherwise is going to just be a mess no matter what.
00:26:15.100I mean, what, what, what drove people to want to see that mix up?
00:26:18.760Well, you know, I think you mentioned Israel, the United States, other, you know, Turkey, you know, who, who all were involved in one to see him go and what specifically, uh, was their motivation?
00:26:29.540Well, here you get into, uh, uh, a realm of speculation.
00:26:34.000So, uh, I can make no claims that all of my speculation is accurate.
00:26:38.000You know, the safe answer is to say Assad was a bad, bad man and he was a dictator.
00:26:42.880And so he needed to be brought down in order to make the world safe for democracy.
00:26:54.600Now, um, you know, if you want to turn to some of the speculative answers, there are many different flavors and explanations.
00:27:02.380You know, one of them is that the Qataris had wanted to put a pipeline in that would cross, uh, this territory.
00:27:08.360And, uh, Assad wanted to be, uh, cut in on it more than they thought he deserved or some such, you know, you will hear that, uh, that, uh, Erdogan in Turkey, uh, is presiding over a resurgent neo Ottoman, um, you know, project.
00:27:26.160And so he wants to reassert, um, uh, his influence, uh, in, in, in areas that were historically under the control of the Turks.
00:27:36.200Uh, you will certainly hear that, uh, you know, about things like greater Israel and the, you know, and plan and the idea that Syria had to be brought down as this, uh, this major, uh, enemy of Israel.
00:27:49.880Part of this, uh, group, you know, that is called the resistance, which is a rather odd one because you have, uh, Hamas, which is a primary, well, the majority of them are, uh, Sunni Arabs, but you also have, uh, Christians and others who are, you know, Arabs who are, um, you know, Palestinians.
00:28:09.280Um, but then you have the, uh, the Syrian state, which is a sort of a national socialist state run by an Alawite minority.
00:28:18.600And then you have, uh, Lebanon, which is, you know, also a sectarian mess, um, with, uh, Shiite Hezbollah.
00:28:26.240And then you have the 12 or Shiites in Iran.
00:28:29.560Um, so that axis had to be broken from an Israeli perspective and, uh, quite dramatically.
00:28:38.660Uh, just at the end of last year that happened when, um, the forces that had been backed by Turkey that were bottled up in Italy came marching out.
00:28:49.100And it seemed very strangely that the, uh, the Syrian army, such as it was, uh, just crumpled before the advance of these forces, um, almost inexplicably.
00:29:02.460And Assad fled to, uh, Russia and, uh, left behind his Alawite co-religionists.
00:29:10.160Uh, we are told that his wife was dying of cancer, which, you know, you can imagine that, um, that would, uh, distract a man.
00:29:18.420Um, so yes, but I'm getting ahead of the primary question.
00:29:23.380Um, it seems that there was a project to remake the Middle East and that different parties and players involved in that had different motivations.
00:29:30.240Uh, one last motivation that should be mentioned is a considerable, um, offshore, um, uh, considerable offshore reserves of natural gas.
00:29:41.640And there is also, uh, uh, uh, quite a bit of oil in Syria.
00:29:46.500Now, Syria is not a major energy player.
00:29:50.640It's been choked, um, you know, by sanctions and the rest for quite some time.
00:29:55.360So it's, uh, it's not operating at full efficiency, certainly.
00:29:59.980But were its energy resources to be fully exploited, you would see, you know, they probably got one one hundredth of the, uh, oil that Saudi Arabia does.
00:30:10.580Um, probably one tenth of the natural gas that Saudi Arabia does, but it's still, you know, these are still resources that are certainly, uh, could be valued in the, uh, billions.
00:30:23.160Um, but, uh, as I started to say, there's a considerable offshore natural gas, which is only, has been only, uh, which, which was more recently discovered and only recently has, uh, begun to be exploited properly, uh, primarily by the
00:30:40.580Israel, Lebanon, um, Lebanon, um, there are some disputes with, uh, Lebanon, uh, regarding the territorial waters and whose resources are where, you know, between the Lebanese and the, uh, Israelis.
00:30:52.580But there's also quite a bit in the way of resources off of the coast of Syria and Russia intervened there, I believe, in order to keep its seat at the table, to keep its, uh, its ports there, of course, and its air base.
00:31:08.500Uh, but there is going to be considerable energy development there.
00:31:12.320And when Russia intervened, this was, uh, prior to the war in Ukraine breaking out.
00:31:18.080This was prior to the energy being shut off, you know, that, uh, formerly had flowed, uh, to Europe.
00:31:24.300So Russia, excuse me, was, um, concerned to keep a seat at the table in terms of that energy as well, because if there were major energy developments there that they didn't have a piece of, that would cut a major chunk out of their revenue that had been coming from Europe at that time.
00:31:39.720So you have a very complex game going on off the coast of Syria, which involves the Turks, who everyone should remember, have controlled Northern Cyprus since what, 74, I believe.
00:31:51.000Um, and, uh, the, the Turks have a strong interest in becoming an energy hub for Europe, excuse me.
00:31:59.240And so they are, uh, they're interested in that respect.
00:32:04.800Uh, the Israelis were set to begin, uh, uh, energy export project.
00:32:09.720To, uh, Europe sometime back, uh, during the prior Trump administration.
00:32:15.600Uh, and you saw some strangeness with, uh, Turkey and Libya saying that they wanted to, uh, that they would not permit any kind of pipelines to run across the Mediterranean through what they called their territorial waters.
00:32:27.060And everybody got, uh, uh, quite, um, excited about all of it.
00:32:31.900The Turks were sending, uh, prospecting ships down into the Mediterranean and saying that they would have to have a piece of this pie.
00:32:38.780Um, and, uh, then, uh, then Biden came into office and, uh, and shut down the project to, uh, export Israeli gas, uh, to Europe.
00:32:49.140Now that was not operating, but it was, it was planned and, and Biden shut that program down.
00:32:54.440I'm probably, um, uh, winding, uh, too far afield here, but the, the, the point is that there's, there's a dimension of this, which involves serious energy plays that will affect, uh, the energy future and energy security of Europe.
00:33:09.560Uh, and at the time of the Russian intervention, uh, I suspect, uh, this was a part of their calculus as well to remain a part of this picture.
00:33:19.620It sounds like Syria really was just a disaster waiting to happen or was already happening and continues to happen.
00:33:25.960You have a country that is inherently unstable due to the artificial divides that were kind of introduced when it was created.
00:33:33.220It already had a political, uh, in, uh, instability, uh, a politically unstable structure, uh, with many different factions vying for control.
00:33:42.560On top of this, uh, you have several different major power players, uh, all interested in different, you know, uh, geopolitical concerns, energy concerns, financial concerns, uh, all getting involved.
00:33:57.160You have the United States funding, some groups, Russia, uh, Turkey, Israel, uh, other Middle Eastern nations.
00:34:04.620It's just a mess in every single possible sense that one could imagine.
00:34:09.840Uh, and that's why I kind of started this by saying, uh, sometimes there are no good options.
00:34:14.800You know, um, we, we like to kind of stare at these scenarios and just be like, okay, you take the George Washington of Syria and you just put them in charge of all the Syrians.
00:34:26.280And then you get, uh, you know, the United States of Syria, right?
00:34:30.180Like, and that, that we often kind of treat political situations as if that is kind of how these things unfold.
00:34:36.200But the truth is that through a long list of these, you know, different feuds, these different, uh, linguistic and tribal, ethnic, religious, uh, factionalism on top of great power, politics, money, military, all this stuff flowing in and out.
00:34:52.200But, uh, you're, you, this is always going to be a cluster, um, no, no, no, no matter what it feels like.
00:35:37.720When I found out my friend got a great deal on a designer dress from Winners, I started wondering, is every fabulous item I see from Winners?
00:35:47.020Like that woman over there with the Italian leather handbag, is that from Winners?
00:35:51.280Ooh, or that beautiful silk skirt, did she pay full price?
00:36:16.980Uh, well, one, I just wanted to add one other thing that, that makes this a recipe or has made it a recipe for disaster is that each of these different foreign, um, but each of these different countries that has intervened through history or the empire in the case of the Ottomans, um, they each went to a particular population.
00:36:36.640And worked with that population and worked with that population and worked with that population, and the other populations, of course, remember.
00:36:41.140Uh, so, uh, you know, uh, you know, uh, you know, the, the majority Sunni Arabs, remember the French coming in and helping out the Christians and the Alawites, right?
00:36:49.960The minority populations, uh, the minority populations, remember the Ottomans coming in, right?
00:36:53.300So, uh, or, you know, Russians helping out the Orthodox population or, uh, people thinking about how the Druze have relatively good relations with the Israelis.
00:37:03.520Or in some cases, because a lot of these things break down by tribe, uh, and clan affiliation as well.
00:37:10.120Um, so that's just another aspect of resentment and simmering, you know, dissatisfaction that was unleashed with all of this.
00:37:18.220Um, in terms of whether or not it's better, uh, I'm not a Syrian, and while I lived in the region for six years right nearby in Turkey, I've never been to Syria.
00:37:29.280But, uh, I can say that, uh, following the different, um, uh, people who, uh, discuss such things, um, one of whom is, uh, Kevork Al-Masiyan Siriana Analysis, if anyone is interested.
00:37:45.600Um, his, his, uh, his information is good, but of course it's very, uh, colored.
00:37:52.740I'm not endorsing all of that, but he's, uh, about the best source of information.
00:37:57.300If you're prepared to understand those biases, uh, that's out there, um, in English, I believe he's, uh, he's an Armenian living in, uh, Germany, but he's from Syria and follows the situation pretty closely.
00:38:10.700So for example, if you listen to someone like him, talk about it, um, under the Ba'athist regime of the Assads, they didn't want trouble.
00:38:19.340They wanted trouble shut down, uh, and they hammered it where, uh, they could when they found out about it.
00:38:26.240Um, so, you know, you hear, uh, about these people being raised in a more or less secular situation, at least from the perspective of the government, because they had so many communities.
00:38:38.400So, you know, one, uh, video I was watching recently, the guy who was a Syrian Christian was talking to an Armenian Syrian Christian, uh, and they were discussing how, you know, they could, uh, finish up their sports practice at the end of the day and drink some water even during Ramadan.
00:38:55.840Now, of course, for the Muslims, you're not supposed to have anything past your lips, uh, during the period of fast, you know, from sunrise to sunset during the day.
00:39:03.680Um, and, you know, he would say that, yeah, there would be Muslims there.
00:39:09.400They couldn't drink after the sports practice, but he would drink water and there wouldn't be a problem.
00:39:13.180Whereas now they have, uh, Turkmen militia or whatever, um, or Tajiks or whatever, um, marching through the streets, uh, keeping order in, uh, Syria today.
00:39:26.680And, you know, giving people a very hard time or threatening them with violence or engaging in violence with them.
00:39:33.080If they see them, you know, uh, uh, breaking their fast during the period of Ramadan, that's another point that I should have made earlier.
00:39:40.040Many of these Turkish backed fighters, they're essentially, um, mercenary forces that have been brought in from many other places.
00:39:47.780So the Syrians already have a very mixed population as we've discussed, but many of these Turkish fighters, they're from Tajikistan.
00:39:55.880They're from Kazakhstan, they're Uyghurs.
00:39:58.660Um, so you have an even more sort of international force, um, with its own groupings and affiliations, because these are all tribal peoples.
00:40:10.160So even if you bring them in as a Turkish backed force, they're going to sort of clump up in their own ways with their own interests under their own leaders in their own territories and start to play, uh, the game that they always play.
00:40:22.240So making the Spanish civil war look, uh, look pretty simple by comparison.
00:40:35.020Um, so I, I, my impression is that it's, uh, not just worse, but very, very much worse.
00:40:41.480And, uh, I, I don't recommend that people, unless you have a very strong stomach and don't mind seeing violence and death, um, not pretend, um, you know, I don't recommend that people go and watch these videos, but the videos that have been circulating, uh, showing, uh, the violence that's going on in the coastal regions.
00:41:01.400Because they suggest very strongly that it's, uh, it's not better.
00:41:06.640Now there is perhaps some hope, uh, in the future for the situation to improve, certainly economically, uh, right as these, uh, this, this violence was going on on the coast.
00:41:19.640And I should say, it's not clear what's happening there.
00:41:21.560Somebody like, uh, um, what, what's her name?
00:41:25.620The, uh, the foreign minister now in the EU who comes from one of the, the Baltic Kayakalas, I want to say, uh, she put out a tweet saying that the violence was being perpetrated by pro Assad forces.
00:41:37.800Assad left, he fled and he left his fellow Alawites to hold the bag.
00:41:43.260I don't think there are any pro Assad forces there.
00:41:45.380Uh, there are Alawites who are concerned about their future, who have fled, for example, to Russian bases in order not to be killed in the streets.
00:41:56.400The, the, the claim on the part of the people on the coast, um, I'm sorry, the claim regarding the situation on the coast made by the people in power is that pro Assad militias have been attacking people and they had to go and restore order.
00:42:27.340It seems that, uh, there is some hope for the future, but it's probably going to get worse before it gets better.
00:42:35.200At the time that that violence was going on, uh, because it now has wound down, uh, considerably, um, you know, at this moment, um, I believe Britain, uh, lifted its sanctions.
00:42:49.220As this violence was going on on the coast with the, the killing of minorities, uh, Britain lifted its economic sanctions.
00:42:55.840Uh, if that's, that's my understanding.
00:42:58.400Um, and you just had a major agreement signed, you know, one of the big questions about what's going to happen in the future, what the situation, uh, how, how the situation is going to unfold.
00:43:09.860It, the big question has to do with these Turkish backed forces who've seized control, their, uh, Sunni, right.
00:43:20.940And the Turks have a big problem with the Kurds.
00:43:24.600Uh, so you have, uh, and have had for quite some time, uh, fighting between Turkish backed forces and U S backed Kurdish forces, which has always been kind of a head scratcher because you've got these two NATO countries who are, uh, you know, engaged in a conflict.
00:43:41.060So one of the big questions has been, well, how is that going to get worked out?
00:43:44.460And what's the picture for the future of Syria?
00:43:46.860Because if something, if the Kurds aren't driven out, then you've got a problem because they control the energy and the farmland.
00:43:54.680Um, but if, um, but you know, if you go after them to try to drive them out, then, then Turkey and the United States are, uh, more, uh, at odds.
00:44:04.540So everybody's been wondering what's going to happen.
00:44:06.800And then there has been violence up until just, you know, a few days ago, ongoing violence.
00:44:11.320This is sort of attacks by, uh, Turkish backed forces against the SDF or, you know, primarily Kurdish, uh, coalition forces.
00:44:19.780And they've been going at it around, uh, Manbij and in some, uh, other places.
00:44:25.180So just here on the 10th, uh, there was, uh, so just, you know, two days ago, you find my list of what, uh, what's covered in it.
00:44:35.560There was an agreement, um, this was, uh, signed between the, uh, the Kurdish led Syrian democratic forces and the Syrian national army, which is, you know, now controlled, uh, by these HTS guys and the rest who are, uh, Turkish backed.
00:44:51.760So this was, uh, signed, as I said, March 10th.
00:44:55.000And, uh, it, it basically covers, uh, a number of points, uh, one, and I'm pulling this, uh, Kevok Al-Massian talked about this recently on his channel.
00:45:08.660It's most of the resources out there don't go into all of the points that were signed.
00:45:14.840Uh, he speaks, uh, Arabic of course, and, uh, summarize them.
00:45:20.380Uh, the first point is there's a guarantee of equal rights.
00:45:23.780All Syrians have a right, uh, to representation and participation in the political process, uh, and inclusion in state institutions, irrespective of their religious or ethnic background.
00:45:33.140Now this is, you know, coming right on the heels of, uh, minorities being killed on the coast.
00:45:39.400Of course, uh, number two, recognition of the Kurdish community with full citizenship, uh, that they're an integral part of the state, their rights are guaranteed.
00:45:47.860So that makes it seem like they're avoiding a partition.
00:45:52.080Uh, they call for a full national ceasefire.
00:45:55.160So you can imagine if only two days ago, there was a, uh, document signed between the Kurds and, uh, the new government that they're calling for a full national ceasefire as of two days ago.
00:46:08.800The fourth point was integration of civilian and military structures under state administration, uh, safe return of displaced Syrians, uh, ensured a safe return with state protection.
00:46:20.940Uh, and they call for defense and security coordination, uh, they say to combat Assad's militias again, Assad left.
00:46:29.760I don't think he's a popular, um, among any of the, uh, Alawites at this point.
00:46:34.840And, uh, lastly, rejection of division and hate speech, all forms of sectarianism, ethnic division, uh, and incitement of violence, uh, and hatred.
00:46:44.240And all of this is in theory supposed to be implemented by the end of 2025.
00:46:49.200Um, whether or not that's going to happen, I don't know.
00:46:54.320Um, you know, some of the analysts are saying that, uh, HTS, uh, Al Jalani now called Al Sharad, the new government, that they were forced to, uh, sign this agreement because of what's going on on the coast.
00:47:08.400Uh, that they would, uh, that they would, uh, very likely otherwise want to, um, get more out of the deal that would need to be made with the Kurds than they're getting here.
00:47:20.040If any of this holds, uh, but the suggestion is that they need to stop fighting each other in order to deal with the instability on the coast now.
00:47:30.000Uh, so that should provide some sort of picture of, you know, whether I think it's better now.
00:47:37.520It certainly doesn't seem to be, uh, it seems to be awful though.
00:47:41.520It's been awful for years and the United States probably played the leading role in imposing all of this, whether covertly, uh, through, you know, intelligence games.
00:47:53.000And bringing in mercenary forces or things like operation timber, sycamore, uh, delivering weapons so that, you know, you've got plenty of sparks to, to make the gas, you know, go up in flames, uh, or, uh, or overtly through sanctions and onerous sanctions have been placed on Syria for quite some time.
00:48:13.220Uh, you know, at the, you know, people talk about how, you know, military officers were making like $7 a month, uh, at the time that those militants came marching out of Idlib and took over the government.
00:48:24.980So it's been a terrible situation as for the future.
00:48:28.280The speculation is that something is going to be worked out, uh, between the United States, Russia, uh, and Israel.
00:48:38.220Uh, one of the big questions after all this went down was whether or not the Russians were going to keep their, uh, air base at Hamein, I believe it is.
00:48:47.820Um, anyway, on the coast, there's a major air base, uh, and there is also, uh, a port.
00:48:53.660The only one that I'm aware of that Russia has, uh, at present in the Mediterranean and, you know, for, uh, repairs and, um, refueling and supply.
00:49:03.940Um, the question was whether they were going to be able to keep, keep those.
00:49:08.320And it seemed like they would very likely be pushed out.
00:49:12.200Uh, oddly enough, that hasn't happened.
00:49:14.400Turkey apparently, uh, must, uh, be willing to have them stay there, which makes sense because the Turks are developing themselves as an energy hub.
00:49:25.540Um, they're a Black Sea neighbor of, uh, Russia.
00:49:29.680Uh, you know, they, they actually, despite NATO and, you know, posturing and the conflict in Syria, the, the Turks want to maintain, uh, good relations with Russia.
00:49:39.560The Israelis have also apparently called for, uh, the Russians to stay because they want some, uh, they want another player there to stabilize things.
00:49:49.600Um, or at least to have, uh, another center of gravity in a place that's as, uh, fractious and disunited as Syria.
00:49:58.280There's also aspects of the energy game going on there as well.
00:50:02.340Um, because, uh, without Russia there, uh, having something to do with developing the offshore resources of Syria, um, Turkey would have a much stronger hand.
00:50:14.960Because they're right there, uh, both with the Southern, uh, projecting part of the, the country right there.
00:50:21.320Um, the former Sanjak of Alexandretta, as well as, uh, the North, uh, North Cyprus, uh, Northern Cyprus.
00:50:29.340It puts them in a very good position to, for example, having, uh, offshore gas liquefaction facilities, you know, really get involved in that.
00:50:37.700And I believe in the future, Israel is going to want to do quite a bit more of that, uh, because if they can, um, develop their energy resources, then they're in a situation where, you know, they don't have to, they, they don't suffer from the insecurity, the fear of having their energy supplies cut off.
00:50:54.660And at the same time, they gain, uh, a lucrative export.
00:50:58.140So, uh, it seems that something is going to be worked out along those lines in future, uh, perhaps this, uh, this business of the agreement that was signed between, uh, the, the new government and the Kurds is, uh, is a signal, uh, that that's, um, on the horizon.
00:51:17.500Yeah, it's, uh, as you've laid out here in quite a bit of detail and still have only really touched the tip of that iceberg, it's a very complicated situation, uh, one that unfortunately sounds like it's not going to see rapid improvement, um, and is going to continue, uh, to be playground of greater powers, uh, for quite a long time.
00:51:40.420Um, uh, so no, no immediate solutions here, but I think a good primer for many people who were probably not aware of the dynamics there, the level of complexity, the different players involved.
00:51:51.540So definitely very grateful for you coming on and breaking that down for us, Oliver.
00:51:56.900We've got a few questions from the audience before we get to them.
00:52:00.540Can you tell people where to find your work?
00:52:03.840Is there any project coming up that you want to make people aware of?
00:52:43.820And it serves, uh, certainly Israel's interests, probably another, uh, a number of other countries in the region's interest for it to, uh, be parceled out.
00:52:53.760And, you know, the Turks would very likely, um, want a piece of it.
00:52:57.780Uh, the Kurds want their own autonomous region.
00:53:00.000And so just the last thing to throw in there.
00:53:04.680Yeah, no, I, I, again, it's, it's the political realities on the ground and the things that are willing to be acknowledged by the wider international community can be very different.
00:53:14.620So it may be technically a country somewhere, but as you point out, already experiencing those partitions and, and forces may only drive it more in that direction.
00:53:33.320And, uh, this is something that I think it becomes increasingly important.
00:53:36.920You know, the, the question of what is America is starting to pop up quite a bit now.
00:53:42.540Um, and, uh, as we address that, I think having a long historical view of nationhood identity, uh, the, the differentiation between nation and state, the dynamics that might be in play there are all very critical.
00:53:57.540Uh, understanding there's a reason that, you know, many political thinkers throughout history were not a fan of multiculturalism because it usually, uh, leads on,
00:54:06.920unfortunately to, uh, really terrible outcomes as we're seeing now.
00:54:10.400Uh, and, uh, so yeah, it turns out diversity, not, not so much the strength in Syria or anywhere else.
00:54:18.820It creates a essentially no-go zones, you know, the, the, the millet aspect I was talking about where you have certain cities or regions or even neighborhoods, you know, the result of, um, sort of de-territorialization at the level of the nation state is an attempt to
00:54:36.620to reimpose it wherever one can, whether that's, uh, Puerto Ricans and, uh, Irish, you know, um, fighting over turf or, uh, or, or, uh, you know, Muslims in Malmo, Sweden, or, uh, or, you know, Rotherham, you, you have these places that become, well, it's balkanization.
00:55:00.940And so that, that aspect of the millet, uh, is, is, is one that bears thinking about it.
00:55:07.960I hope, uh, more people on our side of things, uh, will consider it.
00:55:11.740I did, uh, a video with, uh, Apostolic Majesty.
00:55:14.740He's got a channel, uh, going into, uh, history and the rest where we look at this idea of imperial diversity and these, uh, populations.
00:55:23.580For those of you out there who are interested in, um, you know, digging into the history of it, um, going back, you know, to the Ottoman period and the rest, I recommend that.
00:55:34.320I think a lot of people look at American, the American experience and they're like, well, you know, my, uh, you know, my Dutch ancestors moved over here.
00:55:42.840And then these Germanic, you know, ancestors moved over here in the United States and they didn't start knife fighting each other.
00:55:50.320We can just move everyone from everywhere in here.
00:55:53.060And as long as, you know, they raise their hand and, uh, you know, they, they give the oath of allegiance five years after, uh, touching, uh, the soil, everything will be fine.
00:57:49.480Of course, you should most certainly be checking out Oliver's work.
00:57:52.700Uh, also, if it's your first time here, make sure that you are subscribing to this YouTube channel, click the bell notifications, all that stuff.
00:58:00.020When we go live, obviously there's an attack on your ex yesterday on Twitter yesterday.
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