Transcript
Speaker: So hello and welcome back to the Debatable Discussions podcast.
Speaker: Today we've got a very exciting and also relevant episode as we'll explore the current events that have unfolded in Syria.
Speaker: So we're joined today by one of our favourite guests, favourite, a favourite of ours, a favourite of the public as well, Daniel, our good friend Daniel's here with us.
Speaker: Good evening.
Speaker: And we're going to be discussing what on earth is happening in Syria.
Speaker: So, first of all, Diane and John, could you give a quick overview to our guests, maybe who haven't been following the news or maybe just don't know that much about the current state of the Middle East, what is happening, what has happened in the last week and a half?
Speaker: Oh, so obviously I think it's pretty hard to not see on the news that some pretty momentous events have happened in Syria.
Speaker: And I'll pass over to Daniel in a second, but as a very, very sort of one sentence outline, on the 8th of December, the Assad dynasty, which had ruled Syria for around 50 years, which was currently being led by President Bashar al-Assad, collapsed as of a rebel overthrow.
Speaker: There had been rebels in Syria for quite a time, especially stemming from 2011.
Speaker: However, after, I guess you could say, a sort of period of more peace, effectively, less conflict, the rebels staged a surprise attack and surprised Assad in actually managing to overthrow him.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Obviously Assad has fallen, ruling Syria for about 55 years.
Speaker: John mentioned 2011 because that was when the Arab Spring occurred, which is essentially a string of civilian uprisings and protests against various Middle Eastern dictatorships.
Speaker: Bashar al-Assad survived the Arab Spring through the use of
Speaker: basically chemical weapons as well as support from his loyal Alawite followers because that's basically his ethnic group within Syria.
Speaker: But eventually that he's not received support from them and also not support from his allies in Russia and Iran too preoccupied with Israel and Russia too preoccupied with Ukraine, which left Assad without his natural support base.
Speaker: So, could you just ask about the Arab Spring?
Speaker: Which dictators fell during the Arab Spring?
Speaker: Basically... Sorry.
Speaker: And also, apart from which dictators fell, who are these rebels?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, basically every.
Speaker: So, Tunisia, Libya, Gaddafi, Egypt, Yemen, they all fell, more or less, with the exclusion of Assad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then these rebels, are they rebels?
Speaker: So who are the rebels?
Speaker: Well, the main group is Hayat Tahir al-Sham, which is run by Abu Muhammad al-Jalani.
Speaker: He's now the most powerful man in Syria.
Speaker: And that group came from the al-Nusra front, which was basically sponsored by al-Qaeda.
Speaker: So it has Islamist roots, but since then the group has tried to give a kind of moderate...
Speaker: appealed because obviously they're now running a country and you can't remain a sort of paramilitary group forever.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The experience of a government.
Speaker: So yes, and obviously, as you said there, Daniel, we've got quite a big change in government in Syria.
Speaker: And I think this is in particular what the West is worried about at the moment.
Speaker: Obviously, we've ended this time of dictatorship, but
Speaker: I think further instability is almost more likely under these rebels as they are effectively terrorists under the UK's definition.
Speaker: So how would you foresee the situation in Syria?
Speaker: How do you think it will turn out with this new rebel government?
Speaker: Well, I mean, if we look to previous examples of what happens when you have a strong man in the Middle East and they're overthrown, usually you have a very extended period of basically civil unrest and anarchy, essentially.
Speaker: I mean, that's what we've seen in Libya.
Speaker: That's what we saw in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Speaker: But I suppose the question is, which is worse?
Speaker: And that's something quite hard to measure.
Speaker: Hopefully Syria turns out differently.
Speaker: I know that they have plans to introduce the constitution and a variety of other things, but if the rebel groups, of which there are many, begin to basically oppose each other because they all could claim that they have an equal right to power, if they start basically infighting, then Syria will fall into civil war again.
Speaker: Yeah, so I think just eyeing on from that from Daniel there, it is very worrying, at least for me, what was going to happen in Syria.
Speaker: We've seen the following sort of paramilitary interventions in the Middle East.
Speaker: Usually the country's gone, in my opinion, has gone from really bad to worse.
Speaker: I mean, Iraq right now,
Speaker: Libya right now.
Speaker: You look at Iraq, you're like, Libya, you can't go there.
Speaker: At least back when Saddam and Gaddafi were in power, people could go there.
Speaker: You had embassies, you had some sort of diplomatic means to reason with these very powerful dictators.
Speaker: That could be a bit of a bold claim in a way, I think.
Speaker: I was going to say, I think with Saddam in Iraq,
Speaker: I was going to say diplomatic means has probably stretched to quite a thin level, I think, especially with the way... I think Saddam is quite an extraordinary dictator.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, I think Saddam is...
Speaker: But I think definitely with Gaddafi, you look at, you know, Gaddafi went to NATO summits, not NATO summits, UN summits, my mistake there.
Speaker: You know, he was invited to the UN.
Speaker: He went to meet with other Arab leaders.
Speaker: Right now, you look at Libya, people, you know, it's a lot more... No one really knows.
Speaker: It's a mess, essentially.
Speaker: It's a mess.
Speaker: It's a mess, essentially.
Speaker: It's a mess.
Speaker: If you're Joe Biden or if you're Donald Trump and you want to do something, they don't really know who to call.
Speaker: Because, you know, back in the day, you just called Gaddafi and he'd get it done.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I think that's very dangerous.
Speaker: Before we move on to a bit more about the Assad family, who they are, who actually is Bashar al-Assad, do you have anything else to add, John, or...?
Speaker: No, yeah, I think it's an interesting point of discussion where you're at with this whole sort of idea of, which we're seeing in Syria, of almost like the price they pay.
Speaker: I mean, you know, with Libya, the US never really got on with Libya at all.
Speaker: I mean, they were the first people happy to see that, Gaddafi.
Speaker: was not there but i think it's an interesting price that obviously you you pay and many would say it's almost necessary it's quite tricky because you have these oppressive dictatorships um but i think the and but the issue that arises is that when you overthrow these dictators there's no one really to lead and you create these sorts of power vacuums and
Speaker: which are almost like anarchic, like you see it in Libya.
Speaker: And I think sadly you'll see it in Syria because these rebels have totally different ideas to how we think they would govern.
Speaker: I don't think they'll be as feared.
Speaker: I mean, I don't think they'll be hesitant at all to use force.
Speaker: or to be oppressive at all.
Speaker: So in many ways, the situation in Syria could take a very similar direction to that which it was taking under Assad, because despite they may have overthrown one oppressive leader, it's very much likely that under HTS, a new one forms.
Speaker: What do you think about all that, Daniel?
Speaker: Well, yeah, I mean, you have to remember that Syria is an incredibly diverse country, especially in the Middle East.
Speaker: So it's got Christians, it's got Kurds, Sunni Muslims, Alawites, the list goes on.
Speaker: And all these groups will be vying for power in this, as you said, power vacuum.
Speaker: Yeah, and there's also all the fact that different rebel groups, different backers, for example, Turkey's got its own puppets effectively in northern Syria, and those are going to be in conflict with the American-backed Kurds.
Speaker: And yeah, violence will continue, I'd imagine.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker: And I think, you know, the fact that, as Daniel has exposed, as he said,
Speaker: So it's very diverse in both its sort of ideology, both ethnicities present.
Speaker: I think this has the potential to actually go worse than Libya because it's less homogenous as a country.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: There's more groups.
Speaker: And this on the one hand, because it's more broken up, it could be a sort of this less sort of friction between two main groups.
Speaker: And that could potentially lead to something positive.
Speaker: At the same time, it could lead into total war between sides of the country, basically the country being split into pieces taken by different warlords and people.
Speaker: And
Speaker: you know, it's got the potential to go really badly.
Speaker: I think, you know, we've seen
Speaker: I think we can speculate and say maybe Assad is waiting in Moscow for these people to call him back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think maybe he's thinking this is going to go so badly that people are just going to say bring back Assad and he's going to come back with, you know, a bunch of Russian bankrolls and mercenaries and take over the country.
Speaker: That is genuinely a possible thing that will happen.
Speaker: Unlikely, yes, but, you know, especially when it comes to sort of,
Speaker: Middle Eastern dictators, nothing's impossible.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, the Russians have taken him out of Syria for a reason.
Speaker: They didn't let him die.
Speaker: They left Israel from the Russian army days.
Speaker: So moving on a bit of the family, the Assad family, the Assad clan.
Speaker: As we all know, Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafiz al-Assad, actually took power 55 years ago, roughly.
Speaker: And Daniel, could you give us a sort of overview of who this man is?
Speaker: And then we'll go in a bit of Assad's background as an ophthalmologist in London.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Well, Bashar was never meant to be president in the sense that his elder brother was meant to take over after Hafez, but his elder brother died in a car accident.
Speaker: So Bashar had to be called back to Syria basically to rule.
Speaker: I mean, in theory, the country was meant to be governed under this so-called ideology of Ba'athism, same ideology held by Saddam Hussein, which is basically a pan-Arab nationalist movement, which...
Speaker: more or less tries to run a kind of secular authoritarian republic which means that their natural enemies usually are islamist factions yeah so hafiz al-assad who is he um what has he done how did he come into power because you know it's quite quite an achievement um yeah get power of country when you've got no claim
Speaker: Military coup, essentially.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In 1970, he led, I mean, literally a bloodless coup.
Speaker: And he became, I think, Syria's 18th president.
Speaker: And I think, I'm not too sure, but I think there was sort of lots of sort of, I mean, this is obvious, but lots of sort of politics surrounding it.
Speaker: So I think his stance, you know, towards Israel was something that helped him sort of gain support.
Speaker: I mean, do you know any more about the 1970 coup, Daniel?
Speaker: Well, I mean, basically, Syria was more kind of powerful in the Middle East than it is today.
Speaker: For example, they're basically occupying half of Lebanon.
Speaker: Well, they became to do that.
Speaker: But basically, yeah, so via military coup, that's the way the Ba'athists usually seize power.
Speaker: That's how they seize power in Iraq and similarly in North Africa too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then Bashar al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad was an ophthalmologist.
Speaker: He lived in London.
Speaker: He became an ophthalmologist because allegedly he didn't like blood.
Speaker: Although that may sound very ironic, following the fact that he's killed roughly a million people.
Speaker: But he didn't like blood, he became an ophthalmologist.
Speaker: And what's really interesting to see is, you know, you hear all the nurses and all his colleagues talk about him, and apparently he was this really fantastic doctor.
Speaker: He had apparently great hands as an ophthalmologist, was a good doctor.
Speaker: First of all, he knew what he was doing.
Speaker: And two, apparently he's also very, very good at getting patients calm.
Speaker: Wonder whether that helped him in his dictatorial career, keeping people calm, probably.
Speaker: But he was called by his father, Hafez al-Assad, following the death of his brother, saying, you're next.
Speaker: And basically he's taken over.
Speaker: His wife was born in London.
Speaker: I think she's also from Middle East in December.
Speaker: She was born in London and raised in London.
Speaker: First lady of Syria.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She had a lot of control over the Syrian economy in the last of...
Speaker: period when Assad was their dictator and have now, as we all know, emigrated to Moscow allegedly with three billion dollars liquid accounts.
Speaker: So quite a quite a hefty sum of money coming together with the package that they own roughly 40 million dollars worth of real estate in Moscow.
Speaker: So what is happening in Syria next is the question that a lot of people are going to be asking themselves right now.
Speaker: And, you know, what is happening?
Speaker: So, Daniel, could you give us a bit of an overview of Benjamin Netanyahu's role?
Speaker: He, you know, he's one of these figures that just comes back again and again and again in the podcast, especially when it comes to the Middle East.
Speaker: He's always there.
Speaker: So what's he doing?
Speaker: I think what you have to understand is that the reason Syria is in the news, I mean it's a relatively small country, it's got a population of about 20 million people, it's small.
Speaker: But the reason why it's in the news is because it represents a much larger, essentially proxy conflict on a regional level between Israel and Iran, and on an even global level between the United States and Russia.
Speaker: So I suppose you could say that all sides want to take advantage of the instability in Syria.
Speaker: It looks like Netanyahu has, in a way, almost got checkmate on Ayatollah Khomeini in that he's taken out Hezbollah, he's taken out Hamas.
Speaker: Now Assad has fallen.
Speaker: And this is important because Khomeini was backing Assad for his route to the Mediterranean.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: I would say Netanyahu's definitely got the advantage here over the Iranians.
Speaker: done the classic establishment of a temporary buffer zone in Western Syria, literally Israeli tanks rolling into Syria, which would have been thought unimaginable only a few short days ago.
Speaker: Obviously, I don't think that's a temporary buffer zone because the settlements will be expanded in the Golan Heights and then suddenly they'll have to put settlements in the buffer zone and then we say we need a buffer zone for the buffer zone.
Speaker: It goes on and on.
Speaker: No, yeah, I agree with you there, Daniel.
Speaker: I think I remember seeing the first news story I saw was that Syria has been, there's been a rebellion.
Speaker: The second one I saw was that the IDF is apparently in Syria.
Speaker: And so Netanyahu just waited for his time.
Speaker: for when it would all implode and then he took that opportunity.
Speaker: And yeah, I think you're very right in saying that, you know, he sort of got a check made there, waiting for the time and the tanks are sort of just rolling in.
Speaker: I mean, what do you think, Diane, about how Netanyahu will take advantage of the situation?
Speaker: I think definitely this is his sort of ticket.
Speaker: He's weakened all other opposition incredibly heavily.
Speaker: Basically Hezbollah as we know, Pedro attacks and everything else, they're mostly gone or they're very weak.
Speaker: Hamas, very weak as well.
Speaker: Many of the Hamas leaders killed by Netanyahu and then publicly posted on Instagram.
Speaker: And then now we know he's into Syria.
Speaker: So I see a picture of him with binoculars looking over the border in Syria, as we all know.
Speaker: Tanks are rolling in.
Speaker: The IDF is there to apparently keep the Israeli people safe.
Speaker: Now, I don't really trust that.
Speaker: I think this is Netanyahu's sort of
Speaker: way he's going i think he's trying to expand israel maybe but that is a maybe but what i think it's he's definitely doing is that he's making sure he does not get kicked out of office until um the iranian leader khomeini is dead and this is his way of doing it because right now if you look at his opinion polls they are they've skyrocketed they're high
Speaker: He's basically a national hero at this point after being on the way out a couple of months ago with many protests on the streets, if we can remember back to the summer.
Speaker: protest on the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, people wanting him out.
Speaker: And now you look at the opinion polls, he's probably the most favorable president in Israel's history.
Speaker: They all want him back.
Speaker: And he's not going to hold elections anytime soon.
Speaker: He doesn't have to because he's at war, technically.
Speaker: So I think he's just waiting for Khomeini to die.
Speaker: He's waiting to destroy the final enemy.
Speaker: I think then he's going to retire and probably move out of the political limelight.
Speaker: I disagree with you there.
Speaker: I don't think he'll move out of the political limelight.
Speaker: If he was willing to move out of the political limelight in the near future, or in the next couple of years at the very least, he wouldn't have caused the situation to unfold as it has.
Speaker: I think Netanyahu's in it for a longer game, I'd say.
Speaker: And you see it with how he's invaded Syria.
Speaker: It's like a move.
Speaker: And he knows that he needs to secure this regional security for his own personal benefit in Israel.
Speaker: And he did it for his polls.
Speaker: Like...
Speaker: you know, he only cares about popularity because he wants to be the leader.
Speaker: And yeah, I mean, what do you think about all this, Daniel and Nessun Yard?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, he's been on and off as Prime Minister for basically the last 30 years, long-deserving Prime Minister in his world history.
Speaker: But he is in his late 70s now, so many of the time has come.
Speaker: But the fact is, is that I don't think he really sees the Middle East as there being a solution.
Speaker: People talk about, we need to have a two-state solution.
Speaker: I think he thinks in a sort of kind of diametric way,
Speaker: basically, Arabs and Israelis will always be in conflict with each other.
Speaker: That's how he sees it.
Speaker: He doesn't see there being a solution.
Speaker: So therefore, from Netanyahu's point of view, it's always just being one step ahead, basically, with his Arab neighbors.
Speaker: So from that point of view, there's no reason for him to ever step down, ever, until his death, because if there can never be a solution, then they may as well keep him.
Speaker: That's what I would say his point of view is...
Speaker: Yeah, I think you guys are definitely right in his mindset and what he's trying to do.
Speaker: I do think that once Iran is eliminated as an enemy, no one knows how long it takes.
Speaker: If you ask someone a week and a half ago, if Assad is going to be gone in two days, no one would have said that.
Speaker: So it could be a year, it could be five, it could even be 10, 15.
Speaker: But I think when is...
Speaker: the Israeli people in Israel's government can say that Iran's no longer a threat.
Speaker: I don't think he's interested anymore because I think at heart, at least now, Benjamin Netanyahu is a bit of a warmonger.
Speaker: I think he loves war.
Speaker: I think he loves being at war.
Speaker: He loves sort of leading his people through war.
Speaker: He loves seeing the popularity spike after the big win.
Speaker: And I think once that's gone, I don't think there's anything that interests him anymore.
Speaker: but saying that i think new things will create as in if he does manage to defeat iran his enemies will just simply become bigger as in he'll move out of the region of the you know i mean i think he's a power hungry guy there's always an enemy yeah there's always an enemy he'll find an enemy he likes war as we see like the guys as you said daniel the guy sort of
Speaker: believes in no two-state solution, but believes in just war, basically.
Speaker: I mean, war that isn't even legal, according to the ICJ.
Speaker: So I think he'll just continue, sadly, rolling the way he is, yeah.
Speaker: So what do we think is going to sort of happen in Syria now?
Speaker: So we've seen Netanyahu roll up with his tanks.
Speaker: We've seen other sort of big players, big foreign players in the region starting to make moves.
Speaker: Turkey's starting to make moves.
Speaker: The USA has obviously been making moves all this time, getting rid of Assad.
Speaker: So what do you think?
Speaker: Do we think we're gonna have a sort of proxy leadership by a country or do we think that we're gonna have some elections in Syria anytime soon?
Speaker: Well, HTS, which is obviously the main rebel group led by Al Jalani, when he specifically created it, he made it very clear that there was not any external influence on HTS, because his ultimate goal for HTS was always to become government of Syria.
Speaker: It's an organised effort.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: I think it would be dangerous for someone like the US to say we've had a huge influence in bringing HTS to power.
Speaker: I think that'd be a terrible idea because that will inevitably heat for a collapse in support for HTS.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Essentially because of the America's unpopularity.
Speaker: in the Middle East is demonstrated by the fact that average Syrians, some of them, seem to think that the reason for Assad remaining in power for so long was because of the US and Israel, even though that's obviously not true at all, because Assad's backers were Russia and Iran.
Speaker: No, yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker: Will there be elections?
Speaker: I mean, it's very hard to say.
Speaker: I suppose if Al Jalani figures that he can transition from being this military leader to being a civilian leader and he thinks he can win these elections, perhaps through nefarious means or actual democracy, I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, we could speak to Steve.
Speaker: I agree with you there, Daniel.
Speaker: I think Syria's future, and it's a bit of a cliche, but Syria's future is literally in the Syrian people's hands.
Speaker: They're not going to listen to the US.
Speaker: The US and the UK are both trying to engage in these diplomatic talks.
Speaker: They're sort of trying to build a relationship we can see.
Speaker: I mean, the UK's just offered Syria 50 million in humanitarian aid.
Speaker: So we're trying to sort of open a bit of a dialogue, but ultimately, I don't think they care, as you said.
Speaker: I think these rebels, it's in their hands what will happen to Syria.
Speaker: And that's where I think the future of Syria will sadly be sort of dismal.
Speaker: It will probably be anarchic.
Speaker: I don't know personally, but I guess these elections, if they have them, are just a total mess.
Speaker: There's no clear winner, vote rigging and et cetera.
Speaker: So it is a bit of a mess what will happen, I think.
Speaker: It's just very problematic because it's a small country surrounded by these massive players.
Speaker: Israel, Iran, and Dan mentioned Turkey, which is very influential because Turkey essentially, without Turkey you could not have what we have today.
Speaker: You could not have HTS in power, like period, because the rebels came down from the north, HTS came down from the north on the Syrian border, on the Turkish border rather.
Speaker: And that is where Turkey was funneling money and resources into various rebel groups, basically to sponsor them.
Speaker: And the Turkish actually have their own buffer zone in the north of Syria.
Speaker: So everyone's got buffer zones in Syria.
Speaker: That's much of the place left.
Speaker: So it's very Cold War-esque, that, a buffer zone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So as a summary of what we've discussed today, we went over what actually happened in Syria, what caused, as we all know, the largest humanitarian crisis in recent history with 13 million people being forced to emigrate with a million dead by Bashar al-Assad.
Speaker: So we discussed what has happened, why Assad has fled to Moscow with his family and...
Speaker: great part of the Syrian economy, why the rebels in power right now are slightly dubious, what their motives are, who have they been bankrolled by.
Speaker: And then we went on to discuss a bit of sort of background and history on Assad's family, Hafez al-Assad, and then talk a bit about his brother's sons, Bashar al-Assad's beginnings as an ophthalmologist in London.
Speaker: And then to end, we discussed about the role of foreign players in Syria right now.
Speaker: We talked about the role of Israel, obviously a huge one, about the role of Turkey and discussed what might happen in the future.
Speaker: Are we going to have elections or is the country going to go into a free fall of anarchy and civil war, just like we've seen in Libya in the past couple of years following the death of Muammar Gaddafi?
Speaker: So,
Speaker: I think we'll definitely hear more about this and it'd be very unlikely not to have another episode on Syria in the near future.
Speaker: But also we want to thank Daniel, as always, for all the information or the knowledge she has shared with us and with all of you today.
Speaker: Thank you, Daniel.
Speaker: Thank you very much, Dan and John.
Speaker: Oh yeah, a big thank you to Daniel as well.
Speaker: It's great to have you on the podcast again.
Speaker: And also thank you to everyone who's listened and is still listening.
Speaker: We hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker: Please do give us a follow, a five-star review, and also listen back to some of our past episodes.
Speaker: With Daniel recently, we talked about UK politics, but we've also talked about politics of several guests on the podcast.
Speaker: And I just want, before we all go, to have a sort of
Speaker: Announcement that we are preparing a debatable discussion of this Christmas special, which should be a longer episode, around an hour and 25 minutes, an hour and a half, with a couple of guests.
Speaker: One of them is here with us, Daniel, of course.
Speaker: We're also trying to bring back some of the guests from the past episodes that did really, really well.
Speaker: And I'm hoping to sort of have a run for the entire year and talk a bit about all the topics that have brought us to be in the top 30% of podcasts worldwide, which we could not have done without all of you listening to us right now.
Speaker: So thank you and see you next week.
Speaker: See you there.
Speaker: Bye.
