Podcasts about sunni arab

Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa visited Ankara on Tuesday, on the heels of a visit to Saudi Arabia – a move that is being interpreted as a balancing act by Sharaa between the two regional powers, amidst growing competition for influence over Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not hold back on the hospitality when hosting Sharaa, sending one of his presidential jets to fly the new Syrian leader and his large delegation to Ankara.The Turkish president was keen too to underline the significance of the meeting. "I see today's historic visit as the beginning of a period of permanent friendship and cooperation between our countries," he declared in a joint press statement with the Syrian leader.Erdogan also announced that Turkey's institutions and ministries are coordinating efforts to help with Syria's reconstruction.Sharaa was quick to praise this assistance, saying: "The significant support is still tangible through Turkey's ongoing efforts to ensure the success of the current leadership in Syria politically and economically, ensuring the independence, unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria."Macron calls Syrian leader to discuss transition, terrorism, sanctionsTies with TurkeyThe new Syrian leader developed close ties with Ankara during the years of fighting the Assad regime. The Turkish military protected the Idlib enclave where Sharaa was based, while Turkey offered refuge to many Syrians fleeing the fighting. "Ankara will definitely be viewed as a positive outside contributor by these new Syrian rulers because of the fact that we here in Turkey are hosting over 5 million Syrians and that, also, Turkey helped protect Idlib," said Aydin Selcen, a former senior Turkish diplomat who served in the region, now an analyst for the independent Turkish news outlet Medyascope.However, Selcen cautions that Ankara should not overestimate its influence when it comes to dictating policy for its Syrian neighbour. "The centre of this Syrian endeavour, of this restructuring or this fresh beginning, will be Damascus. It will not be Doha, it will not be Ankara, it will not be Geneva," he said.Erdogan hails Syria leader's 'strong commitment' to fighting terror'Islamic background'While the Syrian and Turkish leaders meeting in Ankara lasted more than three hours and was followed by an exchange of warm words, no concrete announcements came out of it – only vague commitments to cooperation in security and development.And despite Ankara's strong support for the Syrian rebels, Syria's new leader chose to make his first overseas visit as president to Saudi Arabia, one of Turkey's main rivals in the region.International relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara's Middle East Technical University says the Syrian president is sending a message to Ankara."He [Sharaa] is an Arab nationalist with an Islamic background, not a Turkish one," said Bagci. "And that's why many people expect that in the long run, there will be different opinions on certain regional issues [with Turkey]."For several years, Saudi and Turkish leaders have been engaged in a competition for influence among Sunni Arab countries. But Ankara is at a disadvantage, with its economy in crisis. Unlike oil-rich Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, it has little cash to offer to pay for Syria's rebuilding.'Realpolitik'Sharaa also appears ready to broaden his horizons further as he seeks to rebuild his country. "He has turned out to be such a realpolitik buff. He's turning and negotiating with almost everyone, including the Russians," observed Sezin Oney, an international relations commentator for Turkey's Politikyol news outlet."They [Syria] will also be approaching Turkey with their own interests, and whether they're aligned with Turkey's interests is another question," she added.Turkey's ongoing military presence in Syria as part of its war against a Kurdish insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) could become a point of tension between Ankara and Syria's new rulers, experts predict.Iran too – like Russia, also a key backer of the ousted Assad regime – is now seeking to reposition itself to reach out to the new Syrian regime.Russia's interest in Syria"There are some pragmatic approaches," said professor of international relations Bilgehan Alagoz, an Iran expert at Istanbul's Marmara University. "The Iranian authorities have already started to label Assad as a person who didn't act in accordance with Iran in order to have some new approach towards the new system in Syria."Ankara still has cards to play with Syria, being well positioned to offer support in helping to rebuild the country with its expertise in construction, energy and security. But experts warn Turkey faces a battle for influence in Damascus, as Syria seeks to widen its opportunities.

Welcome back to Inside The Epicenter, where we dive deep into the complex issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this episode, titled "Can Hamas be defeated?," our host Joel Rosenberg is joined by Ghaith Al Omari, a former advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team and a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Together, they navigate the difficult terrain of Hamas ideology, the impact of ongoing conflict on both Israelis and Palestinians and the necessity of looking beyond military defeat to envision a positive future for Gaza. They also examine the role of the Israeli government and the need for a comprehensive plan for post-conflict reconstruction. Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities in this crucial region and consider the implications for peace and security. (00:04) Can Hamas be defeated? Ideological and military challenge. (06:25) Concern for suffering Palestinian people in wartime. (07:50) Palestinian opinion on October 7th and a two-state solution. (13:31) Necessary military defeat led to hoped results. (17:22) Rebuilding post-war nations is crucial for global stability. (18:57) Pray for Palestinians suffering in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (21:26) Founding Joshua Fund in 2006 to help Israelis and Palestinians. (27:56) Agree with criticisms but conflicted about Netanyahu. (31:56) Diplomatic support is crucial for military success. (35:10) Palestinian polling and Netanyahu's relationship with Sunni Arab leaders.   Learn more about The Joshua Fund. Make a tax-deductible donation. The Joshua Fund Stock Media provided by DimmySad/Pond5   Verse of the Day: Proverbs 31:8 -9, where the Lord speaks through his servant who's writing, saying, open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.   Prayer Request:Pray with compassion for the people of Gaza. Pray for healing ( emotionally, spiritually, physically) and, of course, for the financial challenges that are more devastating for both Palestinians in Gaza and for Israelis in those border communities. Pray that Gaza be liberated not from Israel, who left Gaza in 2005, but from the reign of terror of Hamas.  Related Episodes: Jonathan Conricus on Israel's Strategic Challenges #192 Israeli Efforts to Dismantle Hamas and Free Hostage #189 The Escalating Conflict: Inside Israel and the Rescue Mission's #188 Fighting for Freedom: Inside the Israeli Hostage Crisis with Calev Myers #186 Families' Heart-Wrenching Pleas: Inside the Hostage Crisis with Hamas #178 Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Things are getting weird. Israel is aligning with the European Far-Right and its Sunni Arab neighbors. The global political order is shifting — and the Jewish state must tread carefully.

In the early morning hours of 19 April, American officials told major news outlets that an Israeli missile had struck central Iran near its nuclear sites. No one was harmed. Officially, the Israelis are not claiming to have attacked; and Iran is not claiming to have been attacked. It is distinctly possible that this pinprick strike combined with denials on all sides will satisfy both parties and avert further retaliation. Conversely, it is also distinctly possible that it will lead to further cycles of revenge and escalation.   To Order this Disorder, Jason is joined by our returning champion Arthur Snell and our great Scottish hopeful, Jane Kinninmont -- Policy & Impact Director at the European Leadership Network (an institution specializing in preventing nuclear war). The trio discuss: 1) why did Israel choose to retaliate, even though Biden counselled them to ‘Bank the Win'; 2) if this event even counts as retribution for the Iranian strikes of 14 April or could be classified as a non-strike as it is below the threshold of certain previous Israeli actions inside Iran; and 3) how Iran's and Israel's Sunni Arab neighbors are responding.   Mulling over this unique historical moment, the trio use the Ordering the Disorder segment to propose opportunities for sage diplomacy to prevail and de-escalate tensions. Of course, the mere existence of these win-win, mutually beneficial, off-ramps from further conflict, does not mean that the Iranians or Israelis will seizes these opportunities.   Twitter: @DisorderShow   Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/   Website: https://natoandtheglobalenduringdisorder.com/   Producer: James Hodgson Exec Producer: Neil Fearn   Show Notes Links   For a quick overview of April 19th's events: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/04/israel-carries-out-strikes-isfahan-iran-reports?mc_cid=a8bfe16bdf&mc_eid=b844138f36     For Iranian narratives of the confrontation with Israel: https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/commentary/out-of-the-shadow-war-iranian-narratives-of-the-confrontation-with-israel/   For Arthur Snell's Substack, ‘Not All Doom': https://arthursnell.substack.com/   And for his podcast ‘Behind the Lines': https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/behind-the-lines-with-arthur-snell/id1704344656   Join ELN's roundup of the Persian language news: https://europeanleadershipnetwork.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=f9c4fc8e446f80bb4d50ed06f&id=ca7882ea45 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Group strategies usually out-compete individualist strategies. https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=113977 WSJ: How the U.S. Forged a Fragile Middle Eastern Alliance to Repel Iran's Israel Attack: American-led effort was years in the making and hadn't been battle-tested when Tehran launched missile and drone barrage against Israel Israeli and the U.S. forces intercepted most of the Iranian drones and missiles. But they were able to do so in part because Arab countries quietly passed along intelligence about Tehran's attack plans, opened their airspace to warplanes, shared radar tracking information or, in some cases, supplied their own forces to help, officials said. The operation was the culmination of years of U.S. effort to break down political and technical barriers that thwarted military cooperation between Israel and the Sunni Arab governments, officials said. Instead of a Middle East version of the NATO alliance, the U.S. has focused on less formal regionwide air-defense cooperation to blunt Tehran's growing arsenal of drones and missiles—the very weapons that threatened Israel Saturday. Efforts to build an integrated air-defense system for the region date back decades. After years of false starts and minimal progress, the initiative gained momentum after the 2020 Abraham Accords brokered by the Trump administration, which established formal ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Two years later, the Pentagon shifted Israel from its European Command to Central Command, which includes the rest of the Middle East, a move that enabled greater military cooperation with Arab governments under U.S. auspices. https://odysee.com/@LukeFordLive, https://rumble.com/lukeford, https://dlive.tv/lukefordlivestreams Superchat: https://entropystream.live/app/lukefordlive Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/lukeford/ Soundcloud MP3s: https://soundcloud.com/luke-ford-666431593 Code of Conduct: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=125692 http://lukeford.net Email me: lukeisback@gmail.com or DM me on Twitter.com/lukeford, Best videos: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=143746 Support the show | https://www.streamlabs.com/lukeford, https://patreon.com/lukeford, https://PayPal.Me/lukeisback Facebook: http://facebook.com/lukecford Book an online Alexander Technique lesson with Luke: https://alexander90210.com Feel free to clip my videos. It's nice when you link back to the original.

Iran launched its first direct attack on Israel early Sunday. 99% of the 350 drones and missiles were reportedly shot down by Israeli air defenses and allies. The question is whether this attack was designed to fail. 5) Iran attacks Israel; 4) Israel pauses before launching counterattack; 3) Biden administration tells Israel to “take the win”; 2) Sunni Arab states appear to be quietly siding with Israel against Iran; 1) Illegal immigrant fails to rob Ohio bank because he doesn't speak English and tellers couldn't understand his demands. For information on the Gilberts' Solidarity Mission to Israel May 6–13, 2024, go to www.gilberthouse.org/travel/. FOLLOW US! X: @Five_In_Ten and @WatchSkyWatchTV YouTube: @SkyWatchTVnow @SimplyHIS @FiveInTen Rumble: @SkyWatchTV Facebook: @SkyWatchTV @SimplyHIS @EdensEssentials Instagram: @SkyWatchTV @SimplyHisShow @EdensEssentialsUSA TikTok: @SkyWatchTV @SimplyHisShow @EdensEssentials SkyWatchTV.com | SkyWatchTVStore.com | EdensEssentials.com | WhisperingPoniesRanch.com

In the early morning hours of April 14th Iranian drones and missiles were launched towards Israel. The launch was framed as retaliation for an Israeli attack on the Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus on April 1st.      Nearly 99% of the projectiles were intercepted. Although little physical or human damage was sustained, regional relations have been fundamentally recast: Sunni Arab states like Jordan and possibly Saudi Arabia allowed the US, UK, and Israel to use their territory and intel assets to counter the threat. Israeli PM Netanyahu initially vowed a retaliatory strike, but Biden, Sunak and others are trying to dissuade him.    To discuss the late breaking developments and relitigate their previous predictions, Jason is joined from Dubai by Disorder's own Roving Correspondent, David Patrikarakos. The duo set the context of the strikes within the long durée context of decades of proxy conflict between Israel and the Islamic Republic. They investigate how these events might spiral out of control to cause an apocalyptic War of Gog and Magog or how they could reconfigure regional alliances and allow for renewed Qatari/American/Egyptian mediation to find an off-ramp from the current conflict.  They also investigate the current famine in Gaza and the lack of Israeli policy for long term governance solutions for the territory.     Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/     Website: https://natoandtheglobalenduringdisorder.com/     Producer: George McDonagh  Exec Producer: Neil Fearn    Show Notes Links    For an overview of the Iranian strikes and Israeli response: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/13/world/israel-iran-gaza-war-news    The Role of Biden: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-called-off-retaliatory-strike-on-iran-after-call-with-biden-new-york-times/     Read David's sage prediction in Unherd, ‘Iran is winning the Gaza war Tehran's violent strategy could soon escalate': https://unherd.com/2024/04/iran-is-winning-the-gaza-war/    And Jason's plea to blame Bibi and not the Jews:  https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/blame-netanyahu-for-gaza-not-the-jews/     Our Oct 12th episode: The 2023 Israeli-Hamas war: A Symptom of our era of Disorder?: https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/e48504038444024ddfb4d273932b9eec   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Iran launched its first direct attack on Israel early Sunday. 99% of the 350 drones and missiles were reportedly shot down by Israeli air defenses and allies. The question is whether this attack was designed to fail.5) Iran attacks Israel; 4) Israel pauses before launching counterattack; 3) Biden administration tells Israel to “take the win”; 2) Sunni Arab states appear to be quietly siding with Israel against Iran; 1) Illegal immigrant fails to rob Ohio bank because he doesn't speak English and tellers couldn't understand his demands.For information on the Gilberts' Solidarity Mission to Israel May 6–13, 2024, go to www.gilberthouse.org/travel/.FOLLOW US!X: @Five_In_Ten and @WatchSkyWatchTVYouTube: @SkyWatchTVnow @SimplyHIS @FiveInTenRumble: @SkyWatchTVFacebook: @SkyWatchTV @SimplyHIS @EdensEssentialsInstagram: @SkyWatchTV @SimplyHisShow @EdensEssentialsUSATikTok: @SkyWatchTV @SimplyHisShow @EdensEssentialsSkyWatchTV.com | SkyWatchTVStore.com | EdensEssentials.com | WhisperingPoniesRanch.com

Al Jazeera is constantly blasting a steady stream of stories and images to the Arab world about 'tens of thousands of Palestinians dead,' according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. Condemnations against Israel are issued all over the place, with charges of Israeli genocide leveled on U.S. college campuses to the International Court of Justice. And, yet, those Sunni Arab countries that have already integrated with Israel have not reversed course, and those countries not yet integrated (i.e. Saudi Arabia), seem to be pushing ahead. The Sunni Gulf seems to have ambitions that necessitate continued and deeper cooperation with Israel. The question, though, is what do we make of the Saudi requirement for some kind of Palestinian state, however defined? What would it take for Israel to meet that requirement (or check the box) for the Saudis? And how far will the Sunni Gulf go in working with Israel to pacify Gaza? Our guest today is NADAV EYAL, who returns to the podcast. He is a columnist for Yediiot. Eyal is one of Israel's leading journalists, and a winner of the Sokolov Prize, Israel's most prestigious journalism award. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. He received a master's degree from the London School of Economics and a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Essay discussed in this episode: “Israel is still winning the political war. From the West to Saudi Arabia, its days of isolation are over," by Dr. Edward Luttwak in UnHerd. https://unherd.com/2024/01/israel-is-still-winning-the-political-war/

A month ago, the prospect of Palestinian statehood was a distant fantasy for most Israelis. Now, as hostages continue to languish in Hamas captivity and the IDF's progress in Gaza tapers, the war-weary public has polled shockingly well of a regional deal, brokered by the U.S., that would ensure a two-state solution in the near future. Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi express their reactions, reservations, and predictions regarding this so-called “grand bargain” between Israel, the Palestinians, and their Sunni Arab neighbors, and imagine what this transformative peace would mean for a nation deeply scarred by the atrocities of October 7th. Mentioned in this episode: • The poll of Israelis in favor of a deal to tie release of hostages to Palestinian statehood JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST FOR MORE HARTMAN IDEAS

Our latest episode featuring Walter Russell Mead, foreign affairs expert, is an eye-opener that transcends typical narratives, providing a profound understanding of how this conflict influences the Middle East. We also unveil American energy independence's under-appreciated significance and how it shapes the region's geopolitics. No foreign affairs conversation is complete without delving into the complex dynamics of the Middle East. This episode takes an unflinching look at Iran's power plays and the Biden administration's strategies to negotiate these precarious waters. We spotlight the potential benefits and pitfalls of forging a strategic alliance with Israel and Saudi Arabia and hint at the economic rewards that a partnership between Israel and its Sunni Arab neighbors could yield.Support Our WorkThe Center for Demographics and Policy focuses on research and analysis of global, national, and regional demographic trends and explores policies that might produce favorable demographic results over time. It involves Chapman students in demographic research under the supervision of the Center's senior staff.Students work with the Center's director and engage in research that will serve them well as they look to develop their careers in business, the social sciences, and the arts. Students also have access to our advisory board, which includes distinguished Chapman faculty and major demographic scholars from across the country and the world.For additional information, please contact Mahnaz Asghari, sponsored project analyst for the Office of Research, at (714) 744-7635 or asghari@chapman.edu.Follow us on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-feudal-future-podcast/Tweet thoughts: @joelkotkin, @mtoplansky, #FeudalFuture #BeyondFeudalismLearn more about Joel's book 'The Coming of Neo-Feudalism': https://amzn.to/3a1VV87Sign Up For News & Alerts: http://joelkotkin.com/#subscribeThis show is presented by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, which focuses on research and analysis of global, national and regional demographic trends and explores policies that might produce favorable demographic results over time.

This is the web version of Foreign Exchanges, but did you know you can get it delivered right to your inbox? Sign up today:Friends, for family reasons and also because of my own mental exhaustion I will be taking a longer than usual break from the newsletter for this year's Thanksgiving holiday. The newsletter will be going quiet following Thursday's roundup and will return to our regular schedule on Tuesday, November 28. As I've written before here I can always tell when it's time for me to take a bit of a break from the newsletter and the truth is we probably passed that point around three or four weeks ago so I'm running on fumes. Thanks for reading and for supporting this venture!TODAY IN HISTORYNovember 14, 1965: The Battle of Ia Drang, the first major engagement between the United States and the North Vietnamese Army, begins. It ended on November 18 with both sides claiming victory, though the NVA's ability to fight the much better armed US Army to a draw was a boost to their morale and probably the battle's most important effect.November 14, 2001: Fighters with the Northern Alliance rebel coalition enter and occupy the city of Kabul, marking the end of the US war in Afghanista—just kidding. I had you going there for a second, didn't I?INTERNATIONALWith deaths due to “extreme heat” projected to increase five-fold by 2050, according to The Lancet Countdown, you'll no doubt be pleasantly surprised to learn that an AP investigative report shows that the “green transition plans” being formulated by most major fossil fuel companies are not green, not transitional, and not even really plans. Without any serious government pressure to force them to invest in genuinely renewable technologies, these firms are able to do things like, say, classify natural gas development as a “green” investment. That's absurd, of course, but who's counting?The main problem with these plans has long been, and continues to be, the fact that fossil fuel companies exempt the products they sell when assessing their progress toward “net zero” carbon emissions. Firms only account for “Scope 1” emissions, which are their direct carbon outputs, and “Scope 2” emissions, the indirect output that results from their production process. The emissions that ensue when people burn the products they sell are considered “Scope 3” and energy firms disavow any responsibility for them. Like tobacco companies, they argue that what the customer does with their products is the customer's business, not theirs. Maybe people just want to buy a barrel of oil and place it in their foyer as a conversation piece or put it to some other use that doesn't emit carbon. Who's to say?MIDDLE EASTISRAEL-PALESTINEEarly Wednesday morning Israeli forces began what they called “a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa hospital” involving “medical teams and Arabic speakers, who have undergone specified training to prepare for this complex and sensitive environment, with the intent that no harm is caused to the civilians.” There are hundreds of patients and thousands of other people who have been trapped in the hospital by the IDF and the chances that “no harm” will come to any of them in the next several hours are probably slim. Israeli officials have been insisting that Hamas's lair is located underneath the hospital but at this point it's too soon to know if that's the target or if this is a more limited operation. This is a developing story so there's not much more I can say about it at this time.What I can say is that the Biden administration gave a green light to this operation earlier in the day, when White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that the administration has “independent intelligence” (which is code for “we didn't get this from the IDF”) that “Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad use some hospitals in the Gaza Strip — including Al-Shifa — and tunnels underneath them to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages.” According to Kirby this intelligence shows that the militant groups have a “command and control” center in Shifa and “have stored weapons there.” Kirby insisted that that the administration was not endorsing an Israeli attack on the hospital, but anybody with ears to hear or eyes to read what he said should have no doubt as to what the intent was.I wrote everything below prior to news of the Israeli assault breaking so some of it might no longer be relevant but I think most of it still is:Gazan health authorities said on Tuesday that some 40 patients at Shifa—three of them babies—have died since that facility ran out of generator fuel on Saturday. Without electricity the hospital cannot maintain its incubator units and so there are now 36 newborns who are at critical risk. With the IDF surrounding the hospital it's also become impossible to transfer the dead to a cemetery, so personnel are planning to bury some 120 bodies in a mass grave on site. Gazan officials have proposed evacuating the facility under the auspices of the Red Cross/Red Crescent and sending its remaining patients to Egypt but there had been no movement on that front at time of writing. The Israeli government has apparently offered to send the hospitals more incubators, a fascinating attempt at a humanitarian gesture that would be completely pointless because the problem isn't the incubators, it's the electricity.In other news:* David Ignatius at The Washington Post reported (I use that term loosely) on Monday that “Israel and Hamas are close to a hostage deal.” With the caveat that if David Ignatius told me the sky was blue I'd glance out the window to double check, the terms he reported are that Hamas would release (or facilitate the release) of the women and children that it and other Gazan militant groups took hostage during their October 7 rampage through southern Israel. This would be done in stages and be matched by the release of Palestinian women and children being held by Israeli authorities. It would also involve a ceasefire of unspecified duration but “perhaps five days” according to Ignatius. The ceasefire could allow some time to address humanitarian issues in Gaza though I don't know what that would entail and whatever it was would almost certainly be inadequate.* Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen met with International Committee of the Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger on Tuesday and later told reporters that the ICRC has had no access to the aforementioned hostages. It's highly unlikely that the Israelis would agree to anything involving hostages without at least proof of life, so this could be a big sticking point with respect to the potential prisoner deal outlined above. Families of the hostages, meanwhile, are marching from Tel Aviv to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem to pressure him to take some action to secure the hostages' release.* Israeli occupation forces killed at least eight Palestinians in the West Bank on Tuesday, seven of them in Tulkarm. The IDF carried out a drone strike in that city, an occurrence that's still relatively rare in the West Bank though it's certainly become more common over the past year and in particular the past month.* Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich issued a statement on Tuesday endorsing what he laughably termed the “voluntary emigration of Gaza Arabs to countries around the world.” I guess “leave or die” is a choice, right? A couple of Israeli politicians floated this idea on Monday in a Wall Street Journal editorial that was less a serious proposal than a written middle finger to Western critics of the Israeli military campaign. That piece didn't go into extensive detail about what a mass relocation would look like—again, it wasn't meant as a serious proposal—but Smotrich's intent is much easier to guess, and that's the permanent ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the relocation of its population as far away from Israel as possible. Smotrich, whose ministerial brief also includes running the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories office, isn't part of Netanyahu's “war cabinet” but that doesn't mean he's completely lacking in influence.* The US and UK governments on Tuesday announced new sanctions targeting Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad members along with a Lebanese entity that allegedly facilitates money transfers from Iran to Gazan militant groups. This is the third round of sanctions the Biden administration has imposed since October 7. Also on Tuesday, over 400 employees of the Biden administration sent a joint letter to their boss, Joe Biden, expressing opposition to the administration's approach to the Gaza conflict.YEMENHouthi rebels say they fired another barrage of missiles toward Israel on Tuesday. There's no confirmation of this, though the IDF did say that its air defenses downed a single missile near Eilat that we can probably assume was of Houthi provenance. The leader of Yemen's Houthi movement, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, delivered a speech on Tuesday pledging that his rebel fighters would continue attacking Israel. In particular, Houthi suggested that they could target Israeli commercial vessels in the Red Sea, which would certainly be an easier target for them than Israel itself.IRAQA Turkish drone strike killed two people, both allegedly members of the Sinjar Resistance Units militia, in northern Iraq's Nineveh province on Monday evening. The Sinjar militia was formed in 2014 with assistance from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and is still allied with that group, which makes its personnel potential targets for the Turkish military.Elsewhere, the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court removed two members of the Iraqi parliament on Tuesday, one of whom just happened to be speaker Mohammed al-Halbusi. It's not clear why, though another MP named Laith al-Dulaimi had reportedly sued Halbusi alleging that the speaker forged Dulaimi's name on a resignation letter. Dulaimi was, as it happens, the other MP who had his term ended by the court (I assume that's not a coincidence). The ruling created a potential political crisis for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaʿ al-Sudani. As speaker, Halbusi was Iraq's leading Sunni Arab politician, and his support was important to Sudani's government. Three members of his Progress Party quit their cabinet posts after the court ruling and it remains to be seen how that will impact Sudani's position.ASIAAFGHANISTANAfghan Commerce Minister Haji Nooruddin Azizi apparently visited Pakistan this week, where—according to the Afghan government—he pressed Pakistani Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani on the issue of all those Afghan migrants the Pakistani government is presently deporting. Specifically it sounds like Azizi raised the issue of allowing deportees to at least take some of their money and/or possessions to Afghanistan with them. Deportees are currently arriving with nothing and are being housed in what are effectively refugee camps—leaving aside the incongruity of being a “refugee” in one's home country—on the Afghan side of the border.MYANMARReports on Monday only hinted at some new fighting in western Myanmar's Chin state, but as more details are emerging the situation there sounds pretty serious. According to the Chin National Front, rebel fighters had by the end of the day seized two Myanmar military outposts and were working to seize control of the Myanmar-Indian border. According to Indian media the fighting has sent some 2000 people streaming across that border to escape. In neighboring Rakhine state, the rebel Arakan Army has also been seizing military outposts and authorities have imposed a curfew in the state capital, Sittwe, as a result. Rebel factions across Myanmar have launched new offensives in recent weeks, starting with the “1027” (for October 27) operations by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta'ang National Liberation Army in Shan state. Myanmar's ruling junta is clearly struggling to mount a response.CHINAJoe Biden told reporters on Tuesday that his main goal in meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco this week is to restore “normal” communications between their governments. In particular this would involve a return to regular military-to-military contacts, something Beijing ended in the wake of former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan last year. Any prospect of resuming those contacts was complicated by the fact that former Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu was under US sanction. But as he's no longer defense minister that complication is no longer an issue.AFRICALIBERIALiberian voters turned out on Tuesday for the second round of that country's presidential election, pitting incumbent George Weah against Joseph Boakai. Both candidates finished with just under 44 percent of the vote in last month's first round. Such a close finish might augur poorly for the incumbent in a head to head matchup, though that's just one of many factors that could sway this vote in either direction. Polls have closed in that contest but I have yet to see anything by way of preliminary or partial results.MALIMali's ruling junta says its security forces have seized control over the northern town of Kidal after battling with rebels in that region for several days. The Malian military and mercenary auxiliaries marched on Kidal after United Nations peacekeepers vacated the region as part of their ongoing withdrawal from Mali. Kidal has been a rebel stronghold since the initial northern Mali uprising in 2012 and government control there has been nebulous at best since then. There's been no comment as far as I know from the rebels and it's unclear what their disposition is at this point.ETHIOPIAAccording to Addis Standard, Fano militia fighters attacked a predominantly Oromo community in Ethiopia's Amhara region last week, killing at least 25 people and displacing some 3000 into the Oromia region. The Fano militia is still battling the Ethiopian government but Amhara paramilitary groups have also made a pastime of preying on ethnic Oromo communities (likewise, Oromo militias have preyed on ethnic Amhara). In this case they apparently demanded grain from the community and attacked after residents refused to comply.On a more upbeat note, the US Agency for International Development is reportedly planning to resume food distribution across Ethiopia next month under a “one-year trial period.” The agency suspended its Ethiopian food program earlier this year amid allegations that the aid was being diverted. It resumed providing food aid to Ethiopian refugees last month and is now planning to spend the next year testing whether procedural changes adopted by aid groups and the Ethiopian government are enough to stop that alleged diversion. Solid data is hard to come by but it's possible that hundreds or thousands of Ethiopians have died because of the decision (which the UN World Food Program joined) to suspend food aid.DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGOThe death toll from Sunday's Allied Democratic Forces attack on a village in the eastern DRC's North Kivu province has risen to 33, according to provincial officials. ADF fighters are also believed to have been responsible for attacking a village in neighboring Ituri province on Tuesday, killing at least 11 people.EUROPERUSSIAVladimir Putin signed a new law on Tuesday that permits elections to be held even in parts of Russia that are under martial law. This apparently clears the way for the portions of Ukraine that Moscow claims to have annexed to participate in next year's presidential election. The effect will be to try to stitch those regions a little more tightly to Russia and complicate any possible return to Ukrainian authority.UKRAINEThe European Union promised back in March to supply the Ukrainian military with 1 million 155 mm artillery shells within 12 months. You'll never guess how that went. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told a meeting of EU defense ministers on Tuesday that the bloc isn't going to fulfill its commitment and even went so far as to criticize the fact that it was made in the first place. The will was apparently there, but EU member states still don't have the collective capacity to churn out that many shells that quickly. The effort has apparently sparked a boost in production capacity but not enough to meet the 12 month deadline.SWEDENSweden's NATO accession may be moving slightly forward, as the Turkish parliament's foreign affairs committee will take up the issue on Thursday. It's been about three weeks since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan submitted Sweden's accession to parliament and it should be clear by now that the folks in Ankara are in no particular hurry to work their way through that process. There may be some impetus on the part of other NATO members to have the issue resolved in time for the alliance foreign ministers summit on November 28, but Erdoğan has proven himself to be fairly impervious to that sort of pressure in the past.AMERICASUNITED STATESFinally, TomDispatch's William Hartung wonders whether the “Arsenal of Democracy” really cares all that much about the “democracy” part:The list of major human rights abusers that receive U.S.-supplied weaponry is long and includes (but isn't faintly limited to) Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Turkey, Nigeria, and the Philippines. Such sales can have devastating human consequences. They also support regimes that all too often destabilize their regions and risk embroiling the United States directly in conflicts.U.S.-supplied arms also far too regularly fall into the hands of Washington's adversaries. As an example consider the way the UAE transferred small arms and armored vehicles produced by American weapons makers to extremist militias in Yemen, with no apparent consequences, even though such acts clearly violated American arms export laws. Sometimes, recipients of such weaponry even end up fighting each other, as when Turkey used U.S.-supplied F-16s in 2019 to bomb U.S.-backed Syrian forces involved in the fight against Islamic State terrorists.Such examples underscore the need to scrutinize U.S. arms exports far more carefully. Instead, the arms industry has promoted an increasingly “streamlined” process of approval of such weapons sales, campaigning for numerous measures that would make it even easier to arm foreign regimes regardless of their human-rights records or support for the interests Washington theoretically promotes. These have included an “Export Control Reform Initiative” heavily promoted by the industry during the Obama and Trump administrations that ended up ensuring a further relaxation of scrutiny over firearms exports. It has, in fact, eased the way for sales that, in the future, could put U.S.-produced weaponry in the hands of tyrants, terrorists, and criminal organizations.Now, the industry is promoting efforts to get weapons out the door ever more quickly through “reforms” to the Foreign Military Sales program in which the Pentagon essentially serves as an arms broker between those weapons corporations and foreign governments.Thanks for reading! Foreign Exchanges is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.foreignexchanges.news/subscribe

Can you fathom the sheer magnitude of a crisis brewing in Israel? Join us as we delve into the heart of the Middle East, with author Hank Kopel (War on Hate), an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian war. His book, War on Hate, seeks to unravel the complexities of this heart-wrenching conflict. Together, we examine the horrifying events following a breach of the Erev Crossing by Hamas terrorists and how this will trigger all-out war, sparking ethical, political, and moral debates worldwide, including anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrations in New York City.It's a geopolitical minefield as we broach the unsettling possibility of Iran's nuclear ambitions, the potential risks of the United States engaging in a war with Iran, and the wisdom behind America's shift away from Sunni Arab states into Iran. It's a rare and intricate look into the high-stakes world of Middle Eastern politics, and the potential domino effect on global peace and security.Lastly, we set our sights on the emerging Cold War between China, Russia, and Iran. How does the US's withdrawal from the Abraham Accords impact this delicate balance? We explore the often polarizing concept of Trump Derangement Syndrome and the shadow it may cast on our perception of Middle Eastern affairs. We also look at a possible second front in the Israeli conflict and the urgent need for accurate and balanced reporting in these perilous times. With Hank's expert insights, we aim to shed some light on these challenging issues, and the potential for escalating conflicts that touch us all, no matter where we are in the world. Support the show

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow #NorthAfrica: Jihadist in disrepair. Aaron Y. Zelin is the Richard Borow Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy where his research focuses on Sunni Arab jihadi groups in North Africa and Syria as well as the trend of foreign fighting and online jihadism.Malcolm Hoenlein @Conf_of_pres @mhoenlein1   https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/all-quiet-north-african-jihadi-front

Caroline is joined by Dr. David Wurmser to discuss why Israel has no choice but to replace the U.S. as the strong horse in the Middle East and lead an anti-Iranian coalition of Sunni Arab states. Caroline and David discussed how the Arabs view the Biden administration's betrayal, and why Israel's current government, which fails to understand the implacable nature of the administration's hostility, is endangering Israel's ties with its Abraham Accords partners and its very future.

Katherine Harvey, A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq, Oxford University Press 2022 Iraq has in the last year taken a lead in sponsoring talks between Middle Eastern arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran in an effort to prevent tension in the region spinning out of control. The Iraqi role is remarkable given that Saudi Arabia for more than a decade after the 2003-led US invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein wanted nothing to do with the country's post-Saddam leadership. Saudi perceptions of Iraq as an Iranian pawn persuaded it even to refuse reopening a diplomatic mission in Baghdad until 2019. In Self-fulfilling Prophet: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq (Oxford University Press 2022), Katherine Harvey paints a fascinating picture of what happens when policy is crafted based on perception rather than fact. Harvey tells the story of a post-invasion Iraq that was systematically rebuffed by Saudi Arabia in its efforts to reintegrate into the predominantly Sunni Arab world. Iraq had been ostracized following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and expulsion from the Gulf state in 1991 by a US-coalition. Saudi King Abdullah, convinced that Iran had successfully infiltrated Iraq and that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was an Iranian stooge, blocked Iraq's reaching out to the kingdom and eventually drove into the hands of Iran. In doing so, Saudi Arabia was standing up for its perceived interests that diverged from those of the United States. The US wanted the Saudis to engage with the Shiite Muslim majority that came to power in Iraq as a result of the US invasion. As a result, Harvey's well-documented book contributes to understanding the limits of US power in the Middle East and the significant perceptual gaps that Middle Eastern states need to bridge to ensure that a regional détente is sustainable.

Iraq has in the last year taken a lead in sponsoring talks between Middle Eastern arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran in an effort to prevent tension in the region spinning out of control. The Iraqi role is remarkable given that Saudi Arabia for more than a decade after the 2003-led US invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein wanted nothing to do with the country's post-Saddam leadership. Saudi perceptions of Iraq as an Iranian pawn persuaded it even to refuse reopening a diplomatic mission in Baghdad until 2019. In Self-fulfilling Prophet: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq (Oxford University Press 2022), Katherine Harvey paints a fascinating picture of what happens when policy is crafted based on perception rather than fact. Harvey tells the story of a post-invasion Iraq that was systematically rebuffed by Saudi Arabia in its efforts to reintegrate into the predominantly Sunni Arab world. Iraq had been ostracized following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and expulsion from the Gulf state in 1991 by a US-coalition. Saudi King Abdullah, convinced that Iran had successfully infiltrated Iraq and that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was an Iranian stooge, blocked Iraq's reaching out to the kingdom and eventually drove into the hands of Iran. In doing so, Saudi Arabia was standing up for its perceived interests that diverged from those of the United States. The US wanted the Saudis to engage with the Shiite Muslim majority that came to power in Iraq as a result of the US invasion. As a result, Harvey's well-documented book contributes to understanding the limits of US power in the Middle East and the significant perceptual gaps that Middle Eastern states need to bridge to ensure that a regional détente is sustainable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iraq has in the last year taken a lead in sponsoring talks between Middle Eastern arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran in an effort to prevent tension in the region spinning out of control. The Iraqi role is remarkable given that Saudi Arabia for more than a decade after the 2003-led US invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein wanted nothing to do with the country's post-Saddam leadership. Saudi perceptions of Iraq as an Iranian pawn persuaded it even to refuse reopening a diplomatic mission in Baghdad until 2019. In Self-fulfilling Prophet: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq (Oxford University Press 2022), Katherine Harvey paints a fascinating picture of what happens when policy is crafted based on perception rather than fact. Harvey tells the story of a post-invasion Iraq that was systematically rebuffed by Saudi Arabia in its efforts to reintegrate into the predominantly Sunni Arab world. Iraq had been ostracized following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and expulsion from the Gulf state in 1991 by a US-coalition. Saudi King Abdullah, convinced that Iran had successfully infiltrated Iraq and that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was an Iranian stooge, blocked Iraq's reaching out to the kingdom and eventually drove into the hands of Iran. In doing so, Saudi Arabia was standing up for its perceived interests that diverged from those of the United States. The US wanted the Saudis to engage with the Shiite Muslim majority that came to power in Iraq as a result of the US invasion. As a result, Harvey's well-documented book contributes to understanding the limits of US power in the Middle East and the significant perceptual gaps that Middle Eastern states need to bridge to ensure that a regional détente is sustainable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Iraq has in the last year taken a lead in sponsoring talks between Middle Eastern arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran in an effort to prevent tension in the region spinning out of control. The Iraqi role is remarkable given that Saudi Arabia for more than a decade after the 2003-led US invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein wanted nothing to do with the country's post-Saddam leadership. Saudi perceptions of Iraq as an Iranian pawn persuaded it even to refuse reopening a diplomatic mission in Baghdad until 2019. In Self-fulfilling Prophet: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq (Oxford University Press 2022), Katherine Harvey paints a fascinating picture of what happens when policy is crafted based on perception rather than fact. Harvey tells the story of a post-invasion Iraq that was systematically rebuffed by Saudi Arabia in its efforts to reintegrate into the predominantly Sunni Arab world. Iraq had been ostracized following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and expulsion from the Gulf state in 1991 by a US-coalition. Saudi King Abdullah, convinced that Iran had successfully infiltrated Iraq and that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was an Iranian stooge, blocked Iraq's reaching out to the kingdom and eventually drove into the hands of Iran. In doing so, Saudi Arabia was standing up for its perceived interests that diverged from those of the United States. The US wanted the Saudis to engage with the Shiite Muslim majority that came to power in Iraq as a result of the US invasion. As a result, Harvey's well-documented book contributes to understanding the limits of US power in the Middle East and the significant perceptual gaps that Middle Eastern states need to bridge to ensure that a regional détente is sustainable.

Iraq has in the last year taken a lead in sponsoring talks between Middle Eastern arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran in an effort to prevent tension in the region spinning out of control. The Iraqi role is remarkable given that Saudi Arabia for more than a decade after the 2003-led US invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein wanted nothing to do with the country's post-Saddam leadership. Saudi perceptions of Iraq as an Iranian pawn persuaded it even to refuse reopening a diplomatic mission in Baghdad until 2019. In Self-fulfilling Prophet: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq (Oxford University Press 2022), Katherine Harvey paints a fascinating picture of what happens when policy is crafted based on perception rather than fact. Harvey tells the story of a post-invasion Iraq that was systematically rebuffed by Saudi Arabia in its efforts to reintegrate into the predominantly Sunni Arab world. Iraq had been ostracized following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and expulsion from the Gulf state in 1991 by a US-coalition. Saudi King Abdullah, convinced that Iran had successfully infiltrated Iraq and that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was an Iranian stooge, blocked Iraq's reaching out to the kingdom and eventually drove into the hands of Iran. In doing so, Saudi Arabia was standing up for its perceived interests that diverged from those of the United States. The US wanted the Saudis to engage with the Shiite Muslim majority that came to power in Iraq as a result of the US invasion. As a result, Harvey's well-documented book contributes to understanding the limits of US power in the Middle East and the significant perceptual gaps that Middle Eastern states need to bridge to ensure that a regional détente is sustainable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Iraq has in the last year taken a lead in sponsoring talks between Middle Eastern arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran in an effort to prevent tension in the region spinning out of control. The Iraqi role is remarkable given that Saudi Arabia for more than a decade after the 2003-led US invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein wanted nothing to do with the country's post-Saddam leadership. Saudi perceptions of Iraq as an Iranian pawn persuaded it even to refuse reopening a diplomatic mission in Baghdad until 2019. In Self-fulfilling Prophet: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq (Oxford University Press 2022), Katherine Harvey paints a fascinating picture of what happens when policy is crafted based on perception rather than fact. Harvey tells the story of a post-invasion Iraq that was systematically rebuffed by Saudi Arabia in its efforts to reintegrate into the predominantly Sunni Arab world. Iraq had been ostracized following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and expulsion from the Gulf state in 1991 by a US-coalition. Saudi King Abdullah, convinced that Iran had successfully infiltrated Iraq and that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was an Iranian stooge, blocked Iraq's reaching out to the kingdom and eventually drove into the hands of Iran. In doing so, Saudi Arabia was standing up for its perceived interests that diverged from those of the United States. The US wanted the Saudis to engage with the Shiite Muslim majority that came to power in Iraq as a result of the US invasion. As a result, Harvey's well-documented book contributes to understanding the limits of US power in the Middle East and the significant perceptual gaps that Middle Eastern states need to bridge to ensure that a regional détente is sustainable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

Iraq has in the last year taken a lead in sponsoring talks between Middle Eastern arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran in an effort to prevent tension in the region spinning out of control. The Iraqi role is remarkable given that Saudi Arabia for more than a decade after the 2003-led US invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein wanted nothing to do with the country's post-Saddam leadership. Saudi perceptions of Iraq as an Iranian pawn persuaded it even to refuse reopening a diplomatic mission in Baghdad until 2019. In Self-fulfilling Prophet: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq (Oxford University Press 2022), Katherine Harvey paints a fascinating picture of what happens when policy is crafted based on perception rather than fact. Harvey tells the story of a post-invasion Iraq that was systematically rebuffed by Saudi Arabia in its efforts to reintegrate into the predominantly Sunni Arab world. Iraq had been ostracized following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and expulsion from the Gulf state in 1991 by a US-coalition. Saudi King Abdullah, convinced that Iran had successfully infiltrated Iraq and that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was an Iranian stooge, blocked Iraq's reaching out to the kingdom and eventually drove into the hands of Iran. In doing so, Saudi Arabia was standing up for its perceived interests that diverged from those of the United States. The US wanted the Saudis to engage with the Shiite Muslim majority that came to power in Iraq as a result of the US invasion. As a result, Harvey's well-documented book contributes to understanding the limits of US power in the Middle East and the significant perceptual gaps that Middle Eastern states need to bridge to ensure that a regional détente is sustainable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Yemen is a terrible conflict zone in the geopolitical struggle between Iran and the US-backed Sunni Arab states. Learn about the history of the conflict and the recent news of attempts to conclude the conflict. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Strategic interests and personal relationships are mixed in international strategy and diplomacy. After almost four months in power, the Israeli government seems to enjoy from both in its dealings with the major Arab countries bordering it. Egypt and Jordan warmed up to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who are seemingly on the same page regarding Israel's security needs. It is important to stress that while outstanding disputes pertaining to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict challenge Jerusalem's keen aspiration to normalize relations with additional Arab states; the common threat posed to the Jewish State and the Sunni-Arab world by the revolutionary Shi'ite Islamic Republic of Iran – serves as a trigger to what appears to turn into inevitable Jewish-Arab rapprochement. Panel: - Jonathan Hessen, Host. - Amir Oren, TV7 Analyst and Host of Watchmen Talk. - Col. (Res) Dr. Anan Wahabi, Senior Fellow at ICT Reichman University and Lecturer at Haifa University. - Ambassador Dr. Dan Shaham, Former Head of Mission to IRENA, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Articles on the topic: https://www.tv7israelnews.com/bennett-iran-crossed-all-nuclear-red-lines/ https://www.tv7israelnews.com/israeli-egyptian-leaders-hold-talks/ https://www.tv7israelnews.com/abdullah-jordan-custodian-of-jerusalem-holy-sites/ You are welcome to join our audience and watch all of our programs - free of charge! TV7 Israel News: https://www.tv7israelnews.com/vod/series/563/ Jerusalem Studio: https://www.tv7israelnews.com/vod/series/18738/ TV7 Israel News Editor's Note: https://www.tv7israelnews.com/vod/series/76269/ TV7 Israel: Watchmen Talk: https://www.tv7israelnews.com/vod/series/76256/ Jerusalem Prays: https://www.tv7israelnews.com/vod/series/135790/ TV7's Times Observer: https://www.tv7israelnews.com/vod/series/97531/ TV7's Middle East Review: https://www.tv7israelnews.com/vod/series/997755/ My Brother's Keeper: https://www.tv7israelnews.com/vod/series/53719/ This week in 60 seconds: https://www.tv7israelnews.com/vod/series/123456/ Those who wish can send prayer requests to TV7 Israel News in the following ways: Facebook Messenger: https://www.facebook.com/tv7israelnews Email: israelnews@tv7.fi Please be sure to mention your first name and country of residence. Any attached videos should not exceed 20 seconds in duration. #IsraelNews #tv7israelnews #newsupdates Rally behind our vision - https://www.tv7israelnews.com/donate/ To purchase TV7 Israel News merchandise: https://teespring.com/stores/tv7-israel-news-store Live view of Jerusalem - https://www.tv7israelnews.com/jerusalem-live-feed/ Visit our website - http://www.tv7israelnews.com/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/tv7israelnews Like TV7 Israel News on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/tv7israelnews Follow TV7 Israel News on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tv7israelnews/ Follow TV7 Israel News on Twitter - https://twitter.com/tv7israelnews

In wake of President Biden’s inauguration, experienced foreign-policy hands argued over what could be learned about his administration’s approach to Israel and the Middle East from his early statements and appointments. They faced an unresolved question: would President Biden’s longtime instincts, which tend to be sympathetic to Israel, hold sway over the louder and more progressive voices arrayed against Israel in the Democratic party? Would he continue to support Israel in the Oval Office as he did for so long in the Senate? Or would President Biden advance the strategy pursued by the Obama administration, strengthening Israel’s main adversary, Iran? This week’s podcast guest believes that the answer has now been revealed. Michael Doran is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a long-time Mosaic writer, and the co-author of an important new essay about the Biden administration's developing Middle East policy.  In it, he argues that instead of working with Israel and the Sunni Arab states to contain Iran, President Biden and his team want to partner with Iran to bring a different kind of order to the Middle East. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, Doran discusses his argument and explains why Israel and America’s Sunni allies need to prepare for the final act of America’s strategic realignment. Musical selections are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble. This week’s podcast guest believes that the answer has now been revealed. Michael Doran is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a long-time Mosaic writer, and the co-author of an important new essay about the Biden administration's developing Middle East policy.  In it, he argues that instead of working with Israel and the Sunni Arab states to contain Iran, President Biden and his team want to partner with Iran to bring a different kind of order to the Middle East. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, Doran discusses his argument and explains why Israel and America’s Sunni allies need to prepare for the final act of America’s strategic realignment. Musical selections are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

In Episode 6 of the Caroline Glick Mideast News Hour, Caroline summarized the latest military developments in the second week of Hamas's current war against Israel. In today's episode Caroline focused on the key role that political and information warfare play in the Arab/Iranian war against Israel. Her guest today was Dan Diker from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, an expert in political warfare. The two discussed the role of political warfare in the West's relations with Israel in the context of the Democrat Party's increasingly hostile stance against Israel and in the context of the Abraham Accords and Israel's alliance with the Saudi-led Sunni Arab world. We welcome viewer/listener comments and feedback. Please post your thoughts on Rumble and YouTube and send your thoughts to caroline@carolineglick.com. To watch: https://youtu.be/qCHMHlBeA74 (https://youtu.be/qCHMHlBeA74)

Host Erick Stakelbeck breaks down President Biden's stunning silence towards the leader of America's closest ally in the Middle East. Biden has now been in office for three weeks and STILL has not spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even though he has spoken to the leaders of other key U.S. allies like Britain, Canada and South Korea. What is behind Biden's radio silence towards Netanyahu--not to mention towards Sunni Arab nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia that are aligned with Israel against Iran? Is it old-fashioned pettiness, ideology (distance the U.S. from Israel and re-enter the disastrous Iran nuclear deal) or a combination of both? And will the next four years under Biden amount to a third Obama term when it comes to the U.S/ISrael relationship? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The United Arab Enemies and Bahrain are only the third and fourth Arab country in history to establish diplomatic ties with the state of Israel. In his paper "Reinventing the Middle East" written in 2018, Martin El-Khouri argued that stability in the Middle East is only achievable if the ties between Sunni-Arab states increase. He also claimed that peace between the Gulf-Arab states and the state of Israel is already being negotiated. According to him, Israel's security interests in the region are aligned with those of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other members of the GCC. The Trump administration shares the the desire to further contain Iran, and hence, has already started to act as an intermediary between the "alleged enemies" Saudi Arabia and Israel since Trump was elected into office. In fact, in 2018 already, numerous events and claims from high officials of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have already hinted at a normalization of relations, which now has become a reality. How can the Abraham accords change the trajectory, the Middle East has taken? And what do the corruption allegations against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the upcoming US-elections have to do with all of this? And, what comes next? Will tensions with Iran increase? Or are we witnessing a new dawn for a peaceful Middle East?

The Middle East is witnessing a new form of kinetic cyber warfare that has dramatically set back Iran’s nuclear program. Dr. Stephen Bryen, former Reagan era Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Technology and Security, noted military technologist and Asia Times columnist calls it “Son of Stuxnet”. That is a reference to the joint US-Israel malworm virus attack in 2009 -2010 on the Natanz enriched uranium cascade facility that destroyed an estimated 1,000 of 5,000 centrifuges. The difference this time was the cyber-attacks may have generated explosions. Natanz was hit on July 2, 2020 by an explosion that destroyed the equipment and facilities for producing the current generation of advanced centrifuges. That according to David Albright of the Washington, DC-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) may have set back Iran’s nuclear weapons development by 2 plus years and even longer. Bryen said that this round of cyber kinetic warfare was initiated “when Iran cyberattacked Israel’s water supply system on April 24 and 25, 2020. The water facility attack was intended to release large amounts of poisonous chlorine into Israel’s water delivery infrastructure, potentially poisoning tens of thousands of Israelis. Israel responded by temporarily disabled the Iranian Shahid Rajaee port (Bandar Abbas) in the Straits of Hormuz.” More explosive events followed in late June and the first two weeks of July. Bryen noted these events: • On June 26, a building in the solid fuel assembly plant of the Khojir Missile facility, which also deals with nuclear warhead designs, exploded with such force that it was seen 70 Kms. away. At the same time, an explosion and fire destroyed the power plant servicing the city of Shiraz, plunging it into darkness. • On June 30, explosions ripped through the sub-basement levels of the Sinna medical center in Tehran killing 13. • On July 2, an explosion, claimed by an unknown opposition group, the Panthers of the Nation, ripped apart the new centrifuge assembly building in the Natanz nuclear center. The Iranian regime has all but admitted this is a major setback to its enrichment program. The same night, a major complex exploded and burned in Shiraz. • On July 3, an enormous fire erupted in the northwest part of Shiraz in an unknown location and facility. The same night, another large fire destroyed an unknown facility in Salmas near Tehran. • On July 4, a fire and explosion in southwest Iran in the predominantly Sunni Arab province of Ahvaz destroyed the power plant. At about the same time, the Karoun Petrochemical plant failed and released what was claimed to be chlorine gas sending about six dozen to the hospital. • Early on July 7, a powerful explosion engulfed a warehouse or factory of unknown use in Beqarshahr south of Tehran. This is the same vicinity in which the Israelis two years ago seized Iran’s nuclear archives, namely Turouzabad- Kahrizak, and in which Israel and the IAEA suspect also was a major nuclear warehouse. Bryen said the most significant cyber kinetic attack was against the Natanz centrifuge production facility. That was borne out in the post attack damage assessment made by ISIS. It concluded: “Although the explosion and fire at the Iran Centrifuge Assembly Center does not eliminate Iran’s ability to deploy advanced centrifuges, its destruction must be viewed as a major setback to Iran’s ability to deploy advanced centrifuges on a mass scale for years to come. “This was a crown jewel of their program,” Albright of ISIS said. Beyond the Matrix 15JULY2020 - PODCAST

About the Book: The Red Sea is one of the world's most important trade routes, a theater of power struggle among local, regional, and global powers. Military and political developments continue to impact on the geostrategic landscape of the region in the context of its trade thoroughfare for Europe, China, Japan and India; freedom of navigation is a strategic interest for Egypt, and essential for Israel's economic ties with Asia. Superpower confrontation is inevitable. China, the US, France, Japan and Saudi Arabia have military bases in Djibouti. US strategy seeks to curb Chinese economic influence and Russian political interference in the region through diplomacy and investment. And at the centre of US alliances is the “war on terror” still prevalent in the Middle East and East Africa: Islamic terror groups Al Shabaab in Somalia and Kenya; Al Qaeda of the Arab Peninsula in Yemen; and the Islamic State in Egypt. The civil war in Yemen has become the arena for Iran and Saudi Arabia's struggle for regional hegemony. Saudi Arabia's Sunni Arab coalition have been fighting Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels to a stalemate (December 2018). In 2016 Egypt ceded Saudi Arabia the Tiran and Sanafir Islands, the narrow sea passages between the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas, giving control of the entire length of the Red Sea. This, and other perceived positive geostrategic developments, have to be offset by the “nuclearization” of the Red Sea basin (directed in part by Russian foreign policy) and the dangers of multiple country military deployments in the hubs of radical Islam and terrorism potential. A stable future for the region cannot be taken for granted. And as alliances shift and change, so will Israel's foreign policy and strategic partnerships have to adjust. About the Speaker: Dr. Col. (Res.) Shaul Shay is a senior research fellow of the International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT) and former Director of Research at the Institute for Strategy and Policy (IPS) at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.

 Is it possible that we are seeing the end of Endless War?One of the most important aspects of Donald Trump's candidacy was his promise to end the endless wars in the so-called "Middle East" and elsewhere.His track record has been mixed in this regard, especially during the period when John Bolton was in the State Department. Thankfully Bolton is gone, at least for now, and some progress is being made again.The withdrawal of US troops from Syria has driven the media-industrial-academia-think tank complex into a frenzy, with both Republicans and Democrats, Western liberals and conservatives, I am pleased to have back on my podcast Hussein Askary, the Southwest Asia Coordinator of the Schiller Institute, Editor of the Arabic language website of the LaRouche Movement, Section Manager at Belt & Road Institute in Sweden, and Author of the 250-page study "Extending the New Silk Road to West Asia and Africa: A Vision of an Economic Renaissance". We discuss:- Hussein Askary's dramatic story as a refugee from the 1991 Iraq War walking 6 days from the Kurdish north to Iran- how he joined the Schiller Institute as the Arabic language editor of its research and publication division- the lessons he learned from the Oslo peace process- why fundamental economic development must take precedence over political reform- the importance of the physical economy for human development- large-scale projects and scientific research for Southwest Asia (the so-called "Middle East"): Greening the Desert, turning it into a productive agricultural zone again- the Chinese model of development vs. the IMF and World Bank failed policies- the Chinese radical, physical economic development of Africa- Buckmister Fuller's idea that humans are the agents of the Universe for self-awareness and self-development vs. the radical environmentalist idea that humans are parasites - How the Earth is NOT our Mother: the Sun is; how we live in the atmosphere of the SUN- How the Climate Models are fundamentally flawed by omitting the centrality of the Sun- countering the dominant Western media interpretation of the US pullout from Syria, re: the Kurds, Turkey, ISIS, Russia, Iran, Israel- the radically changed role of Turkey in the Syrian conflict, due to Trump and Russia- The US Operation Timber Sycamore to funnel arms from other conflict areas to Syrian rebel groups- how ISIS was created by the US intervention in Iraq and Syria- the importance of Trump's 2017 Riyadh Conference in making the Sunni Arab countries stop supporting the Salafist terrorist groups- Putin's strong gamble to stop regime change in Syria- the geopolitical manipulation of the Kurds to destabilise the region- Trump's historically significant public criticism of the military industrial complex- why terrorism is NEVER a private enterprise; how terrorism is ALWAYS supported by hostile States- how this could signal the historic end to jihadism- the history of jihadism as part of the effort to destroy the Ottoman Empire- the end of the era of Liberal Imperialism and the "Right to Protect", and the return of the sovereign Nation State- how Southwest Asia may be stabilised and pursue fundamental human development in the region driven by association with the Belt and Road Initiative- how the massive financial resources are already available in the region for massive, real, physical economic development- how nuclear power allows oil to be used more valuably as an industrial input rather than being burned for fuel (like how wood was transformed after the discovery of coal)- the launch of the Arabic language School of LaRouche's Economics- how people are seeing through deliberate, deceptive provocations that the US uses to justify interventions in Syria, Venezuela, and elsewhere 

Episode Notes Intro [The Fire Alarm Theme by Tenny Tsang]Welcome to the very first episode of the fire alarm from North by Northwestern. I am Roman Raies, and today we are discussing what President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw 1,000 U.S. troops from Northern Syria means for Syrians, the U.S. and everyone in the region. Since his 2016 campaign, ending the U.S. policy of being the “world’s police” and “bringing the troops home” have been hallmarks of Trump’s rhetoric. One of these regions where U.S. troops have been stationed is Syria. Troops were first sent there in 2015 to fight Islamist extremism alongside Kurdish allies in the Syrian Democratic Forces, who are considered to be one of the most effective forces against Islamist extremism to have ever existed. In December of 2018, Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of 2,000 troops in Syria, declaring that the war against ISIS had already been won, ignoring advice from civilian and military advisors who warned that it could destabilize the region. October 13, of this year, Trump decided to withdraw nearly all of the remaining 1,000 U.S. troops stationed Northern Syria, a move which once again drew widespread criticism from Republicans, Democrats and our Kurdish allies, who called it a betrayal. In anticipation of this move, the Syrian Democratic Forces formed an uneasy alliance with the Syrian Dictator, Bashar Al Assad.Since then, Turkey ,which opposes the SDF’s attempt to establish a Kurdish led, self governing region, has begun a vicious bombing and ground troop campaign in parts of Northeastern syria controlled by the SDF, plunging the area into chaos. Tens of thousands of residents are fleeing south, several major towns and hospitals have been abandoned, and without U.S. forces there to aid Kurdish allies, ISIS militants have broken out of Kurdish-run prisons. I interviewed Northwestern professor of Political Science and Expert of Syrian studies Wendy Pearlman to discuss what led us to this situation. Pearlman: Now, if the Turks, the Turkish forces went into northeast Syria and there was only the Kurdish forces because the U.S. forces are no longer there, and the Assad forces and the Russian forces were no longer there, then I think the Kurdish forces would be at tremendous vulnerability before the invading Turkish forces. I think it's because, precisely because of that, that the Syrian Democratic Forces reached out to make a new alliance with the Assad regime. Now, the Assad regime, itself, they're war criminals that carried out tremendous violence, it's a dictatorship that has committed all sorts of crimes against humanity. And there's a long-standing conflict between the Kurds, and the Assad regime. So this is an alliance of convenience. Many are saying it's a military alliance, rather than a political alliance, there's still major differences in the Kurdish right hopes and aspirations and the Assad regime’s interest and Russia's interests, but you have different players, all of which want different things. And their interests overlap in some respects, and are in contrast at other respects. And it's a shifting situation in which different parties are going to try to advance their own interests as much as possible. And if there comes to be at some juncture, a confluence of interest between two parties, they pursue that, and for that the Kurds that see their options are violence from the Turks and making agreement with the Assad regime that they hate, they've chose the Assad regime and Russia which will then take advantage of that opportunity for the Assad regime to re-conquer this territory in northeast Syria, which had effectively slipped from its control for several years. Russia is taking advantage of the opportunity to reassert itself as the dealmaker, as the most important superpower in the Middle East, now that the United States is showing less and less interest in being an active party. So different parties are showing their interest. The Turks want the Kurds, far from the border, the Assad regime wants to retake territory. The Russians, Russia wants to support the Assad regime, and also become a real player and the Kurds don't want to be slaughtered. And that's what we have seen, essentially, unfold in the latest agreements that are being made.Raies: Right, and, if I'm not mistaken, the conflict started mostly after 2011 after the Arab Spring. Pearlman: Yeah. Yeah, that's the context, so you know the Arab Spring begins with a protest in Tunisia and then Egypt and spread to other countries, and there was also a popular uprising in Syria, of Syrians going out into the streets and calling for Democratic change calling for freedom, calling for an end to corruption – calling basically for reform, not even the overthrow of the Assad regime but wanting greater freedoms, and the Assad regime responded to those peaceful protests with tremendous violence. Protests remained peaceful for many months. Eventually the opposition also took up arms against the onslaught of this of this state, wanting to crush it. Other non-state and state actors became involved in the very chaotic situation. And in the context of this you had Al-Qaeda, created a presence, ISIS emerged as its own group and Kurdish groups also formed militias and armed and became players in this fragmented situation with many different players. So, this is all the evolution of a violence-complicated situation since 2011.Raies: And what is the characteristic of Assad's regime, does he try to keep his people's opinion in favor of him? Is it common for Syrian civilians to be pro-Assad? Or what I'm saying is, does anyone view the opposition as the problem.Pearlman: Yeah, it's split. It's a complicated war in which you have many Syrians who went out into the streets wanting, as I said before, calling for reform – they weren't even calling for the overthrow of the regime. They were just, it was a security state in which the government can basically arrest anybody they wanted on no cause, there was an enormous problem of, there were, you know, 10s of thousands disappeared and tortured and political imprisonment. There was rampant corruption nothing going to get done unless you pay bribes and you had enough people went out into the streets, just as they did in Tunisia and Egypt and said, ‘We want a better, freer, society. We want rule of law. We want accountability.’ And, and you had a regime that responded basically saying it would make no real concessions, no real power sharing, and it would use force to stamp out that movement. Now, so there were great numbers that wanted change. At the same time, there were always some loyalists who stuck with the regime, and some because they benefited from that status quo. One. Two, there were some who are afraid that should the regime collapse, the alternative would be even worse. The regime, always for decades has presented itself as a protector of religious minorities. So the, the majority in Syria is Sunni Arab Muslim, but there are other religious and ethnic minorities, and because the Assad family is itself from a religious minority, it has often tried to portray itself as a protector of other religious minorities, like itself, and has used real techniques of fear mongering essentially to communicate to the public that should this Sunni Arab majority come to power, it might institute Islamic law and be extremists and they're funded by Saudis and they want to ruin Syria's secular, national way of life. So for that reason, especially many religious minorities stuck with the regime, although they all know also noticed, were convinced the regime was corrupt and repressive, they were afraid that the alternative, should the region collapse, would be even worse, and the regime worked very deliberately to build that fear. So you have some people who support the regime because they're part of the regime. Others, out of fear, uncertainty. Also a portion of the population simply sort of put their head down, they're not with one side or the other. They're simply afraid and they want to get by. And they don't want to be caught on the losing side and be punished for it, because the opposition's paid an enormous price of over half a million dead, of 12 million people displaced, tens of thousands disappeared. You know there were people who didn't want to get caught on the wrong side and pay a price for themselves and their family. So yes, there are some who still remain in favor of the regime, and there are others who are against it. And there's a whole lot in the middle that are just hoping for life to go back to.Raies: Right. But I've read that although the Syrian Democratic Forces have also committed some human rights abuses. I've read that the Syrian Kurds and the Kurdish-controlled, or partially controlled regions I guess it's not they're not recognized by Assad, but I've read, they also portrayed themselves as defenders of religious liberty, so is that characterization self characterization accurate?Pearlman: There have been abuses on all sides, so there have been ethnically or religious – so there are some who have accused some of the Kurdish forces to have forced Arabs from their homes and things of that sort. So there are accusations and there are abuses by every single party in this conflict. There is for sure, no bigger human rights violation in the Assad regime, right, that is that is definitive. It has killed and it has tortured the most, and it is it is the party responsible for the most deaths, both the Assad regime and its international backers, like the Russian Air Force that's been involved in destroying cities and so forth.Raies: Okay, I'm gonna move to ask about Tulsi Gabbard who made a pretty interesting stance at the last Democratic debate by [insinuating] that the conflict is really rooted in U.S. efforts for regime change and if the U.S. simply stays out, then this, the violence we're seeing today, would not be occurring. Is there any legitimacy to that claim?Pearlman: Zero. I mean, I was stunned when I heard her words, it, it sounded like 100% Assad regime propaganda or Russian propaganda. To me, this is not any sort of regime change operation, what you had was a genuine grassroots popular uprising of Syrian citizens who wanted better lives. The United States did not start that uprising. Not only did it not start it, it did not help it or defend it in any real way. I would say the problem was not that the U.S. intervened too much to overthrow Assad. If anything, my own view is that the U.S. intervened too little as we basically sat back and watched the Assad regime slaughter people with chemical weapons, with barrel bombs, with every imaginable weapon. And we did too little to defend defenseless civilians against the full weapons in the arsenal of an army. There's nothing that civilians can do to protect themselves from bombs from above, they're being bombed by airplanes and helicopters. We watched it. We know it. We've watched it day by day for over eight years and have done basically nothing. So, to say that the U.S. has led a regime change operation in Syria for me is, is completely the opposite of reality.Conclusion: Since I interviewed Professor Pearlman, not much has been done to help defend our longtime allies, the Kurds. However, U.S. troops have increased their presence in Eastern Syria’s oil-rich region to “prevent the oil fields from falling back into the hands of ISIS or other destabilizing actors,” according to a U.S. Defense official interviewed by the Washington Post.Thank you for listening, this is the Fire Alarm from North by Northwestern Audio. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

President Trump’s first visit to the Middle East demonstrated a notable shift in US policy toward the region. In a marked departure from the policies of the Obama administration, the president not only embraced the Sunni Arab states, but signed a $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, and stated that he will not lecture the Kingdom or other Arab autocracies on human rights issues. He also initiated a review of the Iranian nuclear deal, gave greater military emphasis to US actions in the area, and called for states in the region to isolate Iran. Meanwhile, elections in Iran have given President Rouhani a broader mandate to open Iran’s economy further. How will President Trump’s policies and actions impact America’s relations with Saudi Arabia, the nuclear deal with Iran and the prospect of ending arduous conflicts as seen in Syria and Yemen? Will this further increase tensions, or is there potential for renewed diplomatic cooperation between the US, Saudi Arabia and Iran? Banafsheh Keynoush, a geopolitical and communications consultant, Jessica Tuchman Mathews, distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Ambassador Hossein Mousavian, Middle East security expert at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, will discuss the US - Iran - Saudi Arabia nexus and whether we are destined for renewed diplomacy or conflict in the Middle East. SPEAKERS Seyed Hossein Mousavian Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy Specialist, Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University Banafsheh Keynoush Foreign Affairs Scholar and Author, "Saudi Arabia and Iran: Friends or Foes?" Fred H. Lawson Senior Fellow, Centre for Syrian Studies, University of St. Andrews MODERATOR: Jessica Tuchman Mathews Distinguished Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace For more information please visit: http://www.worldaffairs.org/event-calendar/event/1737

Xander Snyder and Jacob L. Shapiro talk about the geopolitical consequences of new U.S. sanctions against Russia, North Korea and Iran.Sign up for free updates on topics like this! Go here: goo.gl/hfTxMX TRANSCRIPT: Jacob L. Shapiro: Hello, everyone, welcome to another Geopolitical Futures Podcast. I'm Jacob Shapiro. I am joined once more by Xander Snyder. Xander, it's always good to talk to you. XS: Thanks, good to be here. JLS: We've been trying some different things with the podcast in the last couple weeks. Last week, Kamran and I had a little discussion about democracy and geopolitics. We appreciated all your feedback on that. Before that, we were doing some talk about history and battles and geopolitical contingencies. This week, we're going to go in a little bit of different direction. We're going to just try and take a sense of what's been going on this week in geopolitics in 30 minutes and try and talk through some of the major issues and the things that have happened this week that might actually have staying power beyond the week itself. Because some many of the things itself, so many of the headlines and the things that happen in the news really don't matter that much once the headline is out there. So we're going to try and get to the deep stuff that we think is going to matter in the long term. And the major thing I think, Xander, that really affected this week was not just the House but the Senate also apparently has just passed sanctions not just on Russia – although that's getting most of the attention – but also on North Korea and also on Iran. Just this morning as we're recording before we went live, I saw that a bunch of different news organizations were reporting that North Korea also tested some kind of missile this morning too. We don't know whether it was an ICBM or something else. But it seems to me the real magnetic issue of this week has been sanctions, would you agree? XS: Yeah seems like a lot has been revolving around sanctions this week. And very quick timeline of it is back in mid-June, the Senate overwhelmingly approved some form of sanctions and then it kind of got negotiated between the House and the Senate for another month. And then the House earlier this week passed sort of a new and improved version that both houses had agreed to by I think it was like 419 to 3, an overwhelming majority, and then the Senate passed it again with an overwhelming majority of like 98 to 2. And one of the big changes in the new version of the sanctions bill – well compared to the sanctions that were passed against Russia in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea and took control of that area of Ukraine – basically ties President Trump's hands in a lot of ways. So the way that some of these clauses were phrased in the original sanctions bill was saying the president “may” choose to implement one or several of the different measures that are provided for in the sanctions bill. And in this new one that just passed both houses essentially an amendment was proposed that changes the word “may” to the word “shall,” so the president shall implement all of these sanctions. And what that does is it removes a certain degree of power from the president to decide who sanctions who or what corporate entity sanctions are going to be levied against. And it also reduces his ability to issue waivers against individuals or individual entities that do have sanctions levied against them. So that's just kind of like the starting point for how a lot of activity has revolved around these sanctions over the last week. JLS: Yeah, I think one of the interesting things to point out is that both President Obama and President Bush tried to really reset relations with Russia in a more positive direction. That was definitely something Trump wanted to do as well. And Trump has encountered the same types of geopolitical obstacles externally that both Obama and Bush did. I mean, there are just interests that are divergent between Russia and the United States and no matter how much Putin and Trump may or may not like each other, those issues seem to come to the forefront. But Trump also seems to have on top of that, a domestic situation in the United States that is blocking him from doing anything even in some of the foreign policy realms, right? You talked a little bit about how it's enforcing and making Trump raise a bunch of sanctions that were only there through executive order in which he had some options with. But so Congress is basically forcing his hand in that bit. But there are also some parts of the sanctions that relate to energy and I know that you did a closer look at some of the energy-related stuff, especially in terms of where Russian energy goes, so do you want to talk a little bit about that? XS: Yeah, I think the point that you make speaks to one way that we look at the world, which is leaders always encounter constraints and frequently they encounter constraints that they were not anticipating on the campaign trail. So they're able to use boastful rhetoric and you know say almost anything that they want to. Either not realizing or maybe recognizing but not playing up the fact that they're not nearly going to be able to do as much as they say they're going to when they get into office. And this has just been sort of another one of these constraints in the foreign policy world that Trump has run into when he's been in office. Now, the European Commission and Germany in particular have taken umbrage, they've been a little concerned with the set of sanctions that were passed this week. This is because the sanctions bill provide for measures to be taken against companies with residents in any country really that have a certain degree of involvement with Russian energy companies, and I think the threshold is something like 30 percent investment in a joint venture project. Antonia, one of our senior analysts, wrote a Reality Check on that earlier this week in a little bit more detail so you can go read up on that there. But the idea is that since the sanctions can potentially target companies that are not Russia, and Germany has some energy projects that they've co-invested with Russia because Germany gets a lot of their both natural gas and oil from Russia but especially their natural gas. And now they're concerned that potentially both their companies and potentially their energy securities to a certain degree can be threatened by these sanctions. And they're saying, “Well, you know, the U.S. shouldn't have the right to target non-Russian companies when the point is to go after Russia with these sanctions.” So that's been one of the other issues that's kind of arisen surrounding the sanctions bill. JLS: Yeah. And I think one thing to point out there is that the sanctions themselves I don't think are the major story. Sanctions have been levied a lot of different times by a lot of different countries and I wrote a piece the other day that sort of talked about how sanctions are usually, not always but usually a fairly ineffective obstacle. It's not the sanctions so much that are interesting. I don't think the sanctions are going to compel Russian behavior one way or another. It is though I think from the Russian point of view, a provocation. So especially with the sanctions that are being levied against Russia in this particular case, Russia's not going to be able to not respond in some kind of way. And we've already seen in the last couple days, I would call it weird stuff happening in the Ukraine. Just electricity being cut off to one region, the stuff about Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia who became a Ukrainian citizen and was a governor of Odessa in Ukraine. His citizenship has been revoked. There have just been some signs that Ukraine seems to be feeling a little bit more willing to push back against Russia. And of course, the big thing was that the new special representative to Ukraine that the State Department appointed suggested that the United States would look into arming Ukraine with defensive weaponry. So all of those things mean not that sanctions are going to do what the United States wants necessarily. I think Russia is going to perceive this as a challenge and Russia's going to have to try and push back if not in the Ukraine, probably somewhere else along the periphery and I think that's why this issue is going to be important going forward for a while. XS: Yeah just before I hopped on to do the podcast, I was reading that Russia has begun to retaliate a little. They've basically begun kicking out some U.S. diplomats and reduced the number of U.S. diplomats in Russia to the number of Russian diplomats in the U.S. which was fewer and have begun to seize some U.S. diplomats' vacation properties and some warehouses I guess that were used to store U.S. diplomats' goods. So that's something sort of short term but another way you can look at sort of Russia's flexibility in terms of how they can retaliate in a larger way, I mean one way you could look at that is in the energy world because a lot of Europe is dependent on Russia for its supply of energy. Europe imports really a lot of its energy needs. I think Germany in particular imports approximately 60 percent of its energy consumption. And something like 55-plus percent of its natural gas consumption comes from Russia. So there is some deeper structural dependencies on Russia in the energy market that actually gives it the ability to retaliate at least against U.S. allies in a somewhat more serious way than just kicking out a couple of diplomats. JLS: Yeah, absolutely. Moving on from Russia, though, Russia is not the only player in the sanctions regime. I think that it's getting the most attention because of the complicated and convoluted relationship between Donald Trump and Russia and the United States, but the bill originally was not designed as a sanctions bill for Russia. It was designed as a sanctions bill against specifically Iran. And you know both Russia and North Korea were things that were added on later. Iran and North Korea are both countries that the United States has been having trouble with for a long time and has been trying to use sanctions with for a long time. And it seems that Congress is trying to reinforce that method but I'm not sure it's going to work. You know Iran really was able to come to terms with the United States not so much because of sanctions I think but really because the Islamic State rose and broke Iranian strategy. And Iran really had to measure what was the more important enemy and I think that they prioritized defeating the Sunni Arab force in the Islamic State over basically the nuclear program that they were developing and when you see Iran testing and still using missiles. I don't think they've necessarily abandoned that program. They may not be enriching uranium and I think they are probably abiding by the terms of the deal. But that doesn't mean that they aren't working on other parts of a delivery system. And on top of that we have North Korea which seems to not be going away and I know that a lot of listeners probably have been hearing us talking for a while about how the situation in North Korea is deteriorating and the tensions are high. But we continue to see it that way. You know, I think one of the things that we're doing is there's probably some kind of negotiation or diplomatic process going on there. And you know, I think there's a lot of misdirection coming out of the U.S. right now. On the one hand, you get the three carrier battlegroups there. Then the carrier battlegroups disperse and you have the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying, “We're going to give the diplomatic route a couple months.” And we'll see from that so. You've looked a lot at North Korea, Xander, what is your sort of current read on U.S. posture towards North Korea and how do you see it going forward in the next couple weeks after this test, especially if it turns out to be an ICBM that was tested? XS: Yeah, we are still waiting on confirmation on whether it was or not. If this most recent launch was another ICBM, that would appear obviously a lot more threatening because it could potentially show that North Korea is making progress on developing a delivery system that could potentially deliver some sort of nuclear warhead. We don't believe that they're there yet even though they may have missiles that can fly further now as we saw earlier this month. As far as North Korea generally goes, sanctions like you said they generally don't work. When we say generally, we don't mean never. I think you cited a report from the Peterson Institute in your piece that said something like two-thirds of the time sanctions prove ineffective. And North Korea has been sanctioned repeatedly for 20 years and all we've seen them do in that time is basically start a nuclear weapons program, develop it, get to a point where they are very close to, you know, within a year or two having some sort of miniaturized nuclear warhead, potentially having intercontinental delivery capabilities. So sanctions just don't really seem to work a whole lot about North Korea and if you try to put yourself in the mindset of the North Korean regime, it kind of makes a little bit more sense. You know, a lot of people think that Kim Jong Un is just crazy and that the Kim regime is insane, that you know it's this terribly oppressive autocratic regime, and it is an oppressive autocratic regime. But a perspective that doesn't get out there as frequently, is that this is a regime that's been around for 70 years. They've withstood the collapse of their biggest patron, the Soviet Union, for several decades. And they've gotten through increasing pressure placed on them from the United States and arguably China recently, although those numbers are a little bit harder to read. I think it's difficult to claim that a regime that's been around and has stayed stable for that long is truly insane. They have to be acting at least to some degree rationally. And if you look at the effects or lack of effects of sanctions on North Korea, you know, the regime believes that it is at constant threat from the United States and if it gives on some of the things that the United States wants it to give on, that it's going to be at even a greater risk of if not collapse then losing its control on the governing institutions in North Korea. So for a regime that feels completely threatened for survival, it seems like sanctions are, they're going to be more willing to just accept that their country will be hurting than to just give up control, give up reins of power on their country. JLS: Yeah, and I think that the other side of this is that sanctions are probably not going to compel North Korea to give up its program. Like you said, if they haven't given it up already with the sanctions that have been levied against them, it's doubtful that this new batch of sanctions is going to be the one to do it. But I think the other thing that this brings up is that everybody is wondering what is China's role in helping manage North Korea and how much can they actually do? And one of the things that we looked at this week was new data out of Korea that said that while Chinese imports from North Korea have decreased by about 25 percent year-on-year, their exports to North Korea have gone up quite a bit, almost 20 percent that way. And so that's not a new thing, we've seen data from China itself confirming that earlier in the year and Donald Trump even tweeted, you know, about how China wasn't living up to its end of the bargain in terms of taking care of North Korea. But I think this is a good way of showing also the sort of ineffective logic of sanctions because, OK, so you've sanctioned North Korea, but the hard thing with sanctions – it's also the hard thing in getting something like an OPEC agreement to work – is making sure that everybody does it in the exact same way. The problem is that everybody doesn't have exactly the same interests. So you can't necessarily expect everyone to carry out the sanctions the same way or to be completely 100 percent consistent. So maybe China, it's dealing with North Korea in the way that it's dealing with it, perhaps not in the way that the United States wants. Are you just going to go and sanction China then? Like where does it stop? The problem at the end of the day is that North Korea is developing a nuclear weapon that can strike the United States. And you can sanction North Korea all you want and you can sanction China all you want, you know, unless those sanctions are going to compel someone to stop developing a nuclear program or are going to compel China to do something to stop North Korea from developing that program ­­– and I am not convinced China can do anything to stop that – it's not really going to work, right? XS: It seems unlikely, yeah. One thing that we are focused on that we've talked about before, certainly internally, I think maybe we've written some Watch List items on it, is whether or not the United States will be effective in obtaining sanctions on imports of crude oil to North Korea. Late last year, there were sanctions placed on North Korean coal exports to China, and that was seen as a significant or at least sort of a milestone in the development of the sanctions regime against North Korea because that's one way that North Korea receives a lot of hard foreign currency from abroad. But it seems like their supply of crude oil hasn't technically changed that much, and Tillerson mentioned a couple weeks ago that that's one thing that they would be seeking through conversations with China. But North Korea, there's some reports, some data that seems to indicate that they get a lot of crude oil both from China and Russia. It's hard to know because those numbers are no longer officially published by China and I don't think they've ever been officially published by Russia so they come through like North Korean defectors who supposedly have been dealing with imports from Russia. So that might be one area of sanctions where, if somehow the U.S. could pull that off, it might change the game a little bit because it could impact North Korea's ability to wage a conventional war. But there's no reason, or I can't see any reason at least, why China would get in line behind that or certainly why Russia would. It seems like they would want to extract pretty significant concessions from the U.S. in other parts of the world in order to actually implement a sanctions regime like that. JLS: Yeah, and then of course, the last piece to the puzzle of these sanctions here is Iran. And I think Iran has fallen a little bit by the wayside in terms of people's attention and in terms of even the U.S. attention. You know, before he was secretary of defense, James Mattis was very, very focused on Iran in general when he was thinking about U.S. foreign policy. And I think that Iran is going to become more and more of an issue for the United States. I think the Middle East is going to become more and more of an issue for the United States, not necessarily because of Iran itself but because the battle against the Islamic State is progressing. I don't think that it's imminently over. I think the Islamic State is going to stand and fight for quite a while longer. But you can sort of begin to see the end game for the Islamic State and for defeating this particular iteration of the Islamic State. And I think that you're not going to get peace out of that. What you're going to get is that the coalition that formed against ISIS is going to break apart and there's going to be a lot of power vacuums all over the Middle East that different countries are going to be looking to fill, and I think Iran is the one that is most aggressively pursuing those things. So we've had a couple years here with a very uneasy understanding between the United States and between Iran. I don't expect the nuclear deal to fall apart anytime soon or anything like that. And like I said, I think we're still looking at another year maybe two of the Islamic State being a major actor. But I think if you start thinking about the Middle East five years, 10 years out, and you think about what's going to happen once the Islamic State loses some of its what core territory is left remaining to it. Iran and the United States don't see eye to eye in the Middle East. The United States is trying to reconstruct a balance of power there and Iran is trying to set itself up as a regional hegemon. It is expending a lot of money and a lot of even its own soldiers in Iraq, in Syria, even in Lebanon with its relationship with Hezbollah to try and make that come to fruition. So I don't think that these sanctions themselves will be that consequential in terms of the relationship between the United States and Iran, but I think that relationship overall is probably trending in a negative direction. I don't think that we should think for a moment that just because the nuclear accord happened a couple years ago, that things are going to stay rosy there. XS: You mentioned a couple of minutes ago that your of Iran's acquiescence to the nuclear accord was not due to the prior sanctions regime implemented by the U.S. but rather the regional challenge it faced by a potential Sunni leader, ISIS. Could you explain a little bit more what you mean by that? JLS: Sure, and I don't want to fall into the fallacy of saying that one thing is the most determinative or deciding thing, right? Like obviously all these things were working in concert together. And I do think that the sanctions that the U.S. carried out against Iran in 2010, they certainly hurt the Iranian economy. We have plenty of evidence in terms of shrinking GDP and people not buying Iranian oil across the board that indicated that Iran's economy was hurting and that average, everyday Iranians were hurting. Again, though, when you have a country like Iran that has for so long been a U.S. enemy and frankly has some reason to think of the U.S. as an enemy. The U.S. was involved in trying to – I mean, not trying – helped a military coup in Iran in 1953. This is not a country that has a reason to trust necessarily United States motives. So I am saying that to say in the same way that we were talking about North Korea and we're saying, “Well, are sanctions really going to affect a regime that has already sacrificed so much and which has such a level of sort of autocracy and dedication in the population itself?” I sort of see Iran the same way. Iran is a very proud country with a very well-defined national identity, and I don't think that Iran is going to bend just because the United States or the West even is trying to make Iran feel things economically. I think what Iran did was, I think that before 2010, they saw a very real chance of extending their influence from Tehran all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. Iraq was in shambles and that's a majority Shiite Arab country, so they thought that they could dominate there. You had Syria, which was under the control of Bashar al-Assad and that was another Iranian – I don't want to say client state, but another Iranian ally in the region and definitely looked towards Iran for guidance and money and things. And then you had Hezbollah, which had basically taken over large parts if not all of Lebanon and is that rare militant group that has gone from militant group to governing group, and has done that fairly well. That was the story in 2010. There was an arc of Shiite influence going to the Mediterranean and things looked very good for Iran. That all fell apart because ISIS rose in Iraq and significantly challenged the Iranian idea of stability there. Bashar al-Assad faced rebels in his own country, which ISIS eventually came to capitalize on. Brought Hezbollah into that fight, so Hezbollah can no longer focus on annoying Israel or doing any of the other proxy things that it does. It's committed to almost a conventional-style war in Syria. So you had all of these strategic things just fall apart on Iran, and you have to understand that for Iran, it's Iran's Ukraine, basically. You know we talked earlier about how Russia has such a deep interest in Ukraine. Iraq and the state of things beyond the Zagros mountains in that direction is the same type of thing for Iran. So I think sanctions played a role, and I think sanctions hurt the Iranian economy, and I think it would certainly be hard for Iran to go back to where it was before. We've seen very high GDP growth numbers out of their economy, and I think that both Iran and some of the Western companies that are partnering with Iran would make real sanctions hard to enforce. But overall, when I look at the deciding factors over why that deal had to be made, the United States decided that it needed to defeat ISIS and it needed to defeat ISIS first and then it could deal with other problems later. And I think Iran sort of saw the same thing. They were worried about ISIS not just taking over Syria and knocking out one of their client states along the way to the Mediterranean but also significantly threatening Baghdad, and it's not an idle threat and it's not something that they were imagining. I mean Saddam Hussein – the Sunnis were ruling but it was not only a secularist regime – but the point is that was Iran's mortal enemy. They fought one of the worst wars that's not talked about I think in the 20th century between 1980 and 1989. So that's kind of what I meant about that. I think that the United States and Iran, the sanctions stuff is all surface level. The deeper problem there is that the United States wants a balance of power in that region, and Iran wants to be the power in that region. And for as long as that's the case – and I don't see that stopping anytime soon – they are going to butt heads, and sanctions aren't going to do anything to change that underlying reality. XS: So despite these conflicting long-term divergences in national interests, countries can still find ways to cooperate on short-term security interests? JLS: Yeah, absolutely. I mean the United States and Russia are definitely at odds against each other in Ukraine. They're tacitly cooperating in Syria. I mean that goes underreported, I think. I mean there's no way that the United States could have the assets running around that it does in Syria and Russia could have the assets that has running around in Syria and there not be some level of coordination. And when we look at the U.S.-backed forces in the region, especially the Syrian Kurds and the Syrian Democratic Forces, and we look at what the Syrian Army is doing, which is backed by Russia, you can see a coherent strategy of basically trying to cut the ground out from underneath ISIS. And sure maybe there's not a formalization or maybe they're not having tea and cookies in the afternoon together, but there's definitely some level of communication between the United States and Russia on that issue. So yeah, it's very rare that you have a relationship between two countries that is just totally hostile and has no bounds for cooperation. I would say one example, though, of where there isn't a lot of – there's really no grounds of cooperation that I can think of between North Korea and the United States. Can you think of anything there? XS: I mean not really. North Korea's core security imperative is to deter an attack from the United States, which requires developing a weapon which would violate one of the United States' core security imperatives, which is keeping North Korea from having a deliverable nuclear weapon. JLS: And I mean one of the results of North Korea being such a closed regime to the rest of the world is that North Korea really does not on a global stage have a lot of power that it can play with or bargain with, right? There's nothing that North Korea can do for the United States in East Asia if the U.S. did want to make some kind of deal. Whereas Iran is a powerful country and has power over a lot of different actors that the United States sometimes has trouble interacting with. In that sense, Iran is much more like China. China is trying to present itself as an actor that can help the United States or can find common ground with the United States so the United States should cooperate with it. North Korea doesn't really function that way. North Korea really is shut off and is really crouched into a defensive posture. Mostly because I don't think there is any other real way for them to do it. And in some sense, they've succeeded. They have created a situation that is incredibly difficult even for very powerful countries like China and the United States to deal with. XS: So if you're interested in this stuff, we've written a lot about sanctions but really about how sanctions sit on top of a lot of deeper, underlying structural causes for why we see nations acting the way they do. We've written a lot about that this week. You can check out the RC that Jacob you did yesterday. Antonia published one on sanctions earlier this week. I will be having a piece that will analyze Europe's energy dependency on Russia and perhaps give some sense of how Russia could retaliate there and that will published on Mauldin Economics, our partner's website, on Monday. And that should give you a bit of a deeper understanding of what's really going on behind these sanctions. JLS: Yeah, and I think it will be an interesting exercise of maybe 3-6 months from now, Xander, we sit down and we start a podcast and we see where these sanctions are and what impact they've actually had over the course of the last 3-6 months. XS: Let's do it. JLS: Yeah. On that note, thanks, everyone, for listening. We're glad you are enjoying the podcast, we will catch you next week. See you out there.

1. Nikki Haley Visits Israel-Lebanon And Gaza Borders US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, is in Israel and has visited the borders of Hamas controlled Gaza Strip in the south and Hezbollah controlled Lebanon in the north. She also met with the Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in Ramallah. #NikkiHaley #Israel ____________________ 2. Abbas Said To Drop Settlement Freeze Precondition For Talks As US President Donald Trump pushes for direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is reportedly dropping some of his major preconditions for talks, including a freeze on settlement construction. #Abbas #Peace #Settlements ____________________ 3. Qatar Rift Deepens As Turkey Pledges To Send Troops To Ally Turkey has approved a bill to send thousands of soldiers to Qatar in a show of support with its ally. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Sunni Arab states breaking off relations with Qatar for supporting Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood. #Turkey #Qatar ____________________ 4. Former IDF Intelligence Officer On Saudi-Qatar Split Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar Ilan University speaking at ILTV studio to discuss the ongoing rift between Qatar and the Arab world. #MordechaiKedar #Qatar ____________________ 5. Manchester Arson Attacks Target Two Kosher Restaurants Two kosher restaurants in the city of Manchester have been hit by arson attacks that police are calling 'anti-Semitic hate crimes'. #Restaurant #Manchester #Arson ____________________ 6. UK Goes To The Polls: Corbyn Closing In On May The British are going to the polls to elect a new Parliament and current polls are suggesting that the controversial Labour party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is on track to cut into incumbent Prime-Minister Theresa May's majority. #UK #JeremyCorbyn #Poll ____________________ 7. After Iran Attack, Trump Statement Criticizes Terror Support After gunmen attacked the Iranian Parliament in Tehran yesterday, US President Donald Trump put out a statement which is drawing praise from some and condemnation from others. #Iran #Trump ____________________ 8. Israel To Grant Temporary Residency Status To 200 Sudanese Israel is now granting temporary residency status to some 200 refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan living in Israel by qualifying them for benefits such as health insurance, travel documents and a work permit. #Refugees #Sudan ____________________ 9. Jlem Conference For Haredi Business Owners Draws Hundreds Rabbi Shmuel's NGO "Temech" helps Haredi women open their own business and find work. Temech held a Jerusalem Conference where hundreds of women attended. #Temech #Haredi #Women ____________________ 10. Israeli Artist Turns Found Objects Into Steampunk Art Marko Zallik, Israeli Artist speaking at ILTV studio about his artworks that he created by scavenging through flea markets in search of discarded mechanical objects. Artist's current exhibit in Tel Aviv utilizes ‘echo art' aesthetic. #MarkoZallik #Art ____________________ 11. New Discovery Puts Neanderthals Of The Levant Out In The Open The Israel Antiquities Authority has revealed that Neanderthals, conducted much of their life out in the open landscape rather than in caves. #Neanderthals #Discovery ____________________ 12. Hebrew word Of The Day, ETZEM | עצם = BONE Learn a new Hebrew word every day. Today's word is "etzem" which means "bone" #Learnhebrew #Hebrewwordofday #Iltvhebrewwordofday _____________________ 13. The Weather Forecast Tonight should be clear to partly cloudy with a low of seventy-one or twenty-two degrees Celsius. Tomorrow expect to get hit by a heat wave with very hot and dry weather and a high of eighty-seven or thirty-one degrees Celsius. The temperatures are supposed to cool down a bit over the weekend becoming seasonal after that. #Israelweather #Israelforecast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Xander Snyder and Jacob Shapiro get down to specifics in what a potential war would look like, and ask each other why the US always seems to fight its wars in the same place. Sign up for free updates on topics like this! Go here: hubs.ly/H06mXwR0 TRANSCRIPT: Jacob L. Shapiro: Hello everyone, welcome again to another Geopolitical Futures podcast. I'm Jacob Shapiro, I'm the director of analysis. Xander Snyder, one of our analysts, is joining me again today to talk this week. Xander, how's it going? Xander Snyder: It's going well Jacob, how are you? JLS: I'm doing alright. We've been very busy at Geopolitical Futures. There's a lot of stuff going on in the world and the first thing we wanted to do was follow up – George joined us on the podcast last week to talk a little bit about certain indications that we're seeing in terms of a potential U.S. strike on North Korea in the coming weeks. The USS Nimitz, which was in port in Washington state, actually left yesterday and is headed for the Western Pacific. There were some reports that the USS Vincent, which is actually currently off the coast of the Korean Peninsula, might be leaving the area, but as of now it doesn't seem like it has left. The USS Vincent and the USS Reagan actually had some joint drills yesterday where they actually lined up next to each other and were doing things. So tensions still remain pretty high on the Korean Peninsula. So we thought we would talk about a study really that Xander led with us here at Geopolitical Futures which looked at what a potential military conflict looks like between North Korea and the United States. Xander, I know a lot people are thinking about missiles and nuclear weapons, but one of the points that your piece made that I found particularly informative was that there's actually a lot of other variables here that if there is a conflict will become much more important. And I think artillery was one of the ones that you focused on most closely. How about you lay out for listeners here why it's so important to think about artillery when we're talking about a potential military conflict between North Korea and the United States. XS: Sure. Well, like you mentioned, a lot of the headlines in the news really focus on ballistic missile development, nuclear warheads, nuclear tests and missile tests, right? That's what has been going on lately that's been receiving the most attention. However, North Korea has a really conventional military, and a lot of this is rounded out by something like 21,000 artillery guns that it has, a combination of tube shell artillery guns which is generally what you think of when you think of artillery guns like big World War II cannons, you know stuff that's actually firing shell. And then they also have another type of artillery device called multiple rocket launchers or MRLs, which is exactly what it sounds like so instead of firing a shell, it fires rockets of different sorts. And this is important because basically since the end of the Korean War, North Korea has been amassing this conventional arsenal and Seoul, one of South Korea's major cities, sits within range of a lot of these weapons that are stationed on the Demilitarized Zone. So the reason this piece focused not entirely on artillery but largely is because North Korea is able to maintain a fairly substantial threat against a major U.S. ally, against South Korea, using normal weapons, not nuclear weapons, not ballistic missiles. JLS: Yeah it's an important point, and it also dictates what a potential U.S. strike is going to look like against North Korea, right? Because it can't just be that the U.S. is going to go in and pinprick certain nuclear sites with whatever big bombs that it has in its arsenal. One of the points you made is that the U.S. is going to have to also devise a strategy for knocking out a lot of this artillery to try and protect Seoul from the inevitable backlash that would come from the North Koreans. XS: Exactly. In the event of a U.S. strike against North Korea's nuclear facilities, essentially two battles begin. The first is the attempt by the United States to eliminate the North's nuclear capabilities while at the same time minimizing the amount of damage that can be done to Seoul and other populous centers in the north of South Korea, mainly with the North's conventional artillery force. So both of these battles will be waged at the same time. Now the U.S. would engage in a first strike because of the nuclear program, because if North Korea were to develop a ruggedized nuclear warhead that could be affixed to a ballistic missile that would be a threat that would be intolerable because even right now some of the North's ballistic missiles could reach U.S. allies, and in time, the threat is they could develop an intercontinental ballistic missile, an ICBM, that could reach the U.S. So, this would be the reason the U.S. would strike, however at the same time, the U.S. would have to find a way to either on its own or cooperating with South Korea essentially neutralize the threat of that artillery as quickly as possible. And the reason that the piece focused so much on artillery was because the North would not need to launch any sort of major ground infantry invasion at the outset of hostilities in order to pose a major threat. The artillery can actually reach quite a long way as it is. JLS: Yeah and I think this actually brings up one of the things – some listeners who are familiar with war and who study war will be more familiar with this but other listeners who are not – the issue of artillery really brings up one of the most important parts of talking about military activities that is often overlooked, which is simple things like logistics. So you spend a lot of time in the piece discussing not just what kind of artillery they have and what the potential moves of the actors are going to be but also where the stockpiles of ammunition are and what that means about North Korea's ability to communicate across its firing lines and to actually make its attacks effective and to protect itself against the types of strikes that the U.S. is going to use to try and take out those artilleries. So can you talk a little bit about also specifically the issue of ammunition and how some of the resources that you found indicated some of what's going to happen if the strike does indeed happen? XS: In the piece, what we tried to show is one potential way or several considerations that can be made that can constrain the conflict to look or to behave in a certain way if it were to actually break out. But as we mentioned in the piece and as anyone familiar with war knows, once it actually begins its very difficult to actually know what can come up so we do our best to understand the constraints in the situation based on the arsenal that North Korea has available to itself, that North Korea has available to it, while understanding that making an exact prediction of these things is actually very difficult when the violence begins. That said, there are certain things that you can attempt to game out. And one of these is recognition that the other side is aware that you are aware of its own weaknesses, right? So one of the things, I know it's kind of like a lot of back and forth and you know what I know that you know what I know, right? It's one of those things. And one of the things that we looked into was the command structure of the North Korean military. And I came across some papers published by the U.S. Army War College talking about how it is essentially a very centralized, probably understandably so, a very centralized military structure – something that borrowed a lot from Soviet military structures during the Cold War. And one of the ways that the Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un maintains control over the military is with a parallel reporting structure so there are military officers but there are also political officers, and he uses this dual reporting structure to assure that no military officer at any given time can acquire too much power to rebel against him or pose any sort of serious threat. So the conclusion that some of these papers have drawn is that, well because it is such a centralized command and control structure that will actually provide for a lack of flexibility in the event of conflict. If the North Korean military actually has to wage a war, if the supreme leader must direct everything himself, well that's a very inflexible structure. So we recognize that conclusion. But we also try to expand on it a little bit because North Korea, they're not dumb right? And I think this is another narrative that gets tossed around out there, it gets picked up on because it is difficult to rationalize a lot of their moves. But a country that's capable of a nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles, they're not stupid, right? They know that the United States has planned for the outbreak of war, and if they have, we've considered their command and control structure. So they're thinking, “Ok well, the U.S. is going to think that we have a fairly flexible command and control structure, so we need to account for that to a degree because if our communications get cut off and we can't actually direct artillery fire in the outbreak of hostilities, we face a serious problem. We can't control the war, and that will decrease our ability to, you know, actually achieve some sort of strategic objective that we would want in this conflict.” So it makes sense then to think that there's actually some system even if it's not publicly available that would allow for devolution or decentralization of command to a degree that would allow unit-level artillery commanders to continue fighting if they lose communication with the centralized command. So that's one indicator that you can look for to get a sense of whether or not this is true. And it's certainly not slam dunk evidence, it's more like a mosaic you are putting together a lot of different pieces to try to corroborate this idea. So one thing we looked at in the study was the prevalence and location of decentralized ammunition stores. And the reason this matters is because supply and logistics is everything in war. If artillery commanders can get ahold of things to shoot, well a gun is not very effective without a bullet, without a shell right? Now it turns out that for decades the North Koreans have been developing hardened artillery sites or HARTs is the cute acronym for it, H-A-R-T. And these are stationed all along the Demilitarized Zone from coast to coast in North Korea, and it's impossible to know the locations of all of these but some of them have been postulated and we put together sort of a representative of like a best guess that we came across for where some of these HART locations can be. And that's an indication that the North Koreans have prepared for a scenario in which if communications get cut with centralized command, there is no need to depend on like the centralized supply depot, so they can continue to fight, these artillery heads can continue to fire and pose a real threat to Seoul on a localized basis. They will still have access to ammo even if they are kind of shut off and by themselves. JLS: One thing that you said in particular that struck me which is that the media picks up on this narrative that North Korea is stupid or that they're crazy, and I think it's a point to be emphasized because the worst mistake that either side can make in a military conflict is to underestimate one's enemy. I think one of the reasons that the Korean War back in the '50s dragged on as long as it did was because the United States actually miscalculated and underestimated a lot of the factors at the beginning of that war, and it probably prolonged a conflict that didn't have to be as long as it was. I think the other thing to point out, which is the flip side of some of what you are saying, is that North Korea suffered a great deal in the Korean War with the United States in the 1950s, and it is terrified of the United States. There is a very real fear on the part of North Korea about what the United States is capable of and what U.S. unpredictability is. That might be strange to hear for a U.S. audience or for an audience that is more Western-oriented, but I think that's also true, and I think it animates a lot of North Korean's actions. But I want to take a step back for a moment and ask you, so Secretary of Defense Mattis gave his first public interview I guess last Sunday now on Face the Nation on CBS, and he got a question about North Korea, and he said two things about North Korea. He said, number one, that North Korea was already a national security threat to the United States, and the other thing he said and this got picked up quite a bit was that the fighting that would happen in North Korea if there was a military conflict there would probably be the worst that many Americans would have seen in most of their lifetimes. So I wonder if you know having really dived deep into the details and thought about all this, how you rate Mattis' statement? Do you think that this really would be some of the most destructive and catastrophic fighting the United States has done in the last 50, 60, 70 years, or do you think that's a little bit of hyperbole? XS: Yes, I think definitely it would represent a very violent conflict. There would be a lot of destruction, a lot of death, and that is in large part because of the capability of the North Korean military to wreak such damage based on the weapons they currently have. I mean, while it is true that a lot of their conventional weapons are outdated, a lot were acquired from the Soviet Union during the Cold War, some are natively built, and there are a few newer weapons systems that we talk about in the piece that have been developed more recently, but ultimately the vast majority of their guns are relatively old, but old guns still shoot. They might have, you know, a slightly higher rate of failure, but that doesn't mean that they can't do a lot of damage. Now, there are some reports saying if the North Koreans start firing on Seoul, they will completely flatten or level the town. And I read some reports that challenge that to a certain degree, but even some of the more conservative papers that said, “Well, maybe they wouldn't flatten Seoul,” had really very high casualty estimates in the first couple of hours in the outbreak of a conflict. One of the estimates was that if North Korea targeted population centers in Seoul with its artillery instead of, say, other military targets at the outbreak of a conflict, something like 30,000-60,000 people could die in a first three hours of a conflict. So, you know, we're talking really high amounts of casualties. I mean something like 58,000 soldiers died in the entire Vietnam War, so that's very violent. So I think the question you want to ask yourself after hearing those numbers is, well, would North Korea actually use its artillery if it would be wreaking such destruction and the potential for a retaliation that it would cause? And I think that the answer has to do with the credibility of deterrent, right? Everyone talks about nuclear deterrent, and it's an important subject to talk about, but right now North Korea also has a conventional deterrent and has had one before it began developing its ballistic missile technology and nuclear technology, which is its conventional artillery deterrent. Now, if it is struck and does not implement an artillery barrage against the South, then it's effectively saying to the world that this deterrent, this conventional deterrent, this threat is not really there. So I think it's quite likely that if attacked, North Korea would feel compelled to retaliate against the South and that it could be quite destructive. JLS: Yeah your point is well taken though, which is that a deterrent is at its most powerful when it's actually deterring. Once a deterrent has had to be triggered, it automatically takes the power out of the hands of the country or the state entity that is doing the deterring and forces it make an offensive move that it doesn't want to make. The whole point of deterrence is to try and prevent it from making that move. I think another thing maybe to also point out is that some of the stuff that you've pointed out here is one of the reasons that at GPF we really don't pay a lot of attention to the political drama and back and forth about THAAD, which is that U.S. anti-missile system that finally is going to get stationed in South Korea. But there's a lot of domestic opposition to it being stationed in South Korea. China really hates that these U.S. anti-missile systems are going to be in South Korea. But the point is that doesn't actually help the South Koreans solve the problem that arises if there is a significant military conflict because as you say the issue here really is artillery, and if you have 21,000 pieces of artillery or whatever you said it was, the THAAD missile defense system is not going to be able to block those things, right? There's really nothing that South Korea can do if it gets that far. XS: No, I mean at that point all they can really do is hope that the U.S. can – well it would be the U.S. and South Korea. I mean, I don't want to make this sound like the U.S. would be doing all the fighting, right? If the North opens on the South, the south also has artillery pieces and as soon as a large gun fire it exposes its position, right? I mean right now, they're hidden to a certain extent. Some of these HARTs that I talked about are deep underground caves or tunnels, fortified positions where pieces of artillery, sometimes even planes, are hidden to protect against the barrage. But as soon as their position is exposed, the South has artillery too and can respond in kind. But it will take a lot more time to eliminate all of the artillery pieces with a counter barrage than it would with say a strategic bombing campaign. And there, the U.S. would probably be taking charge with a lot of its strategic bombers located at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. JLS: No but that's a good point, and it's good that you brought up Andersen Air Force Base in Guam because I think that this is another part that is not well recognized, because the United States wants its aircraft carriers there because that sort of became a U.S. military doctrine when it comes to fighting war but actually a lot of the heavy lifting that's going to happen on the U.S. side is going to happen out of Guam. That's one of the places that we're watching most closely, right? XS: Yeah absolutely, it would come from either B-52s or B-2s or B-1s, all of which are heavy strategic bombers, one of which is stealth, B-2 is stealth. Some folks believe that the B-2 bomber would be able to take out a lot of these artillery positions while at the same time avoiding North Korea's anti-air defenses. And in theory that's true, it's difficult to really play out again just because war is unpredictable. JLS: Yeah. And just taking a step back for a second from the very tactical perspective that you've offered here about North Korea, it's also very telling to think if we just look at everything that we've actually written this week at GPF and to see how it all fits into a larger picture. Obviously, we had, you know, your deep study of this issue in North Korea. We had one or two other pieces that dealt with North Korea. We had a couple other pieces that dealt with the problem of ISIS. And some of the comments that Secretary Mattis made about how the U.S. is accelerating its strategy against ISIS. Then we also wrote about NATO this week in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump going to Brussels and meeting with NATO leaders. And these are all actually very connected to each other. You know, the major military conflicts that the U.S. seems to be involved in right now are this fight against the Islamic state in Syria and Iraq and dealing with the potential threat of a nuclear North Korea. I don't mean to minimize those conflicts. But they are not sort of on the level of challenging the United States from an existential perspective, right? Like it is a national security interest that North Korea not develop a nuclear weapon, but the future existence of the United States is not in play there. The same is true of ISIS. The United States doesn't want a radical Sunni Arab entity to rise in the Middle East and throw off the balance of power there, but at the same time, what happens in the Middle East or what happens with these horrible terrorist attacks doesn't actually challenge the U.S. from an existential point of view. And then you have the U.S. also going to NATO, and a lot of people have, you know, been talking about Trump's manners at NATO and I don't really feel like getting into that. I'll just point out that Secretary Mattis has been for NATO from the beginning, and Donald Trump picked him as secretary anyway. And Mattis himself has been a NATO officer so you can see the U.S. trying to find the right balance of what conflicts is it going to engage in, what is it not going to engage in, what alliances is it going to use, what alliances is it not going to use. And I think that one of the things that is striking to me in particular about North Korea is that, you know, unlike with ISIS where at least it has built some kind of nominal, even superficial coalition to deal with ISIS, the U.S. really is the one pushing this issue with North Korea and is going to be providing a lot of the impetus for it. They've been pushing China to do something on this issue, but China so far hasn't really been able to get North Korea to calm down and seems to be just repeating itself over and over again. The South Koreans have elected a government that is a little more peace oriented when it comes to North Korea. Obviously, if there is a fight, they are going to have to be involved. And Japan, which we sort of see as really the main player in East Asia, hasn't really had much to say. So in some sense I think from the United States' perspective, it's got to be a little bit…, on the one hand it shows how powerful the U.S. is, but on the other hand it shows how limited that power is because the U.S. can't really depend on anyone when it's dealing with the situation in North Korea. XS: I think you make a great point, and it is challenging when investigating one part of the world or any one aspect of the world to get caught up in the details, which to some degree matter, right? Because details reveal truth about a matter, which are difficult to see from a high level. We talk about geopolitics and ultimately that is events in the world and how they impact one another. It's impossible to look at one part of the world without recognizing how events in other parts of the world are related to it, especially when talking about the United States, which as the sole global superpower right now has interest everywhere. So, therefore, what goes on in one part of the world, in the Middle East, impacts the amount and types of resources that it can devote towards approaching other challenges in other parts of the world. So the amount of military resources that it commits to the Middle East impacts the amount of military resources that it can commit to conflict in the Western Pacific. So, you know, I've had people approach me with everything that's going on now with the Korean Peninsula and the Middle East, and they've said, “So do you still think that the U.S. is going to be the major power in the rest of the century looking at what's going on now?” And the only answer I can really give them is yeah. I mean, the U.S. is immensely powerful economically and militarily, and like you said, none of the challenges that it's facing that we've talked about in this podcast, that we talk about at Geopolitical Futures really threaten it from an existential perspective. I mean, even if you want to imagine this hypothetical scenario where tomorrow North Korea develops the capability to deliver all of its nuclear warheads, which I've heard estimates about 20 – well not nuclear warheads that it can attach to a missile but nuclear devices – if it could tomorrow find a way to deliver all of these somehow to the U.S., that still wouldn't be an existential threat. I mean if they could wipe out portions of 20 different cities, it would be devastating, but the U.S. would still be around and still have the strongest military by far. So there are threats, but it's important to, when digging into the details of the challenges U.S. is attempting to deal with either with economic or military strength, keep them in the context of how much damage they can actually do to the U.S., right? And whether the scale of those challenges really confront – well if they really pose the existential risks in the way that a lot of people often talk about them doing. JLS: Well Xander, I want to ask you one more question before we wrap up, and it's a little bit of a curve ball, and it's something I've been thinking about. And actually I haven't asked you this before, and I haven't actually come to it in my mind so we'll see if it works or it similarly stumps you. There was something that George actually has said to me a couple times since the time that I've known him, and it's – I forget the exact quote, but it's something like the great wars are always fought twice. You know, like World War I, there was a World War II. Like the really important wars in the world are always fought twice. And when we think about the current conflicts that the United States is involved with right now, I mean we're basically on the third iteration of the Iraq War, right? Because we had Desert Storm and then we had the invasion in 2003, and then technically all U.S. troops were out of there under the Obama administration, and then Obama had to recommit them because of what was happening with ISIS and ISIS going into Mosul and dealing with Yazidis and stuff like that. And with Korea, obviously the United States fought the Korean War in the 1950s and that was part of the Cold War. But it has really struck me that when we look at the places that the United States is committing most of its military resources right now, they are old conflicts. They're vestigial conflicts. They were there before and maybe sort of weren't carried out in a way that brought them to some kind of resolution. Maybe they can't be carried out in a certain way that can bring them to some kind of resolution, and these will be constant little conflicts that the United States will have to be going through all the time. I guess I don't necessarily have a question there, but I wonder if there's anything in your analytical toolkit that can help explain why the U.S. seems to go back to fighting not just a lot but in the same places in the world over and over again. XS: It's an interesting question. I think if you look at conflicts isolated as individual events, it's maybe harder to see that connection, but if you try to dig down to understand the causes of those conflicts, sometimes the underlying causes are more difficult to solve, right? What do I mean by that? If you look at World War I and World War II, they were both about the same fundamental issue, which was Germany's role in Europe and that had always been a question. I mean, even the Thirty Years' War to a degree was about German states' role in Europe, and it only really became a pressing issue after the unification of Germany, and that's what lead to the massive scale of these conflicts. So while the circumstances might have changed with Korea – you know, the Cold War is no longer going on, they no longer have support from the Soviet Union – there are some aspects that remained unchanged. And those remain longer-term geopolitical causes, right? So, Korea has always been unified. Almost always throughout its history for thousands of years, and it became divided as a result of the Cold War, and we're now dealing with the underlying causes – the relationship of Korea with itself and that's not something that has changed on some level since the Korean War. So I think there are ways to dig down beneath isolated events and try to see what those causes are. That doesn't mean that major wars will always be fought twice, but I think that sheds some light on why they sometimes are. JLS: Yeah and it just strikes me that one of the ironic things is that, so if we take what you said and play it a step forward, the issue in Korea is that there is a division there that is somewhat unnatural when you think about history and the Korean Peninsula overall. In the Middle East, it's sort of the opposite, right? The unnatural thing is trying to join together states that never actually existed. So on the one hand, in Korea, you have this really arbitrary separation that has now taken root over half a century and creates its own host of dynamics. In the Middle East, because of colonialism, because of the way that the Ottoman Empire fell apart, you had these groups that were smushed together in way that perhaps didn't make geopolitical sense, and now all of that stuff is playing out. So that's just an interesting little aside. But Xander thank you for taking the time to join us on the podcast today. Again, I'm Jacob Shapiro, I'm our director of analysis. If you have any comments, feedback, critiques, we also love topic suggestions, you could actually write to us at comments@geopoliticalfutures.com. And we will see you all out here next week.

Donald Trump reset US relations with the Sunni Arab world during a foreign trip that included visits to Saudi Arabia and Israel. But how much has the substance of US policy towards the Middle East changed? The FT's Ben Hall discusses the issue with deputy editor Roula Khalaf, Gulf correspondent Simeon Kerr and Jerusalem bureau chief John Reed. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jacob L. Shapiro and Xander Snyder discuss the future of Syria, the prospect of US-Russian cooperation in the Middle East, and whether ideology defines geopolitics or vice versa. Sign up for free updates on topics like this! Go here: hubs.ly/H06mXwR0 TRANSCRIPT: Xander Snyder: Hi, and welcome to the Geopolitical Futures Podcast. I'm Xander Snyder. I'm an analyst here at Geopolitical Futures, and I'll be chatting with Jacob Shapiro, the director of analysis here at Geopolitical Futures. How's it going Jacob? Jacob L. Shapiro: Nice to be back, we've been on hiatus it feels like for a couple weeks. XS: Yeah, and today we're going to dig into a subject that's probably more on the forefront of people's minds than many others in the world of international affairs. We're going to be talking about the conflict in the Middle East and U.S. and Russian interests, and how they're affected by what's going on there now. So just for the sake of context, let's lay out the current lay of the land for what's going on in the Syrian civil war right now. You can either just look at this as a single conflict, but really it's more complicated than this and the nature of the fight is that there are multiple fronts or fights all built into one. How would you describe the nature of those different individual conflicts Jacob? JLS: Yeah, it's really difficult to talk about Syria and the conflict that's going on there in the first place because Syria really doesn't exist anymore, and we don't really have the vocabulary for talking about what actually exists in its place because nothing has emerged. I don't think that anything is really going to emerge. I was looking into this for a research project lately, and I sort of knew this intuitively, but I think of Lebanon and Syria as together. I've always thought of them as part of the same sphere of influence and usually it was Syria always interfering in Lebanon, but you could also think of Lebanon as a model for what's going to happen in Syria. And Lebanon is, it's a much smaller country than Syria, and yet it fought a civil war for 15 years. So the idea that Syria is going to calm down and that Syria is going to remerge as a single country at some point in the near future seems to me to be mostly folly in the same way that thinking that Iraq is going to be able to pull itself back together is simply folly. But in thinking about all the different sides that are in this fight – I mean, it started as an internal Syrian conflict and in some ways, it still is. It's the Assad regime, which is the Syrian Alawites, and also a lot of Sunnis bought into the Assad regime and the Syrian Kurds and the more secular opposition and then all the opposition groups that are various flavors in terms of Islam, some of which are more moderate in the way they want Islam to govern daily life and some of whom are like Islamic State, who are sort of on the religious totalitarianism end of the spectrum. So there's the local fight, there is the sectarian fight in general between Sunnis and Shiites for which Syria and especially Iraq have become huge battlegrounds. There's the problem with Syria now being really a way for different powers in the region to position themselves. The Turks have their interests in Syria, the Iranians have their interests in Syria, Saudis have their interests in Syria, the Israelis have their interests in Syria, and then you zoom an even bigger step out and it seems like almost every Western power in the world is somehow participating in bombing Syria or attacking ISIS in some way. I mean, when you read down the list of countries that have actually participated in military actions in Syria, it's a pretty impressive list. So it started as an internal Syrian conflict, but as most conflicts in the Middle East go, it quickly morphed into all these different levels, and I think that's one of the things that's going to keep it going for a long time. XS: Yeah, and part of the reason why it's difficult to imagine any sort of coherent Syria, in the way that we've come to know it, emerging out of this is in part due to what Syria was defined as most of the 20th century anyways, right? You had a number of countries in this region that were drawn basically specifically to allow outside … powers to maintain some degree of influence over these countries. So just like it's hard to imagine Syria with its borders before 2011 emerging again, it's hard to imagine Iraq coming out of this with similar borders. And what is it that has changed in the last 25 but also hundred years that has weakened the powers that existed in the 20th century that maintained these borders and has driven it to what it looks like today? I mean certainly, the rise of Islamism in the last 30, 40 years and the decline in the Soviet Union play some role in that. But what's really sparked the deterioration of these borders? JLS: I would say two things. First of all, it would've been better if the outside powers that carved up the Middle East had thought about it in terms of how are going to best control or influence these particular countries. I think it wasn't even that thoughtful. I think it really was they were just carving up the region, and they thought of the region from a sort of, “what are the resources that I can access here or what does owning this particularly territory versus this particular territory give me for my power.” So they didn't really think about where different local communities were, and how to divide things in such a way that these states would be more manageable. It's a general trend of homogenization, right? Even if you look at a place like Eastern Europe today, Eastern Europe is now a collection of states with a lot more homogenized populations than they were even a century ago. You had large pockets of minorities in these different states, and that's less so. That's also true of the Middle East, the Turks are now in Turkey. Well, you can't really speak about Iran because Iran is such a cluster of different things, but people are self-segregating themselves into their little groups and the previous multinational way of dealing with things has sort of broken down. The Ottoman Empire was a multinational empire, there was no real nationalist impulse there. And this gets to the second question that you posed, which is: What has changed? And I think that the thing to think about there is to remember a lot of the ideas that led to the political ideologies that created nationalism – and not just nationalism in Europe but helped organize Europe into the nation-states that exist today – I mean, those started bubbling up around the Enlightenment, right? So we're talking really even by the 1600 and 1700s, a lot of those things are beginning to develop. They didn't come to the Middle East really until the Ottoman Empire collapsed. So the Middle East really encountered the Enlightenment and modernity and nationalism and all of these ideas when the Ottoman Empire fell apart after World War I. And they had to integrate these new ideas with their traditional notion of how things should be governed, and Islam was obviously a big part of that. There was a big rush at first in the embrace of nationalism, and you had all different kinds of nationalism flourishing in the Middle East in the 20th century. You had Turkish nationalism, Iran rose as a national power, certainly Israel is an example of that, Zionism is just a fancy word for Jewish nationalism. And then you had Arab nationalism. And Arab nationalism I guess we would say didn't quite work. You know, there was a sense that the Arabs are a group as a whole, but then they also created these subidentities. Egypt was one that made more sense because Egypt has always been sort of separate and unto itself. But especially Lebanon, Syria, Iraq – these were countries that were really trying to create a national identity essentially out of nothing, and it worked for a while. It was seductive for a while, Nasserism and Baathism and all these things certainly gave a lot of these countries meaning. But in the long term, they were viewed as bankrupt by the populations. They didn't bring economic prosperity to the region. They didn't bring greater choice in representation to the region. They sidelined Islam to a great extent because they were afraid that Islam was a threat to their power. And they couldn't defeat Israel. Israel was one of the major political issues for these Arab nationalist powers, and I mean, to be frank, they got their butts kicked every time they tried to engage with Israel. So I think all of those things led people to look somewhere else and the only real organizing principle that has ever worked in bringing the peoples of the Middle East, the Arab people of the Middle East, together has been Islam. Besides Islam, there's never been a unifying sense of what's going on. So in that sense, it's a reversion to the previous organizing principle of the region. Now, the problem is that you have people using Islam for their own political purposes, and everybody's arguing that they have the one true path, and they all have to fight each other. XS: As an American and someone who's obviously observed how U.S. media and U.S. society has attempted to interpret the events in the Middle East over the last six years – you know, you mentioned a moment ago how the ideas of Enlightenment didn't really even get there until the early 20th century, and it seems like so much of American identity is defined by our relationship to Enlightenment principles. And it seems to me that part of the reason that a lot of folks here didn't really truly understand what was going on during what's come to be called the Arab Spring, is just this sense of optimism that, you know, the rest of the world is finally going to come around to this idea of democracy, and this kind of led a lot of commentators and analysts to really miss what was going on there, right? It wasn't that you had huge percentages of these protestors ascribing to liberal ideas or philosophies. The more powerful subgroups within them turned out to be or many of them turned out to be jihadi. Is there more to it than just optimism? Why did so many people miss the nature of the uprisings that began in 2011? JLS: Well, I understand why people wanted to interpret the events of 2011 in that way. There was some reason for it. First of all, the vanguard of the protestors, there were liberals among them. There were people who wanted greater political representation, and they were certainly at the forefront, especially in Egypt. I mean, it wasn't by any means even a majority of the protestors probably, but there was a significant contingent that wanted real reform. But when you think about how things set off in Tunisia, that wasn't a result of any kind of democratic rising. That was a vegetable salesman who couldn't make ends meet, and he got accosted by a female police officer, and he felt humiliated and embarrassed, and it set off a bunch of protests. We've got more protests in Tunisia now, the military has actually now intervened, which is a little out of character for Tunisia because the military has never played that big a role. But I am getting a little off track in answering your question. I've written before about what people got wrong when they were dissecting the Arab Spring. I don't blame people for getting it wrong. There's a reason to hope that these things would happen. What I think happened though was a complete lack of self-awareness because even in Europe, even in a place like the United States that has this allegiance to the principles that you talked about, it took many hundreds of years and a great deal of bloodshed before the present-day reality emerged, and these things certainly aren't perfect. There are Enlightenment principles, and there are nationalist principles, and in Europe those two things combined together to create World War I and World War II and some of the greatest horrors the world had ever seen. So I understand that there was this sense of optimism and that, you know, the Middle East was ready, and I think also there might have been some residual guilt on behalf of the parties that had been colonial powers in the region and had really not set them up for success. They wanted them to succeed, and there's nothing really wrong with wanting them to succeed. But when you got down to it, there was really no deep tradition, not even tradition but there was no real political organization for the ideas that we're talking about right now in the Middle East. The groups that were the best organized were the Islamic groups, whether that was offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood or different ones because they were able to speak directly to the people to engage them. And over time, they were able to come to dominate a lot of these protest movements which we've seen, Syria is a great example. The initial protests in Syria were a result of, you know, there had been a big drought, and the government had not been providing the level of goods and services necessary. And the people looked out and saw that things were changing ostensibly in Egypt and changing in Tunisia, and they asked for more. Assad did not do what his father did in similar situations and just completely crack down, but he tried to sort of give them what they wanted piece meal, and it wasn't enough. And you had a bunch of different groups with a bunch of different interests, and eventually the ones that were able to carry the day were the Islamist ones because they were the best organized, and they were most willing to die for the things that they were pushing for. So I guess I don't know if that actually answers your question Xander, but that's sort of how I see how we got the wrong impression of what was going on there. XS: Do you think that if there was any optimism involved in the misinterpretation of these events, has that optimism been beaten out of us? Is the U.S. beginning to look at the world less from the perspective of spreading democracy and more in terms of what's good for us? I mean, when I was growing up, you know I was younger during the 2003 Iraq invasion, for example, and I remember this idea of “spreading democracy” not really being debated too much, at least in the mainstream. I mean, it was somewhat taken for granted that this was a foreign policy goal worth achieving, worth exerting forces on achieving. Now it seems more taken for granted, at least by many that this just isn't a tenable model for forming U.S. foreign policy strategy. Have we lost this optimism? The last six years of events in the Middle East, is this pushing us to change how we look at the world or was this change in ideology inevitable? JLS: Well it's funny, and it's a good question because and I've written about this before. I don't remember the last time I wrote about it for GPF, but you know, after the Cold War ended and the U.S. emerged as the really only dominant global power in the world, there was the Clinton presidency, but after that came the Bush presidency, and they were the ones that had to respond to 9/11 and also carried out the 2003 Iraq invasion. They were neoconservatives, and this was a political ideology, which basically equated the national interests of the United States with ideological goals. So the spread of things like democracy and human rights came to be identified directly with the national interest. And then the other important part of neoconservativism was that the U.S. would intervene when it needed to, to promote those values because that was in the national interest. The funny thing that people often forget is that, in that sense, neoconservatism really is a cousin of liberal internationalism because liberal internationalism says the same thing. It also equates the national interest of the United States with the spread of particular liberal principles. The main difference between the two is that neoconservatism is willing to have the United States unilaterally intervene in different countries to push those principles, whereas liberal internationalists would rather do it through the U.N. or other multilateral institutions. So this has always been part of the United States, the spread of American values has always been embedded within U.S. ideology and U.S. foreign policy frameworks. And certainly coming out of World War II, there was a real sense that liberal internationalism the way Roosevelt defined it was the way to help make the world better and also make the world safer from the prospective of the United States. As the Cold War really ratcheted up, that all fell aside and realism and pragmatism, which I have always argued are the great American philosophies, asserted themselves, and you had people dealing not so much with the ideologies – although they certainly dress them up in the guise of those things – but there was a larger enemy to defeat. And those ideological concerns had to be subordinated to the goal of defeating the Soviet Union. So what I am saying there is I think the United States goes back and forth depending on how powerful it is, and when the U.S. is feeling particularly powerful, and its challengers are particularly weak, the United States has the luxury of saying, “well yeah, we should push our values because that's what's best for the world and that's what's best for the United States.” When you enter a situation as the U.S. did after really the failure of the Iraq intervention, you get into a place not only where there's political fatigue in the United States with those ideas but where the United States is spread too thin. There's no one power that is challenging U.S. dominance in the world right now, but there are so many smaller conflicts, all of which seem to require U.S. attention that the United States is spread too thin and it can't think in terms of making the world a better place and convincing itself that that is what's going to be best for United States policy. It has to define a clear set of objectives and then pursue them and have a larger goal but deal with the people you have to deal with no matter what your ideological differences are with them. So I definitely think the U.S. has moved more towards a realist view of the world, and I would note that this shift happened under the Obama administration, the administration that from a rhetorical point of view was probably more hopeful and more internationalist than many previous administrations. Obama even won a Nobel Peace Prize because the Europeans were so happy that somebody who spoke their language got into office. But he got into office and the challenges were laid in front of him, and then he had to make compromises. And that's where we are today. XS: I think that raises sort of an interesting question that's really at the core of any sort of social studies, which is trying to understand the direction of causality – what leads to another thing, right? I think it's almost common sense that ideology influences a society in a state's actions and that just makes sense because what someone thinks influences what they do. But to a degree, it seems like ideology is also influenced by the constraints that a state finds itself in at any given time. For example, with the U.S. after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was essentially supremely powerful I think. It was the global superpower, so to an extent it could afford to think that neoconservatism in that constant global intervention was in its national interest because it could make the mistakes essentially that the U.S. has made over the last 25 years without having its core fundamental interests threatened in a way that a state with a lower margin of error would encounter. How do you think about causality in this context? JLS: Yeah in this sense – and you and I have argued about this before – I am on the side of saying that reality determines ideology and that ideology very rarely goes the other way. I use the term ideology very broadly. So we were just talking about neoconservative ideology – neoconservative ideology is a product of the Cold War, the way the Cold War ended, U.S. military economic power in the 1990s. You can't have neoconservative ideology, be a convincing ideology, if you don't have all of those other things first. Islam is a really interesting example of this question. Is Islam an ideology? What are the factors that have led to this birth of Islamism throughout the Middle East, and is it the factors there that led to Islamism or is Islamism driving regional actors to their current situation? You know, if I'm going to stick to my guns then I really have to say that, no, I think that there are actually hard objective political and social realities that then lead people towards embracing Islam and its various manifestations. One of the things that I get asked often is, is it even possible for a Muslim country to be a liberal democracy? Can Islam coexist with liberal democracy? Does it make any sense to want these types of political regimes in the Middle East? And I would say that just in terms of principles, there's no reason that Islam can't coexist with liberal democracy, there's no reason that Christianity or Judaism can't coexist with liberal democracy. The problem comes in understanding the objective political realities, and there, to have the types of regimes that the United States wants, there has to be a certain level of wealth, a certain tradition of rights. And if it's not there, you can't just create it. So the U.S. found that out in Iraq when it tried to engage in state building there. And in some ways, I am not sure that U.S. policymakers have learned the lesson because when they talk about what they want after the fighting in Syria ends, whenever that's going to happen, they think about reconstituting some sort of federalist system in Syria and a federalist system in Iraq, and as I said at the beginning, Syria doesn't exist anymore, Iraq doesn't exist anymore. These countries are not going to get put back together, and trying to put them back together and believing that federalist principles or the right separation of powers in the government is going to achieve that to me is really wishful thinking. If you want to engage with the reality on the ground, you have to engage with the fact that you live in a world where people want to take care of their own and identify with their own and trust their own and they are going to fight and die for their own. You can't put people who hate each other and who have a history of hating each other in the same country and expect that overnight they are going to sign a piece of paper and going to trust each other. Again, there's nothing really that outside powers can do in a situation like Syria and Iraq, there's the illusion that the United States or the illusion that Russia, in its talks in Astana and wherever else it's having its talks, that they're going to be able to accomplish something at the diplomatic level that will fix things in a place like Syria. It just won't. It doesn't matter what ideology you have, it doesn't matter what people say far away from the conflict, this is a civil war. And it's a civil war that nobody can win except the actors that are in it, and they're going to have to fight it out. Most countries in the world have gone through these upheavals. I think it's hard to see yourself in other parts of the world, but it's something that should be better understood. XS: So how then have the U.S. and Russia been engaging in these difficult or thorny, prickly realities that they're encountering in the Middle East? Is there room for overlap of interests between the global superpower and the European regional power, Russia, or are our interests fundamentally divergent in the Middle East or can we find and have we found ways to cooperate with Russia? JLS: I was listening to George give a speech a couple weeks ago, and one of the things he said was that he wrote his book “The Next 100 Years” – and if you go back and read “The Next 100 Years”, it's pretty incredible how accurate George was in a lot of the predictions that he made. But he said in the speech the one thing that he really got wrong, was he really got the Middle East wrong. He didn't realize that Islamism was going to be a force and that jihadism was going to be a force and that the U.S. was going to have to commit so much energy and so many resources to the region. He really thought that there was going to be a pullback on the part of the United States and that it would be focusing on other parts of the world. So I say all that to say that when I heard George making that point that one of the things that stood out to me was he was still thinking about the Middle East through a Cold War prism. And the Middle East was one of the real main battlegrounds between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Middle East had a great share of global oil production, it's less so today and the proxy conflicts that were happening in places like the Middle East had a lot more, there was a lot more at stake in them then there currently is today. We talked a little bit about ideology. I actually think that inertia is a more difficult thing for both the United States and Russia to overcome in their relations when it comes to the Middle East than any ideological things. There's no capitalism versus communism anymore, it's really Russian nationalism versus United States national interests. So the place where Russia and the United States can get bogged down in a place like the Middle East is to get used to dealing with each other as if they're adversaries. When you look at what the actual hard interests are in the Middle East, the United States and Russia first of all share some general interests, and second of all, this region is of little importance to both of them honestly. Russia has much bigger fish to fry in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus and Central Asia. It has real differences with the United States in a lot of these regions, particularly in Eastern Europe. That was part of the reason that Russia intervened in Syria in the first place, to try and create some leverage with the United States with the Ukraine crisis. And for the part of the United States, it has been trying unsuccessfully to get out of Iraq really since 2007. The surge that Bush administration put through was one strategy to try and finish off the conflict and get out, that didn't work. Obama just tried to pull everything out and hope that everything was going to be fine, that didn't work. Trump seems to be going back to more of a surge kind of mentality of, you know, let's commit a couple more forces now and knock out these ISIS guys, and then we'll finally leave. At the end of the day, what do the United States and Russia share in common in the Middle East? Neither one of them has any interest in ISIS being a powerful force. It's a lot closer to home for Russia, there are a lot of Chechens fighting in the Syrian civil war, and the Caucasus is a fertile ground for the types of radical Islamist ideologies that have developed in the Middle East. So Russia has that in mind. And I think the other thing that Russia has to think about is containing Turkey. I know that everybody sees that Putin and Erdogan seem to have buried the hatchet, but Russia and Turkey are historical enemies. And Russia is a declining power, and Turkey is a rising power, and Turkey is historically a U.S. ally, but it is also beginning to have problems with the United States that we've seen in recent weeks really become clear. So for Russia, it's really about containing radical Islam and then making sure that a country like Turkey or a coalition of powers with Turkey at the head can threaten Russian interests in places that are more important to them like in the Caucasus or the Balkans and the rest of Eastern Europe. The United States shares a similar concern with ISIS. It can't tolerate ISIS mostly because I think when the United States looks at ISIS, it worries about – is this or could this be some kind of unifying Sunni Arab state that would be completely hostile to the United States? That's the fear. And then the second part is that the United States is trying to build a balance of power. The United States wrecked the balance of power when it invaded Iraq in 2003. The Iraq-Iran standoff was a major part of that balance of power. The United States has been trying to restore some order to it ever since, so in that sense, the United States also doesn't want Turkey to become too powerful. Certainly, the United States would like Turkey to take a greater role in managing ISIS. But at the same time, as Turkey becomes more powerful, you are going to see more and more clashes between the United States and Turkey, and in that sense, this weird U.S.-Russia-Turkey triangle is going to be a constant maneuvering of different sides against each other. So I think that overall the Middle East is not that important to Russia and the United States, but they both find themselves there, and they both share some tactical goals there. We've said in our 2017 forecast that we expected that the U.S. and Russia would find some quiet ways to cooperate and coordinate their activities in the Middle East. I still expect that to be the case. I don't necessarily expect it to be friendly or even cordial, but I do think that when you look just at the hard interests and you put away the baggage and when you put away the history and when you put away the ideology and you just look at what both countries want in the Middle East, there is some room for cooperation. XS: Right and at Geopolitical Futures, this is really how we try to interpret and analyze what's going on in the world, right? It's not so much what one country says, its rhetoric or even what it wants but rather what's in the realm of possibility. And at least as it relates to U.S. and Russian overlaps of interests in the Middle East, I mean there are places for cooperation despite the tension between the two countries that probably isn't going anywhere anytime soon. We've written a good deal about both U.S.-Russian relations as well as their role in the Middle East and the developments in the Middle East on our website http://geopoliticalfutures.com. Check it out, you can navigate directly to analyses by region if you are interested in learning a little bit more about our net assessment on any particular region. We've written large-scale long-term forecasts, and we update these regularly with our Reality Checks and Deep Dives, so if anything on this episode interests you, go to http://geopoliticalfutures.comand you can learn more there. Thanks for chatting today Jacob. JLS: My pleasure, and if folks out there have comments, please also we love comments so let us know how we're doing. If you even have suggestions for topics, we're here, we're listening. XS: And you can reach us at comments@geopoliticalfutures.com Thanks everyone for listening, and we'll see you next week.

If you want to support the show and receive access to bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. On this episode of Around The Empire, Dan and Joanne interview Syria expert Professor Joshua Landis on the battle for the Syrian city of Raqqa and the various competing forces in the Syrian Civil War. Professor Landis discusses the difficulty the United States has in deciding who to work with once ISIS is driven out of its claimed capital of Raqqa. While, in theory, the Assad government is the only government recognized under international law, it appears unlikely that the U.S. will assist that government in reasserting jurisdiction. Other factions in the Syrian Civil War on better terms with the U.S., such as Turkey and the Kurds, have their own designs for the city. Such complexities mirror the larger struggle on how to govern Syria itself. Landis details a current plan to break up Syria into five statelets including; a Kurdish state (Rojava), Idlib state (currently run by Al Qaeda), Assad governed state, a southern state run by Jordanian militias backed by Israel, and a Euphrates valley state of Sunni Arab tribes. Opposed to this structure are both the Kurds and the Assad government, who do not want a Sunni state backed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the other gulf states within Syria. Landis believes Assad, backed by Iran and Russia, will ultimately prevail with a carve-out for the Kurds, who will continue to have U.S. backing. Follow Josh on Twitter @Joshua_Landis

Jacob Shapiro and Kamran Bokhari discuss the geopolitical importance of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and whether the realities it created will define the future. Sign up for free updates on topics like this! Go here: hubs.ly/H06mXwR0 TRANSCRIPT: JS: Hello everyone and welcome to another Geopolitical Futures podcast. My name is Jacob Shapiro, I am the director of analysis for Geopolitical Futures and I am joined again this week by Kamran Bokhari, who is our senior analyst, welcome Kamran. KB: Thanks for having me, Jacob. JS: I just want to apologize to our listeners, I know that we didn't manage to get a podcast out last week, so we're going to try and get two out this week. In general, we are going to try to stick to one a week, so we appreciate you guys bearing with us as we go along. Last time we talked, Kamran, we talked about the Islamic State and we talked about the Islamic State's origins and its futures. And one of the things I think is interesting right now is that the Middle East is really in a state of flux. The balance of power in the Middle East is changing. We can see it changing all the time. One of the things we are chronicling in our writing is how the balance of power in the Middle East is changing all the time. You brought up to us when we were thinking about what to talk about today, that we're coming up on the 50th anniversary of the 1967 war between Israel and Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and also Lebanon and Iraq had some token forces in there, but really it was between Israel and Jordan, Syria and Egypt. The 50th anniversary is coming up in June. How about you lay out for our readers why you think this is such an important anniversary to note? KB: I think 50 years is a good point in time to go back and review and measure just how things have unfolded in the region. And 1967 is particularly important because it really shaped the way the region has unfolded. It was a pivotal moment. Israel, as a result of that war, its massive victory over three Arab states, really established it as a military power in the region. And it was only 19 years old, Israel was only 19 years old when that war happened. And at the time, no one could've foreseen that Israel would be able to defend itself against three major Arab powers, at least they were perceived as major Arab powers. And the whole perception of Arab strength was essentially laid bare. The image of the Arabs was tarnished. I mean the fact that in the collective Arab memory, June 5, 1967, is seen as Yawm al-Naksa, which is loosely defined or translated as the day of setback, although ‘naksa' in Arabic is far more, if you will, stronger than just the word ‘setback' as we know it in English, but nonetheless, it left a deep imprint on the Arab world and established that the Arab world was very much hollow and it could not impose a military solution on Israel. JS: Kamran, I think this was one of the things you brought up last week that was interesting, which was when we were talking about the Islamic State and we were talking about the rise of radical jihadist Islam as a major ideology in the region, you pointed towards this moment as the moment at which the political ideology of the time, which was secular nationalism, Arab nationalism – in 1967 Egypt was still known as the United Arab Republic technically, right, which is an ode to the short-lived entity that existed when Egypt and Syria were part of the same republic from 1958 to 1961. So you sort of pointed out last week just how important this moment was in history and how it really defined how the Arab world was going to move forward. It amounted to the failure of Nasserism and in some ways, it was the moment that Egypt abdicated leadership in the Arab world, wouldn't you say? KB: Absolutely, and I think that it was forced to do that. I think that nobody could argue and nobody could sustain the image of this leadership role that Egypt had projected, that it was the leader of Arab nationalism, the Arab soul, the Arab world. When the Egyptian Air Force was destroyed in a matter of hours on the fifth of June, you couldn't make that argument anymore. And it was essentially the beginning of the end of the Nasser regime, at least Nasserite Egypt – though some would argue that we are still living in the legacy of Nasserite Egypt – but Nasser himself didn't live too long after that. He died in 1970, and that really closed that chapter of Arab nationalism, but it also demonstrated that the Arab states, and here we are talking about Egypt, I mean Egypt is the heart of the Arab world given it is the largest Arab state by population, any type of cultural renaissance, new ideologies that take shape in Egypt, in Cairo particularly, and then disseminate to the rest of the Arab world. So that was the status of Egypt. That war really, really demonstrated the impotence of the Egyptian military in the face of Israel, which was seen as a weak state at that point, and it really established many of the boundaries that we are currently dealing with and the relationships that Israel has with many of its Arab neighbors. So we know that in 1978, Israel and Egypt made peace and in many ways the outcome of 1967, really laid the foundation for that eventual rapprochement and the diplomatic relationship, the uneasy diplomatic relationship that has existed since then. Likewise, the relationship with Jordan, even though the formal peace treaty between Jordan and Israel did not emerge until 1994, but it is well known that Israelis and Jordanians have had a very close security relationship, especially as it pertains to the Palestinians and those living in the West Bank. The Israeli-Syrian relationship was also established. The hostilities that exist till this day, the state of war as many would refer to it, was established in 1967 when Israel conquered the Golan Heights and was able to seize that territory from the Syrians and the Syrians have not been able to take that back. So the entire geopolitical landscape that we now know as sort of the defining borders and the boundaries that established the Arab-Israeli dynamic were set in the aftermath of the 1967 war with a little bit of modification within the case of the Sinai, which Egypt was able to take back in the form of the peace treaty. JS: Well you are right to an extent, I will say that you are overlooking a little bit just how important 1973 was. So Israel and Egypt again fight another war in '73, and as much as 1967 was a success for the Israeli Defense Forces and for the strategy of preemptive attack, I mean Israel was in a weak position in some sense and it was forced to attack Egypt preemptively if it was going to be able to achieve its objectives. This led to a certain amount of arrogance on the part of the Israelis and in '73, there was a massive intelligence failure where they dismissed Egyptian mobilization in the Sinai. Israel ended up winning that war with U.S. support and then that sort of is what led to the peace treaty in the end. But I think you are right in the sense that a lot of the geopolitical realities that have defined this part of the world, which is the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty, the sort of frozen state of conflict between Syria and Israel as I would call it, Israel obviously went into Lebanon a couple more times after that. But another thing that I think we need to point out here is that before '67, there really wasn't a very strong relationship between the United States and Israel, at least not the way that people think about that relationship now. Israel's success in the '67 war was really the moment the United States realized two things, first of all that most of the Arab states were in the Soviet Union's camp and that there was no getting them back, and second of all, that Israel could be a meaningful partner in balancing power against the Soviet Union in the Middle East. And I bring this up because I think it raises an interesting point, because you're right that a lot of the seeds of how things developed after '67 were laid in the results of that war. But at the same time, if we look 50 years later, a lot of those things are beginning to fall apart, right? The Soviet Union has collapsed, people are making a lot of Russia's involvement in the Middle East, but it's very miniscule compared to the chest pumping that everybody talks about. You know the Russians are not funding or massively arming states that are thinking about attacking Israel or other U.S. allies in the region. Egypt is an economic basket case, it just went through a pretty massive political transition, which began you know with the Arab Spring around 2010-2011, and they have issues of their own. Jordan is sort of the miracle of the region, how Jordan hasn't been affected by the stuff that's going on in the region is pretty incredible. Syria, I mean Syria is basically half a state right now. The Assad regime has been able to consolidate itself, but Syria, which really was one of the biggest vulnerabilities Israel faced from a military point of view, Syria is completely involved with its own fight against its own anti-regime rebels, and the Islamic State is there and they are having to rely on Hezbollah and all this other stuff. So when Israel looks out at its current strategic landscape, it doesn't see Egypt and Syria and Jordan as these major problems anymore. In '67 the major concern was, well what if Israel gets attacked by three entities at the same time. Those three entities aren't there. When you think about Israel's strategic position right now, the sort of first, most immediate thing that comes to mind is Hezbollah. We had those reports recently of Israel just a couple days ago striking a weapons convoy, an alleged weapons convoy of Hezbollah in Palmyra, which is pretty far in for the Israelis to go into Syria. So that's sort of the first thing. But Hezbollah is also completely distracted by the Syrian civil war. But then you take a step back and the challenges for Israel really aren't set by 1967, they are set by different things. So the first thing I would say is that, you know, what is going to happen with the Islamic State? Maybe the Islamic State is going to get defeated and maybe it's going to collapse but the real concern for Israel is the state of disrepair that is in the Arab world won't reign forever. Is there any potential for some kind of radical Sunni entity to rise in the Arab world and unite the factions and once again treat Israel as a common enemy? Taking a further step back, you look at Iran which was dealt a setback with the Syrian civil war and with the degradation of the Assad regime, but still maintains a lot of influence in Iraq and is still aggressively trying to push its influence in the region. And then farther back is Turkey. Turkey is rising, one of George Friedman's most identifiable forecasts and one of the things we write about a lot and that we get a lot of attention for, is our position that Turkey is going to rise and it's going to be the major power in the Middle East. Right now, there are decent relations between Israel and Turkey, but I think Israel's long-term thinking is about what a strategic landscape looks like, it has to think about Turkey as this major power reasserting itself in the region. So I agree with you in the sense that it's important, and '67 really did set the chain for a lot of different events, but in some ways, it's become obsolete. Would you agree with that characterization or do you want to argue with any of that? KB: No, I think you are right. I think we are still dealing with the post-1967 architecture but with the caveat that that architecture is in a meltdown mode. Defeating three of its neighbors at the same time established Israel's superiority in a military sense and really consolidated the state of Israel, and since that time, what's become clear, even though we had the 1973 war, it became clear to Egypt that there was no military solution. This almost romantic view of being able to establish Arab hegemony over all of historic Palestine through military means was shattered. That perception was completely shattered. And even though 1973 happened and was a surprise and intelligence failure for Israel, nonetheless the Egyptians I would argue did not think when they launched that war that they would be able to militarily defeat Israel. There's always the possibility you could do that, but deep down you know and if you have been dealt a blow like 1967, that really weighs heavily on your national psyche and your military strategy moving forward. And if you look at the way the negotiations panned out after that, with the moderation or the intercession of the United States, it becomes clear that really 1973 from the Egyptian point of view was enhancing your bargaining power. Improving your position to achieve some sort of, if you will, win-win scenario in which the Egyptians can come back and say yes, we were able to retake the Sinai from Israel and we restored national dignity. But 1967 really showed that the military option was no longer there for the Arabs. And moving forward from the Israeli point of view, those very states that were threatening them in 1967, Israel really relied on their behavior to not wage war against Israel as part of its natural security doctrine. Keep in mind that these are autocratic regimes that may view Israel in a certain way because they believe in it or maybe because it's pragmatic and because they are in power and have to balance pressures from all sides. But the sentiment in many of these countries until this day is one of hostility towards Israel. Israel relied on these capitols: Damascus, Cairo and Amman, to make sure that that national sentiment did not alter the national behavior of those countries, and Israel would not be threatened again. Now if you fast forward to the Arab Spring, that whole strategy seems to be falling apart, because if these countries, if these regimes cannot maintain order within their own country, then that is a problem. And if you have a power vacuum, we just recently published a couple of articles on how Jordan is weakening, and the implications particularly for Israel are massive, if the regime were to weaken much and God forbid fall, that could create a vacuum in which Israel faces a new kind of threat, an uncertainty. Clearly this is not a threat from a state, but non-state actors create a new dynamic. If we look at what is happening in Syria and how the Israelis have been trying to balance between the hostile forces on the Sunni side of the conflict, which includes ISIS, which includes al-Qaida and all those whom we call the moderate Sunni Arab rebel forces. They're not friends of Israel. Given a chance, they would wage war against Israel. On the other side is Syria, Iran and Hezbollah – again enemies of Israel. And Israel has to do this careful balancing act. At the moment, the Sunni side is not in a position to threaten Israel and therefore Israel is trying to make sure that Hezbollah does not gain more power than it already has and pose a bigger threat than it already does to Israel. Should those circumstances be replicated in Jordan and Egypt, then that's a tough balancing act for Israel to maintain. Because we're talking three different countries on the entire periphery of the Jewish state. JS: Well let's dig into that a little bit then. We know that Syria is in a state of civil war, the Assad regime seems to have been able to consolidate control there. For the most part that situation is actually ok with Israel because it's weakened an enemy, but not so much that there is just chaos reigning everywhere. But you've brought up Jordan and you've brought up Egypt. You said that Jordan is weakening. How about we dig a little more into that? What do you mean when you said Jordan is weakening? KB: Well if you look at Jordan geographically, it is sitting at the crossroads of major areas of conflict. It borders both the countries in which ISIS is operating i.e. Syria and Iraq. It has the second largest refugee population coming from Syria after Turkey. We're talking somewhere around 680,000 people. That's a huge strain on an already poor country. The economy really historically hasn't done well, it's gotten by with assistance from both the West, the United States and the U.K., and of course assistance from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. But with the price of oil declining, and we know that Saudi Arabia is in trouble on the home front, it has less and less financial bandwidth to come to the aid of Jordan. We also see the situation in the West Bank evolving towards a crisis where President Mahmoud Abbas is at an advanced age. He's not ill or anything, at least apparently. But when you reach, go beyond 80, you are operating on borrowed time. So what will happen to the Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority, especially in the wake of Israeli policies that are now aggressively pushing more settlements? That creates a large pressure on the Jordanians whose population is somewhere a little above 50 percent of Palestinian origin. Many of those people came in the aftermath of the 1948 war, a lot of them came after the 1967 one. But there's already an existing Palestinian population, which has been to one degree or another, if you will, assimilated into Jordanian mainstream political life. We recently had protests because of the cutting of subsidies by the government. There are no shortage of Islamist forces, from the Muslim Brotherhood, it has at least two major factions. You have a large Salafi population. You have al-Qaida there. The founder of ISIS, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is from Jordan and the town of Zarqa. And you have Hizb ut-Tahrir. And then you have the spillover effect from Syria. So these are circumstances, to expect Jordan that it will continue to behave the way it has since the '67 war or over the decades, I think that would be a mistake. I don't think that the Israelis are looking at it that way. Recall the recent report in which the Jordanian ambassador to Amman told the IDF chief that he is worried about stability and security in the Jordanian kingdom. We've not had these kind of statements coming from Israel. So if the Israelis are worried, I would say that is a good barometer of how the situation is deteriorating in Jordan. JS: Yeah although, I would challenge you to go a little bit deeper, which is to say that you've just laid out a pretty scary laundry list of challenges for any country let alone one like Jordan that really doesn't have a lot of natural resources of its own, which like you say, has an incredibly diverse population. There's a lot of Palestinians in Jordan. Really Jordanians are Hashemites right, there are actually very small numbers of people who can actually claim to be Jordanian, so many of them are Bedouins and Circassians and this, that and the other thing. How do you explain the fact that Jordan hasn't succumbed to all this stuff? Because unlike Syria or unlike Egypt or unlike even Lebanon it has for the most part avoided a lot of the domestic political instability and a lot of the violence that a lot of the Arab states around it haven't avoided and with much fewer resources. KB: So I would say that there are three aspects to that in terms of how the Jordanian regime has maintained stability and security. So the first and foremost is that the Jordanian security establishment has been very competent. Particularly the General Intelligence Department, its main intelligence agency, it has a very good handle in pre-empting and not being on the reactive side that things happen and then the Jordanians act. They've been ahead of the curve in terms of making sure that any radical elements, be they ISIS or others, that they are kept under lock and key and so that's one aspect. The other aspect I mentioned earlier is that there has been this historic relationship between Israel and Jordan, a quiet one that is not really talked about much and understandably so from the Jordanian point of view, and that has helped quite a bit. Then it is a very close ally of the West, the United States and prior to that, the U.K., and the U.K. continues to be an ally of the Hashemite monarchy. They also have had assistance from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to the extent that they have been able to do that. So I think a mix of forces has allowed Jordan to continue to maintain stability even though we're six years out from the Arab Spring. But I think that the pressures are building and this is not a sustainable situation. Should there be a, we talk about the southern provinces of Syria where the government and different rebel factions and ISIS is in the mix as well. There's sort of this lack of clarity over who has the upper hand, its sort of a balance of weakness in southern Syria when it comes to the civil war, it has not been a major theater compared to Aleppo or Palmyra or ISIS-land up near Raqqa or Damascus. These are the things that have maintained order and these are the factors that enabled the regime. But to assume that this will continue, especially at a time when the established states, I mean Saudi Arabia is the largest state in that region and it also shares a large border with Jordan, although historically a quiet one. But nonetheless, if Saudi Arabia is having less and less financial bandwidth to assist countries around its periphery, then we are looking at a situation that is not something that the Jordanians will be able to handle on their own. There's a lot of hope that goes into this idea that Jordan will continue to manage its domestic politics and of course the wider geopolitics, it's a balancing act. But I think we need to get out of this assumption that things will continue and nothing will go wrong and there's a need for out-of-the-box thinking. JS: Although I just want to drive home for our listeners that a lot of people when they think about geopolitics, they think about geographical determinism, and what I mean by that is they think that it's as easy as looking at a map. And a map is going to be able to tell you exactly what's wrong with a country and what is going to happen to a particular country. Jordan is a really good example of where just the basics of a map or just the basics of geography or a layout of resources isn't enough to tell you everything. I think there is a conservative element in Jordanian society and an element that has always had to fight an uphill battle against a real lack of resources. I mean Jordan, its borders were not drawn in any logical way when you are thinking in terms of nationality or economic production or just about anything. So I agree with you that Jordan faces many challenges, but one of the things about Jordan is this intangible thing that has kept the kingdom together so far, and I think will serve it in good stead. But leaving Jordan aside for now, it's a relatively small country. One of the things that people brought up from the last podcast and I think it fits in exactly with this conversation, because we started by talking about 1967 and as you mentioned, in a lot of ways 1967 was one of the moments where Israel and the United States realized that they had interests in common. Those interests really were about blocking the Soviet Union and about Israel becoming a U.S. ally in a region that was becoming dominated by Arab states that were allied with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union obviously is no longer there, and the strategic basis of the relationship between Israel and the United States is not as strong as it once was. I know that there was a lot of talk about how special the relationship is and how close it is. But that strategic reason for the relationship has gone away and I think you've seen the United States and Israel pull away from each other a little bit. That's both because Israel has a lot more freedom of action than it did before and also because from a U.S. perspective the interests don't line up quite as well as they used to. But the question that I am circling around here is, so we've talked about how we're in this 50 years since 1967, but we're also in a Middle East that is changing rapidly, how does the U.S. respond to the things were talking about here, how does the U.S. respond to the hollowing out of the Arab world, how does the U.S. respond to Jordan and the serious challenges that Jordan is facing and what is the U.S.-Israel relationship going to look like going forward? I know that a lot of people were thinking that Donald Trump was going to make that relationship much different than the relationship with Obama, but as with so many things with President Trump, he said one thing before getting into office and continues to say things all the time, but the things that he's actually doing don't always line up with what he says. He has not moved the embassy to Jerusalem, he has criticized the Netanyahu administration for settlements at some level, all things that Trump said he was going to do, but when we look in practice, it looks remarkably similar to before and it also seems like Trump is willing to throw his hat in the ring and to be yet another U.S. president who wants to try and solve the eternal conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, so I just threw some things at you but I think the main thing is so what does the U.S. do, how does the U.S. deal with all these dynamics we've brought up? KB: We've written about how the United States is pursuing a balance of power strategy. A balance of power strategy doesn't mean that there is a nice balance, that you can essentially create this system that's going to work for a while. It's a constant act of balancing, it doesn't end at one point, it doesn't begin at one point. You just have to continue to play with it, tweak it, to make sure that it is working and the U.S. balance of power strategy relies on working with the major powers of the region, we've identified them as Turkey, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Now if you go into each one of them, we've talked about the historic relationship with Israel, and there is this disconnect between Israeli and American interests, but I still think that despite that divergence in interests, the United States and Israel aren't really that far apart if you look at it from a strategic point of view. Yes, tactically there can be many differences, you know, we can say that the United States does not want Israel to build new settlements but I think that that's sort of a minor issue in the larger regional geopolitical scheme of things. I don't think that the United States does not want Israel to assume a posture or an aggressive interventionist posture in its neighborhood and I don't think that the Israelis want to do that either. So if you look at the airstrikes in Syria, they do not demonstrate any desire on the part of the Israelis to intervene in the way they did in Lebanon, and that's great from an American perspective, because the United States is already dealing with a whole lot. The United States under the Obama administration was able to end that hostility that erupted between Turkey and Israel over the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident in 2010, and there was the re-establishment of full diplomatic relations and a sort of normalization. So I think that there again is another example of the United States trying to balance. The United States needs Turkey to manage Syria, and it has made it very clear to the Israelis that we need your cooperation. If the Israelis and the Turks are going after each other, then that undermines the United States' interests. You flip over to Iran's nuclear program and the way the nuclear agreement was forged, yes there was a lot of huffing and puffing on the part of the Israelis, there was a lot of bellicose rhetoric and unhappiness, and the media was all about how Netanyahu's personality clashes with that of Obama, but at the end of the day, Israel didn't do anything substantive to block that agreement from taking place. Israel maintains that it has very little faith in that agreement to produce the desired outcome, but that's a different story than saying we will go and actively work against American interests. JS: I am going to jump in and disagree with you a little bit in the sense that I think you are understating just how much the Netanyahu administration opposed the Iran deal. Israel didn't do anything in terms of Iran's nuclear program and won't do anything in terms of Iran's nuclear program, at least anything overt, because it doesn't have the capability. It simply does not have the military capability to go in and knock out the Iranian nuclear program. If it did, I would submit that it probably already would have done it. It did that with Iraq, it did that with Syria. If it felt like it had the capability, I think it would have gone and done it already. And I don't think it was a small thing what Netanyahu did when he came and addressed the U.S. Senate and gave that very flowery speech about how it was a bad deal and how the Obama administration had committed a catastrophic mistake. I don't think that Israel had much of a choice in the end though. At the end of the day, Israel knows where its bread is buttered and knows that it needs the United States as a key strategic ally. If this was the path that the United States would go down and this was the path that the United States thought was most in U.S. interests, Israel wasn't going to be able to thwart that. But I think that Israel in general is very intimidated by Iran, especially by Iran's rhetoric, and they would've preferred a much stronger U.S. reaction to Iran. I think that's one of the areas where you see that there's not going to be a break in relations between the United States and Israel but I think there you see a very, very different set of priorities. Israel is still a small country in a very hostile neighborhood that looks at things one way and the United States is the most powerful country in the world with a lot of different challenges in a lot of different regions. You've got everything going on with Russia, you've got everything going on with China, you've got allies all over the place, you've got a NATO alliance that isn't working the way the United States wants it to, the United States does not have time to get involved in every little thing inside the Middle East. The United States really can use Iran, not necessarily as an ally, I am not saying the United States and Iran are going to become best friends or anything, but the United States needs an Iran it can work with on a pragmatic basis, because there are bigger fish to fry. You've got ISIS sitting there right smack dab in the Middle East, you've got whatever is going to come after ISIS, you've got this huge jostling and competition for what's going to come after the hulking carcasses of Syria and Iraq going on there, so I think that's actually one of the areas where you see a little bit of the divergence and where you see that the challenges of '67 and the challenges that have really defined relations in the region since '67 are beginning to change. KB: Yes they are changing, but what I was pointing towards or trying to make the case for is that there is the divergence, and yes it is a function of capability that Israel did not opt for a military solution to the Iranian nuclear issue and went along with the U.S. diplomatic option, but at the end of the day, this is that difficult balancing act we've been talking about. The difficulty in maintaining a balance of power strategy whether it's between Turkey and Israel or Israel and Iran, I mean even between Turkey and Iran, although this is one of those relations that has yet to really emerge in terms of where it's going at this point. Even though they are at odds with one another over the outcome of Syria, Tehran and Ankara are not going to be seeing eye-to-eye, but for now they have both decided that it's not in their interests to go head-to-head with one another. I mean similarly if you look at how the U.S. is sort of caught. On one hand, there is an Iran that can be useful in the fight against ISIS in making sure that Iraq functions in some kind of semi-coherent way. But at the same time, the more that the Americans appear to be working with the Iranians – that deeply upsets the Saudis and the other Arab states, and therefore yet again you have a balancing act. We saw a lot of this balancing, it's not as if the United States can just say okay, Saudi Arabia has very little to offer and Iran has a little more to offer, therefore we're going to sort of swing that pendulum in the direction of Tehran. I don't think that would sort of undermine the entire thesis of a balance of power strategy, but once you immerse yourself into that, you put yourself in the shoes of Washington, it's a difficult balancing act. How do you make sure that the enmity between the Iranians and the Saudis does not upset your interests in the region. On one hand, the United States does not like the Saudis sponsoring militias in Syria that are not very different honestly from al-Qaida and ISIS. But at the same time, the United States needs the Saudis to make sure that the Iranians don't jump out of their box and become disproportionately powerful. So I guess, I am talking about a very complex balance of power strategy that will continue to twist and turn whether it involves the U.S.-Israeli relationship, the U.S.-Iranian tensions, the tensions that currently exist between Turkey, which we have identified as being the key to the American strategy for the long haul in Syria and in the wider region. We see great tensions, at least in the short term, there's a divergence of interests especially over the Kurds and the extent to which Turkey wants to commit forces in the fight against ISIS. But nonetheless the two sides have to work with each other, so Washington has been caught in between these four powers. JS: It's funny as you were talking, it's really striking to me when you think in terms of, you know, if you think about the 1960s and '70s, it was punctuated by these very intense wars. We call them wars in the full sense of the term. But overall it was a much more stable situation in the Middle East. You know, there were the people that were in the U.S. camp, there were the states that were in the Soviet camp and the states themselves were fairly stable. Egypt was a fairly stable state, Syria you know, there was the coup d'etat in ‘61 that brought the Baath party to power, but once the Assads eventually came to power, Syria also was very stable, the Hashemite kingdom has also been there since the 1940s. Right now, it's not so simple. The Arab world, as you said, really has been hollowed out. And there's a great deal of instability and there's a great deal of uncertainty about what is going to emerge out of it. I would suggest that if we are looking forward another 50 years, if we are talking about 100 years from 1967, I think that what we might see is we might see the pendulum swing back to the stability that we saw in '67. I just think the actors are going to be very different. I don't think that Egypt and Syria and war between Arabs and the Israelis is going to be the thing animating the region. I think the thing to really focus on is the rise of Turkey, how Iran is going to respond to that, how the Arab world is going to deal both with its own problems with radical Islam and then how Israel is going to try to navigate through all this and who the U.S. is going to use and how. I want to close, I just want to hit one more topic while we're here Kamran. It's one we've sort of danced around and it's the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it feels like the eternal conflict. And in some ways, it's strange to go to this issue after talking about such large weighty things, because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in strategic terms really does not matter that much. And I wonder how you are going to answer this question, because it's something that I ask people all the time. Why do you think there is such a degree of fascination and attention with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East? The attention that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that it gets, really I don't think lines up with the strategic importance that it has overall, and I think it's appropriate to talk about it in this conversation, because as you said 1967 is when Israel takes over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and it hasn't relinquished them since. And the Palestinians, which used to be – the West Bank was a Jordanian problem and the Gaza Strip was an Egyptian problem. Since '67 it became an Israeli problem. So why do you think that there is such a level of focus such that even the Trump administration is sending out envoys talking about solution to this conflict that has eluded every single president. KB: I think there are two reasons for that. I think the first reason has to do with the fact that the Palestinian issue remains unresolved. In many ways there is, as time has gone by and as we move forward, the situation becomes more and more complex and resolution appears more and more elusive. But the fact is that the question of Palestine, the Palestinian issue, has not been resolved in some shape or form to where we can move beyond this idea of an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even though successive American administrations have failed to really tackle this issue. I think the closest that we ever came was in the Clinton administration when there were final status talks between Yasser Arafat and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in the late '90s. But we've drifted far from that and we've come to a point where the entire Palestinian landscape has become so incoherent that even before we talk about an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, there has to be some form of intra-Palestinian settlement and nothing tells me when I look at the Gaza Strip, when I look at the West Bank, when I look at Hamas, and when I look at Fatah and I look at the other Palestinian factions and the disunity and the incoherence, I look at it and I say we are moving even further away from anything called a Palestinian national entity. And therefore it becomes even less and less possible for a serious Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. But I think that there is another assumption built into the way we in the West look at this problem. Which is that if we were to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict then somehow the Middle East becomes far more manageable. I don't believe that. But that is the way I think that many within the various governments in the West, whether it's the British government or the French or the German or the American. And in many ways, this narrative has been peddled by the Arab regimes and the wider Muslim world, you know Turkey has been pushing this as well on its end, that you need to solve this problem, if you solve this problem then we won't have radicalism. Radicalism and al-Qaida, ISIS exist largely because of what has happened to the Palestinians and the wider fallout of that. I think there's the failure to recognize that it's not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Arab Muslim world faces a deep malaise. We talked about this in our first podcast a couple of weeks ago. And that is at the heart of this issue, but I think that there is this obsession with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as being central to the wider problems of the Middle East. I will argue that even assuming somehow we can miraculously solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and we have this quote-unquote two-state solution before us, the problems of Syria, Egypt and Iraq and the rest of that region are not going to go away. But nonetheless because it's a historic continuing unfinished business, there is this tendency to sort of organically link it to the other problems, and if you look at every administration, the Bush administration, the Obama administration and even now the Trump administration, there's always this effort, this new effort to say let's get the Israelis and the Palestinians to start talking in a serious way. But at the end, we haven't seen any breakthrough, because the fundamentals have not changed, they've actually become worse. You have two Palestines, effectively there are two Palestinian Territories, not just geographically separated, they are ideologically separated, they are politically separated. Right now, the Israelis don't occupy Gaza, that is a Palestinian sort of self-ruled territory spinning on its own axis controlled by Hamas. That will continue, I don't think the Israelis are going to go in anytime soon or in the foreseeable future and reoccupy Gaza. So what can happen in the form of some negotiation is that there may be another Palestinian territory that emerges as a semi-quasi-sovereign in the West Bank. You will effectively have two Palestines. Does that solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? I would argue no, it just makes it much, much more complex. JS: And I think just the way I always talk about the Middle East when people ask me about it is my favorite metaphor to describe it basically as a chess board, that really for over a century now the Middle East has been a chess board for major powers outside the region to try and make moves against each other. And for the most part since the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, it's been mostly pawns on the chess board with mostly people moving back less valuable pieces as they challenge each other. And I think the most important thing to think about going forward when we think about the next 50 years and where we are going to be 50 years from now is to watch the powers in the Middle East itself that are beginning to come up. I think really that means keeping a very close eye on Turkey, keeping a very close eye on Iran, keeping a very close eye on Saudi Arabia and whether and how it's able to tackle many of the issues facing it. I know that here at GPF, we're fairly bearish on Saudi Arabia's ability to do that, they are just facing too much. And then Israel, as it always has been, you know smaller country in a very messy neighborhood trying to figure out its right place in it all and trying to build the right level of strategic relationships that allow it to exist with a maximum amount of independence. All right, thanks Kamran. Thank you for joining me. Thank you everybody for listening. If you want to send us questions or comments, you can comment on our website or on SoundCloud. You can also send comments to comments@geopoliticalfutures.com. Again, I am Jacob Shapiro, I'm the Director of Analysis for GPF and this is Kamran Bokhari, and we will see you next time.

Out of the many challenges that the new US administration faces in its formative days, the ongoing war in Syria is the thorniest. Ironically, this topic is muted from on all the Sunday talk shows. Neither President Trump, nor Secretaries Tillerson or Mattis nor anyone else has offered any clues on this front. Notwithstanding, Syria will be the one crisis that tests the mettle of the new President in asserting America's peace stand from a position of strength. For Syria includes all the ingredients of an international quagmire soaked in the stained waters of human rights' abuses, use of chemical weapons, Radical Islamic Terrorism, tyrannical rule, and much more. In short, a best movie for the horror category, with additional nominations for drama, action, and foreign film. At this theater of operations, the actors do not trade jibes or liberal jokes, but rather bullets and large doses of the nerve agent sarin. ISIL is running amok in Syria's country side and in the suburbs of the larger cities, still undefeated and unchecked. Iran and its proxy militias, from Hezbollah of Lebanon to the Hazaras of Afghanistan, are ruling supreme. Russia, after its air force leveled Aleppo to the dimensions of a huge football stadium, is playing match maker between warring factions in a sham peace forum that lacks both effectiveness and credibility. Turkey is at the apex of confusion, lost between fighting ISIL halfheartedly and eliminating the Kurds with full vindictiveness. Finally, the Syrian regime is calmly reaping the benefits of other people's toils, tears and blood in the hope of clinging to the vestige of its former power, albeit in the transmuted role of an Iranian puppet or a Russian stooge. Did we miss anyone? Ah yes, the US. The pathetic and cynically minimalist diplomacy of the Obama administration is over, but the new plan is not yet in. Too early would argue some, too late would retort others who have seen Syria overtaken by Iranian influence, Russian occupation, and Turkish border infiltration, whilst ISIL remains bruised but not yet out. The new administration has few months at best, to decide how to go about reinstating much needed stability to the Middle East, restoring its seriously wounded prestige as a world power, and imposing –through effective diplomacy backed by gunships- a peace settlement between the various protagonists. Keeping Assad in power, as an option, would alienate the opposition groups and the Sunni Arab nations whose role in and endorsement of, the mortal combat against ISIL is primordial to the US. This scenario would also embolden Iran and provide Russia with new opportunities to attract tyrants who feel secure in its newly crafted zone of unchecked influence. But equally, working for the removal of Assad without a viable replacement plan is another disastrous outcome, much like the Libyan and Yemeni failed experiments. The Trump administration, working with its European allies, Turkey (which I think is till part of NATO) and the Sunni Arab nations (Egypt, Saudi, UAE, Jordan) should chart a new course. Starting with the creation of safe zones along the borders of Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. Safe zones would necessarily mean no-fly-zones that must be implemented vigorously except for permitted strikes against ISIL. Then, moving refugees back into such encampments –from both within and outside Syria- would be the decent thing to do as well as the right thing. This should be followed by the formation of a regular army –from refugees' able men and women- to face up to ISIL, and to counter-weigh the regime and its cronies. Russia would act on behalf of the regime and the US (and its allies) on behalf of a non-radicalized, but militarized opposition to secure a compromise. A compromise would undoubtedly include a federated government, maximum autonomy to provinces divided (inevitably) along sectarian lines, the reduction of presidential powers and the installation of an all-inclusive government.

1. Netanyahu Receives Warm Welcome In Washington Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be wrapping up what he is calling an enormously-successful trip to Washington. The Israeli leader will be holding talks with U-S Vice President Mike Pence. #Netanyahu #Washington ____________________ 2. Israeli P.M. Says Ties With U.S. ‘Have Never Been Better' In the first face-to-face meeting between Israeli PM Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump. The US President dropped a political-bombshell by backing away from supporting the eventual creation of a Palestinian state. #Trump #Netanyahu ____________________ 3. Both Sides Doubt Trump Will Pave Path To Peace Accord According to Reuters, Israelis and Palestinians share a rather pessimistic outlook of any real change resulting from the White House talks. #WhiteHouse #Israelis #Palestinians ____________________ 4. What Can Be Expected From Netanyahu-Trump Meet? Danny Ayalon, Senior Israeli Diplomat, speaking via Skype at ILTV studio to discuss some of the recent comments made by Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump. #DannyAyalon #Summit ____________________ 5. White House To Build Sunni Military Alliance Against Iran The “Wall Street Journal” is reporting that the Trump administration is now trying to develop a “NATO-like” military alliance of Sunni Arab nations against Shi'ite-Iran. #Iran #WhiteHouse ____________________ 6. Melania Trump Takes Sara Netanyahu On D.C. Tour U-S First Lady Melania Trump and Sara Netanyahu visit African-American history museum in Washington DC tour. #MelaniaTrump #SaraNetanyahu #Tour ____________________ 7. Dramatic Rise Seen In European Anti-Semitism Chief Rabbi of Ukraine Yaakov Bleich who told ILTV's Steve Leibowitz that a large segment of European Jewry will be exiting the continent in the coming years due to a dramatic rise in Europe. #YaakovBleich #SteveLeibowitz #AntiSemitism ____________________ 8. Hamas Names Top Terrorist As New Leader In Gaza The Hamas terror organization in Gaza Strip has recently announced that Yahyah Sinwar will be their new political leader replacing Ismail Haniyeh, and the appointment has become the subject of a PR scandal. #Hamas #YahyahSinwar ____________________ 9. Israeli Housing Prices Drop Dramatically Housing-prices in Israel dropped 1.2-percent this past December which reflects steepest-decline in 10 years. #Housing #Prices ____________________ 10. Making Water From Thin Air Maxim Pasik, Executive Chairman of Watergen speaking at ILTV studio to explain Watergen's technology that makes water from thin air. #MaximPasik #Watergen ____________________ 11. “Ark Of Life” Project Building Tissue Bank For The Future One Israeli zoological center "Frozen Zoo" has just launched the “Ark of Life” project to preserve as many endangered animals and birds as is possible. #FrozenZoo #ArkofLife ____________________ 12. Hebrew Word Of The Day, ATID | עתיד = FUTURE Learn a new Hebrew word every day. Today's word is "atid" which means "future" #Learnhebrew #Hebrewwordofday #Iltvhebrewwordofday _____________________ 13. The Weather Forecast The weekend is here and it's expected to be partly cloudy and un-seasonably cold with tonight's low being forty-one, or five degrees Celsius and the weekend's high being around sixty-two; or seventeen degrees Celsius. #Israelweather #Israelforecast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

1. Two Rockets Fired From Sinai Land In Israel Israeli defense officials confirmed this morning that two rockets were fired from the Sinai Peninsula into open space in southern-Israel. #Sinai #Rockets ____________________ 2. Netanyahu Hails New Day In Israel-U.S. Relations Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a "new day" has dawned on Israeli-American relations after his successful first White House meeting with US President Donald Trump. Netanyahu tells cabinet that Israel & U.S. need to team up to focus on critical issues. #Netanyahu #US ____________________ 3. P.M. Reportedly Offered Freeze On Building Outside Settlements Reports emerged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered to halt all building outside the major settlement blocs in exchange for a treaty with the Palestinians. #Netanyahu #Settlements ____________________ 4. Analyzing The Trump – Netanyahu Summit Times Of Israel Editor David Horovitz sat down with ILTV's Steve Leibowitz to share his concern with the new Israeli-American relationship. #DavidHorovitz #SteveLeibowitz #Summit ____________________ 5. Lieberman Says Iran Wants To Undermine Mideast Stability Israel's Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman is accusing Iran of harboring an “ultimate objective” of undermining Saudi Arabia in the Middle East and is calling for the creation of “a dialogue” with the Sunni Arab states to defeat "radical" elements in the region. #Lieberman #Iran ____________________ 6. Saudi F.M. Voices Optimism Over Israeli-Arab Peace Initiative Saudi Arabia's top diplomatic envoy Adel Al-Jubeir expressed optimism during his remarks at the “Munich Security Conference,” that Arabs and Israelis can reach a peace deal. #SaudiArabia #PeaceDeal ____________________ 7. Israeli Army Moves Female Tank Crew-Proposal Forward The Israeli army is now advancing its pilot project that will put female soldiers at the steering wheels of the nation's tank battalions. #IDF #Female #Tank ____________________ 8. ‘Peres Center For Peace' Sponsors Surgery Palestinian Kids Peres Center for Peace sponsors surgery to give cochlear implants to Palestinian kids at the Jerusalem Hospital. #PeresCenterForPeace #Surgery ____________________ 9. Increasing The Speed Of Digital Info Transfer Ariel Sobelman, VP of Corporate Alliances at Valens speaking at ILTV studio about Israeli-based company Valens which has created a device called the H-D-BASE-T that is capable of transferring large amounts of information across a single cable. #ArielSobelman #Valens ____________________ 10. Israeli Software Helps Prevent Collisions In NYC Israeli Software “Mobileye” specializes in the development of “advanced vision and driver assistance systems” to identify potential dangers in real time. #Mobileye #Driving ____________________ 11. Israeli Basketball Star Traded To New NBA Team Israeli basketball star Omri Casspi is headed to New Orleans to join the Pelicans after having been traded in exchange for Tyreke Evans. #OmriCasspi #NBA ____________________ 12. Hebrew Word Of The Day, HERESH | חרש = DEAF Learn a new Hebrew word every day. Today's word is "heresh" which means "deaf" #Learnhebrew #Hebrewwordofday #Iltvhebrewwordofday _____________________ 13. The Weather Forecast Tonight should be clear to partly cloudy with a low of forty-five or seven degrees Celsius. You can expect tomorrow to be partly cloudy but with a drop in temperatures. The high should be around sixty-four, or eighteen degrees Celsius. #Israelweather #Israelforecast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People around the world are saying " God Help Us ",Libya, Syria, Yemen: Sectarian conflict threatens entire Middle East, A coalition of 10 Sunni Arab states is on a military offensive against Shiite Houthi militants in Yemen, Its not just Our American government thats turning on Israel, But also Europe is now threatening Israel too. Obama's 'jihad against Jews' spills Israel's nuke secrets, Top White House official calls for end to ’50-year occupation’ Homeland chief likens Quran to 'American values'      

Coming to you live deep in the Heart of America.Welcome back to The Live Show!First headline of the day: Investigator of the Secret Service prostitution scandal resigns.If you will remember back, there were a group of secret service agents who were on an advanced detail and they ended up going to Colombia. They were lady implicated in a prostitution scandal. And 8 of them were subsequently fired. For those of you who don’t understand how an advanced detail works, let me explain.When you’re doing close protection work, of which I have quite a bit of experience, you have on a large scale operation like you would have protecting a President or high ranking Senators or something like that, you typically have two teams. You have the actual close protection element that guards the person that you’re there to protect. And you have an advanced team that goes to the locations that the individual is going to be at prior to them arriving, does a bunch of coordination, and makes sure that things are secure.So you have a group of secret service agents who travel to Colombia as part of the advanced element. And while they were there, they got their advance work done, it was late in the night, they got an itch they got to scratch, it’s right there. It’s right in front of you, just go over there. So they ended up paying for sex and got kicked out of the Secret Service.Now, they had assigned an investigator, David Nieland, to try and figure out if a crime had been committed here. He was part of the Department of Homeland Security who was tasked with the internal review of the Secrete Service in the 2012 prostitution scandal. He quietly resigned in August after he was implicated on his own incident involving prostitution. Investigator in Secret Service prostitution scandal resigns after being implicated in own incidenthttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/29/investigator-in-secret-service-prostitution-scandal-resigns-after-implicated-in/The investigator leading the probe into the Secret Service's 2012 prostitution scandal quietly resigned in August after he was implicated in a prostitution entanglement of his own.A senior administration official confirmed to Fox News that David Nieland was observed entering and leaving a building that was under surveillance as part of a prostitution investigation by sheriff's deputies in Broward County, Fla.Authorities later interviewed a prostitute who identified Nieland in a photo and said he had paid her for sex.Nieland resigned after he refused to answer questions from a Department of Homeland Security official about the incident.What do you expect? When you give people massive amounts of authority, if you needed any validation that corruption exists everywhere and that absolute power corrupts absolutely, you need to look no further than the single man who was in charge of monitoring and reviewing the Secret Service investigation. Here’s another one:Man beheads woman & jumps in front of trainhttp://nypost.com/2014/10/29/man-possibly-beheaded-woman-jumped-in-front-of-train-cops/A man beheaded a woman at her Long Island apartment Tuesday night and dragged her out into the street where he kicked her severed head about 20 feet before jumping in front of a train, cops and witnesses said.Some of the neighbors thought the headless body in the street was a Halloween prank, only to lift the lifeless body and discover it was real, witnesses said.The man was struck and killed by a LIRR train about 25 minutes later.It’s wild and crazy times in New York. Never a dull moment.You know, I laugh a little bit about it because, if you don’t, it’s just so sad. This is a bad situation. Bad things happen all the time. With 24 hour news cycles, you tend to see more of them than you saw years ago. But it was a rarity in this country when somebody got beheaded. Not so much anymore. We have a ton of stuff in the stack today.I got so much stuff today that I want to go over with you and so many different angles that I want to present to you.We have got some folks who are inside of the Obama Administration who are just saying some absolutely atrocious things about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.We’ve got the Michael Brown case and the anonymous leaking stuff so we’ll be talking about that.As I’ve mentioned on this show before, we’re starting to see the repercussions of what happens in an economy when you make things cheap. You get a lot of people who want it and a lot of people who were providing it who don’t want to provide it anymore. Now we’ve got a report here that some doctors are wary of taking insurance exchange patients.The FCC Chair is looking to spur the online video future. It looks as though the FCC is going to help facilitate a way for consumers to cut the cord from the cable companies.And, Google, I noticed this out of the BBC, they are developing a cancer and heart attack detector. In addition, Royals taking command in game 6. It’s like a totally different team. We get back in our own turf and now we’re in very good position because in the last 7 times there has been a game 7 in the World Series, the home advantage team has won. It’s winner takes all tonight so huge day for Kansas City. -----If you would like to discuss anything with John about the show, email him at Jason@TheLiveShow.TVYou can also use the hashtag #TheLiveShowFollow Jason on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/TheLiveShowTVFollow Us on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/TheLiveShowTV-----If you are really enjoying the show and would like to support what we're doing at The Live Show, please consider donating to our cause. You can do that at www.Patreon.com/TheLiveShow-----Are you interested in advertising on The Live Show?Reach out to us at Advertising@TheLiveShow.TVWe’d love to talk with you.-----SponsorsTrade Pro Futures: http://tradeprofutures.com/The industry's top futures and forex trading platforms.Trade Empowered: http://www.tradeempowered.com/Learn how to day-trade, swing-trade, or become a profitable long term trader.Main Street Alpha: http://mainstreetalpha.com/A social site that links up professional successful traders with verifiable track records to capital.----- I was thinking about this prostitution scandal just right now. When you go to foreign countries, prostitution is legal, it’s open, they have entire houses with big signs that say ‘come here’ for your paid tail. In the United States, not so easy to come across it so I’m just curious.It’s easy to make bad decisions when bad decisions are staring at you in the face and nobody is there to say that this might be a bad idea. But this guy in Florida, man, I don’t even know where would you go in Kansas City. I can only imagine but it would be the most unsafe place in town. But it’s something you have to work for here in the U.S. right? It’s not just out in the open. And so for a guy to know that he’s the investigator, that he’s the guy that’s investigating this scandal and to still have gone to the effort, it’s just, I don’t know. He had to work for it basically. It wasn’t like it was out in the open. Anonymous Unveils Explosive ‘Leaks’ on Michael Brown Grand Jury and Ferguson Officer Darren Wilsonhttp://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/10/28/anonymous-unveils-explosive-leaks-on-michael-brown-grand-jury-and-ferguson-officer-darren-wilson-report/Hacker group Anonymous is claiming that officer Darren Wilson will not be indicted by a grand jury in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, according to purported government sources.On or about November 10, 2014 the Grand Jury decision will be announced. Darren Wilson will NOT be indicted on ANY charges related to the murder of Mike Brown. All local police Chiefs and jail commanders have been notified to begin preparing for major civil unrest. Governor Nixon has been notified of the impending announcement and has ordered the Missouri National Guard to begin preparations for a possible re-enstatement of the martial law that was declared at the beginning of the Ferguson protests.It’s what we’ve been saying from the very beginning. We’ve been telling the protesters to not hitch your star to this kid. This kid is not the guy you want as the poster chid for your movement against police brutality.I am not suggesting by the way, as I’ve said many times, that they don’t have a legitimate complaint about the police force in America. I’m not suggesting that at all.They may have very valid claims against brutality, discrimination against certain police officers or police stations across the country. What I’ve been saying is, this is not the kid, this is not one of those cases.What you ought to be doing is you ought to be finding those cases that actually do have some sort of racial bias or discriminatory bias, civil rights violation, or freedom or liberty violation. This is not it. Britain ends combat role in Afghanistan, last U.S. Marines hand over basehttp://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/26/us-afghanistan-troopwithdrawal-idUSKBN0IF06I20141026British troops ended their combat operations in Afghanistan on Sunday as they and U.S. Marines handed over two huge adjacent bases to the Afghan military, 13 years after a U.S.-led invasion launched the long and costly war against the Taliban.Their coming departure leaves Afghanistan and its newly installed president, Ashraf Ghani, to deal almost unaided with an emboldened Taliban insurgency after the last foreign combat troops withdraw by year-end.At the U.S. Camp Leatherneck and Britain's Camp Bastion, which lie next to each other in the southwestern province of Helmand, troops lowered the American and British flags for the final time on Sunday and folded them away.The U.S. military is leaving behind about $230 million worth of property and equipment –- including a major airstrip at the base, plus roads and buildings -- for the Afghan military.The battles have raised concerns about whether Afghan forces are truly able to hold off the Taliban without intelligence and air support from the United States and its allies. "I'm cautiously optimistic they will be able to sustain themselves," said Brig. Gen Daniel Yoo, the commander of Regional Command (Southwest).He said the success of the Afghan security forces depended on leadership, continued development of logistics and confidence."They've got to want it more than we do," he said.What’s unfortunate is we didn’t do this sooner. There was no reason for men and women to continue to be there to be fighting and dying for nothing. Once we realized and it became apparent that they had no idea, no plan for an exit strategy of what success looked like, it became a political stunt.What they should have done was, the second they decided ‘look we’ve done what we can do. We need to get out of here’. They should have just overnight been gone. There’s no reason to be out there to be fighting and dying for nothing. What a Senior Obama Admin. Official Reportedly Called Netanyahu Signals Relations Are at a ‘Full-Blown Crisis’http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/10/28/what-a-senior-obama-admin-official-reportedly-called-netanyahu-signals-relations-are-at-a-full-blown-crisis/“The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickens**t,” this official said.“The good thing about Netanyahu is that he’s scared to launch wars,” the official reportedly added, expanding on his “chickens**t” comment. “The bad thing about him is that he won’t do anything to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians or with the Sunni Arab states. The only thing he’s interested in is protecting himself from political defeat.”Another administration official told Goldberg that he agreed the Israeli prime minister is a “chickens**t,” but went further, calling Netanyahu a “coward” in regards to the way he has dealt with the growing Iranian nuclear threat.We have one sound relationship in the Middle East. One partner for freedom and democracy in the entire region. And Obama is going to single handedly tear that to the ground.It's absolutely unacceptable and it has to stop. And to wrap up, we cover what's happening with Obamacare and how there are case after case of it not working.Some doctors wary of taking insurance exchange patientshttp://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/27/insurers-aca-exchange-plans-lower-reimbursements-doctors/17747839/Now that many people finally have health insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchanges, some are running into a new problem: They can't find a doctor who will take them as patients.Because these exchange plans often have lower reimbursement rates, some doctors are limiting how many new patients they take with these policies, physician groups and other experts say."The exchanges have become very much like Medicaid," says Andrew Kleinman, a plastic surgeon and president of the Medical Society of the State of New York. "Physicians who are in solo practices have to be careful to not take too many patients reimbursed at lower rates or they're not going to be in business very long." The Coming Divide Episode on The Live Show, October 8, 2014http://theliveshow.tv/the-live-show/the-coming-divide-obamacare-strikes-walmart-twitter-sues-the-doj/ The Coming Divide by Jason Stapleton: http://www.theliveshow.tv/resources/thecomingdivide.pdfEXCERPT: “If insurance premiums are going up most Americans who now have insurance are going to become more dependent on their employer to help defer some of the cost. This, in turn, will likely decrease the mobility of ourworkforce since people will be less likely to quit jobs, start new businesses, or apply for better jobs out of fear they might lose their health insurance. If you feel trapped in a job now and are afraid to quit because the company has such good benefits, just wait. In the world of ObamaCare it will be virtually impossible to leave your employer. Here’s why.In addition to a personal mandate, ObamaCare also goes after corporations. Those are the evil institutions that provide jobs and create products that produce wealth. In the eyes of many in Washington, a company exists not to make a profit for its shareholders or to create value for consumers. Rather, that company exists to provide jobs, pensions, and health insurance to its workers. In their, eyes making a profit should always come second to caring for the worker.”EXCERPT: “The new corporate mandate forces most American businesses to offer government­ approved health insurance to their employees or else pay new federal taxes for not doing so. Not all corporations fall under this new law. Right now the bar is set at 50 employees or more. So if you run a company with 50 or more employees or if you work for a company that has more than 50 employees, you’re going to be affected.Under the new mandate, if a company does not offer health insurance and has at least one employee receiving a subsidy from the government then that company must pay a $2,000 fine per employee.Even if the company does offer health insurance, if they have an employee who can get a better deal with a subsidized insurance program, that company will also be taxed at $2,000 per employee (exempting the first30 employees).”EXCERPT: “But it doesn’t stop there. Even if the employer does offer health insurance, if one person who works for them opts for an alternative, subsidized health insurance, that company is still liable to for the penalty because the company did not provide “adequate” coverage. So they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.Now step back for a moment and let’s contemplate what the cost of providing coverage might be to those employers. Remember, by the IRS’s own filings they expect the cheapest plan to run $20,000 year. This is several multiples higher than the current cost for health insurance. Companies that now offer insurance will now be faced with a choice. Pay double or triple what they now pay per employee or simply suck it up and pay the penalty. Which one do you think most large companies will choose?If you work for a small company (less than 50 employees) and you happen to have health insurance now, do you think they are likely to continue to provide it when premiums double or triple? The answer is no. What you will see over the next several years is companies dropping their health insurance coverage and pushing people onto the exchanges.” What it all means for you, your children, and your grandchildren?EXCERPT: “The new law will have a very damaging effect on entry­ level workers. When I turned 16, I walked across the street from my house and got a job washing dishes at a Pizza Hut for $5 an hour. Over the course of the next several years I moved from one company to the next. There was a high degree of mobility and I had the opportunity to advance at a young age. In the summer I switched from working 20 hours a week to 40 or 50, depending on who I was working for and how badly I needed money. There was a massive amount of opportunity for a kid who was willing to work hard.I also gained a great deal of work experience. I had the chance to work in a variety of industries and even tried my hand at entrepreneurship by cutting grass with a friend in the summer. Entry ­level jobs were easy to come by and a poor kid like me learned a lot about the value of hard work. Had I decided to stay at the Pizza Hut, I could have easily worked my way up to a manager and even purchased my own franchises down the line. There was upward mobility, a chance to start at the bottom and retire rich.I think that kind of opportunity is over. With the passage of ObamaCare, companies like Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Home Depot, and a host of other companies that offer a low barrier for entry and a chance to advance, will have to drastically change the way the hire and advance employees.”As is typical with progressives, they have the best of intentions but they're never measured on the outcomes, only on the intentions. They had an intention of healthcare for all as though you could just mandate that everybody receives a certain amount of a commodity and not affect the supply and demand of that commodity at all.And this is what you get. Now people who have subsidized health programs, they don't have coverage. In fact, they can't even find a doctor. What will happen over time is fewer and fewer future students are going to get into the medical field to become doctors.It's coming, it's here now. And the longer it's here, the more it reaches it's tentacles into every part of our lives.Support the show.

More than three years after the departure of U.S. combat troops from Iraq, a determined insurgency rages against the government led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Violence has claimed thousands of lives. Some question whether the Iraqi government can maintain control of several major cities, including Fallujah, the scene of some of the toughest fighting during the eight-year-long U.S. war in Iraq. Some of Maliki’s critics accuse him of stoking the unrest by refusing to make concessions to minority groups in Iraq, in particular Iraq’s Sunni Arab community. Others say that the prime minister should firmly reassert his authority by going after violent extremism and deterring others from supporting the insurgency. The panelists will consider several questions, including: What explains the continuing violence in Iraq? Can Iraq’s disparate communities unite behind a strong central government? And what role, if any, should the United States play? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.