Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar: Russia’s Next Move.

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

Pepe Escobar: Russia’s Next Move.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, December 9th, 2024. Pepe Escobar joins us from Paris on Turkey, terror, anarchy, and Palestine, all as follow-ups to what happened over the weekend in Syria. But first this. We're taught to work hard for 35 to 40 years. Save your money, then live off your savings. Unfortunately, there are too many threats undermining the value of our hard-earned dollars. The Fed's massive money printing machine is shrinking your dollar's value.

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They help me diversify into gold and silver. They can help you too. Call Lear today at 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620, or go to learjudgenap.com. Pepe Escobar, welcome here, my dear friend. Were you surprised at the events in Syria over the weekend? We were all surprised. The whole planet, the global majority, everybody was surprised how swift it was. So it took us, I would say, between 24 and 48 hours to try to put the pieces back together.

And there were some very, very serious reasons why it happened so fast. The collapse of the Syrian Arab Army, what happened in Doha especially, this was essential. We can say that that meeting in Doha, by the time already dead, Astana process, was the last sigh of the Astana process. And it came with a bang because this is when Turkey and Russia, I would say, solidified the notion that this is it. We tried everything and Syria is now on their own. It was a painful decision for both, but they had tried everything before. And this is one of the things that I was trying to put together since yesterday, in fact. Tell me about the involvement of Turkey. Did Turkey willingly defy Russia?

Does Turkey now stand to triumph over the Kurds? Can you put your head inside of President Erdogan's and figure out what motivates him? Yes. First of all, what motivates him is conquering Aleppo. In Erdogan's mind, Aleppo is part of the Ottoman Empire. So that's it. You remember that Antioch, which is a forever Syrian city, is now Antakya. In the past, it was reconquered by Turkey. For Erdogan, Aleppo is the same

thing. Aleppo should be the new Antakya. It has to be back to Turkey. So that's why MIT, Turkish Intel, they cultivated Hayat Tahrir Alshan for so long in Idlib. MIT, they were in close contact with Jolani and the people around Jolani, the leader. Jolani is going to be, we have been joking lately, he's going to build a new caliph of Al-Sham. Well, weapons, they came from Qatar. And obviously the Americans, NATO and Israel were supporting it from behind.

They were not so much leading from behind, but supporting the whole thing. Everybody knew that they were assembling a fighting force for the past few months. Just to give two examples. Khamenei himself, last June, told Assad, look, there's something brewing in Idlib. Assad did nothing. The Iranians, two months ago, at the highest level, again, they told Assad, look, it's almost ready. There's going to be a sort of blitzkrieg and it's going to come from greater idlib listan assad did nothing so uh i i would say that the final mo the key final moment was assad's visit to moscow on november 28 29th i think he arrived in 27 and then he met on 28th, 29th. I think he arrived in 27th and then he met on 28th and 29th, including with Putin. The Russians gave Assad nothing. But at the time, I would say all of us, we did not pay

too much attention to that. We were paying attention to the official Russian communiques, which were basically not spelling it out. But basically what Assad wanted to extract from Russia on November 29, he didn't. And that was the signal for all those Syrian Arab Army commanders and intelligence apparatus that the game is over. So it took only a few days. And of course, after Aleppo started, even then the Iranians were trying until the last, the very last minute they were trying to do something. There were two brigades ready to cross to Syria, but the Iranians told the Syrians,

if you need it, no problem, we have the two brigades, but it's going to take at least two weeks to organize the whole thing, deploy them, and they go to the combat zone. Once again, Assad said no. The question is why? on promises that he received via back channels from NATO-Stan as a whole, from the GCC, the Gulf Cooperation Council, especially Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. And what did they promise him? A safe passage home or the military to resist the rebels? Exactly. Not military to resist the rebels, but diplomatic support, full diplomatic support at the Arab League

and convince Turkey, which is something I'm not sure Saudi Arabia and the Emirates would be able to convince Turkey about it, to rein in Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTS. And Assad bought it. And obviously, the NATO stand channels in the background, they were more or less saying the same thing. Look, we're going to normalize the whole thing.

We're going to get rid of a lot of sanctions. We want to normalize Syria. We have been talking to our partners in the GCC, they all agree with us and all that. And he believed all this nonsense. So in fact, he organized his own downfall, which is completely nuts. He hasn't read Machiavelli's The Prince, or if he did, he didn't understand it. And the Syrian Arab Army, throughout this latest stretch, let's say, this past few weeks, this past two months, two weeks, since they got the warning from the Iranians two months ago,

they were being bribed by NATO-stan agents. And then we can read in the tea leaves MI6 CIA, of course. They were already tired of the whole thing. They lost the will to fight. The soldiers

of the Syrian army had lost the will to fight. Don't forget, four years after the 2020 freezing of the war and badly paid with something that we learned this weekend, it was even hard for them to get access to potable water with salaries that were like five bucks, seven bucks, 10 bucks, 15 bucks a month in Syria. Obviously, no motivation at all. Tell us about Mr. Jalani, who has a bounty on his head issued by the U.S. State Department, whose group has been defined as a terrorist organization. The federal government has enforced laws

and there are people sitting in federal prison because they provided material assistance to terrorist organizations. Has the American Central Intelligence Agency provided material assistance to Jalani and his group that just took over the government in Syria? Not directly. Indirectly, certainly. And via the very close relationship between the CIA and the MIT, Turkish intel. There's no question about that. Because they saw the enormous potential of Jolani assembling a fighting force, as he did, tens of thousands, perhaps between 15,000 to 20,000 realistically, plus a complete tank division in greater Idlibistan,

not very far from Aleppo province. So, you know, he wouldn't be stretching his supply lines and all that. So, obviously, CIA, MI6, and the Turks, they saw the possibility and they said, let's sit, you know, this is our game. It's now or never. This is our gamble. And all that, of course, coordinated with Israel, because very few people know Israel was supporting HTS covertly for quite a while. And this means that Israel, Intel, and Turkish Intel, they work very, very closely, as they do. And the Turks never admit that, and Erdogan himself could never admit that in person, not only for Turkish public opinion, but for all the lands of Islam. So it was a mix of pre-planning, backstabbing, corruption, internal corruption of the Syrian Arab Army and the Syrian military apparatus.

Excellent timing, coordination with Israel after the ceasefire in Hezbollah. It's not by accident that, you know, the minute the head choppers arrive in Damascus, Israel starts conquering territory in the Golan. So it was all very well coordinated. So the big, big question since Sunday, did Iran and Russia know what was going on? Essentially, yes, but they could not do anything Assad and the Syrian Arab Army because they refuse their help. One of the topics in your piece, Turkey, terror, anarchy, and Palestine, terror. Should the people, well, what kind of a lifestyle should the people of Damascus now expect with this terrorist gang at the head of what passes for a government? Exactly, and not only the people of Damascus judge, but Shiites, Christians, Alawites, Druzes, people from Lebanon, people from Iraq, part of the Syrian diaspora, secular Syrians,

either in Damascus and Aleppo doing business back and forth, secular Syrians who have connections across the West. We should never forget that there is, for most of the Syrian ruling classes, the myth of Paris here still lingers on in Syria and Lebanon. It's the Mediterranean connection, you know, the Eastern Mediterranean and then the Western Mediterranean coming all the way to the capital of a glamour culture, etc., Paris. There's an enormous Syrian secular diaspora here in Paris. So these people, they cannot afford to live in Syria if there is a caliphate of Al-Sham led by Jolani. Very important.

This was from yesterday to today, a very important move. Jolani himself designated a guy called Muhammad al-Bashir as the transitional head of government in Damascus. So this guy, for all practical purposes, from now on, he is the transitional Assyrian prime minister. And guess where he comes from judge he used to be the administrator of the province of idlib and guess who was living in idlib so far and they still are all these uh salafi jihadis that are part of the hts gang plus plus others, including a bunch of Central Asians from everywhere. Are you telling me that the people that deposed President Assad will slaughter all who are different, whether they're secular, Christian, Jewish, or of another type of Islam? Not a slaughter, but life for anyone who does not subscribe to a Salafi-jihadi view of Islam and of social relations as a whole.

They will be in deep, deep trouble. Now, how can the United States and Great Britain, after what they preached and attempted to practice with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, put in power such monsters who are the antithesis of what the West says it stands for and are the very object that the West said it was attacking in Afghanistan and Iraq. Exactly. Well, I remember very well, George, I was in Afghanistan even before 9-11. And immediately afterwards, we had encounters with remnants of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. These guys are not much difficult, different, sorry, but they are much more difficult to deal with because they are essentially ISIS. They are former Al-Qaeda, classic Al-Qaeda, then Al-Qaeda in Iraq, then al-Baghdadi gang

which conquered Mosul 10 years ago, then ISIS, and then Jolani, very, very clever, he went for rebranding. He forgot about Al-Qaeda, forgot about ISIS, and he rebranded the whole thing as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. And that was perfect because now the dividends are extraordinary when you do a PR operation like that. You are interviewed on CNN and you can tell American audiences and the whole planet that, ah, I used to behead people before, but I had a road to Damascus sort of conversion. And now I am a woke, intersectional, you know, tolerant Islamic leader. I can't imagine him putting it that way. But clearly CNN has been saying that he's a different person. Exactly.

Tell us about the third prong of your piece this morning, anarchy. Is that what is to be expected throughout Syria? Is it likely to break up into smaller countries that have no connection to the central government? Absolutely right, Judge. Total balkanization. By the way, at least in one region, which is a very, very large region, from the north to the northeast is already total anarchy. You have, can you imagine that you have the US-supported Kurds,

which subscribe to a sort of communist, politically correct, secular ideology, fighting literally tribes, very conservative tribes that live in those areas by the desert. Extremely conservative, Islamic, and they hate anything that could smell as a communism for them, which is the case with the Rojava people. And the clashes have already started. So we have the Syrian National Army against the Syrian Democratic Forces, which for most people,

people don't even know what does that mean, SNA, SDF and all that. Basically, it's NATO against NATO. Because part of NATO supports these communist, independentist Kurds, and the other ones support the local tribes. And there are the Turkish-supported terrorists coming in droves as well. So it's already total anarchy in the North and North Seas. And this could happen again in the west part of Syria, because then we're going to have the very intricate network of clans, tribes, families that has been cultivated by the Hafez dynasty for, wow, at least 50, for decades, at least 50 years. When I travel, years ago, when I traveled Syria from north to south, I learned a lot by interacting with them and how complex it is, especially for foreigners, you know. Can you imagine NATO-stan people delving right into this?

They won't understand a thing, just like they didn't understand in Afghanistan and they didn't understand in Libya. In Syria, it's even more complex. This tribal, clannish, family, mafioso connections. And they hate interference by anybody. It could be the Assad government. And now the Turkish supported technocratic jihadis. And, of course, everybody from NATO's time.

So it's going to be anarchy all over. Balkanization everywhere. Who profits from Balkanization everywhere? Obviously. Okay, I'll give you one name, Israel. It's what they want. They want a totally disintegrated, Balkanized Syria, which will make them easier to annex parts of it if they can,

and then hold to the Eretz Israel project. Tell me about the likely response on the part of Hezbollah and on the part of Palestine. Will there be a Palestine? Well, I would say this is one of the most serious questions of the young 21st century, to remember our great friend Eric Hobsbawm. Maybe not. And a man who knew everything about this dossier, he said years ago and then he repeated occasionally, he said, if Syria falls, there will be no Palestine.

And as it stands, let's say that we are going this way. There are already, I would say, Old Testament psychopathological, total psycho voices in Israel saying that the people in Gaza and the West Bank should be not deported, but sent to Syria. So if that happens, we all hope it will not happen because a sort of, for the moment, enfeebled access of resistance won't allow it. But this is now up in the air, and now it becomes a strong possibility, a horrific possibility, but now plausible. What about Hamas and Hezbollah?

Hezbollah, they are in a very long, painful process of rebuilding. They will rebuild because they have the cadres, they have the young commanders, they have the think tank capabilities to rebuild. And the problem is how they're going to get weaponized from now on, considering that the famous land bridge across Syria from Iran to Lebanon is's totally cut off for Hezbollah. They'll have to come up with a plan B. Nobody knows what will that be, right? But as a fighting force, they are still standing. And don't forget, the practical result before the ceasefire was a de facto victory of Hezbollah against Israel because Israel didn't capture a single village, lost a lot of men and equipment, and Hezbollah resisted. Nothing south

of the Litany was occupied. So Hamas is a much more complicated... Hamas is being asphyxiated to the limit. But Hezbollah is a completely different story. And of course, the relationship between Hezbollah and Iran, this is one of the huge interrogation marks from now on. I got some echoes from Tehran, not official, of course, that there is a very strong movement among the leadership or around the leadership, not involving Ayatollah Khamenei, to, okay, forget about the axis of resistance. It's not going to happen. Let's get closer to the West.

And this, one of the main protagonists of this occurrence, is the Vice President Zarif. Don't forget, Zarif, former and still very good friend of John Kerry. So we don't know how this is going to play out. Kaminé is going to speak publicly, apparently, this Wednesday. So maybe he can give some hints about it

and about the future of the Axis of Resistance. Because everybody who supports the Axis of Resistance, not only in West Asia, but across the global majority, everybody's extremely dejected by what happened and the immediate future of Syria. But it can be more complicated than that, George, much more. I don't know. Please, go ahead, please. Last subject matter. Over the weekend, President-elect Trump tweeted on the venue that he owns called Truth Social that the Assad government collapsed because its patron abandoned him.

And he identified the patron as Vladimir Putin. Is that a fair and accurate statement? Judge, no. We have to be fair. This was a major strategic defeat for Russia. There's no question about that. And there are a lot of recrimination going on in the corridors of power in Moscow at the moment. No question about that as well. But the Russians tried until the last minute.

They warned Assad many times. So, you know, the last drop was that meeting on November 29 that I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation. And even in Doha this weekend, Lavrov was still trying something. But it's amazing. Lavrov is a book. If you read Lavrov's body language at the Doha meeting, you could tell that that was it. That was game over. He was visibly angry.

Not the Lavrov that we know, because he knew that the decision had been made and he would be trying to salvage something for Russia by talking directly to Turkey. And you have the foreign minister of Turkey, Hakan Fidan, saying in front of Lavrov and in front of Arakci from Iran, look, we have nothing to do with what was going on in Aleppo. And they knew that he was lying. And now it's complicated because Russia has to deal directly with Erdogan about what's going to happen to the bases, to Tartus and Latakia, to Haimim air base and to the Russian ships in Latakia. It's going to be very complicated. Erdogan is going to extract a huge price.

Depending on the price, the Russians will pay. But later, Judge, there will be blowback. Later, there will be blowback. Thank you, Pepe. Thank you for your extraordinary analysis. No, we scratched the surface, it's extremely complex. Well, you've given us a broad over geopolitical view, which is challenging but helpful. Thank you, my dear friend.

Thank you, thank you, Joe. Thank you so much. Thanks everybody. We'll see you again soon. You're always welcome here. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you so much. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you again soon. You're always welcome here. Thank you. Coming up at two o'clock Eastern this afternoon on all of this, particularly the geopolitical, the grand international significance of all of it, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Please remember to like and subscribe. We're above 495,000 subscriptions. Our goal is a half a million by Christmas, which is two weeks from Wednesday. Justin Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.