Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar: What is Sultan Erdogan Up To?

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

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Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, January 30th, 2025. Pepe Escobar joins us from Moscow, where it is midnight local time. Pepe, thank you very much, my dear friend. My pleasure. You have a terrific piece out this morning on what is Sultan Erdogan up to, and I want to explore it with you. But first, one or two questions about Israel and one or two questions about Ukraine. Is Trump going to get General al-Sisi and King Abdullah to each take a quarter of a million Palestinians, as he indicated he would attempt to do the other day?

And would the Palestinians, a million and a half of them, voluntarily leave after what they've just been through? Well, assuming Sisi and the little king would accept, they would have two civil wars at their doorstep. They already said no, directly and indirectly. But there's not much of a margin of maneuver in both cases, right? These are vassals. These are ultra-vassals. Trump can force them to accept it and, you know, damn the domestic consequences. But the most extraordinary fact in all that is that Trump is trying to repackage a genocide as an extermination and an expulsion operation, as ethnic cleansing.

This is extremely serious in itself. And this is how it's seen by the Arab street. If you go to a souk in Cairo, if you go to the souk of Aleppo, for that matter, and you ask people, everybody's going to say this is beyond inadmissible. Do you think that both General Al-Sisi's government in Egypt and King Abdullah in Jordan would be overthrown by a massive movement if this Trump idea were to come to pass, no matter what, how he sweetened it with cash. Absolutely. $10 billion, $15, $20, which in terms of the U.S. is peanuts, but it's an enormous amount in both

Egypt and Jordan. Artificial government, especially Jordan is a completely artificial setup. And the king is viewed by most of the population, which, by the way, is Palestinian in Jordan, as a traitor, as a traitor of the Arab cause and a traitor of Palestine. Do you think that Donald Trump has the same contempt for the personal freedom of the Palestinians as Joe Biden? That's a very complicated question, Judge. We don't know what Trump really thinks about the Palestinians.

First of all, because he rarely speaks about the Palestinians and he never mentioned the word genocide. It's not a word, it's a fact, in fact. So we really don't know. He only sees, apparently, if we take at face value what he said so far, he only sees Gaza as a tremendous real estate opportunity by the sea in his own words, phenomenal location. Well, I think that spells it out, doesn't it? Wow, wow. Are we in danger of his having a nickname similar to Biden,

Genocide Donald, Made in America? If he proceeds like these first 10, 12 days, unfortunately, yes. What do you think Prime Minister Netanyahu will ask of him when he visits the White House next week? A green card to proceed with the second stage, his and Netanyahu's own way, which means he will continue to do what he was doing before the first ceasefire. And in fact, nothing changed in terms of expelling the Palestinians

from Gaza, from Netanyahu and from his cabinet. Nothing has changed. This is a pause. They are regrouping, rearming and they'll continue to do what they were doing i want to play for me i want to play for you a clip from daniel levy uh the british born and educated you may know him former israeli uh negotiator oh this is dynamite uh what he said sonja cut number one one cannot underestimate the impact on the israeli public psyche of the release, the initial three who were released. And of course, everyone, therefore, saw those images. They've been told Al-Qassam defeated. They've been told the public has turned against them.

They've been told the public has turned against them they've been told so many things and then they saw those images hmm an occupying army armed and aided by the most powerful military in the world the US a nuclear armed state Israel in a struggle between that and a resistance movement we saw a very powerful display and Israelis saw that we're being told by Israeli analysts talking heads political leaders and their backers in the west that the next phase has to be to to move forward we have to have the demilitarization of the reality is the most significant force in gaza by a long stretch is hamas al-qassam emerges from this with a very strong narrative israel's narrative doesn't look so good at all. As Netanyahu failed, is Daniel Levy essentially correct?

Daniel is essentially correct, even if he doesn't mention genocide. He was very diplomatic trying to cover it, right? But his argument is absolutely correct. And Al-Qassam is much more powerful now than they were 15, 16 months ago. What is Al-Qassam? Brigades, the brigades. The brigades that we see exactly in this video. And this proves that what Yahya Sinwar was correct from the beginning what he was doing. Correct in terms of building up resistance fighting force capable of withstanding absolutely everything that Israel threw at them. And that was massive, as we all know. Okay.

To Russia, does the Kremlin believe that the war is effectively over? Not over. Very important context. I arrived here four days ago, Judge. So I haven't had time yet to have in-depth conversations and to have answers to. I have a list of questions like a gigantic. Tomorrow night, it's the first big night. I have a dinner with a very good source. He will answer probably 80%

of my questions, including your question. Not that it's over, but it's proceeding the way they want it. And it's fascinating to see on the American side this, I called it the disco inferno, this enormous bombast by Trump, 24-7, cameras clicking, restless headlines, you name it. And the Russians are like Taoist monks observing all that without barely a smirk. And Peskov, Putin's press officer, he said this week,

look, we still haven't got even a phone call to set up the famous Trump-Putin phone call. For the moment, it's only bombast. There's nothing substantial. and maybe with the Prime Minister of India, a Yalta-like meeting resolving the huge long-term problems of the security of America, of Europe, of Russia, of China, and who has hegemony over what? Was that too optimistic to hope for? Realistically, if this was a reality and not an environment set up by fantasy overlapping over fantasy, we are living in a completely artificial, the world of those postmodern theoreticians of the 80s called simulacra.

Yes, it's a perpetual simulation. If we had a new Yalta, it would have to be Putin, Trump, Xi, perhaps Modi, and perhaps a fifth component, certainly not from Europe, because Europe is absolutely irrelevant. It would be certainly from somewhere around Eurasia. And considering Trump will be on the table, he will probably call Saudi Arabia. If we have these five

players deciding, especially in terms of West Asia and parts of Eurasia and the relation between the Atlanticist sphere and Eurasia, the post-Soviet space, etc., this will be a realistic New Yalta. We know it's not going to happen, realistically.

Let me ask you some questions about Turkey. Can Turkey be a member of BRICS and NATO simultaneously? That's a killer question. You actually asked the question. I'm mouthing your own question because it's so fascinating. Exactly. This is what I ask my fabulous interlocutors, you know, academics, scholars, very well connected people. We usually have one of these like once a year when I go to Istanbul, we get together. And at the end of the dinner, I launch my questions and they go on. It's really fascinating.

And the great thing is that they are not Islamists. They are not affiliated with the AKP party. They are not pro-Erdogan. They are secular. Very, very important. They are, let's say, different brands of Kemalism. They are pro-Turkish republic, nationalist Turks, of course, but not out of control. And one of the first things that they actually answer is that, no, it's impossible, because Erdogan, once again, he's always hedging his bets. This is something that I learned three years ago when I spent the first part of the year, 2022,

including the start of the special military operation, I was living in Istanbul. And this is something that I didn't know and I learned over there, that 90% or even more of the Turkish elites are in fact totally Atlanticists. They are pro-US, pro-Europe, and pro-NATO. I didn't know that. I thought it was like 50-50. No way. It's the absolute majority of the ruling elites and the ruling classes. So they look at Eurasia, they look at Russia, China, they don't really understand Russia and China, especially. India, on a more folklore vein, all right? But they still don't understand. They think that their destiny will be linked to the West. It's not going to happen because we all know that the EU de facto vetoed Turkey applying for membership to the European Union.

But that's the mindset of the people around Erdogan and behind Erdogan and the people who control it, who follow the money crowd in Istanbul and Ankara especially. You refer to Erdogan as the Sultan and that, of course, This is, of course, a little bit of sense of humor. Well, of course. I mean, you have the best sense of humor, Pepe. But who and what are the neo-Ottomans? And is Erdogan one of them? In other words, do these people want an empire of Turkey? Or reconstituting parts of the Ottoman Empire. That's why we call them

neo-Ottomans. The number one neo-Ottoman, in fact, the guy who conceptualized this in a few books, was the former foreign minister Davutoglu, which now he is in a very small political party, he's practically a sideline from politics. And he influenced Erdogan a lot. Another thing that I learned in Istanbul, Erdogan doesn't read, Erdogan doesn't know in detail strategizing... He has that in common with the current president of the United States. Well, on a different level, yes. How does he gather information and who influences Erdogan? The people who have his ears.

And at the moment, there are two. His chief of intel, Kalin, and his former chief of intel, MIT, which is the current foreign minister, Hakam Fidan. Fidan is a very, very smart character. He has presidential ambitions or prime ministerial ambitions or whatever. He wants to be on top later on. And so Erdogan listens to these two, especially. And they are

neo-Ottomans, no question. What does Erdogan want? Exactly. And this is something, part of their answer answered my question. He wanted is something, part of their answer, answer my question. He wanted Aleppo, George. He was not expecting the thing going all the way to Damascus. And that's why one of my interlocutors said, now, Turkey was waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting.

But in the end, they got something that they didn't want. They don't have the resources, financial resources, or the military resources to take over Syria and to manage the western part of Syria, the Syria that really works, right? That corridor from Aleppo in the north to Damascus in the south. They can't. At best, they could try to have a proxy government in Aleppo. That's it. But now they have practically the whole thing. The whole West.

Will Erdogan allow the Israelis to conquer Aleppo and Damascus? Never. No, never, never, never, never. From a Turkish and MIT point of view, Israel stops far away from the southern suburbs of Damascus. That's it. That's where they are at the moment. We don't know if they're going to proceed with the move. They're going to the left or the right, but not to the north. So the problem is how Turkey is going to manage the new president of Syria?

Right. The new president of Syria is one of the world's great terrorists. He proclaimed himself president on Wednesday. This is completely nuts and not a word from the NATO stand space. You have a former head shopper, a former al-Qaeda in Syria, who's now running the government. Did the United States, against which he fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, utter a peep over this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It reminds me, do you,

I'm sure our audience remembers when WikiLeaks exposed those emails to Hillary saying that Al-Qaeda is serious on our side. Yes. You may have quoted it or it may have been Aaron Mate. There's a very famous email from Jake Sullivan. From Jake Sullivan to Hillary. You're right.

Correct. Saying they're on our side. They tried to hide that email. And of course, she was humiliated when WikiLeaks exposed it. She couldn't justify it. And this was the confirmation. Okay, all of us who were following the war, even from the outside or from around, from Lebanon or from Iraq, we knew that. But we didn't have an official confirmation by an American official. There you go. So nothing changed, in fact. So the Americans got what they wanted, which is what they wanted for 13 years at least. The Turks didn't get what they wanted. And now they... What did the Americans want besides Assad gone? A totally destabilized Syria because that profits Israel.

Wow. That's the short answer. Supposedly, Donald Trump has ordered American troops out of Syria. I don't know if that's true. If it is, it'll be the second time he did so, first time it didn't happen. Will it happen this time? And if so, what will be the consequences? We don't know if it's going to happen, George,

because the deep state doesn't want it to happen. Right. And on top of it, there is a very profitable operation going on with the oil in the Northeast where the Americans are protecting the Kurds who are stealing Syrian oil crossing the border to northern Iraq. And this oil stolen is sold to Israel at the discount. Why? Because it's stolen. For them, it's free. So they can charge anything to Israel.

It's already a profit. So, you know, so this oil rat line, let's put it this way, to quote our friend, Si Hirsch, it will continue. It profits the Kurds, it profits the Americans, and it profits Israel. If the Turks had not sold oil to Israel, would it have been able to commit genocide in Gaza? That's a really good one. It will be much more difficult. But we have to look at the sources of oil. And the main source, if I'm not mistaken,

40% of Israel's oil comes from Turkey, the BTC pipeline, Baku, Tbilisi, Chehan. So the oil is Azeri, comes from Baku. Then it travels through the pipeline, which was set up by our good old friend, Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Arrives in Ceyhan in Turkey. And from Ceyhan is transported to Israel. 40% of Israel's oil. Wow. I asked my friends why he didn't just, you know, turn off the speaker. No, he can't.

He can't. He can't. It's too much money. And in Turkey. So while he's calling Netanyahu a killer. Yeah. And while he's articulating the word genocide, he's funding it. He's funding it.

Absolutely. Absolutely. But this is taboo in Turkey, George. No, forget about seeing this on Turkish media. Out of the question. This is discussed among independents, of course. And let's say even in the bazaar. It's fascinating to compare all that.

I always go to the bazaar. I have very good friends in the bazaar. It's fascinating to compare all that to the bazaar. I always go to the bazaar. I have very good friends in the bazaar. And we were joking that we should bring Donald Trump here. So the real art of the deal is to strike a deal with a carpet seller in the bazaar. Then this is the real shit. I would love to see Trump negotiating for a carpet at a bazaar. That'd be worth the price of admission alone.

I'll let you go, but what do you do now? What is Moscow like at 1230 in the morning on a Friday morning? Lively or quiet? Everybody's asleep except this little studio. All right. God love you. Thank you for staying up. We much appreciate your analysis.

It's brilliant and gifted as always. I hope we can see you again next week. Have a nice evening. From Moscow. You too, Judge. Thank you so much. Thank you. God bless you.

What a wonderful, wonderful human being. Tomorrow, Friday, at the end of the day, or the end of the week, 4.30 in the afternoon, as is our custom, the Intelligence Community Roundtable with Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.