Pod Save the World - Don’t Clap For Nazis

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

Tommy and Ben talk about the foreign policy implications of Senator Menendez’s corruption charges, the Biden administration’s move to grant temporary protected status to Venezuelan migrants and the role of US sanctions in fueling migration, and updates from Ukraine, including attacks on Russia’s Black Sea fleet and Ukraine’s grain supplies. They also discuss Ron DeSantis’s time working at Guantanamo Bay, reports that the U.S. supplied Canada with intelligence about the assassination of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil, a vetting disaster at the Canadian parliament, Saudi Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Fox News interview, and Rahm Emanuel’s shit posting. Then Ben speaks with Olesya Vartanyan, the Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst for the Caucasus Region, about Azerbaijan’s seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh and the tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians now fleeing their homes. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

Welcome back to Pots Day of the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, I think we had this exact same conversation a year ago, but I want to offer a blanket apology to everyone that was forced to watch the Patriots Jets game on Sunday. Well, I apologize to anyone who watches Zach Wilson do anything, the Jets quarterback. Zach Wilson, your quarterback. My quarterback allegedly slapped your cornerback in the balls. There's video of it. I mean, it's not allegedly.

We can see the evidence like Donald Trump and this is a lot of it. documents. Not covered in glory. No. That game. I was luckily on a plane, so it was one of those really small TVs. It was coming back from a wedding in Wisconsin. Yeah, Iowa crew. I'm avoiding the jets. I can't, I don't have the stomach for it. I think that's right. I think that's right. Well, we had a lot of news today to distract us from terrible sports franchises. We are going to cover the foreign policy implications of the indictment of Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat from New Jersey, the latest from Russia and Ukraine. A correction, important one from the New York Times about Ron DeSantis and his work at Guantanamo Bay Prison.

An update on the diplomatic row between Canada and India. I love saying row. It feels very British. We're going to talk about debatably the worst vetting mistake of all time in politics. Muhammad bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, did an interview with Fox News. We'll talk about sanctions and migration. A quick update on Niger, some news about undiplomatic ambassadors. And then, Ben, you did today's interview.

What are we going to hear about? Yeah, so I talked to Alicia. Bartagnan, who's the international crisis group senior analyst for the region that includes Armenian-Azerbaijan. So we talked about the situation there where you have essentially the 150,000, you know, ethnic Armenians who've been living in this enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, they've been, you know, starved for months and then essentially militarily defeated and are being driven from their homes as we speak. So there's like essentially a mass ethnic cleansing of these people moving into Armenia. And so we talked about how that happened, why that

happened, what's going to happen next, what the United States and the national community can do, cement the powers there as we speak, and really, you know, get some important texture from the ground to what it feels like, what life is like for these people that, you know, are on this unimaginable exile journey out of their homeland forever. I mean, you know, I think the main takeaway Tommy for me is like this is pretty well done you know and and it just happened in like a week I've been so fast there was a slow motion buildup and people will say they've been warning about this all year and they have so I don't want to diminish that but that this end end play happened in a week yeah no I mean look you and I were just talking before we started recording I mean we covered this a week or two

ago and there was what seemed like a sliver of good news because the only road from our media into Nagorno-Karabakh had been opened up by Azerbaijan people thought maybe to get aid in, but it turns out the Azerbaijani's just rolled in their troops and used this as a pretext to invade. You know, this really, I mean, there have been on and off wars and Nagorno Karabakh for decades. Yeah. But, you know, it seems like the die was cast and was that 2020 when Azerbaijan took back a lot of territory. Yeah, I think what we learned from that is Azerbaijan is just much, much more stronger militarily than Armenia for a lot of reasons, including a military buildup, funded by oil. But also, what's happening.

happened this time is the Russian peacekeepers went there to break it up, you know. So it's also a story about, you know, diminishing Russian influence in that part of the world. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure the Armenians are furious that these Russian peacekeepers just did nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all. Well, that's a very important story and I'm glad you covered it in depth in the interview. Ben, so today is Tuesday, the 26th, tomorrow the 27th is the second Republican presidential debate. I'm sure it'll be a blast. Just like the last one, Donald Trump is not a part of it. If you want to watch with us in the Crooked Media Discord for lots of fun live reactions, go to crooked.com slash friends. Ben, I'm going to go up to the debate to the Reagan Library

and cover it in person. And I was laying in bed last night and it occurred to me that there's a non-zero chance that I get my ass kicked by some right-wing blogger. Are you going to pay tribute to the Gipper while you're up there? I was thinking about that. Yeah, a little homage. Maybe that will celebrate some coups. Buy some armor if you, you know, pour one out at the memorial site or something. But do you think they like Reagan anymore? I don't know. Yeah, that's true.

He's too much. He's a lib cuck for them. He's a Neil Libcuck. I mean, I was shocked to see that the first Republican debate drew 13 million viewers, and it was the most watched television program there wasn't a sporting event or something like this year. Yeah, I was too, actually. Apparently people are watching.

This one's Fox Business. Maybe the fake is better TV than we thought. Yeah. Or maybe they all just thought Trump was going to be there and didn't notice for a while. But yeah, Trump's skipping this one too. But anyway, I'm excited to go up. We'll get some reaction on the ground just to see what it's like. Yeah.

It's good to cover these things in person. And hopefully. Shoe leather reporting there. Shoo, lots of shoe leather there. And hopefully I do not get my ass kicked. Okay. Let's start with the now former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez. So last week, Bob Menendez was charged with three counts of using his official office to do favors in exchange for bribes.

That include hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars, Ben, a Mercedes. I think there was some mortgage payments for Menendez and his wife. There's a couple different strands of corruption here. So I'll just try to lay him out quickly. Menendez allegedly called a senior official of the Department of Agriculture in an attempt to protect his friend's monopoly on imported halal meat to Egypt. That's part one. Part two, Menendez is accused of pushing Biden to install U.S. attorney in New Jersey

that he thought he could control and then tried to interfere in the prosecution of an associate in exchange for cash. But the biggest piece of this from our perspective is that Menendez took bribes from an intermediary on behalf of the Egyptian government, the military and intel guys, I believe specifically, in exchange for helping increase U.S. military assistance to Egypt. Some of the things specifically that Menendez did include passing along detailed information about the staffing of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, like the number of U.S. or American staffers and local staff. Menendez apparently drafted a letter for the Egyptian government to use to send to his Senate colleagues to try to unblock aid, like to help them figure out the

best arguments. That all got routed through his girlfriend, then wife. And then, you know, for listeners, remember that Egypt is the second largest recipient of U.S. military aid after Israel. And these alleged bribes to Mendes came at a time when aid to Egypt was held up over human rights concerns. Some listeners might be thinking, Ben, like, what the hell can a ran? random guy from New Jersey due to influence foreign military sales. Yeah, the answer is a lot if said guy is or woman is chairman or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Those folks can put a hold on foreign military sales.

They can lean on the White House to do more. They can generally impact, you know, personnel and policy. So, Ben, there's a lot to this one. But let's just sort of like take a beat and talk about what we just discussed. I mean, the allegations are part old school corruption. but like he's also acting as a foreign agent in some sense for the Iption government like I don't want to use the word treason that's obviously like that's not what this is I saw some people saying them on Twitter but it's like he is acting on behalf of a not all that friendly government providing

them non-public information I mean this is really bad this is worse than just taking bribes to me yeah and and you know we'll get to the second part of that which is Menendez's impact on on foreign policy generally, in Latin America policy particularly, but starting on the Egypt piece of it, this is pretty astonishing stuff because, first of all, as you said, this is like not public information that he's providing. It's, you know, sensitive information in a lot of ways, right? The staffing of the embassy, for instance. But I think even more egregious is the role he's playing essentially as a lobbyist for the Egyptian government. What you describe is what a lobbyist does. Yes.

Here's how you write a letter to the senators to make it most likely that you get this funding released. You have to register under Farah to do it, the foreign agent registration. And what is particularly grotesque about this is that Bob Menendez consistently puts himself forward as this champion of democracy and human rights around the world. And here he is helping a brutal dictatorship in Egypt that has tens of thousands of political prisoners that routinely has its funding scrutinized and held up by Congress because of, of its violations of human rights. And for example, turning the military on protesters and killing hundreds of people. Yeah. And so this guy is simultaneously mouthing words about human rights while literally helping a dictatorship lobby to maintain billions of dollars assistance despite human rights issues. And that is both corrupt.

And it is also like the most cynical thing I can think about, you know, because it's what everybody thinks the United States is full. shit, you know, like, oh, we talk about these things, but then we like, you know, scratch the backs of these dictatorships. That's literally what he's doing, and he's doing it for payment. So it's like everything in one scandal that is sucks about American foreign policy. You know, it's corrupted, it's hypocritical, it's cozy with dictators. Like, everything is in this one indictment of this guy. And look, this will lead in the second part discussion. Like, everybody knows and has known for a long time that Bob Menendez is corrupt. You know, there's just been, this top, why was he the chair of the farm relations committee? You know, like that, why was he

allowed to have this kind of influence on American Farm Policy, given that this guy, maybe people didn't know the extent of this Egypt thing, but I mean, he's- He was indicted in 2015. He barely beat the rap in 20-50. Look, I know innocent-trial proven. But like, it's not exactly a secret in Washington that Bob Menendez plays pretty close to the sun on corruption issues. Yeah, and we should say, you know, Menendez denies these allegations. He says he won't resign. His defense is basically like, look, I was just doing what anyone would do for. their constituents. That's what senators do all day every day. You fight for businesses in your district or whatever. He suggested that this cash that was found is his own money that he took

out of the bank and that he took out huge wads of cash because he was scarred by his family's experience in Cuba, I guess, sort of pre-Castro. Wait a second, though. Time out on that one. That's what he said. His family never lived in Cuba under Castro. Like he's fucking full of shit. It's just like Rubio's story about the, and when, you know, this guy. General, General Rubio. Sorry. Menendez's family left Cuba before the revolution. So when he says, like, we have the fear of communism in our family and we, therefore,

I like having cash out, that's not true. He's making up a story. Like, I'm sorry. Like, playing that card in this case doesn't make any sense. Well, yeah. He also suggested that he's just being targeted because he's Latino, which also I've not seen any evidence of that. Well, so, Ben, let's talk about the foreign policy implications that you hinted at. Last week, the Biden administration announced temporary protected status

for nearly 500,000 Venezuelan migrants currently in the U.S. That means the people that entered the U.S. before July 31st, they can apply for work permits. Administration officials say that they extended TPS, I think for 18 months in this case, to these Venezuelans because the situation in Venezuela is deteriorating. I'm sure they're also worried that cities like New York, are loudly complaining about the fact that they can't manage the influx of migrants. There's nowhere to house people. They can't feed them. They can't care. Right. So right. As you can't work. So this is a no-brainer to me. Let people work if they're here, right? Let them make money or else. How else are they going to live? But, you know, as we've discussed on the show many times, you don't hear a lot of debate in Washington about how to alleviate the root causes of migration in places like Venezuela, including, you know, the causes like U.S. sanctions.

Here's a clip from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talking about how U.S. sanctions have helped create the migration crisis on the southern border. If we are constantly engaging in foreign policy that drives people to our southern border, in this specific instance, U.S. sanctions that were originally authored by Marco Rubio began and precipitated, certainly took a large part in the driving of populations to our southern border. Shortly after those sanctions, those broad-based sanctions. I'm talking about Venezuela. Yes, shortly after those broad-based sanctions were enacted, we started seeing dramatic increases in these populations that were coming to our southern border. And so we have to address the root of these population movements and the migration crisis. And we also have to address the domestic U.S. policy issues when it comes to immigration reform. So, Ben, she mentions Rubio.

I mean, you could put Bob Menendez in the same bucket. He's hardline on Venezuela. He's super hawkish on Iran. He's super hawkish on Cuba. He opposed, you know, President Obama even visiting Cuba or, you know, extending any sort of olive branch. But again, like, good for AOC for talking about how sanctions are playing a role in driving the migration crisis. Yeah, no, really good for her to raise the visibility. It's a great issue for her to speak out on.

And just so people understand how this works, Bob Menendez is the chair of the Send Farm Relations Committee. So the reason he's had such a hugely outsized role in Latin America policy, mainly hardline policies, towards Venezuela and Cuba. So all these sanctions that have punished the people of those countries while doing nothing to bring in positive change while driving hundreds of thousands of people to our borders and humanitarian crisis. He's able to do that because he's weaponized his chairmanship. And what do I mean by that?

It's well known that if you touch Cuba, you're never going to get confirmed for any ambassadorship, any Senate confirmed position. Meaning if you have a not-a-hawks position if you're for dialogue. I don't want to name names, but there are people who just because they worked with me on that QA opening, even though they were just doing the policy of the administration at the time, like, they have not been able to advance in their careers because Bob Menendez, it's very clear that he won't confirm them. But even beyond that, I think the Biden administration is internalized. Bob Menendez will actually mess with all of our confirmations if we change Cuba policy or Venezuela policy. Like he was willing to weaponize almost like Tommy Tuberville style.

He'll just hold up all your ambassadors if he doesn't like what you do. in Cuba. And by the way, when he was prosecuted 2015 and then got off because of the hung jury, he literally gave a speech where he was like, to those people who hung with me, I'll remember you. And to those who didn't, I'll never forget you. He carries, he's like vindictive in public about it. He is famous for a grudge. And if I sound like it's personal for me, it is. Like, but I think it's also wrong what he does because he like more than any senator that I encountered, certainly any Democrat that I encountered, he would carry these grudges and he would take things out on civil servants and he would, again, weaponize his position. You know,

make your argument, but, you know, he refuses to allow there to be alternative views. So if you want to know why Latin America policy is so distorted and dumb, it's because it's been made in fear of this guy. And frankly, we benefited. He was booted from the chairmanship when we did the cube opening because he was under, you know, a different prosecution. So, like, we had, we would have done anyway, but it coincidentally, it was easier for us. Coincidentally, by the way, conspiracy theorist, I had no idea what the fucking prosecution Bob Menendez was. But that's the first point.

This hopefully is an opportunity for the Biden people to say, okay, without this guy chairing this committee, now we can have a more rational approach that tries to end Venice well as humanitarian crisis. Now we can have a different Cuba policy that stops punishing people and driving them to our borders. that's the opportunity to open up here. I will say just because I saw one thing when I came in here, Tommy, on the broader migration issue, I saw a non-friend of the pods, Suella Braverman,

give this speech at AEI. From the big Boris Johnson fan over in the British government. She's like the hard-ass anti-immigrant home secretary where she said basically we had to get rid of like the UN convention on refugees. No, the problem is that we don't have an agreement like that. work. So the point is Biden took the right step, but it's ad hoc. Everything around immigration in this country and in Europe

are these kind of ad hoc responses to surges. So now the Venezuelans can work, but everybody else can't. It's the right step, but it also kind of points out how broken this entire infrastructure is our own policies and the international policies here. And what we really need is an effort

to fix those. Yeah, and I think so often these discussions politically get driven by these sort of narrow political considerations in Florida. Right? Like We can't get rid of the embargo with Cuba because hardline Cubans will vote Republican. We can't, you know, try to take a different approach of Venezuela because the big Venezuelan community in Florida will oppose that. Listen, that's true. But at some point, I would like to manage those politics, take a different approach that might actually address the problem on the border.

And if there are hardliners who oppose trying to make life better for Venezuelans so people want to stay in Venezuela, then you accuse them. of exacerbating the border crisis, right? Like, we got to go on offense here. I'm much more worried about the politics of immigration than I am people saying that we need to keep the embargo going on Cuba. No, it's such a good point because it's both that kind of dumb DC mindset where at some point everybody decided that you had to be afraid of the right-wing politics in Florida on this. And that's outdated, first of all, because Florida is not really swing state anymore. But also, what that misses is it's a Republican strategy to create this chaos, to underfund asylum judges, to sanction places. They want to create migration crises so that they can then kind of blame government

for failing to solve those crises. And if you prevent yourself from solving those crises because you're afraid to lift sanctions on Venezuela, well, you may think you're avoiding short-term political pain, but you're inviting much bigger medium and long-term pain. Like the best politics is actually to solve the problem. And often foreign policy, that means taking a short-term hit in exchange for a medium and long-term outcome. And that's what I hope, really hope, we see on Latin America, because this policy is ripe to change on Cuba, on Venezuela, on a whole host of things, on drugs. And maybe, maybe if Bob Menendez is out of the way, that'll become easier. I saw an NPR story the other day about three, I think, Nigerian men who stowed away on a,

like a massive ship, on the keel of the ship, right? So they're outdoor, explosive elements on a constantly moving keel of a ship for 14 days because they were so desperate to get out of Nigeria and get to somewhere else. They ended up in Brazil. The point being, you're never going to talk people out of trying to leave countries when they are in desperate circumstances. It's so true in Venezuela. Yeah, and this is why this Suella Braveman speech trigger me, because there she's an AEI talking about, you know, using all means necessary to stop these boats in the English Channel. You're talking about killing innocent people. Afghan families crossing the channel like in little boats and you're talking about like using all means necessary. Fix the problem. Do your job, you know. It's really frustrating.

these people, the demagogue this issue while creating the issue through their own policies, it is like a terrible feedback. Yeah, so it's wretched people. Let's turn to Ukraine and Russian who's been, because there's lots of updates on that front. So last Friday, Ukraine carried out an attack on Russia's naval fleet. They struck a key command and communications center in Crimea. That strike, they said killed a guy named Victor Sokolov, the commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, along with 33 other officers.

It's not clear if that's true because on Tuesday the Russian Ministry of Defense. put out a video that purported to show Soklaova alive, but we'll find out, I guess, time will tell. Either way, the Ukrainians keep hammering Russia's naval fleet. In response, the Russians targeted an important grain facility in Odessa. They're continuing this sort of war on Ukraine's ability to feed the world. On the southern front of the war, Ukrainian troops have punched through Russia's defensive line, the Serovkin line, which is this multi-layered defensive line constructed by the Russian forces, to prevent Ukrainian advances.

now they're going to see if they can widen that breach, advance through it and build on it. The U.S. apparently has agreed at the end of last week when Zelensky was here to give Ukraine these long-range U.S. missiles called Atacams that they've wanted for a long time. It sounds like those will include cluster munitions on them. So another sort of example of that convention going away. The U.S. made M.1 Abrams tanks are finally in Ukraine. Hopefully that'll help with this offensive. Though, Ben, I heard a military expert say the other day that, The average lifespan of a tank in combat is usually less than two weeks before they are damaged or destroyed.

So it just goes to the churn and why Ukrainians won to 300 and we gave them 31 and they don't think that's enough. But, you know, some limit to progress again by the Ukrainian side. You know, but unfortunately now these exhausted Ukrainian troops have to fight their way to the next set of mines, to the next set of fortified defenses. And it's going to continue to be a brutal slog. But, you know, anything else you sort of saw out there this week on that front? No, I mean, I think that's right. There are these three lines of Russian defenses, right?

And it's just a slog, clearly, to get through them. And that suggests more likely than not, like, some version of a stalemate for a while. The attack on the Russian naval, you know, that's characteristic of a couple of things. One, the Ukrainians hitting Crimea more. And two, this kind of almost like targeted assassination. You know, they seem like they were going after this guy. Like we said, that's them trying to reach beyond that front line because they're unable to make a lot of progress there and try to kind of change the trajectory of the war that way. One thing I did just note, Tommy, is that Elon Musk had apparently denied Starlinking access to Ukraine because he thought that if they attacked the Russian fleet, they would start like World War III.

And Elon Musk's escalation risk analysis. Not quite spot on. Not quite spot on because they're hitting all the same stuff anyway. and there's not nuclear weapons being used in response. So that is notable. Yeah. And in case we all need a reminder of the fact that Vladimir Putin is not just brutalizing the Ukrainians, but he's brutalizing a lot of his own people.

An opposition leader and activist named Vladimir Karamurza has reportedly been transferred to a maximum security prison in Siberia. He got sentenced to 25 years in prison for denouncing the Russian invasion. This is another brave activist who was, again, poisoned twice. Yeah. once in 2015 and once in 2017. I met that guy, like, and he'd recently been poisoned. You know, he also wrote for the Washington Post.

So, I mean, actually, this is like the, you know, Koshoggi, our buddy Jason resigned before the Post has had some people. Just a reminder, this guy wasn't a conventional journalist, but just the dangers that some people are facing for things that would have been totally normal to be doing like 10 years ago. Yeah, just voicing your opinion. So I want to get to this to Sant's thing, Ben. He's a while back. We covered allegations made by a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay prison about Ron DeSantis. It's a guy named Mansour Adiafi. He alleged that DeSantis, while working as a junior officer in the military, he's a JAG at Gitmo, was part of a group that force fed him to break a hunger strike.

The New York Times looked into these allegations and found no evidence to back up the claims. Instead, they were repeatedly told by people who worked with DeSantis or worked at Gitmo. that this almost certainly did not happen because DeSantis was very junior and very inexperienced and, you know, a young lawyer wouldn't be anywhere near a force feeding. That doesn't mean that the force feedings did not happen. They very much did. And many other horrible things happened to these detainees. But DeSantis doesn't seem to have witnessed or participated in this process in any way. DeSantis did get, you know, sort of detailed to get Mo for these like one to two weeks stints. His job was described as being equivalent to like a first year associate at a law firm. making copies kind of menial stuff. But in the past, DeSantis has defended Gitmo. And, you know,

I think when we covered this at the time, we played an interview he did with a Florida outlet where, you know, he suggested that this force feeding was just a way to combat like ongoing jihad by detainees. He talked about, you know, essentially their resistance to interrogation, et cetera, is like, you know, at a front to him and not, you know, miscrement. of these detainees, but an important correction and clarification here. Yeah, and it's important to get those facts straight. At the same time, I think the real scandal here, which is, you know, kind of lost in American politics now is that, one, Gitmo happened and all this torture and force-feeding and

waterboarding happened, two, that people like Ron DeSantis, like, continue to defend it as if it was like a good thing that happened. And then three, that it's still open, you know, and that we, you know, we're paying, God knows how much money a year to keep like 50 people down there. So to me, it doesn't really raise the big. But the problem is that probably every Republican candidate would defend get mo. So it doesn't set, descend as a part as uniquely sadistic that he does so. Yeah, that's true.

Well, another big update. So last week we talked about these shocking allegations that were made by Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, that agents of the Indian government carried out an assassination of a sick separatist on Canadian soil, Canadian citizen. The Indian government angrily deny those accusations, but Canada also took a bunch of steps. They expelled the Indian intelligence operative who was living in Canada. The Indian government responded in kind. So we're now learning more about how the Canadians figured this out in the first place. They reportedly intercepted communications between Indian diplomats talking about the assassination. And as I think you sort of mentioned last week, Ben, the U.S. reportedly provided some intelligence to the

Canadian government that helped them figure out what happened. It sounded like basically, you know, the Canadians informed us that or went public with this in the U.S. intelligence community looked probably back into a, you know, big stack intercepted communications, rifled through it and gave them stuff that was helpful. Jake Sullivan, President Biden's National Security Advisor, was asked about the U.S. response at a White House briefing. Here's a clip. Not going to get into the substance of private diplomatic conversations, but we are in constant contact with our Canadian counterparts. We are consulting with them closely. We support the efforts that they are undertaking in this investigation, and we have also been in touch with the Indian government as well. And I will leave it at that for

today, only to say that I have seen in the press some efforts to try to drive a wedge between the United States and Canada on this issue. And I firmly reject the idea that there is a wedge between the U.S. and Canada. We have deep concerns about the allegations, and we would like to see this investigation carried forward, and the perpetrators held to account. That is what the United States has stood for from the moment this emerged in public, and we will continue to stand for that until this fully plays its way out. So I'm curious, one, if you're seeing any wedges. And two, you know, like, if this was a fight between Canada and China, I'm pretty sure

what would happen next is the Chinese would find a way to punish Canada, like banning the import of Canadian canola oil, which is what they did in 2018 when there was a diplomatic fight. They banned it for three years, like a huge economic hit to the Canadians. but I'm not sure what the Indian government's playbook is going to be. Like, where do you think this one goes? First of all, Jake is, like, better than anybody I know at saying the absolute road diplo speak, but making it sound kind of dramatic. Look, I cannot get into the substance of sensitive conversation. You know, there's just kind of a – there's like a drama behind it, you know?

That's a – that's a praise there. But, look, I think it was – what we were. talked about last week is that the U.S. had to know about this from the five eyes, from those are the five countries that have basically open book intelligence sharing the U.S., Canada, the U.K., New Zealand, Australia. And so what was kind of strange to me when it first popped, as you get to your point about wedges, when it first came out, the U.S. was kind of very, it wasn't like a coordinated everybody to go out together and say, we're really alarmed by this and or the Canadians got first and then the U.S. is ready with like a prepared

statement that's like, you know, we're deeply concerned about this. There was kind of like, we should let the investigation go its way, you know, and one of the reasons I, like some other people, were like, well, that's an interesting formulation, is precisely because the U.S. probably has a view about what happened here. You know, like it'd be interesting if you are a member of Congress, for instance, in the intelligence committee, I'd be asking, what is the U.S. intelligence assessment of whether this happened, you know, because I would guess, and I don't I really don't know this, but I would guess that the U.S. has some X degree of confidence that X happened, you know? Especially Indian diplomats were talking about the assassination in some sort of over a way.

Yeah. It doesn't leave a lot of room. It doesn't leave a lot of. And what was clearly like a professional hit, like, it wasn't like a guy got hit by a car. It was like a bunch of gunmen. Yeah, and videotape of the assassination had come out. It shows like this was like kind of military style. Yeah, it was a good contract style hit, right?

So, however, I will say. I think Jake did a lot of good work in that clip to clean this up, you know, or clean up. They may not have thought there was an amendment. They may not have intended that, but, you know, it just felt like they didn't want to be leading with that. You know, as you and I have talked about, and this is no disrespect in the world to the wonderful role of NSEA spokesperson. But sometimes when like the quote is in the name of the NSEA spokesperson, you know, it's not in the name of the president or secretary of state. It's seen as lesser than. It's, yeah.

Usually because it was. Yeah. And so I think when Jake, though, comes out and basically, says, no, there's no wedge. We're with them. We want to get to the bottom of it. I think that is exactly the right answer. You could just tell that they weren't looking for this fight with the Indians. And maybe that's the message they wanted to send, you know, that we're going to end up being with the Canadians, but we're going to show that we aren't, like, thrilled that this is happening. Now, where can they help is in terms of what's happening next? So in terms of

punishment, the question you asked, you know, India's already indicated they're going to, like, not allow visas for Canadians to visit India, which both undermines business, but it's kind of mean because I'm sure there's a large Indian diaspora there. So I would hope that the role the U.S. can play is I understand that the U.S. is probably not going to beat Modi over the head with this because they have all these other interests of them, but to quietly go to them and be like, don't do this. You know, like let's figure out a way to reach some resolution here that doesn't involve you kind of punishing an ally of ours because you killed somebody there. You know, like, hopefully that's the kind of quiet, intense diplomacy that can help the

Canadians manage through this, you know? Well, I do, I mean, I wonder if the U.S. will be forced to sanction individuals that we know are associated with the assassination under the Magnitsky Act or I don't know. I mean, it seemed like, I wonder if Congress will force our hand on any sense, too. There really, I mean, Modi has a lot of sport in Congress, too, but like there are other issues are raised by this? So, for instance, like, I think we share intelligence with India, you know, are there concerns about intelligence sharing with an intelligence service that may have carried out a contract in Canada? You know, like there are, these kinds of incidents raise all these

questions, you know, and my sense is the administration's tradeoffs are probably going to be towards not having a rift with India. But hopefully that can at least include what Jake said, which is getting about what happened, being clear about accountability and, you know, addressing this in some fashion. Our former mayor here in Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, I think, was pretty recently confirmed as a U.S. ambassador to India. That's a big job, no matter what, but boy, it just got a lot more complicated. Yeah, a lot more complicated. Ben, unfortunately, it's been a tough couple weeks for our friends in Canada.

So last week, they welcomed Ukrainian president of Lodomir Zelensky to the Canadian parliament to deliver a speech. This was a broad effort to support Ukraine. Trudeau announced a bunch of additional money. They're going to send some armored vehicles to Ukraine as part of the event in parliament. The speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, Anthony Rota, introduced a 98-year-old man from his district named Yaroslav Honka, who the speaker described as a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero. Here's a clip of that. We have here in the chamber today, Ukrainian Canadians, Ukrainian-Canadian World Veteran from the Second World War, who fought the Ukrainian-Independent. against the Russians and continues to support the troops today, even at his age of 98.

The speaker has acknowledged his mistake and has apologized, but this is something that is deeply embarrassing to the Parliament of Canada and by extension to all Canadians. So the voice you heard at the end after the applause talking about the speaker's mistake was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau because it turns out that this gentleman, you heard them applauding fought in a volunteer unit under the command of the Nazis. Shortly before we started recording, the speaker resigned. Ben, where do you think applauding a former member of the SS-14th Waffin Division before a speech by a Jewish president ranks on the list of the worst vetting mistakes in political history?

I mean, that's immediately vaulting up to the top three? When you say fought in World War II against the race, Russians. How do you not know immediately it's someone who fought with the Nazis? I just, yeah, what was the vet on this guy? Because it didn't take long for a lot of people to figure this out, right? I mean, like, instantaneous. Because this guy was like not shy about the fact that he'd been in this unit. There are other guys in that unit that ended up in Canada. So, like, it's such a degree of incompetency. Did this person, was he set up by a staff member who wanted to, I mean, Because it's like literally a bunch of like mild-mannered friendly Canadian standing up and

giving a standing ovation to someone who was in the SS. It's like that's fucking crazy. Crazy. Crazy shit, you know. Wasn't there an instance where I think was it you or Favre? Somebody almost used a turn of phrase or Obama's speech at the, uh, in Germany that was like a famous Nazi slogan? So just to prove in some of you, I think maybe way back when I may have told the story,

but just to prove that we could all be the Canadian speaker, right? anybody works in politics. The mistakes happen. So when Obama went to Berlin in 2008, four years present, he was going to address 250,000 Germans, this huge moment outside. And we drafted,

Favre and I wrote the speech together. I was a speech writer traveling. So we had the end of the speech was this great story about the American candy bombers who dropped candy to children and during the Berlin airlift. And this German woman runs out in the street

and yells in German, like, this word that means, like, we are a community of fate, right? actually there's one word in German that means community of fate. So we're like, oh, that's great. That's so Obama. Like, we are the ones we've been waiting for, you know, all that. So that was the big ending was on this line.

And he was going to say it in German. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, isn't that one word really mean community fate? So I Google this word. And sure enough, that's what it means. But I see some Hitler references, you know. But at first I'm kind of like, well, you know, it's Germany. Maybe there's Hitler references. I call our Europe, like, policy lead guy.

I'm going to dime him out now. because we love him, but it was Phil Gordon. Okay. Great dude. He's like, no, I don't, that doesn't ring any bells with me. I'm like, oh, I'm going to call, we had an interpreter for the speech, and great advanced after Mark Levitt, remember that guy? Mm-hmm.

Is with that guy. And so I'm like, hey, does he have any concerns about this word? And the guy's like, oh, my God, he's so glad you asked. He's been, like, worried about this. This word was like the theme of Hitler's first speech to the Reichstag. Oh, my God. And I was like, well, will people know that? And he's like, well, you German people will know that?

The ones listening will. And I was like, so I had to go upstairs and tell Obama like two hours for the speech that we had to change the whole ending because I almost put in this word that was basically like a Hitler theme. Hey, man, better than telling them two hours after the speech. Well, it's great that our boss who was like smoking Marlboro Reds at the time, which probably helped. But it's great that he, his reaction was to laugh hysterically. Yeah. Like other bosses would yell. It's actually a great Obama story that he just, his instinct was to think that was funny, you know?

But it does show you that even Nazis can avoid the vet, you know. Listen, man, yeah, history is complicated. Words have a lot of meeting intended or unintended, and you've got to be real careful. Rough week in Canada, though. I did. When I saw that, it was like, oh, they couldn't even get the clean Zelensky visit, you know, which otherwise is pretty cool. Yeah, that's not good. Okay.

Let's take a quick break. We come back. We are going to talk about the Saudi Crown Prince's interview on Fox News. All right, Ben, so Saudi Crown Prince, Mom of bin Salman, did a sit down. interview with Brett Bear of Fox News. That's a choice. Yep, it is a choice on Fox, a very interesting one. So, look, I haven't, I don't fully track MBS's interviews, but this was like the first

sit down I've seen him do with a Western outlet since his PR tour. 60 Minutes thing, memory. Yeah, the United States in 2017. That got him. Yeah, this fawning, credulous coverage. And, yeah, as you know, it made a lot of reporters look very stupid after MBS ordered the execution of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. So I watched all of Brett's interview with MBS.

It wasn't 2017 Tom Friedman or 60 Minutes bad. He covered a lot of ground. He asked about Khashoggi. He asked what some human rights things. But there was some boot looking in there. They were a little uncomfortable. But let's start with the biggest headline out of this interview when they talked about Iran. So here's MBS talking about what would happen if Iran got a nuclear weapon.

That means you are in a war with the rest of the world. So to use this effort to reach a war. nuclear weapon because you cannot use it. If you use it, you got to have a big fight with the rest of the world. If they get one, will you? If they get one, we have to get one for security reason, for balancing power in Middle East. But we don't want to see that. So, Ben, I heard that and look, I could view that as kind of a threat or I could view it as a statement of facts and frankly something that, you know, Obama said many times, which is of Iran got a nuclear weapon. It would start an arms race in the Middle East. How did you receive that?

I received it as a statement of fact. I mean, first of all, like, they, as always, you know, could have supported the Iran deal, and then you wouldn't have to be having this conversation. So that's endlessly frustrating that he and Bibi, these guys that actively undermine the Iran deal, are now bitching that the Iranians are on the doorstep of a nuclear weapon that they wouldn't have been able to do. But I think it's just, look, we used to make this argument. Like, if Iran gets one, the Saudis will and others. the Saudis could buy one, you know, they have so much money.

They could figure out a way to buy it. I think the problematic, to use a 2023 term, piece of it, is that we're in the middle of this negotiation about giving them a peaceful nuclear program, right? And so that's on the table as part of this normalization deal. And for him to just announce we might, because it would still, they're not like legally allowed to get a nuclear weapon just because Iran gets one. That may be what happens. but like that would be in violation of the not nuclear nonproliferation treaty that would be against international law.

So for him to basically just say, yeah, like, you know, if this thing happens, it very well may happen, we're just going to immediately turn key and have a nuclear weapon. And oh, by the way, like, that'd probably be easier if the U.S. builds me a large peaceful nuclear program. Right. That's why it's messed up. Like it just is him saying out loud, yeah, it's not like this nuclear program might not just be about like peaceful nuclear power. It's a hedge, you know. Yeah, that jumped out of me.

I mean, the same interview they talked about this normalization deal, a bunch. And, you know, also, Brett Bear in the piece talks about MBS's efforts to make peace with the Iranians, the deals were brokered by the Chinese in a way that's, like, it's not fawning, but it's sort of like, you're sort of praising him, but that other side of his mouth is always attacking Obama and the Iran deal. Funny, Brett Bear wasn't as fawning over our diplomacy of the Iran. No, he was not. So just to give him shit for a minute.

So Brett starts the interview by saying a lot of people described you as a visionary leader, including many of your own people. I'm like, oh my God. He later, I think the next question starts, many people are saying, you really have become a big player on the world stage. When talking about normalization, he says, clearly you can see outside of the box on these deals. And then on Yemen, to his credit, Brett asks about the war in Yemen. But then he says, more than 150,000 people died in Yemen. It's been a big humanitarian crisis. But you all put in billions of dollars to help in that. And it doesn't get covered a lot. It's like, thank you for sending some aid to manage the humanitarian catastrophe that the Saudis caused.

Wonderful. Why not cover that more? That's so unbelievable because, yeah, like they completely created the humanitarian catastrophe. The billions they provided in humanitarian assistance is like change in the couch for the Saudis. And that also, Tommy, doesn't that just sound like, you know, Brett Bearer had to have multiple meetings with like MBS's flaks in order to secure this interview? And one of those flacks. one of those like really smooth Saudi diplomat types is like, you know what doesn't get covered? The prince really wants to make sure that we are providing this humanitarian assistance in

Yemen and no one ever talks about. He really liked to talk about it. 100%. You know, like you can totally, good work by that flak, by the way, because he basically wrote Brett Bearer's question. Yeah, it's a 30-minute interview. Like the first part is kind of buttering him up 17 minutes into discussion. He asks about Khashoggi, he asks a follow up and then moves on, though he does move on to whether or not the Saudi is going to lock up someone who tweeted something nasty about the government. One thing that really bothered me, Ben, is Brett Bear is like, could you work with Bibi Netanyahu? And MBS says, look, you know, like in Saudi Arabia, we don't interfere with who is running a country. We work with them.

No pushback on that. No mention that MBS took the president of Lebanon hostage in 2017. Yeah, yeah. And made him resign. Removing governments. Yeah, yeah. One of the stranger episodes, too, by the way. They took the prime minister of a country Austin.

And they drafted a statement for him and made him read it. It's crazy the should have ever seen. Brett Berry asked MBS about Biden's age. MBS is actually surprisingly complimentary. He does also ask about the Saudis investing in Jared Kushner's fund and whether it sends a bad message. He says even if there wasn't a tit for tat, he sort of takes away the worst outcome.

Basically, MBS says he leave the money in there, even if Trump becomes president. So worth watching, but pretty frustrating. Yeah, pretty frustrating. I mean, this guy has, like, just floated above accountability of any sort because of his money. And, you know, that's the message sent by interviews like that. I mean, I do think part of what's going on here is, look, he clearly would prefer Trump coming back. Definitely.

Precisely because everybody knows that, he can, like, say some nice things about Joe Biden and Fox News. And by the way, the reason they wanted to the normalization deal now is because they think that they did the deal with Trump as president. It would not get through Congress because no Democrats would vote for it. So the reason he's doing this is he wants to use Democratic votes under Democratic president to muscle through his normalization package so he can have his nuclear program and security guarantee and then hug Trump, which is yet another reason I'd be skeptical of this deal if I was a Democrat. I'm real skeptical of this deal. A couple more quick things before we get to Ben's interview. So we haven't talked about Niger in a while. Folks remember, the presidential guard in Niger stayed to coup on July 26th.

They've been in control ever since the Democratic elected president has been sitting in. jail. The coup leaders told France right after it happened to get their ambassador and their 1,500 troops the hell out of the country. Initially, French president and Emmanuel Macron refused saying he would only take orders from Muhammad Bazoum, the democratically elected president. On Sunday, Macron changed his mind and he announced that France will recall its ambassador immediately and pull out all of their troops by the end of the year. France was leading this big counterterrorism coalition in the Sahel region of Africa from about 2013 to 2022. At its peak, it spanned multiple countries and there were about 5,000 soldiers there.

They've been steadily driven out. This is sort of the latest step in that process. Now, I guess we'll just see what the U.S. does. Yeah. I mean, I think this is the right call, not that the France at a lot of maneuvering room. But as we've talked about, they need to kind of reset this entire relationship they have with their former colonies in the Sahel region of Africa. because one after another there's a coup

that basically has like anti-French sentiment as a key part of it. And so just instead of kind of trying to stay there and figure something out, like just pulling out and be like, okay, we're kind of start this over. It's crazy that they were telling him to leave and they wouldn't do it. Yeah, I mean, that was...

You know how to leave someone's country. I think the U.S., like, I don't know. I mean, the U.S., they haven't said the same thing to us about getting out, you know? No, I don't think we've called it a coup yet. Yeah, so, I mean, personally, like, I kind of feel like we should get out of there because, you know, we're kind of enabling in some fashion like a pretty shitty

situation. And there got to be other ways to manage like a terrorism threat from that part of the world. It feels like by 2023 we should be able to not have to be physically everywhere. I mean, this is part about dismantling forever or infrastructure. Like, are you going to keep a drum base in Niger forever? I mean, I don't think so. So, you know, post-coup might be the time to pack it up. Yeah, it might be the time. So, Ben, Our former boss, Obama's first chief of staff, Rom Emanuel, is now the U.S. ambassador of Japan. So we worked for Rom. He was very super high functioning, frenetic, not afraid to break some China, not afraid to drop

enough bomb or piss people off, makes menomies. Unabash at NeoLib, too. Unabash at NeoLib. That reputation made Rom's selection as an ambassador a little bit surprising to some people. Especially to like an incredibly structured and polite kind of society. Well, you know, it's funny. I do think part of that is part of the confusion. Some of it is an assumption that ambassadors are polished and diplomatic. I do think sometimes countries want ambassadors that just are perceived as having power and access. And like, Rom certainly fits that bill. I don't know. Either way, NBC News reported that the White House had to scold Rom Emanuel for sending a bunch of tweets that taunted Chinese president Xi Jinping because they were worried they might undermine efforts to improve. relations between the U.S. and China. So the White House denied this happened on the record. Kirk Campbell, who was on the show a couple weeks back, has this like glowing quote about Rom,

you know. I bet. Probably dictated by Rom. I talked some folks in the administration who said, you know, look, they're doing their job and pushing back on a story that annoyed people. But they said they think Rom's doing a pretty good job, but he certainly seems to have pissed off some folks at the State Department, some professional diplomats. So I don't know. Regardless, there is no doubt in my mind that if back in 2009, we were sitting in the White House, and our ambassador to Japan started popping off on the Chinese president on Twitter. Ron Manuel would have like. Ron would have ripped him a new asshole, him or right?

So I guess my question to you is like there has been this change in diplomacy starting, you know, sort of the Xi Jinping area, these are so-called wolf warrior diplomats who are lots of Chinese officials who talk shit on social media all day, every day for a living about the U.S. in particular. Do we think any of this really matters given that change? or like, I don't know, how big a deal, how big of a concern would you have about ROM, you know, popping off about, you know, the missing Chinese foreign minister and defense minister on Twitter? I mean, it's, first of all, it's just funny that Rahm is an ambassador. By the way, he had like the strangest, people always like, you know, did he curse a lot? And yeah, the answer is yes. But it was always being the strangest way. It'd be like, you know, get me the secretary of motherfucking agriculture.

And it's like, why? Why? Why is that guy a motherfucker? You know, like, it was just kind of random cursing, you know? Yeah. So I'm trying to picture that in Japan. On the, the other thing about the Xi Jinping stuff is like Biden, Biden goes to these like fundraisers and he'll be like, I wouldn't want to be Xi Jinping, that loser. Like, Biden is constantly like throwing haymakers to Xi Jinping. That's true. That's true. So maybe Rahm kind of felt like you had the top cover in this stuff. Yeah, he's good talk points. As a general matter, I'm a supporter of diplomats and a. ambassadors and U.S. government officials sounding like normal human beings. Ship posting? I mean, it probably doesn't have to be through shit posting, but like I really like,

and I've said this, I'll say this publicly, I've said it privately to everybody. From Tony Blinkin on down, like the talking points that we kind of live by in foreign policy, no human being sounds like that. No human being says words like, today we reaffirm. and deepened the partnership, you know, like, it's not how human beings talk. So I'm actually, I am a fan of ambassadors and people generally in the U.S. government sounding like human beings. And that means they're going to throw a little shade at Xi Jinping from time to time.

Like, I think that's fine. I think you don't want to, the wolf warrior stuff that the Chinese do, the reason I think that's too much is it makes you kind of look weak, you know. It's kind of crazed. It's like this is going to deranged rants about America. America and like it doesn't it like it sounds thin skin you know yeah that's true I yeah I guess I'm with you I just kind of find the whole thing funny it's fine I find the whole thing funny I mean just picture crumb like firing off like you know dunks on the Chinese

farm ministers yeah and like some poor assistant secretary of state for Asia waking up and reading and he's like yeah yeah and crittonbring man look one of the best guys in the us government just being this guy works for me this guy works for my underlings underling's underling and he's just like popping off on dan crittman he was after you uh he replaced danny russells this is he's the most like he's from Nebraska, wholesome, wonderful guy. So like, Rahm is probably like totally off his sensibilities in the number of ways. Rom and the State Department, it's an interesting culture fit. Yeah, yeah.

That's one they'd say. Final story, Ben. A New Zealand couple was awarded $1,400 in compensation from the Singapore Airlines after they were forced to leave their premium seats and move to economy seats because they were seated next to a loud farting dog. This was a 13-hour flight from Paris to Singapore. According to People magazine, my source here, the trouble began after the dinner service, as it often does. The dog was a bulldog mix. Apparently the dog, it was like underneath the owner's seat, but it's sort of, I think, but was kind of angled under the neighbor's seat. You know what happens next.

So, you know, this couple fought and fought and fought for the money. They said they'll donate it to a New Zealand-based charity that matches visually impaired people with service dogs. So all's well that ends well. I have questions. Did the dog eat the dinner? Is that the assumption that the dog had like the Singapore era, like, because it's actually good dinner on Singapore era. They have good food?

But maybe if the dog's eating like some spicy noodles or something, that's not going to be good. Yeah, if you're giving them some sort of like heavily sourced microwave chicken. That's not what you want. That'll do it. Did you see, I'm sure you did, the diarrhea plane? Oh, God. Yeah.

I mean. Did I ever? Because it kind of, this calls it to mine because I imagine if this dog, like ate the microwave chicken dinner. It wasn't just the people sitting right there that are going to be impacted about what this dog was doing. I mean, these New Zealanders were like

on the front lines, but there were some fucking people right behind them probably didn't appreciate it either. It's like snakes on a plane or something. 13-hour flight, I mean, the dog's supposed to hold it that time, that whole time? That's a really long flight for an animal.

That's a very good question. Like, what do you do with like animals on 13-hour flights? I mean, so I've taken my dog on six or seven hour flights, even when she was a puppy, and we brought, like, pee pads and tried to get her to go in the bathroom. Sometimes she would. Sometimes she would. I mean, they can hold it a shockingly long time, but 13 hours is a lot.

Yeah. God, that's a lot. Now, when we got Luca, we flew with her a couple weeks after we got her. So she was, like, 10 or 12 weeks. And we were sitting southwest. And basically, like, someone saw me on the, in the window seat Hannah in the middle

and then like an open aisle seat next to like you know Hannah's small so you have a yeah yeah you're not fighting for the armrest yeah this younger woman comes and sits

and sits down and then she sees that we have our little like 12 week old puppy on a on the tray table just like racked out sleeping yeah yeah the best day of her life

she's got better a little time no farting though I yeah that uh that's a good seat you get to be next to Hannah and and a puppy yeah you get a lots of arm room it's a lot of happy time but um yeah so I guess No 13-hour flights.

Just don't feed the dogs, the people food on the flights, I think. That's what we can take away from this. Okay. We learned from this. Okay. We are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, you will hear Ben's interview about what's going on in Gorno-Karabakh. So stick around for that.

Okay, we are very pleased to welcome back to POTS of the World. Alicia Vartagnan, who is a senior analyst for the South Caucasus at the International Crisis Group. we've had Alicia in the past to talk about the situation in Nagorno-Karbach. As we talked about the beginning of the show, we had a significant deterioration there with Azerbaijan seizing control of the disputed New Grono-Karabakh region, leading to thousands, if not tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians fleeing their homes, literally, to try to reach Armenia's borders. And so she's here to help us understand what's happening.

where things might be going now. So thanks so much for joining us today. Oh, I'm so happy to join you, but I wish we could have a different reason for to have this conversation. I know, I know, so do I. And it's just kind of been a heartbreaking turn of events. I mean, to begin with, describe for our listeners what has just happened, you know, and why, why from your understanding did this just happen now? So in other words, this has been a disputed territory for so long. why does it seem like Azerbaijan has now made its move to kind of swallow up this region and displace if not ethnically cleanse all of these people? It was the end of the day, September 19, when Azerbaijan started a military operation

in Nagorno-Karabakh, Haribakh. It took them very little, almost like it was a matter of hours for the Azerbaijani troops to destroy what the local Armenians called their own army. and they took control of the main roads that are connecting Stepanakert, which is the main town in his enclave with the rest of the region. The capital, the main town got encircled by the Azerbaijani troops. The local afforded is right away, almost immediately started calling for the ceasefire. And it took most of the time of this military operation that lasted officially for one day.

But in fact, I mean, everything was more or less done within a couple of hours. But most of the time, it went only for the local authorities and the Azerbaijani government to basically decide how to proceed with a ceasefire because Azerbaijan was asking not just for the dismantlement of the local military troops, but also they wanted to see that the local government basically announcing that they don't exist anymore, but then there was a question who would be responsible, right? I mean, for implementation of the ceasefire statement. And so it took with Long one day just because they were busy clarifying how to proceed with the demands that Azerbaijan posed and the local afforded is agreed to right away. When the announced,

came when the de facto 40 is said that the ceasefire was agreed, it led to an enormous panic among the local population. Around 100,000 people, they were on the ground. Thousands were already displaced by the fighting that was taking place. But I mean, right away, people just started walking in all different direction, trying to find any kind of cover because they were all afraid that the Azerbaijani troops know where to start entering their villages and towns, and that would lead to certain violence, tensions, massacres and all of that. Many of these people, they were walking kilometers, including very old people and and also mothers with kids, just to find a cover at the bases and compounds of the Russian peacekeepers.

So at some point, all these people, they found themselves in an open sky, without any kind of food, without any kind of belongings, many without any kind of documents, and end with no clarity about the future. It took Azerbaijan about two days to agree to opening the road, the only road that connects Nagorno-Karabakh with region to Armenia. And the moment it happened, we started seeing rivers of cars. All the people started moving towards Armenia, and it is still going on. Azerbaijani bodyguards that are stationed at the border of Armenia, they're checking every single

car. And because of that, people spend over a day just moving along with road that normally should take a couple of hours. And the first people now are here in Armenia. Today, almost 50,000 people already got registered. I spoke to several people who I know where well, none of them registered. So I would probably expect a bigger number. I mean, those who is coming, many more are still on the move. They are packing. There are also people who are still looking for diesel or petrol or some leaves, some buses. I have a feeling that in the coming days, with region, will become almost empty.

So maybe there will be some people who will decide to stay. and this is their choice. But the majority, they don't see their future in Nagorno-Karabakh anymore, unfortunately. So, I mean, that's a really astonishing and heartbreaking picture that you just painted. Part of what is so astonishing, I think, to some people, is that this has been a kind of frozen conflict for decades with roughly 150,000 Armenians living in this space.

When you step back and consider why, Why did this happen so fast? You know, we saw President Lee of Azerbaijan with Erdogan the other day. Clearly, his deep relationship with Turkey and the military assistance he's gotten has improved their capabilities. The Russians have generally been in the corner of Armenia and Russian peacekeepers were kind of relied upon to enforce this status quo around Nogrono Karbach. Clearly, Russia has been distracted by the war in Ukraine. or you just have a world in which, you know, big countries are doing this as smaller countries, as Russia is doing in Ukraine.

Why do you think this happened now in a way that it hasn't happened for decades? Why was Azerbaijan both willing and able to do this so quickly? So look, the first change it came in 2020, almost exactly three years ago. Then Azerbaijan started with military operation. The world was busy with pandemic. The U.S. was having elections, you know, Trump's administration. they did not really care about this part of the world altogether. And yeah, I mean, it took them six weeks.

The Azerbaijani forces, they captured most of the conflict zone, including parts of Naguerni Karabakh. Armenian army was absolutely destroyed. It was basically the locals that were left at the mercy of the Russian peacekeepers. And at that time, Moscow decided to station them in Nagorno-Karabakh, for at least five days. And everything was more or less, okay, I should say. I mean, there were the people who were telling me that they don't like sort of things,

especially that the military troops are next door. You know, they can see them from their windows, that they don't feel safe about their kids. And, I mean, Nagorno-Karabakhary became much more isolated because there were no more people, like from outside world traveling there. Some restrictions were imposed and all of that. But still, you know, life went on. But the moment Russia started the invasion of Ukraine, everything started, I mean, it all started changing on the ground. And people felt it there right away.

Azerbaijan could feel right away also very well, you know, that Russia would never really start opening the second front. They were busy in Ukraine. And, yeah, then Azerbaijan started making use of its military might. also the fact that Russia is either distracted, doesn't want to get involved, or just kind of prefers not to see what's happening, both with Nagorno-Karabakh, but also at the border with Armenia and Azerbaijan. And there were many attempts, robust attempts, I should say, made by the European Union and also by the current administration of the United States. But, yeah, look, we still reached this point when there was a, it was necessary. for Azerbaijan to go for some softer stance, you know, and probably concede on some of its positions when it comes to Naguara-Karabakh.

So, for example, the United States and the European Union, they were offering to launch the negotiations between Baku and Stepanakir, the fact of authorities and Azerbaijani officials on the future of enclave, so that they sit down and discuss how with reintegrations starts happening. And then with the facto of four, it disagreed. They started developing their papers, you know, like position, agenda, and there were two attempts to make it happen. American officials were to take both de facto official and Azerbaijan representatives to Europe for a meeting. First time, it was disrupted by the leaks to the Russian media. The second time we saw Russian foreign ministry making all different offers to Azerbaijan that were.

much more attractive than what the US was suggesting. To me, when it happened in July, in June and July, it was clear that we were doomed for escalation, to be honest. It was just a matter of time when it was to happen. But still, you know, all these people, they spend their summer and going after with Azerbaijan and Armenian officials, we had the most senior people from Brussels and Washington, D.C. calling. And I understand that, for example, Secretary Blinking spoke to Alif, and one of my sources at the administration told me that they even discussed the possibility of sanctions in case

with military operation happens. European official, who is involved in all of that, also confirmed that President Alive personally promised not to go for this kind of military operation. And then they saw this happening when with UN General Assembly. with annual thing was happening, when all these people were together in New York, it was much more than anyone could expect. On the one hand, the fighting that everyone knew what it would bring, but on the other is also how it was done, you know, despite all the promises and the UNGA happening.

Yeah, it's almost like they wanted people to know, to watch, that they didn't care, that Azerbaijan's, stronger party now and they're going to do what they want. I mean, so you paint a picture of pretty intense diplomatic activity. The Armenian-American community here is understandably upset and I think the mood is that, you know, they would have liked the U.S. to do more. They would have liked the U.S. to cut off any military assistance to Azerbaijan earlier. They would have liked sanctions. What more do you think history is over, but this is still an ongoing situation. Azerbaijan is still threatening maybe even further encouragements into Armenia.

What do you think the United States can and should be doing now to support Armenia as it deals with not only these people coming in, but continued threats from Azerbaijan? Look, Azerbaijan is not very easy to work with. It's not like, you know, Washington, D.C., call them, and then they in Azerbaijan right away start doing, you know, the thing. So, I mean, you have to work with them. And then, you know, I perfectly understand all these people who are. are so much frustrated.

The administrator of the USID, Samantha Power, she is now in Armenian, and she constantly has to respond to these very questions. You promised us that there would, that was the red line. You told us that you would respond. Where is your help? We don't need your money. We need, why didn't you help us? And then people are very much frustrated with the fact that Russian peacekeepers is packed

and left, you know, all their observation points. And they are now the only force on the ground and there is no prospect for changing them or even adding anything. So you really have to look at this situation and then think about like some sober approach and stance there. And I would say that the biggest and the most important priority now, oh, I know that people will not like what I'm going to say. But it's still for Armenian and Zepachan to proceed with the peace talks. There are two very important things for them still to discuss. One is the delimitation of the border and the second is the transportation roads. Both of them, they have to do with security of Armenia.

If Azerbaijan now says no to the U.S. and EU mediation on these two important points, Armenia is left with only choice to go for these discussions with Russian mediation. And then Russia does not really keep its back and even more on some of the issues, we know that Russia supports Azerbaijan position. And so in a way, you know, this is kind of a situation when, yeah, this is a bad choice, but you have to think about some worse things that can happen if you don't go for that. And this is because just so people know, essentially there's a part of Azerbaijan that is still cut off, right, by Armenian territory. And so the worst case scenario would be Azerbaijan taking more of Armenia's territory

in order to create a kind of land bridge, which is eerily familiar to Ukraine. So yes, this is still very much not over. So you're in Yoravan. What is the mood there? I mean, you know, I've been struck by there's both the sense of loss of this territory that, you know, really intense war was fought over at the end of the Soviet Union. Obviously, the ethnic Armenians and Christians in that territory, you know, basically being ethnically cleansed. But also you have the historical memory of genocide in Armenians. It feels like it makes this kind of trauma even more intense. And this sense of insecurity, as you said, it's just surrounded by these countries that seem hustle to its interest. I mean, what is the mood in Yorvan right now?

I think many people are lost because it was very fast. And right away, you now see with people, people are, I mean, the locals, they are sorry about what happened. But at the same time, I don't see anyone who wants to get into the fighting, you know. I mean, there are those who are criticizing, for example, the Armenian leadership for their decision not to interfere into the fighting. I mean, people like me understand very well that it would be a very short fight, even for Armenia itself, just because it doesn't really have an army and it doesn't have a backing of Russia. It's a kind of formal military alliance. So it was not something that Armenia could afford at all. But there were some protests. And then to be honest, I mean, when I went

to sea with protests, I could not really feel that they were. something that could bring a major change. It can change in case of with humanitarian crisis that Armenia might face just because it now has to find housing and integrate a huge number of people who are different, who speak a different language. They are Armenians, but they are not local Armenians. It's still a very difficult task. And the second also, if, for example, some new escalational incidents start taking place. at the border, that's also something that will undermine the Armenian leadership. And look, the winter is coming.

Russia is the one that is providing natural gas to Armenia. Russia is the one that provides also the market. And we know very well, you know, when there are some political problems, right away, there can be some issues with, for example, some explosions on the pipeline. Or there can be problems with some, I'd like, you know, quality of some of the Armenian products that are to enter the Russian market. So, I mean, it's okay for the moment. It's more or less stable. People are watching. They are sorry, but what is to come. I think everyone is really very

afraid of with next weeks and then months that are to come. Yeah, I bet. But I think you really appropriately remind. reminded us that this isn't over yet. You know, there's going to need to be a lot of assistance to the, for those 150,000 people, assuming that's how many people come. We're talking about a country, Armenian, of less than 3 million people. So that's an enormous influx. There's a risk of continued conflict. The need for U.S. and European assistance remains very high, even if the frustration with how Nogorra-Karabakh has played out is understandable. The last thing I just wanted to ask What have you heard about this explosion that took place at like a fuel depot where people are fleeing?

It just seems to, does that feel like an accident? Or does people feel like this is further efforts to sabotage and kind of humiliate and punish Armenians on the way out? You know, I spoke to some people who told me, I mean, who are still on the ground, who told me that they don't really have a reason to believe that that was something that was prepared by so on. So I probably have to explain that Nagorno-Karba has been living with this blockade from imposed by Azerbaijan for over nine months by the time of the military operation. There were very huge problems with food, but also not only, but also. So petrol, diesel. And when people saw that the road was open between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia,

then right away you could see them running around the town. And then in a search of this, you know, petrol that either Russian peacekeepers delivered or some said, Azerbaijan delivered, no one cared. It was unfortunate, it was a very unfortunate incident. When people were in the rush and they were trying to get petrol and diesel just to get out, of Nagorno-Karabak because they are so much terrified. I, I don't know, I spoke to some people, you know, who have been packing yesterday. And the feeling that I have is that they don't really have a hope that they will go back.

Like, for example, one woman, she was burning. She packed some of her belongings, not much. But still, I mean, she was burning, like, family photos. and she kept the door open just because she thought that those who were to come and to live at her apartment, they should probably enter, you know, a nice place. I heard that some others also telling me that they were cleaning their houses because, you know, there is this kind of feeling saying that if you are abandoning your house, the new host should come to the clean place. It all sounds terrible.

And also for those who not just now have to start a new life, but also just because in this military operation, many also lost their sons and husbands. The majority of those who died, they were military, but we were military who were also at the same time local residents. And then there are still those who are trying to find the corpses and the remains of their beloved ones. And then still kind of, you know, trying to keep with petrol and diesel next to them. And of course, with explosion, it was like an additional tragedy just because, yeah, people were trying to flee and suddenly this happened. And you got like almost 300 people injured. Some of them really very badly and over 20 killed. So it's like an additional thing when you absolutely lose any kind of hope for a better future, I'm afraid.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Well, look, we really appreciate you coming on and helping us understand what's happening there. Everybody should follow the international crisis group's work is usually the very best analysis of these kind of conflict zones. and people should follow you, Alicia, and social media will point people in that direction. So thanks so much and best of luck to you. Thank you. Thanks again to Alessia Vartagnan for joining the show. No thank you to Mac Jones or their guy, Zach.

No. I will say thank you to a friend of the pod, Andy Kim. Oh, yeah, he might run. He's hat in the ring against Menendez. So this is hard. Everyone loves Andy Kim. I'm excited for him to run. I bet it's going to be a crowded primary, and people get real pissed off in Democratic primaries, as we all learned in 2020.

So we'll see. But I do hope that Menendez resigns and someone can replace them. Yeah, that would be very. I'm not holding my breath on that one, but we'll see. That guy, like, I just want to be clear. As I said, I'm about to America. I thought the guy sucked before. It was cool.

Yeah. So did I. I have a long record. We have a pretty good track record. I mean, if you've been listening, let's say you've picked. picked this show up in 18. You would have known how much we thought Jared Kushner sucked, Nibb Nanyahu sucked, MBS sucked, Bob Menendez. I feel like we've basically been proven. We may not be right about all of our prescriptions for things, but I think our antenna for who sucks

the most is pretty spot on. I think that's right. I do think all of those people would be pleased to be bucketed together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fair. That's true. They all like get the last laughs than that. Yeah. Listen, great show. Thanks everybody for listening and talk to you next week. Potsay of the World is a crooked media production. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor, Ben Rhodes, and Reed Cherlin. Our producer is Alona Minkowski, and associate producer is Ashley Mizuo. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick, audio support by Kyle Seaglin and Charlotte Landis. Our studio technician is David Tolls. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn and Phoebe Bradford, who upload our episodes and videos to YouTube.com slash Podsaid the world.