The Daily Signal - After US Pullout From Afghanistan, Joel C. Rosenberg Sees Alliances Shift in Middle East

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

Involvement in the Middle East has been a large part of U.S. foreign policy for generations. President after president has had to take the multifaceted and complex web of alliances and relationships in the Middle East into account as they navigated policy in the region. But after President Joe Biden withdrew U.S. forces from Afghanistan in neighboring south Central Asia, the balance of power in the Middle East underwent a major shift. America’s departure from the region resulted in a number of important geopolitical ramifications and strategic reorientations. Joel C. Rosenberg, an American-Israeli communications strategist and author of the new book "Enemies and Allies: An Unforgettable Journey Inside the Fast-Moving & Immensely Turbulent Modern Middle East," has spent years learning the ins and outs of Middle Eastern politics. His new book includes interviews with Middle Eastern leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and long-time Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to get their views on the future of the Middle East with a less-present United States. One point of concern is Iran. The Saudis "see Iran the way Israel sees Iran, which is, the people are great, the leadership is evil, and the leadership is trying to build nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them," Rosenberg says. Rosenberg joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss his new book and the implications of America's withdrawal from Afghanistan, as well to explain the ongoing realignment between Arab states and Israel against Iran. We also cover these stories: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says Congress' Democratic leaders have agreed on a framework to pay for their $3.5 trillion spending bill. The Biden administration announces it will prohibit the Border Patrol from using horses in Del Rio, Texas, in response to images of agents on horseback appearing to abuse Haitian refugees—which wasn't the case. The administration begins reimbursing Florida school officials who had their pay docked for refusing to enforce Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ban on mask mandates. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, September 24th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Doug Blair. After President Biden removed U.S. forces from Afghanistan, the balance of power in the Middle East underwent a radical shift. America's departure from the region resulted in a number of important geopolitical considerations. On today's episode of the Daily Signal podcast, we're joined by Joel Rosenberg, author of the new book, Enemies and Allies, who interviewed numerous members of the Middle East political apparatus. He explains his book and gives us a rundown on just what's going on over there. And don't forget, if you enjoy this podcast, please be sure to leave us a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now onto our top news. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Wednesday that Democrat leaders in Congress have with the White House come to an agreement on a framework to pay for their $3.5 trillion dollar spending package.

But Pelosi did not provide any details about the framework itself. Pelosi said Democrats know they can cover the cost of the bill, which is the largest spending bill in history per NBC News. We'll get more estimates as to how much money comes in on certain things, but we know that we can cover the proposal that the president has put forth to build back better, his vision for our country well beyond the BIF, the budget, what we're calling it, bipartisan infrastructure framework. I'm very excited about this. And again, it's all good. Pelosi was joined by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for

the first part of the press conference. Schumer, like Pelosi, articulated that an agreement has been reached, but did not specify any of the details of that agreement. The White House, the House, and the Senate have reached agreement on a framework that will pay for any final negotiated agreement. So the revenue side of this, we have an agreement on. Okay? Thank you. A framework.

An agreement of a framework. Okay. Thanks. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders. says he has no idea what the framework is but hopes to be briefed on it soon. It is still unclear when the spending bill will be ready for a vote. After images of Department of Homeland Security agents appearing to whip Haitian migrants from horseback drew outrage online, the Biden administration announced Thursday it is temporarily

prohibiting the border patrol from using horses in Del Rio, Texas. Here's press secretary Jen Saki announcing the horse ban via CNBC. So what he has asked all of us to convey clearly to people who are understandably have questions, are passionate, are concerned as we are about the images that we have seen, is one, we feel those images are horrible and horrific. There is an investigation. The president certainly supports overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, which he has conveyed will happen quickly. I can also convey to you that the Secretary also conveyed to civil rights leaders earlier this morning that we would no longer be using horse. in Del Rio. So that is something, a policy change that has been made in response. Per Fox News, the claim that Border Patrol agents were whipping migrants has been previously debunked by Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz, who confirmed that the riders were using reins

to control the horses. In response to the ongoing border crisis in the region, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, urged the Biden administration to declare a federal emergency, saying during a Tuesday visit to Del Rio, because the Biden administration, administration is doing nothing to secure our border, it has been the state of Texas that has had to step up and address this challenge. U.S. Special Envoy to Haiti, Daniel Foote, has resigned over what he is calling the Biden administration's inhumane deportation of migrants back to Haiti. He wrote in his resignation letter that America's policy approach to Haiti remains deeply flawed, and my recommendations have been ignored and dismissed. While Foote claims,

His policy recommendations on the migrant crisis were wrongly ignored, State Department spokesman Ned Price says that is simply not true. Price said in a statement that Foote's recommendations were fully considered in a rigorous and transparent policy process. But he added that some of the Special Envoy's proposals were determined to be harmful to our commitment to the promotion of democracy in Haiti and were rejected during the policy process. The Department of Homeland Security has been deporting migrants back to Haiti on flights from Texas. Price says it is unfortunate that instead of participating in a solution-oriented policy process, special envoyed foot, has both resigned and mischaracterized the circumstances of his resignation.

On Thursday, the Biden administration began reimbursing Florida school officials who had their pay dock for refusing to enforce Governor Ron DeSantis's mask mandate ban. The project to support America's Families and Educators, or Safe Grant Program, distributed an initial round of nearly $148,000 in funding to members of the Alachua County School Board. Governor DeSantis signed an executive order back in July banning school districts from imposing mask mandates. Counties that did so anyway would then have their state funding withheld. In a statement announcing the initial round of federal funding, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said, we should be thanking districts for using proven strategies that will keep schools open and safe. In addition to Alachua County, at least nine other Florida counties have mask mandates in defiance of Florida orders.

Now stay tuned for my conversation with Joel Rosenberg as we discuss the geopolitical implications of America's withdrawal from the Middle East. The Heritage Foundation has a new website to combat critical race theory. CRT, as it's known, makes race the centerpiece of all aspects of American life. categorizes individuals into groups of oppressors and victims, the idea is infiltrating everything from our politics and education to the workplace and even our military. Heritage has pulled together the resources that you need to identify CRT in your community and the ways to fight it. We also have a legislation tracker so you can see what's happening in your state. Visit heritage.org slash CRT to learn more.

Our guest today is Joel Rosenberg, an American-Israeli communication strategist and author of the new book, Enemies and Allies, focusing on the ever-shifting political landscape in the Middle East. Joel, thank you so much for joining us. Hey, great to be on the podcast. Thank you so much. Yeah, for sure. So before we get into your newest book, I'd like it if you could tell us a little bit about yourself.

So reading your website, you are amazingly prolific. You've written a number of both fiction and non-fiction books. So the question being, how did you get into writing and what made you select the topics that you choose to write about? Well, the simplest way to put it is I'm a failed political consultant. I lived in Washington with my wife and kids for almost a quarter of a century. My first job was actually the Heritage Foundation. Not too exciting. I enjoyed it, but I was only making coffee and typing memos and so forth.

That was my first job. But anyway, I ended up working for a number of U.S. and Israeli political. leaders. And the bottom line is I helped them all lose. It wasn't my intention. I helped Steve Forbes lose two presidential campaigns and about $70 million of the inheritance money due to his five daughters. So that didn't go so well, though I love Steve and the flat tax and all the issues we were working on. My last campaign I worked on was then former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had been prime minister in Israel from 1996. to 99 and then lost his re-election.

And in the fall of 2000, I got hired on a small team of political advisors and consultants, me focusing on media for his comeback campaign. Those who followed the career of Netanyahu know that he didn't come back for nine more years, and I played no role whatsoever in helping him. So basically in January of 2001, One, after Netanyahu would be my last project I worked on, I started writing my first political thriller. And that was called The Last Jihad.

The first page puts you inside the cockpit of a jet plane, hijacked by radical Islamist terrorists, coming in on a kamikaze attack mission into an American city. That's how the book began the last jihad. And it went to an American president not only declaring war against radical Islamist terror cells throughout the Middle East, but his decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. And I was finishing that book in Washington, D.C.,

near, well, near Washington-Dulles Airport, where we lived at the time on the morning of 9-11. And it was just crazy. But when the book came out in the fall of 2002, it became a monster bestseller, number one on Amazon, 11 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. and it set into motion a whole new career centered around what is going on in the Middle East and how do we get blindsided by these attacks?

And that's been a theme in my work. And yeah, five million books later, that's what I'm working on. Right. So in terms of your newest book, enemies and allies, you actually do continue on with that theme of the Middle East. You focus on the evolving relationships in the Middle East between Israel, the Arab States, some of the Western powers. And to write this book, you conducted interviews with Middle Eastern leaders. So you had people like Saudi crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, as we talked about former Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. You did this to try and get a better picture of what the political landscape in the Middle East looks like.

So with all of that, from a purely political perspective, as of right now, what is the situation politically like in the Middle East? Bleak. Did you want me to go on longer or just we just stop there? Well, let's go a little further. Darkness is rising. Our enemies have been emboldened. Our allies are deeply rattled by President Biden's abject surrender to the forces of the radical Islamists, a Taliban movement in Afghanistan, literally snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I mean, Afghanistan is Afghanistan.

I've been there. I've met with Muslim tribal leaders. I've met with Afghan Christian leaders. It's a poor hobbled, troubled country. It was never going to be like getting rid of the Nazis in Paris and then thinking, oh, this is Paris, this is lovely. It's going to be great. It's Afghanistan.

But it was stable. Americans were not dying. You know, a small force of about 2,500 with about 7,000 or so NATO forces was able to advise and assist and give a little backbones. to the Afghan forces who were doing their best. They were the ones dying. 60,000 Afghan soldiers have died in the last 20 years fighting the forces of radical Islamism. But Biden unilaterally, single-handedly, pulled the key jenga sticks out and the whole thing collapsed.

And in enemies and allies, I warn that something like that's coming because he, I describe in the book how in 2011 Biden persuaded, he boasts of this. He boasts of persuading Obama, President Obama, to pull all U.S. forces out of Iraq, even though major Democrats within the administration, Leon Panetta at CIA, Bob Gates at defense, we're warning, don't do this. If you pull all U.S. forces out, you're going to create a vacuum. Bad forces are going to surge into that vacuum, and you're going to have a disaster. and it actually led to genocide.

So in enemies and allies, you're right. I met with all these key American allies, Israeli and Arab, at the highest levels, the kings, the crown princes, the presidents, the prime ministers, to get their perspective on how they see the enemies and how they see themselves as allies trying to become better allies of the United States. And Biden should try listening to them. This book is the only book that puts you in the room with these leaders. But Biden can pick up a phone.

He can invite them here. He literally does not understand the nature and threat of the evil that we're up against. And he is getting blindsided over and over again. It's a disaster. Yeah. So you've mentioned that you did talk with those leaders. And I'm curious, what were some of the things that stood out to you when you spoke with these Middle Eastern leaders about the political situation there? What were they saying about what the current?

landscape looked like? Was it positive, negative? Like before we pulled out, what was, what were they saying? Sure. Well, the first thing is interesting about it is why did they have me? Okay, I'm not a billionaire. I'm not the leader of political movement. I'm a novelist and an author of nonfiction books. I've got two websites that deal with news, but I hadn't started them yet, all Israel news, all Arab news. But I'm Jewish on my father's side. I'm an evangelical follower of Jesus Christ. I'm American, I'm Israeli. I've got four sons, two of which served in the Israeli military. Why in the world of the Saudi crown prince of all people invite me to come and sit down with him for hours and hours

and to bring a group of evangelical Christian leaders from the United States? And not just once, but he invited us back to do it all again two years ago. So that's the first thing that what you're watching is tectonic changes inside the thinking of the era. world at the leadership level and on the street. The Arab world, not entirely but largely, is fundamentally reassessing who is my friend and who is my foe. They see Iran the way Israel sees Iran, which is the people are great, the leadership is evil, and the leadership is trying to build nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. Like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, MBS, told me on the record, by the way, this is the only book in which he's spoken on the

record. There's literally other biographies about him in which the reporters have never met him, much less interviewed him. But MBS told me on the record that he regards the Supreme Leader of Iran as, quote, the new Hitler, unquote. That tells you how closely aligned Riyadh and Jerusalem see the threat. And that was echoed all throughout these Arab, my conversations with these Arab leaders. So there's this reassessment. They used to see Israel as the enemy, right, for the last 75 years or more. And now they see Israel as the ally. And Iran as the existential threat to all of them. They want a closer relationship with Israel. They want a closer relationship with United States. And under Trump, they were getting it. Under Biden, they're not.

Right. So it seems like now that America has left Afghanistan, that our presence in the region has been pretty severely diminished. You mentioned, obviously, that Israel and the Saudis are basically trying to connect a little more to counter a growing Iranian threat. But have there been any other immediate geopolitical ramifications in the Middle East due to reduced American presence? No, I think everybody in the Arab Muslim world right now, and certainly in Israel, with our new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, our new foreign minister, Yaira Lepid, they're all trying to get their head around Biden's full-on retreat from the Middle East, you know, surrender in Afghanistan, but also, you know, he's basically signaling, signaled this summer to the Iraqi Prime Minister that

that America's done with combat operations in Iraq. Remember that after pulling all our forces out, the Obama Biden team in 11, Trump had to send them back in, right, to dismantle the caliphate, to destroy ISIS, to liberate five million people living under the slavery, the reign of terror of ISIS, being beheaded, being crucified, being burned alive in cages, you know, sex slavery. You know, it was just a horror show. And so now we're down to about 2,500 troops or so in Iraq. Maybe they won't all come out immediately, but effectively Biden's like basically

we're done in Iraq. We'll leave a few troops there for now. But after Afghanistan, everyone's going, will you? Biden's pulling Patriot missile batteries out of the region. He's signaling he doesn't want to be there. He thinks that Americans are exhausted by this fight. And many Americans are. but the problem is the terrorists and the Iranian regime, most importantly, they're not exhausted,

they're emboldened, they're invigorated. And today, as we record this, is the one-year anniversary of the historic game-changing Abraham Accords, the first Arab-Israeli peace and normalization agreements we've had in a quarter of a century. My book, Enemies and Allies, is the only book that goes into the inside story of how this came about my interviews with President Trump in the Oval Office, Pence, Pompeo, and with Mohammed bin Salman, I'm sorry, bin Zayed, the UAE crown prince, where he told me two years before he committed to the Abraham Accords that he was going to do it. And that story is told only here in enemies and allies. So everybody's saying, look, the good news is we want to be

closer with the United States. We want to be closer with Israel. We're fighting the radical Islamists. let's join together and create a Middle East NATO, you know, but Biden's in full retreat. And it is freaking out the people of the Middle East. They're just trying to handle it diplomatically at the top levels. How do we handle this with Biden? Absolutely. Now, one of the things that I'm really glad you brought up is the terrorism angle. I think a lot of people's biggest concern out of the Middle East pullout was that with a reduced American presence, we will start to see the rise of terrorism.

So as we start to talk a little bit about the terrorism situation, I'd like to know what was the situation regarding terrorism like while American boots were still on the ground? Were there still plots that we were foiling or was there kind of this lull in activity? What was the terrorism situation like while we were there? Yeah, no, there's no question that plots are being cooked up and they're being intercepted and thwarted by American intelligence and counterterrorist operations. and special forces by Israeli operations for sure and by Saudi, Emirati, Egyptian, Jordanian. Everybody is doing this. And the reason we haven't seen in the last few years since the end of ISIS, we haven't really seen any major horror shows is because the region has gotten quite good at fighting this.

Like we really have, you know, 20 years ago, you'll recall on September 11th and in the days that followed, Americans were not only shocked and grieved, but, angry, right? Where are the Muslim leaders that stand up and say, this stuff is crazy? It's nonsense. Well, they exist now. They, they, uh, King Abdullah is the only leader in the region who was around on September 11th. And he was already, uh, fighting radical Islamists in Jordan. Um, but every other leader in the region, including the all the ones I spoke to and interviewed at length for enemies and allies. They didn't, they didn't exist. I mean, they existed. They just weren't the leaders. For example, we interviewed Mohammed bin Salman, crown prince of Saudi Arabia again. Where were you on

9-11, right? Your Saudi, Osama bin Laden, Saudi, 15 of the 19 hijackers, Saudi, right? He said, I was 16 years old, right? And so think of, and he says, and I, we have it exclusively in enemies and allies. He says, we were so horrified and we thought we're going to be, Islam is going to be defamed forever. Being a Saudi is going to be, you know, we won't be able to show our faces in the world as they think of us as the terrorists. And he told me, and I, you know, this is his language, not mine, but he says, in the months that followed my cousins and brothers and I, we concluded we're going to grow up and kick the of the people who did this to us. And that's what he's doing. I mean, love him or hate him and all the leaders in the region, these guys are serious about countertouching.

terrorism now. And I describe it in great detail what has happened, the successes that we've achieved together with our Arab and Israeli allies. And let's also note that President Trump, you know, was mocked and ridiculed as being a novice coming into the White House, no foreign policy experience, no military experience. He dismantled the ISIS Caliphate. He took out Qasem Soleimani, the top terror general from Iran. He took out Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of ISIS. I mean, pretty impressive counterterror operations and big ones. Like a lot of things happened under the radar,

but things happened above the radar that showed our enemies. You guys had better watch out because we're coming for you. And for all of the criticisms of Trump, these are some of the things he did really, really well. And that's, that confidence in fighting, in dealing with Iran, ripping up the Iran nuclear deal, taking out the top Iran terror leader, et cetera, and standing closely with Israel, really bolstered the Arab confidence, let's go make peace with Israel. It's time. Right. And when everybody said, oh, moving the embassy, right? We're moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Everybody, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the time, said, Mr. President, don't do it. That'll blow up the Middle East. It'll ruin all your hopes for peace. Just the opposite was true. And Trump and Pence, they knew it. They got it. Interesting. So one of the things that I think we're gathering from here is there are a lot of different interests at play here. And there are a lot of different factions that are interacting with each other that makes the Middle East such a unique political landscape to deal with.

A lot of people are kind of questioning, well, what interest does the United States have in this political landscape? What interest does the United States have in a peaceful Middle East? Should we be using our money and manpower to achieve the ends of a peaceful Middle East? Or is this something that we should sort of lead to them to deal with? Well, I think of it as both and. I don't think of it as either or. The great part is we have great allies in the Middle East. Israel, the Jordanians, the Egyptians, the Bahrainis, the Emirates, the Saudis,

Omani's, a number of others, but let's be clear, these guys are, they not only want to be engaged in the battle against the radical Islamists. They're doing so not just militarily. They're doing so theologically and ideologically. They are engaging the radical Islamists on social media and in the mosques. They're firing the clerics that are extremists. They're changing the textbooks even in Saudi Arabia that teach extremism. I mean, I'm a novelist at heart.

Like, I would have to make this stuff up if it wasn't actually happening. But it is happening. Trump got it and built on it. Biden doesn't get it, and he's dismantling it or trying to, or at least. So I would say this. We make a huge error, a huge error, and we put ourselves and our allies and our own citizens and prosperity at risk. if we take our eye off the ball of radical Islamists. I point out at the beginning, like literally the preface of the first sentences of enemies and allies,

I say, listen, it's long been said about Las Vegas that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? But nobody says that about the Middle East. I don't usually quote the last and worst of the Godfather movies, but there was a, you know, Michael Corleone in the last. of the Godfather movies says, the more I try to get out, the more they pull me back in. Biden is trying to get out of the Middle East,

but the Middle East won't let you. They won't. And the good news is we don't have to have 500,000 troops on the ground there. We don't have to spend $2 trillion. I mean, we're talking about small numbers of troops. We're talking about small amounts of money strengthen the allies, right?

They are engaged. They weren't 20 years ago. Israel was. Jordan was, but I think the others honestly weren't. And that's where 9-11 came from. But we live in a different world. Don't play the game by, by, you know, September 10th rules of 20 years ago. Play them by the current geopolitical environment. And enemies and allies paints that environment. And it does it by sitting down with every top consequential, controversial, complicated leader that's actually in those decision-making roles. So you hear them in their own words, what the media is not telling you,

what do they believe? Why are they doing this? Can we trust them? And I'm very encouraged by our alliances, but I really do believe the Iranian regime is coming. They want to. They want to a nuclear 9-11. To misunderstand that is to risk being blindsided by it. And, you know, God forbid that Biden lets ourselves get blindsided. The Iranian regime is only a few months away now from having enough military-grade enriched uranium that they could start building these nuclear weapons. And, okay, maybe it takes them a little longer to attach it to a high-speed missile.

but we're at the threshold. We're at the point of no return. And we're also sadly, tragically in the early stages of the Biden administration. If they continue on this road trying to beg Iran for a nuclear deal

that the Iranian regime clearly doesn't want, right? They want to build the bomb. They do. Biden better get it and get with the program and start working with our allies rather than undermining them or Americans are going to suffer, and we're going to suffer big.

I think that's, you've given us quite a bit to think about. So, Joel, we are running a little bit low on time, but I wanted to give you the last word. If people would like to read more of your work, where should they go? Sure. Well, you can certainly always come to my website, Joel Rosenberg.com. Track our daily news tracking sites, all Israel news and all Arab news. You can certainly follow me on Twitter. And, yes, I hope people will get a copy.

of enemies and allies, especially as we celebrate the one-year anniversary of the historic game-changing Abraham Accords. And as we honor and remember how bad it was when we didn't pay attention to all this because of what happened on 9-11. I think this book is enemies and allies is it is a must-read for anybody who cares about making sure we don't face a nuclear 9-11 in a world of great darkness. Excellent. Well, Joel, thank you so much. That was Joel Rosenberg, an American-Israeli communication strategist and author of the new book, Enemies and Allies, focusing on the ever-shifting political landscape in the Middle East. Joel, thank you so much again for joining us. My pleasure.

And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and IHeart Radio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to Subscribe. Thanks again so much for listening and we'll see you all on Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Virginia Allen and Kate Trinko, sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, please visitdailySignal.com.