The Dispatch Podcast - A New Syria? | Interview: Josh Rogin

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Jamie Weinstein is joined by author and Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin to give context to the Assad regime’s fall and explain what’s next for the Syrian people. The Agenda: —Fall of Assad’s regime —The refugee crisis —Syria’s new government —Christians in Syria —Israeli relations —Is there a famine in Gaza? —Taiwan and China The Dispatch Podcast is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including members-only newsletters, bonus podcast episodes, and weekly livestreams—click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. My guest today is Josh Rogan. He's a columnist for the Global's Opinion section of the Washington Post and a political analyst with CNN. He is also the author of Chaos Under Heaven, Trump, She, and the Battle for the 21st Century. For the topic that we discussed today is a topic that he has covered for well over a decade. What is happening in Syria? The fall of Bashar Assad, the elements, the rebels, the rebels, the rebels, who have taken him down. Who are they? What is the future that Syria might have? Why he is optimistic. We have some vibrant debate back and forth on that in several other topics relating to that. And we also get at the end to the question of what the U.S. should do in the Taiwanese

street. I think you're going to find this episode entertaining and interesting and informative, at least I hope you do. So without further ado, I give you Mr. Josh Rogan. Josh Rogan, welcome to the Dispatch podcast. Thanks for having me on. Well, thank you for joining us. Let's begin with an issue that is obviously in the news and in a subject I know that you've covered for many years. Syria, major news in the last week, 10 days, Bashar al-Assad, seems like all of us. sudden, his regime collapsed. There's a new government in Syria, or at least forming. What do you

make of what's happened in the last two weeks? Right. Well, as you know, Jamie, I've been covering the conflict in Syria for 14 years. And yeah, at the end, it happened all of a sudden when the opposition took only 11 days to shatter the Assad regime and send Assad fleeing to Moscow. But That's after 14 years of struggle and war and hunger and refugees and, you know, just the worst possible suffering. You could imagine chemical weapons, mass torture, mass murder, really one of the worst regimes atrocities since the Holocaust. It's just a fact. And so, you know, it was at once an amazing story of liberation for 23 million people who have been suffering hard. horrible war for 14 years, but under a horrible dictatorship for 54 years. And at the same time,

it opens up a lot of questions about what's going to happen in the region and the world. And most of the reaction that I've seen in Washington over the last week has been like, hmm, is this good or bad? What are we going to do? Maybe these guys aren't good guys. And to me, that seems crazy because, one, to dismiss 23 million people as like, there are no good guys. There's no good guys. What are you going to do? do, is kind of insulting to the people who fought and died and struggled for their freedom and dignity and are now have a chance, at least, to rebuild Syria in a better way, in a more free and a more prosperous and a more stable and perhaps even a more democratic way.

Who, it totally ignores what's going on on the ground in Syria. And everyone in Washington, for the five seconds that they think about Syria this week, they're like, oh, I don't know, that sounds pretty bad, I don't know. Is it better or is it worse? It's better. I'm here to tell you it's better. was worse. He was the worst thing you can imagine, a mass murdering, atrocity-driven dictator who was friends with Iran, friends with Hezbollah, friends with Russia. I mean, what do you have

to do in Washington to lose the battle of better or worse if Assad hasn't done that? You know, three, I think this represents actually a historic opportunity to take advantage of the fact that you have now a Syria that is actually looking not just to us, but to any country that can help it achieve what the Syrian people want, which is, again, just to sort of live not on their knees. And we're not doing that. And why are we not doing that? Well, we don't know who this guy is. Who's really in charge? We can't figure it out. That's really concerning. Sure, there are concerns. Sure, they're unanswered questions. To be sure, the road ahead is rocky and unpaved. But I say, for one, we have interest in Syria. The United States has interest in

Syria, we can talk about this. I say for two, we ought to try to steer ear at least be on the side of Syria succeeding for their interest and for ours. And three, we have to look at what's going on in the ground in Syria. And it's not post-Qaddafi Iraq, Libya. It's not post-Saddam Iraq. It's not collapsing, at least not yet. And the initial signs are promising, and we can go through those too. And I think all of that argues for Washington to just sort of take a minute, realized that we were on the side of the Syrian opposition for 10 years. Then we abandoned them for four years, and then they won. And now we have a chance to do the right thing morally and strategically by caring about what happens to Syria and trying our best to help it succeed.

That's my argument. Well, I do want to press you on a couple points in a bit. But first, I'm interested in what I know you're sourced, I think within Syria, but also the expat community. What are you hearing from them, especially those outside Sierra, or any of them considering going back to Syria and seeing if they can try to make this work. What has been the reaction, you know, whether it's surprise or jubilation or what have you? Right. No, I mean, you can just turn on your X platform or your TikTok, and you can see thousands and thousands and thousands of Syrians streaming back into the country's refugees who have been pushed from their homes, again, by the Assad regime for 10 years, and all they

ever wanted to do was go home. And of course, Assad somehow can convinced the world that, you know, he was the savior of stability and somehow convinced everybody that he could make a deal to bring back the refugees. But no, they weren't going to go home because the side would have killed them or tortured them or at least they would have had to live under his brutal rule. Now they're pouring back in. So that's already happening. And again, that's something that we can and other countries in the region can help facilitate by giving them humanitarian aid and lifting some of the sanctions and, you know, setting up a system whereby they have some services and helping the new government deal with all this in the reconstruction.

We get into all that. The Syrians in America, they're crying tears of joy all day long because they're reconnecting with family members that they haven't seen. Some of them are already there. A lot of my friends have just rushed back in because they wanted to see their homes that they haven't seen in decades or even sometimes years and, you know, looking for lost loved ones, looking for dead relatives or signs of dead relatives that were killed by the Assad regime over the last 14 years.

of concern and a lot of worry and a lot of trepidation and about the risks to be sure because a lot of this is not settled. And, you know, I just think, you know, there's just a huge gap between the conversation happening amongst Syrians and with Syrians. And then the conversation happening in Washington, I'm not blaming you for this because you're not in Washington, you're in Washington. So this is not, you're absolved from this. But I'm just telling you here in Washington, no one's listening to the Syrians, no one's talking to the Syrians. And when I go on X and say, hey, here's what the Syrians are actually saying and doing. I was like, how dare you, Josh? How dare you say something that we haven't said already? How dare you say

that the new government in Syria might not be a bunch of terrorists who will just want to attack Israel and America? How dare you say that, you know, that the government, the interim government is better than the Assad regime? And the reason that I say all these things is, A, I've done the reporting and being, I'm talking to a lot of Syrians and watching what's going on in Syria. So it's just like an overall thing. Like, this is not like, you know, driven by Turkey. It's not driven by Iran. It's not driven by, it's not driven by us. It's not about us. It's about the Syrians. They've taken back their country. And so they're going to lead its development one way or the other. And again, that's why I think we ought to help them do that and help them help us protect our

interest there. Well, you know, I may yet earn your scorn. So don't absolve me of the DC criticism. All right. Let's see. But actually, I want to touch on the returning to Syria element because, I mean, one element I have seen on X or Twitter, whatever you call it these days, from someone that Trump right, who obviously either don't care or have been skeptical of what's going on in Syria, when they did see a member of the new rebel group or government or whatever you want to call it, say, call for Syrians to return to Syria, Maybe they said it sarcastically, but like, well, maybe we can get behind this new group if they're calling refugees back to Syria. Do you really think that many of the, I mean, how many, you know how many millions?

I don't know the exact number of refugees that have left over the last 11 years or 14 years, as you mentioned. Do you think many millions will go back to Syria? I do. And not only that, there's, let's say, you know, don't hold me to this number, six million Syrians who have left out of 23 million. There's another several million who were internally displaced because remember Assad was bombing city by city. People were moving and moving. They all moved into this tiny little part of Idlib, you know, a million in Lebanon, three million in Turkey, Jordan, you name it. Europe, you know, again, this was not an accident.

You know, Assad and the Russians did this on purpose to destabilize the region, to influence European politics, and to an extent it worked. meanwhile they're convincing us, trying to convince us sometimes successfully, that the refugees would only come back if we give aside everything he wants. I mean, just think for a second. I'm going to answer your question directly, but think just for a thing for a second about the fact that three weeks ago, the Biden White House was negotiating with the Assad regime on behalf of the Emirates with the endorsement of the Israeli government to make a deal to lift sanctions on the Assad regime in the hope that Assad would turn away from Iran and do all of these things like let refugees back in because the Biden administration's theory of the case three weeks ago

as the Assad regime was stable. Okay. That should, that just, you just stop and think about that for a second. It'll show you how bas-acquards the Biden analysis of the region and the policy has been a total disaster, a total misread because they thought they could make a deal with Assad to stabilize here, which was never going to happen because sooner or later, the people of Syria were not going to want to live on their knees. Now, to answer your question directly, you know, there's a lot of BS about Syria on the internet, both from the right and the left.

It's a little bit different, right? For the people on the left, oh, it's a, you know, this was a regime-change war by the neocons in Washington, totally ignoring the fact that this was actually a popular uprising by Syrians, which we did meddle in and poorly at that. But in the end, we left. So the Syrians did this on their own. even the most, you know, far left, or I don't know if Tulsi Gabbas is far left or far right

anymore, but this was her thing, right, that this was all us, that we did this. We started the Civil War. And it was never true. And now it's obviously not true. No one could ever say that Tulsi Gabbard was right and that we started the Syrian Civil War, because we left and they won without us. So that's really important to know how wrong the left got this. On the right, that now you see something that's different, but equally wrong, which is that, well, there's only two choices in Syria. dictator or the terrorists and all the new people are terrorists. So we maybe it was better to have the dictator or at best, like Trump said, we should have nothing to do with it. And that again is sort of like totally wrong because, you know, the new government is an amalgamation. It's a

conglomerate of different groups, different types of people from different parts of the country with different interests and different backgrounds, different cultures, different religions. And they came together because they all have one goal, which is to throw off a side and they did it. And what's going to happen next is going to be something different. It's not going to be an HTS wrong government. It's not going to be, you know, some sort of Sharia law state. They're trying to figure it out. It's only been a week. I say give them a chance to figure out, help them figure it out. And so, like when J.D. Vice President Alex, sorry, Vice President, like J.D. Mase tweeted at me. I tweeted Syria was free. Good. He's like, I don't know. I'm paraphrasing.

I don't know. The last time this guy, Josh Rogan, was celebrating Syria, they slaughtered the Christians. And my response was like, oh my God, first of all, idea that Assad was the protector of Christians was never true. That's Assad's propaganda. The reason I know that is because I spoke to the Bishop of Aleppo. He's the top Catholic in the whole country, pointed by the Pope himself. And that's what he said. He said, listen, the Christian, we're going to protect the Christians. That Assad was the protector of Christians. Assad was the one that was dividing us. Now we're united. So that's totally wrong. And The other thing J.D. Vance says, what you said is like, oh, this is going to cause a refugee crisis, which again, it's like, just look at the timeline of events, Vice President-elect Vance. The refugee crisis was caused by Assad when he attacked the innocent people so they fled so they wouldn't get killed. And now they're coming back because he's not there. So actually, it's wrong on two levels, but also like sort of deeply cynical and sadly unambitious about the prospects for this country, which is, again, not Iraq, not Libya, not Afghanistan. It's not even in Tunisia. It's a whole different country in a whole different decade, with a whole different set of circumstances. And so, you know, we just have to sort of realize that something big has changed here. It is historic turning point for Syria, if not for the region, but at least for Syria. And the future is not written. And we should be involved in writing that future, not in a military way, but in the way of helping these people achieve their basic aspirations, which, by the way,

the same aspirations that you and I have for our lives and for our families and as does everyone else in the world. Let me press you on one of those points. You mentioned that the rebel group is composed of an amalgamation of different groups, really, with different interests and different goals and different political philosophies, which has been often true of a lot of Islamic revolutions. That was true of Iran before the democratic elements were thrown out of the country or jailed and killed. The leader of this movement is an alum. so to speak, of ISIS and al-Qaeda, he's rejected them, at least in words. I don't think very few people would deny that Assad was a sadist and an evil man.

But how can you be as confident as you are, given the background of Jolani, the leader of the rebels, and the history of Islamist movements within the Middle East, that things can't be worse, can't get worse. Right. No, yeah, it's a fair question, and to be clear, I'm not saying things can't get worse. things could get worse, but they could also get better. And if we hold those two ideas in our head at the same time that, yeah, there's a path where this could go very bad. But there are also several paths where it could go very good, or at least much better than it was. But what we have to understand is that that's up to the Syrians, first of all, and that it's already better. And just look at, so I'm not going to defend Jolani, who's a designated terrorist who I'm sure

has blood on his hands. What I'm saying is that, one, look at the actions of Jolani and the other leaders from the other sex in the five days we've had. They handed over power to an interim civilian government. They met with the Assad regime, that interim government met with the Assad regime cabinet and to figure out how the government works and to ensure continued services. They restored order to the streets. They opened the banks. They opened the airport. They gave all the Syrian military conscripts amnesty, not the torturers in Sidneya prison, but you know, your regular average Syrian army guy who probably didn't have a choice. There is violence in the Northeast.

There is some retribution in the rural areas. But overall, minority communities are being included, not excluded, and not persecuted. And that's something to watch for sure. And so first big point is, we don't have to believe in the evolution or the rebirth or re-education of Jolani in order to realize that it's obviously the best thing

to do to engage with the new Syrian government where it's at and to help them with what they need to make Syria stable and prosperous and even democratic place if that's the way they choose to go. So divorce the idea that we need to defend Jolani from the idea that we need to help Syria because again, 23 million people, think about it this way. If you're the average Syrian rebel and you're 20 years old, let's say, when the war started, you were six years old. Okay, you all you know your whole life is fighting the regime that's bombing you. And when every country in the world abandoned you, the only organization left that was going to fight the government that's bombed you that killed your family that sent you packing several times since you're six years old

was HTS. So of course they followed HDS. It was a pragmatic decision for Syrians. The fact that that HTS is, was seen by Syrians as better than the Assad regime should tell you something. Because despite all of its flaws, it was obviously better than the Assad regime. But now, it's a new day. And HTS will evolve. The government will evolve. The processes are ongoing now. And so I'm not going to sit here and defend Jolani or even claim that I know what's in his heart or in his mind. It almost doesn't matter because I get the sense you are optimistic. Yes, again, because I'm talking to Syrians and looking what's happening on the ground. And I think if you do that, if you talk to a lot of Syrians and you look at what's happening

on the ground, you'll get a completely different picture than every, you know, Washington in commentary that I've read, except for my own, of course, and a couple others, a couple others, don't get me wrong, but 95% of the commentary is completely oblivious to what Syrians are saying and what Syrians are doing. And so that's why I really appreciate this time, because for 40 minutes, your listeners, assuming you don't edit all of this out, are going to hear the truth about, yes, how can you not be optimist? Look at the people are marching in the streets, singing song. They opened the prisons and let everybody out of the prisons. People who hadn't seen the light of day in 40 years that are just roaming around. They can't believe how happy

they are. And that's not to say there aren't problems. There's problems with the Turks. There's problems with the Kurds. There's problems. There's not everything's going perfect. I'm not here to say that. But yeah, like, can we be, like, are we so cynical in this world that we can't be optimistic that this country would just achieve something that is really kind of amazing might have a good future? Can we get on board with the idea that Syria is entitled to have a good future, that we want them to have a good future, that we want to be on the side of them having a good future rather than be like, I don't know, who's this guy? Well, this is what he said in 2017. So forget them. You know, what kind of mentality is that in Washington that causes us to look at

a liberation of a country and to say, man, you know, that's not what I think is the right thing to do. That's not what our country has stood for for the last 200, some odd years. And so, you know, let's just think again, Syria. Let's just, you know, put away whatever you thought of them. Yeah. I grant you some initial positive signs. Who knows if they'll be all right. There we go. We got Jamie. We got him on board. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is the consequences of

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slash dispatch. Application times may vary, rates may vary. This episode is brought to to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online. Whether you're building a site for your business, your writing, or a new project, Squarespace brings everything together in one place. With Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools, you can launch a website that looks sharp from day one. Use one of their award-winning templates or try the new Blueprint AI, which tailors a site for you based on your goals and style. It's quick, intuitive and requires zero coding experience. You can also tap into built-in analytics and see who's engaging with your site and email campaigns to stay connected with subscribers or clients. And Squarespace

goes beyond design. You can offer services, book appointments, and receive payments directly through your site. It's a single hub for managing your work and reaching your audience without having to piece together a bunch of different tools. All seamlessly integrated. Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Thinking about what's happening in Syria in Islamic revolutions, or at least revolutions led by primarily the leader of them being someone who aspires to Islamic State. Historically, is there any example that you look to that you've seen in the Middle East

that it's turned out really positively? Well, there's variations. So there's two things I would say is that like for 10 years, Tunisia was a struggling but really kind of promising example. That's the one, right. Exactly. But, you know, so what lessons can we draw from that? Well, it was a smaller country. You know, it had its own unique circumstances, but they did have a couple of transitions of power.

And then what happened? The regional countries started messing with them and just corrupting them. It's just awful. And I'm talking here about the Emirates and the Saudis and the Egyptians, and they just start meddling and they screwed it all up. And now we've got a Tunisia that's descended into the kind of like autocracy it had just escaped from. And that's a very, very sad story. And it's mostly because their fragile experimental with democracy was overpowered by the interests of these Gulf powers who had their own interests.

And why would the Emirates or the Saudis want, you know, a democratic Arab state in the first place that's a bad example for them as dictatorships themselves or constitutional monarchies or whatever they call themselves. And so, yeah, that's an example of how things can go right for, whoa, it was 10 years, it's not nothing, and then it all got screwed up. But when I talked to Syrians, again, forgive me for actually talking to Syrians. But, you know, that's sort of how I was trained to just do the reporting. And here's what they say to that. They said, why would we repeat the mistakes that we just saw these countries make?

Why would we suffer for 14 years? And then do the, like, make the same mistakes that the Libyans or the Egyptians. Josh, I mean, I know you, I've read your stuff, you have talked to Syrians, But the Syrians you talk to are not part of Jolani's group, right? They're not the ones. No, we talk to, we have HTS sources and contacts. You know, the media, by the way, the HDS people, I haven't talked to Jolani, but yeah, I've talked to a lot of people in the joint operations military center, in the HTS. They have a whole media operation.

Thousands of journalists around the world are talking to HDS every day. I've got a WhatsApp group with them right now. So, yes, we're talking to HDS. Again, they're not saying anything different than there. saying in public, not that we want an Islamist Sharia law country. We're going to hand over power to a transitional government. They're going to work with the Assad regime to make sure everything is cool and nobody, and we're safe and secure. And then we're going to engage with everyone, the Russians, the Iranians, the Americans, although the Americans won't engage with

them, you know, the Israelis, because they also chose to take a different approach to welcome the new government. Yeah, which was to bomb the country 500 times, which is not exactly, you know, bringing over like a housewarming gift. You know what I mean? And that's what HTS is saying. They're not, again, wait, let's see if their actions match their words. I'm not granting them any credibility. I'm just saying, listen to what they're saying and watch what they're doing. And let's pay close attention to it. But yeah, we talk to Syrians from all walks of life. And they all say the same thing. This is a new day. Let's wipe the slate clean. whatever you thought about Syria in 2014, doesn't matter anymore.

This is day one. You mentioned the Christians you talked to, was it the Bishop of Aleppo? And I'm no doubt he's sincere. I just read a free press article where kind of got a different perspective, a lot of fear. If you were a Christian or is Yazidi in Syria, I mean, would you not feel a little trepidious if an Islamic, if a revolution led by an Islamic leader tied to al-Qaeda, tied to ISIS formally took over? I mean, I certainly would be a little nervous.

Yeah, no, I'm sure. And they're, I'm nervous too. And they're nervous and many, everyone's nervous. In the streets of Damascus, I would call it like a cautious optimism echoes through the crowds. You know, it's sort of like, you know, it's so fragile and it's so new. But, you know, it's only been five days. Okay. So let's not be like, oh, well, they haven't solved everything.

Well, it's only been five days. 54 years of dictatorship, five days. So far, so good. But yeah, I think they're nervous. Also, I think they're, we have to be honest about where it's falling short. And when we see what's happening with the Turkish back troops and the Kurds up in the northeast near Rock and Hosk, it's ugly, there's protesters, there's violence, there's armed attacks from the Turks on the Kurds and vice versa. That's a big problem. And I'm not trying to whitewash the problems and the challenge you by any means. There have been some reports of reprisal killings.

It's really hard to verify because of this fog of war stuff. But there will be some retribution. There will be some people who don't like the fact that such a sect killed their family for 14 years. But there are other promising examples. One is the Bishop of Lepo. But again, just go on X, go on TikTok. You'll see there's a ton of people talking about this. And there's a ton of examples of these troops.

coming to these villages and the villagers will say, oh, I guess we got to get out of here now because we just lost the war and the troops say to them, no, listen, you're fine, go home, we'll even drive you home and we're not going to kill you because we just went through 14 years of killing each other and something's got to stop. So that's an anecdotal to be sure. But yeah, no, I'm sure there's a lot of fear.

And I'm not here to tell you that there's not a lot of problems in Syria today. There are. there are deep problems. You would have to be blind not to see that, you know, bombing a country and having sectarian warfare for 14 years and another 40 years of horrible dictatorship before that. It's going to leave some scars, okay? And the other thing is that just to take issue with a little bit of your framing, right, a movement led by a former terrorist leader, a movement led by a 40 terrorist leader, what I'm trying to tell you is that, first of all, what we think of as the HTS offensive, what happened was in that town of the province of Idlib,

they were trapped for all those years. They had a lot of time to organize sort of civil governance of that province, a joint military operation plan that brought together a lot of the groups. That's why they were so successful in 11 days because they figured out how to get along, a lot of different groups. HDS was just the leader of that group again because nobody else could lead it. Now, already in those five days, he's already handed over power. Okay, so it's not actually a movement led by HDS, Jolani, former terrorist anymore.

he's involved he's one player in a large list of players and the civilian government and the interim government that's the step that's also got its own characteristics and its own history that are different so yeah we can just yeah we can say 50 times jolani is a designated terrorist it's totally true again i'm not here to defend jolani or make any claims on his this is a good clarification because i might not be familiar and maybe the audience is not as well are you saying that jelani is not kind of, I mean, he might be the head of it, but he is just one of many players? Are you saying that if he wasn't there,

would they have taken down the regime? Do you think if he wasn't leading, if he wasn't organizing, would there be a non-Islamist figure that could have led the way that people would have rallied behind? Over the course of 14 years, we went through several iterations

of the Syrian opposition, as you remember. So there were lots of different formulations. It used to be, back in the day, the original U.S. policy, as I reported it at the time, again, 2012 to 2015, was that you had the Assad regime, the Iranians, and the Hezbollah on one side. Then you had the terrorists, the Al-Nusra,

which later became HTS, which was linked to al-Qaeda. And then you had ISIS, which is a whole separate thing that we haven't talked about yet, but deserves to be talked about because that's still a problem. And then you had the other guys, okay? And we were with the other guys. We spent... Stop there for a moment.

We had Jonathan Spire on. last week discussed before the revolution finished and Assad was gone. It happened very quickly. We had to publish early, in fact, the podcast. I had him on in 2000. I interviewed him in 2013. Jonathan Spire, he was in the region. He was in Aleppo covering the conflict. At the time in 2013, he said the opposition, I think what you're referring to, had variations. But the variations were from the Muslim Brotherhood types to al-Qaeda and ISIS. I mean, they were all within some brand of Islamist. Yeah, no, that's not true.

That's not true. So there were lots of different opposition groups. There was something called the Free Syrian Army, which was run by at different times, different former defectors of the Assad military. A lot of the Free Syrian army guys were Assad military guys who were Sunnis, but they weren't Islamists. They were secular Sunnis who couldn't kill their own people,

so they just fled, and they formed their own groups. And those were mainly the ones that we supported, okay? So these are secular Sunnis who wanted to fight against the Assad regime. But you may have been part of the Assad regime, for example. High-level defectors, people with military training. That was the Pentagon program. The CIA program was different, okay? And it supported groups that were a little bit shadier.

And then you had the Emirati program, the Qatari program, the Saudi program, and this program, and the Turkish program, the Iranian program. They were all supporting different groups. And this is a tragic mistake made over several years over and over again, because our entire aid project under the Obama administration was so messed up. And so bureaucratically, just politically, like, poorly explained to the American people. I get why people look at that program, like, oh, my God, how could we have done that? I was for the program, but not for the way that they messed it up.

And that's a distinction, maybe without a difference. But the point is that there was this whole thing called the Free Syrian Army, which were secular, Sunnis, that we were supporting an arming. And, you know, eventually a bunch of them, got killed by the al-Nusar guys, and then we abandoned them, and then the ones who didn't get killed ended up joining the Al-Nusur guys

because they didn't want to get killed by the regime. So it's a long story, but, and I'm not, you know, but to put a fine point on it, we spent 10 years trying to arm a Syrian opposition that we could work with. We screwed that up, mistakes were made, then we abandoned them,

And then all that was left were the HTS and the regime, and ISIS, by the way, off on this side and the Kurds, but that's kind of a separate story. But the point is that anyone who wanted to live, who didn't want to live on their knees, was going to have to choose one of those. But for clarity, now at the moment, the power center of the opposition, which is now, I guess, not the opposition, they are the power. The government. They're called the government. It's the government of Syria. Are you saying that they are not, well, I would even say the government, the people with the guns, the people that have the power who may be some part of the government or if they choose

not to be part of the government, then they still have the guns and the power. Are they mainly Islamists? Are they mainly not? Are they a coalition of, you know, secular liberals and a bunch of other people? That's a fair question. I don't know what the ratios are. I do know, and this is kind of an interesting thing, and another distinction between this situation, some like Libya, they're not fighting each other, right? All these different groups, have you noticed? It's been five days, they're not fighting. Not saying they might not in the future.

It's true. I will say, I go back to the Iranian revolution where they had a moment and then, you know, they had a period of time and then they killed all the democracy. Right. That could happen. I can't promise you that's not going to happen. But what I can tell you is that the structures that they're setting up

and the processes that they're setting up are not processes designed to end, and result of a Sharia law government. It's quite the opposite. So again, cautiously optimistic, can't predict the future. If there's 60% Islamist and 40% secular people, does that mean they're going to have 100% Islamist government and a 0%?

I don't know. But again, can they have a week to figure it? It's only been five days. Can they have at least after 54 years? Can they have one week to figure it out at least? Is that okay with you, Jamie? And then we'll say, like, I don't have all. the answers because they don't have all the answers, but it's only been a week, okay, after 54 years

of dictatorship. And yes, the Islamists will have a role, but none of them are saying they want a Sharia law government, even though they might have said something to that effect in 2014. And so, yeah, we can hold on to this 2014 idea, or we can say, well, Libya went this way, so I guess Syria is definitely going to go that way. But none of those things are written. The future isn't written for Syria. We owe these 23 million people. The vast majority of of whom are Sunni Muslim, but not fanatics. They're just regular people trying to live their lives, okay, who for 14 years have everything that they've known

destroyed and taken from them, living under olive trees are intense for 14 years. And all of a sudden they don't have to do that anymore. And I just, I think we should give them, like, let's, two weeks. Can we have two weeks to let them figure it out before we start. Crapping on the whole project and telling them that they don't, freedom and democracy or that, you know, the Islamists are going to ruin it all when we don't know that that's going to happen. I can't tell you that 100% sure that that's not going to

happen. Yes, that's a possibility. I'm acknowledging on the record, it could go real bad. But again, let's be on the side of it not going real bad. Let's be on the side of helping them not, it not go real bad. That's better for them and better for us. That seems, I know that's crazy. It's a horrible thing in Washington. And I'm not one. that's, I'm not known for optimism, by the way. And this is why I think people are freaked out on Twitter because, like, I spent 20 years as a journalist betting on pessimism and cynicism.

So if I'm optimistic, it might be, like, I have to ask myself, what could possibly cause that? It's very uncharacteristic of me. And again, it's because talking to Syrians and watching what's happened on the ground. So far, there seems like there's a chance that it might not go horribly bad. And I'm for it not going horribly bad.

So sue me. So sue me, I don't want it to go bad. everyone in Washington on the left and right. They wanted to go bad because they want to be proven right. That's what we're really dealing with, Jamie. They were like, I knew that this was a terrible idea to arm the Syrian opposition, and now I'm going to be proven right because it's all going to go. It's not about you, J.D. Vance and being right. It's not about you, Tulsi Gabbard and being right. You were both wrong, by the way. And I was right, but that's not important. That's not important. It's not even worth mentioning that Tulsi Gabbard

was totally wrong. J.D. Vance was totally wrong. And Josh Rogan and the Syrians were right. It's not, that's not, I'm not even going to bring that up because it would, it would distract us from the main point. I wanted to move on to one of the, but what do you think you're right about? What was the essential point that you're right about that the Assad regime could fall? The cause of the conflict was the Assad regime, not the rebels, okay? That the Assad regime was the problem, not the solution. Even the Biden White House failed to grasp this very simple fact three weeks ago. Their theory of the case, because they're what?

Who are they listening to? The Ameranis are like, oh, well, let's just normalize Assad. That's what we're going to have to do anyway, because he's going to have to do. going to win. So if you can't beat them, join them. And all of the Gulf countries welcoming aside back into the fold. Because again, they want a dictatorship there because that's what they like because they're dictators. And White House was like, okay, that sounds good. And they were all wrong because Assad was the cause of the problems and the rebels were the solution to the problems, which we can see because already the Capagon trade is down, the refugees are coming back,

people are dancing and singing in the streets. The torture chambers were released. And The minority is largely protected, and those are all good things. So, again, maybe I'll end up being wrong. I was going to say you said that you weren't so, you're optimistic, but you're not sure, but now you're claiming victory five days in. Whatever happens will be better than us. Can we give it two weeks to see? Can we give it a month, Josh, to see if you're right?

Fair, fair, fair. But whatever will happen next to this year will be better than what happened for the last 14 years, because what happened for the last 18 years is the worst thing on earth. and you can't imagine I can't imagine what it's like to have your whole family tortured and killed

and buried in mass graves you never able to find it you can't imagine what your entire everything you've known being blown to smithereens since you were six years old so yeah

I'm sure it'll be better than Assad than Assad did to that country literally nothing worse I'm gonna move I would press you on that for a second I think Assad was

was horrible but I do think there's an Islamic regime or Islamic regimes that have been equally bad let me ask you though I want to go to

You don't think there have been Islamic regimes that are equally as bad as Syria? In Syria? We're talking about Syria. No, no, no. You said that nothing could be as bad as Assad. In Syria. We're talking about Syria. If you want to compare it to worst examples in North Korea or like what, like, okay, well, that's an interesting. But I'm just saying, why are we always talking about Syria as if its future is dictated by the past of a completely different country, completely different circumstance? We got to, we got to break that bad habit because, again, and it's deeply disrespectful to the people of Syria

who just spent 14 years fighting for their freedom and succeeding to tell them, well, in Iran in 1979, X, X, X, X, X, happened. It's 50 years ago, okay? It's almost 2025. Okay, so think again, Syria. Everybody think again. Let me ask you, there's actually the tweet

that inspired me to invite you. I was going to tweet something maybe something. Yeah, yeah, I know. But I decided to just have a conversation on it. Sure. You tweeted the Syrian people liberated themselves and Netanyahu immediately started bombing the country, calling the new government Nazis awful. Israel wanted Assad to stay, and that was strategically and morally wrong.

Now Israel is a chance to reset relations with a free democratic Syria. First, before the bombing aspect, you said the Syrian people liberated themselves, and I think that is certainly true, at least the levels of at least partly true. Partly true. The other argument- Who else liberated them? Wait a minute. I'm not going to let you get away with that.

What do you mean partly? I'm about to, there's my question to you. Okay. Couldn't be argued that maybe as important as the rebels, maybe more important, because this has been going on for 14 years. Unintentionally, it was Benjamin Netanyahu destroying Hezbollah. Because without Benjamin Netanyahu destroying Hezbollah, perhaps we wouldn't be in the position. Yeah, that's a good point.

That's a really good point, right? Because when you talk to Syrians, of course, they say the fact that Hezbollah and Iran were weakened and Russia was distracted in Ukraine, by the way, made it a lot of use. year for them to overthrow a side when they did. As you said, is Netanyahu did that unintentionally? In other words, it's pretty clear from the reporting that Netanyahu wanted a weak aside, but he didn't want Assad to go. And there are a lot of data points that support that theory. One is that if they could bomb 500 military sites in two days and get rid of the Navy and the Air Force and all the chemical weapons sites in two days. They could have done that 10 years.

They could have ended the war at any time. They could have done it a year. ago. They could have done it four years ago. But they didn't. Okay. They had a deal. This leaves me the second point, which is they had a deal with the Russians to bomb Iranians in Syria. And now we're learning from the release documents that the Assad regime was in on that deal. The Israelis had an agreement with Assad. I mean, assuming that the documents are verified, you know, let's put a caveat on that. But it seems that the Assad regime and the Israelis were working against the Iranians together. So they were working with the Assad regime. We also know, based on the reporting that the Netanyahu government supported the normalization of Assad that was being worked on by the Biden team on behalf

of the Amaradis. They were in on that, and they were playing a role in that. They won the war is what you're saying. They wanted, they wanted, they wanted continuation of the fight. No, they just, they wanted, they think, they calculated that it was Netanyahu calculated it was in Israel's interest that a weak aside was better than what we have. now, which is an HTS-led government. That's their calculation. Can you imagine why he might think that? No, I get that calculation. But what I'm saying is that, first of all, that that's a different calculation whether or not that's in the Syrian's interest or the American's interest or the European's interest. That's an Israel-specific calculation. And I guess that's his calculation

to make because he's the prime minister of Israel. If you're asking me as an analyst, do I think that's a correct calculation? No, I don't because it's pretty obvious that Syria, the Assad regime, And while it was double dealing on the Iranians was still an outpost for Iranian influence in Syria. They were still allowing the Cathagon trade, which affects Israel, by the way, in a big way. They were still, it was still a transit point for Iranian weapons all over the region, especially to Lebanon. And Assad was still a hugely destabilizing figure. And again, this gets back to the core. How about after the destroy?

I mean, I agree with you. I think it could. Oh, we got Jamie. Well, I think you could make the argument either way. before Hezbollah was totally decimated by Netanyahu. I do think maybe the calculation for Israel. Did he want, you think Netanyahu wanted Assad to fall? No.

No, I think. No, I think that, yes, but I think after Hezbollah has decimated, I do think the calculation might shift of who is in Israel's best interest or not. I think it might be civil war like Jonathan Spire said last week. But with Assad's main patron, you know, the Hezbollah, in Tatters, Iran, weakened, that might be a safer bet than an unknown Islamist-led rebellion, which goes to my second part of the question I had. Yeah.

If you're Israel, and there is this leader of the rebels, former Al-Qaeda, former ISIS guy, why would you not attack all the weapons you can to protect you? Why would you give them him the benefit of the doubt? Maybe give him the benefit of the doubt after he has no weapons. Well, okay, I mean, it's the same calculation, right? You have a new day in Syria, new government, not run by one HTS leader, run by a large group of people who work together to overthrow the revolution and overthrow the Assad regime and are charting a new future for Syria. And in order to do that, they need the help and assistance of every country, especially the ones that are their neighbors. And every country in the region, and really every important country of the world, except for the United States and Israel, realize, the pragmatic value of engaging that new government. Even the Russians, let me finish, even the Russians

who just spent 10 years, 14 years supporting Assad and 14 years killing Syrians engage with the new government. They're negotiating with them right now. Is it going to work out? We don't know. But they understand that this new government is going to be something different than whatever it was before

and that they're going to run Syria and why wouldn't you want to be in that room talking with them? Now, the United States has ignored them and Israel's reaction is to bomb their, to destroy their Navy and their Air Force, which, again, they could have done it any time. Was there an indication that Jolani was getting on the boat to take the Syrian Navy into the port of Haifa?

No, there was no... But also chemical weapons facilities and things along those sides. Why didn't they destroy them 10? Aside actually used the chemical weapons, by the way, several times? Do you think Europe was happy? I mean, they might be engaged. Do you think they were happy that Israel attacked some of the stockpiles of weapons and...

I don't know what different people in the world's opinions are of what the Israelis did. I'm telling you, my opinion is that it was the wrong thing to do for a very simple reason that the Russians and the Iranians and the Turks and the Emirates seem to have internalized, which is that there's going to be a new free Syria and we can either approach them from the position of engagement of respect or we can just... You say there's going to be a new free Syria. but you admit earlier, you don't know if there's going to be a new free Syria. Right. So how do we help them? By bombing them or by engaging them?

Well, I say engage them, don't bomb them. If you're Benjamin Netanyahu and you have problems, not only obviously even domestically, but with his own political problems, but his foreign problems, his international problems with threats all over, maybe more limited now, thanks to some of the actions that Israel has taken. Is he in a position to give a coalition led by a, you know, a former ISIS, former al-Qaeda guy, the benefit of the doubt? Don't you destroy the weapons to protect yourself, except your, protect your country? Was there evidence that there was an imminent threat of those weapons being used against Israel, any threat of those weapons being used against Israel? Was there any sign of that?

Could it, would, should he wait for any sign of that before he destroys? Again, the army, it was Assad's army, which he could have destroyed at any point. If he was really worried about those weapons being used against him, he could have taken them out at any time. It shows that he wasn't worried about Assad was in a position to launch a war against him. Right. Or he thought he had Assad wrapped up or, you know, he had his foot on his neck such that he wouldn't try anything. And maybe that was the case. But if you wanted to engage with the new Syrian government, now he's made it impossible. Now all of those free Syrians who are looking around had no reason to really have any, you know, like, Lonnie said. He's like, we're not looking for a fight with Israel. We got enough to deal with

right now. Can I flip out on the head for a second? I mean, you say, you know, why don't give them a chance? Like, we have no reason to, the Israel had no reason to believe that they were going to do anything. I mean, I think the opposite is the question is that what type of Islamist government that certainly had elements of al-Qaeda and ISIS has ever, like, willing to meet with Israel and wanting to talk with them? And by that logic, Israel should attack Iran and every other Islamic government right this second. If that, if you're by to, to take your frame, that rationale leads you to only one conclusion, which is that Israel should immediately destroy the Taliban's army, immediately destroy the Iranian, all of it, every, every Iranian asset. How far is it,

how far is a Taliban away from Israel? I mean, how far is can an Iranian missile go? Should the, should the Israelis, knowing that the, the Iranians are run by an Islamist, that hates them, that's threatening them, by that logic, they should preemptively, they could. If they attacked, the Iranian army right now, they would win, and we would help them. Do you think that's a good idea? Is that what you're advocating, that they should immediately attack every Islamic government? I am for them taking out their nuclear program, but do you think Israel is not considered? But the whole government, the whole thing, you know, we should, they, Israel should just immediately start wars with every Islamist government.

That's not what Israel did in Syria. But, Josh, that's not what Israel did in Syria. They just took out their weapons. And their entire Navy and their entire Air Force. These are, these are the national assets of the Syrian people. They don't belong to Jolani. They belong to Syria. And on what basis you just destroy a country's military without even having a conversation about it? For, you know what I mean? Like two days after they're liberated, they spoiled the opportunity to reset the Israel's Syria relationship. Whether or not that would have been successful, we'll never know because they didn't even give it a chance. That's their problem. Okay. That, I'm not Israeli. They want to do that.

They want to start off their new relationship with a new Syria on that foot. I think it's a bad decision, but that's not necessarily my business. My business is the United States of America, which is also missing the opportunity to do something positive in Syria, in a different way. We're not... The U.S. also take some certain strikes in Syria post-Jaharan. They're striking ISIS. Again, we didn't even talk about ISIS, you know, like, and that's a different thing.

As the rebels were coming down from Idlib and Aleppo and making their way to Hama and then to Homs and then into Damascus, they kept uncovering ISIS. and you know what the rebels did, by the way, Jamie? These terrorists that you're so afraid of, they called up the U.S. military and they told them where ISIS was, and then the U.S. military came in and zapped the ISIS guys. So newsbreak for all your listeners. I don't even know if this has been reported, probably,

but I don't think maybe I'm not breaking it, but at least it's not well known, that the reason that the U.S. military, which has 900 people in Syria, but those 900 people are like 10,000 of any other army because they're the U.S. military and they're the best. they were able to kill a lot of ISIS terrorists with the help of the Syrian rebels

because our interests are aligned. Our interests and a free interest, free Syria, those are the same interests. We believe in the same things. We want the same things. We're on their side. We're not on the Iranian side. We're not on the Assad side.

We're not on the Russian side. We're on the Syrian people side. Or at least we should be. So yes, the U.S. military very smartly worked with the rebels. I know this for a fact because I talked to rebel commanders directly about this fact, worked with the rebels to maximize the advantage of the fall of the Assad regime

to kill a lot of ISIS people. And then there's a different section of the U.S. military that is trying to negotiate between the Turkish troops and the Kurdish troops. It's not going very well. That's another place where we can steer away from the worst outcomes. Now, are those Turkish troops, Islamists?

Technically, yes, but they're Turkey supported. Turkey's a NATO ally, and, you know, so it's complicated. Those Kurdish troops, by the way, they're not Islamists, they're Kurdish, right? But they're affiliated with the PKK, which is a terrorist group. So noodle that. You've got the Turkish-sponsored Islamist versus the Kurdish-sponsored,

according to the Turks terrorists, who are working with the U.S. military. So it gets real complicated real fast. So to reduce it to like, oh, should we trust the former terrorist, is so reductive that it takes us away from the real conversation that we need to have about Syria, is do we care or not? Do we even give it a crap about Syria or not? Because if Trump wants to say, you know, listen, we have no interest there, which I disagree with, and we're just going to stay out of it, okay. But you have to understand that the result of that will be that all of those other countries who understand that Syria is an important country in the region, we'll fill

that vacuum. That's Russia, that's China, that's Iran, that'll all come back. And Turkey and the Emirates and the Qataris and all of them. And we just won't be at that table. Okay, fine. And that's not that I'm, that's unfortunate, but at least we're not, you know, making it worse. And, you know, at some point, I think hopefully smarter heads inside the Trump administration will prevail. And I know there are people in the Trump administration who feel this way, which is that, oh, wait, no, this is a country where a lot of things that happen affect the region, affect Europe, affect Israel, affect our security. And we want to play in that game. and we want we want to steer that game towards the things that we think are right which by the way are the things that the new syrian government is saying uh they want and uh yeah we have to hold

them to that we don't we don't have to trust them we just have to uh acknowledge that you know that in the end we have a reason to care about Syria and even if we didn't the Syrian people have a reason to care about what happens in Syria, and they're not trying to take it backwards. They're trying to take it forward, this, I promise you. During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, leased a 2026 X-19 plug-in hybrid from $599 biweekly at 3.4.

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Light the path to a brighter future with stellar lenses for myopia control. Learn more at SLR.com. family eye care professional for Esselor Stelis lenses at your child's next visit. Two more questions on the Middle East Syria, Israel. And then I'd like to close with at least some questions on Taiwan. I also had Ukraine and a bunch of others, but we had such a robust conversation. Yeah, no, this is great. You never get to talk this much about Syria. In 14 years, no one cared. And now all of a sudden everyone cares. And everyone's like, oh, wait, maybe we care just enough to tell them that they can't succeed. And I'm like, wait, if you care, then let's

Let's go to the second sentence, which is they could succeed. They might not succeed, but they might. We keep talking about the other parts of the coalition of the Rebellion. Who's the highest ranking non-Islamist? Who's the highest, do we have a name of the highest ranking, non-Islamist? What do you mean ranking? There's an interim government, which is representative of lots and lots of different groups, that's bureaucratically working to keep services going in Damascus,

which they've successfully done for the time being. If Jolani's the face of one element of the rebellion, like who is like the face, the non-Islamist face that, that, you know, the working together to take over and to bring down Assad? Like who, is there another like figurehead that you could point to as like the democracy element or at least the like non-Islamist element? Yeah, I mean, there's, there's many, you know, they're not names that, that you know, or that might roll off the tongue. I interviewed a guy named Ahmad al-Daladi. he's a senior leader in the Syrian opposition Joint Military Operations Administration. Just for one,

he's the deputy commander of Arara al-Sham, which is, you know, are they Muslim? Yeah, they're Muslim. Are they H-G-S? No, they're not H-G-S. So this is just a different thing altogether. And what he told me is that,

well, first of all, so this guy, pretty interesting guy, he's from a suburb of Damascus. And this week, he went to the house that he was driven from 12 years ago for the first time in 12 years, and he saw his dad for the first time in 12 years. It's really touching.

I'll send you the link. And he hadn't seen his father for 12 years. I hadn't seen his home for 12 years. Now, what he told me is that the only way to move forward is to have everyone, including the Alloites, be part of the solution. He's like, that's the only way it's going to work.

So who's the top Alloite leader who's going to participate? I don't know that name. Who's the guy from this city or that city who's going to represent? represent the secular suit. I don't know that name. So, you know, again, it's been a week, and I don't have a list of everybody.

And perhaps that might be, I think it's actually a good point. We should sort of identify the parts of that rebel or now government coalition that we are more amenable to or that we want to support inside what sure to be some factional struggles. But again, that would require admitting that we care. So if we can admit that we care,

then, yeah, you got me. I don't have the names of the top five non-Islamists guys right now at my fingertips. But, you know, if we care and if we want to have allies, then we have to walk the walk and we have to do a lot of things, by the way, that we haven't talked about, like being humanitarianated to Syria, lift a bunch of the sanctions that were on the Assad regime, you know, because it doesn't exist. So we're sanctioning a regime that doesn't exist. now we're punishing the government that we were trying to help with the sanctions.

It doesn't make any sense. We're not doing that. You know, we might want to get in there and, like, encourage all of these supposed allies and partners in the Gulf to not do the thing that they're bound to do, which is to meddle for their own interests, or at least try to mitigate that

by negotiating amongst those interests. And, yeah, you know, watch, I think the guy, Muhammad al-Bashir, okay? Now, would he define himself as an Islamist, He's a Muslim, you know, like, there's no, like, I don't think you're going to get around. Is he, does he want Sharia law? No, he's the head of the government. How about him?

Let's start with him. It's the head of the interim government. He just spent a bunch of, Muhammad al-Bashir, he's the head of the transitional government. He just spent a bunch of time leading the government in exile in Idlib and just look at it. You know, they figured out a way to sort of have a civil bureaucracy and functioning. in the middle of a refugee camp with 3 million people and to organize chain of, you know, sort of governance and services

and representation to a degree. It's not perfect. And that's why he was chosen because he did that in Idlib. And now he's going to do that for the, for Damascus as they move until March 1st anyway as they figure out what's going to be next. So, yeah, you want, there's a name.

You force me to come up with the name, Muhammad al-Bashir. And not a terrorist. Just a guy. who's a leader in Syria who's proven that he can do the job, who's in the job, who we can either support or not support, where we can either engage or ignore, who we can either test to make sure that he does the right thing or we can jump to the conclusion that he's not going to do the right thing

and treat ourselves on the foot. Those are the two has before us, and I urge you, Washington and the intelligentsia of Calabasas or whoever it is is listening to this podcast. okay just just just just I'm not asking you to trust the Islamists I'm asking you to trust the Syrian people 23 million people not fanatics they're just people poor people mostly who suffered unimaginable horrors who just want to breathe freedom and maybe have a job and maybe go back to their homes and maybe find out where they're missing relatives are and we owe them that

after screwing with their country for all this time. And by the way, that would be good for us, too. And it might show the people in Ukraine and in Taiwan, by the way, that they actually can win. Well, I will be looking up, Muhammad al-Bashir. I tried to do it a little bit while we're talking. I do know that he has a degree in Sharia law from Middle Beach University. So I don't know if that is necessarily a positive sign or not. Yeah, well, isn't it a positive sign that he has a degree in Sharia law,

but he actually explicitly does not want to impose a Sharia system? Yes, yes. Last Middle East question. I have a degree in Japanese. You don't see me using that on a daily basis. Well, in the next segment where we finalize on China. What's your degree in, Jamie? Not Japanese or Sharia.

What is it? Government history and then a master's degree in the history of international relations from our- Okay, that actually is applicable to what you do now. So that's a bad example. That's the exception to the rule. You're actually using your degree, but that's most people. I wish I had something more useful.

Final question. You may be yet proven right, as you said, on Syria. But let me ask you and pose that perhaps you have been wrong and missed the most important foreign policy story of the last year. I went through last night doing a little research, your columns for the last year. These are the headlines related to columns related to Israel. Biden's catastrophic cutoff of Palestinian aid is more than inhumane.

Kushner's Gaza remarks are a dark signal for it. Trump's second-term policy. As famine looms in Gaza, the U.S. humanitarian strategy is failing. Netanyahu's speech to Congress could cause long-term damage. Will wider war in the Middle East make America weaker? The United States can't just stand by as Israel starves northern Gaza. I would argue, Josh, that the most important foreign policy story of the last year, maybe the last five years, is the total decimation last year of the Iranian access. Hezbollah, Hamas, even the Houthis are under a bombardment of Syria, clearly Assad was part of that, even if he was maybe a weaker part than some of the others. And now Iran itself is exposed to their nuclear program. And maybe the regime

is as brittle as some of the regimes that they supported in the coming year. Isn't the biggest story, not these headlines about Israel, that Israel from its knees has turned around the most remarkable strategy and for the West's, you know, for the good of the West has now put Iran on its knees and might end the greatest threat to American interest in the Middle East is the Iranian axis. I got you, got you. Lots on pack there. One is sort of what's the bigger story, the Gaza or the greater Middle East. They're both big stories. And I haven't covered the suffering in Gaza exclusively at the expense of covering the regional dynamics. I wrote about both, okay, as I wrote about Ukraine and China and Taiwan, and you name it. So, which is a bigger story,

it doesn't really matter. They're both very important stories. Israel's, you know, wider war on Iranian proxies and the suffering of the people in Gaza. They're both big stories. Now, are those stories opposed to each other, which I think is the implication of your question? No, I don't think so. I think they both can be true. It can be true that Israel's military campaign, especially against Hezbollah, weakening the Iranian proxies, in a military sense, amazingly successful. That undeniable fact, that actually, as we previously talked about, helped create the conditions under which Assad fall, even though there was an unintended consequence from Israel's perspective. At the same time, it can also be true that Israeli policies denying humanitarian aid into Gaza,

as a matter of policy over the course of the year, leading to, at least in the north, near famine conditions, is morally and strategically wrong. And there's two parts of that. One is, is it actually their policy? Because, of course, the Israelis claim that they're letting all the aid in, and we did a calculation.

There's 3,000 calories a day, so everybody should be fine, and there's nobody starving. Don't believe your eyes. Don't believe all the videos. don't believe all the testimonies of every aid organization, every, you know, international organizations that have been on the ground. So if you don't believe that Israel is restricting aid, well, I got nothing for you because the evidence is overwhelming.

I quote just one person, Cindy McCain, who I know in Republican circles of McCain is like a bad thing to say, but no one can say she's not pro-Israel. She's one of the most pro-Israel people in the world. She happens to be the head of the world food organization, and she's been very out front saying not only is this systematic, but wrong. You can't, as a matter of achieving your military success, use food as a weapon of war,

and I think the evidence that Israel has used food as a weapon of war, denying food to Gaza and many Israeli ministers have alluded to this, both in public and private, is wrong, and they shouldn't do that. And that has exacerbated the suffering of Palestinians and Gaza above what was militarily necessary.

You know, there are things you have to do in war to achieve your goals. And then there's the added cruelty, the added suffering. And I stand by every single column that I wrote defending the Ghazan's right to eat. Anyone's right to eat. The Syrian's right to eat. The Ukrainians right to eat.

Has any in war, has any government kind of poo-poo the calorie count? I don't know if you're saying this wrong or not. It's a ridiculous thing to say because- But has any government ever put that many calories to- It's not true, James. You're like, you, you, okay, so we may not have time to go down this entire rabbit hole, but I encourage anyone out there to simply read any, the testimony, watch the testimony

of every, what, every single aid organization in the world, every single international observer, you're lying eyes which show people suffering from severe malnutrition on a mass scale for a year. And then someone says, oh, we counted the calories. one's starving. It's an insane thing to say. But Josh, you would agree, our eyes also have seen Hamas steal the aid. What do you talk? Do you really, Jamie, do you really think that two million, there's two million people in Gaza, right? So under this, Hamas steals the aid mantra, the argument, just let me get this straight is that two million people's worth of food

is getting stolen every day. And Hamas is stealing it, putting it where? Where are they putting two million people's worth of food every day for a year? In the tunnels, two million, what are they doing with a million people's worth of... A million people aren't in famine, Josh. In the north, there's 400,000 people in famine. So you're saying Hamas is stealing 400,000... There isn't a famine. I mean, you agree there is not a famine. The World Food Program says that they're near

famine conditions in the North right now. And so I believe them. And by the way, let me just finish. This is really important about Hamas stealing the aid. Okay. The thing is that people in the checkpoints and people in the aid staging areas and these aid organizations in World Central Kitchen,

you name it. They have cameras. And these cameras take videos and you can see and they track the number of trucks that are going in day by day. If you go on the UN website, you can see how many trucks were let in.

So even if they stole every truck of aid, which again isn't true, there's looting, there's some stealing, there's criminal gangs, there's Hamas. I'm not saying it's a perfect system, but I'm saying the idea that enough food is going into Gaza every day and Hamas is stealing it all

and putting it where in the tunnels of like thousands of because it's not just food too it's diapers medicine hygiene products women's hygiene products do you think what hamas has taken a million feminine hygiene products and stuff them in a tunnel somewhere for what why would they do that are they are they are they fueling the rockets with baby formula Jamie answer me that last last question on this wait wait can I just finish my point can I finish my point I mean I don't want to go to rabiddle but last question on this is I just let me finish my sentence. It's not true that Israel is providing plenty of aid and Hamas is stealing at all, at all.

The truth is that the system of denying food to the Palestinians is systematic, and the distribution is only one small part of the problem. I'll just leave it there. One last question on this, just because I encourage people to go read both sides and Josh's international aid organizations he mentioned and people that counter it. How much is coming through Rafa, the crossing through Egypt? I'm not sure you're asking me. How much aid is Egypt allowing into Gaza? Oh, I see what you're saying.

You're saying, oh, Israel's not the only one denying aid. Yeah, that's true. Israel's not the only bad guy in Gaza. That's true. But the truth is that... Are you familiar with in times of war, anybody giving this much aid to the person that's fighting? I'm very familiar with people using food as a weapon of war.

It happened in Syria for 14 years. It's happening in Ukraine. Anybody who's given this much food aid? They didn't give it, by the way. They allowed it in most. It's provided by the international community. The biggest aid providers, the United States of America, we're giving the aid. Israel's not giving them any aids.

This is, again, total misframing of the situation. The international community is giving the aid. The vast majority of it is sitting outside of Gaza and the West Bank, stalled by the Israeli COGAS system. And Israel allows some of that international aid to go in in a capricious and arbitrary and overly obtrusive manner. And so Israel, yes, every country in the world has given more aid, because Israel doesn't give aid.

They allow the international. No, no. I'm talking about when another country is in war, and in some cases, existential war, they're providing aid to the country that they're fighting. Yeah, it's, it's anybody done as much as that provided. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to tell you, is that it is a matter of international law that you cannot deny food to people, even when you're attacking them. Okay.

That is, it came out. out of World War II, all right? It's something we're supposed to have learned. How do you think even where you're- What do you think Egypt's not doing? I mean, they are not at war with Gaza. They have a border crossing there. That means they're run by a military dictatorship

that's, you know, doesn't care about the fate of the Gazans. And Israel's run by a democracy that doesn't care about- But no columns on them. But, I mean, they are not at war with- I think you're trying to say that the perception of Israel being primarily responsible for the diet of food to Gaza is my fault, but it's not. It's actually the Israelis fault. It's not my fault. It's not as if I wrote a column about the Rafa crossing that would absolve Israel of any of the truths that you're saying. So the way the system, the international

system, again, because it's not me, it's not how many columns did Josh Rogan write about Rafa versus this crossing or that crossing. The truth of the matter is that we have a very robust and well-organized international aid system dedicated to Gaza and the Israelis control all of the checkpoints through which all of that goes through under that system. Now, is it also true that the Egyptians are doing something equally awful? Yes, but what's your point? That they're both fed? Okay, they're both fed. I agree with you. If that's how we end this podcast, Jamie, that the Israelis denying food to the Gaza's is wrong and the Egyptians is denying food to the gazes is wrong, then we have agreed that both of them denying food to the gazes is wrong,

and we have agreed that the Gaza should be able to eat. And I think that's a really good place to stop. I was going to close just one or two questions on Taiwan. Oh, sorry, sorry, I didn't me too. Yeah, I encourage people to read both sides of this. There's a lot of articles countering it, and you'll determine whether Josh or I are right. But Taiwan, it's an issue that we've kind of focused on on the show in the last several weeks. We brought someone who's for a restrained position on the China-Taiwan straight and someone who is more aggressive. Where do you, you've written a lot about this, where do you come down if you were to wake up tomorrow and China was invading Taiwan, would you, if you were an advisor to a president,

would you advise him to send military troops and fight, or would you, is it too late that? Right, right, right. This topic deserves its own 40-minute podcast or whatever. I think we've gone way over, but by the way, thank you. So I think this has been a really good discussion. It would be really boring if we agreed on everything. And so I just want to say I think this has been really constructive from my point of view. On Taiwan, you know, we talk about Taiwan as a place that either China is going to invade or that it's not going to invade.

And then the only question becomes, are we going to intervene in that Chinese attack or not? Okay. And this is the completely wrong framing for the Taiwan question. Again, this is going to require me to come back to the podcast, and I'm leaving you with a cliffhanger on purpose, okay? And the reason that I say that is because China is already invading Taiwan in every way except for militarily. They are using economic coercion, information warfare, cyber warfare, political interference,

and literally blockading the country on a random basis, threatening them, shooting missiles over them, attacking their diplomatic stature, keeping them out of international organizations that they need to be in. and overall just trying to make their lives miserable on a daily basis. And that is a strategy that Beijing is using to strangle the country, like a boa constrictor, to meanwhile bribing and coercing any politicians that they can. And by focusing on the invasion scenario, which is one scenario, out of many, many scenarios for how China could take Taiwan, we ignore all those other

scenarios, which really need to be talked about. Now, that will be the subject of our next podcast is like, what's actually going on between China and Taiwan? Because it's really, really interesting and really important. And there are ways for us to help Taiwan resist the Chinese invasion. That's ongoing now. They have nothing to do with sending American boots or American planes or American ships anywhere near it. Now, to answer your question directly, because I don't want to be seen as dodging it. When I interviewed President Donald Trump about this very question, I said to him, of would you invade? Would you come to Taiwan's defensive vortex?

He said, well, Josh, I don't want to tell you. You know, we shouldn't say anything. I don't want to tip my hand. I said, come on, President Trump, just tell me. And he says, well, you know, I'm going to write a book about it later, so I don't want to scoop my own book, so I don't want to tell you in your book. And I'm like, come on, just tell me. And he says, well, the truth is, it's not a problem because they won't invade as long as

I'm president. And I said, why? He said, because I had assurances from the highest level. And I said, from Xi Jinping. and he said, yes. So President Trump believes that Xi Jinping will never invade Taiwan as long as he's president. That's a very interesting calculation to think about. And then he said one more thing.

He said, besides, it's so far away if they really attack. There isn't a thing we could do about it. And that, in the Trumpian way, is an uncomfortable truth. He's exactly right. We are nowhere positioned to intervene in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. We don't have the resources there. We haven't prepared with Taiwan. We haven't trained with Taiwan.

So if we are going to contemplate defending Taiwan, it has to be credible. And if that attack happened today, it doesn't matter if we pushed the button or not, because we couldn't get there fast enough. Taiwan would be taking. We'd be helping them fight from a position of already being invaded, even if they wanted to do that. And so our Taiwan policy is deeply flawed, and our Taiwan conversation is deeply flawed because it fails to, it's the worst of both worlds. It's focused on the evasion scenario without preparing for the invasion scenario,

and it ignores the invasion that's already going on where we could actually be doing a lot more as well. Josh Rogan, thank you for joining the Dispatch podcast. Anytime. You know,