The Duran Podcast - Ceasefire Failure. Armenia Shift w/ Kevork Almassian (Live)

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

Ceasefire Failure. Armenia Shift w/ Kevork Almassian (Live)

Okay, we are live with Alexander Mercuris, and we have with us today, first time joining us on the Duran, and we're very happy to have Kivork al-Massian with us. Kavork, welcome to the Duran. How are you doing today? I'm doing great, and if you give me the opportunity, I would like to thank you for all the work you do guys under Duran. I think everybody says it's a great work, but I have to say that this is a service for the people who are craving for. information, different opinions, because it's very important during these times that people give the opportunity for different opinions to shed light on different opinions because nowadays we are living in a tyrannical world. And once you disagree with the establishment narratives, then you

are framed and smeared. So it's very important to have channels like yourself. Thank you so much, Kavok. Thank you so much, Kavork. And your channel is also amazing. We recommend that Everyone follows your channel. Siriana, I have that in the description box down below. They can also find you on YouTube, on Twitter as well. I will put those links as a pinned comment when the stream is over. A quick hello to everyone that is watching us on Odyssey, on Rock Finn, on Rumble, and YouTube, and our amazing locals community, the durand.com.

How's everybody doing? locals today and how are our moderators doing today. A big shout out to our moderator, Zareel. Hope all is good. Tish M. Great to see you. And I think I saw Peter in here somewhere, but I see Tish M and Zaryel for now moderating. Thank you for everything that you do, Alexander Kivork. We have a lot of news in the Middle East to go over. And maybe towards the end of the discussion, we can talk a little bit about what's happening in Armenia as well. But let's start things off with everything that is going on in the Middle East. Alexander Kivork, the floor is.

Let us indeed do that because, of course, Kvork, this is a region that you know extremely well that you've incredibly familiar with. And I'm going to ask, and I'm going to start actually with a country in the Middle East about which we hear far too little suddenly. I mean, just a few years ago, three or four years ago, Syria was the actual main topic of discussion in the international media. There was the battles of Aleppo, Derizor, there was ISIS there, there was, you know, all kinds of things happening. And then suddenly the war in Ukraine begins, or rather the conflict in Ukraine begins. Nobody is interested in Syria anymore.

notwithstanding which, of course, Syria is still there. It's still a country. Large parts of it remain under occupation by various armies. Turkey in one part, the United States, by the way, in another. There are still insurgent groups that fight the Syrian government, even though I get the situation that politically, and perhaps even to some extent economically, the situation overall has been stabilising a little. But Kavuk, do you want to start with Syria?

Just give us a quick overview of what you see is the situation in Syria and whether the pressures on Syria have abated a little now that Syria has been readmitted to the Arab League and President Assad is able to go to Saudi Arabia and meet the Saudis and has seems to have sorted out most of his relations. with most of the other Arab states. Actually, if I want to summarize the situation in Syria, Syrians actually foiled the U.S.-sponsored regime-change war,

but they haven't won the battle or the war yet. The two-third of the country is, of course, in the hands of the Syrian government, and there is relative peace and stability there. However, the reconstruction process is very difficult to start, for multiple reasons, one of which is the draconian, sanctions imposed by the U.S., the successive administrations on Syria, and to extend that any third country company, so let's suppose there is a company in Malaysia or Thailand or anywhere in the world, they want to invest in Syria in the reconstruction process.

The Americans can impose sanctions on this company. So everybody is bullied not to invest in Syria in this case. The Chinese are telling the Syrians that the situation is not stable enough for huge investment from the Chinese side, so they expect first stabilization and also reconciliation and some political compromise so that the country can hold itself because the Chinese have an interest in extending their road initiative in Syria, but the Americans are stationed on the eastern shore of the Euphrates, and this is one of the reasons why the American occupation forces are there, because they want to block the Chinese access to the Mediterranean and also the Iranian

access to the Mediterranean, basically. So economically speaking, between 2011 and 2017, of course, it's war destruction. The infrastructure is half of the infrastructure has been destroyed by the ongoing conflict and the war. But in 2018, when the Caesar Act came into full power, this was the game changer, in my opinion, because after 2018, you see the Syrian currency, the value of the Syrian currency, it dropped dramatically. So if you used to buy this pen for one Syrian lira, it's now a thousand Syrian lira. So thousand times more.

So the government doesn't have an income because the oil fields are out of the control of the government. The Americans occupy it. And the wheat field is also in the hands of the government. And this is something that the U.S. administration brags about that they say we hold the food and the energy baskets of Syria as a hostage in exchange for compromise with Syria. What do they want from Syria? Do they really want to bring democracy human rights?

I think nobody in his mind believes that the Americans are interested in democracy in Syria. I think the Americans were interested in three major interests in Syria, let's say. The first interest is the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean. And this is similar to the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. The first thing that the Americans wanted to do after the 2013 coup in Kiev was to kick out the Russian fleet from the Black Sea. And this is why the Russians came and they hold the referendum and they captured the Crimea. And similar, they wanted to do in Syria. They wanted to kick the Russians out of the Mediterranean. So the Russians also came in 2015 to help the Syrian government. This was one of the reasons,

let's say, why the Russians intervened there. The second factor why the Americans wanted to coup Assad was the Iranian factor. Iran has established a network of state and non-state alliance of state and non-state actors in the region. And they seriously challenged the American supremacy over the region and also the Israeli supremacy. Syria was basically what they call in Arabic the strategic depth of what is called the access of resistance. And Syria has been used as a territory to deliver arms to Hezbollah and also training on its territory and intelligence support to these different factions.

So the Americans had an invested interest in cutting these routes between Syria and Lebanon. And if you see the rhetoric of ISIS, al-Nusra and all these terrorist groups in Syria, they always said after they finish in Damascus, they are going to go to Lebanon because they wanted to fight against Hezbollah. So they were basically doing the bidding of the U.S. and also Israel. So imagine this scenario now after October 7 when Hezbollah now intervened in support of Gaza. If ISIS was engaged in this big acts of hostilities with Hezbollah, Hezbollah would have been busy in this conflict with Israeli. Nus and the other terrorist groups. Now, the Americans also have another very important interest in Syria, and that is gas. So the Qataris in 2008, they came to Assad, and they told him that there is a possibility of,

or a project, an idea of extending Qatar-Gas pipeline through Syrian territories to Turkey, and Turkey will distribute it to the European countries. Now, the idea behind it is to finish the or end. the Nord Stream pipeline projects. So the Americans wanted for Qatar to extend these gas pipelines to Europe, so they completely end the European need for Russian gas. So you see how this developed in 2014, the coup, and then in 2022 the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline.

So these conflicts are completely interconnected. And only a few days before the Russian offensive on Ukraine, we are speaking in February 2022, the former defense minister of Russia, Schroeger was in the amount. And to my knowledge that they told the Syrians that you are the front line against the American, this conflict against the United States, you have to hold your positions. This is the time just to hold your positions and wait because the Syrian conflict, the outcome of the Syrian conflict will be also determined by the outcome of the Ukrainian conflict. If the U.S. loses this strategic conflict vis-à-vis Russia in Ukraine, then this will reflect positively on the compromise and the outcome of the Syrian war. At the current moment, Syrians cannot drive the Americans out of the country, but if the

Americans lose in Ukraine, they have to prioritize their needs and where they can be stationed, whether in West Asia or in Far East Asia or in the Middle East, as we mentioned. So what is the priority of the U.S.? The priority of the U.S., in my opinion, is the Pacific, is far East Asia, is the growing what they call the threat from China. Therefore, at the moment, they are encouraging their partners in Europe to invest more into Ukraine because the Americans want to focus on what they call the Chinese threat from the door of Taiwan.

So you see all these calculations and you connect the dots. I think the Syrians in a very unfortunate situation at the moment that they have to wait and see what's going to happen with Ukraine. And at the same time, they have to try to find a mutual ground with Turkey. Turkey is a very important player. It played an instrumental role during the conflict. And there is at the moment negotiations, indirect talks between Syria and Turkey, and the Iraqis are mediating, the Russians are mediating.

The Syrians have only one condition from the Turks that they have to commit themselves to withdraw completely from Syria. And they could cooperate with the Turkish side vis-à-vis the Kurdish militias, for example, because the Turks say that they represent the national security. So I think the Syrians are ready to cooperate with the Turks if the Turkish side which rules from the Syrian territory and abandons the Idler province, which is the largest safe haven of Al-Qaeda terrorists around the world. This is the assessment of the Pentagon and not my personal assessment, per se. It is a very interesting situation. Can I just ask one immediate question?

How much fighting is actually going on in Syria at the moment? Because we don't hear about any fighting in Syria, but is the country at least peaceful? I mean, that is in itself an important change. The economic situation obviously very, very difficult. But how stable in military security terms is the situation in Syria at the moment? So unless Israel bombs Damascus and you were unlucky walking in some of the neighbors that they bombed, I think Syria is two-third of it is. stable and you can basically even go as a tourist to Syria at the current moment.

However, what the Syrian government did after the Ukraine conflict and after the October 7 events, they started what is called the war of attrition against the al-Qaeda and the other groups in Idlib. But instead of using artillery, instead of engaging in a-tete fight with these groups, they have employed the drone technology in this. So they are basically destroying the tanks and the warehouses and the artillery of Nusra, the Islamic Turkestan army, Ahra al-Sharm, Islam's army in Idlib. And they are slowly but surely destroying their strengths and their fortifications there. And the Turks aren't giving much of military support any longer to these terrorist groups there.

So this is in favor of the Syrian government. So mostly focused in Idlib, let's say, at the current moment. But what the Americans are basically doing, they always activate the ISIS cells. And this is not a conspiracy theory, by the way. Everybody has to know that ISIS is moved on the chessboard by the CIA and by the Pentagon. They are moving them every day in the Syrian deserts. And they are basically taking shelter and refuge in the periphery of what is called Altanav Border Crossing. El TANF is occupied by the U.S. is the most important border crossing of Syria that connects Syria or trade routes between Syria, Jordan and Iraq.

And the American occupation forces decided to be there. So to block the trade routes of Syria with its neighboring countries. And the second is on the peripheries of this military base, there are many of the ISIS cells and also trained in the so-called refugee camps there. And every time you see that ISIS attacks the Syrian army positions, and it's very difficult to detect them because it's a very deserty place. And even if you have the drone technology and the helicopters and you have reinforcement with your military, the ISIS cells always find a way to ambush Syrian army buses. And this is the strategy at the moment. Every time there is a bus coming, there is reinforcement, there is drones, there's everything that's. Syria employs and despite that, ISIS receives logistical support and intelligence support from

who? And they manage and succeed every few weeks to kill 30 to 40 Syrian soldiers in the deserts by such ambitious. So this has accelerated after the October 7 events, because basically Syria, despite its dire situation, it's still supporting Hezbollah during this. times and there are still weapon, convoyes and ammunition is going to Hezbollah from the Syrian army warehouses. So for the Israelis and for the Americans to distract the situation in Syria, to destabilize it so that the Syrian army focuses only on this inner conflict, let's say. This is why they activate the ISIS. Overall, I think if we exclude Idlib and this ISIS cells in the desert, Syria is stable. On the Kurdish side, which is,

on the eastern shore of the Euphrates. Of course, there are some clans fighting against the Kurds, but it's still relatively stable. And I think at the end of the day, the Damascus government will come into some terms with the Kurdish side also in the eastern shore of the Euphrates because the Americans cannot sustain their state. There is no end goal.

There is no big strategy for them and the plan to stay. Even the special envoy of the U.S. to Syria, he told the Kurds, he said, look, you have to come to terms with Syria, just to be Damasco, just find the middle ground with them and compromise. So until this compromise comes, the Americans will stay there. And their stay

is very destabilizing because I would say in 2011, when there was a revolution against the Assad government, the popularity of Assad was very high. And now the popularity in my opinion is shrinking of

Assad and the government in Damascus, because the government basically cannot afford and cannot provide the basic necessities. If your food basket and the energy basket is out of your hands, then you're dependent on your allies. So every time the Iranians have to send fuel and it gets sometimes hijacked, it gets in the Mediterranean. Sometimes they try to destroy it if it's a convoy coming from Iran. So it's very difficult. The people want to feed their children. And if you can't feed, if your salary is $30, $40, $40.00. per month, the equivalent of the serial lira, which was previously $400,500 before the conflict,

then the government has only one way to feed the people, print money, and this will just generate more inflation and inflation, and every day the prices become very, very expensive, and the people are, in my opinion, in a very upset mood at the moment vis-à-vis the government. I've, by the way, heard from the Russian, in the Russian media, I've seen it in the Russian media as well, they say that the outcome of the conflict in Syria ultimately depends on the conflict in Ukraine. But the Russians have to prioritize Ukraine at the moment, but that once that's sorted, they can then start thinking about Syria again. So it's a difficult time for the Syrians and for the Syrian people.

Let's talk about the other situations in the Middle East because from what you've said, everything is connected. And I think this is an essential point to understand. One can't, you know, compartmentalize and say Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Iran, they all sort of play together. What is the situation at the moment in Israel? We have this extraordinarily confusing story over the last couple of days about a so-called ceasefire deal that the Israelis were supposed to have proposed, even though I don't think they did propose it. We've had a Security Council resolution,

which, again, is a very odd resolution because there's so much lack of clarity about it. What is actually going on? Are we actually seeing a conflict in Gaza still continuing? I mean, is the offensive towards Rafa still continuing? And what is playing out on the northern border? because we're in talk all the time about an Israeli offensive against Hezbollah. The Americans say that they oppose it.

I mean, will it happen? Is there actually going to be an offensive against Hezbollah? How is all this going to play out? I think Hamas and Israel, they are completely on the opposite sides now. They don't have anything in common to agree on. Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire exchange of hostages and the Israeli forces out of Gaza completely, and reconstruction and aid. And this is something that Israel will not accept.

And in my opinion that Israel wants what they call a complete annihilation of Hamas, and what Bingavir and Smotrich and other officials said, voluntary immigration of the Palestinians. And this was something that, of course, this means ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from Gaza. I think Professor Meerschheimer explained this eloquently and perfectly in his last lecture in Australia when he said, Israel knows that it's an apartheid state and it knows that they cannot sustain it on the long run. So they want to solve this.

But instead of giving the Palestinians equal rights so that the apartheid system would fall, they have decided to ethnically clean the two million Palestinians from Gaza. And this is a difficult task for them because they need the cooperation of Egypt. And the first days after October 7, if we remember, all these officials who now say that we are for the two-state solution, Blinken and Ursula von der Leyen, they were in Egypt trying to convince Sisi to receive two million Palestinian refugees. And the plan was to build 10 cities in the Sinai. And from the Sinai, then they started discussing, even here in Germany, in the parliamentary committees, which is secret talks, that how many Palestinians Germany can absorb

and how many Palestinians can France absorb? So they were ready to cooperate with Israel to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from Gaza. But when the Egyptians said no, and I'm not defending Egypt here, because Egyptians know that once they receive the two million Palestinians, and when the Palestinians try to carry arms and go back to Gaza, then Israel will say there is a security threat coming from the Sinai, and they want to create a buffer zone inside Sinai. And this is something they have done before in 1960s after 1966. They have occupied the Sinai.

So the Egyptians are aware of this calculation, so they rejected it. Now, I suspect that the Israelis would agree on a ceasefire agreement. And I will explain this because it's very important to understand why Israel would refuse it. Not like because they don't want a ceasefire. Because after October 7, the October 7 and the footage of the October 7, they will forever live in the collective memory of the Israeli people. The Israeli IDF soldiers carried and dragged by the Hamas soldiers to Gaza, I think this humiliation was worse than what happened in 1973, New York-Kibur attack by Egypt and Syria on

Israel. So Israel basically lost the deterrence against a small non-state actor like Hamas. Whether we think that this was let it happen operation or they were caught in surprise. regardless, they lost the deterrence vis-à-vis Hamas in this case. So they want to re-establish and reinforce these deterrence on the Palestinians in Gaza by annihilating entire neighborhoods by carpet bombing. And this is simply not working for them. The Hamas are under the tunnels and they're just every day.

If they conduct one military operation and they kill two soldiers, it's a big victory in their understanding of this conflict. Now, in the north, you have why Israel will not accept this is why, because Hezbollah has basically created a buffer zone in the north. Now, in the north, in the northern Galil, tens of thousands of Israelis were forced to leave these areas to the central of Israel. And these kibbutzs and these settlements are daily attacked. And Hezbollah has basically blinded Israel because they destroyed the intelligence and the spying. the equipment, the technologies, and the radars. So Israel is basically now blind in the nose.

So what they do, they have employed the Hemis, HEMIS 900 and other types of drones to see the movements of Hezbollah. And Hezbollah now came with its first time use of air defense system. Basically, it's an Iranian weapon. And they forced an Israeli F-16 to leave the... the skies of Lebanon. And this is a game changer because the Israelis were used to bomb Lebanon, Syria, and the other countries with no opposition to that, right?

Now, you have Hezbollah opposing this. So Israel, in my opinion, stands on three legs. The first is deterrence. And Hamas and Hezbollah, they have challenged this deterrence. And the second is it's a safe haven for the Jewish people around the world. Hezbollah has stabilized this image, that it's no longer a safe haven for the Jewish people. In the north, the third leg is foreign aid. So, the U.S. foreign aid and the German foreign aid and other countries are giving foreign aid.

Okay, then this explains why the student protests in the U.S. is very dangerous for Israel, because those are the future, whether we agree with them or not, those are going to be in the future positions, in universities, in academia, probably in political field, right? Now, the timing of the October 7 is very interesting. If we put this context into consideration, in my opinion, it's not a coincidence. Hamas has picked this time to attack Israel. Because the third leg that we are speaking of is the foreign aid. They wanted to stabilize that.

They know that the US is heavily involved in the Ukraine war, and they see it as existential for the unipolar world. Therefore, they have invested so much their military aid, their intelligence focus, their military focus, everything is on Ukraine. So Hamas comes during this time and opens a new front in the Middle East. And the Americans now have to diversify their efforts between the Middle East and Ukraine again. And now they have to send billions to, I think it was 18 billion or so, as a security aid to Israel and the rest to Ukraine.

So I think the timing is very interesting to see that the Hamas tried to diversify the focus of the Americans in this case because they also see the Ukraine war, in my opinion, if they read it correctly this time, because they misread it completely in Syria. If they're reading it correctly in Ukraine, if Russia, if, I'm not going to say win, when Russia wins this strategic conflict vis-à-vino in Ukraine, we are going to see the birth of a multi-polar world. And under a multipolar world, how much the United States can continue its unconditional support to the Israelis, this is questionable. And the Americans have to see that the imminent threat to their dominance around the world is going to be in China.

So I think all this, if we put all this into one basket, we see that time is not playing in favor of the Americans and the Israelis. in the region. Hezbollah knows this. Therefore, they are escalating every time the Israelis escalates there and they're changing the rules of engagement almost every day in terms of the how in-depth they hit and the type of weaponry that they use. Now, the Israelis threaten Lebanon with invasion. I think if they were able to do it, they would have done it from the first day. Because when the October 7 happened, the first thing that the Israelis told, according to the Israeli press, to the U.S., that they are going to open a front against Hezbollah. And the Americans were completely against it. They said, this is their now first red line. They cannot go into

Lebanon because they know the Hezbollah has established the mutually assured destruction equation vis-à-vis Israel. You can turn Lebanon into Stone Age, but, At the same time, Hezbollah will be able to destroy every airport, every port, and every military facility in Israel, including in Deimona. So why would Israel go into such a big adventure against Hezbollah? Hezbollah is completely different from Hamas. And they have gained enormous fighting experience in Syria. They have been fighting against the most brutal terrorist groups that you can imagine, like against ISIS and Nusra. And I have eyewitnesses from my friends who fought in the Syrian army because every man serves in the Syrian army in Syria.

And they tell me stories about Hezbollah, how competent they are and how disciplined they are and how effective they are on the ground. So I think Israeli threats against Lebanon, we should not underestimate it and ridiculate because we are not dealing with very sane, let's say, officials in Tel Aviv at the current moment. but at the same time the Americans are holding the cart here against Israel, telling them that this is a really dangerous miscalculation if they go into Lebanon. And I personally believe that the Americans have, for the first time, maybe in my political history, I agree with the Americans, that the Israelis shouldn't go to Lebanon because this is going to be very destructive for Israel. Do people in Israel, does the government in Israel understand how bad,

how critical the situation for Israel has become. I'm going to say straight away, I think this is the most difficult situation that Israel has found itself in, that I can remember, even during the 1973 war, which I remember, by the way, I remember it very well, when it looked for a time as if Israel was going to be defeated. There was at least talk of it. It had the backing of the United States, the unqualified backing of the United States, and there was always a strong likelihood that what eventually happened

would happen, which is that there would be an agreement between the Americans and the Russians for a ceasefire. So Israel's position ultimately was not in jeopardy. I think it is now, not immediately, but incrementally in a way that is gathering pace. And we see this in the court judgments

that have been made in Europe, which in themselves show the shift in global power and global opinion. And as you said, the change in feeling in the United States and also, by the way, in Europe as well, but also the changes on the actual, on the ground itself. Do you the Israelis understand that, that in effect, they're played out? Alexander, why I thanked you at the beginning because you guys asked the right questions. However, the right answer, it depends if you are rational or not. And when I say the Israeli officials at the current moment are irrational, I also mean these hardcore Zionists in the U.S.

They are irrational. What they're basically preaching is an Armageddon in the region, and they speak about it openly. Like, it's something that we can tolerate in the region to blow up the entire region because they want to build the temple, they want to kick out the Palestinians. And this type of rhetoric is very poisonous into extent that the Saudis, who have, I don't want to say good relationship, but they have a relationship with connections with the Israelis under the table.

They are coming in opposition to what Israel is doing at the current moment in the Gaza Strip. In my opinion, it's very important to shed light on ideologies here. The U.S. Israel, they always claim that we, the backward people in the jungle, in the backyard that they call us, we are all hardcore ideologues and our policies is built on ideologies. In fact, the neocuns and the Zionists in the U.S. and Israel are hardcore ideologues. And this, you cannot mix rationality and hardcore ideology together. You can make big miscalculations if you're a hardcore ideologue. And this is something we see by many politicians and congressmen and congresswoman in the US. They are talking about wiping out countries.

They're talking about eliminating entire population from their territories because this is their political interests. So I think after October 7, there was a big study conducted by a research center in the US where tens of military experts and former officials they participated in this research. And they submitted it to the Israeli government, warning the Israeli government of an adventure against Hezbollah. And they have spoken in detail about the military capabilities of Hezbollah, in terms of the artillery, in terms of the air force, in terms of their aerial capabilities, and also their Yakhunt missiles. At the current moment, Hezbollah has hypersonic missiles that they can hit Israeli warships in the Mediterranean. They have air defense systems. and at the same time, they have 100,000 well-trained military forces.

They have fought for 10 years in Syria. They have gathered all this experience, and they are detailing all this. They have presented a brilliant research to the Netanyahu government, warning him against such an adventure in Lebanon. Now, will Netanyahu comply with this? This is a big question mark. I don't know. I do not rule out.

I say that Israel may invade Lebanon, and it would be huge miscalculation. And I suspect, because I follow the speeches of Nasrallah, and he speaks in Arabic, I understand very well Arabic. And what this man says, you can disagree with his ideology and with his religion, how much you want. But what he says is basically coming and telling you what they're going to do if such scenarios happen. And he rolled out the strategy of Hezbollah since 2006 war. In 2006, Hezbollah basically had thousands of Katushas. They overwhelmed the air defenses with Katushas, but they didn't inflict much of damage on the Israeli military infrastructure. But they were very competent in repelling the invading Israeli forces inside of Lebanon.

And they have decentralized paramilitary groups that they can take a decision by themselves without coming back to the Central Command. And a few Hezbollah fighters, for example, in southern Lebanon, they were able to deter and push back a huge military force. And they used Russian weapons, by the way, back then from the Syrian military warehouses, such as the Cornet rockets. Now, the Hezbollah strategy between 2006 and 2024 has changed dramatically. Now, Hezbollah still has the Katushas, but they use the Katushas just to overwhelm

the air defenses, and then they have the kamikaze drones and also the guided missiles that they are hitting the air defenses, they are hitting the satellites, they're hitting the technologies of the Israeli forces. One of the operations that I watched of Hezbollah, basically an Israeli drone driver, he holds the joystick in his hands and he's driving the drone, and the rocket comes and hits the guy who's basically driving the drone on a Lebanese territory. So this is also sophisticated intelligence of capacity that Hezbollah has in this case. So in my understanding, if something like this happens and if I want to believe what Nasrallah says, Hezbollah will be on the offensive.

They have prepared for this day. They have a group called Radwan Brigade or Al-Radwan unit. and their mission is to occupy the northern Galil. And once they infiltrate, because this area is now a buffer zone, there are no Israeli settlers. There are some Israeli soldiers who are blind, and they don't have the cameras and the technologies to predict the invasion of the Hezbollah sites.

So what they do, basically, they have to go out of their barracks and use a manpower to follow what's happening on the borders. And once they go out of the border, the barracks, this is where the Israeli kamikaze drones are coming and hitting the Israeli forces there. So in my opinion, Hezbollah has outsmarted here the Israeli side, but Israel cannot tolerate this. So why I say I don't rule out an invasion? Because two of the legs that you stand on, you have three legs, is already really, really challenged by Hezbollah and by Hamas.

So the only tool they have is enormous power, military power, to inflict as much as damage and destruction on your enemies in order to deter them. But with Hezbollah, this doesn't work, because Hezbollah can also destroy the Israeli cities, unlike Hamas. Hamas's rockets are unguided, mostly. They are assembled in Gaza, the vast majority of them. But Hezbollah has an open border with Syria. Syria has given them everything they need. Some of them are Chinese missiles, that the Israelis were very upset,

that Chinese missiles arrived into Hezbollah hands, the Jhunt, this is Russian, the coordinate, and many of the long-range missiles from Iran. Now, Hezbollah doesn't get all these weapons from Iran. They produce it in southern Lebanon, because it's only enough for them to acquire the knowledge and the technology, how to assemble it and how to build it, and they have their teams and they're building it. So I truly hope that this situation would deter Israel from invading,

but I suspect that the Israelis would like to escalate a little bit more in Lebanon to establish new rules of engagement, at least vis-à-vis Hezbollah. What about Lebanon itself? Because, of course, Hezbollah is a Lebanese militia, at least it's based in Lebanon. I believe it gets support from other people from around the Middle East, that there are people who join it to. But it is nonetheless, ultimately, a Lebanese and Lebanese-based militia.

Lebanon is a complex country. There are many people of different faiths and different views. In the past, Israel has found allies there. Does it have allies in Lebanon now, or potential allies? Yes. Israel has allies in Lebanon. They are the same allies that they used to have after 1980. the Falanges and the Lebanese forces, for example.

They don't say we are allies with Israel, but they're complete hyper-focused on what Hezbollah is doing. And in the parliament, during the government discussions, they always criticize Hezbollah, and they call it an adventure, what Hezbollah is doing vis-à-vis Israel, and they ask Hezbollah to stop firing against the Israeli forces. At the same time, we have activists in southern Lebanon. Those are funded by the NGOs.

They create news outlets there, radio channels, and they circulate 24-7 anti-Hizbollah news in this area, in hope that the people would be anti-Hizbollah one day. I think the Lebanese people are very much divided, let's say, 50-50. Hezbollah, democratically speaking, because they are located in the south, and the vast majority of the people in the south are either from Hezbollah or from the Amal movement and some of the Christian movements that are already allied with Hezbollah,

for example, the people of Michel Aun in that part. They were in a detent. There were some disagreements between them, but they had to strike the deal at the end and they are in good terms at the moment. Hezbollah, in my opinion, they enjoy enough support from this faction. to continue the operations and also regionally, they have backing this support from Iran and

from Syria, and they have their coordination hub in Syria. So this explains why the Israelis hit the Iranian embassy back then and killed all these commanders, because this is a coordination hub for what they call the access of resistance in the region. So in my opinion, Hezbollah cannot be domestically challenged because, as I said, geographically and demographically, they are already in the South. Therefore, all the time you hear this demand from the Israeli side that Hezbollah has to withdraw its forces and heavy equipment to the north of the Litani.

So why to the north of Littani? Because they are not the majority in the north of Litani there, because there are people who dislike Hezbollah in the north of Littani. So they're playing this game. And this is a very silly demand, in my opinion, because how can Hezbollah move its heavy weapon? from the south to the northern Littani, what are they going to do to dig in new tunnels and take all these weapons to the north of Lebanon? That's not going to happen. I think Hezbollah has established itself as a strong force against Israel, and they have to live with this threat that they have in the north.

And the question is, is there any dual citizen Israeli who would like to live now in the north facing Hezbollah or facing Hezbollah? facing Gaza? This is the real question. Many people would never go back to the settlements that are facing these borders because, as I said, the October 7 collective memory is not going to be vanished very easily from the collective memory of the Israeli people. How important in all of this is Iran? And I ask this question, because up to October, up to October 7th, I got the sense that the Iranians were on a role. that in fact, as I once put it to an Iranian in fact, they'd had a miracle year. They've had the rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, which is apparently sticking.

They've joined the bricks. Their economy is starting to grow again. They're starting to receive arms from the Russians. They're developing links with India and China. Things have been more complicated since October 7th. They've had the missile exchanges with the Israelis. Their president, Abraham Rezi, has died in a helicopter crash. But how stable is Iran and how important is it in this overall picture?

Actually, Iran had no clue about the October 7 events. And my contacts in Damascus say they had no clue at all. They just walk up like anyone else and watch the footage on TV. And we're speaking about senior officials in Damascus and in Tehran. They had no clue about it. This was a very strict military operation conducted by only, was known by only few people in the Gaza Strip. This is the official narrative that I have in this case.

However, the presence of Iran in this conflict is very detrimental, in my opinion, in terms of, there are different aspects in this. One is the Iranian consistent military support to these paramilitary groups in the region. And this is happening not with the delivery of weapons, but also with sharing the knowledge. We have many of the Hamas and Hezbollah, let's say, commanders, they go to Iran, they take the training and they go back and they assemble their own weapons, for example. This is important for them for these paramilitary groups in Hezbollah and in Hamas, for example. However, the big political support that also Iran gives to these powers in the region, they're trying to counter the pro-American forces in the region.

So the establishment of a network of state and non-state actors in the region in a way that they can act independently, but at the same time in coordination together, you see after the October 7, the Ansabullah movement have escalated, the paramilitary groups in Iraq have escalated and in Lebanon have escalated. Now, Iran says those are not my proxies, those are my allies. However, I would argue that there is an intersection of interest between them, that even if they act independently in this case, they are serving the grand scheme of the Iranian strategy in the region, and that is to counter American hegemony. Now, the Iranians believe that the presence of the U.S. in the region is actually

for the sake of divide and concur. Now, the Americans have adopted this strategy. They adopted it between Iran and Iraq, and then they turned the Gulf countries against Iraq, in this case, and they turned the Gulf countries against Syria. So there was a big destruction in the region for conflicts that have been fought for the sake of the U.S. Now, the Qatari, former Qatari foreign minister,

Hamad Ben Jhazim, he was on a Qatari national TV, and he used the term tasked. He said, we in Qatar were tasked to overthrow the regime in Syria. So those were tasked by the United States. And this conflict has killed half a million people, even more probably. And there you have thousands of people missing. You have millions of people refugees. So there is a big destruction and destabilization by the U.S. divide and concur strategy in the region.

Now, when the Chinese started to invest more, they brought the air. Iranians and the Saudis together. And this is very, very important after October 7, because every step that Iran has taken since then, they have coordinated with the Saudis, and they told them, we're not targeting you, we don't want to target your interests in the region. This is strictly vis-à-vis the American and the Israeli interests in the region. Now, when they retaliated against Israel, they have been telling the Saudis for two weeks, what are they going to do about this case.

the importance of this retaliation from the Iranian side lies in just one thing. And that is, I can hit you if I want to hit you. And in the places that I want to hit you, and especially the Air Force and the military air bases of the Israeli side, they have sent hundreds probably of drones. Most of them were gunned down. But one or two of their missiles that they wanted to hit, they hit their targets. And this was the message from the Iranian side. Now, the Iranians had participated in this conflict in terms of when I said the deterrence, right?

For 40 years, the Iranians are vowing to fight against the Israelis, but they never fired against Israel directly. This was the first time that they did it directly. They didn't want to do it. They didn't want to get involved in this an open regional war in the region. Therefore, they coordinated with the Americans through Oman, and they told them, We have no interest in the regional war in the region. We're having a good time, as you mentioned, with the Chinese. We're opening up with the Saudis.

We're opening up to the rest of the world. We want to do business as usual. We don't want to create a mayhem in the region. But they had to retaliate, also from their perspective. In this particular case, they had to retaliate, but with very clear calculations in a way that they don't open a big regional war in the region. and the Americans were aware of what the nature of the attack is going to be. But in any case, Israel was hit in a few military installations that the Iranians just sent a message.

If we want to hit you, we can. We don't want to open a front against you. This is the limit of the conflict in Lebanon and in Gaza, and they are attacking some of the targets in Syria, but beyond that, they're not interested. Let's just turn to Armenia now because I think this to some extent interconnects with what we've just been talking about. The Americans are now very, very interested in Armenia. They're trying to forge connections about there. Obsessed, obsessed with Armenia.

So, small country. Armenia is a small country, a very, very ancient country, very, very important tradition. But is this about the Armenians themselves, an interest that the Americans have in the Armenians, or is it because of the Russians, or is it about Iran? Because Armenia is also close to Iran. It's had historically in the last decades good relations with Iran, relatively good relations with Iran. I believe there is a large Armenian community in Iran itself. is this

what is the American game in Armenia because it's something I've understood a bit about what's going on in Armenia itself but it's the American side that intrigues me Alexander

sorry to use this word but it's a big clown show what's happening at the moment in Armenia Paschenaenian it's the same play book of supporting the civil society in former Soviet Union countries, I am in no way or shape against having good relationship and a very good relationship with the EU, with Russia, with all the countries, as an Armenian, right?

But when you manufacture and engineer public opinion and you shape the public opinion through funding, through connecting and making the younger generation's income dependent on the job opportunities that you create in the country through these NGOs that are all speaking about one single thing, and that is liberalization, human rights, democracy. But we know that this is just a smokescreen. They're not interested in democracy in Armenia. and when they trained the Armenian police, the Americans have trained the Armenian police recently.

And if you watch the footage coming from Armenia and Yerevan now, when protests are ongoing against Paschenean, the Armenian police is using brutal force, even grenades against the protesters. And yesterday, one of the Armenians have lost his arm. And another one who is my friend, Abraham, he has been beaten up so badly by the Armenian police that he is now in the hospital.

on his head and he was bleeding from his head. What Pashinyan came to power after this color revolution for one single purpose. They wanted to give up Nagorno-Karapakh to Azerbaijan, but they wanted to find an excuse for that. So in 2016, Azerbaijan attacked Nagorno-Karapakh again, and this was an independent enclave for the Armenians, and they couldn't capture the enclave in the country. They lost more territories. The reason for that was very simple, because the Armenians had very good relationship with Russia, which had a diplomatic and security influence over Azerbaijan,

and at the same time, they had a very good relationship with the U.S. So from both sides, they combined this diplomatic efforts to stop the war, and in parallel, the Armenians told the Azeris, if they advance inside of Nakono Karapagach, they have the deterrent weapons that they acquired from Russia, and we were speaking about the advanced versions of the Alexander missiles from Russia that only Russia and Armenia have. Russia has given this weapon only to Armenia.

And the Armenians have threatened to hit the energy sector of Azerbaijan, only threatened it. They said it's possible. So the others were deterred. They stopped. But when Paschignan came to power and in 2020, the Azeris attacked Nagorno-Karapach, Pachinian was on TV telling the press that he fired one of the Russian missiles and it exploded 10% of its capacity. And this is a clown talk because the missile either explodes or it doesn't explode.

There is no 10% of this capacity in my experience. I haven't seen anything like this before. But this was targeted at the reputation of the Russian military equipment. He made the calls to the world leaders when the attack happened. So who he called? He called Angela Merkel. He called Justin Trudeau. Maybe Justin Trudeau's socks were coming to save him.

And many of the European leaders, Oslov and the Lion, Schultz, et cetera, et cetera. Sorry, Merkel. The fifth day of the attack, he called Putin. And Putin recorded the conversation. And he was on a Zoom call with his ministers, and he recorded the conversation. And he said, hello, Pasinian. and I'm not free for you, I'm busy, I will call you later. And he posted it.

Once I saw this video, I said, we're going to lose this war. Without Russia, the Armenians have no chance to resist against the Azeris side. And the Azeris have an open air bridge from Israel, getting all sorts of weapons from Israel and also from Turkey. So they lost Nagorno-Karapag. But losing Nagorno-Karapagos is something, and ethnic cleansing of the Armenians is something else. They could have lost the territory,

but the Armenians are living there as equal citizens with the Azeris. But Paschignan has signed on a paper in 2020, recognizing the Nagorno-Karapar as part of Azerbaijan. He signed that paper. And accordingly, the Russians said, we are here as a peacekeeping forces, but we cannot intervene in the territorial dispute because the Armenians have put their signatures,

the prime minister, that this is now an Azeri territory. And when the Azeris attacked again in 2023, and first they blockaded it, Pachinian said for all the Armenians, $120,000, they should come back to Armenia. And once they arrive to Armenia, now he considers them a national security threat. He said that.

He said the Armenians of Nakona Karapagach are a national security threat. And those who are forming an exile government should dissolve, and I will spy on them. So he wants to finish this exile government of Nagorno Karapar in Armenia. And yesterday he accused the Armenians who are participating in the protests from Nagorno Karapar are receiving money. He said $13 for head to participate in this protest against him. So he employed a huge, in my opinion, police power against the protesters.

And the reason why he gave up Nagorno Karapar, this was the condition of the U.S. European side to be included in the international community gain. Once he give up the, on Nagorno-Karapap, we will bring you into the EU, and you can have a better relationship with the NATO side when we will replace the Russians here. Now, he is turning Armenia into porn. I'm not against having good relationship with Europeans. I said that. But when you turn your country into porn, like the Georgian prime minister has said, they want us to be a pawn and fight against Russia.

We're not going to do that. We have Ukraine as an example in front of our eyes. We're not going to repeat it. We're not going to destroy our country. Armenia is exactly doing the opposite. They're turning Armenia into pawn against Russia and against Iran. And this is very, very dangerous. Since the Armenians opened their eyes from the early day of history, they have the Persians with them there.

And now they are even poisoning this relationship with the Persians, with the Iranians in this case. and they are allowing the entrance of these European observers, people coming on the borders between Armenia and Iran, Armenia and Azerbaijan, they say they are observers there, and those are from the European Union. And you know how much distrust there is between the Iranian side and this European side. One example, just very quick,

in one of the towns that Armenians have conceded and gave it to Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karapagos, Israel, the second year, they built what is called smart villages. And nobody knows what are these smart villages about. I have tried to dig in a lot in every site in Azerbaijan. They only say that one of the Israeli ministers came and he opened a new town that is called smart towns on the borders between Iran and Azerbaijan. And the helicopter crash of Raisi happened 200 kilometers away from this small. Smart villages.

Just raises lots of questions what the Israeli side is doing in Azerbaijan. And to extend that in one of the WikiLeaks documents that they published a few years ago, one of the Mossad agents say to his superiors that in Azerbaijan, they feel like they're at home. They feel like they're in Tel Aviv. There are no restrictions from the Baku side against the Mossad agents. and they're operating freely in the country because they see it as an advanced satellite state to spy on Iran. So Iranians are very nervous to turn Armenia into another Western satellite country. And they're the only party have an invested interest to protect the southern borders of Armenia

to block the establishment of this, what they call the corridor that the Azeris want, because they want to change the trade routes and make it through an Azeri territory. and the Iranians are very upset of that. You do not really, I mean, if your neighbor is Iran and you're sandwiched between Turkey and Azerbaijan and you're in the Southern Caucasus, in my opinion, as a mastery in political science, I would just not want to turn at least Russia and Iran into enemies, right? This is just the basic, simple, I would say, logical decision of any leader, Even if you dislike them, you don't want to gain them as enemies.

Kevork, Almacian, we're going to have you again, obviously, in many programs. But I'm going to finish there. Thank you for your wonderful answers to my various questions. If you don't mind, if you can stay for just a few minutes, I'm going to hand over to Alex. He might have some questions for you from our viewers. Yeah, let's take a couple of questions for Kevork. from Raphael.

You guys remember what I have been saying since we started the show. Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Syria are an alliance. Your thoughts on that could work. Now, Syria is, of course, in an alliance, in strategic alliance, with at least Russia and with Iran. And this is translated into the Russian presence and the Iranian presence in Syria and the geopolitics. political calculations that Syria has. However, with China is still, they have striked a strategic

partnership with China, but the Chinese are very patient with their relationship with Syria. They're asking Syria to clean up the country, to stabilize it and to fight corruption. And this is very, very important for the Syrians that they have to do, to fight corruption before they invest here. Now, North Korea, it's very interesting, North Korea. In Syria, they have a special, I would say, care and love for the North Koreans. And they truly, believe that the North Koreans have helped them a lot during this Arab-Israeli conflict. And according to, if the memoir of Ihood Olmert is correct and he is not lying to us, then he has given the order to destroy a nuclear facility in Syria in their resort in 2007.

And this was a North Korean nuclear facility back then. and according to him that many of the North Koreans also died in this operation. So Syria apparently wanted to have some sort of a nuclear program secretly from the world, and the Israelis discovered it in 2007 and they destroyed it. But to have this, in my opinion, like a NATO-like alliance between all these countries, they're not interested in it. Neither Russia is interested nor China is interested. They're more interested in economic integration of these countries

and establishing a mutually beneficial trade relationship and grow up together. Of course, the bigger countries will benefit more, but the smaller countries will also benefit because the alternative for this type of relationship is the submission to the US. The US doesn't ask for cooperation. The US asks Syria demands.

In 2003, when Colin Powell came to Syria, when they invaded or invaded Iraq, what did they ask from Syria? They didn't say, please cooperate with us. They said, this is our list of demands. You stop your relationship with Iran, with Hezbollah, with Hamas, and this and that. In exchange for we do not invade you. So it's a really different situation when it comes to having a relationship with the United States compared to China and Russia.

I think Husni Mubarak, the former president of Egypt, summarized it in a eloquently and very good way. He said, if your only cover is the U.S. then you get cold. And I think he understood this after 20 years or 30 years in power and being an ally of the US. West Wolf asks, thanks for the great conversation. Gentlemen, what is the actual chance Iran will choose intervention? In the Palestinian conflict, I don't think that they will intervene directly in a conflict in which Israel.

And they don't need to intervene in a conflict because the Iranian seal. strategically. They see that the US power is diminishing in this case and they compare their position in the region in 1979 to 2024. And they see that their influence is growing and has grown in Iraq, in Syria, in Yemen, in Lebanon, and in Palestine. They don't need a direct conflict against the US or against Israel to prove or to establish themselves as a dominant regional power. If you calculate it and see it from an objective eye, you will see that Iran is already on the path to become a strong regional power alongside the Saudis in this case. Therefore, they want to establish diplomatic and security relationship with the Saudis because in the future they don't want to repeat the same mistake of Saddam Hussein fighting Iranians and the Iranians are fighting against Saddam Hussein. Two strong regional powers they saw each other and they come out both as losers.

from this conflict. So no, Iranians don't have any interest to fight direct war, of course, unless they probably receive a nuke attack from Iran, that would be, of course, a big red line that would be crossed. John Carter of Mark asks, if Turkey leaves the West and joins the bricks, what would that mean for the balance of power in the Middle East? In my opinion, Turkey, why would Turkey abandon the NATO? They can't. have diversified their relation, and I'm saying this as an Armenian, they can diversify their relationship with NATO countries and also with the BRICS countries. I think Turkey in the last two, three years, they realized that their aggressive policies in the region, that they wanted to expand and

revive the new Ottoman past in Syria, Iraq. It really backfired, and they received millions of refugees in their own country. And now they are recalculating it, and they're sending positive signals also to Damascus, that they want to reconcile with Damascus. They have, of course, demands. Syria also has its own demands. But I don't see Turkey abandoning NATO. It doesn't work that way, in my opinion, that a country wakes up in the morning

and decides to leave an alliance for the sake of another alliance, of course, unless you are Paschignan. But Erdogan is way more smarter than that. We have to give him a credit. And he will try to diversify his ex in different baskets and benefit from everyone, instead of becoming in one-party country fighting and struggling and destroying itself from within. F. Alba asks, what are the important books to read, to understand Iran?

Kavork or Alexandria, if you want to... Particularly about Iran, I would not recommend only about Iran, but to understand the politics in the region. I think when I started reading Prigensky's book, The Grand Chessport, it drew so many conclusions for me of what could happen next and how the Americans would act and behave in the region vis-à-vis Iran, vis-vis China, vis-vis Russia, for example, and also in Ukraine, you really understand that. But if you want to learn also about the region, there is a book called The Struggle of Power over Syria for Dr. Jamal Joachim. And although it's written over Syria, but Syria is part of a big. Levantine region that he explains how many empires have come to the region and why they passed through Iran or tried to conquer Iran and why they passed through Syria and why did they want to have this interconnectivity between the coast of Syria to the coast of

Palestine to the north of Egypt. Any empire in the region that came and passed through the region they tried to conquer that ring region and this is where Israel is located now, just between Egypt and Syria and Palestine, to stop this geopolitical and geographical interconnectivity between them. Ralph Steiner asks, Benjamin Netanyahu will address the U.S. American people on the 24th of July in the U.S. Congress. Will he warn them of a surprise coming, Pearl Harbor again? I think he will speak to the congressmen and congressmen who have already

on his payroll, right? I mean, I have this brilliant site called A-PAC tracker. Guys, if you're on Twitter and X, follow this page called A-PAC tracker, and they would tell you how much money every single congressman and women have received from the Israel lobby. And you would be surprised that many of them are arched supporters of Israel, and they have received only a few tens of thousands of dollars. I thought to my naivity that this congressman and women are millionaires. Some of them are, but to my surprise, many of them have received 30,000 or 40,000 or 50,000 from the A-PAC, and they have become an art supporter and servant for Israel instead of

serving the interests of the American people. The discussions that I have watched in Congress, in the Senate, in the past year, they have spoken more about Israel than they have spoken about their own issues. issues in the U.S., like what's happening in the southern borders, for example. Harry C. Smith says, I worked out Gaza with 2.3 million people, 55% aged 0 to 17, is only one quarter of the size of Andorra, a European microstate with just 78,000 people. Yeah. I mean, Gaza Strip, people need to know that the vast majority of the people in the Gaza Strip were already refugees. They have been kicked out from their towns and villages, and in 67, in 48,

and they have become refugees in Gaza. So it's a very small territory. It's how long it is. It's like 20 miles to eight miles or something. It's very, very small place. It's overpopulated. The health sector has deteriorated. There is no clean water. There is no clean food. It's simply the biggest catastrophe of this year. And we just continue speaking of October 7. And I would say I totally understand that the people in Israel are traumatized after the October 7. But what is the limit? What's the end? Do Israelis know what the government is doing in the Gaza Strip? Seriously, it's 16, 17,000 children have been killed in this conflict. And the UN has put now Israel on the blacklist for the countries who inflict the most harm to children in the world.

And what the Israeli government does? They just accuse the UN of anti-Semitism. This is no longer working, just accusing everyone of anti-Semitism. Bob says, 1,000 likes. Thank you all. Thank you, Bob, for that. Let's do three more for Kavork. Thank you, Kovork, for staying a bit longer than we anticipated.

But there are a lot of questions for you. West Wolf asks, one can actually believe Russia will permit Armenia to enter either the EU or NATO. Your thoughts? Actually, Russia doesn't mind if the Armenians probably join EU. They have some sort of a vision of, okay, this country is already, they need lots of foreign aid because Armenia doesn't have a big manufacturing sector. They don't have oil gas or something.

So some country has to come and help this country. However, the Russians are very patient, in my opinion, with this type of coups. They don't act like the Americans in an aggressive, quick way. They watch what's happening there. And when the time comes, in my opinion, the Russians would not tolerate an anti-Russian satellite state in Armenia. And the people in Armenia will not accept that. And you see the protests nowadays in Armenia? there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people every day protesting against Paschenaan,

but the focus of the press is on Georgia. Everybody is speaking about Georgia. Politicians from the European countries are marching in Georgia for this foreign agent bill. And I would encourage the Armenians when they get rid of Paschenaan to adopt a similar law because I would like to see how many of these organizations are funded by the EU and the US and how many of them are funded by Russia. Because every time I just type the name Armenia on X, I already see comments telling me, oh, you paid by Putin, you paid by Russia, you're a Kremlin, this and that.

I would like to expose my income. I would like to show everyone how much income do I have so that they see if I'm paid by the Kremlin or not. And similarly, I want them to for the sake of transparency to show us how much money and from where they are receiving. You will be amazed. You will be amazed in the American embassy in Armenia. Have you guys been to Armenia and seen the Armenian embassy?

Do you guys? It's massive. Do you guys really think this is a embassy? I've never been there. My brother has been it. He says exactly the same as Alex. It's simply gigantic. It is huge.

It's like a city. It's like a city in a city. Yeah, in Yerevan. It's like a city in Yerevan. I wonder how many of them are CIA operatives there. Seriously, a serious question. Why would they need this big embassy? It's a big compound in Yerevan.

So they give it really big importance, I would say, turning the Armenians into a cannon fodder against it. But that's not going to happen. And see these protests now in Armenia. And, you know, every action has a reaction, because they took it too much radically on what they call this wokism and neoliberalism. They took it so far that the reaction has come from the church. So the guy who is leading this protest is Archbishop Bagrad Galstanian.

Sorry, I always forget the name, so I had to check it. And this comes because Pasinian basically he alienated the church. He said that the national identity is fascism, so we don't have to believe in Armenian national identity. We don't have, like, our borders should be redrawn with Azerbaijan. We don't need to fight. We don't need to defend ourselves. So he took it too far, let's say, on the liberal side. Like, in the middle of the world, you see a contest for transgender models, and I have nothing against transgender models.

But in the middle of the war, when there is an existential... The initial threat and your priority is to broadcast a contest for transgender in Armenia and speaking about their rights in the parliament. I think when I first enrolled in university, the first class in 101, they told me national security comes as a first priority, and Armenians have forgotten about that. A couple more from Jungle Jim. Is Pashinyana a traitor? I would say wholeheartedly he is a traitor. I don't doubt a second that he's a traitor and the Armenian people believe he's a traitor. And what I say now on this channel could end me, like if I go to Armenia next, I could end up in jail.

And this is a serious thing because once you say Pashnian is a traitor and they see it in Armenia, they put you on a blacklist, persona non grata. And they are sadistic in this case. They don't tell you don't come to Armenia. They don't reject your visa application. They give you a visa. And once you arrive in the airport, they take you inside to the police. And they interrogate you for many, many hours.

They take your mobile, the data and everything. And they kick you out of the country again. So they don't tolerate at all any type of criticism in this case. And one more from Cobfan. I wonder, does what does Kovork think of Germany and are you worried, Kovork? I'm very worried. I'm very, very worried. And I'm very careful for what I say.

And the government here is increasingly becoming very intolerant toward criticism, especially when it comes to Ukraine, Israel, and the energy policies of the country. And I am just a Syrian living here. And they have their ways and they have their tools. and they came after me once, and they sent, of course, the press because this is how they bite someone. And they have published articles and reportages about me,

called me all sorts of names, told the audience that I'm probably a spy, came from Syria to Germany. So I've been watched, and they wanted to deport me from Germany for having a YouTube channel. And once you argue and you say, look, I'm a journalist, I'm doing a journalistic work. They say, no, no, no, no, no.

This is not journalism. This is propaganda work. So they can just change the definitions and say, no, you're a propagandist and not a journalist. So the laws do not apply to you. You can't be protected by the law and say, I'm a journalist because they decided that you're not a journalist because they have the power to define and say what journalism is and what is not. journalism for them is very clear who are the journalists. Russia did the Nord Stream pipelines, and Simo Hirsch is a blogger, and this is how they said in the German press.

And if you question that, you are a propagandist, you are a Putinist, and this and that. It's very dangerous to work in such an environment, actually. I totally agree. I'm concerned about that. Evork, Al-Massian, stay safe. Thank you for joining us on the Duran. We look forward to having you back on again. I have your channel information in the description box down below your YouTube channel,

as well as your Twitter account. I will add that as a pinned comment when the stream is over. Kivork, thank you very much. Thank you so much, Alexander. This was such an interesting discussion with you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Kvork. Fantastic guest.

Absolutely, fantastic guest. Just I was thinking whilst he was discussing the Lebanese situation, I mean, of course, the Russians are now hinting that they're going to start supplying advanced weapons to all sorts of people who are enemies of the United States. And he was discussing the situation in Lebanon and on the border between Lebanon and Israel. And one just does wonder what might happen if sophisticated Russian weapons start to appear in that region as well, on top of the weapons that are all. ready there, just say. Yeah, such a bad idea from the Biden White House. Bad idea. Well, they never, they never.

After a bad idea. I know, they never think, they never think ahead. They never ask themselves, what might the other side do? Nope. Nope. They never do. They never do. Yeah, I've got some, uh, some more questions to throw at you, Alexander.

Yeah. And we can wrap up the stream. Paul Barrett, welcome to the drag community. Bob says, Olensky, Anagram, telegram, telegram comment, Alex. Yes, I saw that, Bob. Great comment on telegram. F. Alba, thank you for that to super chat. Raphael, we answered your super chat, my friend.

Raphael, thank you for that. John Scott says Slava Ukraine. Thank you for that. Super chat, John Scott. Ralph Steiner says, why do the USA Americans always scream about freedom and democracy when they practice the exact opposite? Because it understands hypocrisy. Because they need to do it to keep their own people on site.

They know that this is very much part of the identity, the self-identification that the vast majority of Americans have. So an American government can't turn around and tell its own people. well, we're doing all of this because we want to establish client regimes in order to achieve some kind of grand geopolitical objective that is going to enhance our empire. So they have to package it in some other way. This is the problem that the American political elite has had for a very, very long time. And it explains this enormous tension that exists between what the United States does

and what it says. Bob, welcome to the Duran community. Matthew says, excellent as usual, given everything that is happening, what are your current thoughts on the likelihood of a major European war now occurring? A war between the Russians and the Europeans, I would have thought unlikely and becoming less likely as a result of the European elections, the European Parliament elections. One of the most interesting things that we have seen happen in France, Germany and in other places is the way in which the young people, the people who would have to fight that war, are moving steadily towards supporting opposition parties. I mean, real opposition parties. Now, there's lots of explanations for this. There's explanations that young people are unhappy about immigration, they're unhappy about economic factors. All of that, That is true, but it's been there for a while. I think one of the major factors is the talk about conscription, reintroducing conscription, putting up, putting young people into the armies again

and sending them to fight the Russians and all the talk about fighting the Russians in Ukraine. And I think this is something that has cut through as I actually thought it might. And I think it's why you see young people swing. so decisively. And I think the European leaders understand that. And I think it's perhaps sort of slowed them down. Tapato Matato says, responding to a recent video, what happened to Melanchon and his coalition in France? Could they benefit from Macron's weakness like Le Pen is? They're disintegrated. I mean, Melanchon is there, but he's not apparently active, directly in front-line politics anymore. He's trying to run things as a kind of guru from the

background. They are still there, but the left in France is fragmented. The centre, the right centre, Le Repubrican, is collapsing. I mean, they expelled their own leader. I don't know if anybody is aware of this. They've expelled their own leader. He's locked himself up in the headquarters, apparently, of Le Repubbliccée. They're talking about breaking it. I mean, it's just an absolute farce. And I have to say, the challenge from the left that some people might have expected in France has not materialized, just as it hasn't in Britain, up to now. Mama Alaska says NATO, ICC, ICJ, and the UN are toothless US-controlled entities. Well, yes, except, of course, look at the ICC and the ICJ,

even they are now having to rebel in order to try to maintain some kind of credibility, because American policy has become so maximalist in its objectives that it's alienating more and more people around the world and institutions that have to pretend that they're global and international are having to sort of push back on some of the more maximalist, policies that the U.S. administration is pursuing in order to maintain some credibility at all. But, you know, fundamentally, I agree with you. Valerie VV says off topic, but I'd like to compliment Alexander on Russian words, names, pronunciation. Rabatina is an example.

Alex tries, but is not as good. Thank you for that. Well, my wife speaks Russian, so, I mean, I'm able sometimes to check out. pronunciations with her. She is not, by the way, Russian. She's British, but she learned Russian. Thank you, Valerie, for that. Let's see here. West Wolf, we answered your question. Ralph, Ralph Steiner says, Alexander, as nearly all U.S. congressmen have an A-PAC assigned to them, do you think that this influences their decision in favor of Israel? Yes, I think it does. But of course, I mean, we mustn't overlook.

the fact that Israel has always had a large core of public support in the United States. And it's not just confined to the Jewish community. It goes well beyond that as well. I mean, historically, Americans have generally been very, very supportive of Israel. And, you know, this has come from below as much as it has come from above. That's changing. John Scott, thank you for the membership. Welcome to the community.

says Saudi Arabia has not renewed the deal with the U.S. to sell oil in U.S. dollars, so oil will increasingly be sold in alternative currencies. How will this play out for the U.S. economy? It's much more important to vent than anything else that the Saudis have done or have been talking about recently. They're talking about arms deals with the Americans. They're talking about all kinds of things with the Americans. But quietly, they are moving step by little step away from the dollar. And that is the single biggest thing. Everything else is less important.

Now, it won't play out immediately. The dollar will preserve its reserve status for the time being. The Saudis will certainly continue to accept payment for their oil in dollars. Why wouldn't they? But you can see that the underpinnings of the dollar in terms of its position at the centre of the dollar, world trade are gradually slipping away. Soberano, Brazil, thank you for the super sticker. Willem, thank you for that super chat. Don Popp says, reports of the Iron Dome and the US Navy have been hit.

The West is silent. Are these reports misguided? And thank you for covering the Bucic speech recently. What more can we do to warn the West? You know, what more can we do to warn the West? We spend every day trying to warn the West on our programs. if the trouble is they're not listening. And, you know, what do they say? What did someone in the Bible say? You know, those who are the most blind are those who will not see.

And you can say the same. Those who are the most deaf are those who cover their ears. I mean, one can just make these points. Eventually, I suppose, events will catch up. And, of course, if we're talking about larger numbers of people, well, already one senses that many of them are breaking through and are starting to seek opinions and news and information in other ways,

as they always do, by the way, in authoritarian environments, and that's making them more skeptical and more critical as well. Now, about these attacks, I don't know exactly what has happened. We have these rumours, and they're very interesting rumours. And it notes that these rumours have not been refuted. They've not, we've not had officials come along and say straightforwardly. These assertions have no basis in reality. But neither are we getting confirmation of them. There's an awful lot going on that we just aren't being told.

And it's very difficult to get a precise sense sometimes of exactly what is going on in any particular place. Nina Subova, thank you for that super sticker. Let's see. What are the important books? We answered that. John Scott, thank you for the membership. Bob, thank you for the thousand likes. And then Calarician, thank you for that super sticker.

One sec, Alexander. Christos says, Hi, gents. What happens if Macron and Sue Nacket replaced by Russian friendly leaders? How fast can we have peace? Well, Russian friendly leaders in Britain, which ones? I don't know any. I mean, I really don't know any in Britain. I mean, you know, Nigel Farage, to be very clear, is not a Russia-friendly leader. And of course, he's not going to replace, he's not going to become prime minister. So, you know, this isn't going to happen in Britain.

In France, well, Marine Le Pen has at times spoken about wanting better relations with Russia, and there's a much, much deeper and wider tradition of being friendly with Russia in France. But even if Marine Le Pen were to become president of France as a result of all of these events that without seeing play out, you know, her party wins a majority, for example, of the French National Assembly, which it hasn't yet done, and we were getting very far ahead of ourselves, and Macron resigns, which, by the way, we discussed as a possibility on the Duran, and then within 24 hours, there were reports coming out of Paris that Macron has actually been talking about this very possibility with his entourage. So you see, we got that one right.

But, you know, if he does resign, and of course he hasn't yet done so either, and if there are elections, and if Marine Le Pen then wins those elections, she's going to face a massive tidal wave of protests, protests, resistance in the markets, opposition from the European Central, all of those kind of things. So she's going to have to deal with all of that first. So it might take a bare amount of time before she consolidates her position fully as president of France, given especially that she would have come to power unexpectedly. And again, I can't imagine that changing policy towards Russia is going to be a major priority during that time. She might do certain things, but I think she'll play. very, very cautiously and very slowly. The bigger change is the one that I talked about,

that there is now, it seems, a grand swell of opposition amongst younger people across Europe with the policy of the political centre. And contrary to what I think many people think, I think the conflict in Ukraine is playing a very important role in that because, as I said, there's all of this talk of starting. some kind of a war and who would be the ones who would fight the war it would be the one the one the young jermila asphu says palestine and israel problem i never blame the nations all

problem is american leaders should should have been peace a long time ago i'm scared of uh if trump comes back things will be worse thank you duran i i mean i fundamentally agree by the way others have said this as well. Vladimir Putin has said it. Wang Yi, the Chinese Foreign Minister, has said it. The fundamental reason we are in this crisis in the Middle East is that American mediation,

there hasn't been any. America has never mediated good faith negotiations to settle the conflicts in the Middle East. In my opinion, there was a real possibility for a Middle East settlement, a comprehensive

settlement of the crisis, back in the mid-1970s, there was a brief window after the 1973 war when the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States came together. There was supposed to be a conference in Geneva to settle this crisis. Israel agreed to participate. The Arab states also did. There were certain problems getting this conference together. It only had one meeting, but the United States very, very quickly lost interest, and, well, we've seen the results. Elza says sounds like Armenia under Pashinyan is the perfect candidate to enter Ursula's EU, right? Oh, absolutely. Well, that's what that's his dream. That's what he wants. That's what he's all about.

West Wolf says, Alexander, I feel the young generation doesn't remember and resents the Soviet Union as older generations do. so it's harder for the U.S. to frame Putin as evil. Well, I think that many young people in the West are very confused about lots of things. Remember, you know, they are forming their views all the time. It's effect, they follow fashions in politics, all sorts of things. But they're under a lot of pressure at the present time. They're not, I think, particularly interested in the Soviet Union or all of that.

But they do not want to be dragged into a wall, and they don't want to be shipped off to Dombas to fight Russia. Lover of the Russian team says Viva la Putin. And Christos says the EU must stand down and then America will have to as well. I agree. Would it happen? Not any time soon. There has to be, and there will be, a major geostrategic defeat first. there have to be a geostrategic defeat in Ukraine.

Even that might not be enough. Just saying. Agreed. Alexander, final thoughts as I look through the messages to see if there's any more questions. I think it was one of the most superb summaries of the situation in the Middle East that I've heard from many people for a long time.

I thought it was a masterly tour de force from our guest, and I'm very much looking forward to discussing the situation both in the Middle East and in Armenia. Can I point you out there are Armenian communities right across the Middle East, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Iran, obviously. The Armenian people are very, very well-informed and very well established in all of these places. And, well, we've just seen an outstanding example

of someone who can explain the regions and the complexities cities of this region, outstandingly well. And that's, we've been very, very fortunate to have him on our program. And Tabernak asks, or states, partition of the EU after defeat is made public. Partition? How can you partition the EU? You can start partitioning it.

It will just collapse. That seems to me a much more likely outcome. In fact, I get to say, I think it's inevitable. I think one day it will happen. The only question is when and how much damage will be done in the meantime. Absolutely inevitable. Yeah. NATO as well.

Yes. The question is how long will it last? All right. We will end the live stream there. Thank you to our moderators. Zareel and Tisham, Recklist Abandon. And gift of the gab. Thank you very much for helping us moderate this live stream.

I think that's everybody that was moderating. Thank you to Kvork. I will have his information in the description box and as a pin comment. And thank you to everyone that watched us on Odyssey, Rockfin, Rumble, YouTube, and v.dera.orgals.com. Thank you and take care, everybody.