The Duran Podcast - Regime change of Assad

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

Regime change of Assad

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in Syria, regime change of Assad. And I believe that is what this was, not much of a conflict or not much of a war. It was, at the end of the day, a regime change operation, a successful regime change operation. So should we begin on the news that Assad is. in Russia. He has received asylum in Russia. Biden gave statements, his first statements on Syria yesterday. And the Iranian foreign minister also spoke about what happened in Syria. We have news about the Russian bases, which according to the latest reports is that those bases are going to remain remain where they are for the time being. Obviously, Russia is going to withdraw from those bases,

but for the time being, there doesn't seem to be any danger at the Russian bases in Syria. And then we can gradually move to, I guess, the big question, which is what happened here, what happened to the Syrian military. I know you have your thoughts. I have my thoughts. Anyway, let's start with just an update as what is happening. Assad is in Russia. But there are photos circulating Alexander of Assad in Russia, but those are old photos. I just want to say that. Those are old photos from 2013. Yeah. We haven't seen any statements or photos of Assad yet.

No, no, but we have had comments. One is an anonymous source to Tass by a source close to the Kremlin. And we've also had comments by Yuri Ushikov, who is a a closest advisor of Putin himself. I mean, Putin's one of Putin's most important foreign policy advisors. He's very, very close to Putin. He has an office, I believe, in the executive office in Old Square, which is just outside the Kremlin, so he's a member of the presidential administration. I have no doubt that Assad is indeed in Moscow and that the Russians basically got him there. they got him out and that what Ushukov is telling is true. So I've no doubt about this.

In fact, I was getting reports. I think you're probably getting the same reports from someone we both know who was telling us that the Russians were basically arranging first for his family and for him to go. And I also got an email from somebody who seemed to be tracking his plane and all of it basically pointed to an eventual arrival in Moscow. So he is in Moscow. I have no doubt about this.

And he's been granted asylum and his family are all there. So he at least is safe. So are his family. His country is in a state of collapse. Let's talk about state of collapse of Syria. Why did this happen? Why did this happen? Did you see the statements from the Iranian foreign minister?

Absolutely. I agree those statements as to what he said. I think we can piece my opinion just before you begin. I think we can piece some things together now to explain what happened, given what the Iranian foreign minister said. Yes. If you believe what he said, if you believe what he said. Well, again, one suspects that there is a huge amount of internal recrimination going on in Tehran.

there is definitely in Moscow, a lot of people in both of these countries are furious and very, very embarrassed. But clearly this had internal causes and it had causes inside the regime itself. And I think this is what I take the Iranians are saying that to some extent, I think, pointing at Assad himself. But clearly there were events taking place within the regime and that I'm. Assad had, that the regime had started to recalibrate towards the Western powers and towards some of the Arab states, and that opened the way for some kind of internal collapse. Now, can I say a lot of people have been writing about many different things. They've been talking about the Caesar sanctions, the collapse of the Syrian economy,

the fact that the Americans occupy the oil fields in eastern Syria. All of these are valid points for people to make. They do provide an essential background to explain these events. But they are not, in my opinion, the reason for these events. In order to understand what happened, you have to look at the internal mechanics of the regime itself. The army refused to fight. The commanders were not leading the army into fighting. And somewhere at some level within the government itself, one gets the sense that a decision basically was made, if you like agreements or arrangements were made, basically to transfer.

power away from Assad. Yeah, I think there's a personal component with Assad as well that he just didn't, he wasn't motivated. I actually believe there were statements from, from Iranian sources again, which said that Iran, that Assad, when he was given all the information about the HTS advance, a quick advance towards Holmes and Damascus, that Assad wasn't, wasn't prepared to resist or fight either, which points to me that. I mean, can I just say something about this?

Yeah. I mean, I don't think there's any doubt about this. I mean, his passivity in the face of these events is being astonishing. He never once addressed the Syrian people. He made one telephone call that we know about to, of all people, the president of Abhazia. He met the Iranian foreign minister, and apparently it was an absolutely ghostly and surreal meeting. in which nothing of any substance was discussed at all. The Iranians have been saying, and I think this has to be true,

that Assad had basically stopped functioning as an effective political leader for many, many months before. And all of this leads me back to something that I remember noticing at the time, and I just checked this morning as to whether my recollections were right, which is that he didn't turn up in. Kazan in Russia in October when I know that the Russians had been expecting him to come, but he didn't come. He made no attempt to get Syria partnership status within Bricks. He would have been met with all kinds of friends there, but he didn't come and he didn't meet

with Erdogan. He didn't take any direct, effective action to live. lead his country. And it is very strange and very difficult to understand when one remembers the previous Assad, who was leading Syria very effectively between 2011 and 2020. Yeah. I think there is definitely a personal component at the end of the day we are dealing with people. All of these guys from Biden to Assad, to Iran, to Putin, they are people. And I think Assad is definitely not the dictator strong man that the collective West media, collective West leaders make him out to be London educated ophthalmologist and eye doctor. That's Assad. And he resisted for 15, 20 years, heroically, effectively.

He resisted the regime change. He saw off some of the most powerful people in the world. he outlasted them. Obama and Clinton's, Camerans and Merkels, he outlasted all of them. But I also believe that he, you know, when you look at his actions or his lack of action, this is a man that I think just got tired. That's my explanation of it. He also has some very serious family issues with his wife's health. Yes. And decide is whatever you may think of it, of him, whatever of your perception is of Assad. It does appear that he's very dedicated to his family.

He is devoted. He is devoted to his wife. I've heard about this from people in London. Remember, he was in London. He's absolutely devoted to his wife, and she is devoted to him. And she stood by him. She's also a London. Absolutely.

London educated and investment banker or something like that. That's right. Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, undoubtedly, her illness, I think, severely preoccupied him. And you're quite right. We're talking about people. And somebody who was never in line to become president of Syria,

didn't apparently want to become president of Syria. He had no connection with the military. The man who was intended to become president of Syria by the extraordinary personality who was Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad, whom I remember very well, by the way, an extraordinary man, extremely clever, very devious, utterly ruthless. Somebody would be, acted completely differently in this crisis, just saying. But the man that the father had wanted to succeed was Assad's elder brother, Basil,

who of course died and wasn't for that reason able to succeed. succeed. So, you know, Assad himself, as you correctly said, I mean, he behaved very courageously, but as I said, over the last year, clearly something big has happened. And one gets the sense that he basically lost interest, or at least lost will in facing these problems that he was confronted with this time. Yeah. So the reports are that, He replaced his father's old school generals who were very much accredited with Syria's victories from holding off the regime changed, let's say, from 2011 to 2018, 19. So all those generals were replaced by people that Assad felt were more loyal to him, maybe people in his inner circle. So I imagine that had an effect on what was going on.

And I think the big, I mean, reading all the statements and comments and reports about aside, I think the big clue as to what happened also lies with his geopolitical foreign policy mistakes, missteps, mistakes, missteps, whatever you want to call them. He was definitely moving. I think this is without a doubt confirmed based on everything that we've seen over the past couple of years moving towards the Gulf states. Absolutely true. And the correct move, a very smart, correct move. But he was ignoring the access of resistance, let's say Iran. He was starting to drift away from Iran. And he was refusing to engage with Erdogan and Turkey. And this is the part that

puzzles me in a way. Maybe it has to do with his person. personality. Maybe Assad was, was, was, was, was, was his hubris or maybe he was being stubborn. I don't know. But, you know, I don't see why you could not engage with the Gulf states, but at the same time, remain committed to to the access of resistance, Iran, and and then the revolutionary, uh, guard military, which helped you so much, uh, to, to beat back, to beat back the regime change. that took place from the 2011 to 19, why you couldn't speak with Erdogan. I understand there were refugee issues. I understand you could have had difficult negotiations.

But, you know, it seemed like he could have done all three things. You know, the one thing did not exclude the other, but instead he just kind of drifted off into this Gulf State orbit and just kind of left everything else to, to just sit and fester. And that's what happened. And when Iran gave him the warnings about Turkey and HTS, according to the Iranian foreign minister, Assad didn't take those warnings seriously. Exactly.

Exactly. My own sense and piecing together things from the Iranian statements, which are the ones that give us the best insight, is that he did actually, absolutely prioritize. rebuilding relations with the Gulf monarchies. And you're absolutely right. That was the correct thing to do. I mean, he needed to do that.

It was essential in order to get Syria back into the Arab League in order to sort of develop relations further. I'm going to make a suggestion. And I'm going to be very careful because there's so much about Syrian domestic politics and what was going on in Syria that, We still simply don't know. But I would not be surprised if he's gradually dismissing the various tough, ruthless generals, who had been brought in and by his father and who his father had,

who, by the way, was himself an army officer. I mean, his father had connections with the military, but an Air Force officer. But if Assad did that, got rid of all of these people, which, by the way, I've now heard conclusively that he did do, and replace them with all of these other people. Given the realities of Arab politics, I wonder whether some of that wasn't done at the urging of some of the people in the Gulf states. You have to understand that in Arab politics, there are all kinds of interconnections. that transcend borders. And it may very well be that the Saudis and the Qataris and the Kuwaitis and the Emirates and all of

these people had their own friends in Syria. And they said to Assad, look, you really want to be readmitted into our club. You have to get rid of some of these rather frightening people that your father put there. They're too close to Iran. They're too radical, too ruthless. we want some more of our own people installed. And in the way that tends to happen in some types of Middle Eastern politics, deals were done and people were brought in who were closer to the Saudis,

more remote from, you know, the old guard. And that it's these people who were not really motivated. to defend the regime, who were so easily, in my opinion, straightforwardly brought off. I say this, something very like that happened in Egypt in the early 1970s, as I actually know, that after President Nasser of Egypt died, his successor, Anwar Sadat, started to realign Egypt more with the Saudis. and with the Gulf monarchies. And gradually, a whole group of army officers who had been promoted by his predecessor, Nasser,

which were basically eased out. And a new group of people were brought in who were much more aligned with the Gulf monies, and some of them are still there to this day. Yeah. So what happens now? Turkey is in control of Syria. Israel has already moved in and taken a chunk of Syria as well.

The U.S. wasted no time in bombing Syria in order to remove the military installations. Israel is also bombing Syria in order to destroy the military installations, which, by the way, I find interesting. If HTS was such a benevolent, liberating, independent group of people, why do you need to destroy all of the military infrastructure if these guys are so good? the reformed al-Qaeda jihadists. Why do you need to destroy all of the military equipment? I thought these new guys, this new flavor of al-Qaeda, are a force for good. But anyway, the United States and Israel felt compelled to destroy all of the military facilities in Syria. But Turkey is now on the hook. An issue with the Kurds. That's going to be a big issue. Israel is taking land from Syria.

The U.S. is knee-deep in it. What happens? Right. Well, before we proceed, I just want to go back to what you said right at the start of the program about this being a regime change. This is exactly what it was. There was no serious fighting to the extent that any fighting took place, it was bombing by the Russian Air Force of the jihadi columns as they moved south. towards Damascus, the officers who were in charge of the Syrian army, who were tasked with defending the cities, Aleppo, Hamah, Homs, Dara, wherever. I mean, they were simply there waiting to be paid off. And clearly, this is a well-organized and well-prepared operation,

in which the major part was not the military operation that we have seen. But, but, the infiltration and paying off of the top commanders within the Syrian military. And I mean, that seems to me. That seems to me obvious. What military operation? There was none. I would understand these guys just rolled into homes and Damascus on their trucks and on foot. I mean, there was no military operation, was there?

There was no resistance at all. So, as I said, it was all done in this way. There was no fighting to speak of. the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights in London, which of course, one shouldn't perhaps take entirely seriously. Actually, they're in Coventry, which one shouldn't take entirely seriously. But they're putting the number of people who were killed in all the fighting at about 800, which, if you know anything about the previous civil war, I mean, it's unbelievable. So clearly, this was a regime change operation. And no doubt at all, Erdogan was the key. mastermind behind it. It couldn't have happened without him. But to answer the inevitable question that many people will ask, all of the others were involved. The Americans were involved, the British were involved, the French were involved, the Israelis to some extent were involved. They were all seeking regime change in Syria. And they've achieved it. I mean, they achieved it not in the way

that they'd hoped back in 2011 through an uprising and a war and all of that because there was a Syrian army at that time to fight against. They achieved it because the regime this time had disintegrated and they were able to walk in

and they must in some way have engineered that. So that's an essential point to make. What happens now? Well, we've seen the story play itself out time after time, after time in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, in Somalia. So the jihadis always say that they are going to respect international law. They will look after the embassies.

They want good relations with everybody. They're saying at the moment they want good relations with the Russians as well. they're not going to go after the Russian bases. I don't think anybody in Moscow takes that seriously. I think just to quickly say on that, I suspect that there's negotiations underway between the Russians and Erdogan to facilitate an orderly withdrawal

of Russian equipment and personnel from the bases. I absolutely don't think there's bases are going to remain there. I mean, I'd be astonished if they're still there in six months' time or three months' time. But anyway, so we're going to have all the usual story about, you know, there's a council set up, a transitional government set up. And then invariably, inevitably, what will happen is a complete internal collapse. The economy, what's left of it will collapse. The country will divide into armed factions.

They'll all start fighting each other. there's already fighting between the Turks and Turkish-supported jihadis and the Kurds that's been looting in all kinds of places. We're going to see over the next few weeks and months an acceleration of that process and an eventual collapse of the entire country. And out of that chaos, forces will eventually emerge, which, as we saw with Afghanistan, in Somalia, in Iraq, in Libya, are probably going to be very implacable and very ruthless

and will want to focus on imposing their ideas of religious law on as many people that they can control. There will continue to be resistance. There will continue to be fragmentation. The great powers that are around Syria will occupy large territories. The Turks in the north, the Israelis in the south, claiming that these are buffer zones, and it will be a nightmare, I suspect, and fear for the Syrian people. And no doubt there will be huge refugee flows and all of those things.

So I painted a rather apocalyptic picture of the future of Syria. I hope for the sake of the Syrian people that I am wrong. But this has been the consistent story in every place where there has been a regime change in the Middle East up to now. And going back to what you said about how we've been told what wonderful, inclusive chihadi's these are. Already there are articles starting to appear in the media in the West amongst the very same people who were advocating the fall of Assad for all of those years, saying, we now need to worry because there's all sorts of dangerous jihadis in control. And what may succeed Assad could be even worse than him. In fact, it will be, I suspect, far, far worse than him. In fact, it will be no comparison.

As for the Israeli air raids, just to say very quickly, from what I've been able to work out, they are principally targeted at what used to be Syria's actually rather highly developed air defense system. The Israelis have been attacking air defense missile positions across Syria. Of course, these are all abandoned. but the purpose seems to be to prevent these assets coming under jihadi control and being potentially used in the future. And I'm sure the Americans are also involved in all of that. And we're going to see an awful lot more of that going forward.

The Syrian crisis has only truly now begun. Yeah. And all of this is going to fall on. lap. So they had to wrap this up in the last month. I mean, they saw the opportunity. Turkey saw the opportunity. Turkey needed to wrap this up before Russia won in Ukraine because if Russia won in Ukraine, then Turkey would have lost a lot of leverage that day, that they do hold over Russia, given the conflict in Ukraine. So they wanted to wrap this up. The Biden administration wanted to rack this up for various reasons. I mean, Biden could do his victory lap and say he's the president

that finally brought down Assad, but they also wanted to create this chaos in order to have this fall onto Trump's lap, and that's what's going to happen. Yes. And going back to Russia's position, where is Russia in all of this? Because the narrative is that this was a big loss for Russia, a big strategically fee for Russia. You even now have European officials who are now running with the narrative that if Assad could fall, well, then Putin can also fall.

Let's provide more money and more weapons to Ukraine. It could be done. You see, we did it with Assad, and we can do it with Putin as well. For Russia, there's the basis, which I believe, in my opinion, this is a big defeat, losing the basis. It's not good. But I have to say, living in the region, actually being there, I can tell you that maybe five years ago, this would have been bad for Russia. maybe 10 years ago it would have been catastrophic because Russia had a presence in the Mediterranean. I mean, anecdotal, but there were a lot of Russians in Cyprus five years ago doing business, traveling, tourism.

There were everywhere. A lot of Russians. Everything was fine. A lot of Russians in Cyprus. Since the special military operation, you don't see it anymore. There's not many Russians. You see a lot of Germans, a lot of Israelis, a lot of British. even a lot of Americans. My suspicion is there's a lot of military people floating around in a lot of collective West military floating around in Cyprus. But the Russian presence has lessened. And why do I say this? I say this because the idea of Russia having a position in the Mediterranean, while it's advantageous, I understand the advantages of having these bases in the Mediterranean, given the state of the world right now, which is this

this iron curtain split between the collective West and the rest of the world. I just don't see much of a reason for Russia to have a presence in the Mediterranean, which has now become a NATO lake. I mean, a U.S. NATO Lake. It's Greece, which is completely under the U.S. control. I mean, Greece is a big military. U.S. military base. You have Greece on one side. You have Turkey on another side, which now we understand exactly where Turkey is aligned. You have Israel as well. I mean, you know, I don't think

that this is something that's going to be that big of a setback strategically for Russia going forward, especially if you take into consideration that they need to remain focused on the conflict in Ukraine. And so tough decision as it was. But, you know, this was, to me, the only decision that they could have made, given the circumstances, and considering their best interests, Russia's best interests. Okay. Let's just quickly go over some of that. Firstly, I just wanted to say something about, you know, the so-called winners from this affair, the Turks and the Israelis. Yes, as of today, they are the winners and they will continue to be for a while. But I'm going to say that it's always sometimes dangerous to get what you wish for. They wished for the overthrow of Assad. Certainly,

this has been a blow for Iran, a major strategic defeat for Iran. Their major Arab ally has gone. Their route to supply Hezbollah has been severed. They'll find ways round. They'll find workarounds. They were very skilled at that kind of thing. But this is a big defeat for them. But for Turkey and Israel, they now have chaos on their borders. Erdogan did this in order to try to get refugees, or this is what he's saying, to try to get refugees in Turkey to return to Syria. More likely than not, he's now going to get many more refugees.

He's probably going to find Syria impossible. to get full control over. Turkey is, I'm taking on a commitment, which it really doesn't have the resources to bring under control. And I think this is going to be a disaster fulsome in the long term. As for Israel, well, in a kind of way,

Israel is a much stronger state, it's got a much stronger economy, it's a much stronger military, all that. But already Israel has been looking over-extended, and now it has a chaotic, violent Syria on its eastern border. I am not sure that this is going to turn out for the best for Israel in the future, in the long term. And as for Donald Trump, who I have always felt myself, has a much better understanding of long-term American interests. Well, he's commented about this event in Syria.

He's far from pleased about it or enthusiastic about it. He says what the United States should do is get out, stay out. And I see that, by the way, as a signal that one of the things he's going to want to do when he does finally become U.S. president is withdraw those US troops from Eastern Syria, which he tried to do when he was president before. So the winners might not feel themselves the winners for very long. It's the same story that we saw again in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Somalia, in Libya, in all of these places. All of these people engineer regime change.

what it brings in its wake is chaos. And ultimately, the Western position in the Middle East is further undermined and weakened, even as the Middle East itself spirals downwards into further violence and chaos. Now, let's talk about the Russians. The first thing to understand is that you spoke about the Mediterranean as a NATO lake, in my opinion, the Mediterranean has been an American lake almost continuously since 1943, when the Western powers, the British and the Americans, pushed the Germans out of North Africa and started to occupy southern Italy.

The United States has bases all over the Mediterranean. It has had a massive dominating position. there ever since. Now, within Russia, there's always been a current of thinking, I suspect, mostly associated with the Navy, that says, well, we do need to establish a presence in the Mediterranean if we're going to assert ourselves effectively in Europe. And the Russians have at various times tried to establish bases in the Mediterranean. In Albania, in the 1950s, in Egypt, in the 1960s, that's Alexandria. I forgot to mention in Libya, in the 1940s, they tried to get the Americans to agree, believe it or not, in the discussions in Yalta that the Soviet Union should establish a naval base in Libya at that time. Of course, the Americans said no. And the Khmerin Tatar's base,

has just been the latest iteration of this. Every time the Russians do this, it fails. They've never been able to establish permanent bases in the Mediterranean. And there are lots of people in Moscow, in Russia, who say this. They say, this is a mirage. We are too far away. We are not in a, we're not there in the way that the Americans, are. And we don't have the longstanding deep roots in the Mediterranean region to be able to

establish a base. What we need to do is to focus instead on the Eurasian heartland, on Russia, itself, on Ukraine, on Central Asia, on the Black Sea, on those areas. The Mediterranean ultimately isn't important to us in that way. Now, I remember a lot of people when the Russians, when Putin took the decision to intervene in Syria back in 2015, a lot of people in Russia were not happy. This is a diversion of Russian resources away from a place where it really matters, which is Ukraine.

The Russian intervention in Syria then seemed to go very well. Well, those people basically went quiet. Now they're back and they're saying, look, we were right all along. This hasn't worked. It's never going to work. Focus instead on what is really important to us, which is getting the war in Ukraine won. When the war in Ukraine reestablish Russian authority and primacy, in Western Eurasia, build up the relations with China and, to some extent, by the way, with Iran,

and even up to a point Turkey too. And forget about the Mediterranean. Forget about trying to establish long-term basis there. And de-emphasize this long-standing effort that you've often made to involve Russia in Arab politics. which never goes particularly well. So within Russian terms, this event has been a massive embarrassment. The Russians did send their air force to Syria. They did fight alongside the Syrians for, well, several years. They did win the war in Syria. This investment in energy and time and effort, not huge resources, by the way, by Russian standards, relatively few resources, but this very

public investment, which had appeared to succeed in two weeks, has been swept away. So it is a humiliation and an embarrassment, and probably at some level, an embarrassment for Putin himself, because he was the decision maker. But what it's going to do is, is it's going to reinforce the Eurasia first, Russia first faction within the leadership in Moscow. And I have to say, if you look at the overall trends in Russian history, you can see that that is right. As you rightly said, the Russians have been squeezed out of the Eastern Mediterranean already. Five years ago, Khomeyim was a big deal. We were talking then about Tupolev bombers flying over the eastern Mediterranean and all that sort of thing.

I think the last three years have demonstrated clearly that Russia's national interests lie elsewhere. Yeah, I say that because five years ago, being on the ground, you sensed Russian activity. You sensed the Russian presence. It was there around you every day. Over the last three years, you don't sense that at all. I mean, that was how I'm looking at this. And I think the decision that Russia had to make to focus more on Eurasian, the decision that was made for them, which is eventually that they're going to have to leave these military bases in Syria, I think in the long run, in the medium in long run, it's to their benefit. It's to their benefit to focus on Eurasia. It's to their benefit

to focus on China, to focus on the gas pipelines towards China, which no one is just talking about, which are ready to go, to focus on the caucuses. Yes. On rebuilding relations with Georgia, to focus on Armenia, to focus on getting the caucuses stable. Yes. Bricks, Bricks, Iran. So, yeah, I think at the end of the day, this is going to benefit

Russia in the medium to long term. Yeah, I think there'll be a lot of people in Moscow who will be frankly relieved to be rid of this commitment. By the way, and I can tell you, and this I know for a fact, because I've actually spoken to Russians

who said this, and it was widely discussing academic circles. When something similar happened in the mid-1970s, and the Russians were booed. out of Egypt. By this time, things between the Russians and the Egyptians had already gone very south. And again, at that time, there were an awful lot of people in Moscow who said, thank God, we have rid of this. We can focus instead on our own internal affairs. Well, it didn't turn out

well there because obviously things went wrong in Russia. But always, ultimately, from a Russian perspective, focusing on their own near abroad, makes more sense. It's Syria that has been destroyed now. So now you have Libya, you have Afghanistan, Iraq. Now Syria has been destroyed. I worry about the, okay, you have the Alawites that are going to come under pressure. The Christian community in Syria, one of the oldest Christian communities. That's in danger as well.

Christianity in general in the Middle East, in my opinion, is being just swept away. Yes. And of course, you know, if you're Cyprus or Greece, you need to worry about Turkey. Absolutely need to worry about Erdogan and Turkey. This is a big deal, especially for Cyprus, I would say. Whatever the reality of Turkey's strength may be, and it has a lot of problem, Erdogan believes that he has the ability to continue to expand. This is what Erdogan as the individual believes.

And if you're in the region, you need to be very concerned about what's happening. You need to be extremely concerned. Expanding, yeah. Yeah. I mean, for the Syrian people, I think this is going to be an absolute tragedy. I mean, the communities in Syria,

the Al-Aweights, the Christians, the Druze, all of these, This is going to be a dark night, and one has to doubt the survival of these communities that are millennially old. I mean, the Syrian Christian community is amongst the oldest communities in the world. There were Christians in Syria long before there were Christians in, say, Britain. Just saying. So, I mean, that gives you a sense of how old this community is. And there's Christian churches and Christian monuments and Christian pilgrimage sites.

And the same is true of the Druze, the Alawites, and all sorts of other people. And huge relics from antiquity, not just Palmyra, but other places, these great archaeological sites. One wonders what will survive of them. Just just say. And the greater tragedy for the Syrian people of every faith and of every religion, I mean, as I said, this is going to, I fear, be appalling. As for the Europeans, as for Greece and Cyprus, I completely agree with you about, you know, worrying about what Erdogan could do and, you know, an ascendant, an Erdogan very much in the ascendant now.

But there's also a much more immediate problem because, as I said, if there is an economic and social collapse in Syria, and if we see a descent, which I think is highly likely, into interneeson fighting and communal fighting in Syria, well, we could very easily get another tidal wave of refugees, not just from Syria, by the way, because what we know, what we see is that when there is a breakdown in one state, it can often lead to a breakdown in another. Lebanon, for example, looks particularly vulnerable. And there could be another crisis in Iraq fairly soon. And Jordan as well.

So, you know, another million refugees heading towards Europe. I'm not saying it's definitely going to happen, but it is a possibility because it is what has always happened when there have been events of this kind. It happened, if you remember, in the Western Mediterranean, after Gaddafi fell, it became clear that Gaddafi had been

a stabilising force preventing huge refugee flows. This time, it might be exactly the same that with Assad gone, with the Syrian government, as we've known it, gone. Again, as I said, we could see a migrant crisis, in which case, all of these people in Europe

who are going around saying this is wonderful news that this terrible dictator has gone and Putin is going to be next are going to have an awful lot more to worry about than perhaps they realize today. Yeah, a final question. This video is running really long, but I think we have to cover this.

The talk about the gas pipeline, that all of this is about the gas pipeline from Qatar to Europe. And it was Syria that was blocking the construction of a gas pipeline, which would effectively remove Russia back then, back in the day. It was Russia Nord Stream, and they needed the gas pipeline to remove the connection between Russia and Germany via Nord Stream, and Assad was blocking it at the behest of Russia. and this was the gas pipeline geopolitics that was at play. So there's a lot of talk now that the Assad obstacle has been removed, and Qatar can begin to construct this pipeline that will move through the Middle East,

through Syria, through Turkey, and eventually into Europe. And all is good for the European Union. They're going to be getting cheap Qatari gas in the next decade or so. But, I mean, to me, you need stability in the region if you're going to start coming up with these projects and building these pipelines. It's going to take a long time to build these pipelines. And, you know, once again, I'll tell you from the experience of Cyprus and their LNG dreams, their gas dreams that they found all this LNG in Cyprus, it's been 20, 25 years, 20 or 25 years that we've been talking about the LNG riches. and no one's seen any of that. Well, indeed.

And we're considered to be a stable country and part of the Mediterranean. So I don't know what's going to happen with the gas pipeline. But anyway, your thoughts. It's a pipe dream. Just to say it straightforwardly. I absolutely do accept that these probably did play a role in the original events of 2011, the attempts to overthrow Assad at that time. don't think it was the main factor, by the way. I think the main factor was Assad's alliance with

Iran, which was the main reason why there was a major effort to try to overthrow the Syrian government at that time. But, you know, absolutely, that idea has existed. Just as, if you remember, when the Americans went into Afghanistan in 2001, there were similar plans to build gas and oil pipelines from Central Asia across Afghanistan and to bring them into the Persian Gulf. And that also was going to end Russian dominance in the gas industry. Except, of course, it never happened because Afghanistan collapsed into chaos. There was constant problems there. And the pipelines were never built.

And to be frank, I don't see why Qatar would be interested. Qatar is making a huge amount of money, selling its gas now in LNG sales. Why would they want to get themselves involved in some incredibly complex pipeline project across an unstable Syria? If they'd wanted to build a pipeline, by the way, they could have built it through Turkey. just saying it was always there was you know it could have been done that way but it was it was never really done so i i think this is this is a fantasy and it would take at least a decade before any gas appeared and that's probably a very optimistic scenario 20 years it's probably much more likely all right we'll end the video there the durand that looks like com we are on rumble audacity but you

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