The Duran Podcast - Regional powers collide after Syria collapse

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

Regional powers collide after Syria collapse

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is going on in the Middle East. Axios is reporting that there is a lot of effort now being placed on convincing Trump to go hard against Iran. Military strikes against Iran, a lot of lobbying taking place to get Trump to green light attacks against Iran. We have a split between Israel and terms. Turkey, which is very interesting, given their cooperation, their apparent cooperation in the regime change in Syria and the carving up of Syria. Now it looks like Erdogan wants to assert his dominance in the region. And Israel wants to assert their dominance in the region, and they're heading towards a clash.

So what are you making of everything going on in the Middle East Iran, Israel, Turkey? what's happening here? Well, I think the first thing to say is that this is all the product of the collapse of the Assad government. Now, we said when it happened that those people who thought that this would be the dawn of the new age of freedom,

secrecy and peace in the Middle East, we're going to be disappointed. What we're starting to see already and we're at the early stages yet and we don't know how it's all going to play out. What we're starting to see is that with the Assad government removed from the picture, with Syria essentially removed from the picture, instability in the Middle East is actually growing, and it's growing in terms of interstate competition,

because Turkey and Israel are now quarreling over the division of spoils in Syria. And there's growing signs of, you know, Israel becoming worried about Turkey and Turkey becoming increasingly threatening towards Israel. We'll come to that in a moment. And we also see that the Israelis having destroyed Syria's air defense system and having seen Assad's government fall and having seen the Russians remove all their big radar systems in Syria. they are now increasingly keen to push for this missile strike against Iran. We discussed in the earlier program how Jake Sullivan and all of his people had tried to win over Joe Biden to that idea a few weeks ago. And how it didn't happen. We thought that it might do whilst Biden was still in office.

office. But it seems as if somebody in the Biden administration has realized that for Biden to start a war against Iran now by assisting Israeli strikes against Iran and having the United States participated in those strikes would be an impossible thing to do. But we see that having failed with Biden, the same people are now trying with Trump. An Israeli official came and spoke to Trump, apparently in November, to try to persuade him to go along with the project of missile strikes on Iran. We've had this article in Axios, which says that there's more lobbying going on. Trump is being told that the Iranians are on the brink of enriching uranium to the level where they could do a breakout and develop a nuclear. bomb apparently within days, which is absurd, by the way, but that's what that's our Axios article said.

We were also told that there was a virtual meeting at the G7. I wonder at what level, by the way, at which they agreed that Iran was going to be the major crisis of 2025 and that Iran might indeed be on the brink of going nuclear and that it was an even more important priority than, say, Russia is, which is interesting. So, you know, you could see that the lobbying effort is increasing on Trump to try to get him to agree to a strike on Iran. And for the moment, he's resisting. But this is all connected, as I said, to the crisis in Syria. The fact that Syria collapsed, the fact that the Syrian air defense system has gone. The fact that Iran is about to sign a partnership agreement with Russia. We discussed that in our previous program

and is re-arming. But Iran has apparently now made some kind of deal with Turkey, or this is the rumor, whereby it is, in fact, still able to transport supplies to Hezbollah through Turkish-controlled territory, just saying. So, you know, we start to see that. And this is playing into the fact that Turkey itself is now having its problems with Israel over Syria. And there's a committee in Israel, the Nagyil committee, which is a government committee, which is now saying that the biggest threat to Israel is no longer Iran, apparently. It is now Turkey and Turkey with its neo-Ottar, and foreign policy and establishment of its sphere of influence in Syria has now become the big threat to Israel in place of Iran.

And they're calling for a big buildup, military buildup to counter this. And there's all kinds of rhetoric between Israel and Turkey. And the Israelis are now openly talking about, at least discussion in Israel now about a possible future war with Turkey and Netanyahu himself is now starting to talk in that way. So we can see that the whole situation is starting to fragment. And the partners in the former partners in crime, if you like, are starting to fall out with each other. What's Erdogan's angle in all of this?

I mean, you know, just a month or two ago, you know, he was with Israel. when it came to Syria. And now one month later, you have this shaping up, this potential clash between the two. What he's discovering... Falling out, at a minimum of falling out, at minimum of falling out, yeah. What he is discovering, and it's exactly what we said,

is that he's victory over Assad, over which he's worked so hard for so long, far from strength in his position. in Turkey and in the Middle East has simply given him a whole new set of problems. And he's got a very unstable Syria that is getting more unstable. He's got the issue of the Kurds in eastern Syria, who, because of the instability in Syria, left to themselves, might actually become stronger and enlarge their influence. He's got a problem that the Syrian refugees in Turkey are refusing to return to Syria.

And of course, he's got the rivalry with Israel to worry about, which is a serious problem because, of course, the Israelis are longstanding allies of the Kurds. So with Erdogan, I think he thought that he would solve many problems by getting rid of Assad, what he's now discovering is that he's not solved any of those problems. The problems for him are becoming worse. So he's now demanding that the Kurds unconditionally capitulate, that they disarm entirely, that they subordinate themselves completely to the government in Damascus. He's basically threatening them with the Turkish military if they don't agree. That puts him on a collision course with the Americans. It puts him on.

on a collision course with Israelis. We have all the rhetoric from Erdogan about this. We have all the rhetoric from the Israelis. We see the Israelis, as I said, talking about possible war with Turkey. We saw the neocons, Michael Rubin. We discussed this in a previous program in the United States, talking about a possible war with Turkey. So Erdogan is trying to reinsure by looking for new allies.

He's trying to persuade the Russians to stay in their bases in eastern Syria, in Western Syria, which is quite a strange development. And it looks as if, again, in order to buy himself some leverage and get more allies, he's now opening routes for the Iranians to continue to ship supplies to Hezbollah. So we see the way in which the kaleidoscope shape. and everything. And what's happened is that everything's become worse. And the Israelis and the Turks are now, and the Americans, by the way, are now starting to learn that their great victory of Assad has given them nothing more than headaches.

Yeah, Erdogan. Erdogan, huh? Very unpredictable that Erdogan, absolutely. Yeah, go ahead. He's good at tactics, but he has no strategy. That is his problem. He doesn't think, he never thinks things through. Now, in fairness, he did try to negotiate with Assad, but he was never willing to make concessions to Assad, which I still think Assad should have agreed to negotiate with him, but he didn't. Erdogan, in his own interests, should have tried to keep Assad in control in Syria. If it was a mistake going all the way back to 2011 to try to sort of demolish Syria, it's

not solved Erdogan's problems or Turkey's problems. It's just made the worse. So how does this potential treaty or agreement between Russia and Iran change things Well, potentially... 17th or 18th of January, I believe. I mean, Pezschgian is going to Moscow and he's going to sign this agreement. Now, it's basically, from what I can tell, it's a partnership agreement. The Russians are strategic partnerships with many countries, including Turkey, by the way.

And they now get to have a strategic partnership agreement with Iran. Now, most of this is going to be about economics. It's about trade, establishing free trade zones, connecting banking systems, doing all of those things. Remember, Iran is now a member of the BRICS, but it does look as if there is a security dimension and the Iranians who are already starting to receive some weapons supplies from the Russians. They've received Yak 130 jet trainers, which are also very effective, apparently, is ground attack aircraft.

Just a, they're subsonic, but they're advanced aircraft. But they're now, it looks like they're going to receive Suhoit 35 fighter jets, which are very advanced fighter jets, not stealth fighter jets, but, you know, as advanced as it gets if it's not a stealth fighter jet. So they're going to start receiving those. Some say they've already received the first two. The Russians apparently are talking, are, have agreed to help the Iranians build up their air defense system. And there's even some suggestions that the Iranian air defense system is going to be fully integrated with

the Russian. And the Russian air defense system is the most sophisticated of the world, just saying. So there is that. Now, if that happens, if Iran acquires an air defense system as sophisticated as Russia's as, you know, with all the radar systems, with the Russians also able to tip off the Iranians about Israeli aircraft or American aircraft, for that matter, you know, coming towards them with all the various early warning systems that the Russians have and which the Iranians don't. If the Russians are able to do that and the Iranians have that kind of information, then a strike against Iran becomes not just incredibly complicated, but probably impossible. So it creates a time.

It means that there is now only a limited time window in which a strike on Iran can happen. And that might explain why there's this urgency about getting the strike on Iran happen now before, as I said, all of these changes in Iran's defense system take place. I'm going to suggest that this is probably what is driving the urgency much more than Iran's possible revival of its nuclear program in the sense that one thing I'm confident about is that the Russians will have told the Iranians under no circumstances do we want you to develop a nuclear bomb. I mean, the Russians do not want to see that. kind of proliferation in the Middle East, and they will certainly not assist the Iranians with

any kind of nuclear weapons program. So I'm starting to think that some of these statements that Iranian officials were making a couple of days ago, and they did. They made a lot of statements hinting that Iran might indeed decide to go nuclear. I suspect that this is part of the bargaining with the Russians, telling the Russians, look, if we don't get your help to develop our air defense system, we will go nuclear instead. So the Russians don't want that. So they're going ahead and they're developing the air defense system with the Iranians in place of that. That is, by the way, a stabilizing factor in the Middle East. No one should be. want, Iran to even threaten to go nuclear, let alone go nuclear. But for those people who in Israel

and the United States remain fixated with the need for a missile strike on Iran, the possibility that the time window to do it will close because in, say, a year's time, Iran is going to have a much more powerful and effective and fully integrated air defense system than the one it has today, that must be very, very concerning. And you can see why they're therefore intensifying the lobbying to get the attack on Iran up and going over the course of this year. Yeah, but can you make an argument that those people that want to avoid an all-out conflict in the Middle East escalation, and would like stability, would see this as a positive?

You know, air defense. Oh, yes. Russian air defense, even though it's Russian, the collective west could say, or their forces in the collective west of the United States, actually which says, okay, it's Russian, what can we do? But Russian air defense is much better than a nuclear weapon, and that will act as a deterrence to further escalation

and destabilization of the Middle East. I mean, can you make that argument? I not only can make that point. I do make that point. If Iran acquires an air defense system or has an air defense system, essentially the Russian air defense system extend it to cover it. That will be a major stabilizing factor in the Middle East. It will remove the incentive for Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb.

And in fact, there will be a condition. The Russians are certain to make this condition that if we do this, Iran must not acquire a nuclear bomb. And at the same time, hopefully it will take away from the neocons and, you know, the people, the hawks in Israel, the temptation to undertake this strike against Iran, which if it happens, would open the way, I think. for a catastrophic conflict in the Middle East. So this would be a completely stabilising thing. Bear in mind that air defense systems are defense systems. I mean, you know, when people often say, you know, what are offensive weapons and what are defensive weapons and people can be very cynical about this and, you know, with some cause. But if you have to say that some types of weapons systems are defensive. No systems, no weapon systems are more defensive than air defense

systems because by definition, they are there to defend airspace. Yeah. All right. We will end the video there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble odyssey, but you telegram and Rock Finn and go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch like what we are wearing in this video update. The link to Duran Shop is in the description box down below. Take care.