The Duran Podcast - Syria power vacuum w/ Jeffrey Sachs (Live)

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Syria power vacuum w/ Jeffrey Sachs (Live)

All right. We are live with Alexander Mercuris, and we have with us the excellent Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Gentlemen, we have about 30 minutes. We have a lot to discuss. So a quick hello to everybody that is watching us. Alexander, Professor Sacks, let's jump into it. By the way, I have all of Professor Sacks's information, where you can follow him in his work in the description box down below. And I will add it in comment as well. Alexander, Professor Sachs, let's talk about what is going on in Syria. Let's go straight in, because obviously we've had dramatic events in Syria, a collapse of the Assad government just after just a few weeks. Assad is now in Moscow, lots of news coming from Syria itself. Professor Sachs, let's go straight in since I know you have very time limited today.

Thank you, by the way, for joining us to start that. Great to be with you, as always. Tell me, let's have, tell us your views, your views and then we can take it from there, your overall views. I think the interesting starting point is a statement by Netanyahu a couple of days ago. He gave a press conference. He said that this is a completion of a step-by-step process that Israel has been pursuing. And I think that that is not bragging, if I could put it in that odd way. I think that that is an accurate statement of what has happened. But it's not only an Israeli effort of the last few months with its war on Hamas and Hezbollah,

which dramatically weakened the military base of the Assad government, which depended on Hezbollah for its military backing. But this is a campaign of Israel, as Netanyahu himself said, that is to remake the Middle East, that goes back 30 years, actually. Now, let me state at the outset, I think Netanyahu was a madman. I think what Israel has done is destructive beyond belief. But the point is that there has been a plan. The plan has been to remake the Middle East in Israel's image, if you will.

And already back in 1996 in a neocon paper written for the new Israeli prime minister at the time, Benjamin Netanyahu called Clean Break, this was described. The Clean Break was a Clean Break of the Middle East. that Israel, of course, meaning the United States, military backing Israel, would take out Israel's enemies. And this has been an operational plan, strangely enough, at least since 9-11. We have a remarkable statement by General Wesley Clark that is very well known, that after the 9-11 attack, Wesley Clark visited the Pentagon, and he was shown a piece of paper that said seven countries would be overthrown in five years. And the list was Iraq, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, and Libya.

and Clark expressed defundlement and bewilderment. What does this have to do with 9-11? And the answer was, we're making the Middle East over again. This was the clean break strategy from 1996, now to be implemented. And in September 2001, though Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11, the decision was made immediately that to implement this remake of the Middle East, the first invasion would be of Iraq. This by itself is interesting, just as a footnote. The reason that they chose Iraq first was not because of Saddam or weapons of mass destruction,

which they knew did not exist, but rather there was a legal fiction that they could use, a 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, which had been passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton that made it the law of the land that Saddam Hussein should be removed from power. So they thought legally, literally, I mean, you do something completely lawless initiating war, but you look for a legal fig leaf. And that was why Iraq first. but the idea was that Syria would be overthrown immediately afterwards. And then immediately after that would be the rest of the list. And what has been explained to me by military individuals that were in the midst of this is that the U.S. military got tied down in Iraq in an unexpected way with the insurgency.

So they didn't move straight to take out Assad, which was supposed to happen, 2003. So this is quite interesting. What we're seeing in the last days is part of a plan that goes back more than 20 years. It sounds zany, but this is, this is craziness that we're dealing with. This is a plan for taking out seven regimes. And maybe I'll step back and then I'll take a pause and turn it back over to you, Alexander. But why do this? And Netanyahu spelled this out in his book in 1996 fighting terrorism. And then in a rather remarkable speech that he gave in the United States on September 20, 2001, just after 9-11, he said, you don't fight terrorists by fighting the terrorists. You fight terrorists by fighting the states that support them.

So Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Saddam Hussein. They're backed by Assad. They're backed by Iran. In fact, it wasn't just the Iranian access of resistance back then. It was all of these states around Israel that were supporting the Palestinian cause. And Netanyahu's idea backed by the crazy, violent, repulsive neocons, I hope I'm being clear, in the U.S. government, said, yes, we will remake the Middle East by war, one after another. And if you think about it, of course, Iraq was 2003.

The war on Assad started in 2011. Not everyone is aware of Operation Kimber-Sikamor, but this is the CIA operation to overthrow Assad under Obama, and everyone should understand. It doesn't matter, Democrats, Republicans, nice people, not nice people. America has one foreign policy of continuity, and it has nothing to do with Democrats and Republicans. So Assad was 2011. The war started, but they didn't succeed in overthrowing Assad because he had backing. from Russia, which started especially in 2015. Then if you go down the rest of the list, Somalia, well, that was attacked by U.S.

proxy by Ethiopia in 2006. Sudan, the United States broke Sudan into pieces, literally dividing it into Sudan and South Sudan with the clever ploy of the United States to put all the oil. reserves in south sudan not in north sudan which is now bankrupt and in starvation and in civil war libya in 2011 Lebanon of course invaded repeatedly by israel including just recently so actually this vision has been carried out and this is what nettingia was crowing about a couple of days we have remade the middle east We've done it step by step.

So just we should have no doubt that this is part of a long-term strategy. Of course, there are cameo appearances by Erdogan. He wants Turkish influence in Syria. This definitely plays a role. I don't mean to minimize that. But this is part of a long-standing plan. And the immediate collapse, which none of us saw. coming at, I don't know anyone that saw this, except I suppose, inside the Israeli intelligence

community and no doubt CIA and a few others. Hezbollah was the backstop of the Syrian regime. And the idea was, of course, by attacking Hezbollah Lebanon and drawing Hezbollah, Hezbollah forces into Lebanon and blocking the resupply of Hezbollah through the active bombing of Syria in recent weeks and through this military action. This was the way to bring down the regime. It happened, I'm sure, much faster than anybody anticipated. Now Israel is invading Syria from the southwest into the northeast, where it stops. Who knows? There are crazy people in Israel who say go on to Damascus.

Well, what they're going to do, it seems to me, is that they're going to create chaos all around themselves. Chaos is a very, very difficult thing to control. They're also going to find that they are ultimately controlling more Arab territory with more Arabs who don't want to be controlled by them. one would have thought that that's going to make their long-term problems much, much worse. I would have thought that what you've described, which I'm absolutely sure you're correct, by the way. I mean, one only has to listen to Netanyahu and other Israeli officials to see that this is correct. But what this is doing is sowing the storm and preparing the whirlwind, because sooner or later, if you are surrounded by occasionally,

chaotic, unstable Middle East all around you, you're going to be affected by that yourself. And we talk about, you know, destroying and destabiling states. Palestinian authority was something like a state, and it was undermined. And the result was Hamas, and Hamas is the force that Israel now has to fight in Gaza. Gaza is a small territory, very contained. the Israelis are all around it. They can to some extent control the scope of the war there, but trying to do the same in a place like Syria,

trying to do the same right across the entire Middle East, it seems to me that that is an absolute nightmare. They should have been seeking peace with these countries, not trying to undermine and destroy them. If you look at the killing fields and the chaos that Israel and the United States have sown throughout the Middle East since, basically since the Iraq War, it's stunning that there has not been one moment of political solution, not one moment of peace, not one resolution, not one resolution of one crisis. So to my mind, this whole approach is madness.

And if you were to have read Netanyahu or known Netanyahu back 30 years, it was madness then, and it's madness today. But what you're saying is not good speculation about the future. It is the historical record. What has happened to every intervention? There is ongoing nonstop war and division. This is true, of course, in Iraq. It's true, obviously, in Lebanon. It is true, obviously, in Syria, where this country has been completely dismantled, broken in every way.

It was a functioning, middle-income country with normal development prospects before 2011, before the deliberate attempt to destroy it. What has happened in Libya since Gaddafi was brought down? Did that bring peace and democracy as these fools in my government pretend it will? No, of course not. It has brought nonstop civil war. Somalia, it doesn't exist as a functioning country to this day. Sudan, absolutely astounding.

There are millions of people on the brink of starvation. there is a war inside Sudan, a civil war, and there's a civil war in South Sudan. In other words, what has happened from this seven wars in five years strategy of Netanyahu and the Israel lobby and the neoconservatives in the United States? Yes, they've remade the Middle East into a catastrophe. into an ongoing fulminant war zone and Netanyahu's most fervent hope till this day is war with Iran. And of course, the other, it's not an irony. It's the tragedy of all of this. Iran has been indicating to this miserable Biden administration.

I can't wait to see it go for two years. uh, peace offerings saying we want to negotiate. We want to find a diplomatic resolution. I spoke with the another intermediary yesterday who asked not to be identified, who was involved in high level discussions, uh, where Iran was trying to reach out to find a diplomatic approach to the Biden administration. In the interpretation, in the interpretation, of the people running Israel and the United States. If the other side says negotiate, that means they are weak

and you should start by assassinating literally the negotiators because it's very important to kill people who would negotiate in the Netanyahu neocan vision. And then you go to war against them. They're weak. this is the madness that we're in right now. What will come out of this? Nothing good.

Absolutely nothing good. The idea that the jihadist groups that the United States is backed. And of course, everybody does understand, I'm sure, listening in that al-Qaeda as a U.S. creation was and always has been and continues to be. So all these, quote, terrorist groups, yes, they're on CIA backing. from the start. It's not even, of course, not even a secret. It's thoroughly documented in shelffuls of books. You don't get peace out of this. You don't get a safe border because we've brought down the evil Assad regime. You get ongoing war and chaos. And that's already what is

starting to engulf the region. And Israel now it conquers Mount Hermone. It's reported 20 kilometers from Damascus, though I can't verify anything about any troops on the ground. I'm just reading the social media and occasionally the mainstream media. But that's not going to sit well. That's not a stable environment. Natyao already said, this is ours. We're going to claim this. We're never giving this up.

This is Israel's whole approach. Whatever we take is ours. And it's up to us to decide what we take more. This is the greater Israel approach. It's completely destabilizing. It's madness. It is a question of what the next U.S. administration will do. But best bets is it will continue to support this. This has been the underlying continuity of U.S. policy for decades. which is in my opinion completely contrary to U.S. long-term interests. And law and everything else, by the way. But yes, completely against U.S. interests. Netanyahu has been the most destructive U.S. president we ever had because he's told every president what to do. Every president has completely supported Netanyahu's vision of remaking the Middle East.

until today. And by the way, with Israel's illegal grab and effective invasion of territory, I mean, not effective, invasion of Syria in the last few days, the U.S. statesmen said, well, yes, so we regard this as an understandable provisional action of the United States, I mean, of Israel and the United States supports this. Of course, the United States. supports this. The United States supports whatever Israel does, however much chaos is created out of all of this. And of course, the cruelty and the violence that is inflicted on the people of the region, it seems to attract very little concern. I mean, again, I've noticed some of the commentary that's appearing in the media here in Britain, which I'm sure is very similar in the

United States. It's almost incidental to the larger geopolitical game. You have a few people say that it's all going to turn out well. We're going to have a democratic Syria. I don't think anybody really believes that. But these are ancient countries. The people who live there are real people. They live their lives. They formed their businesses. They brought up their families. All of that is going to be thrown into chaos. And, well, for what? Because you can't control. an entire region in this kind of way. It is only going to bring disaster upon Israel ultimately. I think it's one of the things that you constantly note

and that I cannot understand honestly, although I should be able to. They don't count the dead at all in any of this, not one moment. Your reasoning, my reasoning in Ukraine has been the same, which is what can come out of this later on that could not be resolved now at the negotiating table? And of course, I said that from the first day of the special military operation, but actually well before that said all you can get out of this

is deaths. All you can get out of this is mass killing. And in fact, we know. We don't know the numbers, but maybe 600,000 Ukrainian dead, 700,000 Ukrainian dead, never mentioned by a U.S. official, never mentioned by a British official. There's something so peculiar in the absolute capacity to mass murder people and that this is taken straightforwardly. And I just say this because of course no one mentions what this has to do with the people of Syria at all, except that we see for one day the happy talk of those flags waving in Damascus, like we saw the flags waving in Baghdad, like we saw the flags waving in Mogadishu, like we saw the flags waving in Khartou, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

We know that this is the prelude to yet more bloodshed. Nobody in the United States government, certainly not in the Israeli government, certainly not in the British government. I regard those as the three worst, by the way. But there are others that might challenge them, but I regard those as the three worst. Nobody would even deign to mention the people involved in that. this. Professor Sacks, I'm going to be one very last question because I know you have to go, and that's about Europe, because of course, Europe, we're very close to this. Our governments seem to be completely happy to go along with these processes. Europe used to be at least make them go through the motions of wanting to stabilize the situation in the Middle East. Of course, a lot of this is a legacy of our own prior involvement in this region, the empires that we created that. But what do you say to the governments of Europe? What policy should they be following now? Very briefly, I mean, it's a huge question. Yeah, but let's say that no country

has more messed up the world and certainly the Middle East than Britain. Britain already made the problems that we're facing in 1915, basically in three years, 1915 to 1917, Britain promised three times over all of this land. First to the French, second to the Arabs, third to the Jews. This is in the Balfour Declaration. So this is British imperial manipulations that now have a shadow and a legacy of more than 100 years of chaos. Britain will never get this right. The Nosteph for empire, the bravado, the arrogance. It's, by the way, remarkably undiminished 80 years after the end of the empire. Keith Starrmer, they all do, Boris Johnson.

They all think they're Lord Palmerston. They're all going off to battle. So Britain, I give no hope for at all in this because nostalgia seems to have the longest lifespan of all imperial nostalgia. The French, without a principle, okay? The French are always a little bit second fiddle to the British, but they wanted their little imperial peace as well, and they got it in Lebanon, they have it in Syria,

and what good has come out of any of this, not at all. I have not understood for years continental Europe's European Union approach to any of this. Of course, there are glimmers where there's some insight. The Spanish government has been very good on Palestine. The Irish, absolutely wonderful. They have their own colonial experience. But in general, Europe lost any insight into its own security, into its own well-being,

when it basically handed off everything to the CIA and to NATO. And that's where Europe stands right now. I was so sorry to see that on the first day of the new European Commission, where is the president of the European Council and the high representative for Europe? That is Antonio Costa and Kaya Kala. The first day they had to. fly to Kyiv to be with Zelensky. Oh my God.

Even knowing that President Trump is coming in, Europe cannot even think politically to this moment. Europe cannot think in its own interest to this moment. I said to many of them, if you're going to do diplomacy on the first day, go to Moscow, talk to Russia, have a real diplomacy. they can't figure this out. And this is tragedy. And it's tragedy in Ukraine. It's tragedy in the Middle East. The United States stands behind both of those tragedies as the would-be hegemon. It's all pathetic. The wars continue to spread, and it's very dangerous.

Professor Sachs, I want to thank you for taking time off. I know you're under a very time schedule for coming to share these insights. A very bleak program, if I may say, but I think a real it's the reality. It is what we're going to see. And we've seen, you've explained to us a lot of why it happened. Just to say, thank you. Well, thanks to, thanks to both of you. We'll be talking about these things again, no doubt. Great, great analysis every single day. So important. And let's get together soon. Yeah, indeed. Thank you. Thank you, Professor Sachs. Take care. I will have lots of questions. I just want to say I will have Professor Saxon information

a Pint Comet as well when the live stream is over. Go ahead, Alexander. No, I just want to say an extraordinary program. I'm sure this is absolutely right. I mean, there's a lot of people who are not aware about a lot of these things that have been said and written. And I have actually read some of Netanyahu's books. Do you mention?

Hello? Hello? have we lost I don't see you but I can hear you oh you're back Ah we're back The stream has been a bit

A bit bumpy for Oh it's being a bit bumpy Well I'm sure we have I don't know what forces are at work here But I'm sure we have lots of questions Yeah let's get to Let's get to the questions

Yes Let's start with one sec Yeah, let's start with Nikos. This is a long one, Alexander, right? Nikos, Nikos, how you doing, says, reason, sorry from critical, Duran, I value your opinion the most. However, I'm sorry, I'm losing you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, can you guys hear me or see me?

Yes, hello. I'm sorry, I completely lost Nikos's question. So if you could restate it, please. Hello? Yeah, we're having very unstable. We see Devon unstable on the internet. If you could, hello? I don't think you jump out, all right?

Can you, if you can see me? Let me see if I can pull out. Am I still present? Alexander? Alexander, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you clearly and your pictures. Are your pictures clear? Okay, you can hear me now?

clearly clearly okay that hasn't happened in a long time interesting on this program yeah apologies these things do happen yeah do happen sorry guys sorry guys all right let's uh let's get to niccos's question yeah and uh let me just start from the beginning yes uh nico says read my comments as one sorry for being critical Duran, I value your opinion the most. Geez, YouTube is jumping everywhere now. I don't know what's going on with this stream.

I value your opinion the most. However, we need to accept some truths. The so-called global majority and multipolar world have now YouTube pros on me, Alexander. Okay, let me let's try this again. Duran, I value your opinion the most. we need to accept some truths. The so-called global majority and multipolar world

has lost to the West. The West achieved the perfect oligarchy by exhausting the population and using the media and YT. They ensured they'll follow them like zombies to World War III. Justin Trudeau saluted a Nazi in the parliament and no one cared.

Do you think, Alex, that people care when HTS become rebels or Pierce Morgan lies on YouTube? The second factor the West is united. It's might makes right, and the West has a united army and economic system that the global majority refuse to have. Syria collapsed.

And what did China or the multipolar world do to prevent it? Jack Schitt. And now Russia lost access to the Mediterranean Sea and two bases. Even Russia responds with weakness. The West bombs their country, and instead of destroying LeVibbiv, and then saying London is next, they do nothing. Any hope I had for Trump when lost? was lost when he brought in Kellogg's Coco Pop's.

So when the West brings troops to Ukraine and they will, Russia will collapse. The multipolar world has failed because they aren't united as military economic bloc. The West will do what they want and the global South will fail. That's the entirety of the... No, I don't agree with most of this. I think that you are making far too many assumptions based on one specific event. which is the Syrian event. And I get to say straightforwardly, whatever has happened in Syria, the Russians certainly can absorb it. I've discussed the importance of the basis,

supposedly to Russia in Syria. I've said many times that the importance of those bases was always controversial in Russia. Many, many people didn't agree with the presence of those bases. The Russians didn't have bases like that before 2015. they can live perfectly well without this basis again. In all other respects, you should not take the individual events in one country and transpose them to what is happening globally and around the world. There is a war going on in Ukraine, which the Russians are now winning. About that, there is absolutely no doubt.

The idea that Western troops will be sent to Ukraine, the Russian intelligence chief, Nairishkin, made a statement yesterday, which basically said bring it on. We actually would quite like to have them come to Ukraine where we can fight them. I don't think that the Russians will walk away in the way that you say. On the contrary, it's all the indications are that they're going to succeed and win. And if you're talking about global power, the reality is that what has happened in Syria is not going to affect the overall shifts in the global shifts in the global.

global balance of power in any way fundamentally whatsoever. The West may not understand this, but I think that by collapsing Syria, they have created a major crisis for themselves. I think that their problems in the Middle East are just are now going to become even worse than they previously were. And I would throw Europe in there as well. absolutely Alexander with the collapse of Syria it's going to make things

a lot worse for Europe a lot worse I mean there's even articles to this effect in the telegraph that you know another refugee wave

Europe simply can't deal with so I just I think I think that I'm sorry Nickos but I think your analysis is wrong Thank you for that super sticker. Mama Alaska says, what will be the worldwide blowback for Syria's fall? Well, I think that one thing that is going to happen is it's going to make the Russians even more determined to press on with their special military operation in Ukraine and to bring it to a successful conclusion.

But in all other respects, what I suspect is going to happen is that the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, the Russians, Putin just met the Indian defense minister, by the way, in Moscow. They're all going to go ahead, sort out their own business, build up the bricks, develop their payment systems, win the war in Ukraine, do all of those things. and the blowback will be entirely in the Middle East and against the West. That has been the consistent pattern of all of these crises up to now. Iraq was a disaster for the West. It's significantly diminished American power. I think Syria is going to be exactly the same for Turkey, by the way. Erdogan absolutely has so the storm and is going to reap the whirlwind.

I think Israel is already massively over-extended and is now going to become more overextended still. And the United States, which Donald Trump and others want to see focusing on its own problems, are going to find it more difficult to do that because they now have a massive problem in the Middle East to cope with. So, as I said, I think that what shouldn't, in global perspectives, overstate, the importance of this thing. Feingbore says Putin needs to be tough or resign. Tough, tough with him. I mean, he's already been very tough. He's fought a war in Ukraine, which is winning. And that is a much more consequential war than the one we've just seen in

Syria. I mean, he intervened in Syria in 2015, very much against the advice of many people in Russia. And he bought Syria another 10 years. Studio Rainer said, who will be more powerful? Trump or Netanyahu? I have a strange hope that Trump's narcissism might lead to a confrontation with Netanyahu, hope because Trump is more narcissistic than Netanyahu. Right. I mean, who knows? This is what I'm going to say about the situation is that it's so fluid that nobody knows exactly how this is all going to play out. In the current administration, you have people who are very, very strong supporters of Israel. Trump himself is.

But of course, if the United States now finds itself getting drawn into an open-ended crisis in the Middle East in Syria, remember, there are American troops in Syria. This may not be easy for the Trump administration to navigate. and I don't think they have a plan. How can they, given how quickly this thing has happened? Raul Pinto says, do you see ISIS version 2.0 coming out of this Syrian crisis? It is highly likely. It is very possible.

That tends to be the pattern in most of these conflicts. So in Afghanistan, there was the collapse of the Najibullah government, which would place in 92. then there was a terrible period of civil war between the various jihadi factions. They fought out amongst each other. The most hard line of them won, which was the Taliban, and well, the rest is history. The Taliban, by the way, who are now presenting a more moderate front, are going out of their way at the moment to try to persuade the Russians and the Chinese that they want to become good members of Briggs and that they're doing.

distancing themselves in the United States. But that was Afghanistan. We saw the Taliban emerge in Afghanistan. We saw ISIS emerge out of the wreckage in Iraq, and we remember how that played out. By no moment's impossible that if Syria now descends into chaos, something similar will happen in Syria, and I believe something very similar to that happened in Samar.

although I don't pretend I'm so familiar with the events there. From Ms. Texas G, how does the fall of Syria affect Russia's relationship with Israel, which I imagine was already strained? Well, I think that it will continue to be strained, but I don't think it will ever completely break down, at least not while Putin remains president. I think Putin and Netanyahu have this very complicated and very strange relationship with each other, in which they each understand that maintaining some line of communication between the two is important for both, and they retain that degree of contact with each other.

I think that if the Russians now start to pull back from Syria, it might actually, in some ways facilitate relations between Russia and Israel. But again, I do think this is going to make any very fundamental difference. All right, Alexander, those are those are the questions. Okay. Can I make a fundamental point? The crisis that has happened in Syria is a calamity for Syria. disaster for the Arab world. I think that's one thing to say. It is a huge strategic defeat for Iran. Russia can walk away from this. It's not in the same position as all of the others. China are the same. They are not as invested in Syria as these other players are. If we're talking about the number of Russian military personnel who were deployed to Syria at the high, at the high

of the war between 2015 and 2020 they numbered around 5,000 so that gives you a sense of the total scale of the Russian commitment in Syria it was never that huge if we're talking about Ukraine according to the Ukrainians it's 800,000 China was never in Syria at all So these countries, as far as their interests are concerned, they can ride with this. And if we're talking about the previous crises in the Middle East, the one in Iraq, for example, because they drew the United States in, because the United States got tied down in the Middle East, trying to execute these elaborate neocon plans. Major beneficiary from them ultimately was China.

Rabwan asks, what does it mean for Iran? Should we expect them to begin enrichment? They must know their next. Great work, by the way. Yeah, I think that is a very real possibility. I've discussed it in one of my programs. A couple of weeks ago, Harmoné, the leader of Iran, actually seemed to open up a debate about whether Iran should go forward to develop the nuclear

weapons capability. The current president, Pezishkan, and his team, who are somehow seen as more moderate, whilst more moderate, pushed back against it. Other members within the Iranian system, the IRGC, the Defence Ministry, seen much more keen on this idea. I suspect that what's happened has probably strengthened the hardliners. So again, it is not impossible. Iranian kiddo says, did Ukraine really play a role in the attack that took place in Syria? I've seen some fairly detailed discussions of this now,

including, by the way, in Ukraine itself, and the view there is that they played a minimal role. They did have some contacts with the jihadi opposition. But the major organizer and facilitator of these events was Turkey. Yeah, I think that's very clear now. Turkey, Erdogan, Netanyahu, they were the ones behind Al-Joladei HTS. I think that is absolutely clear. And I wouldn't be shocked.

Alexander, if they even have agreed to which parts of Syria they're going to get. No, absolutely. Absolutely. I think, and I just want to say one more thing. I think Erdogan over the past year going so hard against Israel with everything that's happening in Gaza and saying he's going to be the champion of the Palestinians and Gaza, I think that was just a complete fake out from Erdogan. And I believe that they agree with that as well. I have no evidence or any of that, just following Turkey being close in the region.

Absolutely. I bet Israel knew all along let Erdogan talk about this. we're going to fake everybody out because behind the scenes, we've got a plan for Syria. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, can I just make a point on this, which is that we've never, on the Duran, wasted any time on other ones, anti-Israeli rhetoric, because it never meant anything, and I never thought, and we never thought that it did. So I wouldn't be surprised at all if this partition deal between Israel and Turkey has indeed been made. The only thing I would say about it, is that Israel can probably for a time at least live with chaos in Syria.

For Turkey, it might be a lot more complicated. And if a partition deal with Netanyahu further undermines whatever is left of the Syrian state, then it might not turn out so well for Erdogan or for Turkey at all. But that's Erdogan's problem now. He's going to have to deal with it. Oji Wal says, peace, love. respect. Jamila says, I'm sorry, I can't give a comment because I missed Jeffrey Sachs' discussion and I hate NATO. They destroy my country. Thank you, Duran.

Yeah. Thank you, Jamila. Syria. I mean, Syria, Syria, in my opinion, is not coming back. Can I just say something about Syria, which is that obviously the region of Syria has always been there. But if you're talking about the Syrian state, Syria as a state, it really only, it is really a creation. It is a relatively modern creation. It emerged out of the French Empire in the Middle East, which ended in the basically in the 1950s. It was an incredibly unstable country in the first 20 or so years of its existence. One coup after and other,

constant changes of power, a significant amount of political violence. And then in 1971, a Syrian army officer, Hafez al-Assad, carried out a coup, became president of the country, and brought a completely new stability to Syria.

And it was Assad, the father, and to some extent Assad the son that built up Syria. Were them gone and in the way that they've gone, it's going to be very, very difficult. I would say all but impossible to put this back together again. UC, thank you for that super chat.

And Elsa says, any chance when the rebels and their masters implode that Assad comes back? I don't know. I don't think he wants to, to be honest. I don't think he's going to ever return. That's my own personal view. And I don't think either the Russians or the Iranians want him back.

I think the Russians are furious about the whole business. I think they're very angry with him, by the way. I think if you read Russian statements about him, they're making it very clear that they consider that he's resigning in the way that he did was essentially running away. And I don't think they want him back. I don't think the Iranians will have him back either. I don't think he wants to go back.

And I don't think he wants to go back. Exactly. I don't think he ever wanted to be present to become president of Syria in the first place. Exactly. At GEG, in his recent background on the softening of Syria of Syria by Western soft power influence over the years, makes this point that countries need to learn how to counter the coordinated NGO state covert strategy by creating a toolkit of their own. You think Russia, Iran and Bricks in general will learn this key concept as they observe

the Syrian situation in light of how it's been used against them. Yes, I think they are, and I think they are working on this and they're having some success. I mean, there's been a very, very clear color revolution attempt in Georgia, for example. I hope people here watch the program we did with Patrick Lancaster the other day about it. Now, it's not yet played out, and there's always a possibility that things could turn out otherwise. But for the moment it looks as if that colour revolution attempt has failed. And that is partly because the Georgian government and the Georgian political system and that wider Georgian population understand exactly what has been going on,

and they've been determined to resist it and to push it back. So I think that gradually more and more countries are coming to understand what has happened and are developing structures to resist it. Sparky says, should Iran attack Israel now and wait or wait and see what President Trump does? I think that the Iranians have an awful lot of discussions and things to think about at the present time. I do think they have a clear strategy because a month ago, I am sure that no one in Tehran expected that the Assad government would collapse so suddenly. That they knew that a crisis was coming. They said that.

But I think that like everyone, they expected that Assad and his government, his regime. would be able to hold back the blow long enough to enable Iran, Hezbollah, Russia, all of them, to come to his rescue in the way that they did in 2015, that it would all fall apart over a period of two weeks. I don't think anybody thought would happen. From fuzzy balls, if Turkey's economy is in such bad shape, won't controlling all that extra land further financially handicapped the Turkish economy. I absolutely agree with you. I would have thought that given the problems the Turkey has with inflation,

which is currently running at 50% apparently, and that's considered an improvement over the 80% inflation. They had a short while ago. I would have thought that these grand strategic adventures in Syria and all the rest were not in Turkey's interests. I understand that overall, over the last couple of years, the real situation in Turkey is one of stagnation combined with inflation. But Erdogan never thinks in these terms.

I mean, he absolutely remains focused on the wider geopolitical picture. And he neglects the situation back home. And he still has a critical, a big enough and strong enough base of support in Turkey to enable him to do that. But I agree. I think this is, as I said many times, many places, I said on this live stream, I think Turkey has just, I think Erdogan has just created more problems for Turkey in the long term. Sophisticated caveman says will the Russian attempts to make friends with Egypt and Azerbaijan prove to be ephemeral? No, I think with Azerbaijan, they will not, actually. I think Azerbaijan will gradually, on the contrary, start.

shifting away from Turkey and more towards Russia. I think that is Aliyev's own personal preference, by the way. And I think if you look at the geography of the region, it makes absolute sense that that is what they would want to do. Russia, which has obviously long history with Azerbaijan, has a lot more to offer the Haleev government than Turkey ultimately does. And I think they understand that perfectly well. and well they will never break with turkey but i think that they will they will continue to develop their

relationship with uh russia egypt is a completely different case and can i just say i mean this crisis this collapse in syria must be deeply concerning to the government in egypt because of course Egypt in some respects is a fairly similar society. I mean, you have, again, very strong jihadi sentiments in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood is well established there. As we know, they formed the government for a short time and they won elections. And you have a very tough military government, but it's presiding over a very difficult economic situation in Egypt. I mean, they must be feeling very, very nervous about what's happened. They strongly backed Assad during this crisis. They must be dismayed to see him go. Their instinct, I suspect,

will be to try to keep good relations with the Russians and with the Americans, whoever they can. But of course, what has happened might trigger ultimately questions about the future stability of Egypt as well. Nico says, I'm sorry for being critical. I am terrified and shocked by the collapse of Syria. If the multipolar world doesn't become a united block, it will fail. Well, I think it is already becoming something of a united block. I mean, you know, that is what the bricks is all about.

I think a lot of people are deeply shocked about what has happened in Syria. And if you are living Greece, you have every right to be terrified or be all Greek. Because, you know, for Greece, Syria is not far away. I mean, in Washington and in London, Syria is a faraway country about which people know little. In Greece, it isn't like that. It's part of the Eastern Mediterranean world. It's part of our immediate neighbourhood. But the thing to say, again, is that there is a much bigger world beyond the Middle East,

countries like Russia, China, India. I mean, this is not going to impact on them as direct. as it does on us. I think in the end, the blowback will be on the West more. And as I said, we've just made our own already very troubled conditions even worse. John D. says different, of course, but the planned partition of Syria between Turkey and Israel brings back memories of the division of Poland between the Germans and the Soviets. Oh, want to me. Yeah. And well, and if you go back,

the partitions between, you know, Prussia, Russia and Austria in the former kingdom of Poland. I agree. But as I said, I mean, it's, if you go back to what you're referring to, which is the Molotiv-Ribbentrop pact, how did that end in a war between Germany and the Soviet Union? And, you know, who knows? I mean, a partition of Syria might just suck both Turkey and into Israel. and Israel into Syria and into collision with each other. I'm not predicting that or saying it will happen,

but it's certainly one possible outcome. Sparky says is Israel spreading itself too thin? Yes, absolutely. I mean, it's already got multiple problems, and it's just taking on more problems in pursuit of a vision, which is an unrealistic one. Ronolf White Wolf says, I just got here, still watch and replay. What are your favorite books on Russian history? Let's pray Trump keeps

his word and brings peace. My favorite books on Russian history, that is a massive, massive challenge, actually. I think that any books about the Second World War are probably as good as any place to start. And the books by, I think, is it David Glantz? I forget. I never always forget his first name, the military histories that he composed from the 1970s about the war between the Soviet Union and Germany in the Second World War. Those books are probably the best place to start in order to understand Russian history properly. And another very, very good book is the book on the war, the 1812 war, which was written by Dominic Levin, which explains a great deal about Russian, you know, the Tsarist empire of that time.

There are so many books about Russian history going on later that it's difficult to know where to begin. But if you want me to suggest where to begin, I'd start with those two. when Titans clash glances and Russia Russia against Napoleon 1812 by Levin. Let's do a couple more that we have here. One sec.

Gleb Perch says, what do you think about the theory that Assad stepped down in order for sanctions that were so brutal to be lifted on Syria? Well, I think that if he thought that, if that's what he was thinking, that he was being incredibly naive. and I find it incredible that after being in power in Syria for 24 years, he would be that naive.

Because of course the sanctions may be lifted, but we're going to see chaos in Syria, which is going to be far, far worse for the people there. And Sparky says Afghanistan normalized relations with Russia. Once things cool off, will the same happen with Syria? Possibly, but not soon. I want to say this again. I don't think those Russian bases are going to stay in Syria for very long. I think the Russians already are thinking about how they're going to pull them out. I mean, the jihadis are talking about, some of the jihadis are talking about, allowing the bases to stay.

But I don't think the Russians really believe them. And I think that they calculate that those bases are unsafe and they will probably want to pull them out. In time, who knows, in five, ten years, Who knows? All right. One more from testing. Testing, I'm not going to read the quote. It's from the Mustache Man.

I won't read that quote from your super chat, but I will read the rest of your comment. Here we are on the verge of chaos and world war. Which lobby is pushing it? Are facts anti-Semitic? No, I don't think they are. I think that there are particular factions in Jerusalem and Washington. that have been pushing us in all kinds of disastrous directions.

And the people who will ultimately suffer for them in Israel are the Israelis themselves, who are now going to find themselves in a neighborhood where every part, everything around them is going to be on fire. And of course, we've seen the effect of that on Israel itself with 7th of October and what followed. And of course, in the United States, overcommitment, places like the Middle East is going to turn out badly for them too. Right. One more from Zareal just came in.

What farces me out is the fact that Russia is vilified for protecting their borders and national security interests, but Israel can raid anyone they want and not a cock-crowse, hypocritical. Oh, I mean, the hypocrisy of it is off the scale, and you can use much stronger language than that, which I'm not going to use. this program because well it's not my nature all right alexander any final thoughts i'm going to check to see if i got all the questions i think i think we've covered it i think we've covered it now it's a shocking event um we have to understand it in its context i mean people who

when iraq fell when the americans reached back down lots of of people i remember the saying then that this proves how you know the um american empire is going to go on forever many people expected israel to be the great winner didn't turn out like that i don't think it's going to turn out well for them in syria either all right uh trusty rusty keith says a great book on russian history is called the icon and the axe which is a great overview of all of russian history written in 1970 yes yes okay That's, I think I got everything. Wait, one sec, one second.

One final one from Sparky. Anytime someone says Israel is our friend in the Middle East, I can't help but think before Israel. We had no enemies in the Middle East. U.S. missionary, John Sheehan. It's true. We're going to make an awful lot more enemies now. All right.

We will end the live stream there. Thank you once again to Professor Jeffrey Sachs for joining us. Once again, I will have his information. as a pin comment. I also have it in the description box down below. And thank you to everyone that joined us on Rockfin, Odyssey, Locals, Rumble, YouTube. And thank you to our moderators as well

for helping us moderate the chat. All right, take care, everybody.