The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - A Fresh Mess In Syria || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

Government-backed paramilitary forces (supported by Turkey) in Syria's Alawite enclave brutally suppressed the Alawite opposition. The Alawites are now seeking protection at Russian military bases as the Sunni-led government consolidates power.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/a-fresh-mess-in-syria

Hey all, Peter Zine here. Coming to you from the Denver Airport. Today, we're talking about something that happened yesterday and they did before. Basically, we had a blow up of violence in the Alawite enclave of Syria. Now, the alloys live on a coastal enclave that's heavily forested on the west side of a mountainous ridge. It separates the interior of the Fertile Crescent region from the Mediterranean. This is a place where a couple of the Russian bases are. A place is called Antartis and Baniyant.

Banias? Something like that. anyway, it's unclear what started. The Aloites had reason to go after the government. The new government, which is a Sunni, different ethnocectarian group, had reasons to go after the Alawites. And the Alawites were the ethnic group that the previous dictator Assad came from. So it's unclear who pulled the trigger first, but both of them went at it and the government absolutely came up on top, specifically groups of the paramilitary group that's aligned with the government called HTS. They're the ones who recently decisively won the Civil War.

They're the ones who did most of the killing and several hundred civilians were basically dragged out in the street and shot. They had the HTS group definitely had HITLIS lined up. And so it's unclear who started the fight. It's very clear who finished it. A couple things here. Number one, the government forces backed by HTS or vice versa. We're a little bit too competent, a little bit too together, had a little bit too good of intel and too good of weapons for just being a government. that has been there for less than two months at this point. So their sponsors, the Turkish

government were absolutely in play and they wanted these massacres to happen. It's not hard to see why. The Alloites were the core of the previous government that was anti-Western, anti-American, anti-Israelian, anti-Turkish. And the Turks want to make sure that everyone in the northern perimeter of Syria is either broken or on their side. And this went a long way to achieving that. But that brings us to the second thing. The Russians have have had bases in Syria for about a decade now and they intervened very decisively in the favor of the old government in the Civil War, killing probably close to 100,000 people before all those said and done, mostly civilians.

And the Russians would like to hang on to the two naval bases that they have on the coast, but they were in the process of getting squeezed out by the Turks and the new Syrian government. Well, a few things. Number one, the Aloites now are apparently congregating outside the bases asking for protection. Number two, the Israelis kind of would like to have the Russians keep at least a nominal foothold because it would shatter Syrian, prevent it from ever resurrecting itself as any sort of threat to Israel again. But third farm, more importantly, is the chief Russian agent in the U.S. government, Tulsi Gabbard, is now starting to agitate actively against the new Syrian government in favor of the Alawites.

And it's probably only going to be a matter of days before she and, by extension, the U.S. government starts active. asking the Russians to stay behind. We've been seeing American foreign and strategic policy tilt towards the Russians in any number of ways. It's loudest in Ukraine. It's also happening within NATO and Europe. It's also now happening in places like Japan and now we have it also in Syria. So the degree of Russian penetration into the White House really is robust and it's starting to reshape regional dynamics in ways that will empower the Russians for years, if not decades to come. complicate American foreign policy for years if not decades to come. Yeah, that's all I got today.