The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Syria Breakdown: What Led Them to This? || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

This is a compilation of videos outlining what led Syria to Civil War...Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/syria-breakdown-what-led-them-to-this

Hey, everybody, Peter Zion here coming to you from Colorado. It is the 2nd of December, and the big news in the Middle East over America's holiday break for Thanksgiving was that an opposition group by the name of Heret Terir al-Sham, and yes, too, if something happens to your corner of the world, you can look forward to me mispronouncing it. Heret Terrier al-Sham has captured the city of Alipo and is moving on towards the core of Syria. We've hit this from a geographic point of view, then from a policy point of view. So first, geographic. The bulk of the population in Syria is to the east of the Lebanon and Intal-Iplombin Mountains and a quarter that goes north-south from the Turkish border to Damascus. Basically, these are a combination of oasis cities and cities that are on rivers.

And so these are some of the very, very few parts of the country where you can actually grow food. Yes, yes, yes, you've got the Fertile Crescent and the Euphrates and all that. But the Euphrates floodplain is very, very narrow. In some cases, just a few miles. end-to-end. So it's never been an area that's been able to generate a sustained civilizational impulse or create an empire, whereas this corridor here has always been populated. In fact, there's some of the most consistently populated areas on the planet going back to antiquity. If you move to the west into Lebanon and the Syrian coast, you're on the other side of the mountains. And so that's where you get a lot more minorities, whether they be

Drews or Shia or Al-Aliite. Anyway, this core has always been vastly supermajority populated by Sunni Muslims. And usually what happens in Syria is all the other groups gang up on the Sunni Muslims. And so the current government of the Asades is an

Aleite-led group. And basically, you've got a coalition of small minorities that have banded together to prevent being destroyed by the Sunni Muslims. So when the Civil War broke out in Syria, what has it been 15 years ago now? You basically had the Sunni Muslims, who are the supermajority, rising up in some way

rejecting minority rule and trying to reestablish themselves. And the fact that Sunni Muslims form the backbone of most of what we would consider Islamic terror groups, such as ISIS, the terror groups, if you will, had a lot of willying collaborators throughout the majority population.

What's going now is this new group is basically a rebrander, branded old group and is making another go of it. Way too soon if they're going to be successful, because in addition to Aleppo, you've got Homs, you got Haman, of course, Damascus itself. There's a long way to go. But a few things have changed. Number one, the only real reason why the Syrian government is still in play is because

the Russians intervened forcefully over 10 years ago and propped them up. Well, Russian support is not what it once was, and the Russians are a little occupied over in the Ukraine situation. So it's not clear that Syria is going to have the same degree of support that they once had. The second degree of support is Iran. But with the Trump administration incoming, that's probably going to be dialed back a little bit. And the third is indirectly the United States. The United States, after 9-11, decided that we didn't like Sunni Arab Muslim militant groups

and went to town on them in places like in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria. And so the lingering American commitment to the Syrian Civil War is about breaking groups that are ISIS or ISIS affiliated. And this new group is just a rebranding of what used to be called the Al-Nursa front. Nursa, Nisra, Nersa, that. Anyway, which brings us to policy, the United States has a long history of backing the smaller group against the larger group, no matter who's involved, no matter where it is. The idea is if regional powers are tied down with local affairs, they can't consolidate, become bigger and bigger, become imperial, and eventually threaten the United States in the Western Hemisphere.

It's something we've been doing at least since the early 1800s, from our on again, off again, indirect interference with the Napoleonic Wars all the way up to the current day. Certainly did a lot of this during the Cold War. Anyway, now, besides the fact that we have a changing of the guard in Washington, We also have a different situation in Syria. We certainly don't like the Syrian government. It's genocidal. It's dictator. It's all the things you're not supposed to like.

And it's being backed by all of the traditional powers that have been hostile to the United States. There's just one flying the ointment. We have now defined ourselves as against Russia, against Syria, against Iran, and against Islamic militants. If the United States were to change its mind on just one of those, all of a sudden the game changes, especially when you consider how occupied the Russians and the Iranians are about to be. So the group that is most likely to have the change in circumstance is going to be the Islamic militant groups, the former El Nursar group. The reason is pretty simple.

The United States has a long history of backing Islamic militants against powers that we find more problematic. We've done it for militant groups in the Iran space. We've done it in Afghanistan against the Soviets. We've done it with the Chechens and Russia proper. And to think that this is going to be the one exception where that's convenient but isn't going to happen as kind of a stretch. And the militants have already done us a favor of renaming themselves so they can be a fundamentally new group. So if you think the U.S. can't or won't do this, just keep in mind that we did it last time and the time before,

and the time before that, and the time before that. And one of the weird things we have seen in the last 15 years is one of the strongest unofficial supporters of the Syrian government has been the United States because we have removed from the equation the group that was most likely to overthrow Assad. So it's a lot. expect to see a policy change formally or informally in the months ahead and expect that to reignite the Syrian civil war in a very big way with the Syrian government this time, mostly fighting on its own. It can't rely on the Russians, they're occupied elsewhere. Probably can't rely on Iran or Iranian-backed militant groups in the region like, say,

Hezbollah to Lebanon, because the Israelis have now gutted them. So all of the traditional pillars of support the Assad government has come to rely on during entire Civil War are snapping right now and things are about to get lively. So watch this space. I'll keep an eye on it for you. Hi, I'm Michael, the director of analysis here at Sinan and Cheer Politics. I want to give everybody an update on what we'll be watching this weekend in Syria. So, Hyatir al-Shan is this Sunni-Islimat militant group that has very rapidly moved from its conquest of Aleppo toward,

I think at this point it's safe to say I likely taking a ma away from central government control in Damascus that means that the emerging battlefront limits 24, 48, 72 hours

is going to be the critical city of homes. This is a major, major, major must win, must hold, must secure battlefront and city and territory for the Assad regime. we're going to put a map on the screen right now. What I would like everybody to notice first is this gray bubble in the western part of the country.

This is the territory that's controlled by primarily Ayatheil Shah. This isthmic group that was based in Idlib that has then moved eastward of Lapo and south toward Amo. Second is this narrower red band where Holmes is. and why homes are so critical is it allows, it's the only actual path of access for the Assad regime in Damascus, northwest, to the critical port cities of Latakia and Tartouis. Latakia is the main population center for the Alawite minority, which is the main base of support for the Assad regime in Damascus and Tartus, which is not only just a critical port, that is where the Russian naval base has been for the last 50, almost 60 years. There's also an airfield in Latakia with the Russian Air Force uses. So when we look at the critical Russian military support that has kept the Assad regime alive for the last decade or so, these two cities are critical.

And if you are any non-regime power, be it militants, be it a foreign force, or foreign-backed militant force. Holmes is a must-take, if you're looking, to topple the establishing. That's why we've seen so much fighting there, doing more kinetic exploity times in this conflict, and this is why we have seen Hyatt Teryl-Shan try and move so quickly toward this battlefront. Now, so something that we'll be watching for over the weekend,

maybe like a useful five are how quickly and effectively the Assad regime can move defensive forces to homes. It can't just be the Assad-backed military. They don't have the forces of the fighters. We're going to have to see Iranian-backed forces. So historically in the past, Iran has pulled fighters from Iraq, from Lebanon, Hezgalon. Again, people from as far away as Afghanistan and Tajizkstan to secure critical regime territories. I don't know if we're going to see Iran either able or willing to do so. Again, in the past, you've seen Russian military support, usually in the form of material,

so missile ammunition artillery for the Assad regime and its forces, and then airstrocks, The Syrian government does not really have that capable of an air force. Iran certainly doesn't. We've seen Israel be really successful at taking out what limited air defenses. Syria has, I should think we've also seen. Israel will be very successful at taking out whatever limited air defenses Iran has. So if we're going to see Holmes stay within the Syrian orbit, the Asabishian's orbit, But we're really going to need successful and significant airstrikes against advancing,

southward advancing military forces from Hama and Idlib. We're also going to need to see cohesion among these forces. We've had a lot of reports, rumors of Assad forces defecting in Aleppo and Hama over the past week. It's a little reminiscent of what happened for opposition to rebel forces in Afghanistan. versus the Taliban once the U.S. sort of pulled that. People were like, it's not worth it. I really don't want to die to this asshole. I guess from Damascus or whomever they were in Afghanistan.

If that happens, if the Assad regime can neither bribe nor influence nor encourage or inspire support, especially amongst its aloeic core, it's done. It's over. And then then, I guess lastly, we will need to see a mobilization of forces from Latakia, moving from the coast, Fort Holmes, because this is necessary for their survival. We say the Islam regime is an Aleat regime. What does that mean? They are part of a historically, incredibly persecuted minority Muslim sect.

Maybe I actually going to put quotation marks this, but the broader Islamic world doesn't really consider them to be Muslims, their apostates. Even Iranian theologians don't consider them to be real Muslims. the Assad regime and their broader allied community just happened to be in a really advantageous place geographically because it allows Iran to have a direct land route to supply Hezla and Lebanon. And again, their minority status, their threatened status, means that they could really use a big buddy in the region

to sort of help them out security-wise. So with that said, if I think really any of these polluters failed to materialize, the Assad regime is going to struggle to slow the advance from homes southward. It really is not open to them stopping it. Even if all of these various political support do materialize, it's going to be incredibly difficult. We're going to see a lot of really bloody fighting in homes as the Assad regime tries to hold not only the central node to its north,

that allows it access to the coast, to Russian supply, to its aloeite minorities, primary support base, but also keep some of this regime's perspective. For most people's perspectives, keep these jihads from moving south. If Holmes falls, I think the entire security alliance network with the various tribes, minority groups, fighters, soldiers, people on the payroll, etc. And then around Damascus, really start to reconsider who and what they're fighting and dying for. I think they're going to see they're riding on the wall. Which gets us sort of, why do we care about this more broadly?

Syria is the central node and has been the most effective supply route or Iran's most effective proxy in Lebanon as below for decades. When we look at Iran's influence network in the Middle East, the Shia crescent, it goes on Iraq, especially after the call of Saddam Hussein to Syria to Lebanon. You really need Syria. you really need this geography to effectively prop up Hezbollah to be an effective threat to Israel, which from sort of standard Iranian defense doctrine allows you to effectively threaten the United States, most important, most effective prophecy, which is Israel in the region,

sort of to help people just, you know, leave you alone. If Syria falls, all that goes away. And I think over the past year we've seen an absolutely, decimation in as well as leadership structure its arms, its missiles. We've seen a decimation of

plenty of Iranian-backed assets in Syria. I really don't think the timing is lost on anyone for this most recent militant Bush. They've stolen opportunity and they really took it and if they didn't see it, I think we can be really, really confident that the Turks went out of the way

to point it out to them. Like, you know, is probably a great time. So having said that on the flip side, if we do see immobilization of forces, do we see any outside powers? Do we see Turkish airstriks on behalf of Hyattipar al-Shan? Probably not.

I'm like the little too on the nose. And I really don't think Turkey needs to. I think Turkey will also want to see HTS-HCREL shan where this sort of prove its medal before they go too big, too open, sort of throwing the support behind them. Could we see Israeli strokes, though,

against mobilization of Iranian-backed forces and supply? Probably. I would be shocked if we didn't. I think these ways have already done a lot of this work, so I don't know how much there will be left for them to the target. But also having said that, I'm not still convinced that Israel is completely on board with having Assad out of the picture.

Also, chaos in Syria is not good for Israeli security, especially when we consider who is going to be replacing Assad. That's definitely part of the Turkish population as well. Pushing back Iranian influence, sort of limiting and weakening Assad. Good, good. I think a jihadist landscape on your border that makes you, choose between spread of Kurdish expansion or like an ISIS 2.0, not good. Actually, probably everyone in the middle of the street and I was going to look, you know, eyebrows furled really intensely at this. So that's what we're looking for. That's what we care.

Those are the things we're going to look to see that happen. Yeah, who knows if everybody on that front line of homes sort of just says not into it, not going to fight. We're going to have a very different kind of update for the Middle East and the region, Iran's future, Turkey's ambitions for the region, and what Israel waits up to on Monday, Tuesday. So with that, have a great weekend. Take you're watching. Bye.

Hey, everybody, Peter Zion here. It's a home office video today because I need a map. We're going to talk about Syria. Things are in movement there in a way that they haven't been in well over decades since the very beginning of the Civil War. And you need to be able to see where things are. So here we go. Here we have a nice little screenshot from Google Earth.

A couple things to remember about Syria. Number one, it's not a country in the traditional sense. In most places, you've got a water course, a river, and the culture forms around that, and then it expands out until it reaches some sort of semi-stable boundary that it can defend. Syria is the rump left over. So this is all desert. Kind of hard to do anything there. You have the Euphrates here, which is part of the old crescent of civilization.

but you'll notice it's a very thin water course, and you basically have this ribbon of green. Most people live over here in this section where it actually rains, but the capital is way down here. So we're going to look at these one at a time. So first of all, this is where ISIS was headquartered during its brief caliphate period. Basically, whenever you're talking about this zone of desert over here,

it has never been stable. This is always the part. of the region where the quackos go to take over control because they know that the bigger powers, whether it's in Damascus or the Levant or Mesopotamia or Anatolia, this is the marches, if you want to use a Roman term, where groups that can't make it elsewhere come. And every generation or two, they manage to have a moment in the sun. And then someone from Mesopotamia or the Levant or Anatolia comes in and smashes them. And there was a moment when the United States had destroyed Saddam Hussein but had not really

consolidated Iraq, and when Syria was in the early stages of its civil war, and when the Turks were still taking their vacation from history, that this place was a no man's land. And that's why ISIS was able to form. But as soon as one of those three groups re-coelaced, and two of them have, ISIS had no chance. So it is now kind of banished to a series of almost Bedou violent groups in the desert. They don't even control any of the areas where there's actually water. And so very, very small population control. Over here, On the coast, you've got a chunk, well, the coast is split between Lebanon and the south and Syria and the north. But this is an area that gets the most rain, but it's also very mountainous and very forested.

It's really good for dissident groups to set up shop. And so a lot of the minorities that exist in the Levant in general and in Syrian-specific live in this area. And Latakia specifically is a holdout of a group called Allo-Whites. The Christians and the Muslims both consider them a heretical group. It's kind of a hybridized religion. But this is where the Assad family comes from. So basically, you've got a largely Sunni Arab country of Syria being ruled by a very small minority that the Arabs think are apostates. And so you can imagine how that colors a civil relations.

Down in the south, you have Damascus. Now, Damascus is a classic oasis city, and it is surrounded by desert, and there's this huge desert gap between it and most of the rest of Potry. Syria. So the cities that are removed, which always makes controlling this area is difficult. When the colonials came in, especially after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, this was the last chunk of territory than anybody wanted because it doesn't really hang together well. You know, you get your forests on the coast. You've got your mountains in between it and the rest of the country. You've got deserts. You've got a thin river strip that's useless. You got a city that's all by itself down there. And so the French ended up with it. I'm sure there's a joke in there

somewhere, but someone else is going to have to tell it. Anywho, most of the population lives in these three cities. You got Aleppo, Hama, and Hams in the south. And what we have seen in recent days is that militant groups that have been operating out of this area have recently captured Aleppo in the north, as well as Hamas down here. Now, Hamas has always been a a hotbed of Islamic activity, very Sunni city, very Arab city. And Assad Sr., the current leader's dad, killed about 10,000 people by basically putting a ring of artillery at it and firing in for a few days back in the early 1980s. And now we have the rebels on the verge of conquering this city as well. And if they do that, then you only have one spot left. And if Homs falls, then we really are talking

about the end of the current Syrian government. Because these three cities are the three economic hubs. They're the three population hubs. And if Homs falls, then there's no connection between Damascus and the south and Latakia in the northwest. And all of a sudden, Assad is on his own and his two centers of power are separated from one another. And even if he manages to hang on, there is no Syria at that point. So we're looking at potentially the end of the regime, if, if, if, if, if, if, if,

Homs Falls. I'm recording this on Friday. You're probably going to see it on Tuesday. Hopefully it won't have happened by then because everything when it comes to Desert Warfare either takes forever or it happens overnight. It's just the nature of the beast. Either you're doing a long grind-out fight or there's a lightning strike because there's no population center in between. So we'll see. Okay. Next, keep in mind that this is a very, very messy place. This is what we call an ethno-linguistic map that breaks down populations by their ideological, religious, and ethnic breakdown. And as you can see, wow, this is the United Nations. The light yellow, that's your Sunni Arabs.

You've got various groups of minorities that pack those mountain and forested hillsides in the northwest. You've got the Kurds. That's kind of the green gray in the north. And then down in the south, the purple is primarily Druze. People who study the Middle East for their life. everyone once in or surprised by the existence of a new ethnic group in places like Syria and Lebanon. None of them matter until they do. And then they have their own politics, whether it's economic, local, clan, international, tribal.

And they all have their own political spectrum. So, you know, you think we're in a mess here in the United States because we have Republicans and Democrats and what those are are changing. Each one of these groups has like a half a dozen political groups within them. and then you have to play that across. So the complications that arise because of this, especially when foreigners start coming in backing specific groups for specific reasons, it's pretty much chaos. So if Homs does fall,

you shouldn't expect this area to reconstitute itself anytime soon. A couple things to keep in mind. The rebellion, while it is concentrated in the north and the northwest, you know, specifically up in here, actually started down here in the south. So just because they're still Sunni Arab doesn't mean they're all on the same side. This has been a multi-vectored, multi-sided civil war from the beginning. And the group that is most militant and most difficult to reign in is the Druze, who basically live on one little mountain cluster and have been very hard to conquer for anyone.

And so basically what happens is whoever takes over Syria then comes to the Jews and say, hey, you want to be part of the club. We promise we won't come after you. In fact, we might pay you to stay in. Bottom line is that this is an area that's in the process of disintegrating still. And success by the militants who are backed by the Turks in places like Aleppo and Haman, even Hamas, does not mean that it consolidates. It just means it enters into a new sort of chaos where the reigning warlord, Bashar Assad, simply is no longer formally in control.

So think of this as the opening act of the second third. phase of the Syrian Civil War. Oh, and one more quick thought as I'm heading to the airport here. In the Syrian Civil War to this point, the Israelis have not played. They've still done air strikes here and there whenever they think they come across a shipment of, say, like, weapons or IRGC groups, that's from Iran, that they think are going to cause problems for them in Israel proper, but they've really not played a role in any meaningful way in the war.

They've let everyone else do that. It's working from the theory that. an ossified, vulnerable, weak dictatorship in Damascus is actually in their best interest, because the alternative would be absolute chaos where jihadist and terrorist groups could run amok, or one of those jihadist, terrorist groups could actually consolidate the government, and then you have a majority Sunni Arab state that is pathologically hostile to Israel right on its border, and they went like that either. So the civil war at this point is actually serve Israel's broad strategic interests. But if you're looking at this thing all breaking apart anyway,

and it's one of those, you know, you just grab what you can while you can, then doing a handful of well-targeted, well-timed air strikes to break up what's left of Assad's coalition and maybe take him out personally, the math changes. And Israel certainly has the capacity, especially now that Hamas has basically been defanged and Hezbollah has been decapitated. Now would be the time to rewrite the entire strategic picture. So until now, Israel hasn't played in the war. And all of a sudden, it looks like that could well change.

like maybe this week. All right, everybody. Let's talk Turkey. Peter Zion here coming to you from, Whoa, Snowy Colorado, this video given to you in Bruno Vision. So, Turkey, this is a country that I expect to play a very large role in regional affairs, maybe even global affairs,

over the course of the next 50 years. Very strong demographic structure. A Mexican industrial base that's about as sophisticated as Mexico's and getting more sophisticated by the day, and a degree of political unification that is really impressive for developing country, especially one with their history. Doesn't mean it's all Baklava and Turkish delight, of course.

They've got their problems. Their current financial policies are, which has led to a really bad inflation problem. But geopolitically, the biggest challenge is that there's just so many options. Going around in a circle, you've got Greece and Cyprus, which are diametrically opposed on almost everything. You've got South Eastern Europe

that can both have a positive and a negative relationship with the region or with the Turks. You have the Russians in the Ukrainian space where there have been any number of wars. You've got the Caucasus, which make the Balkans look like a picnic. You have Iran, which is a pain in the ass for everybody. You've got Mesopotamia and the Arabs, which are a completely independent culture and ethnic group.

And then you've got the Levant with Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Anyway, no matter how powerful Turkey would ever be, it's never powerful enough to deal with all of these issues, certainly not at the same time. And so the Turks have to choose. And when they have to choose, that means they can get bogged down in local affairs in a way that can really hamper their power. Let me see if I can get Bruno back on the other side of me. Bruno Vision needs some work. All right. So what's going on is that the Turks have found after a fashion at least partial solutions to two of these vectors. The issue is really straightforward. They can't deal with all these things at the same time. So they have to take bites when they can. They have to

try to avoid committing to any one of them because if they do, then they'll be exposed in all their other fronts. And so it's a policy of strategic patience. They basically have to wait for opportune moments, and that has now happened in spades. So first, let's deal with Syria. The Syrian Civil War has been raging for over a decade, and the Turks have been active participants, both directly and through proxies. But in the last year, we've seen the Russians, who backed the Syrian government, be locked down in the Ukraine war, and we've seen the Iranians who back the Syrian government get locked up by U.S. sanctions, and by a change in circumstance with Israel, who opposes Syria, who is basically defank Hezbollah, which is a Iranian proxy that

is Syrian managed, to the point that what used to be one of the most pro-regime powers in the civil war, Hezbollah, has functionally been destroyed, or at least decapitated. And with those three pillars gone, all that's left to Syria is Syria. And Syria, the government, only controls about half the territory. So we've seen militant groups backed by the Turks make lightning offenses in the northern, central, northwestern part of the country taken over the major city of Aleppo and they're moving on the major

city of Hamas and they're even talking about now moving across the mountains to the coast of the Latakia region, which is where the ruling government is actually from. So I don't want to say that this is the end of the Syrian government but wow, they haven't done this badly in the civil war since the very first year.

And the Turks, because everyone else is distracted, have been making huge gains in a very short period of time. Something very similar is going on in Mesopotamia, where the faction that matters the most are the Kurds. Now, the Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world who don't control their own state, and part of the reason for that is that all their territories landlocked. Part of the reason is that there's powers around them, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey, that don't want them to have an independent state. But mostly it's because they hate each other, and they're willing to fight to the last Kurd to decide who's in charge.

So overall, there's seven major factions of the Kurds. The faction that matters the most is a group that calls itself the KUP who operate in northern Iraq. And the KDP partnered with the United States way back during the Saddam regime and used American military assistance in Economicade to build a little semi-modern statelet in northern Iraq. The Turks were furious about this, but they knew if they waited long enough,

the Americans would lose interest and go home. It's just that it took 35 years. Anyway, that has now happened. And so the KDP is under some severe economic pressure. They're the leader that Berzani, who had been in charge for decades, has retired, and his children and their little incestuous business group, haven't failed, that's overstating it.

But they don't have any experience working, when they're not in a land of milk and honey. So the American aid is gone. The reconstruction aid is gone. Military sponsorship by the United States is gone. And most importantly, the oil is no longer flowing. The central government in Baghdad has managed to restrict the amount of money that goes to the Kurds in the north. And so for the first time, this new generation of leadership has to get by with what income the area can generate without oil or gas or aid. And the answer is very little. And so the Turks suddenly had been, instead of the boogeyman on the horizon, the only option. And the faction that arguably politically was most opposed to the Turks being involved suddenly has no choice but to go hat and hand to Ankara and get whatever deal that you can.

And so that's exactly what happening. We have the Turks basically taking over politically economically, strategically, the entire territory of the KDP. These are the two most problematic vectors for the Turks, and it appears that they're doing a very nice job of tying everything up. Now, I don't want to suggest anything silly like, you know, this is the end of these problems. I mean, this is still the Middle East. But by nipping these things in the bud, by tying off all the competition, the Turks have the option now of focusing on much more important issues. the more trouble the European Union has, the better Bulgaria and Romania will view Turkey in those manners kind of like the Kurds of northern Iraq, because here's a partner that's not going

away. And as the Russians have lots of problems in Ukraine, well, there's an opportunity in the Ukraine and the Caucasus to cause a significant amount of problem for the Russians across their entire southwestern periphery. So history's not over, not been a stretched imagination, but the Turks' ability to take the long view over decades really is parents.