The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - What's Up with the Middle East: Syrian Dysfunction || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

Next up in the Middle East series is Syria. They're enjoying a calm period right now, but the new President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is walking on eggshells to avoid the deep-rooted problems that have plagued Syria for ages.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/whats-up-with-the-middle-east-syrian-dysfunction

Hey, Al-Pyter Zion here, coming to you from Zion National Peak, going down the old conservation core path that they blew out of the side of a mountain, because that's how we did think it's in the 30s. Anyway, we're continuing our Middle East week, and today we're going to talk about Syria. We have a new government that controls most of the territory and has incorporated most of the factions, but don't expect this to last.

We're at kind of the calm before the storm. basically the new leader whose name escapes me um yeah that that looks right uh isn't going to last i mean i wish him the best but he basically has inherited all of Syria's core problems without any of its advantages uh Syria is made up of a half a dozen completely different regions different sectarian groups ethnic groups different religions in different geographies and they don't pull together so you have your drus on the mountain down in the south you've got the Arabs and what we would consider the fertile crescent, the three big cities of Ham, Hamah, Alapo, and then the fortress city of Damascus. You've got the Al-Oids and the Christians,

and the mountains on the coastal enclave in the northwest. And then you have the Kurds and the kind of steppeic territory along the Euphrates to the northeast. And then of course, ISIS is running around like mad in the desert in the middle. In the war before now, all of these factions were at one another's throats to some degree. There were limited alliances, at least within specific geographies, but there was really no way for the single government in Damascus to exercise the writ over the entire territory. That doesn't change. What has changed is that two of the powers on the outside, the Russians and the Iranians, are no longer providing, and I say this tongue in cheek a little bit, a stabilizing

influence. You see, the Iranians and the Russians were backing the Damascus government of Bashar al-Assad, to the hilt with equipment, with men, whether it was Russian fighter pilots or Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon that were controlled by Iran. It didn't really matter. All of it was funneling in to help the central government hold the line in the Civil War. Well, that's obviously stopped because the central government fell, and this new guy is now in charge. But it's not like anyone else is stepping up to help him. The big news recently is that the European Union and the States have decided to drop sanctions on the Syrian government to kind of give them a chance, but they need a lot more than that if they're going to go anywhere. Also, we've had,

let's just say, some weird political bedfellows in the last couple of weeks. Donald Trump actually met the new Syrian leaders and shook his hand. This is a guy who was executing civilians under Sharia law less than a year ago, so, you know, apparently we're doing that now. But the United States and the European Union made it very clear that any age, was far in the future and we'd be contingent on a large number of factors that are mostly out of side of the central government's control. So the Civil War is kind of at a pause, but don't expect that to last. That's kind of steep. We might hug the side a little bit more. The other players that would matter. You got two local and then two further abroad. The two that

are local are the Turks and the Israelis. And they're okay having Syria as a more or less failed state right on their doorstep because it means that they can go in there and do whatever they want, bomb whoever they want, go after, whatever insurgents they don't like, which in the case of the Turks, in the case of the Turks,

it's the Kurds, who are America's best friends in the region. And in the case of the Israelis, it's pretty much anyone but the Druze. So if Syria was to consolidate into a functional state, they'd be able to resist these sort of punches, and the Israelis and the Turks are just fine the way things are right now. So having a semi-failed government,

in a semi-anarchic system that spins up its own internal violence for its own reasons. This is fine. Further abroad, the two big players, well, this is called a cluster of players, the Gulf states of the Persian Gulf. Most notably, the three are most heavily involved are Saudi Arabia, which tends to support the Sunnis, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates who are a little bit more free-form with their assistance. The three powers do not see things the same way.

They back different factions at different times for different. reasons, and now that everything's kind of in flux, they're kind of sitting on their hands. Funny thing, when Donald Trump was going on his makeup with terrorists' campaign in the Middle East, he stopped in Saudi Arabia and basically asked for cash to invest into the American economy because the American economy is slipping into a recession that Donald Trump's tariff policies have caused. And the Saudis basically said, yeah, you know, you make up whatever number you want in your PR campaign. We're not going to give you even a third of that, and we're not giving anything to Syria that is not specifically backing our interests until such time that you

come up with a security plan for the place. So everyone's just kind of sitting on their hands and waiting for the other shoe to drop. And in Syria, you probably will not have to wait soon. Just keep in mind that should this new government actually start to consolidate the two countries that are closest with the most military forces available and the most to lose, Turkey and Israel are certain to take actions. So, anarchy, semi-formed anarchy, is probably the best we're going to get. And if it lasts through the summer, I would be very, very, very surprised.