Well folks the Assad regime in Syria is gone we'll bring you all the details how it happened what it means first I have some major news to share with you today starting in January Jeremy's razors will become an official partner of UFC that's right the DA wire is stepping into the octagon with the world's Premier mixed martial arts organization more details coming up later in the show very cool stuff all righty so a tectonic shift in The Middle East just happened over the weekend on Sunday morning Syrian rebels finally took Damascus they took Bashar Al
Assad's Palace the Assad regime is no more Assad has fled to Moscow where he is being granted some sort of Asylum because the Russians of course backed the Assad regime it was a lightning campaign that basically came from nowhere I want to show you a couple of maps you understand exactly what's going on because when we talk about what's Happening in Syria what we have to understand is that Syria is an artificial creation post World War I by the west by the French by the British and because of that like many other states in the
Middle East it is unworkable and has been unworkable for a very long time you have a large number of groups of various religious belief systems many of them unbelievably radical many of them terrorists all fighting one another and the Assad Regime was a secularist baist regime like Saddam Hussein with a with a wild left-wing view of Economics essentially it was just a fascist dictatorship engaged in mass human rights abuses at scale over the course of the Assad regime some 12 million syrians were displaced many of them ended up in Turkey many of them ended up
in Jordan many of them ended up in Europe the Syrian refugee crisis had massive ramifications for European politics and That was driven by the Civil War that happened in Syria between 2011 and just ended over the weekend 2024 although as we will see I think the Civil War is likely to continue for a long time to come because this is an unworkable Patchwork of various groups in various areas of the country but we'll start with the actual region because in order to understand what's going on in Syria you have to understand that there are a
lot of hands in Syria a lot of different Countries a lot of different interests who had their hands in Syria so let's look at the regional map of the Middle East so you understand where Syria is placed on the map so the regional map of the Middle East you will see that Syria is located alongside the Mediterranean Sea it stretches all the way from Iraq in its East to the Mediterranean Sea in the west the sort of southwestern border of Syria is Israel the very tip of the Southwest part of Syria borders Israel Because Syria
had repeatedly invaded Israel in 1967 Israel won its war against Syria and ended up taking the Golan Heights the Golan Heights have been annexed to Israel as recognized by the United States specifically because they're being used as basically a a vantage point from which to shoot into Israel so that is one border of Syria another border of Syria is Lebanon Syria has had a long-standing Frau relationship with Lebanon Syria helped Destroy Lebanon as a functioning Christian state in the Middle East back in the 1980s Syria effectively just occupied Lebanon and stayed there all the way
from the 1980s through 2005 and helped wreck the system in coordination with hisbah Syria the Assad regime has been working in conjunction with Iran as you can see on the map Syria to its East is bordered by Iraq and beyond that Iran and so Iran had a large influential swath of land basically a Shia Crescent Of of radicalism that stretched all the way from Iran across Northern Iraq through Syria and to Lebanon this giant chain of Islamic Terror pushed by the Shia regime to the south of Syria is Jordan Jordan is a Sunni Arab state
it is governed by the hashimite dynasty it has always been a fragile state because again it is a is a monarchy in a region where its population does not share the same ethnicity as the actual Kingdom and 60 70% of the of the population of Jordan is Sunni Arab Palestinian and quite radicalized so again the entire Middle East is a basket case and if you look to the north of Syria what you see is turkey which has a major hand in what just happened over the weekend turkey of course is run by erdogan who is
a Neo aomin dictator he turned turkey from a functioning democracy and a member of NATO into a sort of radicalized Islamic State not in the same mold as say the Taliban or in the mold of what's about To happen next in Syria but but in his own methodology it is a militant islamist state that supports Hamas and that was supportive of many of the Rebel groups that just drove their way through Syria okay so that is where Syria is placed on the map and because you can see it strs to position to all these places
you can also see there are a lot of interests involved so for example the Russians very very interested in Syria because they wanted to secure ports on The Mediterranean Sea in Syria which they actually did with the acquiescence of the Assad regime so among the foreign players were involved in Syria Iran which was using it as a thoroughfare and propping up the Assad regime Russia which was using it as a base and propping up the Assad regime turkey which did not like the Assad regime and also was attempting to make its own incursions into Syria
because a lot of people in Syria are Kurds and the Turks Don't like the Kurds in the same way they don't like the Armenians and so they've been attempting to kill the Kurds in fact in the middle of all of this chaos in Syria they've been launching air strikes on civilian areas in Kurdish areas of Syria and the border of Israel Israel wants to defend it and make sure that it is not the victim of yet another land incursion from Syria so Syria as you can see geopolitically is just a mess okay that is not
even Getting into the internal politics that's just where it is in the Middle East okay now we get to the situation in Syria today so the map of Syria today shows that it is split into a bunch of different territories so as you can see from this particular map and this one comes courtesy of the New York Times a fine map this map shows a series of separate territories so you have certain opposition groups that are in the south of Syria bordering the Golan Heights and bordering Jordan some of those are radical Sunni islamists some
of those are Drews Drews are a different group who are again Sunni they're Sunni Muslims but they tend to be significantly less radical than many of the other Sunni Muslims in the area meanwhile you have the main Rebel Coalition which is located in the northwest of Syria that main Rebel Coalition is run by a by a person named Al Jolani as we'll get to in a moment alalani is in fact a radical and a and probably an Al-Qaeda and Isis Affiliated terrorist he certainly was in his past he probably still is that is the main
Rebel Coalition he was backed by the Turks because again he is up in the north he was backed by the Turks meanwhile if you look to the Northeast you'll see that the Kurds are in control of a large swath of that area that didn't used to Be under the control of the curs that used to be under the control of Isis Isis was very much located in that area they're prisons holding tens of thousands of Isis prisoners in those Kurdish areas so after the Assad regime fell the United States has been launching air strikes in
these Isis kind of hot beds in the Kurdish area of Syria in order to prevent Isis from reconstituting as said it's a complete mess turkey as you can see from this map Also has taken over huge sads of the north of Syria okay so that is the map of Syria as it currently stands so now I want to go through what has happened over time with these various forces okay so if you look at the governmental forces and their allies for example the governmental forces and their allies in 2014 so the civil war broke out
in 200 I'm go through a brief timeline of the civil war in Syria and How it ended and then we're going to talk about what happened with each of these various groups over the course of the war so in 2011 a civil war broke out in Syria that was one of the spillover effects of the so-called Arab Spring Bashar Assad cracked down on the protesters he labeled them all Sunni Al-Qaeda Affiliates some of them certainly were Sunni Al-Qaeda Affiliates not all of them he began using harsher and harsher tactics the United States The EU the
Arab League soon introduced sanctions targeting senior members of the Assad regime meanwhile on the other side of that Iran and Russia decided that the they were going to continue to support and indeed increase their support for Bashar Assad by September 2011 organized militias on the one side backed by the EU the US the Arab League are at total war with the Assad regime and remember there's a big debate in the United States at the time over what Level of support to Grant to these Rebels because again many of these Rebels were Al-Qaeda Affiliates and not
all these groups are the Same by 2012 Syrian rebels were gaining control of some segments of Syria including the second biggest city in Syria after Damascus called Aleppo you'll remember Aleppo it's talked a lot about in 2012 Assad was fighting back now again Assad was the enemy of many in the west but also of turkey of Saudi of Qatar as well Qatar played sort of a weird role here because Qatar was supporting many of the rebels but at the same time Qatar is sort of a CPA of Iran as usual katar is on all sides
of every issue in August of 2012 Barack Obama then president of the United States famously suggested that if Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on his own people meaning syrians that would be a red line that would result in US backing heavier us backing for the Syrian Rebels hey well then in 2013 Syria did use chemical weapons used chemical weapons in the suburbs of Damascus killing hundreds of people on August 21st 2013 the west back down us France and the UK that red line was totally false and basically Barack Obama ended up handing control of Syria
to the Russians the Russians said they would get rid of the chemical weapons there which obviously didn't happen even this Weekend Israeli Air Force operations were bombing chemical weapons factories in Syria to prevent them from falling into the hands of al-Qaeda Isis radical islamist Sunni islamist terrorists but by the end of 2013 Sunni terrorists are totally in lead of the opposition okay so whatever sort of moderate elements there were to the anti-assad Rebellion were basically gone this was the same year that Abu Bakr Al bagdadi leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq founded Isis which was The
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria right so again look at that map what you will see is that Iraq and Syria are right next door to one another so large swath of Eastern Syria part of western Iraq ends up under the opes of Isis so after Isis began beheading Americans the United States and our allies launched an air campaign to limit isis's gains but Isis seemed to be a fairly durable presence in eastern Syria and also in Western Iraq folks we'll get some more Of this timeline in a moment but first let's talk about something
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out by the way you can order today and schedule any delivery date you want so gifts will arrive directly on time plus if you use my special code Ben at checkout you'll even get free shipping check out any of the stores mentioned to get great holiday gifts today meanwhile 2015 Russia starts becoming more and more active in Syria launching strikes on behalf of the Assad regime Russia and Assad essentially level Aleppo you remember in 2015 terrible pictures from Aleppo the entire city basically leveled it was filled with civilians it wasn't all terrorists 2016 2017 the
combined effect of us assaults on Isis under Donald Trump by by 2017 by Kurdish forces in the north of Syria and by Bashar Assad start to have a severe Impact on Isis so isis's ideological Rivals including one called the NRA front decided to merge into a group called Alam okay which will for henceforth be known as HTS HTS becomes pretty important to the story the leader of HTS is this Al jolani character who as we say was a member of both Al-Qaeda and Isis and then broke off and formed HTS and started fighting Isis okay
so they captured territory that was held by ISIS in the area of idlib idlib is in Sort of the northwest of the country and when we fast forward you'll see that that was the base from which these Rebels then just took over the rest of the country or at least the population centers of the country over the course of the last week so 2017 2018 the us and our allies began actually striking Syrian government weapons Depot after the use of chemical weapons the rebels were pushed back into idlib Russia and Turkey established a bumper zone
between The idlib rebels and the Assad forces but that Rebel territory ended up being controlled by the turkey backed HTS so HTS again is this offshoot this Breakaway group from Isis and from Al-Qaeda and they end up being backed by turkey they are Sunni Muslim terrorists they are radical okay all the pretend that you're hearing in the media today that the people who just took over Syria actually they might be moderate actually they might be no no no okay so again in The welcome to the Middle East where there are no good Solutions there are
only problems okay it's a rough region of the world and there a lot of bad people fighting a lot of other bad people as a general rule okay now after that comes to a bit of a close Assad is then ushered back into the Arab League Assad is seen as somewhat legitimate again and things seems to sort of shift into lowgrade Civil War mode and here is where we can take a look at the maps Again so if you look at the government forces just before all of this happened what you'll see is in 2014
the government forces controlled large swaths of Eastern Syria including places like Aleppo and Hama and holes and Damascus 2017 they controlled very similar area 2019 they controlled even more area and by 2024 they controlled an enormous amount of area like more area than they had controlled back in 2014 including incursions into idlib which was again a heavily Sunni Terror Al-Qaeda offshoot Isis turkey backed group okay so Syria seem to be the Assad regime seem to be in pretty good position at the beginning of 202 4 okay now take a look at the opposition forces okay
so what you can see is the opposition forces here their territory had been shrinking in 2014 they controlled idlib they controlled parts of Aleppo they Controlled part outskirts of Damascus 2017 shrinks 2020 really really shrinks they're basically stuck in ITB and that was the case all the way up till 2024 it's opposition Force have shrunk all the way down to ITB and now take a look at Isis so Isis as we say was in eastern in Syria and then it was basically shrunk over the course of the American Le war against Isis but there was
also Kurdish work with the Americans in that and the Assad regime was also pushing Against Isis so Isis once held up to a third of Syria in 2015 they held large swats of the north these areas are now held by Kurdish forces and the Turks who came into Syria and created their own very very large buffer zone that they now occupy because again they hate the Kurds so 2015 2016 2017 you see Isis shrinking shrinking shrinking by 2018 they basically have like a couple of areas they hold in eastern Syria so Isis shrinks down okay
and then finally you Have Kurdish forces and Turkish forces we look at Kurdish forces here's a map of the Kurdish forces what you see is that the Kurds controlled some border areas near turkey in 2014 that grows in 2017 grows in 2019 by 2024 a large swath of Northeastern Syria is controlled by the Kurds who again are friendlier to the West friendlier to the United States friendlier to Israel right so the Kurds if there are good guys in Syria the Kurds are the closest thing to The good guys in Syria and maybe some of the
Drews in the south of Syria and finally Turkish forces who have had a major outsized impact okay so the Turks controlled a relatively small area actually it's not that small an area of sort Northwestern Syria in 2017 they increased that to large swaps of the Border by 2020 those are controlled by Turkish military operations okay so what exactly happened what exactly changed Okay fast forward to 2024 so the Assad regime basically has no money okay the Assad regime because again it is in it is a baist dictatorship with nothing to trade and has been engaged
in a civil war for 13 years their currency is effectively worthless like right now if you take a look at the actual currency of Syria versus the American dollar right now $1 goes for 16,000 Syrian pounds or 16,000 Syrian Le l as as the case may be and It's been dropping fast because again nothing gets produced over there so massive inflation rates the Assad regime is paying all of its troops with this and so Assad is basically being propped up by outside forces and remember again back to that map remember the map of the Middle
East so remember who has an interest in Assad being upheld not Turkey right turkey doesn't like Assad very much turkey would prefer that its own Ambitions extend into Syria Israel is sort of indifferent about Assad because Israel sees that Assad is still upholding mostly kind of the buffer area in the Golan Heights which extends to Mount Hermon which is which again goes into Syria it's kind of the high point regionally in terms of geography you can see from the top of Mount Hermon down into Damascus so Israel is sort of divided on Assad on the
one hand they don't like Assad because he is used as a Tool and a proxy by Iran on the other hand they understand that if Assad goes a Sunni Muslim dictatorship is likely to follow like a terrorist dictatorship so Israel is kind of you know on both they don't know what to do about about Syria particularly it's their one quiet front in the latest War Iran meanwhile is using Assad as their cutout so they're smuggling weapons via kah who is who's a force on behalf of Assad in Syria and they're doing that all the way
Into Lebanon so that is that that's Iran and Russia has an interest in upholding Assad because Assad has a deal with them where Russia gives them Weaponry Russia gives them forces gives them all sorts of resources and in return they have access to some Coastal bases in Syria so what happened in 2023 you'll remember at the very end of 2023 something kind of big happened October 7th Iran decided to activate all of its Terror groups at Once so it activated Hamas Yakir launches October 7th 1,00 Jews are killed in Israel 250 are are pulled into
Gaza and are still being held in the Terr tunnels and then kah in Israel's North Lebanon right they start firing thousands of missiles over the course of a year into Northern Israel 8 to 10,000 rockets and missiles into Northern Israel clearing out Israel's North so over the course of the subsequent year Israel proceeds to take out Yak Sinar And virtually all of hamas's military resources beginning in October of this year Israel totally devastates kah totally devastates it launched the Beeper attacks followed by the radio attacks followed by a fullscale air campaign against all's Weaponry followed
by a ground invasion of Lebanon in order to push hisbah out of Southern Lebanon they kill the leadership ofah including Hassan nzala who is the chief leader not only a charismatic figure but a leader In operations and they are also doing operations in Syria to prevent Syria from being used as a thoroughfare for hisbah resources okay so Iran is getting absolutely shellacked absolutely shellacked meanwhile Russia is being absolutely shellacked Russia is bogged down in this war that it declared in Ukraine in February 2022 they're losing hundreds of thousands of people over there there Enormous amounts
of material they simply don't have the money or the capacity to uphold the Assad regime so as a byproduct of both the the Ukraine war so Russia can't come to Assad's aid but mostly As a result of Israel chopping off the arms of the Iranian octopus in places like Syria in places like Lebanon in places like hamasyan because of that Iran cannot uphold the Assad regime and so after Israel's October offensive against which Again was a governing party in Lebanon and has now been pretty much devastated and was also a force on behalf of Assad
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at the beginning of 2024 that's not what happened here what happened here is that Assad was basically an eggshell skull they tapped him he fell there was no one to come to his support Russia couldn't come with its historic levels of support because they were weakened in Ukraine Iran has been totally hamstrung Iran's air defenses are gone Iran is totally Vulnerable its own regime is tottering and so the rebels took advantage and they toppled the regime that's effectively the story here so any story about how it's like the Charisma of the HTS leaders Abu Muhammad
Al jalani that's not true that's not what happened here what happened here is that turkey backing HTS backing many of these Sunni Muslim terrorist groups hating the Assad regime and wishing to expand its own sphere of influence into Syria backed HTS in taking advantage of the chaos caused by Iran's withdrawal and Russia's withdrawal and HTS then took over large swaths of Syria okay so who are sort of the big Winners and who are sort of the big losers here well it depends on what emerges the biggest losers pretty obviously Russia is a big loser Russia
loses a lot of impact because again Russia had backed the Assad regime now Russia is attempting to broker something with regards to the new regime because They always do but Russia is a big loser The Biggest Loser by far is Iran okay Iran has lost its entire Crescent of Islamic Shia Terror like it's gone it just doesn't exist anymore Kamas Gone hisbah Gone Assad gone right these are all massive blows to the Iranian regime all caused by Iran Iran started it is one of the ultimate F around and find out in human history Iran launches
a seven front war on Israel and they end with three of their proxies off the map Completely kah and Assad gone okay that's what happens when you f around with a first world country if you f around with the United States on September 11th we destroy your forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq regardless of what comes after that's what happens and if Iran decides they're going to launch a multi Terror war against Israel Israel will hit back and hit back hard and the Iranian regime is in serious trouble right now they've failed on Every possible
front and with the Trump Administration coming in and presumably increasing sanctions on the Iranian regime the Iranian regime is going to have one of two choices either they are going to have to cut some sort of deal with the West in which they abandon their nuclear efforts and presumably move towards some form of non- tyranny or they're going to be forced to collapse because I can promise you that the state of Israel is not going to sit Around waiting to see what Iran does next with its nuclear weapons not after Israel already took out their
air defenses so who's the big winner in Syria the big winner in Syria is turkey mostly turkey took an enormous amount of territory HTS obviously a very big winner in all of this the Kurds it's unclear what happened the Kurds had basically cleared an enormous amount of territory in again Northeastern Syria well now they're going to be at War Directly with the Turks the Turks are going to be pouring forces into that region and resources into that region so the Kurds could get really hurt as for the Israelis the Israelis again they can be happy
that the Iranian regime has lost power to use Syria as its tool but the people replacing that regime are Al-Qaeda jihadists and Isis jihadists in fact here is some video of some of the Rebel Fighters talking about What comes next they're saying that they're thanking Allah by his exalted power the one who has helped us neither by our strength here is the home of Islam here is the lant here is Omar Abdul here is the land of Islam here is Damascus here is the land of Muslims from here oh Jerusalem from here oh Jerusalem they
will Come be patient oh people of Gaza be patient okay so the again the people who just took over in Syria are allies of Hamas the Iranians had created an alliance with Hamas but many of the people who just invaded Damascus are big fans of Hamas they also have talked about toppling the Saudi regime because again they're Al-Qaeda Affiliates they're Isis Affiliates now the leader of this particular terrorist group is a person As I've mentioned whose name is Alani and and again many things can be true at once Assad was an absolute butcher Assad is
responsible for the death of probably half a million Syrian syrians on on the other side including huge scores of civilians he actually set up in one of his jails a an actual crematorium apparently I mean like truly a brutal dictator truly a brutal person also not a lot of good Solutions as it turns out in the Middle East because for example The Assad regime much friendlier to Christians in Syria than presumably this new Sunni Islamic terror group will be now it's possible that the DRS will will be sort of a repository of pro-christian feeling in
the south of syri about 10% of the population of is Christian it's possible the Kurds the Kurds are kind of widely known as the most pro-christian faction in Syria but they're being attacked by the Turks so it's a complete Mass over there so who exactly is Al Jalani so his name is Abu Muhammad Al jalani and he apparently boarded a bus in Damascus in March 2003 heading across the desert to Baghdad with fellow volunteers eager to repel the looming American invasion of Iraq this according to the Wall Street Journal when he returned home in 2011
after a 5-year stint in an American run prison camp in Iraq it was as an emissary of Isis founder Abu Bakr Al bagdadi he arrived in Syria with bags full of cash and a Mission to take the extremist movement Global last week 42-year-old jalani triumphantly entered Aleppo Syria's second largest city as the leading commander of the Turkish backed Rebel Force dominated by his group HTS byat tarir alsam unexpected in Swift his victory marks one of the most dramatic moments in the Middle East that had no shortage of drama so he is currently doing things to
try and appear moderate he has issued Edicts to his men ordering the protection of Christians and shits demanding that his men not exact retribution he said in the future syrial we believe diversity is our strength not a weakness he's obviously playing for American Aid and for the EU audience guys don't give money to people who are members of al-Qaeda and Isis it's a bad idea the Taliban said the exact same things when they took over in Afghanistan and now it's back to being a Taliban hellhole so a Christian woman in Aleppo said quot the day
they took over Aleppo before seeing them I felt like the Titanic was sinking but then she said everyone was shocked because they were treating us nicely they look scary they look exactly the way you imagine when someone says a terrorist long beards and crazy hair but they're nice we'll find out for how long they are nice obviously so this guy was born Ahmed Hussein alar He adopted the Namer jalani a reference to his family's roots in the Golan Heights he says that that his family was from the Golan Heights and then in ' 67 when
Syria attacked Israel and they lost the Golan Heights then his family lost what land they had in the Golan Heights one of the big questions for Israel is going to be whether jalani tries to again direct these Rebel Fighters against Israel if that happens Israel will unleash its military power on those Rebel Fighters one of the things that's been happening here is that the Gap that's been left by the Iranian power in the region is now being filled by the Turkish power in the region and again turkey is allied with Hamas turkey again it's unbelievable
they're a NATO member and there should be significant ramifications for turkey's abject siding with terrorists across the region turkey is an nefarious power in the region now and they are Very heavily militarized they have an excellent military in any case alalani broke with Isis in 2012 and then he broke with al-Qaeda in 2016 and this guy's got a hell of a CV he's got a hell of a resume and then he's fought both organizations and according to the Wall Street Journal he steered the HTS away from the transnational jihadist movement that is more interested in
Waging War on America and the west and sees National borders in the Muslim world as an Artificial construct imposed by Infidel colonialists Aon zelen a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for near East policy so we'll see you know not a great credential he says him and his groups break with Islamic State and Al-Qaeda is very genuine they haven't been part of these entities longer than they were with them it's now been essentially eight and a half years they've Forsworn Global Jihad instead they're focusing in squarely on Syria but even according to the Wall Street
Journal they are a blend of islamism and nationalism that is closer to the Afghanistan's Taliban and Palestinian Hamas which uh sounds kind of bad and so as it turns out there are no good answers in the Middle East so what exactly is going to come next here well if the Biden Administration is idiotic then they certainly will not see what they are talking about so the Biden Administration apparently is now Discussing the possibility of taking HTS off the terror list there's a $10 million Bounty by the way on Al jalan's head from the US state
department because he is a terrorist and it turns out releasing terrorists from GMO he was actually in gitmo turns out it's a bad strategy as a general rule a senior Administration official said quote it's kind of a broad Kaleidoscope of groups I think we have to be smart and also very Mindful and pragmatic about the Realities on the ground he said HTS is saying the right things so far they're doing the right thing they're not the only group there's a series of opposition groups that came that reach Damascus from the south and they are very
different some of those are Drews for example so as always it is a giant cluster F again welcome to the Middle East where there are no good answers and it's worth pointing out that again the fate of of a lot of people in Syria Remains very much in doubt and there are a bunch of different groups that are now competing for leadership in Syria they range from for example the Syrian interim government and Syrian National Army who are essentially Turkish interests in Syria controlled by the Turkish Armed Forces to the Syrian salvation government in kayat
tarir al-sham who are the radical islamist who just took control of Damascus the Syrian free army which is an American backed Force that originally operated on the Syrian Jordanian border they don't hold a ton of territory at this point there's also the Kurds right that' be the rava SDF that's the autonomous administration of North and East Syria and they are by far the most pro-western group in the region and finally the southern operations room who again is a a coalition of Sunni and Drew groups in South Syria they too are sort of pro-western so it's
a giant mess in a Moment we'll get into what comes next first let's talk about something that affects all of us responsible hardworking American taxes that October 15th deadline has passed are you prepared for what comes next do you owe back taxes are your tax returns still unfiled missed that deadline to file for an extension well now that October 15th is behind us the IRS may be ramping up enforcement let me tell you they don't play around you could face wage Garnishments Frozen bank accounts even property seizures if you haven't taken action yet there's good
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UFC most dominant mixed martial arts organization on planet Earth starting in January Jeremy razors becomes an official partner of UFC that means Jeremy's razors will be showcased in the Octagon on Dana White's Contender series and throughout the ultimate fighter right where it belongs here's what makes this particularly meaningful Dana White who the left his tried and failed to cancel countless times was among Jeremy's razer's first customers well now we're standing with UFC to celebrate courage strength and Unapologetic excellence in kickassery this partnership isn't just a business Deal it's the next big step in our fight
I promise you it's only the beginning celebrate with us today head on over to Jeremy razor.com right now and get your Jeremy risers all righty so what comes next over here well again the the part the the the people in the Middle East who have absolutely demonstrated their strength over the course of last year the Israeli government obviously the IDF and the Turks right now again when it comes to Israel Israel only wants to Guard its border and so they've extended that border outward to the other side of the Hermon Mountain which was sort of
the Syrian side of the Border Zone and they're doing that in order to prevent Syrian rebels these radical Sunni islamist groups who are who are allied with Kamas from moving up on the Israeli border meanwhile the Turks are encroaching heavily into the territory of Syria so th those are sort of the big Developments on its part Benjamin anahu put out a statement suggesting correctly that it was Israel that kicked out one leg of the support for for the Assad regime by taking out the Iranian proxies throughout the region this is a historic day for the
Middle East the collapse of the Assad regime the tyranny in Damascus offers great opportunity but also is fraught with significant dangers this collapse is a direct result of our forceful Action against balah and Iran Assad's main supporters it set off a chain reaction of all the those who want to free themselves from this tyranny and its suppression but it also means we have to take action against possible threats one of them is the collapse of the separation of forces agreement from 1974 between Israel and Syria this agreement held uh for 50 years last night it
collapsed the Syrian Army abandoned its positions we gave the Israeli Army the order to take over this positions to ensure that no hostile Force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel this is a temporary defensive position until a suitable Arrangement is found equally we send a hand of peace to all those beyond our border in Syria to the Jews to uh the Kurds to the Christians and to the Muslims who want to live in peace with Israel we're going to follow events very carefully if we can establish uh Neighborly relations and a peaceful
relations with the new forces emerging in Syria that's our desire but if we do not we will do whatever it takes to defend the state of Israel and the border of Israel now again it is worth noting this's a very small piece of territory that Israel is currently moving into in order to defend its own border as opposed to say the Turkish territory which constitutes an 8,835 Square kmet buffer zone in the north of Syria again the Turks are the ones who are really benefiting from all of this also because they're attempting to provide a
strategic Islamic counterweight to the Saudis the Saudis are very nervous about all of this because you know whenever you have a a radical Sunni Muslim group that rises in the Middle East the threat is to try and radicalize the Saudi population so the Saudis have said that they don't want Outside interference here they put out a statement saying the kingdom affirms its support for the brotherly Syrian people and their choice but also appealed for concerted efforts to preserve the unity of Syria and the cohesion of its people so as to prevent it from falling into
chaos and division Jordan for its part again is threatened because Jordan has a very long border with Syria and they Clos their Border Crossing into Syria as well a Syrian Army sour told reers armed Groups have been firing at Syria's n Border Crossing into Jordan so Jordan is worried about this as well so what is likely to happen next the answer as usual in the Middle East is probable chaos so Simon CAG monori who's a historian of the region writing at the Free Press he says one way to see events is with a longer time
frame the continuing disorder emerging from the fall of the Ottoman Empire that ruled the Arab world from its conquest by Sultan Sim the great in 1517 and that ended in 1918 with the division of the region between the victors France and Britain Russia which had been promised to share of the Ottoman near East had fallen under Bolshevik rule they left Britain and France under the ambitious liberal Imperial Pioneers David Lloyd George and George Clem cow who called their new provinces mandates as confirmed by the League of Nations Britain was given a new entity called Iraq
and another named Palestine today that would be Israel the Palestinian Authority territories and the kingdom of Jordan France received greater Syria that would be Syria and Lebanon initially Paris planned to divide its mandate into smaller States for the Marite Christians that would become Lebanon the Drews the alawites and the sunnis in Damascus the Kurds were promised their own state that was prevented by turkey in 1922-23 in the end the French decided against creating several smaller States and instead created Lebanon to be ruled by their marinite Christian allies in partnership with sunnis and Drews and also
Syria and both these states are completely unworkable in fact the only states that were created by the British and French mandates that still exist as actual states are Israel and the kingdom of Jordan and the kingdom of Jordan is basically being held up by allies at This point it turns out that all of the various ethnic groups all of the various rivalry between them have torn apart virtually every other state that was artificial lines drawn in the Sand by the British and the French in the aftermath of World War I as mon Fury says the
failure of all these states Iraq Lebanon Syria are just part of a wider instability created by the failure of many of the post-imperial postcolonial states formed by the great Powers after 1945 in the Middle East and Africa in the 1960s many of the latter will either degrade into chaotic warlands and insurgencies ruled not by States but by militias become protectorates of Colonial powers like China or survived as federalized States made up of autonomous entities it's it's already true in Africa it might be true for the Middle East he says Syria May emerge as a single
state tolerant of its many Ethnic minorities but that is very unlikely or it may be further federalized into autonomous entities ruled by the Kurds the alawites and a central sector under Sunni rule hopefully not of repressive islamists each will be protected by or dominated by outside Powers this may just be the start of another round of Civil War Turkey already has its Army and its Turkish occupied Zone plus its own Syrian proxy militia in Syria And of course it's friendly with HTS Israel May develop its own relationship with the Kurds and the Drew Russia will
probably depart but it will probably try and retain its Enclave along the Mediterranean Coast Al Jelani will either try to remake himself as a Syrian leader for all sects or stay true to the Die Hard islamism of his career with disastrous results for all syrians as far as the United States and this is very far away from the United States the United States's interests are generally going to be relegated to very small interests like for example preventing the rise of Isis again which would mean as the United States has been doing bombing Isis bases or
preventing jail breaks from Isis jails in in the Kurdish areas of of Syria the United States does not have large scale interests at stake in Syria it means arming up Allies to make sure that there's not another full scale invasion Of Israel for example via the Golan Heights the Trump Administration is already going to do that the Trump Administration does not want to get involved and I think that President Trump is totally right not to want to get heavily involved there because it's an absolute as we say cluster F president Trump put out a statement
saying Assad is gone he has fled his country his protector Russia Russia Russia led by Vladimir Putin was not Interested in protecting him any longer there was no reason for Russia to be there in the first place they lost all interest in Syria because of Ukraine where close to 600,000 Russian soldiers lay wounded or dead in a war that should never have started and could go on forever Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now one because of Ukraine and a bad economy the other because of Israel and its fighting success likewise ziny
and Ukraine would Like to make a deal and stop the madness they have ridiculously lost 400,000 soldiers and many more civilians there should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin too many lives are being so needlessly wasted too many families destroyed if it keeps going it can turn into something much bigger and far worse I know Vladimir well this is time to act China can help the world is waiting as far as Trump's suggestion via truth social that the United States does Not have large scale interests in getting involved with Syria that is true
the United States has small scale interests that I think are going to be extremely limited and should be extremely limited to for example making sure that there is an incursion over Israel's Borders or that Jordan doesn't fall which would be quite bad or that the Kurds don't get overwhelmed by the Turks and a lot of the pressure on Turkey which I think is going to be the Main job of the Trump Administration in the region because turkey is getting incredibly aggressive a lot of that is going to be done diplomatically and economically so when when
President Trump says stay out I think he means it and I think he should mean it he put out a second statement by the way along these lines this is a little bit earlier saying quote opposition fighters in Syria in an unprecedented move have totally taken over numerous cities and a Highly coordinated offensive and are now on the outskirts of Damascus obviously before Russia because they're so tied up in Ukraine with the loss of of their 600,000 soldiers seems incapable of stopping this literal March through Syria a country they've protected for years this is where
former president Obama refused to honor his commitment of protecting the Red Line in the Sand and all hell broke out with Russia stepping in now they are like possibly Assad Himself being forced out it may actually be the best thing that can happen to them there was never much of a benefit in Syria for Russia other than to make Obama look really stupid in any event Syria is a mess but is not our friend the United States should have nothing to do with it this is not our fight let it play out do not get
involved and again generally speaking that is true and you can see the wi press already encouraging like heavy involvement over there with Whom to whom what the hell are you talking about like seriously what what what level of involvement are you like Washington Post has a piece up today titled why the US needs to help build a new Syria um no I mean no the answer is no we should identify who our closest allies are in the region say the Kurds and the Drews we should provide them with arms to defend themselves we should allow
Israel the ability to defend its own border we should prevent the Turks From killing the Kurds by arming the Kurds not by getting directly involved in any of this stuff and by putting economic pressure on turkey and that's kind of it that's kind of it and we should instead allow the Iranian regime to live with the consequences of its own terrible decisions The Washington Post says quote it might be tempting to assume anything is better than Mr Assad that would be a mistake HTS is an Al-Qaeda offshoot that Once had links to Isis Mr galani
has been trying to protect project a more moderate image and convince syrians all ethnic groups would be welcome in a post Assad Syria in the ITB region of Northwestern Syria HTS has provided protections for women and religious minorities but has also been accused of Human Rights abuses and authoritarian Rule and the suggestion by The Washington Post is quote the Middle East badly needs a success story a Pluralistic Democratic Arab country committed to upholding human rights yeah good luck good luck with that the answer is no we should not be have no the Democracy Creation in
Syria is not on the Slate for the Trump Administration nor should it be that is not a reality it never was a reality it's stupid it was stupid in Iraq it's stupid here it's really dumb there are places in the Middle East where theoretically democracy could flourish actually one of Those ironically is Iran where the Persian population and the population of Iran more generally is much more Western friendly and much more friendly to the ideas of democracy that ain't true in Syria that ain't true let the Kurds protect the Kurds let the Drews protect the
Drews let the Jews protect the Jews and let the Turks stay out of all of it right I mean that should basically be via soft mechanisms of power and simply allowing countries to do what they need To do the American role here but again the addiction to getting involved in like every hand in every pie the the left addictions like they get involved and they don't stay involved long enough to actually see the thing through it's always the worst available sort of answer to all of these problems Joe Biden stumbled out to a Podium and
barely was able to read off a teleprompter here is his statement on the Assad regime Falling what happened in the Middle East after 13 years of civil war in Syria more than half a century brutal authoritarian rule by Basher Assad and his father before him Rebel forces are forced Assad to resign his office and flee the country we're not sure where he is but there word that he's in Moscow at long last the Assad regime has fallen hilariously this schmuck then got up and suggested that that was because of his action in Ukraine and allowing
Israel to fight its terrorist enemies he's been slow walking Aid in both places in both places while attempting to negotiate with the Iranians like the utter G of Joe Biden and the Obama foreign policy team remember it was in mid 2023 like just before October 7th that Jake Sullivan the National Security adviser declared that Joe Biden had created a peaceful Middle East yeah it's been it's been great Bob well done everybody so here is the bottom line as Always it's a mixed bag Assad one of the most evil dictators in modern times not only deserves
to go he deserves to die I mean for for the amount of human suffering andarn has created one of the worst people on earth Bashar Assad also the people replacing him suck and are probably Sunni islamist terrorists affiliates with Al-Qaeda and Isis and anybody who's counseling on them to become moderate Democratic liberals or something you're high on your own Supply Stop it and so it is likely that Civil War will continue it is likely that the Turks will begin flexing their muscle erdogan is proving himself to be a formidably makavelian player in the Middle East
but the sort of big takeaway for next steps is actually outside of Syria it's actually in Iran the big untold story here has very little to do with Syria it has to do with as Iranian power wains as Iran is driven out of Lebanon as they are driven out of Syria As they are driven out of Yemen which they will be as they are driven out of wide swaths of Iraq as this happens the Iranian regime is in serious trouble and they're either going to have to figure out a way to move forward that does
not involve the development of nuclear weapons or they're going to find themselves on their last legs as well and as far as Russia Russia was proved weak here Russia had a heavy stake in Syria Russia was invested in Syria Russia was providing Weaponry to Syria one further note the forward deployment of Israeli forces in Syria to destroy for example chemical weapons Depot that's a good thing you don't want chemical weapons falling into the hands of al-Qaeda and Isis Affiliates back in 2007 when George W Bush was president the Israeli military blew up a nuclear facility
created by the North Koreans in Damascus or created by Damascus in Syria would it have been better if there were Nuclear weapons there right now nuclear proliferation in this area of the world tends to be a really really bad thing so that is the story from Syria we'll see how it plays out don't let wishes be the father of stupidity in the Middle East should be sort of the moral of the story strong defense strong allies by the way as far as the Abraham Accords which is one of the chief foreign policy priorities for the
Trump Administration this very much favors the Abraham Accords because the Saudis are very much afraid of this new Sunni islamist terrorist regime that is likely arising in Syria and so they're very likely to side with the Israelis with jordanians with the Egyptians in trying to prevent the rise of a rival Terror backing power in the Middle East in just one second we get to president Trump who traveled over to France to take part in the reopening of notredam which was reconstructed After a giant fire if you're not a member become member use coach Shapiro check
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