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Dec. 15, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
26:22
Pepe Escobar :
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, December 16th, 2024.
Pepe Escobar will be here with us in just a moment on the Syrian tragedy.
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Pepe Escobar, welcome here, my dear friend.
Always a pleasure.
The collapse of Syria.
Wow.
How many hours do we have?
A mix of war fatigue, 13 years of sanctions, destruction of the Syrian economy, bribing of Syrian generals, a lack of motivation, to a great extent,
most of the Syrian Arab army.
Foreign interference in droves, US, NATO stun, Israel, Turkey.
And this plan, which was initially a takeover of Aleppo, when they saw that was too easy and it took less than 48 hours to get three quarters of Aleppo, they kept going.
There was no resistance.
And that's it.
The whole thing collapses.
Since the beginning of the war, almost 14 years ago, in a matter of hours.
What role did the United States play, Pepe?
Well, this was what they wanted since 2011.
Oh, my God.
And bipartisan, of course.
This is an imperial policy.
So this is at the heart of the imperial system.
What I called in the past the Empire of Chaos.
That was the book that I published in 2014.
And there are many chapters in this book dealing with Syria.
With Libya, of course, but also with Syria.
For many reasons, of course.
Because Syria was trying to be sovereign.
Syria is the fulcrum of the Arab world.
The historical cultural importance of Syria throughout centuries.
The connection between Iran and Hezbollah going through Syria.
The fact that they refuse to abide by the rules of neoliberalism and a hardcore capitalism and international financial system and of course the diktats of the empire,
you name it.
Basically, a small nation In a very volatile region, trying to impose a measure of sovereignty.
From the point of view of the empire, this is anathema, as we all know.
Right, right.
Is it fair to say that there was no takeover of the Syrian government?
Rather, there was a destruction of the Syrian state and that, in fact, as a geopolitical entity, Syria no longer exists?
Unfortunately, Judge, Syria, culturally, even geographically, geopolitically, and geoeconomically, the Syria that we knew no longer exists.
This is one of the saddest developments in international relations of the past, not only this millennium, but the past few decades.
The American media, mainly the Washington Post and the New York Times, and to a certain extent the Wall Street Journal, have been claiming that President Putin gave up on Syria, was asleep at the switch,
is overextended, is a poor leader.
Did he know exactly what he was doing when Assad refused to take his advice repeatedly and consistently?
He knew.
Of course they knew.
Putin and the Security Council, they knew.
They saw more or less the writing on the wall since that fateful meeting in Moscow, 28th, 29th of November, where basically Assad was practically begging for Russia to...
Involve itself in another war.
And obviously the Russians, they have more important things to take care of in Ukraine, of course.
So very politely, Putin said, not again.
We already did this in 2015.
There was the liberation of Aleppo, which was essential.
Liberation of Aleppo was seven years ago.
Now they're going to have to reconquer Aleppo.
Eight years ago, I'm sorry.
So it's going to take another eight years to reconquer Aleppo again.
And of course, the Russians were trying to impart to Assad that he needed to do a lot that he hadn't done in terms of talking to the legalized opposition.
These are the words of Lavrov himself.
A little bit of a political opening, re-equipping the army.
And nothing was done.
When he fled to Moscow, I mean, are his wife and children with him?
Are his assets with him?
Where does he live?
Do we know any of this?
When he went in late November, the family went with him.
Absolutely.
It's still not clear if the family stayed throughout all the way to a week ago.
Or if they came back to Syria, then left again.
But Judge, I would like to introduce, I would say, the absolutely key development of the past few hours, which is Assad's explanation of what happened.
This surfaced a few hours ago.
A lot of us are thinking that it may be a fake.
Let me...
Let me put it up on the screen for you.
Let's do two and then number three, and I'll read them aloud.
This is what he allegedly said from Moscow.
My departure from Syria was neither planned, nor did it occur in the final hours of the battles.
As terrorist forces infiltrated Damascus, I moved to Latakia in coordination with our Russian allies to oversee combat operations.
Next one, Chris.
Upon arrival at the airbase that morning, it became clear that our forces had completely withdrawn from all battle lines and that the last army positions had fallen.
As the field situation in the area continued to deteriorate, the Russian military base itself came under intensified attack by drone strikes with no viable means of leaving the base.
Moscow requested that the base's command arrange an immediate evacuation to Russia.
Did he actually issue these statements, Pepe?
No.
He recorded an explanation, which as far as our best information, this was forbidden to be broadcast on Sunday, for obvious reasons, because HTS was already inside Damascus on Sunday.
There's an enormous problem in something that he says, Judge.
Right after he says that my departure was neither planned, he says, I remained in Damascus carrying out my duties until the early hours of Sunday the 8th.
There's a huge problem because as far as practically all of us know, he left on Saturday, not on Sunday.
And so he didn't leave.
From Latakia to Moscow on Sunday.
He left on maximum Saturday night.
Right, so he recorded a speech which was never broadcast.
Never broadcast, yes.
So we have a serious problem with this.
First of all, because this explanation doesn't explain anything.
Apparently, he's going to release a further document later on with details.
This does not explain anything.
And this discrepancy about when did he actually leave Syria to Moscow, it's glaring.
It's extremely, extremely serious.
And of course, it doesn't say anything about the army.
He already knew.
When he was talking to Putin and the Security Council in Moscow in late November, that the army was dissolving.
And he had information from the Iranians, among others, that some of the generals would turn against him or were being bribed.
So he knew that he had no army anymore, essentially.
Apart from the 25th Division, which, by the way, that's very interesting.
The 25th Division now, they are organizing a guerrilla resistance in Latak, in the mountains.
And there are about at least 1,000 soldiers or so.
These are the elite of the elite of Syria.
But Pepe, a resistance to what?
Is there any central government remaining in Syria?
No!
It will be a resistance against the HTS, which now they have a transitional prime minister, let's put it this way, Mohammed al-Bashir, who used to be the former governor of Idlib province,
and he was appointed by Jolani himself.
So we assume that the Tiger Forces, thousands...
Top soldiers or so, the resistance against this new entering government.
They didn't explain in detail.
There was a short video where they're saying that there's going to be a resistance.
So, we can assume that the elite forces of the Syrian Arab army, they're still there, including some of the generals.
Apart from General Suhail Hassan, which is, let's say, the General Patton of Syria, he was offered asylum by Russia.
But all the other major commanders of the Tiger Forces, they are at the mountains.
We wonder if they have weapons to stage their resistance.
Do they have provisions in the mountains?
And if there is going to be some sort of movement in Latakia province, Alawite, of course, always supported Assad and the family, still do, if they're going to organize the background,
the backup for this resistance.
So it's not over completely.
And, of course, in terms of fighting power, these people are really, really hardcore.
So, HTS fighters, badly trained, or trained in a rudimentary way, they should be...
It's gonna be tough.
But the thing is, will this resistance have enough leeway?
And, obviously, they cannot leave those mountains, because then they will be exposed.
And they have no air power on top.
What role does oil play in all this?
Enormous.
I put on my X one of my first columns about Syria as a pipeline-istan war.
Pipeline-istan exactly was this term that I coined over 20 years ago, basically centering on Eurasia.
Central Asia, Azerbaijan, the Caucasus, the BTC.
What is Pipeline-istan?
Pipeline-istan is the universe rolling around the building of pipelines.
And it's a word in itself, in fact.
For instance, this illustration that you're showing.
This would be essentially the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, which was never built.
The green one would be what we used to call TAPI, Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline.
For many years, there was a direct competition between both of these projects, and none of them, in the end, happened.
There's a strong possibility for TAPI, much more than IPI.
Which became IP because the Americans told the Indians, no, you cannot have a pipeline coming from Iran and Pakistan.
The PTC pipeline, for instance, which Brzezinski invented in 1995, he went to Baku to sell this to Aliyev.
This is, I would say, the philosophical stone of a pipeline in this time because it was the first.
Transnational pipeline that the Americans thought would be essential to start cutting off Russia and Iran at the same time.
And of course, Syria.
The big, big story in terms of oil and gas in Syria is a gas pipeline that would be from Qatar to across Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey.
To sell gas to Europe.
And there was a competing idea, which would be an Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline.
And then from Syria and the eastern Mediterranean all the way to Europe.
So these projects were competing since the early 2010s.
And then Assad said no to the idea of a pipeline going to Turkey via Syria.
And that was one of the...
I tend to call it the number one motive for the war.
It's this one, and of course, the U.S. could not tolerate relatively sovereign Syria.
These were the two most important reasons for the war itself.
Now, it's not by accident.
Last week, we had the Turkish Minister of Energy, Bayraktar, saying openly, now everything is...
Perfect.
We can start even thinking about building that pipeline.
He was referring to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, pipeline, gas to Europe.
It's going to be very, very difficult.
Of course, Saudi Arabia will not like the idea of having a pipeline that they do not control.
It's controlled by Qatar.
And in terms of energy superstardom...
Qatar will reap the rewards, not Saudi Arabia.
What is the prospect for relationships between Russia and Turkey over the demise of Syria?
Wow!
This is something, George.
I'll be in Istanbul next month.
This will be my number one question for everybody.
Absolutely.
There is...
When you look at what's being discussed among Russian think tanks and very good analysts in Moscow, there is a feeling that once again we were stabbed in the back by Turkey.
It's not a consensus, but it's a very, very strong view.
And there will be revenge, long-term, Russian style.
Not now, of course, because Turkey needs Russia for...
Investments in energy industry, tourism, the fact that Turkey is the bridge between the West and Russia.
So they need everything from Russia going to the West and vice versa as a transit point.
And of course, the fact that they were sitting at the same table.
And in fact, if there was a stern betrayal, it was...
In the face of Lavrov himself by Hakan Fidan.
And Arakshi, the Iranian minister, was on the table as well.
So they buried the Astana process in that table in Doha the day before the fall of Damascus.
The meeting in Doha was on Saturday.
Damascus fell on Sunday.
So, and Hakan Fidan has been spinning that, oh, we knew that this was going to happen, and then we had to show the Russians and the Iranians there was no way out.
No, this is not what happened.
What happened is that Tehran and Moscow saw in advance that this was going nowhere, and it will be better for them to retract, regroup, Do something later,
which is exactly what they're going to do.
The story is only beginning.
And there is, I would say, a lot of speculation about the fact that Iran and Russia, they built a trap for Turkey and the Americans.
No, it's much more complicated than that.
It's a mix of both.
It's the Americans, Turkey, Israel, NATO were trying to lay a trap for Russia and Iran, but they saw it in advance.
And they prefer to retract because it will be absolutely pointless to try to restart another war in Syria with enormous bloodshed problems for them, Iran and Russia.
And for the Syrian people, and for the Syrian army, which they knew was not ready for another war.
And they knew that the greater Idlibistan rent-a-jihadi mob, they had excellent intel, they had electronic surveillance, they were jamming GPS, you name it.
They had full backing from NATO, essentially, and from Israel.
So it would be a bloodbath, and they preferred not now.
Prime Minister Netanyahu be rejoicing or should he be admonished, be careful what you ask for?
He never does be careful what he asks for, Judge.
He is like, you know, dancing like this is Christmas before Christmas, literally.
Well, they better be careful because there's going to be, I would say, A conjunction of blowbacks, which can be simultaneous or not, because HTS is not a friend of Israel.
HTS was serving Israeli interests, but HTS serves Turkish interests, essentially, which are not exactly the same as Israeli interests.
So for the moment, we are watching more or less the partition of Iraq between Turks, Israelis, and Americans.
But this is the first stage.
Can you imagine when these fluid borders will start to dissolve and then everybody will be fighting everybody else?
Including especially local tribes and clans from North and Northeast Syria to Western Syria.
This is going to be a tribal clannish war and also involving foreign powers.
It's going to be something that we are not even prepared to how.
This thing could go down, like, you know, in a cataclysmic way.
I want to play a tape for you of President Putin earlier today speaking to the Russian defense establishment.
Exactly.
Commenting on the Western urge for dominance.
Chris, cut number 12. Today, the military and political situation in the world remains difficult and unstable.
Bloodshed in the Middle East and high conflict potential remains in a number of other regions of the world.
We see that the current U.S. administration, almost the entire collective West, does not give up trying to maintain its global dominance and continues to impose its so-called rules on the world community.
Which at the same time changes over and over again, distorts facts because it is convenient for them.
But in fact there is only one stable rule, no rules for those who do this, for those who consider themselves at the head of the whole world, those who representatives of the Lord on earth, although they themselves do not believe in the Lord and wage hybrid wars against undesirable states and implement a policy of containment,
including in relation to Russia, the desire to weaken our country to cause a defeat for us.
The United States is send advisors and thereby signaling a future escalation of the conflict.
You'd see the head of the Russian state chastising the West for not believing in God.
In front of his Minister of Defense and the Chief of St. Gerasimov.
It's a fantastic scene.
Well, Thursday.
It's Putin's annual press conference.
So apparently he's going to answer questions from everybody.
I sent a question, Judge.
My question was very simple.
It was what we're discussing now.
Was Syria a strategic defeat for Russia?
I hope Peskov picks up my question and asks Putin.
I'm not so sure because this is, at the moment, it's a bit embarrassing.
The discussion in Russia, including Russian media.
They are trying to be as circumspect about it as humanly possible.
Thank you, Pepe.
Great conversation, my dear friend.
Much more to come apparently on all of this.
If your question is asked on Thursday...
We may just have to get you back here so you can crow about us.
I'll be in Italy.
We'll find you.
Of course.
In the States of Firenze, yes.
Chris, we'll find you.
Thank you, my dear friend.
All the best.
Thank you very much.
Of course.
Coming up at one o 'clock, Kvork Almassian, the Syrian-Armenian...
A refugee who has great insight in all of this.
And at four o 'clock, our friend Chief Dennis Fritz.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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