Steve Pieczenik - OPUS 108 RAW Merry Christmas! Our troops are coming Home
Aired: 2018-12-21
Duration: 04:45

[00:00:02]  Hi, this is Dr.
[00:00:03]  Pachenik and it's before Christmas time and guess what?
[00:00:06]  Our President Trump once again gave America a very special Christmas treat.
[00:00:11]  We're pulling out 2,000 troops, American troops, from northern Syria as well as southern Syria.
[00:00:19]  Why?
[00:00:20]  Because he said we don't need to be there.
[00:00:22]  And furthermore, why should we pay the billions of dollars when in fact it's the requirement of the countries that are in that area that should be maintaining the peace?
[00:00:33]  Iran, Syria, Russia, France, and Israel.
[00:00:38]  So what has he really done?
[00:00:40]  Most people find that that's inappropriate.
[00:00:43]  Many of the Senators in the State Department said, oh my God, this is going to be terrible.
[00:00:49]  The answer is no.
[00:00:50]  As many of you know, I went to Syria before the war.
[00:00:54]  I explained to MI and G2 and others involved in national security.
[00:00:59]  I was interrogated by the Syrians and I found out very clearly that the Syrians were not interested in the war.
[00:01:06]  They were not interested in occupation by the Saudis and they were not interested in having homes in Hama.
[00:01:13]  The two cities that were Sunni taking over Damascus.
[00:01:16]  Nevertheless, thanks to the obstinacy of the Obama administration and Hillary, the Secretary of State, and Brennan, the CIA, they went in and tried to overthrow Bashar Assad.
[00:01:29]  I warned everyone, don't do that.
[00:01:32]  I know Bashar Assad.
[00:01:33]  He is a diplomat of the Ophthalmological Society.
[00:01:37]  He is smart.
[00:01:38]  He is tough.
[00:01:39]  His wife is an investment banker.
[00:01:41]  And more importantly, I worked with his father, who was even tougher.
[00:01:45]  So no one is going to depose Bashar Assad.
[00:01:49]  More importantly, Trump understood that number one, the business of foreign policy is business.
[00:01:55]  And what did he do?
[00:01:56]  He said to Erdogan, guess what?
[00:01:59]  I'm going to get out of Syria, but in return for which, you're going to give me $14 billion worth of dollars in order to buy our military equipment so that we can leave and I can get something out of it.
[00:02:13]  In the same way he said to Saudi Arabia, you know what?
[00:02:16]  I'm not going to negate your efforts.
[00:02:18]  And I'm not going to go after Mohammed bin Salman, but in turn, you're going to pay $140 billion for all the equipment that you need from our military.
[00:02:29]  So what happened?
[00:02:30]  In effect, Trump has said the following.
[00:02:34]  You, Erdogan, will be the number one Sunni nation of the Middle East.
[00:02:38]  As I had predicted 20 years ago, Turkey has always been the Sunni nation.
[00:02:44]  Number two, he said Iran will be the predominant Shiite power in the Middle East.
[00:02:49]  Despite John Bolton's protestations, Iran will nevertheless be the predominant Shiite power.
[00:02:56]  Why?
[00:02:57]  Because Turkey has a very close relationship with Iran.
[00:03:02]  And more importantly, Syria will have its own country.
[00:03:07]  And that will be guaranteed by who else?
[00:03:10]  But our very good friend Vladimir Putin.
[00:03:12]  Contrary to all of the hoopla that came in this past three weeks, Vladimir Putin has been a very loyal ally to the United States.
[00:03:23]  And to our interests in the Middle East, in fact, they took over our interests and will guarantee the peace between Turkey, Iran, Syria, Israel, and it will be Russia.
[00:03:34]  And in turn, Russia doesn't have to ship its S-400 intercontinental ballistic missiles and instead we will be providing them, the countries with We're good to
[00:04:06]  go.
[00:04:10]  And we're going to shift our interests and our concerns to the Far East, where SYNC PAC, with a quarter of a million our men, are positioned in such a way that the South China Sea can be still controlled by the United States without getting into conflict with President Xi.
[00:04:28]  So, let me remind you of the following.
[00:04:32]  A friend of mine who I worked with at the State Department and had become Deputy Secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger, once said, the business of foreign policy is business.