You can literally see, you know, scenes reminiscent of the fall of Baghdad, the destruction of Assad statues, both Bashar al Assad and his own father, who ruled the country for some 50 odd years. The most shocking scenes, really, are some of these that have been coming [00:00:15] out of the secret and historic prison that was in Damascus that housed a lot of these political prisoners. Well, Assad's regime has finally fallen. Rebels have officially toppled Bashar al Assad's regime in Syria. [00:00:31] And this follows a 13 year civil war and six decades of the same family carrying out autocratic rule in the country. Now Assad's father seized power back in the 1960s, and later Assad himself seized power in the country. [00:00:47] Assad and his family, though, have been given asylum in Russia. Assad is no longer in Syria. Assad sudden overthrow at the hands of a revolt partly backed by Turkey and with roots in jihadist Sunni Islam, limits Iran's ability to spread weapons to its allies and could cost Russia [00:01:07] its Mediterranean naval base. Now look, the most important thing to understand about the conflict in Syria, the civil war in Syria is that it was exploited by a bunch of proxies, a bunch of different other state actors, including Israel, the United States, [00:01:23] Turkey, Russia. So it's a much more complex and complicated issue. And for anyone who's celebrating the fall of Assad, understand that we don't really know what's going to happen next. There's a presumptive leader who's been announced, but there are [00:01:38] warring factions among the rebels. But the United States and Israel absolutely did back the rebels. We're going to get to some more details on that in just a second. But first, more on the presumptive new leader of Syria. His name is Abu Mohammad Al-julani, who said, A new history, my brothers, [00:01:57] is being written in the entire region after this great victory, he said, adding that with hard work, Syria would be a beacon for the Islamic nation. Now some more information about him. He has described himself in the past as a committed jihadist [00:02:14] that the United States has actually considered a wanted terrorist. He was imprisoned by the United States back in 2000, or U.S. Forces, I should say, back in 2003 and 2004. After getting released, he fought alongside Al Qaeda in 2004. [00:02:31] Now, despite all of this, Biden put out the following statement. Take a look. At long last, the Assad regime has fallen. This regime brutalized and tortured and killed literally hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrians. [00:02:46] The fall of the regime is a fundamental act of justice. It's a moment of historic opportunity for the long suffering people of Syria to build a better future for their proud country. It's also a moment of risk and uncertainty as we all turn to the question [00:03:02] of what comes next. The United States will work with our partners and the stakeholders in Syria to help them seize an opportunity to manage the risks. You know, for years, the main backers of Assad [00:03:17] have been Iran, Hezbollah and Russia. But over the last week, their support collapsed, all three of them, because all three of them are far weaker today than they were when I took office. Now, maybe I'm being too cynical, but hearing the president of the United States [00:03:34] refer to what's happening in Syria as a historic opportunity makes me nervous. Now, the other thing to keep in mind is, yes, this was very much a proxy war with Russia, Iran and Hezbollah backing the Assad regime. But as you guys can imagine, you know, Russia has been preoccupied [00:03:51] with its war in Ukraine. Hezbollah has been preoccupied fighting Israel as a result of what's happening to Palestinians in Gaza and in regard to the other countries involved, you have Israel, Turkey, the United States, and they very much backed the rebels, in fact. [00:04:07] Here is John Bolton discussing Israel's interests. Take a look. If Assad and his Alawite regime are replaced by Sunni Islamists, Iran is in deep trouble and its ability to support whatever is left of Hezbollah, whatever the Israelis haven't destroyed. [00:04:24] And this whole opportunity for the rebels in Syria, we owe to Israel, and we owe to Israel's destruction. Ongoing destruction of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and its ongoing dismemberment of Hezbollah in Lebanon. [00:04:40] The Middle East is definitely changing to Iran's detriment. But let's also be clear. These Syrian rebels, by and large, are Islamists themselves. Many are Al-Qaeda, ISIS fighters and a terrorist regime in Damascus is in lieu of the Assad [00:05:00] regime is like potentially jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. The U.S. Shouldn't get involved militarily, but it is dead wrong to say we don't have real interest in the outcome of this fight. Again, a statement like that, especially coming from John Bolton, is concerning. [00:05:18] So I'm going to let you jump in. There's a lot to get to, including Israel taking over some of the land in Syria now. - But I'm curious what you think. - Yeah. First thing I thought when I saw it was, what in the world just happened? Wait a minute. This thing's been going on for, what, almost a dozen years now or more? [00:05:34] And all of a sudden, in, like, a week, they just walk into Damascus and take it. I mean, it was impenetrable before, and. Russia was preoccupied. Yeah. No, no. No question. And that gets into what what happened, that and the conclusions [00:05:50] that we could draw in a second. But that was remarkable. And that begins to tell you some of these mysteries in a second. The very fact of how quickly it happened and how easily it happened, and then a giant question mark about what comes next. [00:06:06] But first, let me start to answer what I think are some of the things that we at least can know, right? Number one, the US and the West are definitely in favor of what happened. And here's how you can tell. Among other ways of doing it, the most, easy one is [00:06:23] if they did not like what happened, they would have taken the current leader of this, these rebel forces that took control, and they would have said, yeah, he's al Qaeda. He was former al Qaeda, and he's always going to stay al Qaeda, al Qaeda, ISIS, terrorist terrorists, al Qaeda, ISIS terrorists. [00:06:41] And they would have been like, oh, this is the worst thing that's ever happened. Should we take action? Should we take action? We're moving our aircraft carriers, etc.. Instead they're like, oh, he was former al Qaeda. Don't worry about that. He's fine now. The butcher's gone. Oh. Everything's great. Everything's okay. So we were in favor of it, no question. [00:06:57] You could tell not only from the government reaction, but if we're being honest, the mainstream media reaction, because mainstream media usually takes their cues from the government. And if the government's not curing them, that we're worried they. Right. We're not worried. Okay, yay, new Syria. [00:07:13] And you could tell in all the articles that I read where they're like, oh, the people came out and celebrated in the streets. No. Hold on. Syria is deeply divided along ethnic and tribal lines. So Assad's side lost here. They are not at all excited. Those particular tribes, sects, ethnicities, the Alawites, the Shia, etc. [00:07:34] In Syria. So when I see mainstream media telling me everyone in Syria is excited, I think, no, no, no, you got that totally wrong. If I'm not mistaken, about 10% of the population in Syria is also Christian. And so if you have, you know, a takeover by, you know, extremists or individuals [00:07:54] who describe themselves as jihadists. That's going to be a problem for the Christian population there. It certainly could be so. Or if Israel takes over portions, they haven't been great Christians either. So. So I'm going to get to that in a second. So in fact, let's do that now. Who are the two countries we know were involved in some way? [00:08:10] Turkey and Israel. Okay. So Turkey has their own interests and their interest is do not let the Kurds take any kind of territory, you know, whether it's in Turkey or in any other country, because then they're going to want a Kurdistan and Turkey. [00:08:26] ET cetera. That's interest number one. Interest number two is Erdogan is now, for the first time, feeling massive, significant blowback about all the refugees and immigrants inside Turkey before he was using it. It was kind of he actually did what Republicans think [00:08:42] Democrats are doing in this country. He let a lot of people into Turkey and then let a lot of them vote, and they all voted for him. And that was a good little thing that he had going for a while politically. But now that game has worn thin and the Turks are super mad, so he's probably trying to push some of the Syrians back into Syria [00:09:00] and to appease that local population. And a million people went to to Europe and, and a ton of people went to Turkey. And so there are all those factors. Now when you turn to Israel, how do we know they were involved? Well, they part of the reason why it looks like it was so easy [00:09:16] is because Israel bombed Syrian government positions as this was happening. Yes. So they bombed there. You know, we'll get into some of the details in a second. Their weapons depots, their ability to defend themselves, etc. They have some reasons why they claim they did that. But right after the invasion, this is the second part involving Israel. [00:09:34] And again we'll get into more details. But they instantly went into Syria and took more land. They went beyond the Golan Heights, beyond the buffer zone, and took extra land. Yes. So let me give you some of the details on that. And by the way, guys, if you're looking for sources outside of U.S. [00:09:52] Mainstream legacy media to get information on international news. I think the Financial Times actually does a really good job. And so obviously they covered this story and they write that. On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz directed the Israeli military to continue striking throughout Syria in a bid to destroy weaponry. [00:10:11] Israeli tanks and infantry have also crossed the border on the occupied Golan Heights into Syrian territory, seizing a previously demilitarized buffer zone and other strategic positions abandoned by the Syrian military. [00:10:29] Now, Syria has served as a supply route for Iranian materiel to Hezbollah in Lebanon. And I actually want to skip ahead to the last video here, because I think Jeremy Scahill, legendary reporter, has done incredible war reporting in his career, you know, kind of weighs in [00:10:48] on Israel's role in all of this. So let's take a look at that. Let's remember that not long before October 7th, Netanyahu gave a speech at the United Nations in which he brandished a map of the Middle East that showed a total erasure of Palestine [00:11:04] in any form whatsoever, and portrayed it as a greater Israel that was going to be the conduit that would connect the south and north of the world in the Eastern Hemisphere, with sort of a great New Silk Road that would be heralded in by, by Israel. [00:11:20] And Netanyahu has made very clear that he supports a dramatic expansion of the state of Israel. And so, you know, while he may be exaggerating Israel's role or the role that it played in the events in Syria, certainly Israel's actions [00:11:37] in the Middle East did play a role. And Netanyahu now is trying to seize the moment to literally invade kilometers into Syria. So, look, this is a complicated, complex issue. And when you hear, you know, again, various actors talk about this [00:11:55] being this historic opportunity. I don't know how this is all going to end up, I don't know. You know, there is a power vacuum, and there are factions within the rebels that don't agree with each other and are warring with each other. So who ends up controlling Syria? What does that governance look like? [00:12:14] Will there be allowance of different faiths being practiced in this country? This is this is a terrifying situation in a lot of ways. And yes, look, you also have to acknowledge that Assad was brutal. There were people who absolutely despised Assad, people who were political prisoners [00:12:31] of Assad's regime. So this is not to say that Assad was great. However, you also have to think about what happens in a power vacuum. Think about what the United States did in Libya with Moammar Gadhafi and how that ended up for the people of Libya. Libya now has a literal slave trade going on. [00:12:48] And so these are all things to keep in mind as various narratives play out in the press. Yeah. Look, any talk of the leaders being good or bad is not the point at all. So Saddam Hussein was a monster. That didn't mean that we should have gone into Iraq. They didn't attack us. [00:13:04] So that was done for completely different reasons. And it was a giant lie by the Bush and Cheney administration that got us into that war. Bashar al-Assad is a butcher. I mean, if you think what Netanyahu did in Gaza is bad, you should get a load of what Assad did in his own country, [00:13:19] killing far more people, butchering so many more people, using chemical weapons, etc.. So, you know, if Assad and I got no interest in him. But that's not the question. The question is, yes, but what's going to happen to Syria and what's going to happen to its people and what should happen? [00:13:36] So when we talk about Israel, I know that they have some interests that are security related. Iran was funneling weapons through Syria into Gaza, and so they wanted to stop that. Iran had that government as its ally because the Alawites [00:13:56] were allied with the Shia. And remember, Iran is Shia and the rest of the Middle East is pretty much Sunni. Iraq is 60% Shia, 40% Sunni. So that country is split. So they were ostensibly on Iran's side. So Israel feels great about the defense issue and, and and knocking [00:14:14] out a Shia backed government. Right. An Iranian backed government. On the other hand, if that's all it was, there would be no need to go take extra territory inside Syria. When I saw that they went past not only Golan Heights, but the buffer zone, [00:14:30] I thought whom they say they destroyed, Assad's government's ability to fight back against these rebels because they were worried the rebels would take those weapons and maybe one day use it. Maybe that's a plausible explanation. [00:14:47] Another plausible explanation is that they had a deal, that the Turks and the Israelis had a deal with the rebels. And by the way, you guys go and now you'll be the leaders of Syria, but we're going to steal more of your land. And so you're going to make a deal with us that we take more of your land and make it part of Greater Israel. [00:15:03] Right. And you get the rest of the country. That's a great deal if you're the rebels. Because what do you care about the southern part that you barely even know about? Right. And you're going to get to keep a great majority of the country and the and the Turks, my guess told them is, hey, don't empower the Kurds. [00:15:18] And as long as you know, you're bad to the Kurds, we're okay with, you know, you controlling most of the country. So but look, guys, these both of those countries have made a deal with the devil before and it has turned out disastrous. Well, it's interesting you say that, Jake, because even John Bolton brings this up. [00:15:38] Yeah, I was going to go there. And so I think this last video is really important for you all to watch, because as much as I dislike John Bolton, I think he has a point here in regard to how this could backfire on Israel. Take a look. How does the rebels success, success begin to shift the dynamics in that region? [00:15:55] With Kurdish and Turkish backed forces in the north and Islamic State fighters kind of throughout the country? Well, it depends on how much territory they take. But certainly Israel was never happy with Assad, a pro-iran regime to its north along the Golan Heights [00:16:13] and being used by Iran for 20 years, if not more, as a transit route to supply Hezbollah with weapons and ammunition and equipment to threaten Israel. But a Sunni extremist regime in Damascus isn't any better [00:16:30] for Israel in many respects. - So what do you think about that? - Yeah. So that's I was going to go actually to a different part of what Bolton said. First, let me address that. That's a very rare win for John Bolton. I think that Israel hardliners have done this many times. [00:16:47] Oh, O will embolden Hamas because Hamas will split the PLO in two and the Palestinians will be divided and will pretend that there is no partner for peace and will keep having them fight one another so we can take more and more of their land. O Hamas came in and killed all these civilians in Israel. [00:17:05] Oops. It backfired. Right? Exactly. And it's much larger and worse now than the original PLO. And so God, America, Russia, Turkey, Israel have all made the same deal. It's always had blowback. Oh, we empowered Sunni extremist Muslims. [00:17:22] And again, not having to do with Muslims. The most important part is that they're extremists. Okay. Oh, wow. They're extremists. Stop listening to us. And they started fighting us. No one could have seen that coming. No, we see it coming right now. Right now, arming the Taliban in order to fight the communists. Right. [00:17:37] How did that turn out for us in Afghanistan? That's what turned into al Qaeda. So it turned into the Taliban, and then it later turned into a faction of al Qaeda that wound up attacking us on nine over 11 and it goes on and on. So this is a classic Netanyahu mistake in that regard. But the part of Bolton's commentary on CNN that I was going to mention [00:17:55] is at one point he said, well, because of all of this, we might have to redraw all the borders in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria. And I was like, here we go. Because, remember, Bolton and Netanyahu and Cheney are all original neocons [00:18:11] and and they've been wanting to redraw the map of the Middle East the entire time. And you're going to be shocked to find out they want a lot more land for Israel. I know a wild coincidence. It had nothing to do with the Iraq war. It has nothing to do with what happened in Syria. Poor Israel, golly gee, they're only the most powerful military [00:18:29] in the entire Middle East. But these things have nothing to do at all with Israel. Okay, but we might have to redraw the map to make it a much, much larger Israel. Okay, so that is. But that is also a terrible idea. Not just because it's immoral, because it's going to create an endless conflict [00:18:47] and it's going to create more extremists. I don't want more extremists. Right. Okay. So. And then finally, what in the world are they going to do? This is another sign that the American government is super happy with what happened because, I mean, even the jailbreaks, I read several different articles and they're like, oh, the yes, [00:19:05] the ISIS and al Qaeda prisoners were released from the jails. And I'm like, that sentence doesn't sound good. Right. And then the next sentence is, they're like, oh, but there was rejoicing in the streets, and they were tearing down Assad statues and everybody was happy. I'm like, okay, no, that's American propaganda. [00:19:21] It's ridiculous. Right now, we're happy that the ISIS and al Qaeda were let out of prison. Like, what kind of madness is this? So then they claim that the Prime minister and the Prime Minister did say he's different than Bashar al Assad, and he was elected, which is hilarious. [00:19:38] The Prime minister said, oh, we should go to elections next. Really? Are we going to go to elections? Even the talk of elections means that America and Israel and Turkey were involved, because if they weren't getting financing from those countries, there's no way in the world a former al Qaeda leader is like, oh, maybe elections. [00:19:55] Yeah. Okay, so but that's not what's going to happen. Whoever that guy is, you know, well, we know who he is. He's going to stay in charge. You don't normally seize a country when you're a rebel extremist and go, I will give it back to the people. If he does, then I'll be shocked. [00:20:13] Absolutely. And in the elections are real. I'll be shocked beyond belief. Okay, but usually it's a setup for something else entirely. Thanks for watching The Young Turks really appreciate it. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. [00:20:30] You've got emojis of me Anna John Jr. So those are super fun. But you also get playback of our exclusive member only shows and specials right after they air. So all of that, all you got to do is click that join button right underneath the video. [00:20:45] Thank you.