Transcription of 'Dialogue Works' edition of 10 December

Transcription submitted by a reader

Nima R. Alkhorshid: 0:05
Hi everybody. Today is Tuesday, December 10th, and Dr. Gilbert Doctorow is back with us. Welcome back, Gilbert.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Well, thanks for the invitation. It's a pleasure to be with you.

Alkhorshid:
Let's get started with what's going on in Syria and the repercussions of what has happened in Syria. Assad is gone right now, and Syria is in turmoil. What's your take on what has happened, and how do you find Russia and Iran right now?

Doctorow:
Well, I know that you have given this question to several of your previous interviewees, and I listened with great attention to them, because particularly as regards of the interview with Larry Johnson, I largely agree with Larry on his caution. I think it's well placed, and it's very useful for the audience. What I would like to do as an overlay to what Larry has said is to give the Russian perspective, since that is not his strength.

1:11
His strength is very impressive as regards the history of radical Islamic groups in that region, and I appreciated hearing it. But as I said, what I would like to contribute is the Russian dimension, which is missing here. Then you had another of your guests whom I exchange emails with and whom I have a great deal of respect for, which is well called for because the man has vast experience in the US government's service, and I mean Paul Craig Roberts. Unfortunately, I'm unable to agree with him on what he was telling your audience, because I believe it largely was coming from one source, a very suspect source, and that is John Helmer, who is the longest-serving journalist in Moscow, but who somehow has the wrong friends, And is giving information to people like Roberts, and through Roberts to a very big audience that is expressing the views of disgruntled, probably retired, colonels and generals who are cussing Putin at every turn.

2:17
But we'll come back to that. Let's just start with the missing segment to the story that was so well explained by Larry Johnson. And that is, there are a number of things that people say about Russia. The first instinctive remarks coming out of Western media was that in the Syrian change, in the departure of Assad, you had two winners and two losers. The United States-- Turkey and Israel were the big winners, and Russia and Iran were the big losers.

2:52
And of course, it's easy to understand that concept. After all, both Russia and Iran were very close to Assad. They saved his neck in 2015. From 2015 to 2017, it was precisely Russian air power and Iranian proxies on the ground, Hezbollah and others, who crushed the various different Islamic extremist groups that had seized most of Syria's territory. So what does this mean now?

3:32
First of all, as Larry introduced in his discussion with you, a great deal of caution is needed in drawing any conclusions on what is happening, and is likely to happen, in Syria in the coming days, weeks, and months, given that the country is very diverse in its ethnic and religious populations, given that there are so many competing forces locally and internationally, influencing how this progresses. Given the fact, which he didn't mention, but I will add here, that the whole force, armed force of the HTS, as they swept through from Idlib to Damascus, 30,000 men. A 30,000-man army cannot possibly hold down a country the size of Syria, which has been through 10 years of civil war and which has many loose ends, shall we say, and local competitors, not to mention the returning Syrians from Turkey and elsewhere who have their own interests to promote.

4:50
So it is really a bubbling pot, Syria. And it's hard to say, will it boil over? Will it settle down and deliver something very useful? That's not clear. Now the elements about the Russian story that have surfaced in primarily Western but also in alternative media, what does this mean for the Russian bases? What does it mean for Khmeimim, the air base that Russia has, and for Tarsus, the naval base, which is key to the maintenance of the Russian presence in the eastern Mediterranean? Ah, yes, they'll be chased out.

Well, that's a very superficial answer coming from, but it has a real logic behind it, if you consider that who was paying for all of this trouble in Syria. First of all, again, since people are speaking about the Turks as the drivers of this, they're missing a certain time dimension here. This didn't start three months ago. It didn't start five years ago. It goes back 10 years, 20 years.

5:59
It goes back to Bashar al-Assad's father. The-

Alkhorshid:
Al-Fasal al-Assad.

Doctorow:
Yes, the attempt to overthrow that regime has been there for decades. And one of the biggest factors from long ago to the present has been the United States of America. After all, during the crisis, the low point in Assad's control over his own territory, going back to 2013 to 2015, America was heavily financing all of these terrorist groups of various stripes, trying to pretend that there are really bad terrorists and they're moderate terrorists.

6:46
But this was rubbish. It was for domestic consumption in the States. It was an outright outrageous lie. The United States was financing anyone who could, who they thought had a potential to overthrow Assad. And that's not where it ended.

Yes, of course, the combined efforts of Iran and Russia quelled the uprisings that spread across the whole territory of Syria back then. But the time since Russia's presence was also important, and nobody talks about that. And this is something I want to bring into play. The Americans were financing all of these radicals and the Americans were doing something else that again people are ignoring right now, the American sanctions.

7:48
The American sanctions took a very heavy toll on the economy of Syria. And they were compounded by the American presence in the east of the country, where they have this still 1,000 men sitting there doing what? Watching over the oil and gas production, which is siphoned off to Israel or other buyers abroad, and depriving the Syrian government of revenues which it desperately needs. The single biggest factor in the collapse of the Assad government was arguably money. They didn't have, in any case, they didn't pay their soldiers. And so it's no great wonder that when they were faced with a life and death struggle, with a force that was very well trained and equipped, the armies melted away.

8:49
They weren't paid. They were starving, literally starving. They didn't have food supplies to the soldiers. Now, all of that is a consequence of the way the United States beggared Syria through its sanctions and through stealing the wealth that otherwise it would have enjoyed from its production of oil and gas in the eastern provinces. So this is the background of America's real responsibility for the collapse of the Syrian government.

9:25
I don't say that Mr. Assad doesn't share blame. The Russians themselves say openly today that his administration made very serious mistakes. It did not follow advice coming from Iran and from Russia on reforms, on conciliation with the various opposition groups, and with improving the condition of its armed forces.

9:54
So these are all background issues. But coming now to the special situation of Russia, [with] which I began this talk. The Russians from 2015 on had its presence on the ground, not boots on the ground. They didn't have fighting forces on the ground. They had mediation forces on the ground, which were soldiers of course, and these soldiers went around the country and spoke with, discussed with local forces, the local political, politically active people, and with terrorists in these areas. They facilitated the removal of terrorist individuals, soldiers, with their families from all over Syria to Idlib province.

10:53
So they were in contact with local communities across Syria. They facilitated the resolution of differences that these local authorities had with the central government and gave some semblance of peace to Syria, which did not prevent a resurgence of the Islamic movements, but it gave a breathing space to Assad, if he had used it properly. The residue of all this is that Russia is today probably the only external force or factor in the Syrian equation which has a knowledge of people across the country whom it worked with to stabilize the country. And that stabilizing contribution of Russia is still appreciated.

11:55
You will note that the Iranian embassy was forced to close and then was sacked by rebels. The Russian embassy was not closed. The Russian embassy was given protection by the HTS authorities. And that is an expression of the reasons for an optimism about Russia's ability to play a stabilizing and positive contribution to Syria as it emerges, if it doesn't spin out of control for reasons that have nothing to do with Russia. So there you have it, who are the winners, who are the losers? It's much too early to say, but I would dare venture to say that Russia is not a loser.

Alkhorshid: 12:47
What has happened to Syria and Bashar al-Assad recently that he couldn't accept advice coming from Iran and Russia? What has happened? Was he thinking of improving the relationship between Syria and Arab states? That's why he has decided to go in that direction?

Doctorow:
Well, you've just set out a very possible explanation. I don't have a better explanation. He has been-- he refused to meet with the Turks, which was a terrible mistake. He refused to accept the advice, as I said, going back several years from the Russians on reforms and particularly reform of his military. And what he had in his mind-- well, we may find out. After all, he's sitting in Moscow. And when I said that the Russians have a good knowledge of localities, they also have him.

13:45
And so they have an additional asset to understand who is who in dynamics across the country. But I'd like to add an additional explanation for the Syrian situation, which I don't think listeners to this program will have heard from elsewhere. Again, I do not present myself as a specialist of any kind on Western Asia and on Syria in particular, But I do present myself as a specialist on what the Russians are saying about this, and which Russians. I want to highlight this. The people I listen to are the leading academics, orientalists in Russia from the major universities and think tanks. Members of the state Duma who for various personal reasons from their past government service are well informed about the situation in the Middle East and in Syria, and military men who have in their course-- that is, they're of course all retired, nobody who is in active service goes on talk shows in Russian television-- but they are retired and yet have very relevant experience and knowledge.

15:04
Now they share this on talk shows, and I think two of the most authoritative ones that I listen to. And I hold that out as being a real asset and that is underused. This is all, I say, open sources. I agree, they're not in English. However, this, in this day and age, you can have-- you can, by very clever software, find, make translations of these shows.

15:34
And they're ignored. Instead you have people like John Helmer who has an indisputable advantage, at least theoretically, sitting in Moscow and not sitting in Brussels or London or New York. But who seems to be listening to disgruntled people. I'd say the best thing I can say about his situation is that it attests to the real freedom of speech in Russia, which everyone in London would like to deny, because-- and freedom of press, because he is a journalist, after all, and many of the things that he's saying about Putin and about the Russian high command could very easily legally be interpreted as sedition. And nobody's brought sedition charges against him, and I hope they never will. But still, what he's saying is of that variety.

16:25
Unfortunately, as I said, there's people in the States who are very intelligent, very clever, very experienced. Nonetheless, they take this type of message as being determinant, because it's coming from someone sitting in Moscow. When it, in fact, is not representative, Russians are not in the streets attacking, cursing out Putin for having lost Syria. They've got bigger problems on their plate, namely how to resolve the war in Ukraine, and all minds are focused on that.

So this is where we are today in the Russian situation. I listen to people who are fairly optimistic. And as I said, they're quite experienced, they're quite knowledgeable, and I take their judgments as being worth passing along as I do today on your show.

Alkhorshid: 17:31
You mentioned 2015, in which Iran and Russia together helped Bashar al-Assad in Syria. And we know in 2016 there was a military coup in Turkiye. During those days, Iran and Russia, again, they were trying to help Erdogan in Turkiye. How [can we] understand the behavior of Turkiye in which, let's put it this way, are Russians feeling that they were betrayed by Turkiye in Syria?

Doctorow: 18:13
Yes and no. They-- I think most serious scholars and diplomats would not have expected better of Erdogan. They've seen him go this way and that way. I think there's no chance of his entering BRICS under the circumstances. But I think there's something else, which I meant to say a moment ago and overlooked. And this explains in part, or gives an answer in part to what you're asking. There's another way of looking at what's going on in Syria.

It is decolonization. Again, these orientalists in Moscow, reminding us about the artificiality of all of the borders in West Asia. They were drawn in the case of Lebanon and Syria, they were drawn up by the French without any regard to the ethnic population, religious populations of the new states that they announced. And so when you look at Erdogan, he's part of that decolonization process. How much of Syria will be nibbled away by its neighbors remains to be seen.

19:35
But what Erdogan is doing is part of that. Even if he doesn't take title to the borderlands that his forces now occupy, effectively he controls a part of what has been Syria and is likely to control it for a long time to come. What is his motive for that? What does he gain from that? Well, possibly it gives him leverage with the Kurdish population on the Syrian side of the border.

Here again, that is an issue for decolonization. The fact [is] that there is no Kurdish nation-state, when the Kurds are spread across three boundaries. They're in Turkey, they're in Syria, they're in Iran. That whole region has very heavy concentrations of Kurds and they have no state. They have no more state than the Palestinians have a state.

20:40
So these are holdovers from the colonial period that have yet to be resolved. I don't want to make this seem that the artificiality of these national borders explains everything. No, you have-- there are similar problems [in] the whole of the middle of Africa, where the colonial powers drew boundaries that ignored completely minorities and created permanent minorities who would be deprived of all civic rights, essentially, certainly of all electoral power, in the states that were created and incorporated then. And even here in Europe, you had the Sudeten Germans. We have today various national minorities, pockets of minorities in many states, including-- I just was in Northeastern Italy six weeks ago in Trieste. And Trieste has a very large Slovenian population and always will have, because those borders are now set in concrete within the European Union.

21:55
But it is impossible to have ethnically pure nation states. But we have an exaggerated case in West Asia, and Syria is an outstanding example. And we will see how these various ethnic groups find a solution in the present situation where there's nobody above them, forcing them to live together, as Mr. Assad's government did.

Alkhorshid: 22:30
In the Russian media, or in the Russian part of this discussion, do you think that they're considering Syria being in a similar position as we're witnessing in Libya, or they're seeing it's going to be totally different?

Doctorow;
No, this risk is acknowledged. That there could be an outbreak of genuine civil war across Syria is not dismissed. It is considered a risk. We'll see. I was watching half an hour ago the latest Al Jazeera reports coming out of Syria on the naming of the new prime minister who comes from Idlib, who was the minister for development in the provisional non-Assad government that ran Idlib under Turkish protection, who was an electrical engineer, and who worked for a time for a Russian gas company.

23:34
So a man who sounds quite civilized and who has experience in government is not just somebody with a primary school education and a rifle. So there is reason to hope that a person of that sophistication will be able to deal with the real challenges of going from Idlib province to running the whole country, where there are these centrifugal forces, all of them are pulling in different directions.

Alkhorshid: 24:05
Because right now people are talking about that Syria is different, Syria is totally, the situation in Syria is totally different from what we've seen in Libya. But at the end of the day, we know that even right now, with these new changes in Syria, Russia and Iran are talking about stabilizing the situation in Syria. And on the other hand, you see just before coming up, we've learned that Israel is just getting closer to Damascus and hitting-- yesterday they were bombing Syria, all of the military bases, all of the equipment in Syria. And they don't want any sort of stabilization in Syria. They want-- this chaos would help Israel. On the other hand, Russia is not going to benefit from that. Russia is talking about even with this new government or these new groups, rebels, whatever we call them, and they are seeking for some sort of stabilization.

How do you see the balance of powers considering all of this? Because I don't see that the United States and together with Israel, they're seeking for any sort of rational movements inside Syria because that wouldn't benefit Israel in the long term.

Doctorow: 25:29
What the position of this new government will be eventually with respect to Israel remains to be seen. The logic is that they will not be friends. These Israeli attacks do not help set up a framework for cooperation with the new Syrian government, such as it forms.

The old story is: he laughs best, who laughs last. And I think there's been a lot of laughing going on in Jerusalem, which is premature. The Russians have been very tolerant of Israeli rampages throughout the region. They have become, since the onset of this genocide in Gaza, they have become less tolerant, less forgiving, and far more critical. I do not see that the latest Israeli attacks across Syria are going to endear Jerusalem to Moscow.

26:32
So will the Russians find themselves in a direct military confrontation with Israel? I doubt it, but it cannot be dismissed. The interests are so different, so divergent with respect to the future of Syria, but I would not discount such a possibility.

Alkhorshid: 26:56
How about Russia and Iran right now? Is the situation in Syria going to bring them closer together?

Doctorow:
Oh absolutely, yes. It was already expected that in January, the long-awaited comprehensive cooperation agreement, which includes a mutual defense section, will be signed and then ratified. These events in Syria, I think, hasten and reinforce the understanding of how essential that is. Everyone is in the West rejoicing over what this means for, what the events in Syria mean for continued supply of Iranian military hardware to Hezbollah. I agree with the assessment given by Larry Johnson that it will complicate further supplies, but it's unlikely to interrupt or end such supplies.

28:06
There has also been too much rejoicing about how this means that Iran comes next. It will be vanquished by Israel and the United States acting together. I see no reason for that or that Iran did not respond to the Syrian crisis because it's weakened since its proxies, particularly Hezbollah, have had these serious defeats at the hands of the Israelis, going back to the explosion of those handheld devices through the assassination of much of the leadership of Hezbollah. Yes, of course, there were these very serious setbacks in the axis of resistance.

28:55
Nonetheless, Iran itself is not part of that. Iran itself has not been weakened in its ability to destroy Israel with its missiles, or to shoot down the whole Israeli air force if they cross its borders. So these arguments, I think, are rather empty. They're certainly not persuasive to me. That Iran would look with ever greater interest in having a defense agreement with Russia today is self-evident. So that will proceed. I think all questions over that have been swept away by the debacle in Syria, debacle for Iran, not for Russia.

Alkhorshid: 29:43
And how did you find the reaction coming from Donald Trump? He said that Russia was defeated in Syria and the picture-- the most important thing that he was talking about-- the picture that he's giving us about the war in Ukraine, he says 600,000 Russian soldiers were killed and injured in Ukraine. And on the other hand, when he's talking about the Ukrainian part, he says 400,000, which is [a] totally distorted picture for anybody who knows the reality of what's going on in Ukraine. Who's providing Donald Trump with this information? Or is he putting this out intentionally on purpose to put some sort of pressure on Putin?

Doctorow: 30:33
Knowing his personality, I think the second explanation is more likely. Nonetheless, at some point, truth has to be said from high places, and just to put out complete rubbish does not improve his standing with anybody. What I have to ask is where is Tulsi Gabbard? What is her job going to be if her president, who is supposedly reliant on her for national security assessments, is proceeding with such stupid propaganda that we've heard for the last three years from the Biden administration, from these awful propagandists, Sullivan and Blinken? Trump is simply discrediting himself and marginalizing himself by making these outrageous statements.

31:30
It doesn't, I don't worry about it. I'm satisfied. I had an interview last night, a telephone interview, with a journalist who's now the deputy foreign editor at Moskovsky Komsomolets, one of the several newspapers that I'll quote from, which has a title dating from Soviet Times, which still has a substantial readership, in Moscow at least. And he was, when we had a discussion such as we're having now, about the outlook for Trump mediating and bringing peace, and I expressed to him what I'm expressing to you now, he said, "My goodness, you're so optimistic."

32:16
I am optimistic, because I'm persuaded now that absolutely nothing depends on Donald Trump. That peace will come in Ukraine de facto, whether it is set down in a document that's signed by this side and that side, is almost an irrelevancy for the Russians. For Mr. Putin and his entourage, it is an irrelevancy. They don't need or particularly want a signed piece of paper, signed by whom? By Zelensky? He has no value for them.

32:48
They would only be interested in a paper that's signed by the president of the United States. And even then, they will insist that it has provisions in it in which they are guarantors, co-guarantors of the peace, and not that the guarantors are directed against their interests. So the possible contribution-- again, American papers, American media speak of Trump and what he's trying to do as being a determining factor in how this ends up. As if America is a bystander, an honest broker, America is perceived by Russia as a co-belligerent. And there's no way that a co-belligerent can act as a mediator for the ending this war. So the Trump participation is discounted 99 percent by the Putin administration.

Alkhorshid: 33:53
How about the situation in Georgia, Gilbert? What do we know about that situation, and how serious is that for Russia?

Doctorow:
The Russian position is that to speak of the Georgian "dream" government in place as being pro-Russian or influenced by Russia is pure propaganda; that this is written, it's a script written in Washington, which has no basis in fact. As they point out, their relations with Georgia are minimal. They don't have diplomatic relations. They don't have air transport any more. They did for a brief time, but that was canceled. The possibilities of their exerting a direct influence in Georgia are nil, and they're not seeking any.

34:53
The whole dispute is between the Georgian government, which refuses to become a Ukraine-2. They refuse to be drawn into the American attempts to encircle and open a second front in Russia to draw their attention away from the Ukraine fighting. That is what the whole thing is all about. The leader of, the president of Georgia, who is constitutionally obliged to leave the office at the end of this month, is apparently staging an insurrection.

35:38
Under normal conditions, she should be imprisoned for treason. I think that if she's lucky, they will put her on the first plane out to Paris so she can go back and eat her croissants at home and leave them in peace. The Russian position is that this is a completely falsified issue, falsified by the United States and by the EU, who do not want it to be seen for what it is, which is an attempt by the EU to open a second front against Russia via Georgia.

Alkhorshid: 36:20
How about Romania? What's going on in Romania? Is that going to influence Russia's position?

Doctorow:
Well, Romania already had a big bullseye mark on it, and that hasn't changed. I don't think the Russians would be keen to bomb Romania if the leading candidate in the recent elections were allowed to stay in the race and to win the second round, which he possibly would, because he has come out against further assistance, aid, to Ukraine and against the anti-Russian position of the EU.

37:13
But otherwise, as I said, there was a bullseye on Romania because it, like Poland, is the home to these two centers, supposedly anti-ballistic missile bases, but de facto the launching bases for medium-range missiles, possibly for hypersonic ballistic missiles, when the United States has them ready to put into operation, against Moscow. And so they are the two countries, Poland and Romania, which would be at the top of the list if Russia were to proceed with a strike on a NATO country as a revenge for continued attack ATACMS or Storm Shadow strikes from Ukraine on the interior regions of Russian Federation.

Alkhorshid: 38:19
A huge question right now for the European countries would be: what are the consequences of what's going on in Syria for Europe? We know many people came from Syria and that region to Europe. Right now we can consider many of them against Bashar al-Assad government and many are closest to these people, these rebels ideologically. But are they going to get back to Syria or we're going to have a new wave of immigration coming to the European countries?

Doctorow: 38:57
Well, the latest news in the "Financial Times", and I think in other major mainstream print and electronic media. is that the countries of the EU are suspending, Germany in particular, are suspending their review of refugee petitions from Syrians who are in Europe today.

And they're doing that in the belief that these people should go back now that Assad has been overthrown. However, they came to Europe not because they [had] any disaffection from Assad as such. They came because they were threatened by war, by civil war in their homeland. And there is nothing in the present situation to suggest guaranteed stability that would justify their returning to their homeland. Therefore, all discussion of sending people back to Syria, because it's now safe, is nonsense.

40:08
And as you just indicated, the greater likelihood is that if turmoil breaks out, there'll be further movements of Syrians abroad, and by preference, not to Lebanon, because it is a mess all by itself, not to Turkey, because they really are not wanted in Turkey. They already have three million or more Syrian refugees as it is, but to go to Europe. And so we would have another wave of illegals coming into the EU.

Alkhorshid: 40:44
Can Russia cooperate with Turkiye again, or [are those days over] because of this type of betrayal coming from Turkiye? And we have seen that Turkiye is trying to play both sides. And with Americans, with the West and with Russia and Iran, they are talking to each other. But at the end of the day, how do you see the future of Turkiye in terms of the relationship they're having with Russia?

Doctorow: 41:13
Unchanged. The Russians don't have a choice. You're, in this we're speaking hardball politics. The the only mistake would be to have some emotional attachment to Erdogan or the-- but serious political thinkers and diplomats in Russia know that they have to have relations with their neighbors. And he is a big and important neighbor. So whatever they think about Erdogan the man, and they have no particular fondness for him, they know that these big projects-- for example, the completion of this major nuclear power station in Turkey, or the continued development of Turkey as a major gas hub that takes in primarily Russian gas and delivers it to Europe-- these projects should go ahead.

42:19
The Russians are not happy with Erdogan, not at all. Certainly they consider his arming, his training, his bringing in Ukrainians to help the HTS and to facilitate their successful campaign against Assad... These things the Russians know and they swallow them with difficulty. But swallow it they will, not because they're weak or stupid, but because this is the real world we live in.

Alkhorshid: 42:58
I think that's why Erdogan is feeling free to do whatever he wants to do in that region.

Doctorow:
Whatever he can do, and what he can do is circumscribed. He's buying the S-400s air defense. He's dependent in a way on Russia. He has his pipelines. He's positioning himself as a major hub. Without Russian gas, that's history. And his efforts to be useful to Europe in this regard will be canceled. So he cannot do things to Russia that are genuinely painful to Russia.

43:39
What he did was to thumb his nose at Russia with respect to Syria. That is unpleasant, but it's not all that painful.

Alkhorshid:
Gilbert, to be honest, I do feel that in Iran as well, they don't have any sort of problem with Turkiye. They talk to each other, they have good relationship, But at the end of the day, what Turkiye is doing is against both of these countries, Iran and Russia. But there has to be something, some decision on the part of Russia or Iran to make Erdogan understand that the way that he's trying to harm them, even in-- let's focus on Ukraine. What do you think about the future position of Erdogan in Ukraine? They have been sending arms, they have been talking against-- recently he said that Russia should accept the terms that Zelensky is putting on the table. These are huge statements on the part of Turkiye, but at the end of the day, they want to have some sort of benefit coming from Iran and Russia to them.

Doctorow: 44:50
I think last night's Russian television, "The Great Game", they were counting how many wars have we had with Turkey over the years, 25 wars? So this history goes back a long way. And in Eastern Europe, just as in Western Europe, people have very long memories.

Let's put this whole relationship into a language that particularly American viewers of this program will appreciate. The relationship between Russia and Turkey is transactional. Donald would appreciate this very much. Transactional, this is-- they are not allies. They have some common interests, and they will not sacrifice those common interests because of personal enmity.

Alkhorshid: 45:42
Yeah, totally understandable. Thank you so much, Gilbert, for being with us today. Great pleasure, as always.

Doctorow:
Well, I enjoyed this very much, and I hope viewers will as well.