Iran in Revolt, Kurds in Crisis

The United States is doing absolutely everything it can to foster nuclear proliferation. That's almost the main message of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War is kind of you better get a nuke and it's really it's insane. Hello and welcome to the More Freedom Foundation podcast. I'm Yuri in charge of podcasting and with me as always in charge of politics is Robert Mars. How are you this time? Oh not bad not bad, worry how you doing. I'm just saying it's been an incredible year like 2026 so much has happened that you couldn't have seen before so it's just sort of nice to finally get it over with and start into this new year. Yeah it's yeah 2026 it was quite so much happened you know from from Yemen to Syria to Iran to Greenland every now and off bonds and yeah he forces ready for American envisions. Yeah let's let's hope 2027 is better because yeah we're about done with 2026 now right yeah I am back in town from a vacation and we were so proud of ourselves that we'd sort of reported things three weeks three weeks in advance and while we are proud of all of that content it's a lot has happened in January thus far and specifically I think we've been remiss in not addressing Syria or Yemen which have been huge priorities for this channel for much of a decade I guess more than a decade now and both Yemen and Syria have completely changed massively in recent months and weeks. The Yemen situation seems to be a little bit more solid so we'll deal with that next week but we are recording on Wednesday January 21st and we'll be publishing on Monday commentary on both Iran and Syria. Both of these situations it's important to emphasize could be completely different by the time this is published on Monday but it would be neglectful to not cover both of of these issues sort of at a fast-moving I mean Iran a little bit less so but who knows the ball is very much in Trump's court and that is a crazy place for a ball to be. Is it true that like America would have capitalized on the protests in Iran if they hadn't so much of their navy in the Caribbean? I mean I suppose that's possible that is that is one interpretation. I heard some commentators saying it like they've had them in the Middle East for like a decade waiting for something spontaneous to happen that they could like capitalize on and they're black-biting Maduro in Venezuela. Doing something incredibly stupid. Yeah I mean that is that is an interesting interpretation. The question whether what happened in Iran since December 28th whether that's actually some massive opportunity for the United States or anybody else is something I guess we'll discuss right here for me it's mostly depressing. I think the Yemen story is kind of interesting so if you want like a kind of interesting positive possibly even somewhat positive story come back next week where we talk about Yemen and the incredible humiliation that the United Arab Emirates was subjected to of the past month. Both the Iran and serious stories are very very sad. The Iran protest story is something that I am really sick of talking about because we are asked to talk about this as if it is an opportunity to overthrow the government to you know for big big big big change in Iran every time protests crop up in Iran and I mean 2017 2019 2022 2025 now and into 2026 and they are you know horrific and I would say that this one was absolutely more horrific and less successful than the 2022 protest experience. So yeah it's a acknowledge sort of currently about 3,117 people have been killed but that number is probably higher. I had seen and perhaps you're more on top of it but I had seen the actually Iranian government concede to 5,000 deaths. Oh my god so we're talking about significantly larger numbers they I had I guess last week when people were talking about 12,000 dead I was like well that's ridiculous this is clearly anti-regime propaganda but if the if the Iranian government is conceding 5,000 dead it's entirely possible that the numbers are much higher. It's also entirely possible that the number is 5,000 or thereabouts. What's key and what happened here for a couple nights is that Donald Trump and the the Polavi air got exactly what they wanted and exactly what they asked for. It sounds like civil war type conditions were apparent or or you know seemed like they might actually be happening for a couple nights maybe January 8th 9th 10th or something like that. So among those dead we of course can never trust the Iranian government when it says you know how many you know of the dead belong in this column or that column but it does seem like significant numbers of the people killed were regime police regime military who were acting to suppress this. So well absolutely that in no way excuses the wholesale slaughter of peaceful protesters of any kind this was the United States and you know it's interesting you know how much can you believe Israeli television but there were people on Israeli television saying yeah the Assad is in the thick of this and we're arming protesters and you know I know it's the standard conventional approach in the United States is to not believe anything on Israeli television or anything that Israeli politicians might say that might reflect badly on Israel. That's the way we do it in US media we're not allowed to actually repeat the things that Israeli politicians and Israeli figures say if it if it if it would reflect poorly on Israel but it does seem that Israeli media has brag it been bragging about working to exacerbate these protests and make them more violent. So I guess mission accomplished for Donald Trump the Israeli government certain exile figures like I think I guess is he also Reza Shah-Polabi is that I don't know whatever the whatever the the the heir to the Shah's name is they got what they wanted they got a bloodbath and it's it's another horror show and we're all just sort of expected to sort of not along and say oh gosh the Iranian government is horrible don't think at all about anybody else that might have any responsibility for this and it's just it's it's extraordinarily frustrating especially if you compare what happened in 2022 to what happened in 2025 2026. In 2022 Biden was the president I don't I'm sure that he and his folks trotted out sort of standard you know we we heartily condemn any violence towards protesters we hope that this will all be resolved yada yada yada sort of civilized essentially did nothing and that was amazing for the Iranian protests the Iranian protests were kind of shockingly successful by the term of 2022 for the Iranian public for Iranian women most of all this is the masa mini protests a woman was I believe murdered by security forces you know you can argue what degree of intentionally when they were enforcing his job law and because Biden was like oh I mean you know protests are good we support the people blah blah blah but just didn't actually do anything around it the protest was able to be tremendously successful not successful the way that most people in Washington DC who pretend to be friends of Iran wanted it to be they wanted to collapse the regime they wanted to see in style civil war but what they did get in Iran after the masa mini protests was basically the end of hijab law in at least in the cities in Iran so became a bit more secular well the government of Iran is of course still fanatically Islamic but they basically like had to concede we can no longer and like that that's a really key thing here is whenever there's a protest in Iran you have this same set of republican and sometimes democratic but mostly republican ghouls who go on the cable news and say you know oh man Biden didn't do anything or Obama didn't do anything and it is the protest movements where the US president stays the F out of it that are the most successful in Iran we just all saw what happens when the US president says oh don't you dare kill protesters as he did and he also said that like he was going to help them purse or not personally but you know what I mean and yeah no no he did he absolutely he and the people on the streets in Iran believed to those promises yeah I don't know why um but well he is mad and streets things are happening like and an America has bombed around not that long ago like it is plausible well but but what is plausible like what what what could oh yeah yeah it's not gonna be puts on the grind yeah what what are we gonna we're just we're gonna bomb a sheriff's department and kill all the prisoners in there oh yeah and it's also so complicated because you've so many you know civilians right beside the government and all this here carry on well yeah so like so supposedly we were gonna like bomb the security services like in a square while they're shooting people like like I think probably there was a there was an attack during the 12-day war that provides a really really stark illustration of how completely powerless yeah Trump is to help a protest movement it was a big symbolic thing it was supposed to make this big statement about how we support the people against the regime think this was actually an Israeli attack but it was I mean if it's an Israeli attack it's a US attack because it's our weapons and our our funding and our intelligence and our like networks of I don't know GPS and whatever the official said it happening but there is a famous storied horrific prison in is it in Tehran I'm not sure but it's the Evan prison which is where you know regime opponents are tortured and murdered and it's it's a it's a it's a horrific place and this big symbolic strike that the Israelis and the US made during the 12-day war was we bombed Evan prison to show our solidarity with the we ended up killing like 70 prisoners families visiting prisoners yeah it was just this this this was our big thing to support the protesters support the people against the regime and we ended up murdering like 70 dissidents or maybe just you know what the Iranian regime sees as criminals but like and their families it's just like what would Trump actually do to support them and of course like the the the Shah's kid you know wants an axle boots on the ground invasion that's that and the other thing so it was yet so you know compare the Masa Amini protests that actually won some of their goals improved the government in Iran improved the quality of life of women you know maybe just affluent women living in in Tehran and other cities but like did improve the quality of life in Iran versus the president doing what the what the cable news consultants and the the stupider parts that they run into diaspora want him to do and talking tough and because ideally a lot of people would want is just the sort of the current setup but you know fairer and nicer and able to work in international communities better while a new government that's very likely to annihilate these minorities that around has a lot of like I think they're still fear of a new government because quite often there's a civil war before that which is just be you know outstandingly horrific well I mean I don't want to fall into the trap that the a lot of the the pro regime change people in the US fall into which is assuming that everybody in Iran feels the same way oh yeah there are absolutely folks there's some discussion of it on the discord of folks who know Iranians I know people in the Iranian diaspora who are not like taking paychecks from right the on who are like who are like yeah please Trump invade like there are but you know crucially what I'm saying is like this is a section of people associated with Iran there are plenty of people in Iran who can see what Syria what happened in Syria and don't want that for their own country yeah um you know that there's so he it's there's a diverse I don't want to be like the republican warmonger strategists on CNN who are like every single Iranian wants to get bombed to smithereens because it might help against the regime there are I don't want to like say like no every Iranian is like you know please stay away like as there's a diversity here I think this distinction between the Amasa and mini protests where the US president did nothing and the Iranian people prospered and the the what we just saw where the president acted tough and made the statements and five to ten thousand Iranians were slaughtered to no change and no purpose people should learn from that but also if you're just handing out guns to sort of random civilians if you're handing out weaponry or what Mossad and the CIA are having out weaponry to like random civilians or whatever that just gives a revolution in regard like just makes use to kill all civilians because it's like well they might have a done night well that's the thing on the initially this protest I do not ever want to be I do not want to pretend that this protest was started by Mossad or the CIA they there are organic things they absolutely do their best to capitalize on these things but you can't really get them going they have to be there I think there's a mass of water crisis at the moment is the main issue in around amongst many other things sadly massive water crisis massive economic crisis and this is it don't get me wrong this is the US's fault this is the result because this year has served horrendous for its currency yeah this is a result of concerted US sanctions policy going back to Obama in I think 2012 he of course then lifted it when he got the Iran nuclear deal that he wanted in 2018 Trump shredded the Iran nuclear deal and now we've had maximum sanctions pressure ever since and just a you know just a review secondary sanctions are not just the US can't do business with this secondary sanctions means since 2018 anybody in the world who tries to do business with Iran gets sued by the US government because with the last deal wasn't it that like a lot of European countries are doing very well particularly France with the Iranian the Iranians and now just at all like not you can't go near them well in the in the signing of the negotiations and the signing of the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 2016 yeah whole much European companies were like very eager to get in there and start making money they had contracts this then the other thing and then Trump basically tore that all up you know some European leaders of government thought they could you know stick it out anyway and the actual businesses were like sorry if the US financial system doesn't let us you know do is we we simply can't so yes like we have systematically crushed Iran's economy like the US sanctions are the main reason that this this protest movement came about obviously I'm against US sanctions of Iran obviously I mean I I'm pretty clear about this like it the and it's even more obvious after Gaza you know after what our Israeli proxies did the Gaza and what our UAE proxies did to Sudan are doing to Sudan are doing to Gaza and it is US sanctions that created the misery in Iran that led to this protest movement and it's interested in the past that quite often the sanctions just make the the horrible people in charge more powerful because I destroy the middle class I mean everyone's very dependent on the state so there isn't people just don't have the time and energy to overthrow the government are you know come up with a better way of ruling themselves now exactly and the situations are so different that I don't even really have the the capacity to measure this and we're not trying anybody does but I think at least until the 2025-2026 protests that were that have just ended nothing you no matter how excited regime change people in the US got none of the protest movements other than this one touched the 2009 version this is before US sanctions the 2009 like green movement came very close to actually changing the system through the usage of democratic elements that are present in Iran and that is because back then Iran actually had a functioning middle class US sanctions since 2012 have eviscerated that middle class in Iran you have the impoverished and you have those who are able to profit by closeness to the regime that is what sanctions have done and you know I sanctions successfully over through Assad so I can't say after that happened at the end of 2024 that sanctions are guaranteed to not work well I think sanctions in a combination with military action because Israel had attacked Lebanon so then the trips had to you know pull back so I think in like that combination but we seen how long Assad stayed in par after all those sanctions yeah yeah I mean Assad was and Assad was a lot weaker than the the Islamic Republic of Iran leading a much smaller country with a lot less legitimacy I mean yes the the Iranian government is losing legitimacy 100 percent but I mean it's clear if you think through this that it is because of US actions and yeah I think you had said earlier when you know and I think this is just in the story of this protest set of movements the protests started in December 28th apparently the Tehran Bazaar and for the first week or so the Iranian regime was actually very interested in attempting certainly never endorsing in the protest movement but like Peshashkian and his government were trying to work with the business owners and the Bazaar who had shut down their businesses in protest of inflation and and currency depreciation and just general economic malaise were sort of trying to figure out how to work it out and then on January 9th Trump and the Shah's kid decided to weigh in in a big way and I think to the surprise of some like the Shah might have had or Trump might have had some real motivating and it did kick things up a notch and it kicked things up to the point where the regime felt that it had to react violently so yeah this this idea that like somehow the United States is gonna help the protests be victorious has been disproven over and over and over again would it just become like a Saudi Arabia because there we have a monarch that's quite cruel and horrible to its populist but like we have to all think it's brilliant when women are like to drive one day yeah yeah I mean obviously there's incredible hypocrisy here you know we've seen you know Israel kill easily a hundred thousand people in Gaza over the past two years we've seen the UAE lead to the slaughter of what a hundred a hundred thousand people maybe just in the in one week in October in Sudan and we're not really talking about that at all UAE and Saudi Arabia attacked their neighbor Yemen leading to the deaths of three or four hundred thousand people but no you know Iran violently deals with the protest that the United States did the most to start through sanctions and hanging on by our president and you know it's oh it's just the Iran is this a credible evil it it's I don't know it's all we had to address these events they are tragic events they are significant events these are the most significant protests in Iran quite possibly since 1979 when the you know Iran the the Islamic Republic of Iran came to power in the revolution but they're all just it's all very sad and it there's there's no movement that I see here it could go from sad to completely horrific and might have done so by the time it was published on Monday there is still a ton of folks in Washington DC who are working really really hard to get a trump to I don't know I mean the protest are over but just do some bombing maybe assassinate Kamani which of course would be insane because he's like the main person in the Iranian government who has kept Iran from building a nuclear bomb for the past 20 years because that's something else you were talking about how like if you know these people are killed as possible whose replaces them are like build that nook right now yeah exactly and and I don't think anybody knows because North Korea just taught everybody that that's what you should do because nothing's happened in North Korea they're not getting blackbagged yeah and a lot of people are taking that lesson from what happened with Venezuela as well and I think that's a horrible lesson as we've discussed yeah recently every new nuclear weapon is a bad idea but the United States is doing absolutely everything it can to to foster nuclear proliferation that's that's almost the main message of US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War is kind of you better get a nuke and it's really it's insane it's an incredible an incredible screw up but anyway with Iran yeah it's entirely possible that trump will launch a new trillion dollar war against Iran over these protests that are now very much over that'd be stupid well I think the main issue with Iran is it's so mightiness it's very like Afghanistan but much larger so it's possible you will have a a kind of horrific Vietnam style situation with lots of holdouts so it would be a very horrible long bloody war if they did choose to go in proper oh we're not going to invade but like okay we might we might kill we might stir we might kill the president we might yeah there's all kinds of horrific stuff we could do I don't think trump will commit troops but who knows what happens if we do something really horrific and then you know they they successfully kill a couple thousand troops at you know US military bases up and down the prison Gulf then maybe he feels a pressure that he has to do I mean I don't know it's it's entirely possible that this is the last we're going to hear of this this particular interaction with Iran it's entirely possible by Monday that we will have killed the supreme leader in the president I couldn't say but this is an evolving thing that I felt like we had to address Syria is guaranteed to be completely different and potentially much more horrifying by Monday we we sort of had to address what was happening here Syria thing has been crazy for me to watch I feel here in January 2026 much the way that I felt in December of 2024 something that has just been a fact of life in Syria for as long as I've been covering it is now just gone in December of 2024 that was the Assad regime that had been in place since the 1970s the breakaway sort of Kurdish region of Rojava run by the Syrian democratic forces had been I guess the SDF was declared in 2015 or thereabouts but sort of the the the primacy is that the right term of sort of Kurdish militias in the north east of Syria had sort of been coalescing at least since 2013 in 2014 in 2015 the Kurds really distinguished themselves as useful allies against the Islamic State that the United States had created and then decided it wanted to fight against but so really for as long as I've been paying attention closely to Syria I think I did my first big tranche of Syria videos in 2016 this breakaway Kurdish region has been a really key part of the politics of Syria and honestly since January just since January 13th just over the past two weeks or so that Kurdish region has disappeared there are still some small chunks up against the the Iranian and Turkish borders that are controlled by Kurdish forces but that you know I think we've all looked at maps of Syria over the past decade and that like that sort of long line from sort of derazor province Raqqah they they still had up until two weeks ago and then that that whole northeast you know sort of triangle of Syria that was that was Kurdish for so long is is simply not anymore and is it's it's a huge huge shift and it's honestly kind of shocking to me how little attention is being paid to this if you're talking about sort of Trump's like plan that they would just dissolve into the normal Syrian army wasn't this it well I don't know if that was Trump's plan it was interesting is the in the first Trump administration despite his constant talking about withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria people who worked for him like Brett Berk and was his name Jeffries sort of ambassador for a while actually did a ton in the first Trump administration to consolidate this Kurdish region and that really really pissed off Turkey unsurprisingly as it should have it's it is interesting I'm not somebody who was ever a big supporter of Rojava of the of the Kurdish breakaway region I was always honestly pretty angry about it and I definitely sort of took the Turkish position on that I share everybody's horror at the way that Turkey has put together pretty flagrantly genocidal proxy forces in Syria that it has used against those Kurdish forces were about a decade now but I always saw and still see the Turkish outrage at what the United States did there in 2011 Obama basically wrangled Erdogan who was extraordinarily still I guess he was the prime minister back then now he's the president but the same guy who's in charge of Turkey today Obama was like hey let's go get Assad and basically wrangled Turkey into this sort of U.S. Israeli project to take down the dictator Assad and Turkey was like yeah you don't kind of feel in our votes were rich were powerful we'd like to you know yeah let's let's let's let's blood away around in our region let's do this and then a couple years into it specifically three years into it a lot of the forces that Turkey in the United States had worked to set up to fight Assad had coalesced into the Islamic state it turns out had somewhat larger ambitions than just overthrowing Assad interestingly we could we could see that the big formative fight convinced the United States to back these these plucky Kurds was the Islamic State trying to take Kobane and there's a chance that by the time this is published on Monday we could see the Syrian government encircling Kobane and trying to take that there is a pocket around Kobane and there's a pocket up in the corner around Hasika and Komishli that is all that the Kurds still control so they're kind of back where they were back in you know 2013 2014 except of course they don't have any control over a friend anymore because the the Turkish military and proxy forces you know waged a horrific war to sort of extirpate that that presence about five you know somewhere between five and ten years back so it's so anyway from the Turkish perspective so okay these plucky little Kurds were able to defeat the proxy forces that the United States and Turkey put together the Islamic State and then all of a sudden the United States starts funneling more and more resources to this Kurdish state and nobody who looks at it seriously doubts at all that the particular Kurdish factions that made up the leadership of this breakaway Northeast Syrian region were very closely affiliated with the PKK which is the Kurdish terrorist group that has now finally stopped fighting it's like 50 you know 40 40-year war at least 30-year war against the Turkish state so Turkey was right to be incensed and I think anybody who cared about U.S. interests could also say what the hell like to overthrow this podunk nowhere dictator Assad we created a huge jihadist nightmare and now we're we're cultivating people that infuriate the biggest the second biggest military in NATO and you know this incredibly strategic place that is Turkey but for apparently the end of the Obama administration the entirety of the first Trump administration and the Biden administration I think Brett McGurk a particularly stupid guy who somehow managed to be hired by all of those administrations had a lot to do with this yeah it was just always outrageous always insane and always doomed and I think it's kind of the doomed nature of it that it's just really been shocking to me as someone who never thought Rejava was a good idea how few of the supposedly passionate advocates of this this intermittently very attractive state lit are saying anything it's just it's it's just not being covered at all as this and there were elements of this that were very very attractive the the women's protection units or I'm not sure if that's the appropriate you know the the charismatic female fighters yeah in a region that is generally pretty backward I'm very comfortable saying that in its gender relations you know the Kurds were the big exception it was always kind of a weird mismatch the the the PKK and the leadership of northeast Syria have always been kind of like strongly strongly leftist communist even which has always made it a weird mismatch with the U.S. government it was a very interesting very compelling place that a lot of people wrote a lot about a lot of people frankly used to maintain a U.S. true presence in Syria they thought the leadership of this this region I guess thought they could depend on a lot more U.S. support than they actually could I think with the fall of Assad the writing was really on the wall yeah they don't need them anymore is that it yeah it's it is it's it's a very strange relationship with the the Trump administration and the current Syrian government the current Syrian government is of course like directly descended from al-Qaeda and has always had really close relationships with the Islamic state there's a really interesting dynamic now that the Kurds for about a decade have maintained essentially Guantanamo's for us for Islamic state fighters and for Islamic state families so we're talking about like women and children like children who have grown up in captivity and women who you know pretty dumb and pretty diluted like some of these women left Europe to like marry jahadi fighters found that exciting you know I don't have like endless sympathy for these people but they should not be locked up in camps for like decades on end yeah and that's what we were perpetuating and it's it's people are like shocked that the Syrian government under al-Shara is like taking over these camps and largely just setting people free because they are kind of the same you know people as the Islamic state like that these folks were never as different as we made it up I think that the current Syrian government under al-Shara has like understood that the Islamic state was a tremendous misstep like you're going to liberate Syria by blowing up airports in Belgium like not like it's an idiotic you know excess and I think probably most of the people in the ISIS camps recognize that as well I mean this is obviously so yes all of these ISIS prisoners are going to go free I think the US has shipped out the few prisoners that actually had some real value and actually might have been directly going to ask order to Iraq at the moment yes yeah but probably the majority will go free and actually this is yet I think this is one great silver lining here is the Syrian government taking over the majority of Syria actually is going to be terrible for the Islamic State the reason the Islam it's it's this absurd irony that the justification that the US has pointed to for almost a decade now for maintaining troops in Syria is to fight ISIS while actually it's the US troops in Syria and the division that they maintained shoring up the Kurdish breakaway region that had actually perpetuated the Islamic State because it was that division that the fact that Syria was kept divided up that provided sort of the cracks where the Islamic State could could flourish and now that the sort of Idlib Enclave where interestingly supposedly these guys fought against the Islamic State yet every single Islamic State leader that has been killed I think by the US has been killed within Idlib okay interesting now that al-shara is actually in charge of a modern nation state he actually is very interested in crushing all of these other armed things like like there's nothing that's better for the Islamic State or some other terrorist group than an ungoverned state and what the United States was doing by maintaining troops and maintaining this Kurdish enclave for the past decade was maintaining an ungoverned space was keeping Syria chaotic enough that the Islamic State could still flourish there now al-shara is pretty close to being responsible for the entirety of Syrian territory and that means that he's going to want to crush any other armed groups one interesting aspect of this is that probably the nastiest elements in all of Syria are the sort of remnants of the Syrian National Army these are sort of these disgusting forces that have been pretty much Sunni Syrian rebels or whatnot that have a distinct existence from a model Shara and his HTS stuff because they've been heavily funded by Turkey as a genocide squad against the Kurds so right now probably much more by Monday we will see horrific crimes being committed against I've already seen some footage of like female Kurdish soldiers being harassed and beaten by these forces as the Syrian government takes over if as seems like is already accomplished Ahmad al-shara has successfully reunified Syria his next step is to go after these nasty genocidal folks but is he not working closely with Turkey like what consequences could that have for him well he definitely is working very closely with Turkey and and because of that these SNA elements that are more loyal to Turkey than they are to him you know have been doing largely what he wants and because of the Israeli focus there's an interesting dynamic here so on January 13th it's just amazing how quickly this happened on January 13th there's actually some shades of what happened in in December of 2024 there was stepped up fighting between Kurdish elements in Aleppo and and then by the 18th all of a sudden the Syrian government you know had taken Raqqa had taken most of what was going on and we had I think it was on is it on Sunday the 18th we start talking about a ceasefire and a deal that was announced by the Syrian government basically it was a complete capitulation by the Kurds the Kurds haven't I it's not entirely clear whether the Kurds have agreed to that but it doesn't matter the oil fields that the Kurds that kept in their own benefit are now controlled by the Syrian government Raqqa an important city in Syria that had been controlled by the Kurds is now under control of the Syrian government the Kurds hold that whole big triangle that was controlled by the Kurds which is distinct from the SDF the Kurds were sort of the main thing on top the Syrian democratic forces were the sort of broader framework that the US helped them set up which was sort of the Kurds on top but were collaborating with all the Arabs of this region what has entirely collapsed over the past week is all Arab militia participation in the SDF all of those those groups have I don't know if defected is the term or whatever they have now moved to the Syrian government column and the Kurds are once again alone and sort of in Kobane and Hasuka and commissary we are currently as of recording on Wednesday we're on day two of a day for a four day cease fire which the US government I believe has forced on the Syrian government to basically say and I think Tom Barak the the sort of US envoy who's done incredible work for the Syrian government here I think largely because he's heavily funded by the UAE and the Saudis who I think might actually be an inagreement I'm liking al-Sharah that don't quote me on the details on that Tom Barak the US sort of envoy has basically told the Kurds like you got four days to just sort of you know basically submit entirely where we've stopped the rampage but this is so you can this is so you can submit in a more orderly fashion hopefully with less less loss of life and of course this is day one or two of that ceasefire and we're already seeing large atrocities committed by both sides so who knows whether that ceasefire will hold regardless that ceasefire is done by Saturday so this will be up on Monday and who knows we might actually be seeing the Syrian government in circling Kobane and besieging it the way that the Islamic state did back in 2014 and 2015 and this time they are really really unlikely to do everything's against them it is interesting I mean who knows I think it would be in a mon al-Sharah's interest at this point to concede some low level of autonomy out and commercially which is really just like out in like the desert somewhere it's very unlikely that he would concede anything like that for Kobane which is sort of in the middle of the the Syrian Turkish border so yeah it's it's tremendously grim set of developments it's a set of developments that had to happen but it is just it's just kind of shocking how quickly it's come up I mean they really were in the in the 2010s they really and in the first Trump administration these guys really were sort of cause celeb you know people really loved these guys and uh US media love these guys and it's it's it's all going away I think probably even the leadership of the SDF knew that the US always betrays the Kurds but this is this is it happening in real time but is this what happens when you're between a rock and turkey like they're just sort of surrounded at all ends and they don't seem to have any allies to spaside them interestingly I think they might actually border are no or maybe the Iraq I can't I can't recall the so there is an autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq and uh some fighters are coming from there to sort of shore up but I think just the way the map looks right now those fighters can come to shore up commercially and hasaka um which are the two cities that are left that uh the Kurds control up in that that sort of little tip of Syria but they cannot access Kobane uh because the Syrian government and the SNA and the Turkish military already control that territory between commercially and and hasaka and and Kobane and this is a direct this is exactly what happened back in uh I cannot recall whether it's 2014 or 2015 the big siege of Kobane and I I was in Turkey when this was happening was there's a whole bunch of Kurds who are trying to cross the Turkish border to go into Kobane to help defend it and the Turkish government is not letting them go this was this is exactly the same dynamic we saw uh when Kobane was uh being besieged by the Islamic State yeah it would be nice if both Erdogan and Ahmad al-Sharah were be were sort of disposed to be somewhat merciful here I think it's actually the smart play it would be really really really bad for the Syrian national government if they it does seem that there's so much going on right now with Iran and Greenland and Venezuela and Minnesota you know the US the US federal government's invasion of Minneapolis that people just aren't paying attention if we did actually have a a the Syrian government besieging Kobane for like weeks or months I do think that uh there'd eventually be a slow news week and uh people in the United States would start paying attention sort of vile foreign policy troll uh Lindsey Graham is already using trying to use this as an excuse to reinstantiate uh the Assad sanctions against the Syrian government okay which is a little nuts and weird what this means is that the entire experience of the Syrian civil war for the Kurds has been a failure I think it has just been a like a horrific collapse their relationship with the Assad regime was never great but um a friend which I believe is like the longest standing Kurdish population in Syria has been I don't know if it's been completely wiped out but I think it has been to a large large extent uh those folks had been forced out of a friend and then out into the desert uh you know Kobane uh commissionally Hasika I mean and it just it's just crazy looking at that map um and you can find I think the Guardian just published some maps of just sort of where the Kurds have power now I mean they they really control the third of Syria for a very long time and now they just have uh very tenuous um hinterlands around uh three three towns um uh and it's uh it's a pretty cataclysmic fall I think it was a destined fall I think it was very likely I think it's a real condemnation of Brett McGurk and the other folks in in uh Washington DC who decided to use and abuse these people to uh solve uh the Islamic State problem that we had created that they specifically like those saying people had created it would they get a Assad project but uh this is this is where we are and where we're at but was that not nearly always going to happen like if a side ever got overthrown and then America wasn't that interested in you you have turkey right above you that hits you like it just almost felt like they were always treading water and I I think I think they were probably diluted by the experience of the Kurdish regional government which has been a lot more successful uh the Khrg it's a Kurdish regional government of Iraq Khrg has overreached and been humiliated in the past uh I think 2017 specifically when the Islamic State almost took over uh Iraq the Khrg pushed into Kirkuk and other more contested areas between Kurds and Arabs and then they tried to like declare independence in 2017 or had a referendum or something and the Iraqi government basically came in and crushed them but you know they were still able to hold on to their like their mountainous regions that had been more or less independent uh not since 2003 but like since the 1990s um since the first the the first US war against Saddam Hussein and in 1991 so even after sort of overreaching to fight the Islamic State very similar to what what the what the the SDF did in Syria they were able to retain their their sort of autonomous power there's still a thing and uh have managed to hold on the SDF you know could actually very reasonably say that they were more unified and uh smarter better organized group uh unfortunately the the Khrg famously is run by two rival camps of gangsters and the SDF was more virtuous and more attractive frankly to the west um and you know arguably better run so they figured well you know we can still hold out against a model Shara we talked about last March uh when the Syrian government was only four months old they signed a sweeping deal with the Kurds with the SDF or what have you that that didn't was was really short on specifics but was basically like okay this is our deal to have a deal and we're gonna move forward from here and basically from March of last year up until this month January of 2026 there was a negotiation process and I do think it is absolutely fair to point out that that perhaps because they looked at the example the Khrg the the Syrian Kurds stuck to their guns too much they they got concessions from the Syrian government that have all been lost now yeah um apparently there was there was some idea of like well well maybe you'll have a little bit of autonomy and commercially or or like maybe we'll we'll make sure that we're only hiring Kurds for the security forces up there and and maybe you can keep a brigade of your own you know or something like that and that's all that's all gone that's that's all gone um and uh yeah it's uh so basically I think I think the Syria's Kurds uh overlearned what uh what the the Kurds were able to get away with anywhere I think they're best to work with the government as much as they count now because you know the battle is over I mean is well that I think the question at this point Rory is is the Syrian government willing to work with them um and I think it is absolutely in the Syrian government's interest and in uh Turkey's interest having won everything to be magnanimous I don't know if that's I don't know if that's in in their makeup really um there has been I guess for a year now yeah almost a year now because it's been working in parallel there's been a truly stunning piece process in Turkey I think honestly in part because the the the PKK didn't want to so transparently be seen as a tool of Israel anymore it's not the only thing of course but I think in the context of Gaza like the PKK just wasn't really interested in being sort of affiliated against Turkey which God would make it sort of affiliated with Israel but there were many other dynamics to it but the the the PKK the Turkish Kurdish resistance that was strongly affiliated with the government in northeast Syria that is now falling apart has been engaged in a very serious piece process with Turkey since March of uh 2025 and they have conceded an incredible amount and not really the way that the the not really had gunpoint the way that uh serious Kurds have to now concede things I mean they they were sort of like you know what effort like like like well let's try and do politics now and they've really gotten very little from the Turkish government uh the Turkish government has just been getting wins and wins and wins and wins and given almost nothing in return and I think that that's uh I think that's a real mistake um and especially who knows I mean especially now that the the the threat that has preoccupied uh the Turkish government on the Syria file for a full decade uh that of like the breakaway Kurdish region is now gone like entirely gone so I got a hope I mean honestly I think the more threatening aspect in northern Syria right now to the Syrian government is no longer uh the Kurds it is the genocidal Turkish proxies that uh have been support for so on so like I think that uh and especially not knowing what this is going to look like on Monday I think the chances are that this will look a lot more horrific on Monday um the chances that we're going to get a lot more monster ceasefires over you think it will be a bloodbath I there's I mean there's a question really whether the ceasefire is operating at all today so I think we're going to get a lot of footage from both sides of pretty horrific stuff uh but I think in the long run it is a very very good thing that the Syrian country is being allowed to recoil us allowed to unify and honestly it's a surprising thing I you know the the Syrian civil war ended in 2020 really and what the Kurds really really should have done and would have would have actually worked much better for autonomy was make some kind of a accommodation with Assad um the Assad regime would probably still be standing which is not a great thing but the Kurdish autonomy might be more of a real thing Syria could have unified and actually started functioning better much earlier but you know all of those ships have sailed uh I think a unified Syria under al-Qaeda is still a better Syria than a broken up uh Syria where multiple little terrorist groups can all conflure I mean this is a lesson that we learn over and over and over again yet the United States continues to try to foster these ungoverned spaces it's insane that and I guess I hadn't thought of this but that is sort of a direct connection between the Iran and Syria issues here is that finally finally Syria is reunifying and we are stamping out all these spaces where nasty groups like the Islamic State can flourish while by the time this is published we could be working really hard to set up something in Iran a country that's four times larger and it's just we we we continue to learn nothing but it is I mean it's been Syria has been one of the main focuses of this channel for a decade and over the past two years we've seen more change in Syria than we have seen in all of that prior decade and uh I think it's possible to have some hope for Syria but I think that's going to be very hard to to be proud of saying to stomach by the time this episode is published and in the coming weeks I think there's the if if a model Sharah is smart he will use this four days ceasefire to reign in those those more vicious elements and put some of his own guys or guys that he can trust a little bit more in charge of sort of the final reckoning uh with what's left of uh Kurdish Syria but I don't I don't know that he'll be able to do that could this be the last blood bath or will something with the droves like it gets sparked up that will cause a you know a reaction well it's very interesting and I think there's so much of this this choice to sort of do this right now could be about timing it's uh it has it has something to do with on January 6th uh nobody really thought it was that big of a deal because nobody really expected Israel to honor it but uh there was some sort of tenuous agreement or you know quasi-hemia semi-demia agreement between uh Syria and Israel over how they're going to handle things deconfliction I think they're like a communication hotline or something along those lines this does not mean that the issue in the south with the droves which the Israelis are the main motivators of does not mean that this is over at all but the the cropping up of the Iran issue it does sort of seem like possibly the Syrian government saw oh here's this chance and the the fact that Israel has said essentially nothing about the Syrian government's consolidation against the Kurds is surprising a lot of people and people think it might have something to do with Israel taking that January 6th deal a little bit more seriously than most expected might have something to do with uh they're more focused on Iran and Trump right now but uh however it happened uh the Syrian government Amad al-Shara continues his extraordinary run of continuing to be alive and also consolidating power over Syria I think it can only as I've been saying since 2016 like you know if there was actually a unified jihadist government of Syria that'd be better than Assad that'd be better than the chaos we have now and uh I guess you gotta be careful what you say because I think we're we're about to get a unified jihadist government of Syria I think Amad al-Shara is is more than just a jihadist though he has this is obviously a lot of uh public relations to cover up the the crushing of the Kurds that he's doing but I think it was this was on Friday the 16th uh be basically made Kurdish and official language of Syria you know he has been taking some conciliatory steps you know to sort of indicate like it won't be so bad if you submit to me completely and uh yeah I don't know I mean I'm not like I think that Amad al-Shara is the guy in charge of a uh a government that has committed heinous heinous crimes over the past couple years but it's a lot less heinous than the Assad regime and it's a lot less heinous than chaos just to leave uh to see which one you're more confident on if you had to live in either of the countries around or Syria right now which would you choose oh Iran for sure okay oh my god yeah I just think it's still got a much brighter future oh I don't know what a future but yeah I mean I'm just you know I mean Iran is like a like uh and Syria was like parts of Syria where much more developed country but I mean Iran is like a wealthy sophisticated yeah I don't know I mean they're honestly yeah I mean the chances of a lot a wide-scale bombing of Iran are a lot heavier than those of Syria I'm sure there are nice places nice neighborhoods of Damascus now um but I'd say generally Iran would be the place I'd live over Syria but okay so that's the more optimistic one to be clear neither would be would be my real answer um I don't don't anticipate going anywhere near either of those places for the remainder of my lifetime but um at least this year yeah definitely not in 2026 which is almost over right 2026 is almost over right it's been such a busy year you know here is like how's there been any years that were slower than the start of this year I don't know man it's uh oh yeah there was tons tons um it's uh it's quite a mess we'll be talking about another country next time that you're probably never going to go to uh Yemen Yemen well actually yeah I mean it became less uh dramatically less likely have friends who were going on tours to Yemen and now they've all been cancelled thanks to recent developments but uh we will discuss that next week thank you very much for listening and catch you next time the more freedom foundation is also available on youtube and tiktok rob's twitter is robo law and he's also written a book called avoiding the british empire what it was and how the us can do better and music 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