(This is the eighth part of a nine-part series. To read more, see Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 here.)
Josef Olmert: Hello, I’m doing today the penultimate one, which will be a summation of the main points which I made until now. And then the next one will be like some, if you will, assessments/predictions about the foreseeable future of Syria as a result of all that we have discussed until now and the recent developments there. When we talk about recent developments, I would just mention that there still are clear signs that despite the impression created in the Western world, mainly because of the Western media — which, as usual, particularly, the American media — doesn’t really cover what really is happening on the ground. The impression is that Ahmed Sharaa, or Abu Muhammad al-Julani, the leader of the main group that took over now in Damascus, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, that he is in full control of Syria and is the new ruler. And it is not the case. I repeat, this is not the case. I’ll give you an example. His people sent a convoy, a kind of military-civilian convoy, to the Druze areas of South Lebanon in order to assert their authority there. And they were basically sent back after the Druze threatened to resist violently because, from the Druze perspective, any future of South Lebanon — something that we already discussed in this series, and I will come back to this later on today — has to be negotiated between them and the government in Damascus. Which is to indicate to you that the Druze will insist from now on — and I will explain more about that — some kind of autonomous self-rule regime in South Syria, more or less like the SDF or the Kurdish people are demanding and still experiencing and exercising in the northeast of Syria.
Historical context and persistent instability
So that’s just an indication of how fragile, still precarious, all these so-called central regime in Damascus. And another point about that is that when we look at the media in the West and the way they cover the situation in the Middle East, there’s always this tendency to apply impressions that we have about our own systems in the West to the other side of the world — in that case, the Middle East. And because we see al-Sharaa now in a suit and tie sitting in his nice chair in one of the buildings that they took over in Damascus — so there is a new government, there is a new regime and there is stability. No, there isn’t, and it doesn’t work like that. And it doesn’t work like that because of what we have seen in this series. So let’s sum up, therefore, the main points of what has really happened in Syria, which was leading to the current situation, to the downfall of the Assad regime. I will start with the most fundamental basic point, and this is that Syria, as of 1920, for over a century, has not been able — I will repeat, has not been able — to establish a legitimate, stable political entity which is supported by the vast majority of its people. Whether they like every aspect of government in Damascus or not, but because they share some common values — a fundamental kind of values basis for agreement between various groups, various ethnic groups, various religious groups. And because they share all these values, they accept whatever is the regime in Damascus as a legitimate and stable one. It has never happened in Syria. And the greatest failure, of course, of independent Syria since 1946 — until 1946, you could always argue it’s the fault of the mandatory system, the French. And yes, the French did apply divide and rule in Syria, promoting the Alawis, for example, to an extended role; the Christians, not really touching upon the Kurds in the northeast — all in order to weaken the Sunni Arab majority. And then they created Lebanon, separated from Syria, carving it up from Syria. Yes, but the French basically were playing up, not creating, divisions that existed before for centuries. This was the history of all this region. So the failure of the Syrian state at the end of 1946 was exactly that: the inability to overcome all these problems and to create a stable state. Syria is therefore the modern country of the failing Middle East state.
The Ba’ath regime’s contradictions
In the case of Syria, it was even more dramatic than in other cases, for example, because for three and a half years, between February of 1958 — as we mentioned — and September of 1961, they even agreed to cancel their own separate independence and to unite with Egypt, the much bigger and stronger Egypt of Nasser, into the United Arab Republic, as it was called, which was basically Egypt plus greater Egypt, because they did not find a way to maintain Syria as an independent state. So much so, the failure was so big. The Ba’ath regime gave you the aura, the soul, the sense of stability. Because you can argue they existed from 1963 until 2024 — that is to say, over 60 years. But even that was not the case for various reasons, because the ironic situation is — and this is something that has to be dealt with more extensively in a separate maybe series, but definitely not in this one, but I will mention it and just say something about it — the basic historic irony of the Ba’ath Party is that the party claiming to be the biggest, greatest, most comprehensive embodiment of Arab nationalism, of Pan-Arabism, became — and we talk about Ba’ath in Syria, not about the Ba’ath in Iraq — in the case of Syria, they became the party of the minorities, which through its so-called secular character of the party tried to create a political community which will surpass the ethnic and religious differences and give the minorities the sense of sharing in the running of the state, of equality. But this was resented by the Sunni majority from day one.
Assadism and the end of Syrian statehood
The Sunni opposition to the Ba’ath regime was already in place in 1964–65, and in the same places where it would be later on, on occasions — central Syria, Hama, Homs and other parts of Syria — with the Sunni alliances, so to speak. And the Ba’ath regime already in 1964–65 was bombarding mosques, attacking the Sunni population, even more so after the rise of the so-called Neo-Ba’aths in the coup d’état of the 23rd of February, 1966. And definitely after Assad came to power finally as the one and only dictator as of November of 1970, in what they called Harakat al-Tashih, the Movement of Corrections — that is to say, correcting the early Ba’ath regime. The Ba’ath regime of Assad was basically a three-pillar kind of regime. It was Ba’athism as the framework of political legitimacy. It was Alawism as the main force which really upheld the regime and kept it going. And it was Assadism, because of the personality cult of Hafez Assad and his family. And his family, by the way, is just one part of one of the four big confederate tribal connections of the Alawi community — which is, again, something that should be much more detailed and developed in a series like this. But we couldn’t do all this in this particular series. I still keep the option open for more on Syria in the foreseeable future, and there will be — in which I will dwell more specifically into any of the main communities in Syria, their history, their religion and so on and so forth. So the failure of the Ba’ath regime of Hafez Assad to create this real unity — other than using brutal force — and then of his son, Bashar, is the failure of the Syrian political entity as such. Syria failed to become a legitimate, united, stable political entity. It failed. And now with the rise of the Muslim, Islamist rulers — the Islamic, the Sunnis, whatever we would call them, Jihadists — pick out your name. This might be another attempt to create a community. Pan-Arabism failed, Ba’athism afterwards failed — by pan-Arabism, I mean the unity with Egypt and Ba’athism in Syria. And before, the various attempts at parliamentary democracy, with all the coup d’états and so on and so forth. So what we see really is not just the collapse of the regime. It is another dramatic indication of the collapse of the idea of statehood in a country like Syria. And the name of the new rulers, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham — Bilad al-Sham is more than Syria and its current borders. It is another, not-so-implicit indication of the problematic of the Syrian existence. What? Where? How? What’s Syria? What borders? Is it Bilad al-Sham, which is Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestinian territories, Jordan? Wow. Is it only Syria? And the problem about identity throughout Syrian history has not been just one that was exemplified by the changes in the Ba’aths’ own ideology — from pan-Arabism, unity with Egypt, to particular Syrianism. Look also at the Syrian National Syrian Party of Antoun Saadeh, the famous SSNP, the party that talked about Greater Syria, the party that was supposed to be the enemy of Ba’aths ideologically, because they were pan-Syrians as opposed to pan-Arabists. And later on, they started to cooperate with each other. But they also — the Palestinians — talked about Syria beyond its borders today. That is to say, the problem of Syrian stability and legitimacy, as was exemplified by the downfall of another attempt at creating one state which seemed to be working because it lasted for so many years, the failure of all that is maybe indicating something much more fundamental: the artificiality of the entire political system that was created in the Middle East after the First World War. The creation of states that did not really reflect stable, long-standing historic geopolitical contexts, entities, legacies. Syria is the example of that, and that’s what happened in Syria. So before we talk about the chances of the new regime in Syria — the ability of the new regime to survive — all this has to be seen in historic perspective. And the perspective is that, until now, any attempt in creating stability in Syria failed. So it is too early, far too early, to already give praise to a new regime like, “This is the new Syria.” Maybe the new Syria in terms of who is sitting in the palaces of power in Damascus. But it will not be a new Syria in terms of the final creation of a stable, legitimate, everlasting political entity. So that remains to be seen. And this is basically the main something, the main item, the main topic that I wanted to emphasize in this series. Next time, we shall talk about some future predictions in terms of the specifics of Syria’s relations with other countries and also the domestic situation in Syria. That remains to be seen. Again, it will be a very careful attempt to make some predictions. It is still a fluid, not-so-stable situation. Thank you very much for your attention.
(Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” Josef Olmert: Hello, I’m doing today the penultimate one, which will be a summation of the main points which I made until now. And then the next one will be like some, if you will,…” post_summery=”Syria has repeatedly failed to establish a stable, legitimate political entity since 1920. Despite Western media portrayals, current control by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham is fragile and contested, notably by the Druze. This instability reflects deeper historical, ethnic and ideological fractures.” post-date=”Apr 13, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 8: Unstable Political Structures” slug-data=”fo-talks-josef-olmert-on-syria-part-8-unstable-political-structures”>FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 8: Unstable Political Structures
Peter Isackson: Welcome to FO° Talks. I’m Peter Isackson, Fair Observer’s Chief Strategy Officer. It’s my immense pleasure to welcome back the talented opera and theater director Emily Hehl. This is our third edition of a series of conversations we’re calling The Culture of Culture. Our focus in the series has been on music, theater and storytelling. Today, we’re going to explore what some might consider to be a total paradox: the role of silence in music. So Emily, let me start with the paradox itself. People think of music as an activity focused on the production of organized, well-executed sound, which, in their minds, is the antithesis of the ambient silence we are surrounded by, or what at least we used to be surrounded by, until modernity imposed on us a background of sound effects. But to ask the question: Is it wrong to assume, as some people do, that music and silence are opposites? So is silence the negation of music, and music the negation of silence? I think you’re going to say no, but let’s hear you.
Emily Hehl: (Laughs) Otherwise, this conversation would be over quite soon, I think, indeed. No, I think they are the condition of each other. And I think the kind of thing you describe, which is our, I would say, Western perception that silence is the absence of something is very much inscribed in our whole culture. I mean, if we look at the Christian creation story: “In the beginning was the Word,” and the Word was the beginning of everything. Whereas if you, for example, look into Icelandic creation stories in the Edda — I’ll read a little thing at the beginning of the Edda:
“Erst was the age | when nothing was:
Nor sand nor sea, | nor chilling stream-waves;
Earth was not found, | nor Ether — Heaven —
A Yawning Gap, | but grass was none.”
So in other creation stories, the nothing was the actual beginning of everything. Or, if you look into, for example, Japanese culture, there is a word for the space between two things. If you have two objects, the word ma describes the space between things, whereas we would say here — or I would have said before — there’s nothing. There’s an actual word for the apparent nothingness. So I think to look at silence from this perspective is very, very interesting. And in both culture, literature, music, it opens an immense possibility of what silence, and therefore music, could be.
Peter Isackson: Yes, I mean, I suppose you can go into the technical side and say there isn’t a musical phrase that doesn’t use silence. For it to be a musical phrase, it means that there is silence after it and before it. And it’s a kind of frame which is active in itself. That’s one way of looking at it.
John Cage’s perspective on silence
Peter Isackson: But I’ll throw out another metaphysical question to try and reframe the way people make this radical distinction between music and silence: Would you agree — and I don’t necessarily agree with it, I’m just throwing it out there to see whether it makes any sense — could you say music is complex and silence is simple? Or would you want to say the opposite?
Emily Hehl: No, I think for me it’s actually music and sounds are almost the same in a certain way, because both require listening in order to be perceived. And I think the whole definition of silence itself is something that John Cage turned over completely. I mean, if we want to talk about music and silence, then John Cage is probably the first man to talk about, with his famous composition that probably most listeners know, 4′33″. But he didn’t only compose—
Peter Isackson: That means four minutes and 33 seconds.
Emily Hehl: Exactly, of apparent silence. But what you will hear is that there is nothing as acoustic silence. I think it’s important to talk about something like acoustic silence — the physical state of silence — and something we feel as silence, some kind of an inner silence. Because I think you can feel an inner silence in an acoustic, very loud city, like I’ve just been to Asia and Hong Kong and Korea, and I was shocked, because wherever you go, there is loud music on the streets. Every speaker has some kind of music. It was a real cultural shock for me, but it felt quite empty at the same time because there was, for me, no purpose for this music or this sound at that point. So that was a very lively example of inner and outer silence not being the same kind of path. And I think about this inner silence — so many people in cultural history have tried to express their feelings of this inner silence. And there is this term of how we need to “break the silence.” And so there’s all of these kinds of descriptions of silence which are completely independent of the, I would say, physical state of silence. And yeah, would you agree with that?
Peter Isackson: Oh yes, totally. But going back to your comment about Asia, about what you experienced in the streets of Hong Kong. I mean, that reminds me of my youth in California, where people had just discovered — I mean, we’re talking about the 1950s and 60s — people had discovered that it was easier to sell things if you had some uninteresting music, really, in the background that was just keeping their brains occupied or their senses occupied, in a way that they weren’t even aware of. We called that muzak, and apparently that’s a big thing in Asia.
Emily Hehl: I think so, too, yeah.
Peter Isackson: So that’s our commercial consumer society. And that makes me wonder about the John Cage piece, because obviously, that was a shocker when it happened. It was a performance that lasted four minutes and 33 seconds. And of course, physically, how did it work? There was a…
Emily Hehl: There was a pianist, and it was a few movements — I think three or four movements. And in between the movements, he would actually close and open the piano again. But then during the movement, he’s sitting there — or she — and waiting until the time is over to then start the next movement. And so there was no expected sound on the piano produced, but the actual sound the audience was confronted with was their own sounds. Like, if people cough in the audience, this was the performance. This is the piece that Cage wrote. It’s not the sound coming from the piano, but—
Peter Isackson: It’s not even the sound sources that are important. It’s the resonance and the echo of the random sounds.
Emily Hehl: Exactly, absolutely.
Peter Isackson: The ambience.
Emily Hehl: Yeah. And with this realization that there is nothing as acoustic silence, we would think, “Oh, if we shut up, there is silence.” But no, there’s always something if you give attention to it. And this piece did something to that. But it’s connected to a long research period of Cage, and he wrote a lot about this. He had an experience at Harvard University where he went into an anechoic chamber, which is meant to be the quietest place on Earth, basically. And he went in there, and even there, he heard two tones — a high note and a low note. And he was asking the guy in this chamber, like, “What is it? Why do I hear two notes when it’s meant to be this silent place on Earth?” And he said, “What you hear is your nervous system in operation and your blood circulation.” Whether this is true or not, I don’t know. I didn’t do any scientific research on it, but it’s an interesting perception to say, “You know what? Acoustic silence doesn’t even exist in that sense.”
Peter Isackson: That’s true. People who analyze the problem of tinnitus have — I’ve read things about it. I don’t have it. I’ve never suffered from tinnitus. My wife suffers from tinnitus, so that’s why I’m somewhat curious about it — but they say that it’s not reasonable to think that we should have silence. That, in fact, we don’t have silence because our bodily functions are actually producing something we don’t interpret as sound because it’s so permanent. And the way our brain functions with the ear is to be on the lookout for things that are happening outside. But things are happening inside, and that’s part of our system of processing sound.
Emily Hehl: Absolutely.
Peter Isackson: So to answer my own question, is music complex and silence simple? Silence is not simple.
Silence in opera and poetry
Peter Isackson: But I think you’ll agree that music is complex, because as a producer of opera — I mean, people who think about opera might say, “Well, this is very hypocritical of you to be talking about silence and music, because opera just inundates you and surrounds you with music that comes first of all from the orchestra, and then you’ve got the voices on top of it.” So tell me, is there an approach to understanding and integrating silence into an opera production?
Emily Hehl: For me, it is absolutely crucial. Because if you look closely in the scores — and therefore you really need the scores, you can’t listen to a recording, you need the score — composers often indicate when things should happen. And mostly the actual important actions happen in silences. Like, if you look at La bohème, for example, the moment where the candle goes out or the candle is being turned on, there is no music whatsoever. And I think this is very interesting that many, many composers in the history of opera put these crucial moments into silences because they don’t want to find music for it, or because they want to give the attention to the scene. And I personally think that the actual art or performance of music happens in between the notes and not in the notes. Like for me, it’s crucial — why does a piece of music even start? And what happens in between the music itself? It’s there, and it can be performed good, and even better, or moving, or whatever. But for me, the moments in between the notes is where performance and connection happens. So I try to really think from a standpoint of silence. In my studies, I was writing an opera together with an Irish composer based on silence. So we did an opera based on all these questions of silence. And we were diving also into a lot of poetry, because in poetry, silence is even more present, also in a visual sense. I think actually it’s quite interesting to look at silence in literature and music, because in literature, in between words, there’s basically nothing. So the only way to see the nothingness is the words. John Cage actually did a composition on that. It’s called “A Lecture on Nothing,” and it’s something that is written in a 4/4 kind of rhythm. And he spaces the words out, and therefore you see the silence in between, and you also hear it when you perform it. It’s a very interesting piece. “Lecture on Nothing” by John Cage.
Peter Isackson: I’ll look that up.
Emily Hehl: Yeah, it’s beautiful. But then in contrast, in music, you have an actual sign system for rests. So I think that’s the real opposite if you like literature or music, how these art forms deal with silence. In music, it’s considered a creative kind of state, whereas in at least Western literature, it’s more like the gap, the missing bit.
Peter Isackson: Well, you know, the final words of Hamlet as he’s dying on the stage is “silence.” It could be an example of interpreting musical notation, because the rest is silence, the rest of the notation.
Emily Hehl: Never thought about that, yeah.
Peter Isackson: But that brings us to — because you quoted that passage from the Edda — Shakespeare. One of my favorite Elizabethan poems was written by — I don’t know if you know Thomas Campion, who was a poet and a musician. He was a composer. He was one of those great Elizabethan composers — that was the era of William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and Thomas Campion, who was also a poet. And I’ll read the poem to you, and I think you’ll appreciate it.
“Rose-cheeked Laura, come,
Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty,
Silent music, either other sweetly gracing.”
That is very Platonic. It develops, and it’s about beauty. But he sees the music as being silent and as being more expressive because it’s silent. But I’ll go further. Then he says:
“Lovely forms do flow
From consent, divinely framed.
Heaven is music, and thy beauty’s birth is heavenly.”
But then the next stanza is the one that I like the most:
“These dull notes we sing
Discords need for helps to grace them.
Only beauty purely loving knows no discord.”
The idea that — it tells me a lot about — I mean, it reminds me so much, as a part-time musician myself: “These dull notes we sing / Discords need for helps to grace them.” And when I studied music in high school, I studied harmony. And we were taught, in the background was the idea that discords are bad. You have to avoid them. And here is Thomas Campion, a fantastic musician — I think you’ll love it, you should listen to some of his pieces — telling us we need discords for helps to grace. So you construct harmony and the discords are what put something slightly out of joint, which makes you realize what you’re listening to and the value of what is harmonic. And I think it’s the same thing — that’s what you were saying about silence — is what makes the music become music.
Emily Hehl: Hmm. Yes, it’s a beautiful, beautiful experience. Thank you for that. And it reminds me also of — do you know George Oppen? Also a poet — American, British, I think — who also, in his poems, you can visually, actually see the silence. But there’s also all these unspoken things. I mean, if we then talk again about this inner silence, there are so many composers and poets who refer to that. I mean, even Wagner or Maeterlinck, Debussy, but then also more contemporary composers like, I don’t know, Eugène Ysaÿe, there is a whole list. The further we go in repertoire, the more important silence becomes. But already with Wagner, the roaring, the sounding silence was a very famous term for Wagner.
Peter Isackson: Oh, really? I wanted to ask about Wagner, because yeah, I’ve always had a problem with Wagner. Anyway, I’ve always taken seriously the remark sometimes attributed to Mark Twain, that goes, “I was told that Wagner’s music is better than it sounds,” which is a great remark. But what impresses me with Wagner — because I’ve had a love-hate, mostly hate, but some love for Wagner — is his ability to stretch things out and to avoid resolution. Because music is based on — I mean, the whole harmonic principle is creating things that are harmonic sequences and then resolving. And yeah, there are classic ways of resolving from the dominant to the tonic and so on. But Wagner really pushed it as far as you could go, as if he was holding off the silence as long as possible, but leading you to expect the silence.
Emily Hehl: Yes, very true. Yeah, he wrote about — like his term is das tönende Schweigen, which means that the silence is very much audible, actually. He used this term, I think, for Tristan. But yeah, I think just the concept of silence started long before John Cage in music. And I mean, of course, there are many composers who use silence as material for composition, as also poets use silence as material for their literal composition.
Cultural perception of silence
Emily Hehl: But I think if we talk about silence in music, there are so many other factors connected to it, because we’ve, in our first conversation, talked about the frames of perception of music. Like, our classical concert is based on silence. We talked about this back then, that there was this kind of reform revolution where — because in the past, people were just talking and chatting and eating and perceiving music at the same time — but there was a very strict moment in history where people said, “And now we listen to music in silence.” So I think silence in music is a lot more than just the composition, but the whole culture of perceiving and listening to music. Which is beautiful, because I think if you question where this inner silence is coming from, it’s usually a lack of resonance. Like the question, where do I need to say something in order for it to be heard, or in order for it to get a response? If we talk about breaking the silence, if there is some kind of a resonance, then you can eventually overcome this feeling of silence. And in order to create this, you need someone to listen, and therefore you again need silence. So I think silence can be something very, very important. I don’t want to do a bit of silence-bashing here. I’m a big fan of silence. But I think it’s not as simple as we think it is.
Peter Isackson: No, and I’ll give you another example. I was explaining this to a colleague — that I very much get unnerved, really, by the kinds of things I see now in the videos people produce on TikTok and the short videos where people explain things. The way they edit their films, they edit out all the silence. So you get to the end of a sentence, and the next sentence has already begun. And I say they’re cheating because silence is where we can digest. The little pause, even a tiny pause between two sentences, and the sense of rhythm that you get when you’re speaking — especially in a language like German or English or Italian — not so much in French. But that rhythm is what allows us to process things. And then the rhythm at the end of a sentence, as I was saying about musical phrases as well, is where you can digest what you’ve just received.
Emily Hehl: As we do at night, as well.
Peter Isackson: That moment is the most important moment. It makes me think as well about another aspect of music, which I actually worked on with some young Indians in India a couple of years ago, where we did some work for underprivileged Indians. And given the way they speak the Hindi language or any of the Indian languages and then use that system of musical structure when they’re speaking English, it makes it kind of difficult for English speakers to understand them. And one of the things I noticed is that the Indian — at least their perception of English, and I haven’t studied this in detail — they see the staccato aspect of English as being the thing to rely on. So what you get is a very staccato production of English, whereas English also, even though it is a stressed language, it’s legato. And that’s why in English, in contrast to the other European languages, the vowels are relaxed — which means that it’s very difficult to distinguish the vowels in English, which makes the consonants more important. So it is staccato, but the legato is what gives the legato moment between the accents — is where things are processed.
Emily Hehl: Yeah, I fully agree. And I think it’s very interesting to — yeah, when traveling or when being abroad — to look at how a certain culture deals with silence, because it is so, so very different. And also what you said, like these resting moments, it’s so crucial. But again, this is a way of looking at silence not as nothingness and the absence of something, but as something actually very, very valuable and necessary. And I think that’s something that in at least the German or Western culture that I’ve experienced, this idea of silence is not very present. People are regularly afraid of silence, and feel that it would be the lack of something. And I think in music, this is so substantially different, that we can learn a lot from silence and music.
Peter Isackson: So the message, I think, is that silence is getting bad press. And that’s a direction our culture has taken, which is highly regrettable.
Emily Hehl: Yeah. But also something I think that has been there from Christianity on. Like again, in the beginning was the Word. Like, that’s how the Western culture, also from a religious perspective, was designed, one could say. Like, the concept of silence in this Western kind of culture is just very, very different. I think not very healthy, necessarily.
Peter Isackson: There was something else you wanted, I think, to talk about: degenerate music? And I was wondering…
Emily Hehl: Oh right, I completely forgot about that. (Laughs)
Peter Isackson: I didn’t get the connection with silence.
Emily Hehl: I mean, if we again look at music as a broader thing than just one piece, then of course we can look at the performance aspect, as we just did a little bit, or the aspect of perceiving music, but then also at the aspect of repertoire, and what is being kept in repertoire and what isn’t. In our last conversation, we were talking about Auguste Allmé, who’s a basically forgotten composer. So like, this apparent silence of, for example, female composers or whatever. Or also pieces and works of music that were destroyed in the ‘30s in Germany and then are now slowly being rediscovered. I think that’s very important as well. If we look at the repertoire of music that we’re currently performing, to not assume that this is everything that has been there. Like, if we would look at things that are there as something that is just referring to what is not there, we would have a lot broader perspective on the world and on the musical repertoire. Because next to Mahler were many, many composers in his time that are not being performed anymore; maybe for reason, maybe not. I honestly forgot I mentioned it, but now that you say it, I think it’s a way of looking at repertoire and what do we play? What do we—
Degenerate music and the unspeakable
Peter Isackson: What is degenerate music? I mean, the Nazis had their idea…
Emily Hehl: Exactly. That’s what I was referring to. Because of course, me growing up in Germany, that’s the most discussed part of history. And this kind of silence that was created from such a big group of composers is astonishing, it is, yeah. So this responsibility also to either revive these pieces or to keep things alive that are currently in the danger of being made silent, I think, is another aspect of silence and music for sure.
Peter Isackson: What about the unspeakable? That’s another thing that we think about.
Emily Hehl: I think the unspeakable is a beautiful, romanticized word we’re using a lot, and that has been used a lot, especially in the 18th and 19th century, and that many composers of that time always refer to — also Wagner or Debussy. And I think it’s something we all know, which is that we feel things which we seem to not be able to express. And music, from time to time, succeeds in expressing these things — or at least gets us closer to expressing things or feeling things. But I think the unspeakable is one of the most mysterious moments of silence. Yeah.
Peter Isackson: So what do you mean by unspeakable? Because if we take it literally, it’s something you cannot speak. There must be a reason for not speaking it. So are we reflecting about the reason for not speaking it? What characterizes it as unspeakable?
Emily Hehl: I think that’s very individual. I’m not even referring to this as a personal experience. It’s just in the research of this opera I did a few years ago, we were doing a lot of research on silence in culture. And for example, people who experience things and they say they can’t speak about it because it’s too brutal. Or if you, for example, look at the poem, “Todesfuge,” a very, very famous poem that Paul Celan was writing after his experience in the concentration camps. And he published this poem, and he was accused of speaking about things no one should be able to talk about, and he was accused for talking about it. Because what happened back then in the ‘30s and ‘40s was something that was unspeakable — that no word could express the horror. And I think that’s something that is not only a description of this time, but about many, many things that happen to people — that they say no words can actually describe what it means, in a positive or in a negative sense.
Peter Isackson: Wasn’t it Adorno who said that—
Emily Hehl: Exactly, it was Adorno, yeah.
Peter Isackson: —That it was impossible to write poetry after the Holocaust?
Emily Hehl: Exactly, yes. And I don’t agree with that, because I think everything is worth being talked about. And I think we’re now even in a culture where we may be talking too much — where a bit more silence would be necessary. Which then again refers to the thing we said before, which is that you need silence in order to hear something. Like, of course, if there’s too much of this roaring silence, it’s a very oppressing feeling. But if everyone is talking at the same time, no one will hear what is actually happening. And the inner silence won’t be resolved, because there is no moment of resonance.
The act of listening
Emily Hehl: And I think that’s the whole thing about witnessing or experiencing some kind of liberation of this unspeakable or inner silence, whatever we want to call it; someone who listens to you is the most crucial thing. And therefore I think listening is as important as speaking. And therefore the silence is as crucial—
Peter Isackson: Which is the point Cage was making, right? And it occurs to me, in the case of 4′33″, that he may have been doing several things at the same time. He was making a comment about music itself — what it is and who we are as we listen to music. So it’s about the act of listening. I think he was probably making a point — and you’ll be able to say more about this than I — about composition. What this says about the notion of composition. For example, does a musician, a composer actually compose, or does the music compose itself? That’s another type of question. But where does musical inspiration come from? Does it come from the mind of the composer? Or does it come from some collective source? And I tend to believe that music always comes from a tradition and different traditions, and then it’s crystallized in some way by the composer. But it’s done because silence has also intervened. Otherwise it would be pure imitation.
Emily Hehl: Absolutely.
Peter Isackson: And then the third thing is, was Cage intending to make a comment about the consumer society? Will people pay for something that isn’t produced, organized and well-executed? Everything has a value in terms of what kind of effort went into it and what kind of marketing and branding we can do with it. So I expect — I don’t know whether Cage was a social critic or critic of the consumer society — but I expect that there’s that dimension to it as well.
Emily Hehl: I think so, absolutely. And two things I want to say about that the kind of thing you describe also with the listening and responding, if we look at jazz — and you’re the specialist in that one — that’s the only way how jazz could even possibly work. If we don’t have a kind of written composition, if we look outside the classical repertoire of music, most other forms or roles of music can only work by silence and people listening and responding. And then the other thing you said about this marketing kind of aspect, almost. We’re now in a time where meditation becomes very popular, or these kinds of silent camps where you go in order to not talk for a few days. And this, again, is being, I think, very much popular on the market. So it’s an interesting change in time, which I think can be something very good, something very productive. But it’s also dangerous because again, this silence becomes something to be a part of marketing something.
Peter Isackson: Yeah. Well, I think we’ve pretty much used up our allotted time.
Emily Hehl: We have.
Peter Isackson: And I’m sure we could both go on for quite a long time about this. And I think the message — because we were talking about marketing at the end of it — the message is, we need to better brand silence so that people can buy into it.
Emily Hehl: Yeah, yeah. As you said, the rest is silence, so.
Peter Isackson: Exactly. Yeah, let Hamlet have the last word.
Emily Hehl: Absolutely. Thank you, Peter.
Peter Isackson: Okay. Thank you, Emily, and we look forward to the next meeting.
Emily Hehl: Absolutely. Thank you.
(Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” Peter Isackson: Welcome to FO° Talks. I’m Peter Isackson, Fair Observer’s Chief Strategy Officer. It’s my immense pleasure to welcome back the talented opera and theater director Emily Hehl. This is our third edition of a series of conversations we’re calling The Culture of Culture. Our…” post_summery=”Fair Observer Chief Strategy Officer Peter Isackson and opera and theater director Emily Hehl explore the paradoxical role of silence in music, culture and human experience. They reflect on composers like John Cage and Richard Wagner, as well as poetry and cultural traditions, to reveal silence as a powerful, overlooked element. Silence is essential, expressive and deeply meaningful.” post-date=”Apr 12, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: The Culture of Culture, Part 3: In the Beginning, There Was Silence” slug-data=”fo-talks-the-culture-of-culture-part-3-in-the-beginning-there-was-silence”>
FO° Talks: The Culture of Culture, Part 3: In the Beginning, There Was Silence
Atul Singh: Welcome to FO° Talks. With me is Gary Grappo. He’s the former chair of Fair Observer. He has been an ambassador for the US. He has had a glorious diplomatic career spanning many decades in many countries. He speaks many languages, and few people have a more nuanced view on geopolitics than Gary. And so without further ado, Gary and I are going to dive into the new geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. Gary, welcome.
Gary Grappo: Thank you very much, Atul, and for your flattering introduction. And it’s always a pleasure to be with you and to talk about what’s happening in the world as we speak. And in today’s interview, we’ll be obviously talking about the Middle East, where the situation remains quite fluid and very dynamic.
Atul Singh: What is this new geopolitical landscape we are talking about? How is it different to the old one? And when does this new era begin?
Gary Grappo: Well, the fundamental problems of the Middle East are unchanged. We have governments that are largely, widely unpopular. We have an extensive amount of oppression, particularly in the Arab countries; we have continuing instability in several of the countries, with militia groups quite active, terrorist organizations quite active; and we still have the ongoing problem, of course, of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, although the tenor of that has changed considerably as well. But what has changed is the dynamic. Over the course of the last several months, of course, we have seen significant diminishing of the capabilities of Hamas in Gaza. We had a ceasefire that lasted almost two months and is now finished, and Israel has relaunched both its ground and air campaign against Hamas in Gaza. We can get into the details of that and what that may portend. Further to the north, we have a largely decimated Hezbollah. Israel, by dint of cleverness and truly impressive technological innovation and then massive air attacks, was able to eliminate at least the top two, if not top three, levels of the Hezbollah organization in southern Lebanon, while at the same time decimating its arsenal of weapons, although not entirely destroying it. And so it presents much less threat to the people of Israel. At the same time, we finally — after waiting almost two years — we have an actual government in place with a president and a prime minister in Lebanon. The Lebanese people, for the first time, will have a government that appears committed to addressing the real challenges that that country is facing, both on the political front and most especially on the economic front. We can get into what to anticipate as that moves forward. Probably one of the most significant developments has been the fall of the Assad regime. Father and son lasted some 53–54 years and ruled with an iron fist, including over the last ten or 12 years during the Syrian civil war. They saw the complete devastation of the Syrian economy, deaths that ran into the hundreds of thousands, and huge numbers of Syrian refugees fleeing to Jordan, Turkey, even to Europe and Lebanon. It was then replaced with a government which initially showed some positive signs of moving forward, despite its jihadist heritage — actually quite steeped in jihadism. But we’re now seeing what I refer to as a default position in the Middle East. And that is, you see a change in government, hopes and expectations are high, and then cracks begin to appear. In this particular case, we are seeing an increase in the number of Assadists — that is, remnants of pro-Assad forces — attacking Syrian government forces, and those are leading to some actually quite pitched battles and to the exacting of revenge against the Alawite minority in the western and northwestern parts of Syria, with fairly large numbers of fatalities. There were also reports of some Christians being killed as well — not, at least from my perspective, unanticipated at all. And then finally — and we can get into other elements — but the situation in Iran has dramatically changed as a result of two Israeli attacks: in April of last year and then in October. That has greatly diminished the capability of the Iranian regime to protect itself from future attacks, providing Donald Trump with a potential, perhaps, of maybe reaching some kind of a negotiated solution with respect to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. So that’s the lineup. We can talk also, if you’d like, about what’s happening in Yemen right now. There’s certainly been an uptick in the last five days of activity there as well.
Instability in Israel
Atul Singh: So what you’re saying is part of the warp and woof of the Middle East. The Middle East has been unstable. You can argue that after Sykes-Picot, once the Ottoman Empire was replaced by the British and French empires, and after they unraveled and left behind nation-states in largely ethnic and tribal territories, the instability has never ended. What’s new? What’s new about this, Gary? How is it different to what transpired earlier?
Gary Grappo: Well, certainly what is new is the character of the conflict between Israel and some of its neighbors. And when I say that, we have to be cautious, because the states that border Israel don’t necessarily present a threat to Israel at all. Certainly not Egypt, not Jordan, not Lebanon and not even Syria, to be quite frank, although Israel is keeping its powder dry with respect to the future of Syria. But we still have the security threats to the State of Israel emanating from Hamas in Gaza and still from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. And then the Iranian regime has not changed at all. There is certainly the realization on the part of the leadership, including that of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, that they do not have the defense mechanisms that they thought they once had, with their so-called Axis of Resistance now greatly weakened as a result of conflicts with Israel. But the fundamental lay of the land, so to speak, in terms of the unpopularity of governments, inability of governments to respond to the needs of their peoples — probably, with the exception, obviously, of the monarchies, which do a much better job in that regard and therefore enjoy a measure of legitimacy that other governments do not have — that all remains the same. And the fear that governments have of their populations, that at any moment streets could erupt over whatever the issue du jour happens to be — whether it’s the Israeli–Palestinian issue, whether it’s the economic situation, whether it’s oppressive government security forces, whether it’s the inability to hold the governments accountable to their people — all of those things still register quite prominently among the peoples of the Middle East.
Atul Singh: Alright, so Gary, what you’re painting is a fundamentally unstable situation. Let’s begin with Israel–Palestine, since you mentioned that is an issue that animates the Arab street, and there’s a tension between the Arab street and the Arab palace on that issue. And of course, we can talk about whether Israel has been just or unjust, whether in its response to the terrorist attacks of October 7, whether they’ve been proportionate or disproportionate. But for me, our deeper concern is the inherent instability we see in Israel itself now. We are speaking just after Bibi Netanyahu and his cabinet have fired the head of Shin Bet, the internal intelligence agency of Israel. Now, this sort of politicization of intelligence agencies — and indeed the military — has not happened in Israel. Israel has had a fantastic military, a fantastic intelligence and a really cohesive state until quite recently. And now that internal cohesion in Israel seems to be breaking, and that for me perhaps is even more worrying than the usual fault lines everyone talks about.
Gary Grappo: There’s no question that Israel is facing some rather difficult internal political challenges. The specific one that you mentioned on the firing of the head of Shin Bet is overlaid with the quite emotional upheaval over the situation of Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza. Of course, there are some 59–60 of those. How many of them are still alive? I guess the Israelis perhaps may know, but there are most definitely some of them who are not alive today. And so that’s a fault line.
Atul Singh: Sorry to interject, but I think even the Israelis cannot know for sure, because as of now, we know that they have not quite managed to break Hamas completely. They’ve done a lot of damage, but Hamas has proved more resilient than anyone could have estimated given the disparity in force.
Gary Grappo: Yes. No, Hamas is, despite the devastating losses they’ve suffered in manpower and in weapons and in overall structural cohesiveness of the organization, they’re still standing. And we saw that during the ceasefire, when they made a show of their continued presence in the territory. And Israel knows that, and I think that’s why Israel finally decided that since the ceasefire was obviously not going to move into a phase two — I will just say quite bluntly — there was never any possibility of that happening. It looked good on paper — the phase one, the phase two and the phase three. There was never any chance of moving into phase two. There really wasn’t. And so Hamas still exists as an organization. They are attempting to rearm. It’s going to be difficult because their supply lines have suffered rather dramatic deterioration. They can’t get the supplies in they previously had received, for example, say, from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon or from Iran. So they’re going to be hard-pressed to replace their stockpile of weapons and other material. But they are recruiting quite strongly, as a matter of fact. And I think we have to acknowledge the fact that it’s pretty fertile territory for the recruitment of fighters, given what has transpired since October 7. So their strength is probably back up to at least 20,000 fighters — not nearly with the capabilities that they might have had post-October 7. They’ve lost those veteran fighters — many, many of them. But they’ll get there. And I think that’s why Israel decided to capitalize while it could, in going after this still-less-than-previously-very-capable Hamas fighting force. But to get back to Israel, the issue over the firing of the Shin Bet chief is overlaid with the dissension in the Israeli public over the state of the hostages and whether the government is doing enough or not to secure their release. And then underpinning all of that, if you recall, before October 7, there was quite a bit of attention devoted to what Bibi was trying to do to undermine the authority of the Israeli judiciary, and that still remains so. So we do see a lot of political cracks within Israel internally. And I’ll make the final point — and I know Bibi Netanyahu is very mindful of this — and that is: Israel must decide on its state budget by the end of this month. If they finish the month without a state budget, it effectively means the collapse of the government. They will have to call for new elections, which would take — in Israel, given its election laws — three months. So all of this internal churn is having an impact. And then, of course, there’s all the back and forth over the person Bibi Netanyahu himself and how Israelis view him, how much or not it can be debated. Netanyahu needs war to maintain his position as prime minister. All of that is being debated today in Israel. So yeah, Israel faces its problems within itself, in addition to the external threats.
Lebanon’s prospects
Atul Singh: And so let’s move on from Israel to Lebanon. Lebanon, you mentioned, seems to have greater hope now. But Lebanon still has a fractious, multi-ethnic society, which in the past even struggled to collect rubbish, leave aside deliver other elements of governance. Hezbollah ran a parallel state, which was arguably more powerful than the state itself, at least in the areas it dominated. Is there hope for Lebanon as a state, or are we going to see Lebanon limp along as a failed state?
Gary Grappo: I think there’s more hope today in Lebanon than there has been — most certainly in the last 10 years, maybe in the last 25 years. There genuinely is an opportunity here. Now, Lebanon has been put nearly on its back. Its economy, which was considered a middle-income country at one point, has now been reduced to almost poverty level. Most of the country is living at or below that today. The infrastructure has suffered considerably, particularly the neighborhoods in Beirut and in southern Lebanon and in the Beqaa Valley, which is on the east near the border with Syria. So a lot of work needs to be done on the Lebanese economy. But the Lebanese people are some of the most industrious — in fact, I would argue the most industrious people in the Middle East after Israel. And there can be a natural affinity between Lebanon and Israel in terms of how they approach innovation, how they approach business, how they approach development, if they can overcome some of these problems. Now, this is where Lebanon is going to need some help. And I would argue, if I were sitting before Donald Trump, that if you really want to do some good not only for the people of Lebanon and for our interest in Lebanon, but also for Israel, we need to invest in Lebanon. We need to invest in their armed forces. We need to work with the armed forces as closely as we can to ensure they are able to disarm Hezbollah, which is not going to willingly lay down all of its arms. It’s obliged to do that going back to a UN Security Council resolution following the 2006 war. And the terms of the latest ceasefire called for the enforcement of that, as well as the withdrawal of all Lebanese armed forces north of the Litani River, which is around 20 miles north of the Israeli border. And Lebanon is supposed to — the Lebanese armed forces are supposed to have that responsibility and that authority. It’s uncertain how effectively they can carry that out. They are going to need some help — in fact, considerable help. And this is where I think the West, particularly the United States — I would also argue France and other countries — could help Lebanon. One of the good things is they were finally able to name a president, and they have a prime minister, both of whom are opposed to Hezbollah. They want to see the ceasefire terms fully enforced. They have taken on that responsibility. It’s just the ability to do that is a bit constrained at the moment. And then finally, I will say that Hezbollah is greatly weakened within Lebanon today. They do not have anywhere near the political stature they once had. Even though they still maintain a sizable presence — not a majority, but a sizable presence — in the Lebanese parliament. There are going to be elections for the parliament, I want to say, in two years. And the hope is that if Lebanon can show some genuine progress, that the Hezbollah presence in the parliament can be even further reduced. Just as an indication, we’re seeing that the level of popularity of Hezbollah, even among Lebanese Shia, is reduced from what it has historically been. So these are important points to consider and offer a genuine opportunity for hope and progress in Lebanon. And we should take stock of that and try to capitalize on that in the interest of Lebanon and overall stability in the Middle East.
Atul Singh: Donald Trump has, I believe, two daughters — or three, probably two, if I remember correctly — and one of them is married to a Lebanese gentleman, and her father-in-law is apparently now mediating. He’s Maronite, and hopefully, if he’s involved, do you think there will be US investment and attention to Lebanon?
Gary Grappo: If he has the ear of Donald Trump, then there is a possibility. Now, I haven’t heard much about what he’s actually doing at the moment in Lebanon. He’s been given some other responsibilities, too, so I don’t know how he’s dividing his time and efforts. Nevertheless, yeah, if you have the ear of Donald Trump, obviously you’re going to be an influential person, and you’re going to be viewed as someone with influence and people will pay attention to you. We haven’t yet seen his influence demonstrated clearly in terms of his relationship with the president vis-à-vis the president’s daughter. You would think he would. So that remains to be seen.
Rising pressure in Jordan
Atul Singh: Moving on from Lebanon to Jordan, we know that the monarchy feels the heat. The King of Jordan has not been terribly enthused about Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, turning it into a riviera. We know that the majority of Jordan is now Palestinian. We know that Palestinians in Jordan are increasingly in solidarity with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. So from a geopolitical point of view, it seems that Jordan seems to be quite unstable. The king is not getting any younger either. So what lies ahead there?
Gary Grappo: There hasn’t been much attention given to Jordan, and that’s unfortunate, because Jordan is facing some challenges. There is this very restive Palestinian population within Jordan. Estimates vary — anywhere between 60 and 80% of the population of the country. It seems to be in a perpetual economic crisis. They don’t have the natural resource wealth that other countries in the region have, and they are dependent to a great extent on American largesse. The American aid program, if it continues, is quite substantial, and the king needs that, which is why the king — after Donald Trump’s statement about his ambitions for Gaza — was anxious to fly to Washington and meet with the president in order to maybe talk him down from this grandiose plan for Gaza. But he was quite diplomatic about it. It was not confrontational, but also made it clear that this was not something that Jordan would be able to accept. But he knows how to be deferential when he has to be to the United States — and specifically to Donald Trump, who likes that. And so he ended up leaving, having made his point, but not losing Jordan’s status in terms of how it’s viewed in Washington. But it faces continuing economic challenges, which are quite dire — whether it’s unemployment, whether it’s the level of business activity, economic growth, development and so forth. The other problem that many folks have not focused on is the security challenges that Jordan faces, coming not only from the West Bank, where you have the appearance now of these small militia groups that are causing a great deal of instability in the West Bank — confronting settlers, confronting the IDF. There’s some of that also present in Jordan. The Jordanian security forces are quite competent.
Atul Singh: (Are these groups directly tied to Hamas? Or are they more independent, acting on their own?)
Gary Grappo: Both. Some will have some kind of tie to Hamas but don’t take guidance from Hamas. Others may take some guidance from Hamas, and some are entirely independent and are operating on their own. In fact, it’s uncertain the extent to which some of them actually even coordinate their activities with one another, which is why they haven’t been all that effective. And the Israelis have been able to tamp them down as they appear but not eliminate them. The suspicion is that the Iranians may be behind some of this in terms of provoking them, maybe providing them with funds, even weapons that are smuggled in via Syria and Jordan. So it’s all kind of opaque at this point, but it presents problems for Jordan. And there are some interesting reports coming out of Iran that the Iranians view Jordan as a particularly weak point, and that if their efforts to re-establish a link between Iran and Hezbollah through Syria — and that’s not working out so well up to this point — that they may attempt to use Jordan. Now, they’ll find very stiff challenge in Jordan. The Jordanian forces are not to be trifled with. They’re very effective, very capable. They have an excellent intelligence service. They cooperate very closely with both the Americans and the Israelis. So they’ll find the going very tough, but—
Atul Singh: (Did King Abdullah himself serve in the Jordanian Armed Forces or receive military training?)
Gary Grappo: Hm, I want to say he did, but I can’t be sure. I know his father did, but I can’t be sure about Abdullah. But I think so, be that as it—
Atul Singh: (Well, regardless, the king seems to command deep loyalty from the armed forces. That’s a critical pillar of stability in a region where rulers often take great care to ensure military loyalty.)
Gary Grappo: Absolutely. And the king enjoys their loyalty 100%, which is very important in the Middle East. And they are indeed very loyal to the king and will remain so. And so I have every reason to believe that with the continued cooperation with the Americans and the Israelis, that they’ll be able to thwart any effort on the part of the Iranians. But it’s still a challenge that the Jordanians now have to confront. But I am worried about the internal political stability because of the large Palestinian presence there. I don’t think it’ll turn terribly violent, other than maybe potential pockets in some areas. But nevertheless, it’s something I’m sure the king is very much aware of, and the Israeli and American intelligence services are also quite aware of and trying to provide the king with whatever support he may need. So it’s worth keeping an eye on developments in Jordan.
Can the country of Syria survive?
Atul Singh: Let’s talk about Syria. You’ve already mentioned that it has followed a familiar pattern. And you’ve mentioned the killings of Alawites. You’ve also mentioned the former Assad regime soldiers mounting attacks on the new regime. Of course, we know that Turkish intelligence, MIT, did support the current rulers of Syria. So what happens now with the Kurds, who represent one area and one ethnicity of Syria? The Sunnis — also not just Sunnis who are in the plains in that road going all the way from Damascus to Istanbul, formerly Constantinople — but also the Arabs living by the Tigris and Euphrates. They are different. Those peasants are different to the more urban population. And in fact, arguably, a drought led to their migration to the cities and triggered the Arab uprisings in Syria. And then, of course, we have the issue of the Alawites, who are along the coasts and who were persecuted by the Sunnis under none other than Selim I. And of course, when they ruled, they weren’t particularly kind and loving and peaceful either. So there is a whole cycle of violence there. Can Syria even survive as a country de jure?
Gary Grappo: That may be the ultimate question, and that question has been posed more than once. It’s not coincidence that the centrifugal sectarian forces of Lebanon mirror those almost, in some cases, identically to those in Syria. You have a multiplicity of sectarian groups — whether religious or ethnic — and it makes it very, very difficult to have a unifying identity for Syria, despite efforts by previous regimes to create one. Assad tried to create one, and it ultimately came down to oppression. If you opposed Assad, you ended up either dead or in jail. And that’s how it was enforced. I think al-Sharaa, who is the interim president — we’ll see how long the interim period is — former head of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the jihadist group that emerged victorious after the fall of Assad, he said all the right things, which new Arab leaders often do, with all these wonderful aspirations of Syrian unity and respect for its multi-identities within the country. But the default position is these groups go at one another, and certainly they go after the government. And you mentioned a few of these. But there are Druze down in the south. There are Ismailis who are closer to being Shia, actually, than the Alawites, who were represented in the person of Assad and his father. You had Turkmen up in the very northern part of the country — the remnants of the Turkish population after the fall of the Ottomans. You have the Kurds up in the northeast. And you mentioned a very good point: that the Arabs who typically settle in some of the cities stretching from Damascus in the south to Aleppo in the north have a very different perspective on things than the desert Arabs who live to the east. And also their views on Islam — Sunni Islam. They’re all Sunni, but how they view it, how strongly they adhere to it, where they tend to be more conservative or not, all of that. There are many complexions. And even in the western areas on that main highway that goes from Damascus to Hama, Homs and Aleppo, from city to city, it changes. And those are four very big cities in Syria. That all changes. You have several Christian groups that inhabit the country. And so all of these are pulling at one another. All of these are vying for influence, power, and wealth in a country which — we have to remember — has been destroyed. 80% of its economy has been effectively destroyed as a result of that 12-year civil war. And then you have another six million or so Syrians residing outside the country, who are forming actually a new identity of themselves and of Syria, whether they reside in Jordan or Turkey or Lebanon, or even in Europe. So all of these are pushing and pulling against one another, presenting enormous challenges to the government and the government’s ability to actually govern. And the default position — and that’s kind of a situation where you have the sectarian strains pulling at one another — the government brings down the hammer. That’s what Assad did. And that’s what the predecessors of the Assads did. Although they have had brief experiences with democracy, they didn’t last. They didn’t last.
Atul Singh: (So even when Syria flirted with democracy, it couldn’t overcome those deep sectarian divisions, could it?)
Gary Grappo: Yes, they even tried that! But that’s another point, because let’s bear in mind there are external players in all of that mix. This is not just Syria alone. There’s Lebanon, of course, to the west. There’s Turkey, which is probably the most significant influence today to the north. Iran has not given up on Syria and will try to re-establish its pipeline of weapons of war material and money into Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. There are folks who were greatly affected by the fall of the Assad regime and the collapse of the huge Captagon industry that was resident in Syria. Basically, that’s how the Syrian regime made money. They sell Captagon — which is the Middle Eastern equivalent almost of meth — and were making billions. And that’s how the army earned whatever funds it could to support itself. It wasn’t nearly enough, and obviously collapsed very easily. And there are others in the mix. The Iraqis are watching very, very closely what happens. This may present some opportunities for the western Arabs of Iraq to influence Syria as well. And then you have the Americans, the Europeans and the Israelis exerting their influence. The Israelis, by the way, have moved beyond the neutral territory between their borders and have now settled on — I’m talking about military forces — on actual Syrian territory. And they’re going to wait and see how things play out to ensure that whatever result does not present a threat to Israel. And so they have that new buffer zone that they have established.
Atul Singh: Yes, some of the Israelis say that there’s no way they can give it up. And they say that the Druze actually in Syria want Israeli protection. And the Druze are a great buffer zone against a potential fundamentalist Sunni regime in Damascus.
Gary Grappo: That’s 100% correct. Of course, there is a significant, relatively speaking, Druze population in Israel, which does quite well. They do not experience many of the problems that the Israeli Arabs have in Israel, and they’re quite pleased, for the most part, with their status in Israel. And of course, they have their contacts with their brothers in Syria. And it’s a natural affinity that the Druze would have toward Israel. They’re far more trusting of Israel than this new government. And they’re trying to figure it out. They’re trying to feel their way through this new government. They’re not sure exactly how much authority, how much power they will be given. And so it’s not surprising that they’re maintaining pretty close ties with Israel and will find a way to cooperate with Israel if they feel that their interests may be threatened by this new government in Damascus.
Atul Singh: Alright, you haven’t mentioned the Russians. They have Latakia and they have Tartus still, and I’m sure they are not going to disappear quietly into the sun.
Gary Grappo: You’re right. And they don’t have quite the presence they had before the fall of the Assad regime. There are supposedly ongoing negotiations to maintain both their air base at Hmeimim and their naval base at Tartus. The naval base in particular is vitally important for the Russians, and they desperately want to hold on to that. They’ve lost all other influence in Syria today, not only because of the fall of Assad, but of course having to overextend itself in Ukraine, in that misbegotten war. And so they’re struggling. And it’s not clear that the government may necessarily want them, particularly given the close relationship between Russia today and Iran. One thing you can say about the regime in Damascus now is they don’t want the Iranians back. They most definitely don’t want Hezbollah back. And we’re already seeing fighting take place between the government forces of Syria and Hezbollah, which is a very interesting development — and from the purely selfish perspective of the Americans and Israelis — not bad at all. Now, Hezbollah is probably also allying with these pro-Assad factions in the western part of the country, which is something to be watched. And again, Atul, I just come back to all the centrifugal forces at play in Syria, which argue against, unfortunately, the best hopes of the Syrian people after the regime fell.
Egypt: the ticking time bomb
Atul Singh: Alright, let’s move on from Syria, and let’s talk about Egypt, the other neighbor of Israel. One ex-MI6 officer told me that he believes that Egypt could be the ticking time bomb in the region because of its population, because of the salinization of the Nile Delta, and because of persistent youth unemployment and resentment against the regime. He also said that as of now, Sisi is a pretty effective ruler. The military has managed to clamp down pretty hard on the Muslim Brotherhood. And as of now, there is no immediate risk. But the structural problems persist in the economy, and the political problem exists in society, and there is such democratic deficit and a demographic time bomb that Egypt will ultimately implode. What do you say to that, Gary?
Gary Grappo: Egypt is a perfect illustration of the essential problem of the Middle East that I outlined at the outset. And that is the fact that you have unpopular governments, unaccountable to their people and fearful of their people, and maintaining authority through their security forces — essentially oppression — while at the same time the economic and social needs are not being met adequately. And there’s no recourse. And in the case of Egypt, you have very effective internal security forces. They have almost eradicated the Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt — ruthlessly, too. And they packed up and left while they could. And those who couldn’t ended up either dead or in jail. And there are a number of jails that are chock-a-block full of former Muslim Brotherhood members. So for the time being, as you mentioned, the problem is contained. But the challenge remains: how do you reconcile a country — it’s the largest population by far in the Middle East — that is unable at the present time to meet the needs of those people? Education, health care, employment and so forth. The government was able to attract money to build this mammoth new capital, which by all accounts is quite impressive, outside of Cairo. Most people cannot afford to live there, only probably the top 10–15%. Even some Egyptians who work there in the government can’t afford to live there. And so that’s presenting problems for the people of Cairo especially, which is the largest city by far in Egypt, if not in the entire Middle East. And then the environmental problems that you mentioned are not going away. They are not going away. If you look at coastal Egypt, which extends considerably south up the Nile, one can foresee in 20 years and in 40 years — I’ve looked at these projections — how the salinization effectively takes over the Nile Delta and even flooding, including in the second-largest city of Alexandria. If you look at the population — Alexandria, Cairo, the Nile Delta — that is a significant percentage of the population of Egypt. I want to say at least a third, it could be even more than that. When they lose their ability to live somewhere that’s livable and also earn an income, what happens? Well, you can have internal unrest. You can have massive refugee flows. And we have seen in the example of the Syrian civil war what happens when that occurs. And my guess is many of those refugees would seek to go to either Turkey — maybe Lebanon, although there’s not much space for them there — but more than likely the southern Mediterranean countries of Europe. And so all of that certainly bears watching, and it further underscores the importance of the Sisi regime to find a way to deflate these growing pressures within his society — outside of the use of his security forces. It also argues for greater investment on the part of the Gulf countries in development in Egypt — particularly creating economic opportunity. You create economic opportunity, and then the options begin to open up. And that hasn’t materialized yet. So that’s the pressure cooker of Egypt today. The pressure is manageable, as you indicated — for now. What will it be like in 10 years? I can’t predict, and I wouldn’t even try to.
The Gulf: A regional ray of hope
Atul Singh: Alright, you’ve mentioned the Gulf countries. So let’s now talk about the Gulf. And the Gulf includes, of course, small countries like Qatar, that punch way above their weight. They have created Al Jazeera. Dubai, which is the financial center now of the Middle East, where you now have the Abraham Accords in some kind of entente with Israel. You also have countries like Bahrain and Oman, where you were ambassador. And then, of course, the big boys — Saudi Arabia. Now Yemen doesn’t quite come. It is an important place, because the Houthis have proved that they can de facto block off the Suez Canal. The Bab al-Mandab Strait is de facto unusable, and ships are going around the Cape of Good Hope, just like pre-Henry the Navigator times or Henry the Navigator times. So talk about the Gulf, now that you’ve mentioned the Gulf — and it’s a diverse picture, as listeners can already divine.
Gary Grappo: Yes. Setting aside the case of Yemen, because it’s just — yes, it occupies the same Arabian Peninsula, but it’s not like any of the other Gulf countries. The Gulf countries, unlike the rest of the region, are actually doing rather well economically and even socially. You have cradle-to-grave healthcare systems. You have respectable education systems. The level of extremism and jihadism is very, very low, if it exists at all. And to the extent that it might exist, the security forces are very effective in tamping them down. And most of them are quite active on the regional and international diplomatic scene. You mentioned the case of Qatar, but I think the two major players are Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.
Atul Singh: (Yes. They really are the powerhouses of the Gulf now, especially when it comes to diplomacy.)
Gary Grappo: Exactly. Both of them are extraordinarily wealthy countries. On a per capita basis, I’d say the Emirates is probably much wealthier and Qatar wealthier than them all, and are doing lots of things on the international scene to raise their profile. I mean, just take the example of these negotiations over Ukraine. They’re taking place in Saudi Arabia! Who could have imagined such a thing five years ago?
Atul Singh: Yeah, that’s unbelievable! The Europeans are turning and tossing in complete indignation.
Gary Grappo: Yes. So, back in the day — certainly my day, and up to maybe about five or ten years ago — when you had to do these kinds of negotiations, everyone flocked to Geneva. Now they’re going to Jeddah or to Riyadh, perhaps Doha or even Abu Dhabi. So the Gulf states are doing quite well, and we should all wish that we would find that kind of stability. Obviously, none of them is a democracy, and in all likelihood, they’re not going to be for a very, very long time. But they’re quite stable.
Atul Singh: Including, if I may interject, Saudi Arabia, because some people fear for Saudi Arabia, because Mohammed bin Salman has ruled it with a very strong hand, an iron fist, and there is fear that there might be factions brewing within his own family that might turn against him, lead even to assassination. So there is that fear, as you know, amongst intelligence circles. This is what I hear, both from the Israelis and the British.
Gary Grappo: Yes. And it’s varied from king to king. And I will say it’s certainly present now. But I think one thing that makes this situation in Saudi Arabia different today is that socially, the country is in a much better position. Saudis do not face the kind of restrictions in social interaction and activity that they used to face. When I was there, you had this very distinct segregation of the sexes and there were very few opportunities for people to engage in social activity outside of the home. That has changed! You have America’s Cup regional competition. You have had major tennis tournaments, golf tournaments — even, God help them — American professional wrestling. You’ve had rock concerts. Movie theaters are starting to proliferate.
Atul Singh: They even have Cristiano Ronaldo with his girlfriend and many children from many different women! (laughs)
Gary Grappo: Yeah, yeah. So they’ve opened the floodgates socially, and that’s reduced a lot of the tension. And that was a brilliant move on the part of Mohammed bin Salman. On the economic side, they’ve created new opportunities. Now, I’ve been reading recently that because of the low price of oil that maybe their coffers will not be as enriched this year as in earlier years. They’re used to that. They’ve faced those times before, and they know how to deal with that. They’ll have to ratchet back their ambitions on the NEOM project in western Saudi Arabia, and they’ll manage to do that. Having said all of that, I will say that despite some concerns that I have on his positions on human rights, Mohammed bin Salman has done a good job of managing that country. The only thing now they’re waiting on is what happens to his father, King Salman. I mean, he’s probably not long for this world. Well, none of us is, but he in particular. And when he becomes the king — he’s effectively behaving like the king now, with some limits — I think we could see even more changes that will be occurring in his country. He seems to have forged respectable relations — sometimes close relations — with other countries, including in the region. He faces this nemesis down in the south, Yemen. He’s managed to extricate his forces from the actual conflict, but the conflict still continues. So he’s done, I have to say, a credible job, first and foremost in maintaining stability and mollifying the population of Saudi Arabia, as have all the other Gulf countries. Oman was facing some economic problems because of oil prices and so forth a few years ago. That’s begun to change. And we’re now seeing some impressive growth figures in Oman. The new sultan has now kind of asserted himself, and we’re seeing his unique imprint in the governance of the Sultanate. All of the Gulf countries seem to be doing very well, or at least respectably, not facing any of the challenges that the other countries in the region are. In fact, they’re seen as a potential solution, including in the conflict in Gaza, with future investment to redevelop, rebuild Gaza, if and when that conflict ends.
Iraq, Kuwait and the shadow of empires
Atul Singh: Alright, so the Gulf is a ray of hope in the region. We’ve covered a number of countries. We’ve got two big former empires left — correct me if I’m wrong, and please chime in and add if I’m missing any major country. Of course, some may say you’ve missed out Kuwait, you’ve missed out Iraq. And we’ve mentioned Iraq. We can talk about Kuwait and Iraq briefly. Perhaps you begin with them. But the two countries that come to my mind are the descendants of the Ottomans and the Safavids, the two great empires of the region. But over to you. Let’s cover Kuwait and Iraq lest we offend anyone. Iraq is very similar to Syria. Both Syria and Iraq were run by Ba’athists. Both were bloody regimes run by minorities. Syria was run by an Alawite family. And of course, we know that Iraq was run by a Sunni family from Tikrit, the Saddam Hussein clan. He and his boys were terrors, to say the least. Iraq is also multi-ethnic. And few people know Iraq better than Gary. So we have Kuwait and Iraq. Kuwait presumably is doing all right. Iraq — you can tell us more. And then let’s move on. Please move on to Turkey and Iran.
Gary Grappo: I’m not sure I’ll have much to contribute with respect to Turkey. I don’t follow Turkey as closely as I do the Arab countries. But with respect to Iraq, I will say, because of the weakened state of affairs in Iran, that it does present some opportunities to Iraq. It is worth noting that the Iraqi leadership has indicated fairly clearly that it wants the very limited American presence in that country to remain. Now, the various Iranian-aligned militia groups in Iraq have indicated that if American forces have not withdrawn by the end of this year, they will resume massive attacks against that American presence, and perhaps an American presence elsewhere, including in the very eastern part of Syria. They certainly have some ability to do that. It’s going to be limited. And I think they understand that, were they to do that, they would find overwhelming response certainly from the Americans and maybe from the Iraqi government itself. It’s unclear how strongly the Iraqi leadership wants to assert its independence from Iran. The Iranians have had so much influence in that country since the departure of the Americans. But the card deck has been reshuffled, and not all the cards are held by Iran today. The Iraqis have a few more than they have had in the past. And so there is some opportunity. We’re seeing new oil investment, for example, in the country. They have resolved some of the problems that they have had previously with their own Kurds up in the north. And so Iraq has something to look forward to, some potential. But again, they are riven by the sectarian problems that have been there ever since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Very similar to Shia, Sunni, Kurds and to a lesser extent, Christians and other minority groups. And so that remains a very significant challenge for them, particularly given the fact that the way the Iraqi Council of Representatives is established, where seats are apportioned according to sect, various groups are locked in. And that creates a bit of a road jam in terms of maybe getting things done. And we’ve seen in the past demonstrations of younger Iraqis wanting to do away with this system of preferences — to just open it up completely and let Iraqi citizens vote for those they believe best able to serve the interest of the State of Iraq and the Iraqi people. So I would say that Iraq is still a bit of a question mark — potentially in a somewhat better position, but unclear how they might capitalize on that, particularly given some of the internal problems that they have. They are going to need significant foreign investment if they’re truly going to be able to develop their oil potential. We should also mention, given our brief discussion about the problem in Egypt — environmental problems, in the fact that the water flow in the two main rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, has been diminishing over the years. Climate change, one cause. The other is the dams that Turkey has built, and to a lesser extent, Syria. It’s mostly Turkey which has reduced the water flow that reaches Iraq. And it’s something to be aware of because agriculture was a major factor in the Iraqi economy and in the Iraqi employment scene. So all of these are challenges that the government is going to have to face. With respect to Iran, this is the real challenge — certainly for Israel, for the United States and for the West in general. The Iranian government has suffered, over the course of the past year, a series of setbacks they could never have anticipated. They overestimated their own power and influence and they grossly underestimated the capabilities of the Israelis, particularly with the support of the United States. The current state of affairs: They are not able to effectively defend themselves against an Israeli air attack. The one that occurred last October — two waves of the most advanced fighters built by the United States, the F-35, the stealth fighters — their radar systems completely failed to detect them. And as a result, the Israelis were able to carry out their attacks without restraint. They delivered all of their ordnance and wreaked havoc on the air defenses that Iran had. And they’re not going to be replaced anytime soon. They were Russian-made, and the Russians are not going to be shipping any military equipment outside Russia.
Atul Singh: Very quick question: There is also the matter of the regime’s popularity at home, which seems to be the biggest risk. Add to that an economic crisis which is worsening, and Donald Trump has been no friend to Iran. In fact, he threw out the Iran deal that Barack Obama negotiated. So the noose around Iran is likely to tighten. Speaking of internal stability, the other imperial power, Turkey, isn’t doing that well either. There are protests as we speak in Turkey because Ekrem İmamoğlu, the secular Republican People’s Party’s candidate, was locked up by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime. Erdoğan has been in power forever, but still, that’s a far more democratic country than a country ruled by mullahs. And in Iran, there’s also the specter of the different minorities resenting Farsi or Fars dominance. The Baluchs don’t like it, the Azeris don’t like it, the Kurds don’t like it and so on and so forth — not to mention the Chinese Sunni minority left. So William Butler Yeats’ words — “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” — certainly seems to be the fear for the Iranian regime.
Gary Grappo: That’s the major challenge of this current regime. And that is, in addition to the external threat that they face from Israel. By the way, in those attacks that occurred in April, Israel took out one of the main factories for the manufacture of ballistic missiles. So Iran’s vaunted ballistic missile capability has been significantly diminished as well. And this was their final defense. This was intended to be the defense that would protect the Islamic Republic. And those defenses have been greatly weakened vis-à-vis any potential attack from Israel. But most especially, if the Americans were to join the Israelis, there’s no way to repel it. And they would suffer devastating losses. And you can be sure that in addition to going after what’s left of the missile forces and other defense areas, they would be going after IRGC camps and doing maximum—
Atul Singh: Very quickly, explain IRGC to our viewers and listeners.
Gary Grappo: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. This is basically a military force apart from the Artesh, which is the standard military force: Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. That’s the Iranian defense forces under the Ministry of Defense. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reports to the Supreme Leader. And as the name implies, they protect the Islamic Revolution, which is basically the regime. That’s their job. And they do this in many ways. They probably attract more resources on a per capita basis than does the regular military. And they certainly have the ear of the Supreme Leader the way the military forces do not, and so they are given preeminence. And they are seen as a much greater threat to Israel or even to Iran’s neighbors than the Iranian armed forces.
Atul Singh: So think of them like the Praetorian Guard of the Roman Empire.
Gary Grappo: That’s a good way to put it, except much larger and very ideologically committed.
Atul Singh: More fanatically.
Gary Grappo: Yes. And it’s not just them. They have militia groups that work for them, and these are the ones who enforce domestic law in Iran, particularly with respect to religious law — and most especially when it comes to ensuring, for example, that women are covered. These are the guys going around on black motorbikes with baseball bats and nailing women who are not properly covered, enforcing Islamic law.
Atul Singh: Isn’t the use of baseball bats very American? The irony!
Gary Grappo: Yeah, we pretend not to use baseball bats as weapons, but it can be a very effective one!
Atul Singh: Al Capone used it.
Gary Grappo: Yes, yes. It’s not unknown as a very effective, bloody weapon. So these are some of the external threats that Iran is facing. And then one cannot overestimate the challenge they face internally. There is a lot of dissension there. I read some of these various polls that are taken — you don’t know how much to attribute to them — but where popularity now is at or below even 20%. They are almost universally despised — the Iranian leadership in that country — for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the appalling economic situation.
Atul Singh: And no jobs for the youth.
Gary Grappo: No jobs. The Iranian rial continues to fall and explore new depths, and there’s no way that they can shore it up. And add now Donald Trump to the mix. He has now doubled down if not tripled on his maximum pressure campaign and is really exploiting every opportunity in terms of secondary sanctions. And for those who don’t quite understand the nature of US economic sanctions: When the US sanctions a particular nation, organization, business, entity or person directly, that’s primary sanctions. A secondary sanction is going after someone who does business with any of those. So for example, Iranian exports: Iran is putting its oil onto ghost ships. They load them onto tankers in a port in Iran. They’re taken out somewhere not far offshore, out of sight. The transponders are turned off. A ghost tanker shows up — it’s not registered in any country — and they transfer the oil to the ghost tanker, sometimes mixing it with oil from a legitimate oil exporter, maybe Saudi Arabia, maybe the Emirates, maybe Oman, Kuwait, whatever. And then it goes to its final destination, where it’s offloaded. The United States has begun sanctioning the ghost ships when they find them and sanctioning the ports and the refineries who take on that illicit oil from Iran. This has made everybody involved in the illicit import and export of oil very, very wary. And for the first time, the United States is going after ports and businesses in India and in China who are not particularly excited about getting on the wrong side of the law when it comes to the Americans. They do not want to be sanctioned. It’s a death sentence. You can’t do business in dollars. And if you can’t do business in dollars — and it’ll effectively mean euros, too — what are you left with? So those sanctions are going to be very effective. In fact, Joe Biden started doing this toward the end of his administration — I would say October, November, certainly December — and Donald Trump has screwed it down even more tightly. And we’re going to see declining exports of oil from Iran, which is a principal hard currency earner.
Atul Singh: So let me tell you a story. I ran into a former British Special Forces soldier, and he was in the smuggling business. He was earning $20,000 per night for captaining a tanker. And he would take the tanker and he would go to one of these ghost tankers — Iranian tankers — transfer the oil from the ghost tanker into whatever tanker he was captaining, and then sail and offload that oil. And basically, that earned him $20,000 per night for this high-risk operation, shall we say. (laughs) Shall we say, he has a very nice house in England right now!
Gary Grappo: And he’s exactly the kind of people that the Americans are looking for now. These are the kind of people they want to go after.
Atul Singh: So maybe he’s one of the lucky ones who got away!
Gary Grappo: Well, he got out of the business just at the right time, because I think this administration really wants to screw down the lid as tightly as possible. Now, on the positive side — as we all know, it’s been prominently reported in the news — Donald Trump has communicated to the Supreme Leader he’s willing to sit down and begin negotiations to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The Iranians would be well advised to accept that. I’m not sure they’re going to, to their detriment. This is going to greatly disappoint the people of Iran, who are only going to become more frustrated and more angry with their government. And it’s going to increase the pressure internally on that government. So here you have rising dissent in Iran. You have a growing, acute economic situation in that country which shows no signs of being able to improve itself. And then these external threats that the country faces, without the defenses it previously had expected to rely on. And so the lineup of factors against the current regime in Iran is all very negative. You’d be pretty hard-pressed to find a bright spot. Maybe Yemen. And I tell you, you’ve got to be pretty desperate to look at Yemen as a bright spot. So now they have their relationships with Russia and with China. I will say that China is not going to jeopardize its trade relationship — which is already facing difficulties with the United States — for Iran. They’re not going to do it. They will cut the rope if they have to, when it comes to Iran. Russia, on the other hand, needs Iran, and Iran needs Russia. And so that relationship will probably remain in place and likely even strengthen. But still, the various challenges facing that regime are all bad to abominable, which is why it would be a good idea to negotiate with the Americans and get this out of the way. Remove sanctions. It would change everything. And for what? All they would have to do is cease their nuclear weapons program. I don’t know whether the leadership is willing to concede that.
Atul Singh: The Ayatollah is now aging dramatically and may not last very long. So we have no idea what comes next.
Donald Trump has a real opportunity
Atul Singh: So, let’s talk about Donald Trump. You’ve mentioned him a few times. What is the new Middle East policy of his administration? And what can we expect in the next three and a half years or four years of his presidency? A little less than four years, of course. Now we are in March.
Gary Grappo: Yeah, yeah. I would say that Donald Trump inherited, with respect to the Middle East, probably the most opportunistic set of circumstances that any American president has ever had coming into office. I mean, we’ve covered the various areas of the Middle East, and in almost every respect, it’s an opportunity for the United States. I will say, however, that the Middle East is the place where American ambition goes to die. And we’ve seen that time after time after time. The last genuinely successful American adventure — I’m not sure that’s the proper word for it — in the Middle East was brokering the peace accord between Egypt and Israel. Just going back to Bill Clinton, the collapse of the Camp David Accord in 2000, we’ve seen the efforts on the part of George Bush in Iraq that turned out to be disastrous not only for the region but for the United States. Barack Obama started out nobly, seeking to address the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, also fell on very bad times and he eventually just gave up his hands. His new Secretary of State after Hillary Clinton left, John Kerry, wanted to pick up the ball and thought, “No, he could deliver the goods,” — collapsed, frustrated again both by the Israelis and the Palestinians. And of course, Obama tried to negotiate the JCPOA, which looked pretty good on paper. It wasn’t certainly a perfect agreement. He was succeeded by Donald Trump, who proceeded to tear it up about a year into his first term as president. And the situation progressed to the point where, at the end of his administration, the situation in Iran had worsened, despite his promises that by tearing up the agreement, it would improve. Don’t forget, we had maximum pressure back then, too. And it did not work to the extent that he had promised. Joe Biden seemed to be doing okay until October 7. And it just exploded — and this was not his fault, obviously. And that’s the whole problem of the Middle East; you can’t control events as President of the United States. And that situation exploded, he cast his lot with Israel, which you had to expect the United States would do. And that only worsened. But on the other hand, it allowed Israel to address other problems, namely Hezbollah. And just lucky with the collapse of the government in Syria and the weakening of Iran—
Atul Singh: Maybe it was related, because they couldn’t rely on Hezbollah this time around. It has been weakened. It was a great opportunity. And with, of course, Turkish backing — MIT backed — you have this group which is now ruling Damascus. So I think it is related to a great degree.
Gary Grappo: Oh, oh, most definitely, the collapse of Hezbollah presented a real opportunity for HTS to go after Assad. And I think there was also the recognition that the Assad regime was a house of cards, that it was not capable of defending itself. And that’s just apparent from how quickly HTS moved from the northwestern part of the country — up in Idlib — all the way down to Damascus in a matter of what, two and a half weeks? And took control of the government. And its previous backers, Hezbollah, quiet, nothing. Syria or Iran, nothing. Russia, nothing. It was Assad — all of them. And he did not have the forces. It wouldn’t have taken much, but he didn’t have that. So Donald Trump comes in as president, and all these problems that earlier presidents have had to contend with are either gone or much diminished. So he has a real opportunity here. I’m pleased that he does not want confrontation with Iran and has offered this opportunity to negotiate. But on the other hand, I don’t think he’s going to shy from a confrontation. Just as in the case of his dealing with Hamas, United States broke protocol, broke precedent, and actually had an official meeting between Americans and Hamas. Never done before, ever! …That we know of. Maybe on the intelligence side, there may have been some. But this was policy people, and they laid all the cards out for Hamas and gave them an opportunity: “Do this, it’s in your interest.” Hamas refused to do it. And now we see Israel going in without constraints and Donald Trump fully behind them, 100%. I don’t think it’ll reach the intensity that we saw perhaps a year or so ago in Gaza, simply because Hamas is not the threat that it was at that time. But it’s going to be long, it’s going to be bloody. We’ll see more loss of life, tragically, innocent life in Gaza. But I think Israel is attempting to go in for the real kill this time. I don’t think they’re going to be successful, but they will wreak havoc, certainly within Hamas and what’s left of Gaza. So you would hope that the Iranian leadership will learn something from that example. That Donald Trump tried to work with Hamas, tried to show them, there’s a way out of this, “You just got to take it.” They refused. And now they will pay a very heavy price. If Iran is listening, paying attention and can set aside some of its ideology and fanaticism, they could find a way out of their predicament. I’m not sure—
Atul Singh: So you expect the Iranian regime to fall, as a number of people do? A number of people are now predicting the end of the Iranian regime by the end of Donald Trump’s term?
Gary Grappo: Well, that would be a wonderful thing, of course. We would certainly like to see that.
Atul Singh: So you’re happy with Donald Trump on at least one thing?
Gary Grappo: No, I… but the mechanism for that downfall is unclear yet. If someone is going to make the case that there will be an internal collapse — that the internal dynamic will force the collapse — I’m very suspicious. That I think would take longer than the next four years. It could happen. And the principal argument against it is because of the commitment and dedication and power of the IRGC. They will defend it to the bitter end, and it will be a very bloody, bitter end. Not the kind of end that happened with the Shah, with the Grand Ayatollah taking off in an airplane and going somewhere, although God knows where he could go. Maybe Moscow. That seems to be the new refuge of tyrants. But that, I think, is a bit far-fetched at the time being. However, I think the clock is ticking on an eventual Israeli attack against Iran, if Iran continues to show that it’s unwilling to negotiate and moves its nuclear development program further down the road toward possible weaponization. It hasn’t done it yet, but it’s building all the infrastructure it could possibly need for it. I think the Israelis will want to capitalize before it’s too late on the vulnerability of the regime, and they will attack. And the only question that remains is: Will the Americans join them? If the Americans join them, it will be a devastating attack on the complete defense structure of Iran. And that could spell the end of the regime in Iran. So what rules after that? Because we’re not sending ground troops. Nor are the Israelis sending ground troops. So the regime collapses. Who takes over? I’ll just throw out one possibility: the IRGC. It becomes a military regime, something like we see in Egypt. They do away with a lot of the religious nonsense that was imposed by the Ayatollahs or the mullahs. They reach some kind of an understanding on their nuclear program, simply because they will have no choice. And you have a military regime, and if they can reach an agreement with the various powers with respect to their nuclear program, maybe the sanctions will be dropped and they can prosper. I think any grand ambitions for a democracy in Iran or anywhere else in the Middle East have to be dismissed, just completely. What do we want most? We want stability. That’s what we want. We want regimes to clamp down on extremist organizations, with the various militias in Iraq and in Syria and elsewhere. And with that, I think everybody — including in the Middle East — will be very, very happy, even if they don’t get to choose who governs them.
Atul Singh: On that note, Gary, we’ve spent a lot of time going over so many countries and coming up with various scenarios. It’s been a pleasure, as always, and we’ll have you back before too long.
Gary Grappo: I look forward to that, Atul. We’ll have to discuss Yemen at this time. I think it’s an interesting case study. It’s a bit of an outlier, but nevertheless is becoming a significant problem area in the Middle East. So perhaps next time we can address the challenge of Yemen.
Atul Singh: Alright, everybody, stay tuned for Yemen next time. Until then, thank you very much, Gary. See you soon.
Gary Grappo: My pleasure, Atul.
(Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” Atul Singh: Welcome to FO° Talks. With me is Gary Grappo. He’s the former chair of Fair Observer. He has been an ambassador for the US. He has had a glorious diplomatic career spanning many decades in many countries. He speaks many languages, and few people have a more nuanced view on…” post_summery=”This discussion covers the shifting geopolitical landscape of the Middle East, exploring regional instability, internal fractures and emerging power dynamics. It examines challenges in countries like Israel, Syria, Iran and Egypt, alongside the relative stability of Gulf states. It concludes with analysis of US policy under President Donald Trump.” post-date=”Apr 11, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: The New Geopolitical Landscape of the Middle East Writeup” slug-data=”fo-talks-the-new-geopolitical-landscape-of-the-middle-east-writeup”>
FO° Talks: The New Geopolitical Landscape of the Middle East Writeup
Atul Singh: Alright, we move on now to New Troubles in Gaza, Israel, Syria and Turkey. And since Glenn has been the head of the Office of Transnational Threats, since Glenn was active in the War on Terror and Glenn has a lot of friends in Israel, and I’m sure in the Mossad, let’s hand the floor over to Glenn to talk about, at least, Gaza and Israel, to begin with.
Glenn Carle: Well, the structure of Atul’s and my discussion today, and thus of the world that we’re trying to address, is to begin with farce and then to discuss hope, and now to move to tragedy.
Atul Singh: It’s a great structure.
Glenn Carle: Yes. Well, such is life, I think, for us all. The Middle East has, all of our lives, been in chaos. It’s long been known by anyone who focuses on the Middle East that it’s a part of what the CIA has called for many, many years, and scholars have, the Arc of Instability, where you have increasing existential climate and environmental factors, apart from human action: falling rainfall, increasing desertification, declining fertility of soil, an uncontrollable demographic bulge — in particular, of young males. It’s young males that create all the trouble in the world. And that’s not a facetious comment, actually. It’s flippant, but it’s also accurate. On top of which are, to use the Marxist framework, the superstructure of political institutions that have been ill-adapted prior to decolonization and since, to address any of these problems, and then being victim of the great power conflict and the pawns thereof. So there’s always been a problem, but the current issues, I think, have become even more acute, clearly because of the last two years, I guess it is already, of the Gaza war. We’ll call it the Gaza war. And before that—
Gaza conflict and the limits of military strategy
Atul Singh: October 7 is when it begins. So it’s not yet two years. October 7, the attack.
Glenn Carle: Not yet two years, yeah, it’s a year and a half.
Atul Singh: Yeah, so Hamas attacks and then Israel responds.
Glenn Carle: Yeah. But I think the criticism hasn’t extended sufficiently to embrace the destabilizing effects on the entire Middle East of the American invasion of Iraq, which led to the collapse of Syria, much as one might have opposed and disliked the Assad government. And thus to 50% of the Syrian population of 30 million people becoming refugees, more than half of whom now reside largely in Germany, leading to the problems that we just touched upon, at least indirectly, before.
Atul Singh: Glenn, sorry, they reside elsewhere. They reside in Lebanon, they reside in Turkey and, of course, some of them have gone all the way to Germany. So not all of them are in Germany. Half of them are out of the country.
Glenn Carle: No, but about five million of them are in Germany and Europe. Yeah, five of the 12, I think. So, let’s talk about specifically Gaza, and then Syria and then Turkey. And if you talk about Gaza, that means talking about Israel. And I’ll have to be quick. Netanyahu’s policy has been to destroy Hamas. The problem he is confronted, although many deny and disagree with, is the same problem that the United States faced in the way it framed, defined and understood the “War on Terror” — which is, of course, an incoherent concept to begin with. I mean, how do you fight a war against terror? Well, we fought a war against a specific organization or organizations, thinking that there could be, in military terms in the United States, a kinetic — which means a lethal — solution, by killing enough people and breaking up an institution or an organization. It’s true we did largely destroy al-Qaeda and kill a lot of people. But you don’t kill a sociological problem or a political dispute almost ever by using a conventional military. Military strategists and trainers, for all of my adult life — all of our adult lives — have been concerned about the problems of asymmetric warfare. Why did the United States lose in Vietnam? Why did Britain lose in what became the United States? And why do I think Israel has created an unsolvable problem for itself in Gaza? You can’t really eliminate the frustrations of the Palestinians and thus their enduring hostility and actions against Israel, by killing Hamas. And you can’t completely kill Hamas as it is. Gaza has been almost literally destroyed. Dozens of thousands of people have been killed, and Hamas remains extant. The consequences there are that, I think, really, Israel clearly has won a short-term victory and almost certainly will win a medium-term victory. Strategically, existentially, Israel was not threatened prior to October 7 or on October 7, and hasn’t been and will not be threatened now. Also not receiving, I think, adequate attention is what’s happening in the West Bank. Gaza has been destroyed, Hamas has been seriously weakened, Israel’s strategic security is, in some ways, unchanged because they were not existentially threatened prior to the beginning of the Gaza war.
West Bank, demographics and internal Israeli politics
Glenn Carle: But on the West Bank, the same thing is happening, and there are three ways forward: You can expel all of the Palestinians, which is an increasingly plausible solution that the far right of Israel is advocating, both from Gaza and, progressively de facto, from the West Bank.
Atul Singh: You can send the Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt, and you send the Palestinians from West Bank to Jordan, and voilà! We don’t have a problem. That is the thinking of the Israeli far right.
Glenn Carle: Exactly. And medium-term, which is years in duration — what’s medium-term, five years? Ten? Israel will be fine. But that doesn’t address the enduring enmity and hatred that existed before, and that probably guarantees — what it does likely do is destabilize Egypt and Lebanon and Jordan in ways that, long-term, will make the region even more unstable than it is now. And just as Lebanon has been destroyed and Iraq was largely fractured, and Syria has been destroyed, so you might see an exacerbation of all of those tendencies long-term. From the success of the right wing of Israel and the Israeli army to destroy, in many ways, the operational capabilities of Hamas in Gaza and eliminate the Palestinian populations. Also linked to that and Israel is that demographically, you will, in the medium- to long-term future — not ten years, fifteen — have a majority of the Israeli population that is actually Muslim. So Israel has a choice then: Is it a democracy, or is it a Jewish oligarchy? And that’s—
Atul Singh: Very quickly, that’s because 20% of Israel is Palestinian, and they are Israeli citizens. They are not in the West Bank, they are not in Gaza. They are in Israel. And when Glenn is talking about, in the long run, you could have them as a majority, it’s because their birth rates are higher than Jewish birth rates. Although the ultra-Orthodox might just compete with them and make sure that Israel remains Jewish. But the secular Israelis who form the tip of the spear of the Israeli state, they are the ones who serve in Mossad, in Sayeret Matkal, in Shin Bet, in their elite units, whether it’s Yahalom or whatever. They are the ones who are secular, do not generally have many children. Therefore, they are electorally, progressively weaker and weaker. And they are the ones under threat in some ways, because, as we have just observed. within Israel, something big happened. First, the Israeli cabinet decided to fire Ronen Bar, the head of Shin Bet. That is Israel’s internal intelligence agency. And everyone hears about Mossad, but they should know about Shin Bet. Shin Bet is an extraordinary organization. Shin Bet has some extraordinary officers.
Glenn Carle: The domestic intelligence service. Israel’s FBI.
Atul Singh: Exactly. Eh, a little different. FBI does investigation, Shin Bet does intelligence.
Glenn Carle: Don’t go into the weeds, we’re going to run out of time.
Atul Singh: Yeah. We’ll extend the time this time a little bit because of the ground we have to cover. But Ronen Bar joined the Israeli Defense Forces in 1984. He was an officer in Sayeret Matkal. He was head of Shin Bet’s Operations Division. He became the head of Shin Bet. And he’s a highly educated chap, he’s got aquiline looks, he’s ridiculously fit and good-looking. I’m told by friends who know him that he is a top man. And for the Israeli cabinet to just kick him out — well, kicking out the Shin Bet chief is obviously a political prerogative, but there is due process. And there’s not just the law, but there is convention, there is a certain tenor. And it was done under a cloud. Why? Because there is, as most people who follow Israel closely — and as I was informed this morning by some Israeli friends — the Qatari connection affair, which is a corruption scandal engulfing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Good old Bibi, that’s his nickname. Now, what has happened is that the nearest political advisors of Bibi were involved in paid jobs promoting the interests of the Government of Qatar. Now, why is this a bit iffy? It’s because Qatar was spending $15 million — or a pretty significant figure — to Hamas, and that’s where the leaders of Hamas stay. And in March 2025, Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar affirmed that the agency was investigating the affair. Now, this is a complex and multifaceted affair, as he acknowledged. And Ronen Bar was then kicked out whilst he’s investigating corruption which involves the Prime Minister. Now the Israeli Supreme Court has stepped in. The Israeli Supreme Court had said, “Hang on a minute, hang on a minute! You can’t just do this!” So they’ve issued an injunction to prevent Bar from being fired by Bibi. So what is happening in Israel is not just the conflict with Gaza, not just the tensions in the West Bank, not just the great successes in Lebanon. What is happening in Israel is a fundamental pull and push on the institutions of the state. It is indubitably true that a lot of Israelis find these institutions elitist, because the people who head Shin Bet, the people who head Mossad, the people who go into Sayeret Matkal tend to be officers who perform very well. Often, they may be from better-educated families. They’re almost invariably secular so far and the religious Jews who have the vote say, “Hang on a minute.” It’s a bit like people turning against elites everywhere and saying, “You can’t tell us what to do.” The difference between Israel and other societies is that this is a society which is, in some ways, a Spartan state. It has hostile neighbors. In many ways, as an MI6 friend said, it’s a modern-day Crusader state amongst a sea of hostile shores. And so if you’re playing footsie with the tip of your spear, with the sword in your scabbard, you’re playing with fire. And that is the fundamental tension within the Israeli society. And of course, there are demonstrations. Of course, people don’t like this. And people say that Bibi Netanyahu needs war to avoid scrutiny, and Bibi Netanyahu does not want any scrutiny. And by kicking out Ronen Bar, he’s postponing the inevitable. That may be true, may not be true. He’s certainly an impressive leader, he has more than nine lives, he’s much more resourceful than a cat. He’s cobbled together one coalition after another. And in democracy, things can get messy. But this is getting really, really, really messy. Of course, remember— Yes, sir.
Polarization and risks of civil unrest in Israel
Glenn Carle: I think the fundamental dynamic that you’re describing, and consequence of the Gaza crisis and the war is: Wars always polarize. And Israeli society is struggling with the ascendancy of its religious far right. So many times I’ve heard — probably many of us have, but certainly I did in Israel — that colleagues of mine or people of whom I had heard were denigrated and characterized by other Israelis as, “Oh, well, he’s not actually Jewish.” Why? Because he was a secular, reformed Jew, as opposed to an ultra-Orthodox. So we’re seeing this polarization.
Atul Singh: Yeah, and you’re right. On the one hand, thousands are rallying for a hostage deal, while there are others who say there can be no deal and we have to go hammer and tongs and destroy Hamas. So you’re absolutely right. The polarization is intense.
Glenn Carle: And I think the consequences are that Netanyahu — aligned with the far right in Israel — has defined the policy and will come to shape the nature of the policies in Gaza and the West Bank for the foreseeable future, and continue the polarization of Israel. And the consequences are much larger than in Israel, though. We’ll see these statements have contributed to—
Atul Singh: Sorry, carry on. There’s just an anecdote I want to put in when you finish. (laughs)
Glenn Carle: —Have contributed to the cataclysmic collapse of Syria. I won’t go into all the details, and I don’t think I’m capable of going into all the details — there are so many factions involved — but the larger point is that the changes… Ahmed al-Sharaa is the new leader of Syria, someone who’d been relatively briefly a member of what was called al-Qaeda — it wasn’t actually al-Qaeda — but a jihadist group in Syria, now rehabilitated because he, I think, really was a religious nationalist opponent of the secular regime of Assad. In any event, we now see growing stresses in an already destroyed society, which is Syria. And that will have consequences well beyond Syria itself, as it already has, as we touched upon in Germany.
Atul Singh: Very quickly, to add to this polarization: The polarization in Israel is so intense — going back to Israel — that there are newspaper reports of Ben-Gvir, an Israeli far-right minister, and the Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar almost having a physical confrontation, a physical fight. And two or three of Israel’s Special Operations officers told me their biggest fear in Israel is civil war. And they just have to look across the border, just across the Golan Heights, to see the civil war going on in Syria. Now, Glenn talked about broad context, and I’ll just give you one tiny detail. Well, many of the Alawites were loyal to the Assad dynasty, and by the end, it was really a sectarian dynastic regime. It began as a Ba’athist socialist regime which tried to create some idea of a secular Syria. But by the end, it was a sectarian regime — Alawites supporting the Assad dynasties, backed by Iran, a Shia power in the region, and of course, supported by Russia. And some of the Alawite officers loyal to Assad rebelled. The rebellion was forces that are now in charge in Damascus put the rebellion down and then conducted vendetta, killing many Alawites. And remember, the Alawite–Sunni schism goes back to Selim I, when he was hunting them down in 1520 or something like that. And the Shia–Sunni divide is centuries old. So that can always flare up in the region. As Glenn said, that has potential far beyond Syria’s borders.
Syrian Collapse and Turkey’s authoritarian turn
Glenn Carle: I think that’s the relevant concern for us today, or now. Of the roughly 25 million Syrians, 12 million are refugees or more — 5.4 million of whom are in Turkey and Germany and elsewhere. To give it one little sense of the catastrophe that is overflowing and affecting Europe and everywhere else. 72% of Syrians — the entire country — can only literally survive because of foreign aid, food aid and others. Half of all of the hospitals in the entire country no longer function. So the consequence has been not just refugees, but in part, the rise of the AfD, the neo-Nazi far right in Germany and elsewhere. This has both destabilized and empowered Turkey, which is the last thing I’ll talk about. Now, we’ve all heard, I think, about the big headline of the moment, which is that the Erdoğan government has arrested the mayor of Istanbul, who was the likely opponent of Erdoğan in the upcoming presidential election. This is just the continuation of the increasing totalitarian bent of the Erdoğan government and the erosion and destruction — one hopes, not ultimately — of the secular Turkish democracy.
Atul Singh: By the way, the mayor’s name is Ekrem İmamoğlu, and he has been a decent mayor. As, indeed — remember — Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was. He began as mayor of Istanbul, and he did a decent job, which is why he became prime ministerial candidate. And then, of course, he changed the constitution and then he became president. And then, of course, in his presidential terms, many terms, he’s built Aksaray the famous 1,000-room White House exactly on the spot where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s hunting lodge once stood. So, jokingly, many of my Turkish friends call him Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan because he’s literally looking back—
Glenn Carle: He clearly aspires to that level of centralized control.
Atul Singh: Indeed. One quick thing, Glenn — I’ll add and then cede the floor to you. He looks back to the Ottoman Empire for inspiration. He wants to rekindle the Ottoman heritage. He wants Turkey to be a leader of the Muslim world, especially the Sunni world. He speaks out about Palestine and Kashmir. He definitely wants to intervene in neighboring countries, and in Syria, he has. So he’s very much neo-Ottoman. Over to you, Glenn.
Glenn Carle: Yeah. Well, all of us, every country and society, looks to its moment of greatest glory. So the Greeks still think that Pericles is ruling Athens, and the British think that Queen Victoria commands the sun. And the Americans think that we have just stormed Omaha Beach in France. And the Turks think that Suleiman the Great is building more mosques. The consequence of the arrest — and I would argue, in part because of the stresses on everywhere, Turkey in this instance, of what’s happening in the Middle East — are the largest demonstrations in over a decade. And I am pessimistic, because whoever controls the guns tends to win the arguments in a demonstration. And the changes of government in Turkey, which haven’t been peaceful, have come largely from the military, and the military seems to be well under the control of Erdoğan at present. What are the consequences larger than this, I would say? As I mentioned, the further cementing of Erdoğan’s near-dictatorship. The Middle East is being largely ignored by this administration. The Trump administration said — this is a paraphrase, but this is literally what came out of the White House: “Well, human rights are nice, but we have really nothing to say about the domestic affairs of Turkey,” which means that — also, the US administration will not just turn a blind eye to but will abet whatever the Israeli government does with regard to the Palestinians in the Middle East. And then this has implications also for what the US will do or won’t, and Israel will do or won’t towards Iran, which will affect the entire Middle East, which makes it more likely that with all this instability, Iran will seek a nuclear weapon. And it also is more likely that Iran’s government could collapse from internal opposition or external stress, which could well be military, by Iran or the US.
Atul Singh: Or a combination of the two.
Glenn Carle: And the destruction of the current Iranian regime could be a good thing. But any radical change is going to be terribly painful for many, many millions of people, however it plays out. And so the Middle East is in probably the greatest turmoil, even if it’s not immediately apparent, of any time in recent decades.
Atul Singh: Alright, on that note, we’ve come well past our allotted hour. It was lovely to have you all here for the March edition of FO° Exclusive. We will see you next month. Until then, be safe. Greetings, wherever in the world you happen to be.
Glenn Carle: Salaam.
(Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” Atul Singh: Alright, we move on now to New Troubles in Gaza, Israel, Syria and Turkey. And since Glenn has been the head of the Office of Transnational Threats, since Glenn was active in the War on Terror and Glenn has a lot of friends in Israel, and I’m sure in the Mossad, let’s hand the…” post_summery=”This discussion explores escalating instability across Gaza, Israel, Syria and Turkey, linking regional turmoil to long-term consequences. It highlights humanitarian crises, shifting demographics and democratic erosion. Editor-in-Chief Atul Singh and retired CIA Officer Glenn Carle emphasize the global implications of Middle Eastern conflicts, warning of deepening unrest and geopolitical fallout.” post-date=”Apr 09, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Exclusive: New Troubles in Gaza, Israel, Syria and Turkey” slug-data=”fo-exclusive-new-troubles-in-gaza-israel-syria-and-turkey”>
FO° Exclusive: New Troubles in Gaza, Israel, Syria and Turkey
(This is the seventh part of a nine-part series. To read more, see Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 here.)
Israel has always considered Syria a militant, very pro-Arab, brutal country, but stable under its Assad family dictatorship. Simply put, Israel sees Syria as a danger to its existence. While Israeli intelligence services often criticize the West for not understanding the Middle East, they themselves have also been wrong about Syria. Even under the Soviet umbrella, former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad kept Syria out of wars with Israel and only provoked the rival state from behind the veil of terrorist groups.
Israel avoids Syrian war
When the Soviet Union began to collapse in 1991, Syria entered peace talks with Israel via the Madrid Peace Conference. Its willingness to engage came as a surprise for the West and Israel themselves. The talks over the years ended with little change. In 2011, Syria became embroiled in its civil war.
Israel did not get involved in this war. It held the Golan Heights as it had for many years, and it kept its head down. The Israeli government did not want to repeat the same mistake it had with Lebanon, when it became mired in the 1982 Lebanon War for 18 years before withdrawing in 2000.
The Assad regime collapsed in December 2024. Israel remains as uninvolved in Syria as possible. Israel protects the Golan Heights area but is also committed to defending the Druze community in southern Syria if necessary.
(Will Sherriff and Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” Israel has always considered Syria a militant, very pro-Arab, brutal country, but stable under its Assad family dictatorship. Simply put, Israel sees Syria as a danger to its existence. While…” post_summery=”Israel has long viewed Syria as a hostile but stable threat, historically avoiding direct conflict by staying out of Syria’s civil war and focusing on defending the Golan Heights. Despite misjudging Syria at times, Israel has remained wary of repeating past entanglements like the 1982 Lebanon War. It now monitors Syria defensively.” post-date=”Apr 08, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 7: The Israeli–Syrian Connection Continued” slug-data=”fo-talks-josef-olmert-on-syria-part-7-the-israeli-syrian-connection-continued”>
FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 7: The Israeli–Syrian Connection Continued
Glenn Carle: Well, let’s go from the, obviously, profoundly depressing subject for me so people don’t have to watch me fume and steam anymore, impotently, and turn to something which I find is a more hopeful topic, which is Germany’s Radical New Economic Policy, or the beginnings thereof, at least.
Atul Singh: Alright, so Germany. We’ve covered Germany in the previous edition, and we talked about the election. We told you how the CDU/CSU had emerged as the top dog. We told you about the rise of the far right and what has happened, as we predicted, which was almost inevitable because, obviously, the CDU/CSU combination, the Christian Democratic Union, wasn’t going to ally with Alternative for Deutschland, the Alliance for Germany. It will certainly steal some of the clothes, CDU will steal some of AfDs clothes. But the CDU has got into bed with the SPD yet again — they got into bed during Angela Merkel’s time. It’s not something new. They have an old marriage, they bicker, they spat, they break up and then they get back again. So hey-ho, there you go.
Debt reform and economic transformation
Atul Singh: The CDU/CSU bloc and the SPD have announced a preliminary deal to form a coalition on 8th March. Excellent. Both of them have put a debt reform plan which has won the battle of the Greens. This has gone through both houses of German parliament now. And they’ve said, “Look, we are going to exempt defense spending from the country’s constitutionally enshrined debt limit” — that’s known as the debt brake, this was a 2009 constitutional provision — “and we are going to create a special €500 billion fund (roughly $545 billion) for infrastructure development.” This €100 billion, which is $109 billion, will go to the Special Climate and Transformation Fund, which is the pet issue of the Greens. The Greens have already got nuclear energy out of Germany, for which they’ve paid a hefty electoral price, and now they get their pound of flesh to put this release of the debt brake in terms of greater investment in Climate and Economic Transformation. Now, note there are risks to this policy, because a lot of Germans think that this policy has imposed extraordinary costs and a lot of suffering on the German consumer, on the German worker, on German businesses. So the coalition, there are risks to it, as our colleague at Fair Observer, Alex Gloy, who’s a brilliant German economist whom you must read, has spoken about and will speak about at great length in the coming days. So roughly, let’s assume German GDP is around 4.5 trillion, okay? And right now, what we know is that German debt is historically lower, alright — compared to the southern Italians, definitely much lower. And if Germany boosts its debt by even a trillion, its debt–GDP ratio would still be lower than all other major Western economies. So there’s headroom, as many Germans have argued. And also, Friedrich Merz, the leader of the CDU/CSU bloc and the future chancellor, he has a background in corporate law, much more successful than mine — I left that world, I clearly wasn’t bright enough or diligent enough. So here I am partnering with Glenn Carle, and the two of us are trying to make sense of the world and sort of pushing through multi-billion-dollar or multi-trillion-dollar deals, which Friedrich Merz has. He’s gone from billion-dollar deals to trillion-dollar deals, I suppose.
Challenges and risks of the new policy
Atul Singh: And what he has done is he’s taken the view that, “Look, we can no longer rely on the export-oriented model alone. Why? We are living in an age of protectionism. Chinese demand has plummeted. Russian energy costs have soared. American protectionism has kicked in, it kicked in even under Joe Biden in the guise of the Inflation Reduction Act. Now under Trump, we have tariffs looming. So if we don’t stimulate domestic demand, what is our economic growth model?” In fact, Germany has stagnated for two years. And we haven’t even talked about Germany’s infamous red tape, which the previous chancellor, Olaf Scholz himself, talked about, and Glenn has mentioned many times, you need 200 permits to build something simple. Perhaps not 200, but you get the point — it’s ridiculous, it’s self-defeating, it’s a self-inflicted wound.
Investment in infrastructure and defense
Atul Singh: So we haven’t gotten into that, but here, Merz said, “Okay, we have to change the structure of the economy. We need structural change. How do we achieve that structural change?” Well, Germans are still going to save because Germany is an aging population, people fear for the future. People are not 25, but they’ll go out and get drunk and party and then go to a nightclub. A few may go to KitKatClub and the other posh clubs, or the other wonderful clubs of Berlin. But most people will lead prudent lives, and they are Protestants at the end of the day, culturally, even though Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg are certainly Catholic. Culturally, they are Protestants. It was Prussia that reunified Germany in 1867, first by beating Austria in 1871 — it completed that process by beating France, two Catholic nations. So culturally, Germany is Protestant; they are going to be prudent. So what do you do? Well, you need government expenditure. German infrastructure is no longer cutting-edge, is no longer leading, and it makes sense for Germany to refurbish its once-wanted infrastructure — so train stations, train tracks, cranes, roads, ports, bridges, the list could go on. Alright, so that’s one. Green Infrastructure, charging stations, perhaps funds to develop new battery technologies, all other clean energy alternatives such as wind power or solar — which in Germany doesn’t make sense, they don’t get that much sun. It makes sense where I’m sitting in Jaipur, Rajasthan, which is ridiculously sunny and on the edge of the desert to the west of here. But anyway, let’s invest in clean, green energy and move forward. And of course, what makes sense now, given the increasing Russian threat, is investment in defense. Going back to the times of Friedrich the Great. Germany is now back in some ways. As we know, NATO was established, as someone once quipped, to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down. And now, of course, with Trump threatening to pull the US out of NATO or at least putting pressure on NATO; threatening to take Greenland away from Denmark, which is an ally; taking over Panama, that’s already done; maybe having Canada as the 51st state, or maybe 51st, 52nd, 53rd, whatever states and so on and so forth — Germany is having a bout of extreme nervousness. And Germany thinks, “Hang on a minute. We have a Trump-led US on one side and we have Vladimir Putin, a German-speaking former KGB colonel, very close, just after Poland, and so we should prepare.” So Germany has decided to invest in defense as well.
Potential long-term risks and political implications
Atul Singh: Now all this promise of investment in infrastructure and defense has boosted long-term yields because investors have priced in higher borrowing. On March 5, German yields jumped by 0.3 percentage points. This largest single-day rise in almost 30 years. Even the Euro surged, alright. Mind you, the dollar has dropped. The Euro has surged, that’s a new thing. So we have an export-oriented economy with a current account surplus that is nearly 3% of the GDP, an economy that exports capital now resorting to new fiscal laxity to spend more on defense and infrastructure. Some people are calling it the beginning of a new European growth model, because it shows that Germany is willing to take risks, finally. However, there are risks to this risk-taking. Let’s say if the Germans lose fiscal discipline, then what happens? Let’s say so many immigrants in Germany from conflict-ridden areas who do not come from Protestant background, they want more and more welfare, more and more boondoggles, and then politicians start promising them the boon. Then Germany could very easily turn to the Italian growth model, which is not much of a growth model, ladies and gentlemen. And of course, then the risk of AfD coming to power, just as Giorgia Meloni has come to power. And remember, Merz has broken his campaign promise: He said he wouldn’t release the debt brake, he said he wouldn’t increase spending. He promised, basically, a steady hand on the tiller. And instead, this corporate lawyer who is not terribly charismatic, in keeping with the German tradition of having dull leaders — they’ve still not forgotten Adolf Hitler, the ghost of Adolf dances in German nightmares every night. So this dull chap has taken a rather radical decision. And one of the big risks is that German voters are not in a mood to fight Russia. Neither the AfD, which got over 20.8% of the vote, if I remember correctly, and parties on the far left, one of which nearly got 5% of the vote, 4.97% of the vote. And if you add up the votes, well, most people voted for some kind of stability. There’s no mood amongst German voters to take on Russia. And if you have increased spending, then you have the risk of inflation, which is exacerbated by US President Donald Trump’s protectionism. And if the economy was eventually to turn south thanks to inflation, thanks to spending, thanks to loss of fiscal discipline, thanks to a new political populism, then this shedding of post-war German debt diversion — which will certainly boost animal spirits in Germany and in Europe in the short run and will create export opportunities for foreign firms, which can now sell more to Germany — it could lead to risks in the long-term and threaten the entire European economy. So yes, as of now, the relaxation of stringent borrowing laws will release a new burst of growth, but it has risks the coalition could collapse. It has risks of creating longer-term problems and it could presage the rise of the AfD which can say, “Look, none of the politicians you voted for kept their promise.” Over to you, Glenn.
Glenn’s perspective on Germany’s economic shifts
Glenn Carle: Well, someone said — I can’t remember who this sage was — that the “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” And then, in keeping with today’s reverence — you’re my reverence today for John Maynard Keynes — he was asked one time why he had changed his position on a certain economic point, and he said, “I don’t know about you, sir, but when circumstances change, I change my mind. What about you?” So what’s changed, and why is Germany possibly at this significant turning point? The big change is what’s happened in Ukraine and what’s happened in the Oval Office, and thus to the American relationship with Europe. The structural problems that Germany has slowly not been able to address successfully is demographic of fewer workers per pensioner; cultural and demographic, again, with a need for workers and a dramatic increase in the number of immigrants to Germany in particular, as you alluded to, from a different civilization and religion, which creates social tensions. And then from Vladimir Putin’s consistent efforts, with continuing success over 20 years, to reconstitute the Russian Imperium in what Russians call the near abroad and we all call the central European states. So the leaders of Germany are struggling with all of these things and nothing, to quote another great mind, Samuel Johnson, who’s in the English language quoted more frequently than anything except for the Bible. Samuel Johnson said — I’m paraphrasing — “Nothing focuses the mind like the hangman’s noose.” And with Germany confronting conceivably, literally existential issues, but certainly civilization-changing tensions, there is a possibility that the German leaders, currently the chancellor, will be obliged to and able to rise to the occasion with fundamental shifts in tax structure, regulatory framework and allocation of resources. The €500 billion increase on defense can be very stimulatory if coupled with some regulatory issues, deregulation, it could be a historic moment that we are living. However, a lot of these problems have been known and German leaders have struggled to address them for decades already. I think the fundamental change is that there is just about to be 22%, I think it is, of a sovereign state immediately to the east of Germany being swallowed up by Eastern hordes. The historic fear of Germans and that that is combined with these structural, economic, social rigidities make it possible and obligatory for the German leaders to succeed. So it’s not at all one issue, but it has focused the mind and the German leaders seem to offer some real potential for historic change in the structure of Germany’s economy, society and thus of Europe, because Germany is the key to Europe.
(Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” Glenn Carle: Well, let’s go from the, obviously, profoundly depressing subject for me so people don’t have to watch me fume and steam anymore, impotently, and turn to something which I find is a more hopeful topic, which is Germany’s Radical New Economic Policy, or the beginnings thereof, at…” post_summery=”Germany is beginning a major economic shift, suspending its constitutional debt brake to fund €500 billion in infrastructure, defense and green initiatives. This marks a break from fiscal conservatism amid geopolitical pressures, demographic challenges and rising protectionism. While potentially transformative, the policy carries political and economic risks, including populist backlash.” post-date=”Apr 07, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Exclusive: Germany’s Radical New Economic Policy” slug-data=”fo-exclusive-germanys-radical-new-economic-policy”>
FO° Exclusive: Germany’s Radical New Economic Policy
(This is the sixth part of a nine-part series. To read more, see Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 here.)
After the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Sunni militant group toppled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, all eyes have been on the Middle East. Other nations have been vying for influence during this period of instability, in particular the United States and Turkey. Former US President Joe Biden removed the bounty on Abu Muhammad al-Julani (now Ahmed al-Sharaa), interim president and leader of HTS. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Syria in order to help with the political transition. Since HTS is a Turkish proxy, Turkey is looking to replace Iran’s leadership position in Syria.
However, not much attention is placed on Israel in regards to Syria’s future. While there are Israeli military movements in southern Syria, offense isn’t in Israel’s interest, only defense. Their stake in the region comes from two things: one, Iran’s past influence on Syria as the proclaimed number one enemy of Israel; and two, Israel’s history with Syria, especially regarding the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference.
The Madrid Peace Conference was the US’s hope for a stable region
Almost exactly eight months after the first Gulf War ended, the US intended to facilitate peace between their ally Israel and Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. The Conference comprised three big meetings, all of which involved Israel and another Middle Eastern country. The third meeting, between Israel and Syria, was the most anticipated. Relations between Syria and Israel were strained at best.
The only reason Syria agreed to attend was to give a gesture of goodwill to the US. During the first Gulf War, then-Syrian President Hafez al-Assad cooperated with the Coalition spearheaded by the US, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia. This came as a shock, as Syria had previously opposed US involvement during the 1980 Iran–Iraq War. Their sudden alignment with the US was done to make up for their involvement in the Iranian coalition against the Arab world during that war. As such, they had agreed to come to the peace talks.
The peace talks were fruitless
The first thing Israel requested was the release of the 4,000 Jews still living in Syria. In their situation, their travel, emigration and human rights were restricted. Syria was unprepared for this request and denied allegations. Eventually, US pressure forced Syria to meet the demand.
The talks yielded no results beyond the release of Syrian Jews. Neither side had any interest in achieving peace. Assad only agreed because he sensed the changing environment of the Middle East due to the collapsing Soviet Union, and to show goodwill toward the US. Additionally, the Israeli government was not ready to make territorial concessions. Both of these reasons doomed the talks from the very beginning.
However, this does not mean the peace talks were for naught. The readiness of Syria to enter the talks, despite having positioned itself as Israel’s primary enemy, marked a shift in regional relations. The Madrid Peace Conference can still be considered a turning point even if the results were not immediately felt.
(Cheyenne Torres and Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” After the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Sunni militant group toppled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, all eyes have been on the Middle East. Other nations have been vying…” post_summery=”With President Bashar al-Assad’s regime fallen, global powers have competed for influence in Syria, while Israel maintains a defensive stance to counter Iran’s former presence there. Despite Israel’s limited involvement, its historical tension with Syria shapes its strategic interests. Peace talks failed to yield lasting agreements, but Syria’s willingness to engage marked a diplomatic shift.” post-date=”Apr 06, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 6: The Israeli–Syrian Connection” slug-data=”fo-talks-josef-olmert-on-syria-part-6-the-israeli-syrian-connection”>
FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 6: The Israeli–Syrian Connection
Atul Singh: Welcome to the third edition of 2025’s FO° Exclusive. Last month, we covered old ghosts coming back to life in Germany, global markets being extremely nervous and the new US–Europe–Russia–Ukraine soap opera. In March 2025, our top three issues are:
- Risk of US Recession Now Rises in 2025
- Germany’s Radical New Economic Policy
- New Troubles in Gaza, Israel, Syria and Turkey
So, number one: Risk of US Recession Now Rises in 2025. So those of you who’ve been reading the financial press are probably fretting about the risk of the US recession. The US economy is certainly in danger of recession this year.
Glenn Carle: Pardon me — pardon me for interrupting. I shouldn’t be smiling, there’s nothing funny here. As a child, I always was terrified of clowns. Clowns are supposed to be, apparently, for children, happy, and they’re always part of circuses and so on. I always found them terrifying and frightening, the perversions of reality. And we are living a clown show in the American government, at the top of the American government. And so, there is nothing funny about it, and it is terrifying and the consequences are so potentially — and in the making — catastrophic that I prefer that you take the lead on this, and I will just make funny faces and say horrible things.
Atul Singh: Well, clearly, clearly, I have an easy job. Okay, so what’s going on? To give you color: US President Donald Trump’s policies are increasing economic uncertainty and heightening the probability of recession. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite have been falling. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index has dropped to 57.9, the lowest level since November 2022. Consumers’ long-term inflation expectations have risen to levels last seen in early 1993. Now, I repeat: early 1993. For those of you who are young, that is when Bill Clinton was in the White House. It was a glorious time, as Monica Lewinsky can attest!
Glenn Carle: I don’t know her, I was in the White House.
Atul Singh: Exactly. And this may put upward pressures on interest rates and slow down economic activity.
The Trump administration’s economic philosophy
Atul Singh: Now, importantly, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta — it is one of the 12 regional banks that are part of the US central banking system. That maintains a model that forecasts a quarterly change in US GDP. The bank’s GDPNow model has recently been predicting a fall in GDP. So, we know that numbers are not looking particularly propitious. But more importantly, perhaps, in a Fox News interview — because whether you like it or not, Fox News is an important metric, as is Truth Social, of understanding what may go on, what might happen and signal to — it seems to be the case, at least when it comes to comments on Europe and strikes on overseas targets — things have come a long way since you were in the White House, Glenn.
Glenn Carle: As you will explain to us, there seems to be a growing and tremendous surprise that if you hack a hole in the bottom of your dinghy with an axe, that all of a sudden, the water starts to come in and you sink. I mean, it’s as simple and absurd a situation as that. Yes.
Atul Singh: Hey, oh, there you go. But the important thing is that Trump has himself refused to rule out a recession. That’s super important, because he’s saying there’s a period of transition, because what we are doing is very big. Now, some of our Republican sources in the Trump administration have drunk the Kool-Aid. They genuinely believe in the great president and they think that recession is short-term pain that will bring long-term gain. It is like working out in the gym. Want to build muscles? You work until the point of exhaustion, you tear a few muscles, you’re in pain, but in the long term, you look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. That is the goal, apparently.
Glenn Carle: It is worth underscoring the degree of sincerity of many of the supporters of the Trump administration. I encounter this all the time, and those of you who are not in the US — perhaps that is surprising, I’m not sure. But in any event, I will grant sincerity to a significant portion of the true believers in the administration and those who have supported it so that it won a majority.
Atul Singh: Now, importantly, a good guide to understanding the Trump administration is Stephen Miran. Now, who is Stephen Miran? He’s the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. So, he’s the person, in theory, advising Donald Trump what to do, and he published a paper in November 2024, which is important if you want to understand what is this administration trying to do? Now, I’m sharing my screen, and I will share with you this paper, okay? And this paper shows to you that this is a user’s guide to restructuring the global trading system. It’s an audacious plan. It’s a bold plan. It has a number of assumptions. Now, one of them is that international trade and financial systems are fundamentally biased against the US. I’ll read the second paragraph for you: “The root of the economic imbalances lies in persistent dollar overvaluation that prevents the balancing of international trade, and this overvaluation is driven by inelastic demand for reserve assets. As global GDP grows, it becomes increasingly burdensome for the United States to finance the provision of reserve assets and the defense umbrella, as the manufacturing and tradeable sectors bear the brunt of the costs.” Sincere, bold, audacious — certainly the case. You could grant Steve Miran credit for identifying at least part of the problem correctly. Imbalances in trade certainly cause working-class losses, certainly cause a loss in manufacturing jobs, and anything that’s tradable. If the US currency is, arguably, overvalued, it will suffer if someone sends in goods manufactured in China or Vietnam or Japan or Switzerland, even — any place where the currency is weaker and has been weakening, visibly, the dollar. That suddenly gives them a leg up when it comes to exports. Now, that is the problem. What is the solution, then? The solution asks for—
Glenn Carle: Well, hold on for a second. They — Miran and this faction, now dominant of the Republican Party — characterize that as the problem. It pretty clearly, fundamentally misunderstands the basic rules of international trade. The dollar becomes strong because the American economy is attractive and strong, and the US has a trade deficit because it has a more productive economy, which makes the economy strong, and so foreign goods are relatively cheaper. But the investment in the dollars leads to the creation of cutting-edge technology, which is not Second Industrial Revolution-level manufacturing. But they disagree with all of that.
Atul Singh: Glenn, certainly that’s a point of view which comes from traditional international economics theory. And as for that theory — as you move up the value chain — then a lot of the lower-productivity jobs and the low-skill manufacturing goes overseas or goes to economies at a lower stage of technological development. Certainly, if your dollar is in demand, then it means that you may be running a current account deficit, but you’re running a capital account surplus. That is, dollars are coming into your economy. Other people are buying your dollars and putting in their savings or investment into your economy, which, of course, leads to more cutting-edge technologies, thanks to more capital. But remember that whilst American investors/slash/shareholders may profit and American consumers — certainly, buying stuff on Amazon or Walmart — profit, American workers often pay the price. Because when factories move from Michigan, or they move from the so-called Rust Belt — Ohio, Indiana, wherever — then they do not overnight suddenly become computer programmers working for Google and creating great software, or, for that matter, moving to high-end manufacturing, which has taken off in places like Batesville, Mississippi or Akron, Ohio. That is also true, but a lot of the workers going there will be highly educated, highly skilled. And those who lose their jobs are not people who are naturally, seamlessly shifting over. Some of them, yes, but not all of them. So, there are winners and losers here. And the losers never got compensated, which is why this angst about loss of manufacturing. There’s also a wrinkle here that at some point, an excessive demand for dollars can make a lot of your products and services uncompetitive, or, at times, can cause distortions. And that is why, in 1973, the US went off the gold standard, because the gold standard allowed for the devaluation of the dollar. Similarly, in 1985, there were the Plaza Accords, in which allies such as Germany and Japan in particular, also France and the UK, deliberately agreed to revalue their currencies and allowed for a devaluation of the dollar, which the Japanese believe led to the crash of their market and their long slump. Not only, but it contributed to some degree. And, of course, other countries have taken note and are very wary of it.
Tariffs, trade and protectionism
Atul Singh: But let’s go on to explore what the Trump administration believes, because it’s important for our listeners to understand what is it that they are trying to do. Our sources in the Trump administration — I’ve talked to a few over the last few days — take the view that tariffs are a key tool to ensure that protectionist countries, which include many allies, open up their markets to US goods. Now, that may not be what Donald Trump believes, but that is what a lot of — I would argue — even Democrats have come to believe when it comes to protectionist countries. They think that whilst the US offers a level playing field to foreign companies, many other countries do not reciprocate. And I’ve heard that complaint repeatedly about China. I’ve heard that about Japan, even. And I’ve heard that increasingly of late when it comes to India. American executives keep talking again and again and again about tariff and non-tariff barriers, about quality controls, about all sorts of barriers to entry and, of course, favoring of local oligopolies and even monopolies. So even the ones who are registered Democrats say some good may come out of these tariffs, because it’ll get these protectionist countries in line. So, it’s interesting to note that they don’t view tariffs, perhaps as the more doctrinaire members in their administration do, as a revenue source. But they do see it as a tool to bring about some kind of fairness. And put very simply — I mean, fundamentally, their argument is: “Okay, look, tariff and non-tariff barriers against US goods and services are unfair, and so far we’ve tried many things; they haven’t worked. Therefore, we should be unafraid of using unorthodox methods to bring countries taking advantage of the US into line.” Alright, fine, an argument. Then they go on to say they view the devaluation of the dollar as a key policy goal. Now, this is where divergences start appearing within the US business and the US policy establishment. Because certainly, the Democrats don’t want devaluation of the dollar. Certainly, many Republicans who are fiscally conservative and libertarian don’t want devaluation of the dollar. They want the markets to decide, demand and supply to decide. But then there are the true believers, as Glenn talked about, and the true believers believe what Miran has said. And they say the root of economic imbalances lies in persistent dollar overvaluation that prevents the balancing of international trade. So, what do they want? You read a lot about a potential Mar-a-Lago Accord that will craft a new global monetary system. So what they want is a new 1985-style Plaza Accord, and they see the US trading partners to agree to a weaker dollar; to commit to providing low-cost, long-term financing to Washington, DC. One idea is that long-term bonds could be rolled away to century bonds. And other ideas are that, okay, you could have similar, long-term new bonds which you could issue. So our sources say that if the Trump administration plays hardball, if it threatens tariffs, if it removes security guarantees, trading partners will eventually come to heel. That is the logic.
Internal contradictions and fiscal policy uncertainty
Atul Singh: Now, remember, the administration is not speaking in one voice. The US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, is saying, “Well, the strong dollar policy is still in place.” And this is worrying my friends from Wharton on Wall Street. They say, “Hang on a minute. What is the policy? Do you want a weaker dollar? Do you want a stronger dollar? Do we listen to Stephen Miran, or do we listen to Scott Bessent? What exactly is the government policy?” Now, add to the uncertainty around what is the monetary policy? There is the DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, and it has been active. It has fired many employees. And yet, those of you who have been following figures: US federal spending still rose to a record $603 billion in February, despite all the cuts. And this is worrying markets, too. This is spooking markets a bit. But despite all of this cutting, there hasn’t been enough cuts to make a difference. And, of course, some of the DOGE-led spending cuts could have dramatic effects. Thousands of federal employees have gone. Thousands of grants and contracts have gone. There’s fear that not enough thought might have gone into slashing these grants and contracts. And so, the economic growth that the Biden administration drove — and a lot of it was driven by government spending, too, if you go through the numbers, as I asked a friend who was in the US Treasury, a senior economist in the US Treasury, to do so. He said, “Yes, the Biden stimulus was a huge factor.” And he said that, “Yes, of course, manufacturing rose, but a lot of the growth was driven by government spending. So DOGE cuts might actually prove to be highly contractionary for the US economy.” So should that all kick in together, what happens? Well, will the recession be as severe as 2007–2009? Maybe. If the Trump administration keeps knocking bricks out of the wall, will the wall cave in? Perhaps. What we can certainly say in a year of uncertainty is that the US may experience recession in 2025. And that recession could be a deep and painful one. But as yet, although there are multiple signals that point to a recession, there’s no strong consensus about the timing and the extent of it. So, that is, in a nutshell, what we believe, or what is our judgment on prospects of the US recession. Over to you, Glenn.
Broader economic theory and social implications
Glenn Carle: The surprising aspect to me of FOI’s analysis is the rapidity with which a recession may arrive. There’s always latency in economic policy changes. Interest rate changes take from six to 18 months, generally, depending on which rates we’re talking about, to be detectable in their effects on economic growth rates. And similarly with spending cuts, there’s a lag. So that we assess that this could happen within 2025 is, I think, remarkable and reflects the immediate, powerful anxiety that the measures are taking. You know, John Maynard Keynes pretty well pointed out that this is — he said this facetiously, but it’s literally true: It doesn’t really matter what spending is done so long as there is spending done. And one could take suitcases full of money, dig a hole, put them in the ground and then have people dig them up as their economic activity, and the economy would be stimulated. Of course, that can also be inflationary. But if you spend more than the economy has — this will sound stupid — the economy will have more money. If you spend less, it will have less, and that will be recessionary. What is the administration planning to do? A lot of things, as you pointed out, are contradictory with themselves. Even if one accepts or rejects their philosophy, their framework, it is internally inconsistent what they are doing with regard to their own competing philosophies. If you have tariffs, that is inflationary. It depresses GNP growth. It does not raise revenues from abroad. It increases costs to consumers. If you cut the budget, their expenditures, which is one effect of firing many federal employees, then you will have a depressionary — if that’s a word — impact on the economy, if the changes are significant enough. Not given much attention is the assault on the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service — the tax collection agency of the United States government. And by firing whatever it is, ten or 15% of the workforce, the assessment is that you will reduce tax revenues for the government by between ten and 20%, which is tremendous for the economy. And that, too, will lead to the deficit, which will increase interest rates, which will depress economic activity. It’s not a mystery why Republicans are so hostile to the IRS. They simply don’t want to pay taxes and don’t care about the consequences. They’re, in that regard, libertarian. The small government, no expenses, personal incomes being high for those who have them — all being superior to other things. So, all of these changes will increase the deficit. Because all of the cuts have come on the ten to 15% of the federal budget that is, quote, “discretionary,” really, and not yet on where the budget is overwhelmingly devoted — which is in Social Security, medical insurance, which is Medicare and Medicaid, programs for the general population and for the poor, and in the military. So, it really is largely incoherent. Much of it is posturing. And the thing we haven’t talked about, which I think gets to the heart or one of the central points of what they’re trying to do is, as you pointed out: Free trade does have losers, and losers always make more noise than winners. The benefits of an open economy are diffused. Everyone will say — I’ll make up the figures, but to underscore the point — everyone will have 5% more income, say, so they’ll be at 105 compared to if 100 is the default. However, a percentage of the population, a small percentage, will go from 100 to zero. Say, the textile industry in North/South Carolina 40 years ago. Or Detroit, the automobile industry. You can choose the industry that will suffer. There’s no question about that. And it’s true that a coal miner or a factory worker in the Northeast will struggle to take a job in computer programming in Arizona. However, this creative destruction — which is classic economic theory, painful for many — if the labor market is flexible, people do move, which is why the Southwest has, for decades and decades, been growing, and the Northeast — the traditional industries — has slowly been declining in absolute numbers. But overall, the winners of the classical trade are greater than the losers. But the pain is concentrated, and that’s largely a sociological, cultural phenomenon that this administration is attempting to address in ways that I obviously think are fundamentally wrong. But it’s not incoherent to try to respond to those focused pains.
Atul Singh: But, Glenn, whilst classical free trade theory is broadly directionally correct in terms of a more open economy tends to be more competitive, have greater benefits, and those benefits accrue to the greatest number — it is also true that sometimes you do need some kind of a governmental intervention. The Internet came about because of DARPA and DARPAnet. So sometimes, you know, you probably need a small garden, but with a high gate. You do need that intervention. And especially in cutting-edge technology, and especially when it comes to certain manufacturing — you do need it. So we can’t be doctrinaire about any set of beliefs. But the important thing here that we want to underscore is that “animal spirits” — to quote John Maynard Keynes again, a great Cambridge man — Cambridge is in the UK, not where Glenn went to school. He went to Harvard in Cambridge. But we are talking about Cambridge UK. And John Maynard Keynes had a point when it came to animal spirits. And right now, animal spirits are down because VUCA — as we talked about right at the end of the year: the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world — that is kicking in. And even commodity traders are talking about it. It’s not just a theoretical phenomenon. They’re rattled by the uncertainty of everything, and the animal spirits are down. So that is why we can expect a recession much quicker than the 12–18 month policy lag, which operates in normal times.
Glenn Carle: To conclude this depressing rubricare topic: Where are the animal spirits frightened and fleeing? And there’s one clear place, and that’s the White House. There was not fear because there was consistency and coherence before. There is not now, whatever one thinks of this.
(Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” Atul Singh: Welcome to the third edition of 2025’s FO° Exclusive. Last month, we covered old ghosts coming back to life in Germany, global markets being extremely nervous and the new US–Europe–Russia–Ukraine soap opera. In March 2025, our top three issues are: Risk of US Recession Now…” post_summery=”Analysts warn of a likely US recession in 2025 due to economic policy shifts under US President Donald Trump. Key concerns include dollar overvaluation, trade imbalances and contradictory fiscal strategies. The administration’s actions have lowered investor confidence, amplifying uncertainty in both domestic and global markets.” post-date=”Apr 05, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Exclusive: Risk of US Recession Now Rises in 2025″ slug-data=”fo-exclusive-risk-of-us-recession-now-rises-in-2025″>
FO° Exclusive: Risk of US Recession Now Rises in 2025
(This is the fifth part of a nine-part series. To read more, see Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 here.)
The Islamic Republic of Iran has a mission to spread Shi’ism in the Middle East, which is why it created the Shia Crescent. Their greater goal is to destroy the state of Israel.
An unintended consequence of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 was that Iran became a very powerful force in Iraqi politics due to democratic elections. The Shia of Iraq and Iran may be very different, but they’re both influenced by Iran.
Iran is connected to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. These three nations were key elements in the creation of the Shia Crescent that encircles Israel with pro-Iranian, Shia-dominated powers. Syria and Lebanon became the main targets for Iranian influence. The Iranians invested heavily in Syria, even sending citizens there — according to rumors, up to 800,000 earned Syrian citizenship. The current and upcoming rulers in Damascus won’t tolerate this for long.
Crushing defeats
Iran turned Syria’s Qalamoun area, the mountains on the Syrian–Lebanese border, into a smuggling point. Here, long-range missiles were smuggled to the Lebanese Shia paramilitary group, Hezbollah.
Fed up with the arms-dealing, Israel waged a low-intensity war with Syria in 2012. Syria became a major place of Iranian investment, on top of their efforts in Iraq and Lebanon. They sent thousands to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war — not just Shia Iranians, but also people from Afghanistan and other Shia communities. Due to their dire economy, they were investing money they didn’t have, estimated at tens of billions of dollars.
The downfall of the Assad regime in December 2024 is a disaster for Iranian plans to create the Shia Crescent around Israel. Israeli defeated Hezbollah in Lebanon after 11 months of Lebanese aggression. This defeat was far more devastating than their previous in the 2006 Lebanon War.
The Iranian defeat is resounding. There were elements in Syria who opposed the Iranian involvement and were ready to support Israeli military efforts. The Iranian presence in Syria even caused a rift within the Assad clan. Maher al-Assad, Bashar’s younger brother, was in Iran’s pocket, while Bashar had his own reservations. Before that, Russia did not like the Iranian involvement, as it viewed Iran as competition to be the dominant force in Syria.
The Russians allowed Israeli activities in Syria, but these were always targeted at the Iranians. The Syrians will not accept a Turkish occupation by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Turks will face problems in Syria, especially in Kurdish areas.
What will happen now?
The Syrians will not allow domination by Sunni-run Turkey. This is a historic rivalry. Iran wanted to use Syria against Israel, but failed.
Will Iran realistically assess the cost-benefit? Will they still be committed to destroying Israel? Or will they realize they’re now under siege and need to be careful?
This could lead to two options: One, they minimize their involvement in Syria and Lebanon. But then, they’ll feel under siege. Two, they speed up their nuclear program to deal with the perceived danger. This might pressure US President Donald Trump to talk to the Iranians. The situation could create conditions for a dialogue, though they would have to make concessions.
(Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” The Islamic Republic of Iran has a mission to spread Shi’ism in the Middle East, which is why it created the Shia Crescent. Their greater goal is to destroy the state of Israel. An unintended…” post_summery=”Iran’s goal of surrounding Israel with pro-Shia allies through the Shia Crescent suffered a major blow with Assad’s fall in 2024 and Hezbollah’s defeat. Despite heavy investment in Syria, internal opposition and Israeli resistance unraveled Iran’s influence. Iran must now choose between retreating or escalating its nuclear ambitions.” post-date=”Apr 04, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 5: Iranian Alliance and Investment” slug-data=”fo-talks-josef-olmert-on-syria-part-5-iranian-alliance-and-investment”>
FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 5: Iranian Alliance and Investment
US Vice President J.D. Vance recently visited Greenland and made several troubling statements along the lines of “America needs Greenland” and “Greenland must be protected.” He added — somewhat cryptically — that this is what US President Donald Trump wants, “so it must be done.” The rhetoric was elliptical. The logic was elusive. The diplomatic finesse was, shall we say, minimaliste.
One cannot help but raise an eyebrow at these remarks. Greenland is not an unclaimed wilderness. It is an autonomous nation within the Kingdom of Denmark. It has its own government and a clearly defined relationship with Copenhagen. The notion that the US might take it — by purchase or through protection — raises more than legal questions. It reveals, once again, a disregard for international law and the principle of self-determination.
What drives this renewed American interest? Likely a convergence of strategic appetites. Melting ice has opened Arctic sea routes. Greenland holds untapped mineral resources. Washington may also want to block Russian activity in the High North. The region looks to US eyes like a grand chessboard.
But beneath the strategy lies something more disturbing: mépris — a casual contempt for existing norms and alliances. The suggestion that Denmark has failed to protect Greenland is not only unfounded. It is diplomatically coarse. It reflects a broader tendency in this administration to treat sovereignty as negotiable and diplomacy as theater.
A Danish diplomat recently addressed these tensions with calm precision. One might say the contrast speaks volumes. Where Copenhagen offers continuity and respect, Washington offers spectacle and improvisation.
One can only hope that the people of Greenland — and their right to chart their own future — will not become collateral in someone else’s imperial dream.
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” US Vice President J.D. Vance recently visited Greenland and made several troubling statements along the lines of “America needs Greenland” and “Greenland must be protected.” He added — somewhat cryptically — that this is what US President Donald Trump wants, “so it must be done.”…” post_summery=”US Vice President J.D. Vance recently visited Greenland and echoed past US interest in the island. He claimed America must protect Greenland and cited President Donald Trump’s wishes. The speech raised fears that Washington may ignore Greenland’s autonomy and strain ties with Denmark.” post-date=”Apr 03, 2025″ post-title=”Vice President J.D. Vance Disregards Greenland’s Right to Self-Rule” slug-data=”vice-president-j-d-vance-disregards-greenlands-right-to-self-rule”>
Vice President J.D. Vance Disregards Greenland’s Right to Self-Rule
(This is the fourth part of a nine-part series. To read more, see Parts 1, 2 and 3 here.)
The collapse of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship in December 2024 is a loss for both the Iranian regime and its strategy, known as the Shia Crescent. This is a territory that stretches from Iran to the Lebanese–Israeli border at Golan through Iraq and Syria.
Through the Shia Crescent Iran sought to encircle and destroy Israel and spread Shia Islam throughout the Middle East. Syrian–Iranian relations were at the core of Iran’s strategy towards Israel. The peace treaty between Syria and Iran lasted from 1979 to 2024; both the treaty and alliance were considered unusual.
Alawites and Shia Islam
The Ba’ath Party considered Syria to be a secular state whereas Iran was declared an Islamic Republic. The contradiction of a secular state supporting an Islamic regime became an issue for Syria, as it was the only country to support Iran in the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988).
Furthermore, Hafez al-Assad, then-leader of the Syrian Ba’ath Party, was an Alawite. The Alawite sect always maintained secrecy about its religious practice. As a result, people began to question whether they were Shias. It has historically been difficult to claim that Alawites are Shias — at best, the sect is considered an off-shoot of Shia Islam.
The Iran–Syria alliance was formed in the interest of the Assad regime. Both Hafez and his son, Bashar, understood that Syria would require Iran’s help if the Sunni population challenged them. Iran and Russia’s support, as well as Lebanon’s support via its Shia paramilitary group, Hezbollah, ensured the survival of Bashar al-Assad’s regime for almost 14 years.
Lebanon joined Iran’s Shia Crescent because Shias make up a majority there.
Ultimately, the loss of Iranian influence does not indicate that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s vision of neo-Ottomanism has won the current Syrian situation.
(Aniruddh Rajendran and Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” The collapse of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship in December 2024 is a loss for both the Iranian regime and its strategy, known as the Shia Crescent. This is a territory that stretches…” post_summery=”The fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2024 marked a major setback for Iran’s Shia Crescent strategy, which aimed to extend influence from Iran to Lebanon and encircle Israel. Syria’s alliance with Iran was crucial to this goal. Assad’s deposal has greatly weakened Iran’s regional influence.” post-date=”Mar 31, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 4: Iran’s Shia Crescent” slug-data=”fo-talks-josef-olmert-on-syria-part-4-irans-shia-crescent”>
FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 4: Iran’s Shia Crescent
Atul Singh: Welcome to FO° Talks. With me is Thomas Greminger. He is the head of this Geneva Centre for Security Policy. He is one of Switzerland’s star diplomats. He is a scholar, a soldier and a man of the world. Welcome, Thomas.
Thomas Greminger: Thank you very much, Atul. Great to be with you again.
Atul Singh: Brilliant. So this is a brave new world we are living in. We are recording this on Monday, 17th of March, and in 2025, how do you see this brave new world in which we find ourselves in?
Thomas Greminger: It’s clearly a world that is spellbound by the new US administration — its announcements, its early actions. A new administration that has chosen a different path than classical diplomacy in the way they manage external relations. It’s a path of disruption, of provocation. Demands are not submitted to partners by arguments, but by that provocation or by building up a threat posture, and then one waits for a reaction and then decides either to withdraw or to maintain the threatening stance or to start negotiating. So I think it’s a totally different style. And of course, one of the big challenges is to figure out to what extent is an announcement here a threat, and to what extent, you know, is this a serious policy move? And I think that is currently what most of the world is caught up with — trying to figure out how to respond to these new approaches, disruptive, transactional approaches by the US government.
Atul Singh: I see. So, disruptive approaches of the US government. But it is not just a matter of style; it’s also a matter of substance. Out goes the post-World War II order, the US is talking of taking over Canada, Greenland, not to mention Panama. The EU is deemed anti-US. Suddenly, Russia is an ally — or maybe not an ally, but a potential friend — and Ukraine is run by a dictator. So there is a lot of change in substance, too, isn’t there?
Thomas Greminger: I think we still have to see to what extent there is really also a substantive change. In some ways, yes, we do see the imposition of tariffs — and not just, you know, threatening imposing tariffs. We do see concrete policy action. But a lot, for the time being, remains on a declaratory level. And I think that’s also one of the challenges — to figure out: are they serious? Is it not more than a threatening posture?
European security, NATO and strategic autonomy
Thomas Greminger: I mean, when it comes to one of my favorite topics — European security, the war in Ukraine — on the one hand, you have clearly a new impulse by President Trump. He clearly wants to achieve a ceasefire as soon as possible. But at the same time, I think we are still struggling with, well, what would then be a good deal for President Trump? I think this is still not really tangible. What would be a process that would take us to a ceasefire and perhaps later on to a settlement after conflict? I mean, what we’ve been seeing is a resumption of US–Russian dialogue. That is, as such, I think, positive. It’s good that these two major powers talk to each other again. How far they’ve come in this resumption of talks is a lot less certain. But then again, coming back to Ukraine — What is a good deal? What is a process? Who sits at the table? Who deals with it? On the US side, that’s also a big question mark. You know, initially, we all thought it would be General Kellogg. Now, it seems that he is rather sidelined, and it seems to be Mr. Witkoff who does the heavy lifting in that. But again, I think when it comes to real substance, we do not have a clear sense yet. You know, also: Are we really witnessing now a fundamental shift in alliances? Is it now the US and Russia against Europe? You know, I’m not so sure yet that this is what we are really witnessing. You can hear, of course, declarations that you could interpret in this way. But when it boils down to real policy changes, I think we’ll still have to be a bit more patient and see what is really happening then on the ground, if I may say so.
Atul Singh: Alright, so you’ve talked about what’s happening on the ground, which leads me on to my next question: What is actually happening on the ground? What are the key trends you observe in this brand new world?
Thomas Greminger: Well, clearly there is — I mean, allow me to remain — the new US administration. There is clearly this short-term transactionalism that dominates over long-term alliances. We see—
Atul Singh: That’s number one.
Thomas Greminger: I think we see that when it comes to European security, when it comes to the imposition of tariffs. I think there is significant evidence for this. A second trend that I perceive, again coming out of Washington, is not only a transactional but also a hard-power-based approach to foreign and security policy. And in a way, there seems to be an abandoning of US soft power politics. So, you know — I mean, basically eliminating development cooperation, dissolving USAID, cutting contributions to multilateral organizations — all this is very fundamentally undermining soft power protection of the United States. And perhaps, you know, a third point — but this, again, takes me back to the US–Russia relation — again, I think what is notable is that there is an attempt for a reset. There has been a resumption of dialogue, but we haven’t really seen the really tough issues being addressed. There seems to be a normalization of diplomatic relations — fine — but I haven’t seen, for instance, any strategic stability issues being addressed, even though this would be quite urgent, given, you know, New START running out next year. And also, when it comes to potential Russian demands like lifting of sanctions, etc — we haven’t really gotten a sense of how far the US government is willing to go here.
Switzerland’s neutrality under pressure
Atul Singh: Right. So, let’s move on to Switzerland, where you sit. And the US has put Switzerland on a list of non-friendly countries. What does this really mean?
Thomas Greminger: Well, first, you know, we need to be precise. Switzerland is not on a channel non-friendly countries list. I’m not even sure if this category exists. But we are on a list of countries with unfair trade practices. But, I mean—
Atul Singh: I stand corrected. I stand corrected.
Thomas Greminger: But, I mean, this is serious enough, and obviously this is taken very seriously by Switzerland. Why is this so? Well, Switzerland has a bilateral trade balance with the US with a very considerable surplus, by about $25 billion. And so I think that triggered, you know, this move to put us on that list. What, however, is not being said is that, at the same time, Switzerland has a deficit in services of around $20 billion. So, all in all, you know, if you count it all together, it doesn’t look that bad. But I think the important thing is that, you know, Switzerland is taking this seriously. The Swiss State Secretary for Economic Affairs is, as we speak, in Washington, is trying to figure out why. What are US expectations behind this move? And I would suppose, you know, she would argue with, you know, an extremely open space market. She would certainly point to the fact that we have this deficit when it comes to the service balance. And she would probably also point to the fact that Swiss multinational enterprises employ around 400,000 people in the United States. So I think there isn’t really an interest, you know, to trigger any sort of trade war between the two countries. What I like is, you know, that Switzerland is taking it seriously and is trying to address it through quiet diplomacy and not, you know, through this public diplomacy, not through loudspeaker diplomacy, but diplomatically.
Atul Singh: You’ve got an excellent ambassador, Ralph Heckman, in Washington, so that should help. And, of course, you’re huge investors in research and development. So the Swiss have invested quite a bit in the US and employs, you said, quite a few people — so that should help as well. So let’s talk about moving on from Switzerland to Europe. For decades, Europe and the US have been in a transatlantic alliance, and you just mentioned that the new fashion is transactional short-term gains, not long-term alliances. So are we to infer that this fabled transatlantic alliance is now dead?
Thomas Greminger: I don’t think so. Look, these strong transatlantic relations have been built over decades, and they’re simply too strong to be fundamentally questioned by one US president, by one US administration. I mean, I wouldn’t doubt that these relations are currently undergoing a serious test, and clearly there is a particular challenge to European partners who have to step up their contribution to counter military threats on their eastern flank. But, you know, even here, I would also see an opportunity. And that is this US pressure on transatlantic relations, in a way, also represents an opportunity to advance a more autonomous European security policy. And, you know, that takes us a bit also back to Trump’s first administration. I think already back then, this was the most significant boost to European strategic autonomy thinking. But obviously this was pre-war. Now we are in a war scenario, and the war clearly has again underlined how important these transatlantic relations are. So we are, in a way, in a different situation. But what we are currently seeing over the last days and weeks is a strong mobilization on the European side in terms of more security efforts — also, I think, a will to be more autonomous. And in that sense, you know, Trump may, at some point, even become a hero of European strategic autonomy.
Atul Singh: Excellent. But the alliance question: The alliance, you think, will persist? It’ll outlast Donald Trump?
Thomas Greminger: It will. It will. And, you know, I don’t think that, for instance, he would seriously consider pulling out of NATO. I think there is just too much at stake, not only from a pure security point of view. I think, you know, we need to be very clear. This has always also been an important way of assuring US interests in an absolutely fundamental market for the United States. It has been a way of projecting US power to the European continent. And I think abandoning all of that would — even if you think short-term, transactional — even in such a logic, this wouldn’t make sense.
Atul Singh: Alright. So let’s talk about what you’re saying repeatedly — transactional, transactional, transactional world we live in now. So, have we moved from a rules-based order to a transactional spheres of influence world?
Thomas Greminger: I think this is an excellent point. And indeed, if you look at the mindset of, let’s say, the presidents of the three major powers — the United States, China, the Russian Federation — I think you could make a case that they have a sphere of influence mindset, and that for them, you know, the respect for state sovereignty of neighboring countries and regions isn’t particularly strong. And I think these principles that heads of state have subscribed to over the last 50 years — that is, you know, that every state has the freedom to choose its own security arrangements, to be sovereign in its foreign policy choices — I think these are principles, values, that are not held very highly by all three of them. I mean, what is, of course, particularly surprising is that you would now also put the United States in that camp. But clearly, when you hear references to taking over Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal, then I think this is a clear indication of a sphere of influence mindset. Scary.
Atul Singh: Yeah. I mean, so if that is the world we live in, is protectionism and hardball bargaining the new reality in this brave new world? And what does this mean for small countries like Switzerland?
Thomas Greminger: It’s clearly very challenging. If you cannot wield major power in a world that is dominated by power politics, you obviously have a major issue. And I think what it means for smaller countries like Switzerland is to be, you know, extremely attentive, smart, flexible, adaptive. Don’t put all your eggs in one single basket. You know, diversify your partnerships, diversify your supply chains. You know, try to avoid being too dependent on one of these major powers. A question that we keep discussing here in Switzerland is: Is neutrality still a tool, you know, that serves us well in this kind of world? And I would definitely argue yes. I think a smart neutrality policy — the reactive policy, you know, that shows that neutral Switzerland can be useful to the international community — is still a very appropriate way of dealing with these challenges.
Atul Singh: I see. So, some argue that this neutrality has weakened over time. After all, I mean, look at the Swiss moving towards the US in the Russia–Ukraine war. And of course, one could argue that neutrality might also be under pressure because of the financial pressure the US is exerting. Take the example of UBS. UBS got a lot of Swiss government support, but it’s threatening to move headquarters elsewhere. That might have been less likely if, perhaps, Switzerland was part of the EU.
Thomas Greminger: I mean, you are absolutely right. Being neutral these days is not, you know, an easy way of conducting your foreign and security policy. But then again, you know, what are the alternatives? The alternatives are: You join a camp, and you do what is called “bandwagoning” by political scientists. But then you’re caught in a camp; you’re bound by the decisions of such a camp. I don’t think that this is — in such a polarized world — always an advantage. And the other alternative is constant hedging. And I think that’s what you see with more major actors also in the Global South. That’s, I think, what Indians, for instance, call “multi-alignment,” right? But I think for a smaller country like Switzerland, that has less power than, let’s say, India, Brazil, South Africa — I think neutrality brings along more predictability. But it’s not a rigid concept. And, you know, this takes me back to your initial question. Things have radically changed when it comes to Swiss neutrality policy once we came out of the Cold War. During the Cold War, Switzerland had a very rigid interpretation of neutrality — it was called “integral neutrality” — which basically meant, you know, no significant foreign policy. But then, you know, once we came out of the Cold War, Switzerland had to kind of reinvent its foreign policy and neutrality policy became much more open. And when you read the still-valid neutrality report of 1993, you see that, for instance, adopting economic sanctions is fully in line with the defined neutrality policy after the end of the Cold War. That this then creates dilemmas at given points in time is absolutely true. We had, in 2014, a big discussion in Switzerland: Should Switzerland adopt fully the imposed EU sanctions? In 2014, we decided no. We just, you know, make sure that Switzerland is not being used to circumvent sanctions. But we did not fully adopt them. And one of the key arguments was: Back then, Switzerland was in a mediating role as Chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Now, when you compare that—
Atul Singh: Just for our viewers and listeners: They should know, 2014 is when Russia took over Crimea. So that’s what Thomas is referring to.
Thomas Greminger: Exactly. So we have basically two things: Illegal annexation of Crimea, and you have destabilization efforts in the Donbas. But you did not have — and that takes me to 2022 — you did not have a full-fledged aggression against a neighboring country, as in 2022. And given the severity of that breach of international law, given the fact that Switzerland had no particular role in 2022, given also, of course, the huge solidarity of the Swiss population with the aggressed state — with Ukraine — I think the Swiss government had no choice but to adopt these sanctions fully. Of course, this was criticized then by Russia. But I still think, you know, politically this made sense and is compatible with a modern interpretation of neutrality policy.
Defense, neutrality and the future of Europe
Atul Singh: Excellent. Speaking of neutrality, one would be remiss if one did not point out that Europe is rearming again. And Germany has exempted defense spending from its constitutional debt brake. Poland has talked about acquiring nuclear weapons. So, is NATO on the way out, and a new European defense alliance is about to take its place? Will it mean that some countries will take a more aggressive stance against Russia and others might just choose to be neutral?
Thomas Greminger: Well, I think the jury is still out of what form this will take. Will Europe focus on strengthening a European pillar of NATO? I think that is clearly an option. Or would it go for investing mainly in strengthening the security side of the European Union? Or, thirdly, would it be a construct that is different to NATO and EU, which would have the advantage of also integrating non-EU and non-NATO members? The European Political Community, you know, has been mentioned. But obviously, the downside is there are no established security structures, mechanisms, etc. So I think it’s still open how this part of the European security architecture will look like. I think what is clear is you will see a much more significant European effort in that — less reliance on US support. This obviously also implies that Europe will have to compensate for currently still existing important capability gaps. I think they will have to be made up. It also implies that Europe will have to cooperate in security matters to a much different way. You know, let’s be honest — I think right now, security in Europe is still very much nationally driven. Procurement is nationally driven. And I think this needs to change. You know, you cannot have twelve different tank models in the future of European security. I think you will have to focus on two or three, right? So it’s not about moving military expenditures up to 5%. I think that’s simply not necessary. What is necessary is change the cooperation mindset when it comes to defense and security in Europe. And I think there is still quite a bit to be done. But clearly, what I’ve been seeing over recent weeks and months shows me that I think Europeans have understood and they got the message, and they are now working on it.
Atul Singh: So, you say Europeans have got the message and they are now working on it. Does that mean that the Europeans are not going to buy US weapons as much anymore? Because you said you need two or three tanks — one of them, of course, is Challenger in Europe — and a key reason to buy US arms has been interoperability. But if the Europeans cannot rely on the US as much as they used to, then they’ll have to build their own weapons systems. And there is already talk of the fear of the kill switch or the US not giving you software updates as part of a trade war, even. So, it is not just increased spending — it is developing a homegrown defense technology, research and development — almost a military-industrial complex, isn’t it?
Thomas Greminger: It’s true. I think a lot will depend on how this is now being managed on both sides of the Atlantic. I think if it’s smartly managed, I would see European security being strengthened, transatlantic relations even being strengthened. If it’s poorly managed — if this threat posture remains the dominant feature of US policies — indeed, I think you’re absolutely right that one of the consequences could indeed be that Europeans buy less and less American weaponry and, you know, will basically then resort to European systems only. Which probably wouldn’t be smart from a military, from a security point of view, either. But okay — I mean, if there is bullying from Washington, Europe might not have another choice than to do that. But again, I hope this is not the scenario that we are going to see. I hope, you know, reason sets in and complementarity will remain an important principle in European security. Bear in mind that Europe will have to step up its own investment, its own effort.
Atul Singh: Thomas, most European countries have very generous social welfare systems — generous especially when compared to the US With rising defense spending, can Europe manage both guns and butter? And what is the future, then, of the European economy?
Thomas Greminger: Yeah, again, I think that’s an excellent question. This guns-and-butter dilemma I think is a real dilemma. And there is obviously a threat of crowding out social expenditures if defense expenditures will have to be kept on a very high level for a very long time. And there is also a risk of inflationary pressure, you know, if this defense spending has to be kept high for a long time. So I think it all depends on the timeframes that we are talking about. And this, of course, then takes us to developments in Europe over the next few years. Will we see an end to the war in Ukraine? Will we gradually come back to a European security order that contains cooperative elements? Or will we stick, for decades to come, in a kind of new Cold War with enormous defense expenditures on both sides? I think if the latter is the case, then indeed, you know, this guns-and-butter dilemma will become much more critical. If the former happens, we may at some point in time again see the peace dividend, you know, that will allow us to sustain social expenditures and also deal with all the challenges of an aging population, for instance, of rising health expenditures, etc.
A new Cold War?
Atul Singh: So you’ve mentioned a new Cold War, and I couldn’t help thinking: What will be the shape of this new Cold War? Let’s hope it never gets that far. Let’s hope we have a peace dividend. But in case we don’t, will this Cold War be between the US and the EU? Will it be between the EU and Russia? Will it even be between the EU and China? Because there are lots of tensions, strained tensions, and Xi Jinping has not deigned to visit Europe. So what will be the shape of this new Cold War?
Thomas Greminger: Yeah, again, I think the jury is still out. Well, until a few months ago, one would have said, well, it’s probably the West against the rest, or against China and Russia. Now, with this attempt to reset US–Russia relations and this declared strategy of President Trump to kind of, you know, pull Russia out of China’s embrace, we may see different developments. And then, of course, a lot will also depend on how, for instance, Europe will position itself. Will Europe try to kind of remain and keep an independent stance, or will it side exclusively with the US? You know, when you look at the relevance of economic relations between China and Europe, I don’t think that this would be a very favorable strategy for both China and Europe. And I get clearly a sense that China is trying very hard to reach out to Europe. This may not be reflected in heads-of-state visits lately, but diplomatically, what I perceive is a strong outreach by the Chinese. And I think they would want to deal with a Europe that is as independent as possible.
Atul Singh: Excellent. Thomas Greminger, thank you so, so much for your time. It’s always a pleasure to have you with us. We hope you’ll come back soon. There’s lots to discuss in this brand new world, in this fast-changing world. And we wish you all the best with all your endeavors.
Thomas Greminger: Thank you very much, Atul. Thank you for inviting me.
(Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” Atul Singh: Welcome to FO° Talks. With me is Thomas Greminger. He is the head of this Geneva Centre for Security Policy. He is one of Switzerland’s star diplomats. He is a scholar, a soldier and a man of the world. Welcome, Thomas. Thomas Greminger: Thank you very much, Atul. Great to be…” post_summery=”Thomas Greminger discusses the disruptive, transactional approach of the new US administration and its global implications. He highlights shifting alliances, challenges for European security, and Switzerland’s evolving neutrality. Greminger stresses the need for strategic autonomy, adaptability, and diplomacy amid rising geopolitical tensions and a potential new Cold War.” post-date=”Mar 30, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: Trump, NATO, Russia-Ukraine War: A Swiss View on the New World in 2025″ slug-data=”fo-talks-trump-nato-russia-ukraine-war-a-swiss-view-on-the-new-world-in-2025″>
FO° Talks: Trump, NATO, Russia-Ukraine War: A Swiss View on the New World in 2025
(This is the third part of a nine-part series. To read more, see Parts 1 and 2 here.)
Approximately two million Kurds live in Syria, predominantly in the northeastern region near Iraq and Turkey. During the country’s ongoing civil war, which began in 2011, Kurdish groups established an autonomous polity in the area, dubbed the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, Rojava.
Turkey is also home to a sizable Kurdish minority. In the past, it has combated the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish nationalist organization that Turkey and the rest of NATO consider a terrorist group. The Turkish capital of Ankara worries that Rojava maintains ties with the PKK. This concern has shaped Turkey’s approach to Syria throughout its modern history.
Turkish–Syrian relations
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has sought leadership in the Sunni Muslim world. He is nostalgic for the era of the Ottoman Empire, which saw Turkey rule Syria and much of the Middle East until World War I (1914–1918). After the war, Turkey became a democratic republic and later allied with the United States during the Cold War of the 1950s. Turkey joined NATO in 1952.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Turkey viewed Syria as a stronghold of pro-Soviet influence in the Middle East. Turkey served as a founding member of the Baghdad Pact in 1955, which aimed to create a pro-Western alliance in the Middle East that excluded Israel. Syria instead formed an Arab socialist union with Egypt — the United Arab Republic — which lasted from 1958 to 1961.
In 1998, Turkey and Syria engaged in a military standoff at the border over Kurdish movements in Syria and water rights in the Euphrates River. At the same time, Israeli troops reportedly concentrated near the Golan Heights on the Israel–Syria border. This compelled Syria to sign the Adana Agreement, in which Syria turned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan over to Turkish authorities.
Turkey continues to maintain influence in Syria in order to manage the perceived Kurdish threat. Turkey supported, among others, Abu Muhammad al-Julani’s (now Ahmed al-Sharaa’s) Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Sunni Arab militant group. HTS successfully deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in November 2024 and now controls the Syrian capital of Damascus.
Erdoğan aspires to predominance in the Levant and, therefore, finds himself at odds with the other major regional power, Israel. As a Sunni Muslim power, Turkey is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. However, Ankara has avoided direct confrontation with Jerusalem, and the two powers share a common rival in Iran. For the moment, Turkish–Syrian relations appear stable.
(Liam Roman and Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” Approximately two million Kurds live in Syria, predominantly in the northeastern region near Iraq and Turkey. During the country’s ongoing civil war, which began in 2011, Kurdish groups established an…” post_summery=”Around two million Kurds live in northeastern Syria, where they established the autonomous region of Rojava. Turkey’s historical tensions with Syria stem from Cold War rivalries, border disputes and Kurdish movements. Today, Turkey maintains influence in Syria, balancing regional ambitions with caution toward rivals like Israel and Iran.” post-date=”Mar 29, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 3: Turkey and the Kurdish Issue” slug-data=”fo-talks-josef-olmert-on-syria-part-3-turkey-and-the-kurdish-issue”>
FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 3: Turkey and the Kurdish Issue
(This is the second part of a nine-part series. To read more, see Part 1 here.)
The second part of this series focuses on a dominant political force in Syria: Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). In Arabic, the acronym HTS signifies a powerful entity that is currently shaping the nation’s dynamics in Syria. To understand its significance, we must explore the historical and geopolitical context of its name. The term Sham, used in reference to the group’s identity, goes beyond modern-day Syria, as it encompasses a broader historical region that includes Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank and Jordan. This region, historically referred to as the Levant, is central to the identity crisis that has long plagued Syria.
The absence of Syria in the group’s name is no coincidence. The political identity of Syria has always been contentious, marked by its struggle to define its collective identity. For a group like HTS to adopt a term that refers to a larger, more expansive geopolitical entity rather than the current-day state of Syria indicates the ongoing challenges that surround Syria’s national identity. This absence illuminates a deeper issue: What is Syria’s true identity? Who are the Syrians? This question of identity has plagued the state for decades, leading to the political and cultural fragmentation we see today.
HTS and its radical jihadist roots
HTS grew out of another group called Jabhat al-Nusra (“The Front of Victory”). It is not an isolated entity but part of a broader global jihadist movement. Its founder, Abu Muhammad al-Julani (now Ahmed al-Sharaa), was previously involved with the al-Qaeda terror organization; his ties to jihadist ideology are well-documented.
While there are distinctions between different jihadist organizations, the ideological core often remains similar: Salafist jihadism. I find that the specific organizational structures and doctrinal differences between these groups don’t matter when discussing their broader political implications in Syria. Groups like HTS, al-Qaeda and ISIS may differ in tactics or governance, but they share a fundamental jihadist agenda rooted in a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam. This connection allows them to operate within a shared ideological space, irrespective of their political or organizational differences.
Julani’s relationship with Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328), a significant figure in radical Islamic thought, highlights another critical aspect of HTS’s religious roots. Taymiyyah’s influence on jihadist movements cannot be overstated. His infamous fatwa declaring the Alawites — the sect to which deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad belongs — as “worse than infidels” is particularly relevant in understanding the tensions in Syria today.
This view, espoused by Julani and other radical Sunni leaders, has fueled violence and conflict, especially between Sunni jihadist groups and Syria’s Alawite community. The hatred and violence toward Alawites, fueled by this doctrine, have led to reports of executions and destruction, particularly in areas like Latakia. Despite Julani’s recent statements attempting to soften his image and distance himself from his radical past, his actions and the ideology of HTS still bear the marks of the radical jihadist worldview.
Turkey’s influence and the regional dynamics
Turkey is emerging as a dominant force in Syria after the fall of the Assad regime. The nation has long been interested in the fate of northern Syria, with particular interest in areas like Aleppo. This interest dates back to the Ottoman era and continued even after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The geopolitical significance of these regions is rooted in both historical claims and current security concerns.
Turkey’s position on Syria is shaped by several factors: the millions of Syrian refugees residing in Turkey, the Kurdish issue and the broader Sunni–Shia divide. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s preference for a Sunni-dominated Syria aligns with Turkey’s historical and ideological stance.
The Turkish government also has significant concerns about the Alawite community, especially since a sizable Alawite population resides in Turkey, particularly in the Alexandretta area that once was part of Syria. These historical and demographic factors make the Alawite question crucial to Turkey’s approach to Syria.
Moreover, while Erdoğan’s rhetoric supports radical Islam in some respects, I doubt he would tolerate a completely unregulated jihadist group like HTS on his borders; that could destabilize the region further. Turkey’s interests in Syria are complex, and while it has supported groups like HTS, its long-term goal is to ensure a stable, Sunni-dominated Syria.
The next steps in this evolving conflict will reveal whether Julani’s purported moderation is genuine or if the ideological and political fractures within Syria will continue to fuel instability.
(Shreya Verma and Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” The second part of this series focuses on a dominant political force in Syria: Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). In Arabic, the acronym HTS signifies a powerful entity that is currently shaping the nation’s dynamics…” post_summery=”Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, a dominant political force in Syria, reflects the state’s ongoing identity crisis — right down to its name. Despite making efforts to appear moderate, the group’s roots in radical jihadism continue to shape its stance, especially toward the Alawite community. Turkey’s involvement in Syria further complicates the situation.” post-date=”Mar 28, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 2: Ethnic Groups, Factions and Jihadists” slug-data=”fo-talks-josef-olmert-on-syria-part-2-ethnic-groups-factions-and-jihadists”>
FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 2: Ethnic Groups, Factions and Jihadists
Throughout my academic career, which has spanned over four decades, I have been deeply engaged in Syrian and Lebanese affairs in various capacities. As both an academic and government official, I have focused my studies on these regions, their complexities and political dynamics. I have also been a peace negotiator — I participated in discussions between Israel and Syria in the aftermath of the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991 and again in 1992. This long-standing focus on the Middle East has inevitably tied my work to the Assad family. First, with the regime of the older dictator, Hafez al-Assad, and later with his son, Bashar.
In this FO° Talks video series, I will be discussing the current political and societal changes occurring in Syria. They represent a continuation of the long-standing struggle of Syria to define itself and establish a collective identity. Over the decades, the Syrian state has experienced various political regimes, each attempting to resolve the inherent sectarian divisions and to forge a sense of unity. However, as we have seen recently, these attempts have continued to fail.
In Part 1, I aim to explore the broader context of Syria’s ongoing struggle for a cohesive identity and stability. This has been at the heart of the country’s challenges since the early 20th century.
Syria’s struggle for collective identity
The history of modern Syria dates back to 1920, when the French took over and established a mandatory regime over the region. Despite gaining independence in 1946, Syria has remained in a constant search for a collective identity — a unifying definition of who the Syrian people are and what the nation’s role in the Middle East should be. This search for identity has been complicated by the country’s diverse mix of ethnicities and religious sects. In an attempt to overcome these divisions, Syria has undergone numerous political experiments, each of which has ultimately failed to provide a stable foundation.
From 1946 to 1949, Syria briefly experimented with parliamentary democracy. This period was marked by elections but ended with Syria’s defeat in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, when it sought to prevent Israel from forming its own state. After the war, Syria experienced three military coups in 1949 and the dictatorship of Adib Shishakli from 1951 to 1954. The ideology of Arab nationalism was central to these regimes, with slogans like “Syria, the heart of Arabism” (“Qalb al-Arab”) dominating political rhetoric.
From 1954 to 1958, Syria retried parliamentary democracy. This failed again; the Syrian state collapsed, which led the nation to briefly enter into a union with Egypt. The United Arab Republic as it was called dissolved in 1961. In 1963, the Ba’ath Party rose to power. This marked the beginning of an era in which Syria would be ruled by a one-party, authoritarian state.
The era came in two stages: From 1963 to 1970, the Neo-Ba’athist Party government operated with some degree of internal division and chaos. Then in 1970, Hafez al-Assad took control through a coup. Assad’s regime would endure until 2000, when his son, Bashar al-Assad, succeeded him and continued the autocratic rule.
However, despite all these attempts at forging a national identity and political stability, the core issue remained unresolved: Syria’s deep-rooted sectarianism. The country is home to a mix of Sunni Muslims, Alawites, Druze, Kurds and various Christian communities. Several of these groups were called compact minorities, and were relegated to a specific territory — for example, the Kurds lived in the Syrian northeast while the Druze lived in the southwest. The nation has a delicate social fabric, especially regarding the Sunni–Alawite rift deepened by the 1982 massacre in the city of Hama and the Arab Spring protests of 2010–2011. Assad’s regime attempted to suppress these historic divisions, but rather than uniting the population, it intensified the sectarian tensions.
This failure to create a unified identity based on shared values has been one of the central factors in the eventual collapse of the Assad regime and the country’s instability.
Rise of Islamism and the future of Syria
Fast-forward to the present day, and Syria is once again in the midst of a crisis. The most recent attempt to create a cohesive national identity seems to be failing as well, as we see the rise of Islamism and jihadist movements within the country. Although Islamism has a long history in Syria, dating back to the 1930s with the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, it has never before played such a dominant role in shaping the political landscape.
The most prominent Islamist group today is Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist organization that has become a significant player in the Syrian conflict. HTS is largely influenced by Turkey and represents a new era of Islamist ideology in Syria. Unlike the Islamist movements of the past, which were more localized and independent, HTS is now part of a broader regional jihadist movement. The group’s leaders, like Abu Muhammad al-Julani (who now goes by Ahmed al-Sharaa), have made attempts to present themselves as moderate, taking a more relaxed stance on Islamic governance. However, the underlying ideology remains one of violent jihad and the establishment of an Islamic state.
The current wave of Islamism in Syria presents a stark contrast to the earlier Ba’athist regime, which sought to create a pan-Arab identity. Despite the differences in approach, both regimes are driven by the same underlying desire: to create a collective identity for a fragmented nation. The key difference now is the role of foreign influence, particularly from Turkey and other regional powers, in shaping the course of Syria’s future.
What does this mean for Syria? Will the country move towards an Islamic regime? Will another form of governance emerge? The answers remain unclear. However, what is certain is that the quest for a cohesive national identity in Syria continues. The sectarian divisions that have plagued the country for so long remain unresolved, and each new regime has failed to bring about lasting stability or unity. Syria’s quest for a unified, stable identity is far from over.
(Aaditya Sengupta Dhar and Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” Throughout my academic career, which has spanned over four decades, I have been deeply engaged in Syrian and Lebanese affairs in various capacities. As both an academic and government official, I have focused my studies on these regions, their complexities and political dynamics. I have also been…” post_summery=”Syria struggles to forge a cohesive national identity amid its sectarian divisions. Despite political experiments and regimes, including the Assad family’s 54-year dictatorship, Syria has failed to overcome its internal fragmentation. Today, the rise of Islamist groups like Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham signals another effort to create a collective identity.” post-date=”Mar 26, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 1: Historic Context” slug-data=”fo-talks-josef-olmert-on-syria-part-1-historic-context”>
FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 1: Historic Context
In this discussion, Peter Isackson, Fair Observer’s chief strategy officer, and Flavius Mihaies, an investigative journalist with expertise in conflict zones, discuss the evolving geopolitical landscape amidst the ongoing war in Ukraine. The conversation delves into Europe’s response to the Ukraine conflict, the role of the United States and the confusion surrounding the continent’s strategy.
Flavius reflects on the dramatic shift in Europe’s political and psychological landscape following the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House. With his focus on “America First,” the US has distanced itself from European concerns, particularly regarding the war in Ukraine, which many Europeans see as critical to their security. However, while European leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and British leader Keir Starmer continue to advocate for a more militarized Europe, their actions often conflict with the realities of military capabilities and the strategic interests of other nations.
The US–Europe military divide and the future of NATO
A key theme in the conversation is the growing military divide between Europe and the US, especially when it comes to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Flavius points out that the US remains the primary military power supporting Ukraine, while Europe struggles to define its role. As Macron and Starmer push for a more autonomous European defense, the logistical and economic challenges of creating a cohesive military force are becoming increasingly apparent. Flavius questions the viability of European nations achieving a unified defense system, particularly when European military capabilities are far behind those of the US and NATO’s role remains crucial. The disparity in defense capabilities is especially glaring given that European nations, such as France and the United Kingdom, are facing internal political divisions, with opposition parties questioning military strategies and even the very premise of increased defense spending.
From an American perspective, there is also skepticism about Europe’s ability to take on a larger role in the conflict. The US remains focused on short-term objectives, such as containing the growing threat from China, while Europe’s commitment to long-term military engagements like Ukraine’s war remains unclear. Flavius argues that despite these challenges, NATO, with US leadership, continues to be the only coherent force able to counteract Russia’s military ambitions. Without the US, Europe would struggle to maintain a unified front, both militarily and diplomatically.
Europe’s internal divisions and foreign policy challenges
Internal divisions within European nations are also contributing to the confusion surrounding the continent’s foreign policy, particularly in relation to the Ukraine conflict. Flavius notes that Macron’s push for a militarized Europe faces opposition from various factions within France itself, as well as from other European Union member states. While Macron may seek to position himself as a leader of a unified European defense, the reality is that many European citizens and political leaders are not willing to endorse such an aggressive stance. In France, for example, there is significant debate over whether to escalate military involvement in Ukraine, with some advocating for a referendum on the matter. This lack of consensus highlights the difficulty of crafting a unified European position.
Flavius suggests that Macron’s strong statements about European defense and nuclear capabilities may be driven less by a genuine desire to build military strength and more by his political survival. With his presidency nearing its end, Macron may be seeking to define his legacy as a leader of a new, stronger Europe. However, this desire to assert European autonomy is complicated by the reality that Europe’s strategic interests are still closely tied to the US, and Europe’s military capabilities remain insufficient to independently challenge Russia or assert control over its own security.
Proxy war and Europe’s role in negotiations
A central issue discussed is the confusion over Europe’s role. Flavius points out that while European leaders like Macron express concerns over the war’s implications, they are not involved in the crucial negotiations with Russia. Instead, the US has taken the lead in dialogues, notably through the recent talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which have yet to bring European representatives to the table. Flavius suggests that Europe’s lack of direct involvement could be attributed to its reluctance to negotiate peace, as many European nations remain invested in prolonging the conflict. This situation has caused a rift between European leaders and the US, with Trump framing the war as a distraction, while Europe views it as existential.
Peter and Flavius also discuss Macron’s push for a unified European defense, though they both express skepticism about its feasibility. The economic and logistical challenges of creating a cohesive European military force are significant, and the lack of unity within Europe complicates this vision. Furthermore, the question of whether Europe’s security can be separated from US involvement remains uncertain. With NATO’s influence deeply rooted in the continent, Flavius questions whether Europe can truly build a defense system independent of the US
Cultural divide within Ukraine
Another important facet of the conversation is the cultural divide within Ukraine, which Flavius highlights in his article for The American Conservative. The internal conflict within Ukrainian society, particularly the cultural and religious divides between the West and East, complicates any resolution to the war. Flavius argues that the West has failed to address these deep social tensions, focusing instead on military support while ignoring the need for national reconciliation within Ukraine itself.
The division between Ukraine’s western and eastern regions, and their differing allegiances to Russia and the West, further complicates any prospects for peace. Flavius emphasizes that the failure to address these cultural and religious differences within Ukraine itself has left the country vulnerable to external influence and internal strife. Western involvement, while focused on countering Russian aggression, has ignored the complex internal dynamics at play in Ukrainian society. This cultural conflict may play a significant role in how the war is perceived and, ultimately, how it will be resolved.
Europe’s confusion and strategic uncertainty
The discussion concludes with a reflection on the future of Europe and the ongoing confusion surrounding its role in the Ukraine conflict. Flavius suggests that this uncertainty may persist as European leaders struggle to balance their domestic political agendas with the broader geopolitical reality. As Europe continues to grapple with its identity and strategic priorities, the US remains the dominant actor in shaping the future of the conflict, leaving Europe to reassess its place in the global order.
Peter adds that the lack of clarity about Europe’s position is troubling, especially when leaders like Macron advocate for drastic military and defense changes without considering the broader implications for European unity and long-term stability. The disjointed approach to the Ukraine conflict and Europe’s role in it reflects the growing difficulty in navigating the complexities of international relations in an era where global power dynamics are shifting.
Ukrainian religious issues
Flavius highlights a deeply embedded issue in Ukraine, one that stretches beyond its military struggles with Russia: internal divisions, particularly regarding religious freedom, and the failure of Western support in helping Ukraine build democratic institutions.
Flavius elaborates on the creation of a nationalist Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which replaced traditional liturgical practices with modern Ukrainian, supported by President Petro Poroshenko’s government. This move, intended to unify the nation culturally, led to tensions as the church increasingly seized properties from the traditional Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which is heavily backed by the government, increasingly took over the traditional churches, leading to an exacerbation of social and religious divides.
Flavius points out that these religious conflicts are more than symbolic; they reflect the internal fractures within Ukrainian society, where religious identity and cultural nationalism are tightly bound. The violent seizing of church buildings from one denomination to another only fuels social unrest, creating a situation where returning soldiers, fighting on the front lines, find their local churches and communities taken from them, further dividing the people.
Western support and Ukraine’s struggle for democracy
Flavius emphasizes that Ukraine’s struggle is not only a military one but also a battle for democratic values. The West’s support for Ukraine has been disproportionately focused on military aid. While Europe and the US have provided significant amounts of military hardware, such as obsolete and second-hand equipment, they have failed to support Ukraine in strengthening its democratic institutions and civil society.
Ukraine has received financial and military aid, but civil society initiatives — such as those led by Ukrainian lawyers pushing for government transparency and accountability — have received little to no continued backing from the West. Flavius points out that the funding for establishing watchdog bodies, which had initially been supported by the US, dwindled over time, further weakening Ukraine’s internal governance structures. This neglect by the West, Flavius argues, leaves Ukraine vulnerable, as it is unable to build sustainable democratic institutions that could help unite the population in its fight for survival.
Peter raises the question of Ukraine’s potential to be a functioning democracy in the long term, especially given the martial law and the erosion of normal political processes during the ongoing war. While there are efforts from within Ukraine to build a democratic system, Flavius acknowledges that Ukraine still suffers from deep-rooted authoritarian tendencies stemming from its Soviet past.
Flavius cites anecdotal evidence from his conversations with clergy, where the fear of government intervention and property seizure was compared to the harsh Stalinist period. Although Ukraine has a segment of its population dedicated to building vibrant democratic institutions, these aspirations often clash with the lingering realities of authoritarian governance and the state’s control over religious institutions. With a limited ability to hold the government accountable, the future of Ukrainian democracy remains uncertain, especially if Europe and the West continue to overlook this issue.
Europe’s hypocrisy, relations with Russia and political future
The conversation then moves to Europe’s role in the conflict, with Flavius criticizing Europe for sending arms to Ukraine but failing to provide support for the country’s democratic development. While military support is seen as legitimate in the context of Ukraine’s fight for survival, Flavius points out that this kind of support is only one piece of the puzzle. Without European efforts to help Ukraine model itself as a full-fledged democracy, its potential for long-term stability remains in jeopardy.
Flavius emphasizes that Europe has failed to address Ukraine’s need for institutional reform and a functioning democracy. He argues that the lack of support for civil society and democracy is one of the main reasons Ukraine is in such a fragile state today. The hypocrisy lies in Europe’s contradictory approach: While proclaiming support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and democratic aspirations, Europe has largely ignored its responsibility to help Ukraine build those very democratic institutions.
The conversation then shifts to the larger geopolitical context, particularly Europe’s relationship with Russia. Flavius raises the point that Europe’s desire to weaken Russia has led to a complicated and unstable situation, especially for countries like Germany, which had long relied on Russian energy. The war in Ukraine has forced Europe into a precarious position, where the economic fallout from the severance of ties with Russia has left countries like Germany vulnerable.
Flavius explains that Russia’s role in Europe is crucial, and many European leaders are personally invested in maintaining some kind of balance with Russia. Countries like France have historically seen Russia as a strategic ally, and Flavius suggested that the failure to include Russia in a post-World War II security arrangement has exacerbated tensions. The lack of a security framework that includes Russia has contributed to the ongoing conflict, and as the war drags on, Europe is likely to face significant internal political shifts, particularly with the rise of right-wing parties opposed to continued military engagement in Ukraine.
Peter and Flavius discuss the political ramifications of the ongoing conflict for Europe. With the rise of right-wing and populist parties across Europe, many of which are anti-war, the current trajectory of European politics looks uncertain. Flavius notes that this shift is partly a reaction to Europe’s failure to manage the Ukrainian crisis effectively. The economic and social impact of the war, combined with growing disillusionment over Europe’s handling of the situation, is leading to a rise in nationalist sentiment across the continent.
Countries like Germany, Italy and France have seen the rise of parties like the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, both of which are strongly opposed to militarism and have criticized the EU’s stance on Ukraine. This shift, Flavius suggests, could have long-term consequences for the political stability of Europe, particularly if these parties gain more power and influence in the coming years.
Ukraine’s demographic and economic crisis
In the final section of the conversation, Flavius turns to Ukraine’s demographic crisis, which has worsened over the past decade. Ukraine now faces one of the lowest birth rates in the world, with an average of just one child per woman — far below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. This, combined with the country’s loss of population due to emigration and the effects of the war, poses a grave threat to Ukraine’s future.
Flavius points out that Ukraine had already lost around ten million people since independence in 1991, due to corruption and lack of opportunities. The war has led to further population loss, with millions fleeing the country and hundreds of thousands killed or injured. This demographic collapse, he argues, will have long-term consequences for Ukraine’s ability to rebuild itself after the war.
The conversation ends on a sobering note, with Peter asking about the possibility of conflict resolution in Europe, not just for Ukraine but for the broader European context. Flavius reflects on the deep challenges facing Europe, suggesting that the failure to include Russia in a new European security framework is at the heart of the current conflict. The rise of populism and nationalism in Europe, combined with the ongoing war in Ukraine, could destabilize the continent further if a resolution is not found.
Both Peter and Flavius agree that the political and social confusion within Europe is far from resolved and will continue to unfold in the coming months. The future of both Ukraine and Europe remains uncertain, but Flavius suggests that, for the sake of Ukraine, Europe must start addressing its internal divisions and reevaluating its approach to the region.
(Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” In this discussion, Peter Isackson, Fair Observer’s chief strategy officer, and Flavius Mihaies, an investigative journalist with expertise in conflict zones, discuss the evolving geopolitical landscape amidst the ongoing war in Ukraine. The conversation delves into Europe’s response to the…” post_summery=”Fair Observer Chief Strategy Officer Peter Isackson and investigative journalist Flavius Mihaies discuss Europe’s confusion over its role in the Ukraine conflict and the military divide with the US. Flavius criticizes Europe for focusing on military aid without supporting Ukraine’s democratic development, leaving the country vulnerable. He also highlights Europe’s internal divisions and geopolitical uncertainty, exacerbated by rising nationalism.” post-date=”Mar 21, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: Can Europe Digest Its Spurned Vassal State?” slug-data=”fo-talks-can-europe-digest-its-spurned-vassal-state”>
FO° Talks: Can Europe Digest Its Spurned Vassal State?
In his conversation with FO° Chief Strategy Officer Peter Isackson, former Swiss ambassador Jean-Daniel Ruch offers an analysis of the psychological and diplomatic quandary of European leaders taken by surprise when newly installed US President Donald Trump turned the policies of his predecessor, Joe Biden, on their head concerning the war in Ukraine.
Marveling at the difficulty of addressing a challenge that subverts the dominant narrative spread by politicians and the media over the past three years, Ruch regretted the evident lack of foresight and capacity to react positively to the sudden emergence of Realpolitik in European affairs. Focusing on what is now becoming clear — the necessity for the European nations to come together on a plan that will enable the region to define its strategic autonomy — the two analysts weigh the chances of success and examine the obstacles that lie ahead.
Why has it been so difficult for Western nations not just to embrace but even to entertain the idea of indivisible security, which should be a core concern of any nation’s approach to diplomacy? Trump appears to be the first US president sensitive to the seriousness of Russia’s requests, even before Putin, concerning NATO expansion and the warnings about a risk of war expressed by European leaders and even Biden’s CIA director, William Burns, when he was ambassador to Moscow in 2008.
Trump’s 180° switch produced a situation in which what Ruch calls the current cast of leaders must find a way of acknowledging a reality they cannot control. This means swallowing the humiliation of allowing themselves to be led and directed by the nation in charge of the transatlantic alliance, without realizing the risk that policies could be reversed overnight every four years.
The way forward will be arduous, but there are few choices. When political reality stares you in the face, tough decisions must be made. Ruch evoked one sliver of realistic hope that could issue from the courage of Ruch’s own traditionally neutral nation of Switzerland, poised to assume the presidency of the OSCE in 2026. At a time when European unity has never been more fragile, a concerted plan piloted by the Helvetic Republic of Switzerland could provide the occasion to define a new European security framework, no longer dependent on Washington, with the promise of installing an atmosphere of neighborly coexistence and geopolitical stability.
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” In his conversation with FO° Chief Strategy Officer Peter Isackson, former Swiss ambassador Jean-Daniel Ruch offers an analysis of the psychological and diplomatic quandary of European leaders taken by surprise when newly installed US President Donald Trump turned the policies of his predecessor,…” post_summery=”President Donald Trump reversed President Joe Biden’s policy on the war in Ukraine and alarmed leaders across Europe. European governments scrambled to respond as the United States shifted away from its recent stance. Former Swiss ambassador Jean-Daniel Ruch says Switzerland may lead a new effort to stabilize European security.” post-date=”Mar 21, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: Donald Trump’s New Bombshells Leave Europe Shellshocked” slug-data=”fo-talks-donald-trumps-new-bombshells-leave-europe-shellshocked”>
FO° Talks: Donald Trump’s New Bombshells Leave Europe Shellshocked
Anton Schauble introduces Mark Tushnet, a leading scholar of constitutional law who has taught at prestigious universities and clerked for US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Mark’s recent book, Who Am I to Judge? Judicial Craft Versus Constitutional Theory, argues that no theory of constitutional interpretation is effective in constraining judicial decision-making, not just the more rigid ones like originalism. Anton, recognizing that theories are often seen as devices to prevent judges from imposing their personal preferences, asks Mark to explain how these theories fail to constrain judges in practice.
Mark explains that constitutional interpretation theories, such as originalism, have become dominant in describing Supreme Court actions. These theories are meant to limit the influence of judges’ personal biases on decisions, but Mark argues that, in reality, none of these theories effectively constrain judges. Despite their intellectual appeal, these theories often become so complicated and flexible that judges can manipulate them to reach preferred outcomes, ultimately rendering them ineffective in curbing personal bias.
Limitations of constitutional interpretation theories
Mark delves deeper into the core problem with constitutional theories: They lack practical applicability in judicial practice. He distinguishes between the academic practice of constructing theories of constitutional interpretation and the judicial practice of applying them. While academics develop these theories with the intent of creating a rigorous framework, judges don’t have the time or resources to engage with these theories in their entirety. Instead, judges become “selective theoretical actors,” choosing among incomplete or partially developed theories that don’t fully constrain their decision-making. Mark argues that judicial practice, therefore, becomes an exercise in applying these theories in a “half-baked” way, which often leads to policy decisions rather than neutral interpretations of the law.
Anton asks whether this is a flaw in the theories themselves or a reflection of the judges’ personal biases. Mark’s answer is nuanced, noting that while some judges may believe they are neutrally applying the law, their decisions inevitably involve policy choices, and they often work within incomplete or improvised interpretations of constitutional theories. This, Mark suggests, is a problem inherent in the theories themselves, as their complexity and vagueness allow judges too much room to influence outcomes.
Mark’s critique is not about rejecting the possibility of having a theory of constitutional interpretation, but rather about recognizing the gap between theoretical construction and practical judicial application. He emphasizes that theories, while designed to constrain, ultimately leave too many opportunities for judges to impose personal preferences. This is exacerbated by the complexity and open-ended nature of these theories, which make it difficult to apply them consistently and in a manner that limits personal biases.
Judicial decision-making as policy-bound
Mark continues to argue that even though the goal is to have judges interpret the law neutrally, judicial decisions often end up being policy-driven. This dynamic is evident in both common law and civil law systems. Anton asks whether this tendency is unique to the common law system or whether civil law systems, with their more detailed legal codes, face similar limitations. Mark expresses skepticism toward the claim that civil law systems inherently offer stronger constraints than common law systems. Though civil law systems may appear more structured in their decision-making, Mark argues that they face similar challenges in applying fixed legal norms to unique and complex cases.
The tension between legal theory and judicial practice becomes more apparent when one considers the challenges judges face when interpreting laws that must be applied to ever-evolving societal issues. Mark contends that the inevitable complexity of real-world cases, combined with the flexibility inherent in both common law and civil law systems, leads to a form of judicial decision-making that is deeply intertwined with policy choices, no matter the legal theory a judge espouses.
Originalism and living constitutionalism
Mark and Anton explore the two most prominent constitutional interpretation theories: originalism and living constitutionalism. Both have their critics and adherents, yet Mark critiques both as flawed practical tools. Originalism, with its emphasis on the US Constitution’s original meaning, can lead to seemingly progressive outcomes, as seen in cases like Employment Division v. Smith and McGirt v. Oklahoma. Mark points out that the richness and complexity of originalist materials allow judges to construct interpretations that can lead to a broad range of outcomes. This flexibility makes it possible for originalist reasoning to support progressive results, but it also reveals how originalism is, in practice, just as malleable as any other interpretive theory.
Living constitutionalism, which argues that the Constitution should evolve to reflect contemporary values, is similarly problematic in Mark’s view. While it seeks to align constitutional interpretation with modern principles, living constitutionalism relies on judges to interpret what contemporary values are. Mark challenges the assumption that judges, who are less democratically accountable than legislators, are better equipped to discern and implement the will of the people. He notes that living constitutionalists often prioritize “deep” values over transient majorities, but this can lead to an undemocratic concentration of power in the judiciary.
The role of judges
The conversation between Mark and Anton explores the evolving understanding of the role of judges in interpreting the law. As they discuss the limitations of strict theories like originalism or living constitutionalism, Mark argues for a more nuanced approach that embraces pluralism, experience and judgment. He contends that judges should think of themselves primarily as lawyers, with a responsibility to apply legal reasoning pragmatically rather than simply adhering to abstract theories. This allows for more flexibility and the inclusion of policy considerations, which should be balanced with the weight of prior decisions. While acknowledging the potential dangers of judicial activism, Mark highlights the importance of integrating personal judgment within the bounds of legal tradition.
Mark also critiques the idea that judges must strictly adhere to theoretical frameworks when deciding cases. Instead, he suggests that a good judge relies on their “lived experience” — an intuitive understanding developed through practical legal experience rather than abstract theorizing. This intuition helps judges navigate complex cases by blending experience and judgment. Furthermore, Mark rejects the idea that judges are merely deciding what the law “should” be, arguing that their decisions are legitimate as long as they are “visibly lawlike.” This approach, he believes, aligns judges more closely with democratic principles than rigid theories that may detach them from real-world legal contexts.
Holmes and Cardozo: ideal judges
In the latter part of the discussion, Mark reflects on two great justices, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Benjamin Cardozo, both of whom exemplified the qualities of a great judge without being overly constrained by theory. Holmes, deeply shaped by his Civil War experience, maintained a practical, fatalistic approach to the law, viewing it as a force beyond personal ideals. Cardozo, on the other hand, demonstrated intellectual curiosity, delving into fields like psychology and sociology to inform his legal reasoning. These justices were not bound by a singular theory but drew upon their broad experiences and knowledge to craft decisions that had lasting impact.
Mark advocates for a more expansive understanding of what qualifies a judge, urging the consideration of varied life experiences and intellectual curiosity over strict professional paths, such as prior judicial experience. He suggests that the current focus on high-level appellate litigators limits the diversity of perspectives on the Supreme Court. Instead, the ideal judge should possess wide-ranging experience, an openness to diverse fields of thought and a strong sense of human empathy. This blend of practical experience and intellectual exploration, he concludes, is key to producing wise and effective judicial decision-making.
(Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” Anton Schauble introduces Mark Tushnet, a leading scholar of constitutional law who has taught at prestigious universities and clerked for US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Mark’s recent book, Who Am I to Judge? Judicial Craft Versus Constitutional Theory, argues that no theory of…” post_summery=”Anton Schauble speaks with Professor Mark Tushnet about the provocative claim that all theories of constitutional interpretation are wrong. Their conversation covers originalism, living constitutionalism and what judges actually think of themselves as doing. What should a judge do? Can they go beyond simply stating what the law means?” post-date=”Mar 19, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: Every Theory of Constitutional Interpretation Is Wrong” slug-data=”fo-talks-every-theory-of-constitutional-interpretation-is-wrong”>
FO° Talks: Every Theory of Constitutional Interpretation Is Wrong
Discussing the implications of US policies on Europe and the growing threat to European unity, Atul Singh and Sebastian Schäffer explore the geopolitical challenges Europe faces and its role in the unfolding global order. Sebastian paints a grim picture for Europe, describing how the United States, long regarded as a trusted ally, has started to undermine Europe’s interests. He refers to several recent developments, including US President Donald Trump’s uncoordinated talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s comments about Europe’s responsibility for its own security and JD Vance’s assertion at the Munich Security Conference that Europe’s greatest threats lie within, rather than from Russia or China. These actions, Sebastian argues, reflect a shift in the global order, one where the US no longer plays a stabilizing role in Europe, leaving the continent vulnerable.
Sebastian believes Europe is now at a critical juncture. He emphasizes that while the European Union has been forged through crises in the past, the current moment is one of “endgame.” He warns that without decisive action, the world could enter what he calls the “authoritarian century,” marking the decline of democratic values. The failure to act swiftly could result in Europe’s disintegration, with some nations drifting towards authoritarianism or even exiting the European Union, as seen with Brexit.
The growing divide within Europe
Europe is unable to form a unified response to crises like the war in Ukraine. Sebastian notes that countries like Hungary are already aligning themselves with Russia, while other European leaders are hesitant to fully commit to defending Ukraine. The struggle to forge a united European front in the face of external threats could undermine the EU’s future, potentially leading to a collapse of its unity and the values it represents.
Sebastian highlights that the EU’s internal divisions are further compounded by economic, political and ideological rifts between member states. While some countries are increasingly skeptical of the EU’s centralizing tendencies, others remain firmly committed to deepening integration. These conflicting priorities are especially evident in the differing responses to Russia’s aggression and the broader security challenges in Europe. The rise of Eurosceptic and far-right movements in several EU countries further complicates efforts to present a united front against external threats. These movements could weaken the EU’s capacity to act decisively and protect its democratic ideals, especially if populist leaders gain more influence in key European nations.
The growing divide within Europe also threatens to undermine the EU’s cohesion in the long run. If member states can no longer agree on fundamental issues such as defense policy and foreign alliances, the future of the EU’s integration process could be in jeopardy. Sebastian warns that Europe is at a crossroads: It must either unify and strengthen its institutions or risk fragmenting under the pressure of internal and external challenges.
The role of nationalism and sovereignty
The rise of nationalism and calls for greater national sovereignty have also played a significant role in undermining European unity. Sebastian points out that while the EU has long been a model of economic integration, its political ambitions have been increasingly challenged by nationalist movements across the continent. Leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and France’s Marine Le Pen have openly criticized the EU’s centralization of power and pushed for policies that prioritize national sovereignty over European cooperation.
These nationalist movements, often fueled by economic dissatisfaction and cultural anxiety, pose a significant challenge to the EU’s future. While the EU has been successful in promoting peace and economic prosperity, it has struggled to address the concerns of those who feel left behind by globalization and integration. In countries like Hungary, where there is a growing alignment with Russia, the EU’s ability to hold member states accountable for their foreign policy decisions is increasingly questioned. This growing nationalism could eventually lead to further fragmentation as countries prioritize their own interests at the expense of EU solidarity.
At the same time, Sebastian acknowledges that there is a countercurrent within Europe. Leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron have pushed for deeper European integration, proposing ideas such as a common European defense force and a more unified foreign policy. However, as Sebastian points out, this vision faces significant obstacles from nationalist governments and a general reluctance among some member states to cede more sovereignty to Brussels. The future of European integration will likely depend on the ability of political leaders to reconcile these competing forces and find a path forward that balances national interests with the need for a stronger, more unified Europe.
European security and unity
The discussion also touches on the future of European integration. While some view the economic benefits of the EU as its primary success, Sebastian refutes the notion that democracy and human rights should be secondary to economic prosperity. He argues that the EU’s past enlargements were not merely economic but also about stabilizing young democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. The integration of these countries has proven successful, both politically and economically, and demonstrates the EU’s broader role in promoting peace and democracy across the continent.
Sebastian also explores the possibility of Europe evolving into a “Fortress Europe,” advocating for a common defense and security architecture. However, the varying threat perceptions among member states make such a vision challenging. For example, while Poland faces a direct threat from Russia, countries like Portugal may not see the same urgency. This discrepancy in threat assessment could make it difficult for the EU to maintain its cohesion and respond effectively to the rising geopolitical challenges.
The conversation addresses the broader implications of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. While some argue that a realpolitik approach is needed to end the bloodshed, Sebastian contends that a peace agreement that rewards Russian aggression would set a dangerous precedent. Europe, he argues, must not abandon its commitment to democratic values and should resist rewarding an aggressor like Russia. The future of Europe depends on maintaining its unity, strengthening its defenses, and staying true to the principles that have guided its integration for decades.
Bullying, geopolitical tensions and the US
International bullying, particularly the US’s, is increasing. Atul points out that the US is acting like a bully in international politics, citing its territorial ambitions toward Greenland and Canada, and threatening stance towards allies like Panama. He questions whether standing up to bullies would also mean confronting the US. Sebastian agrees, emphasizing that Europe must take a stronger stance against these actions, particularly with regard to threats toward nations like Denmark and Canada. He criticizes the US’s behavior, likening it to an imperial mindset, with Trump pushing for peace in regions like Gaza and Ukraine while simultaneously threatening allies.
Sebastian highlights the challenges facing Europe, including its military and economic weaknesses. He notes that Europe lacks the resources to defend Ukraine adequately, pointing to the lack of a unified defense strategy and economic instability. Additionally, Europe faces internal challenges, such as the rise of far-right political movements, which complicates its ability to form a unified front against external threats. In response to these realities, Sebastian discusses the necessity of a balanced vision for Europe — one that recognizes the importance of European integration, but also addresses the rising challenges posed by extreme political factions and the growing influence of external powers like the US and Russia.
The social market vs. turbo-capitalism: Europe’s model of stability
Shifting to a deeper analysis of Europe’s political landscape, the discussion turns to the larger ideological battle between the social market economy of Europe and the turbo-capitalism promoted by the US. Sebastian defends Europe’s social market model, pointing out that despite criticisms, it has been successful in fostering economic growth while ensuring a welfare state that protects citizens in times of need. This contrasts with the US’s system, where the lack of social safety nets can lead to economic ruin for individuals in the event of a crisis. Sebastian stresses that Europe’s regulatory framework, while sometimes criticized for being bureaucratic, has led to the protection of workers’ rights and a more stable economy compared to the volatility seen in turbo-capitalist systems.
Atul echoes this sentiment, noting that in the US and India, a lack of such protections can lead to catastrophic outcomes for ordinary people. Sebastian acknowledges that while Europe is not without flaws, especially in the context of rising far-right influence and political fragmentation, there is still a possibility for reform and progress. He argues that Europe must better communicate the advantages of its social market model, including labor rights, healthcare and worker protections, as the antidote to the negative effects of extreme market-driven capitalism.
The conversation concludes with a sobering look at the ongoing war in Ukraine. Sebastian acknowledges that any ceasefire will come with significant costs, particularly for the Ukrainian people, who will bear the brunt of the conflict’s consequences. He argues that Europe, while bearing the financial burden of reconstruction, must work together to strengthen its collective security and economic model, ensuring that it is not solely dependent on the US.
Ultimately, the EU’s role in securing peace and rebuilding after the war is crucial. While the road ahead is challenging, Sebastian remains optimistic that European cooperation could pave the way forward, even in the face of mounting global tensions.
(Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” Discussing the implications of US policies on Europe and the growing threat to European unity, Atul Singh and Sebastian Schäffer explore the geopolitical challenges Europe faces and its role in the unfolding global order. Sebastian paints a grim picture for Europe, describing how the United…” post_summery=”The growing geopolitical challenges Europe faces highlight how US policies undermine European unity. Internal divisions and rising nationalism threaten the EU’s cohesion; Europe should strengthen its institutions or else it risks fragmentation. It is vital that Europe maintain democratic values and resist external pressures, particularly from the US and Russia.” post-date=”Mar 18, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Talks: Trump and Co. Sell Europe Up the River. Now What?” slug-data=”fo-talks-trump-and-co-sell-europe-up-the-river-now-what”>
FO° Talks: Trump and Co. Sell Europe Up the River. Now What?
In recent times, global markets have shown increasing signs of anxiety and uncertainty, as investors brace for a potential disruption in major economies, particularly the United States. The dynamics surrounding the US economy, alongside geopolitical developments and domestic policy shifts, are causing alarm among investors and analysts.
One of the most concerning aspects is the inversion of expectations regarding US and Chinese debt. Previously considered rock-solid, US government debt is now perceived as riskier than its Chinese counterpart. Meanwhile, gold prices, often viewed as a safe haven, are hitting record highs, further signaling the market’s growing fears.
This situation is particularly worrisome for investors and economists who have long raised concerns about the Chinese economy’s resilience. Despite China’s enormous size and influence, its economic stability is far from guaranteed. Factors such as a struggling real estate market, declining demand, financial brittleness and an authoritarian political system have all contributed to an uncertain future for the Chinese economy. Additionally, the controversial zero-Covid policy and the broader global trend toward protectionism have raised doubts about China’s ability to sustain or even grow its exports.
Despite these concerns, markets seem to have responded differently, with yields on Chinese debt even surpassing those of US bonds in some instances after the Ukraine war. This is particularly concerning, as it suggests that markets view Chinese debt as relatively more stable, despite the numerous vulnerabilities in China’s economic structure. The primary driver behind this shift, analysts suggest, is growing skepticism about the US economy’s future prospects.
Political paralysis and economic instability
The underlying cause of the increasing market instability can be traced to the political paralysis in the US government. Over the years, political dysfunction and gridlock in Congress have made it nearly impossible to pass meaningful fiscal reforms. The ongoing debt ceiling debates, disagreements over taxation and expenditure policies and the general dysfunction in addressing long-term issues have left the US economy vulnerable to shocks. As markets react to this uncertainty, investors have grown more wary of US debt, a once-reliable asset.
A key indicator of this growing unease is the sharp rise in gold prices. Historically, gold serves as a store of value, particularly during times of financial instability. The rising price of gold signals that investors are seeking safety in assets that are not tied to the performance of any particular government or currency. The surge in gold prices, alongside rising US bond yields, paints a troubling picture of the increasing likelihood of financial instability in the West.
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in 2023 further highlighted the vulnerabilities in the financial system. The failure of the bank, triggered by rising interest rates and a subsequent loss of depositor confidence, resulted in a rapid bank run, with $42 billion withdrawn in a single day. While the federal government intervened to restore stability, the failure of SVB was a stark reminder of how quickly financial crises can unfold, especially in a fragile economic environment.
Broader implications for global markets
The impact of US instability on global markets cannot be overstated. As the US remains a key economic powerhouse, instability within its borders has far-reaching consequences for other regions, including Europe and China. The interconnectedness of global financial systems means that even small tremors in one economy can lead to cascading effects across the globe. Emerging markets, particularly in Asia and India, have already experienced significant market downturns since late 2023, underscoring the vulnerability of global markets to disruptions in the US and Western economies.
The immediate concern is the potential for a financial meltdown, a scenario that many analysts fear could occur sooner rather than later. With the US political system unable to address key economic challenges — such as the growing budget deficit and long-term debt — the risks of a recession or depression are increasing. Trade tensions, particularly between the US and China, are likely to exacerbate these challenges, potentially triggering a broader global slowdown.
A critical issue lies in the US government’s approach to economic policy. As the administration seeks to implement tariffs and reduce spending, the long-term effects could be damaging to both domestic and global markets. The US economy, which has been a driving force for growth in China and Europe, may face increasing pressure as tariffs dampen international trade and reduce employment in key industries. Further, cuts to research and development spending and other critical investments could stifle innovation, reduce economic dynamism and drive up the deficit.
Donald Trump’s return brings uncertainty
Compounding the situation is the rise of US President Donald Trump and his return to national prominence. His policies, especially his stance on tariffs and government spending, are reshaping the US economic landscape. While some may argue that his administration’s economic policies have led to short-term gains, the long-term consequences of his approach remain uncertain. The increasing protectionist measures and cuts to government spending in certain areas are likely to create more economic turmoil, particularly if the US economy fails to adapt to the changing global environment.
The combination of rising tariffs, reduced government spending and political gridlock is creating an environment in which financial stability is increasingly in question. While economists agree that the US must address its long-term debt issues, the current trajectory of economic policy is causing increasing concern. The lack of meaningful political reform and the failure to agree on solutions to address the growing deficit are exacerbating fears that the US economy could be on the brink of a major crisis.
Troubling times ahead
As global markets become increasingly nervous and volatile, the likelihood of a financial meltdown grows. While it is impossible to predict the exact timing of such a crisis, the combination of rising US bond yields, soaring gold prices and ongoing political dysfunction suggests that troubling times lie ahead. The interconnected nature of the global economy means that instability in the US will have far-reaching consequences, affecting economies in Europe, Asia and beyond.
Given the current trajectory, it is crucial for policymakers to address these concerns before the situation escalates further. However, with political gridlock preventing meaningful reform, the outlook for the global economy remains uncertain. As investors and analysts continue to monitor the evolving situation, one thing is clear: The world is entering a period of heightened volatility and unpredictability, and financial stability is no longer a given. The coming years will likely bring new challenges, and the world will need to adapt to an increasingly uncertain and complex economic environment.
(Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.)
The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
” post-content-short=” In recent times, global markets have shown increasing signs of anxiety and uncertainty, as investors brace for a potential disruption in major economies, particularly the United States. The dynamics surrounding the US economy, alongside geopolitical developments and domestic policy shifts, are…” post_summery=”Global markets are growing increasingly uncertain, due to concerns over US economic instability, political gridlock and rising gold prices. Despite vulnerabilities in China’s economy, its debt is seen as more stable than US debt, reflecting growing skepticism about the US’s future. These factors, combined with protectionism and geopolitical tensions, signal an imminent financial crisis.” post-date=”Mar 13, 2025″ post-title=”FO° Exclusive: Global Markets Are Now Extremely Nervous” slug-data=”fo-exclusive-global-markets-are-now-extremely-nervous”>
