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Alright you guys, introducing Elijah Magnier.
He writes at elijahjm.wordpress.com and is a really important reporter writing out of Iraq and about Iraq war three and the war in Syria.
Obviously a lot of overlap there.
Very important stuff.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing, sir?
I'm fine, thank you.
How are you?
Thank you for having me.
Very happy to have you on the show.
I've learned a lot from you over the past, I guess, a couple of years here.
I guess I first found you by way of Moon of Alabama blog.
Really great stuff and including this latest one about Sykes-Picot and depending on your point of view, it always seems like America is doing al-Qaeda's dirty work.
The Islamic State in this case is just a break-off group of old al-Qaeda in Iraq, right?
And so you say here that first the Islamic State and then the U.S. breaches the Sykes-Picot line with one objective, the partition of Syria and Iraq.
And the context here is the liberation, at least so-called, of Mosul and the coming rousting of the Islamic State out of their last stronghold in Raqqa.
And then the question is, what comes next?
And it looks like you're pretty far ahead of the game here.
So what comes next?
Well, actually, it's very clear that the United States forces in Syria have decided to establish itself, having several military airports, several military bases spread in between eight to ten locations.
And they have the intention to remain there under the pretext of fighting the Islamic State.
And they are fighting the Islamic State, ISIS, in Raqqa in the northeast of Syria.
And what they want to do, basically, is to try to give a kind of autonomous and an independent state to the Kurds in Syria.
And that will allow them to stay in the country and therefore divide the country for a while.
I don't think they have a long-term strategy beyond that, because if they establish themselves in an area where the Kurds are the majority, but they're not capable of controlling a very vast territory, and they will end up spreading themselves very thin with U.S. forces incapable of protecting the whole territory, then I think the U.S. forces will not be at ease in that area.
And therefore, they will have to renegotiate their presence.
Right at the moment, this is what they are doing in Syria.
And similarly, they are not discouraging the Kurds in Kurdistan, Iraq, to declare an independent state.
And therefore, they will have the Kurds in Syria and in Iraq linked together, not under one leadership, but dividing Bilad al-Sham and Mesopotamia.
And now, so you're saying then that, for one thing, that the policy, America's policy towards Iraqi Kurdish independence has changed, and they want the Iraqi Kurds to go ahead with independence now?
Well, obviously, the Kurds in Syria can't declare their independence state without financial support that should be coming from Saudi Arabia.
Actually, this is the best U.S. ally at the moment in the Middle East.
No, I mean Iraqi Kurdistan.
And you're saying the Americans are trying to link the two and the Iraqi Kurds are having their referendum, right?
So the Americans are now supporting Iraqi Kurdish independence from Baghdad?
They are because Kurdistan is financially incapable of holding a state without an international recognition and without being able to sell their oil and export the oil outside Kurdistan.
They don't have sea, they don't have air facility if Baghdad decides to close the airspace on Kurdistan.
Therefore, they have the land and the land will be through Turkey, and then they will have to export their gas somewhere toward Europe, they have to sell it.
Therefore, a Kurdistan in Iraq can never declare independence state without an international support because no one will recognize it.
Mm hmm.
And then so you're saying at this point, the Americans are happy to see the Iraqi Kurds go ahead and break off from Iraq if they can merge them with Syrian Kurdistan?
Actually, it's not a real merge, but it's a geographic merge, because they are more or less on the border of Syria.
I mean, the Iraq Kurdistan is on the border of Syria, that can find the area of Hasakah where the Kurdish Syrian are, and where the Americans are present in both area in Kurdistan, Syria and in Kurdistan, Iraq.
The Kurds in Iraq have been encouraged to split from the central government in Baghdad many years ago, starting from Joe Biden, when he declared in 2007, 2008, that Iraq should be split between a Sunni stand that is a state for the Sunni and a Shia stand, a state, another state for the Shia, and a Kurdistan and a state for the Kurds.
That was the initial Iraqi plan to divide Iraq, saying this must be feasible.
And this will make all the US allies in the region, i.e.
Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, etc., happy by seeing the Sunnis in Iraq having their own state.
Therefore, they're not happy with the state controlled by the majority Shia in Baghdad.
And in consequence, they would be happy with the state for the Kurds, and in consequence, a state for the Sunni in Iraq.
That's a plan to divide Iraq initially.
If they go ahead with this, it means the Kurds can have their state, and they can try to promote another state for the Sunni.
But unfortunately, I think it is too late, because first, the Sunni area are destroyed.
Kurdistan is in deep financial trouble.
If they declare independence, they will not have any support from Baghdad, which they don't have really on a regular basis.
And that is also one of the problems between the central government in Baghdad and in Kurdistan-Erbil.
But at the end of the day, a kind of collaboration will exist between Baghdad and Erbil.
But if the Americans will push for a partition of Iraq, then the Kurds will declare an independence state.
Now, let us assume that the leader of Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, will not declare an independent state in Kurdistan.
He will look extremely weak in front of his people, because he's pulling out from declaring an independent state when the referendum is expected on the 25th of September to be above 90 percent in favor of an independent state in Kurdistan.
If he declares an independent state, he will also look weak because he will have Iran, Turkey, Baghdad, and Syria against the independent state in Kurdistan, because there are around 25 to 30 million Kurds spread mainly in Turkey and Iran, and less in Iraq and then in Syria.
Right.
So, in other words, he's in a real position of weakness there.
And then I think that you, I believe here that you say in your piece that the Baghdad government has already promised that they will fight before they let the Kurds, the Iraqi Kurds, declare independence.
They will fight.
Maybe they will not use the weapons to fight against it.
But unfortunately, unfortunately, I heard many reliable sources saying there are many forces in the area, they can fight against the Kurdish, a Kurdish independent state.
And certainly Baghdad will block all the assets on Kurdistan and will dry all financial resources to make sure that Kurdistan cannot survive.
Yeah, well, like you say, they're completely landlocked and their population is completely divided by four or five different states and all this.
So I can see what you mean about how Talabani, was it Talabani or Barzani, I get them confused, is in such a difficult spot here.
Yes, I think Barzani now is in a weak position.
Let us assume he declares independent state.
If he does that, with the approval of Turkey, it means Turkey is going to control Kurdistan, because Turkey is the only passage Erbil can have to export the oil.
Giving his neck to Turkey, it really means putting himself in real trouble.
Because Turkey will make sure the Kurds in Turkey will never raise their head to declare an independent state.
And he will show how he is in control, not only of the Kurds in Turkey, but also the Kurds in Iraq.
So he is losing on all sides.
Okay, so now let's talk about the new Sunni stand for a minute here.
I got to give credit to Pepe Escobar on this show.
I'm pretty sure it was in.
It was probably even in 2011.
But 2012 at the latest, early 2012.
At the latest, he said on this show that yeah, look, they're trying to create a Sunni emirate, basically a Saudi backed emirate in eastern Syria that they'd already sort of backed off the policy of necessarily overthrowing Assad.
But definitely what they wanted to do was split Syria and control the east.
And it sounds like you're saying that that's what they're moving towards there.
Except I think you also kind of referred to the fact that there's really no one to rule it either though, right?
I mean, when when Iraqi Sunni stand finally declared independence, it was under the rule of al-Bakr al-Baghdadi.
And, you know, Zawahiri's former guy.
So, yeah, absolutely.
Now, let's see what Baghdadi did to the Sunni in Iraq and Syria.
But let's talk about Iraq first.
Wherever Baghdadi and ISIS or ISIL was based in every Sunni city in Iraq, this thing was destroyed and completely damaged.
The population was internally displaced and they are refugees in their own country, living in tents.
So the Sunni in Iraq suffered a lot because of their support to Baghdadi.
Now, there were many mistakes by the Iraqi government and the central government in Baghdad.
But, I mean, the Gulf support to the Sunni in Iraq today can only be financial because the Sunnis cannot rise again for the next 20 years.
They need to reconstruct the country.
And Baghdad doesn't have the money to survive.
They have a problem in financing hospitals.
They can't pay the army.
They can't pay the social services.
And they certainly cannot reconstruct the country.
And therefore, if they can't reconstruct the country in general, they can't do that, particularly in an extremely damaged area.
That is the Sunni area in Al-Anbar, in Nineveh, in Salah.
All these provinces are completely damaged today.
Right.
Well, and of course, the Baghdad government has even less motive to, you know, spend the government money, the oil tax revenue and all of that on the defeated Sunni areas than, as you're saying, taking care of themselves.
And they can't even pay their own bills, with the current price of oil being so much lower than before and all of that.
So, but now when you write in this article here that the American, I guess, special operations guys came across the border from Iraq into Syria, headed toward Raqqa.
This is their pincher movement in squeezing the Islamic State forces between Mosul and Raqqa, as you say, in the article, preventing them from fleeing north or east and trying to push them together there.
But then, so is this really the end of Sykes-Picot, regardless of, I mean, I guess we'll put off for the moment who's supposed to rule Mosul and Raqqa after this, if not Baghdad and Damascus.
But that, I guess what I'm trying to get at is how certain are you that the Americans are really ready to go ahead and call it quits on the old Iraq-Syria border and really go ahead and create a new Sunnistan there, as a neighbor to the new Kurdistan they're putting together?
I think the Americans are mainly focused now on creating their own military bases in the Syrian-Kurdish area, because they already have bases in Kurdistan-Iraq.
I don't think the Sunnistan is feasible in Iraq today, because there is a need of huge financial support to reconstruct the country.
And I don't think Donald Trump is in the mood to invest a lot of money in Iraq for no result.
But I think what they're doing, yes, they are crossing the borders from Iraq to Syria without asking the permission from Baghdad.
And they're crossing into Syria without asking the permission from Damascus.
They're not fighting the Islamic State by hitting the Syrian army.
This is not the fight against the Islamic State.
They are fighting the Islamic State in Raqqa, and in Tabqa, and around Raqqa.
But once ISIS is defeated, are they going to leave?
They're not going to leave.
This is why they went to stay on the Al-Tanf crossing that is further down, close to the Syrian semi-desert.
And this is where they establish another military base, thinking they are establishing a new red line to Russia and to Damascus and their allies.
But what Russia and Damascus and their allies did, they just went above, and they kept a distance between 50 to 60 miles.
And they continue the liberation of the area between Al-Tanf crossing and Raqqa, making sure that the Americans will not enjoy a base there.
Therefore, forcing the Americans sooner or later to pull out from Al-Tanf and to stay in the area of Al-Hasakah and Raqqa.
Therefore, the American guests, they are crossing tactical, careless about the borders between the two countries.
Otherwise, they need to seek permission.
They have the mandate to fight terrorism wherever they want in the world, according to the United Nations.
But they're not limiting themselves to fight terrorism only in Syria, because they are fighting against the Syrian troop.
They have bombed the Syrian troop, and they prevented the Syrian troop to advance in an area where ISIS is not present.
In Tabqa, ISIS is no longer present.
So therefore, when the Syrian army advanced toward the Tabqa, the U.S. Air Force bombed the Syrian army, and that is certainly not ISIS.
So all that is very clear for us.
That is the U.S. intention to stay for a long period of time in Syria.
But I don't think the Americans have a very clear mind.
After staying in Raqqa and Al-Hasakah, what is next?
So what are they going to negotiate about?
Damascus is not going to negotiate their presence, and Damascus is not going to accept their presence.
And there are many tribes in the area, in rural Raqqa, and there is Zul, who will fight the American forces in northeast of Syria.
So therefore, on the long term, yes, you have bases, military bases in Syria.
But what are you going to do with these bases?
Are you going to substitute the one that already exists in Turkey?
It's not logical.
They're going to keep the one in Turkey because Turkey is a NATO ally and going to remain as such.
There are common interests in between both countries, United States and Turkey.
Therefore, having a presence in Syria, Damascus is expanding its control.
Today we see the only area that is outside the control of Damascus is limited to the north of Syria in Idlib, and the area under the Kurds and the ISIS control, and some area in the south that is not really significant.
Therefore, at the end of the day, Damascus will have the central government in Syria, will have the control over the vast territory, and the regime change idea has failed.
It's not going to happen.
So therefore, I really don't understand what is the American purpose on the long term, but to negotiate with Syria about their presence, and Syria is not going to accept their presence.
Yeah.
There must be a real strong disincentive in DC toward asking, what do we do next?
You know, they seem to, as you're saying, they seem to think they're going to stay.
But I haven't heard or read anything about, yeah, so here's our plan for who will rule Raqqa next.
I mean, the closest thing I saw was the hawk, General Ralph Peters on Fox News say, he was actually asked, well, if we got rid of Assad, who would rule Syria in place of Assad and the Baathists?
And he said, the Kurds, which is just completely laughable when, as you're saying, we couldn't even get the Kurds to rule Raqqa for us, this predominantly Sunni Arab city.
They'll be lucky if they can hang on to their own little Syrian Kurdistan at all, much less rule any of the rest of Syria, never mind the capital city and the rest of the entire population of the country under the central government.
I absolutely agree with you.
The Kurds represent more or less 20% of Raqqa.
The Arab tribes are not going to accept the ruling of the Kurds in that, in the city.
And the Kurds cannot extend themselves to control a vast territory from al-Hattaqa to Jarabulus and down to Raqqa.
And they don't even have any intention of doing so, do they?
Well, we hear very little about them because they're not saying much.
What they are saying is they're happy with the American support.
And what they said for the first time, when we hear a Marxist group like the Yepege or the Kurdish forces in Syria saying that we are, we are praising Saudi Arabia, that is a Wahhabi Sunni state that is supporting jihadists and is certainly not supporting secular Marxists in Syria.
So when we hear that, we understand that this is more or less the will of Saudi Arabia, because this is something very new and that the Kurds are in need of money to reconstruct their area.
But at the end of the day, the Kurds have been trying to create a balance in Syria between the jihadists, between the Syrian army and between all the other forces present in Syria, because they are a minority and they want to remain as such.
Now, the only state or entity who put in the hands of the Kurds that they have to declare their independence in Syria are the Americans, because America is a superpower country and there are military means to impose a kind of protection to the Kurds.
Now, the Kurds, let us be frank, they have this kind of dream since always that they want their own state, which is right in its own way, because they are the biggest group in the Middle East with between 20 to 30 million Kurds without a state.
So they are entitled to their state, but they are entitled to a kind of federation or they are entitled to a kind of autonomy, but in coordination with the central government, not to create a partition in the country they live in and to have everybody against them.
So they're not in need to increase their trouble.
They need to solve their problems.
So when we hear the Kurds praising Saudi Arabia, that's really scary.
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All right.
So, I don't know.
At the end of the day, then, the Americans have really no plan for who is supposed to control the city of Raqqa after they rouse the Islamic State out of there?
Or is it, and I guess a secondary question then would be, if the Americans just backed off, would the Syrian Arab Army be able to just roll in and take control of the city for Damascus again?
So I think the Americans have wishful thinking for Raqqa, not a plan, not a feasible plan, because any feasible plan to control Raqqa by themselves or by the Kurds is actually not feasible.
The possibility to try and put Arab tribes leading the city is not going to last for very long.
We see what's happening between the tribes and the jihadists and all those anti-government living in Idlib, how they are fighting among themselves every day and they are not finding a way to coexist, even if they have the same objective, that they are all against Assad.
So basically, the American wishful thinking in Raqqa is not feasible.
Secondly, I don't think the Kurds are unaware of this situation.
Yes, the Kurds are intelligent people, particularly in Syria, and they have been trying to create a balance and fighting and protecting themselves against Jabhat al-Nusra and against ISIS, and they managed to remain afloat so far.
So I think they are aware of the future problem.
And at the end of the day, I think they will pull out to protect their own area.
And yes, the Syrian government can control Raqqa and can regain the control of Raqqa if the Kurds pull out or when Damascus will make a deal with all the other tribes in the area.
I think they would want to do it to take back Raqqa.
They will not leave Raqqa under the Kurds' control until the Americans are convinced that they can no longer hold the city.
And there is no point in defending, in attacking the Syrian army, because the Syrian army will take back Raqqa.
But before taking back Raqqa, they need to take their resolve.
They still have long fights ahead, and they have many months of fighting, which, and Raqqa is really not the priority of the Syrian army, neither the Syrian government at the moment.
If the Kurds want to take Raqqa and administrate it at the moment, the Syrian government will say, we don't agree with that.
But they will continue fighting ISIS as a priority, because everybody now is finally understanding that al-Qaeda is al-Qaeda and they're not Syrian rebels.
And al-Qaeda is taking control of Idlib and is kicking out all the other, let's say, moderate and less extremist.
Therefore, al-Qaeda is the next on the list to fight after ISIS, and it's certainly not the Kurds.
So I would put the Kurds at the last to make a deal with the Syrian government of how they can deliver Raqqa back to the Syrian government once everybody understands that it's not possible to control the city by a minority like the Kurds.
All right.
Yeah, no.
So speaking of Western Syria and the war against al-Nusra, how much territory do they still control there in the West?
And how close is the Syrian army to finishing them off?
Well, I don't think the Syrian army is ready to finish off al-Qaeda today in Idlib for one obvious reason.
Al-Qaeda managed to win the hearts and minds of the Syrian population and society throughout the years, at the exception of the last year.
When in the last year they started to agree on a ceasefire, and they've lost many essential battles, starting with the battle of Aleppo, then al-Qaeda understood that it's better to withdraw and pull out and stay in a major, in a big city like Idlib.
And now al-Qaeda managed just last week to expel Ahrar al-Sham, the second biggest Syrian group, with jihadists and foreign fighters among this rank, but not the majority, a minority.
So they managed to pull, they managed to expel Ahrar al-Sham from Idlib.
Therefore, today al-Qaeda is in control of Idlib and managed, luckily, to attract the anger of the Syrian population, who were starting to understand that al-Qaeda is al-Qaeda and is not Syrian rebels, and that al-Qaeda has plans that don't fit with the Syrian expectation.
Therefore, why interfering today in al-Qaeda and the rebels' affairs, when they are both fighting against each other, and they are starting to reach an end, so they are reaching a term with al-Qaeda, unwilling to have al-Qaeda ruling in a big city like Idlib, where there are more than a million and a half of the population living there.
That includes many refugees who returned from Turkey to live in Idlib after the ceasefire has been established in the city.
Therefore, when al-Qaeda is ruling a large number of the population, this is where al-Qaeda needs to provide services, not ask for taxes like they are asking all the time, and not attacking the other Syrian groups like they are doing now, and expanding their attack to other groups who do not accept their ruling, or they are still having the flag of the Syrian revolution.
They refuse the flag of the Syrian revolution, and the leader of al-Qaeda, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, in fact, many years ago, said the Syrian revolution doesn't exist.
The Free Syrian Army are a few hundred non-united groups, and they represent nobody.
Well, and was he right about that?
I beg your pardon?
Was he right about that, in saying that the FSA represented nobody?
Well, at a certain point, yes, because there are groups that are pro-Saudi Arabia, groups that are pro-Egypt, groups that are pro-Turkey, groups that are pro-Moscow.
There are many groups, but Syrian groups.
Therefore, the minority were Syrian groups with loyalty to Syria, and the majority are Syrian groups with loyalty to neighboring countries, to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, mainly, who are providing the support and finance.
Now, we have pro-American groups, but these used half a billion dollars to be supported by the CIA, and then they were eliminated on the first day of reaching the north of Syria, and their weapons were confiscated by Al-Qaeda.
So, yes, in a way, Al-Qaeda is right when saying there's really little remaining of the Syrian revolution who are really willing or claiming to do something about their rights and to change their way of living.
And those who are claiming or are asking to change the way of living in Syria are damn right.
There is a kind of dictatorship in the country, but the solution is not to change the regime and to allow Al-Qaeda and ISIS to rule the country.
This is where they're heading.
Therefore, supporting a central government doesn't mean supporting Bashar al-Assad.
It means supporting a stable government that is fighting against jihadists and terrorism that is spreading to us in Europe and spreading to the rest of the world.
This is the main issue of the support of a central government and the lack of existence of a Syrian revolution that is declaring loyalty to neighboring countries and holding their own agenda rather than the Syrian agenda.
Yeah.
Now, so when it comes to the Al-Nusra Front, I know they change their name every couple of days or whatever now, but when it comes to Jelani, who is still loyal to Ayman al-Zawahiri, they say over at the whatchacallit journal, when it comes to his group and Arar al-Sham, I know Arar al-Sham was also founded by friends of Osama originally, and I wonder, so what's really the difference between those groups?
Is it, somebody had told me, I forget who and when now, that Arar al-Sham is what grew out of what used to be called Syrian Muslim Brotherhood became Arar al-Sham and that so Al-Qaeda was different than that.
But I wonder, is it just a difference in who their patrons are or are there real ideological differences or just splits in personalities between the command leadership and money and this kind of thing, or what is it?
Now, let's go back to the origin of Abu Muhammad Jelani, the Emir of Al-Qaeda in Syria.
The Emir of Al-Qaeda in Syria was a lieutenant of ISIS, an ISIS lieutenant under the command of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, who was leading the Al-Qaeda in Iraq and then Islamic State in Iraq, and who himself sent Abu Muhammad Jelani to Syria.
This is where the ideology of Abu Muhammad Jelani comes from.
He is an ISIS officer.
Now, he turned from being an ISIS officer to become a faithful to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al-Qaeda Central, who replaced Osama bin Laden, only to protect his neck and to lead an organization in Syria and no longer be dependent on al-Baghdadi.
So basically, he saw himself from being a lieutenant or a captain to a general from one day to another.
So he didn't want to return in rank and he ran his own organization by declaring loyalty to Zawahiri and became the Emir of Al-Qaeda in Syria.
Now, sorry to interrupt for just a second, but just to recap that so I understand you right.
It's always characterized that while ISIS is a split off of Al-Qaeda, but really what you're saying is that at the same time that Baghdadi was splitting off from Zawahiri, really Jelani was splitting off from Baghdadi, who really was the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which at that time was going by the name of the Islamic State, that Baghdadi was higher in rank than Jelani.
Jelani was the one who split off from him at the same time he was splitting off from his commander, Zawahiri, hiding in Pakistan.
So yes, so just to say ISIS split from Al-Qaeda only because of Jelani, because the day Zawahiri said to ISIS, you stay in Iraq and Jelani stays in Syria, this is when Baghdadi declared rebellion and split from Al-Qaeda.
This is in the spring of 2013, a year before the actual creation of the state of the Islamic State in Mosul.
Yes.
So when Baghdadi declared the Islamic State in Iraq and in Al-Sham, Syria, it was the day when Jelani answered by saying, I belong to Al-Qaeda and I don't belong to you.
This is when the split happened.
Therefore, Jelani remained a faithful officer of ISIS as long as he was ruling Syria and he was having his own group and leading his own group without any other leader above him, but a leader who was sitting in Iraq.
So the day ISIS-Baghdadi decided to join Syria and Iraq under one command, his command, this is when Jelani declared his loyalty to Zawahiri and split from ISIS.
So Jelani is an ISIS officer, we should not forget that, who became only a head of Syrian rebels, only in the eye of the Western media during the Syrian war.
But he is an ISIS officer and he turned from being an ISIS officer to an emir of Al-Qaeda in Syria.
And the emir of Al-Qaeda in Syria was in perfect harmony with Al-Sham that was led by an envoy of Ayman al-Zawahiri.
So Ayman al-Zawahiri sent an invoice, an envoy to lead Al-Sham and the leader of Al-Sham was someone very well trusted by the leader of Al-Qaeda in the central Al-Qaeda, that is Ayman al-Zawahiri.
So ideologically, they have the same ideology.
Now, throughout the years and frequenting and being influenced by Turkey, and the support of Turkey, Ahrar al-Sham took a minor slight distance from Al-Qaeda, particularly in Syria, not in the Middle East, because they still praise and presented the condolences of the death of the emir of Taliban.
And that was presented by Ahrar al-Sham in Syria.
So the link is there, the umbilical cord never being cut between Ahrar al-Sham ideology and Al-Qaeda of Ayman al-Zawahiri.
So why don't they just fight as one group in Syria now?
They're fighting against each other.
They're fighting against each other today because they are fighting to rule a city.
And that is typical when the problem, when you have a country at war, everybody is united.
When you have a moment of peace, then people start fighting for power and for leadership.
And they have a large number of fighters.
They have tens of thousands, both Al-Qaeda and Ahrar al-Sham.
And what they are doing, they're doing nothing.
So because they are doing nothing, and they are armed in a very small city that usually used to be inhabited by 700,000, today you have more than a double of the capacity of the population and are over a million and a half.
And these are living among tens of thousands of militants who are jobless, basically.
And when these are jobless, they need to fight among each other for power.
And this is what they are doing.
So because Ahrar al-Sham has more loyalty towards Turkey than Al-Qaeda, therefore Ahrar al-Sham, they have a less radical approach than Al-Qaeda in Syria, but they are not considered moderate at all.
All right.
But now, what's it going to take to defeat Ahrar al-Sham, for the Syrian government to defeat Ahrar al-Sham and Al-Qaeda in Idlib?
Is it going to be another Battle of Aleppo-style catastrophe?
The Battle of Aleppo is something on the list, only in one case, when Al-Qaeda will fully control the city, and it's happening now.
When Al-Qaeda fully controls the city, then I think Idlib will face the same fate of Mosul.
Because when Al-Qaeda controls the city and Ahrar al-Sham is asked by Turkey to stand down and pull out completely, they already pull out because they were forced to leave.
And Al-Qaeda is expanding its control over the north of Syria.
Therefore, today we have a city full of civilians, but also dominated by Al-Qaeda.
I don't think the Russians, the Americans, the government in Damascus, I don't think the government in Turkey, I don't think anyone in the area will accept Al-Qaeda within the state, or with a city like Idlib under their command, when any other Syrian group is not tolerated.
Well, now, so can't Trump just ask the crown prince of Saudi Arabia to cut them off?
Who is still backing Al-Qaeda in Syria at this point?
Well, that's a very good point.
So far, until today, everybody was helping Al-Qaeda in Syria under different names.
Al-Qaeda in Syria can never survive without a continuous supply, and the only supply road is through Turkey.
And Turkey is supplying food, ammunition, weapons to everybody who is in the north of Syria.
And if the majority is under the control of Al-Qaeda, it means Turkey is supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria.
Now, the United States has been supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria under the title of Syrian rebel.
Saudi Arabia was supplying Al-Qaeda with weapons, and with ammunition, and with money, and above all, Qatar.
Now, the differences between Qatar and Saudi Arabia today is working in favor of Syria, because Qatar is known to enjoy a very good relationship with Al-Qaeda.
Therefore, it is in the interest of Saudi Arabia to hit Al-Qaeda today in Syria.
And this is when the Americans will turn against Al-Qaeda, because they have to walk along their allies, that is Saudi Arabia, and hit Al-Qaeda that is becoming orphaned in Syria, and no longer called as Syrian rebel, and no longer enjoying the support of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Therefore, Al-Qaeda has been supported by everyone against Assad calling for a regime change, and today is no longer supported by these, but they have a lot of money.
They've managed to put on the side hundreds of millions of dollars.
They managed to do that, and they continue doing that, because they impose taxes on houses, they impose taxes on cars, on electricity, on telephone, on all the commerce, on everybody, everything transiting through the city.
So, they are surviving.
And then, so when the Washington Post says that everybody's on the East Coast, I guess, is upset that Trump is calling off CIA support for Al-Qaeda in Syria, is that really right?
That the CIA is finally, as I predicted six years ago or something, stabbing these guys in the back, Bay of Pigs style, and leaving them to be slaughtered?
Or is this going to just continue?
And I guess the second question is, how independent is the Turks policy from the Americans?
Okay, I don't think the right word is the CIA is stabbing Al-Qaeda in the back.
I think the CIA is waking up that the CIA has been supporting Al-Qaeda that is responsible for 9-11, and the killing of Americans since 9-11.
I mean, is that possible to imagine that the American people are paying money for the government to support their killers of Al-Qaeda?
I mean, that is inconceivable.
So, I don't think the CIA is stabbing Al-Qaeda in the back.
The CIA should have stabbed Al-Qaeda in the neck a long time ago.
Yeah, no, I didn't mean to say, I didn't mean to say, you know, boo-hoo for them or anything necessarily.
But just, we can see this coming quite a ways back, that America's supporting these rebels, but not really enough to overthrow the government in Damascus.
So, at some point, they're going to betray them.
You know, that doesn't make them heroes or anything, but it just means that they were useful tools.
And now, so the question is, are they still useful or not?
Well, I don't think Al-Qaeda are stupid, because they knew what the Americans were doing.
And they knew that the Americans are taking advantage of Al-Qaeda because they fit in the same purpose of regime change.
What the Americans don't know is you can't feed a monster and then pretend you can control it.
This is what happened in Afghanistan with the Mujahideen.
It happened before, and it happened again in Syria, and it is happening today in Yemen.
So, as soon as they started to bomb the Houthis and the government, what we saw is Al-Qaeda controlling a harbor in Yemen and start having access to the sea and controlling the cities.
And today in Syria, Al-Qaeda started very small.
There was a very small group with a few officers spread here and there with enough money to buy loyalty, and they started to form and to inject ideology in the head of people, and they became strong.
And they said, we are buddy-buddy with the Americans as long as the Americans are our purpose.
And even they will just turn against us later on.
But today, the Americans turn against us.
Are they capable of defeating us?
Are they capable of removing us from Syria?
They're not, because they are part of the Syrian population in Idlib.
They are married with Syrians.
There are foreign fighters from tens of different countries in the Middle East, Europe, the United States, everywhere from all continents, from all war supplies.
And they are there, and they are much, much stronger than the day they put foot in Syria.
So therefore, you can't just say, okay, now we've pulled the plug off.
But how big is Al-Qaeda today?
The day you decided to pull off the plug, is Al-Qaeda weak?
Is Al-Qaeda weaker than the day when you started supplying weapons?
Al-Qaeda supplying a laser-guided missile that really was and played a very significant role in every single battle.
Now today, Al-Qaeda, they have drones, they have remote-controlled tanks, they have suicide bombers.
They are capable of using 120mm artillery and mount a very strategic, forceful attack on different fronts.
They can work with different military arms.
So they can work with the infantry, with the artillery, with the drones at the same time and coordinate their plan.
They've enjoyed the Turkish military planning.
They've enjoyed information coming from intelligence services in Jordan and in Turkey from the Americans, from the British.
They have learned tremendously from what they were at the first beginning.
And Al-Qaeda enjoyed less than two to three hundred European foreign fighters in the 80s.
Today there are thousands of Europeans fighting with Al-Qaeda.
It's a huge difference today between the Al-Qaeda of the 80s and the Al-Qaeda of 2017.
Let me ask you this.
In Iraq War II, Zarqawi and his guys, the leadership of what they then called, I guess starting in 2006, they called the Islamic State of Iraq.
The leadership was mostly all foreigners, right?
Zarqawi was a Jordanian and then he had a lot of Saudis and Egyptians.
And the local Iraqis said, hey, you know, we're not used to living like Saudis and we don't want to.
And you guys are too big for your britches and bossing us around, telling us what to do.
And how about we'll shoot you instead.
And as part of the story of Iraq War II is that the local Sunni tribal insurgency resistance started attacking Al-Qaeda a year before Petraeus even took command and started bribing them and taking credit for the so-called Sunni awakening and turning against Al-Qaeda.
And it was just because they were such jerks and everybody was completely sick of them.
And so I wonder, isn't that the same thing in Syria where they're not used to living like Saudis and the Al-Qaeda guys are trying to make them live like Saudis?
And is that not enough to engender enough, you know, resistance against them?
I think you were saying earlier, people are sick of these guys getting them into such trouble all the time too, you know?
That's true.
But what is also correct is, as I just said, is learning a lot.
And by learning a lot, what Al-Qaeda did is they have appointed their leader of their new name, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which is always Al-Qaeda, from Nusra to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham to whatever, a Syrian.
And Joulani himself is a Syrian.
But we see the command is made of Egyptians.
The other day, it's an Egyptian who issued a fatwa ordering to kill all Al-Qaeda in the city.
And he is from Al-Qaeda.
So what Al-Qaeda is trying to do is every time they see unhappiness among the population, they try to play a lower profile.
And they try to compensate.
They're no longer having the same rigidity as they used to have, because it's an evolving non-state actor.
It's a group that is highly intelligent, and a group that is learning an awful lot throughout the years.
And in Syria today, the experience of the awakening that was successful in Iraq today is not possible to do, because another group cannot start a fight against Al-Qaeda in Idlib, where there are a million and a half or two million of the population.
You need an army like the Iraqi army attack Mosul, you need the Syrian army attacking Idlib, and the population to come out of Idlib for the Syrian army and its allies to go in.
So it's no longer a question of training tribes to attack Al-Qaeda, because Al-Qaeda is a little bit everywhere.
It's not completely isolated.
The command may be isolated, but the population is infested with Al-Qaeda members.
So this is just not that easy.
As I said, you feed the monster, you don't think that you can just kill the monster from one day to another.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's exactly the thing, whether our government is fighting against Al-Qaeda or fighting on their side, and flip a coin, depending on the theater of war and the time of the year.
We're making them bigger and stronger all the time, the Islamic State or Al-Nusra, whichever you call them.
And then here's what I think is the ultimate irony of this, just, you know, as always, just trying to ask the question of what comes next here.
It seems to me like this recent policy of creating an Islamic state, an Islamic province, and then smashing it, is proving Zawahiri right, and proving those in the 1990s in Al-Qaeda who said that what we got to do is focus on attacking the Americans, and focus on attacking the Americans' Western allies, because if we ever try to create our own Islamist province, or state, or caliphate, or whatever it is, they will come and bomb it.
And so we're really proving them right, and Baghdadi wrong, that, hey, let's create a, or for that matter, Jolani wrong.
Let's go ahead and create some positions, dig in and create a government, and all of this stuff.
We're proving that, no, you got to, you know, do what this guy said.
I hate to even repeat it out loud.
Keep knocking down our towers, and keep bogging us down until our empire is finally completely bankrupt, and leaves the Middle East, and only then can they have their way.
And so we're creating, as you said, we've multiplied the numbers of these enemies by thousands, and thousands, and thousands, and then we smash all they got, and turn them back against us.
Yeah, I fully agree.
The day the Americans will say, we are staying in Raqqa, and we are staying in al-Khattaka, in the northeast of Syria, you will have the insurgency of ISIS, you will have Al-Qaeda, you will have Hezbollah, you will have the Syrian government, you will have the Arab tribe, and you will have every single one against the American troops.
Do you think the Americans know that?
Well, do you think the Americans have learned from history something?
No.
Well, we're talking about James Mattis, right?
So, no.
Yeah, well, when you hear the CIA is stabbing Al-Qaeda in the back, I mean, you say, in which world we are living?
I know.
The CIA should stab Al-Qaeda every day in the back.
And it is not justifying to say, you can't justify a regime change by supporting Al-Qaeda, if you want to change the regime.
Why on earth you want to change a regime?
Instead of the Americans supporting the defeat of the terrorist group in Syria and Iraq, instead of thinking of dividing Syria and Iraq, and giving a state to the Kurds, a state to the Sunnis, a state to the Shia, a state to the Sunnis, a state to the Shia, and another state to the Kurds in Syria, and then divide the country, go and fight against terrorism, and then impose a democracy and say, now it is time when we get rid of all the terrorists.
Now we need to see a democratic country and a government elected by the population with the freedom that the Syrian people want and desire.
It is not, we can't impose our culture and our ruling on every single country.
It is not possible.
But we can claim, we can say, we helped to remove terrorists.
We helped to eliminate terrorism as much as we can.
We helped to reconstruct the country, but now in exchange we want a moderate government.
That is possible.
It kind of goes without saying usually, but it really is a huge part of this story, just as much as all the rest of what we've talked about here today is that, and I don't mean this, it kind of, I don't bring it up too much because I don't want to sound like I'm bragging or something like that, because that's not the point, but just that there are a lot of people who knew it all along and said so all along.
I mean it's unbelievable that we're even having this conversation in, you know, more than halfway through the year 2017 when people like Patrick Coburn and Pepe Escobar and Eric Margulies and Philip Giraldi and all these, you know, great, you know, the guys at Moon of Alabama blog, they don't miss a beat, Bernard over there, there have been people who've been saying since 2011, I remember the first report in the Observer in, would have been right around this time, 2011, that said Prince Bandar is sending jihadists to Syria, and it wasn't much later that Eric Margulies said he was in France, and he has all these very high-level sources in France in intelligence and in the military, and they said, hey, NATO is, we got a regime change going on, we got special forces there training rebels right now, and all the reports of the guns coming in from Libya and all this stuff, knew it all along.
So the fact, and not the point, the point isn't just to give credit to all these people or whatever, but it's just to raise the question of how can we live in a society where this is not a covert operation, this is, you know, they call it clandestine or whatever it is, but it's been in the New York Times all along, we've all known all along that the CIA is backing bin Ladenite, basically veterans of Iraq War II, the guys who were the worst part of the Sunni-based insurgency in Iraq War II, that's who we've been backing all along, and they've done it all along, and they only just announced that they're calling it off the other day, and when the Washington Post announced it, they said, in a move sure to please the Russians, and portrayed it as treason to stop backing al-Qaeda.
On the front page of the Post.
Yeah, well, I can tell you, from my point of view, I think, first, there is no accountability.
Second, the problem lies in the think tank and the so-called analysts who cover Syria and Iraq from very far, and have no clue about what's happening on the ground.
They collect their information from social media, and they are paid by countries who have an agenda, and they promote regime change, and they try to inject in the heads of people that what they are saying is right, and that supporting al-Qaeda is good, because these are not al-Qaeda, they are called Syrian moderates, and now suddenly they wake up and they call them al-Qaeda.
And third is because the newspapers, the mainstream media, walked all along because they lost credibility by accepting non-reliable information, and including social media rubbish in their articles as a face value, and as the first-hand information.
That's a manipulation of the people's mind, and redirecting people's understanding of what's happening on the ground with their own wishful thinking, and with their own agenda.
That is the problem.
And unfortunately, the Syrian war created a real disaster for the reputation of the media worldwide, because what Donald Trump is saying is actually true, even if it is not his purpose to include what I am saying.
We are becoming fake news, because we collect any news, and we take it as granted as a first-hand information.
When the first-hand information is, you go on the ground, and you collect information on the ground, and you try to understand as much as possible where you can't go to ISIS territory and to al-Qaeda, and you use your logic, not your own agenda, and you report facts and not your wishful thinking, and you become a little bit independent from the money that comes from the Gulf, and they're feeding your think tank, or your strategic study company, and then you just try, you become the expert in terrorism, or the expert on Syria, or the expert on this and that.
So that is shameful.
And this is what I think all the misinformation comes from, is because nobody cares.
Everybody's making the same mistake.
So who you want to direct your question to and say, why are you doing this?
You have to tell that to every single one.
Right.
Yeah, and in fact, you know, I'm just lucky.
It's not that I'm smart at all.
It's only that I've been doing this for a long time in a row.
So when the war broke out in 2011, and I saw that David Enders was covering it, well, I knew David Enders.
I'd been interviewing him for years about the politics of Iraq War II, and I knew that he was really sharp, and he knew how to tell the difference between who and who, and what the different groups were, and what their different interests were.
And I left him out when I listed a bunch of guys that got it right.
But he was even abducted by Al Qaeda, and then they let him go back in 2012.
So, you know, that was my thing.
I don't usually leave Texas very much, but I know who does know.
So I was talking with Enders, and Coburn, and these people who really do have their act together.
And now I'm in contact with you, and I'm very grateful for that.
I hope we can do this again, Elijah.
It's been really great.
Thank you.
It's my pleasure.
All right, you guys.
That is Elijah J. Magnier, and he writes at elijahjm.wordpress.com.
You can also follow him on Twitter, and he writes for a couple of different news organizations in the Middle East, but I believe it's all reprinted there at elijahjm.wordpress.com.
I'm Scott Horton.
That's the show.
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Thanks.
