All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
Our next guest is Phil Giraldi.
He's the executive director of the council for the national interest, contributing editor at the American conservative magazine and regular columnist for antiwar.com.
Also a former CIA and DIA counterterrorism officer.
Welcome back to the show, Phil.
How are you doing?
I'm okay, Scott.
How about you?
I'm doing pretty good.
Appreciate you joining us today.
No problem.
All right.
So, uh, I'm looking at the BBC here and it says Syria unrest, bloodiest day as troops fire on rallies.
I was wondering if you could give us, uh, the background basically on who's who in power in Syria, who's doing the protesting and maybe the last couple of weeks worth of what have you.
Well, I think the protest is kind of following the pattern of what we, we saw in other places that basically this is kind of a, uh, educated, younger crowd, uh, with different expectations.
Although there are, there are a lot of, uh, what might be described as more middle-class types of professionals that are supporting it too.
There's, there's, uh, there are a whole gamut of, of, of political objectives here, but basically I think, uh, uh, it's like everywhere else where it's a, uh, it's the objective is regime change, um, as to how strong it really is and to what extent it, it, uh, it, uh, goes beyond, uh, certain ethnic and tribal groups in Syria is a little bit hard to say.
Yeah.
Well, of course, there's gotta be all different factors at play here now.
Uh, is the state department, the CIA, uh, running around, uh, giving millions of dollars to people?
Is this like 1953 where kind of take advantage of, uh, some discontent manufacturers some more and try to get a, you know, a pressure from above and below kind of reaction going on?
I don't think the CIA is doing much of anything, but the, uh, but certainly USAID has been up to, up to tricks and has been, uh, funding opposition movements, opposition, newspapers, uh, radio transmissions, that kind of thing.
Uh, national endowment for democracy.
I wouldn't be too surprised if they've been conducting training programs somewhere for Syrians.
Uh, you know, these things are, are, this is what the CIA used to do back in the old days of the Bay of Pigs.
And now we do this stuff overtly that our arrogance has increased to such a level that we think that we can, uh, interfere anywhere at any time without any, any, uh, retribution.
Well, and I guess they sort of package it like it's all just a big, uh, you know, Soros pro free election type movement, right?
Oh, we're just here to promote democracy.
We're, we're not saying we're choosing who or anything or what your policy should be.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, they, they, they definitely package it as pro democracy as pro freedom.
You know, these are the buzzwords, but of course it has a political agenda because these places all have governments and the governments, uh, represent a certain constituency inside the country.
And we're saying that that constituency and what these governments represent is illegitimate.
Uh, while at the same time, we have an embassy in the place and an ambassador in the place that, that is conceding that they are legitimate.
So, uh, it's, it's the ultimate hypocrisy.
Well, you know, there was a piece in the New York times, I guess, late last week, and maybe it was early this week that, um, it sort of seemed to me like they were trying to do a little bit of revisionist history and kind of, uh, you know, make the state department seem like the good guy in a way, but the piece was about how, you know, really it was the state department that encouraged the revolution in Egypt too.
And all these people who were leaders of the revolution, well, we helped them and all that.
And now I know there was that one cable, uh, from WikiLeaks where, um, the telegraph, I think tried to, you know, make it seem like the CIA or the state department was really behind the April 6th movement.
And I think just Raimondo pretty well debunked that on a closer reading of the cable, but, and I'm not sure if the time story was referring to just that anecdote or, or others, but they were basically saying that, yeah, you know, we've been sowing seeds of democracy in Egypt all along.
I wonder whether you think, well, for, I don't want to assume there's a coherent policy here in my question, Phil, but is it possible that they really had decided that, eh, Mubarak's 82, something's got to be done.
He's going to die sooner or later anyway.
So, uh, you know, maybe they're, you know, helping or, or we're helping the Egyptian revolution the same way they're doing in Syria now.
Well, I think, I think the fact is that there is, as you're alluding to, there is no coherent policy and any of this stuff.
I mean, basically the, uh, the state department was, uh, was completely in bed with all these people, uh, up until it became clear that, uh, this revolution was for real.
And, but at the same time we had, and then they turned right back to Suleyman, right?
Yeah, exactly.
And about at the same time we had the national endowment for democracy, training people in Cyprus and places like that to go back into Egypt and to teach them, teach them how to do these Twitter revolutions, basically.
So, you know, one hand either doesn't know what the other hand is doing or they do know, and it's just a totally hypocritical policy.
Well, you know, that times article really did smack of trying to take credit for something that was really not they're doing, you know, it seemed to me like, uh, well, and I guess this is the thing though, right?
Uh, you're a former CIA guy.
That's how you do the plot, right?
You find a parade, you get in front of it and lead it the way you want it to go.
So if there's a giant April 6th movement, give them a couple of million dollars.
If you can, I'm not accusing them of that.
I don't know, but I'm just saying you, you go in there, you find people worth infiltrating and you infiltrate them.
Well, I think that, yeah, that's the theory, but you know, it's, it's become a lot more difficult than practice because I think a lot of these young people are a lot more savvy now and they, and they, they pretty quickly recognize when they're being used by, uh, the United States or one of the European powers.
And, uh, as a result, I think that, uh, yeah, they're taking credit for stuff that really only happened because the local people took their fate in their hands and decided to do something.
And then of course the, uh, people like Hillary Clinton are not going to be slow to, uh, to get in front of this.
I guess you noticed that, uh, John McCain has been in Benghazi, uh, uh, you know, rooting for the rebels and, uh, asking for more American aid.
And of course, Obama immediately obliged him by, uh, unleashing the predator drones.
That's funny.
And he hadn't been there since two years ago when he went to shake hands and firm up a weapons deal with Muammar Gaddafi.
Yeah, that's right.
Somehow that got, you know, omitted from the coverage on TV of his great.
Yeah.
Well, he's a great Patriot.
Yeah.
He says these rebels are his heroes.
I wonder if anybody asked him if that included the guys that went and fought against the American soldiers as part of Al-Qaeda in Iraq a couple of years back.
Well, his attention span is not long enough to remember that.
Yeah.
Well, and he's pretty sure Al-Qaeda in Iraq's hiding in Iran right now anyway.
Right.
So together with all the weapons of mass destruction, right.
Yeah.
Uh, well, and of course in Syria too, the Russians helped him move it all to Syria.
That's why we can't find it.
Uh, well, so, and, and speaking of which, uh, I wonder, well, okay.
So we're taking into account that there's not too much coherence behind much of this and that kind of thing.
But, uh, do they really want to see a regime change in Syria?
I mean, who do they think would be easier for the Israelis and our own government to work with in the Alawite Baathist dictatorship there?
Yeah.
That's, that's the issue, isn't it?
I mean, if you're, if you're real looking at real politic and at self interest, then obviously, uh, Assad is a good guy to be dealing with.
He's, he's, he has been in control.
He basically would love to come to some kind of peace agreement with the Israelis and he would like to have a better relationship with us.
Uh, you know, so the whole thing is crazy from, from any kind of self interest point of view, but that's not going to stop it.
I, I think the, I think if anything might stop it is the fact that I think the Israelis will probably get very, very nervous, very quickly and, uh, and, and urge their American friends to, um, to do what they can to calm it down because the, the, the Israeli interest clearly is, is, uh, you know, not to have a, any kind of confrontational state right on your border and, um, well, you know, that might, that might be the issue.
Sweet.
We're relying on the rationality and the calm, good judgment of the Likudniks in Benjamin Netanyahu's office now.
That's right.
Yeah.
We, in this case, we would have to be doing that.
Yeah.
Wow.
This is like that time that we're, you know, George Bush checked Dick Cheney on, on starting the war with Iran in 2007 or, or Admiral Fallon checked George Bush for that matter.
As this is not where I like to look for my checks and balances.
Phil, it's not supposed to be this way.
Well, you know, there used to be kind of a rationality to foreign policy, but I guess that that's gone and, and it's now a question of various competing interest groups.
I guess in a sense, it always was that way, but, but, uh, national interests have sometimes seemed to override the interest groups.
But now the interest groups are the ones that call the shots.
Well, now, you know, that whole, uh, clean break, uh, expedite the chaotic collapse type policy that David Wilmer and Richard Perle wrote up was for Netanyahu back in 96.
You think it's possible that they, you know, that Netanyahu would like to see Syria tear itself apart and stay that way for a while, like Iraq has?
Oh, I think, yeah, they would like to see all of the Arab States dissolve into chaos.
I guess, uh, that's what I'm reading then in the Washington post chaotic collapse being expedited by the state department.
All right.
Well, great.
Uh, hang tight.
I got more good questions and he's got more good answers.
It's Phil Giraldi from antiwar.com and the council for the national interest.
All right, y'all welcome back to the show.
It's antiwar radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Phil Giraldi.
He's a former CIA and DIA officer and is the executive director of the council for the national interest foundation, the America lobby in DC, he's contributing editor at the American conservative magazine and a regular columnist for antiwar.com and, uh, we're talking about what's going on in Syria.
And especially as regards to, uh, what's going on in, in Netanyahu's office over there.
So which is it, Phil?
You think that Netanyahu would prefer to see the Alawite minority hold onto their Baathist dictatorship in Syria for the time being, or go ahead and expedite that chaotic collapse as David Windsor said, and, uh, turn the place upside down from here on out?
Well, I think, you know, there's, there's an argument to be made to go either way.
Uh, obviously when you have somebody that you can deal with that, uh, is in control, it, it simplifies your problems with, with dealing with an adversary.
But, uh, at the same time, you don't want that adversary to be too strong because then he poses a threat.
So, uh, there's an advantage there, but there's also an advantage to see Syria kind of break down into its constituent parts.
Uh, the danger of that, of course, would be that, uh, somebody might take control eventually that, uh, is really hostile to Israel.
So, you know, there, there are, this is, I think, obviously the triangulation that's going on inside Israel and probably to a certain extent is also going on inside Washington, uh, in terms of, uh, you know, what the end game is here, what you wind up with and, and, and just how dangerous it is.
I mean, obviously the United States really doesn't have a horse in this race that, uh, that Syria, no matter which way it turns is not going to be a threat to the United States.
Uh, but for Israel, obviously it's a more serious issue.
Well, you know, if you were Israeli and working for Netanyahu, an advisor to him, uh, is, do you know of any good reasons why they shouldn't just have a permanent peace treaty with Syria and work things out with all their neighbors?
It seems to me like this whole clean break policy is very counterproductive.
I mean, hell, with dealing with Assad Jr.
There, uh, in Syria, they could probably continue on in the West bank the way they are and still have a peace deal with him, you know?
Yeah.
But of course they'd have to give up the Golan Heights.
That's a, that's the, the crunch issue that there's a, a strong constituency in, in Israel not to give them up.
Uh, so I, I think that's kind of the issue as it comes down.
Uh, I don't think anyone thinks that Syria is a serious military threat against Israel and certainly a peace treaty with them would make a lot of sense.
Uh, it's come very close a couple of times.
I'm sure you recall there was a, uh, they were doing some negotiating through an Israeli businessman and, and, um, uh, a Syrian government official back a couple of years ago and they were on the verge of having an agreement.
Uh, but the, but the negotiations were exposed and it became a political issue and it kind of went away.
Right.
Well, and I think part of the story was that Bush and Rice objected and said, no, don't deal with the Syrians.
Yeah, that's right.
I, yeah, I had forgotten that aspect, but that's correct.
Yeah.
What a strange relationship this country and that one have, huh?
Well, it's, it's a, you know, it's a, uh, it's a relationship that's impossible to explain in most, uh, real terms.
They, the, the relationship makes no sense.
Obviously Israel needs the United States for, um, uh, action at the UN for money for a number of other things.
Uh, but it doesn't, uh, it doesn't really like us a whole lot, uh, as a result.
And the United States is just basically in a position where it's manipulated, um, by domestic lobby.
I think, uh, you, you probably saw the notice going around that there's a, there's a motion in the house of representatives now to withhold UN, uh, payments until the UN, uh, repudiates the, uh, the Goldstone report.
Um, you know, I mean, it's that kind of stuff is crazy.
It has nothing to do with us interests.
Well, and also going through the UN right now, I'm not sure what stage it's at, but, uh, there's a movement to just, uh, you know, a bunch of states in South America, at least already have recognized Palestine as a state.
And it seems like more and more doing that.
There's a push to go ahead and, and, uh, say one way or another, this is going to be resolved.
Do you think that that's going anywhere?
I mean, after all, Obama said that that was his goal when he took office.
Well, I mean, also going around the internet, there's a, there are some memos that have been circulating, um, uh, among the, the Jewish organizations, uh, in an attempt to forestall this and to try to, to stop it.
And of course there's a tremendous pressure on Congress to use whatever force Congress can use to stop Palestine from declaring itself a nation, uh, in September when the UN general assembly opens again, and it has overwhelming support.
I mean, they're only probably the only two countries in the world that would oppose it are Israel and the United States, United States.
So, um, and then it's questionable what the U S could do in the security council to, to make it even more difficult.
They probably couldn't do a whole lot.
But the fact is that, um, there, yeah, it was a growing momentum for it.
It wouldn't really change anything on the ground, but it certainly would, um, would change a lot of, uh, the way people are looking at the conflict.
You think, uh, well, I guess back to the reasonableness of Benjamin Netanyahu, do you think that there's a chance that he would ever end the occupation and say that, look, the best longterm interests of Israel is to end the occupation?
No, I, I think the short answer is Netanyahu is, is, um, is the type of nationalist and he's got the type of government in terms of extreme right wing influences that make it impossible for him to say that he's going to be addressing Congress next month.
And I think he's going to, you know, lay out what he will call a peace plan, but it will be something that is so convoluted and has so many conditions on it that he knows perfectly well that it's something that will never be realized.
Right.
Yeah.
We'll call it a state, but they can't have their own foreign policy and we'll collect all their taxes for them and be their police.
And it'll be an occupation in everything but name now.
Yeah, I think that's exactly what it will be.
They, it will be demilitarized.
It will basically be a state without any of the prerogatives of a state.
And, uh, that, that, you know, that turns it into like a helot class, uh, uh, for ancient Sparta where this, uh, uh, you know, you have like a labor supply, uh, if you choose to use it, uh, that exists there, that's completely under your control.
I guess I want to change subject a little bit, although, you know, our relationship with Israel is part of this too.
Uh, I wonder if you think if, you know, I dream a genie made it all happen somehow.
Uh, we know the system is broken.
That ain't going to do it.
But if Ron Paul was the president and did exactly like he said, and just abolished the empire and ordered every military commander to pack up his things and come home from everywhere in the world and completely changed our foreign policy in that way, uh, what would be the risks?
I mean, you're a former CIA guy.
Give us a realistic thing.
Would America be in danger if we didn't have the biggest, most powerful Navy air force, nuclear weapons, stockpile, et cetera, like that?
Well, we still could have all that stuff, but we just have it here at home.
And I don't think the United States, uh, necessarily would be threatened by withdrawing from the, from these places.
I think that, uh, you have to look at every single place in every single situation to see what the U S interests really are in these places.
I mean, there are, we do have certain interests.
Like we do have a, we do have an interest in, uh, there being relatively free trade around the world.
We have an interest in particular, uh, since we're a heavily energy dependent company country that, uh, that, uh, energy flow should be, uh, uh, regulated by the market that we should have access to energy.
So we do have international interests that have to be protected in certain ways.
But the fact is we don't have to be an imperial power as we currently are and serving as a policeman in places like Libya.
Well, and speaking of Libya, uh, we only have a couple of minutes here, but I just wonder if you still maintain that exact same pessimism that I have about the very long-term nature of this thing, the painted into the corner aspect of it, that, uh, the Democrats have gotten this country into now.
I fear it's going to be one of these situations like, uh, uh, the Balkans where it just seems to go on and on and on.
It's not a real war and that you don't have, uh, masses of troops invading the country and occupying it or anything like that.
I think, I think Obama would, uh, would not go along that long that way.
But the fact is, I think, you know, it's like, uh, you get involved with these things and you get, you get enmeshed in them and suddenly there's no way out.
And I have a feeling that that's where we're heading.
Uh, my fear is that, you know, this is the, that the fact that he's taking this kind of initiative in Libya where we had no real reason to do so, uh, might be a suggestive of the fact that he'll be doing similar things in other places like Yemen and maybe Syria.
Hmm.
So then I, I guess I'm stuck with, in my limited experience, the Iraq model of Bill Clinton in the 1990s, permanent blockade, but no real regime change, just permanent blockade till he dies of old age or the Republicans get elected again.
Yeah.
That's, that's kind of the pattern of these things.
They, the Democrats, I'd almost prefer they went ahead and sent in the Marines and just get it over with.
Actually, that might be a better solution.
The, the fact that these wars go on forever is, uh, is, is the discouraging part.
I mean, uh, how many years we've been in Iraq now, Afghanistan, starting in Libya now, it's just that the pattern is repeated over and over again.
Doomed, doomed.
I tells you.
Well, you know, here's the thing.
Charles Goyette was saying yesterday he was drawing the contrast between the, the real issues facing this country and how much trouble we're really in compared to the narrative and how more and more and more people are getting it.
The contrast is just too black and white.
The, the obvious issues that right, left, and libertarian real people out here in the country have in common are so obvious.
You know, the corporate welfare, the world empire, the destruction of our bill of rights and our free markets, uh, you know, such as they were anyway.
Um, and then, uh, the prerogatives of the bipartisan consensus up there in DC, which is to do all of these horrible things, it's getting more and more stark.
And I think, uh, you know, the Ron Paul revolution this time around is the best hope we have for, if, if, you know, not really changing the way things are in DC, certainly changing the way the American people see these divisions kind of in a once and for all sort of an actually get it done kind of a way, you know, I agree with that.
I sure hope so.
It's the only hope I have really Phil.
All right.
Well, listen, man, I appreciate your time as always.
Okay.
No problem.
Scott, take care.
All right.
Thanks a lot.
Have a go.
All right.
Everybody that is Phil Giraldi, former CIA and DIA officer, uh, executive director of the council for the national interest foundation, the America lobby in Washington, DC writes for the American conservative amcom mag.com.
And of course at antiwar.com/Giraldi.
