All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
I am Scott Horton.
This is anti-war radio.
And our next guest is Eric Margulies again, foreign correspondent.
Uh, he knows everything about all them countries in the old world, which is most of the countries in the world.
And, uh, well, anyway, welcome back.
How's it going?
I am happy as usual to be back with you and watching turbulence all around the world.
Yes.
Well, and there's so much of it.
We can never keep track.
And that's what I was just about to say.
First of all, uh, read war at the top of the world and American Raj liberation or domination.
Uh, but then, yeah.
So the other day I had you on the show cause I wanted you to learn me all about Pakistan.
So I could, you know, try to pretend I understand a little bit about what the hell's going on over there.
And yet for both of us, I think I started it.
We kept going back to Syria cause it's just rich with metaphors and, uh, similes and things like that.
But also it's very important right on everybody's front burner right now.
And I know that, you know, a hell of a lot about Syria and I don't know how long it's been since you've been there, but, um, I know that you have a lot of things to say about who's who over there and who all's backing who and what the hell it all means.
You mentioned that you were, uh, uh, Oh, one more thing for the context here.
Um, Patrick Coburn was saying he was in Damascus, I guess, week before last now.
And he said it felt just like Beirut felt in 1975, right before the 15 year civil war broke out.
And that I'd mentioned that on the show the other day.
And then you said, actually, I was there in Beirut when the war broke out.
I thought I was going on vacation and all of a sudden there's bullets flying everywhere.
And that was the beginning of a, just a absolutely horrible time for Lebanon.
I mean, I remember my child in the 1980s, there was always the war in Lebanon.
I never knew where Beirut was when I was a kid, but I knew it was on fire.
Um, so anyway, just go ahead and tell us everything you have to say about Syria, Lebanon, whatever you think's important here, Eric, please.
A very volatile, uh, mixture of places all used to belong to the Ottoman empire.
And when the Turks ran it, you know, somehow the, uh, the area people managed to get along very well, their Jews with, uh, Arabs, Muslims, Turks, Christians.
But, uh, the, the poison of nationalism, uh, infected the area after world war one.
And, uh, the result is a very shaky, unstable thing, but we have a couple of major influences to understand this area, uh, and why countries are doing things there.
First of all, the Turks have never quite given up their, uh, their, their interest, their great power interest in the, in Syria and Lebanon.
Uh, second, Israel has always had its eye on Lebanon and on its water.
Uh, there's an excellent article today by the Israeli writer, Uri Avnery, uh, about general Sharon's, uh, plans to turn, uh, Lebanon into an Israeli protect to it ruled by Christian fascist, uh, warlords.
And, uh, that is exactly what happened.
But remember also that when under the Ottoman empire, this area known as Shams, Shams, uh, was, uh, included sort of the greater Syria, historical greater Syria included what is today, Lebanon and, uh, Palestine and much of Israel.
So, uh, and the Syrians have never given up their claims to this area.
The French took Lebanon away from Syria.
They created trouble there and sent in troops and detached Lebanon to create a French protectorate.
So the French still have very active interest.
They're in a threatening to intervene militarily just as the British created these little protectorates like Kuwait to detached from Saudi Arabia or Arabia to make their own for their own interests.
So you've got a lot of undercurrents in this area.
You have to go back in history to understand them.
Yeah.
Well, so then, uh, yeah, world war one, this is my chance to blame everything on Woodrow Wilson again.
God, I hate that guy so much because what happened here was, uh, he helped the British empire expand by a million square miles when he took that war that was a stalemate and he turned it into an overwhelming victory for the allied powers.
And, um, and, uh, so I guess, as you're saying, the French got Syria and Lebanon or broke off Lebanon from Syria, made, invented the thing, I guess.
Um, and then, but the British got all the rest, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and, uh, domination in Egypt, whatever.
And this is the empire that America inherited at the end of world war two.
That's right.
The, uh, the infamous Sykes-Picot treaty between, uh, in which the British and French divvied up, uh, the, um, the mid east.
And, uh, you know, so today what, what we're seeing is these, these fragile countries, uh, that are barely countries in some cases are shaking and trembling now under blows from the outside.
Syria may fall apart, may shatter, uh, like Iraq and never be put together again.
Uh, Syria's had the same problem with Iraq and needed a really an iron fisted dictator to run the place and to keep it together.
The United States' first attempt to overthrow the Syrian government was in 1948, as in related in the delightful book called the game of nations by former CIA agent, Miles Copeland.
And, uh, the U S has been mucking around in Syria ever since.
But Syria today remains one of the few countries in the Arab world that is not under United States nomination.
And that's one of the reasons why the U S is so actively trying to throw out its rogue government as it calls it.
Yeah.
And call it the Arab spring.
That's funny.
Hey, tell me this.
What's a Baathist really?
The Baath party.
In fact, I just looking at a book now a few minutes ago by, uh, this, uh, excellent British writer, Patrick seal, uh, about the early years of the Baath party.
Baath was formed in the 1920s as the Arab Renaissance party.
And it was formed by Christian left-wingers, uh, particularly Michelle a flack.
It's, uh, and it was, it was one of the early, uh, Arab nationalist parties that, uh, wanted to create a separate identity and invigorated identity for the Arab world.
Uh, it became a socialist party and, uh, it, it, it was, there was also an Iraqi Baath party, but the two of them split and became bitter enemies.
The, uh, the Baathists, uh, were veered further to the left, uh, but they were very strong nationalists and they opposed the union with Egypt between the Syrian Egypt, which made the United Arab Republic 1958.
Uh, and they eventually were taken over.
The Baath party was taken over by, uh, Saddam Hussein and his cronies.
And so today it is proscribed in Iraq, still underground.
Uh, but, uh, I think we'll see it back.
The Syrian Baath party was taken over by the Assad dynasty and they pretty well run it.
Well now, so in Western terms, you compare more to like right-wing militarist, uh, fascist types, or they're more some kind of a socialist, I guess they'd have to be conservative socialists by now anyway.
Yes.
Cause I think a conservative socialist with, with, uh, middle-class merchant elements would be a good description of the Baath party.
And with plenty of secret police.
And, uh, yes, to run a country in the Middle East, you need lots of secret police, whether you're King Hussein and Jordan or the Emir of Bahrain or, uh, Don Rumsfeld.
Or Don Rumsfeld or the ruler of Syria.
Right.
All right.
So that brings us to the Arab spring.
Cause, uh, what happened here?
Well, and we're going to have to go out to this break and come back and learn all about this, but I guess maybe I'll try to take just a sec here to set it up.
Um, what we had about a year and a half ago was, um, due to price inflation and, uh, other instabilities in Tunisia.
And one last humiliation, a young, uh, uh, vendor, uh, vegetable vendor set himself on fire and protest of the tyranny was suffering on her.
And, uh, that sparked a rebellion, uh, some wiki leaks about, uh, corruption in Tunisia had been sort of, uh, circulating in their, uh, discussion in the country for a few weeks leading up to that a couple of months leading up to that.
And then as soon as that happened, the people of Egypt apparently said, Hey, wow, you can do that.
And they rose up and they decided they were going to protest, try to overthrow their dictator.
And it worked.
They didn't overthrow the whole military regime, but they overthrew Mubarak.
He just got sentenced to life in prison the other day.
Not much of one.
And that started the Arab spring and, uh, the beginning of rebellion in Syria.
We're going to learn all about that when we get back with Eric Margulies after this.
All right, y'all welcome back to the show.
I'll say this part now, uh, so that Eric knows, but also so the people who just listen, you know, don't really look at antiwar.com very much, but they hear the archives of the interviews.
Please go to antiwar.com/blog and check out the debate between our own Jason Ditz and the prince of darkness and untruths Richard Pearl on BBC radio.
Jason Ditz did great and, uh, and whooped Pearl, the blood soaked liar.
Check that out.
Antiwar.com/blog.
And that goes for you too, Eric.
You'll really like it.
Um, all right.
So it's Eric Margulies, uh, foreign correspondent.
His website is ericmargulies.com.
He wrote war at the top of the world and American Raj liberation or domination.
We're talking about Syria and he's trying to give us the background as much as he can about some, all the different factions at play.
And of course the interests of the foreign powers, uh, who all are, uh, already intervening in Syria in numerous ways.
Um, so that we basically have the setup and then I says, well, and then the Arab spring broke out and there were some protests in Syria and very quickly, I think each and every one of those foreign powers that you listed as being interested in a few more, uh, began intervening and taking sides.
I even include the Russians on the side of the regime and the Qataris and Saudis and, and, uh, other American Sunni kingdom sock puppet type states from the Arabian peninsula, uh, Muslim brotherhood types.
I don't know.
Uh, I'll let you tell the story.
Uh, I guess if you could pick it up from the beginning, uh, you know how it is, we've got about 10 minutes for this segment.
Well, um, look, Syria is, uh, having been ruled by the Ba'ath party for over 30 years by the Assad dynasty has suppressed, uh, the mainstream Sunni, uh, movements, which is the largest of which was the Muslim brotherhood.
But there are other many political factions as well.
Uh, and, uh, it, uh, is a very repressive regime in Syria.
There'd be constant attempts to overthrow the regime for decades.
So of course the rulers are paranoid and they've imposed a order through about 17 different, uh, military and, uh, intelligence agency sees it.
I've been in Syria a lot.
It's a scary place, but, um, it's also a very fragile country.
And I recall, uh, the, uh, Zionist thinker Jabotinsky again, as I mentioned before on this program, who said in the 1920s that, uh, to, he wanted to make a Jewish state that would dominate the entire Middle East.
And he said to do that, he said, all the Arab states are very fragile.
He said one good blow and they'll fall apart.
And, uh, he was quite right.
You look at Iraq, uh, this could happen to Syria.
I think it will look at Libya is just, uh, imploded.
Uh, Egypt will not, it's a much more solid country, but, uh, these are, these are shaky organizations.
And the, the, the big problem in Syria, of course, is that the government is controlled by the Alawi minority who are about 10 to 12% of the population.
That's an, uh, a Shia offshoot sect regarded as heretical by Sunni Muslims.
And the Alawis were poor farmers, rather like the Shiites in Lebanon, to whom they're quite close, uh, ended up, uh, ruling the military because they all went in the military is the only way they can make any income.
And as a result of that, the Shiite leader, general Assad, air force general took power.
And today the Alawites still, uh, really kind of hold power in Syria in alliance with the Christians.
So also make up about 10% and with the middle class, which has done very well under the Assad regime.
Uh, but the mainstream money, uh, uh, Sunni Muslims have a chafe for 30 to 40 years under Alawi rule.
Now the headlines today are saying that, well, no, I'm getting too far ahead.
Um, I guess it's hard to ask you to just say like, you know, who's been, who all's been doing what for the last year or year and a half even, but, um, you know, things have changed.
It didn't just start out where it's this much of a foreign backed proxy war, but it sure seems to be now.
And then at this point, the headlines, I was going to say the headlines are that, well, you have this network of a few towns in the North that are all rebel held.
And maybe, you know, this is, uh, to, I guess, try to cram the, the, the square peg into the round hole to try to make this like Libya, where there's a piece of geography that we can fight to expand and expand in the hands of the rebels instead of the former regime.
The U S has been trying to overthrow the Syrian regime, the Assad regime since the Bush administration, uh, certainly, uh, efforts lessened for a while because it dawned on somebody in Washington, uh, you know, Hey, if we overthrow them, who's going to take power?
Well, it's going to be the Muslim brotherhood, which we, that scares us.
So, uh, efforts were, uh, uh, lessened, but, uh, with unrest in Syria that broke out a year ago or more, uh, the, uh, Western powers, particularly the French, uh, the British and the U S, uh, backed by the Saudis and the Israelis behind the scenes and the Qataris, uh, from the Gulf, uh, jumped on this opportunity again, started funneling arms and sending fighters and military advisors, anti-tank weapons and money into fuel, uh, an anti regime movement in the North of Syria.
Uh, it was based in Lebanon and Jordan.
And, uh, from there came all the arms and they've been fueling it.
What's happened is that the, uh, this work has created a civil war in Syria, which is getting worse every day.
And it's releasing, as we've seen from some recent horrible massacres, uh, it's releasing, uh, religious tensions because between the Shia, uh, Alawis and between the Sunnis.
And so we are looking to come back to our original point.
We're looking at what happened.
And I, which I saw with my own eyes in Lebanon, starting in 1975, this ghastly war filled with atrocities and barbarity.
Well, now are the different, um, I guess, ethnic sects and whatever, are they very divided by geography?
Is there a way that maybe you could just have, you know, they say the North, I don't know, uh, secede from Assad's control without having to fight for who controls Damascus and get a million people killed.
Like we just saw in Iraq happen again, kind of thing.
You know?
I don't, uh, the Syria, the ethnic divisions are not that geographically well defined though the Alawis or Alawites are strong up in the, in the coastal area, along the Mediterranean, near the cities, uh, the ports of Latakia and Tartus, uh, in the mountains.
That's their sort of feudal stronghold.
But, uh, people are mixed up and, uh, there are Kurds as well.
And, uh, they're left wingers there.
It's, it's a very complicated mixture for now.
The big cities are, are at the state with the governments.
Uh, I don't know how long this is going to go on.
Yeah.
Well, I'm not trying to say, you know, oh, I'm in favor of breaking Syria apart or whatever with NATO power or anything like that.
I'm just thinking, you know, if you could have regions secede from each other, that's presumably better than a free for all over who controls the capital city and creates a whole brand new government from scratch someday, or some kind of nightmare, which could take, you know, back to, uh, what Patrick said the other day about, you know, this looks like it could take a while, you know, like the war in Lebanon did.
You know, uh, the, the Western powers and the Saudis and the Gulf Emirates got along very well with Syria and, uh, President Bashar, uh, said, uh, cooperated with the West.
Yeah.
He was part of the Alliance in Operation Yellow Ribbon in 1991.
He was, he was a very willing, uh, ally.
He, he made nice to the Israelis.
He didn't, uh, there was complete quiet on the Israeli Syrian border.
Uh, so the question is, you know, why did the West turn so violently against Syria?
Well, the answer is Iran, uh, because Syria and Iran are very close allies.
Uh, Syria is Iran's really strongest Arab ally.
And, uh, they saw the opportunity pushed by the Israelis behind the scenes.
They saw the opportunity to, uh, stick their finger in Iran's eye by, by bringing down one of its most important allies or its most important.
Yeah.
They're pretty open about that too.
If you say, isn't this a great way to weaken Iran?
They go, yeah, that's what it's really all about.
We don't care about the Syrian people.
We just pretend to sometimes, you know, pretty open about that.
And the stampede caused by anti-Iran hysteria in Washington, uh, these people are forgetting what kind of damage they're going to do and what they'll have to live with afterwards.
It's also been very beneficial for Israel too, because remember Israel has seized and annexed Syria's Golan Heights.
Been all over there.
It's a fascinating topography from Golan.
You can look down on the plains of, of, uh, Galilee and Israel, but artillery there could also hit Damascus.
So, uh, about 30 miles, 30 kilometers away.
So, uh, Golan from Golan controls about 20% or more of, uh, Israel's water supply.
So the Israelis have been sending settlers up there and they're annexing the Golan Heights and they're determined never to give it back to, uh, Syria.
They've ethnically clandestine.
Assad Jr.
Has been basically silent on this issue, right?
He hasn't done anything to reverse that.
That's right.
Well, so why are they so bent on regime change?
Can't they ever leave well enough alone or not?
What the hell?
They figure that if the, uh, if Syria collapses and turns into a mess and an impotent mess like, uh, Iraq, that, uh, there'll be even less chance that Syria can press its claims for the return of the Golan Heights.
And also, of course, then they can get away with more bloody murder in Lebanon too.
Well, that's a whole different story.
The Israelis are tempted now getting sucked back once more into Lebanon.
I was with the Israeli army, as I think I was saying the other day, when it first invaded Lebanon and, uh, 1982, uh, what a, what a strange story that was.
Uh, 25,000 Lebanese were killed, uh, thanks to Alexander Haig who gave, uh, Sharon the okay to invade Lebanon.
As the Israelis lost a lot of men, I think it was 1800 dead in Lebanon, uh, billions of dollars.
They gained absolutely nothing from it.
And we're eventually run out of Lebanon by Hezbollah.
And there are elements in Israel in the military complex in Israel who want revenge to go back in and try and destroy Hezbollah.
Yeah.
Well, and they did try in 2006 and it was a gigantic failure and humiliation.
It certainly was.
It was, uh, the Israelis really got whipped.
And you were pointing out on the show the other day that at the time, and maybe you can clarify this part of it at the time, there was no reason why anyone would have had to assume that the Shiites of Southern Lebanon had to necessarily be enemies of the Israelis.
The Israelis were invading with what they said was a very limited purpose, which was punishing Yasser Arafat or maybe chasing him away somewhere else, uh, something like that.
But then you said you witnessed their humiliation and terrorizing of the local Shiite population that turned the Shiites against them and then led to the rise of the party of God.
Well, that's, that's, that's what happened.
And initially, uh, the Palestinians, uh, particularly the PLO had been almost the de facto ruler of that part of Southern Lebanon, Lebanon along the Israeli border.
They've been firing rockets into Israel, uh, and, uh, the area was known as Fatah land.
And, uh, so the Shiites were, had turned against the, uh, Palestinians.
Uh, I should add that though, uh, they claimed that the Palestinians were rocketing Israel.
Well, the, in the year before the Israeli invasion, there was no rocket fire.
It was completely silent border, contrary to what the Israelis claimed.
But the, uh, Shiites, uh, were very angry at the Palestinians.
And some regarded the Israelis as liberators were going to come in and kick out these swaggering Palestinian gunmen.
But in fact, the Israelis, because of their own foolishness, quickly made themselves enemies of these downtrodden farmers who nobody really cared about.
And suddenly they emerged out of nowhere as a ferocious guerrilla fighters.
You know, it's funny.
It reminds me of this article that MJ Rosenberg wrote about, oh, I don't know, a year or so ago, maybe two years ago.
I don't know.
But it was about, I think he goes back to 67.
I don't know if he goes back further than that, but he goes, Hey, look, every time that the peace faction disagreed with what the government of Israel was doing, it turned out that the peace Knicks were right.
Exactly what they were warning against was the terrible consequence.
And then led to the next thing.
He's got a list of like 35 things in a row or something where it's just blunder after blunder.
Somebody said they're great.
The Mossad, Israeli military and intelligence.
They're great tactically, but not strategically.
I guess they can't imagine the future further than like, I don't know, a week and a half ahead at any given time.
Well, for a very smart people, the Israelis have made some very foolish moves and they continue at the heart of their politics.
They continue to be dominated by these rabbit extreme right wingers.
The left in Israel calls them neo-fascists or just plain fascists.
They are too powerful and they unfortunately control the destiny of Israel along in their alliance with the military.
And it's tragic to see this because there's so many well-intentioned people in Israel who want peace with the Arabs, who realize they've given them a raw deal and want to make some kind of settlement, but they're thwarted constantly by these far right wingers and their, of course, American allies.
Yeah, it's a vicious circle, that one, right, where I guess it's really mostly Americans that fund the Likud party.
And then the Likud party has the ability to dictate every bit of the agenda of the domestic American pro-Israel lobby.
And then it just goes around and around in a circle like that.
That's right.
Somewhere in there, Lockheed cashes in too, I think, on some fighter jets, that kind of stuff.
Well, they do because Congress votes $3 billion a year, actually, it's probably closer to $5 billion, when secret items are counted in aid to Israel.
A lot of this goes to buy military equipment from Lockheed, F-16 jets, rocket systems, et cetera.
We just financed a new anti-rocket system called Iron Dome for Israel to protect against Katyusha rockets.
Congress paid for this.
The American taxpayers are paying for these arms that are going to Israel.
On top of it, little known to most Americans, Congress has voted to establish a billion dollars worth of American arms in depots in Israel in case the Israelis ever need them.
Well, yeah.
And you know what?
Speaking of which, back to Syria real quick here.
You know, with Libya, we covered that war here for what it took, two-thirds of a year or something like that to get that thing done.
And the anti-war types, at least on this show, we talked about how, well, look, you know, as long as NATO is bombing, eventually they will be able to take Tripoli, right?
They got their special forces on the ground.
They got some kind of militia backing them up.
And they've got all the air power the American people can buy.
So eventually, yeah, they'll be able to defeat this pathetic little state that barely even has a military at all.
That wasn't really in question.
What was in question was how horrible it all is and how horrible it's all going to be and what comes next and et cetera, et cetera, like that.
In Syria, to me, it has not been so clear.
First of all, we don't have a NATO air war.
And we have Russia and China determined to block it on the UN Security Council if they can.
So we have like covert action and guns and money and all these things coming in.
But also, it seems like, I don't know exactly what proportion, but a pretty good proportion of the society supports the Assad regime, as brutal as it may be.
At least it's better than what they fear is the alternative, apparently.
And so I wonder if you can give us a prediction about what you think is really going to happen here.
How much jeopardy is Assad really in?
Does it all come down to just like Russian politics?
If they tell him he's got to go, then he has to go kind of thing?
Or is this going to be really a long, drawn out civil war just to get him out of power?
The Russians are doing what is right for their regional interests, which is Syria is a long term Russian ally.
And it would be unwise from the Russian point of view to allow the US to overthrow the government in Syria and for the US to establish bases or a powerful presence in Syria from which, by the way, to help attack Iran.
But now I think the fans are running out for the Assad regime.
I really do.
It's the economy, it's the US economic blockade and European blockade is destroying Syria's economy very fast.
And that means the middle class is growing economic hardship there.
So at some point, the middle class is going to abandon Assad to save its own economic woes.
I see the US straining to attack Syria, and there's growing political pressure in this election year.
That foolish Senator John McCain who said, we've got to do something without understanding what we're going to do.
So I think we're getting closer every day to US military involvement.
And the danger is, of course, how will Russia react to that?
If I were the Russians, I wouldn't take it sitting down.
I would send many squadrons of interceptors, fighter aircraft into Syria to say, I'm defending Syria.
And you will not attack or send troops in there.
So it's potentially a very explosive situation.
And it's not worth the candle, as they used to say, to do it, because overthrowing the regime in Syria is not going to really benefit anybody very much, except maybe the Israelis.
But it's going to get the US in a dangerous and very expensive situation.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I saw where Medvedev, which I don't know, is he now prime minister, whatever, I don't know, party leader or something this week, former stand in for President Putin there in Russia.
He said this could lead to a nuclear war.
And I wonder, come on, they care about Syria like America cared about West Germany in the Cold War or something?
Nuh-uh.
It is a mistake to push Russia too hard.
The Russians have been over accommodating.
Putin has come in to a lot of criticism inside Russia for being too easygoing and accommodating with the Western powers.
When we, we, the Western powers, the US is now mucking around in Georgia again and up to all kinds of funny business in Azerbaijan that we have to talk about sometime.
But this is Russia's sphere of influence, you know, or interest.
Syria is as close to Russia as I think Monterey, Mexico is to the United States.
This is Russia's next door.
And, you know, Russia is still a great power, it has nuclear weapons pointed at us.
And we should not be getting into fracas with nuclear-armed Russia over minor places that have really no major importance for the United States like Georgia or Syria or stuff like that.
Yeah, well, you got my vote, Mr. President.
I can't imagine how anybody, uh, how anybody out of all 7 billion of us and change, uh, have any, uh, greater priority than making sure that Russia and America are getting along, right?
I mean, come on, we're going to have a border dispute with Russia in Georgia?
I mean, uh, our guys are real far from home over there if that's where we're coming into conflict.
And by the way, you mentioned it, I don't know if you have time, if you have to go I'll let you go, but if you don't have to go, then, uh, what's new in Georgia?
Okay, let's talk about that, I can't resist.
All right, well, okay, so let me set it up real quick.
This is a tiny, we're not talking about over there, uh, between South Carolina and Florida, we're talking about, uh, over there between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and just south of the Caucasus Mountains there, former Soviet Georgia, as they like to call it.
And in 2008 there was a war there, in August of 2008, because Georgia, America's ally, attempted to invade and overtake a province, a former province of some kind, autonomous province, um, called South Ossetia, which was protected by Russian peacekeepers.
The Russians intervened on the side of the South Ossetians and drove the Georgians back out, and, uh, it's basically been status quo since then as far as I know.
Go ahead.
Very good summary of an obscure situation.
Uh, Georgia, the U.S. managed to overthrow the Georgian, uh, former Georgian president, Edvard Shevardnadze, who used to be Gorbachev's closest ally.
I interviewed him when I was in Moscow in the 80s, a very smart man.
Now, this is the Rose Revolution, the first real color-coded revolution, right?
That's right, Scott.
And Shevardnadze was overthrown by a CIA-organized, uh, sort of coup, uh, and in Tbilisi.
And, uh, this guy, uh, a Georgian who'd been educated in the States, the name is Shakhashvili, uh, was put into power, or went into power with American backing.
Uh, and he's been trying to turn Georgia into sort of an American protectorate.
And, as you said, he picked this war very, very stupidly with Russia over South Ossetia, and there's a dispute over Abkhazia on the coast, too, another place nobody has ever heard of.
Uh, but he thought— And this is what's really keeping him out of NATO, right?
Because they want him really bad to bring him into NATO, except his borders are not settled, and so that's a problem, technically.
Well, you—NATO's been talking about bringing in Georgia, but I—in my view, it's a terrible mistake.
That's like, uh, that's like Puerto Rico joining the Warsaw Pact or something.
I mean, why such a provocation for—it has no military value at all.
In fact, it's a bridge—it's two bridges too far to defend.
So what's happened—so Georgia suddenly became the new darling of the Americans.
The Israelis became very influential in Georgia.
They, uh, signed all kinds of arms deals with the Georgians.
It became a center for Mossad operations and intrigues against the Soviets and against Iran.
Uh, another great, great, foolish imperialism, really, is what you would call it.
The U.S. even sent naval units into the Black Sea, where there could have been a confrontation during the war that Georgia started again.
Right.
Yeah, they sent warships in to deliver humanitarian supplies.
Like, why?
Why?
It's stupidity.
So— Well, you know, they say too—I believe it was Ron Susskind, I could be wrong, I think it's Susskind says it—Cheney said, we gotta shoot missiles at the Russians coming through the tunnels under the Caucasus Mountains and back up Shakhashvili in this thing, and that it was only George Bush said, no, man, I don't shoot missiles at Russians.
That's one thing I know better than— Thank God, at least he had the limited sense to do that.
So now what's happening is that Georgia's still irritating the Russians enormously.
There's still a potential for fighting there.
The Abkhazian and the South Ossetian issues have not been resolved, and while this is going on, now suddenly we've revivified the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Where's Azerbaijan?
Well, it's this little republic on the Caspian Sea that has got lots of oil, and it's a squalid little post-communist dictatorship that was adopted by—guess who?
Uncle Sam.
And its communist dictator, Aliyev, passed on the job to his son and shades of Syria or North Korea.
And this republic pumps oil, tortures its citizens, is a terrible, nasty dictatorship, and is now deeply in cahoots with the Israelis, who just sold $1.6 billion worth of arms paid for by the U.S., I suspect, to Azerbaijan.
Well, why?
Because the Israelis are doing something there with the Americans to threaten Iran from bases in Azerbaijan, which is just north of Iran.
And there's even—incredibly, there are a lot of ethnic Azeris in northern Iran.
Some people say up to 20 percent of Iranians are Azeris.
And there's talk now of the Free Azeri Movement in Iran, which is being fueled by the Mossad and by the CIA.
So there's more crazy— Along with the Free Balookis and the Free M.E.K. Commies and the Free Everybody Who Wants to Blow Up Something in Iran.
You can get paid by us.
Line up.
Here we go with crazy imperialism in the Caucasus Mountains.
Right.
And this is all just about sticking the soda straws in there, making sure all the oil goes by way of a route that doesn't include Russia or it doesn't go at all.
That's right.
That's right.
This is really worthy of the 19th century.
That is what it sounds like, right?
Like we're the British or the French or some terrible regime like that.
That's right.
The idea of getting into a confrontation with Russia over the Caucasus, its underbelly, its backyard is absolutely daft.
But we're hard at work doing it.
Yeah.
Well, you know, what's funny is even if the Russians were able to, you know, get control of a lot more of the fuel sales market, of course, they're exporters of their own fuel as it is.
Still, all their money gets blown anyway.
Nobody ever seems to invest in any real productive capability inside that country.
And so what threat could they ever be anyway?
I mean, who cares really which way those pipelines go?
The only threat they are is if we get them angry enough.
Yeah.
Well, they have H-bombs.
Maybe we should punch them in the stomach and see if they want to fight about it.
That's what we're doing.
All right.
Thanks so much for staying over, especially there, Eric.
Eric Margulies, everybody.
EricMargulies.com.
