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Transcript

Carl Dagher

  1. 0:00 What's up y'all?
  2. 0:01 Today I wanted to talk about the situation in Syria.
  3. 0:05 I'm a Lebanese citizen, so I I have kind of seen what is going on in Syria, and it's affected my family and me in the past 10 years since the civil war started.
  4. 0:17 So yeah, so the civil war, Syrian civil war started in 2014.
  5. 0:21 Essentially, it was a byproduct of the Arab Spring.
  6. 0:24 The rebel forces were trying to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, who is his family was in power.
  7. 0:32 His father was in power since the 60s.
  8. 0:55 The civil war led to the death of 500,000 people.
  9. 1:01 14 million people, half the population, were either internally displaced or became refugees.
  10. 1:06 I mean, in my visits to Lebanon, you'd always see the Syrian refugees working the low-wage jobs, they were struggling.
  11. 1:12 But there is a new hope.
  12. 1:14 With the Israel-Palestine situation kind of wrapping up.
  13. 1:19 One of the major byproducts of that conflict was the weakening of Hezbollah, which was a major Syrian ally.
  14. 1:27 And you know, as they began to fall apart, Syria's backbone began to fall apart.
  15. 1:32 So Bashar al-Assad's forces essentially fell apart.
  16. 1:34 And that's where you have this rebel government coming in and taking over power.
  17. 1:38 They they sieged Aleppo and then traveled all the way down to Damascus in a couple days and took over the country.
  18. 1:47 As for new leadership, you know, you see them trying to make better relationships with Western powers.
  19. 1:53 However, their current president is actually a former Al-Qaeda member, so you might see some clashes with Western ideology.
  20. 2:02 But he he's tending to kind of stay away from his past.
  21. 2:06 I think he he's kind of disregarding his affiliations with Al-Qaeda.
  22. 2:11 But it's really interesting to see what what's going on in the Middle East right now.
  23. 2:14 You have the Syria revolution essentially being completed, uh Hezbollah being ousted in Lebanon, uh Israel and Palestine kind of concluding with the hostage exchange.
  24. 2:25 So there's a lot of moving parts.
  25. 2:26 You have Iran who uh suffered great destruction from Israel's launching missile strikes.
  26. 2:33 There's a lot of conflict.
  27. 2:34 It's a hot zone in the world right now.
  28. 2:36 There's a lot of conflict, and there's a there's a lot of unraveling parts.
  29. 2:39 Um I'm interested to see how um Syria rebuilds and if they continue to um accept aid from Western forces, and I'm sure there'll be some deals made on that, but as for right now, you know, it's still a conflict zone.
  30. 2:58 There's still some infighting going on in Syria, and yeah, you know, just excited to see if if if there's any peace in the future.
  31. 3:06 It's it's pretty pretty tough situation, but you all you gotta do is hope for the best.

Wesley Joyce

  1. 0:00 Carl, I appreciate your update here on Syria.
  2. 0:03 Syria is a country I've been very interested in for a while.
  3. 0:06 Ever since, you know, probably really just this year, I've really started keeping up with the Middle East, and it's about all I watch on YouTube every night.
  4. 0:15 But something very interesting with Syria.
  5. 0:18 And you know, I when the Assad regime fell, that was when I really learned about them and heard what they've been up to, and you know, some of the horrors of that regime, and it that was ridiculous.
  6. 0:28 That was going on for so long.
  7. 0:30 But I do think there's hope for Syria.
  8. 0:34 And I think I I think the hope for Syria is also gonna be something that greatly benefits Western interests, and not for selfish reasons.
  9. 0:42 I think uh Syria would be wise to side with the West.
  10. 0:46 Um for many reasons, just for a look at the past 50 years of what not siding with the West, even though you know that's a quite insane leadership they were under.
  11. 0:56 But it didn't get them that far.
  12. 0:58 But um, you know, Syria is in the middle of all of it.
  13. 1:02 Syria is in between Israel and Iran when Israel had air supremacy over Iran and Iran could even get uh jet fighters in the air, it's because they had refueling planes flying around in Syrian airspace.
  14. 1:14 Um so there's a lot of things going on with Syria, you know, and they're still figuring things out now.
  15. 1:22 But Syria also too hosts like three or four, I think it's three, um, large uh Russian military and like Air Force bases, and it's the perfect refueling stop for Russian jets trying to make it down to um Africa and uh pursue some of the exploits that um the Wagner group has been up to for a while and taking control of some of these mines.
  16. 1:49 Um so yeah, Syria is I mean it's it's a huge piece of the puzzle in the Middle East.
  17. 1:54 And there's also been I've heard uh you know, I'm not no expert on this, but I've heard talks of a pipeline and gas pipeline, natural gas that would carry um oil to the EU um from the Middle East and then have to run through a portion of Azerbaijan which is um still going his thing, you know, doing doing that.
  18. 2:17 They still need to separate first.
  19. 2:19 Um but yeah, other than that, um, you know, uh thinking about a EU pipeline running through Syria, making it to the uh European Union and releasing some of our dependence on Russia in that area is also a great thing.
  20. 2:35 So, you know, I I do think there's hope for Syria, and I think if the Syrian government is able to do it the right way, and if they do side with us and we can help them out, um I think Western interests stands to gain a lot here.