May 28, 2024 • 53 mins
Since 9/11, the United States has launched a series of attacks on sovereign nations, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya, Syria and beyond. These wars have left the region beleaguered and broken. But recently, as American power wanes, a new set of forces has emerged. An axis led by Iran, Syria and Yemen has emerged to counter U.S.-Israeli dominance and global giants, such as China and Russia, are increasingly being drawn into the region.
Could this lead to a new and even brighter future for West Asia?
Tim Anderson joins the show to discuss all things West Asia. Tim is a writer, academic, and director of the Center for Counter Hegemonic Studies. His latest book, “West Asia After Washington: Dismantling the Colonized Middle East,” explores this topic.
“It is quite obvious that the U.S.’ influence in this region [West Asia] is in decline,” Anderson told MintCast host Alan MacLeod, laying out several factors in said decline, including the embarrassing American withdrawal from Afghanistan, the unanimous demands from Iraq that the U.S. leave the country, the growing importance of Russia and China in the region the increasing importance of the BRICS economic bloc, the successful Russian operation to keep Assad in power in Syria; the Yemeni blockade of the Red Sea; the failure of the U.S. in Syria and the nosedive in global public opinion of the United States.
Anderson joined the show from Damascus, Syria – something that would have been nearly impossible until recently. He noted the tremendous destruction that the civil war had wrought upon the country, much of which is still occupied by the United States, Israel, and other actors. Nevertheless, despite American unilateral coercive measures (i.e., sanctions), life in the major cities is approaching normality again.
Anderson identifies Iran as a critical player in the formation of a counter-hegemonic axis. It has found allies in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and, crucially, China and Russia. This grand alliance of powers opposing U.S. policy in the region was something that American planners in the 1990s considered their greatest fear.
Nevertheless, a wounded animal is a dangerous one, and the U.S. is far from a spent force. And so, while American power wanes, the people of West Asia should still be on high alert.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alan Macleod (00:08):
Welcome back to another edition of the Mintcast,
the podcast from Mint PressNews.
I'm your host today, alanMcLeod.
Now the Middle East, or whatshould more properly be called
West Asia, because it's only theMiddle East to Western Europe,
is a pivotal region in the globe.
It's the main source of theplanet's most crucial commodity,
oil, and it's also the centreof global conflicts right now.
(00:30):
Since 9-11, the United Stateshas launched a wave of attacks
on sovereign nations, from Iraqto Afghanistan to Syria and
beyond, all of which have leftthe region battered and broken.
But recently, as US power wanes, a new set of forces has been
emerging.
A new axis led by Iran, syriaand Yemen has emerged to counter
(00:52):
the US-Israeli dominance in theregion, and global giants such
as Russia and China areincreasingly being drawn in as
well.
Could this lead to a new,perhaps even brighter future for
West Asia?
Here to talk about that today,and all things about the region,
is Tim Anderson.
Tim is a writer and academic andthe director of the Center for
(01:14):
Counterhegemonic Studies.
His latest book is called WestAsia After Washington
Dismantling the Colonized MiddleEast.
Welcome to the show, tim.
Thanks, alan, nice to see you.
It's good to have you onfinally.
So, yeah, I understand thatyou're currently in Syria right
(01:35):
now.
In the news reports we see weoften hear about the scale of
the damage and the destruction.
Could I first get you todiscuss that particular country?
Could you assess how Syria isfunctioning right now, what
pressures it's and how safe itis there?
Tim Anderson (01:48):
Well, syria is functioning.
It has a functioning state withnormal sort of services, which
is not the norm in this regionby any means necessarily.
But there has been tremendousdestruction from the war.
There are still pockets ofterrorist groups which find safe
(02:12):
haven in the occupied parts ofSyria, where the government of
Turkey has occupied parts ofnorthwest Syria and the US has
occupied parts of the northeastand the east, and the Israelis
occupy part of the south thatthey've occupied for quite some
time.
So in those areas they providesafe haven for armed groups
which go out and and continue todo destabilization.
(02:33):
But life in the major cities isby and large fairly secure,
even though there are israeliattacks regularly.
You will have seen the attack onthe um, the iranian embassy,
recently, which is just down theroad from where I am now.
It's a very central part ofDamascus.
One of my friends had her legshattered by that.
She was walking by it, just bybad luck at the time.
(02:54):
So there are these occasionalattacks on the shrines, on the
Shia shrines too, for example.
The Israelis have reallynormalized this, but in a sense
it's become part of normal lifein a way.
But most of the areas have beenliberated from those armed
groups over the years, with theexception of those areas that
are now directly occupied bythree big powers, or these days,
(03:15):
more properly called unilateralcoercive measures by the US and
, to some extent, the Europeans,which make it extremely
difficult for even third partiesto do business or trade with
Syria.
It's a type of siege that the UShas imposed on Cuba, venezuela,
(03:37):
a number on Iraq, on Lebanon,on Iran.
About 20-something countriesare under these types of
unilateral coercive measures now, and they're almost all from
the US and the Europeans, sothat economic pressure is very
serious.
It means that there are greatpressures on any outside party
that wants to do business withthe countries that are under US
(03:58):
unilateral sanctions, and thatall means that the Syrian
currency is very what do you say?
There's a type ofhyperinflation of the currency.
Its value has gone downsignificantly during the crisis,
but nevertheless Syria is oneof those countries that actually
produces its food, its clothes,a lot of its basic things.
So somehow or other, eventhough salaries are very low,
(04:19):
life goes on and people survivein some way.
There has been tremendousemigration from the country.
A lot of professionals haveleft, but nevertheless, in a
sense, there's a sort of air ofnormality, in a way relative
calm.
Alan Macleod (04:32):
Well, let's talk about the US, then.
It currently occupies largeswaths of Syria, particularly in
the northeast, if I'm notmistaken, but it's been unable
to launch the Assad governmentfrom power.
To what extent has Washington'sambitions been thwarted, then?
Tim Anderson (04:54):
And is Syria finding new partners in Russia,
china and Iran?
That's helping them out there.
Yes, as you say, the plan totopple the government in
Damascus failed largely becausethe army held together.
Syria has a national army whichis comprised of all the
different communities, all thedifferent sects and religions.
It's committed to pluralism andthat's very popular
constitutionally in terms of thearmy.
(05:16):
It's very popular the idea ofpluralism and anti-sectarianism
in Syria.
It's really a haven forminorities in many ways and that
the US tried to use thatagainst Syria, but it didn't
really work.
So the government remainedintact, more or less.
The proxy militia, basically,which were al-Qaeda affiliated
(05:37):
for the most part, were defeatedwhere they stood alone.
But now, as I said earlier,there is a foreign occupation.
Two of the biggest NATO armies,turkey and the US and the
Israelis in the south, areoccupying.
Three powers are occupying thecountry and that, as I said,
provides a safe haven for thesemilitia, which have always been
proxies for those powers to comein and make occasional attacks
(06:00):
and destabilise and try anddivide the country.
And in the case of the USoccupation, it's mainly focused
on the Syrian-Iraqi border inthe north-east and in the south,
and there's one border crossingwhich is controlled by the
Syrians and the Iraqis and theIranians and that's constantly
bombed.
Because, in my opinion, the mainobjective of the US occupation
here, which is relatively thin,but they make use of their proxy
(06:23):
it's called Qasad here or theSyrian Democratic Forces.
It's a Kurdish-led group.
They want to divide Syria fromthe other countries.
Basically, I had the chance tovisit the northeast a couple of
years ago and it's veryinteresting because it's a
different type of occupation tothe one in the northwest with
(06:44):
the former Jabhat al-Nusra andthe one in the south which the
Israelis occupy now.
It's a different sort ofoccupation.
It's quite fragile, if you askme, the Syrian state exists,
although you see these maps withyellow areas, because it's
supposedly controlled by theKurdish groups.
In reality, none of the citiesand very few of the major towns
are majority Kurdish or held bythe Kurds.
(07:07):
But that group has some weightthere because the US military
backs it up.
But the US military is mainlyconcerned about trying to divide
the Syrians from the Iraqis andthe Iranians and trying to
disrupt the connections betweenthem.
You know there's this phobiathat you read about in US
intelligence and Israelintelligence magazines.
They call an Iranian landbridge, which is the idea that
(07:28):
Tehran would have access throughIraq, through Syria, to the
Mediterranean, and the greatfear of the Israelis is that
would present a united, as theycall, access of resistance here
and a threat to the occupationof Palestine.
But it's also incounter-hegemonic terms.
It's something that would be agreat benefit to the region
because really the integrationin terms of transport, commerce
(07:50):
and communications and so onwould be a great boon to the
region.
It's what's being held backbecause of this policy of divide
and rule.
Alan Macleod (07:56):
Basically, Well, you've brought up so many things
that I want to touch on there.
I guess the first one would bewe used to hear a lot about
Kurdish forces in Western press,even in the Western left,
specifically specificallythinking about Rojava.
That was really held up assomething of a model to follow,
but I feel like there's notreally as much talk about that
(08:20):
anymore in the West.
Could you fill us in on what'sgoing on there?
Tim Anderson (08:31):
yes, um, the what's called the syrian
democratic forces in english andin kassad in arabic.
Here is a proxy that the us setup and they tried to pretend it
was wider than the, the kurdishseparatist.
Really, the main force they'vehad to work with locally is
indeed a kurdish separatist onewhich is a branch of the of the
turkish Kurdish separatist one,which is a branch of the Turkish
Kurdish separatist group.
Effectively, they're a branch,and the largest Kurdish group
and the largest Kurdishseparatist movement is in Turkey
(08:53):
, because of what happened sincethe Ottoman Empire and with the
rise of Turkish nationalism andso on.
So the idea of a Rojava or aseparatist Turkish statelet in
Syria is something of aspringboard for the Turkish and
the Turkish leadership.
Kurdish leadership iseffectively the leadership of
the SDF or Qasad in Syria.
(09:14):
There are some links withnorthern Iraq too, where there
is, as a result of the federalsystem created under the US
occupation, there is a trainingby Mossad and by the US and by
the Kurdish base there, in Erbil, for example, of the
separatists in Syria.
But they don't have a popularbase here, not even amongst the
Kurdish population, whichhistorically was not separatist.
(09:37):
Basically.
There are many Syrian leaderswho have been Kurds.
There is a stream of Syriancommunists who were Kurdish.
There is a stream of Syriancommunists who were Kurdish.
The great Caliph Saladinhimself was a Kurd, but he
wasn't a Kurdish separatist.
He was trying to create agreater community in his time.
So it's really driven byTurkish politics in many
(10:03):
respects, or Turkish Kurdishpolitics.
It's not very powerful, as Isaid, in the northeast if you
travel through there and youneed permission to go there from
the Syrian army.
But the Syrian army is there.
It's along the border.
There's, quite deliberately, noclashes between the US and its
proxy and the Syrian army, butthey are there.
They control the main nationalhospital in in Comishley and the
airport and much of thenorthern border, for example.
(10:27):
Of course, as you know, thatproxy that the US set up has
attracted the ire of Erdogan'sTurkey, and so there are attacks
from the Turkish side becausein this case, the two NATO
allies are running somewhatdifferent agendas there in terms
of, but they're both trying todivide and weaken Syria.
So that group I mean.
(10:51):
I travelled through Hasakahprovince and there are SDF
checkpoints there, but I wasnever stopped or even asked for
my ID travelling through there.
On the other hand, the Syriancheckpoints were more serious
basically.
So it's a funny sort ofoccupation In my mind.
It's very fragile and, ofcourse, when the US withdrew
from Afghanistan, there was ahuge wave of nervousness amongst
(11:11):
those groups because they knowthat really, once the US leaves,
there's no future for them here.
Basically, the Syrian army, theSyrian government, is tolerating
them for the time being becausethey don't want to have a fight
with them necessarily, andindeed the Syrian government
armed them when there was, whenthere was some confrontation
between ISIS terrorists and andthe SDF back in some years ago.
(11:33):
So there's no directconfrontation going on between
the SDF and the Syriangovernment, but the SDF knows
that their days are numberedreally when the US pulls out.
And the US have even tried toscare some of the Russians, for
example, by saying you knowwho's going to fill this vacuum
when we fall out, and raisingthe bogeyman of Iran, because of
course Iran is the mostimportant ally of Syria in this
(11:56):
region and the most importantindependent state that's really
got very similar, differentideology but very similar
objectives to the Iraqis and theSyrians.
Alan Macleod (12:08):
Well, in your latest book you really center
Iran as a key piece of thechanging region of West Asia.
Iran obviously has been helpingto armed groups in Iraq, yemen
and even Hamas.
Could I get your assessment ofIran's role and particularly
what is going on in Palestineright now?
(12:28):
How does that fit into thisbroader picture that you paint?
Tim Anderson (12:31):
Yeah, iran's role is very important, and what's
not well understood in the Westis that, while Iran has this
religious ideology and theirobsession is this idea of
Islamic civilisation, they'rebuilding their moral force with
Islamic civilisation thatdoesn't transmit to its
alliances in the region, forexample in Palestine, and Iran
(12:52):
is the major sponsor of thePalestinian resistance all of
the factions, not just Hamas,but Hamas is the leading faction
in Gaza at the moment.
They're, of course, all SunniMuslims.
In Palestine there's hardly anyShia Muslims there.
So this is something thatcrosses those sort of
stereotypes that are thrown upin the West about a Shia
crescent and the idea of Iranbeing some sort of evangelical
(13:16):
movement there.
With the relationship withSyria, it's interesting because
in Syria, religious politicalparties are banned because they
deliberately tried to suppressreligious sectarianism, and so
it's always been a matter ofculture in Syria for many
decades that it's even rude toask someone's religion, because
you're all Syrian and you allhave the same rights and you
(13:39):
belong to the same communitybasically, even though, of
course, there are differentreligious communities here.
So in that context, thealliance between Iran since the
Iranian revolution and Syria hasbeen rock solid.
There haven't been any realserious ruptures there.
And, of course, iran doessupport the Syrian state, just
as it supports the Iraqi state,which is, however, the
(14:02):
population in Iraq is majorityShia, but in Syria the
population majority Sunni Muslim.
There are many, many minoritiesin Syria.
There are a large Christianminority, for example, and the
state has really been committedto a pluralist or they call it
secular, but I call it pluralistapproach, basically, and Iran
has never interfered with thatat all.
(14:23):
I think you could say somethingsimilar even in in lebanon,
where the although uh, the uh,the party hezbollah is a shia
group and was originallycommitted to a islamic state.
They've changed all that becausethey realize that in the
context of lebanon, lebanon isis made up of many different
religious communities and theywill never have a, an islamic
state in in Lebanon.
So they now have quite strongalliances with all of the other
(14:47):
religious communities in Lebanonthere.
So Iran doesn't change that.
And, of course, now that itsalliances are growing with
Russia and China and Venezuela,then there's no real evidence
that Iran is exporting itsparticular ideology, but
nevertheless, it's the mostimportant, the largest
independent state in this region.
It's committed to allyingitself with and defending the
(15:11):
other independent states andindependent peoples and building
these international alliancestoo, without evangelising its
religious ideology.
So I think Iran is going to bethe most important state in this
region and transmitting some ofthe benefits of the new
multilateral groups like theBRICS, for example, because it
(15:33):
already has strong strategicalliances with China and Russia
and it's developing strategicalliances in Latin America too.
So it's shown a great deal offlexibility in foreign policy,
and I don't think that's oftenrecognised in Western media.
Alan Macleod (15:48):
All right, well, let's talk about Iran and
foreign policy.
Actually, even when you weretalking earlier about the US
role in Syria and Iran, it wasreally I just kept thinking back
to Venezuela, like how you weretalking about the Syrian army
was never really cracked by theUnited States.
Similarly, in Venezuela, thecountry was sanctioned.
(16:10):
They had all sorts ofterroristic attacks placed upon
them by groups affiliated to theUnited States.
Political parties weresponsored by Washington, but one
of the principal reasons whythe US wasn't able to actually
overthrow the Venezuelangovernment was because they
never managed to turn themilitary establishment.
(16:30):
They never managed to reallyget the army on board with the
US agenda.
You've been talking about howIran has been forging links with
Latin America and China andRussia and they're about to join
, or maybe already have joined,the BRICS Economic Union.
What sort of impact is thatgoing to have on the region more
generally?
Tim Anderson (16:51):
Well, I think there is.
Really there isn't a strongdevelopment of regional blocs
here, historically, unlike LatinAmerica, which has got 200
years of post-colonial history,where they've been talking about
unification and so on for many,many decades, really for two
centuries.
In that context, the regionalgroups are poorly developed.
(17:15):
There's an Arab League which isquite weak, which Iran isn't
part of.
There's a multilateral groupthe Organization of Islamic
States is it but there isn'treally a parallel in West Asia
yet for that type of cooperativeeconomic development.
But nevertheless, iran is now amember of BRICS, it's joined
(17:36):
BRICS, and its integration withRussia and China is moving very
rapidly actually.
In fact, many people argue thatsince the special military
operation in Ukraine, thatthere's a greater symmetry in
the relationship now betweenIran and Russia, for example.
But of course it's the energyindustries that have helped push
this along, basically withRussia and with China too to a
(17:59):
degree, and with Venezuela,because Iran was the one that
helped Venezuela restart itsrefineries when they were run
down a few years ago.
Basically because Iran has avery light type of crude
petroleum and Venezuela has avery heavy one, and Venezuela
wasn't independent enough a fewyears ago to restart their
refineries, so Iran helped themin that way and broke the
(18:22):
blockade that the Trumpadministration had tried to put
on Venezuela back at that time.
So of course, you've also gotthe fact that the US, just in
the last two decades, hasimposed its unilateral sanctions
on so many countries, many ofthem being big oil producers.
So they began with Iran, theymoved to Venezuela, then they
(18:44):
moved to Russia and, as a resultof that, they were really
creating an energy crisis aroundthe world.
And they went back to Venezuelajust recently to do some sort
of political deals to try andgive the US companies access to
the Orinoco Delta, which iswhere a lot of the new petroleum
discoveries are.
So the relationship betweenIran and Russia, which are both
(19:07):
big energy exporters, and alsoVenezuela to a degree and
Venezuela's in the queue to joinBRICS, but it hasn't joined yet
.
When Venezuela joins the BRICSmembers, now that the Saudis are
also in BRICS, which is anotherinteresting point BRICS will
have the majority of the energyexporters in the world.
Basically, now there's oneother effect I think it's
(19:27):
important to mention here inrelation to BRICS, and that is
that, of course, it's becomeincreasingly popular in recent
years, particularly in theglobal south, but it's also
managed to draw in some statesin this region which are really
seen more as allies or, let'ssay, dependent on the US, like
Saudi Arabia and Egypt, forexample, and the Emirates, the
(19:49):
United Arab Emirates.
So those states are now in thebricks and sending a signal to
many other global south statesthat it's not just the states
that are identified as enemiesor targets by the US, but also
some other states are able to gointo and enjoy the benefits of
(20:09):
perhaps greater cooperation withChina and Russia and the oil
producers, for example.
So I think that's somethingthat's an overarching factor the
growth of BRICS that's going toinfluence this region, the
growth of BRICS that's going toinfluence this region.
But Iran's going to remaincentral to this region in terms
of being the single largestindependent state with great
(20:31):
capacity, with very strongpolitical will, quite a stable
government, despite what some ofthe US media says.
Quite stable, with a very highlevel of public trust in the
government.
It's shown by independent pollsthat the numbers that trust the
government are quite high.
Trust that strategically.
I mean in terms of what they'redoing for domestically.
(20:53):
They've made great advances ineducation and health, in human
development generally, andthat's flowed through into a
level of industrialisation,which means that Iran is one of
those states that began asdependent on oil exports and now
is relatively diversified interms of industrialization.
Basically, so it isn't in thetrap that some of those oil
(21:14):
economies are the fact that theydon't have any agriculture,
they don't have any industry.
Really they rely on the rentsfrom fossil fuels.
Iran still is important.
It's energy exports, butnevertheless it's developing
other sectors quite rapidly.
But in relation to sponsoringthe Palestinian resistance and
the resistance in Lebanon,supporting the Syrian state,
(21:36):
supporting the fledgling Iraqistate, which is still going
through a hold of growing pains,and supporting the Yemenis,
that role of Iran is what makesthe US and the Israelis most
angry at Iran, why they keeptargeting them and using simply
the name of Iran as a pretextfor attacking and assassinating
people in Iran and in the region.
Alan Macleod (21:58):
Well, yeah, the title of your book is West Asia
After Washington Dismantling theColonized Middle East, and what
you've been saying for the pastfew minutes makes it sound like
you are starting to think thatthe US is something of a spent
force in the region.
Is this really the case?
To what extent is the UnitedStates running out of steam
(22:18):
there?
And, on top of that, what doyou think our future West Asia
could look like?
Tim Anderson (22:24):
Yes, well, I mean, in many parts of the world
there's talk about the worldmoving from a unipolar state to
a multipolar state, and I thinkthat's what's happening.
But of course, if you talk tosome of the frontline army
people, they will say look,we're still in a unipolar world
in terms of what they'reconfronting.
In many respects, for example,the US is clearly in command of
(22:45):
most of the what do you callthem?
The armed groups, the terroristgroups, basically, and the
Israelis too basically.
For example, the satelliteintelligence, the coordination
between the US and those armedgroups in the Syrian desert, for
(23:06):
example, and the Israelis is asimilar type of thing.
And we saw it before with thewar between Iraq and Iran, that
the US was giving satelliteintelligence and chemical
weapons to Saddam to use againstthe Iranians, for example, and
against his internal dissidents,basically.
So the same sort of thing hasbeen going on in Syria, with the
aim of dividing and weakening.
I think it's quite obvious thatthe influence of the US in this
(23:30):
region is in decline.
You can see that the retreatfrom Afghanistan was one element
of that, the fact that theIraqis are now universally or
unanimously demanding that theUS leave, and it's just the
terms of the departure.
That's important at the moment.
The fact that Russia and Chinaare playing the role of a big
(23:53):
power in the region, whichotherwise you would expect a
dominant hegemon to do.
For example, it was not anaccident.
The Chinese reconciled theIranians and the Saudis to a
degree, and the Saudis had beena tool of the US in the region
for a long time, particularly interms of divide and rule and
sponsoring some of thoseextremist Takfiri terrorist
groups.
The fact that BRICS is noweffectively created, some sort
(24:21):
of new relations between Iranand Egypt, for example.
So there are the fact thatRussia has played an active role
for the last what nine years inSyria in trying to help
stabilise Syria.
The fact that the Israelis arebeing more alienated from Russia
.
There was good relationship adecade ago, but that's been
(24:42):
degraded, partly because of thewar in Ukraine, but also partly
because perhaps the influence ofthe Zionists in the oligarchy
in China has been declining.
So I think it's certainly thecase.
Then you see Yemen.
The war on Yemen, which wassupposedly led by the Saudis but
really orchestrated byWashington.
Washington's now giving thegreen light to the Saudis to go
(25:04):
ahead and resume peacenegotiations with what they call
the Houthi rebels, which hasreally been de facto government
of Yemen for the last nine years.
Basically because the US andits allies were not able to
defeat the Yemenis in theiroperation in the Red Sea trying
to isolate their shipping fromthe Israelis, for example and
(25:27):
they failed in their objectivesin Syria, while they're still
occupying part of it and tryingto destabilise and weaken Syria
and keep them divided from Iraqand Iran.
So the influence in allrespects, and now, of course,
let's not forget Gaza andPalestine.
Really, the prestige of theIsraelis has taken a massive
(25:47):
nosedive with this heavilypublicised genocide going on in
Gaza.
Basically, it's discredited theIsraelis like nothing before.
The Israeli military has beensmashed effectively and is
highly dependent oninternational support.
It's really living oninternational support now, and
things have changed in the worldin relation to Palestine too,
(26:08):
so things cannot go back to theway that they were so clearly,
the region is in flux and theinfluence of the US is in
decline.
The influence of Russia andBRICS is gradually on the rise
here.
I don't want to overstate thatat the moment because, as I say,
the regional organizations hereare not very strong, but
nevertheless, iran has beentaken to heart in terms of the
(26:32):
relationships with Russia andChina and to some extent with
Latin America too.
Iran has now strategicrelationships with Venezuela,
cuba and also little Nicaragua.
What's in that?
Partly because they're allunder unilateral sanctions by
the US.
But more than that, the reasonthat they're under unilateral
sanctions is because they're allunder unilateral sanctions by
the US.
But more than that, the reasonthat they're under unilateral
sanctions is because theyactually have a political will
(26:53):
to act independently, and that'swhat the US doesn't seem to
tolerate at this time in history.
You know this book by Brzezinski, for example, the Grand
Chessboard.
The idea was to destroy any newand emerging poles of power to
maintain the US dominance in theworld, and they're particularly
obsessed with the relationshipsbetween Asia and Europe, and
(27:14):
hence, you know, the obsessionin West Asia is also to try and
avoid the fact that China's Beltand Road and the relationships
crossing Asia and Europe.
So I think the region'schanging.
It's not really, we're not in amultipolar world yet, but we're
heading in that direction, andone of the key elements of that,
of course, is the role of thedollar, or the dictatorship of
(27:35):
the dollar really, which is nowdeeply resented by many, many
countries, particularly in theglobal south and there is a type
of a revolt going on againstthat, although the mechanisms
are still in process.
I mean, up until now it's beenmainly bilateral swaps we're
talking about, but if there werea BRICS currency, I think many,
many countries would try toseek refuge in that, because the
(27:56):
dictatorship of the dollar isnot just affecting those
countries who are under siegeeffectively.
It's also developmentally badfor many, many countries and
their international relations.
Alan Macleod (28:08):
Yeah, I mean to go back to Zbigniew Brzezinski's
book the Grand Chessboard, Ithink he said in that book,
which was written in the 1990s,I believe he said the worst of
all possible outcomes for the USwould be some sort of marriage
of convenience between Russia,China and Iran.
And unfortunately, US policyover the past decade or so
(28:29):
whether it's the Democratslaser-like focus on Vladimir
Putin and Russia, or moreRepublican-led attack on Beijing
and China and bipartisansupport for regime change in
Iran has let these threecountries come together in what
amounts to an alliance around,as we've been talking about, has
(28:54):
joined the BRICS alliance, andthe United States has been
really overusing their sanctionsto the point where they've just
done it far too many times, tothe point where even countries
that might be consideredrelatively close allies of the
United States are starting toget very worried about the sort
of foreign reserves they have inNew York or wherever that might
get confiscated for any reasonwhatsoever, after we've seen the
United States confiscategigantic amounts of money or
(29:18):
gold from Venezuela or Russia orwherever.
So, yeah, I mean China risingrapidly as the dominant
industrial center of the world.
I think that's pretty muchclear that that's going on.
But, yeah, what does that meanfor this region in West Asia?
They've made certain diplomaticefforts in the past, I mean you
(29:41):
mentioned earlier.
I'm thinking especially of theChinese brokered detente between
Iran and Saudi Arabia,something that the United States
seemed to be strongly opposingat the time.
In fact, one thing that a lotof people don't know is Qasem
Soleimani, the Iranian generaland statesman, was actually in
Iraq at the time of hisassassination and he was there
to meet Saudi officials andother officials to talk about
(30:06):
moving towards a detente, andthat's precisely when the United
States targeted him.
So I guess this rambling leadsme to the point of what do you
make of the Chinese role in thisregion?
I presume you think it's goingto increase in the coming years,
and what will that mean?
Tim Anderson (30:24):
I think it is increasing.
And I think you're right toothat it's the actions of the US
itself which have contributed tocreating its own nightmare in
terms of losing its dominance inthis region.
Of course it's nothing to dowith the security of the US
itself, but it's to do with theongoing hegemony of the US, its
idea of keeping a foothold inEurope, a foothold in Asia and
(30:45):
dominating things in between.
Basically, a foothold in Europe, a foothold in Asia and
dominating things in between,basically.
But you're right aboutSoleimani, that the Iranians
really had delegated to Iraqbecause they had good
relationship with Iraq, then,after all, their neighbours the
role of trying to have some sortof reconciliation with the
Saudis.
But in the end, of course, theTrump administration murdered
(31:05):
Soleimani and Mohandas you knowthe two national heroes of those
two countries of Iraq and Iran,and of course you know that
gained them no friends in theregion, basically.
But because Soleimani hadplayed an incredible role across
the Levant, you know, inLebanon, in Palestine, in Syria,
in Iraq.
But yeah, when the Iraqiscouldn't do it effectively, the
(31:33):
weight of the Chinese, the rolewas passed to them effectively
and they were able to carry outthat type of reconciliation.
Of course the Chinese are bigenergy consumers, so they had an
interest in both the Saudis andIran.
Basically, the US has got awaywith these very ugly sanctions,
really called genocidal in manycases.
Look at the 62 years of ablockade on Cuba, for example.
They got away with that in away even though the whole world
(31:54):
was effectively against them atthe United Nations, but they
just ignored that.
But when they've begun tosanction these larger countries
it's really backfired on thempretty seriously.
They clearly haven't crippledthe Russian economy in the way
that they hope they might.
Russia in many respects I thinkmany, even US military people
are admitting this.
Now Russia has consolidated itsposition quite strongly.
(32:17):
But the role of China isinteresting, Of course.
It's the biggest investor inmany countries on Earth now, as
you say, it dominates manysectors of industry and its
technology is really seriouslycompeting with Western
technology in many areas now.
So clearly it's alreadystarting to play a more
important role.
The Chinese came out at the UNand effectively defended the
(32:41):
role of the Palestinianresistance in mounting attacks
on the Israelis, which is asignificant change in their
position.
You know they've always beenvery cautious and of course they
were particularly cautious inrelation to the US because there
was a type of codependence formany years until Trump perhaps
where China was making a lot ofmoney out of the US.
They didn't want to upset thatrelationship.
(33:02):
Basically, even if the US sawthem as rivals, nevertheless
they were also using China forproduction in many respects, you
know, with globalisedproduction chains and so on.
So the Chinese were reluctantto upset that relationship.
But really the US has started todo that, created the
aggravation Now, the aggravationwith Taiwan, of course, and
(33:26):
unfortunately my own country,australia, has been drawn into
that.
Now there's these provocationsthat Australia, with the US, is
making in the South China Sea,for example, and they'd love to
have a Ukraine-like war there, Isuppose, if they could get
someone else to fight it.
In many respects, this sort ofantithesis to what the US is
(33:46):
trying to do.
They wanted to divide theMiddle East or West Asia so that
the other big powers wouldn'tcome in Russia and China but
what they've done is they'vecreated the reaction and Russia
and China have come in Now inrelation to Ukraine.
Of course, they've made a lotof money out of the Ukraine war.
It seemed ideal to many USpoliticians because someone else
(34:08):
was fighting and dying in thewar and to some extent others
were paying for it too.
But of course that's blowing upin their face now too, because
if they lose, their prestige inthe world and their role in
Europe will be in question.
So in that context, china hasbeen quietly developing, quietly
advancing.
It's notorious now that Chinesedomestic infrastructure even is
(34:28):
moving ahead.
They're the greatest providersof fast rail train in the world.
There are many exemplaryreasons to why other people are
looking for China now and Ithink that's why even the allies
of the US are viewing withinterest the fact that BRICS
exists and there is analternative way for them to
(34:48):
develop and look for lesscoercive cooperation in the
world.
So of course, china is the bigeconomic power in BRICS.
Perhaps Russia has greatpolitical will and strategic
importance and militaryimportance really, but those
countries like Egypt and theEmirates and the Saudis are very
keen to have a decent,untrammeled relationship with
(35:10):
the Chinese juggernaut.
Basically, and so effectively,that's undermining the US global
dominance.
And in this region I think thetransmission is going to be
largely through Iran, becauseIran already has very important
strategic relations with bothRussia and China and in many
respects that's going to mean ifwe want to simplify that down a
little bit that China's Beltand Road initiative, you know,
(35:34):
making use of infrastructure issomething that's going to come
in the first instance to Iranand pass on to the rest of the
region.
In Russia terms, the Russianbanks already have very close
relations with the Iranian banks.
All of them and this is thefirst step towards bypassing the
SWIFT system, which is, ofcourse, based in Europe but
which the US has dominated for anumber of years, and the SWIFT
(36:09):
system and the dollar combinedis really how the US manages to
coerce so many countries,including the Europeans, for
example, and try and preventthem from doing business.
Now that influence is startingto weaken.
You may have seen recently thatthe Indians have now got a
contract, a 10-year contract tocontrol an important Iranian
port, and Washington hasthreatened India now with
sanctions.
So if they threaten India withsanctions they already
threatened South Africa withsanctions how many other large
independent countries are theygoing to threaten with sanctions
?
It's really like theircountries are they going to
threaten with sanctions?
It's really like you know.
(36:30):
Their power is going todiminish the more that they
impose, as particularly on largecountries.
Alan Macleod (36:36):
Yeah, the US doesn't just use its military to
dominate the region and theworld, but also its economic
power.
I mean, when we talk about thesort of level that sanctions
could impose on certaincountries, like if we think
about Iraq in the 1990s, anestimated one million people
died of the sanctions there.
(36:56):
They were officially UnitedNations backed, but it was the
United States that was in charge.
In fact, united Nationsofficials who were in charge of
imposing these sanctions, oneafter another, resigned their
names Dennis Halliday, hans vonSkånek.
These people resigned sayingthat this was a genocide that
was going on, and out of thisone million figure, apparently
(37:19):
half a million of them werechildren under five.
The sort of devastation it wasable to wreak on Venezuela,
where the economy contracted bysomething like 99%.
They've also employed themeffectively against Syria and
Iran, but, as you said, in anincreasingly multipolar world,
these sanctions are just nothaving the same effect as they
did, and it's really interestingto see countries like Saudi
(37:42):
Arabia and the UAE and, as yousaid, even India, start to
ignore the United States to thepoint where it seems absolutely
clear that in just a few years,the United States has gone from
being the unquestioned top dogto just one of the major players
in the world.
Tim Anderson (38:01):
It's really extraordinary, and let's not
forget Yemen too.
Unlike the unilateral sanctionsagainst Syria and Iran, the
sanctions on Yemen, or what theycall the Houthi rebels, which
is really a coalition governmentled by Ansarullah called the
National Salvation Government,they are UN Security Council
(38:24):
sanctions because, based on thefalse information that
Ansarullah, or what they callthe Houthi rebels, were somehow
in alliance with al-Qaeda.
But you find, most serious UScommentators will admit that
they've been fighting al-Qaedaand the Muslim Brotherhood in
Yemen for many years and now, ofcourse, they, despite those.
(38:44):
You know it was called theworst humanitarian crisis on
earth not so long ago and yetunder those conditions they were
able to defy effectively theAnglo-American naval coalition
in the Red Sea and maintain,despite many things, that they
were offered many bribeseffectively to maintain that
blockade of the Israeli shippingor shipping going to Israel.
(39:06):
So the role of Yemen shouldn'tbe underestimated here.
But they've done it underterrible circumstances and
they're still suffering seriousmalnutrition and, of course,
because militarily theyeffectively defeated the Saudis
and the Emiratis, those two arenow vying for peace, some sort
of connection, and the US hasbeen forced to accept that sort
(39:28):
of reality, Not that they wantedit, they didn't want an
independent state precisely forthis region.
That independent state at thehead of the Red Sea and the Suez
Canal could do precisely whatit's doing now in relation to
the Israelis.
So Yemen's an importantemerging force in this region
too.
Alan Macleod (39:45):
It has been extraordinary watching the
poorest country in the regionactually spearhead effective
resistance against the Israeliattack on Gaza.
I mean, for more than a decade,as you were mentioning, yemen
has been under brutal, brutalbombardment by a Saudi-led
coalition which has been back tothe hilt by the US.
The US is selling Saudi Arabiathe weapons, it's providing
(40:09):
diplomatic cover for theSaudi-led onslaught in
international bodies like theUnited Nations, it's training
Saudi pilots, it's even helpingwith the targeting, it's doing
absolutely everything exceptpulling the trigger itself and,
as an extent, yemen turned intothe world's worst humanitarian
crisis in the eyes of the unitednations, where perhaps 400 000
(40:31):
or more yemenis were killed,most of them not in fighting but
because of, uh, the terriblehumanitarian conditions which uh
, which flared up because theSaudi coalition was deliberately
attacking things like hospitalsand sewage works and water
pipes and farms and things inorder to starve out the
population.
(40:51):
And yet Ansar Allah has takenthis position that they are
effectively carrying ahumanitarian blockade of the Red
Sea, and the United States andthe West hasn't actually been
able to stop that.
But this is, in my opinion,kind of direct contrast to a lot
of other Arab states in theregion which have quietly or
(41:12):
tacitly accepted or even in someways kind of supported the
Israeli efforts in Lebanon,syria and Gaza.
What have you made of thereactions and the responses of
other Arab states to Israel'sattack on Gaza since October 7th
?
Tim Anderson (41:29):
Well, of course it's been a huge disappointment
to the Palestinian people andmany of the independent Arab
peoples and Arab states herethat the very wealthy Arab
states in the Persian Gulf havereally never done very much.
They've thrown a bit of moneybut they've really done very
little to help the Palestinianpeople.
It's been the Persians, theIranians that have been helping
(41:50):
the Palestinian people and thennow, more recently, as you say,
the Yemenis.
Also, of course, hezbollah, theresistance group in South
Lebanon, which has drawn awayvery large parts of the Israeli
military from Gaza throughoutthe last eight months.
Basically, there's been a bitof a change in relation to the
(42:11):
Saudis and the Emiratis.
The Saudis, for example, are nolonger funding any of those
armed groups in Syria, but Qataris.
Qatar is still funding theNusra HTS group in Italy.
Basically the Emiratis.
But when it came to the Iranianretaliation, for example for the
attack on its embassy inDamascus, which was a big
(42:32):
fireworks display over Damascustoo, when it happened, the
Iranians warned the Persian GulfArab monarchies, basically
Petro monarchies, that if theygot involved they'd be targets
too, and most of them pulled out.
It was only Jordan that came into assist, largely because the
US military is based there toassist with the anti-air
(42:58):
bringing down the drones and thecruise missiles and so on.
And more recently, the Emiratishave asked that the US move
their fighter planes from AbuDhabi out of the Emirates
because they didn't want to be atarget for Iranian attack there
, basically.
So the US moved them to Qatar,which is the biggest air base
they have in this region, andQatar's played this strange sort
(43:20):
of hybrid role, because theyhave also at different times
sponsored Hamas, because throughthe Muslim Brotherhood links
basically.
But now they're closer toTurkey and they're still helping
with the armed groups in northof Syria.
But nevertheless, even theEmiratis, who were pressured by
Trump to do this normalisationwith Israelis, got the US to
move their warplanes out becausethey didn't want to be the meat
(43:42):
and the sandwich, so to speak,because the Iranians had said
any of you you know Gulfmonarchies, persian Gulf
monarchies that assist in withthe Israelis or the US, you'll
become targets too.
And the Iranians have got theireyes on US bases in the Gulf
and also on oil infrastructurein the Gulf, so they're taking
(44:02):
that seriously too.
And so all of those Arab stateswhich have been very weak in
terms of doing anything for thePalestinians.
Rather, many of them havecollaborated directly with the
Israelis the Emirates, saudi andJordan all of those, and, to a
lesser extent, bahrain, some ofthe others.
They are taking seriously thisstrategic change.
(44:27):
You know that there is a newforce in the region, that Iran
has the capacity to defenditself and to hit back if it's
attacked, and that, basically,by housing US military, they may
make themselves targets ifthere's an escalation of things
here.
Alan Macleod (44:46):
All right, we're running out of time soon, but I
did want to ask you anotherquestion that I found very
interesting from your book.
It's not something that'sreally talked about very much.
Could you tell us a bit aboutthe purge of Christians from
West Asia and Washington's rolein it?
We often think about the regionas being dominated by Islam or
Judaism, but we don't reallytalk about the Christian
(45:08):
minorities that have been therefor 2,000 years.
Yeah, can you fill us in onthat?
Tim Anderson (45:13):
Yeah, well, of course they are the oldest
Christian communities in theworld, in this region, in the
Levant in particular, inPalestine, in Syria, for example
, in Lebanon to an extent too,and used to be in Iraq.
You know the Assyrians but ifyou go through, I guess my
attention was first drawn to itby looking at northeast Syria
(45:34):
and what had gone on there, withlargely the Assyrian Christians
in the northeast of Syria,where there's a crossover with
Iraq and Syria in this respect.
But in fact there had beeneffectively a type of ethnic
cleansing by the Kurdish group,by SDF there, because they're
(45:57):
trying to expand their presencein that region to justify the
fact that they're trying todominate the region.
But they've never really been amajority, as I said, in any of
the cities and only some of thesmaller towns.
So some of the people inComishley were telling me, the
former council of Comishley weretelling me that there was this
mission that the Israelis wereon, based in Erbil, because they
(46:17):
have an alliance effectivelywith the northern kurdistan
region in iraq and they weretraining the sdf and they had a
particular mission to try andthey got some strategic
alliances with with some of thekurdish groups there.
Let's say, basically now iniraq, it was somewhat different
because it was isis that wasdriving the christians out of
(46:40):
many of the cities there.
But of course, isis, properlyunderstood, was created by the
US through the Saudis there,precisely to weaken Iraq and
prevent an alliance between Iraqand Iran.
Then it passed across to Syriabecause about 10,000 Christians
were driven out of CommissionCity and many of them ended up
(47:01):
in my city, in Sydney, australia, because there was a process of
selective immigration favouringmainly Christians in recent
years, back in 2018 or so.
This was revealed inconversations between former
Prime Minister of Australia,malcolm Turnbull, and Trump back
at that time.
If we look at Palestine, ofcourse there are no Israeli
(47:24):
Christians in Palestine.
They're all Palestinian ArabChristians basically, and many
of the towns and cities inPalestine, like Bethlehem for
example, have been seriouslydepleted.
Now I met an old Syrian priestin Damascus here and he's in his
(47:44):
90s now, but he's been writingsuccessive letters to the popes,
or successive popes, saying youtalk about the Christians being
driven out of this region, butyou won't point a finger at
anyone.
You leave it open to theWestern myth that it's something
to do with Muslims in thisregion, but really Muslims and
Jews and Christians have livedhere for many, many centuries
(48:05):
together.
It was only in recent yearsthat there's been this purge of
Christians, and so he wascriticising the successive popes
for not pointing the finger atthe Israelis or the US,
basically, but that's reallywhat's behind it.
The US has been behind, despiteits claims to be a christian
state.
In many respects it's reallybeen the force behind the, the
purging of christians from iraqand syria and palestine, and
(48:28):
there's been a seriousdiminution of the christian
communities.
They still exist.
There are still very ancientchurches in here, in malula, for
example, where they still speaka language very close to
Aramaic.
There's an old chapel, hanania,in Damascus, where St Paul was
baptised.
You know, there's some veryancient churches in Syria and to
(48:49):
some extent, in Iraq and inPalestine too, but really it's
been the big push for the US tocreate this new Middle East, the
idea of having a new MiddleEast that Condoleezza Rice
announced in Palestine back in2006,.
That's been the force behindChristians being driven out of
this region.
They're still here, of course.
There's still many of them here, but the numbers are seriously
(49:10):
depleted.
Alan Macleod (49:12):
Yeah, and of course, a lot of the most
storied and oldest churches inGaza have been destroyed during
the Israeli attack as well, sothat's certainly not helping.
I'm thinking specifically aboutthe St Porphyrius airstrike
which destroyed that classicGreek Orthodox church, which
(49:32):
there's been a church on thatsite for well over a thousand
years getting on for 2000 there,over a thousand years, getting
on for 2000 there.
So, yeah, a lot of people don'trealize that the Christian
minority is actually persecutedin Western Asia to such an
extent.
Yeah, that's true.
Okay, very last question, then,just something that I was
(49:52):
wondering about.
I saw you describe yourself asa humanist in one of your
interviews or lectures, so Iwanted to know how does an
Australian humanist come to seesuch a religiously conservative
state as Iran as a vital bulwarkagainst imperialism, and one
worthy of support?
Is that a contradiction, ordoes it flow so easily?
Tim Anderson (50:17):
No, to me it's not a contradiction.
Of course, I myself I don'tsupport the idea of religious
states or any state based onreligion, and in fact, many
Syrians agree with me in thatrespect.
But, as I said, it hasn'taffected the relations between
Iran and Syria.
I see religion really assomething, or spiritual views,
as something that inspirespeople to create certain values,
certain social values.
(50:37):
You can see the Iranians nowhaving very productive
relationships with Venezuela,with Russia, with China, which
have very different culturaltraditions.
So, as I said, the Iranians, inmy view, while they have a very
strong idea of Islamic ideologyand Islamic civilization, they
haven't been exporting that.
They've been finding theseother states, other peoples that
(51:00):
share their values, expressedvalues and maybe inspired
through other religions, throughother cultures.
But nevertheless, what'simportant about Iran is that
they are a very capable state,capable, stable state.
They're committed to principleswhich are, by and large, decent
principles.
They're able to have theseproductive relationships with
(51:20):
other states and other bigpowers and they've also invested
in their people.
So, really, they've made sometremendous advances, as I said,
in terms of human development.
So, in terms of the values theyshare with the Russians, with
the Venezuelans, I think we haveto look for some values that
are created, and it'sinteresting to me actually to
see that values can crosscultures and be shared across
(51:42):
cultures despite the differentsources of inspiration.
Alan Macleod (51:46):
Absolutely, tim Anderson.
Thank you very much for yourtime.
My final question is where canpeople follow you and read more
of your stuff?
Tim Anderson (51:54):
Well, I do have a Twitter account and some other
accounts.
Meta has largely banned me, butof course there's my books, the
West Asia after Washington, andthere's also a website that I
run with some others calledCenter for Counterhegemonic
Studies.
Alan Macleod (52:10):
Thank you very much, tim Anderson, for being on
the show today.
All right, if you've made itthis far, let me just give you a
quick pitch for our Patreon.
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(52:51):
Until next time, I'm AlanMcLeod, signing off for the
Midcast.
See you later.
Welcome back to another edition of the Mintcast,
the podcast from Mint PressNews.
I'm your host today, alanMcLeod.
Now the Middle East, or whatshould more properly be called
West Asia, because it's only theMiddle East to Western Europe,
is a pivotal region in the globe.
It's the main source of theplanet's most crucial commodity,
oil, and it's also the centreof global conflicts right now.
(00:30):
Since 9-11, the United Stateshas launched a wave of attacks
on sovereign nations, from Iraqto Afghanistan to Syria and
beyond, all of which have leftthe region battered and broken.
But recently, as US power wanes, a new set of forces has been
emerging.
A new axis led by Iran, syriaand Yemen has emerged to counter
(00:52):
the US-Israeli dominance in theregion, and global giants such
as Russia and China areincreasingly being drawn in as
well.
Could this lead to a new,perhaps even brighter future for
West Asia?
Here to talk about that today,and all things about the region,
is Tim Anderson.
Tim is a writer and academic andthe director of the Center for
(01:14):
Counterhegemonic Studies.
His latest book is called WestAsia After Washington
Dismantling the Colonized MiddleEast.
Welcome to the show, tim.
Thanks, alan, nice to see you.
It's good to have you onfinally.
So, yeah, I understand thatyou're currently in Syria right
(01:35):
now.
In the news reports we see weoften hear about the scale of
the damage and the destruction.
Could I first get you todiscuss that particular country?
Could you assess how Syria isfunctioning right now, what
pressures it's and how safe itis there?
Tim Anderson (01:48):
Well, syria is functioning.
It has a functioning state withnormal sort of services, which
is not the norm in this regionby any means necessarily.
But there has been tremendousdestruction from the war.
There are still pockets ofterrorist groups which find safe
(02:12):
haven in the occupied parts ofSyria, where the government of
Turkey has occupied parts ofnorthwest Syria and the US has
occupied parts of the northeastand the east, and the Israelis
occupy part of the south thatthey've occupied for quite some
time.
So in those areas they providesafe haven for armed groups
which go out and and continue todo destabilization.
(02:33):
But life in the major cities isby and large fairly secure,
even though there are israeliattacks regularly.
You will have seen the attack onthe um, the iranian embassy,
recently, which is just down theroad from where I am now.
It's a very central part ofDamascus.
One of my friends had her legshattered by that.
She was walking by it, just bybad luck at the time.
(02:54):
So there are these occasionalattacks on the shrines, on the
Shia shrines too, for example.
The Israelis have reallynormalized this, but in a sense
it's become part of normal lifein a way.
But most of the areas have beenliberated from those armed
groups over the years, with theexception of those areas that
are now directly occupied bythree big powers, or these days,
(03:15):
more properly called unilateralcoercive measures by the US and
, to some extent, the Europeans,which make it extremely
difficult for even third partiesto do business or trade with
Syria.
It's a type of siege that the UShas imposed on Cuba, venezuela,
(03:37):
a number on Iraq, on Lebanon,on Iran.
About 20-something countriesare under these types of
unilateral coercive measures now, and they're almost all from
the US and the Europeans, sothat economic pressure is very
serious.
It means that there are greatpressures on any outside party
that wants to do business withthe countries that are under US
(03:58):
unilateral sanctions, and thatall means that the Syrian
currency is very what do you say?
There's a type ofhyperinflation of the currency.
Its value has gone downsignificantly during the crisis,
but nevertheless Syria is oneof those countries that actually
produces its food, its clothes,a lot of its basic things.
So somehow or other, eventhough salaries are very low,
(04:19):
life goes on and people survivein some way.
There has been tremendousemigration from the country.
A lot of professionals haveleft, but nevertheless, in a
sense, there's a sort of air ofnormality, in a way relative
calm.
Alan Macleod (04:32):
Well, let's talk about the US, then.
It currently occupies largeswaths of Syria, particularly in
the northeast, if I'm notmistaken, but it's been unable
to launch the Assad governmentfrom power.
To what extent has Washington'sambitions been thwarted, then?
Tim Anderson (04:54):
And is Syria finding new partners in Russia,
china and Iran?
That's helping them out there.
Yes, as you say, the plan totopple the government in
Damascus failed largely becausethe army held together.
Syria has a national army whichis comprised of all the
different communities, all thedifferent sects and religions.
It's committed to pluralism andthat's very popular
constitutionally in terms of thearmy.
(05:16):
It's very popular the idea ofpluralism and anti-sectarianism
in Syria.
It's really a haven forminorities in many ways and that
the US tried to use thatagainst Syria, but it didn't
really work.
So the government remainedintact, more or less.
The proxy militia, basically,which were al-Qaeda affiliated
(05:37):
for the most part, were defeatedwhere they stood alone.
But now, as I said earlier,there is a foreign occupation.
Two of the biggest NATO armies,turkey and the US and the
Israelis in the south, areoccupying.
Three powers are occupying thecountry and that, as I said,
provides a safe haven for thesemilitia, which have always been
proxies for those powers to comein and make occasional attacks
(06:00):
and destabilise and try anddivide the country.
And in the case of the USoccupation, it's mainly focused
on the Syrian-Iraqi border inthe north-east and in the south,
and there's one border crossingwhich is controlled by the
Syrians and the Iraqis and theIranians and that's constantly
bombed.
Because, in my opinion, the mainobjective of the US occupation
here, which is relatively thin,but they make use of their proxy
(06:23):
it's called Qasad here or theSyrian Democratic Forces.
It's a Kurdish-led group.
They want to divide Syria fromthe other countries.
Basically, I had the chance tovisit the northeast a couple of
years ago and it's veryinteresting because it's a
different type of occupation tothe one in the northwest with
(06:44):
the former Jabhat al-Nusra andthe one in the south which the
Israelis occupy now.
It's a different sort ofoccupation.
It's quite fragile, if you askme, the Syrian state exists,
although you see these maps withyellow areas, because it's
supposedly controlled by theKurdish groups.
In reality, none of the citiesand very few of the major towns
are majority Kurdish or held bythe Kurds.
(07:07):
But that group has some weightthere because the US military
backs it up.
But the US military is mainlyconcerned about trying to divide
the Syrians from the Iraqis andthe Iranians and trying to
disrupt the connections betweenthem.
You know there's this phobiathat you read about in US
intelligence and Israelintelligence magazines.
They call an Iranian landbridge, which is the idea that
(07:28):
Tehran would have access throughIraq, through Syria, to the
Mediterranean, and the greatfear of the Israelis is that
would present a united, as theycall, access of resistance here
and a threat to the occupationof Palestine.
But it's also incounter-hegemonic terms.
It's something that would be agreat benefit to the region
because really the integrationin terms of transport, commerce
(07:50):
and communications and so onwould be a great boon to the
region.
It's what's being held backbecause of this policy of divide
and rule.
Alan Macleod (07:56):
Basically, Well, you've brought up so many things
that I want to touch on there.
I guess the first one would bewe used to hear a lot about
Kurdish forces in Western press,even in the Western left,
specifically specificallythinking about Rojava.
That was really held up assomething of a model to follow,
but I feel like there's notreally as much talk about that
(08:20):
anymore in the West.
Could you fill us in on what'sgoing on there?
Tim Anderson (08:31):
yes, um, the what's called the syrian
democratic forces in english andin kassad in arabic.
Here is a proxy that the us setup and they tried to pretend it
was wider than the, the kurdishseparatist.
Really, the main force they'vehad to work with locally is
indeed a kurdish separatist onewhich is a branch of the of the
turkish Kurdish separatist one,which is a branch of the Turkish
Kurdish separatist group.
Effectively, they're a branch,and the largest Kurdish group
and the largest Kurdishseparatist movement is in Turkey
(08:53):
, because of what happened sincethe Ottoman Empire and with the
rise of Turkish nationalism andso on.
So the idea of a Rojava or aseparatist Turkish statelet in
Syria is something of aspringboard for the Turkish and
the Turkish leadership.
Kurdish leadership iseffectively the leadership of
the SDF or Qasad in Syria.
(09:14):
There are some links withnorthern Iraq too, where there
is, as a result of the federalsystem created under the US
occupation, there is a trainingby Mossad and by the US and by
the Kurdish base there, in Erbil, for example, of the
separatists in Syria.
But they don't have a popularbase here, not even amongst the
Kurdish population, whichhistorically was not separatist.
(09:37):
Basically.
There are many Syrian leaderswho have been Kurds.
There is a stream of Syriancommunists who were Kurdish.
There is a stream of Syriancommunists who were Kurdish.
The great Caliph Saladinhimself was a Kurd, but he
wasn't a Kurdish separatist.
He was trying to create agreater community in his time.
So it's really driven byTurkish politics in many
(10:03):
respects, or Turkish Kurdishpolitics.
It's not very powerful, as Isaid, in the northeast if you
travel through there and youneed permission to go there from
the Syrian army.
But the Syrian army is there.
It's along the border.
There's, quite deliberately, noclashes between the US and its
proxy and the Syrian army, butthey are there.
They control the main nationalhospital in in Comishley and the
airport and much of thenorthern border, for example.
(10:27):
Of course, as you know, thatproxy that the US set up has
attracted the ire of Erdogan'sTurkey, and so there are attacks
from the Turkish side becausein this case, the two NATO
allies are running somewhatdifferent agendas there in terms
of, but they're both trying todivide and weaken Syria.
So that group I mean.
(10:51):
I travelled through Hasakahprovince and there are SDF
checkpoints there, but I wasnever stopped or even asked for
my ID travelling through there.
On the other hand, the Syriancheckpoints were more serious
basically.
So it's a funny sort ofoccupation In my mind.
It's very fragile and, ofcourse, when the US withdrew
from Afghanistan, there was ahuge wave of nervousness amongst
(11:11):
those groups because they knowthat really, once the US leaves,
there's no future for them here.
Basically, the Syrian army, theSyrian government, is tolerating
them for the time being becausethey don't want to have a fight
with them necessarily, andindeed the Syrian government
armed them when there was, whenthere was some confrontation
between ISIS terrorists and andthe SDF back in some years ago.
(11:33):
So there's no directconfrontation going on between
the SDF and the Syriangovernment, but the SDF knows
that their days are numberedreally when the US pulls out.
And the US have even tried toscare some of the Russians, for
example, by saying you knowwho's going to fill this vacuum
when we fall out, and raisingthe bogeyman of Iran, because of
course Iran is the mostimportant ally of Syria in this
(11:56):
region and the most importantindependent state that's really
got very similar, differentideology but very similar
objectives to the Iraqis and theSyrians.
Alan Macleod (12:08):
Well, in your latest book you really center
Iran as a key piece of thechanging region of West Asia.
Iran obviously has been helpingto armed groups in Iraq, yemen
and even Hamas.
Could I get your assessment ofIran's role and particularly
what is going on in Palestineright now?
(12:28):
How does that fit into thisbroader picture that you paint?
Tim Anderson (12:31):
Yeah, iran's role is very important, and what's
not well understood in the Westis that, while Iran has this
religious ideology and theirobsession is this idea of
Islamic civilisation, they'rebuilding their moral force with
Islamic civilisation thatdoesn't transmit to its
alliances in the region, forexample in Palestine, and Iran
(12:52):
is the major sponsor of thePalestinian resistance all of
the factions, not just Hamas,but Hamas is the leading faction
in Gaza at the moment.
They're, of course, all SunniMuslims.
In Palestine there's hardly anyShia Muslims there.
So this is something thatcrosses those sort of
stereotypes that are thrown upin the West about a Shia
crescent and the idea of Iranbeing some sort of evangelical
(13:16):
movement there.
With the relationship withSyria, it's interesting because
in Syria, religious politicalparties are banned because they
deliberately tried to suppressreligious sectarianism, and so
it's always been a matter ofculture in Syria for many
decades that it's even rude toask someone's religion, because
you're all Syrian and you allhave the same rights and you
(13:39):
belong to the same communitybasically, even though, of
course, there are differentreligious communities here.
So in that context, thealliance between Iran since the
Iranian revolution and Syria hasbeen rock solid.
There haven't been any realserious ruptures there.
And, of course, iran doessupport the Syrian state, just
as it supports the Iraqi state,which is, however, the
(14:02):
population in Iraq is majorityShia, but in Syria the
population majority Sunni Muslim.
There are many, many minoritiesin Syria.
There are a large Christianminority, for example, and the
state has really been committedto a pluralist or they call it
secular, but I call it pluralistapproach, basically, and Iran
has never interfered with thatat all.
(14:23):
I think you could say somethingsimilar even in in lebanon,
where the although uh, the uh,the party hezbollah is a shia
group and was originallycommitted to a islamic state.
They've changed all that becausethey realize that in the
context of lebanon, lebanon isis made up of many different
religious communities and theywill never have a, an islamic
state in in Lebanon.
So they now have quite strongalliances with all of the other
(14:47):
religious communities in Lebanonthere.
So Iran doesn't change that.
And, of course, now that itsalliances are growing with
Russia and China and Venezuela,then there's no real evidence
that Iran is exporting itsparticular ideology, but
nevertheless, it's the mostimportant, the largest
independent state in this region.
It's committed to allyingitself with and defending the
(15:11):
other independent states andindependent peoples and building
these international alliancestoo, without evangelising its
religious ideology.
So I think Iran is going to bethe most important state in this
region and transmitting some ofthe benefits of the new
multilateral groups like theBRICS, for example, because it
(15:33):
already has strong strategicalliances with China and Russia
and it's developing strategicalliances in Latin America too.
So it's shown a great deal offlexibility in foreign policy,
and I don't think that's oftenrecognised in Western media.
Alan Macleod (15:48):
All right, well, let's talk about Iran and
foreign policy.
Actually, even when you weretalking earlier about the US
role in Syria and Iran, it wasreally I just kept thinking back
to Venezuela, like how you weretalking about the Syrian army
was never really cracked by theUnited States.
Similarly, in Venezuela, thecountry was sanctioned.
(16:10):
They had all sorts ofterroristic attacks placed upon
them by groups affiliated to theUnited States.
Political parties weresponsored by Washington, but one
of the principal reasons whythe US wasn't able to actually
overthrow the Venezuelangovernment was because they
never managed to turn themilitary establishment.
(16:30):
They never managed to reallyget the army on board with the
US agenda.
You've been talking about howIran has been forging links with
Latin America and China andRussia and they're about to join
, or maybe already have joined,the BRICS Economic Union.
What sort of impact is thatgoing to have on the region more
generally?
Tim Anderson (16:51):
Well, I think there is.
Really there isn't a strongdevelopment of regional blocs
here, historically, unlike LatinAmerica, which has got 200
years of post-colonial history,where they've been talking about
unification and so on for many,many decades, really for two
centuries.
In that context, the regionalgroups are poorly developed.
(17:15):
There's an Arab League which isquite weak, which Iran isn't
part of.
There's a multilateral groupthe Organization of Islamic
States is it but there isn'treally a parallel in West Asia
yet for that type of cooperativeeconomic development.
But nevertheless, iran is now amember of BRICS, it's joined
(17:36):
BRICS, and its integration withRussia and China is moving very
rapidly actually.
In fact, many people argue thatsince the special military
operation in Ukraine, thatthere's a greater symmetry in
the relationship now betweenIran and Russia, for example.
But of course it's the energyindustries that have helped push
this along, basically withRussia and with China too to a
(17:59):
degree, and with Venezuela,because Iran was the one that
helped Venezuela restart itsrefineries when they were run
down a few years ago.
Basically because Iran has avery light type of crude
petroleum and Venezuela has avery heavy one, and Venezuela
wasn't independent enough a fewyears ago to restart their
refineries, so Iran helped themin that way and broke the
(18:22):
blockade that the Trumpadministration had tried to put
on Venezuela back at that time.
So of course, you've also gotthe fact that the US, just in
the last two decades, hasimposed its unilateral sanctions
on so many countries, many ofthem being big oil producers.
So they began with Iran, theymoved to Venezuela, then they
(18:44):
moved to Russia and, as a resultof that, they were really
creating an energy crisis aroundthe world.
And they went back to Venezuelajust recently to do some sort
of political deals to try andgive the US companies access to
the Orinoco Delta, which iswhere a lot of the new petroleum
discoveries are.
So the relationship betweenIran and Russia, which are both
(19:07):
big energy exporters, and alsoVenezuela to a degree and
Venezuela's in the queue to joinBRICS, but it hasn't joined yet
.
When Venezuela joins the BRICSmembers, now that the Saudis are
also in BRICS, which is anotherinteresting point BRICS will
have the majority of the energyexporters in the world.
Basically, now there's oneother effect I think it's
(19:27):
important to mention here inrelation to BRICS, and that is
that, of course, it's becomeincreasingly popular in recent
years, particularly in theglobal south, but it's also
managed to draw in some statesin this region which are really
seen more as allies or, let'ssay, dependent on the US, like
Saudi Arabia and Egypt, forexample, and the Emirates, the
(19:49):
United Arab Emirates.
So those states are now in thebricks and sending a signal to
many other global south statesthat it's not just the states
that are identified as enemiesor targets by the US, but also
some other states are able to gointo and enjoy the benefits of
(20:09):
perhaps greater cooperation withChina and Russia and the oil
producers, for example.
So I think that's somethingthat's an overarching factor the
growth of BRICS that's going toinfluence this region, the
growth of BRICS that's going toinfluence this region.
But Iran's going to remaincentral to this region in terms
of being the single largestindependent state with great
(20:31):
capacity, with very strongpolitical will, quite a stable
government, despite what some ofthe US media says.
Quite stable, with a very highlevel of public trust in the
government.
It's shown by independent pollsthat the numbers that trust the
government are quite high.
Trust that strategically.
I mean in terms of what they'redoing for domestically.
(20:53):
They've made great advances ineducation and health, in human
development generally, andthat's flowed through into a
level of industrialisation,which means that Iran is one of
those states that began asdependent on oil exports and now
is relatively diversified interms of industrialization.
Basically, so it isn't in thetrap that some of those oil
(21:14):
economies are the fact that theydon't have any agriculture,
they don't have any industry.
Really they rely on the rentsfrom fossil fuels.
Iran still is important.
It's energy exports, butnevertheless it's developing
other sectors quite rapidly.
But in relation to sponsoringthe Palestinian resistance and
the resistance in Lebanon,supporting the Syrian state,
(21:36):
supporting the fledgling Iraqistate, which is still going
through a hold of growing pains,and supporting the Yemenis,
that role of Iran is what makesthe US and the Israelis most
angry at Iran, why they keeptargeting them and using simply
the name of Iran as a pretextfor attacking and assassinating
people in Iran and in the region.
Alan Macleod (21:58):
Well, yeah, the title of your book is West Asia
After Washington Dismantling theColonized Middle East, and what
you've been saying for the pastfew minutes makes it sound like
you are starting to think thatthe US is something of a spent
force in the region.
Is this really the case?
To what extent is the UnitedStates running out of steam
(22:18):
there?
And, on top of that, what doyou think our future West Asia
could look like?
Tim Anderson (22:24):
Yes, well, I mean, in many parts of the world
there's talk about the worldmoving from a unipolar state to
a multipolar state, and I thinkthat's what's happening.
But of course, if you talk tosome of the frontline army
people, they will say look,we're still in a unipolar world
in terms of what they'reconfronting.
In many respects, for example,the US is clearly in command of
(22:45):
most of the what do you callthem?
The armed groups, the terroristgroups, basically, and the
Israelis too basically.
For example, the satelliteintelligence, the coordination
between the US and those armedgroups in the Syrian desert, for
(23:06):
example, and the Israelis is asimilar type of thing.
And we saw it before with thewar between Iraq and Iran, that
the US was giving satelliteintelligence and chemical
weapons to Saddam to use againstthe Iranians, for example, and
against his internal dissidents,basically.
So the same sort of thing hasbeen going on in Syria, with the
aim of dividing and weakening.
I think it's quite obvious thatthe influence of the US in this
(23:30):
region is in decline.
You can see that the retreatfrom Afghanistan was one element
of that, the fact that theIraqis are now universally or
unanimously demanding that theUS leave, and it's just the
terms of the departure.
That's important at the moment.
The fact that Russia and Chinaare playing the role of a big
(23:53):
power in the region, whichotherwise you would expect a
dominant hegemon to do.
For example, it was not anaccident.
The Chinese reconciled theIranians and the Saudis to a
degree, and the Saudis had beena tool of the US in the region
for a long time, particularly interms of divide and rule and
sponsoring some of thoseextremist Takfiri terrorist
groups.
The fact that BRICS is noweffectively created, some sort
(24:21):
of new relations between Iranand Egypt, for example.
So there are the fact thatRussia has played an active role
for the last what nine years inSyria in trying to help
stabilise Syria.
The fact that the Israelis arebeing more alienated from Russia
.
There was good relationship adecade ago, but that's been
(24:42):
degraded, partly because of thewar in Ukraine, but also partly
because perhaps the influence ofthe Zionists in the oligarchy
in China has been declining.
So I think it's certainly thecase.
Then you see Yemen.
The war on Yemen, which wassupposedly led by the Saudis but
really orchestrated byWashington.
Washington's now giving thegreen light to the Saudis to go
(25:04):
ahead and resume peacenegotiations with what they call
the Houthi rebels, which hasreally been de facto government
of Yemen for the last nine years.
Basically because the US andits allies were not able to
defeat the Yemenis in theiroperation in the Red Sea trying
to isolate their shipping fromthe Israelis, for example and
(25:27):
they failed in their objectivesin Syria, while they're still
occupying part of it and tryingto destabilise and weaken Syria
and keep them divided from Iraqand Iran.
So the influence in allrespects, and now, of course,
let's not forget Gaza andPalestine.
Really, the prestige of theIsraelis has taken a massive
(25:47):
nosedive with this heavilypublicised genocide going on in
Gaza.
Basically, it's discredited theIsraelis like nothing before.
The Israeli military has beensmashed effectively and is
highly dependent oninternational support.
It's really living oninternational support now, and
things have changed in the worldin relation to Palestine too,
(26:08):
so things cannot go back to theway that they were so clearly,
the region is in flux and theinfluence of the US is in
decline.
The influence of Russia andBRICS is gradually on the rise
here.
I don't want to overstate thatat the moment because, as I say,
the regional organizations hereare not very strong, but
nevertheless, iran has beentaken to heart in terms of the
(26:32):
relationships with Russia andChina and to some extent with
Latin America too.
Iran has now strategicrelationships with Venezuela,
cuba and also little Nicaragua.
What's in that?
Partly because they're allunder unilateral sanctions by
the US.
But more than that, the reasonthat they're under unilateral
sanctions is because they're allunder unilateral sanctions by
the US.
But more than that, the reasonthat they're under unilateral
sanctions is because theyactually have a political will
(26:53):
to act independently, and that'swhat the US doesn't seem to
tolerate at this time in history.
You know this book by Brzezinski, for example, the Grand
Chessboard.
The idea was to destroy any newand emerging poles of power to
maintain the US dominance in theworld, and they're particularly
obsessed with the relationshipsbetween Asia and Europe, and
(27:14):
hence, you know, the obsessionin West Asia is also to try and
avoid the fact that China's Beltand Road and the relationships
crossing Asia and Europe.
So I think the region'schanging.
It's not really, we're not in amultipolar world yet, but we're
heading in that direction, andone of the key elements of that,
of course, is the role of thedollar, or the dictatorship of
(27:35):
the dollar really, which is nowdeeply resented by many, many
countries, particularly in theglobal south and there is a type
of a revolt going on againstthat, although the mechanisms
are still in process.
I mean, up until now it's beenmainly bilateral swaps we're
talking about, but if there werea BRICS currency, I think many,
many countries would try toseek refuge in that, because the
(27:56):
dictatorship of the dollar isnot just affecting those
countries who are under siegeeffectively.
It's also developmentally badfor many, many countries and
their international relations.
Alan Macleod (28:08):
Yeah, I mean to go back to Zbigniew Brzezinski's
book the Grand Chessboard, Ithink he said in that book,
which was written in the 1990s,I believe he said the worst of
all possible outcomes for the USwould be some sort of marriage
of convenience between Russia,China and Iran.
And unfortunately, US policyover the past decade or so
(28:29):
whether it's the Democratslaser-like focus on Vladimir
Putin and Russia, or moreRepublican-led attack on Beijing
and China and bipartisansupport for regime change in
Iran has let these threecountries come together in what
amounts to an alliance around,as we've been talking about, has
(28:54):
joined the BRICS alliance, andthe United States has been
really overusing their sanctionsto the point where they've just
done it far too many times, tothe point where even countries
that might be consideredrelatively close allies of the
United States are starting toget very worried about the sort
of foreign reserves they have inNew York or wherever that might
get confiscated for any reasonwhatsoever, after we've seen the
United States confiscategigantic amounts of money or
(29:18):
gold from Venezuela or Russia orwherever.
So, yeah, I mean China risingrapidly as the dominant
industrial center of the world.
I think that's pretty muchclear that that's going on.
But, yeah, what does that meanfor this region in West Asia?
They've made certain diplomaticefforts in the past, I mean you
(29:41):
mentioned earlier.
I'm thinking especially of theChinese brokered detente between
Iran and Saudi Arabia,something that the United States
seemed to be strongly opposingat the time.
In fact, one thing that a lotof people don't know is Qasem
Soleimani, the Iranian generaland statesman, was actually in
Iraq at the time of hisassassination and he was there
to meet Saudi officials andother officials to talk about
(30:06):
moving towards a detente, andthat's precisely when the United
States targeted him.
So I guess this rambling leadsme to the point of what do you
make of the Chinese role in thisregion?
I presume you think it's goingto increase in the coming years,
and what will that mean?
Tim Anderson (30:24):
I think it is increasing.
And I think you're right toothat it's the actions of the US
itself which have contributed tocreating its own nightmare in
terms of losing its dominance inthis region.
Of course it's nothing to dowith the security of the US
itself, but it's to do with theongoing hegemony of the US, its
idea of keeping a foothold inEurope, a foothold in Asia and
(30:45):
dominating things in between.
Basically, a foothold in Europe, a foothold in Asia and
dominating things in between,basically.
But you're right aboutSoleimani, that the Iranians
really had delegated to Iraqbecause they had good
relationship with Iraq, then,after all, their neighbours the
role of trying to have some sortof reconciliation with the
Saudis.
But in the end, of course, theTrump administration murdered
(31:05):
Soleimani and Mohandas you knowthe two national heroes of those
two countries of Iraq and Iran,and of course you know that
gained them no friends in theregion, basically.
But because Soleimani hadplayed an incredible role across
the Levant, you know, inLebanon, in Palestine, in Syria,
in Iraq.
But yeah, when the Iraqiscouldn't do it effectively, the
(31:33):
weight of the Chinese, the rolewas passed to them effectively
and they were able to carry outthat type of reconciliation.
Of course the Chinese are bigenergy consumers, so they had an
interest in both the Saudis andIran.
Basically, the US has got awaywith these very ugly sanctions,
really called genocidal in manycases.
Look at the 62 years of ablockade on Cuba, for example.
They got away with that in away even though the whole world
(31:54):
was effectively against them atthe United Nations, but they
just ignored that.
But when they've begun tosanction these larger countries
it's really backfired on thempretty seriously.
They clearly haven't crippledthe Russian economy in the way
that they hope they might.
Russia in many respects I thinkmany, even US military people
are admitting this.
Now Russia has consolidated itsposition quite strongly.
(32:17):
But the role of China isinteresting, Of course.
It's the biggest investor inmany countries on Earth now, as
you say, it dominates manysectors of industry and its
technology is really seriouslycompeting with Western
technology in many areas now.
So clearly it's alreadystarting to play a more
important role.
The Chinese came out at the UNand effectively defended the
(32:41):
role of the Palestinianresistance in mounting attacks
on the Israelis, which is asignificant change in their
position.
You know they've always beenvery cautious and of course they
were particularly cautious inrelation to the US because there
was a type of codependence formany years until Trump perhaps
where China was making a lot ofmoney out of the US.
They didn't want to upset thatrelationship.
(33:02):
Basically, even if the US sawthem as rivals, nevertheless
they were also using China forproduction in many respects, you
know, with globalisedproduction chains and so on.
So the Chinese were reluctantto upset that relationship.
But really the US has started todo that, created the
aggravation Now, the aggravationwith Taiwan, of course, and
(33:26):
unfortunately my own country,australia, has been drawn into
that.
Now there's these provocationsthat Australia, with the US, is
making in the South China Sea,for example, and they'd love to
have a Ukraine-like war there, Isuppose, if they could get
someone else to fight it.
In many respects, this sort ofantithesis to what the US is
(33:46):
trying to do.
They wanted to divide theMiddle East or West Asia so that
the other big powers wouldn'tcome in Russia and China but
what they've done is they'vecreated the reaction and Russia
and China have come in Now inrelation to Ukraine.
Of course, they've made a lotof money out of the Ukraine war.
It seemed ideal to many USpoliticians because someone else
(34:08):
was fighting and dying in thewar and to some extent others
were paying for it too.
But of course that's blowing upin their face now too, because
if they lose, their prestige inthe world and their role in
Europe will be in question.
So in that context, china hasbeen quietly developing, quietly
advancing.
It's notorious now that Chinesedomestic infrastructure even is
(34:28):
moving ahead.
They're the greatest providersof fast rail train in the world.
There are many exemplaryreasons to why other people are
looking for China now and Ithink that's why even the allies
of the US are viewing withinterest the fact that BRICS
exists and there is analternative way for them to
(34:48):
develop and look for lesscoercive cooperation in the
world.
So of course, china is the bigeconomic power in BRICS.
Perhaps Russia has greatpolitical will and strategic
importance and militaryimportance really, but those
countries like Egypt and theEmirates and the Saudis are very
keen to have a decent,untrammeled relationship with
(35:10):
the Chinese juggernaut.
Basically, and so effectively,that's undermining the US global
dominance.
And in this region I think thetransmission is going to be
largely through Iran, becauseIran already has very important
strategic relations with bothRussia and China and in many
respects that's going to mean ifwe want to simplify that down a
little bit that China's Beltand Road initiative, you know,
(35:34):
making use of infrastructure issomething that's going to come
in the first instance to Iranand pass on to the rest of the
region.
In Russia terms, the Russianbanks already have very close
relations with the Iranian banks.
All of them and this is thefirst step towards bypassing the
SWIFT system, which is, ofcourse, based in Europe but
which the US has dominated for anumber of years, and the SWIFT
(36:09):
system and the dollar combinedis really how the US manages to
coerce so many countries,including the Europeans, for
example, and try and preventthem from doing business.
Now that influence is startingto weaken.
You may have seen recently thatthe Indians have now got a
contract, a 10-year contract tocontrol an important Iranian
port, and Washington hasthreatened India now with
sanctions.
So if they threaten India withsanctions they already
threatened South Africa withsanctions how many other large
independent countries are theygoing to threaten with sanctions
?
It's really like theircountries are they going to
threaten with sanctions?
It's really like you know.
(36:30):
Their power is going todiminish the more that they
impose, as particularly on largecountries.
Alan Macleod (36:36):
Yeah, the US doesn't just use its military to
dominate the region and theworld, but also its economic
power.
I mean, when we talk about thesort of level that sanctions
could impose on certaincountries, like if we think
about Iraq in the 1990s, anestimated one million people
died of the sanctions there.
(36:56):
They were officially UnitedNations backed, but it was the
United States that was in charge.
In fact, united Nationsofficials who were in charge of
imposing these sanctions, oneafter another, resigned their
names Dennis Halliday, hans vonSkånek.
These people resigned sayingthat this was a genocide that
was going on, and out of thisone million figure, apparently
(37:19):
half a million of them werechildren under five.
The sort of devastation it wasable to wreak on Venezuela,
where the economy contracted bysomething like 99%.
They've also employed themeffectively against Syria and
Iran, but, as you said, in anincreasingly multipolar world,
these sanctions are just nothaving the same effect as they
did, and it's really interestingto see countries like Saudi
(37:42):
Arabia and the UAE and, as yousaid, even India, start to
ignore the United States to thepoint where it seems absolutely
clear that in just a few years,the United States has gone from
being the unquestioned top dogto just one of the major players
in the world.
Tim Anderson (38:01):
It's really extraordinary, and let's not
forget Yemen too.
Unlike the unilateral sanctionsagainst Syria and Iran, the
sanctions on Yemen, or what theycall the Houthi rebels, which
is really a coalition governmentled by Ansarullah called the
National Salvation Government,they are UN Security Council
(38:24):
sanctions because, based on thefalse information that
Ansarullah, or what they callthe Houthi rebels, were somehow
in alliance with al-Qaeda.
But you find, most serious UScommentators will admit that
they've been fighting al-Qaedaand the Muslim Brotherhood in
Yemen for many years and now, ofcourse, they, despite those.
(38:44):
You know it was called theworst humanitarian crisis on
earth not so long ago and yetunder those conditions they were
able to defy effectively theAnglo-American naval coalition
in the Red Sea and maintain,despite many things, that they
were offered many bribeseffectively to maintain that
blockade of the Israeli shippingor shipping going to Israel.
(39:06):
So the role of Yemen shouldn'tbe underestimated here.
But they've done it underterrible circumstances and
they're still suffering seriousmalnutrition and, of course,
because militarily theyeffectively defeated the Saudis
and the Emiratis, those two arenow vying for peace, some sort
of connection, and the US hasbeen forced to accept that sort
(39:28):
of reality, Not that they wantedit, they didn't want an
independent state precisely forthis region.
That independent state at thehead of the Red Sea and the Suez
Canal could do precisely whatit's doing now in relation to
the Israelis.
So Yemen's an importantemerging force in this region
too.
Alan Macleod (39:45):
It has been extraordinary watching the
poorest country in the regionactually spearhead effective
resistance against the Israeliattack on Gaza.
I mean, for more than a decade,as you were mentioning, yemen
has been under brutal, brutalbombardment by a Saudi-led
coalition which has been back tothe hilt by the US.
The US is selling Saudi Arabiathe weapons, it's providing
(40:09):
diplomatic cover for theSaudi-led onslaught in
international bodies like theUnited Nations, it's training
Saudi pilots, it's even helpingwith the targeting, it's doing
absolutely everything exceptpulling the trigger itself and,
as an extent, yemen turned intothe world's worst humanitarian
crisis in the eyes of the unitednations, where perhaps 400 000
(40:31):
or more yemenis were killed,most of them not in fighting but
because of, uh, the terriblehumanitarian conditions which uh
, which flared up because theSaudi coalition was deliberately
attacking things like hospitalsand sewage works and water
pipes and farms and things inorder to starve out the
population.
(40:51):
And yet Ansar Allah has takenthis position that they are
effectively carrying ahumanitarian blockade of the Red
Sea, and the United States andthe West hasn't actually been
able to stop that.
But this is, in my opinion,kind of direct contrast to a lot
of other Arab states in theregion which have quietly or
(41:12):
tacitly accepted or even in someways kind of supported the
Israeli efforts in Lebanon,syria and Gaza.
What have you made of thereactions and the responses of
other Arab states to Israel'sattack on Gaza since October 7th
?
Tim Anderson (41:29):
Well, of course it's been a huge disappointment
to the Palestinian people andmany of the independent Arab
peoples and Arab states herethat the very wealthy Arab
states in the Persian Gulf havereally never done very much.
They've thrown a bit of moneybut they've really done very
little to help the Palestinianpeople.
It's been the Persians, theIranians that have been helping
(41:50):
the Palestinian people and thennow, more recently, as you say,
the Yemenis.
Also, of course, hezbollah, theresistance group in South
Lebanon, which has drawn awayvery large parts of the Israeli
military from Gaza throughoutthe last eight months.
Basically, there's been a bitof a change in relation to the
(42:11):
Saudis and the Emiratis.
The Saudis, for example, are nolonger funding any of those
armed groups in Syria, but Qataris.
Qatar is still funding theNusra HTS group in Italy.
Basically the Emiratis.
But when it came to the Iranianretaliation, for example for the
attack on its embassy inDamascus, which was a big
(42:32):
fireworks display over Damascustoo, when it happened, the
Iranians warned the Persian GulfArab monarchies, basically
Petro monarchies, that if theygot involved they'd be targets
too, and most of them pulled out.
It was only Jordan that came into assist, largely because the
US military is based there toassist with the anti-air
(42:58):
bringing down the drones and thecruise missiles and so on.
And more recently, the Emiratishave asked that the US move
their fighter planes from AbuDhabi out of the Emirates
because they didn't want to be atarget for Iranian attack there
, basically.
So the US moved them to Qatar,which is the biggest air base
they have in this region, andQatar's played this strange sort
(43:20):
of hybrid role, because theyhave also at different times
sponsored Hamas, because throughthe Muslim Brotherhood links
basically.
But now they're closer toTurkey and they're still helping
with the armed groups in northof Syria.
But nevertheless, even theEmiratis, who were pressured by
Trump to do this normalisationwith Israelis, got the US to
move their warplanes out becausethey didn't want to be the meat
(43:42):
and the sandwich, so to speak,because the Iranians had said
any of you you know Gulfmonarchies, persian Gulf
monarchies that assist in withthe Israelis or the US, you'll
become targets too.
And the Iranians have got theireyes on US bases in the Gulf
and also on oil infrastructurein the Gulf, so they're taking
(44:02):
that seriously too.
And so all of those Arab stateswhich have been very weak in
terms of doing anything for thePalestinians.
Rather, many of them havecollaborated directly with the
Israelis the Emirates, saudi andJordan all of those, and, to a
lesser extent, bahrain, some ofthe others.
They are taking seriously thisstrategic change.
(44:27):
You know that there is a newforce in the region, that Iran
has the capacity to defenditself and to hit back if it's
attacked, and that, basically,by housing US military, they may
make themselves targets ifthere's an escalation of things
here.
Alan Macleod (44:46):
All right, we're running out of time soon, but I
did want to ask you anotherquestion that I found very
interesting from your book.
It's not something that'sreally talked about very much.
Could you tell us a bit aboutthe purge of Christians from
West Asia and Washington's rolein it?
We often think about the regionas being dominated by Islam or
Judaism, but we don't reallytalk about the Christian
(45:08):
minorities that have been therefor 2,000 years.
Yeah, can you fill us in onthat?
Tim Anderson (45:13):
Yeah, well, of course they are the oldest
Christian communities in theworld, in this region, in the
Levant in particular, inPalestine, in Syria, for example
, in Lebanon to an extent too,and used to be in Iraq.
You know the Assyrians but ifyou go through, I guess my
attention was first drawn to itby looking at northeast Syria
(45:34):
and what had gone on there, withlargely the Assyrian Christians
in the northeast of Syria,where there's a crossover with
Iraq and Syria in this respect.
But in fact there had beeneffectively a type of ethnic
cleansing by the Kurdish group,by SDF there, because they're
(45:57):
trying to expand their presencein that region to justify the
fact that they're trying todominate the region.
But they've never really been amajority, as I said, in any of
the cities and only some of thesmaller towns.
So some of the people inComishley were telling me, the
former council of Comishley weretelling me that there was this
mission that the Israelis wereon, based in Erbil, because they
(46:17):
have an alliance effectivelywith the northern kurdistan
region in iraq and they weretraining the sdf and they had a
particular mission to try andthey got some strategic
alliances with with some of thekurdish groups there.
Let's say, basically now iniraq, it was somewhat different
because it was isis that wasdriving the christians out of
(46:40):
many of the cities there.
But of course, isis, properlyunderstood, was created by the
US through the Saudis there,precisely to weaken Iraq and
prevent an alliance between Iraqand Iran.
Then it passed across to Syriabecause about 10,000 Christians
were driven out of CommissionCity and many of them ended up
(47:01):
in my city, in Sydney, australia, because there was a process of
selective immigration favouringmainly Christians in recent
years, back in 2018 or so.
This was revealed inconversations between former
Prime Minister of Australia,malcolm Turnbull, and Trump back
at that time.
If we look at Palestine, ofcourse there are no Israeli
(47:24):
Christians in Palestine.
They're all Palestinian ArabChristians basically, and many
of the towns and cities inPalestine, like Bethlehem for
example, have been seriouslydepleted.
Now I met an old Syrian priestin Damascus here and he's in his
(47:44):
90s now, but he's been writingsuccessive letters to the popes,
or successive popes, saying youtalk about the Christians being
driven out of this region, butyou won't point a finger at
anyone.
You leave it open to theWestern myth that it's something
to do with Muslims in thisregion, but really Muslims and
Jews and Christians have livedhere for many, many centuries
(48:05):
together.
It was only in recent yearsthat there's been this purge of
Christians, and so he wascriticising the successive popes
for not pointing the finger atthe Israelis or the US,
basically, but that's reallywhat's behind it.
The US has been behind, despiteits claims to be a christian
state.
In many respects it's reallybeen the force behind the, the
purging of christians from iraqand syria and palestine, and
(48:28):
there's been a seriousdiminution of the christian
communities.
They still exist.
There are still very ancientchurches in here, in malula, for
example, where they still speaka language very close to
Aramaic.
There's an old chapel, hanania,in Damascus, where St Paul was
baptised.
You know, there's some veryancient churches in Syria and to
(48:49):
some extent, in Iraq and inPalestine too, but really it's
been the big push for the US tocreate this new Middle East, the
idea of having a new MiddleEast that Condoleezza Rice
announced in Palestine back in2006,.
That's been the force behindChristians being driven out of
this region.
They're still here, of course.
There's still many of them here, but the numbers are seriously
(49:10):
depleted.
Alan Macleod (49:12):
Yeah, and of course, a lot of the most
storied and oldest churches inGaza have been destroyed during
the Israeli attack as well, sothat's certainly not helping.
I'm thinking specifically aboutthe St Porphyrius airstrike
which destroyed that classicGreek Orthodox church, which
(49:32):
there's been a church on thatsite for well over a thousand
years getting on for 2000 there,over a thousand years, getting
on for 2000 there.
So, yeah, a lot of people don'trealize that the Christian
minority is actually persecutedin Western Asia to such an
extent.
Yeah, that's true.
Okay, very last question, then,just something that I was
(49:52):
wondering about.
I saw you describe yourself asa humanist in one of your
interviews or lectures, so Iwanted to know how does an
Australian humanist come to seesuch a religiously conservative
state as Iran as a vital bulwarkagainst imperialism, and one
worthy of support?
Is that a contradiction, ordoes it flow so easily?
Tim Anderson (50:17):
No, to me it's not a contradiction.
Of course, I myself I don'tsupport the idea of religious
states or any state based onreligion, and in fact, many
Syrians agree with me in thatrespect.
But, as I said, it hasn'taffected the relations between
Iran and Syria.
I see religion really assomething, or spiritual views,
as something that inspirespeople to create certain values,
certain social values.
(50:37):
You can see the Iranians nowhaving very productive
relationships with Venezuela,with Russia, with China, which
have very different culturaltraditions.
So, as I said, the Iranians, inmy view, while they have a very
strong idea of Islamic ideologyand Islamic civilization, they
haven't been exporting that.
They've been finding theseother states, other peoples that
(51:00):
share their values, expressedvalues and maybe inspired
through other religions, throughother cultures.
But nevertheless, what'simportant about Iran is that
they are a very capable state,capable, stable state.
They're committed to principleswhich are, by and large, decent
principles.
They're able to have theseproductive relationships with
(51:20):
other states and other bigpowers and they've also invested
in their people.
So, really, they've made sometremendous advances, as I said,
in terms of human development.
So, in terms of the values theyshare with the Russians, with
the Venezuelans, I think we haveto look for some values that
are created, and it'sinteresting to me actually to
see that values can crosscultures and be shared across
(51:42):
cultures despite the differentsources of inspiration.
Alan Macleod (51:46):
Absolutely, tim Anderson.
Thank you very much for yourtime.
My final question is where canpeople follow you and read more
of your stuff?
Tim Anderson (51:54):
Well, I do have a Twitter account and some other
accounts.
Meta has largely banned me, butof course there's my books, the
West Asia after Washington, andthere's also a website that I
run with some others calledCenter for Counterhegemonic
Studies.
Alan Macleod (52:10):
Thank you very much, tim Anderson, for being on
the show today.
All right, if you've made itthis far, let me just give you a
quick pitch for our Patreon.
Right now, we are gettingtargeted.
We are being deranked, demoted,deleted across the board.
Our TikTok has been deleted.
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Basically, everything is beingthrown at us.
(52:31):
So if you are in an economicposition to help us, please do
go over to patreoncom, slashmintpressnews and become one of
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Anything you can give us willgo a long way.
And if you're not in a positionto help us economically, you
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(52:51):
Until next time, I'm AlanMcLeod, signing off for the
Midcast.
See you later.
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