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Elizabeth Zerkov
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Elizabeth Zerkov
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Elizabeth Zerkov
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Thomas Small
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- [01:20]
Elizabeth Zerkov
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- [01:50]
Thomas Small
Welcome back to Conflicted. I'm Thomas Small and this week Eamon sadly cannot be with us. His work has taken him away as it often does. So this week he will not be in the chair. Instead, I am extremely happy to have filling in for him and really at the very last minute, Elizabeth Zerkov, a Russian Israeli scholar, researcher, intellectual. Elizabeth, you know, first of all, thank you very much for coming on the show. Welcome.
- [02:22]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm definitely not smart enough to be an intellectual, but all the other things are true.
- [02:27]
Thomas Small
Yes, well, I have been following your work for many, many years. My admiration for you has grown and grown and I'll explain why shortly to those listeners who are not familiar with your work. But I just, first of all, I mean I just want to say thank you again for coming on at such short notice, I'm really looking forward to this conversation which is going to cover your research in Iraq, in Syria, your knowledge of the situation in Lebanon, obviously your personal knowledge of the situation in Israel, Palestine and many other things. Anyway, Elizabeth, thanks for coming on the show. Let's get right into it. Elizabeth Zherkov so as I said in the introduction, you are a Russian Israeli. So you were born in Russia and moved to Israel as a child. You are known, I think, primarily for field based research that you've done in Syria during the Arab Spring era and into the Civil War era, Iraq. We'll talk about that a bit later. Also, obviously Israel, Palestine, you've worked studying authoritarianism, how that works on the ground for actual citizens of authoritarian or totalitarian or militant states. You've talked about militias, the ideology, the psychology and the real world consequences of militia based governance, obviously human rights. So how would you describe your academic, scholarly, field based research?
- [03:58]
Elizabeth Zerkov
So I traveled across the region to conduct fieldwork. Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, southern Turkey. But even before I did that travel to conduct both research that was published with think tanks with whom I'm affiliated in Israel and in D.C. and more recently field work for my Ph.D. dissertation at Princeton. Even before that, my research very much focused on kind of the lived experiences of people in war zones. And what drives my desire to research and to publish and to write is to document these experiences of individuals and give voice to them and try to provide some analytical explanations for it. I think that this is a general tendency in political science, which is my field, but also in other fields in field of history, for example, to write history, to write research to a large extent based on the voices that are the loudest and are the most influential, which are the elites. So for example, you would see if you read research that has been published on Iraq, for example, in various think tanks, just open any think tank that you want and just read through what is being published. It is overwhelmingly focused on intra elite politicking. Who is going to be the prime minister? Who is going to do this? What do these deals mean? Even when, for example, election results are covered, it is usually given explanations that are very kind of based on narratives that are being offered by the various political actors. And for me, what fascinates me is how people from below experience it and what role do they play in, in shaping, in shaping reality. So, so for example, in Iraq and academic research that I traveled to do in Iraq focuses on the rank and file of the Sadrist movement, which is it's actually the largest political movement in the Middle east since the crushing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. So since that was destroyed, this movement, which has over 1 million supporters, is the large as far as I know, is the largest political movement in the Middle East.
- [06:20]
Thomas Small
That is incre incredible. ELIZABETH Let me just stop you then, and just could you then briefly, of course, tell the listeners about the Sadrist movement? What is it? Why is it called Sadrist? Give us a brief explanation of this movement, which, as you say, and I'm even surprised to hear it, maybe is arguably the largest political movement in the Middle East.
- [06:41]
Elizabeth Zerkov
So it is a Shia movement led by Muqta the Sadr, who is a junior cleric. It's possible to trace it back to different eras, but really kind of it was established in the late 1990s in Saddam's Iraq and was almost completely unknown to the outside world. This was in part due to very severe restrictions that Saddam's regime imposed on the ability of people to communicate, but also on the fact that the interactions that the US had with the US and other countries had with Iraqis at the time with people who opposed Saddam's regime was with the exiled, while the Sadrist movement was based inside. And Therefore, when the US invaded or
- [07:26]
Thomas Small
the coalition invaded Iraq in 2003, yeah,
- [07:30]
Elizabeth Zerkov
in 2003, they were shocked to discover that this movement even exists. They didn't know anything about it.
- [07:35]
Thomas Small
And they're that is amazing. I mean, I may say. ELIZABETH Amazing and also, I think probably a sign of why things went pretty bad in Iraq after the invasion. The United States knew remarkably little about Iraq. In fact, last week I interviewed a historian of the CIA who said that in 2001, 2002, when the U.S. senate and the Department of Defense clearly were preparing the way to invade Iraq, they asked the CIA for intelligence. And at that time, the CIA didn't have a single spy inside Iraq. They just didn't know the country. And as you say, they also didn't know, really about the existence of this massive Shia underground movement, the Sadrist movement.
- [08:15]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Right. You know, the problem is not just the ignorance that accompanied the decision to invade Iraq, but also multiple other decisions that have been made since then. Right. With regards to the Middle east, and I'm not an expert on anywhere else, so I can't tell, but I suspect that this type of ignorance is a systemic problem that does not pertain solely to the matter of the Middle East.
- [08:40]
Thomas Small
Recent events may suggest that that's the case. ELIZABETH Right.
- [08:45]
Elizabeth Zerkov
So the problem is not just that there's lack of Information and ignorance is that the information that is provided is wrong and is politicized. It is basically these parties that were exiled, parties like Dawah, like Al Hakim, they presented Iraq and what's inside Iraq the way they see it in a way that is, for example, highly sectarianized. They are parties that are, you know, a lot of their identity stems from being Shia and the way they ran their exile politics outside of Iraq. A lot of it had to do with all sorts of weird sectarian balances, the different bodies that they established, because this is something that mattered to them. People inside Iraq were not as concerned with this.
- [09:31]
Thomas Small
Even the Sadrist movement. I would have thought the Sadrist movement had a very sectarian identity. As you say, they are a Shia movement.
- [09:38]
Elizabeth Zerkov
They are Shia movement. And the Shia were definitely oppressed under Saddam's regime. But at the same time, the sectarian tensions were not. They grew, I would say in the 1990s, after. In 1991, there was a massive uprising by the Kurz and Shia, Shia of Iraq. It was very violently crushed. But Saddam's regime, because it was a minority regime, at the end of the day, it did not use sectarian rhetoric. It did not serve the interest of this regime. It wanted to. It spoke about the Iraqi identity. Initially it spoke about Arab identity. Then after the war with Iran and the Gulf War and Arab countries supporting Kuwait as opposed to Iraq, it spoke more about unique Iraq national identity. But it really did not evoke Sunni identitarianism.
- [10:34]
Thomas Small
Except perhaps, if I'm not mistaken, towards the end, let's say, the last 10 years of Saddam's reign, I understand maybe under pressure during the Iran Iraq war and also just in general, as part of a rising Islamist trend throughout the Arab world, Saddam did begin to adopt a bit of that messaging, a bit of that framing of his regime, maybe in a Sunni direction, or possibly he tried to make it more pan Islamic.
- [11:01]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Exactly. So it was actually pan Islamic. The faith campaign that the regime launched after the defeat in 1991 was pan Islamic. It invested money in building Sunni mosque, but also Shia mosques. And as part of this faith campaign, it allowed Muqtad Al Sadr's father, Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq Al Sadr, to significantly expand religious schools in Najaf for the Shia. It allowed him to start preaching. It believed that he would be a useful tool because he was an Arab ayatollah, a high level religious scholar, that he would serve as a counterweight to religious scholars of Iranian descent. So it was more about Arabism versus Iran and bus documents that have been revealed since then show that there wasn't systemic persecution of the Shia as Shia, there was an obsession with Shia of Iranian descent. So it was seen more through this lens of Arab versus Persian versus Iranian, as opposed to a sectarian lens. Obviously the Saddam regime was a horrific one, right? It's a terror regime. But sectarianism was not a central element at all of its identity and sectarianism did not serve it as a minoritarian regime. So then, because the US sought the advice of individuals who were sectarian, who wrote in a very sectarian way, who thought in a sectarian way, and they also presented themselves as, as having a real base inside Iraq when they didn't, they were expelled from the country due to very severe persecution in the 1980s and they lost their base. Whatever base they did have, they lost it. And this explains why after returning to Iraq on US tanks, figuratively, these individuals increasingly turned to hyping up sectarian tensions to keep themselves in power because they could not offer much else because they didn't have a base on which they could lean on, as opposed to the sad restaurant which has a genuine base. And later on, and this is the catastrophe that we're seeing right now in Iraq, increasingly just buying votes and buying votes by significantly expanding the Iraqi public sector. It's bloated. I have friends who work in the Iraqi public sector. They sit around all day and do nothing. They nap in their office, they gentry, they smoke cigarettes and then they go home simply so that they vote for the person who hired them.
- [13:34]
Thomas Small
Well, I have some friends in the British public sector who I think their workload might be similarly described. I don't know that for sure. Now, Elizabeth, in 2023, and this is possibly what listeners may most know you for, while you were in Iraq doing field research as part of your Princeton degree, you were kidnapped by Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran backed Shia Iraqi militia. And tragically, you were held captive for more than two years, only finally being released in September 2025. And what a couple of years that was because you know, six months after you were kidnapped, the 7th of October massacres occurred, the launch of the Gaza war and the sudden explosion and unraveling of the network of Iran backed militias across the region known as the Axis of Resistance. This is happening as held captive by one of them, Katab Hezbollah in Iraq. Now, you made it clear before recording that you're not interested in relating or narrating in any detail your experiences. You've done it before. So, dear listeners, you can find Elizabeth speaking in Great detail, often movingly, heartbreakingly, about the incredibly terrible, difficult, unspeakable experiences you underwent during that time. You're not going to do that here. But perhaps having undergone that experience of being a captive of Katab Hezbollah, you emerged with an even greater understanding of how such militant movements operate. What did your personal experience? How did it change the way you understood these movements, generally speaking?
- [15:11]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Yeah. So before. Before my captivity, I rarely did research concerning the militias and definitely did not knowingly interact with members of these militias because of the risks involved. In hindsight, I realized during the period of interrogations and torture that multiple people in the milieu of activists, who were my friends, who were acquaintances, were in fact planted by the militias. But I did not know that at the time.
- [15:43]
Thomas Small
Oh, wow.
- [15:44]
Elizabeth Zerkov
So basically, I never interacted with such people directly. And the research that I conducted pertained to human rights abuses and that they carried out. Basically, I spoke to their victims, but not to them themselves. I would read research published by other scholars about these militias who specialize in them. I had a decent understanding of them, but never conducted my own research entailing interactions with them. Obviously, that changed when they kidnapped me, I think, and this is something I wrote about for the Atlantic. The article is titled I Was Kidnapped by Idiots.
- [16:30]
Thomas Small
I know, it's a wonderful. I mean, quite darkly humorous at times, especially that title, but a wonderful article, well worth reading, dear listeners.
- [16:38]
Elizabeth Zerkov
So I was definitely surprised by how stupid they are and ignorant. And this was quite unexpected to me because I thought that the conspiracy theories that their media outlets spread. So, for example, that ISIS was created by the state of Israel in the US or that the protests that erupted in Iraq in 2019, the Tushrin protest movement, that it was a Western plot. I assume that they know that this is false, but they're just lying to justify slaughtering these unarmed, peaceful protesters. But no, at least the people with whom I interacted, with the exception of one commander in the second facility where I was held, who was smart and had a very good grasp of reality,
- [17:36]
Thomas Small
but was cynical, knew that these narratives were employed for political purposes.
- [17:41]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Right, Exactly. But others, including commanders within this group. So the head of the group that kidnapped and tortured me called him the Colonel and clearly did show respect to him, even if the rank is made up, he was definitely their commander. So he himself believed in weird conspiracy theories. For example, he told me that Saudi Arabia established the state of Israel. He also believed that Masons and Jews run the world. So those two cannot coincide, because either the Jews are so powerful that they can just Establish their own state or they need Saudi help to do it because they're not powerful. So that was surprising to me just how disconnected they are from reality. What was also interesting, this is something I heard from hierarchy friends, but still was jarring to realize is just how many of the members of these militias have essentially joined them because it's a source of income. So they do believe in these weird conspiracy theories, but they are actually too ignorant to be able to understand the and quite simple guys, not even in a. It's not their fault, you know, like the educational system in Iraq has been destroyed since the 1990s. It produces like, like Iraq has a very high rate of illiteracy. Some of those illiterates were my guards.
- [19:19]
Thomas Small
And so in that way, these attitudes and ideas that your captors had, these idiots so called, they're not necessarily different from what like average underclass Iraqis would have. I mean they're just part of that society. They weren't indoctrinated into those ideas or they're bringing those ideas with them to the militia.
- [19:38]
Elizabeth Zerkov
That's a great question of whether they hold these ideas and then they join these militias or they join these militias because it's a source of income. And then this is what you're supposed to be believing. So this is what you, and you learn here and there and you hear something and you watch the TV outlets, the TV stations that belong to these different militias and you learn and you pick up gradually. I think both processes exist. So I would say that some conspiracy theories are unique to this axis to the pro Iranian access. So for example, the belief that the Tishrin protest movement was created by the United States or Israel or wherever is not widely shared in Iraq. Most Iraqis are sympathetic to this movement and millions of Iraqis participated in it. So this is something that is unique to them. But the belief, for example, that ISIS is a foreign creation and is not an outgrowth of ills and civil wars in Iraq and in Syria is quite widespread. Like I heard it in Jordan, I heard it in Lebanon, I heard it all over the place.
- [20:49]
Thomas Small
I've heard it in East London. Elizabeth, it's extremely widespread, this idea.
- [20:53]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Right.
- [20:54]
Thomas Small
So before we drill in into Iraq specifically, first of all, how should we ultimately understand groups like Katab Hezbollah or like Hezbollah in Lebanon or you know, any other component of the so called axis of resistance? I mean, are they mainly ideological movements? Are they mainly like criminal political networks? Are they mainly nascent state actors, like non state actors on their way to becoming state actors? Are they something Else, what are they?
- [21:29]
Elizabeth Zerkov
That's a great question. I think it varies from one country to another, actually. And even there is some variation within Iraq. But I would say that in Iraq they are overwhelmingly basically criminal enterprises. Their members do believe in some general kind of, they have some kind of an affinity to Iran. They feel proud of Iran. They feel that it's a strong state that, you know, they, for example, with their social media accounts would. And I heard this also from my captors, like they would say, wow, how developed Tehran is? It's so beautiful. They would post like images, for example, of the Tehran metro, because Iraq is. Iran is in a really terrible state. Even in very nice areas. Garbage covers the streets, there are no proper sidewalks. I mean, this is really a tragedy. So in comparison, Tehran does look amazing, right? So there is this kind of a sense of affinity to Iran and pride in whatever success it is able to get and therefore a tendency to obviously major hostility towards Israel. But that is something actually that is quite common across the Middle east and I would say now across the world.
- [22:43]
Thomas Small
Absolutely.
- [22:44]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Yeah, exactly. So there is this kind of, I would say an affinity to Iran. But the concept of wilayt al faqih, like the idea undergirding the Iranian regime that the jurist basically has the right to have, have total authority over the lives of Iranian citizens. And not only that, he has the authority over Muslims everywhere and he has the right to obligate you to go, to give your life for him or for whatever he tells you to. That is an idea that is quite complicated. And I think that something that at least the militiamen with whom I interacted in Iraq, many of them were too simple to kind of understand the theological ideas behind it. It's a theory that is quite complicated.
- [23:40]
Thomas Small
But what about the eschatological dimension of some of these beliefs? Eamon, you know, on conflicted, he makes a big deal about the eschatology underlying in this case the Shia. I mean, he's happy to talk about the Sunni ones for Al Qaeda and other such movements. But the Shia eschatological ideas that undergird, you know, the Iranian regime and maybe just popular radical Shia militancy today everywhere. Did you see signs of that amongst your captors?
- [24:08]
Elizabeth Zerkov
This definitely exists. This is actually not unique only to the. It's something that is quite common among kind of Shia popular movements that are not even aligned with Iran. For example, the Sadrist movement, it is very focused on the Mahdi, on the emergence of the Mahdi, on his appearance. And there's this expectation that he will appear soon. And we need to be paving the way for that.
- [24:35]
Thomas Small
In the same way that a lot of, let's say, American fundamentalist Protestant groups are constantly obsessively awaiting the return of Jesus Christ and doing what they can to create the conditions for that, whether political or just spiritual, whatever. So the Sadris movement, other Shia groups, they have a similar orientation.
- [24:52]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Yeah, absolutely. I would say that even within Iran itself, there are different kind of. For example, the previous president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was very known for kind of very Mahdawi or very kind of messianic ideas, really expecting the Mahdi to appear at any moment. Others are not generally populist kind of movements that utilize this kind of desire for salvation and messianic fervor. They tend to attract more the lower classes who are oppressed and want deliverance. Right. And also these movements rise particularly during times of crisis when people are really desperate for salvation. So a big appeal of the Sadris movement, back in the 90s when Iraqis were literally starving under UN sanctions, there was a huge appeal for the idea that we are about to be delivered. And the Mahdi idea includes not only deliverance but also revenge. The Mahdi is not this mere messiah figure who will bring peace and justice and basically the end of time. He will also enact acts of revenge, very violent ones. So that is also something satisfying to a person who is in a dire situation.
- [26:06]
Thomas Small
And yet you say, you would say, on balance, a group like Katab Hezbollah, you said, is mainly more a criminal kind of enterprise. In what way?
- [26:15]
Elizabeth Zerkov
So, you know, Khattab Hezbollah formally has, I think maybe 48,000 members or some other made up number. Their actual number is significantly lower. The gap stems from the fact that a large number of militiamen receive salaries from the Iraqi state, but the money actually goes into the pockets of commanders or the pockets of the militia.
- [26:40]
Thomas Small
So basically the budget of the militia as an institution.
- [26:43]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Exactly. So they basically, they steal. It is basically a form of theft from the Iraqi state. And the majority of members within KATAIB and within other militias do not really pose a danger in any way. They're simple guys without training, very often overweight, who sit at checkpoints, who sit around on bases and really don't do much. These militias significantly expanded their ranks to fight ISIS in 2014, previously also went to Syria to fight alongside the Assad regime starting in 2013. Both of these armed struggles have ended, but the ranks of the militias continue to expand. So basically they sit around all day and don't do much. Most of them Overwhelmingly some are involved in small counter ISIS operations. But most of these operations in Iraq are carried out by capable forces like the counterterrorism force, which is trained by the US or the army, which also receives US support, or the Iraqi Air Force which also receives US support and US intelligence support. the same time, these militias are engaged in massive schemes of theft from both the Iraqi state. So all sorts of projects that are directed to companies that they create that then don't execute projects or overcharge. This is something that has really ballooned into billions of dollars stolen annually. They're involved in smuggling of oil out of Iran or also Iraqi oil out of the country and mixing of Iranian oil with Iraqi oil to export and hide its origin. They're involved in smuggling of dollars into Iran to try and prop up the Iranian currency. They're involved in a myriad of and also they're involved in extortion from private individuals in Iraq and companies. So basically they come to people and they tell them, give us this money or we are going to kill you or kidnap you. And this is something that does happen. So this is kind of the main role of these militias is economic and this is how they actually serve Iran, because Iran does not. I mean, it would benefit from the presence of a strong Iraqi militias that are able to inflict harm on the U.S. inside Iraq. But their main purpose, because Iraq is so rich, it's so full of oil and also has gas, it is basically, it serves as the economic lung of the Iranian regime, basically trying to keep this regime propped up. This, this was the case even before the current economic crisis because of the war and the closure of Hormuz and the blockade. The purpose of Lebanese Hezbollah is quite different. Lebanese Hezbollah is supposed to fight. Lebanon is poor. Lebanese Hezbollah receives, According to the US, in the single year since the end of the 2024 wars or during 2025, Iran transferred $1 billion to Lebanese Hezbollah to reconstitute, give compensations to the families of their fallen fighters, etc. So Lebanese Hezbollah and also the Houthis take money out of the Iranian system. They also by the way, get money from Iraq. But the Iraqi militias, their purpose is to steal. And a lot of it they put in their own pocket. But a lot of it also goes to Iran to prop up this regime. And of course Lebanese Hezbollah is involved in the drug trade since the eighties in Latin America and also the captagon trade that really flourished under the Assad regime. There were a lot of production facilities in Lebanon in Shia areas that it would then get smuggled. But still, the main purpose of Lebanese Hezbollah is a fighting force that is supposed to deter the State of Israel from attacking Iran and keeping Iran safe. And, for example, fighting in Syria to keep the Assad regime in place. Lebanese Hezbollah intervened back in 2012 to keep this regime in power. This is why I would say that there's a varian within this axis, because the Iraqi militias are quite different from Lebanese Hezbollah. Also, in terms of, like, the corruption and the ranks of the Iraqi militias is just unbelievable. Moral corruption, but also financial corruption, you know, so you were.
- [31:02]
Thomas Small
You were kidnapped originally, I guess, because they hoped they could ransom you to. To make money. So this is part of the criminal dimension. But then when they realized that they had kidnapped an Israeli, they sadly subjected you to torture and whatnot, thinking you were a spy, trying, guess, to infiltrate Katab Hezbollah. They were trying to prevent that. So they went from being, like, criminal to then being more. I mean, it's not really political. It would be like if the FBI infiltrated the mob, they might realize, oh, this guy's actually. This guy's from the FBI. Let's torture him, or whatever. I mean, so it was still, broadly speaking, within that more criminal orientation that you were subjected to torture.
- [31:41]
Elizabeth Zerkov
So they genuinely believed that I was a spy. And this is why they. They tortured me, to get me to confess to all the various schemes that I was running in Iraq. And they genuinely believed that my confessions that they extracted were true. But still, their demand was money. It was just a lot of money. So the initial demand that they made to the Israeli side was. And they used different mediators, and the mediators, one of them at least, was greedier than the other. So simultaneously, Israel received, through different people, one asking $600 million for me and the other 500 million.
- [32:23]
Thomas Small
Wow.
- [32:24]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Yeah. So again, this demonstrates that this kind of ideological veneer of we care about Palestine, for example, they raised these demands after October 7th. So the first seven months that was held, there was actually no demands forthcoming. So Israeli prisons were filling up with Palestinians, and they were like, no, we just want money. So this just goes to show what these organizations are all about. Then, however, in late 2024, during the Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon, Israel captured multiple Lebanese Hezbollah Shia fighters. And then they asked for them to be released in exchange for me, in addition to money. They still wanted money. They were just willing to accept way less money. Then they were demanding, like, 25, $30 million, plus the Lebanese Hezbollah fighters. At the end of the day, I got out without anything being Paid in return. The Lebanese Hezbollah guys are still in Israeli custody. And now with the new incursion, they've been joined by several more fighters who've been captured, who are all being held in Israel.
- [33:36]
Thomas Small
And were you aware that these conditions were flying back and forth captured, or you only learned about all of this after your release?
- [33:42]
Elizabeth Zerkov
So about, for example, the psalms that were initially asked. I only learned about it after being released, when I was in captivity. So the first facility where I was held for four and a half months and tortured after that, I was moved to a facility where I was held in solitary, but there was not torture. And later on, I was given a TV at the end of 23. So I saw some reports about me, including that report mentioned the ransom, and that was a real number, was 330 million. This was after they dropped the number.
- [34:14]
Thomas Small
I can't imagine what it would feel like to think, well, I mean, I'm here in solitary confinement, I've been tortured, life can't get worse, but I'm worth half a billion dollars.
- [34:24]
Elizabeth Zerkov
But that's the thing that I'm not. Right. Because Israel wouldn't pay. Oh, I see.
- [34:29]
Thomas Small
Of course, you know, as the free market says, you're only worth what the market will pay.
- [34:33]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Exactly. And that's the problem, that there was always this incongruence between what they perceive to be my worth, which is high since I'm a spy who is, you know, serving the state of Israel in their minds.
- [34:46]
Thomas Small
Simi, you were not. I just want to make it clear. You were not a spy and I was not.
- [34:50]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Right. And this is why I remained in captivity for 903 days. Because Israel was not willing to give that price.
- [34:58]
Thomas Small
Goodness gracious.
- [34:59]
Elizabeth Zerkov
And at the end of the day, I got out for free. Just because, you know, the Trump administration conveyed a threat to the leadership of Katab Hezbollah that if I'm not released within a, they're going to be killed. Which again demonstrates to you these militias officially claim their leaders and their members that we're seeking martyrdom. And essentially Trump offered them martyrdom. So they could have put me on air, executed me, and then become martyrs. Right. They chose to release me instead.
- [35:32]
Thomas Small
Well, to return, really, to your academic research and where your heart lies in terms of what you're studying out there, how. How do militia groups, not just Katah Ab Hezbollah, but in general militia groups, what impact do they have on ordinary social and cultural life of any given area? I mean, if you were living in an area dominated by a militia. Cause there's always talk about militias about non state actors and often we hear that they provide social services. Sometimes they replace the state in some cases. So how is it different to be under militia rule from being under what we would consider to be normal like nation state governance? How does the presence of a militia group change life for ordinary people?
- [36:31]
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- [38:02]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Obviously. I think it varies, obviously. The uk, for example, is not at risk of areas becoming under the control of militias.
- [38:10]
Thomas Small
Not just yet, no.
- [38:12]
Elizabeth Zerkov
So when we're talking about nation states, we need to keep in mind what type of nation states are at risk of then becoming substituted by militias. So they're usually authoritarian, dictatorial, and generally quite weak militarily. So then the question is the alternative between the two. I would say that one of the benefits of a centralized regime is exactly that, that it's centralized. So you have one address for whatever problems you may have. And there's usually also particular if it's an authoritarian regime, kind of one central node of corruption. Right? So it's basically corruption is related to the regime. Of course there are multiple beneficiaries, but there's one node basically. Whereas in the case of militia rule, particularly if there are multiple militias that are governing an area or have influence over an area as is the case for example, in Iraq right now. So for example, these militias would kidnap civilians. This happened during the civil war in 2006 until 2008 in Iraq. It happened again during the fight against ISIS, which could also be called the form of civil war, and then also very tragically, in the crushing of the 2019, 2020 uprising in Iraq. So you then as, as a, as a family of a victim, you don't know to whom to turn because there are multiple possible perpetrators. And even if, let's say in the early years of the 2006, 2008 Civil War, there was basically one dominant militia, Jish al Mahdi among the Shia, which is the militia of the Sadrist movement. The problem is that this is not the cohesive militias. There are multiple actors within it. So your child is missing and then you don't know to whom to turn and you start asking and you start trying to find out which commander is holding your son. The problem also is that there are multiple nodes of corruption. So basically, whereas for example, during Saddam's era, corruption was him and the people around him, his family, et cetera, people within the regime, now in Iraq you have a situation where you have multip parties participating in governance and also multiple militias and they're all stealing. So as a result, you basically have all these multiple kind of actors who are stealing. A lot less is left for the population. So you have really Iraq, which is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of natural resources, both gas and oil, being a failed state. I mean, it's not a functioning state. There's no clean water in taps, there's no flowing electricity 24,7. It gets cut all the time. There are no proper hospitals. Many areas don't have any roads in them. Even those who have roads get flooded. People die of preventable diseases at a young age. And there's extreme poverty also that is quite prevalent. And at the same time you have several kind of ruling parties and militias. Increasingly these, these ruling parties are militias that are incredibly rich. You know, like they live in palaces, they have money in banks in, in the Gulf and in the west in Iraq, they have real estate all over the world, in Turkey, in the Emirates, in Iraq and Iran. And at the same time you have people who, you know, who cannot afford shoes. They walk around in flip flops all year long because they cannot afford shoes. So just this extreme state of inequality. In other cases, sometimes militia rule is preferable to central regime rule. This was clearly the case in Syria, right, where you saw mass flight of population into areas that are controlled by non state actors outside of regime control,
- [42:10]
Thomas Small
one of whom eventually took over the state and dominated it. Now, because Ahmed Ashara began as a non state leader of a non state actor that established governance in one province and then conquered the whole.
- [42:21]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Exactly. And the same applied also at the time there was area under control of the Syrian Democratic Forces. So to many people who were opposed to the Assad regime or wanted to live in an area governed by Kurds, where you can speak Kurdish freely, where you can learn in Kurdish, this was a preferable option. Sometimes central rule is so bad that people do prefer the alternative, which is rebel rule. I think overall, and this is something that is not well reflected, I think, in most literature on conflicts, is that most people are just trying to get by and therefore oftentimes would prefer a situation that is orderly, even if it's undemocratic or unjust.
- [43:11]
Thomas Small
Orderly, but unjust.
- [43:13]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Exactly. As opposed to, let's say, a myriad of militias who are competing, and therefore you have more room to do activism and publish newspapers. But there's instability and sometimes there's infighting between these militias. This is something that really was actually one of the sources of appeal that ISIS had briefly, that there was really kind of very strict law and order at a time when there's chaos and naturally people turn to crime because they lose other sources of revenue, et cetera. So generally, overwhelmingly, people just want to survive, want to provide for their family, and don't have kind of political aspirations the same way, kind of the elite class. And that can be elite either in a traditional sense, like the way the people who led the protest movement in Syria starting in 2011, who were particularly in cities, were members of the middle class and even in middle upper class or elites that emerged during the uprising of kind of more educated media activists, et cetera, for whom fighting the regime is the top priority, for whom freedom of speech is important, or the ability at least to criticize, exercise the regime is important. Many people, when faced with really kind of such extreme instability and inability to provide to their families, that becomes the top priority and is.
- [44:37]
Thomas Small
I mean, I guess it's maybe a chicken or an egg argument. I mean, is a state. Does a state fail first and then militia rule rises? Or is a failed state simply one in which militia rule has risen, so does it precede the failure? And also, when I hear this descript of what it's like in Iraq now, I mean, as an American, I think immediately all of this is downstream of that fateful 2003 invasion is blame just easily and wholly attributable to that American intervention? There's another part of my brain that often thinks, well, it's not only the American intervention, but it's also the reaction, I mean, often, let's say, by Iran to that intervention fomenting instability to prevent the aftermath of the invasion to be anything but horrific for Iraq. Or is it just internal Iraqi dynamics that came out into the open after the pressure valve of Saddam's totalitarian regime was lifted? Or is it just all of it? It's just a total, as Eamon would say, clusterfuck.
- [45:48]
Elizabeth Zerkov
So I definitely think that clusterfuck is definitely a better, better description of the situation than assigning blame solely to the US or solely to Iran. I also think that this belief that the Iraqi public was deeply sectarian. And the only thing keeping this sectarianism at bay and this hatred for members of your own people who are of a different sect is this dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein. I think that is, that is incorrect. I think that the politicians whom the US brought to power basically are to blame for many, many of the ills that are affecting Iraq today. And increasingly, as time passes by from the invasion and with the U.S. withdrawal of forces, increasingly the U.S. yes, it created, it broke something. But then at the end of the day, you have, we shouldn't be denying agency of people, of the Iraqi people as individuals and particularly their elites. And they could have made different choices that would have benefited their country, and instead they chose to entrench their power. So, for example, the US played a very crucial role in the passing of the Iraqi constitution, which is not an ideal constitution. It is haphazard and there are internal contradictions in it. But at the end of the day, it is a constitution that is intended to prevent the rise of authoritarianism anew. It distributes power, et cetera. But then in the 2010 elections, the elections results should have brought to power Yad Al Qhalawi, who was the head of a party that enjoyed support of both Sunnis and Shia as this kind of secular, cross sectarian leader, leader. And the parties whom the US brought to power didn't want to relinquish power. So basically they got the Supreme Court to issue a ruling that preserves them in power, essentially that allows Al Maliki to get another term. And the US under Obama at the time, chose not to intervene, not even though it was still present in Iraq at the time, decided not to intervene and allow this to happen for elections to not matter.
- [48:10]
Thomas Small
But if Maliki was in power, then I mean, you know, I associate Nouri Al Maliki with Iranian interests. Maybe that's a simplification. But was Iran involved in the movement to get that Supreme Court ruling?
- [48:23]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Yeah, of course. Iran definitely wanted Al Maliki to remain in power, has influence till this day, unfortunately, over the supreme courts of Iraq. It has two. But the decisions that were made by Iraq's political elites to ignore the rules of the game and essentially for elections to election results to essentially be thrown out of the window and forcing a monarchy on the. This played a very crucial role because this was a signal to the Iraqi population that your votes do not matter. And that led to increasing cynicism and people staying away from voting because what's the point? And we actually see it right now again in Iraq. The person who got got appointed as prime minister, Hali Al Zaydi, did not run on any list. He won zero seats, he won zero votes.
- [49:17]
Thomas Small
I want to talk about that in a second, if I could, Elizabeth. First and you mentioned the Iraqi constitution. I'm glad you did because I'm very, very interested in getting a bird's eye view of the nation state of Iraq as it is currently constituted. Iraq is this country that as an American I have heard about since 1990, right. Since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, all Americans have had to varying degrees, Iraq in their minds. And yet even I, who knows a little bit about the Middle east, still struggle to really understand Iraq as a place. It's like a kind of void. It's more like a place on a map or an idea in the mind than a real place. So starting at like the top, how does the nation state of Iraq actually work? It's a federal state, if I've understood correct. There is something like democracy there, although clearly it's compromised. There are elections, but you also say they have two supreme courts. So how does Iraq actually work?
- [50:20]
Elizabeth Zerkov
So the constitution that was set in place after the US invasion creates quite a complex system of governance in Iraq that is essentially federal. It is supposed to be a parliamentary democracy in which the prime minister is the most powerful person in power. But the constitution is increasingly irrelevant. It is not being implemented. Iraq is not a democracy according to all measures. Different Freedom House and other organizations have determined that it's not a democracy and it is not in any way. Elections there do not matter. It is essentially functioning as a clientalist regime. So that means that people are voting based on basically either straight up payment for their vote or owing to services and jobs, usually public sector jobs that they've received from a certain political party or other benefits that they've received. So for example, you were hired back in 2008 by a certain politician, so you voted for him for a while. Now you've been in the office for a long time. You want to advance. You see, for example, that Asahab Ahl Al Haq, which is a pro Iranian militia, is increasingly powerful within the state, so you switch allegiance to it so that you can advance within your job. Or you want to get approval to open up a shop, for example. You cannot do that just by following the law. Nothing will happen. You need to get someone to intervene on your behalf. You can't pay a bribe. Or you can get someone to intervene on your behalf within the state. It's called wasta. It's basically like a form of nepotism, connections. And they will get this done for you and then you owe them, basically, and you go and you vote, vote for them. So it is a system that is devoid of popular legitimacy. In the last elections, the turnout rate was about 40% of the Iraqi population above the age of 18 came out to vote. To hide this fact, Iraq calculates the turnout rate as among people registered to vote, while a third of Iraqis over 18 don't even bother to register to vote. There is a system that is deeply illegitimate. Unfortunately, this deep illegitimacy among the population is rarely mentioned again in think tank reports and literature that is being produced on Iraq, because it is written from a very kind of elite point of view, like their internal struggles, like who gets this ministry, who gets this contract, etc, when in reality the system just lacks legitimacy. And to create a popular base out of nothing, because they don't have it. They don't pursue policies that are beneficial to the population. So for many years they relied on sectarianism, on trying to scare Shias of the Sunnis, Sunnis of the Shia, Kurds of the Arabs. Increasingly they are turning to just buying votes through hiring in the public sector, through paying for votes. And this is a disaster for Iraq, because even before the war and before the economic crisis that it entails, Iraq cannot basically export its oil through Hormuz. Most of the oil goes through Hormuz. 90% of the Iraqi budget comes from oil sale. They fail to develop any private sector because of endemic corruption, because of the presence of militias, because very weak educational sector. The result is that the country is extremely reliant on oil. Even before this crisis, the ongoing crisis, the Iraqi state was already in recent months, prior to the war, was late in payment of salaries, introduced austerity measures and cut fuel and gas cooking, gas availability for the population to export more of it to make more money.
- [54:07]
Thomas Small
The current war then, and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz and the American blockade on an Iranian shipping. And I suppose as you said, there's a dark economy that connects Iran and much of Iraq. It's going to be disastrous for Iraq.
- [54:18]
Elizabeth Zerkov
It is utterly a disaster. Interestingly, the problem started for Iraq long before the US imposed blockade. Iran itself was not allowing Iraqi ships to pass. More so two ships that two tankers that arrived to Basra to pick up Iraqi oil were attacked by Iranian ships that exploded on them. So suicide boats, even though the word suicide, it's like one way boats, I would say suicide is the boat didn't decide to commit suicide, but basically they blew up these tankers. So Iraq was not able to export its oil even before the US implemented any mergers.
- [55:01]
Thomas Small
So why would Iran have attacked these two tankers in Basra?
- [55:04]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Great question.
- [55:05]
Thomas Small
Yeah, okay. It was part of that random initial phase of the re of the recent war when the IRGC was launching things rather chaotically.
- [55:13]
Elizabeth Zerkov
No, because the goal of the Iraq, of the Iranian regime is to drive up the prices of oil. That is how it thinks it can win the war. So therefore it needs also to prevent Iraq from exporting and it doesn't care that you know, the Iraqi oil marketer, the national oil marketer is called somo. SOMO has been implicated, has been caught shipping Iranian oil. So this company has served the financial interests of Iran, smuggling oil out of Iran, presenting it as Iraqi oil falsely. They didn't spare even the tankers of this company. They're just. And for the same reason hierarchy oil militias bombarded their own oil fields in their own country. They sent drones against oil fields in Basra.
- [56:02]
Thomas Small
Well, I suppose that does suit the short term interests of the Iranian regime, which feels itself rightly, I think facing an existential threat. So it says, well, okay, we've got to raise the price of oil. We'll deal with the aftermath later. Okay. Just to continue with Iraq and how it works, I'd love to know how to how America now functions in the Iraqi arena. So America fully withdrew from Iraq and that withdrawal was completed on the 18th of December 2011. Then three and a bit years later, in June of 2014, American forces returned. This time at the invitation of the Iraqi government to help fight isis. And America's role in that campaign officially led lasted until December 2021. I say officially, but there are still American troops in Iraq, still American bases we know this. They've been attacked since 28 February, when the war began this year. And yet before the war and even now, I guess the US is in some kind of transition phase in its relations with Iraq, trying to move towards a more conventional kind of bilateral security partnership. But we also see more recently in the question of who is going to become the prime minister. After the elections of last year, Nouria Meliki was going to be prime minister. The Americans and many people thought, well, this is an Iranian thing. We can't have that happen. So now this guy Ali Azade has been imposed and Washington used sanctions, it used banking restrictions, it can control dollar flows into Iraq through oil revenues. I think that's a really important way in which Washington continues to apply pressure to the Iraqi government. So what role does America really actually play in Iraq today?
- [57:52]
Elizabeth Zerkov
So the US still maintains military presence in the airport in Baghdad. It's a logistics center, essentially. But the only place that is actually housing US troops in large numbers and is a military base is in Al Harir, which is near Erbil. So it's inside the Kurdistan region. And according to the agreement reached between the Iraqi government and the Biden administration administration, the US is set to pull out from this base in September of this year. And that would essentially conclude the presence of the US military in support of counter ISIS operations. And this support has actually been very instrumental intelligence support. Also drone overflights over ISIS strongholds in mountainous areas that are very hard to reach, like the Khamarin Mountains, for example. So that support is essentially set to end in September. And this is something that pro Iranian forces inside Iraq have been demanding that the US withdraw. And previously there was, until September of last year, there was presence of the U.S. military in Hein Al Assad, in Al Anbar. It's a military base there. But in accordance with the agreement, US forces pulled out from there. With regards to the election of the prime minister, the US openly vetoed the nomination of Nuriri al Maliki as prime minister. By veto, I mean, that basically said, this is an Iraqi decision. You can nominate whomever you want, but we will then also make our own decisions with regard to our relationship with Iraq. So basically, there will be sanctions for this decision. And I think this was a positive sign. Nouri al Maliki, with the exception of the people who benefited from him materially, is a deeply hated, highly controversial figure inside Iraq. There are many, many jokes about people. There's a video, for example, that went viral of an Iraqi guy standing next to a Nouri Al Malik poster just taking a photo with him and then coming back to the photographer and saying like, oh, where's my wallet? Because the guy is known to be a thief. There's also a viral video of him. He was at some reception and someone was serving candy and he like grabs it and grabs it and puts it in his pocket. You know, people like, I mean the guy's filthy rich, he's a billionaire. You know, he has stolen so much from Naira people and still he's like out there stealing candy, you know, or taking it as if he cannot afford to to buy it himself. And on top of it, he is one of the most prominent sectarian anti Sunni voices in Iraq who actively incites against the Sunni population of Iraq and constantly tries to trigger the fear of the Shia of the return of the Baath regime, even though it's not going to happen. And was quite hostile in his remarks with regards to the new government in Syria saying It's a jihadist etc. Government. So the US vetoed him. And then apparently also, and this is something that has been reported on but not publicly confirmed by the US at any point, vetoed the current Prime Minister Sudani, who has proven himself to be an utter failure at reining in the militias. The militias during the 40 Day War were very active. They failed to cause any loss of life in US ranks despite their best efforts. But they did cause a lot of damage. They really kind of went wild, attacking hotels in Baghdad, saying that foreigners are staying there, attacking oil fields of their own country and also attacking nearby countries, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Kuwait, et cetera. And he failed to do anything basically to stop it. So the US was displeased with that, which is super understandable. And therefore the coordination framework, which is the umbrella group of all the pro Iran Shia parties, nominated Ali Azadi, who is a 40 year old banker without any experience in governance except stealing. Basically he is a highly corrupt business person who has been awarded contracts from the state that he has used to enrich himself, also to pay bribes inside the Iraqi government to get all sorts of benefits, et cetera, to get contracts awarded to him. He was a kind of a compromise candidate between Al Maliki and Sudani and also under the influence of Faq Zaydan, who is formerly the head of Iraq's judiciary. He's the head of the Supreme Court,
- [62:21]
Thomas Small
but one of the Supreme Courts or both of them, one of the Supreme
- [62:24]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Courts, that's true, but he is in reality the most powerful man in Iraq who has not been Elected. He also was instrumental in the appointment of the previous speaker of Parliament, Mohamed Al Khalbousi and now Haybat Al Khalbousi, who is from the same party and from the same family as the speaker of the parliament. So essentially, Faq Zeidau now has immense influence over the three branches of government. So the parliament, the executive and the. And the judiciary.
- [62:52]
Thomas Small
Sounds like Walayat Al Faqi to me. If the head of the Supreme Court has supreme power over Iraq.
- [62:57]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Right. And he is also very close to Iran. His home has a bust of Abu Mahdir Muhandis, who was the former commander of Khattab Hezbollah, who was assassinated by the US alongside side Qasem Soleimani in January of 2020. Basically, it seems that Iraqi officials vowed to the US that Ali Az Zaidi will finally get the job done of disarming the militias and incorporating them into the state. I'm really hoping that that is true.
- [63:29]
Thomas Small
I mean, it doesn't seem likely. President Trump, to be fair, did say nice things about Ali Azadi at a press conference the other day, calling him in his typical way, oh, good man, strong man, he's going to be great, blah, blah, blah. But from what you're saying, Elizabeth, it doesn't sound hopeful.
- [63:45]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Khalil Zayd himself cannot do anything. He, he lacks any popular base or any parliamentary base. So he, he's not an elected official. And essentially the, the different power players in Iraq chose him because he is so weak that he's supposed to serve at this kind of administration administrator. And this was what was supposed to happen also with Sudani, the current prime minister, the outgoing prime minister who became prime minister with just two seats in Parliament. It was supposed to be this little administrative figure whom stronger players will run as a consensus kind of candidate or a compromise candidate. What Sudani did instead was spend billions of dollars to hire people in the state in an over bloated public sector and give immense economic benefits to the militias to try and create a support base for himself and alliances with the militias. He told Bloomberg openly that during his era, he hired 700,000 people into an overbloated public sector to create a base for himself. And indeed, he was quite successful in it. His party got like 45 seats or something like that in these elections from 2 to 4. 45. Because he essentially bought people's loyalty.
- [65:03]
Thomas Small
He bribed them.
- [65:04]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Yeah, exactly.
- [65:05]
Thomas Small
Okay, Elizabeth, you know, here's the thing. I really want to know about Iraq. I want to understand it better. We don't talk about it Enough on conflicted. I wonder, as a long term listener of conflicted, you must have thought, why don't they talk more about Iraq? It's important. But as you've made clear, it's also extremely complicated and super depressing. Elizabeth, I don't see any way out out of this political, economic, religious and cultural morass that Iraq is in.
- [65:31]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Yeah. So I think that as you mentioned, the US holds immense leverage over Iraq, basically because of Saddam era lawsuits. The Iraqi state cannot receive directly the funds from its oil sales. Everything goes through the Federal Reserve in, in the US and there are multiple other levers. Access to dollars in general on the market, individual sanctions. The positive thing in a way that Iraqi politicians, including militia leaders who pretend to be deeply ideological and just seeking martyrdom all the time, they're actually billionaires who are very, very corrupt and careful about sanctions because they didn't steal all this money to become martyrs, but also to then lose access to all this money because their accounts are frozen because of sanctions. So the US really has immense tools at its disposal.
- [66:31]
Thomas Small
So the United States could sanction Iraqi leaders as a way of forcing them to be better statesmen, you mean?
- [66:37]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Exactly. Iraqi politicians, there are general directors of different ministries who funnel immense amounts of money into the coffers of the militias who then move some of that money to Iran. So all of these are measures that the US is taking to some extent, but could be using them in a much more sustained manner and part of an overall policy. I think the way US interest is seen right now in DC is very Iran focused. But I think these measures would benefit also the people of Iraq and improve governance in Iraq, regardless of the movement of money and the support of that the Iranian regime is getting from pro Iranian forces inside Iraq. I think that there's a sense there's Iraq fatigue. It's not a coincidence that very few people care or write or, you know, want to learn more about Iraq. There's a sense that this was an utter failure. We just want to wash our hands off of it. The problem is that there are still over 40 million Iraqis who live in this country, right? And, and they deserve better than the system that they have right now. I was held captive in Iraq for two and a half years, but before that I lived in Iraq for about a year doing different visits and field work. And Iraqis, despite being brutalized like very few other people on earth, are incredibly kind, incredibly warm individuals. It actually makes conducting research. They're easy in the sense that people open up very, very quickly. They share what they genuinely think in their opinions. So they really, they've suffered. The original sin was not actually the invasion. The original sin was even before that was the sanctions. They really destroyed Iraq's middle class. They led to a mass extreme exodus of the educated out of Iraq. They impoverished the population. They caused immense suffering. And then of course, the invasion and subsequent policies. But the US now has this tendency to look at Iraq and like, okay, it's broken and that's it. I think that is unjust to the people of Iraq who continue to live there. But also I think it is just not wise for US national security interests. And multiple administrative administrations have identified the Iranian regime as a threat to US national security interests. Whether you're Democrat or Republican, this is something that is a consensus. How to deal with it is the question. Right, but it is the consensus. Iran has funded militias across the region that have harmed Americans, have killed Americans, have assassinated Americans.
- [69:19]
Thomas Small
Well, more importantly than that, they have undermined good governance across the region, which has caused all Middle Easterners to suffer.
- [69:25]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Right, right. They've caused the suffering of hundreds of millions of people in Syria and Iraq and inside Iran itself. Right. And in Lebanon and in Yemen. So I think even if looking from a very kind of instrumentalist perspective, ignoring what's happening in Iraq is a mistake because the Iranian regime is in a dire financial strait. It was in a dire financial strait even before the war started. You may remember that the protest that erupted in Iran that precipitated all of this was a result of the collapse of their currency. The pro Iranian militias in Iraq are trying to do exactly that, to prop up the currency. They would smuggle dollars to try and prop it up. So this violation of Iraqi sovereignty and the use of the resources of Iraq, the immense resources of Iraq for the benefit not of the Iraqi people who live in abject poverty, many of them, but for the benefit of the regime in Iran to sustain itself and sustain its proxy militias across the region. That is something that the US should strive to end and has immense tools to do that. I think it just requires attention, executive high level attention, and to create a policy and then implement it.
- [70:36]
Thomas Small
Well, Elizabeth, executive high level attention and a follow through on decisions is not necessarily what we're gonna get for the next three years, but who knows?
- [70:45]
Elizabeth Zerkov
Yeah, but the administration has many very smart people within its ranks, people at very senior levels who also understand the Iranian threat and understand Iraq quite well. And I think that obviously the President has many files to juggle. Iraq is not a high priority by any count. But even if these individuals find the time in their day to focus on this, I think it would, it would benefit. It would benefit Iraqis and Iraqis are certainly hoping for this.
- [71:17]
Thomas Small
Well, thank you very much, Elizabeth Zerkov, for coming on to conflict it at such late notice. Like, honestly, dear listeners, I asked Elizabeth at what, like 11:00am UK time, and within three hours we were recording this. It's a testament to your intelligence and your expertise and your articulateness, Elizabeth, that you're able to just provide all of this extremely coherent and valuable information. Information. We've been talking for almost 90 minutes, which is a shame in a way. I've enjoyed every second of it because I have a list as long as my arm of other topics. I wanted to talk to you about not just Iraq, although Iraq was at the top of that list. I did want to talk more about Lebanon, about the Israel war and Hezbollah there. Now I wanted to talk about post Assad Syria. You're on the record for saying that the fall of Bashar Al Assad's regime was among the happiest days of your life. I want to know about that. I want to know what you think. Think about other issues in Syria in the post Assad regime period, like the question of Syrian minorities, the Sueda situation, Israeli policy in Syria. I very much wanted to talk to you about the Israel Palestine situation, about the Gaza war, the Hamas situation, the Israeli settler movement in the west bank, and the general political scene within Israel. I wanted to talk to you about all of these things and we don't have time to do so. So what I want to extract from you is a promise that you will come back on Conflicted soon, maybe even to finish this conversation.
- [72:44]
Elizabeth Zerkov
I'd be happy to, absolutely. And I'm a big fan of the podcast. So when you had reached out to me originally a while back, I immediately replied to you within seconds that of course I would be happy to come on and I'm happy I got this opportunity to to do this now.
- [72:59]
Thomas Small
Well, Elizabeth Surkov, you are a new friend of the show, so we will have you you back on. Thank you so much for coming on. Dear listeners, I hope you all stay well. So take care everyone. Conflicted is a message Heard Production. Our executive producers are Jake Warren and Max Warren. This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.