Thomas Friedman on Syria, the U.S. and Trump

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Opinions – "Thomas Friedman on Syria, the U.S. and Trump"

Podcast Information

• Title: The Opinions
• Host/Author: The New York Times Opinion
• Description: One voice, one opinion, in 10 minutes or less.
• Episode: Thomas Friedman on Syria, the U.S. and Trump
• Release Date: December 19, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode of The Opinions, Dan Waken, the international editor for New York Times Opinion, engages in a compelling discussion with renowned foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman. The conversation delves into the recent ousting of Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad, the broader implications for the Middle East, and the potential role of the United States under the Trump administration in shaping the region's future.

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1. The Ousting of Bashar Al Assad and Its Regional Impact

Dan Waken opens the dialogue by addressing the seismic shift in Syria, marking the end of Assad's over 50-year tyrannical rule following 13 years of civil war.

Key Points:

• Historical Context: Assad's regime has been characterized by iron-fisted and tyrannical control for over five decades.
• Potential Outcomes: The removal of such a long-standing ruler can lead to either the implosion or explosion of a nation, significantly affecting the Middle East.

Notable Quote:

"Syria's a country that explodes because it contains within its borders the sort of miniature Middle East of Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Druze, Christians, even a few Jews in the past."
— Tom Friedman [01:45]

Friedman emphasizes that Syria serves as a keystone in the Levant, suggesting that its stability or instability will influence the entire region for decades to come.

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2. Managing Syria’s Transition: Challenges and Prospects

The conversation shifts to the uncertainty surrounding the future governance of Syria post-Assad, highlighting the role of the rebel Islamist faction that orchestrated the takeover.

Key Points:

• Uncertainty of Leadership: The rebel group's origins trace back to Al Qaeda, but their current governance in northern Syria has been notably more pluralistic.
• Potential for Positive Change: There is hope that the merger between the rebel group's ideology and Syria's diverse society could lead to a stable and democratic governance structure.

Notable Quote:

"If you think of Syria as the keystone of the whole Levant, the Eastern Mediterranean. The keystone is both crumbled, but it's also exploding."
— Tom Friedman [02:30]

Friedman underscores the delicate balance required to manage Syria's diverse ethnic and religious groups to prevent regional destabilization.

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3. Implications for Neighboring Countries

Friedman outlines the ripple effects Syria's transition could have on neighboring nations, particularly Iraq.

Key Points:

• Impact on Iraq: Positive developments in Syria could pressure Iraq to develop non-sectarian political parties, fostering a more robust democracy. Conversely, instability could exacerbate existing threats like ISIS.
• Regional Stability: The management of Syria's transition is pivotal in shaping the Middle East's future landscape, potentially influencing various countries' political and economic structures.

Notable Quote:

"Any positive development in Syria would put pressure on Iraq to follow suit to some degree."
— Tom Friedman [04:33]

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4. The United States’ Role: Lessons from Iraq

The discussion pivots to the United States' involvement in Syria, drawing parallels and contrasts with its intervention in Iraq.

Key Points:

• Avoiding Past Mistakes: Friedman criticizes the Bush administration's de-Ba'athification in Iraq, which inadvertently fueled insurgency by disenfranchising former soldiers and officials.
• Bottom-Up Approach: Unlike the top-down intervention in Iraq, Syria's regime change is grassroots-driven, fostering a sense of ownership among Syrians that could lead to more sustainable governance.
• Call to Action: Friedman urges the Trump administration to leverage American influence diplomatically to guide Syria towards a positive trajectory, emphasizing the relatively low cost compared to the potential benefits.

Notable Quote:

"Syria is so different from Iraq, Dan, because Iraq, we did top down. We are the ones who pulled down Saddam's statue in Baghdad. In Syria, it happened just the opposite. It happened bottom up. So they own it. And that's a very good thing."
— Tom Friedman [07:31]

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5. Consequences of U.S. Inaction

Friedman warns against a potential withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, outlining the chaos that could ensue.

Key Points:

• Power Vacuum: Removal of U.S. forces could lead to conflicts between various factions, including Turkey, Kurds, and Israel, creating a complete vacuum.
• Regional and Global Ramifications: Such instability would likely result in a massive refugee crisis affecting the European Union and threaten key U.S. allies like Jordan, potentially leading to widespread Middle Eastern turmoil.

Notable Quote:

"If the US removed its 8 to 900 troops we have in eastern Syria and they're put there to prevent ISIS from returning and just walked away, basically, you'll have a free for all."
— Tom Friedman [09:21]

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6. The Challenge of Weak States in the Modern World

In the concluding segment, Friedman addresses the broader issue of weak states and their growing prevalence in the global landscape.

Key Points:

• Evolving Global Dynamics: Unlike the post-World War II era, today’s world has numerous weak states plagued by internal conflicts, climate change, and population pressures.
• Lack of External Intervention: No superpower is willing to intervene in these fragile states, leading to unchecked state failure.
• Strategic Blindness: Traditional diplomatic strategies are ill-equipped to manage the complexities of weak states, presenting a significant challenge for global governance.

Notable Quote:

"Managing weakness, oh, my goodness, that is hell on wheels."
— Tom Friedman [11:05]

Friedman highlights the unprecedented difficulty in addressing the needs and crises of weak states in today's interconnected and rapidly changing world.

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Conclusion

The episode offers a profound analysis of Syria's newfound freedom from Assad and the intricate web of regional and international implications. Thomas Friedman articulates the urgency for the United States to actively engage in Syria's transition, drawing lessons from past interventions to foster stability and democracy in the Middle East. Additionally, he underscores the overarching global challenge of managing weak states, a testament to the evolving complexities of modern geopolitics.

For listeners seeking a nuanced understanding of Middle Eastern dynamics and U.S. foreign policy, this episode provides valuable insights and expert perspectives.

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Notable Quotes Overview

• On Syria's Role in the Middle East:

  "Syria's a country that explodes because it contains within its borders the sort of miniature Middle East of Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Druze, Christians, even a few Jews in the past."
  — Tom Friedman [01:45]

• On Syria as the Keystone:

  "If you think of Syria as the keystone of the whole Levant, the Eastern Mediterranean. The keystone is both crumbled, but it's also exploding."
  — Tom Friedman [02:30]

• On U.S. Intervention Strategies:

  "Syria is so different from Iraq, Dan, because Iraq, we did top down. We are the ones who pulled down Saddam's statue in Baghdad. In Syria, it happened just the opposite. It happened bottom up. So they own it. And that's a very good thing."
  — Tom Friedman [07:31]

• On Potential Chaos from U.S. Withdrawal:

  "If the US removed its 8 to 900 troops we have in eastern Syria and they're put there to prevent ISIS from returning and just walked away, basically, you'll have a free for all."
  — Tom Friedman [09:21]

• On Managing Weak States:

  "Managing weakness, oh, my goodness, that is hell on wheels."
  — Tom Friedman [11:05]

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Final Thoughts

Thomas Friedman's analysis presents a critical evaluation of Syria's future and the broader implications for the Middle East. His insights call for strategic U.S. involvement to navigate the complexities of post-Assad Syria, emphasizing the high stakes and potential for both positive and negative regional outcomes. Additionally, Friedman sheds light on the emerging global challenge of weak states, urging for innovative approaches in international policy and governance.

Transcript

[Narrator]

Holiday's got you stressed. Take a meditative moment and bake cookies anytime with Instacart. Feel your shoulders drop and your breath deepen as you realize you won't have to go out for groceries. Whisk yourself away on smooth waves of batter. Allow the familiar fragrance to waft through your home and your mind. Dissolve your anxieties with cookie recipes from New York Times Cooking. Get ingredients delivered in as fast as 30 minutes through Instacart. Find a recipe at nytcooking.com Instacart this is the Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times Opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.

[Dan Waken]

I'm Dan Waken, an international editor for New York Times Opinion.

[Tom Friedman]

And I'm Tom Friedman, the foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times.

[Dan Waken]

Hi, Tom.

[Tom Friedman]

Morning, Dan.

[Dan Waken]

So I wanted to talk to you about the situation in Syria and what it means for the Middle east as a whole. It's been almost two weeks since Syria's dictator Bashar Al Assad was ousted after about 13 years of civil war. This has been, as you've written, an earthquake for the Middle East. A game changer, really. So I thought we could take the opportunity to talk through the ramifications and how the Trump administration should respond. But first, I have a question. You've been covering and writing about the Middle east for a long time. Basically, for your entire career, you've seen different versions of the Assad regime in Syria. I'm just curious, did you ever think this day would come?

[Tom Friedman]

Well, I certainly couldn't have predicted it, Dan, but I could have hoped for it. In your introduction, you said this happened after 13 years of civil war in Syria. But actually the more relevant date is that it happened after more than 50 years of Assad family rule in Syria. And that is to say, iron fisted, tyrannical rule. So the elimination of that iron fist in Syria can go one of two ways. In the Middle East. Some countries implode when the iron fist is removed, and some countries explode. That is all the different shards spread out in 360 degrees. And the reason the lifting of the iron fist from Syria is so important is Syria's a country that explodes because it contains within its borders the sort of miniature Middle east of Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Druze, Christians, even a few Jews in the past. And so in times of insecurity, those groups reach out for help. And times of insecurity, outside countries reach in to tilt Syria. So if you think of Syria as the keystone of the whole Levant, the Eastern Mediterranean. The keystone is both crumbled, but it's also exploding. And how it is managed in the next few months, days and years will shape the next 50 years of the Middle East.

[Dan Waken]

So when you say how it's managed, who does the managing here?

[Tom Friedman]

Well, if you know, would you call me? Because that's the problem. The Syrian takeover was engineered by a rebel Islamist faction and we really know very little about them. They have roots tracing back to Al Qaeda. They have a track record of governing in northern Syria, though in a very non Al Qaeda like way and in a much more decent, pluralistic way. And now that basically the whole country has fallen into their lap, everyone's really waiting to see how they emerge. And I suspect how they emerge will be a merger between the Syrian society they've inherited and whatever ideology they come to this task with. And so that is all TBD. I am 5149, slightly, slightly, if you put it under a microscope, hopeful that that merger with Syrian society in its full richness and mosaic, with this group wanting to succeed, not fail, will tilt them in a positive direction.

[Dan Waken]

If it does go in a positive direction and Syria emerges as a free market democracy, say, what implications does that have for countries in the region?

[Tom Friedman]

Well, it has enormous consequences. Let's just go around the horn. Let's start first and foremost with Iraq. So Iraq, in the wake of the US invasion, has developed its own pluralistic democracy. It's had six parliamentary elections, but it's a deeply flawed and fragile democracy. The country is deeply penetrated by its neighbor Iran. Its economy is dominated by Iran. Any positive development in Syria would put pressure on Iraq to follow suit to some degree. And that would mean to begin to develop parties that are non sectarian. So that's the upside potential. The downside is that instability in Syria, if Syria really unravels. I mean, There are some 40,000 ISIS prisoners being held in camps in eastern Syria by Kurds working with the United States states. And if that grip loosened and they're mostly actually women and children, but not all of them. I visited their camp about nine months ago with the U.S. cENTCOM commander. Oh my God. That would spread instability all across the region. These are people been held in these detention camps in eastern Syria because their own home governments don't want them back.

[Dan Waken]

Let's pivot a bit to the United States. The US played obviously a major role in nation building and dictator removing in Iraq. And clearly Syria and Iraq are very different. But are there lessons to be learned from what the US did in Iraq regarding Syria and more generally, what should the United States role be in Syria?

[Tom Friedman]

Well, that's a very good question, Dan. Very relevant. Today we, the Times, had an article about a former Syrian army soldier. Soldiers, soldiers in President Assad's army being asked to turn in their weapons and register with the government with the promise that had they not been involved in any kind of atrocities, they would be allowed to go free. This is very important because the single stupidest thing the Bush administration did in Iraq after toppling Saddam, basically de ba'athifying the country and the army and basically telling anyone who was a soldier or a schoolteacher member of the BAATH Party to go home. And of course, that triggered the insurgency because they went home and said, oh, oh, oh, you talking to me? You talking to me? Well, I'm just gonna take my gun and go home, and the first chance I get, I'm gonna turn it back on you. And so there clearly has been some learning going on in Syria to try to avoid that scenario.

[Dan Waken]

What lessons do you think the United States should have learned from Iraq and apply to Syria?

[Tom Friedman]

Well, Syria is so different from Iraq, Dan, because Iraq, we did top down. We are the ones who pulled down Saddam's statue in Baghdad. In Syria, it happened just the opposite. It happened bottom up. So they own it. And that's a very good thing. That's a very important thing. And so Secretary of State Blinken has been out there, I think, trying to nudge these insurgents in the right direction. I think that's very important. But I think the Trump administration should roll up its sleeves, and if Marco Rubio becomes Secretary of state, get on a plane and get out there and use as much American influence as possible to tilt this Syrian government in the right direction. Nothing could be more important when you think of the money we spent in Iraq, and the number starts with a T as in trillion, and the fact that this happened in Syria basically for free, and that if we tilt it in the right direction, it could have enormous regional implications, positive ones, the ones I hope for from Iraq. There's an enormous stake here. So one has to hope that Trump will get over his isolationist instincts and take seriously the fact that for a relatively low price in both time and money, we could have a very, very big positive outcome if this is done right. And by the way, if we don't do this, then Turkey will, Israel will, Russia will, according to their interests. So I think this is going to be an early test for the administration whether it'll apply the JD Vance approach to Ukraine. I don't care what happens in Ukraine, to Syria, or whether it'll take a much more conventional US Diplomatic approach. Let's visit the Middle east before it visits us.

[Dan Waken]

Can you elaborate a bit on what exactly the consequences would be if the US just ducks responsibility for Syria?

[Tom Friedman]

If the US removed its 8 to 900 troops we have in eastern Syria and they're put there to prevent ISIS from returning and just walked away, basically, you'll have a free for all. It'll be Turkey versus Kurds, it'll be Syrians versus Syrians. Israel will move in. It'll be a complete vacuum. And the most immediate impact will be on the European Union because you'll get a, I think, huge outflow of refugees and you'll have a failed state right in the heart of the Middle east that will be an immediate threat to Jordan, which is a vital US ally, has been since its founding. And if Jordan in any way collapses, then you have no buffer between Israel and Iraq and you're off to a Middle east that will very quickly, like a wildfire, be engulfed in instability.

[Dan Waken]

So I take it you think the stakes are quite high.

[Tom Friedman]

I think the stakes are quite high, Dan. And I think that the effort, relatively speaking, compared to Iraq, is relatively low. But again, I don't know how much Marco Rubio has thought about this. How much he knows, I don't know. Trump has also appointed some Middle east envoys. The father of his son in law, who is a Lebanese extraction and a New York real estate developer. What any of these people know about the Middle East, I have no idea. I don't see a Henry Kissinger among them. But maybe I'll be surprised.

[Dan Waken]

Let's just zoom out now to sort of a global question. You've written that the big challenge facing Donald Trump as president will be weak states, not strong states. Can you briefly elaborate on that? What you mean by that exactly?

[Tom Friedman]

Yeah, I mean, just very quickly. You know, if you think of the UN in 1945, right after it was founded, there's lots of little countries, countries that in the past were governed by empires. And it was a good time then to be a weak little state. You had two superpowers, US and the USSR, throwing money at you, wheat, rebuilding your armies, educating your kids. Climate change was moderate, populations were low. No one had a cell phone. And China was not in the World Trade Organization. So everyone could be in the low wage industry's business. All that flips in the early 21st century because now no Superpower wants to touch you as a little country, especially a failing one, because all they win is a bill. In their view, climate change is hammering these countries. Populations have exploded. Everyone has a cell phone and whoops, mine has a human trafficking app on it even. And China's in the World Trade Organization, so nobod in the low wage textile business, metaphorically speaking. As a result, a lot of these weak little states are just fracturing. It starts with internal migration, often driven by climate events and deforestation. That leads to external migration, leads to state failure and state collapse. And the Middle east is home to many of them. Let's call them out. Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia. And so all of these are states that exist on the map, but they are basically hemorrhaging inside. And in this day and age, these countries are, I like to say, too late for imperialism. I'm not advocating imperialism. I simply mean that no other outside power is gonna come take them over and organize their affairs. And they failed at self government. We've never been here before. And so we have a problem that we don't know how to deal with. And that's the problem of managing weakness. Our Secretary of State traditionally knew how to manage strength, the strength of the Soviet Union and the strength of China and the strength of America. But managing weakness, oh, my goodness, that is hell on wheels.

[Dan Waken]

All right, well, on that note, we'll leave it and I'll just say, thank you so much, Tom. It's been great talking to you.

[Tom Friedman]

You too, Dan. Anytime.

[Narrator]

If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is produced by Derek Arthur, Sofia Alvarez, Boyd Bishaka Durba, Phoebe Lett, Christina Samulewski and Gillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek and Annie Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing and original music by Isaac Jones, sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Saburo and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amin Sohota. The Fact Check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta, Christina Samulewski and Adrian Rivera. The executive producer of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Dresser.