6. The Real Godfather: Assad’s Syrian Mafia

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rest Is Classified — Episode 6: The Real Godfather: Assad’s Syrian Mafia

Release Date: December 18, 2024

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Introduction

In Episode 6 of The Rest Is Classified, hosts David McClaskey and Gordon Carrera delve into the intricate and shadowy world of Bashar al Assad’s regime in Syria, portraying it as a modern-day mafia state. Drawing parallels to The Godfather saga, the episode explores the complex dynamics between Syria and Lebanon, focusing on the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005. This pivotal event serves as a lens to understand the depths of Assad’s power and the lengths he would go to maintain his grip on both Syria and its neighbor, Lebanon.

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The Assad Regime: A Mafia State Analogy

David McClaskey introduces the Assad regime by likening it to a mafia organization, highlighting its clandestine operations and ruthless methods of maintaining power. He shares a compelling quote from his novel Damascus Stationed, which encapsulates the essence of Assad’s leadership:

“The President, like all of them, was a murderer.” [02:19]

McClaskey emphasizes that the Assad family’s rule over Syria has been marked by brutality, paranoia, and an unwavering commitment to suppress any form of dissent. The regime is described as a “family business” dominated by a select group of men, predominantly Alawites, who have long been at the helm of Syria’s military and security apparatus.

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Syria's Control Over Lebanon

The hosts outline the historical context of Syria’s influence over Lebanon, portraying Lebanon as a vassal state and a vital asset to the Assad regime. Gordon Carrera paints a vivid picture of how Syria exploits Lebanon both economically and politically:

“Lebanon, Beirut is kind of this flashy jewel and Syrians love to go there to party and gamble.” [23:14]

McClaskey further explains the extent of Syria’s manipulation, describing Lebanon as “Syria’s Vegas” or “Hong Kong,” where vast sums of money are siphoned off to enrich the Syrian elite. The figure of Ghazi Kanaan, Assad’s proconsul in Lebanon, is introduced as the key orchestrator of this financial exploitation, maintaining Syria’s dominance through corruption and coercion.

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Rafiq Hariri: Lebanon's Prime Minister and Threat to Assad

The episode shifts focus to Rafiq Hariri, the charismatic and influential Lebanese Prime Minister, who emerges as a significant threat to Assad’s control. Hariri is portrayed as a dynamic and entrepreneurial leader, vastly different from the Assad family’s oppressive tactics. McClaskey provides a vivid description of Hariri:

“Rafiq Hariri, he looks like a silver-haired version of Mario from the Mario Brothers video game. He’s got this kind of big bushy mustache, a really big smile.” [29:28]

Hariri’s success in rebuilding Lebanon’s economy and his strong ties with Western powers position him as a formidable opponent to Assad. Their strained relationship is characterized by mutual distrust and conflicting visions for Lebanon’s future, setting the stage for escalating tensions.

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The Tensions Escalate

As Assad strives to assert his dominance, the relationship between him and Hariri deteriorates. McClaskey narrates a critical meeting in 2004 where Assad demands the extension of Lebanon’s president’s term, a move that Hariri vehemently opposes. This confrontation is pivotal in escalating the hostility between the two leaders:

“Bashar says, I am Emile Lahoud, and Lahoud is me. I would rather break Lebanon over your head than break my word.” [33:06]

Hariri’s resistance to Assad’s demands and his alignment with Western interests exacerbate Assad’s perception of him as a direct challenge to his authority. The introduction of Rustem Ghazali, a ruthless Bashar loyalist, marks a turning point as Assad begins to tighten his grip on Lebanon through more aggressive means.

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The Assassination of Rafiq Hariri

The climax of the episode revolves around the assassination of Rafiq Hariri in 2005, a meticulously planned operation aimed at eliminating a significant threat to Assad’s rule. McClaskey details the strategic moves leading up to the assassination, highlighting the collaboration between Syrian intelligence and Hezbollah to execute the deed. The assassination not only removes Hariri but also sends a chilling message to any potential dissenters within Lebanon and the broader Middle East.

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Analysis of the Assad-Hariri Conflict

Through the lens of a mafia narrative, the hosts analyze the broader implications of Assad’s actions. They discuss how the assassination of Hariri signifies Assad’s commitment to preserving his power through any means necessary, likening him to Michael Corleone from The Godfather series. This comparison underscores Assad’s transformation from a reluctant leader into a formidable and ruthless mob boss.

McClaskey reflects:

“He chooses the path of violence and he eliminates rivals to consolidate his power and becomes the don.” [07:54]

This strategic elimination of opposition not only consolidates Assad’s control but also sets the foundation for the intense and prolonged conflict that would later engulf Syria.

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Conclusion and Implications

Episode 6 of The Rest Is Classified masterfully unpacks the dark underbelly of Assad’s regime, illustrating its mafia-like operations and unyielding quest for power. By focusing on the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the hosts reveal the lengths to which Assad would go to maintain his authoritarian rule, framing the Syrian state as a modern mafioso empire.

The episode serves as a critical examination of how entrenched power structures and corrupt practices can destabilize entire regions, leaving lasting impacts on international relations and regional stability. As McClaskey and Carrera conclude, understanding these dynamics is essential to comprehending the broader geopolitical tensions in the Middle East today.

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Notable Quotes

• “The President, like all of them, was a murderer.” — David McClaskey [02:19]
• “Lebanon, Beirut is kind of this flashy jewel and Syrians love to go there to party and gamble.” — Gordon Carrera [23:14]
• “Rafiq Hariri, he looks like a silver-haired version of Mario from the Mario Brothers video game.” — David McClaskey [29:28]
• “He chooses the path of violence and he eliminates rivals to consolidate his power and becomes the don.” — David McClaskey [07:54]

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Final Thoughts

The Real Godfather: Assad’s Syrian Mafia offers listeners an in-depth and riveting exploration of one of the Middle East’s most enduring and complex power structures. By weaving together historical facts, personal anecdotes, and literary analogies, McClaskey and Carrera present a compelling narrative that sheds light on the covert operations and brutal tactics that have shaped the region’s modern history.

For those interested in espionage, international relations, and the dark arts of power consolidation, this episode is a must-listen. It not only illuminates the mechanisms of Assad’s regime but also underscores the profound consequences of unchecked authority and pervasive corruption.

Transcript

[David McClaskey]

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[Gordon Carrera]

Assad was tall and slender, but there was something very awkward about his appearance. Like he was constructed of random body parts that did not belong together. Some of the rebel graffiti called Assad the Giraffe. He had a long neck that stretched into a weak jaw topped with a faint boyish moustache. His ears looked more elfin than human. But all of his weaknesses, his appearance, his lisp, the cerebral medical background played in his favour, for they led observers and enemies to underestimate him. It was a costly mistake. The President, like all of them, was a murderer. Welcome to the Rest is classified. I'm Gordon Carrera.

[David McClaskey]

And I'm David McClaskey.

[Gordon Carrera]

And that was a quote from a book called Damascus Stationed by Czechs, notes David McCloskey. Who'd have thought? How did we. How did we manage to get that in there?

[David McClaskey]

Oh, goodness.

[Gordon Carrera]

That was from your novel, set in Damascus, based, of course, on your experience of having been in the CIA and served out there in Syria. Explaining the character of the President of Syria, Bashar Al Assad. But Bashar Al Assad, as we know, is no more. We did an emergency pod the other day looking at news of his downfall, but today we're going to be looking at a story which talks more about the nature of his regime, I guess, I mean, what we described as a mafia state. And we're going to look at the story of the assassination of the prime minister of Lebanon back in 2005 and how that really perhaps change Syria and the Middle east and what it tells us about Bashar Al Assad.

[David McClaskey]

Well, and I think, Gordon, that this story, although it's going to take place in the early 2000s, it's going to give us, I think, a picture of really the kind of dark corners of espionage, gangster spy services, some really kind of human themes around revenge and betrayal and family. This is a family story, but it's not a normal family. It's the Assad family of Syria and the story about the spy services they use to maintain their really brutal and murderous hold on power over decades. And it has, for movie buffs out there, I think, some tremendous parallels to the story of the Godfather part one and two. It is really a mob story, Gordon, I think, at its heart. And it shows us, I think, something about both the nature of the regime and also, frankly, the seeds, I think, that were laid a generation ago that contributed to its destruction that we just saw this past week.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, because the Godfather is a film about family, about succession, I guess, who takes over when the don dies, about revenge, about murder and eventually about destruction, isn't it, of that family and its empire? And that really is the story of the Assad family that we're going to be looking at.

[David McClaskey]

So when I was at the CIA, I was a Syria analyst for My entire time there, we had a running conversation, you know, sort of tongue in cheek, but with enough connection to reality to be useful analytically to say, is Bashar Michael, Fredo or Sonny, you know, the sort of three sons of Don Corleone from the Godfather? Which one is he? Is he Michael, who is sort of this, I guess, relatively unassuming character who steps into his father's shoes over time and is maybe the unlikely successor? Is he sunny, the sort of charismatic but brash and violent, hot headed, you know, older son, heir to the dawn, or, you know, supposed heir to the dawn? Or is he Fredo, you know, the sort of meek younger son who ends up losing everything and perishing, you know, so which one is he? And I think this story is going to show us. I mean, we could have this bigger discussion about which one in the end was Assad, which I think we'll come to. But I think to set this story up, this is really about Bashar becoming Michael in the first few years of his reign.

[Gordon Carrera]

And we're going to look at it particularly through this lens of the relationship between Syria and Lebanon and an assassination in 2005, which I guess is interesting, isn't it, because it shows a moment, a very dramatic moment, when you see the true nature of Bashar Al Assad and in a way which points towards what his regime will become in the subsequent years, leading then eventually to its kind of decay and eventually, you know, its downfall, as we've just seen.

[David McClaskey]

Yeah, I think that we could say that the seeds of Bashar's destruction, the very early sort of kernels of that are going to be laid in this period of the story we're going to talk about today. Because this is a period in which Bashar will have a choice about whether he is going to run his regime like an organized crime syndicate, or whether he's going to attempt to turn this government, this regime, Syria, into a more, I guess, normal government. And what we'll see very profoundly here in the story is that he chooses the path of, of violence and he eliminates rivals to consolidate his power and becomes the don.

[Gordon Carrera]

So let's set the scene a little bit. Bashar becomes president in 2000. What kind of a regime is he taking over? I mean, it's a family regime. His father has been governing it for decades. And it's, you know, it's a security state, isn't it? Already at that point, pretty heavily.

[David McClaskey]

I think there's probably four critical elements for listeners to understand to grasp the regime that Bashar takes over in 2000, when he becomes president, so his father has died, had a heart attack. Bashar takes over in June of 2000. Number one, this is a regime that is run by a very, very small group of men. It's a family business. And a lot of these guys, and they're all guys, have been around for decades. So there is an old guard, a generational gap between Bashar and a lot of the people that are in his government. The second thing is that not the entire regime and not the entire government, but really significant pockets of it in the military and in the security services and kind of the strategic sectors of the economy are run by Alawites. Now, Alawis, or Alawites are an offshoot of Shia Islam. It's kind of a secretive group. They've been seen as heretical by most Muslims throughout their history. They've been intensely persecuted, pushed into the mountains of northwestern Syria. The Assads are Alawites, and they have basically built a regime in which Alawites hold the key positions in the military and in the security services. They have been tested unbelievably over the course of the three decades that the Assad family has been in power. There's been an insurgency, there's been coup attempts. The Alawites are in Damascus running Syria. Third point, these security services are as. And we've seen this this week, Gordon, with a lot of the footage coming out of these prisons. They are absolutely brutal, paranoid, deeply cynical, amoral organizations, and in fact, the seeds for Syria security state. One of the guys who helped Assad develop this is a former Nazi who actually trained a lot of these security services. There's a massive network of prisons. There is what Syrians referred to as the wall of fear, that these security services, no one would go out and protest or even speak against the regime because they were so afraid of what would happen. And I can tell you from having watched these security services at CIA that these guys, many of them in these upper positions, are psychopaths.

[Gordon Carrera]

You saw them up close, didn't you? Did you sense the kind of violence they were capable of? I mean, was that because you were there in the 2000s? I mean, was it something people were aware of, what was keeping this kind of group, this family, in power?

[David McClaskey]

These organizations were really the only thing keeping them in power in the end. I mean, it was a security apparatus staffed by people, especially at the upper levels. Not everyone was like this, of course, the foot soldiers, but who I think you could properly describe as psychopaths. I mean, the ideas that they would propose for putting down unrest. I mean, it was things like, we're literally going to murder everyone in the square. Let's light the squares on fire so that no one can protest or that people will be burned alive. I mean, there was a deep, I think, cynicism that infected these organizations and that made them extremely capable of using violence against their own people. Now, the fourth bit here, which is really important for the story we're going to tell, is that Syria in this period, it's hard to imagine now with what's happened, you know, over the past 13 years of civil war. But Syria in the early 2000s had a colony, and that colony was the neighboring country of Lebanon. Now, Damascus is just about 30km from Lebanon, an hour, hour and a half drive from Beirut to Damascus. It's very close. Syrian leaders over time have tended to see Lebanon as kind of part of Syria. And during the Lebanese civil war in the 1970s, the Syrians invaded occupied Lebanon and over the course of, really, the 1990s, turned it into a vassal state. So when Bashar takes over, Lebanon is kind of a piece of sort of his crown jewel. It is a piece of his father's legacy, really, that he is keen to protect.

[Gordon Carrera]

And then let's talk a bit about Bashar himself. I mean, from that quote from your book that I read at the start, I mean, you get a bit of a sense of the man. You know, we've all seen these pictures. He does look a bit kind of awkward, a bit kind of gangly. He's also not. He's not originally supposed to be president. I mean, he's the kind of, you know, the third child in the family, the, you know, the second son. He's not the chosen heir. And he heads off to London. You know, I find it extraordinary. He's a kind of eye doctor in London. If you'd been a cyclist in London in the early 90s and fallen off your bike and, you know, maybe kind of hurt your eye or something like that, he was the guy who would go and kind of, you know, deal with your eye injury or something like that. I mean, that's what some of his colleagues said were the kinds of things he was doing. I mean, he wasn't a man intended for leadership, was he?

[David McClaskey]

No, not. Not at all. And, you know, it's very interesting to now go back and read some of the accounts of bashar in the 80s or early 90s, you know, before he's ever in line to be the president. And you get this picture of a deeply awkward Shy, soft spoken young man who really doesn't like the limelight. Terrible public speaker you mentioned. You know, he's the third child. He's got an older sister who doesn't like him very much. He's got an older brother named Basil who also doesn't like him very much. Makes fun of him in front of others, including on things as sort of mundane as making fun of his ping pong game. The two brothers kind of don't get along very well. But then in 1994, Basel is driving a Mercedes on the road out to Damascus International Airport. He's trying to catch a flight to Germany. He's going about 100 miles per hour, it's very foggy and he slams into this sort of centerpiece of a roundabout on the way to the airport. Now, I've actually driven on that road. I will say that Syrians drive like maniacs and drive as though they only care about the front of their car. In general, they don't treat the rest of the vehicle as their responsibility. Driving in Syrian sort of Damascene traffic is an absolutely terrifying experience. And Basel this morning is going 100 miles an hour to the airport. Car rolls over, he's killed. He's apparently not wearing a seatbelt. And Bashar, as you mentioned, he's in London. And Bashar gets called back to Damascus in 1994 to essentially cancel his ophthalmology career and take over the family business which is running Syria.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, I love the detail that he lived in a rented flat in London, kind of played down his parentage and he listened to Phil Collins and Whitney Houston records. Seems to have been one of his main pastimes. But then suddenly he goes from that life in a rented flat to heir apparent. And in 2000, you know, when his father, Hafiz Al Assad dies, he's suddenly there. I mean, there's a relatively young man, relatively unprepared. He's the president, he's the big guy, he's head of the family.

[David McClaskey]

This is worth mentioning because the chronology here is important and it tends to get a little bit lost in the story about his ascension to the presidency because he does go through a crash course between 1994 and 2000 to learn the family business. He's sort of rushed through military training. He is given increasing sort of responsibilities inside the regime. And by the late 90s, he is given responsibility for the Lebanon portfolio. So he starts to become somebody who is deeply involved in Lebanese politics, running Lebanon in the 90s. So Bashar is not. He's not like brought back and then put on the throne right away. His dad kind of runs this course over six years to train him.

[Gordon Carrera]

The other thing that happens is he gets married in 2001 to Asma. And I mean, this is another fascinating bit of the story, I think. I mean, she's born in Acton, West London. Not the most, no offense to listeners in Acton, but it's not the most glamorous suburb of London. And you know, kind of pebble dash house. Educated at a Church of England school, then at Queen's College, discovered a friend of mine had been a few years after her at the same school. And I don't think, you know, she'd made a huge impression there, but she was doing computing and then goes into banking. But then she gets married. And I think she is part of this question about Bashar at this point, isn't it? Which is, is he going to be a kind of modernizing figure who would this kind of wife who is seen as very Western in many ways despite her Syrian background, is he going to be seen as a kind of modernizing figure who's going to turn to the West? And you know, they go on a visit to London and they meet the Queen and you know, Asma kind of walks around and she's compared to Princess Diana at one point. Later there is this very famous Vogue cover story about her where she is described as the rose in the desert. And it's interesting, this became so embarrassing after later events that it's almost impossible to find the article now. It's been kind of scrubbed off the Internet. But I found one and it just, you know, it kind of gushes over her. She's breezy, conspiratorial and fun. Her accent is English but not plummy. She's a rare combination. A thin, long limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement. Parry Match calls her the element of light in a country full of shadow. I mean, you know, it's ludicrous now, especially looking back.

[David McClaskey]

That was published, I believe in February.

[Gordon Carrera]

2011, just before, you know, kind of violence erupts in the country. But I think it also speaks to that period in the early 2000s when people wonder, are this couple going to change Syria? Are they going to modernize it? And I guess that's the, that's the open question at that point.

[David McClaskey]

Yes. Is she going to just become, you know, an acting girl done good in the world? Right. And you know, you look at them, you look at the pictures in that period and yeah, they're young. I mean, Bashar is, you know, Bashar sort of looks like a Frankenstein, weird kind of body part stapled together guy. But she's kind of glamorous. She's going to have the Vogue article in the future. And there is this question of, you know, are they closet reformers? Is he going to become Hafez's father's son, right, and sort of rule Syria with an iron fist, or is he just in over his head and is he going to be unable to consolidate power and really run Syria? Now? I will say what is absolutely true in this period of kind of the first few years of Bashar's rule is that he has a bunch of massive problems. You think about the region at that time and in particular the pressure that's coming from. You know, these are the George W. Bush sort of freedom agenda years, right, where we're in the run up to. And then, you know, after the invasion of Iraq, the neocons in the White House are sort of talking about Syria as though it's what they call low hanging fruit. After the collapse of Saddam's regime in Baghdad, this is a period where US Envoys would go to Damascus, which is, this is great diplomacy, Gordon, as you show up with a list of grievances and basically tell Bashar he needs to address each of them before you can improve relations. There's a ton of US pressure, there's sanctions, and critically for Lebanon, right about in 2000, as Bashar is taking over, the Israelis, which have also occupied part of the country during its civil war, withdraw. And so you start to have this feeling in Washington, in Western capitals and frankly in parts of Lebanon to wonder, well, why are we being occupied by Syria? The Syrians should withdraw too. So he's got big geopolitical problems and he's also got problems domestically. You know, this is an era. It's now almost impossible to remember this, but it was called the Damascus Spring. There was this hope from sort of Syrian civil society activists that there would be a political opening in Damascus. Assad sort of encouraged this a little bit. There were salons, there were groups of these kind of lawyers and activists that would meet, talk about the future, put together sort of political programs. And inside the regime, Bashar has not yet consolidated his power base. He's still got these old guard guys who grew up with his dad, who built the regime with his dad, many of whom look at Bashar and say, this guy's a punk. He should not have been the leader.

[Gordon Carrera]

It's the hard men who Basically think he's not tough enough to run this family and he's not good enough. And this is going to come to a head, isn't it, over Lebanon and over this issue about how much freedom, how much independence Lebanon should have with the west is obviously pressing for Bashar al Assad to kind of release some of the hold he has over this vassal state. And it's really going to come to a crux over one particular person in Lebanon.

[David McClaskey]

That's right. And I think it's good to set up a little bit here of, okay, how were the Syrians actually running Lebanon in this period? Because one of those hard men that you just mentioned, one of these guys who grew up with Bashar's father is a guy named Ghazi Kanan. He is kind of the definition of an old guard figure. He is a contemporary of Bashar's father. He's sort of this wily, brutal, ruthless guy. He is the Assad regime's proconsul in Lebanon. Right. He runs Lebanon essentially as if he's the governor. He has basically been running it for almost 20 years by the time Bashar takes power. He's been running it since the early 80s. Ghazi Kanan kind of has these, I think, a sign of just how futile this relationship is. He has days on Saturday at his intelligence headquarters in this little town called Anjar, which is near the Syrian Lebanese border, where he just kind of holds court. Members of parliament, businessmen, cabinet members, governors, mayors, security officials will come and they'll just cycle through asking for favors, advice. They need, intervention in a dispute. And so Ghazi Kanan has been this kind of power broker in Lebanon for a generation. And over that time, Lebanon has become the Syrian regime's cash cow. It is kind of the golden goose for Bashar al Assad and all the men around him. It's a place where unskilled labor goes from Syria to work for low wages but send back a lot of money. It's kind of a financial hub for the Syrian elite. They can get access to Lebanese banking and global markets. It's kind of like a bit of a stretch of an analogy, but it's like Syria's Hong Kong. You know, it is a way for Damascus to get access to the globe.

[Gordon Carrera]

In our kind of mafia analogy, I think of it more like Syria's Vegas. It's the cash cow. It's the party place, isn't it, for those Syrian leaders?

[David McClaskey]

Absolutely. And it is 100% a place that Syrians go to party. The nightlife there Is, you know, puts Damascus to shame their proper casinos. You know, the first proper casino in Syria wasn't built actually until I was an analyst on the account. And I was actually able to go there and spend a little bit of pocket money at this casino outside Damascus. I will say it was the worst casino that I've ever been to in my entire life. And I would include a lot of what I would say were sort of low rent casinos in rural Minnesota in that tally. The casino in Damascus was terrible. It was understaffed. There were not enough blackjack tables. You were like four or five people back from the table. And you had to gamble because there weren't enough seats. You had to gamble on somebody else's hand. So you couldn't even get a spot at the table. You had to bet on the guy who was playing and how he was going to do anyway. I lost all my money there in about 20 minutes and I never got it back. So Lebanon, Beirut is kind of this flashy jewel and Syrians love to go there to party and gamble. And the mafia bit here is key because the Syrians are basically running a monstrous protection racket in Lebanon, right? They're taking a cut. Syrian intelligence officers and officials are taking a cut of everything. You know, they're siphoning funds from development projects. They're kind of building import monopolies for themselves. In some cases, they're actually just taking direct payments from the Lebanese. You know, the Lebanese politicians would show up at meetings with bricks of cash to get what they wanted from the Syrians. And the Syrians, you know, to take the casino analogy again, they're actually literally just skimming cash right off of the casino. There are these stories about how every night at around 3am Syrian intelligence officers would show up at the casino and take about half the cash away. So tens of millions of dollars every year from that casino alone. And the best estimates, and I should commend here a book on this period in Lebanon and Syria by a wonderful journalist named Nick Blanford. It's called killing Mr. Lebanon. He has sources in here who put the value of all of this racketeering to these Syrian capos at about $2 billion a year, meaning that by the time Bashar is kind of in power, you know, Maybe up to 30 plus billion dollars have effectively been skimmed off of Lebanon and dispersed to the Syrian elite. And I think worth mentioning as we see these videos of Assad's palaces and garages and all these crazy sports cars that he's got, is that this is where that money was going in many respects was into the pockets of a very small group of people around Bashar Al Assad.

[Gordon Carrera]

And I think there with this sense of the mafia state of Syria, kind of parasitically devouring parts of Lebanon and perched upon it. We should take a break as we come back afterwards and look at how that develops into a major crisis. This episode is brought to you by our new friends at NordVPN. Now, David, in the 20 or so minutes that listeners have heard so far, how many phishing sites have been launched?

[David McClaskey]

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[Gordon Carrera]

I don't even need to say his name.

[David McClaskey]

Mr. Bob Dylan.

[Gordon Carrera]

From the director of Walk the Line.

[David McClaskey]

And Ford versus Ferrari. If anyone is going to hold your attention on stage, you have to kind of be a freak.

[Gordon Carrera]

And starring Timothy Chalamet as Bob Dylan. Are you a freak? Hope so. Once Upon a Time Inspired by the true story I want to know which.

[David McClaskey]

Side he's on this Christmas.

[Gordon Carrera]

They just want me saying I'm blowing.

[David McClaskey]

In the wind for the rest of my life. Bobby, what do you want to be? Whatever it is they don't want me to be. How does it feel?

[Gordon Carrera]

He defied everyone.

[David McClaskey]

Turn it down.

[Gordon Carrera]

Pay loud to change everything. He's our Elvis with no direction.

[David McClaskey]

Timothy Chalamet Edward Norton El Fanny Monica.

[Gordon Carrera]

Barbaro make some noise BD Track some mud on a carpet Complete unknown A complete unknown Only theater's Christmas day rated R under 1790 minute without parent.

[David McClaskey]

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[Gordon Carrera]

Welcome back. We're looking at the story of Bashar al Assad and a dramatic assassination in Lebanon, which tells us a lot, I think, about how his regime operated and the kind of mafia state it was. And we're in the early 2000s and there is a challenge, isn't there, David, to the way in which Syria has been able to control Lebanon as a vassal state.

[David McClaskey]

The personification of that challenge is going to be a man named Rafiq hariri, also nicknamed Mr. Lebanon. So Rafiq Hariri is Lebanese prime minister. He was the Lebanese prime minister for six years in the 90s and then he is the prime minister again when Assad takes over Syria in 2000. And he's the prime minister at this point in our story. Now, Rafi Kariri, I think he looks like sort of an older kind of silver haired version of Mario from the Mario Brothers video game. He's got this kind of big bushy mustache, a really big smile. You can you look at pictures of him, he looks like an exceptionally friendly human. He's got this wide face. So for all of our listeners out there, just picture an older version of Mario after he sort of hung up the sort of plumber's overalls and is in control of the Lebanese government. Now. Rafiq Hariri, he's a Sunni. He grew up quite poor in this kind of coastal city of Sidon. He is, though, extremely entrepreneurial, energetic. He works for almost 20 hours a day. He is hugely charismatic. I mean, in all of the kind of writing on Rafiq over the past couple decades, I mean, you get the sense from people that he just had a really deep impact on them. And he is a construction billionaire. He got his big break in the 70s actually doing construction projects for the Saudi royal family, becomes their preferred contractor, which turns out is a very lucrative gig. He's a billionaire. So he is the wealthiest guy in Lebanon. He is a Sunni, not an Alawite, not a Shia. He's a Sunni. And he enters politics when the Lebanese civil war is over and really takes on this economic program in the 90s of reducing inflation, rebuilding the country, privatizing A bunch of key industries. And by the time Bashar is in charge, Hariri is kind of the man in Lebanon. He's Mr. Lebanon. And Bashar and Hariri Gordon, they don't like each other very much. There's actually stories from their first meeting in, like, the mid-90s where Rafi Hariri sort of, you know, again, kind of portly plumber, sits on the edge of Bashar's desk and says, you know, don't worry, habibi. I'll take care of Lebanon, you know, And Bashar and him. There's just instant dislike between these two guys.

[Gordon Carrera]

I encountered Hariri once in Lebanon. In March 2002, there was an Arab summit in Beirut, which I went to. And I was working there, and I produced an interview with him. And one of the things I remember was he had all these incredibly young, quite glamorous, kind of Westernized aides around him. You know, the summit was also at the Phoenicia Hotel, and it was kind of extraordinary occasion where leaders from all the Arab world were coming. But he was the kind of big man who was also projecting this image of Lebanon as being kind of more pro Western or at least willing to kind of engage with the outside world in a different way. And you could sense some of the tension that some of the, you know, other Arab leaders felt. And I guess especially Bashar al Assad. Like, she's like, you know, who is this guy? And especially if you're Bashar, you're like, this is my. My vassal state. And who is this guy who is pointing in a different direction from the one I want to point in? And at the same time, Bashar's got all this pressure from Western governments to modernize and to Westernize, but also tensions within his government. And so you can see why this is a problem for him. If he's got a prime minister he thinks he can't control or he thinks is taking the country in a different direction. Maybe he's worrying about it more than he needs to, but that seems to be his kind of slight paranoia.

[David McClaskey]

Well, he probably does have some reason to be threatened. I mean, you know, Rafi Kariri in this time period is sort of casually referred to as Mr. Check Book. He's throwing money around. There's this great story about how Rafi Hariri wants to go to Damascus to meet with someone in the Syrian government, and there's no helicopter available. And he's talking to the US Ambassador and says, you know, could I get one from you guys? And the U.S. ambassador says, you know, absolutely not. And Hariri offers to buy three helicopters from the United States right on the spot. You know, he's got this kind of media empire. He's building a TV station. And he's kind of, you know, his detractors in this period will say this guy's trying to run Lebanon like a Saudi prince. And he's also, and I think it's important to note he is really the face of the Lebanese sort of economy. He's more or less, I mean, the Syrians had kind of seen him as their money guy to run the economic structures in Lebanon, but he's also, he is involved in the corruption there, right? I mean, there's stories about him, you know, bribing ministers of parliament with cash to sort of approve construction projects and things like that. And as you mentioned, Gordon, you know, very threatening to Bashar, I think. And something that feeds the resentment is that Ravi Kari has this very interesting Rolodex of foreign friends. You know, he's close personal friends with the Saudi king. He's close personal friends with French President Jacques Chirac. And so he's kind of positioned himself as a broker for Lebanon and Syria's foreign policy in a way that I think is deeply offensive to Bashar and upsetting.

[Gordon Carrera]

And of course, if you're Bashar and back to our model of being a kind of mob boss, you don't want to lose your turf. This is your place. This is your kind of Vegas. You don't want either someone else thinking they can run it, someone else bringing their influence in, or some guy you thought was your guy taking it over. And so, I mean, that's the way Bashar reacts, isn't it? He's also maybe got a show to his people around him that he is the tough guy. If you're Bashar, you know, he. He wants to show to the hardliners around him that, hey, I can be the tough guy, and I'm not going to be pushed around by this Hariri in Lebanon. I can. I can do the tough stuff as well. I'm not some weakling that you think I am. I mean, that feels to me like what's going on with him at this point, which is going to kind of draw him into confrontation.

[David McClaskey]

And, you know, there's just Hariri, as it becomes very clear, has a very different vision for Lebanon than Bashar does. He kind of sees Lebanon as being an equal to Syria. He wants Lebanon to be independent or at least for him to sort of be able to dictate when it's independent. And he's also, I think it's impossible to sort of overstate this too. Again, you kind of have this generational gap that appears. I mean, Bashar is the age of Hariri's sons. And so it's deeply offensive for Bashar who's like, I'm the Syrian president, you are a Lebanese vassal. You will listen to me. But then on Hariri's side, he's thinking, I'm kind of a self made man, I'm a billionaire, I'm friends with Jacques Shirak, I'm helping you. And by the way, you're my kid's age. You know, he's known Bashar, seen Bashar since Bashar as a kid. So there is, I think, a deep kind of resentment that starts to form here. And the other thing that becomes really critical to this story and again continues the sort of mob theme is that Hariri as that money man, has been building financial connections or frankly just buying off people inside Bashar's regime. We mentioned Ghazi Kanan, who's the head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon, before the break. Hariri and Kanaan have made a ton of money together and have built this kind of symbiotic relationship where they're actually quite close to one another. I mean, Ghazi Kanad has actually gone to bat for Hariri politically inside Lebanon. And there's a great quote from again, this wonderful book called Killing Mr. Lebanon by Nick Blanford, which has, you know, around the kind of time of Bashar taking power, maybe a few years in a kind of Bashar loyalist saying, you know, that son of a bitch Hariri, he's buying up the regime around us. He's bought up Ghazi Kanan, he's bought up some others. It's starting to become this feel of this guy isn't protecting our interests in Lebanon. This guy's actually reaching his tentacles are coming from Beirut into Damascus to try to actually impact our turf. Right? He's taking over our turf.

[Gordon Carrera]

And so at that point, I guess Bashar decides he's going to do something about it and decides he's going to put some pressure on him, but also perhaps take more dramatic action. And of course, Syria has a crucial ally, doesn't it? I mean, the Lebanese political scene is fiendishly complex. Different groups, different sectarian groups representing this kind of very complicated country. But among them is Hezbollah, the kind of Shia party which is effectively an ally of Syria as well as Iran. And they are going to be the kind of group that President Bashar can turn to, to put some pressure on Hariri.

[David McClaskey]

Yeah. And I think again, let's take the mob lens. You know, Bashar starts to put his capos to work to squeeze Hariri. Right. So Bashar has gotten closer to Hezbollah than his father ever was. You know, his father sort of had this kind of suspicious relationship with the group. Father kind of saw them as, you know, they're another element of this kind of vassal kingdom I've got and I'll let others handle it. Bashar becomes more intimately involved with them and starts to lean more heavily on Hezbollah to sort of enforce Syria's diktat in Lebanon. He also does something critical, which is he removes Ghazi Kanan, the head of Syrian intelligence, Lebanon from Lebanon, plucks him out. Guy had run the place for almost 20 years. He takes him out to really try to sever, I think, this link between Hariri and a lot of his friends in the Syrian regime. And he replaces Ghazi Kanan with this very thuggish character named Rustem Ghazali. He's a Bashar loyalist. He'll go on much later to run one of Syria's big intelligence agencies. He's this kind of chubby guy with a massive forehead. He's got expensive tastes, loves kind of fitting his very large body into tight suits. And he's seen as very heavy handed. Much more so than Ghazi Kanan was. Maybe a little bit more uncomfortable kind of navigating the Lebanese scene because he's, he's new to running the place. And they start to squeeze Hariri. They actually start. They probably in this period have recruited Hariri's head of security as a spy. Hariri becomes convinced of this and starts to feed his head of security information to see if the Syrians end up with that information. It's something, it's called a bury, a meal. Of course they do, and Hariri fires the guy. But then he gets rehired elsewhere in Lebanon by the Syrians. Hariri becomes deeply paranoid that his residence is being bugged. You know, he's kind of putting the TV on for conversations and taking politicians into a small bathroom and turning the water on to talk to them.

[Gordon Carrera]

Kind of classic spy stuff where he really does feel like he's, I mean, but he's right to be paranoid. I mean, they are out to get him. I mean, you know, this isn't paranoia. They've decided. Do you think at this point they want to get rid of him, that he's done for?

[David McClaskey]

I don't think so not yet, you know, by 2004. It's true that the relationship between Bashar and Rafi Kariri is deeply, like, really, trust has been severed, right? I mean, they never liked each other. But four years into Bashar's rule, things are coming to a head with kind of this dance between both sides. And the most visible symptom of this dispute is that the Syrians are trying to push through an extension for the term of the Lebanese president. The president at this period is a guy named Emil Lahoud. He's a former army commander. He's kind of a Syrian toady. He's very close to Bashar Al Assad. And his term is going to be up in November of 2004. The Syrians want to extend him because they see him, along with Hezbollah, as being kind of another ally in Lebanon. Rafiq Hariri hates Amelia. Amelia hates Rafiq Hariri. And the dispute between the two of them starts to really upset this delicate balance that the Syrians have tried to run in Lebanon, where Hariri is the money guy and Lahud is kind of the security and military guy. And you now have these two pieces of your machine starting to work against each other.

[Gordon Carrera]

And so at what point, though, do you think that Bashar and the Syrians decide we can't deal with Hariri anymore? He's got to be dealt with. I mean, because they're going to go for the most dramatic option, aren't they? I mean, they are going to go for him, which is out of the kind of bounds of normal behavior here. Normally you'd kind of maneuver someone out, but they make a decision that they are actually going to have to take him out.

[David McClaskey]

I think they're not quite there yet in the middle of 2004, because there is this very critical meeting that happens in the middle of that year where Hariri is summoned to Damascus. He goes to Bashar's office, which now we've all seen the pictures of that have come out of, you know, rebels tromping through there. And Bashar tells Rafi Kariri that, you know, we're going to extend the Lebanese president's term. And Hariri says, well, we got. We must discuss this. We've got to talk about it. And Bashar basically says, look, there is nothing to discuss. I am Emile Lahoud, and Lahoud is me. I would rather break Lebanon over your head than break my word. And Hariri. And I think a sign of Hariri is like, hey, I'm actually above you. Or we're at least Equal. He says, you've got to listen to me, you know, and pay attention to what I'm saying. And Bashar says, I've only known you for four years. You go back to Lebanon and you give me your answer within 48 hours of whether you're going to comply. The meeting lasts for 15 minutes. Goes terribly, of course, Hariri goes back to Lebanon and eventually calls one of Bashar's enforcers and says, you win. And then of course, promptly does what a good billionaire would do. He gets on his yacht and flies out and goes to Sardinia to hang out for the weekend. And when he comes back, you know, he still, he's trying to figure out, can I get out of this? Because you need the Lebanese parliament to approve it. And he calls Rustem Ghazali, this sort of dome headed Bashar enforcer in Lebanon, and says, I will give you $20 million if you tell Bashar that I cannot pull off the extension of the Lebanese president. And here, now, get your bleeping cannon ready, Callum, because apparently Rustem Ghazali tells Hariri, go yourself. No, you got to push this thing through. And he does. And here is where, Gordon, as you mentioned, I think we start to see the Syrians saying, maybe we cannot actually twist this guy into doing what we want. Maybe we're going to have to take some more dramatic measures because they start turning to Hezbollah to watch Rafi Kariri.

[Gordon Carrera]

Because if you're a mob boss who wants to show you tough and someone doesn't do what you tell them, then you got to bump them off. They got to sleep with the fishes. And I guess that's where we're heading with the Rafiq Hariri and Bashar al Assad.

[David McClaskey]

And so maybe there, Gordon, with Rafi Kariri being stalked around the streets of Beirut, unbeknownst to him by Hezbollah. We'll leave it there. And when we come back in our next episode, which, by the way, listeners will be very excited to learn, will drop tomorrow, the exciting conclusion of Syrian mafia politics and the Godfather will drop tomorrow. We will see how Assad and Hezbollah take really the ultimate step to eliminate the threat from Rafi Kariri and will conduct an assassination that will absolutely change the face of the Middle east, of Syria, of Lebanon. And we'll see if Assad succeeds in his bid to become Michael Corleone and step into his father's shoes.

[Gordon Carrera]

See you next time.