Radio War Nerd EP #358 — Syria War Update, feat. Joshua Landis
Guest: Joshua Landis, Director of Center for Middle East Studies
Recorded: December 9, 2022
The war in Ukraine has sucked all the west's attention away from other wars around the world, including the Syria war, which was once the star of the NATO thinktank world. Dr. Joshua Landis is of the few western Syria experts to stay focused on the Syria war, and he explains to us the grim impasse Syria is at today, with Turkey threatening another invasion, the Kurds caught between American promises & betrayal, and everyone else looking to bring the war to a close — if the US allows it.
Previous RWN episodes with Dr. Landis:
*EP #118: Turkish invasion of Afrin
*EP #150: Idlib & the Syria Endgame
*EP #313: Syria War Update, January 2022
Follow Joshua Landis on Twitter.
Musical interlude by Brendon Anderegg. Check out his project Mountains at Thrilljockey.
Total time: 1:27:35
Comments (16)
Slipping into some “whatabouttism” here, apologies: hearing Landis describe the heating shortages in Syria at the moment had me wondering where the public proclamations are in the West to think of the freezing Syrian children (re:Ukraine). Russia’s invasion is fucked up, yet I also get the sense Putin did a huge service to wiping the record clean on the interventions of the past decade by the US+co (we are back to the good vs bad structuring of foreign policy it seems).
Idk if you guys do merch but “(assistant to) a CIA agent” would be some pretty funny merch
One of my new contractors at work is former army current reservist who was stationed at that exact prison riot you guys mentioned early in the interview. Claimed somewhere in the ballpark of 1000 dead 1200 escaped. Extremely grim!
Great episode, super informative, always great to hear from Landis. If you guys are interested in covering little covered wars and humanitarian crises, I’d love to hear an episode about Indonesia’s war and occupation of West Papua. Lot of great people yoj coujs have on like Victoria Komang, George Monbiot, John Martinkus and others
Really interesting interviews, can’t help feel that the Kurds will get left behind by the us government again
Excellent interview - if Assad won't fall for the U.S. then its sanctions are now punitive and murderous like Yemen and perhaps always were. One hopes more attention can be given to the plight of the Syrian people.
I have a feeling Annibale would have some unique insight on Fiume, as usual.
D'Annunzio is a wild character. The Empire Never Ended did a podcast about him and the Free State of Fiume, and he fits in with their roster of freaks and lunatics better than RWN's. Although to be fair, D'Annunzio was far more successful and charismatic than the usual TENE pod psychos.
I think it is great that you are returning to coverage of the Syrian war. Are there any plans to cover the "end" of the Tigray war?
I share your love for Trieste! Such a beautiful city, with a more than a little of that Austrian-Hungarian flair. I haven’t been there for many years and I really miss it
The Empire Never Ended has a really good episode on Fiume and D'Annunzio
I enjoyed every part of Tene except the 20 minute anarchist rants, and they were too frequent and too annoying for me to keep paying then
the wikipedia page for Paul Whelan is totally psychedelic lol. every paragraph is significantly more sus than the one before
like mother fucker are you a cop, a soldier, a software contractor, a lawyer, a corporate PI guy? pick like max two of those
Really exicted for this. I'm a few episodes behind but I'm looking forward to this. Not to diminish any war, including Syria (which was brutal on all sides) but I think the peak of this show were the early shows in 2015-2016 focusing on Syria, so it's nice that you're still trying to cover it. I know you both were critical on yourselves about the Ukraine predictions recently, but you completely were right about Syria from day 1, so don't forget that.
Whoop whoop!