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World Literature Today.
RC Davis: Welcome to this
special edition of Current
Conversations, I'm RC Davis
Undiano.
Today we're going to be talking
about ISIS and the most recent
developments in Syria and
the Middle East. 
My guest for today's show is a
distinguished expert on Syria,
Dr. Joshua Landis.
Who is director of the
University of Oklahoma
Center Middle East Studies and a
frequent commentator for
electronic and print media
around the world.
You won't want to miss
this special one hour show.
♪Music♪
RC Davis: I would like to talk
if you don't mind for just a
little bit about some recent
history that I think is kind of
a can be a stumbling block for
people you know trying to
understand what's going on right
now with ISIS and Syria.
Uh, could you take us back a
little bit maybe to the Arab
Spring of 2011 where the in some
ways the trouble really started
in Syria.
Josh Landis: Um, Arab Spring
starts in Tunisia,
young men immolates himself
because he's frustrated.
He's push [inaudible] the police
are harassing him they won't let
him do it he doesn't see any
escape,
and this sets off a string of
public uprisings of popular
uprisings against authoritarian
regimes.
Two stories two narratives began
to emerge and in America we got
caught up in the narrative that
this is a revolt for democracy,
for freedom.
RC Davis: People are tweeting,
and they're celebrating ahead of
time...
Josh Landis: And they're furious
at these dictatorships who've
been ruling them for 50 years.
And it rips through the Middle
East.
It gets to Syria where there is
a very tough dictatorship. 
There are a number of new
problems that is sectarian
religious differences among
Syrians that causes a whole
bunch of people particularly the
religious minorities to support
the dictator the President
Assad.
And there's another narrative
which is the Middle East has
been badly governed for 60
years.
There's been a population boom
there's a giant youth bulge of
young people with no jobs, no
job prospects,
bad government, growth of three,
four percent.
But a year in the economy but
the population is growing at 3%,
so it's been zero growth
roughly.
And you've got tons more people
who cannot be bought off by the
state through subsidies, job
programs,
and so forth.
And these states are failing.
Prices are going up,
commodities,
there's a drought and uh the
environment's being degraded,
so standard of living
particularly for the lower 50%
is being clobbered.
And people go into, you know and
this is another trigger for
these revolts, and so you have
two different narratives.
One is this is a breakthrough
we're going to get to democracy.
The other is this is a meltdown,
and we're going to get the chaos
and the collapse of the state.
RC Davis: But in the case of Al
Assad there does seem to be a
kind of a taste in the Middle
East for a strong man who can
kind of keep things orderly.
He certainly did that.
He was in power from what 2000
on and his father was in from
1970 to 2000.
Was it just that he was just too
repressive,
and they were tired of it they
were angry.
Josh Landis: Well it's a number
of factors.
His father took power in 1970
after there had been for 20
years the French left in '46 and
for 20 years there had been off
and on coup d'états, failed coup
d'états revolving governments
terrible insecurity that was
slipping toward civil war.
Assad takes power and uses
traditional values family in the
top security positions his own
sect religious sect the Alawites
were only 12%.
RC Davis: Are you talking about
the son?
Josh Landis: This is the father.
RC Davis: The father, yeah.
Josh Landis: The father does the
same thing,
and the son is just following
the father.
And uh jams up the security
situation full of Alawites and
other minorities, Christian's,
Druse,
the religious minorities who are
worried that if the Sunni's take
power they'll be marginalized
and there'll be Islamic
fundamentalism which will look
at them as unbelievers.
RC Davis: But wasn't there even
some talk and expectation for a
while that the son Al Assad
might be a little kinder gentler
version and might be a little
more democracy might be a little
more free play.
Wasn't there some good
expectation for a while?
Josh Landis: There was, and he
did do some new things like
bring in the internet, let a
foreign investment in,
new hotels, he tried to sort of
neoliberal reforms to get away
from the old socialist model
where the state was providing
everybody with everything.
Let in foreign investment,
privatize,
the trouble is that led to lots
of corruption,
and he abandoned the basic
contract with the poor,
with the peasants and the
working class the state had
always offered them jobs some
level of security even if they
were bad jobs.
And he started cutting the
subsidies,
and their standard of living
collapsed,
and it's really in the
countryside that this revolt
against the Syrian State against
Assad begins.
RC Davis: Just too repressive.
Josh Landis: It's too repressive
but also the countryside was
abandoned.
RC Davis: The other thing while
we're talking about this recent
history that I think American's
stumble over a lot.
You've already mentioned
Sunni's,
and you know the Shi'a people
on the other side,
and if somebody tries to Google,
this and they read a Wikipedia
article or whatever uh it's not
going to immediately be clear.
You know can you talk about that
hostility just a little bit.
I mean this is this runs really
deep in the region Sunni/Shi'a
division right?
Josh Landis: It does.
And there's even another layer
of it which is that the Alawites
who are a Shi'ite heterodox sect
are considered by Sunni
fundamentalists to be non-people
of the book.
That means Abrahamic tradition.
That means they're not
Christians,
Jews, and Muslims all of whom
are seen in Islam as descended
from God.
That God has given these three
books the Old Testament,
New Testament, and Koran in
succession and that they're all
descended from God.
These others minorities are seen
to be beyond the pale and
therefore in this world which
has not accepted separation of
church and state, not accepted
secularism there's a deep
hostility and sense that these
groups these religious groups
are illegitimate so even the
Muslim brotherhood the Islamic
groups that were the big
opponents of Assad when he first
came to power in 1970 the
father.
They defined him and said this
guy is an apostate and all
Alawites are apostates, and we
have to carry out Jihad against
them and we can fight them and
kill them.
So that level of criticism was
always boiling under the
surface.
Now, what did Assad do in
response?
He cracked down on them.
He threw tons in jail.
He executed at least 20,000 and
this just caused instead of
having an open discussion it
caused...
RC Davis: Gas on the flame.
Josh Landis: Gas on the flame.
And so relations between the
different sects got worse and
worse.
RC Davis: Well isn't there just
sort of conditions to problems
too in that the populations of
Sunni and Shi'a people uh I mean
it's really lopsided.
I mean most everybody's Sunni,
right?
I mean 75% maybe 95%.
Josh Landis: In Syria
everybody's Sunni.
In Syria Sunni Arabs are 70%.
Kurds, different ethnic group,
different language are 10% in
the north.
Then there are 20% religious
minorities.
That's Alawites, Christians next
which are about 6%,
5,6,7%, and Druse, and Ismailis
little other Shiite groups.
But so it's 20 religious
minorities,
10 Kurds ethnic minority, 70%
Sunni's.
but in Iraq it's exactly the
opposite.
The Shi'ites are the majority
there,
and they have been ruled by the
Sunni minority.
So it was the like the sort of
negative opposite.
In Syria, the Shi'ite minorities
were ruling the Sunni majority
in Iraq.
The Sunni minority ruling the
Shi'ite majority.
And in both countries it was the
colonial powers that had set up
these minorities to rule who
sort of divided and conquered.
RC Davis: So I think maybe it
would help people to maybe
remember that across the region
people are mainly Sunni.
Josh Landis: In the Arab world
they're almost all Sunni.
RC Davis: And there's a minority
of Shiite's and then but
especially in Iraq, Iran,
Bahrain a few other places they
are...
Josh Landis: Big Shi'ite
populations.
They're about 20% Shi'ites 15 to
20% Shi'ites in the entire
Islamic world.
That's 1.5 billion people 20%
Shi'ites, 80% Sunni.
RC Davis: You at one point you
said, Sunni fundamentalists.
Would it be a kind of hook that
people could hang things on to
say the Sunni side is probably a
little more fundamentalist?
They don't think there's been a
lot of revelation since the time
of Muhammad.
Uh, the Shi'ites are maybe
are like sort of like liberal
Catholics.
You know they are a little more
accepting of modern technology,
seen as a little more free play
in the region would that be
accurate?
Josh Landis: It's not an exact
comparison the Shi'ites have
been the minority in most of the
Arab world whether it's in
Bahrain, whether it's they've
been ruled by the Sunni's
whether it's in Lebanon, Syria
so they have been more the
supplicants.
They've been discriminated
against,
and they haven't had rule.
The Sunni's who've fallen from
rule in places like Iraq who are
under the Assad government see
themselves as the natural
rulers.
And they feel that something
very unnatural has happened to
them now that Shi'ites have
gained power,
so it's...
You know I guess I wouldn't want
to say that they're more
enlightened and liberal.
They're... Of course, Shi'ites
will say that to you but it's um
but you see in Iran they're
still trying to rule through a
theocracy.
So it's not that the Iranians
have accepted separation of
church and state
and enlightenment ideas more
than Sunni's.
They both have their own worlds,
but the minorities tend to be
less expansive and believe that
they are the...
That everybody should be believe
like them.
RC Davis: Right, so this is
going to be an orientation that
if people recognized if we're
talking about Sunni's or
Shi'ites it's going to give them
some understanding of the
tensions because the tensions
run deep between those two
groups.
Josh Landis: They do.
And they've particularly run
deep today and since the Iranian
revolution in '79 because the
Islamic Republic in Iran once it
took power and said we're going
to help bring up Shiite's
throughout the Arab world and
make them equal.
We're not going to stand for
them being discriminated against
anymore.
It caused all kinds of havoc in
the Arab world because Sunni's
had been traditionally uh they
assumed that they were the
rightful rulers.
RC Davis: Right, there's a lot
of talk about the rise of ISIS
and a lot of finger pointing
that somebody dropped the ball
one country did, or a political
party didn't focus enough.
You spoke a moment ago about
failed states in the Middle East
and Syria kind of falling apart
because the Assad family was too
strong and there was too much
anger.
The civil war starts, and it
gets out of control.
Is that what creates the
conditions created the
conditions that made ISIS
possible?
The vacuum left by failed states
and chaos and then ISIS
basically comes in and starts to
fill it.
Josh Landis: Well that's a good
question because this is at the
center of debate today.
Who is responsible for ISIS?
And once you can answer that
question you can try to figure
out how to destroy it and there
is zero agreement on this
because the Sunni opposition in
Syria says Assad's responsible
because you have bad government,
and you have an evil Shi'ite
dominating the Sunnis you have
to destroy that evil Shi'ite
government.
Then Sunni's will go back to
being the moderate nice guys
that they are.
The Assad state and Russia today
are saying no that is completely
false.
What's happened is that you got
failed states and in those
failed states extremists can
expand and they say look at
Afghanistan.
Look at Iraq, look at Libya,
look at Yemen.
America thinks they're going to
go in do regime change,
bring democracy, and what do you
get?
You get a failed state and into
that failed state every
extremist group under the sun
who thinks they're going to
build a caliphate or something
weird is going to expand because
there is nobody to destroy them.
RC Davis: You know according to
what you're saying if we could
somehow magically go back in
time and just take ISIS and pull
them out.
You know they're not there at
all they're not a factor.
With everything you're saying
somebody else would still be in
in that in that space.
Somebody else is going to come
in and-and sort of take over
where there's chaos.
Josh Landis: That's true.
And what we've you know what's
been unleashed in Iraq and Syria
is an ethnic-religious struggle.
Because the state has failed,
everybody is trying to rebalance
the ethnic balance.
The Sunni's want to get rid of
the Shi'ites from on top of them
and minoritarian rule.
In Iraq it was the same thing.
The Shi'ites want power which
they had never had for 1400
years, and the Sunni's get
driven out and they are fighting
for a hunk of the state back.
So these failed states have
unleashed this ethnosectarian
war.
And it's very hard to put that
back into the box.
RC Davis: Well the other piece
of this I want to bring in is
the US and particularly
President Obama's decisions to
be kind of a little bit involved
in Syria but not very much and
that kind of back and forth that
he's gotten into.
And there's a lot of finger
pointing these days that said
look if Barak Obama had handled
this differently and had focused
on what was happening with uh
ISIS we just wouldn't have this
mess.
What do you say about that?
Josh Landis: I have some
sympathy for President Obama not
wanting to get involved in Syria
and trying to get us out of Iraq
and Afghanistan.
Because we've gotten ourselves
into these ethnic battles which
we are not good at adjudicating
and building a new state where
you're going to have power
sharing and so forth.
We tried that in Iraq for the
last you know 12 years,
and we're clearly unsuccessful
because ISIS has taken over the
Sunni's again.
A terrible struggle we don't
want to side with the Shi'ites
too much against...
So in a sense America is damned
if they do and they're damned if
they don't.
If they step in and try to
nation build and adjudicate
these problems, they get sucked
into this very long nation
building process which is very
expensive.
If they don't do anything and
take on these then you get a
failed state where the
extremists run rampant,
and we tried to stay out of
Syria but of course,
we get Paris.
And there's the threat of
further bombings in the west.
RC Davis: You know I think what
you're saying is if we could go
back to the moments of decision
in the 2000s around 2008 you
know 2011 with the Arab Spring
etcetera.
There just weren't a lot of good
choices for the US.
Is that right?
I mean we weren't going to jump
in and do Afghanistan and Iraq
all over again that just there
wasn't any sympathy for that in
the US.
Josh Landis: I think there's a
bad choice... you know...
If we go back to Afghanistan
after '78,
'79 the Iranian revolution
Russia thought okay I'm going to
step into Afghanistan I can
snatch it because of America's
[inaudible] our big police state
in Iran has collapsed.
And how did we try to drive the
Russians out of Afghanistan by
arming fundamentalists and these
Mujahedeen people carrying our
jihad.
And use Islam against
Afghanistan.
That started in a sense this
long snowball because what did
we get out of doing that?
We got Bin Laden and 9/11.
Then we tried to destroy Bin
Laden and Al Qaeda by occupying
Iraq and what did we do?
We destroyed the state there,
and it turns into Al Qaeda
heaven.
We want regime change in Syria
by kicking over these very tough
but unpopular dictatorships.
We've opened the door for the
spread of Al Qaeda,
and we're trying to jam it back
into the box and rebuild these
states, but we don't really know
how.
And so we've gotten ourself into
a situation where the more we
kick over sandboxes, the more
chaos and the more Al Qaeda 
you know spreads.
So we don't know quite we don't
really know you know it's a hot
potato, and we don't know how to
deal with it.
And we've tried to deal with it
by just getting rid of the
dictators and not having a big
footprint like Libya.
It turned into chaos.
We've tried to get it do it by
having a negotiated change of
power in Yemen.
Chaos.
Full on occupation, Iraq.
Chaos.
So we don't...
You know we've tried several
different and we haven't come up
with a good answer.
RC Davis: You know the point you
make and it's kind of a
frightening one in a way is that
even with what we know now if we
could go back to 2011 and say
let's make a better decision,
it's very hard to come up with a
better alternative than what we
did.
I mean every way you go there
was really really big trouble.
Josh Landis: Well you know what
it comes back to is that there's
an intense pressure on these
very weak states that are
dictatorships that are holding
together very fractious nations
that are not really nations and
globalization the pressures of
population boom, modern life,
how competitive it is and every
American knows just how
competitive it is trying to get
your kids educated enough and
with the skills so that they can
compete and make money and be a
middle-class person.
In a country like Syria or Iraq
or Libya,
the chances of you getting your
kid educated enough competitive
enough so that they'll have a
real job and a crack at a good
living are small.
And those countries have failed
to deliver what they need to
deliver, and they're cracking
and there isn't a way you know
after 50 years of dictatorship
and falling behind and not
taking care of the population,
not getting an education system
you can't just build it
overnight and we're going to see
you know I think that this is
the big challenge of the 21st
century is the developed world
dealing with 3rd world countries
that don't make it.
You know we're used to focusing
on the countries that are making
it, China, India, South Africa,
Turkey,
Brazil these sort of brick
countries as they're called that
are pulling their poor out of
poverty getting them into middle
class life competing with the
west all the factories are
moving to these countries.
But there are a lot of countries
that are not participating in
that, and they've got bad
government,
bad education systems.
You look at their spreadsheets
they're not getting into the
middle class, and they're
crumbling.
RC Davis: Speaking of the poor
let's go back and talk about the
opposition and I think this will
bring us up into the present the
opposition in Syria.
For a while um sometime after
the Arab Spring started it
really looked to the US as
though we could align ourselves
with the moderate opposition
groups the ones that weren't
Islamists in the way weren't
radical and I think we
spent maybe a billion and a half
dollars with training and arms
and why didn't that work?
Josh Landis: Well you're right,
we've tried three different
iterations at organizing
moderate opposition,
and each of them has failed and
as each attempt failed the
radicals like Al Qaeda or ISIS
took the arms away from the
moderates and made themselves
stronger.
RC Davis: That million and a
half dollars didn't go to waste,
ISIS has it right now they're
making good use of that money.
Josh Landis: Well and we're
bombing it.
But the uh you know the real
problem is that the ideology
that sells today in the Middle
East is religious nationalism.
And the opposition that has
raised the banner of religious
nationalism, the black flag of
Islam are Al Qaeda,
ISIS, and these Salafist
movements and they you can see
they have force in the north of
Syria in the south of Syrian.
The non-ideological parties the
moderates they're about a
thousand some odd different
militias they are really strong
men who've gotten arms get their
cousins and their friends to try
to protect their village, maybe
three or four villages around
from anybody else coming into
their turf.
RC Davis: So they might have
impact on a thousand people say.
Josh Landis: They're very small.
They're scattered, and they're
not they're not capable of
cooperating because you go over
ten villages,
and you think that guys an enemy
because you don't know them,
so there's no national cohesion
and so as the state this
dictatorial state has melted
down you've got clans,
tribes, villages and America's
trying to herd these cats and
they don't come together.
The Islamists are the only
people that have figured out how
to unite the population of Syria
around them and really get them
to sacrifice themselves and go
all the way in a war that's
become very dirty.
You know the liberals the middle
class have left Syria.
That's why there's four million
people trying to get into
Germany, and Sweden and
elsewhere.
Because they don't want they
don't see a future for
themselves, they don't see an
end to this war and they don't
like either the right or the
left.
RC Davis: So basically, if you
are a moderate group that
probably equals not having very
much power and only local
impact.
So this is in a way kind of a
foolhardy thing.
To try to back those moderates
spend all that money and think
that somehow that's going to
solve this much you know bigger
set of problems that we're
trying to talk about now having
to do with the history and
politics of the region.
Moderates really just weren't
connected to any of that.
Josh Landis: Well they've been
very they've had a small point
of view, and you can support
these guys but they turn into
warlords.
They're willing to take arms and
money from anybody who will
offer it to them because they're
protecting their village.
And if it's America one day that
looks up or it's Al Qaeda the
next day that's supporting them
and saying we'll help you
protect they will switch their
allegiances overnight depending
on who can offer them the
highest degree of protection.
RC Davis: Yeah.
Let's talk about Al Assad for a
little bit.
If we could.
Uh, he's lasted far longer than
anybody thought.
Much more durable.
Is he just a shrewd player
himself or is he somebody who's
seen just the sort of
opportunism of uh chaos and if
he just kind of rides it out
he'll maybe get to a better time
later.
What's going on with him?
Josh Landis: Well I think it's
all the above.
He, first of all, he never lost
support amongst his core
followers which are other
Alawites who are terrified that
should the Islamist militias win
they'll all be ethnically
cleansed.
That they'll come into their
towns rape and pillage.
And they have plenty of
indication that could very well
happen because it's happened on
towns that have fallen.
So they're going to fight to the
death,
and the Christians and other
religious minorities have backed
them up because they're worried
about being ethnically cleansed.
Now there's upper-class Sunni's
in the cities.
Assad still rules over even
those he's lost you know
probably 80% of his territory.
He still owns about 65% of the
population of Syria that remains
in the country.
RC Davis: ISIS controls what
about 50% of the geography...
Josh Landis: Of the territory.
RC Davis: Of the territory.
Josh Landis: They did at their
greatest extent.
But they have a lot less people
because they've got the desert.
They've got the east of Syria.
So Assad still controls the big
cities.
Damascus, Homs, Hamah.
And the upper classes the middle
classes that have remained don't
want the rebels to win.
Even though they may sympathize
they may not like Assad they're
worried because there's just too
many militias they'll come in
break into their homes steal
their TVs,
take their car, their schools
will collapse,
they won't be able to send...
So they're just wanting security
and Assad has endured because he
can offer a level of security.
RC Davis: If he had a heart
attack and fell over tomorrow
and then the his government just
kind of you know went to
Paris or whatever um I
mean it probably would be chaos
right?
Josh Landis: There would be
chaos.
It would be like Libya.
And you know some people say
well that's not so bad because
at least in Libya you know it is
20, 30, 40 people being killed a
day instead of 200, 250 you
know.
That's the difference between
having an air force bombing you
and not but it's not nobody
wants it.
Because some people are going to
be the big losers.
You know there is a lack of
national cohesion and everything
in Syria today has been reduced
to such a Hobbesian world.
Because...
RC Davis: Bad options.
Josh Landis: Bad options.
You know four million people out
of the country.
Half of Syrians have been driven
out of their homes.
Don't have a you know are living
in tents or in apartments with
tons of other families.
People are so poor there's tons
of malnutrition,
80% unemployment or way
underemployment so half the
schools are shut down.
I mean the country is hanging by
a thread,
so most people in those
calculations don't want to see
any more disorder.
RC Davis: Okay, Assad is bad
news uh ISIS isn't going
anywhere uh the opposition isn't
going to unite but they're
they're kind of dug in for the
long hall.
Why does America want to be in
Syria?
I mean given the difficulty of
all this we go back and Obama
drawing a red line and then
redrawing the line and well if
they use chemical weapons we're
going to do something.
Well, maybe we're not...
Uh, it's a bad history that's
made us look bad.
We've lost a lot of face.
Why do we want to be there so
much?
Josh Landis: Well we don't
really want to be there.
I mean I think that's the bottom
line.
Obama does not...
I mean he spent five years
trying to keep us out of Syria.
On the other hand, it's next to
Israel.
It's next to Iraq which we own.
It's next to Lebanon which we
care about and Jordan.
We don't want to see the region
collapse.
We're trying to contain the
violence in Syria.
But it's getting out.
Paris.
Four million refugees.
Europe is groaning.
If these refugees keep on
flowing into Europe,
we're going to see right wing
parties beginning to win
elections in Europe.
It's going to change the
composition of the developed
world.
We're already seeing it
reflected in our own national
elections where...
It's become a subject of debate.
So America can't leave it but we
don't want to get involved too
much and so we see President
Obama tinkering around the edges
but it's not a good solution.
And its leading to the growth I
mean ISIS has expanded,
and we see a failure, a
failure to provide security for
the world, and that's what
people expect of the United
States and that's what Americans
expect of the United States.
So it is its a very difficult
you know he can't leave it and
he can't he doesn't want to take
it on as a national project.
RC Davis: Just to say the
obvious.
I mean ultimately we do have
security national security
interest in the region.
The oil is there.
If the region were to ever...
Josh Landis: We've got to
protect Saudi Arabia and the
gulf.
RC Davis: We've got to protect
Saudi Arabia and the gulf so
ultimately we can't let it spin
out of control but it looks like
we don't have a clear enough
sense of the urgency of why
we're there right now, so we end
up half doing things,
half understanding things and it
just seems like we've probably
made it worse by uh by not
having a very clear policy that
explains what we're trying to
accomplish.
Josh Landis: Well I think you're
I think you're right.
You know we haven't found a way
to deal with this spreading.
We've been fighting a war on
terror now for a long time and
uh suicide bombing failed
states,
the growth of Islamic
fundamentalism has expanded for
the last 20,25 years, and
America has tried a number of
different policies towards it
and none of them have really be
successful.
RC Davis: But you know I get the
feeling just every now and then
when I read about the coalition
that US heads up and the plan
that we have.
Ashton Carter, I take to be
pretty smart guy secretary of
state, he took a long time to
look at the plan when he came
into that job last year and uh
and sort of affirmed yes I think
we've got a good plan this is
going to work and when Paris
happened Barack Obama said I'm
not going to start talking in a
bellicose way.
I'm not going to start
posturing.
We've got a good plan, and we're
just going to just kind of stick
to that plan.
Is it possible that there is a
plan that is better than it
looks and that is working in a
non-flashy way and we're going
the United States is going to
defeat ISIS down the road and
Barack Obama will be able to
look back and say see I told you
we're just sticking with the
plan,
and you all were trying to pull
me off course.
Is that even a possibility?
Josh Landis: You know there is
some truth to Obamas statements
that we've got that we're
winning the war on ISIS in a
sense that ISIS is poor.
We have been destroying their
sources of wealth,
the oil trying to close the
borders.
RC Davis: Methodically.
Trying to do it methodically.
Josh Landis: Fairly
methodically.
And they're beginning to prey on
the people that are living under
them the people.
We've got more and more
indications that people are fed
up.
They're being tortured they're
being robbed they're being
overtaxed.
ISIS is desperate for more
money.
But ISIS has at the same time
jumped to other countries like
Libya like the Sinai in Egypt.
Um so ISIS is not just being
contained to Iraq and Syria it
is its a franchise, and there're
other countries in distress.
RC Davis: You know until very
recently the US line was uh ISIS
is not an existential threat.
Josh Landis: JV team.
RC Davis: JV team.
We don't really need to worry
about them they're sort of
contained in the region, and
just again we're playing catch
up.
Suddenly that is just
evidentially not the case.
They're metastasizing all over
the place.
Josh Landis: They are
metastasizing.
And they're taking advantage of
these failing states that we see
in other parts of the world.
And this confronts the United
states with a dilemma.
Is do we see this as a policing
action where what we do is we
arm up homeland security we
listen we use counter-terrorism
pinpricks to hurt them, but we
don't occupy countries and try
to nation build.
Because that the argument
against doing that is that will
suck out our energy and put way
too many resources in countries
like Iraq or Afghanistan, which
are really not that important,
and we are going to fail anyway.
We'll become then the object of
an insurgency and get sucked in
like the roman empire of
spending all their resources at
the far edges of the empire and
that we can't afford to do that.
The trouble is when you ignore
those places they fester.
And they become it's hard to it
is you know Al Qaeda,
and ISIS are smart.
They haven't allowed themselves
to be contained which is what
America is trying to do.
They have found ways to jump out
because there are other
societies in distress where the
central states collapsing;
it's not providing for the
people and they they're
extremist ideology can catch on
in areas of desperation.
RC Davis: You know I think it's
hard for people to know how to
think about ISIS.
On the one hand um they uh you
know these are the people that
cuts heads off and crucify uh
people that they're against.
I mean they're just terrible,
but I've seen a little bit of a
move recently.
I saw this on your website.
Omar al-Wardi uh basically
saying let's take another look
you know you go in there, and
the trains are running on time
and people aren't killing each
other and there's a kind of
decency and it looks as though
ISIS is trying to present itself
like the pirates of the
Caribbean.
Yes, we do some awful stuff but
that's off camera when it comes
right down to it look at what's
happening on our ship what's
happening in the caliphate it's
decency.
It's really order.
It's kind of good stuff.
Uh I mean kind of two views of
them really.
Josh Landis: There are well Omar
al-Wardi is a friend of mine who
I've known for well over a
decade.
He was a journalist in Saudi
Arabia.
His family all lives in Bukamal,
and he's from the heart of the
ISIS territory.
He lost his job in Saudi Arabia
not long ago,
and he went back and visited for
over a month.
Saw his mother, his brothers and
he realized his mother said
we're better off now than we
were before because before ISIS
took over that big expanse of
territory,
there was militia chaos.
There were six or seven militias
in his little town,
and they were all fighting over
the spoils and so when you went
out.
You never knew who was going who
was going to demand something of
you.
You couldn't get any justice
with ISIS even though you didn't
like perhaps they're overbearing
style um they provided some
governance, and that raises the
problem that you cannot destroy
ISIS by just bombing it. 
You've got to provide a better
government.
I mean insurgency 101 says in
order to destroy an insurgency
like ISIS you've got to provide
a better government.
And that's demanding some kind
of nation-building process,
and that's what America does not
want to get into.
But we get into this vicious
cycle.
We can't just bomb our way out
of this.
Because people become more and
more desperate,
poorer and poorer, and they
cling to organizations like
ISIS.
RC Davis: I'm still kind of
grappling with how to see ISIS.
How to conceptualize it because
on the one hand I really do get
that if you can build
infrastructure and create
predictability in people's lives
you're doing it's going to be
convincing to people they're
going to like that but ISIS
they're not investing in the
caliphate.
They're not investing in
industry.
They're not going to export
things.
They're not going to become a
nation in the usual sense.
They really are the pirates of
the Caribbean.
They really are out there.
There seems to be a more of a
kind of apocalyptic it doesn't
matter how we get to the end
because the world is going to be
at an end soon and we'll be a
part of it.
Josh Landis: Well it is
apocalyptic.
It is in some ways a throwback
organization.
I mean if we think of the modern
Middle East the Modern Middle
East was run by caliphates.
And a big caliphate in the
Ottoman Empire right up until
the first world war.
Now, the west conquered it
destroyed the empire and put
nation states said all you
people have to develop a new
sense of political identity
based around these nation states
that we're creating for you.
Now that seemed to work but more
recently we've seen the collapse
of some of those nation states.
And people have become
impoverished.
They're very insecure, militias
running around,
and so this apocalyptic groups
and others like Al Qaeda have
come forward and said you know
what's wrong modernity.
The modern nation state and
secularism is wrong.
We have to go back to what we
know which was only a hundred
years ago and recreate a
caliphate, bring God's word
back, and justice will prevail.
It's a very simple message.
Of course, it's impossible to do
that in a modern world.
RC Davis: Wouldn't you have to
add to your picture...
I mean your picture said okay
here's the Middle East up to
world war I and then the west
takes these ideas of what should
be the nation states like these
cookie cutters and brings it
down and creates a rock around
and so on and so forth.
Wouldn't you have to add to that
picture and then kept those
governments forcibly uh in power
for so long making them our
client states like Saudi Arabia
and Jordan and so on.
So they were never governments
in the sense of having support
of the populous or roots that
ran any deeper than being a
client state of the US.
Josh Landis: And we did that.
We did that for a long time.
We kept you know we propped up
these dictatorships and the
criticism was really was with
you know President Bush,
who said we're not going to do
this anymore.
You know we're going to bring
democracy to the Middle East.
We're going to kick down these
dictatorships,
and there's going to be a domino
theory that goes from one end to
the other and-and he really
reoriented you know it was
percolating for some time, but
he reoriented American foreign
policy to taking a totally
different look at these
dictatorships.
Saying we're not going to be on
the side of the dictators.
We're going to be on the side of
revolution.
And revolution has been very
dangerous for the United States
but supporting dictatorships was
dangerous too.
RC Davis: That's kind of a tough
way to go because there's the
oil issue and if the region...
Josh Landis: It's a tinderbox.
RC Davis: And if the region gets
chaotic and we can't get to the
oil or the people we support
can't get to the oil but also we
you know we want to see
democracy.
Uh you know those two just don't
work very well together.
Order on the one hand and them
trying to bring democracy...
Josh Landis: Well the whole
process you know as you point
out the whole process of
bringing nation states to the
world has been an
extraordinarily violent and
chaotic process.
If we think that the French
Revolution and American
Revolution these twin democratic
revolutions if you will,
or liberal revolutions started
this earthquake that changed the
globe from being bishopric,
caliphates,
empires, free cities you name
it.
Every political concatenation
except for the nation state to
changing the globe into 193
nation states which is what we
have today.
Where everybody belongs to one
of them.
That's been the last 200 years
has seen this dramatic political
revolution across the entire
globe.
Reorienting tribes.
Think of what's happening in the
United States where hundreds of
tribes have been destroyed, and
you now have a nation state
taking a civil war all kinds of
things that have challenged that
but its emerged.
That's a very bloody process,
and it's been a bloody process
in Europe.
We've seen you know the 30 years
war of the first and second
world war.
You know 30 million people
killed in Europe to consolidate
those nation states and that's
the process in a sense that's
going on in the Middle East
today with the Arab-Israeli
conflict, with the Iraqs,
Shi'ites,
and Sunnis and it's a very
bloody messy process.
RC Davis: Now go back to America
for a second in our foreign
policy.
As I read your work and things
you've said here today it seems
to come out that American policy
right now toward Syria and the
Middle East and ISIS is simply
containment of problems.
That is to say, we don't want
anybody to win.
We don't want anybody to
prevail.
We'll just watch people continue
to kill each other and it this
is acceptable as long as
somebody doesn't finally win
out.
Is that where we are?
Josh Landis: You know I think
that is where we are.
The Russians are supporting
Assad.
We can't destroy him.
We're not going to war against
Russia.
We're trying to destroy ISIS.
Al Qaeda and a bunch of
Salafists have emerged as the
strongest powers amongst the
rebels.
RC Davis: What's a Salafist?
Josh Landis: A Salafist is a
fundamentalist.
A sort of radical fundamentalist
Islamist.
And the moderates the moderate
rebels have been defeated by the
more radical rebels.
So we don't like any of the
major powers there's three major
powers in Syria.
ISIS, Assad and these rebel
coalition which has the
Salafists the Al Qaeda at this
heart.
We don't like any of them.
We're trying to keep them all
weak.
We don't want anybody to win.
Because all the solutions look
worse than the problem,
and that's what's keeping this
civil war festering it's not
just America because Russia's in
their too.
The international community
whether it's the Saudi's or the
Turks or the Qataris all have
their militias they like their
side, they're stoking them up
with arms and money.
Enough so that they don't lose
but not enough so that any one
side can win.
RC Davis: Now and something
add another something else to
to the picture that you're
painting right now Russia comes
on stage plops itself down in
Syria seems to catch the US
completely off guard establishes
a base where they can base
bombers, and there's talk that
they've got another base almost
you know ready now.
Why did they care?
Why did they want to be in
Syria?
Why do they want to involve
themselves in what we always
described as kind of a swamp?
You know president Obama said
you want to get caught in that
swamp?
Well, they do.
They're there.
What's their deal?
Josh Landis: You know Russia and
Putin has been trying to rebuild
Russia as a major world power.
And he looks back at the whole
Perestroika period as period of
great weakness and disaster for
Russia.
Syria is the Arab client it's
the oldest Arab client in the
Middle East that remains
pro-Russian.
And if they don't have Syria
they have nothing in the Middle
East.
RC Davis: So is this positioning
for the future?
Josh Landis: It's positioning
for the future.
It is their base too.
It's an important base in
Tartus,
but it's their bridgehead on the
Arab-Israeli conflict.
If you look at all of Russia's
position in the international
world in the last few years,
it's because the United States
has to talk with Russia about
solving the Middle Eastern
problem.
The UN appearance of Putin
several months ago all of these
the Geneva conferences Vienna
conference Russia is at the
table because they're in the
Middle East.
America's fought its last five
wars in the Middle East.
If Russia's not there, they're
not involved in any of that.
And now every time Russia or the
United States wants anything to
happen in the Middle East
whether it's a treaty with Iran,
Arab-Israeli conflict, Syria,
ISIS Russia is a the front of
the table.
RC Davis: There's starting to be
some talk now about uh eventual
down the road federalization is
the word I think that comes up
in Syria.
I think by that is meant a kind
of balkanization.
At some point uh the world will
recognize there are all these
separate little communities
almost like little nation states
and will just decide they can
all just sort of live together
under federalization without
being one country.
Uh is that realistic is that
going to happen?
Josh Landis: I think it is
happening.
Um, Assad and the Russians have
taken the west of the country.
You've got the Kurds 10% of the
population but they've really
carved out a long strip along
the Turkish border in the north
of the country, the United
States has helped them.
There are various rebel groups
today ISIS has a big hunk of
that.
There is federal there is
federalization is the wrong
word...
its partition of Syria along
these battle lines.
And I think we're going to see
them harden and the attempt now
the is really to find the truce.
That's what Putin and the United
States have said they want to do
is to try and get ceasefires
along these battle lines and get
some kind of accommodation.
And that means living with this
fragmentation.
Now the hope would be that
sometime in the distant future
they would reunite sort of like
east Germany west Germany.
But that in order to stop the
war we have to recognize the
balance of power the way it is
and accept this a partition
process a Yugoslavia type divide
up of Syria.
RC Davis: You said a moment ago
that back in time into the 19th
century early 20th century the
west imposes these nation-state
boundaries in a way that made
sense to the west but didn't
always make sense to the people
that are there.
Basically, a federalization of
Syria would recognize that that
didn't work here we are.
We are separate communities.
Uh, the people that have been
forced together do they need to
somehow find equilibrium in
their own communities.
You've used the term the great
sorting out.
You either drive the people out
that you don't want to be with
you, or you kill them or you do
something til the people who are
left are happy to be with each
other.
I mean is that the sort of ugly
process that needs to play out?
Josh Landis: That is the nation
building process,
and we've seen it unfold across
central Europe and Europe.
It's brutal.
Groups that do not agree are
treated as a fifth column and
then they're suppressed, or
they're driven out of the
country.
And that's what I think is
happening in Syria today.
How you know where the borders
eventual borders are going to be
drawn or whether people can
reknit their relationships and
live together and rather than
you know like a Czechoslovakia,
which leaves peaceably split but
even after living together for
hundreds of years they could not
agree on a common political
community.
They didn't want to live
together.
They separated, and that's
what's happening with Kurds in
Iraq and in Syria.
And it may be what's happening
between Sunnis and Shi'ites.
We don't know to what extent
that's happening.
RC Davis: So a kind of human
nature and forces of history
finally just resurface, and
we're all just kind of knocked
back really.
It's a kind of withering
thought.
And history's just going to have
to play out for a while then we
can come back and maybe find
some order in what's left
basically.
Josh Landis: And we see that
happening in the Arab-Israeli
conflict where the Jews have
been kicked out of all of their
cities whether its Baghdad,
Damascus,
Aleppo and they've collected
formed a nation-state and,
in turn, are pushing out
Palestinians who've become
refugees.
A very brutal process of this
great sorting out where you know
the Armenian massacres in
Anatolia where the Turkey just
expelled them.
There's no more Christians in
Turkey.
There used to be 20% of Anatolia
of Turkey-land mass was
Christian before World War I,
they're gone and that process of
this great sorting out as I've
called it is I think very much
alive today in the Middle East,
and we've seen the Christians of
Syria and Iraq almost disappear.
RC Davis: Hasn't the US been uh
historically in the last you
know maybe half century uh just
resistant to that notion that we
are going to impose our will in
the Middle East we're going to
have democracies that look like
us,
look like democracy in the US
where they're just doest seem to
be any chance that's going to
happen.
This historical great sorting
out is going to happen no matter
what we do, and yet we continue
the US continues to foster this
romantic notion of democracy in
places where it doesn't have a
chance.
I mean isn't that a pattern?
Josh Landis: It is a pattern,
and the Middle East has not been
fertile ground for that
ideology.
Now clearly eastern Europe was,
and Latin America has been a
success.
So there are reasons why America
clings to this national religion
of democracy and spreading
democracy around the globe.
But America has done that best
it seems to me when we've
allowed other countries to
choose it.
By being an example.
And a well-working democracy so
that the world has wanted to
emulate the United States which
it has done in the modern period
everybody''s wanted to be like
America.
We had all the wealth we had
we're going to the moon and so
forth.
And trying to impose it on the
back of tank has not worked
particularly in regions of the
world where you have this
ethnic-religious fragmentation.
You know in social sciences
today dominated by the search
for what are the prerequisites
for democracy.
Why is it so difficult to impose
democracies in countries like
Libya or Syria or Iraq?
RC Davis: So another tension
that people really might use to
orient themselves is this uh
kind of conflict between the
notion of democracy as we can
see and then the kind of strong
man regime that seems to
prevail.
There's a taste for it in the
Middle East.
Putin didn't seem to have to
think about it very much at all.
When Russia comes into Syria,
he's going to be the strong man
empowering somebody else as the
strong man uh that really might
work.
That could actually work there.
Josh Landis: You know both you
look at Washington and Moscow,
and both capitals look at the
Middle East,
and they see the solution is
themselves.
And they want to emulate their
own model and impose it on the
Middle East and Moscow says
America is stupid.
The Middle East is not ready for
democracy.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, you
constantly try to do the same
thing over and over again impose
democracy tear down these states
these strong men and you get
chaos and extremism.
The Russian example is the right
example for the Middle East,
which is a strong man like me to
rebuild these countries.
And in a sense I think that
Washington is sitting back on
Syria watching where the
Russians go with this because
we've lost confidence in our
model,
the democratic model, and we're
willing to give Putin some time.
RC Davis: Well an if our
official policy is containment
you know let the pot boil.
Josh Landis: We're certainly not
going to try to outbid him for
Syria.
It's not worth it to the United
States.
We did that in Afghanistan.
We were sorry we did it, and I
think that President Obama does
not want to replay that movie in
Syria.
RC Davis: What would defeat ISIS
you know at this point.
I mean do we have to think in
terms of a great sorting out,
uh time needs to go by that
there needs to be a history
needs to kind of work its magic
brutal as that is.
Josh Landis: I do think that
history is going to have to
play itself out.
I think what we've seen in the
last 20,
30 years is a brutal widening of
the income gap and the success
rate in the developed world and
the underdeveloped world.
And there's a process of
national development that is a
very difficult process right now
in the Middle East.
We're moving from a very
traditional society to these
modern nation states that have
to compete.
And they're failing.
And this is going to create a
lot of tension,
and we're seeing it...
you know we're seeing that those
tensions...
That the nation is becoming
selfish and is becoming captured
by special interests, and I
think that if you come from a
third world country that's not
making it where you're
government is not looking after
you,
you're susceptible to these
radical ideologies because you
don't know where else to turn.
Because there is no other...
There's no other solution for
you,
and you're going to pick up if
you're a young kid and these
youth bulges you're 18, 19, 20
you don't see another solution
and somebody comes preaching
God,
apocalypse join me we're going
to take you and with this
incredible propaganda machine
that ISIS has put together.
It's a it's a toxic brew but
it's a very attractive one to a
young person who wants to be a
hero and make something of
themselves and sees just nothing
but shut doors in front of them.
RC Davis: Do you think it's
probably true that on the
American side people in state
department whether people like
yourself or experts in the
region that they see these
tensions that we're talking
about between the strong man and
the democracy is not anything
that's going to catch on very
soon in the Middle East and um
you know they know that this has
to play out but in the meantime
officially the United States
needs to talk about democracy in
the region and basically
platitudes that ultimately
mislead people and make us look
a little bit naïve is though
we're always playing catch up.
Josh Landis: That's exactly...
I think that's exactly what
where we are today.
We've got these set of talking
points democracy promotion,
we're going to be on the side of
human rights,
we don't support dictators who
gas their people,
you know we stick to those as
our answer even though we can
see that they aren't going to
bring a solution.
That what you need to do is get
down and compromise between two
forces that are not good.
But you don't you don't see...
you know in Syria there is no
desire to get in there and be
the nation builder, and so you
just stick to these platitudes
as you say.
Which look increasingly
hypocritical but what is a
government official supposed to
do?
You know is he supposed to say
oh Assad's okay you can live
with him some more you know you
can't say that kind of thing.
So you don't.
RC Davis: I think it's difficult
for people because if somebody
really tries to educate
themselves on what happens in
the region, it's like turning a
light off in the room because it
gets darker somehow.
The gap between what we say
we're doing and what's actually
happening in the region and
what's possible in the region.
Is just as you've been saying
uh enormous.
Josh Landis: It is enormous.
And it leads to this
hypocritical stand of the United
States saying to these Syrians
we care about you,
and we're going to help you fix
your situation and then spending
almost no money on it shutting
the door to immigration and
basically praying that you
know Europe will do something
about it, the Russians will do
something about it,
and they're going to be the ones
who eat the fallout.
They're going to take all these
immigrants because they're not
going to get in their rubber
dinghies and come across the
Atlantic.
And that is in a sense I fear
the fall back position.
That's the real foreign policy
of the United States.
RC Davis: Okay fearless forecast
time.
Josh Landis: Okay.
RC Davis: You have a crystal
ball,
and you're going to look down
the road for Syria in the region
a year maybe three years out in
the near term in the next year
what do you see happening that
might surprise us.
That you think will be maybe a
game changer change direction a
little bit and then maybe a
little bit further out.
Josh Landis: Well I think you
know Russia is supporting Assad,
and he's regained a bunch of
territory.
He's here to stay.
Will the United States and
Europe accommodate themselves to
that and figure we've got to
really work on getting
cease-fires that's going to be
the big question or do we stick
with the platitudes and say
democracy even though we know
it's impossible.
If we face into the reality of
having to work with Russia
accommodate some kind of
federalism as you've drawn out
and really begin to say it
openly,
I think we could get people to
cooperate on this.
And probably bend many of the
actors in Syria to that
realization.
Um, I don't hold that very high
because I think Obamas just
trying to ride out his time and
get the hell out of there.
He's going to pass the ball this
very tricky problem onto the
next, and we don't know who's
going to be next and it's going
to take them, at least, a year
to get their administration up
and going.
RC Davis: To get up to speed and
see the things that basically
you're talking about here today.
Josh Landis: And what we see
happening as a result of Paris
is that the French and the other
Europeans are going to become
big spenders on homeland
security,
and that's what really happening
in Europe.
It's not that they're going to
war against ISIS,
but they're going to war in
their own countries to
reorganize because if you look
at the United States spends
about 40 billion dollars a month
on homeland security in Europe
it's about half a billion in
France and in Germany.
Big disparity and Europeans you
know aren't gathering all this
information they aren't doing
the things they aren't spying on
their own people, and they're
going to have to do that and
that's what I think is really
happening in Europe is this is
becoming a policing problem and
that personal liberties are
going to go...take a dip
RC Davis: Joshua Landis we are
out of time.
Thank you so much for being here
today.
Josh Landis: Well it's a
pleasure.
Thank you for asking me.
RC Davis: I'm especially glad
that you could be with us today.
Join us next time for more
Current Conversations.
Thank you for watching. 
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