Transcription
So, look, at least what Netanyahu's statement seems to suggest is a contradiction to the MOU because essentially he says that Israel will stay, and it will stay regardless of the outcome of the MOU. It will stay as long as Hezbollah is not disarmed, and the MOU says nothing about disarming Hezbollah. So it puts forward a completely different criteria as to whether, and you know, Israel security is guaranteed. What exactly does that mean? Uh, it says that, you know, Israel will remain in places.
So I think this is going to create a lot of challenges. And from the outset, there's always been that problem, which is a bifurcated administration pursuing a bifurcated foreign policy. On the one hand, uh, the MOU negotiation that has a complete regional, um, dimension, and on the other hand, pursuing these negotiations with an entity, the Lebanese government, that is completely opposed to Hezbollah.
And, you know, there's even been rumors that the Lebanese government was encouraging Shah in in Syria to intervene militarily against Hezbollah, which would be quite an, um, you know, interesting development that the Lebanese government was actually hoping that the former head of al-Qaeda would come to their aid militarily to take on Hezbollah. So I think, you know, the Lebanese government right now and its standing is, uh, one that we should take a close look at here because they may very well also been acting in a way to help undermine the MOU, because their objective seems to be more focused on getting rid of Hezbollah than to get rid of Israel's military presence and occupation of Lebanon.
Again, this is Netanyahu's presentation of it. You know, the text may actually be much more nuanced. It may not be as contradictory of the MOU, but if it is what he said it is, then I think this is going to create a challenge for the MOU, and deliberately so, because the way he's talking about it is exactly making sure that the Iranians, uh, don't have any influence there and that they're not the ones that are being able to help determine what the actual parameters of this is, because their parameters have been that Israel needs to leave Lebanese territory.
Yeah. It's interesting. It's, it's even Aljad is reporting that Israel would remain in the territory. So Aljad said, um, that, no, so they didn't say that. No, sorry. Aljid only said that, okay, the deal and everything else is coming from Israeli sources. So that's a, a really important point. We've seen that with the Iran MOU. We had different, uh, kind of different information from both sides. Anything on your side? Any information you got?
No, this, so this is completely new to me. Um, and again, it would be very important to see the actual text, um, of this. And, you know, when the Israelis are so quick in getting their interpretation out, it tells you something. It tells you partly that this is very important for Netanyahu politically because he is getting hammered in Israel right now over the Lebanese issue. He's already essentially lost the Iran issue. He's about to lose the Lebanese issue if the MOU were to go forward. So I think he has an interest in getting his perspective or his interpretation out as quickly as possible, and whether that one is then entirely accurate or not, I think, is a question mark.
You mentioned something that is, is, is, I'm just trying to make sense of it. The whole Alsh going into Lebanon. Now, I didn't know the Lebanese government has been advocating for it. So I'm going to ask you to comment.
I'd be very careful. There's been rumors about that. You know, we've seen that Trump himself publicly. Yeah. Public. But there's rumors about that the Lebanese government as well did so, and the idea may have come from the Lebanese government from the outset.
That would be reality completely done if that's if.
The reality is that is unfortunate, not implausible, but it tells you how strong the divisions are in Lebanon right now. And of course, with this new government really thinking that they had a chance now because of the manner that Israel had significantly weakened Hezbollah, uh, to move forward in a way in which Hezbollah would be dramatically, dramatically weakened.
And from their standpoint, what the Iranians are doing is highly problematic because the Iranian interest is completely different. They need to have a strong Hezbollah in Lebanon to be part of their forward defense, uh, against Israel to deter Israel from any future attacks. Uh, so you have a, a clash.
But you also have Lebanese voices that are completely against what the Lebanese government is doing and recognizing that they would be willing to sell parts of this south of Lebanon in order to be able to, um, uh, at because of the benefit of weakening, uh, Hezbollah.
So the Alshara story is bizarre. First, when Trump first mentioned it, I dismissed it. It's similar to when he mentioned Abraham's Accords. Then he mentioned it again. I dismissed it again. Then I saw what happened yesterday with the discussions about Turkey. He's going to come with a big gift for them, referring to the F-35s. So, that one got me worried. I'm like, is there something happening behind the scenes? Is Trump, um, trying to incentivize Erdogan to then use his leverage over Alshara to convince Al-Shara to go into Lebanon?
Because there's talks as well, and there's reports that there's a military buildup on the Syrian side on the Lebanese border. I'm not sure whether this is has anything to do with Syria entering Lebanon and fighting Hezbollah or the drug trade on the border. Apparently, Syria is cracking down on the drug trade happening on the border, or one of my guests told me there is pro-Assad forces inside Lebanon, and they're in is the buildup is to ensure that none of these forces enter Syria against Alshara. I don't know what to make of this.
Um, the most concerning, though, are Trump's comments about Turkey. I'm not sure if that's related to the whole Syrian situation.
Yeah. No, you know, at the same time, I think, um, we're moving very fast in this effort by regional states to actually create their own regional security architecture. Whether it's successful or not remains to be seen, but there's going to be a meeting in Saudi Arabia, which is very crucial because the Saudis are putting their weight behind this, and also, uh, they're going to bring in several different states plus Iran, mostly GCC states and Iraq, to start talking about it. Yeah. The UAE as well, uh, to start talking about the security arrangement in the region, which can then lead to a new security architecture that would also then include Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan.
Um, and in that, from the US side, this is an opportunity in the perspective, at least some in the administration, for the United States to be able to do the type of burden shifting that it wants to do, which is to shift the burden of security of the of the region onto regional states themselves, but to do so without losing much control, which means that they want to see that countries like Turkey, who's part of NATO, etcetera, um, has a strong role, but it is also acting in a manner to safeguard some of America's remaining interests.
Uh, and in Lebanon, of course, that could potentially be a case in which the American side may want to see the Turks just as much as they extended their, they, you know, reestablished their influence in Syria. They've always had one, um, would also then extend it to Lebanon as a counter to Iran because the US side as a way of pleasing the Israelis. The problem, of course, is that the Israelis are now starting to talk about Turkey in manners that is very similar to how they talked about the Iranians back in the early 1990s when that rivalry really, um, took off. Uh, in fact, in some ways, even harsher and faster than what the rhetoric rhetorical change and policy change on on Iran.
Uh, let me read it. Israeli minister, the Israeli minister of science technology: "I have no doubt that the Iranian regime will eventually fail, fall. Once we move beyond the Iranian regime, there then there's the Ottoman Empire's ambition, which will seek to expand and spread its influence. There is no doubt that Turkey, with its ambitions to expand beyond its borders and to lead the region according to its own vision, poses a real future threat to the citizens of the state of Israel. Israel's always prepares for every threat, and there is no doubt that Turkeykey's becoming a front that could indeed become a threat in the future."
They've had similar statements against Egypt, not as stark necessarily, but recently saying that the war with Egypt, I think, is inevitable in the next 15 or so years. You have Naftali Bennett saying that Erdogan is the most dangerous person in the Middle East. And this all happened because they were thinking that Iran already had been defeated. So, they're already in search of who the next enemy was.
Um, and this is exactly what happened in the early 1990s. Uh, prior to that, Iran and Israel actually had an alliance, a very strong alliance behind the scenes, even though everyone knew about it. But it even continued, at least de facto, in the 1980s when the Islamic Republic came into existence and Ayati was the supreme leader, and, you know, the very, very strong anti-Israel rhetoric that the Iranians used at the time. But behind the scenes, the Israelis were doing everything they could to usher in a dialogue between the US and Iran and convince the US to stop supporting Iraq and instead reestablish its relations with Tehran. You know, the Iran contrast scandal, which was not an isolated incident.
But then by 1991, suddenly the Israelis changed. And the reason for it was the two key interests and security imperatives that had pushed Iran and Israel closer together even after the revolution was Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the Soviet Union. These were seen as common threats by both sides. But Saddam was now defeated in the Persian Gulf War, and the Soviet Union had collapsed. You had a completely new geopolitical environment both globally and in the region.
And in that new global environment, the Israelis identified this embriionic rivalry between themselves and Iran. This was a complete reversal of the periphery doctrine that had guided Israel up until that point, in which it saw its immediate neighborhood as the danger and its non-Arab periphery, Turkey, Iran, Ethiopia, as the potential allies, a potential Kurdish state as well. But now this was a reversal. Now it was not the Arab vicinity that was Israel's threat. It was the Persian periphery that was the threat. And then out of nowhere, suddenly they started talking about Iran as the biggest threat. This really took the American side by surprise.