Aaron Zelin On Making Sense Of Syria

The Mideast expert helps us understand the dramatic news this month.

What the hell just happened in Syria? We asked one of the sharpest scholars on the subject to give us a primer. Aaron Zelin is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he also directs the “Islamic State Worldwide Activity Map” project. He’s also a visiting research scholar in the politics department at Brandeis and the founder of the website Jihadology. His first book is titled Your Sons Are At Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad, and his forthcoming book covers the history of Syrian jihadism.

We talk about the entire history of Syria, as it faces what could be a turning point. For two clips of our convo — on the evil of the Assad dynasty, and the sudden fall of Bashar al-Assad — pop over to our YouTube page.

Other topics: how Aaron’s career was influenced by 9/11 at age 15; becoming an expert on jihadism; St. Paul at Damascus; the Ottoman Empire; the Arab Congress; Syria’s independence from France after WWII; the subsequent coups; the Sunni majority in Syria; the rise of the Alawites; the Druze and Christians; the Kurds; the optimism in the ‘60s/‘70s for Arab liberalization; pan Arabism and Nasser; the Muslim Brotherhood; Hafez al-Assad coming to power in 1971; his son Bashar educated in the UK; how a former Nazi for real helped shape the regime; al-Qaeda and bin Laden; the Islamic State; “Baby It’s Cold Outside”; the secret police of Syria; the 1982 massacre in Hama; Bashar coming to power in 2000 because of his older brother’s early death; Bashar seen as nerdy and uncharismatic; the Damascus Spring; the Iraq War; the rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani; his imprisonment in Abu Ghraib; Zarqawi; the Arab Spring; civil war erupting in Syria in 2011; the Free Syrian Army; the Assad regime torturing kids; the refugee crisis; Russia getting bogged down in Ukraine; Hezbollah and Hamas decimated; Iran on the defense; how the Assad regime collapsed in ten days; and Golani’s potential as a reformer.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Brianna Wu on trans lives, Mary Matalin on our sick culture, Adam Kirsch on his book On Settler Colonialism, John Gray on the state of liberal democracy, Jon Rauch on his new book on “Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy,” Nick Denton on the evolution of new media, and Ross Douthat on how everyone should be religious. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

From a fan of last week’s pod with Christine Rosen:

Thank you for the fantastic episode! As I listened to it, I was wrangling with a slow, in-real-life experience: decorating a nine-foot Christmas tree. The episode reminded me to slow down and enjoy the rituals of the holiday season. So what if it takes me a whole week to decorate the tree? The joy is in the doing … and maybe some chocolate toffee cookies.

Your discussion reminded me of how fortunate I am that my work is craft-based and slow. I get to manipulate physical materials. It is incredibly satisfying to make something and to grow your skills in whatever craft you pursue — music, art, cooking, textiles, models, woodworking, ceramics. No wonder I live a joyful life!

Wishing you and all the Dish community a lovely season as we celebrate the return of light this weekend!

Back at you! Another fan:

Invaluable, your podcast is — says Yoda. You and your guests talk about everything under the sun that I want to hear thoughtful others talk about. And your capacious and humane entertainment of dissent is so civilized and genial.

So I’m about to give in to the irony of listening to an episode (with Christine Rosen) about why IRL is better for you than online. At least it will be listening, while IRL I deal with the piles of dirty socks and dirty dishes that are the collateral damage from a demanding copyediting job, now done. Your conversation with Rosen will be my reward.

Here’s another clip from the episode:

Another listener:

You are a delightful contrarian and have been for years. Also, that piece you wrote years ago for New York mag about going cellphone-free at an IMS retreat cracked me up, as I have done several retreats. I hope you saw or someday get to see the play “Small Mouth Sounds,” about silent retreats.

One more on the episode:

Listening to Christine Rosen put me in mind of C.S. Lewis’ description of Hell in The Great Divorce, in which the damned choose to remove themselves from the society of others by isolating themselves in ersatz castles in the Grey City. It seems that Lewis had a remarkably lucid premonition of the metaverse 80 years ago.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas!

Here’s a fan of another episode:

Thank you for having David Greenberg on to discuss his fantastic book on John Lewis. The book is so deftly written and deeply researched, I’m in awe. I’m so grateful that Greenberg chose to write a biography of a man who, from an early age, recognized the spark of divine that lives in all of us. Lewis insisted that light be acknowledged, respected, and loved in order to conquer hatred and division. That insistence frames his movement and community-building work, as well as his political philosophy.

My wife and I visited part of the US Civil Rights Trail last year, traversing hallowed ground in Nashville, Memphis, Birmingham, Selma, and Montgomery. I’m in awe of the people who risked their lives to push our country toward its promise of equality and freedom, especially as we move into a second Trump term and witness Trump’s disdain for everyday Americans in favor of the rich and powerful. That you and David had such a wonderful exchange gives me hope.

Yes, Lewis was human and made mistakes, but his fundamental belief that the American experiment includes everyone is one that needs to be elevated and repeated. That belief in the power of human connection transcends identity politics.

And another episode:

Your conversation with Anderson Cooper about the AIDS crisis and grief in general was absolutely beautiful and brought me to tears. My wife is a lapsed Polish Catholic, and she has experienced much more grief, loss, and trauma than I have as an atheist. The Catholics seem to attract pain! This episode made me really think of her struggles more deeply, and I am grateful for you and Anderson for truly opening up and spilling your hearts out on a traumatic time in your lives.

Another gets personal:

Thank you for your heartbreakingly honest and inspiring interview with Anderson Cooper. I’ve been meaning to write to you about it, but work just got in the way, as it always does. I had read many of your articles and seen you on TV (including your wonderful interactions on Bill Maher’s show), but I didn’t know much about the trauma with your parents and your dog — and it wrecked me for not only your pain, but the similarity. No one who has been through that level of suffering can understand what it does to you.

Although you are 10 years older than I, you feel like a kindred spirit. My own mother passed away nearly 30 years ago (when I was in college) after a rare type of cancer came on abruptly. At that point my parents were well on the way to divorce because of my father’s physical and emotional abuse of my mother. I’m convinced she was in the early stages of mental instability and bipolar disorder (which sadly my own wife later developed before we got divorced 15 years ago).

Even when I was in my teens, I remember my mother seeking me out for help that I could not provide, and the guilt remains. In 1996, a few months before she went into hospice and passed away, she hugged me in her frail state and said that I would make for a great husband someday, and that my father has a very tough life ahead of him. Children should never have to be parents to their parents at that age.

Last year my own pet (who got me through the aftermath of my divorce) died after 17 years with me. And my own father passed away as a result of Hurricane Helene; when a tree came down outside his apartment and then the power went out, he fell while walking and broke his neck (two vertebrae). He was on the floor of his apartment for at least 12 hours, unable to reach his phone, until he finally crawled to it. He died a few days later.

The ultimate irony is that I’m a professor of meteorology and my research expertise is hurricanes. Obviously I have lots of guilt that I could save so many people with my expertise with evacuations, but I could not convince my eternally, incredibly stubborn father to evacuate with me.

Given that history, I mourned far more for my lost pet than my father. I slept on a blanket with him on the floor for an entire night before he was euthanized the next morning.

Thank you again for the interview with Anderson and for being so blunt and true. It is rare these days. I am truly sorry for the friends and partners you lost at such a tragically young age. I wish you a more peaceful holiday season (I’m heading to see the remainder of my family in Connecticut tomorrow, only one month after my father’s funeral there).

This year was challenging to say the least. I’m still grappling with it — and have found myself exhausted a lot and needing just vacant time. Grief has its own pace. Mine is not over. But I can feel the impulse to write some of it down at last, which will help. It’s my therapy, writing.

Some guest recs for the pod:

Thank you for highlighting trans issues and the impact they have on gay people. A large number of autistic people also seem caught up in this. Please see Dr. Az Hakeem’s book TRANS: Exploring Gender Identity and Gender Dysphoria. He worked at the Tavistock clinic with the trans-identified population, so he’s an authority on the subject. Please see his interview on “Gender: A Wider Lens,” where he explains very clearly what trans is:

But this is also a plea to have Helen Joyce and Maya Forstater on your show. Joyce is a public intellectual and explains how trans impacts women, and Forstater started Sex Matters in the UK to fight for women’s rights against the onslaught of trans colonisation.

A reader shares her own story of hormone therapy:

I’ve been following the case before SCOTUS regarding puberty blockers and “gender-affirming care” for minors. I have also followed the Cass Review and the subsequent banning of blockers for minors in the UK. I want to share my experiences with Lupron — one of the medications used in treating minors with gender dysphoria who wish to “trans”.

About 20 years ago, my husband and I wanted to have kids. I became pregnant immediately but lost the pregnancy due to complications. Because of my age (42), I underwent fertility treatments, including egg donor IVF. To go through egg donor IVF, you have to sync your menstrual cycle with the donor.

In order to do that, they give you a cocktail of Lupron that stops/blocks your hormones from producing anything; it stops your menstrual cycle. They then give you hormones to “restart” your cycle and get your body ready for the egg transfer.

The treatment did not work for me, and after a lot of reflection, I am disgusted that I ever went through an egg donor program at all. I find those programs to be exploitive toward the donors and manipulative toward the desperate couples wanting children. It’s a money-making machine that uses similar tactics that the trans medical industrial complex uses — but that is another conversation.

The side effects I had from Lupron were horrendous. I was only on it for one menstrual cycle, but I suffered severe back-and-joint pain for more than a year. The fertility doctors told me that nothing they prescribed would have caused my issues. They denied that the Lupron had side effects consistent with my symptoms and pain.

I finally went to a chiropractor who told me that I had to let the drug get out of my body and that it would take time. He helped me with relieving my pain, and in about a year, I did recover.

I also have a friend who had prostate cancer for which Lupron was originally tested and used. He ended up having so much bone deterioration that he had to have his hip replaced. The cancer went away, but he was left with terrible joint problems.

Lupron is no joke. These drugs they are giving children and adults are strong and carry terrible side effects that can be permanent. I wish people would wake up to this medical scandal!

Yes, there’s a huge online literature on the brutal side effects of Lupron at any age. Obviously, it will affect different demographics with different diagnoses differently, but it is a hugely potent pharmaceutical, and can bring a huge amount of pain with it.

Here’s a reader on the UnitedHealthcare killer and the excusing of political violence:

Every single time an insane person has gunned down innocents, the left has exploded with rants about gun control. Until now.

When Luigi Mangione — the latest psychopath/schizophrenic to gun down an innocent — it was the perfect time for the left to focus in particular on the regulation of “ghost guns,” since those weapons have not been highlighted in such murders before. The huge loophole for ghost guns should have been the big talking point for Democrats, but the left was completely silent on one of its favorite issues and instead seemed to want more lunatics to have easier access to guns. Shame.

Extra shame on Elizabeth Warren:

“The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the health care system,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told HuffPost in an interview on Tuesday when asked about the cold response to Thompson’s death, which included celebratory posts on social media.

“Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far,” Warren added. “This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the health care to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone.”

Mangione was not a customer of UnitedHealthcare. He made no record of any problems with any health-insurance company. His only reference to one was to say that Blue Cross Blue Shield had paid for a test for him. He had an expensive back operation with no mentioned payment issues. He did provide evidence of mental illness, though, by disappearing for a year and praising the Unabomber, among other things (Mangione is also right around the age when schizophrenia destroys one’s mind).

His complaint about the US healthcare system was that the US spends lots of money on healthcare but doesn’t have an especially high average life expectancy. But those averages are pulled down mostly by youthful deaths, as that is how arithmetic works. The US has disproportionate young deaths due to accidents (lots of freeways), zillions of guns (especially youth gun suicides), and the youngest deaths of all: infant mortality, which is relatively high in the US due to women giving birth later in life than in most countries. If someone dies at age 85 instead of 86 due to a health-care issue, that does not move the national average-life-expectancy needle. Dying at age 0 or 13 or 21 instead of 86 does. Again: math — one of Mangione’s strengths, before he went crazy.

So he was never “cheated,” “ripped off,” “threatened,” “pushed so far,” or “pushed hard enough” by the “vile practices” of health-insurance companies. Yet Warren is issuing a “warning to everyone in the health care system” that they have done something “vile” that will make people “take matters into their own hands” and kill them. They’re asking for it! “Violence is never the answer,” but it’s going to be their answer. And she will do nothing about ghost guns — the handy tool of choice for this coming carnage.

Healthcare is expensive in the US due to the high prices charged by hospitals, drug companies, medical-devices companies, and doctors and other practitioners — and due to fraud. Insurance companies are the main force pushing back against all of that — aka “vile practices.”

Another has a different take:

There were numerous gun-related homicides in America that day and the media isn’t in a frenzy over those. They’re in a frenzy over the killing of a member of their own class — because make no mistake, the ruling class, corporate class, and journalistic class are all pooled from the same elite body of Americans. They go to the same schools, live in the same neighborhoods, share the same social calendar … and this story has exposed the vast chasm between them and the rest of us. This is a story of elite panic.

The killer’s Twitter feed reveals a young man who was equally critical of trans-queer ideology and the American plutocracy. His is a worldview that doesn’t fit into the media’s handy culture-war prism. Both left-wing and right-wing message boards across the internet last week revealed a level of class solidarity I haven’t seen in the age of social media. The media can’t paint him as left or right in order to get one or the other half of Americans to reflexively despise him, so they flail.

The media can’t find an angle that sways the hearts and minds of a public that sees the victim and his class as the authors of their misery, so they’ve taken to chastising us for having an emotional reaction that exists in a specific context — the context of life in a society whose institutions have grown harmful to our best interests. It’s a context in which Americans — knowing full well the problems we face in healthcare, retirement, and housing — take for granted that our representative democracy will not fix those problems because they are simply too profitable to the donor class to allow either party to meaningfully act.

When a people can’t vote their way out of a problem, it makes this sort of thing inevitable. You’ve said yourself that Americans are ripe for tyranny because they want someone to cut through the paralysis. Well, this is another symptom of the same frustration.

Continued convo on Ukraine:

First, thank you to the reader who pointed out, “The nuclear weapons left sitting on Ukrainian soil after the breakup of the USSR were in no way under Ukraine’s command and control. Full operational command and control over those weapons remained in the Kremlin. No one in Ukraine had the nuclear codes or the nuclear button.” That was a fair point.

That insight led me to google “fall of soviet union unsecured nuclear weapons history.” I discovered this 2014 document from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency that chronicles the history of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Chapter 5 is called “Resolving Ukraine’s Nuclear Inheritance.” Here are the opening paragraphs:

Resolving Ukraine’s nuclear inheritance was difficult. Theoretically, sovereign states control all military forces stationed on their territory, either directly or through status of forces agreements. However, when Ukraine became an independent state in December 1991, [Ukrainian] President Kravchuk signed agreements in Minsk and Almaty ceding operational control over the strategic nuclear forces on its territory — the rocket and bomber armies — to the new Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Armed Forces, headquartered in Moscow.

Except for those nuclear and naval forces in the Black Sea feet, Ukraine nationalized all other inherited military forces: the conventional armies, air forces, air defense and paramilitary units. Ukraine required the military officers and men to take a new oath of allegiance, wear new national uniforms, learn and use the Ukrainian language and serve under a civilian Minister of Defense. The distinction between the inherited strategic and conventional forces, which seemed settled at the time of independence, was under constant review throughout 1992 and 1993.

On this issue Ukrainian leaders were inconsistent. First they acknowledged, and then they challenged, the legitimacy of the CIS Armed Forces’ control over the strategic nuclear forces, the rocket and bomber armies on their territory. At the urging of the United States, Ukrainian leaders signed the Strategic Arms Reduction (START) Treaty’s Lisbon Protocols in May 1992 and pledged to eliminate, following ratification, all of the missiles and bombers the treaty required.

Yet Ukraine’s parliament delayed consideration of the treaty month after month. By the time of the final vote on ratification, it had attached so many conditions that Russia and the United States refused to accept it. At one point, President Kravchuk declared that the government had assumed “administrative” control over the strategic nuclear forces in Ukraine. At another point the Minister of Defense insisted that the national oath of allegiance be administered to all personnel in the strategic forces. Later, the Ukrainian government and parliament claimed that the nation “owned” the nuclear weapons and nuclear materials.

This is a fascinating story of how former enemies had to work together for the higher cause of reducing the weapons of mass destruction in the world. If you can find someone involved with this who is willing to come on the podcast, I think this could be a fascinating discussion. You are more frightened of nuclear conflict than I am, but I might not be as frightened as I should be. Much of what keeps us safe has happened beyond the public sight.

Lastly, as winter bears down, a reader asks for “post-nasal drip help”:

Fellow sufferer here. You had said that your problem was solved with two OTC meds and sinus rinsing. Could you say what the meds are? I think Joe Biden needed a stomach acid reducer to fix his, and I’m always looking for a permanent cure.

Yes! I use the Navage sinus flush to clear out mucus. Then I spray two puffs of Afrin up both nostrils, followed by two puffs of Astrepo. I do this in the morning and before bedtime. It’s been about a month or so and my lungs have been completely clear so far. It can’t hurt to try it.

Sending all Dishheads the best of the season. I have beside me the best thing that happened to me this year. Know hope!

See you in the new year.

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