Conflicted S3 E4 - Borderline Post-Soviet Disorder

CONFLICTED
S03E04

Thomas Small Dear listener, this episode of Conflicted is going to be a bit different. You see, it was always our plan to talk about Russia in this episode as a way of laying out some aspects, at least, of the geopolitics of the Cold War, which is what this season of Conflicted is all about. When we recorded it four weeks ago, Russia had sent over a hundred thousand troops to the Ukrainian border, which we thought made the discussion especially topical. But we didn't know then that, by the time this episode came out, President Putin would have ordered a full invasion of his neighbour and put his nuclear forces on high alert. 

Like a lot of people did four weeks ago, when Aimen and I discussed Vladimir Putin's aims and objectives, we did so under the assumption that Putin's sanity was basically intact. After what's happened since, Putin's sanity can no longer be taken for granted. It looks like that old adage about absolute power corrupting absolutely has been proved true once again. 

As you can imagine, this is a busy time for a professional security analyst like Aimen. And so, though we considered rerecording this episode entirely in the light of recent events, we haven't been able to. Instead, I am recording this new introduction and, at the end, I'll add some new thoughts as well. As you listen, please bear in mind that we've tried to do what we always try to do: tell the story as best we can, as objectively as we can. 

My worry is, by outlining the way Putin sees the world, you'll think we think his assault on Ukraine is justified. We do not. Geopolitics is a diabolical game, hardly ever played by good guys against bad guys. But no one is ever forced to launch a war. And though every decision must be seen in context, Putin's decision to launch this war was his alone to make, and he alone bears responsibility for it and for its tragic consequences. 

Right. That's what I've got for you by way of introduction. I'll be back at the end for some final thoughts. Enjoy. 

Welcome back, dear listeners, to Conflicted. You've reached episode four of series three. And as always, I'm joined by my right-hand man, the incomparable Aimen Dean. Or am I your right-hand man, Aimen? What do you think? 

Aimen Dean Well, you know, the Dark Lord doesn't share power. 

Thomas Small Oh. So – so, what you're saying is you're the master, I'm the apprentice. But you know what that means? 

[THEME IN]

I mean, one day, I will rise up and slay you.

Aimen Dean Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

[THEME OUT]

Thomas Small In the last episode, we talked about how the American half of the Cold War was established in Saudi Arabia. Today, we're shifting our focus to the other half of that epic conflict: the Soviet Union. What were the Soviet Union's designs on the Middle East? And, now, as the spectre of war between Russia and Ukraine hangs over Europe, to what extent can Soviet history and, indeed, the earlier history of Imperial Russia help us to understand what's going on?

This episode can be considered a follow-up to the third episode of season two. So, if you haven't listened to that or – or haven't since it came out, I recommend you go and listen to it now, then come back to us. It lays the foundation for much of what we're going to discuss today: the collapse of the Soviet Union; Russia's quick descent into economic anarchy; the rise of Putin; the crushing of the Chechen jihad; and Russia's return to the Middle East as an important player in the Syrian civil war, commanding its own armies of Sufi jihadist mercenaries. It was a great episode. 

At the end of the episode, I said this: "There's obviously a lot more we could have talked about in this extremely complex episode of Conflicted. We could have talked about Russia's war in Georgia in 2008 or we could have gone into greater detail about the annexation of Crimea in 2014 or, indeed, about the ongoing Ukrainian civil war." 

Well, at the time of this recording, Russia has mast one hundred and thirty-five thousand troops along the Ukrainian border. And everyone is wondering, "What will happen? Will Russia invade? Will NATO defend Ukraine?" 

Here on Conflicted, we don't forecast the future. And who knows? By the time this episode airs, the conflict may have completely gone away. But I doubt it. 

Now, here on Conflicted, we talk about how the past sheds light on the present. Beginning with the present, then. Aimen, can you give us a quick update on Russia's position in the Middle East at the moment? Where are its Chechen mercenaries currently being deployed? 

Aimen Dean Well, they are deployed in Syria.

Thomas Small Still in Syria?

Aimen Dean Yeah. Four or five thousand of them. They – they are actually called or designated the Russian Military Police. Their mission is to patrol and to police so-called liberated areas, you know, which were under jihadist control in the past. Also, they are deployed in Libya. And, you know, to some extent, also, they are deployed in Donbas in the Ukraine, on the eastern front. 

Thomas Small Well, we'll get to that, for sure. But what are they doing in Libya? What's their agenda there? 

Aimen Dean Well, during the Libyan civil war or the recent one, you know, in 2020, 2021, they were siding with the forces of the infamous general, Khalifa Haftar, a remnant of the old regime, someone, basically, who is a self-styled neo-Gaddafi. And, funny, enough an American citizen. 

So, yeah. However, he – he got the backing of the Egyptians, the Russians, the Greeks even, and, to some extent, the Saudis and the Emiratis. So, he is, you know, the person who wanted to rid Libya of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Thomas Small Yeah. He's a sort of anti-Islamist general. 

Aimen Dean Yeah. He is an anti-Islamist general. And then, on the other hand, of course, although, like, you know, he has lots of Salafists, you know, fighting for him. 

Thomas Small Yeah. Absolutely lots. You might be anti Islamist, but you're never rid of Islamist. They're everywhere. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. So, it's like, "Okay. These are Islamists, but I have my own Islamists." You know? "I'm fighting Islamists with my own Islamists." 

And then, you have—. So – so, in Libya, they were, you know, serving the foreign policy objectives of Putin in trying to restore Libya into a strongman republic. You know, similar to what Gaddafi used to do, although like, you know, I mean, with more sanity. Although, like, you know, basically, no one can, you know, outdo Gaddafi when it comes to insanity.

But, nonetheless, you know, I remember, you know, I met a few Libyans, you know, in the airport, in Beijing, and they were asking me to help fill in their landing cars. cards. And I said to them, "Guys, you know, we have a saying in Arabic, you know, don't get rid of your insane monkey. You might get even a more insane monkey." You know? So, this is Gaddafi. 

Like, you know, I mean, they said, "Yes, because, you know, with him in power, we had one insane monkey. Now, we have an entire insane zoo competing."

Thomas Small It's the age-old tension between authoritarianism and chaos. 

Aimen Dean Exactly.

Thomas Small Well, in this series of Conflicted, we're focusing on the Cold War in the Middle East. Do you know, Aimen, where the first recorded instance of the expression "a cold war" comes from?

Aimen Dean No. In Latin?

Thomas Small Here's the quote: "War that is very strong and very hot ends with either death or peace, whereas cold war neither brings peace nor gives honour to the one who makes it." 

Those are the words of Don Juan Manuel, an early fourteenth century Castilian nobleman, in Spain, referring to the war between the Christians and the Muslims there. Now, it's easy for a fourteenth century Spaniard to prefer hot to cold wars. But, by the twentieth century, developments in military technology made such a preference appear romantic in the extreme. 

We are talking about Russia and Ukraine today, and both trace their histories back to a state that formed in the late ninth century A.D. A state—and this is key—that was situated in present day Ukraine with the same capital city, Kyiv. This state, which is known as Kyivan Rus', was actually founded by Scandinavians, by Vikings who were traveling up and down the Dnieper and Volga rivers, bringing furs and slaves to the great empires of Byzantium and the Abbasid Caliphate. 

The people living along the rivers were mainly Eastern Slavs who, in fact, made up the bulk of those slaves. The English word "slave," it comes from the word Slav. But the ruling class were Norseman, Germanic warriors with Germanic names, like Oleg and Rurik. And even Vladimir, a Slav-afide form of the Norse name Waldemar. 

Kyivan Rus' converted to Orthodox Christianity in 988 and, thus, became part of what's known as the Byzantine commonwealth. The Kyivan state looked to Byzantium as a sort of cultural ideal. And this would characterise Russia later. Kyivan Rus' eventually fragmented and weakened, succumbed to the Mongol invasions in the 1240s. It was incorporated into the realm of the Golden Horde, which in Russia, is called the Tatar Yoke, and it lasted for two hundred and fifty years. 

Aimen, how are the Mongols and their Turkic successors remembered by Middle Easterners? I mean, we Westerners have an almost totally negative view of them. 

Aimen Dean The Mongolian invasion is remember reading negatively for lots of reasons. I mean, it has blamed partly for the collapse of the Islamic civilisation, the sack of Baghdad, the burning of the House of Wisdom. You know, the biggest library at the world at the time. Five million titles were lost. So, all of this, you know, means that, like, you know, to this day, you know, the Arabs remember the Mongol invasion as the worst calamity to have ever befell, you know, the Middle East. Worse than the crusades. 

Thomas Small Because the Mongols and the Turks who followed after and eventually did convert to Islam and re-established Islamic civilisation in a way, along – on new foundations, almost, the Mongol – the Mongol heritage in the Middle East is perhaps remembered a little bit more ambiguously at least than in the West, where they just were always the, you know, the absolute worst.

Aimen Dean Not by the Arabs, though. And the reason is because even when the Turkic-Mongol, you know, conversion to Islam happened, they still fought, you know, had so many wars. 

Ibn Taymiyyah, you know, the famous grandfather of Salafism, he fought against King Kazan and the Ilkhanate Mongols and issued fatwas that they were not proper Muslims, because they were incorporating parts of the Yassa—you know, Genghis Khan, you know, law—into Islam. And so, he declared them to be, you know, non-proper – not proper Muslims. He excommunicated them and then he fought against them. He declared jihad against them. So, no. 

And even then, when the Ottoman empire was established, you know, on the back of the Mongol invasions, although they are Turkic rather the Mongol, still, the Arabs were, you know, considered to be fourth or fifth citizens. No. That era is never remembered fondly.

Thomas Small Well, that's something that the Arabs have in common with the peoples of Kyivan Rus', who languished under the Tatar Yoke for two hundred and fifty years. The Mongols were eventually rolled back in waves by a number of rising Christian powers. The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania conquered much of the heartlands of what had been Kyivan Rus'—i.e. modern-day Ukraine—which they jointly ruled for centuries and which they called Ruthenia, a Latinised form of Russia. 

This means that the word "Russian" has different meanings, depending on when you're talking about it. And one of those meanings is "all the people who lived in Ruthenia, in Kyivan Rus'," which includes both modern Ukraine and modern Russia. 

Ukraine means "border land." And, indeed, that part of Ruthenia was torn between competing powers, including the Ottomans and the Habsburgs. But it was a new power to the northeast that started taking bigger and bigger chunks of it, beginning in the seventeenth century, that is most relevant today: the power of Muscovy. 

The Grand Duchy of Moscow was a vassal of the Mongols until it threw them off in the mid-thirteen hundreds. This Muscovite state was actually founded after the fall of Kyivan Rus', but it believed that it was an heir to the tradition of that earlier state. 

Wars of expansion characterised the Moscow state, which, in 1547, became an empire proper when its infamous leader, Ivan the Terrible, was proclaimed czar, which is just the word for "Caesar" in Russian. 

The Tatar Yoke left its mark in the Russian Empire. It was part-Byzantine, part-Mongol in its statecraft, where the rule of law was always second to the iron rule of power. The empire was autocratic, centralised, Orthodox Christian, and committed to territorial expansion. This, it pursued with ruthless gusto, eventually swallowing up the entirety of northern Eurasia, including most of what is now Ukraine, a monumental achievement. The Russian Empire was a behemoth. It haunted the dreams of Western imperial powers, especially Britain, whose global maritime empire was the exact opposite of the czar's transcontinental empire. 

The long imperial conflict between them is called The Great Game, which we've discussed before on Conflicted. And if you're interested, check out our episodes on Afghanistan and Russia. You'll hear all about it. 

The First World War did not go well for the Russian Empire. It ended with revolution, the communist takeover, and a peace treaty with Germany that saw the empire's borders contract massively. One territory at loss was Ukraine, which was itself plunged into chaos. Different Ukrainian nationalist groups competed for power, and Ukraine became a battlefield in the larger Russian civil war, which included Western armies terrified of communism, trying to restore the czar. 

In the end, the Bolsheviks won the field. And, in 1922, the Soviet Union was founded, whose borders were basically the same as the Russian Empire's. But Ukraine wasn't just a province as it had been. It was a proper constituent republic, an implicit acknowledgement of Ukraine's claims to statehood. 

Anyway, as we all know, though it haunted the dreams of America just as its imperial predecessor, it haunted the dreams of the British, the USSR eventually fell apart. Ukraine achieved its full independence in a referendum in 1991. And as capital of the newly formed Russian Federation, Moscow found itself ruling less territory than it had for centuries, a situation that, in the eyes of Russian leaders, was essentially untenable in the long run.

There's a reason for that: Russia's geography. I'm going to give a – a description of Russia's infamously porous borders, Aimen. What do you have to say in general about Russia's geographical position, and how important is it to understand it to understand what's going on? 

Aimen Dean Well, Russia is extremely lucky and unlucky in its geography. It is extremely lucky, because of all the natural resources that they, you know, acquired, you know, unknowingly when they just expanded all the way to the east and to the wilderness of Siberia.

Thomas Small Where the natural gas fields are vast and extremely lucrative. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely. And the oil, also. And the coal and many other minerals. The problem here is, you know, Russia is the biggest country in the world. Yet, ironically, you might as well consider it to be almost landlocked. And the reason for that is because they don't have any warm water ports, with the exception of the Black Sea. 

Thomas Small The infamous warm water port problem of the Russians.

Aimen Dean Exactly.

Thomas Small It's—. They've been pursuing warm water for longer than anyone remembers. Russia has twenty thousand kilometres of borders. Twenty thousand kilometres of border to police. It borders sixteen independent states. Twelve used to be in the Soviet Union. And all of that border territory is an immense liability. Just policing it, ensuring that no one invades is a huge cost to the Exchequer. This vulnerability is deeply embedded in the Russian state's psyche. From the beginning, the Grand Duchy of Moscow was extremely vulnerable due to geography. It needed to expand. 

I mean, geography is destiny. Try to imagine Russia. Invasion from the north, it's basically impossible because of the Arctic waters. They're frozen most of the year. In the east, Russia's strategic control of the northeast Asian coastline, down to Vladivostok, including the Kuril Islands, gives it the upper hand there. Two mountain ranges north of Mongolia and China, the Stanovoy and the Sayan ranges, give Russia some protection from invasion from that direction. 

But the European plane is like a flat funnel. It has a narrow mouth at the low countries of Belgium and the Netherlands. And then, it just widens, expanding eastward, its southern side rapping along the Carpathians to the Black Sea, and its northern side, along the Baltic Sea, all the way to the Euros. It's a vast, flat plane containing few natural defensible barriers. Russia's western border snakes down the middle of it for two thousand kilometres. There is no border like it in the world. No border as long or as exposed. 

What adds to this geo-strategic nightmare for Russia is what's called the Volgograd Gap. Aimen, tell us about the Volgograd Gap, a seven-hundred-and-fifty-kilometre stretch of flat land between the Sea of Azov the northeast of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. How important is the Volgograd Gap? 

Aimen Dean Well, of course, it is very important, because, you know, Hitler wanted to go all the way through that – through it, all the way to the oil fields in the Caspian. For him, he knew that this is a flat plane that is easily invadable, that you can just basically roll through the tanks, the panzers, all the way to the Caucasus. 

And that is why it is one of the biggest vulnerabilities of Russia as far as, you know, European powers are concerned, whether they are the French and the Napoleon invaders. And before—. And after that, Hitler tried again.

Thomas Small And before Napoleon, the Poles invaded it. Before that, the Swedes invaded it. It was an endless succession of invaders from the West.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. But, you know, nonetheless, I think the particular invasion that will always live in the memories of all Russians will be the Second World War or, as they always call it, the Great Patriotic War. 

Thomas Small Yes. During the Second World War, Hitler's troops tried to control the Volgograd Gap. And from Russia's point of view, if a foreign power grabs control of this gap, which is, you know, it's flat—there's no easily defensible area there—if a foreign power controls it, it effectively cuts Russia off from access both to vital trade routes, to its only warm water access on the Black Sea. This is an existential threat to the Russian state. 

And, incidentally, this goes some way towards explaining why Russia crushed Chechen separatism so mercilessly. Moscow considers the north Caucasus region to be integral to its existence as a state. The Caucasus Mountains are Moscow's first line of defence against incursion from the south into the Volgograd Gap. 

Now, Russia's southern Central Asian border is also vast. It is also flat and it is also indefensible, which is why Russia needs to keep the Central Asian republics within its security fold, Central Asian republics now built on top of land that was conquered and pacified by the czars in their never-ending quest for security. 

So, that's the geopolitical geographic situation. And – and I think it's important, sometimes, at least, to, you know, imagine yourself in Vladimir Putin's shoes, sitting on his throne there in Moscow, looking out at the world. We're not trying to advocate or defend his perspective, but at least we can understand it. He rules this vast country with these three easily penetrable borderlands, enormous borderlands, and he's instinctively going to feel vulnerable. And what makes him feel most vulnerable is NATO's expansion eastward.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO has continued to acquire or to add to its ranks new countries, countries that used to fall squarely within Moscow's sphere of influence. East Germany joined immediately upon reunion with West Germany in 1990. In 1999, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic joined NATO. In 2004 Slovakia, the Baltic states, Slovenia, Romania, and Bulgaria joined NATO. 

Now, Aimen, remind us. During this first wave of NATO expansion, Putin remained a potential partner to the West. But that relationship began to break down. Quickly remind us why. 

Aimen Dean Well, several things. The first thing is the Iraq War, because Putin didn't like the idea that the Americans are going to put their hand on the fourth largest oil reserves in the world in Iraq, and threatening, you know, the second or the third largest oil reserves in the world, which is Iran next door. And also, at the same time, from their position in Iraq, where they can have a hegemony on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, and Iran and Iraq, which, basically, will put them in charge of roughly about sixty percent of the world's hydrocarbon reserves.

Thomas Small Meaning, they could manipulate the oil price downward for American consumers. And – and Putin has an interest in keeping the price as high as possible. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely.

So, here is the dynamics of the buyer and seller, and each trying to influence the events to their advantage. Now, Putin, already after 9/11, offered this, you know, olive branch, saying, "Look, I've been fighting terrorism in Chechnya and the Caucasus. I've been succeeding and splitting the Wahabis from the Sufis. I could help. I could, you know, lend intelligence, you know, air bases, assets in order to assist the war on terrorism from the American side." 

Then, the Americans brushed him aside and said, you know, "Sorry. Thank you. Like, you know, Russia is a broken country. We have no interest, you know, in having help from you or anyone else."

Thomas Small And then, following the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, America reached out to partners throughout the Central Asian republics, established military footholds there. That was obviously very provocative to Putin. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. 

The second thing that was provocative is, you know, remember that the only warm water port that the Russians have is on the Black Sea. So, they already tolerated the fact that Turkey, which, with a long coastline on the Black Sea, is a NATO ally, but—. Oh, it's a NATO member. But it's been a NATO member since the 1950s. I mean, they are fine with that.

Thomas Small Which was always threatening. I mean, that's an essential threat to Russia, because Turkey being in NATO means NATO can close access to the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. 

Thomas Small And the Bosphorus. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely. But then, when Romania and Bulgaria, both are Black Sea nations, joined, you know, it's only a matter of time before the entire Black Sea, you know, almost becomes a – a NATO lake. So, you know—. So, in essence, you know, the Russians were, you know, viewing this NATO expansion with nervousness, and they were thinking, "Ah, okay. Who's next?"

Thomas Small When the Cold War was coming to an end, many people, in Russia, especially, assumed that NATO would be disbanded as Russia was disbanding the Warsaw Pact, because, you know, without the Soviet Union there to defend Europe from, what does NATO exist to achieve? 

Well, NATO exists to defend Europe from Russia. There is something essentially provocative. If the West is in a military alliance that says, "You are our enemy. We are defending ourselves from you," it's already creating that kind of a dynamic. And then, following the appearance of NATO troops in Central Asia—this is, again, from Putin's point of view—provocative. 

There's another side to Putin's perception, that Western policy is threatening. And this is what he calls the US's support for democracy. This is extremely difficult, really, for Westerners, I think, or for people who have a commitment to – to liberal democracy to understand. 

But for – for autocrats, authoritarians, like Putin, who actually believes that authoritarianism is the best thing for Russia—now, we might be cynical about that, but he believes—Putin sees liberal democracy as an essential threat to the authoritarian top-down style of leadership that he himself practices and supports. We might think that this is the logic of a dictator seeking to retain power. And, perhaps, that is true. But this is certainly the way he sees it. 

And it is incontrovertibly true that the US, particularly from the late nineties onward, began, in the words of The Guardian newspaper at the time, who was a champion of this effort, began engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience. This is absolutely true. Where The Pentagon was trying to impose democracy, if you like, through the military in places like Iraq, the state department, effectively the foreign ministry of the United States government, was trying to impose or at least encouraged democracy by training peoples outside of America on how to mobilise democratically. 

In 2000, the state department put a huge effort into influencing the presidential election in Serbia, and it succeeded. And Slobodan Milošević was voted out of office. In 2001, they tried again, this time in Belarus, and they failed. But, in 2003, the state department intervened in the elections in Georgia, where they, again, succeeded. 

So, having succeeded in Georgia in 2003, we come to the Ukraine. And this is really what brings us up to the present. This is vital backstory to what's going on. So, in 2004, the state department and its NGO allies were involved in swaying the presidential elections in the Ukraine that year. Initially, they failed, and the Russian-backed candidate, Yanukovych, came to power. But, immediately, a mass protest movement broke out, coordinated by this network of NGOs. And this will be called the Orange Revolution of 2004. Eventually, this led to a rerun of the election, and the pro-Western candidate, Yushchenko, came to power. 

Everything really can be traced back to this election in 2004. It showed Russia that the West was trying to install a pro-Western president in the Ukraine. Now, Russia was also manipulating the election and it even attempted to assassinate Yushchenko, the pro-Western candidate, with dioxin poisoning. 

So, you know, we're not saying that Putin is a good guy here. A bit like our episode in – about – about Afghanistan. There are no good guys in this – in this world.

Aimen Dean No. We're just talking about, you know, really bad guys with, you know, different levels of how bad they are. 

Thomas Small It's important to remember that though Putin is anti-democracy, he's not anti-voting. He just sees voting as serving a different purpose from how voting is perceived in a liberal democracy. 

Aimen Dean Like Iran, for example.

Thomas Small Yes. Well, like all these authoritarian places. They try to use elections as a way of controlling public perception and legitimising authoritarian rule. And so, when Putin sees US-backed NGOs teaching political candidates in authoritarian countries how to mobilise the masses, how to campaign, how to use the media to achieve their – their communications objectives, and then, when elections don't go the right way, how to really get mass protest movements moving, when he sees this going on, he obviously feels threatened. He feels angry. 

Let's take a quick break now. Okay, Aimen. Let's get back to our conversation. The next big date in this backstory is on the 3rd of April 2008. NATO held a summit in Bucharest. Putin was actually present. And it ends by welcoming Ukraine and Georgia's aspirations to join NATO. At the time, Georgia and NATO were hoping that the summit would result in the beginning of a formal process for them to join NATO. And it didn't go as far as that. But it did officially welcome their aspirations. 

George W. Bush had wanted to start the joining process. You know, George W. Bush, he was a big fan of exporting democracy. But Britain, France and Germany said that, "No, We need to wait." Perhaps, they recognised Russia's perspective. 

And – and Russia made that perspective immediately. "It was a huge strategic mistake," Russia said. "It would destabilise European security."

I think we know what that means. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. 

Thomas Small And he said that Georgia and Ukraine's joining NATO was a "direct threat to Russia." So, Russia made its opinion absolutely clear. And a few months later, in August of 2008, Russia goes to war against Georgia. So, Russia is showing that it is – it is not kidding around.

Now, Aimen, you were still spying for MI6 in August 2008. Is that right? Or had you already left the service?

Aimen Dean No. By that time, I already left.

Thomas Small Nonetheless, in the years up to that point, you were talking a lot with intelligence experts and analysts. How were America's pro-democracy tactics perceived in that community? And – and tell us a little bit about that war with Georgia. 

Aimen Dean Well, we have to understand that Georgia, once it, you know, it veered in 2003 towards the West, that actually was a negative. It had the negative impact on the Russian effort to pacify and subdue Chechnya and the other. you know, Islamic militants in the Caucasus. 

There was an area just north of Tbilisi. It's called the Pankisi Gorge. The Pankisi Gorge is important here, because that is the place in which militants would use in order to, you know, infiltrate into Chechnya. And, you know, the Russians, prior to that, prior to 2003, were always relying on the Georgians sealing that gorge, making sure no weapons, munitions, logistics, and men were crossing. 

In fact, one of the people who wanted to cross the Pankisi Gorge and was turned away by the Georgians is none other than Abdulaziz al-Omari, one of the 9/11 hijackers. 

Thomas Small Wow. 

Aimen Dean He, you know—. In – in the year—. In February 2000, he was about to cross the Pankisi George and go ahead to fight in Chechnya, but he was, you know, turned away by the Georgians and was deported to Turkey. And from there, he went to Afghanistan. 

So, the reality is that the Georgians were really good at helping the Russians until 2003, when a new pro-American government were, you know, came to power. And that had a negative impact immediately on the amount of logistics and weapons and, you know, traffic of fighters in and out of Chechnya, using the Pankisi Gorge. 

So, the Russians decided, "Okay. You give us the Pankisi Gorge. We're going to give you Southern Ossetia." You know? So, the Southern Ossetian separatist republic in Georgia. So—. And when the Georgians wanted to pacify Southern Ossetia, the Russians used that as a pretext to invade. 

So, the reality is that Putin realised that, "Okay. I offered to help you, you know, pacify Afghanistan. I've offered to help you fight terrorism." 

Thomas Small He's talking to the – he's talking to the United States here? 

Aimen Dean Exactly. 

"And, now, you come to my own backyard, my own backyard, the home of Stalin in Georgia, the home of Stalin, to – to – to turn it into not only a liberal democracy, but a liberal democracy that's giving aid and support to jihadists." 

Thomas Small I can imagine Putin's not happy. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. So, he decided to do what Russians do best: send them the airplanes and the tanks 

 Thomas Small And they—. The Russian army totally smashed Georgia. I mean, Georgia is still smarting today from that – from that invasion. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely.

Thomas Small But what about America's pro-democracy tactics in general, the ones that were coordinated through the state department? Were intelligence analysts focused at all on this at the time and – and the potential for conflict as a result of those actions? 

Aimen Dean Well, if you talk to those who were Russia desk analysts and officers in, you know, whether the British intelligence or the German intelligence or other services, they will tell you that there is no need to antagonise Russia this way. I mean, after all, the spectre of al-Qaeda, the spectre of the Taliban was still there. We were still fighting a war against terrorism. There are many Chechens who are using the Pankisi Gorge, then later would infiltrate into places like Afghanistan to kill Americans, they would infiltrate into places like Iraq to kill Americans, and they will infiltrate into Syria later. 

So, the reality is that, while the state department enabled, you know, pro-democracy or pro-liberal democracy powers to reach, you know – you know, governance, basically, in Georgia, that did not result in a improved security, you know, for the West and for Western allies. 

I mean, actually it proved to be the opposite. And I think Putin learnt the lesson, that if you see that effort to destabilise one of, you know, my buffer or satellite states intervene immediately. Don't let it fester.

Thomas Small Well, we would see that happen before, too long in the Ukraine. 

So, to return to the Ukraine onto its backstory, in 2010, the Russian candidate, Yanukovych came to power. But he began negotiating with the EU to form an association agreement. Basically, a step on the way to full membership of the EU. 

Putin said, immediately, "This is unacceptable. The Ukraine cannot be in the EU." 

Because the EU and NATO, though they're separate institutions, they are both parts of the liberal democratic order, which Putin does not want to grow into his front yard. Instead, he suggested a separate arrangement involving the EU, but also Russia, the IMF, and the Ukraine. But this was rejected by the EU. And in the end, after putting a lot of pressure on him by Putin, President Yanukovych rejects the EU deal. That took place on the 21st of November 2013. Yanukovych says no to the EU. Only ten days later, in December, large demonstrations, breakout in Independence Square in Kyiv. This is the famous Maidan. And, actually, interestingly, that word, Maidan, is a Turkic word, "a big public square," and that is an immediate echo of the Tatar Yoke. Immediate. It goes and stretches right back to those two hundred and fifty years, when the area was ruled by the Turks.

So, these big demonstrations break out in Independence Square, in the Maidan. Protestors take over the city hall. Yanukovych reacts harshly. Actually, this is precisely what such protests want. They want the leader to react harshly, which will galvanise the protests further, which is, indeed, what happens. 

Sixteen days later, as the country is politically in greater and greater degrees of chaos, Putin announces a fifteen-billion-dollar loan to the Ukraine to help them see through some economic difficulties they were going through. This, again, is proof to the protestors who are anti-Russia that Ukraine is moving too much in the direction of Russia. 

In January and February of 2014, street clashes are – are becoming a very constant thing. Sixty-eight people are killed in the course of them. And the Ukrainian parliament is working with the president, is working with Germany, is working with Britain, is working with Russia to try to find some solution. 

Finally, on the 21st of February 2014, they do reach a deal to hold new elections by the end of that year, which would mean that Yanukovych would remain in power until then.

This was agreed by the Ukrainian parliament, but was rejected by the protesters in the Maidan, which, by this point, included far-right elements. There's no question. There were neo-Nazi-style Ukrainian nationalists, you know, amongst the protesters. Weapons stores had also been ransacked. So, the situation was getting very violent. 

And on the following day, the 22nd of February, Yanukovych flees to Russia, and parliament votes unanimously to remove him from power in a move that Russia calls a coup. 

Now, what is interesting about this whole story in – in Kyiv in 2014, Aimen, is that it has echoes of the Arab Spring. Is that just a coincidence? Or can we see in this pattern the – the consequences of American pro-democracy initiatives, that there's a kind of rule book that's being followed here, and this rule book is leading to strongmen being removed from power?

Aimen Dean Well, if you see that the American administration learnt a lot from the lessons of Tunisia, Egypt, and, to some extent, Yemen. They looked at—. And Libya, of course. They looked at the trajectory of each country and the power play in each country, and they decided that, "Okay. If we want to apply the same here in Ukraine, then we need to follow these steps carefully." 

You know, first of all, you have the – the pretext. From the pretext, come the protest. From the protest, come the provocation. From the provocation, come the reaction. From the reaction, come the propagation. And this is how you feed, you know, this narrative. And until the people are presented or the people in power are presented with two choices, really: civil war or just escape the country. So, what some people call it, that Yanukovych a Ben Ali. 

Thomas Small Ben Ali, the president of Tunisia who just decided to leave. Well, some people say his security officers put him on a plane and sent him away, but. 

Aimen Dean Yeah. Actually, no. They told him that, "Oh, we have information that the protesters are about to storm the palace." You know? "Flee for your safety." So, then he fled. 

It's the same thing had happened with the Yanu- – Yanukovych. He was told that, you know, "if – if the protesters reach the palace, your guard will not protect you anymore."

So, he decided, you know, like, I mean, "I'm not going to end up like Gaddafi." 

So, the spectre of Gadhafi, you know, being knived. 

Thomas Small The ghost of Gaddafi hangs … 

Aimen Dean You know? 

Thomas Small … haunts every strongman.

Aimen Dean Exactly. 

"I don't want to be a Gaddafi. I don't want to be a Saddam. So, thank you so much, guys. I will do a Ben Ali." You know, go into honourable, lucrative exile, a comfortable one, in Russia. And that's it. 

Thomas Small Whatever it was in fact, and it was probably a complex mix of many things, in Putin's eyes, this whole thing was a Western takeover of the Ukraine. And he moved to permanently detach Ukraine from Russia's sphere of influence. 

So, Russian units began seizing checkpoints in the Crimea, which has a majority Russian-speaking population and, as you mentioned, Aimen, is home to Russia's vital Black Sea fleet, at the important naval city of Sevastopol. And by the 18th of March 2014, after a referendum in the Crimea, Russia formerly annexed the peninsula. Two majority Russian-speaking provinces in Eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, a part of a larger Russian-speaking region known as the Donbas, declared their independence from Ukraine. And, well, that's that.

From that—. From then, in – in summer 2014 to now, there's been a kind of ongoing civil war within eastern areas of Ukraine, aided by Russian troops, aided by Russian mercenaries, including all sorts of military adventurers.

Zooming out a bit to – to go back to the entire geostrategic perspective, what does Russia actually want? 

Aimen Dean First and foremost, respect, you know. 

"Don't interfere on my affairs. I'm not going to interfere in yours." You know? 

And that's why, you know, we have to understand that Russia is always defensive, whether, you know, in terms of geography or politics. They are defensive. 

Putin would say to the West, "Please, please, please, please, you know, do not undermine the stability of the Central Asian republics." You know, the Stans. Whether it's Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyztan, you know, Turkmenistan. "Please do not destabilise these countries because I will pay the price if there is a jihadist, you know, uprising in these countries, and there will be millions of refugees, you know, coming into my land from the civil wars that erupt. Do not go into Ukraine and cause disturbances. Please do not go into the Caucasus and cause disturbances, because I will pay the price for all of this." 

Thomas Small Putin's belief in stability and his willingness to intervene in order to protect stability was proved in January of this year, when Kazakhstan suddenly erupted into increasingly chaotic and even violent protests. As a result initially of a rise of gas prices, first in west Kazakhstan, which then they spread to Almaty, which is the country's largest city. And – and they grew. They grew into a large-scale looting, violence in places. The state responded with brutality. And to prevent this Arab Spring-style situation, Russia sent in troops to quell the protests. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely. And they were extremely successful in pacifying the country. So, from his point of view, is that the West is playing lots of games, but in his backyard, rather than he is playing his games in theirs.

By the way, I'm not saying that Putin and, by extension, Putin's Russia are the victims here. We're just talking about the dynamics of the game and where the game is being played. Is it being played in America's backyard or is it being played in Russia's backyard? No. Actually, it is in Russia's backyard right now.

Thomas Small Now, we've kind of talked mainly about how Putin sees the West as a threat. But, of course, the West sees Russia as a threat as well. NATO has expanded throughout the last thirty years, largely because, in the eyes of most American military policymakers, Russia is an enemy. And, of course, if you want to spread liberal democracy, it is an enemy. 

But also, more recently, in March 2018, Putin announced a number of new super weapons. These super weapons have been designed specifically to get around American defence systems, which clearly freaks out The Pentagon. If you're Putin and you're looking at America's defence system, what – what – what are its weaknesses or how are you going to get around it?

Aimen Dean Well, Putin decided that he will avoid what bankrupted the Soviet Union. He learnt the lessons of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union tried to match the American military power. Submarine to submarine, aircraft carriers to aircraft carrier. You know, bomber to bomber. 

He decided that, "No. We – we can't much American arms race financially. So, you know what? Let them build aircraft carriers, but we will build the anti-aircraft carrier weapon."

Thomas Small America's military might is – is founded on aircraft carriers. Is that – is that right?

Aimen Dean Absolutely. Because that's how you project power. It has, you know, air power. And every aircraft carrier group has submarines and Tomahawk missiles and cruise missiles and all of these things, as well as the aircraft's on top of the aircraft carrier. It's a huge power projection. Powerful than many other. Each aircraft group carries the power of a whole nation. Of a whole nation. 

So, that is why, as far as Putin is concerned, "Okay. I'm not going to match each aircraft carrier with an aircraft carrier of my own. I'm going to invent weapons that will sink them before even they come to me." 

Thomas Small And what are these weapons?

Aimen Dean Hypersonic cruise missiles.

Thomas Small Hypersonic cruise missiles? My goodness, this is something out of a 1950s Pope sort of comic book. A hypersonic cruise missile. And what is that? I mean, that sounds like it moves very fast. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely. I mean, the American typical cruise missile, like, you know, the Tomahawk, for example, you know, the speed is about eight hundred kilometres. But, you know, the speed of, you know, the Russian new hypersonic cruise missiles could reach anywhere between three and a half thousand to five thousand kilometres per hour. So, it is really fast. And even the velocity of the impact, you know, could destroy the carrier without even having a warhead on it. You know, just the velocity. 

Thomas Small So, hypersonic cruise missiles. What else? What other weapons are – are they developing? 

Aimen Dean Uh-huh. This is where we come to one of the scariest weapons ever created in human history. It's a mini-submarine, but it's a torpedo. But it's a nuclear torpedo with a nuclear warhead and a nuclear reactor to make it going, you know. Basically, it propelled by diesel, you know, or any other, fuel. It is propelled by a nuclear reactor inside it. It is a twenty-four-metre tube shaped like a torpedo that can roam the oceans, carrying a warhead, that is—and prepare for this—it's a hundred megatonnes in terms of the power of the thermal weapon inside. 

Thomas Small Compare that to the – the nuclear bombs that America dropped on Japan, a hundred megatonnes, how much bigger are we talking about? 

Aimen Dean God. Goodness. Like, I mean, okay. Fine. The – the – the Hiroshima bomb was fifteen kilotonnes. The Nagasaki bomb was twenty kilotonnes. This is a hundred megatonnes. 

Thomas Small Well, I'm no mathematician, but that sounds like a lot bigger. 

Aimen Dean Yeah. You know, basically, it's – it's, you know, it's tens of thousands of times bigger, I mean, than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. 

Thomas Small So, there's this underwater nuclear torpedo that is just kind of moving around and it can detonate at any time. The detonation underwater. Obviously, if you detonated it under a naval group, all – say goodbye to three or four aircraft carriers. But what happens if you, like, detonate it by the land? I mean, that is a big explosion. 

Aimen Dean And a big tsunami after that. You can destroy entire coastal cities. And so, this is why the Russians call it the doomsday weapon. And the idea is that, "Okay. If, for whatever reason our nuclear arsenal was destroyed, we were subject of a first strike by the enemy, we still have these weapons roaming the ocean that will take revenge in such case." 

Now, of course, you don't endear yourself, you know, to the West and to America by inventing a weapon like this, that could destroy the, you know, New York and Boston and other key cities.

Thomas Small No. I mean, clearly weap- – weapons like that justify any – any American, kind of intervention. My goodness, that's terrifying. 

Aimen Dean It is terrifying. I mean, you know, so inventing a weapon like this, I mean, okay, what are you trying to achieve here? Is it security for your country? 

Well, I mean, you are achieving the opposite, you know. People now will try to undermine you, because you have now gone so far in threatening, you know, well, a global, natural catastrophe on biblical scale and you have, you know, deployed, you know, quite a few of these weapons, you know, to the oceans. So, this is not good, you know, as far as the image of Russia and the image of Putin, you know, is concerned. 

Thomas Small But I suppose Putin would say, "Look, you know, we're not going to use these things. But this is an insurance policy. We need an insurance policy. After all, America's military is much bigger than ours. It has more nuclear bombs than we have. It is not like America isn't developing weapons of its own." 

But Russia has an insurance policy. 

Aimen Dean Well, the problem with this insurance policy, it might come at a huge premium to the natural order of the world. I mean, what if anything goes wrong with these? Because, don't forget, they are unmanned. You know, they are roaming around. What if, one day, you lose contact with them? You know, one day, there is something goes – is going wrong with one of their nuclear reactors? 

Actually, there is a double, you know, risk here. You know, there is the risk of the warhead itself, you know, malfunctioning or the nuclear reactor on the damn thing, you know – you know, malfunctioning. One way or another, if you put, you know, four or five or six of these in the ocean, you know, the chances of something going wrong, you know, is, you know—. It's quite big. 

And especially with the fact that, sometimes, you know—. You know, over the past three years, there has been numerous accidents with almost nuclear-like explosions in Russian military bases well-documented by videos, you know. And this is the problem. So, if anything goes wrong with these weapons, and there could be a possibility, then we could say goodbye to the Seychelles, to the Maldives, to Bermuda, to what, you know, to whatever island chains or coastal cities that, you know, these weapons might find themselves in the vicinity of.

Thomas Small My goodness. Well, America and Russia facing off over nuclear bombs. There's a reason why we're focusing on the Cold War in this series of Conflicted, because it seems to be back. I think – I think the main thing to take away about the Cold War—. 

And I promise you, dear listener, from next episode onward, we're going to go deep into the Cold War in the Middle East—but we thought it would be good to establish the geographical, the geostrategic, and the ideological fault lines that resonate to the present day. 

The Cold War wasn't about imperial expansion in the old sense, where an expansionist state sought to impose itself by force on another territory and rule it. Ideally, directly. But indirectly, if required. 

In the Cold War, each of the two competence we're primarily trying to expand not its state so much as its ideological system where they're capitalist or communist. These two ideologies were different, incompatible views on the course modern life should and would take. 

"Ideology" is a word ferociously difficult to define. And I'm not going to attempt to definition here. But what is key about the two warring Cold War ideologies is their universalist character. Each side believed its system, its way of life, its entire worldview was universally applicable. Americans believed that everyone would be happier, better off, more blessed, really, to live in a liberal democratic capitalist system. Soviets believe the same about their centrally-planned Marxist, highly bureaucratic system. 

And one way of understanding US-Russian relations today is that, when the Cold War ended, Russia, throughout its universalist ideology, and, perhaps naively, it believed that the US would do the same. But the US did not. 

To this day, the West is still animated by an ideological conviction that liberal democracy is the only morally and politically legitimate form of government. And that may be true. But not everyone agrees. 

What's more, during the Cold War, both sides believed that its system was destined to triumph. There was an almost religious dimension to this belief in providential manifest destiny. In fact, because both liberalism and communism emerged from a Protestant Christian world under pressure from secularisation, the scientific revolution, the enlightenment, and the French revolution, liberalism and communism can be regarded, in my view, as something like Christian heresies. And, therefore, each bears a universalist eschatological stamp just like Christianity. 

That returns us to the opening quote by Don Manuel about the medieval Cold War between Muslims and Christians. If the Cold War, Aimen, was a battle between two heretical versions of Christianity trying to impose their debased religion on the world, have Islamists been right to oppose both in the name of a pan-Islamic solidarity?

Aimen Dean Well, Islamists, you know, are already divided over which version of eschatology they will fight for. The Shias and the Sunnis have their own cold war. 

Thomas Small Oh, we're never going to get to the actual bottom of any of this. It's far too complicated. 

Okay. To throw forward now to our next episode, it's important to know that, beginning in the twenties, Soviet strategists saw that what would eventually be called the Third World—and the Middle East fell into that category—was ripe for revolutionary communist expansion, especially as the old European empires collapsed, leaving new states in their wake. The question was always: Which system would the new states choose communist or capitalist? Essentially controlled command economy or a more or less market economy, finance driven and governed by the law of supply and demand?

That's the Cold War Middle East that we're exploring in this series of Conflicted. In our next episode, we're going to discuss the very first Cold War fault line in the Middle East with echoes down to the present day. 

That's right, Aimen. We're going back to one of your favourite countries: Iran. 

Well, dear listener, that was our best attempt, four weeks ago, at explaining the wider historical and geopolitical context for what's going on in Ukraine. I hope you found it at least somewhat insightful. Given everything that's happened since, what would I say now? I don't quite know. 

Listen, unlike Aimen, I'm not a professional. I'm like you, an ordinary guy trying to understand the world as best I can, relying on the expertise of others. And what's weird in this current conflict, the one between Russia and Ukraine, between Russia and the West over the future of Ukraine, I find myself with skin in the game. Twenty-two years ago, while living in a monastery in northern Greece, I converted to Orthodox Christianity. Like most Russians and Ukrainians, I am an Orthodox Christian. 

But I'm also from California, an American. And so, whatever ideas I might entertain up here in my head, in my bones, I am a liberal in the broadest sense, a citizen of the West.

When President Biden or President Macron denounced Russian aggression, Russian authoritarianism, the age-old Russian behemoth, and affirm the primacy of Western liberal values, my eyes well up a little and I feel a stirring inside. A patriotism, a pride. 

But when non-Western thinkers, Russian thinkers, including President Putin, denounced the West as a perfidious, sneaky globalising Leviathan seeking to turn the whole world into one vast marketplace rigged in favour of Western corporate interests, I can't lie, that narrative resonates, too. 

The conflict tearing Ukraine apart runs right through the middle of my own heart. The war itself is a monstrous, villainous, and, probably ultimately, a very foolish crime. And as I said before, Putin bears responsibility for it. 

But the history leading up to the war, stretching back months, years, decades, centuries, that history is impossible to reduce to easy black and white, good versus evil categories. 

So, what are we to think about at all? 

I don't know. I'm conflicted. 

As always, we'd like to remind you to follow us on whichever social media platform you find least disturbing, @MHConflicted. Over on Facebook, we have a fantastic community of fans having deep discussions on the topics we cover in these episodes. It's a great place to learn more and carry on the conversation. You can find that group by searching "Conflicted Discussion Group."

[THEME IN]

Lastly, another reminder that completely ad-free episodes and generous helpings of exclusive bonus content can be had for just 99p on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify by searching for "Conflicted Extra." 

We cannot wait for you to join us in two weeks' time for the next episode of Conflicted. 

Conflicted is a Message Heard production. This episode was produced and edited by Rowan Bishop. Sandra Ferrari is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley. 

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Conflicted S3 E3 - Spying for Saudi

CONFLICTED

S03E03

Thomas Small Hello, Aimen.

Aimen Dean Hello, Thomas.

Thomas Small We've got a huge episode today, so I just want to get right into it. Is that okay?

Aimen Dean Oh, yeah. Definitely.

Thomas Small So, in this series of Conflicted, we're exploring the various ways in which the idea of clash of civilisations can be used to understand Middle Eastern history and the conflicts, which continue to rage across the region. As we said before, what we're trying to do isn't straightforward, because "civilisation" is a difficult word to define. But we're going to try.

Having told the story of the end of America's "empire" in the Middle East, we're going to tell the story of how that empire began and developed during the Cold War, starting in your homeland, Aimen, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is, in a way, where the Cold War began. And to understand how, we'll explain how long-standing British power in the region gave way fitfully, and almost without anyone noticing, to American power. And we'll see how the Cold War world of spy craft, ideological conflict, and state paranoia continues into the present through Aimen's take on the notorious murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

[THEME IN]

What an episode, Aimen. My goodness.

Aimen Dean Goodness. It's going to ruffle lots of feathers.

[THEME OUT]

Thomas Small The story we're telling today about the origins of the Cold War in Saudi Arabia dovetails remarkably neatly with your own family's history. And that story starts with the British Empire. Now, Aimen, your paternal grandfather was born in Afghanistan and moved to British India, the Raj, and became an officer in the British Indian Army. He was sent to Iraq, in 1915, as part of the UK's Mesopotamian campaign, during which Britain grabbed Iraq from the Ottomans and incorporated it into the British Empire. Now, after the war in Iraq, he became a head of police. Is that right?

Aimen Dean Yeah. He was the head of police in a Baghdad district then, for the whole of Basra.

Thomas Small The whole of Basra in southern Iraq. Wow, that's quite a job. He must have got his hands dirty.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. He was one of those responsible for the suppression of the 1920 rebellion. I don't know if I feel sorry about that or proud.

Thomas Small Ah, the 1920 Iraqi revolt. Now, this was an uprising of Iraqi nationalists, which was put down by the British. But it also encouraged the British to adopt indirect rule in Iraq. They installed a Hashemite as king, King Faisal bin Hussein. The Hashemites, of course, were the traditional rulers of the Hejaz, along the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula, where Mecca and Medina are. And, in fact, that King Faisal was whom Alec Guinness played in Lawrence of Arabia. Very memorably, of course.

Aimen Dean Absolutely.

Thomas Small So, eventually, your grandfather was invited by the ruler of Bahrain, which was then a British protectorate, to join the security services there. So, Aimen, the question is: Does spy craft, as well as working for foreign powers, run in your blood?

Aimen Dean Oh, it runs in the family. Like, my father did it. So, as my grandfather. So, yeah.

Thomas Small So, it was in Bahrain that your father grew up. And in the early 1930s, after deciding to seek their fortune just across the water, in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, he and his older brother, your uncle, caught the attention of a certain British spy.

Aimen Dean That British spy is known to the English world, to the English-speaking world, as St John Philby.

Thomas Small St John Philby. St John Philby.

Aimen Dean Yeah. St John Philby. Very posh name. But to the Arabs, and especially to the Saudi royal family and to King Abdulaziz himself, he was known as Sheikh Abdullah Philby.

Thomas Small Sheikh Abdullah Philby. Now, St John Philby / Abdullah Philby is a fascinating figure in the history of the – of the later British Empire and the transition of that world order into the American-led world order, of the Cold War. And his life, St John Philby's life, mirrors your family's life, Aimen. He was also sent to Iraq during the First World War. And after the war, he became minister of Internal Security in Iraq, meaning he would have been your grandfather's boss.

Aimen Dean Absolutely.

Thomas Small But just before that, during the Arab revolt, which broke out during the war—and whereas the famous Lawrence of Arabia was the British agent most active in the Hejaz on the west, advocating the claims of the Sharif of Mecca to be the king of the Arabs—Philby was sent to the Nejd, the central Arabian plateau, on a mission to the then-Emir of the Nejd, Abdulaziz known in the west as Ibn Saud, who was then a rising power in Arabia. Philby ended up becoming a staunch advocate of Abdulaziz, who had conquered the eastern province, where you grew up, Aimen, only a few years before.

Now, explain how Arabians like yourself, who weren't from the Nejd, from the central Arabian plateau where Riyadh is, where the House of Saud come from, how would Arabians like yourself have regarded Nejdis?

Aimen Dean Well, if you remember, the Nejdis were always regarded by the rest of the population of Arabia as the noble warriors. Somewhat nomadic, but also with some settlements that were regarded as the trading centres of Nejd. So, they were warriors and, also, they were merchants, but also there were religious missionaries all at the same. Merchants, warriors, and religious missionaries.

Thomas Small Religious missionaries is a nice way of putting it. I mean—.

Aimen Dean Zealot. No. No.

Thomas Small Yeah.

Aimen Dean They were [crosstalk].

Thomas Small Wahhabi zealots, let's say.

Aimen Dean So, I wouldn't call them Wahhabis, you know, because, basically I myself am a Salafist. So, basically, I'll call them as Salafists in a sense.

Thomas Small Oh, I beg your pardon. Yes. Wahhabi is often regarded by Muslims themselves, Salafi Muslims themselves, as a slur. I don't mean it as a slur, of course.

Aimen Dean Yeah. Yeah. But, nonetheless, you know, for many people they were regarded as staunch religious fundamentalists. You know, this is the best I can describe them. You know, also, they were warriors and, at the same time, with a mercantile bend to them. So, that is why they were regarded as fearsome in both the east and the west of the Arabian Peninsula. But, nonetheless, these fears, you know, started to lessen a bit as King Abdulaziz adopted a more conciliatory tone towards both the east and the west of the Arabian Peninsula.

Thomas Small So, yeah. The House of Saud, now, they have a very long history. But they really burst into history properly in the eighteenth century, when they entered into a famous alliance with the Muslim reformer, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (from whom the word "Wahhabi" comes) and – and they conquered at that time much of the Arabian Peninsula and formed the first Saudi state. That's how it's known to scholars. That state was destroyed by the Ottomans in 1818. But only a few years later, the House of Saud had recovered and established a smaller, but still impressive second Saudi state. 

Now, this second state suffered from internal divisions and was eventually conquered by a rival Arabian clan, allies of the Ottomans, the House of Rashid. Abdulaziz, the king whom St. John Philby / Abdullah Philby was an advisor to and who founded the third Saudi state, the current kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz was then only sixteen years old. And he went into exile to Kuwait with his family where he nursed a powerful ambition to restore his royal house's fortunes.

Now, this he did starting in 1902, reconquering first, Riyadh, and, from there, slowly extending his rule across the peninsula. And he just started his expansion when Philby met him in 1917.

And it's important to point out that Philby was basically an intelligence operative. He actually became head of the Secret Service in Palestine during the mandate, where he would come to grief with the British and was eventually forced to resign on account of sending confidential information to Abdulaziz. He really, really respected Abdulaziz. He'd grown to believe that he was a great leader. 

And after his resignation, Philby ended up settling in Jeddah, where he was living when Abdulaziz conquered the Hejaz, becoming its king in 1925. Philby grew then even closer to Abdulaziz, became one of his closest advisers, converted to Islam in 1930, and took the name Abdullah.

Now, Philby argued strongly that Abdulaziz should unite all of his domains under his sole rule, which he did in 1932, proclaiming the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And that is the Saudi Arabia that we know today and in which you grew up. But your family knew St John Philby / Abdullah Philby. Is that right, Aimen?

Aimen Dean Of course. Because of the fact that both Philby and my grandfather were, you know, in Iraq serving the British in the military sense. But also, when my grandfather moved to Bahrain and, from there, my father and my uncle who were hyper-linguists, both of them—. I mean, you know, each—. I think my father spoke five languages and my uncles spoke six.

Thomas Small Another thing which must run in the blood, Aimen. Because, my goodness, you are also good at languages.

Aimen Dean Thank you. So – so, they moved across from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia just at the right time, in 1932, when Saudi Arabia became the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Abdullah Philby—as I would always call him, Abdullah Philby, because that's how my father and my uncle always called him, Sheikh Abdullah Philby—he was instrumental in really delivering a blow to the British Empire. 

It doesn't sound right that, you know, an agent of the British Empire delivered a blow to the British Empire. But he was the reason why King Abdulaziz, when he was considering granting oil concessions to the Anglo-Persian, you know, Oil Company, he decided based on St John Philby or Sheikh Abdullah's advice to instead grant the rights to the Americans, to the—.

Thomas Small Haha.

Aimen Dean Yeah. To your part of America, actually. To California. To Southern California.

Thomas Small Before we go into the – the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia, I'd like to zoom out and talk about Arabia in general. It's a very ancient place. It's vast. It's the size of India. It's been inhabited from, really, the beginning of time. And those beginnings have come down to us as – as sacred history, really, recorded in the Bible and, indeed, in the Quran, as well as an oral tradition.

Now, in the Bible, the forefathers of the Arabian people, as well as the Jews, is Abraham. Ibrahim, as he's known in – in the Arabic world. Abraham had two sons, the younger son born to his wife, Sarah, was Isaac, the father of Jacob from whose twelve sons came the twelve tribes of Israel and down through the centuries to the Jews today. 

Now, Abraham's older son was Ishmael, born to his Egyptian concubine, Hagar. 

Now, Aimen, tell us what happened to Hagar and Ishmael in the story. Sarah was jealous of Hagar and Ishmael, and instructed her husband Abraham to send them away. And he did so. Where did he take them, according to the story?

Aimen Dean According to Islamic teachings, God commanded him to go south. You know, from the Levant. So, he kept going south on south and south. He thought he might, you know, drop them in the [unintelligible 0:12:08], but actually, like, you know, he continued. He thought then it would be Yemen, but then God stopped him. 

So, they ended up in a abandoned valley, in a very, you know, barren valley, you know. And that valley later became Mecca. So, there, he left them. And Hagar, of course, was left alone with a child, her son Ishmael. But with no water, with nothing. But then she just encouraged her husband. "If this is the God's command, then, you know, I will follow it. Just go."

Miraculously, beneath Ishmael's feet, water started to gush, you know, and to come from beneath the ground. And that would later become known as the Holy Well of Zamzam, which is, you know, still gushing water to this day. 

Now, you know, when the birds started circling that valley, an Arab tribe—. Remember, Ishmael is half-Aramaic, half-Egyptian.

Thomas Small Yes. Because Abraham was an Aramean. So, Ab—. So, Ishmael's father was an Aramean and his mother was an Egyptian.

Aimen Dean Yeah. So, when – when Yemenite tribe from, you know, Yemen, who are Arabic people—.

Thomas Small Southern Arabs, really. Yeah.

Aimen Dean Yeah. So, when they were traveling towards the north, towards the Levant, they realised that the birds were circling that valley, and they were wondering, you know, "There is no water." I mean, you know, they only circled water, these birds. And so, they went to inquire and they found an Egyptian woman with a child in the middle of that barren valley, which has no water whatsoever or any trees, even, and they found there were with lots of water. And she was trying to build a well around it. And so, they asked her, you know, "Why on Earth do you have water? How did this happen?" 

So, she explained, of course, in order to gain power over them that she is the concubine of a holy man and this is his son and that he was – they were left there on God's command. And a miracle happened. This water came out. 

So, of course, the tribe realised that this is a special woman and her son will be special. And so, they said, "Can we settle beside you? Because if there is a water and this is on a caravan way, you know, trade caravan way, so we can make money, can we settle next to you?" 

She said, "Yes. But me and my son are the masters of the water." 

They accepted. So, they said, "But only on one condition. That when he comes of age, he will marry from us."

So, the tribe is called Jurhum. And when Ishmael became a young man, he married from them. And his language, Aramaic, and his half, you know, Egyptian heritage, mixed with the Southern Arabs. And, you know, his twelve sons became the twelve new Arabian tribes of the north, and their language became the dominant, which replaced the old southern Arabic.

Thomas Small It's a fascinating story, because it really holds in – in the cultural memory of the Arabs something real about their origins. They are a mixture of an ancient southern Arabian people, of the Aramean people of the north. Their language reflects a mixture of these two sources. And that's the story of how the city of Mecca was founded. Obviously, an extremely important city today, both for Arabs and all Muslims.

Now, when Abraham left Hagar and Ishmael there, thinking, of course, that they might die (There was—. The Holy Well of Zamzam had not yet been revealed), he gave a famous prayer. The Quran records this prayer as "My Lord, make this land secure and provide its people with fruits." This is called the Prayer of Abraham. And – and, Aimen, you told me quite interestingly that this prayer features importantly in Saudi self-identity today.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. They call it "Dua of Ibrahim." dour too. You know, the Prayer of Abraham. Whenever they discover oil, "Oh, this is Abraham's prayer." 

When he said the fruits, the fruits in the Quran doesn't mean, like, you know, just only, like, you know, the fruits you buy from the grocery. But it means the bounties, you know. It means whatever treasures, you know, that you will find in Arabia. It is the blessings of Abraham, you know, upon this land. 

So, oil, that is the prayer of Abraham. Gold, phosphate, bauxite. You know, silver. You know, gas. This is a prayer of Abraham. This is what Abraham, you know—. You know, how he blessed this land. And, therefore, this is why the descendants of Abraham right now are reaping the rewards of that prayer four thousand years ago.

Thomas Small Which brings us back to oil where we left off. Now, by the time King Abdulaziz was rising in power, the geopolitics of oil were already active in the region. It had first been discovered in Iran in 1908 by what would become British Petroleum. Then, the First World War proved that petroleum was the future and that whoever controlled the oil had a major tactical advantage. Britain was the major player, but also France. And they signed an agreement in 1920, shutting American oil companies out of the Iraq oil fields.

Standard Oil of California was one of those big American companies. And, in fact, you know, what—. The thing that puts Southern California, where I'm from, on the map was oil. And I can remember, as a kid, driving around and seeing still these creaky old oil pumps going up and down, probably something similar to – to what you experienced, Aimen, when you were driving around Khobar in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia.

Aimen Dean Absolutely.

Thomas Small Now, the Great Depression had reduced the pilgrimage of the Hajj by sixty percent. And that was the – the major source of revenues for the Saudi government in the pre-oil period. King Abdulaziz needed to find another source of funding. So, this inspired his desire to get some oil prospecting going. And that's, as you said before, Aimen, where St John Philby, despite being British, advised the king to grant the concession to the Americans. He thought it would better safeguard the country's independence. 

And so, Standard Oil was given the concession in 1933 and started a subsidiary, which would in time be called the Arabian American Oil Company, Aramco. This is around the time that Philby met your uncle.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. So, I remember the story in the family is that when my uncle and my father, when they crossed, you know, from Bahrain into Saudi Arabia, their linguistic skills immediately caught the attention of St John Philby / Abdullah Philby, who was already talking to the American delegations and courting them in the eastern province and trying to convince them that there is oil.

If there is oil in Bahrain, you know, there will be oil here. It's just the same shelf. You know, the same continental shelf. It's the same, you know, place. I mean, if they find oil there, you will find oil here.

Of course, it took five years until they found the first, you know, oil well. And, you know, then later, you know, they found the largest oil field in the world.

Thomas Small Yes. Five years, it took them. But they finally struck gold—as you say, black gold—on the 3rd of March 1938. And this is the famous Dammam Oil Well No.7. Well, you can go visit it now. It's a kind of national monument.

Aimen Dean So, what happened here is that Abdullah Philby realised that, you know, my uncle, who spoke six languages and, you know, was very much wise, you know, in the ways of the world, you know, and he was well traveled, you know, from Iraq to Bahrain, to Cairo, and back again. So, he was very well educated. So, he decided that this young man could actually serve, you know, in the court of King Abdulaziz as a translator and interpreter, which was very much needed.

So, my uncle was then sent to the court of King Abdulaziz to become an interpreter. So, from being one of the first ten employees of Aramco—. And if you go to Aramco's museum, you will find his picture there as one of the first ten employees there. You know, all the way to the court of King Abdulaziz. And it shows that the influence of Abdullah Philby was positive in two areas as far as King Abdulaziz and his ruling, you know, strategy was concerned. 

First, Abdullah Philby advised them to ignore the British and to give the oil concession to the Americans, which proved, in later years, to be absolutely vital not only for the independence of Saudi Arabia, but to the decline of the British Empire in later years as, of course, they were denied these riches, because of that advice, which, you know, absolutely hacked off the British in later years regarding Abdullah Philby and his betrayal.

But the second advice, which is – was – which was equally important, is that Abdullah told the king that "you need to rely on the educated classes in the east and the west of Arabia, the Hijazi intelligentsia, and the eastern province merchants who were mixing always with the British in India, and the trading networks that were taking place there. If you rely on both, then—." 

You know, you – you have to understand also that he also told him to incorporate the southern tribes in the south of Arabia. [unintelligible 0:21:16], Al-Shahranis, [unintelligible 0:21:19]. All of these people.

Thomas Small Who – who really had – were Yemeni tribes, really, originally.

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small But they'd been conquered by the House of Saud.

Aimen Dean Yeah. To incorporate them into the military. So, he told him that, you know, "a chair cannot stand on one leg. You have to have four legs. You know, you have to have the Nejdis, the easterners, the westerners, the Hijazis, and you know, the southern Arabian provinces all part of your court, part of your empire." You know, this new fledgling kingdom.

And this is exactly what he did. And this is how, you know, a Durrani Afghan, you know, individual like my uncle, who was, you know, who raised in Iraq and Bahrain and it started in Cairo, and then, you know, spotted by Philby, ended up being the translator of King Abdulaziz. At the same time when, you know, a Hijazi from another old Turkic family, a Turkish family, you know, Ottoman family, living in Medina for five hundred years, you know, became the personal physician of King Abdulaziz.

Thomas Small Ah, you're talking about Muhammad Khashoggi.

Aimen Dean Yes.

Thomas Small The – the grandfather of the famous Jamal Khashoggi. We'll get back to him in a second.

So, because of your father and his brother, your uncle, migrated to the east – eastern province, that's where you grew up. And, obviously, that whole part of Saudi Arabia was dominated by Aramco, an American company until beginning, in the late seventies, it introduced a phased transfer of – of ownership to the Saudi government.

Now, American culture must have, to some extent, been present there in – in your childhood, even before the troops arrived in 1991 to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Is there something like a hint of a clash of civilisations there? I mean, there were cordial relations between the Saudis and the Americans. But Americans largely lived behind walls. Paint a picture of – of how this strange modern society of the eastern province, the oil society, with American oil engineers and Arabs from all over the world working. What kind of culture was it?

Aimen Dean Well, actually, we used to see them more, you know, more often than, you know, people would think was possible. American families, British families, Dutch families. Because, don't forget the, you know – you know, BP (British Petroleum) and the Royal Dutch Shell, you know, Company, they all were present there also as sub-contractors or to provide services. Schlumberger, one of the companies that, you know, is famous in the world of oil, were there. So, there were so many Europeans and, you know, also like Americans, Canadians, Australians, Dutch, Germans, and British.

And, you know, there were certain supermarkets there that catered for their tastes. And so, places like Safeway, you know. And Aramco had their own TV station, which was broadcasting, you know, to the eastern province. And they had all the latest sitcoms from America. And so, we were watching sitcoms and we were watching comedy shows coming from America and dramas and all of that, because Aramco TV was broadcasting there to the American families and to the Western audience there.

So, no. There was actually not only a cultural, you know, interaction, but also educational. Why? Because the schools I went to, you know, first, you know, Ibn Jabr School and then Farabi School, these two schools, the primary and middle schools, were actually built by Aramco, and they were built to mirror exactly the same architecture and the same standard of high-end American schools. So, you know, with the lockers and everything and all of that. 

If you – if you walk into them, you will think, you know—. If an American walked into them—ignore the dress code—you know, you will think you are in an American—. You know, there are basketball courts. You know, there are locker rooms and all of these things. And they were built by Aramco. And the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals also was completely Americanised. You know, the entire education there, from top to bottom basically, is American curriculum, and most of the professors and educators there were either Americans or were educated in America.

Thomas Small I wonder what the American residents of the eastern province thought about aspects of Arabian culture. Because, certainly, one thing which really divides Westerners from Muslims is Sharia law. Sharia law almost haunts Westerners. It's a sort of byword for harsh justice, bordering on injustice. You know, we're sort of scared of it. And we all have the image in our minds of beheadings and public executions.

I remember when I was first in Riyadh, in 2011, being told about its infamous "Chop-chop square" outside the city's main Friday mosque, where public beheadings were regularly carried out. 

Now, growing up, Aimen, the fact of public executions wouldn't have been particularly unusual for you, I think. I mean, you told me that you attended your first execution when you were nine years old.

Aimen Dean Yes. You know, against the explicit orders of my family, of course. But, nonetheless, I, you know, I still remember there was a case of a – a paedophile. I mean, someone basically who kidnapped a young boy and, you know, raped, and killed him. And so, you know—.

Thomas Small He sounds like a real jerk, this guy.

Aimen Dean Yeah. Yeah. Of course. And so, one of my, you know—. The execution—. The executions in Khobar used to take place in a public square in front of a mosque called [inaudible 0:26:52]. I mean, for those listeners who are from Khobar, they would be familiar with it. 

And I, you know—. So, one of my friends, his house was just overlooking the square. And so, you know, me and several friends, we, you know, went after Friday prayers to his house, to the rooftop, in order to observe. And even though the execution was taking place about two hundred metres away, the sight of the sword striking the man and the, of course, the head falling to the ground and the blood gushing, I mean, that, you know, basically sent me home back numb. I felt like, you know, my hands numb. You know, going—. Walking – walking home, I was still in shock, you know. And, you know, my mother was screaming her lungs off. Like, you know, "Why did you have to see it?"

Then, two years later, I saw the other execution. But this time, basically, I was ready for it. This time, I knew it was going to happen. And yeah. I mean—. But then, I saw in-between executions that were supposed to happen, but never happened.

Thomas Small Yeah. So, this is interesting. I'd never really encountered this aspect of Sharia law. I mean, you told me and it really fascinated me that – that the reason why public executions are encouraged in Sharia law isn't for the reasons that we might think. It's not because there's some prurient, sadistic desire to revel in someone's gruesome death. It's actually, in a way, the opposite,

Aimen Dean The reason why there are public ex- – executions and why, you know, the family of the victim or victims need to be present there to witness the justice, you know, being done is, and also for the other people to come and see, is also for them, for the people to encourage and to, you know, really, almost beg the family of the victims to forgive and to show forgiveness.

There are—. Especially if the murder happened, you know, due to rage or, you know, not a premeditated murder, but basically something happened during rage, and there are no other aspects like, you know, rape or kidnapping or anything like that. So, if – if it is just the question of a murder happened between two people, I mean, this is when the families are encouraged to forgive by the, you know, onlookers and bystanders who sometime, basically, will be willing to contribute to the blood money, you know, to the compensation that the family would receive if they forgive.

Thomas Small So, let's break this down. The—. In Sharia law, murder is a civil offense. It's not actually a criminal offense in the same way that we understand it. A murder case is settled between the victim and the – and the murderer. The state is there to establish guilt and to arbitrate between those two parties. And if the victim's family decide to forgive, then all is forgiven.

And this—. As a Westerner, this comes as a shock. I mean, I—. In – in a – in a – in a Western murder case, if the father or the son of a murder victim stands up in court and says, "Your honour, I forgive the murderer," the state will say, "Well, that's very nice of you, but this is up to us to punish the murderer, not you." This is different in Sharia law.

Aimen Dean Yeah. Because the Sharia focuses a lot on restitution. In cases like these, especially in murder, they focus on restitution for the victim's family. And, therefore, the victim's family are given control over the process. Why? Because if they want justice, they can get it. They can have a life for a life. You know – you know – you know – a life is taken, so the other life will be taken, too. An eye for an eye.

However, if the family of the victim are willing to forgive, it – still, it is in their control. It was their gift, you know. So, even if they forgive, still, justice is done, because you know, that person took a life. They spared a life. So, one way or another, that power gives, you know, immense, you know, restitution in both ways.

Thomas Small Yes. I mean, you sent me – you sent me some links, Aimen, to – to some YouTube videos, which I watched. I watched with some trepidation, because, you know, you could see there – there was the – the – the perpetrator. He was on his knees and he was circled by Arabs. And there was the sword. And I thought, "Oh, no. What am I going to see?" And to my surprise, what I saw was the crowd really encouraging the victim's family to forgive. Sometimes …

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small … pushing money into – into the hands of the victim's family, saying, "Take this money. Forgive." It was very moving. It was clear that there was even a sheikh there that was – that was trying to negotiate forgiveness, if you can imagine such a thing.

Aimen Dean Because at the end of the day, you know, the Quran says, "[Arabic language]." That, you know, an eye for an eye, you know, basically. But what it says after that, "[Arabic language]." "Whoever, you know, forgive and, you know, seek the path of, you know, forgiveness, you know, God will reward him."

So, it is important to understand that, you know, it's—. You know, people are not there in a to witness executions out of morbid curiosity. They are there to encourage forgiveness.

One episode in particular of this forgiveness is that when the cleric who was responsible for my religious education as a young man, you know, from the age of nine until the age of sixteen. And under him, I learnt so much of Islamic theology, and I'm still grateful to him to this day. So, he was known for arbitrating between, you know, families of victims and families of murders in order to try to, you know, achieve forgiveness. 

So, he had a son, and his son was in his twenties. And, in 2014, his son was murdered, you know, by, you know, basically a business associate over a dispute. I mean, it was, you know, just young people, hot-headed moment, and, you know, there was a stabbing. And, you know, his son was, you know, die—. He died. He died. So, the man was arrested. He was same age as the victim. 

So, this cleric, he rushed to the prison to see that man. And when he went into the police station, of course, everyone in the police station know who he is. And they said to her—. You know, of course, after offering their condolences, they said, you know, "Please, sheikh, do not forgive." At the beginning. They—. You know, because they knew he was coming to forgive, you know, and rushing to forgive. And, you know, "let him just rot in prison for a while, so he can know what happened." 

And he said no. You know? "I have a duty, and I know what I'm supposed to do." So, he went. He met him. He said, "Just tell me what happened." You know? 

And he told him the story. And he was fully remorseful and cannot believe what happened and what rage overtook him. 

So, the cleric said, "I forgive you. And I don't want any blood money or compensation or restitution or anything. You can go. Go. Just go home."

And, of course, there was that shock. And, you know, he said, "I just killed your son."

He said, "I spent the past twenty-five years of my life convincing families of murdered people to forgive the murderers and to spare their lives. It will be extremely hypocritical of me now to be in this situation. And I even hesitate, because I cannot hesitate for the sake of other, you know, people who I will try to spare their lives later. So, I have to spare yours now and without hesitation."

So, you know, sometimes, like, you know, I mean, when I reflect on this, I think that if only people know that forgiveness, you know, might always seem Christian, but it has a lot of room within Islamic society.

Thomas Small Well, I certainly thought that myself when you told me the story the first time of this – of this sheikh, whose – whose own son had been murdered and yet he forgave the murderer immediately. I just thought, "Oh, my goodness. He's more Christian than the Christians."

Aimen Dean Totally.

Thomas Small So, back to the rise of the Cold War. You know, it said famously that Britain conquered the world in "a fit of absence of mind." And if that's true, it's – it's really even truer of the United States, especially in the Middle East. As we've said, America's foothold in Saudi Arabia began as a private concern. Aramco was a private company run on the commercial lines only. And when the Second World War was brewing, King Abdulaziz in Riyadh adopted a neutral position. He favoured the allies, especially because Britain was still the great power in the region. 

But he did flirt with the Axis powers. So, Japan, for example, did attempt to gain a countrywide oil concession in 1939. And King Abdulaziz listened to them. And this was particularly alarming to the Americans, because Japan, you know, obviously, was a growing imperial threat on the Pacific.

This is when the US military, the US government began to regard Saudi independence as a strategic asset. During the war, the US was also neutral at first. And for that reason, the British actually found it useful to allow the US to offer Abdulaziz various forms of aid to keep him more favouring the allies.

So, there was a huge drought in 1939, for example, and the US sent an agricultural mission to help relieve the suffering there. And, again, because the war had cut off global travel routes, the Hajj had collapsed, and Abdulaziz needed money. So, Aramco, through the encouragement of the US government, stepped up and lent the Saudi government money, amounting to the country's entire budget in 1939, in 1940, and in 1941.

Then, of course, America, after Pearl Harbor, joined the war, declared war on Germany and Japan, and its focus became increasingly on the Pacific Theatre, to combat Japan. And so, the US Navy needed Saudi Arabia as a waystation and to guarantee oil supplies, which were, of course, vital to the war effort. 

And then, towards the very end of the – of the war, since aviation had really developed and would mean, in future, that air bases would be what tied the world together and allowed America's imperial power projection to take off in the way that naval bases had done before, the Dhahran airfield was negotiated with King Abdulaziz, and an air base was opened in Dhahran for the US Air Force, which would become a linchpin in the Cold War.

Aimen Dean The fence of that air base is only eight hundred metres from the home I grew up in Khobar.

Thomas Small You grew up with that air base just in your backyard.

Aimen Dean I used to hear the fighter jets flying in and out all the time.

Thomas Small So, with that base in Dhahran and with the firm foothold in Saudi Arabia, thanks to Aramco, America begins its Cold War journey. So, now, the – the—. You know, the American-Saudi partnership in the Cold War, it developed slowly, and it grew more important ideologically when the White House realised—and this is in the sixties now—that pan-Islamism grounded in the Saudi King's control of the two holy mosques was an effective counterweight to the competing ideology of Arab nationalism focused on Egypt, which was broadly speaking supported by the Soviet Union as a – as a means of eventually spreading communism into the region.

Now, Saudi pan-Islamism and anti-Arab nationalism led to the kingdom accepting ideological Islamists, mainly Muslim Brotherhood members, as refugees from other Muslim countries where they were being persecuted. These Muslim Brotherhood members entered the civil service, the security services, and the education system, and helped to spread modern Islamist ideas throughout Saudi society.

This would, in time, combine with the country's own version of Salafist Islam to create the monster we know as global jihadism. You know, al-Qaeda and other such groups that we've talked about a lot on Conflicted. But in the eighties, as we all know, this form of Islamism was harnessed by the US in its Cold War struggle against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

And as I say, this has all been covered in Conflicted before. The Saudis maintained this Cold War relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood long after the Cold War ended. And we can say that, within the Saudi political establishment, there have always been reformist voices advocating for change. And these reformist voices were on a spectrum with liberals at one end, advocating secularism for your markets, individual rights, things like that; and moderate Islamists on the other end, affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

This approach where the Saudi government attempted to balance Islamist and liberal voices within the political spectrum came to an end with the Arab Spring, especially in 2013. Isn't that right, Aimen?

Aimen Dean Oh, yeah. 2013, I think, was the moment in which the Saudis—. Oh, I would say, basically, the wing within the Saudis who wanted to divorce themselves from the Muslim Brotherhood won the argument against the other wing, which believed that a coexistence with the Muslim Brotherhood was possible.

Thomas Small At the time, you remember the Muslim Brotherhood had achieved power through democratic means in Egypt. This was the result of the Arab Spring in Egypt. There were elections, and Mohamed Morsi, the – became president. He was the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood or a Muslim Brotherhood leader there.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. But here we come to the thorny issue of the coup led by the current president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. And the question here, the choices that were presented to the Saudi leadership, at the time it was under the rule of King Abdullah. 

Late King Abdullah convened the meeting, and that meeting was an urgent national security meeting in which, you know, his son, the head of the National Guard, Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah; his other son, the minister of Foreign Affairs, who was serving under the foreign minister, Abdulaziz bin Abdullah; Saud Faisal, the former minister was there; his brother, Turki Faisal, who was, in the past, the head of the GIP, the intelligence; Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, who was the Minister of Interior; and he's now on the run, Saad Al Jabri, you know, was there. And the question was like this: In six hours, the Egyptian military is going to depose the democratically elected president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi.

Thomas Small So, CC had called King Abdullah to – to say, "Look, ins—. We're – we're going to do this. Do we have your buy-in?"

Aimen Dean I mean, the Egyptian military institution as a whole called up the Saudis and the Emiratis and told them, "We are going to move against President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. We are going to depose them completely from power."

And in order for this coup to be successful diplomatically and accepted by—.

Thomas Small Legitimised, really.

Aimen Dean Yeah. Yeah. Legitimised. Yeah. You know, in the eyes of the world. "We need your backing. You are the de facto leader or semi-leader of the Sunni Muslim world. And, therefore, we need you on our side."

Now, the reality is that the—. King Abdullah asked, you know, "Will that come back against us? I mean, because if we do that, you know, then we are going to be divorced completely from the Muslim Brotherhood. Like, you know, we cut all ties with them and we burn all the bridges."

So, those who were arguing, you know, for "No, we shouldn't back this up and we shouldn't let, you know, this happen. This will antagonise the Muslim Brotherhood. This will encourage more terrorism—."

Thomas Small Which – which – which had been an important plank in Saudi foreign policy. For example, in Yemen.

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small I mean, the Saudis had very close relationships with the Islah party in Yemen, which is a largely Muslim Brotherhood party. It was one way in which Saudi Arabia kept a handle on things in Yemen. So, being open to the Muslim Brotherhood for many decades was an important part of Saudi foreign policy. But this was all changing.

Aimen Dean Yeah. And the reason is because those who actually advocated for burning the bridges said that, in the year between middle of 2012 to the middle of 2013, in which Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were in charge of Egyptian politics and Egyptian diplomacy, it proved to be disastrous. 

Why? Because the, you know, the fact is that the Muslim Brotherhood couldn't wait to enact certain policies that encouraged, you know, forms of extremism to grow. And I'm talking about the fact that they opened the prisons wide to jihadists and extremists, you know, to roam around, you know, without any restrictions. Hamas terrorists, like, you know, were roaming in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria without any checks on them.

So, for me, for example, I mean, as, you know, as someone with a fatwa on his head, like, you know, from al-Qaeda, I used to go to Egypt before and after the uprising, you know, in 2009 and 2010. And then, you know, and then after that, in 2011, even in Ramadan of 2011, I was in Egypt. I was praying in the mosques. I was going to Alexandria. I was going to Cairo. No problem whatsoever. 

It is after Morsi took over that, you know, Muhammad al-Zawahari, you know, the brother of Ayman al-Zawahari, was roaming the streets fine. Like, you know, those returnees from Afghanistan, all of the people who the Egyptian intelligence, with the Pakistani intelligence help, rounded up from Peshawar, you know, in Pakistan, and from the camps in Afghanistan, they were in prison in Egypt. You know, their prison cells were opened.

The—. In fact, the master bomb maker of al-Qaeda, Abu Khabab, you know, who is – who is Egyptian, his own son—.

Thomas Small Who taught you how to make bombs.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. His own son, another qualified bomb maker, was let loose and was actually given a passport in order to go and fight in Syria. You know, so—. You know, suddenly, you know, the Saudis in particular were worried, as well as the Emiratis. And even the Kuwaitis, they were worried. We thought the Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt will be moderate and they will not, you know, appease the extremist to this level. You know, it – it was really worrying.

I know many listeners will be thinking, "Oh, but they were democratically elected." And I accept that. But as someone who was keeping an eye on all of the issues regarding security and safety in the Muslim world and the Arab world and in the Middle East, the level of extremist infiltration and jihadist congregation in Egypt between mid-2012 to 2013 was alarming for everyone, including the Saudis and myself also.

Thomas Small So, as you say, King Abdullah convened this meeting with all the top decision makers in the kingdom and said, "Look, are we going to support this coup or not?" And he – he took a straw poll of the room.

Aimen Dean The majority supported King Abdullah's inclination to support the coup. And especially princes Saud al-Faisal and Turki al-Faisal. Of course, Turki al-Faisal was worried about the number of jihadists, you know, who are free at large in Egypt, you know – you know, whether one day they will turn their gaze on Saudi Arabia again and we will have the bloody years of al-Qaeda's campaign, you know, between 2003 and 2006 in Saudi Arabia repeated.

Thomas Small Now, with all this background info, we're in a place to better understand an event that could have been ripped straight from the Cold War. And I'm talking about the notorious murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, in October 2018.

I got to admit, Aimen, in the run-up to recording this episode today, I've been having sleepless nights. The Khashoggi affair is a landmine, and the things you've got to say about it don't entirely conform to the received narrative. Now, how can I be sure that you're not whitewashing what is unquestionably a gruesome murder and a heinous crime carried out by agents of the Saudi government?

Aimen Dean I would say that, here at Conflicted, we only deal with facts, you know. You know, and the facts are facts. And it doesn't care about, you know, our narratives and our prejudices and who we favour and who we don't favour. In real-world, basically, we're dealing with facts. And, you know, and based on the facts. 

Facts alone also, sometime, basically, are orphans. And the parents of the facts are precedent and analysis. And you have to put these three together—facts, precedent, and analysis. And once you put them together, you reach the truth.

Thomas Small My problem, of course, as an ordinary guy—. I'm not – I'm not like you, Aimen. I don't have access to privileged information. So, as an ordinary guy, trying to find out the facts, I sometimes struggle. And this is one of the problems with the twenty-first century and with the sort of media environment that we have today. It's not always easy to know what the facts are.

Now, when it comes to Jamal Khashoggi, most of our listeners will know who he is. He was born in Medina in 1958 to that prominent Hijazi family that you mentioned before, with close connections to the royal family. As we said, his grandfather was King Abdulaziz's personal physician. 

Now, in the late seventies, like many, many young men of his generation, Jamal Khashoggi was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, he claimed that he officially joined them for a time and he adopted their perspective on world affairs. Now, this was very usual at the time. 

In the early eighties, he became a journalist and established himself as one of the Arab world's most dynamic voices, reporting on the jihad in Afghanistan especially, during which he became acquainted with leading figures in that campaign, including Osama bin Laden.

By the nineties, his journalism overlapped with intelligence work on behalf of the Saudi government as they sought to reign in and increasingly threatening in Ladin. And Khashoggi became an outspoken advocate of reform at home. A key spokesperson, in fact, for – for that wing of the reformist class, which inclined more towards a Muslim Brotherhood-influenced perspective on politics.

Now, I've – I've tried to be balanced there. I believe those are the facts about Jamal Khashoggi. If you agree, Aimen, then you can tell us about when you met Jamal Khashoggi in 2012.

Aimen Dean I ment him in 2012 in Jeddah, and I must say I was impressed by his intellect, by his knowledge, by his ability to recall events and dates with clarity. Individuals. He's know—. You know, and his knowledge radiated. You can tell basically that the man had spoke with an air of authority and understanding and background knowledge, which made him sometime come across as arrogant. But, nonetheless, if I was Jamal, I would be arrogant a little bit, too.

Thomas Small I mean, some people might consider you to be a bit arrogant in your knowledge, Aimen.

Aimen Dean Maybe I should be more humble, actually.

Thomas Small We all should be more humble, Aimen.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. There was a red flag, though, which annoyed me when he expressed a indignation that I worked for the British. Because, at the time, of course, I kept this issue secret. It was still 2012. I didn't come out, you know, publicly as a, you know, a double agent until 2015. But, of course, because of the—. You know, I didn't want to alarm him that, "Oh, I knew about bin Laden because I was a member of al-Qaeda." So, I thought, "Okay. I will soothe his fears by saying but also I was a double agent, you know." So—. 

And he said, "Really? I mean, how – how could you? How could you, you know, do that even?"

And I was, "What? Joining al-Qaeda?"

He said, "No. Joining the British."

And I was like, "Jamal." You know? So, of course, like, you know, I didn't call Jamal. I said Ustaz Jamal. I have to, you know, show some respect. So, I said to him. I said, "Jamal, I mean, I was actually passing information to the British on al-Qaeda in Arabia, you know, including people like al-Ayeri and al-Mogrin and al-Hajj. Like, I mean, who were – who were terror masterminds in Saudi Arabia. They were actually in a terrorised terrorising this country."

Thomas Small Well, they launched enormous attacks, killing many, many people.

Aimen Dean Yes. Absolutely. Foreigners and Saudis alike. So, I said—. When I said this to him, that seemed to calm him down, you know.

And he was saying, "Yeah. But I don't like the British." I mean, basically. Like, you know, I mean, you know, he – he – he called Britain [Arabic language]. Like, you know, I mean, the mother of all evils.

Thomas Small Wow.

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small He had lived in London for much of the nineties where he was editing a newspaper here. That's—.

Aimen Dean Exactly. I mean, so I was wondering, "Okay. Thank you for your insight."

Thomas Small No. He – he – he, of course, knew Osama bin Laden from – from early on in the eighties. There – there, you know—. He must have had some lingering disappointment, would you say?

Aimen Dean No. No. It's a romantic idea of Osama bin Laden. I mean, the man was on and on about the manner of his burial. It's like, you know, "Which idiot who advise the Americans, you know, to just dump his body to the sea? That's not how he should have been buried. He should have been buried with honour."

And I – and I kept telling him, you know, "Ustaz Jamal, I mean, remember, please, that, you know, the Osama bin Laden you knew in the 1980s and early 1990s is not the same man that I met in the mid-1990s. I mean, by then, the complete brainwash, you know, by the Egyptian jihadists and extremists around him, you know, was complete. They really totally, totally, like, you know, changed him into the monster that he, you know, was transformed into later. So, please, you know, do not confuse the two. He changed. People change, you know, to the worst."

And he still – he still had a lingering romantic vision of Osama bin Laden. And he said, you know, "If only we engaged with him." I remember this word exactly. "If only we engaged with him, we could have saved him, you know, from those Egyptians. Brought him back to Saudi Arabia for rehabilitation."

Thomas Small Of course, he actually was sent to the Sudan in the mid-nineties to engage with Osama bin Laden and bring him back to Saudi Arabia, and he failed. At that time, he was already an intelligence asset for the Saudi government. He became an advisor to Prince Turki al-Faisal, the head of Saudi intelligence, and remained in that capacity for Prince Turki until that fateful year of 2013, when Prince Turki decided to back King Abdullah's support of the coup against the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt.

This is where a kind of rift opened up between Jamal Khashoggi and the royal family.

Aimen Dean Oh, totally. That's exactly the time when Jamal realised that the government is now heading towards a direction of confrontation with the Muslim Brotherhood. So, this is why when, you know, when we talk about the fact that the rift between Jamal and the royal family didn't happen when you know, King Salman and his son, MBS, came to power. No. It happened, you know, two years earlier than that.

Thomas Small We don't want to get into the weeds here of Saudi politics. So, it is fascinating. King Salman becomes king in 2015. Shortly thereafter, he makes his nephew, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, crown prince. Muhammad bin Nayef, it is understood, had opposed the move to support the coup in Egypt. He thought that Saudi Arabia should maintain its delicate balancing act with the Muslim Brotherhood. So, he was already a little bit out of step with the way things were going in Riyadh, which is why, in 2017, Mohammad bin Salman managed to replace Muhammad bin Nayef as crown prince. 

Mohammed bin Nayef was placed under house arrest. Mohammed bin Nayef's closest adviser, Saad al-Jabri fled the country. And in the same month that that happened, Jamal Khashoggi fled the country. He moved to the United States and began writing editorials for The Washington Post.

So, there he is, writing editorials for The Washington Post, some of them critical of the Saudi government. But, nonetheless, that's what he's doing. How then, Aimen, does he end chopped into small bits in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul?

Aimen Dean Well, the Saudi intelligence were worried that since Jamal was one of their assets for almost twenty years, that he might leak sensitive information and intelligence to Saudi government opponents in the region. You know, namely Qatar and Turkey. And according to one of the intelligence officers I talked to at the time, you know, they feel that he might have done that. And there were some—.

Thomas Small Why did they think that? What – what are – what are the—? What was the evidence?

Aimen Dean Because some information were leaked, you know, to Qatari, you know, backed press, which suggests that Jamal might have been the source. Most likely, he was the source. And as a result, you know, the Saudis were extremely annoyed with him.

Countries tend to be annoyed with former intelligence operatives blabbing out to the press, you know, in a negative way. That's why I never speak ill of the British government ever. You know, you never heard that from me.

So – so – so – so, basically, the situation here is that the Saudis started to become agitated and, you know, they were trying several tactics to lure him back into the country. You know, with offers of amnesty, with offers of comeback. "We will just debrief you, and you will be fine." But he was having none of that. He know basically that, you know, as soon as he go back, he will disappear into one of the cells, you know, for a few years. Won't be released and won't see his family maybe for four or five years, at least.

So, he did what he – the sensible thing of staying in the United States. That's perfect. However, it all went horribly wrong when he fell in love with a young Turkish woman, who was an intelligence analyst and a Turkish military intelligence or called the MIT, which, you know, her own father also was a, you know, a intelligence operative in the same agency. So, he fell in love with her. He was lured to Turkey by the Turkish intelligence and with Qatari-backed money in order to set up something called the DAWN, you know, Initiative, which is a think-tank to promote democratic reform in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries.

And he decided to move to Istanbul. And when he moved there, of course, he, you know, married that woman. All the press call her his fiancée, but in reality, the marriage actually was based on religious ceremony.

Thomas Small So, they went through a – a religious marriage. But – but according to the government, they weren't married.

Aimen Dean So, she was religiously his wife, but legally wasn't. And there is a reason for that. Because Jamal was already married to two ladies in, you know, Saudi Arabia. He already had two wives, you know, and he was married to them. Because, in Saudi Arabia, polygamy is allowed. But in Turkey, it wasn't. So, he needed proof of divorce from both wives, which, you know, he obtained in the end. But the idea is that he needed to go to the Saudi consulate, in Istanbul, in order to obtain these papers.

And that is where, you know, of course, the tragedy happened. First, he went for the first meeting there in order to ask for the papers. And the Saudi consulate promised, "Yeah. You can come back, and they will provide you with all the papers necessary."

However, of course, the Saudi consulate alerted the Saudi Royal Court that, you know, "Jamal was, you know, at our consulate. I mean, he was asking for the papers, you know, to marry someone."

Thomas Small And not only that. We know precisely when he's going to come back.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. So, as far as the Saudis were concerned, they were aware already of his plans with the Qataris and the Turks established at DAWN centre in Istanbul. They were worried about his links to a – a group of fanatics in Turkey called [Hezboll ummah], you know, which is the Ummah party run by, you know, people who are close to the Muslim Brotherhood opposition. People, you know, against the UAE, against Kuwait, against Egypt, against, you know, and, you know, linked to the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood. So, they were worried that he is getting deeper and deeper and deeper into the enemy's laps.

Thomas Small So, now, the Saudi government knows that on this and at this time, Jamal Khashoggi is going to be in our consulate in Istanbul.

Aimen Dean But they have only a week. And this is, I think, where things started to go horribly wrong as far as the Saudi plan was concerned.

Thomas Small What was this plan? What did they want to do? Did they want to kill him?

Aimen Dean Okay. This is where I really beg the listener's indulgence, because the prevailing narrative out there is that the Saudis wanted to kill him in their consulates. And this has – couldn't have been further from the truth. You know, the reality here is that, based on facts, precedent, and analysis, they wanted to kidnap him. 

Because everything about the team that was sent, you know, to retrieve him from Istanbul, to kidnap him basically, is similar to previous, at least four occasions, you know, in 2016, 2013, and 2012 and 2011. I mean, there were many occasions in the past, especially four occasions, where the Saudis will send private jets with teams in order to kidnap either a rogue member of the Saudi royal family or a certain officer or a businessman who is running away.

Thomas Small I see. So, you go – you go abroad. You send a team abroad. They sedate the – their target and then they claim that the target is ill. And then, under the guise of medical evacuation, they're – they're airlifted out back to – back to Saudi. That's the kind of—. That's the precedent.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. That's the precedent. The analysis here is that if the Saudis wanted him dead—and I've been told this now by multitude of Saudi either officers or senior officials—"If we wanted him dead, why we sent our own to be caught on cameras, you know, to do the deed on our own soil there in Istanbul," which is, you know, the Saudi consulate, you know, "having our fingerprints all over it. You know, we don't do that. Like, you know, I mean, this is very stupid. If we wanted him dead, there are, in Istanbul, especially, you know, there are Chechen mafias, Russian mafias, Albanian mafias. We could have higher than you have them. For $200,000, they would have done the job perfectly and our hands will be clean. We didn't want to kill him, you know. And that's not our, you know, MO or modus, operandi." I mean—.

Thomas Small If that's the case, Aimen, then why did they send a forensic scientist with a bone saw? I mean, that's pretty—. That's – that's pretty damning evidence, isn't it?

Aimen Dean No. Absolutely not. And the reason is because, with every other kidnappings, they would have done the same. Why? Because at any given stage, either the victim would resist and die. So, you need to dispose. Or the victim, you know, the one who's, you know, you need to kidnap, could actually resist and kill someone. Kill a member of your team. So, you need also to, you know, basically dismember that member and bring him back.

Thomas Small It's not a very happy story. That's for sure. So – so, what happened in the consulate, according to your – your analysis and what you know?

Aimen Dean The week, you know, time scale in which they were supposed to put this team together and send them, you know, was one of the reasons why the whole operation failed, as well as who was put in charge of this operation. In the past, it used to be only the GIP, you know, the General Intelligence Presidency, which basically handled such cases.

Thomas Small Which is like the CIA of Saudi Arabia.

Aimen Dean Yeah. In this case, it was mostly done under the supervision of Saud al-Qahtani.

Thomas Small Saud al-Qahtani. At that time, the crown prince MBS's top advisor.

Aimen Dean Exactly. Now, he is an amateur, as well as a sadist. And incompetent, you know. To add, you know—. To put three things together. You know, deadly combination,

Thomas Small An incompetent sadistic amateur. Whoa. that doesn't sound like you—. You're not as biggest fan.

Aimen Dean Oh, God. Like, you know, I mean, you know – you know, he is one—. He was one of the obstacles to real reform in Saudi Arabia and, you know, maybe one of the, you know, one of the silver linings basically of what happened with Jamal, you know—may God bless his soul—was the fact that, you know, Saud al-Qahtani was taken out of the picture because of, you know, this incident.

But, nonetheless, what happened is that, in the embassy—and then we have to rely on, you know, at least two Western intelligence agents who I know, who listen to the, you know, carefully selected and edited seven and a half minutes audio tape from inside the consulate.

Thomas Small Now, the Turkish government had actually bugged the consulate, and then, after the fact, released seven and a half minutes of the audio to the intelligence community. So, Jamal Khashoggi arrives. They arrest him. They placed them in front of a Skype call to Saud al-Qahtani.

Aimen Dean Well, from what I gathered from these two European intelligence analysts who listened to the tape, he was rude, condescending.

Thomas Small You mean, Saud al-Qahtani?

Aimen Dean Yes.

Thomas Small Yeah.

Aimen Dean And disrespectful towards Jamal. I mean, there was no question, you know, that with all this disrespect and all this bile, you know, being thrown at him by, Saud al-Qahtani, I mean, he realised he's going to be kidnapped, because he's aware of all the kidnappings that happened before, and that he's going to be sedated. So, he started to resist.

So, when they inserted the sedative gun in his neck, the Saudi government narrative is that it malfunctioned. Whether it malfunctioned or not, the reality is that the pumping of the sedative might have been prolonged and, you know, more sedative went into his system, because either the struggle or malfunction of the sedative gun itself. Nonetheless, that caused a cardiac arrest and he died.

And this is where the team there, you know, could have salvaged the whole issue by basically just calling a ambulance. That is the right thing to do immediately. Call an ambulance and just say he just collapsed. You know, he was, you know, out of control. "We wanted to sedate him and just he collapsed." And they could have basically avoided the complete disaster that happened afterwards.

But—. And, you know—. And who knows? Maybe the Turkish medics could have revived them on the spot. But, unfortunately, they decided to go down the dark path of coverup. And this is where the, you know, the forensic medical expert was called in order to dismember and to get rid of Jamal's body. 

And so, the dismemberment happened. And to this day, no one knows where Jamal's body is. And this is when the lies started to be concocted around what really happened.

Thomas Small Lies from the perpetrators. Lies from the Saudi government. Confusion. Mis- – mismessaging. The narrative was constantly changing. It was a terrible, terrible, terrible cock-up. And – and, you know, basically surrounded by tremendous evil and darkness.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. And the problem is because the advisors, you know, especially Saud al-Qahtani, and the perpetrators, the team, were not communicating properly with the, you know, with the government back home what really happened, and they gave conflicting narratives to the point where they started blaming each other. And everyone is saying, "Well, the fault lies with this person or that person or that person." 

So, it became a, really – an issue of the truth lost, you know, between a group of incompetent, you know, operatives who basically, you know, bogged down the whole operation. What was supposed to be a straightforward medical evacuation/kidnapping, you know, turned into a grue- – gruesome murder and an international scandal on a big scale.

The Turkish, you know, government wanted to milk this as much as possible for their own advantage, you know, including, you know, trade deals or weapon deals with the Saudis. And they were negotiating these, you know, abs- – absolutely. The problem here is that the narrative was already out and decided that it is a murder.

Thomas Small It is an assassination. That's the—. That's the problem. We—. It was a murder. But the – but the—. I think the – the narrative is it was a premeditated assassination, which is what your claim—. But you're saying it was not.

Aimen Dean No. There was no premeditation for assassination. If they wanted to assassinate him, there are many other ways they could have done it without having to do it themselves.

Thomas Small Eventually, the perpetrators of the murder in the consulate were arrested by the Saudi government and an investigation was launched. And according to the Saudi government, justice was served there. They were found guilty of murder. The Saudi government eventually admitted that a murder had occurred. They denied that the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, knew anything about it in advance. People contest that, of course.

But no one was executed, Aimen. Its—. Reports are that people like Saud al-Qahtani are under house arrest, not even in prison. How can we say justice was served if, following this murder, no one was executed, no one is – is serving really hard time?

Aimen Dean And this is where we have to go back, you know, again to the question of who is in control of this process now? It will be the family.

Thomas Small The family of the victim.

Aimen Dean Khashoggi's family. Yes. Absolutely. So, we're talking about Salah and Abdullah. You know, his sons. You know, the question of: What will happen to the people?

Now, there were sixteen people involved, you know. Five were found not guilty of the murder, because, you know, they were away, you know. And the five were sentenced to death, and six people were sentenced to prison, you know, terms. Now, even the five who were supposed to be executed, they are still serving prison sentences. 

Now, the question here is that it was put before the family that they were—. "We have these five who we believe that caused the struggle to go out of hand. They are the ones who agitated him more than anything else. They are the ones who are responsible for – responsible for not calling, you know, for help afterwards and then decided to let him just die on the floor and then be dismembered. And these five will face the death penalty."

So, a court sentenced them to death, and their fate then was presented to the sons of Jamal Khashoggi, Salah and Abdullah. They were presented with the facts that these people are sentenced to death. "What is your inner desire? Do you want to forgive or do you want to, you know, see justice, you know, served and these people executed?"

Now, you know, to show something, is that the family, you know, decided not to forgive for five months. For five months, they held their ground, all the way until May of 2020. And then, they said that the reason why they wanted to, you know, for, you know, to wait for five months is because May 2020 coincided with the month of Ramadan, in the holy month of Ramadan, and that they wanted to announce the forgiveness during the month of Ramadan in order for this act of forgiveness to be amplified in the eyes of God.

But also, at the same time, to my knowledge and in good authority, that the considerable compensation, you know, and restitution by the Saudi government was paid to the family, whether in a very large lump sum in terms millions of US dollars, as well as, you know, housing and income for life. So, it was one of the largest—still yet undisclosed, but largest—settlement in offered by the Saudi government.

Thomas Small In Western terms, we would not think that justice was served in the Jamal Khashoggi case. But you are saying that, in Saudi terms, justice was served?

Aimen Dean Well, and this is where the clash of civilisations, you know, is going to happen now. Because in the Western mindsets, you know, any Western listener listening to me right now, they will think, "This is a farce." You know? "These people should be sent to jail for the rest of their lives and, you know, MBS himself should answer for this."

And you know, you – you will have all of these things being said. Yes. That's fine. I respect that. I understand that.

From the Saudi perspective, it's no different than any other case. I mean, you know, it's—. You know, that—. If the family said, "Okay. We forgive. We forgive." The Saudi mindset is that, one, the state admitted guilt. Number one. Number two, the children were summoned to the royal court, and they got an apology from the king and his son, MBS. They apologised and they explained that "this was not our intention." 

All the facts, you know, basically that's presented to the Khashoggi family—and they were always given the transcripts of the interrogations—you know, point to the fact that this was not supposed to be a assassination. It was supposed to be a kidnapping. But, unfortunately, it went horribly wrong.

And then, the blood money. The blood money was paid. Once the blood money is paid and accepted by the family, then, by Saudi standard, not mine, from the Saudi point of view, justice has been served.

Thomas Small Well, there you have it, Aimen's take on one of the most shocking and notorious stories of our time. If anything, it shows us once again that they do things differently in the Middle East, but also how the geopolitical and ideological fault lines of the Cold War continue to resonate today, perhaps more than ever given what we're seeing as of this recording along the Russian-Ukrainian border.

With that in mind, next time on Conflicted, we're going to pivot away from the United States and towards its Cold War superpower competitor, the Soviet Union. What were the Soviets' designs on the Middle East? To what extent was the Cold War just a continuation of Britain's competition with Tsarist Russia in the great game? And how does all of that help us to understand what's going on today as Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden play an increasingly tense game of chicken over the geopolitical direction that Kyiv face? East or west?

A quick, friendly reminder that if you don't do so already, you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook @MHConflicted. And while we're on the subject of Facebook, a reminder that we have a great community of fans over there, all discussing and arguing over the topics covered here on Conflicted. And we'd love you to step into the fray. You can join us there by searching "Conflicted Podcast Discussion Group."

And, finally, if you're a fan of ad-free podcasts and bonus content, then you can subscribe on your preferred platform to hear episodes entirely free of adverts and get that sweet bonus content in which, dear listener, we will be answering your questions. All this for just 99p on Apple Podcasts.

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And over on Spotify, find Conflicted Extra to also listen ad-free and get access to future bonus episodes for just 99p a month.

There you have it. We can't wait for you to join us for another episode of Conflicted in two weeks' time.

Conflicted is a Message Heard production. This episode was produced and edited by Rowan Bishop. Sandra Ferrari is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley.

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Conflicted S3 E2 - Clash of Civilisations

CONFLICTED
S03E02

Thomas Small Hello, faithful listeners. And, indeed, to all you, new listeners, welcome to Conflicted. You're joining us for episode two of season three. And gathering momentum for the new series with me as always is the great and powerful Aimen Dean. 

Hi, Aimen. How are you? 

Aimen Dean What a wonderful introduction. Please do it every episode. Please. 

Thomas Small So, you see, listeners, Aimen is still alive. A lot of you in the Facebook page and on Twitter are always wondering. "Aimen, are you still alive? Are you still alive?" I'm glad to report he's still alive. 

Aimen Dean Yeah. Rumours of my demise has been greatly exaggerated. 

Thomas Small In fact, I'm glad to report that I'm still alive, because I am convalescing from COVID-19. It finally struck me down. I was, you know—. I thought I was going to get through this pandemic without being – without being hit. But I got it. I got the – I got the bug. 

Aimen Dean And who advised you to get some home therapy and home, you know, medicine?

Thomas Small It's true. I immediately called you, Aimen. And you were very kind. You gave me your wife's sort of—. Well, I'm not going to say peasant remedies, but, you know, natural remedies informed from long experience, no doubt.

[THEME IN]

Aimen Dean Exactly. 

Thomas Small Okay, Aimen. What do you say? Shall we dive right in? 

Aimen Dean Absolutely.

[THEME OUT]

Aimen Dean Last time, we told the story of how incompetence and corruption within the American administration led to its shambolic and ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan after twenty years of occupation. A symbol, really, of what we argued in series two of this podcast, that America's post-Cold War experiment in creating a new world order has failed. After the downfall of the Soviet Union, it looked to many observers that America was the last man standing and that its model of global governance rooted in liberalism, capitalism, and "rules-based internationalism," backed up by American military and financial power, would dominate the world forever. 

As we stated, this idea was made most famous by Francis Fukuyama in his book The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama's book appeared in 1992. Four years later, a repost of sorts was published by Samuel Huntington. It was called The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order, which we also discussed briefly in series two. Huntington said that the ideological conflicts that underpinned the two world wars and the Cold War may have gone, but their departure wasn't necessarily going to lead to the optimistic scenario imagined by Fukuyama. Rather, the period of Western super-domination was coming to a close as the rest of the world fitfully caught up with the West. The West won the world, Huntington wrote, not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence. Westerners often forget this fact. Non-Westerners never do. Now, as technological parody drew closer, geopolitics would return to how things had always been since time immemorial, a world of distinct civilisational zones between which would be encounter, competition, and conflict. The Cold War division of humanity is over, he wrote. The more fundamental divisions of humanity in terms of ethnicity, religions, and civilisations remain and spawn new conflicts. Human history is the history of civilisations. 

Now, to prepare for this episode, I reread The Clash of Civilisations, and I can't pretend I liked it all that much. Huntington's thesis is so broad that it can pretty much accommodate anything, reducing its analytical power. Plus, there's the thorny issue of what civilisation really means. It's such an elastic concept that it can be stretched to include pretty much whatever he wants. As he basically admits, civilisations, he writes, have no clear-cut boundaries and no precise beginnings and endings. People can and do redefine their identities. And as a result, the composition and shapes of civilisations change over time. Civilisations are nonetheless meaningful entities. And while the lines between them are seldom sharp, they are real. 

Right. That's it from Huntington. Series three is not going to be about his book. As I said, I don't really rate it. But we have named this series Clash of Civilisations. And we are going to use that idea as our launching point to explore—. Well, to explore a lot. On the surface, having just narrated the end of America's "empire" in the Middle East, if it is indeed the end. 

In this series, we're going to tell the story of that empire from the beginning, which basically means we're going to tell the story of the Cold War as it played out in the Middle East. America and the Soviet, both manoeuvring for dominance in the region, both trying to stamp their model of modernity upon it, both inheriting imperial structures from the previous period of European colonialism, both giving rise to resistance movements of various stripes. All of this is fertile ground for asking the question: Doesn't essential clash of civilisations underlie the Middle East's experience of modernisation? 

But in a way, that's just on the surface. Underneath, we'll be feeling our way to even deeper, more universal, and more ancient questions, questions of meaning and religion and the wider arc of history as it plays out on the stage, really, of the human imagination where matter and spirit, concept and reality, time and eternity meet, mingle, and clash. 

Big stuff. Right. That's my opening spiel. Aimen, how does that all sound to you? You up for it? 

Aimen Dean Well, between you and me, Thomas, I know I was listening to you and I was wondering some university there, you know, is missing its professor. 

Thomas Small Oh, that's very kind of you. Right. So, let's – let's start by discussing what civilisation means. You know, it's—. It is a very difficult concept. In the West, we tend to – we tend to contrast civilisation with, I don't know, barbarism. What do you call it? The uncivilised world. It's a very difficult concept to grasp, especially since, in the Western world, you know, we have been, in our own minds at least, "civilised" for a very long time. But what interests me, Aimen, is that you actually come from a world where the dichotomy between the civilised and, let us say, the uncivilised is still quite fresh. 

I mean, in Arabic, the word for civilisation, al-hadara, is contrasted with its opposite, al-badawa. Explain to us the difference between these two words. I mean, al-hadara really means "the settled," those people who don't move around. Al-badawa, from which the word "Bedouin" comes, are the nomads. But I think, as – as recently as fifty, sixty, seventy years ago, in Arabia, the distinction between those who lived a settled, civilised life and those who did not was really apparent. Is that right?

Aimen Dean Yeah. Because—. Let me put it this way. I mean, for the – for the Arabs, in particular, definition, you know, extend into two spheres here. You know, the physical sphere, you know, and the non-physical sphere, you know. You know? So, for the physical sphere, when you say to some – about someone, hadari, you know, as, you know, someone who is civilised, you know, actually, the word doesn't translate into "civilised" in English. You know, it – it actually translate into "urbanised." So, they say someone who's urbanised and someone who is nomad. Because why? The Arabs, you know, they always stressed that hadara or, you know – you know, in other words, you know, "civility," sometime can be main- – observed and maintained by nomads more than, sometimes, the urbanised. 

Thomas Small This is very interesting. Because, throughout – throughout human history, there has been a sort of conflict, if you like, or tension between these concepts of the civilised and the uncivilised. On the one hand, people from the safety of their stonewalls and cities looking out at the wilderness, seeing nomadic peoples. On the one hand, they feared them. They – they held them in contempt. They saw that their manners and morals were less refined. But on the other hand, they valorised them. They – they thought that they – they had a kind of unsullied nobility of soul. So, there was a strange – a strange tension there. 

Aimen Dean For me, if I'm looking for the perfect Arabic definition of what civilisation means, whether it is for the urbanised or the nomad, it is summarised by the Egyptian poet Ahmed Shawqi, who is nicknamed the Prince of all Arab poets. Amir al-shu'ara. He said, "[speaks in Arabic]." That nation's foundations are manners. So, civilisation equal manners. Therefore, it's your manners that determines how civilised you are regardless of your urbanised or nomadic status, I think. 

Thomas Small That's interesting. However, I distinctly the first time that I visited Riyadh. Your—. You know, the capital of Saudi Arabia. And I was driving around with my colleague, who was a Saudi middle-class gentlemen who'd grown up in Riyadh. And he – he—. We – we – we stopped at a police checkpoint, and he had to roll down his window. And the policemen—. And he had a – had – had a bit of banter about them. And we drove off. And as we drove off, he chuckled to himself and he said, " Bedu," as if – as if the person – the person that he had just – that he'd just had this exchange with was sort of cute, but – but clearly rough around the edges. So, that was – that was the idea. That his … 

Aimen Dean Yes.

Thomas Small … his manners, if you like, weren't very refined. But he was sweet. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. 

Thomas Small He treated him a bit like a child. I have to admit.

Aimen Dean Yes. Unfortunately, I am as guilty, you know. When – whenever I visit Saudi Arabia, you know, I always, you know, distinguish immediately between those who are urbanised and those who are, you know, coming from a Bedouin background. They are no longer nomad, you know. But it's – it's still, you know—. This, you know, lack of, you know, certain refinement is still there. And yet those who lack the certain refinement, I mean, they aren't going to tell you, "Oh, sir. How are you?" Whatever. All of that. Like, you know, he will say, "Papers, please." You know? "Show me your this. Show me that." Whatever. But, nonetheless, if he feels that you are in distress and if he feels that you are in need, he will be quicker, much quicker, than the urbanised person to offer you help, support and to see this [unintelligible]. His entire manner changed completely, you know. So, there is something that, you know—. Basically, like, you know, there is a pluses—. You know, there are cons and pros, like, you know, for each. 

Thomas Small Yeah. There – there you go. There's that tension that I mentioned. 

Aimen Dean Yeah. 

Thomas Small The tension between viewing the – the nomad, viewing the person beyond civilisation as noble of spirit and soul while, at the same time, viewing them as – as – as, you know, as lesser in some way. 

Aimen Dean Rough around the edges.

Thomas Small Rough around the edges in – in fact. Now, the reason I bring all of this up is that, as we begin to try to reach a wider understanding of Middle Eastern history and the way it informs the present, I think it's very important for people to realise that within the Middle East itself, there are different, if you like, civilisational strata or layers. And though we tend to look at maps today and we, you know—. In general, as human beings, now, we look down upon the world and we see a flat space. And that—. Those flat spaces are determined by borders, and we think of governments as controlling all of the land within the borders. 

In historical terms, that's not really what happened at all. And that within these spaces, there were cities and there were villages and there were, at the same time, these nomadic peoples. And they were all mingling together. And, often, that distinction between a – a city life and a village life, an agricultural life, and a nomadic, a pastoral life and a merchant life, that distinction was often not just divided civilisational-ly, but ethnically, religiously, linguistically. And all of these different peoples, all of these different modes of life were mingling and together to create a very rich but often conflictual tapestry. Does – does that make sense, Aimen? 

Aimen Dean Of course. Because even in Saudi Arabia, you know, that, you know—. And my Saudi listeners will, you know, I think, will chuckle when they listen to this. The distinction here is between not only two classes, you know, which is the – those who are of Bedouin, you know, in other word, nomadic, you know, roots, and those who are of, you know, urbanised roots, hadari. But, also, there is the third class, which is, you know, the qarawi, in, you know, in Fusha. You know, in classical Arabic. But also [speaks in Arabic], you know, in the slang. 

Thomas Small [speaks in Arabic].

Aimen Dean Yeah. [speaks in Arabic]. So, whenever, you know—. You know, actually, sometime, if, you know—. A Bedouin is no longer an insult Actually, [speaks in Arabic] is the insult, you know – you know, which means a villager, you know. So, if you really want to insult someone in Saudi Arabia, call him a villager. So, you know. 

Thomas Small The farmers get no love. The farmers get no love in any civilisation.

Aimen Dean No. Okay. Because, you know, the old kings of time, and to this day, you know, among the royal families of Arabia, what is their favourite sports, you know? Is it, you know, farming? No. Of course, not. It's hunting. 

Thomas Small Yeah. 

Aimen Dean You know, with falcons and with, you know, hounds and all of that. So, you know. Because hunting is the noble sport of kings, you know. But farming. Come on. This is for the peasants. And so, you know—. So, actually in the hierarchy, you know, of Arab, you know, mentality, first, there's the urbanised, educated, ruling class. And then, you have the Bedouins or, you know, no longer nomadic, but they are descendants of Bedouins. They form most of the security and military apparatus. You know, they are the warriors protecting the, you know, kingdoms. And then, below them, peasants, so. 

Thomas Small Well, this distinction between a kind of noble pastoral, nomad people and a slightly corrupt backwards agricultural people, this is as old as certainly the Bible. I mean, the story of Cain and Abel … 

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small … is one hundred percent about this idea. You know, Cain is the farmer. Cain is somehow corrupt and wicked. Cain murders unjustly the noble – his noble brother, Abel, the pastoralist, the shepherd. And out—. And – and from – from Cain's lineage, it says, came all forms of wickedness as well as technology and cities and civilisation. So, from the very beginning of the human sort of spirit trying to work out these things, as – as – as at least it's in the Bible, we see this tension and this conflict from the very beginning. 

Now, as Huntington wrote, defining civilisation is not easy. But it does mean something. And whatever reality that that word is gesturing towards, that reality plays a very real if very complex and subtle role in history and in current events. 

Returning now, as we have so many times to the years following the end of the Cold War, in 1991, we can see this already playing out. In fact, in his book, Huntington provides a long list of examples from 1993 of how his civilisational paradigm was already manifesting itself in the post-Cold War world. We've discussed several already on Conflicted the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia, which you participated in, Aimen. 

Aimen Dean Yeah. In Bosnia.

Thomas Small The expansion of NATO into former Warsaw Pact countries, antagonising Russia, fighting in central Asia between a weakened Russia and Mujahideen troops. But one sticks out, both because it involves a conflict we haven't discussed and because it illustrates how ancient and how lasting the civilisational fault lines are. This conflict is the one between two small countries in the Caucasus region, Armenia and Azerbaijan. 

Now, dear listener, you may remember that, starting in late September 2020 and lasting for about six weeks, a war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over a disputed territory called Nagorno-Karabakh. This flare up was the sequel to the conflict in 1993, which Huntington referred to a clear sign that some places at least are still experiencing the fallout of the Cold War. But before we get into the details of the conflict, Aimen, in general, why have Armenians and Azeris been in conflict? 

Aimen Dean Well, we need several hours, but in order to condense this—. 

Thomas Small Well, it's really about territory. The fight is really about the territory. 

Aimen Dean It's always about territory. But it's more than that. Don't forget. Like, you know, I mean, yes, the underlying, you know, reason is territory. But there is a lot. A reservoir of deep-seated, you know, feelings, grievances, insecurities. I mean, we could talk about it forever. Historical grievances that could last, you know, a thousand years. But the reality is, as someone who'd been to the Caucasus, and I participated in the conflicts of the Caucasus, you know, within Chechnya, Dagestan, and Azerbaijan. 

Thomas Small Yes. I mean, you went to Baku, which is the capital Azerbaijan in 1996. Is that right? 

Aimen Dean Yes. Indeed.

Thomas Small And – and the reason you were there was to – to help smuggle—. Was it peanut butter? To – to [unintelligible]. Mayonnaise to Mujahadeen in Chech- – in Chechnya.

Aimen Dean No. Not peanut butter. Mayonnaise. Yeah. Well, among other things, of course. 

So, we have to understand that with such deep, you know, deeply held grievances that the Armenians feel about the fact that the, you know, history was not kind to them for almost fifteen hundred years, and on top of the fact that their ancestral homeland seems to have been eaten, you know, piece by piece by continuous Turkic tribal migration starting in the, you know, tenth and eleventh century, you know, with Turkish tribes coming from the steps of central Asia, they were pushed and pushed and pushed, you know, to the Caucasus regions. And that's it. I mean, basically, it's just long list of, you know, grievances against Turkic people for almost a thousand years. 

Thomas Small It's important for the listener to understand that the Armenians are among the oldest peoples in the world. In the Bronze Age, there was a network, a patchwork of Indo-European kingdoms that stretched across Anatolia and into the Caucasus. Anatolia and the Caucasus really what is the modern state of Turkey. And those Indo-European peoples—. You may have heard of the Hittites, for example. They're in the Bible. So, they're – they're sometimes well-known. They're sort of a famous people. But they were just one of many Indo-European peoples, which, during what's called the Bronze Age collapse beginning in 1200 BC, sort of disappeared, certainly seemed to leave the historical record. They amalgamated. They were conquered. 

But out of that strange several centuries of – of – of conflict and – and civilisational dissipation, the Armenians emerged. And it seems that they were focused around, you know, eastern Anatolia and into where they now live, around Lake Van in the Eastern part of – of the Anatolian plateau. So, we're talking a very old, well-established people. They were the first kingdom to officially adopt Christianity before any other kingdom. Before any other nation became Christian, the Armenians did. So, they're very ancient and they're very proud of that antiquity. 

The Azeris are descendants of—well, from the perspective of – of – of Armenians—new Turkic arrivals, the Oghuz Turks who entered what the ancients called Albania, which is where Azerbaijan is today, beginning in the tenth century. Now, there's – there's echoes here of that civilised/uncivilised or – or hadara/badawi split. Of the Christian/Muslim split even. And – and these things still matter. So, the Armenians who are a "civilised," long-established Christian country saw nomadic, pastoral Turkic warrior peoples move into the valleys of their – of the zone that they had been living in, and it created tremendous conflict. 

The Turkish migrations resulted in the establishment of many new states long established, which, you know, echo to the present as well. And the Armenians felt like they were a people trapped between imperial zones. If you look at the map of ancient Armenia, they're like the Poles of the Middle East. They're sort of like Poland there, always shifting back and forth.

Aimen Dean Yeah. 

Thomas Small Victims of various imperial power struggles. They were stuck there between Safavid Iran and the Ottomans. The Russians to the north got involved. And, obviously, to the south, various Arab peoples as well. So, they're always in the middle. And that's when we reached the twentieth century and the sad story of the Armenian genocide. 

So, that brings us up to the – the twentieth century, really, from the Armenian point of view. Now, Aimen, I mean, you spent some time in Baku, in – in Azerbaijan. What is the Azeri point of view about their own history and – and – and how it relates to coexisting or not with Armenians? 

Aimen Dean I remember when I met several Azeris. And some of them actually were Shia, some of them were Sunni. As you know, the Azeris are almost seventy percent Shia Muslims, but they are not the same as the Iranians in terms of their belief in the supremacy of the supreme leader of Iran. So – so, basically, when you talk to them and they hear that I was in Bosnia, fighting, you know, against the Serbs and, you know, and the genocide that happened there in Bosnia, they say, "And what about the genocide that happened and the ethnic cleansing that happened against, you know, your Azeri brothers and sisters in the Nagorno-Karabakh region? You know, we were expelled from our homes there. I mean, our, you know, Azeri brothers and sisters were slaughtered, killed, and driven. You know, the Armenians are the Serbs of the Caucasus." 

The Azeris share with Armenians, you know, the ideals that their homeland actually is supposed to be much bigger, you know, because of the spread of their ethnic group across other countries, including Iran, where they have, you know, a massive amount of Azeris living there. But they believe themselves to be also the descendants of great empires and great traditions of the Mongols, of the Tartars. In fact, the one of the biggest mosques in Baku is called the Tartars' mosque in order to stress that link between them and the ancient civilisations of the steps. 

Thomas Small The first Oghuz Turks who came into that part of the world, they established a great empire known as the Seljuk Empire, the first really great Turkic Islamic empire. And they feel that they are the heirs of that empire and many empires that followed. 

Aimen Dean Absolutely. Not only that. They say that they have contributed considerably to Islamic civilisation. They were the barrier between, you know, the Russian southward conquest of the Caucasus that – that, you know, that they—. That without them, you know, that the Cauca- – the – the entire, you know, Turco-Persian Muslim world would have been subjugated by the Russians. So, for them, they feel that they were the guardians, you know, of the, you know, northern gates of Islam. And – and they say it with zeal. 

In fact, the city that lies between Azerbaijan and the Soviet – Soviet region of Dagestan—and now it's the Russian region of Dagestan—is called Derbent, you know, which, in Persian, means "the gate of gates." You know, this is where, you know, we protected, you know, the – the Turkish-Persian Muslim world from subjugation by the Russians. 

Thomas Small So, there you have it. Two peoples, in their own minds both very ancient, both heirs of great civilisations, clashing. Now, let's return to the beginning of the twentieth century when the story takes a very tragic turn. So, at that time, two peoples who have – who were subject to the Ottomans revolted, encouraged by Western powers: the Arabs—and, of course, we'll cover that in another episode—and the Armenians. At the same time, the Bolshevik Revolution actually conquered much of what was Armenia. And the Armenians had to fight and resist them. 

So, during this period, the Armenians are developing a very strong sense of nationhood and a very strong sense of their independence. This resulted in Turkish reprisals against Armenia, and at least hundreds of thousands of people were killed. Millions were displaced. For that reason, you – you find Armenians everywhere today, even in Los Angeles. I'm looking at you, Kim Kardashian. And this genocide is a very important component of Armenian self-identity today and informs their perspective towards their neighbours, their Turkic neighbours, really, on either side of the border. Both Turks and Azeris. Would you say that's true, Aimen? 

Aimen Dean Oh, yeah. Because, for them, as far as the Armenians are concerned, and when you speak to Armenians, for them, the Azeris are the more aggressive and trespassing version of Turkish people. 

Thomas Small Is that because they just live much closer to them?

Aimen Dean Oh, yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, like, you know, in order to justify taking back lands or, you know, basically conquering territories or fighting against them, you have to, you know, really—. I won't say dehumanise, but you have to demonise, you know, your enemy and to say, "Whoa, the Turks did genocide against us. But these Azeris are, you know, the worse versions of the Turks." 

They don't distinguish actually between the Azeris and the Turks. They consider the Azeris an extension, and a more aggressive extension, of the Turks. And between you and me, you know, the Azeris, you know, and the Turks share almost the same language. When they speak to each other, it's almost—. You know, a slight difference in dial- – in – in dialect. But that's it. Like, you know, I mean, the Armenians view them as more aggressive Turks. Trespassing—. They were trespassing. I've heard that many times coming out of Armenian, you know, people when they talk to me. 

Thomas Small In the end, both Armenia and Azerbaijan became Soviet republics. Nagorno-Karabakh, this disputed region that has caused the war, lies between Armenia and Azerbaijan, really. Although it's a very mountainous area with highlands and midlands and higher lands and low lands, 'cause it's so mountainous, and that's that more sort of, let's say, vertical stratification informs the ethnic diversity of the area. 

But that region, Nagorno-Karabakh, which was within Azerbaijan, was largely self-governing, because it had a majority Armenian population. Now, this obviously is a recipe for conflict. And once the Soviet Union collapsed, war broke out in 1992. One conflict after another, during which, largely—I think you would agree with this, Aimen—the Armenians beat the shit out of the Azeris and they were able to occupy Nagorno-Karabakh, and though no country recognised that occupation as legal, effectively made it a part of Armenia. 

Aimen Dean Yes. The conflict of 1993, 1994. So, the Armenian army – military really, really dominating the battlefield. And not only they were able to beat the Azerbaijani military, which was really pathetic at the time, they, you know, however, did not just be satisfied with the annexation and the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was three-quarters Armenian population. 

The problem is not here. The problem is that Nagorno-Karabakh itself is an enclave, you know, inside Azerbaijan. And, actually, the area surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh that straddled the border between Armenia proper and Nagorno-Karabakh was almost eighty-five percent ethnic Azeris. So, the idea is you have to expel—. From the point of view of the Armenians, you have to expel almost seven hundred thousand Azeris from these – from their homes in order to make way for the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave to have a continuous, contiguous land connection with Armenia proper. 

Thomas Small And were they successful in – in clearing out all the Azerbaijanis?

Aimen Dean Seven hundred thousand plus, you know, ended up as internal refugees in Azerbaijan. Now, I can't confirm that myself, because when I used to work for al-Haramain charity—It was a Saudi charity set up in Azerbaijan to help with internally displaced Azerbaijanis, as well as Chechen refugees coming from the Chechen war pouring into Azerbaijan—the numbers stack up. You know, they do actually. You know, the numbers stack up. The numbers are credible. 

So, seven hundred thousand people were kicked out of their homes. And that's why the Azeris used to tell me, you know, "Well, you know, what about our, you know – you know, genocide and ethnic cleansing that took place here? You know? Why—? You know, you went to make jihad in Bosnia. Why don't you come and make it jihad here in Azerbaijan?" And, you know—. And I was like, "Yeah. I mean, really, do you view it as a Muslim against Christian?" And they said, "Yes." You know? So, there—. You know, they – they mixed everything. They, you know—. Just like the Serbs, you know, cloaked their ultra-nationalism in Bosnia with the symbology – symbology of Christianity, you know, the same thing. The Azeris felt that this is, you know, yet another manifestation, you know, of, you know, a Christian crusade against them, you know, in the Caucasus. 

Thomas Small So, back then, in the nineties, you said that Armenian well-equipped and well-trained, and, therefore, one. Though there were more Azeris than Armenians, but the Armenians were better equipped. The Azeris, their military wasn't much. But what about the Turks? So, why – why didn't the Turks back then come to the Azeris' aid? I mean, here you have Armenia invading Azerbaijan. You have Armenia ethnically cleansing huge areas of – of Azerbaijan. Seven hundred thousand Azeris had to flee. Why didn't the Turks intervene?

Aimen Dean Turkey, at the time, did not intervene for two compelling reasons. First of all, the Turkish economy wasn't as great as it is right now. I mean, the Turkish GDP at the time, in, you know, in the early 1990s did not exceed a hundred billion dollars, you know, compared to about, you know, nearly nine hundred billion dollars right now. That's the first thing that we need to understand. 

The second reason is that, you know, Turkish politics was so complicated at the time. Because of the proportional representation in the elections, you end up with governments comprising of six parties in a coalition. So, six small parties come together and make a coalition. And it doesn't last more than seven, eight months at a time. And they keep changing prime ministers more than they changed their socks. 

Thomas Small This prevented the Turkish government from really executing its will. It was very divided. Internally divided and weak.

Aimen Dean Exactly. The third reason, which is very important, they were fighting a war against the PKK. So, a Kurdish Marxist, you know, guerrilla, you know, group, you know, an insurgent group, basically that were fighting a bloody war, you know, in Anatolia against the Turkish military.

Thomas Small It's funny that you bring up the Kurds, because the Kurds are yet another very ancient group who lived in this part of the world, who are contesting their – their – their statehood and their nationality against competitors. So, my goodness, it's a messy – a messy part of the world. 

So, the Turks were—. They were poor, they were politically weak, and they were fighting a war with the Kurds. So, they couldn't intervene. Now, at the time, the president of Azerbaijan was a man called Heider Aliyev. Now, his son, Ilham, later became president. And that's when the game began to change. What did Ilham do, Aimen?

Aimen Dean Well, Ilham Aliyev is a man living in the future rather than living in the past. You know, this is the best I could describe him. I mean, he basically realised that there is no point crying over lost territories. The question is: How do I take them back? 

So, he started, you know, a plan based on three simple, you know, steps. First, grow the wealth of the nation through oil and gas exports. That's the first thing. You know, make Azerbaijan wealthy. 

The second, make Azerbaijan a diplomatically strong country by alliances with Russia, with Turkey, with Israel, and with Pakistan. So, you know, this is how it all started. And then, the third thing, make Azerbaijan militarily advanced, you know, with technology and smart planning. 

Three steps. That's it. While, you know, the Armenians were savouring their victory of the mid-1990s and they were very complacent, you know, next door, Ilhan Aliyev put these three, you know, plans into action and executed each one flawlessly.

Thomas Small The – the – the Arab Spring informed Aliyev's geopolitical perspective as well, didn't it? I mean, he – he looked around at 2010, 2011, 2012, and all the instability. This encouraged him to strengthen his diplomatic ties both to Turkey and, surprisingly, to Israel. 

Aimen Dean Well, he looks at the fact that he is sandwiched there between the Caspian Sea, Russia, mighty Russia, Turkey, and Iran. He doesn't trust Iran. He—. Even though, you know, basically, that he comes from a Shia family, but he doesn't feel that the Iranians are trustworthy allies. So, he looks across the border into Turkey. He realised that Turkey is a – the closest ally from a cultural and linguistic point of view. He looks at Russia and thinks, "A good partner, a good—.Someone who I can keep happy. But how do I keep the Russians happy? How do I keep the Iranians nervous? How do I keep the Americans, you know, from lecturing me about human rights, you know, and democracy, you know, and all of that?" Which basically, like, you know, I mean, Azerbaijan [unintelligible], like, you know, doesn't have a very good record neither, you know. 

So, how do I keep them happy? Well, Israel. Israel is a great lobbying power in DC, but also Israel has something that I need, because Israel also know that I have something that they desperately need. 

Thomas Small I can imagine what Israel gets from Azerbaijan: access to the Caspian Sea, and the ability to practice espionage against Iran. Now, what is it, though, that – that Israel can offer Azerbaijan? 

Aimen Dean Israel is one of those countries that proven that, you know, with minimum manpower and maximum technological advancement, you can win a war against any conventional army, you know, as long as the numbers are manageable. 

Thomas Small So, it's Israel's military technology, its military experience that was useful to the Azeris. 

Aimen Dean Oh, yeah. I mean, no question about it. It was—. It's—. It's billions and billions of dollars', you know, worth of weapons and technology that were, you know, basically sold by the Israelis, you know, to the Azeris. So, that is one. But the other aspect that the Israelis can offer the – the – President Ilhan Aliyev is the lobbying power they have in DC in order to just keep the Americans away from criticising or over-criticising the regime of Ilhan Aliyev's, you know, records on human rights and democracy.

Thomas Small Which was useful to Aliyev, because Armenia has a – a pretty sophisticated lobbying effort in Washington, as well. There are so many Armenians living in the United States. American citizens now, but of Armenian background. They're often very rich. Armenians abroad have succeeded in becoming a very wealthy, merchant people. 

Now, the – the funny thing is, though, that Armenia itself, the Armenian country, the country of Armenia, isn't very rich. Why isn't it? It should be rich. If – if Azerbaijan can become rich, why can't Armenia become rich? 

Aimen Dean Unlike Azerbaijan, Armenia doesn't have any oil or gas or natural resources, and it's landlocked. I mean, it doesn't have access to the sea. So, two, you know, recipes for economic disaster. You know, and at the same time, the brain drain. Because the migration, it really, you know, drained the, you know, Armenian economy of important resource, which is the manpower, you know, and the brain power that they need in order to develop. But also surrounded by hostility. You know, you can be landlocked, you know, and prosperous. I mean, look at Switzerland. 

Thomas Small Exactly. Well, Switzerland is famous for its banking sector, which I would have thought, given Armenians abroad, especially in – in Lebanon, for example, where, you know, Armenians are famous for their banking acumen, I would have thought that Armenia might be a financial centre for – for that part of the world.

Aimen Dean Again, we come back to the fact that Armenia is not lucky with its neighbours. You know, there is Iran. What do you do with Iran? They're already under sanctions. There is Turkey, which is hostile to you and can, you know, blockade you. There is Azerbaijan, which is at war with you. And then, there is Georgia to the north. And Georgia is actually the country that became the banker, you know, of the Caucasus. You know, they are the ones who actually decided to become the centre for banking operations in the Caucasus. And also because the Armenians minions themselves, like, you know, chose to become a little bit of an isolationist nation, you know, in – in their own way, you know, of thinking, of conducting diplomacy. You know, they seem to be an insular, you know. They adopted that insular.

Thomas Small Fortress Armenia.

Aimen Dean Yes. Exactly. Plus, the – the bureaucracy and the regulations and the laws, you know, which are complicated. The ease of business index of Armenia is not exactly there on the top, you know. Not even in the middle. So, all of this meant that Armenia was destined to be poor. 

Thomas Small Now, in 1995, Armenia, as we said, conquers Nagorno-Karabakh, begins its ethnic cleansing campaign of the surrounding areas. And from that point onwards, there's been an on-again, off-again attempt to internationally broker a settlement between the two sides. Now, this resulted in 2007 in what are called the Madrid Principles, point-by-point principles outlining how maybe peace could be brought to bear on the situation. 

It's funny when you read the Madrid Principles now point-by-point, it's really almost like a blueprint of America's New World Order. This idea that, through goodwill, through economic incentives, through international peacekeeping operations, that somehow conflicts could just be neutralised. But it doesn't really work out that way. It certainly didn't work out that way in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. 

At the same time, there's on-again, off-again breaches of the ceasefire. Fighting breaks out again and again and again. Eventually, Nagorno-Karabakh declares itself independent and establishes the Republic of Artsakh. But in effect, Armenia had annexed it and the surrounding areas. 

So, finally, war broke out. And in September and October of 2020, Azerbaijan the Armenians. Why were they able to do this, Aimen? 

Aimen Dean There is a joke in diplomatic circles in DC always about the Palestinians. You know, they say that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. This applies even more to the Armenians. 

Because the Madrid Six Principles, in 2007, 2009, 2011, you know, and the Russian attempts in 2012 and '13, I mean, all of these, you know, opportunities would have given them exactly what they wanted. The whole of Nagorno-Karabakh with a land corridor to Armenia proper, with, you know, the fact that, you know, except the – the surrounding areas, which they occupy, it should return back, you know, to the Azeris. The Azeris can go back to their homes, you know. But, nonetheless, Nagorno-Karabakh and a land corridor will be theirs. 

So, you know—. And—. And also, the deal will also extend a oil and gas pipeline from Baku all the way through Armenia to Turkey for export, and that would have – would have given Armenia some semblance of energy security. 

I would say it's a sweet deal. Why abandon it? We come back to the irrationality of nationalism, historical grievances, inability to live in the future and not – no longer live in the past, you know. This is a – the same plague, you know, basically that is plaguing the Palestinian mindset when it comes to negotiating with the Israelis. It's the same thing here. 

Thomas Small At same time, the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev was—. He was ruthless, but he was very calculating. He was very smart. He never attacked Armenia proper. 

Aimen Dean No.

Thomas Small He only attacked those areas that were still officially internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. So, no one could actually officially criticise his actions. He was simply defending his country's own borders. 

Aimen Dean The problem was that the fact that the Armenian prime minister at the time, who came to power in 2018, you know, was someone who lacked, you know, the ability to, you know, to lead in a smart way. First, he alienated the Russians, his traditional allies. He was, you know, also someone who alienated the Turks by talking a lot about the fact that, you know, when he went to France and, you know, along with Macron, was saying that, you know, "We have to pressure Turkey to return certain territories to Armenia." 

So, as soon as you start claiming territories from Turkey, while you, you know—. I mean, that actually woken, you know, the Turkish, you know, fears and, you know, and also the belligerence of the Turks. I mean, do not step on the tail of the Turks. You know, there is a famous, you know, Turkish cat called the Angora, you know – you know. It has the bushiest tail you could ever see on any cat breed. But to step on its tail, and it will scratch you, you know, and then it will bite. It's the same thing here. 

The Armenian prime minister stepped on the Turkish Angora's cat, you know. And, as a result, the Turks took, you know, you know, notice of this. So, they reached out to, you know, the Azerbaijani, government to discuss further military cooperation, transfer of military technology.

And, suddenly, instead of having one ally, you know, which is the Israelis, he has the Turks now. So, Ilham Aliyev decided now is the time. Because, you know, three things happened. One, the Armenians are alienated from their traditional allies, the Russians. Two, the Armenians are threatening Turkish territorial integrity. And, therefore, he has an ally with the Turks. And three, now, the Azerbaijani military now has reached the level of readiness, thanks to Israeli and Turkish military support, you know, to take on the Armenians who have been sleeping on the wheel of technological advancement for a very long time. 

Thomas Small And that's really the – the main point. Since the nineties, the Armenian military hadn't developed to the same extent. So, they were fighting a more conventional sort of war. They thought the Armenian fighting spirit would see them through. Whereas all along, the Azeris had built up an extremely sophisticated, hyper-modern military. Describe that military a little bit. Just a little bit. I mean, it – it involved the use of drones. What other sort of modern technologies did Azeris bring to the field? 

Aimen Dean First of all, the most important element of any modern military is the ability to see your enemy while your enemy can't see you. So, the ability to have air superiority, where your enemy cannot see you but you can see them all the time move – moving using drone surveillance technologies, means that you know where they are and they don't where you are. So, that's – that's the first advanced, you know, advantage that you have. You know, your enemy is blind to your movement. You can see the enemy clearly everywhere. 

Thomas Small And the Azeris had that advantage. They could just—. They were sort of using their drones, hovering over the battlefield. They could see their Armenian enemies on the ground, and they would just take them out. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. At the same time, they are shooting down Armenian aircrafts and they are shutting down Armenian drones. In other words, basically, total air superiority. That's the first, you know, win that the Azeris scored. 

Second is drone technology that is armed with small-sized but very smart bombs that can actually rain down on tanks and on artillery. So, the Armenians have their rocket launches. They have their T-72, advanced, you know—. Well, semi-advanced Russian tanks. They have their artillery pieces. They can feel them. But as soon as they put them in position, the Azeris basically, like, you know, I mean, with several drones—each drone carry about eight of these bombs—they can choose their targets and pick them one by one. And the Armenians can't do anything. They – they describe it. It's the equivalent of eagles hunting bunnies, you know. That—. Really, it's a war between eagles and bunnies. 

Also, there is this technology, you know, coming out of Israel—and now even the Emiratis are actually, you know, manufacturing it—called loitering munitions. Basically, it's a drone, small-sized, that actually travels around, looking for military targets, something that looks like a rocket launcher or a tank, you know, for the enemy. And then, you don't need to do anything. It will—. It – it will have, you know, its own system, its own guidance systems to recognise the enemy's vehicles, positions, and it will just, you know, attack it immediately. It's a suicide drone ladened with explosive, and it will just attack. So, they can launch hundreds of these. 

Thomas Small You mean, this – this sort of technology operates without even a man on the ground directing it?

Aimen Dean No. 

Thomas Small But this is something out of science fiction. This is, like, out of the Terminator movies or something. 

Aimen Dean Exactly. Exactly. It can recognise, you know, the enemy's vehicles, the enemy's tanks, because it's already fed, you know, it's – it – into its algorithms that, you know, "Okay. This is an – a 70 – 72 tank. This is a BM-40, you know, rocket launcher. This is a 152mm Howitzer. Go and attack it." And it will go and attack it on its own. And you can launch dozens of these, you know. And there is nothing, like, really, there is nothing, you know, the, you know, the Armenians can do about it, because they're too small to detect until it's too late. 

Thomas Small So, the Azeri military prowess really won the day. Now, because of mistrust between Azerbaijan and Iran, Iran has, in recent years, been an ally of Armenia. And when the war broke out, Iran did smuggle munitions to Armenia. But when this became known, the big protests broke out in Iran amongst the Azeris there. And so, Iran had to kind of withdraw that support, further isolating Armenia. 

Turkey, as you said, straightforwardly supported Azerbaijan. Russia, in general, a protector of Armenia, traditionally, refused to get involved, as you said, because the prime minister of Armenia had such a pro-Western position. It got Putin's back up. But, nonetheless, in the end, it was Russia who oversaw a ceasefire agreement between the two sides. Armenia withdrew from most of the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh that it had occupied. Nagorno-Karabakh itself remains an autonomous Republic of Artsakh. And Russia is patrolling a corridor between it and Armenia to make sure that Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia are connected. 

So, the war was over. According to official estimates that resulted in about three thousand Azari deaths and four thousand Armenian deaths, but tens of thousand wounded in Armenia. 

So, what's the point of all this? The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a good snapshot of the post-Cold War world. And the US's absence from the diplomatic table is a sign of its fading power. 

More importantly, the conflict reveals the depth of historical memory, how ancient history informs the present and how the conflicts we see raging across the region are, in important ways, manifestations of the continuity of old civilisational fault lines. 

Just in this episode, we've had to go back to the Bronze Age to understand what's going on. We've touched on a number of historical turning points that will come up again and again the season. The Bronze Age, as I've said. The religious dimension as paganism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and many shaded areas in between work their magic on history.

The ethnic dimension as ancient dividing lines, Semite, Indo-Aryan, Greek, Turk are still in the. The imperial dimension. As the three great imperial zones that comprised Islamic civilisation, from the Mongol invasions onward, the Ottoman, the Iranian, and the moguls in India, weakened and collapsed in the face of European and then American power. All these dimensions are there, haunting the present. And in this series of Conflicted, we'll continue to shed light on them all as best we can as we explore the complex legacies of the Cold War in the Middle East and how that conflict often echoed earlier conflicts, both from the age of European imperialism and from the Islamic empires that proceeded and overlapped with it. 

In a way, the Cold War began in the Middle East, when an Arabian king made a fateful decision. Instead of granting oil drilling rights to Britain, the region's foremost imperial power, he chose an upstart instead: the United States of America. That alliance between the White House and the House of Saud would become the linchpin of Cold War geopolitics, the echoes of which continue well into the present day. Aimen and I will tell that story. 

And what I'm most excited about is hearing Aimen's insider view on an event both mysterious and macabre, one with roots in the Cold War, which dominated headlines for months, threatening to overturn decades of careful Saudi diplomacy.

Stay tuned for Conflicted's take on the infamous assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. 

Aimen Dean Oh, I'm so looking forward to it. 

Thomas Small As always, I'd like to extend the invitation to all listeners to join the Conflicted discussion group on Facebook, where you can connect with other fans of the show to discuss the themes and topics we cover in each episode and be the first to hear all the latest news about future episodes. You can find the Facebook group by searching for "Conflicted Podcast Discussion Group." 

You can follow us on Twitter and Facebook @MHConflicted. We're also pleased to announce that you can now subscribe to ad-free listening and upcoming bonus content for just 99p on Apple Podcasts. And over on Spotify, you can also listen ad-free. 

[THEME IN]

Search for "Conflicted Extra" to get access to future bonus episodes for just 99p a month. 

Okay. I think that's everything for today. We'll be back in two weeks. 

Conflicted is a Message Heard production. This episode was produced and edited by Rowan Bishop. Sandra Ferrari is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley.

[THEME OUT]

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Conflicted S3 E1 - Afghanistan Continued

CONFLICTED
S03E01

Thomas Small Dear, listener. It's finally happening. Welcome to season three of Conflicted. My name is Thomas Small, and I am very happy to say that the wonderful and mysterious Aimen Dean is here with me as always.

Hello, Aimen.

Aimen Dean Hello, Thomas. I'm so happy that we finally do it.

Thomas Small It's been a long time, my friend. I mean, we did have that wonderful bonus episode on Afghanistan a few months ago, which – which you guys really liked, listeners. You loved it. But we haven't had a full season for nearly two years.

Aimen Dean Indeed. It's overdue.

Thomas Small Yes, it is. And – and what a couple of years they have been, as well. My goodness. The whole world has changed. I mean, we – we reached the end of season two of Conflicted, which was all about the collapse of the new world order just in time for the new world order to well and truly collapsed all around us.

And you'll never guess, I'm actually, Aimen, in your home country of Saudi Arabia. Here I am in my hotel room in Riyadh, coming to direct dear listener from the heart of the Middle East.

[THEME IN]

So, are you ready to start season three?

Aimen Dean Oh, my God. You have no idea.

[THEME OUT]

Thomas Small Just before we get going, we first wanted to say a huge thank you for your patience in season two. We are so happy that you stuck with us. And, at last, we are back with a brand-new run of episodes. More than ever before, in this season of conflicted, we're coming at you with at least sixteen episodes. So, get ready to hear our voices a lot in 2022.

Season three is also more ambitious. We're focusing on the Middle East, but this time, even more deeply, going further back in time and exploring history and religion in more complex ways than before. Our hope is to genuinely alter the way you think about the world. And, today, in our first episode, we're picking up where we left off: in Afghanistan.

In our bonus episode, we focused on the story of the Taliban's rise to power in the nineties and took you, the listener, behind the scenes with Aimen's dramatic story of facing an oncoming caravan of Taliban warriors and being unable to fire upon them. We thought it was important to go on a historical deep dive, because, at the time, the news reports were all focused on the present. But that's what Conflicted does best. On the picture of the present, we paint in the background to help you understand the present better.

So, to take up where we left off, and also, once again, back to where we began, all those episodes ago in season one, we start with 9-11. Aimen, by that point, you've been working for MI5 and MI6 as a double agent inside Al-Qaeda for, what, like, thirty-three months?

Aimen Dean Almost. Yes.

Thomas Small Obviously, your brief must have included Afghanistan.

Aimen Dean Well, actually, most of my time was spent in Afghanistan over the thirty-three months prior to 9-11.

Thomas Small So, the Twin Towers come crumbling down. The world is in shock. And on September 12th, what did you think was in store for Afghanistan?

Aimen Dean There was no question that there would be massive retaliation. America was wounded deeply. And that sense of the two oceans and the nuclear deterrent that protected America for a very long time was shattered.

Thomas Small So, what were you doing then, on that September 12th, and – and on the days following? What was your job inside the intelligence services?

Aimen Dean Well, I ended up, basically, looking at maps of Afghanistan and pinpointing locations of cams, supply routes, weapon storage facilities. So, my role was to familiarise the intelligence services and, you know, of course, the UK's MOD, the Ministry of Defence, with the military apparatus of Al-Qaeda.

Thomas Small And what did you consider the American-led invasions prospects to be at that time? And were you – were you bullish? Were you bearish? What did you think? Did you think that it would be a cakewalk or did you think America would get bogged down as it did?

Aimen Dean I thought that the Taliban will be able to withstand the American onslaught for roughly six months, because it's not a Vietnam. I knew that the advanced technology and the experience of the Americans in Iraq in the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein to liberate Kuwait made sure that the Americans basically will not, you know, be bogged down in the sense that they would be able to smash the Taliban's fighting ability as a coherent force.

Thomas Small You thought the Taliban would hold out for six months. But in the end, they – they barely survived six weeks. Why is that?

Aimen Dean You know, many Taliban units who were tribal in their nature, they decided to basically, "Just pack and leave. I'm not going to withstand the B52s dropping, you know, know hundreds of tons of explosive over my head. I can't fight that. So, I'm going to go back to my family." Because, don't forget, the Talibans were not wearing, you know, distinct informs. They all wore civilian clothing. So, they melted into the background, which collapsed the Taliban's ability to run a military campaign to—. It was just the Americans.

Thomas Small And what kind of a firepower did America bring to the table?

Aimen Dean At the beginning, they had the difficulty, because, you know, Pakistan, did not really open all the military air bases. And so, they were using the American aircraft carriers, F18s and even they converted F14s, to carry smart-guided bombs. But then, of course, it is the long-range firepower of both the B52 and the B2. These are long range bombers. They can fly all the way from Arizona to Afghanistan over eighteen hours, drop their bombs, and then come back again.

So, you know, that continuous barrage of massive ordinance falling over Taliban positions, which actually had more psychological effect, you know, than just actual the damage.

Thomas Small So, at that time, I mean, here we have this lightning strike invasion of the Taliban fold quite quickly and the coalition has – has clamped the country fast.

But did you feel then that – that America was pursuing some kind of overall strategic goal? Or was it just revenge? Was it just in response to 9-11? "You hit us. We hit you." Or – or was – was there already a glimmer of a kind of – of a long-term goal here?

Aimen Dean From the beginning, you know, the thinking in DC and in 10 Downing Street was the Taliban must go. And, therefore, who will replace them? So, from the beginning, the question of nation building was on the table.

Thomas Small And how did this idea of nation building strike you?

Aimen Dean For me, at that time, because it was maybe swept in the moment, I believe that maybe it could work. Because, at the time, I still was believing that Tony Blair was a forceful good.

Thomas Small Okay. So, at the beginning, you thought, "Well, maybe Tony Blair can save the situation." But when did – when did you realise that that was unlikely to happen?

Aimen Dean I think three weeks into the war. When you start to see over-reliance of, you know, on warlords who were involved, you know, in gang activities and drugs. So, the over-reliance on these—. Yes, they were opposing forces to the Taliban, but they were criminal classes. I mean, they were, you know, people who the Taliban put away for a good reason. They were terrorising the civilian population before. And so, this Machiavellian execution of the war started to, you know, give me doubts that—. I don't think basically they are serious about nation building.

Thomas Small Well, were there other actors on the ground in Afghanistan that the US could have – could have allied with? I mean, maybe – maybe they were stuck with these warlords. Who else might they have allied with?

Aimen Dean They could have more or less picked up their allies in a better way and allied themselves more with the tribal leadership and relied on a more tribal consensus building, you know, effort rather than trying to, you know, rely on warlords and people who were involved in the drug trade, you know, prior to the rise of Taliban. However, you know, more or less the biggest doubt that came to my mind that there is going to be a difficulty in this nation building was the rejection of the return of the monarchy to Afghanistan.

Thomas Small Yes. That in December of 2001, at the – during the negotiations and bond between the Afghan power players, not including the Taliban, the Afghan party wanted to bring back the king, but the Americans vetoed that. And you – you think that that was a sign that the American nation building project was – was sort of more ideologically slanted than it should have been?

Aimen Dean Yes. And there is actually another, you know, a mistake, which I highlighted at the time. You know that the Taliban are Deobandis and they listen, you know, a lot to the Deobandi scholars in Pakistan and India.

Thomas Small So, long-term listeners will remember that the Deobandi movement, which comes from Northern India during the – during the Raj, during the British rule there, is one of the – one of the biggest ref- – reformist, revivalist political Islamic movements in the world. Because it – because it grew up in the context of throwing out the British. It has a particularly strong anti-Western anti-imperialist edge to it. And the Taliban are – are – are a part of that stream of modern Islamist thought.

Aimen Dean Exactly. I suggested, at that time, that there are many moderate pacifist Deobandi scholars, Afghan and Pakistani and Indian who could have been actually courted initially, even if it was just outside of the bomb process in order to, you know, facilitate the—. Not only the—. Well, we don't call it the surrender, but the rehabilitation of the Taliban back into the political fold. So, they can be, you know, placated and, at the same time, not be pushed towards mounting a resistance movement in the future.

And the third issue, which we already talked about it before in the last episode, which is the rejection of the, you know, aspects of sharia to be incorporated into the new Afghan constitution. All of this, give me doubt that, nah, it's not going to work.

Thomas Small So, as you say too many warlords had been invited into the process, warlords whom the Afghans had effectively rejected earlier. And this is because the Americans, you know, they'd assumed, if you were against the Taliban, you were good, forgetting that the Taliban had, of course, arisen by – by fighting arseholes.

Let's be honest. But that's what America went in there thinking, "The enemy of my enemy must be a good guy," which is a pretty naive view. So, what opportunities in those early months were lost? I mean, you once told me that you had an idea—this sounds crazy—but you had an idea that America should have actually consciously put together a massive Islamic, a Muslim invading force to conquer the country.

Aimen Dean Well, or at least the peacekeeping force.

Thomas Small Which countries might have – might have contributed to this force?

Aimen Dean I would say Saudi Arabia. I would say the UAE. The UAE already, like, contributed, you know, before. Indonesia, Malaysia.

Thomas Small I mean, countries with – with – with men – with manpower. Arm—. you know, big armies.

Aimen Dean Turkey, Iran, Egypt. I mean, there is no shortage of big armies in the Muslim world. I mean, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, as well as Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, all of these countries, basically, among them, they have millions of men, you know, men in terms of manpower. They could have spared the a hundred thousand troops easy in order to facilitate that kind of, you know, revivalist, Afghan political tradition of the loya jirga. Like, you know, I mean, of this kind of rule by consensus. It could have happened. But no one reached out to them, because, somehow, the Taliban basically were viewed as the absolute villains. Everyone forget that Afghan, you know, society and Afghan history is full of villains. It's just basically some of them are better than others.

Thomas Small The plan that you're suggesting isn't so different from the plan that informed the invasion of Kuwait in 1991 to expel Saddam Hussein. And in that case, America working closely with King Fahad of Saudi Arabia, brought together an enormous coalition of Islamic countries to help legitimise that – that invasion. So, they could have done the same thing. Although, you know, that took months to – to cobble together. That took six, seven months for – for that invasion force to be – to be formed. I suppose America just didn't – didn't feel they – they had the time for that kind of diplomacy.

Aimen Dean I think it's just the inability to see further than a four-year election cycle. It's a question of "Okay. We want to show the American public that we took revenge." And, you know, you – you could have taken the revenge right away, like—. And I mean, just bomb the hell out of them. But the question here is what will replace the Taliban afterwards to make sure that the Taliban do not return. Because, guess what, twenty years later, the Taliban returned.

Thomas Small Okay. So, to—. Before we get to the now, we can do a quick summary of what happened after the invasion. So, between 2001 and 2008, the peace process did – did sort of move ahead, the bond agreement was signed, elections were held, Hamid Karzai became president. And you know, it was fairly calm at first. Then, as you told us in the last episode, the US got distracted by Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorists leader there, Zarqawi, rose, began sending money to the Taliban where they were held out in the – in the Af-Pak border. And then, they started launching terrorist attacks inside Afghanistan, again creating the instability that became endemic there.

George W. Bush goes. Barack Obama arrives. Now, he promises to sort out Afghanistan. When he arrived, did you feel more encouraged, Aimen?

Aimen Dean No. On multiple levels. I just did not trust him. I did not feel that he was going to make any significant changes. I say this why? Because he had a much bigger fish to fry, which is the financial crisis. I mean, America and the American economic system was in dire situation. So, for him, the focus was actually how to get America out of the mess they are in financially before he can actually get America out of the military mess in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thomas Small That is certainly true, Aimen. That's certainly true. But he did increase troop numbers in Afghanistan. He did try to solve the problem there. So, let's – let's speak about – about those – those efforts, I mean, in a concrete way. What were the US tactical errors at that time?

Aimen Dean It's like this, you know—. It's – it's like a gambler going into a casino and saying, "Okay. Well, how do I recover my losses? Put more money in, so I might, like, recover the old losses." It is that habitual gambler, you know, situation, which is hopeless.

Thomas Small Well, that makes sense to me, Aimen. More troops, more – more, you know, more fists punching the Taliban in the face.

Aimen Dean Yeah. But, again, we come back to comparing oranges and apples here. We come back to comparing Iraq and Afghanistan. You can't compare a rock, which is an open desert, to Afghanistan, which is a mountain society. You know, Iraq, which has a decades of central government with Afghanistan, which has decades of rural, you know, population. You can't compare the two at all. And, therefore, you know, the idea that the troops there will actually serve as a catalyst for the Taliban to, you know, capitulate, it was the opposite. They increased their ranks. They increased their number. More recruits joined them, because, you know, it's like introducing more virus into a body that will, you know, create more antibodies. Obama would have actually done better if he spent the money on the infrastructure of the country than actually sending more troops.

Thomas Small Another problem, I suppose, that when you send more troops to Afghanistan, more American troops, all you're doing possibly—and I'd love to hear what you think about this—is bloating a corpse, really, that was already riddled with – with corruption. I mean, the US corruption in Afghanistan was – is pretty infamous.

Aimen Dean Oh, my God. Don't get me started.

Thomas Small No. No. I want to get you started. Come on. Let us – let us – let us have it, Aimen. Talk to us about the corruption in the US forces in Afghanistan and how it contributed to the long-term failure there.

Aimen Dean You know, in the last episode, we talked about the rotten corpse of the Afghan nation state and how it – the army and the military and the ministry of interior, they were all corrupt. They were actually more or less a reflection of how corrupt the US military was. The US military there in Afghanistan relied a lot on contractors. You know, some contractors who were based in the US, some contractors who are ex-Marines and ex, you know, Green Berets and ex whatever. You know, special forces.

Thomas Small So, by contractors, you don't mean people who are building bridges. You mean contractors, people who come with – with weapons of their own. These are contract killers, mercenaries, warriors.

Aimen Dean Mercenaries. You know, people who can, basically, you know, raise private militias from the locals. But they're Americans. You know, they are American contractors who have contracts with the Department of Defence, with the DOD, with the Pentagon, or with the state department or with the CIA. And these contractors then who are based either in places like Hong Kong or Singapore, or, you know, in the Middle East, in Dubai or other places, but what they do is that they end up being the logistical arm of the Pentagon. They are the not just only logistical, but also they do some of the operations in which will go under the radar. I'm not saying Black Ops, but we are talking here about raising private militias, establishing private security firms to, you know, employ Afghans, former warlords who are rejected by the Afghan National Army from joining their ranks. So, they become the private thugs of the US military. And you end up in a situation where these contracts are worth so much in terms of protecting convoys, protecting the transport of weapons, the transport of fuels, the transport of food. After all, American troops used to enjoy McDonald's and Subway and other fast-food chains in their bases.

Thomas Small Delicacies. I think we call them delicacies in America, Aimen.

Aimen Dean Exactly. But these delicacies need to be transported somehow. And, you know, America is not going to spend the life of American Marines and GIs protecting, you know, the shipments of Big Macs.

Thomas Small I was just going to ask you why in God's name would – would the Pentagon be relying on American, you know, contract killers and mercenaries when they have a huge army of their own. And you're saying it's because – it's because of the political optics of the situation. They would rather mercenaries be killed than – than their own boys, if you like.

Aimen Dean Exactly. Because these mercenaries are not just only Americans. You know, these mercenaries are South Africans, Colombians, Venezuelan army, you know, ex-soldiers. You know, people from Nepal in, from the Gurkhas. I mean – I mean, we're talking about multinational forces. As well as from local Afghans and local Pakistanis, I mean, basically, who joined these private security firms set up by these American contractors. And they are given the job and the task of protecting logistical supplies. The Pentagon did not want to spend American blood protecting these shipments. So, who will do it? These people.

Thomas Small But where does the corruption come in, Aimen? Where does the actual corruption come in? I can understand, you know, the Pentagon is making – is paying people to do some jobs. But how is that corruption?

Aimen Dean The corruption comes in the form of obscene amounts, you know, of overpayments for this project. You will have the contractor coming, American contractor, with South African, Venezuela, and Columbian mercenaries, saying, "Well, I have a two-thousand manpower. I'm happy basically to, you know, supply you with whatever you need in terms of manpower and to protect these shipments and to protect the logistical support lines." But the problem is that he's only employing twelve hundred, and he is pocketing the salaries of the eight hundred, you know, he is quoting, you know, the DOD for.

Thomas Small This is precisely the sort of corruption you outlined for us in the previous episode about how the Afghan military was working.

Aimen Dean Exactly. But the difference here is that the American generals—and I'm not naming anyone.

Thomas Small No. No. Come on, Aimen. Give us the names. Who are these guys? Who are those? Come on.

Aimen Dean No.

Thomas Small We want to throw the book at them.

Aimen Dean It's – it's our policy, we don't.

Thomas Small You see, the trouble with corruption, Aimen, people who know about it, they don't speak openly about it.

Aimen Dean I have kids. So—.

Thomas Small Oh, that's true.

Aimen Dean But, you know, you – you will see, like – like, you know, there will be a certain contractor who I know and a certain general who I know. The general will turn a blind eye to how much the contractor is overcharging, you know, for the services and the obscene amounts of money asked for these, you know, services and for these contracts. And then, you know, four or five, six years later, when that general's time is over in the middle, you will find him serving on the board, you know, of directors as an executive director in that company. And he is paid, you know, six, seven figures sums of money, you know, in terms of, you know, remunera- – remuneration and bonuses and salaries and stock options. Yes, that's how the entire gravy train.

Thomas Small That – that – that is the classic example of corruption. But you know, Obama, President Obama, must have known about this. Many people must have known about this. Why didn't he do anything about it?

Aimen Dean Well, you know, when you are, you know, fighting a war, you don't rock the boat. I mean, you're already fighting a war and you know, basically, that, you know, this money is going here on there, and it is important that this money keeps flowing because it is feeding, you know, the Black Ops, it is feeding the irregular rendition sites, it is feeding, you know, the, operations that you need to be done in order to win the war against the Taliban in a dirty way, which your military is restrained from doing. That is exactly, you know, the issue. Bribing certain officials. Bribing tribal leaders. Paying ransom money, you know, to certain local commanders in order – you know, from the Afghan, you know, society in order to facilitate the American intelligence gathering, and, you know, so on. So—. And so, you know, that's why in any war, you will find that dirty money is part of it. But in Afghanistan, the dirty money almost – almost matched to the legitimate money.

Thomas Small So, in 2014, 2015, 2016, a new player arrives on the field of – of the Middle East: ISIS. And before long, they're also in Afghanistan. Why were they in Afghanistan? What did they seek to achieve there?

Aimen Dean Well, Afghanistan had three important elements for them. First, it's a ungovernable space. Second, it's full of American forces. And third, it has, you know, Shia minorities. So, for ISIS, their two favourite targets, Americans and Shia, you know, they were available there in Afghanistan. And also, it is a failed state ready to be infected with the virus of ISIS.

Thomas Small And when we talk about ISIS in Afghanistan, are we talking about the whole country? Are they everywhere? And I mean, I would've thought, you know, ISIS and the Taliban would get along, you know. I mean, why – why – why are ISIS there, fighting the Taliban, and ISIS—. I mean, it seems crazy. Aren't ISIS and Taliban equally bad guys, you know? Aren't they both terrorists?

Aimen Dean No. I mean, I wouldn't equate the two. And, actually, the two wouldn't get along whatsoever. ISIS is a extreme, like, absolute extreme version of Salafist jihadism.

Thomas Small The Kharijite were a very, very early Islamic movement that were so zealous in pursuit of what they considered to be Islamic purity that they took it upon themselves to excommunicate fellow Muslims and to tell – to – basically, to say that "you are an apostate. Therefore, you can be killed. Your property can be looted. alluded. Your women can be raped." And – and this was very early on, within the first century of Islam. This tendency within Islam manifested itself, and the broader community rejected it. ISIS is an – is another manifestation of this possibility within the bosom of Islam.

And – and – and by Salafist, we mentioned earlier how the Taliban are attached to the Deobandi movement. Salafism is a different movement. It comes from the Arab part of the Middle East. It is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, with characters like Sayyid Qutb. It comes with – with a fusion with Saudi-inflicted Wahhabism.

It's the sort of Islam that underpins Al-Qaeda and other such movements.

Aimen Dean Exactly. You know, while Al-Qaeda was tolerant towards Deobandism, and Deobandis were tolerant towards Al-Qaeda, because Al-Qaeda did not represent a rejectionist Jihadi Salafism towards other Suni trends, ISIS, however, completely, re—. you know, they rejected Al-Qaeda themselves, actually, and they agreed that Al-Qaeda were kafir. You know, they were, you know, infidels. They were apostates.

Thomas Small You're – you're an extreme Muslim when you think that Al-Qaeda isn't extreme enough.

Aimen Dean Exactly. But they were not all over Afghanistan. I mean, they found their, you know, natural habitat in the province of Kunar.

Thomas Small So, Kunar. This is in the east of Afghanistan where the majority of the population there are Salafist, not Deobandis. Is that why ISIS are there?

Aimen Dean Yeah. And they call themselves Ahl-i Hadith, you know. It's another name for Salafist there. It's just, you know—. We don't need to be bothered with the terminology. But, nonetheless, they found in the Salafist tradition, there is some sort of a incubator. So, a minority, of course of, you know, the Kanari Ahl-i Hadith Salafist joined ISIS, but they were just big enough, between five hundred to a thousand, they were big enough to actually cause significant headache for the American forces, for the Afghan government.

Thomas Small And did ISIS have any sort of – of big game plan in Afghanistan? I mean, you know, they're – obviously, they're crazy killers. But in Syria and Iraq, they had this basic goal of establishing a state, which they accomplished. But in Afghanistan, is that what they were trying to do or – or were they really just troublemakers there,

trying to make things difficult for – for their enemies?

Aimen Dean I believe they were just a disruptive force. I mean, their ultimate aim is just the disruption and to present themselves, hopefully, as the alternative to the Taliban, to those Taliban units who believed that the Taliban were not, you know, vigorous enough in their pursuit of an American withdrawal from Afghanistan. And they succeeded in attracting a few hundred disaffected Taliban fighters. But that's it.

I think the project of ISIS in Afghanistan failed on the same way that the project of ISIS failed in Yemen. Because there was already a traditional jihadist, you know, groups there, existing on the ground. And trying to out-compete them and trying to, you know, to supplant them, it takes considerable amount of persuasion, resources. And that's something that ISIS in Afghanistan did not have. So, instead of being the alternative, they became the disruptor.

Thomas Small I see. So, the Obama years are coming to a close now. We have this situation where ISIS is – is – is on the rampage in Afghanistan. The Taliban are well and truly back, causing problems. Corruption, heretofore, unimagined, is endemic both within the Afghan and the American security apparatus. And then, we come to Donald Trump. So, Donald Trump had risen to power by attaching himself to, really, the isolationist wing of the Republican party, the old right of the Republican party who were not interested in policing the world. They rejected the neo-conservative movement. He had no interest in nation building and was determined to get out of Afghanistan. So, as Donald Trump enters the scene, Aimen, were you encouraged?

Aimen Dean Well, there is always a tendency to believe that, you know, when a right-wing leader comes in, that troubles comes with him. It's not always the case. And in the case of Donald Trump, I [was encouraged when I saw that he was happy to talk to Kim Jong-un. You know, the president of North Korea or the leader. And it became clear that he is willing to talk, but on his own terms. And he and, in later years, his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, sounded both like two New York, you know, mafia dons, I mean, basically trying to make a deal. And we'll get—. "I – I – I would make an offer you can't refuse." Kind of.

Thomas Small Well, you told me once, and I – I found it quite telling that, you know, Donald Trump is an expert at recognising lost causes, because, you know, he – he's failed so many times in his life. He's lost so much money. He's been bankrupt so many times. So many of his businesses have failed. So, coming to power him, he – he – he looked at Afghanistan and thought, "Well, this is a lost cause. We got to get out of here."

Aimen Dean Say whatever you want to say about Donald Trump—and there are, you know—. You know, we could be spending hours talking about his faults. But he recognised, in Afghanistan, not only a lost cause, but he recognised what Afghanistan really was: a money-making scheme for corrupt, you know, Afghan officials and American officials and American military, generals. And, therefore—. []x contractors. Therefore, he decided, "You know what? Let's talk to the Taliban. Let's continue the – those tentative inner first steps that Obama took in order to talk to the Taliban in Doha, in Qatar, and let – let the Qataris be the mediators." And this is, I think, where it started.

Thomas Small To move away from the American perspective and – and start walking in the Afghan shoes at the moment, I mean, it's obvious now that Afghans themselves agreed with you at the time and they knew that their hold on power was shaky and that they needed to negotiate with the Taliban. I mean, Hamid Karzai, then the president, he wanted negotiations to start in 2007, but the Bush administration refused. So, Karzai knew, as early as 2007, when the Taliban were then well and truly coming back. "We must negotiate with these players." But Bush said no. There were negotiations with other resistance militias, including your old friend Hekmatyar's group, Hezb-e-Islami.

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small And they did sign a peace treaty with the Afghan government in 2016. So, on the ground in Afghanistan, the Afghan government, to the extent that it was sovereign, was trying to cobble together some sort of peaceful arrangement with these other actors. Now, in February 2018, Donald Trump is president and Karzai's successor as president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, publicly called for peace talks with the Taliban. Now, presumably, he would have discussed this move with the Americans, and Trump said, "Okay. Go for it." And then, a new – a resurgent peace movement began again in Afghanistan. And the people, they were worn out. They wanted an end to all the fighting. And then, there was a big conference in Tashkent, in Uzbekistan, where twenty countries, including the US, lent their support to President Ghani's call for peace talks. So, how is it that a few months later, in July 2018, the Taliban ended up talking peace with the Americans in Doha, in Qatar? Trump had asked the generals, "Look, how do we end this shit show there in Doha?" Why Doha?

Aimen Dean First of all, the Taliban, from the beginning, did not trust the government of Ashraf Ghani. So, the end of the day, you know, I want to talk with the paymasters. I mean, the Taliban knew exactly that. Abdul Rashid Dostum, Mohammad Fahim, Ismail Khan, all of the leaders, Abdullah Abdullah, all of the leaders of the Afghan government and their factions, you know, ethnic or otherwise, depend on American patronage. So, why am I going to waste my time talking to them? Because they will be going back to their paymasters, the American. They will be asking their opinion. They will come back again. And I don't trust if they are going to tell the Americans what we want to tell the Americans. And I can't trust that they will tell us what the Americans really wanted to tell us.

So, the Taliban insisted that it should be direct talks between the Taliban and the Americans, and that they want it to be in Doha, because it will be a safe, secure location. And the Qataris were more than happy to provide that safety, security and guarantees for the Taliban that no one will be arrested, no one will be harassed from your side. And, of course, the Americans were happy to see basically that, since they will be transported from Pakistan by military planes, Qatari military planes, to that military base in Doha, and then, from there, they can have the talks. The Taliban insisted direct talks, because "we don't trust the government of Ashraf Ghani." I think the Taliban and Trump, I would say, realised that the mediator here shouldn't be the Ashraf Ghani government and the other factions, because they have a lot to lose financially if there is peace.

Thomas Small And why not the Pakistanis, though? I mean, weren't they in a good position to – to be this mediator?

Aimen Dean The American intelligence, in particular the CIA, did not trust the Pakistanis. Also, the same time, Pakistan was still teaming with terror organisations, you know, from Al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, you know, that American officials wouldn't feel safe landing in Pakistan just to conduct talks with the Taliban. Therefore, Doha was the most secure location for the American mediators and for other Taliban felt that the Qataris will keep their words that no one will be harassed.

Thomas Small So, there we are in Doha. the Taliban are on one side of the negotiation table. The Americans are on the other side. What were these negotiations over? I mean, the Taliban presumably really wanted one thing: for the Americans to leave. So, why didn't Trump then just leave?

Aimen Dean Well, first of all, the manner of leaving needs to be done in a way in which, basically, it doesn't embarrass his government and to say, basically, that, you know, he left Afghanistan to be devoured by the Taliban. During that time, he basically wanted to empower as much as possible the Afghan National Army. He started the process of arming them with attack helicopters and attack propeller planes, which are light attack aircraft that will enable the Afghan National Army to have, you know, air superiority over the Taliban. The idea—.

Thomas Small So, before leaving Afghanistan, Trump wanted to make sure the Afghan army was strong enough to resist the Taliban for at least some time, so it wouldn't look like America had cut and run, left their allies high and dry, and the Taliban just took over the country in a lightning strike, which is, of course, what happened.

Aimen Dean Some people will always say that would the Taliban have taken over Afghanistan so quickly like this if it was Trump was in power rather than Biden.

And there is an interesting answer here. You see, during the negotiations between the Taliban and Trump administration in and Doha, ISIS in Kunar were presenting significant challenge in terms of security for the American forces. So, what Trump did, he authorised the use of the largest non-nuclear conventional bomb in the American military's arsenal, which is called the MOAB. The MOAB stands for the mother of all bombs. So—.

Thomas Small The mother of all bombs. He dropped the mother of all bombs on ISIS in Afghanistan.

Aimen Dean Exactly. Twenty thousand pounds. Ten tons of high-yield explosives, lie, were dropped on a cave network in the mountains of Kunar. It killed more than a hundred. And six ISIS members, including their leaders. You know, but many people did not understand that the significance of that bombing is that it was a message to the Taliban. "While we are negotiating with you, you know what, like, you know, we could actually use a fire power that could obliterate your hideouts. You know? So, deal with us now in a proper manner or we will do that." And so, Trump did not shy away from using massive bombs and massive orders in order to persuade the Taliban by attacking ISIS, that "we could do this to you."

Thomas Small And did the message land? Did the Taliban learn the message?

Aimen Dean Since that bomb fell on ISIS, the Taliban did not kill one single American soldier after that.

Thomas Small So, Trump had insisted any attack would be met with the swiftest retaliation, and he had proved that he was willing to do that by dropping this mother of all bombs. But it is also true that, following the US Taliban peace agreement, which was signed in February 2020—so, that's about a year before Trump left office, and which interestingly did not involve the Afghan government at all—the Taliban did begin a wave of attacks against Afghan government forces. So, they weren't attacking the Americans, but they were attacking the Afghans. From one point of view, it looks like the US had sold its allies in Kabul down the river.

Aimen Dean But some would say that it was the Kabul government actually that betrayed the Americans. Because for years, they misrepresented how many actual troops they have on the ground. They said, "We have recruited three hundred thousand strong Afghan army and security forces," when in fact they only have eighty thousand. Two hundred and twenty thousand were fictitious numbers in order to collect their salaries from the Americans. [crosstalk].

Thomas Small This is that corruption on the Afghan side.

Aimen Dean Exactly. They lied and lied and lied to the Americans about, you know, intelligence gathering. They lied to the Americans about their capability, their ability. They were unreliable allies. And so, as far as the Americans were concerned, how can—. Why should we be honourable to dishonourable allies? You know, so [as far as Trump was concerned, "I want to get out. This is the American taxpayer money. And it has enriched the pockets, you know, of so many corrupt Afghan officials, as well as American officials." You know? And he knows that. So, he decided, "You know what? As the Taliban demanded, let them slag it off with the Afghan National Army." And, actually, for Trump and Trump's administration, those months after the February 2020, they were a good, you know, testing ground of the capability of the Afghan National Army. They saw for themselves.

Because the Afghan National Army was absolutely unreliable in the sense they were telling the Americans every time, basically, they got beaten, "Oh, we have killed four hundred Taliban this day." And then, the next day, "We have killed two hundred and fifty-eight Taliban today." Actually, you know, some people were actually, you know, keeping tabs that the Afghan National Army, in a year, killed, you know, forty-five thousand Taliban, you know. But yet, at the same time, they were saying, "Oh, we estimate the number of Taliban thought about around the country to be about fifteen to twenty-five thousand. That's it." How could you – how could you kill forty-five thousand out of twenty-five? I mean, I don't know what creative math you come with, you know. With such creative math, they could become bankers.

Thomas Small So, the US and – and the Taliban, they agree peace in February 2020. Over the intervening year, negotiations were supposed to take place between the Taliban and the Afghan government. And they sort of did and then, they sort of didn't. There were prisoners swaps at times. A lot of fighting. It really was a mess. Which brings us to Joe Biden. Now, like Donald Trump, actually, Joe Biden, isn't a fan of state building. He never believed in the Afghan state building process. And as a Democrat, at the beginning of the war on terror, he had opposed Bush's war. And he – he largely stayed that way throughout. He was always opposed to the neo-conservative project. So, Trump and Biden are quite similar in that way. How are they different when it comes to Afghans?

Aimen Dean Well, actually, they were exactly similar. I mean, both of them did not believe in nation building. Both of them did not believe that the American taxpayer money should line up the pocket of corrupt people. And I think both of them believe in some sort of military might should be used as last resort. The only difference is that Trump was a bully and he could easily prove, you know, his willingness to use overwhelming power. He's willing to pull the trigger. Joe Biden is just little grandpa, man. Like, and I mean, he's such a nice guy. Like, and I mean, you know, harmless. And that is why the Taliban were thinking, "He will never drop, you know, a bullet on us, let alone, you know, drop a – the mother of all bombs. He is no Trump. You know what? Let's roll the government back like a carpet." You know? And they took over Afghanistan in nine days, in a lightning speed campaign, because they knew that Biden will not use any overwhelming force to stop them.

Trump, in my analysis, in order to appear strong in front of the American people, he would have dropped several of these mother of all bombs on the Taliban advancing forces to tell them, "Stop where you are until I evacuate everyone I want. You are going nowhere near the capitol." And they would have respected that. The Taliban would have respected that show. Biden was just, you know—. We have a saying in Arabic that he's the kind of a guy that he would not only let the cat has his dinner, but he will offer more.

Thomas Small In addition to being less of a bully than Donald Trump, Biden also made quite a serious tactical error. So, as soon as he came to power, his national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, immediately said that they were going to review the peace deal that Trump had signed with the Taliban and they were going to give their opinion on that deal by May 2021, which is actually precisely the month that Trump said the troops were going to be withdrawn from Afghanistan. And in the end, Biden announced that he was going to withdraw the troops on the 11th of September 2021, twenty years after 9-11. Sort of symbolic day to withdraw the troops for sure. But you believe, Aimen, that this was a major mistake. Why?

Aimen Dean It was a big mistake. Because Trump's secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, he knew what he was doing when he decided that we should withdraw around May. Why? Because for those people who do understand the dynamics of the Taliban jihad in Afghanistan, the Mujahideen or the Taliban are seasonal. So, they joined during the summer and then they go home during the winter. So, they went around their homes in massive numbers. And then, during the summer, they came back to swell the ranks of the Taliban.

So, the Taliban are always at only twenty-five percent military readiness during the winter. So, you know, the – the – the snow in the mount – in the mountain passes, you know, start to melt around, you know, March, April. So, only around May that the mobilisation starts. So, they are not exactly fully. By May, they will be around forty to fifty percent of their, you know, the military readiness. So, if you withdraw in May, you know, the Taliban won't have enough numbers to overwhelm the Afghan National Army at least for another month or two. So, when the Biden administration said, "Oh, we're going to delay until September," it was music to the ears of the Taliban. "Oh, thank you."

Thomas Small I think we can probably defend the Biden administration at least a little bit, given how unstructured, the transition was from Trump to Biden.

Aimen Dean Oh, yeah.

Thomas Small I mean, Trump – Trump was a very irresponsible president at the end, and a lot of his apparatchiks in the administration were tremendously irresponsible. And in addition, I imagine, within the Pentagon, there must have been a lot of higher ups who were unhappy with the idea of this very lucrative war coming to an end. Presumably, they were doing what they could to postpone things, hoping that maybe Biden would change tack and keep the war going.

Aimen Dean Not only that, but also the contracts for the evacuation of sensitive materials, equipment, military gear. Because not everything can be left behind. Some of it need to be to leave. Otherwise, it's so advanced. It will fall into the hands of the Chinese, you know. So, basically, the contracts for evacuating all of these were just the final cherry on top of the corruption game.

Thomas Small Oh, my goodness gracious.

Aimen Dean So, they wanted to prolong it as much as possible, because there was so much final, final money to be made.

Thomas Small Now, we all remember the scenes of the – of the American Withrow itself, the chaotic scenes. We also remember hearing about the Taliban getting their hands on a tremendous amount of American weaponry. Why did the Americans leave so much weaponry behind if, as you say, they had paid these men to get rid of it in advance?

I mean, what was going on there? Why didn't they sabotage at least these assets, so that they couldn't be used? Why didn't they destroy them?

Aimen Dean Well, first of all the majority of the weapons that you've seen captured, you know, were actually the weapons of the Afghan National Army.

Thomas Small Which the Americans had supplied them.

Aimen Dean Exactly. Yeah. So, the reality here is what you saw there was actually battalions and brigades, you know, worth of weapons. So, the commander of the unit will walk to the Taliban and he will say to them, "You know what? We have tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of weapons inside our base. We don't want to sabotage it. You know, pay us fifty thousand, a hundred thousand US dollars, and it's all yours." And so, the Taliban will pay them, and they will give them amnesty, and the Taliban will walk in and just pick up everything. That is what happened. And the reality here is that the Afghan National Army had far more weapons than they needed, because they lied to the Americans about their true numbers. They said, "We have three hundred thousand, you know, troops part of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan security forces," when, in fact, the maximum number was eighty thousand.

Thomas Small Were these weapons in the Afghan army—? I mean, were they very advanced weapons? Is America scared now that China is going to get their hands on them?

Aimen Dean Most of that phone swiping reads that the Americans didn't want the Chinese to have already evacuated. So, basically, what's happening is that the contracts evacuated the most sensitive technologies. Were done, were carried out. So, no sensitive technology fell into the hands of the Taliban. But what you have is already, you know, weapons that are quite advanced for, you know, even for Iran. I mean, you know, recently, there were clashes between the Taliban and the Iranian forces on the border, you know, in which the Taliban, you know, basically, like, you know, overran the Iranian forces because they had better weaponry.

Thomas Small Oh, my goodness.

Aimen Dean So, you know, and of course, basically the Iranians, you know, quickly throw in the towel and said, "Hey. Hey." Like, you know, "Just, you know, calm down, you know, guys." You know, easy tiger. Like, you know, "Let's talk." So, the reality is that, you know, there were tens of billions of dollars' worth of weaponry that the American supplied to the Afghan army that failed.

Thomas Small So, you say the Taliban have got their hands on some advanced American weaponry. But how – how might the Chinese get their hands on it then? Are they going to sell it to the Chinese?

Aimen Dean Oh, yeah. I mean, there is a tradition, you know. The—. Many times during the war, when – when an Apache helicopter, you know, during combat, you know, the Taliban, you know, came, dismantled it, and started selling the parts of the Chinese. You know, when any American drone, you know, would fall into Taliban territory, you know, during the Afghan war, they would basically sell the parts to the Chinese. And that's how the Chinese started their Wing Loong, you know, drone program, you know, reverse engineering, the American technology. So, you know, the—. I mean, one of the ironies of the Afghan conflict is that America was there to save its national security, but, at the same time, you know, their weaponry was finding its way through the Taliban to the Chinese markets in order to reverse engineer it and for the Chinese to become a bigger threat to the American national security, so.

Thomas Small Oh, my goodness. How many times during Conflicted have we pointed out how American policy has inadvertently benefited the Chinese? It's quite remarkable. Poor Afghanistan.

But what about the future, Aimen? You've described the situation in Afghanistan at present as a game of poker. Afghanistan is the chips lying there waiting to be taken. And the dealer is, weirdly, the Taliban. But who are the players around the table? I mean, obviously, we've—. There's China.

Aimen Dean Well, since the last episode, you know, things are becoming more clearer. I mean, there are now several players who want to get involved in Afghanistan. You know, the first, you know, two major players here are China and Pakistan in unison, because they want to become the, you know, the infrastructure builders. You know, the root, you know, for the rebuilding, for the commercial route for Afghanistan, the port for Afghanistan, the access to the sea. And then, you have the Emiratis and the Turks. They are fighting with each other over who will run the airports in Afghanistan. You know, the Emiratis are offering to run the airports in Kabul, [unintelligible] Kandahar for passenger and freight services. And, of course, the Emiratis, you know, want to have these contracts. The Turks want to have exactly these contracts, too.

Thomas Small And none of these players—not China, not Pakistan, not the Emirates, and not the Turks—none of them are – are against dealing with the Taliban. They don't care. They're there. They're – they're happy to deal with. They're behaving in a way that you think America should have been behaving all along, treating the Taliban like partners we can negotiate with, not imposing upon them. Some sort of bogeyman status.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, the rehabilitation of the Taliban, if anything is possible like this, like, and I mean, it could take years and years. And that can only be basically happened with a tremendous amount of patience and diplomacy and trade and commerce. To isolate Afghanistan because of the Taliban is going to actually cause Al-Qaida and other unsavoury groups to re-emerge there again. Do we really need to go back and repeat the cyclical history again? No. Only—. The only way to strengthen the wing within the Taliban that wants to engage with the rest of the world is through talks and commerce in particular. Let commerce flow into Afghanistan.

Thomas Small So, those are the countries that you feel look upon a Taliban-run Afghanistan as an opportunity. But what about the countries in the – in the neighbourhood that are worried about it? I mean, Iran must be at the top of that list.

Aimen Dean Yeah. Iran – Iran is conflicted—and no pun intended—concerning Afghanistan. In one hand, they see them as an opportunity. But on the other hand, they see them as a threat, you know. And already, border clashes between the two shows that the Taliban bond I'm not going to take any dictates, you know, from Iran, whatsoever, and that the Taliban is demanding that Iran treat them as equals and not, like, you know, as, in the past, a group that just were supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

So, the Iranians are afraid of the Suni power next door and often emboldened Pakistan because of it. But at the same time, this could be a potential customer for greater trade, you know, in the future. You know, it all depends, you know, on Iran's ability to, you know, bribe the Taliban enough. But also, they're afraid that if the Emiratis and the Saudis and the Turks are going to get there with better terms, then these countries will have, you know, a significant amount of leverage over the Taliban, that the Afghanistan will become a territory through which espionage and possibly even sabotage against Iran could originate from.

Thomas Small What about Russia? What do they feel about what's going – what – what's been going on there?

Aimen Dean All what Russia wants is for the Taliban to control the IMU, you know, which is the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Tajik jihadists, and others from not launching cross-border attacks into these countries or trying to destabilise these countries. These countries are considered to be satellite countries as far as Moscow is concerned.

Thomas Small They were members of the Soviet Union, these countries. They were parts of the Soviet Union. So, there's a reason for that.

Aimen Dean Exactly. They are considered to be the security buffer, you know, know as far as Russia is concerned. And so, the – the Russians are offering a infrastructure projects, you know, maintaining the dams in Sarawbi and in Daruntah, and some hydroelectric power projects, you know, in the country in return for a goodwill from the Taliban. And the Taliban basically are, you know, feeling that, well, you know, why not? Like, and I mean, if the, you know—. And this is why the Taliban are actually, you know, playing some game here. They are making, you know, all these groups a little bit visible on the border, you know. They're making the IMU visible. They are making the jihadi Tajiks visible in Badakshan. Also, in Badakshan—.

Thomas Small Threatening the Russians, reminding the Russians of the possible threat, so that the Russians will give them concessions.

Aimen Dean Exactly. And they're making the Uyghurs, you know, the members of the Islamic Turkistan, the Is – the Turkistan Islamic Movement, ITM and TIP, which is the Turkistan Islamic Party. There are Chinese jihadist groups from Xinjiang province, which is bordering Afghanistan from the Wakhan Corridor, they actually are parading them a little bit, you know, around that border area.

Thomas Small Reminding the Chinese of what – what might happen if they don't play along.

Aimen Dean Exactly. So, the Taliban are, you know, savvy, you know, political operators. They are not your average tower heads. Like, you know, they are more smarter than you would give them credit for. And they are using this leverage on both China and Russia to gain as much concessions as possible.

Thomas Small But would you say that, all things considered, China's going to end up being the winner? I mean, when you think of the rare earth minerals that Afghanistan is loaded with, lithium especially, all – all of which China needs to be a leading chip battery in lithium processing power, they're going to win aren't they, the Chinese? They – they're certainly not going to be hobbled as the Americans have been hobbled by ideological and moral scruples. They're going to do what needs to be done to get their hands on those resources.

Aimen Dean Not only that. But how many other, you know, multinational companies, you know, are going to be crazy enough to go out and operate in Afghanistan? Most of the mining companies are either from Australia, Canada, and America and Europe. And none of these have the risk appetite to go and actually operate in a very dangerous environment like Afghanistan. So, you really only have the Chinese and, to some extent, the South Koreans and the Japanese and the Malaysians, you know, who – and the Turks who are more than willing and happy to come and operate. So, these are the countries that are already courting the Taliban over the question of the minerals and the minerals rights.

Thomas Small Well, it's been a long twenty years, Aimen, since America decided to venture into Afghanistan, only to withdraw in—. Well, let's – let's put it bluntly. In defeat.

Aimen Dean Exactly.

Thomas Small What's the takeaway? Where did America go wrong? A lot of money was spent. Not much – not much return on that investment. Where did they go wrong?

Aimen Dean I think the Americans went wrong when they actually decided that, instead of waging a campaign to rebuild Afghanistan in terms of infrastructure, they decided to actually just fund projects that were designed to say to the Taliban "in your face." They waged the cultural war on Taliban values, forgetting that some of these values are also entrenched Afghan values. So, trying to teach modern arts to Afghan people and trying to talk to them about, you know, modern liberal, you know, ideals as – and spend money on these programs that were supposed to be allocated to infrastructure and for things, basically, that will actually bring them benefit, that alienated more Afghan and actually emboldened the Taliban.

Thomas Small Well, Aimen, it sounds to me like you're discussing something that some people call hyper-liberalism or radical liberalism.

Aimen Dean Yes.

Thomas Small The people who hate it the most, they call it woke-ry and all that sort of thing.

Aimen Dean Yes.

Thomas Small This hyper liberalism, Aimen, this institutional woke-ry, if you like, is really the guiding ideology behind America's global hegemony. And over the past thirty years, since the end of the Cold War, that weird nexus of radical liberalism, global capitalism, and idealistic militarism has evolved, but it remains the US government's guidance. The question is for how long.

We've just told the story of America's retreat from Afghanistan, but some might say we've told the story of its retreat from the Middle East entirely as it pivots towards Asia and, quite frankly, focuses more and more on itself. America is fraying. The result of huge social and economic stresses, which the COVID pandemic has only exacerbate. So, America's "empire" in the Middle East, is it drawing to a close?

What we want to do in this third season of Conflicted is to tell the story of the rise of that "empire" in the Middle East, which will force us to go back to the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War. What we want to do—and stick with us, dear listener, because what we're proposing is a historical and cultural trip that will stretch your imaginations—is to deep dive into the subterranean conflicts that some thinkers have said are ultimately to blame for the riven, blood-soaked Middle East that we see today. Deep cultural conflicts that have been called the clash of civilisations.

Well, there you go. We've finally gotten up to the present day when it comes to Afghanistan. And on the next episode of Conflicted, we are properly going to explore this idea of the clash of civilisations, setting out the course for the rest of season three.

But before we head off, there are a couple of exciting things we want to tell you about. First of all, as always, I want to encourage you to join our discussion group on Facebook. We have almost two thousand members now, and we love seeing all your love for the show. In the group, you can continue the conversation with your fellow Conflicted fans after each new episode and get all the news about what's coming up before anyone else. First being news of brand-new, bonus content that we will be launching for Conflicted biggest fans very soon. And we need the Facebook group's help to come up with what that bonus stuff might be.

[THEME IN]

So, find the Facebook group by searching for Conflicted Podcast Discussion Group and find out how to get access before anyone else.

And as always, make sure to follow us on Facebook and also Twitter by searching @MHConflicted. And please spread the word about Conflicted to all your friends. Word of mouth is still the best way to grow our community.

All right. That's everything for today. We'll be back in two weeks.

Conflicted is a message heard production. This episode was produced by the [late lamented] Jake Otajovic and Sondra Ferrari, and edited by Sandra Ferrari. Sandra Ferrari is also our executive producer. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley.

[THEME OUT]

Conflicted S2 E6 - Climate Crisis

As the financial crisis moved off the front pages, activists and politicians began to organise around another global emergency: climate change. In the final episode of this season of Conflicted, Aimen and Thomas sweat their way through the swamp of science and politics that surrounds the world’s most flammable issue.

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THOMAS: Hi everyone. Thomas Small here. I'm coming to you from deep undercover, literally. I'm sitting on my bed with the covers pulled over my head, trying my best to recreate the conditions of a recording studio. You see, the episode you're about to hear was recorded before lockdown, but before we kick it off, Aimen and I have a favor to ask. As we come to the end of season two, we're doing a survey to find out what you, dear listeners, enjoy about the show. What you want more of and where we can improve. The survey will only take about five to ten minutes to complete, and let's face it, you're at home twiddling your thumbs waiting for this global pandemic to end. So why not just click on the link in the show notes below or go to bit.ly/conflictedq. That's all lowercase bit.ly/conflictedq. And as a Thank You, anyone who completes the survey will be in with a chance of winning a copy of Aimen’s book, ‘Nine Lives: My time as MI6’s top spy inside Al-Qaeda’. Now on with the show.

THOMAS: Welcome to the last episode of this season of Conflicted. I am Thomas Small and of course Aimen Dean is here with me. Hi Aimen.

AIMEN: Hi Thomas.

THOMAS: How are you doing today? Don't say you're still alive. People are getting sick of that joke. [Aimen laughs] I noticed that there's more gray hair in your beard. Is that the toll of being a jihadist or the toll of being a father of two young children?

AIMEN: Um, I can tell you I've been through many wars and I can tell you nothing prepares you to raising children. [Thomas laughs] Raising children is worse than actually going to war. [Aimen Laughs]

THOMAS: All right, so, so far, we have been on a long journey of tracking the rise and demise, potentially the demise, of America's New World Order. In the last episode, we turned our attention to how the collapse of the American economy, or near collapse of the American economy in 2008, rippled around the globe. And today, to conclude the season, how is the history of the environmental movement connected to the history and politics of the New World Order? And what does the global climate crisis mean to the billions of people who don't live in what we call the Western World?

[Theme music plays]

THOMAS: So, we've been talking about the end of the New World Order, the end of liberal democracy, the end of capitalism. But with the climate crisis, are we actually witnessing the end of the world itself? This is potentially, Aimen, not disconnected to the question of the success of global capitalism, which along with its arguable benefits has also, or so the scientists tell us, had a pretty huge negative impact on the environment. Now, before we get into this, I want to say that this is a topic that many people today feel really passionately about. And I'm going to be honest, I don't always know what to think about it, because there's so much conflicting information out there. Not so much about the problem itself, about which the science is pretty settled. But about the best solution. Which is where, of course, science takes a back seat to politics. People are truly conflicted. So, Aimen, we've discussed this issue a hundred times, and some of your views might make people think you're a climate change denier, are you?

AIMEN: No, definitely not. I'm not a climate change denier. I am more or less skeptic about the solutions that some quarters are putting forward. So I am someone basically who believe, while I'm not a scientist, I believe that the total disruption of human economic activity all across the globe is not the answer.

THOMAS: Right. Okay, good. So you're not a climate change denier, and we will discuss later your views about the more radical suggestions that some voices have about how to deal with the crisis. But before we get there, I just think it's good to offer a brief history of the environmental movement. And the first thing to point out is that movement is actually very old. Its roots lie in the 19th century, the romantic movement really, which coincided with the industrial revolution. Poets and philosophers began to grow uneasy about the rising pollution that resulted from industrialization, not to mention the social and spiritual dislocations that followed. Legislation in Britain and elsewhere from the Victorian period onward, primarily over air pollution was passed, plus conservation societies were founded all across the world. In 1962 Rachel Carson's hugely influential book ‘Silent Spring’ kicked off the modern environmental movement, and the first earth day was celebrated in 1970. So the movement has really deep roots. But it was really the establishment of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988, followed by the first UN Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 where global action on climate change began. The Rio Summit was actually expressly a post-cold war effort to bring countries together so they can discuss how to cooperate on development issues, which involved what was then called sustainability, sustainable development. The countries wanted to make sure that prosperity rose, but they were concerned that with rising prosperity would be an increasing environmental degradation. This all eventually resulted in the Kyoto protocol of 1997, which has struggled to be ratified by the countries of the world, to put it lightly. Especially the United States has been an outlier. They have not signed the Kyoto protocol. This has all led in recent years to lots of activists being fed up with what they consider to be global inaction on a pressing problem and the growing popularity of green political parties and what's called the Green New Deal and other such policy proposals. So that's the history. And we can see that really the era of the New World Order, which has seen this explosion of capitalism and economic growth everywhere, has been shadowed all along by a growing concern. That it is not sustainable in the long run and that the Earth is suffering as a result of all our prosperity. Now, before we focus on the politics of climate change in the West, I'd like to talk about the Middle East. Ultimately, listeners come to you, Aimen [Aimen laughs] to hear about the Middle East. So how has the climate crisis and the facts around the climate crisis been a factor in everything that Conflicted has been discussing over the last two seasons?

AIMEN: Well, don't forget. We in the Middle East are the source, or the largest source of this pollution. [Aimen laughs]

THOMAS: Because of the oil that you're pumping out.

AIMEN: Oil and gas. So basically, we've been pumping oil now for almost a hundred years to the rest of the world. You know, basically the two thirds of the world energy exports, they are coming from the Middle East, of course. So if you look at Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Iraq, Iran, Libya, the production levels basically are just tremendous. So of course we are the producers, but we are not necessarily the polluters.

THOMAS: Well, you do consume a lot of petroleum yourselves, but of course it is the West and more recently, China.

AIMEN: And India

THOMAS: And India, Yes. So the source is the Middle East, but then from that source of the pollution is created everywhere. AIMEN: Yeah. So when I talk to people, whether it is in Saudi Arabia or Iraq or Iran, or Yemen, wherever, basically they say, look, you know, the World is angry about OPEC being one of the biggest polluters in the world because OPEC, you know, the organization for petroleum producing chemicals--

THOMAS: [Overlapping]The global petroleum cartel really.

AIMEN: Exactly to the point where there were even environmentalist who were shouting that OPEC is a terrorist organization because—

[Aimen and Thomas laugh]

THOMAS: Yet another terrorist organization from the Middle East.

AIMEN: Exactly. [laughs]

THOMAS: Gosh, you guys can't help yourself.

AIMEN: No, we can't. Because you know, it should have been disbanded and assets seized and all of that because unfortunately with the environment, the environmental message from the West that is actually seeping through to the people in the Middle East is extremely negative. And they feel that basically, that the environmentalist are hostile towards the Middle East because of so many, what I call intersectionalities of causes, that are dumping more and more of the world's problems on the Middle East.

THOMAS: Well, if rising carbon dioxide is seen as the major problem, then petroleum is the source of that problem.

AOMEN: Ah ha, but someone from the Middle East would say, well, excuse me. We were living in nomadic lives, or semi urban lives. We were agricultural, or pastoral or having livestock going around. Until you guys came discover the juice [Thomas laughs] beneath our feet and you decided to extract it and give us the money.

THOMAS: Well, let's not talk about the pollution itself. I want to talk about the effects of this pollution, i.e. climate change. And how climate change has influenced the things we've been talking about on Conflicted. I mean, it's absolutely true that in the first decade of the 21st century there was widespread drought in countries like Syria and Yemen. These are countries that became hotspots for the Arab Spring, and of course civil war. Has climate change played a role in that?

AIMEN: Of course. There is no question. That as the climate changes drastically, you start to have areas and pockets where drought follows, and crops fail. Of course not entirely the environment's fault, but also the management of the countries. Basically like Yemen and Syria are poorly managed as countries

THOMAS: Because of the drought, Syria specifically, a huge influx of rural residents moved into the cities. So there was a burgeoning population explosion in the cities. There weren't enough jobs for these people, which created the unrest that to some extent led to the Arab Spring and the civil war there.

AIMEN: Exactly. And actually, by pushing more and more rural people into the urban centers, they--these became the foot soldiers for the rebellion that followed in Syria and also for the civil war that followed in Yemen.

THOMAS: The urban population of Syria increased by 50% in a decade proceeded up to the civil war.

AIMEN: Exactly because of the fact that the crops were failing because of rising temperature as well as, less water and rainfall. The same thing happened in Yemen and Lebanon, for example. Lebanon was affected also. Lebanon now is becoming more and more a narco economy.

THOMAS: Drugs.

AIMEN: Drugs, yes. Do you know why?

THOMAS: No.

AIMEN: Because with water becoming more and more scarce, so what would you rather plant? Because if you spend so much on water, you might as well plant something that's actually have more intrinsic value. You know, like…

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Marijuana.

AIMEN: Marijuana and coke and opium, [Thomas laughs] than tomatoes, potatoes and peaches.

THOMAS: You can maximize your profit.

AIMEN: And the same thing in Yemen, they also turn to drugs instead of coffee.

THOMAS: Especially Khat.

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Yes.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] This very famous Yemeni drug where you see Yemenis with a big sort of bulb, bulge in their cheek. [Aimen laughs] They're constantly stoned.

AIMEN: Exactly. So what happened is it affected the populations. They became more and more lazy drug addicts. They becoming more and more reliant on the fact that this is a new source of income, but it is either criminal or semi-criminal and it's not sustainable. So actually the shortage of water and the rising temperature caused both Yemen and Syria partially to become failed States and caused Lebanon to become a narco economy, to some extent.

THOMAS: The ISIS phenomenon also involved water. It's not often talked about, but one of the things that ISIS managed to get a hold of during their conquest of much of Syria and Iraq were several dams up the Tigris and Euphrates River. Which you know, have seen in the last couple of decades, a precipitous drop in water level. So water was involved in the struggle with ISIS as well.

AIMEN: Indeed. In fact, if you go back to the Yemen episode in the first season, we talk about the fact that the entire Yemen war from the Saudi perspective, was based mostly on the fact that it is about water security for Saudi Arabia. And that's why, for example, if you look at countries like Oman. Oman is going to run out of oil in just 20 years or less.

THOMAS: And what will they do?

AIMEN: And already, basically they are enlisting the help of Saudi and Kuwaiti companies that specializing in building, and this is the new innovation, in building solar power plants on the sea that also does water desalination.

THOMAS: Water desalination is so important throughout the peninsula. I mean, I think something like 50% of Saudi drinking water comes from desalination.

AIMEN: [Overlapping] 95%.

THOMAS: 95%!

AIMEN: Saudi Arabia alone produce one third of the entire world output of desalinated water and the UAE produced one fifth. So the reality is that the entire peninsula produced almost 60% of the entire global consumption of desalinated water because there is that entire big peninsula, the size of India, not a single river or lake. So the water sources are very scarce. And therefore any drastic change in the environment could have negative effects, as well as some other positive effects that we'll talk about later. But the negative effect is the scarcity of water and rainfall. So here's a problem for Oman which will be the first oil rich Arab country to run out of oil in the near future, 20 years is nothing. We will see it in our own lifetimes, that in less than 20 years, the last oil tanker leaving Oman to export oil, we will see it.

THOMAS: And they’ll be waving it away with tears on their face wondering what does the future hold.

AIMEN: Exactly. So from now, they started using solar power to desalinate water.

THOMAS: Solar power to run desalination plants? But those plants require huge amounts of energy. Can solar power power them? AIMEN: Yes. If you have enough concentration. If you produce roughly between 500 and 600 megawatts of power per day. Then that's it. You have it.

THOMAS: I'm glad you brought up the subject of solar energy because green energy in general, as it increases in its sophistication and as the West especially begins to rely more and more upon it has an economic effect on the Middle East, because as demand for oil and gas decreases in the West, that will affect the economies of a country say like Saudi Arabia. Are they aware of this? What are they doing to prepare for this?

AIMEN: Why do you think Saudi Arabia is frantically trying to diversify their economy as soon as possible by relying on the religious tourism and expanding it from $16 billion per year to $63 billion per year in 2030? Why do you think they are trying to rely more on extraction of other minerals like gold, silver, uranium, phosphate, bauxite and other things? Why do you think they want to build these tourism cities like Amaala on the Red Sea and other places, and using their cultural sites and opening the visa system so anyone can visit Saudi Arabia? Why do you think they're doing it? Because basically they know that there will be a time when ships will sail away with the last bit of oil and that’s it.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Or oil will become not valuable enough.

AIMEN: Actually, many people are telling me oil will not become valuable enough. And I will say basically that is still far away in the future. Why? Because still there are two modes of transportation that cannot be powered by electricity yet. Maybe by natural gas, but not by electricity. Not yet.

THOMAS: Which are those?

AIMEN: Airplanes, commercial airplanes and commercial ships. So, commercial shipping there is no engine unless if you placed nuclear powered engines on the big ships which is most likely impossible to do that for thousands of tankers and massive container ships. THOMAS: I can imagine your old friends in Al-Qaeda would love to get their hands on a huge tanker with a nuclear bomb on board.

AIMEN: Exactly. It's a security hazard. So you will still have to rely on diesel engines and also kerosene engines for the aircrafts for a generation to come. Because no amount of electrical batteries can actually power a seven, triple seven plane to fly from London, let's say to New York, it’s impossible.

THOMAS: So, oil will remain in demand for the time being.

AIMEN: Yes. But the question is what other parts of the economy that we can, you know, remove the fossil fuel from? So we're talking about power generating so we can use solar, we can use wind.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Well, and Saudi Arabia has been investing tremendously in green energy itself, actually, especially solar power. I believe they're building right now the largest solar farm in the world.

AIMEN: Yes. Because why? We have an area in Saudi Arabia called the Empty Quarter. The Empty Quarter basically is nothing but the emptiest most desolate and inhospitable desert in the world. THOMAS: But you invoke the empty quarter and it gives me all sorts of romantic ideas of...

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Of Thesiger?

THOMAS: Wilfred Thesiger walking across the Empty Quarter to the mountains of Oman. Oh gosh, those were the days.

AIMEN: Exactly. [Laughs]

THOMAS: For the listener, Wilfred Thesiger, the last of the great British explorers, in whose fantastic book ‘Arabian Sands’, I really recommend this book ‘Arabians Sands’. He describes his journey across the Empty Quarter to Oman, and it's just a magnificent book.

AIMEN: I totally agree. Funnily enough you'd mentioned this, just now as we speak Saudi Arabia and Oman finishing the last touches on the road that actually track the Thesiger journey from the Empty Quarter, basically to Oman. So you can take it and you can basically bask in the beauty of the Empty Quarter.

THOMAS: Oh Aimen, I hope you and I can maybe take that journey together.

AIMEN: We will do, I have a car in Dubai in a park there. So we can go and take it and do it.

THOMAS: I'm going to hold you to that.

[Thomas and Aimen laugh]

AIMEN: So basically, the reality here is that the Empty Quarter have a huge amount of sunshine throughout the year, the rainfall there basically is extremely negligible and cloud cover is almost nonexistent. So, and what they do basically is the new technology with the solar farms, some of them make them 400% more efficient in terms of production. So Saudi Arabia basically could do two things: wind farms for the night because at night the wind pick up in the desert, and in the day the sun is shining. So basically you have two sources that are almost complimenting each other, throughout. And once you add the fact that the battery technology, thanks to the efforts of people like Elon Musk and his teams, the battery technology, if it become more and more efficient, then whatever's produced during the day that has an excess can be stored so it can be utilized during the night from the solar power. Also, Saudi Arabia, controversially, is investing in between 17 to 18 what they call mini nuclear reactors.

THOMAS: Mini nuclear reactors.

AIMEN: Why? Again, it's the water security issue here. Because you said that solar can produce, solar power in intense production can desalinate water. The problem with water desalination is that it requires intense source of power. So while 500 megawatts, or even one gigawatt can produce enough desalinated water for two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand people, so it's good for Oman. It can power a province with it and give enough drinking water for a province. The problem here is in Saudi Arabia, the population in 2030 we'll hit 40 or 45 million. So what you need is intense source of energy that is continuous in order to generate that. Also, the Saudis, and this is not in the public domain, but this idea is being floated by ministers and deputy ministers, and I've heard one from a deputy minister there. They are toying with the idea that the nuclear energy output could actually desalinate so much water that you can basically pump an entire river into the interior of Saudi Arabia to change the climate.

THOMAS: Well, this sounds like fantasy. This sounds like something out of Dune or something like that.

AIMEN: But funny enough, if you look at the numbers and if you look at basically the energy output from a nuclear reactor on the Red Sea and how it could basically pump water in huge quantities into the interior of Saudi Arabia, building oases in the desert, that can actually fundamentally change the environment and fight desertification. Then you see basically that we can fight climate change but in the Arab way, very entrepreneurial and very radical. [Aimen laughs]

THOMAS: Well, maybe the Arabian Peninsula will become heavily forested before I die. Wouldn't that be amazing?

AIMEN: That's what the prophet Mohammed himself said.

THOASM: The prophet Mohammed said that?

AIMEN: He said that the end of days won't come until the land of Arabia become once again lands of meadows and green hills and rivers.

THOMAS: Another prophecy, always prophecies with you Aimen.

AIMEN: What can I say? Look, I grew up in Saudi Arabia and then I joined Al-Qaeda, it's just nothing but prophesies there. But in order to convince the Arab World, which is very climate skeptic, by the way, to convince the Arab World that actually it is in their interest to look for greener sources of energy, even including nuclear, and I know it's controversial, but remember, in the Western World there is abundance of water, in that Arabian Peninsula, which is the size of India—

THOMAS: [Overlapping] There’s none...

AIMEN: There is no water. So nuclear is the safest and the greenest guaranteed source of power they could have in order to make sure they have enough water. Otherwise, if water isn't available in quantities enough for the population to drink, wars and ugly situations will emerge.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Mass destabilization.

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: So the Saudis and other Middle Eastern states are pursuing policies in response to climate change. What about more widely? So what to say, the high-level people outside of the middle East, but not in the West, so China, India, et cetera, what sort of things are they telling you about the climate crisis? What is their attitude in general towards climate change?

AIMEN: The problem with India is that they, India and China, they are gripped by this idea of a conspiracy theory that the environmental movement is nothing but a ploy by the West in order to derail their economic progress. That's what I hear in China.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] They’re convinced of this.

AIMEN: And I hear also from other Indian entrepreneurs in Dubai whenever I meet them that, well, the environmental issue, they try and basically to strangle our economies by saying, well, it’s all the environment! You have to reduce your carbon footprint. But the problem here is, and when you talk, especially Indians, they say basically that on a government level, on a central government level, on New Delhi level, the initiatives are just really bureaucratic talk. The real initiatives are taken by small towns, villages and individuals who are installing solar panel on their rooftops. Even sometime in shantytowns they install, you know, not because it is environmentally friendly but it is pocket friendly. [Aimen and Thomas laugh] So it turns out basically that, you know, some of the charities that donate solar panels to these villages and towns are actually doing the right thing. But you know, here's the problem, is that it's really a drop in the ocean. You need to have a massive production of solar panels in India, as well as in China, and other places in order to convince them that, okay, this is economically viable, and the government can do it.

THOMAS: I want to return to what you were saying, how Indians and others, they have this conspiracy theory about the climate crisis and the politics of the climate crisis being exploited by the West to undercut Eastern prosperity and development. Because it's, I'm not saying that it's right, but geopolitically, the politics of climate change have been taking an interesting turn of late. For example, it is Western leaders and Western people in general who care most passionately about climate change. And it might be possible to spy within that concern something like cynical power politics going on. For example, the president of France, Macron, and other leaders of you know what, let's face it, these are relatively speaking, shrinking powers at the moment, France and Britain, and even the United States, relatively speaking, shrinking powers. The president of France threatened to spike a major EU trade deal with Brazil, unless Brazil put an end to rainforest clearance. And some analysts are beginning to wonder, so just as the threat of the Soviet Union used to be invoked to unite the West around ideas of human rights as a means of projecting and shoring up their global power in the 20th century, the question is, is the climate crisis now being invoked by primarily Western powers to do something like the same thing? If the West can rally around climate crisis, can they force the Eastern world to adopt policies that might protect Western power? AIMEN: That's what I hear in places like Beijing, in places like Delhi and Bombay, or Mumbai as they call it now, and in places like Riyadh and Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

THOMAS: And in in your analysis is there's some reason to worry about this?

AIMEN: [Overlapping] That they say that the way they are doing it, which is do it now impose taxes like this. We will impose taxes on carbon, we will impose taxes on plastic, we will do this, this and that, I mean, they believe that this is all designed in order to assert Western hegemony. That is the problem here is that for many of them, and especially when you talk to policymakers in the East, whether from China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, or in the Middle East itself, they will tell you basically that the problem here is that the message that is coming from the West is rather confused and aggressive at the same time. It's like, we're going to die. But we look around and we don't see that the changes are so drastic that we're going to die. That the world will end, but we don't see this around us. We are not seeing anything in the horizon approaching slowly with the word doom written in cloud formation. [Thomas and Aimen Laugh] So we don't see it. So, but nonetheless, they are, you know, doing it in a way to try to push us around to adopt certain economic and regulatory standards. And of course, we'd have to push back because what they say, we already are taking measures to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Not because of the climate change, but because fossil fuels will run out eventually. So we need to start from now. So it's an economic imperative, that's the first thing. The second thing is a health imperative. In China in particular they are in a hurry actually to replace as many of their coal power stations, which they are building still, but they are trying to replace them, especially around the big cities, with either natural gas, solar, wind and nuclear.

THOMAS: But this is to protect people's health.

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Cause air pollution is a huge problem in that part of the world.

AIMEN: I mean, every time I go to Beijing, and I go to Beijing a lot every year. Not for the past months, just for disclaimer because of the coronavirus. But, every time my poor wife have to deal with the fact that every time I come back from Beijing, I suffer for two or three days from nosebleed.

THOMAS: From the pollution.

AIMEN: From the pollution.

THOMAS: Ugh.

AIMEN: And so, you know, the pollution is stabbing inside my nose. So of course that's why they want to do it. They want to make sure that their skies are clear. This is also what they're trying to do in New Delhi also. So the pollution is a health issue and that's how I think swe should be selling this to the rest of the world. It's an economic issue, as well as it is a health issue.

THOMAS: Well, instead of selling it in that way in the West, at the moment, people who you know, are increasingly concerned about climate change. They have adopted a different rhetoric, a rhetoric which I think--

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Doom and gloom.

THOMAS: A doom and gloom rhetoric, let's call it. And, I think that this rhetoric is at the moment, particularly associated with this movement Extinction Rebellion. You know, the global environmentalist movement. Which, you know, depending on your point of view, is either notorious or inspiring, which started actually here in London. And I actually can remember first encountering Extinction Rebellion when in April 2019 they took over Oxford Circus, a big sort of roundabout in the center of London near where I work, and I would come up from the Oxford Circus tube station and I saw them there. They’d sort of camped out in the middle of this huge intersection. They’d erected tents and they created this sort of platform and there was sort of clownish hijinks going on. It was a very strange, rather phantasmagoric scene of, on the one hand, political activists on the other hand, what-- sort of hipster entertainers. It was weird. And their rhetoric was certainly very, very, I would say extreme, trying to encourage us all to panic. They were saying, the end of the world is nigh. We haven't done anything really to address it. We must start doing so now. Now I'd like to talk about the way Extinction Rebellion is organized. It's very interesting. There was a quote from The Economist that says, ‘Whereas the occupy movement’, which as it happens we discussed in the previous episode, ‘a similar outfit became bogged down in cumbersome people's assemblies, Extinction Rebellion has adopted an approach called Holacracy. Holacracy claims to spread power across employees by ditching traditional management hierarchies in favor of semi-autonomous circles. In Extinction Rebellion's case, this amounts to what are in effect franchises of the main brand which plan and carry out their own protests following a loose set of rules set out by the main group’. Now, when I read that, I thought I must ask Aimen because that sounds a little bit like the way Al-Qaeda is managed. Are Extinction Rebellion, just terrorists Aimen?

AIMEN: I mean, look at the similarities between the two. You know, from a rhetoric point of view, I'm not talking about action. I'm talking about rhetoric. Both are saying that the world's going to end. [Aimen and Thomas laugh] Both have prophecies of doom and gloom. Both believe that their cause is righteous and anyone basically who deny their cause is a monster. So you know, the problem here is, and both of them have a defined enemy. My problem is that they believe somehow that the enemy is the human race. And you know, the use of rhetoric that the world is gonna end, that we will have an environmental catastrophe of biblical proportions in 12 years time and that we will all die, and if we don't do anything right now. I don't believe that even, if the entire world decarbonized tonight, and we all went to the stone age again tonight, that it will slow basically the climate change in 12 years. If there is a catastrophe, that the catastrophe wouldn't happen. So it's kind of irrational.

THOMAS: Yes. Al-Qaida and Extinction Rebellion both think the world is going to end. One difference to be fair to Extinction Rebellion is that they're basing their prophecy, if you like, however perhaps exaggerated it might be, on scientific facts. Unlike Al-Qaeda who are being inspired more by religious texts and the religious prophecies. The thing about Extinction Rebellion and other such groups is that though they are responding to a scientific consensus about climate change, they are themselves actually a political group, a political activist group. Which is why their organization is actually interesting. So if we're going out on a limb here and saying that Extinction Rebellion, at least in its organizational structure, is similar to a group like Al-Qaeda, I want to ask you, what did jihadists think about climate change?

AIMEN: I'm sure the listener will be baffled by the fact that Osama Bin Laden wrote a letter to Barack Obama asking him to take the environmental crisis seriously.

[Aimen and Thomas laugh]

THOMAS: In fact, it's true, Aimen. And in that letter, Osama bin Laden actually calls on the American people to launch a revolution in the name of the environmental crisis.

AIMEN: So no one should actually berate us for comparing Extinction Rebellion with Al-Qaeda. Look, when it comes to Extinction Rebellion, I admire what they do. I understand why they are doing it. And it's a great cause. It's an honest cause, it’s a noble cause. I don't doubt their intentions. But unfortunately, I doubt their methods. And there is a lot of naivety also there.

THOMAS: You know, Extinction Rebellion was founded initially by an organization called Compassionate Revolution, whose webpage states that it was birthed in the occupy movement, and there are, as you say, ideological similarities. Both movements reject capitalism, they both believe that capitalism is incompatible with democracy as they understand it. And the Occupy Movement was also explicitly environmentalist at times. And Extinction Rebellion’s slogan is ‘System change, not climate change. Only revolution will save us now’. So if we're talking about ideologies, as we often do here on Conflicted, this is as a political ideology revolutionary.

AIMEN: And that's why their message has been the most harmful to the environmental cause. No group that ever advocated for combating climate change has done more harm to the cause of combating climate change, like the Extinction Rebellion.

THOMAS: Because of the panic they're trying to foment?

AIMEN: Because of the panic and because of the message and the intersectionality of the message. The problem is the intersectionality here. Where you have vegans, basically uniting with animal rights movements, I think, basically with anti-capitalist movements, with the pro-environmental movement, and then basically have them all together threatening the system that sustains the global economy as it is. And the problem is when you try to sell this to people in India or Africa or the Middle East or China or Southeast Asia or Pakistan, I'm talking about the most, and Bangladesh, the most populous nations of the world, two-thirds of the humanity, when you try to sell these ideas to them, it's not just only coming as, you know, the single issue of the environment it’s a whole package. You need to stop eating fish, you need to stop eating meat, you need to stop eating honey even, you shouldn't wear leather, you shouldn't eat dairy, milk, ice cream, whatever. And so basically someone from Saudi Arabia or someone from the deserts of Africa will look at you and say, okay, it's not green where I am, unless if you actually make a rain 24/7 so I can grow tomatoes and cucumbers, you know, then I'm going to eat the desert animals, like the camels and the goats or whatever, that it feed on scarce desert vegetation which is not suitable for human consumption.

THOMAS: So Extinction Rebellion's rhetoric isn't really landing in the developing world, but in the Western world--

AIMEN: [Overlapping] It’s rejected—it’s not landing, it’s actually viewed as a joke. [Aimen and Thomas laugh]

THOMAS: But in the West it is not viewed as a joke. I mean, anecdotally, I can just say, based on friends of mine who are really passionate about this and Extinction Rebellion's message is really landing with them. They are scared. They are panicked and they are changing their lifestyles in response to this. They really are, the amount of vegans, the amount of people who they no longer buy things from Amazon. They no longer buy new things at all. They go to charity shops more and more. They just, you know, it really is a movement. It's almost like a spiritual movement.

AIMEN: And that's a problem, it’s becoming like a cult. To some extent.

THOMAS: That's a negative way of putting it out, but I actually am, I'm often very impressed by, especially my younger friends, who are able to summon the will from within them to live in a more sustainable way, which after all, is not a bad thing. I find myself not as able to do so.

AIMEN: Yeah. But the problem here is you can't come from an environment like Europe and North America, which is lush, green, abundance of water, abundance of vegetation.

THOMAS: And already post-industrial.

AIMEN: Exactly. And demand that two thirds of humanity who have access to none of these, not abundance of water and not abundance of vegetation, not abundance of, we're talking here about 3 billion people depend on the ocean for their livelihoods in terms of food and protein intake. Because you can't go to the coast of Somalia, Mozambique, Madagascar, the Maldives, Indonesia, Malaysia, all of these places and tell them, stop eating fish.

THOMAS: To be fair to them, they are mainly lobbying their own governments and their own politicians to implement new and more radical policies. But ultimately what they would like is for those politicians to create a global strategy for combating the climate crisis along the lines they wish. And that would entail the Western World ganging up to some extent on, the rest of the world.

AIMEN: Look I have lived a life where I've spent years in four different war zones, and then I spent two years in the banking sector. I spent years in multiple countries from the West to the East. And I've been in different jobs from the spiritual to the economic, to the semi scientific when I was actually building, you know, chemical weapons for Al-Qaeda. In a sense, over 40 years lifetime, you accumulate some, I won’t call it wisdom, but I will call it basically...

THOMAS: Perspective.

AIMEN: Perspective and the perspective here is this: climate change is a crisis, that I accept. What I don't accept is panic. So how do I propose to deal with it?

THOMAS: Exactly. How do you propose?

AIMEN: Two principals that you always apply in business. And you apply in your own personal life and you can apply to every situation, including governance. The first one is crisis management, and the second principle is business continuity.

THOMAS: How can these two principles taken from business help us address the climate crisis?

AIMEN: Okay. Let's say basically that we have a factory that, let's say makes ice cream. And suddenly there was a hurricane that affected the dairy farm that was actually supplying the factory. It affected some of the employees…

THOMAS: [Overlapping] The supply chain has been disrupted.

AIMEN: Yeah, the supply chain has been disrupted. So what do you do? Already there is a plan. There is a contingency that should the supply chain be disrupted. Okay. Do we have enough in reserves for a day or two or three to keep the factory running? If there are shortage of employees, do we have any people basically who can come and fill the capacity? What about the road network, can we take alternative roads? Because you need to stay in business even if you know, okay. If we have to reduce capacity because we are really affected by the catastrophic climate disaster, how do we do it? So basically, we reduce the capacity by 10%, 20%, 30%, even 50% but let us actually keep working at 50% capacity in order to recover later. So this is called crisis management and business continuity.

THOMAS: So basically, the world needs to come together and say climate change is real, but in order to establish as much continuity in prosperity that we can, we need to manage this crisis. Not freak out about it and adopt radical revolutionary solutions. AIMEN: Yeah, because imagine two scenarios here. Okay. Let's say we are in a concert. And some terrorists basically pulled out a knife and start stabbing others there in the corner of that concert.

THOMAS: I can imagine that happening.

AIMEN: It's happened, unfortunately. So, what happens is if the ushers and the security manager of the venue is clever, he will announce quickly on the megaphone that ‘ladies and gentlemen, please proceed to the gates, there is an emergency. It's only an accident. There is nothing to worry about, but just proceed to all the emergency exits in an orderly fashion.’ It's a calming, calm, measured thing and you don't basically disclose the entire information because people will panic. You don't shout attack, attack, flee for your lives. What's going to happen to stampede will kill 10 times more people than the stabbing incident itself would have killed. See, these are the two differences here. Panic kills. THOMAS: But people who are advocating, well, let's say the people who are panicking say, look, there is no solution. We just need to stop with all of our consumptions. Stop with all of our industry. Stop with all of our resource extraction. We need to stop.

AIMEN: Okay.

THOMAS: If not, what do you suggest? What do you put your faith in to save us from what you acknowledge is a climate crisis?

AIMEN: Technology, we should put our faith in technology, in innovation going forward. Because just as I was talking to you minutes ago when I said that in Saudi Arabia they are actually experimenting with new solar power technology that is 400% more efficient, and if we are seeing that roads can be built from plastic waste, and even install solar panels on these roads so actually a static infrastructure become more useful, if we are looking at carbon capture technology, which one plant, one plant alone would replace the need for 40 million trees to suck the carbon out of thin air and sequester it or use it as when you mix it as hydrogen become a carbon neutral fuel. These are technologies now and in the last episode I told you basically that the technology in the past 10 years is greater than the technology of the previous hundred years.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] And the previous hundred years greater than the previous 10,000.

AIMEN: Exactly, so what's going to happen in the next 10 years? In the next 10 years, as you know, when humans feel the need, and they say that the need is the mother of all invention, when humans feel the need to come up with solutions, they will come up with solutions. Bill Gates is one of the great investors in this new technology of carbon capture. And carbon capture technology is proving to be more and more efficient than just only planting trees. I actually, I'm all for planting trees. But one plant over three or four acres of land could actually suck more carbon than 600,000 acres of forested area.

THOMAS: That's a lot of carbon sucking.

AIMEN: Exactly. Which we can sequester it in the ground safely, especially in empty oil fields. In empty previous extracted oil fields. Or we can basically mix it with hydrogen and basically it become a carbon neutral to some extent, carbon neutral fuel.

THOMAS: So you put your faith in technology, but Aimen, you're a Muslim. You're supposed to put your faith in God, and here you are sounding like some Silicon Valley techno futurist bro.

AIMEN: Oh, well, you know, in my own personal belief, I believe it's God who guided us towards this technology. God is merciful. Yes, he saw that how we are destroying his beautiful creation, but at the same time, he is whispering into our minds the solutions for it. So, I'm not saying Silicon Valley is receiving direct a star link from God. But I'm saying here is that there is a solution and the solution is technology and human innovation. Those who say stop everything right now. Unfortunately, they are actually dooming us even further, not actually providing any solution. You can shout in the streets all you want. You can shout until your lungs explode, but shouting will not get us anywhere. Panicking will not get us anywhere. Blockading airports and roads and bridges and subway trains and underground trains will not get us anywhere.

THOMAS: Well, I agree with you. I think that panic isn't the solution. But as for your faith in technology, mm, you might be an optimistic Muslim, but I think I'm more of a pessimistic Christian and I'm not sure that I put my faith in Silicon Valley and men like Elon Musk. I just can't bring myself to do it. I sort of think we probably are going to be soon facing a much more catastrophic change in political economies, change in our levels of consumption. I mean if you ask me, I tend to sympathize with those voices from the 19th century romantic movement that sees as a consequence of this industry and the consequence of our rising prosperity, see something like an essential spiritual problem at work there. That is now manifesting itself outside of ourselves. And, and for me, a spiritual problem really has a spiritual solution. I don't know what that solution is and it probably just muddies the water even further to bring it up. But the part of the Extinction Rebellion movement that, beyond the panic, is encouraging people really to spiritually transform, they might not think of it in that way, but consume less, buy less, save, live in greater harmony with the environment. That strikes me as at least part of the solution.

AIMEN: I agree. But still, I have to say that this message does not transcend the borders of the Western World. It's still a Western mindset, a Western white man savior mentality. I'm sorry to say.

THOMAS: Oh no!

AIMEN: It's still, I'm just saying from the point of view of people I talk to in the Middle East and China, in India and Africa. People just basically are not buying it.

THOMAS: The climate crisis is the new white man's burden. And we're going to bring the light of revolutionary environmentalist change to you, brown and black people who don't know any better.

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: Oh god, that's so depressing.

AIMEN: I know but that's the reality. Like when you talk to an Arab, they are very optimistic. They will say, oh look, we are using, yes, we are getting the carbon, hydrocarbons out of the ground. We are extracting, we're making money, but what we are doing with it, we are saving. We are investing. We are basically buying more technology to replace our petrol power the electricity generators with solar, wind and nuclear. So we may survive, and we have water. So basically whenever you told them, yeah, but the West is saying though, they will immediately wave their hands specifically and say, let the West shut up. They have all the water, we have none. So they should shut up. Because we have far more pressing problems than theirs and we know how to deal with ours. Let them deal with theirs. That’s the message I'm hearing.

THOMAS: So Aimen, Extinction Rebellion's rhetoric isn't appealing to the non-Western world, as you say. So how could Western environmentalists change their message to appeal to the East? You mentioned earlier they could perhaps position their message along the lines of health, of human health.

AIMEN: What they need to do is to focus on the environment and the environment only, first of all. There is no need for the intersectionality of causes, like veganism and socialism and all of these things, just drop it. It's not going to sell in the rest of the world. That's the first thing. Second thing is to tell the people it is for their own health. And the second thing is for their own survival. So for example, if I'm going to convince the government of Bangladesh for example, that it is in their own interest of the government of Bangladesh to implement environmentally friendly policies because they are one of the first countries that will suffer if the sea levels rises because they are a very low country, the possibility of flooding that could displace tens of millions. THOMAS: This is the strategy that has largely been pursued by the UN and other global bodies.

AIMEN: Exactly. Because it's a calm measured way of approaching this. THOMAS: So on balance then you're actually rather, you're not antipathetic to the environmentalist movement more generally. You know, the moderate bureaucratic, almost way that it has been pursued over the last few decades. It's these more radical voices that have sprung up in recent years that you don't really think are on the right track

AIMEN: Because you can’t go to people in developing countries and tell them that sorry, you will never reach the prosperity that we ever achieved because you know what? The world is about to end. Sorry you missed your spot; sorry you missed your time. But that’s it, we're going to switch off the tap of prosperity. You know, and you have to live in the stone age. This is a message that has coming in into the rest of the world, and the rest of the world is giving the middle finger back.

THOMAS: So, Aimen, what do we do?

AIMEN: Just don't panic. My fear, Thomas here, is that I've been in an organization that is classified as terrorists, which is Al-Qaeda. And what I'm afraid is that as movements like Extinction Rebellion and others are framing the human race as the enemy and with the rhetoric going about how humans are going to doom the world and end the world, there would be some young minds who are genius and clever, but nonetheless isolated and you know, full of conspiracy theories in their heads. They might just decide together to develop a virus and just release it into the population in order to reduce the human population or even end it. And they see this as a favor. Already there is a university professor here in London, she came up with a book just recently where she argues that we should stop all having babies and let the human race die so the planet may survive. Ideas like this are becoming normative.

THOMAS: It's true. I mean, I think you do encounter such ideas more and more regularly. And I can imagine that certain impressionable people, maybe the same sword who might initially get involved in a mosque study circle to increase their own piety. And then they hear more and more of this sort of conspiratorial apocalyptic rhetoric from the Islamist right, or Islamist left or whatever you want to call it. And it might, you know, they might find themselves on a road that leads to evermore extremism that sometimes does result in, in violence.

AIMEN: In fact, whenever I talk to my clients either in the private or public sector when it come to counter terrorism issues, they actually express the fact that they are seeing the embryonic stages of environmental terrorism because that rhetoric is so vicious. Right now from minority of environmental activist.

THOMAS: A huge minority of them-- But just like Muslims--

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Exactly.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] A huge minority of Muslims get involved in Islamist violence, but it causes a big problem.

AIMEN: A small minority, not a huge minority.

THOMAS: That's an interesting question semantically. A very small minority of Muslims are seduced by Islamist violence, but it causes a big problem.

AIMEN: Exactly the same thing with the environmentalist movement. We will have a small minority who would actually most likely end up resorting to violence and terrorism in the future, possibly the near future. Because if we have this deadline of 12 years unfortunately being propagated by politicians who should know better, you end up pushing agitated people towards violence and we need to, this is why I'm saying we shouldn't panic. People just please calm down your rhetoric. We're not gonna die. We will survive and don't worry. We will survive.

THOMAS: So if it is true that it is the climate change political rhetoric that might unite a diminishing West and allow them to claw back some of the power they've been losing of late, it might be that weirdly enough, environmentalism becomes the ideological underpinning of the New World Order. We are certainly living in a world very different Aimen from the one that we grew up in. George H. W Bush’s New World Order didn't turn out as he planned, but nobody can doubt, compared to the cold war when the globe was split between the two superpowers of America and the Soviet Union, or even to the 90’s when for a brief moment, America was totally dominant, today following everything we've touched on over the course of two seasons now, 9/11, the War on Terror, the rise of China, the return of Russia, the clash between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the oil rich Gulf and the twin crises of global capitalism and climate change, we're in a much more multipolar world than we were. A world that remains conflicted.

[Outro Music Plays]

THOMAS: Dear listener, thank you so much for sticking with us throughout this season of Conflicted. We hope you've enjoyed it and will keep listening when we come back for our third season. And don't worry, you won't have to wait very long this time. To hear the details as soon as we announce them, subscribe to the show in your podcast app and follow us on social media. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter at MHconflicted. And of course, once again, you can win a book connected to this episode. It's called ‘Wilding’ by Isabella Tree. And it is a beautifully written description of a pioneering rewilding project, a reminder of the power of nature to heal itself if human beings step back and let it happen. To have a chance to win it, join our discussion group on Facebook before the 29th of April. You can find it by searching ‘Conflicted Podcast Discussion Group’. Conflicted is a Message Heard production. It's produced by Sandra Ferrari and Jake Otajovic. Edited by Sandra Ferrari. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley. Thank you again. My name is Thomas Small and Aimen and I will be back soon. Stay tuned.

AIMEN: Goodbye.

Conflicted S2 E5 - Wall Street

From a bomb maker to double agent to… banker?

In this episode, Aimen draws on his experience as a helping banks combat financial terrosism as our hosts explore the 2008 Financial Crisis and its impact on the world order.

---

THOMAS: Hello and welcome back. You are listening to Conflicted. My name is Thomas Small and with me, of course, is my co-host, Aimen Dean. How are you doing today, Aimen?

AIMEN: I'm still alive.

THOMAS: Still alive. Thank God. But where would we be without you, Aimen?

AIMEN: The land of the living perhaps? [laughs]

THOMAS: Oh, I think I'm there, but I'm not, I can't ever be quite sure. So, in season two of conflicted so far, we have been focusing on how America has been faring over the last few decades in its attempt to establish their New World Order. We've examined all three of their main objectives to achieve this. Essentially, those were: first sorting out the Middle East, bringing neo-liberalism to Russia, and establishing a new relationship with them after the Cold War, and as we learned in the last episode, bringing China in from the cold and integrating it into the global economic system. We learned about China's New Silk Road, which is their initiative to basically take control of continental Eurasian trade, which if successful could create a Chinese new world order to rival America's. In this episode, America is more clearly in our sights. We'll go back to 2008, the last time everyone thought the world was about to end, the financial world at least. Yes, I mean the credit crisis of 2008 and the impact it had on the West's hopes of a global neo-liberal order.

[Theme Plays]

THOMAS: So Aimen, we're talking about banking today. What makes you an expert on banking? I understand that after you left your job as a double agent for the security services working inside Al-Qaeda, you became a banker. [Aimen laughs] How did that happen?

AIMEN: Well, it's basically exchanging one form of terrorism to another.

THOMAS: That old chestnut. You love that joke.

AIMEN: I love that joke, because it's almost true. Actually, most funny jokes are the true jokes. But in reality, when I went into the banking sector, after I left the service of MI6 and MI5, I actually was there fulfilling three functions. So the first function is the global strategic security function. The bank that I went to work for, which was one of the biggest global banks, was attacked before in terms of terrorism and they lost many staff and they lost their entire headquarters, in one of their middle Eastern countries.

THOMAS: I mean, they were, they were actually the victim of a terrorist bombing.

AIMEN: Indeed. So that's the first function I fulfilled. The second function is terrorism finance. So, no I wasn’t--

THOMAS: [Overlapping] You financed terrorism? Wow!

AIMEN: No, no, no. Okay, okay, okay, I rephrase here. I rephrase. It's CTF or counter terrorism finance.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Oh that’s less interesting. Oh that’s too bad.

AIMEN: Making sure, basically that high-net worth individuals or charities that are operating within the Middle East and beyond are not exactly dabbling in financing terrorists.

THOMAS: And the third thing you were doing?

AIMEN: And the third thing basically is investigating companies, high net worth individuals, and sometime even banks that are operating within the Middle East for signs of either corruption, money laundering, and understanding basically how they are operating to make sure basically that there is no corruption or money laundering going on.

THOMAS: Corruption amongst high net worth individuals in the Middle East. That must've kept you busy. Now, [Aimen laughs] now when you joined the banking system, what were your first impressions of it? How was it different from the worlds you had been inhabiting in Al-Qaeda and in MI6?

AIMEN: I felt basically there is no difference between them and Al-Qaida except they’re wearing suits.

[laughter]

AIMEN: But you know, I felt, of course it's full of nerds, geeks, it's full of also lawyers.

THOMAS: Well you must have felt right at home.

AIMEN: [laughs] Yes, and one of the things is that I felt that basically that my job was quite interesting because, you know, I was moving between these three functions seamlessly. Between the security function into the counter terrorism finance function into the investigative, financial investigative function. And of course, basically I had to learn a lot. You know, I had to be mentored by other people who will teach me about finance, how banking works. How financial services work, how insurance work in order to understand how financial fraud and insurance fraud work. So it was a learning curve—

THOMAS: A steep learning curve, but presumably during your times as a terrorist and as a double agent, you were aware of how terrorist financing happens from that side. I mean, were you ever involved?

AIMEN: I was involved in it, actually. [Laughs]

THOMAS: How did that involvement work?

AIMEN: Well, we used to infiltrate charities that were operating basically in places like Afghanistan or Azerbaijan and Georgia on behalf of the Chechens or in the Philippines or in Kenya on behalf of the Somali terrorists. So basically in order to divert charitable funds and resources and donations…

THOMAS: [Overlapping] These are donations given with goodwill from people. They didn't necessarily know that you were there pocketing the money and spending it on building bombs.

AIMEN: Ah, yeah, of course. It was all done, you know, without the full knowledge of the poor donors who were thinking basically it's going to buy, you know, tents and medicine for flood victims in Afghanistan or in Somalia.

THOMAS: So you knew about terrorist financing from the terrorism side, and it was a steep learning curve to come up to speed with how the banking system works. But tell us more. How did you use the resources of banks to help governments fight terrorist financing globally?

AIMEN: Well, because basically I came with the knowledge of how terrorists move money. And then I came into a bank where they told me basically about, you know, the basics of banking. And then, I combined the two together and I started to come up with ideas of how to spot what we call hotspots of terrorism activity in terms of finance. And so we can shut them down, we can track them down. And this is when you start to see an evolution. Where the banks started to become in some countries different from others, of course, but in some countries, the banks became the eyes and ears of governments to track down the movements of individuals, not only involved in terrorism, but sometime even involved in drugs and involved in child sex trafficking because there are certain hotspots around the world where these people congregate.

THOMAS: Yes, so tell, you say you came up with ideas. What was your big idea? What ultimately, what tool did you create that allowed you to combat terrorist financing from within the bank?

AIMEN: Okay, so banks utilise something called data mining software. They are expensive. I can tell you that they cost millions of pounds or dollars or whatever. So, but the problem is, data mining is like looking into 30 needles in a billion haystacks.

THOMAS: Wow, that sounds like a big job.

AIMEN: Yeah. Therefore you still need human intelligence to direct or zoom in on certain specific spots around the world in order for the data mining software to actually yield the tangible results.

THOMAS: You need to find the right haystack so you can focus on the right needles.

AIMEN: So let's take an example of ISIS. Since ISIS now is almost destroyed, almost, like physically destroyed. In hibernation, I would say.

THOMAS: [overlapping] Yeah for now…

AIMEN: So let's take an example. A certain bank here in the UK with a very expensive data mining software operation. They were thinking logically, rather than thinking as a terrorist. [Thomas laughs] So basically, they decided that, okay, let's look at the cities on the Turkish Syrian border. If any of our debit or credit cards are used there in ATMS or in shops or at hotels or whatever, then we flag it up.

THOMAS: And these aren't major cities actually along the border.

AIMEN: Yeah cities like Urfa, cities like Gaziantep, like Kilis ,like Reyhanli …

THOMAS: Provincial cities, Turkish provincial cities.

AIMEN: So, but they all close to the Turkish-Syrian border. So it started to give them results, but the vast majority were useless results because why? It turns out basically that these cards belong to British citizens or British residents who are of Kurdish origins. And they are going there to visit their families.

THOMAS: So not terrorists.

AIMEN: They're not terrorists at all.

THOMAS: Tourists, really.

AIMEN: Tourists, not tourists only, but actually visitors, expatriates in the UK who are visiting their families for the summer or whatever. So, you know, the results were so disappointing. So, and I walk in, and I say, basically, you are looking at the wrong place. You know, there is, you have to look at Istanbul. So I remember, you know, the banker who I was dealing with, he was saying, come on Aimen. Istanbul at any given day, including residents, tourists, and visitors and day workers there will be 30 million people there. So, you know, it's impossible. I said, no, no, no, no. So I took him up, and I'm not going to mention the name of the place so they don't avoid it anymore.

THOMAS: Fair enough, fair enough, the terrorists don’t avoid it.

AIMEN: So yeah. But I draw a 16-block radius to him on the map of Istanbul. And I said, this is where you will get results.

THOMAS: And you know this, I mean this reminds me of what you were saying in episode one of this season when you were talking about being a private spy today when you would go to cities and you would talk to taxi drivers and other such people to find out where the terrorists in that city are congregating. So this is how you can use this knowledge for practical purposes with the bank. You say they're here. Look here.

AIMEN: Exactly. So when I draw that square over 16 blocks radius. They said, okay, that's, that's manageable. It's not an entire mega city like Istanbul, which is, you know, if you include Istanbul in Europe, it would be the largest city in Europe. So basically, he said, you know, that's fine. So they looked at the 16-block radius. They asked me the question, of course, how do you know? So I said, because I've been there myself. I went there, I infiltrated the place. It is an elevated place; you don't end up there by mistake. Tourists don't go there. You only go there because you want to go there. And because you have business there. It's a place basically where jihadist congregate, where immigrants from Muslim countries and…

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Because there are radical mosques there? Because…

AIMEN: Radical mosques, you know…

THOMAS: Safe houses…

AIMEN: Safe houses, you know, associations that support them. So as soon as they implemented that they started to get tangible results that ended up basically with even sometime families, UK based families, being intercepted by the Turks before they reach ISIS and then deported back to the UK.

THOMAS: To face justice here.

AIMEN: Well, not necessarily because they haven't committed a crime yet. But the idea is to bring them back, confiscate their passports, make sure they don't travel to join ISIS. So in other words, basically it really saves lives. Because these families could have been killed by the coalition bombs there when ISIS were bombed.

THOMAS: Not to mention the people they might've killed themselves.

AIMEN: Yes, exactly. So there is…so when you talk about bank saving lives… [laughs]

THOMAS: People usually don't talk about that Aimen.

[laughter]

Aimen: Indeed, but this is basically part of their CSR, their Corporate Social Responsibility. That they make sure that none of their customers is dabbling in terrorism. And this applies also to areas of concentration where drug dealings takes place. So they take the profile of the individual, let's say, basically, they wouldn't necessarily take an individual who have a Turkish surname and say, Oh, he's there, let's investigate. But if there is someone basically with an English surname, a French surname, a Pakistani surname, an Algerian surname, but end up in that area in Turkey, then…

THOMAS: It's a red flag.

AIMEN: It’s a red flag. So profiling works. It saved lives.

THOMAS: So that's Istanbul. What other cities were you able to sort of target…?

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Well Karachi, Manila, you know, in Nairobi in Kenya. So basically there are many places around the world, even places that you would think it is kind of benign, but nonetheless, there is a concentration of certain individuals there or certain activities there. Even in Bangkok for example. I mean, there are places that are famous like you know for people who unfortunately go and have, you know, inappropriate sexual relationship with young girls. So, you know…

THOMAS: To put it lightly.

AIMEN: Yeah, to put it lightly. So this is where, you know, you can really you know…

THOMAS: Infiltrate and well, what's the word you can really…

AIMEN: Detect.

THOMAS: Yeah, detect.

AIMEN: This is how you can detect terrorism intention. So, and therefore, basically you can alert the authorities.

THOMAS: So there you are now working for a bank, in fact, it was quite soon after you started in the banking system. And in 2008, the famous credit crunch, the credit crisis, the global economic crisis begins to play out really starting in April 2008 and then really hitting the fan in September of 2008. What was the environment like inside the banks as the bankers realized, Holy smokes something really bad is happening?

AIMEN: Nervousness. Oh my God, I never seen many of my colleagues nervous. And you know where I was working, it was in Canary Wharf which is the financial hub of London where the banking industry have their skyscrapers there. And I remember there is a place called the Reuters Plaza where Thomson Reuters headquarters is there and in front of the underground station, which is the equivalent of the subway in America. So I saw many people from Lehman brothers, which is just on the Plaza itself from their building coming hundreds of them with their boxes. That's it, because it collapsed, and that's it. They ceased working and their faces told me everything that I need to know.

THOMAS: Yes, Lehman Brothers, which was allowed to go bankrupt in September 2008 and Lehman Brothers, which was an enormous global investment bank, was allowed by the federal reserve bank in the United States and the treasury department of the United States to collapse. They didn't bail it out. This is usually identified as the thing that…

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Catalyst.

THOMAS: Yeah, the catalyst, the thing that really started the whole house of cards collapsing. So, lots of bankers are losing their jobs. But you didn't lose your job. Why not?

AIMEN: Because my function became more important because many companies started to default on their loans to the banks, especially in places like the Middle East. Immediately after the crisis, two large families from my own hometown owed the global banks more than $22 billion after they collapsed due to the strain of the financial crisis. So it was my job, among others, to investigate whatever assets left of those two families in order to recover as much of the bank's losses as possible.

THOMAS: So for you, the credit crunch was a job opportunity?

AIMEN: Oh, yes. Actually, I got multiple pay rises after that. [Thomas laughs] You know, because of the fact that I started working, you know, seven days a week.

THOMAS: I swear Aimen. I wish I had signed up for jihad at the age of 15 [Aimen laughs] because clearly it means that from then on you're born under a lucky star. So just to sort of provide some historical context here, the credit crisis had many phases. On the 17th of March 2008 in New York, the federal reserve bank bails out a huge bank called Bear Stearns. It bailed out Bear Stearns, which was on the verge of collapse. And this, analysts pretty much agree, increased what was already a very morally hazardous situation because all the other investment banks, which were also facing huge pressures on their, on the system at the time thought, well, we'll be bailed out too and that seems to be proved. When on the 7th of September that year, in 2008, two huge government backed mortgage security broker institutions called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the government and bailed out. And then a week later on the 15th of September, the Lehman Brothers bank was not bailed out, it was allowed to fail. Even though the following day on the 16th of September, the government did bail out the huge insurance company, AIG. So there was one bail out after another one, one rescue after another, with the exception of Lehman. But the whole world realized, oh my God, something big is happening. We're all gonna go to hell in a handcart. I can't impress upon the younger listeners that at the time, everyone was glued to their TV sets. We thought, this is it. The world is coming to an end. I can remember President George W. Bush is coming out standing in front of the cameras to give this speech about how the government was going to rescue the financial system because unless the government rescue the financial system, the whole world would end. And he was white as a sheet. He just looked like, Oh my God. He actually looked more scared during that press conference then he had a seven years earlier after 9/11.

AIMEN: Indeed, because it looked like as if the entire house of cards was collapsing and there was no one to put this back together again.

THOMAS: So Aimen, why did the credit crunch happen? I mean, we've heard about these things, I remember, and people probably remember hearing about things like credit default swaps and all these acronyms and all this financial verbiage used to be flying around. What, underlies the credit crisis?

AIMEN: It all comes down, after 14 years of being a financial investigator and still to this day, I came to the conclusion that it was the result of abandoning that concept of risk. It's abandoning risk aversion when it comes to lending.

THOMAS: So you mean banks used to lend with the full knowledge that if they lent unwisely, they would lose, they wouldn't get paid back.

AIMEN: Exactly. Banks take risk when lending, because remember, banks don't just lend what they have, banks lend where they don't have. So if you think basically that a bank is, the money that they lend you when you take a mortgage or a credit card or a loan, that this is money that is already existing there in the bank and by other depositors, then you're mistaken. The banks basically lend you between nine to ten times more than what they already have in deposits. So if a bank have $1 million of deposits, they can lend up to $10 million to customers on the knowledge that not every depositor will come and take their money at the same time.

THOMAS: This system is known as fractional reserve banking.

AIMEN: Indeed.

THOMAS: So banks are empowered to lend more than the amount of money they have in the vault.

AIMEN: Yes.

THOMAS: That obviously is an extremely risky thing to do because if you lend 10 times the amount of money you have in the vault and you don't get paid back then all the money's gone. Nobody has any money.

AIMEN: Exactly, but why we have this system? Some listeners would be screaming, why, why? And we have two answers for this. The first is to make sure that more people have access to credit. Otherwise, economic prosperity will be nothing like we have seen today since the 1950s. And the second is to increase the money supply in order for more people basically to have access to actual money in the system. The reality is that 95% of the money that we have in circulation are actually digits in--

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Computers.

AIMEN: In computers in these banks. You know, really only 5% of it is really tangible cash that we can hold. And the reason for this, some people basically saying this sounds like a Ponzi scheme, sounds like, you know, as we all it a house of cards. But this is exactly why we have such a huge amount of prosperity. Because the reality is there is no physical, tangible, currency like gold or silver or platinum that can actually correspond to the amount of wealth that is in the world right now. Whether it's natural resources, land, space, data, technology. We don't have enough--

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Anything of value.

AIMEN: Anything of value to catch up with it. I think the entire global gold and silver and platinum supply doesn't exceed $10 trillion, but the wealth, every year we generate is 250 trillion. So you see there is a 24-fold shortage of anything tangible we can use as money. And so we created a system based on trust that we have money based on confidence that it has a value. We agreed that it has a value. So when people basically say that this is unsustainable, we say, no. It is sustainable because it actually has the global wealth as a cushion to stand on it. So confidence is not a bad idea but it's a little bit fragile.

THOMAS: Yeah, it certainly is fragile as was proved in 2008. So I return to the question, in this case what caused the credit crisis to happen? Why did the house of cards collapse then?

AIMEN: The house of cards collapsed because there were too many houses in the system being bought by people who cannot afford them.

THOMAS: So the banks in America and elsewhere, primarily America, were compelled to give mortgages to people who actually in the past they wouldn't have given mortgages to because they couldn't pay back the mortgage.

AIMEN: Three letters, that’s all it takes to understand what happened, three letters, CRA.

THOMAS: The community Reinvestment Act.

AIMEN: Yes.

THOMAS: Now, this was passed in 1977 it was an act that the American government passed in order to encourage banks, if you like, or force them, to give loans to people who previously had not been able to get loans in order to buy houses. And in America because of the, you know, systemic racial injustice of America there was a sort of racialist tinge to this act because traditionally African Americans and Latino Americans hadn't had access to mortgages to the extent that white Americans had.

AIMEN: Exactly, but you do this gradually. I've learned throughout my life that if you're given adrenaline shot to any economic problem, it’s going to cause another problem in another organ somewhere else. Here's the problem is that if you have done this gradually, over years so basically you start to reduce the risk criteria by let's say 5%, 5% incrementally over time, then this crisis wouldn't have happened. What happened is that basically the risk aversion criteria has been thrown out the window altogether. In order to rectify a clearly social injustice that was always there, which is the fact that African Americans and Latino Americans couldn't have access in large to mortgages in order to buy homes. But when you suddenly remove the barriers without making them gradual, just do it now in the early 2000s, what happened is that many of them now are able to buy homes. So we're talking about millions of families are rushing into the market where there aren't already millions of homes built already to cope up with the demand. So what happened is that it created a bubble where the price of these homes…

THOMAS: Skyrocketed.

AIMEN: Yeah Because--

THOMAS: More demand than there was supplies and the price went up which caused all sorts of malinvestments to occur in the economy. Huge amounts of money was pumped into house building in order to catch up with the demand, the supply expanded, the price is expanding, and then credit is being extended in greater and greater quantities to people who can't pay back the loans. And then of course, this becomes very complicated. These bad loans are then packaged by hedge funds and sold around the world where very unscrupulous hedge fund managers are convincing global banks that, no, no, no, everything's fine. These are great. We have created very sophisticated mathematical algorithms that's going to protect you, [Aimen laughs] even though these are bad loans. They're not really bad loans because look I'm waving my magic wand. They're not bad loans, but they were bad loans, and then [explosion sound] eventually, when the time came, no one could pay them back.

AIMEN: Exactly, because what's happened is, the government, you know, in its haste to rectify certain injustices and win votes and all of that, they actually created a bubble.

THOMAS: But that's interesting because you're, you see, you know, most of the time people say that the bankers caused credit crunch, but you seem to be laying the blame more at the feet of the politicians.

AIMEN: Yes.

THOMAS: For example, there's a very famous act which regulated the banks called the Glass-Steagall Act in America, which was founded during the great depression, which separated off commercial banking, ordinary everyday checking accounts…

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Retail banking

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Retail banking from securities banking.

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Investment banking, it’s called investment banking

THOMAS: Investment banking and Commercial banking were split off from each other until 1999 when the act was repealed, which allowed the previously two kinds of banking to be carried out by the same institution. A lot of people say the repeal of Glass-Steagall is what caused the credit crunch about nine years later.

AIMEN: Not necessarily. I mean, not necessarily. Many of the banks that are actually both retail, commercial and investment banks did not suffer the same fate. Lehman Brothers was actually more of an investment bank and did not have that much of a retail banking--

THOMAS: [Overlapping] That’s true and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were certainly not banks in any traditional sense at all.

AIMEN: Exactly

THOMAS: AIG was an insurance company.

AIMEN: Yeah, so basically this is a bit of a simplistic way of looking at it. And this is why I'm saying that the reason it happened is because the government, without, you know, unintentionally, and as you know the road to hell is paved with good intentions, created a bubble. Because, okay, you have, let's say a hundred people that you want to bring into the housing market in a village. And you wanted to lower the mortgage criteria, the mortgage lending criteria in terms of risk. So you don't remove the barrier to all hundred at the same time. Otherwise, the price will skyrocket. Speculators who are greedy will come and start speculating and driving the prices even more, you know? And as a result, you end up basically with a massive bubble. And bubbles is always synonymous with modern capitalism and even as far back as the Tulip bubble in the Netherlands in the 1600s. So what you do instead of removing the barrier for the hundred people in the village, you remove the barriers first for five. Once they settle into their homes, the next five, once they settle, the next five, and then you stop to see what is the housing stock is like. I mean, are there enough supply basically to cope up with an extra five or 10 demands? That's how you do it.

THOMAS: But this sort of gradual, long-term thinking isn't exactly what our democratically elected politicians are famous for.

AIMEN: Unfortunately.

[Laughter]

THOMAS: Well, we can talk on and on about the, the details of the credit crisis from a financial point of view. But frankly, we'd put everyone to sleep. I'd like to shift now to talk about the response to the credit crisis on the ground. Because very quickly we saw in America, and spreading from America outwards, tremendous populist movements opposed really to finance capitalism as it was being practiced. Most famously, the Occupy movement, it started on Wall Street, the Occupy Wall Street movement, and then it spread to other major cities. I certainly remember here in London when the Occupy movement came here, and they, they ended up camping out in front of St. Paul's Cathedral for weeks and weeks. And it was quite funny because, you know, I remember TV interviews with the Dean and the priest of St. Paul's cathedral, you know, who are very well intentioned, nice Anglican vicars and things, were really wringing their hands. What do they do? Do they forcibly remove these protesters who are, after all animated by an antipathy to greed, which I think Jesus Christ also felt in his heart. So they didn't know what to do. Eventually, the protesters were moved on and some of the priests resigned. You know, it was, it was really an extremely sort of heady time where you had, on the one hand, the big evil forces of the banks versus, you know, plucky protesters on the ground saying, we need a new system. The system is rotten to the core.

AIMEN: I remember one of my friends at the time asked me a question, he said, Aimen, you work in the banks in it. Don't you think these banks are evil? And my answer was, this. They are too incompetent to be evil.

[Thomas laughs]

THOMAS: Well, I mean, I don't know people have told me that Al-Qaeda is incompetent, yet they are pretty evil.

[Aimen laughs]

AIMEN: Well, the problem is with the banks and I met many of their chief executives and the chief operating officers and the chief risk officers and all of these people basically to think that they are evil. It's just basically they are normal human beings like you or me who were lucky enough basically to be in the positions where they are. But you know, do they have greed? Every human have greed. And the idea that somehow the bankers are a class of their own in terms of greed is rather… You know, I've seen more royal oligarchs, and land-owning gentry who are the personification of greed. But bankers on the other hand, well, they see themselves as the conduit for human prosperity and the servants of free market forces. That's how they see themselves.

THOMAS: Hmm. I'm not sure the Occupy protesters saw them that way.

AIMEN: Yeah

THOMAS: I mean, Aimen, let's be serious, now. You've described the system, you're, you know, in general, a very objective observer of this system. But isn't injustice to some extent, at least built into this system? Doesn't it favour some people over other people and caused this growing inequality that we see today?

AIMEN: Of course.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Are we just supposed to accept that?

AIMEN: Yes. The entire economic system of the world as it is right now will always have inherent injustices built into it. Why? Because life is unjust. Life is unfair. You cannot escape the unfairness of this world in any sector of it, no matter what. And this is the problem. And when people basically say that we want to build a completely fair, equitable, society, and I say, while it is noble, unfortunately, when you try to go against nature, nature, fight back. You know, and this is, you know, the problem basically with the financial world. Okay, I’ll give you an example now. Let’s say that, we are in the UK here, so let's basically take the entire UK population, 65 million people, let's say that we take all the wealth that everyone owns, and let's give everyone £10,000 to start with a new life, leveling everyone at the same level. And let's start. I guarantee you Thomas, that everyone have £10,000 today, within a week, within one week, we will have millionaires emerging. Within a month, we will have multi-millionaires emerging, and within a year we will have billionaires emerging/

THOMAS: Because it's just the natural order of things…?

AIMEN: The natural order that's it.

THOMAS: This is very depressing.

AIMEN: No, it's not depressing. It's the problem that not every human is as responsible with money as others.

THOMAS: Yes and not every human is as immoral as others. I mean, some people will steal that money. Some people will trick other people out of their money.

AIMEN: Exactly, but some people basically will come up entrepreneurial ideas, you know with products, that other people want to buy and they will start accumulating this money because they are making products.

THOMAS: I suppose your point is that before long, the world would just return to more or less what we have today. [Laughs]

AIMEN: Exactly I mean, so what I'm saying to people is that, do not be financially illiterate. You need to understand what wealth is and what money is.

THOMAS: Let's get back to that in a second. I know this is one of your great bug bears. We'll get to that in a second. I want to move away now from the Western world because we've talked about how in the higher echelons of Wall Street panic broke out and the banks were bailed out and government got involved. And down on the ground level in Wall Street, the Occupy movement rose to fight against the evil bankers. Now, as all of this is playing out in the West over the next 18 months, In the Middle East, something occurs which we discussed in season one of Conflicted. The Arab Spring breaks out first in Tunis, it spreads. It spreads to Cairo, it spreads to Damascus, it spreads to Yemen. It spreads everywhere, Bahrain. The Arabs are rising up against their rulers and they're saying, we want justice, we want democracy, we want freedom, or whatever they're saying. Is there a link between these two things? On the one hand, a kind of ground swell of anti-capitalist movement in the West and the Arab Spring in the East?

AIMEN: What people don't understand is that the world is a village. And you know, in one corner you have finance, in the other corner you have industry, in the other corner you have commerce, in the other corner you have agriculture, and in the center you have water. So the water, I mean by that, basically the energy of the world in oil and gas and natural resources, like in the Arab world and the Muslim world, you know. And the finance is America. The industry is Europe and China, and the agricultural is India and Russia and other places basically. And so you see, basically the world is interdependent. So if America sneeze, the rest of the world catch a cold.

THOMAS: Well America sneezed in 2008 and by January of 2011 the Arabs were on the street.

AIMEN: Exactly, why? Because everything because of, two words, really. The supply chain. The supply chain, we come back to the supply chain. Now when there is a credit crunch here, in North America, in Europe, people stop buying products. Now these products, let's say clothing, you will see lots of clothes basically, made in Morocco, made in, from Egyptian cotton, you know, made in Bangladesh or China or whatever. I mean, basically these are made from materials obtained from different other countries. You might wear a sweater, but this sweater basically, could have been handled in four countries by the time it comes to you.

THOMAS: So a access to credit in the West contracts, demand in the West goes down, and therefore the people who've been supplying that demand, they no longer have any orders. They're not being asked to make shirts anymore.

AIMEN: Exactly. Not just only shirts, but parts or even extraction.

THOMAS: So how does that lead to the Arab spring?

AIMEN: Because what's happened here is you end up with a situation where you have more unemployed. You'll have more unemployed. The whole Arab world caught fire because one single individual who was a university graduate and unemployed, Bouazizi

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Set himself on fire.

AIMEN: Set himself on fire and the rest of the world with him on fire, actually.

THOMAS: In protest against kind of

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Unemployment.

THOMAS: Well he had a little stall. He had a little market stall--

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Because of the unemployment.

THOMAS: I see, He was forced to resort to simply selling vegetables on the street.

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: And then some unscrupulous bureaucrat was oppressing him, and he decided the whole system was rotten. So he set himself on fire. And from there it spread.

AIMEN: Exactly. So that is why, you know, the idea that somehow what affects one part of the world doesn't affect the rest, and these ideas of protectionism and we need to be putting tariffs and putting walls and putting — no. We are in the 21st century and whatever happens in one corner of the world affects the rest of it.

THOMAS: That's one way of putting it but another way of, since we're talking about the New World Order, is that, you know, if America has erected this globalized order, globalization after all. Where, as you said, agriculture is in one part of the world, manufacturing is another part of the world and it's all being financed from the huge banks in London and in New York. Doesn't it mean that the New World Order is inherently fragile? Do we want a world order where if a bank sneezes in New York, unemployment throughout the Middle East grows to such an extent that civil wars breakout?

AIMEN: Let's put it this way. When I said to you, the world is now a global village, then what we see here is that, yes, it's a fragile village, but it's a prosperous one. Because look at the levels of abject poverty in the world in 2020 and look at the abject poverty in the world in the 1900s, just a 120 years ago. In the year 1900 I think the abject poverty basically reached heights of 80 and 90%. Now abject poverty around the world basically is around 9%. So to tell me basically that globalization did not shrink poverty is rather disingenuous in anyone's argument. So that's why I'm saying that yes, it’s fragile, but because it relies on peace and order as a conduit for this prosperity. But if peace and order start to crumble and nations started fighting each other, then the entire system collapse.

THOMAS: Well, it's true. I mean, it certainly is true that that abject poverty has decreased. It's hard to tell that to, say a poor Egyptian who has no job, has no money, bread subsidies are being lifted up because neoliberal ideology is taking hold there. He can't even feed his family. So he goes into Tahrir square and just starts demanding... Well, this is the interesting thing. What is he demanding? You know, during the Arab spring, the demands were more political than economic, it was all about democracy. We want democracy. But would you say that in fact, the Arab Spring protesters were barking up the wrong tree? It wasn't really about politics, it was more about the economic systems of the Arab world that needed reform? That just changing the politicians wouldn't do that, wouldn't do the trick or extending the vote isn't really going to achieve anything? Is that what you're saying? Or is it all sort of mixed up together?

AIMEN: Look, they understand—

THOMAS: They, you mean the Arab Spring protesters.

AIMEN: The Arab Spring protesters understood from the beginning that it's the oligarchy that is ruling them, which basically monopolize the money. If you look at every country, which you know, the system entirely collapsed. If you look at Ben Ali…

THOMAS: This is in Tunisia.

AIMEN: Yeah. He, his daughter, his son in law, controlled lots of businesses basically in Tunisia. And look what happened.

THOMAS: Egypt?

AIMEN: Egypt, the president, his two sons, Gamal and Alaa Mubarak

THOMAS: [Overlapping] The whole army.

AIMEN: The whole army as well as the party apparatus, Hosni Mubarak’s party, the national democratic party apparatus. All of these people who controlled, monopolized many aspects of the economy.

THOMAS: Libya?

AIMEN: Libya, of course. Basically you have…

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Colonel Gaddafi

AIMEN: Colonel Gaddafi and his sons.

THOMAS: Saif al-Islam!

AIMEN: Saif al-Islam, Hannibal, Moatassem

THOMAS: [laughs] Hannibal! Can you imagine naming your son Hannibal, really? [Aimen laughs]

AIMEN: Well, you know, he believes that… He hated the Italians so much because basically of Italy’s history in Libya and you think basically, okay, our neighbors the Tunisians have Carthage, and we were a part of the Phoenician-Carthaginian heritage. So I should name my son, Hannibal, the scourge of Rome.

[Laughter]

THOMAS: The man who conquered Rome, well almost conquered Rome…

AIMEN: Almost conquered Rome, to spite the Italians so…

THOMAS: Anyway, So Gaddafi controls a lot of the economy. The Tunisian leadership controls the Tunisian economy, the Egyptian leadership—

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Same with Syria, Syria for example, you know Bashar al-Assad’s mother, Anisa Makhlouf, her brothers and her nephews, Rami Makhlouf and others, they control 60% of the Syrian economy. Just let this sink in 60%.

THOMAS: Yemen?

AIMEN: In Yemen, it was far more different, but it was a failure of this nation state to provide any sort of services whatsoever.

THOMAS: So you think that the Arab Spring protestors really did know that when they're protesting against their government in the name of democracy, what they're actually wanting is the dismantlement of this oligarchic, corrupt oligarchic economic system and increase there of economic opportunities for everyone, basically liberalism. Basically the thing that the American New World Order is supposed to be giving them.

AIMEN: The ruler of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid in 2011, he gave a speech, it was a rare speech where he was so candid. He was so candid. He was saying to the audience in a conference in Arabic, he was saying that, I always have told my colleagues and my friends remember, he is also the prime minister of the UAE as well as being the ruler of Dubai. He said, I've been saying to my colleagues in the Arab world, feed your people, give them jobs, give them opportunities. Do not allow certain people to monopolize everything. Because what's going to happen is that these people will end up rising against you, because hungry people have nothing to lose. Hungry people got nothing to lose. So, and this is why in the UAE, as well as other resource rich countries in the Arab world, you know, the royals are very rich, filthy rich. But at the same time, they do not really squeeze the people out of their savings and out of their pockets. They still allow people to have loans to build houses. They give them free parcels of land. Land is free. Give them parcels of land, give them long term loans from the government…

THOMAS: [overlapping] Encourage entrepreneurship.

AIMEN: Yeah. You know, encourage entrepreneurship, give them loans to start businesses, send them to America and to Europe to gain degrees. I remember during the election campaign here in the UK, whenever you hear, you know, people who are leaning towards, you know, socialism like Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the labor party, whenever basically he talks about economic models, I always look at him and say the country that you most hate in the world, which is Saudi Arabia, he’s written so much against it, it's the economic model that you want to implement, you idiot. You know it's the one you wanted because basically, he wants free education. Well, Saudi have got a free education, and actually they send their students basically to Western countries to pay their tuition fees, their tickets…

THOMAS: Hundreds and thousands of students.

AIMEN: Hundreds of thousands, I think by far now is 400,000 students who have benefited from this. They've got salaries and accommodation and their tuition fee paid and tickets back and forth to their education destinations. So, you know, free healthcare, or insurance covered by the government or by the employer.

THOMAS: A very generous housing program for citizens.

AIMEN: Exactly. So the question is, you know, what is it that you hate about them then? Apart from being pro-American. Is there anything else? Their economy is a mix of state enterprise, profitable state enterprise, and private sector enterprise.

THOMAS: Well, sure, but Saudi Arabia also has that little magic bullet of huge amounts of oil to sell.

AIMEN: I tell you something, every time someone brought up this issue and says, Oh, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman, whatever, they have oil man. They have oil so of course they would be economic successful, and I will say yes, this is partly true, but if it is purely just natural resources, then Venezuela, and the DRC, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, will be far richer than Saudi Arabia. Because the DRC sits on $25 trillion worth of—

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Natural resources.

AIMEN: Natural resources and Venezuela have more oil than Saudi Arabia. And yet, look at both of them right now. It's not about, purely just natural resources. It’s about—

THOMAS: [Overlapping] How you empower the economy to take advantage of them.

AIMEN: Exactly. Exactly. That's why when people tell me the Arab world, they rose against oligarchy. And I say yes, but they say, well, Royal families are oligarchs too. And I will say yes, but the difference here between one set of oligarchs and the other is that if one oligarch or a government. Let's put it this way, if a government runs its country as a business and take stock of the potential of this country to generate profit, then you have prosperity comes in. So if you look at the model that is followed in China, in Turkey, you know, to some extent, especially between 2003 and 2014 in Turkey, and in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, in UAE, in Singapore, in Hong Kong, in the city-states. If you see that they are running their countries as businesses, any country will look at its capabilities. It will look at geographical position, whether advantages or not, population size, big or small, natural resources, you know, many or none.

THOMAS: Geographical location.

AIMEN: Cultural sites for tourism, natural beauty, there are many ways in which our country can look at all the negatives and positives, advantages, disadvantages, and basically makes it work. And then start with the idea. First of all, everything you've learned about economics in terms of Marxism, Capitalism, whatever…

THOMAS: All the great 19th century ideological buzzwords.

AIMEN: Exactly, throw it in the rubbish right now dear listener, please throw it in the rubbish.

[Thomas laughs]

THOMAS: Aimenomics, everyone. Here we go. Aimenomics.

AIMEN: Why? Because we live in the 21st century where the last 10 years technological advances were more than the past hundred years put together and the past hundred years were more than the past 10,000 years put together. Which means we need new kinds of economics. And with the world becoming a global village where we are so interdependent because of technology, because of the communication revolution, and the information revolution, we need to have new kind of economics.

THOMAS: Not some one size fits all, global paradigm of neoliberal American domination but...

AIMEN: Or socialism.

THOMAS: Or socialism.

AIMEN: No, we don't need Marxism. We don't need capitalism.

THOMAS: So when you said that countries should be run like companies, you're not just parroting some super right-wing capitalist perspective.

AIMEN: No, I tell you something. The right-wing people basically say the state should just regulate and should not run any business whatsoever. I disagree. And the left-wing will say that the government should own the means of production and run them for no profit motive, for the benefit of the people. That also I disagree with. What I agree with is a country where there is a state enterprise run efficiently for profit and also private sector that actually supports the public sector to achieve profit and to maximize the prosperity for the people.

THOMAS: And this is the model being pursued in these countries like Turkey and China and elsewhere that you mentioned.

AIMEN: Exactly. So when someone says to me, Aimen, have you seen any, for God's sake, any state-run company that generate profit? Because this is the skeptics always. And I tell them, yes, the largest company in the whole world.

THOMAS: Saudi Aramco.

AIMEN: Saudi Aramco. Because my father worked there, my uncles, all of them without exception work there, half of my cousins and their kids work there. So I know all about Aramco and I can't tell you basically that the largest state-run enterprise in the world is the most profitable company in the world. In 2018 they made $111 billion more than the other five largest oil companies that come behind them combined.

THOMAS: Well, of course. I want to counter by saying, well, you can sell oil, so pump oil out of the ground, you sell it. I mean, is that so difficult?

AIMEN: Look at the national oil company of Venezuela, they are making losses all the time. And basically the other five private companies just behind Aramco globally combined together, actually, they have larger production value together than Aramco. Yet their profits were less than Aramco, even though they are privately run, and Aramco is a state run--

THOMAS: It's also very important to point out that Saudi Aramco doesn't just sell oil. It actually is the linchpin of an incredibly sophisticated petrochemical industry that the Saudi state has allowed to grow in Saudi Arabia where they don't just sell the oil, they refine the oil. They oversee manufacturer of oil products. So it's a whole industry, which leads to economic prosperity there.

AIMEN: Exactly. So, you know, and Saudi Arabia and other companies basically like this. Maaden which is their minerals company.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Mineral company.

AIMEN: They do that. So they do that. So actually, Norway does that. You know, it's not just only—

THOMAS: Yeah, the Norwegian oil company is state owned and profitable.

AIMEN: Equinor. Equinor is profitable, and this is state owned. The idea that somehow, we are afraid that the state will be inefficient, well look, if you have the will, you can create state owned companies that generate profits and compete like capitalist companies, like free market companies in that market, like each other.

THOMAS: This sounds remarkably moderate and balanced for you, Aimen. You're basically arguing for an intelligently designed and run mixed economy. Some state ownership, some private ownership, as long as everyone is animated by the profit motive in order to spread prosperity more generally.

AIMEN: Exactly. So first of all, leftist should drop this notion that profit is immoral.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Evil.

AIMEN: And the right-wing, you know, ultra-capitalists should drop the notion that there will be no efficient and profitable state-run enterprises.

THOMAS: But Aimen, what about, dare I ask it… democracy? Human rights? Liberal societies? I mean, you've mentioned China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. They don't really score very highly when it comes to that side of political economy.

AIMEN: Of course they don't score highly on that side.

THOMAS: Is that not something we should care about?

AIMEN: Of course we should care about the human rights of every single human being on this planet. Their right of free speech, the right to assemble, the right basically to express themselves. The freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of not having a religion to begin with.

THOMAS: How does that square with what you're advocating?

AIMEN: Okay. Because politics and economics are two separate things. And anyone who tried basically to argue otherwise. Look at China. Look at Hong Kong. Look at Singapore. Look at Saudi Arabia. Look at Norway. All of them have very different politics from each other. Yet they all achieved some sort of, you know, successful mixed economy of efficient, profitable state enterprise and a thriving private sector.

THOMAS: And perhaps the idea is: with prosperity down the line will come an increase in the protection of human rights and democracy, or not necessarily? This is of course, what animated George H. W. Bush’s New World Order. The idea that with prosperity would come, democracy, would come liberal democracy. It doesn't seem to be happening that way.

AIMEN: It doesn't seem to be happening because the more prosperous I see people become… For example, I have friends of mine in Saudi Arabia who were extremely critical of the government, the vision 2030. And the fact basically that there will be liberalization of the economy—

THOMAS: [Overlapping] This is an enormous program of reform, particularly economic, but also social and cultural reform that has been going on in Saudi Arabia since the coming to power of King Salman and the rise to power of now Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia. It's called Saudi Arabia Vision 2030.

AIMEN: But with this liberalization and economic reforms comes greater repression, greater control over people's thought. I mean, basically there is less freedom of thought in Saudi Arabia in 2020 than that was in 2014.

THOMAS: Isn’t that bad?

AIMENL: Oh, of course it's bad. No question about it. But the friends who I had who were critical suddenly changed their minds when they started having good jobs. Oh I love it. Now I have a job, they were telling me about the new joint ventures between big international companies and Saudi companies. They got jobs finally after they graduated long time ago from universities in the U.S. and what about the oppression? You were talking to me about, Oh, it's such a stifling situation in Saudi Arabia. We can't speak our minds. Oh yeah. I was just basically angry about being unemployed, but now I'm employed. [Thomas laughs] You know, I have a parcel of land now from the government and they are going to give me a loan to build a house on it and finally, I can get married. Suddenly all the talk about, you know, freedom, democracy and human rights evaporated as soon as you know, Mohammed bin Salman stuffed in a, a wad of cash in their mouth.

Thomas: Aimen I know last time I said that you were depressing me. I don't want to say this time that you have depressed me, although you do have this remarkable capacity of spinning an optimistic narrative that leaves me thinking, things aren't really that good. [Aimen laughs] But as ever your perspective is informed and thought provoking. It does make me wonder if the New World Order that America set out to create in the 90s, which we discovered last time when talking about China has countered a serious rival in the Chinese’s own version of that order, that the New World Order, the idea that through globalization, prosperity will increase, that through globalization the globe will become a village and we'll all be interconnected and that ultimately in some way fitfully we will all benefit from this, maybe it's not that it is failing, but that it is succeeding--

AIMEN: Economically.

THOMAS: Just not in the way that America expected and perhaps not ultimately to America's own benefit.

AIMEN: I tell you something. Do you know who really won the globalization game so far? Really? Google, Apple, Twitter, Facebook…

THOMAS: Silicon Valley

AIMEN: Silicon Valley. They were the ultimate beneficiaries of globalization.

THOMAS: Well, we are going to talk about Silicon Valley, among other things next time on our final episode of this season of Conflicted. As we've been discussing today, after the credit crunch, the Occupy movement rose to try to fight back against what they considered to be the injustices of global capitalism. The Occupy movement in the end fizzled out or did it? In the next episode, we'll describe the way the anti-capitalism movement following the credit crunch morphed into Extinction Rebellion and other environmental activist movements. And how with the end or at least mutation of the New World Order the new game changer for global politics may be the end of the world. That's right. We'll be talking about the climate crisis in the last episode of this series. I'm sure it will be a doozy.

[Outro music plays]

THOMAS: If you would still like to find out more about the effects of the 2008 credit crunch, enter our competition to win a copy of a wonderful book called ‘Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed’ the World by Adam Tooze. This is presently the definitive narrative history of the 2008 financial crisis. Tooze is an excellent writer and though his left-leaning views would probably irritate Aimen, the book is well worth reading. To be in the running to win, just make sure to become a member of our Facebook group before the 15th of April. Find it by searching ‘Conflicted Podcast Discussion Group’ on Facebook. In the group, you will find articles and further reading and it's also a place for you to enter into discussions with all the other Conflicted listeners. You can also find Conflicted on Twitter. We are at MHConflicted. And if you enjoy listening to the show, please do us a favor and rate us, review us, or maybe even tell other real human beings in your life about Conflicted. Join Aimen and me in two weeks’ time for the next episode of Conflicted. In which we conclude our journey across the unraveling of America's New World Order.

Conflicted S2 E4 - China 3.0

From the protests in Hong Kong, to the persecution of the Uighurs and the building of the New Silk Road, this episode explores the role China played in the New World Order.

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THOMAS: Hello there. Welcome back to Conflicted. I'm Thomas Small and my friend and cohost Aimen Dean is here with me as well. Hello Aimen.

AIMEN: Hello Thomas.

THOMAS: How are you? Have you contracted Coronavirus yet?

AIMEN: Not yet.

THOMAS: I believe we're all going to die of it soon. [Laughs]

AIMEN: [Laughs] No.

THOMAS: Well, inshallah, as you say. So far in season two, we have been dissecting America's ambition following the end of the Cold War to establish a New World Order of global capitalism, liberal democracy, all protected by America's military might. Last time we talked about Russia and about America's ambition to establish a new profitable partnership with their old enemy, and about how thanks to Vladimir Putin that didn't quite work out. So, we've done the Middle East and we've done Russia, and today we're focusing on the third object of America's attention as it strove to build a New World Order. And of course, I'm talking about China. For the New World Order to succeed, China would have to be fully integrated into the global economy, which would result, or so America believed, in China's leadership enthusiastically embracing, liberal democracy. Let's discuss how successful that plan was.

[THEME MUSIC]

THOMAS: So Aimen, in your life now as a contractor let's say, around the world [Aimen laughs] working with all sorts of governments, you have grown into something of an authority on really the entire, what used to be called the Developing World, but let's face it, they're pretty developed now. So, you have authority to speak on China, would you say?

AIMEN: From a political and security point of view, yes, to an extent. Because in my first trip into China, and it was the first of hundreds of other trips like it afterwards, was in 2010 when I was invited by one of the largest oil and natural gas companies, state owned, to lecture on issues regarding security. After the lecture, I ended up basically being signed on as their security advisor in the Middle East, and I started basically frequenting China sometimes six, seven times a year or more than that.

THOMAS: What was your first impression of China when you arrived?

AIMEN: Um…

THOMAS: And we're talking Beijing here?

AIMEN: Yeah, but, Beijing, I went to Hong Kong, of course. Basically, and other places across China. From the Northeast, all the way to the Northwest and beyond. So, I really was fascinated by this society, by this place. I remember my first trip was in the middle of winter, so it was so cold, [laughs] but in time my relationships started to extend beyond just, you know, oil and telecommunication companies, started even to grow, even with the government departments there. You know, in order to basically talk with them, think tanks. Actually, you know, advise the leadership of the Communist Party. So, I started basically to have, a greater integration with them in terms of understanding, first of all, their fears and also their aspirations. Their fears of dealing with the Muslim world, but at the same time, their aspirations into really economically conquering the Muslim world as they have done in the 1420s, 1430s and 1440s during the voyage of the Muslim admiral from China, Zheng He. So, they wanted to have this extended trade network with the Muslim world, because that's where the energy is, and that's where the potential for China's economic expansionism is.

THOMAS: We're going to get there in the end. So, let's focus our attention on Hong Kong and see what the tensions between it and China can tell us about the wider question of an American-led New World Order. Aimen, as you know, Napoleon famously said, “China is a sleeping lion, let her sleep for when she wakes she will shake the world.”

AIMEN: I would have corrected him by saying, China is a sleeping dragon.

THOMAS: Ooh. When she wakes, she will burn the world!

AIMEN: Well in this case, I'm not saying burning the world, but I would say basically more or less embracing the world. [Laughs] But how tightly this embrace and how suffocating, well, that's what we are going to discuss today.

THOMAS: So, the theory has been for the last 40 years or so, that if China is integrated into the global order of world trade and the American-led Atlanticist order that that they built up following the second world war and ramped up following the end of the Cold War, if China could be integrated into that, then, not only would economic growth occur there, but liberal democracy would flourish there. Why do you suppose Western leaders first assumed this to be the case that that with economic growth comes liberal democracy?

AIMEN: I think because they always equated capitalism or free market system with liberal values and democracy which is not the case. If you look at many prosperous nations around the world, not all of them basically follow the same liberal democracy and human rights as others. I mean, you know, there are many prosperous nations that are really autocracies.

THOMAS: So from the Western, I mean, when we're talking about the West, this is just an ideological fixation. Liberal democracy and capitalism go together. They just think that, but there's no reason to think that.

AIMEN: There is no reason. I mean, just look at, for example, a country like the United Arab Emirates, or Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia. And if you look at a country like, even Singapore because it is very strict. You can't chew gum there. You can't throw anything on the street. You know, it's very, very regimented.

THOMAS: Not known for its liberal regime.

AIMEN: Exactly. So, if you look at a country like the United Arab Emirates, I mean, people there do not have the aspirations to become a liberal democracy because for them they believe that well, look, we're already a free market, free enterprise society. We are doing really well. Why do we have to rock the boat?

THOMAS: I want to stop you so that we don't get off track because we’re talking about China. And so, we've said now that the West was looking at China and thought, we've got to make them liberal democrats. We'll make them liberal democrats by incorporating them into our global economic system and with prosperity will come liberal democracy. Fine. Let's move away from America's point of view and try to imagine ourselves into China's point of view, particularly the point of view of the Chinese leadership. And as this series is talking about the New World Order, the post-Cold War world, it's good if we start back in 1989. The Berlin Wall is falling and precisely around that time in China, the Communists are crushing protesters in Tiananmen Square. This is a very famous event, the protests by students in Tiananmen square in Beijing. I remember, 10 years old, I guess, maybe 11, I remember watching it on TV and that famous image of the lone student standing in front of the Chinese tank. Daring the tank to crush him, daring the Chinese regime to crush his aspirations for a more liberal, more democratic China. Do you remember that episode from where you were at the time in Eastern Saudi Arabia?

AIMEN: Vividly. I was a child in Saudi Arabia, but it was a picture that was posted in most of the Arab newspapers at the time.

THOMAS: So, the Chinese are, the Chinese leadership I should say, in Beijing are watching the Soviet Union slowly collapse while struggling but succeeding in crushing any liberal dissent internally. But as they're watching the Soviet Union collapse, they're pretty concerned that the same thing might happen to them. They were born out of the same sort of ideology as the Soviet Union. You know, Maoism, Communist China, they had been allies of the Soviet Union before famously they broke away for geopolitical reasons that we don't want to go into. But they shared so much in common with the Soviet Union ideologically that they are… obviously the collapse of that empire would have threatened them, would have frightened them. So, they're determined not to have the same thing happen to them. Do you think it was ever likely around that time that the same thing could happen to them?

AIMEN: Well, what was going on through their mind and, remember basically that the Chinese leadership have greater collective wisdom at least than the collective wisdom of the Soviet Union leadership at that time, so for them they realize that Tiananmen was a wake-up call. And some within the party, within the Communist Party, decided that the direction is to go into more oppression and more state control. Dong Shao Ping, he basically envisioned that, no, we can survive. We can basically survive as a quasi-communist government. If we liberalize the markets. He basically saw that there is a way forward for China.

THOMAS: I think the, the important point here is about is to really ignore ideas about Communism. It gets in the way. The Chinese leadership were primarily interested less in maintaining Communism as an ideology.

AIMEN: [Overlapping] It is to maintain power

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Instead maintaining their one-party totalitarian rule.

AIMEN: Yup

THOMAS: They want one party rule in China focused entirely on Beijing, and their totalitarian system had already over the proceeding 40 years been through a lot. I mean, during the period of Chairman Mao, there were two great waves of extraordinary, really extraordinary, violence and social disruption let us call it. First, the so-called great leap forward, which caused a famine that killed about 30 million people. And then only 10 years or so later, the so-called Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution, which killed at least 20 million. So, China has been through the ringer. Now in the 70s, things began to change. Nixon famously went to China in 1972 and brought China in from the cold, and from that point onward, the American leadership worked closely with China. At the time, of course, thinking well, since China and the Soviet Union have fallen out, we can maybe take advantage of that by making the enemy of our enemy our friends. And then following Mao's death when this Dong Shao Ping becomes the premier, he starts this shift away from Maoism and towards allowing aspects of a free market, or at least a private property dominated economy in the country. So, China has already, by the time of Tiananmen Square started to make these moves. But you're saying that Tiananmen Square was a wake-up call, but it wasn't a wake-up call like maybe the West wished it to be. They didn't think we need to have liberalism. They just said, what.

AIMEN: What they said is we should embrace pragmatism. In other words, that if the people have enough, if the people have financial aspirations, then their political aspirations can be kept in check.

THOMAS: So this is in fact the opposite of the Western point of view. So, the Chinese are saying with prosperity will come political quiescence. Now that's, that's interesting because in the last months we have seen in Hong Kong, the opposite of political quiescence. The Hong Kong people are rising up. Hong Kong, which is a very important bastion of the Western economic system, right there beside China. Sort of quasi a part of China since 1997 which beginning in April, 2019 has seen lots of protests which became increasingly violent, increasingly inflammatory over all sorts of questions. Questions that really get to the heart of the Western economic system, what's called neoliberalism, because in Hong Kong they're facing growing property prices, the young generation feel disenfranchised, economic growth is stagnating. The system actually, though it seems to have a veneer of democracy, is being revealed more and more to just be a kind of economic capitalist, crony capitalist oligarchy. So, first of all, before we start analyzing it, what can you tell me about these Hong Kong protests? Why did they start? When did they start? What do the people who are protesting in Hong Kong want?

AIMEN: Okay. In Hong Kong, the protesters are protesting mostly because of the extradition treaty between China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Which talks about basically the extradition of criminals or people basically who have been deemed a criminal in the Chinese justice system, and Hong Kong Justice System and in Taiwan Justice system. So basically, the idea is that it's an extradition treaty. So someone would say, is that really? And I will answer no, basically –

THOMAS: Well it’s true…

AIMEN: It's a culmination of so many things and the feeling that this is just an excuse by China to extend this hegemony into Hong Kong.

THOMAS: Now Aimen, it must be said that the Chinese crackdown against these protesters has been, at least from our lights, severe. President Xi Jinping, China's strong man at the moment. He threatened the protesters openly. He said that ‘any attempt to endanger China's national sovereignty and security, or to challenge the power of the central government crossed a red line and would be dealt with harshly’. He did say that. Which is in general, a very clear articulation of the Chinese political perspective, which is: you will not stop us. China is going to win.

AIMEN: But you know, basically there hasn't been any direct Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong.

THOMAS: But he said they would.

AIMEN: They would, but they didn't.

THOMAS: I know, but they will.

[AIMEN LAUGHS]

THOMAS: I mean but they will. The Hong Kong police have cracked down very harshly and everyone knows, you know, to whom the Hong Kong police actually answer. [Laughs]

AIMEN: Yeah, but whose fault is that? You know, Britain did not defend its position in Hong Kong.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] It is not Britain's fault that Hong Kong police are cracking down on-- Britain doesn't have the power to--

AIMEN: [Overlapping] What I mean, basically is that they left in 1997. So, 22 years later, who do you think basically the Hong Kong police would answer to? If it's not to China, then to who? Because—

THOMAS: Maybe to the people of Hong Kong. That'd be nice.

AIMEN: Yeah, but in 20 years it will go back to China. [Laughs]

THOMAS: It's true. Well, in 20 years they can deal with that. It must be pointed out that for almost 200 years, Hong Kong was part of the British Empire. It was sort of leased to the British in the early 19th century on a long lease, and that lease came up in 1997 at which point Hong Kong was handed back to the Chinese. Now, a very complicated set of negotiations led up to that handover. And one of the many things that, one of the many concessions that the Chinese agreed to, was for example, not to extradite criminals from one justice system to the other because the Hong Kong residents were, for justifiable reasons, afraid that the legal system of Hong Kong based on British common law and respect for human rights and things might clash with the system in China. So, the extradition treaty may seem like a small thing, but it symbolizes something. Which is that the agreement that the Chinese had made might be coming apart and that the Hong Kong will be integrated more completely into the Chinese system, which Hong Kong people fear. Is that fair?

AIMEN: Well, one of my bosses when I was working in that particular global bank I used to work for after I left the UK intelligence services, he said to me that up to 1997 the people of Hong Kong were feeling so nervous that between 1992 and 1997 many, many people basically migrated to Canada, the U.S., U.K. and other places, you know, because they were afraid that the handover will make them proper Chinese. And remember, 1997 China wasn't as advanced as now.

THOMAS: And the shadow of Tiananmen Square hangs over this whole conversation.

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: Throughout the 90s China was still kind of a baddie. It hadn't been, you know, it hadn't been brought in entirely from the cold.

AIMEN: Exactly, but you know, when I started going to Hong Kong, I started to see basically that people there were relaxed about it because why? Because up until then, up until, even up until the celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the handover in 2017.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] In 2017 yeah

AIMEN: Because I was there in Hong Kong also, and I was seeing all these, you know, billboards and advertisement and celebration of ‘better together’ and all of that. So, you know, you ask people there and they say, well, so far China did not interfere too much, but also people are saying we are now almost halfway to become fully integrated into China. It is 2047, that's a date when the special status, most likely, the special status of Hong Kong as an SAR, a Special Administrative Region of China, will come to an end.

THOMASL This was also part of the negotiations with the British at the handover that the-

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Exactly

THOMAS: The settlement that they agreed on would last only 50 years, at which point China would do with Hong Kong what it wished, and everyone assumes that will be to incorporate it as a proper, a proper part of, of the country.

AIMEN: Exactly. But since then, if you see basically the Pearl River Delta

THOMAS: [Overlapping] The Pearl river Delta.

AIMEN: Yeah. And we're talking here about, you know, Macau, Hong Kong, but also Shenzhen and Guangzhou. So basically, all of these cities, you know, there are over 95 million people basically live in that Delta. And China now has basically built a sea bridge over that Delta in order to connect all the four cities together.

THOMAS: So they're coming, the infrastructure is being laid down already.

AIMEN: Exactly. So, for them, for the people of Hong Kong, they started to feel that, Oh my God, we're being incorporated. But at the same time, the living standards, you know, in the cities around Hong Kong, especially Shenzhen just to the North of it, started to improve considerably. And this is the mainland China, and this is something that started to affect the people of Hong Kong where they started to have this kind of double loyalty. They fear China, but at the same time, they admire the fact that China builds while Hong Kong doesn't. There is a monopoly of land in Hong Kong, and that basically has caused many young people to feel despair over the fact that they will never be able to own a property because it is the most expensive real estate in the whole world

THOMAS: This is extremely interesting to hear because in a way, Hong Kong is like a little Western satellite just beyond China. And the West as well is kind of going through waves of a similar realizations. That its relative prosperity is less than it used to be vis-a-vis the rest of the world, especially China, as a result of which it doesn't command the same sort of power. It looks across at China and is a little bit concerned or half concern, half admiring. Property values throughout the Western world are skyrocketing, especially in the cities. The young generation can't afford to buy houses, including, you know, even the generation like myself. And so, the Hong Kong people are kind of going through the same thing,

AIMEN: But 10 times worse. Ask any person from Hong Kong, can you afford to buy a house? Which is in reality, a shoe box in a high rise. That's what it is. And they will tell you, basically it's, you know, not until they are in their forties they can, you know, they would be able to afford. Um, and that is the problem here. Is the fact—

THOMAS: [overlapping] It’s true, Hong Kong is the world's most expensive real estate market, by far. The average house $1.2 million in, in Hong Kong. This is well above Singapore, which is the second most expensive in the world. So that's a big problem. Hong Kong's real estate prices are extremely high.

AIMEN: Not for shortage of land.

THOMA: Not for shortage of land? It's an Island!

AIMEN: Yeah, no, but still, they have a good, decent part of the mainland, basically that belongs to them. So basically, it's not a shortage of land. It is the monopolization of land by the land department of the government of Hong Kong. They rarely basically put out small parcels of land for development or for auction. And of course, it would be the highest bidder. And as a result, you know, the prices just keep going higher and higher and higher. They control it because basically of the fact that there is, when people say Hong Kong is you know, a democracy I really start to laugh. It's an oligarchy of real estate barons.

THOMAS: It's true. Hong Kong is headed up by someone called a “Chief Executive,” which is quite funny cause that's an expression we usually associate with the world of corporations. So the Hong Kong Chief Executive oversees a committee, which is dominated by property oligarchs really, but then who also have their fingers in all the pies of Hong Kong.

AIMEN: Exactly, so what happened here is that now the protests are about anti-China. That's what's happening. But the question is what triggers it? What triggered all of this? Yes. The fear that China is going to erupt them off their human rights of their freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and that's right. If I tell you what the Chinese official told me over dinner, and he is someone I also met in Hong Kong, you know, several times as well as in mainland China. And he said that the problem is I feel that the Hong Kong young are protesting against China. But they are protesting at the wrong enemy here. The real enemy are the ones who are robbing them of their aspirations. Because if he compared a young entrepreneur from China, from Shenzhen, just north of the border, and the young entrepreneur, you know, from Hong Kong. And he will say basically that the young entrepreneur in Hong Kong won’t have enough savings or money to invest in his business or invention because he's already spending so much of his income on rent, because he can't buy and if he tried to get an office around, incorporate basically, it is even more expensive. But a young man from Shenzhen can save more, even though the income is less, can save more of his income because the rents are less. And you know, if he wants to incorporate and start a business, the cost of business is less. So, you know, the reality is that Shenzhen is now becoming more successful than Hong Kong as a tech capital of China, while Hong Kong, remaining reliant on the financial sector as well as the trade sector. But, if only the real estate prices start to go down, only then we start to see basically that the people of Hong Kong, will start to feel more secure about their future…

THOMAS: It’s difficult though because the entire Hong Kong political economy is propped up by high house prices.

AIMEN: Unsustainable.

THOMAS: It may be unsustainable. But it's true. I mean, because Hong Kong has famously low taxes.

AIMEN: Yeah.

THOMAS: Which is, it is claimed, which lies behind its rise to economic domination over the 20th century. Fine. But the state which still needs to provide public services is funded largely by its ownership and its selling and renting of these, of property. So they have to keep the price very high in order to sustain the system as it is.

AIMEN: But then the system will lock out the next generation. The next generation will remain locked out of the property market because it's just too high. It's just unrealistically high.

THOMAS: So what does the China, what does the Chinese official say is the solution? What would the Chinese Communist Party do to solve this problem?

AIMEN: Well, for them, they are saying, well, we are going to wait until 2047. We are biding our time. 2047 is around the corner from a historical point of view. And only then basically when the whole, the two regions, both Macau and Hong Kong, become fully integrated into China then the real estate market basically, you know, in Hong Kong will collapse automatically because then there will be no border between Shenzhen, you know, Guangzhou, and the mainland China and Hong Kong people can commute. It will be linked up by trains. There will be no visas or passports or border anymore. There will be commuter belt created for Hong Kong by then. People can just live in Shenzhen or its suburbs and can basically commute to Hong Kong on a daily basis.

THOMAS: So, the Chinese are not threatened by these protests. I mean, we hear all the time in the news here that the protests in Hong Kong are a harbinger of big problems for China, that it might be the first domino in a set of dominoes that come that brings the whole system toppling down. The Chinese, they're pretty sanguine. They, they're not afraid?

AIMEN: This is the problem. I mean, the West always get excited about protests and freedom and all of that, but you need to understand that it's far more complex than that. The Chinese media machine is very formidable. They really know how to steer the public opinion of their people without the people knowing that they are being steered into that direction. The argument I made now, that the protesters in Hong Kong have been... Yes, they have been triggered by the treaty, but in reality, basically they are also protecting the-

THOMAS: [overlapping] The extradition treaty.

AIMEN: Yes, the extradition treaty. They've been riled up about it but also they are riled up because they feel that they don't have a future in Hong Kong because of the fact that they will always remain renters, you know, rather than property owning individuals and professionals. And so that is, so the Chinese media really made it into, Oh, these poor people, they are misled. They are protesting against the wrong enemy here. Their enemy is the oligarchs, those capitalist oligarchs who have monopolized the land, look at them. You know, unlike us, we are building entire cities in months, in order to accommodate you, our people. So you have cheap, you know, affordable, high quality homes.

THOMAS: So this is the Chinese counter narrative. Is it, is it landing? Is there any indication that you, that you know of that the Hong Kong people are listening and thinking, Oh, that's interesting.

AIMEN: Well, now it's not directed at the Hong Kong people, it is directed at the Chinese people. Because when the Chinese people see the protest, the Chinese government want to make sure—

THOMAS: [overlapping] That the protests don’t spread…

AIMEN: Exactly. So what they're saying, Look, look at Hong Kong model. People can't afford the shoebox. You guys however, basically we are building like there is no tomorrow. [Laughs] So you know, so in a sense they have actually cleverly turned the narrative upside down and that the protesters are just misled people who thinks their enemy is China, while in fact basically they are angry about their living conditions.

THOMAS: So the Hong Kong protests aren't going to derail the Chinese juggernaut anytime soon. Let's switch now. Let's move to the other side of China and return in fact to a topic that we discussed in Season One of Conflicted. And this is the other thing that you often hear about these days that's going on in China, on the West side of the country amongst the population of Uighurs, the Uighurs of the Xinjiang province in the West. Um, briefly now, because we did cover this in season one, who are the Uighurs? They're not actually Chinese.

AIMEN: Well, remember that China have 56 ethnic minorities. So, they are one of the ethnic minorities of China.

THOMAS: They're not Han Chinese.

AIMEN: Oh, no, the Han actually make up the vast majority of Chinese people. But then remember there are, you know, Mongolians, Kazaks, there are Tibetans.

THOMAS: [ Overlapping] Tibetans

AIMEN: There are the Cantonese, the Hui Muslims who are actually Han Chinese by ethnicity, but Muslims. Um, and don't forget the religious minorities who are always prosecuted, like many people basically talk about Muslims being prosecuted, not necessarily. Hui Muslims don't have the same trouble that the Uighur Muslims have. And that's because of the separatism that the Uighurs have.

THOMAS: Now Aimen I want to push you on this. You say that Hui Muslims haven't faced persecution by the Chinese state. I think that's not strictly speaking accurate. Now, it's true, they're certainly not experiencing what some of the Uighurs are experiencing, but in April 2018 the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work department took control of the State Bureau of Religious Affairs, and so they are now directly overseeing religious affairs, no longer the government itself. And this United Front has emerged as a very aggressive proponent of making sure that religious groups throughout China are not expressing anything that they consider to be anti-Chinese. It's part of a larger process of signification of religion in China. So for example, amongst the Hui Muslims, they've been knocking down domes and minarets, anything that smacks actually of Arab aesthetic. Arab Islamic aesthetic. Now I think it's important to point out that this actually, in fact, this actually backs up your larger argument, I would say. Which is that the Chinese state is involved in state building and creating a viable nation state, which can then project its power outwards. And Muslims within China are considered to be potentially antagonistic to that effort. Ironically, as they are often considered to be elsewhere in the world, even in the West. You know, it is Muslims that often create this sense that they're not really one of us. They're not really signed up to our national identity.

AIMEN: Well, historically speaking, the Hui Muslims filled up many, many posts in the government that are related to commerce, diplomacy, and even the Navy. So in a sense, yes, the emergence of that committee from the Communist Party to take over the religious, affairs of China was worrying and worrying for so many people, including the Hui. But for the Hui, when they were saying yes, only very few mosques of ours basically have minarets and domes because the vast majority of Hui mosques, and I've been to some of them, look exactly like Chinese temples.

THOMAS: They must be beautiful.

AIMEN: And they've been like this for centuries. The Hui Muslims from the beginning, from a thousand years ago, they built their mosques not distinguished at all from the rest of the Chinese architecture. So, when you see, you can't tell a mosque from outside, and this is not because of the communist party or anything, it's been happening from a thousand years ago.

THOMAS: It's true. But more recently, in fact, the Hui Muslims have received some money from the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia. And Salafi missionary movements have been appealing to some Huis and the Chinese state is trying to stop this.

AIMEN: Exactly. I mean, and ironically, some members of the diplomatic mission of China in Saudi Arabia are Hui Muslims themselves, and they were talking to religious scholars in Saudi Arabia telling them, please, you know, just leave us alone when it comes to our religious identity. We are Muslims, Muslims enough. Thank you so much. Just stay out of it.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Okay. You’re racing ahead now, who are the Uighurs?

AIMEN: So the Uighurs are a Turkic ethnic group. So, they are more similar to people in Kazakhstan, Kurdistan, and Uzbekistan. So they are Turkic in their, in fact, it's the birthplace of Turkic based languages, especially in places like Kashi, which called in Arabic Kashgar and in the local language, Kushgar. So, which is basically sitting in the Southern Part of the Xinjiang province in Northwest China.

THOMAS: So, let me just tell you what I know about the Uighur situation in China. The Chinese are evil and they're erecting enormous concentration camps, shoving millions of Uighurs in them and brainwashing them into not being Muslims because they hate God.

AIMEN: No, it's not like that. [Laughs]

THOMAS: Really? I mean, that's what I've been told.

AIMEN: Okay.

THOMAS: First, before you just destroy the perceived wisdom of it. To what extent is that narrative true?

AIMEN: Okay. So, you know, a disclaimer to the listener here as I have, you know, a lot of commercial interests in China, myself. So basically, I'm not defending China because of that. And I'm not actually defending it, I'm explaining the situation as it is.

Thomas: Great.

AIMEN: But also, I have to basically state that I relied a lot on the official Chinese narrative here. In fact, when I was invited to come to Xinjiang myself, I've been there and I visited, even one of the camps that’s been talked about, so I was still being minded. I was still basically like, in a way, you know…

THOMAS: [Overlapping] The Chinese government minder…

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: But you have visited one of these camps that are holding Uighurs?

AIMEN: Indeed. So, for them they believe that the separatism, you know that the Uighurs basically harbor…

THOMAS: Like Tibetans say. So the Uighurs think, we're a people. We shouldn't be dominated by Beijing. We want to be separate.

AIMEN: Yeah. So, the separatism which is cloaked in Islamic ideology also with it…

THOMAS: Because Uighurs are Muslim.

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: Sunni Muslim, like Saudis, like Egyptians, like Algerians…

AIMEN: Yeah, Sunni Muslims. But you know, there is a division there between those who are Sufis and those who are more influenced by other schools of thought. Not just only Deobandi--

THOMAS: Which is kind of hardline Salafi kind of…

AIMEN: [Overlapping] No no--

THOMAS: [Overlapping] From South India, South Asia…

AIMEN: Yeah, it’s not Salafi, it's a hard line, Hanafi—

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Sorry.

AIMEN: Yeah, it’s a hard-line Hanafi

THOMAS: These different labels [laughs] get all confused.

AIMEN I know, I know, trust me. I struggle always basically to explain this to others. But, you know, there are so many schools of thought that have influenced the Uighurs basically in terms of religious affiliation. Remember, Xinjiang province as a whole have about 26 million people. Um, and despite being so big as a province and roughly about 12 million to 13 million are Uighurs. So basically…

THOMAS: So roughly half.

AIMEN: Roughly half, below half. So, but they are concentrated mostly in the Southern half of the province and the Northern half have less Uighurs and more Han and Hui and Kazaks and other ethnicities.

THOMAS: So, the Uighur population, which lives more in the South part of the province. They're broadly speaking Sunni Muslim. So what are the Chinese government trying to do to them?

AIMEN: Okay. The Chinese didn't have that much problems with them in the 1970s and 80s, because mostly it was Sufi Islam that was dominant. I remember I was talking to an Iman there in Kashi and he said to me something interesting. He said, look, you know, you've noticed that on the way here there were villages that are looking like a post apocalypse, like basically no one is there. You know, a mosque is destroyed, bulldozed completely, and the streets are empty. No one is there. And then you pass into another village or another town where the mosques are open with lights and celebrations and the streets are bustling. He said, this is when you see a Sufi village that is, or a town, that is cooperating with the authorities. And you will see another place where there is more spirit of separatism. That's a place that is deserted and this is a place that is rewarded. So—

THOMAS: So the Chinese aren't really, it's not really about Islam. It's about a form of Islam that some Uighurs have embraced over the last few decades that is more political in its orientation, let's call it Islamism, more Islamist in its orientation and which feels that being within or being under the Chinese State is against Islam or something. They're political separatists.

AIMEN: Yeah. So, so what's happened here is that the problem is there were a group of people from Xinjiang who when they were studying in Pakistan in the Islamic university of Islamabad in the 1980s. Their teachers included, people like Kamal Helbawy, who was one of the most senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in the world. And Abdullah Hassan…

THOMAS: Oh wow.

AIMEN: Oh yes who was the—

THOMAS: [overlapping] The great ideologue who basically started the jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviets.

AIMEN” Oh, yes. So, they influenced a new generation of—

THOMAS: Uighur students in Pakistan.

AIMEN: Indeed. And they started to return and preach the gospel of jihadism.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Ah.

AIMEN: I know it's a contradiction of terms, but anyway—

[Aimen and Thomas Laugh]

AIMEN: So, they started to preach jihadism, Muslim Brotherhood ideals, and even some of them returned from places like Uzbekistan and other places with the new ideas that coming from the Middle East which is the ideals of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

THOMAS: Which is a radical Sunni Islamist group.

AIMEN: Exactly. Which calls for the return of the Caliphate.

THOMAS: Like all the other bozos who we’ve been talking about. [Laughs]

AIMEN: Exactly. To the point where it's estimated that the number of Hizb ut-Tahrir members, underground members basically in Xinjiang, according to Hizb ut-Tahrir sources themselves exceed six or 7,000 members.

THOMAS: That doesn't sound like so many people. And I mean the country has 1.3 billion.

AIMEN: Ah, yeah. I'm talking about the Uighur population is 12 million. So basically having six or 7,000 members Hizb ut-Tahrir, and that’s only Hizb ut-Tahrirm, we're not talking about the Muslim brotherhood. And not to mention the jihadists.

THOMAS: Cause there have been Uighurs in Syria as we discussed in season one.

AIMEN: And Afghanistan, you know, fighting alongside the Taliban.

THOMAS: So the Chinese are afraid of the separatism that is being incubated amongst this kind of Islamist ideology amongst the Uighurs. But what are they doing to the Uighurs?

AIMEN: So if you are looking at them, they are, you know, they basically believe that, look, as we have pacified Tibet, they believe they have pacified Tibet. So the person, the individual who actually was responsible for the pacification of Tibet is now in Xinjiang. And he's been there for a few years. He is now basically leading the effort to pacify Xinjiang.

THOMAS: Aimen, I'm afraid you're not selling this to me. Because my whole life I've only heard that the Tibetans have been utterly crushed by the Chinese behemoth. And, you know, Richard Gere has told me many times at the Oscars that the Tibetans are suffering.

AIMEN: Well, okay, suffering politically maybe. But economically speaking, things are starting to change a lot.

THOMAS: We’re back again to that Chinese way. We will make you rich.

AIMEN: Yes.

THOMAS: And you just give us your freedom in exchange.

AIMEN: Well, yeah. You know, this is the money. Obey. That is the Chinese methodology and this is why when I talk to people about it, they keep saying, but they are not supposed to do that. I remind them that this is China. This is not Europe, this is not North America, this is not Australia, this is China. The Chinese have their own way of dealing with things and therefore we have to understand their mentality, their mindset. I must stress Thomas that I made my position very clear in my lectures on counter terrorism to Chinese officials that repression doesn't work. Repression will breed only further acts of terrorism and further acts of violence. And what's happening is beyond what could be endured by the population who are very proud people.

THOMAS: The Uighurs.

AIMEN: Yeah. And, you know, and I made my position very clear.

THOMAS: I'm glad you're saying this because I, you know, I want the listener to understand that Aimen is not justifying the Chinese state repression. He's simply explaining it.

AIMEN: I'm explaining it. I tell you that there is a possibility of a negotiated settlement for this entire sorry crisis. There are many people in China who are good-hearted people, decent people, whether in academia or in the think tanks that advise the Chinese government. If the demands for separatism is dropped, then the negotiation over religious freedoms can kickstart really. And this is why I'm saying, as long as there is a possibility of talks, of secretive talks basically taking place… take this chance. It's about the survival of the Uighur Muslim religious and ethnic identity.

THOMAS: Aimen, this is all very interesting. I mean I must say it freaks me out what you're describing about the Chinese and their apparatus of repression in Xinjiang against the Uighurs.

AIMEN: We have to understand, you know, basically we don't excuse by the way we just say understand, why they want to maintain the integrity of their borders and the integrity of China as a unified country.

THOMAS: And their way of doing things includes setting up camps, putting recalcitrant Uighurs into them and brainwashing them into being obedient to the Chinese state. Is that basically what's going on?

AIMEN: Yes.

THOMAS: And are they being murdered in droves if they refuse?

AIMEN: Uh, well, I mean, basically the question here is that, and I ask the question all the time, are there any people basically who has been executed? And the answer is there are people who have been executed since 2009 until now on charges of terrorism. And the fact that many of them were returnees from Afghanistan, or you know, in later years, basically have returnees from Syria who were trying to carry out acts of terrorism. There have been dozens of acts of terrorism by the Uighurs who are jihadists in China, you know. The Kunming Massacre is one of them--

THOMAS: I’ve never heard of the Kunming massacre.

AIMEN: Well, it is in the province of Hunan, I think, it was in 2014 where in a train station--

THOMAS: Oh it was a knife attack—

AIMEN: It was a knife attack

THOMAS: Someone went berserk and killed all sorts of people.

AIMEN: Exactly. Like dozens of people were killed. Hundreds were wounded. I mean, and there were many other acts of terrorism, you know, car bombs against police stations in Xinjiang and basically the Chinese, you know, released a video, basically containing five minutes, containing all of these acts of terrorism happening, caught on CCTV and all of that. So now—

THOMAS: [Overlapping] So jihadists have been executed in China,

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Yeah yeah.

THOMAS: But what about just garden variety Uighurs who would frankly rather be Muslims and not Chinese?

AIMEN: Okay, so this is basically when you ask and they say, no, we don't execute people because they think differently. We will put them in prison until they recant. But we do not execute people in this way. That's what they say. And I haven't seen any evidence of people being executed for thought crimes.

THOMAS: Frankly, even if that's the case, it doesn't make me really want to move to Xinjiang. The real question is why does China care that much? I mean, it’s Xinjiang, who cares about Xinjiang? Why can't these people just, why don't we just allow a new central Asian Republic, call it Xinjiang, to be established and it breaks away from Beijing.

AIMEN: Ah ok.

THOMAS: I mean Western China. It's nothing. It's just desert and crap.

AIMEN: Yeah, I know. I, you know, I've been there, but actually, you know, if you tour the place, it's really beautiful. I mean, really, I'm not kidding. It's really beautiful.

THOMAS: Sure. There are lots of beautiful places. The Chinese don't need to own them.

AIMEN: Yeah. But, [laughs] but historically speaking, first of all, the Chinese border always fluctuated. Against the Russian empire, against the Turkic empires in a back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, that's always the case. And since the Qing Dynasty and beyond, and before even that, the Uighurs lived, you know, for periods of time under a Chinese influence, under Russian influence, under Turkic influence. So there were always these movements. There wasn't a single country, you know, basically called Turkistan or East Turkistan, as they call it, you know or Xinjiang, except for brief periods of time in the last millennia.

THOMAS: [Overlapping]This part of the world has always been frontier zone between empires and always has been.

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Exactly. It always has been. So now for when I will not say this as my opinion. I will just tell you what that Iman from Kashi who was telling me about why the Chinese are putting hundreds of thousands of people in the camps and talking about them and saying, while it is regrettable, he believed it was necessary. Because you know, the ideologies that are coming out of other Muslim countries has infected them with the rebellious nature which doesn't bode well for the future of the Uighurs in the region. He said that, look, we are 12 million people in this province. This province was always the backdoor of China, you know. You know, there was no reason for the Chinese to hold onto it because basically it is not exactly rich in natural resources. It is not basically very strategic. But something changed in the recent years. Now, instead of being the back door of China, now Xinjiang is the front door of China, the new front door of China. And it's important for a strategic survival.

THOMAS: And why is that? What's changed?

AIMEN: Okay. What changed is the Belt and Road Initiative.

THOMAS: The Belt and Road Initiative. And I think just because it's easier to say and to remember, let's call this the new Silk Road. It has a very orientalist flavor about it.

AIMEN: [laughs] Exactly.

THOMAS: So the Belt and Road Initiative, the new Silk Road, is essentially a continental high-speed rail network which connects China to Europe via Central Asia and the Middle East and Russia, meaning that goods can get to Europe faster than by ship. And this is amazing because it undercuts American Naval shipping routes. It basically is shifting back to the continental system from the Atlanticist naval dominated system. And it includes all sorts of things, ports, new maritime routes... The Chinese are basically throwing down the gauntlet to the way the world has been run for the last 500 years and saying, We are back. We are going to dominate global trade.

AIMEN: Look, the Belt and Road Initiative is a gigantic, gigantic project. It will cost a trillion dollars and that's only phase one. What would happen is that there will be in Xinjiang, whether it is Ürümqi, the capital or Kashi the second city basically in the South of Xinjiang, they will become the junctions of this new Silk Road. Freight trains will leave Beijing with the containers and they will arrive in Berlin in 16 days. Now, these days, it will take by ship between 42 to 48 days to do it.

THOMAS: That's astonishing. That is really undercutting the time.

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Yes and not just only that, to cut the time… But also it would reduce insurance premiums because it’s rail, it’s safe; while the shipping routes basically are, of course, you know, threatened by hurricanes and weather—

THOMAS: Pirates.

AIMEN: Pirates in the Malacca Strait which is a chokehold. And also the Somali Pirates, there are many chokeholds. The Strait of Malacca, the Suez Canal and you have to pay money there and all of that. So what happened is, if the railroad will go from Beijing to Ürümqi, from Ürümqi then it goes to Almaty in Kazakhstan, from there and to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and from there into Poland and Germany and France and UK and Spain. And also, there will be another one from Kashi going all the way to Gwadar which is a port in Pakistan--

THOMAS: [Overlapping] On the Indian Ocean

AIMEN: No, on the Arabian Sea, just at north of the Gulf—

THOMAS: Well the Arabian Sea is part of the Indian Ocean--

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Yeah the Arabian Sea is part of the Indian Ocean [Laughs] but you know to be very geographically accurate. Sorry, I'm a nerd. And so, so basically 3000 kilometer of railroad and a truck road basically going from Kashi all the way to Gwadar. And that port basically will be selling goods to Saudi Arabia, to the UAE, to the Gulf countries, and even to Iran and to Pakistan itself, and maybe even to India. So the idea is that Xinjiang no longer basically a backwood province. It is now going to be the center of China's new Silk Road. It’s the junction, and this is what the Iman told me in Kashi. He said, if China didn't let us go basically when our province mattered little, they will never ever let us go. They will not let 12 million Uighurs stand in the way of progress of 1.4 billion Chinese. So, what he said for the survival of our religion, for the survival of our race, we need to cooperate with China. He said basically just like, and he mentioned this name, he said, just like Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya, realized—

THOMAS: Oh from the last episode, Kadyrov who is Putin’s little lapdog.

AIMEN: Yeah. So as Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya realized in the middle of the war against Russia that we're not going to win, the Russian bear will crush us completely. So for the survival of the Chechen race, and for the survival of us, our Chechen religious identity—

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Just like Kadyrov, the Uighurs need to, need to bend the knee really and just get with the program—

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: The program’s not changing and the West is not going to change it.

AIMEN: So no one is coming to our rescue. No one is coming to our rescue, not the Muslim world, you know, not the Western world. We are the only ones who can save ourselves by accepting like our ancestors accepted before, Qing dynasty hegemony over the Uighurs, we can basically accept the current hegemony. But we have to negotiate in order to regain our religious freedoms.

THOMAS: So Aimen, preventing Islamism from spreading amongst the Uighurs of Xinjiang, preventing separatism, political separatism amongst the Uighurs of Xinjiang. Is this really just an excuse that Beijing is giving in order to… do whatever they want in Xinjiang, including say, ethnic cleansing, just killing all the Uighurs? Often that is what you hear in the media that in the end, the Uighurs are done for, they're just going to be wiped out.

AIMEN: No, of course not. I mean, otherwise we would be hearing about, you know, hundreds of thousands of people dying, but that's not the reality. And know why spend billions of dollars basically trying to reeducate the whole population only to kill them later.

THOMAS: Right. So I can understand that perspective, but that's like, zoom out a bit from the Uighurs and talk about the new Silk Road and of a Chinese dominated economic transport system that completely changes the way everything is working. Now, officials in the Western world have actually known for quite a long time that this was coming. As I quoted at the beginning of the episode: China is lion. When it wakes, it will roar.

AIMEN: Dragon. [Laughs]

THOMAS: So, I was personally first introduced to this new reality of a growing China by a friend of mine. His name was Alexandros Petersen. A brilliant young American man who lived in central Asia, lived in China and was studying… He was actually one of the world's experts on the new Silk Road and what it meant for the world. Sadly, the Taliban assassinated, or he was a victim of a Taliban bombing in Kabul where he was teaching at a university and he died.

AIMEN: What a waste.

THOMAS: It's a terrible waste. He, but he wrote a book called ‘The World Island’ in which he reintroduced to people an older geopolitical theory. It's the World Island theory. It was first formulated in 1904 by a Victorian geographer called Halford Mackinder. The World Island theory is basically this: that if you take the whole globe, the African Eurasian part of the world is the vast majority of the world's land. It's the world island, and that in the middle of this world island is what's called the Heartland, which is basically central Asia. The Eurasian plateau that stretches from the West of Russia into China, The Heartland. The theory is if you control the Heartland, you control the world island, and if you control the world island, you control the world. Now, in fact, if you think about it, the whole history of the 20th century is the history of attempts to control the world island on the part of big land empires and the Western world, especially the British-American world, trying to prevent that from happening. Most famously during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union controlled the Heartland and the American Imperium, if you like, was absolutely animated about preventing it from maximizing the power that the Heartland gave it. And it succeeded. The Cold War ended with the Soviet Union failing to take power that it got from controlling the Heartland and dominating the world. Now we have China. China is dominating the Heartland today and is laying down the foundations for a new wave of economic domination that by taking the power of the Heartland, by linking the entire World Island via land-based trade routes like in the old days, like the Silk Road before the Portuguese and the Dutch and the British created the new maritime shipping system that has dominated the world for centuries. Now China's doing it and they're going to succeed. So Aimen, given the fact that the Chinese new Silk Road and its own new world order really threatens America's, is America trying to stop this or undermine it? Is this what lies behind the frankly bellicose language of President Trump in the last few years and the trade war between China and America? Is America trying to stop the new Silk Road?

AIMEN: Well. Yes, but halfheartedly because there is a problem here. Okay. And the problem is this: Trump has been engaging in a trade war not only with China, but also with Europe. And also basically insisting on America’s energy independence which means they don't buy oil anymore from the Middle East or beyond. So, who's buying the Middle East oil right now? It's China. So at the end of the day, it's like, okay, America. You don't want us to trade with China. You don't want 5G to come. You know, you're not buying our oil. But at the same time, basically, you are saying that we shouldn't even do it with China. So, either you provide the alternative or shut up.

THOMAS: So by isolating itself, America's forcing the rest of the world into China's arms.

AIMEN: Precisely. So if you are going to pick up fights with Russia over the Ukraine and Crimea, impose sanctions, who will Russia trade with? It will be China. You know, if China is going to buy Russia’s oil and gas, if China is going to buy the Middle East oil and gas, if China's going to export machinery to both Russia and the Middle East and America basically is saying uh well, we are going to defend human rights and we are going to stand for freedom and all of that okay, you want to stand for freedom, then become a viable economic partner or just do not try to sabotage another economic partnership that is emerging.

THOMAS: If the United States was being led by someone more internationalist in outlook than president Trump, is it possible that he might be able to create a genuine global alliance or coalition against the rising China? Do you think that would be possible?

AIMEN: No. Because you know, Obama also failed and he's an internationalist. America doesn't need a protectionist or internationalist. What it needs is a pragmatist.

THOMAS: America just needs to face up to the fact the Chinese train has left the station. You'd better get onboard.

AIMEN: Yes.

THOMAS: And so really, dear listener, everything is going to change. The Western world is sort of over as we understand it. And the new century is China's. Now this whole season is about the New World Order that George H.W. Bush wanted to create. America, it's not necessarily that America has failed. It's that China has succeeded. The Chinese New World Order is being born today. What do you think? Am I right about this or am I exaggerating?

AIMEN: You are right but there are some caveats here. You know, we have to always remember something. China is not a nation of innovation. China is a nation of imitation. And it will remain so for a little while. When will I see China rise to heights of greatness that was never seen before, is when they are transformed from a nation of imitation to a nation of innovation.

THOMAS: Because?

AIMEN: Because then if they become innovative, nothing can stop them. Because at the moment, why the American economy is so dominant--

THOMAS: With the tech boom and the internet. I mean, we dominate all of them. We, I mean, I'm an American, you know, I personally don’t dominate the world economy. America dominates, you know, all of the innovative technological advances that are creating economic growth at the time, especially from Silicon Valley.

AIMEN: Why? Because basically America is the innovation economy. Yeah, China manufacturer the iPhone. But really who designed it and made it and created it? America.

THOMAS: Ok, but what about Huawei, and all of these big Chinese firms and East Asian firms more generally, which fall within the Chinese orbit?

AIMEN: Exactly, that's what I'm saying, that at the moment they are imitating. But when they start innovating and they are beginning to, we can see the transformation now from the imitation nation to the innovation nation, this is basically when we start to see a greater Chinese dominance. Why? Because then they will be a true alternative. And the most important example of this now is the 5G row all over the world. The question is—

THOMAS: Huawei’s 5G network right here in the United Kingdom, you know… Absolutely. It's tearing political parties apart. Do we allow a Chinese firm, you know, basically linked to the Chinese security service, to install for us our telecommunications network?

AIMEN: But here's the problem is that the Americans could not yet come with a viable alternative.

THOMAS: So I didn't exaggerate. So the New World Order is Chinese.

AIMEN: Exactly. This is why I said… And I remember I was at a dinner at the largest oil company in China. I was their guest of honor at the time, and that was in 2010. So it was a really long time ago, almost 10 years ago. So I remember I said these exact words because they were asking me, when do you think China will become the top economy of the world? And I was asking, you’re Chinese you know, why do you ask me? And he said, because we love to listen to the opinions of others. So, I said, okay, once you stop imitating and you start innovating, then the world is yours.

THOMAS: Well, it's happened.

AIMEN: Yes, it's beginning. It's beginning to happen.

THOMAS: It's beginning to happen. And it seems to me that the Western world is beginning to wake up to this fact and this is directly connected to this New World Order, America's New World Order that it wants to create, because actually China hasn't played along. China all along has had its own plan to create its own new world order and it is succeeding. And so we see it with Trump and the trade war against China. We see it with even European leaders usually so deferent to China are beginning to speak out against the Chinese, against the power, the growing power that they have. Even George Soros, famous for supporting all sorts of internationalists liberal causes, in February of 2020 in a speech said that China is a rising threat and the Western world really needs to begin countering it. This represents a big change, and it could result in perhaps even a military clash between these two new world orders, these two visions for the 21st century.

AIMEN: Well, we hope it doesn't happen.

THOMAS: Of Course.

AIMEN: China is nuclear armed and it has an important ace which we didn't talk about. China has basically what I call the secret weapon.

THOMAS: Oh God.

AIMEN: Putin.

THOMAS: Oh, I didn't expect you to say that.

AIMEN: Yeah, and I tell you why. Vladimir Putin is looking at China as an important, not just only an important ally, but an important backer of the Russian economy. I mean, after all, basically, China buys a lot of oil and gas from Russia. Um, it's an important client but also at the same time, the new Silk Road is going to pass through Russia and through Russia and Satellite States, like, if we can call Kazakhstan a satellite state, but it's allied to the Russians. So basically the Silk Road will pass through Russia to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and then from there into Europe. This will empower Russia even more. Because basically, so many goods and services coming from China and so many European imports, don't forget, it's a two-way street. European exports from the UK and Spain and Italy and Germany—

THOMAS: [Overlapping] And Germany particularly.

AIMEN: The cars and the machinery will also travel from Europe to China through that. So, Russia will become the middleman between China and Europe and the rest of the world. And so for Putin, he's looking at this and rubbing his hands, [laughs] licking his lips, and thinking brilliant.

THOMAS: Well, there you have it. America's New World Order is being rather successfully countered by the Chinese alternative, a real competitor with the new Silk Road initiative from China. And you know, you never know what the future is going to hold but the Chinese economy is still chugging along pretty well. Economic growth in the West is not so hot in comparison. Neoliberalism, this is the economic faith of the West in the New World Order era. It was meant to spread. It was meant to promise endless economic growth for Western countries. It's not really happening. And it certainly became spectacularly unstuck during the credit crisis of 2008. And in the next episode of Conflicted, we will be talking about just that. What exactly happened in 2008? And what did it mean for America's grand vision?

AIMEN: I have to come wearing my banking hat next episode. [Laughs]

[Extro music]

THOMAS: This season we've set up a Facebook discussion group where we post recommended reading. And if you want to go into even more depth about the topics we cover on the show, as with every episode we are giving away a recommended book this week. This week's book is ‘Belt and Road: A Chinese World Order’ by Bruno Maçães. a book which successfully captures the exuberance as well as the apprehension that this huge project generates. Once again, all you have to do to have a shot at winning this book is join the Facebook group. Thanks to everyone who has. Your messages, comments and feedback mean so much to us really, and are actually very helpful in shaping the future of Conflicted. Find the group on Facebook by searching Conflicted Podcast Discussion Group. You can also find the show on Twitter at MHconflicted. And if you like the show, please rate and review us in your podcast app. It would also mean the world to us if you spread the word about Conflicted to your friends or even to your enemies, whether on social media or in person. Thanks again for listening. Aimen and I will be back in two weeks.

Conflicted S2 E3 - Enter Russia

In 1990, George Bush proclaimed the dawning of a New World Order. The Cold War was over, the nation-state and capitalism had won, and the US was ready to deliver their strategy for global governance of the world. Aimen and Thomas discuss how this played out in the Middle East and where the grand vision fell short.

---

THOMAS: Hello Aimen.

AIMEN: Hello, Thomas.

THOMAS: Today we're going to talk about Russia.

AIMEN: Can I just mention like, you know, my first, you know landing in Azerbaijan?

THOMAS: Well you will, but when it gets there, sure, absolutely.

AIMEN: Because it was so funny story about how, you know…

THOMAS: Not yet.

AIMEN: Yeah, okay.

[Laughter]

[THEME MUSIC]

THOMAS: We have a very complicated episode of Conflicted to record today.

AIMEN: Every episode is complicated, Thomas.

THOMAS: This one is going to prove perhaps the most complicated. We're going to talk, as we have been talking about, the New World Order – America's attempt to create an American-led global, if you like, regime of free market capitalism and perhaps even liberal democracy everywhere following the end of the Cold War. In the last episode, I suggested that America faced three primary challenges in order to achieve that ambition. We discussed how one of the challenges, sorting out the middle East, has failed. Another challenge, incorporating China into the world, we're going to discuss in the next episode. In this episode, we're talking about Russia and America's need to get Russia onside to create a new partnership with Russia if its New World Order ambitions were to be satisfied. So, let’s start with a rough historical sketch of the Soviet Union, its breakup, and Russia’s fortunes after the end of the Cold War. For the 45 years following the second world war, the Soviet Union, as it then was, was the big baddie of the world as far as the West was concerned. America and the Soviet Union were fighting. By 1991, the Soviet Union has collapsed. Its Eastern European satellite states are independent. Poland, Czechoslovakia as it then was, Romania, et cetera. The Warsaw pact, which was the communist equivalent of NATO, has broken down. Russia narrowly avoids civil war when Boris Yeltsin in, in what was considered at the time an act of heroism, saves the day, becomes the president of newly independent Russia, or the Commonwealth of Independent States, as it was called. Now at this point, what happens? A kind of… confused logic at the heart of America's New World Order played out as NATO expanded into these countries, extended its umbrella across them. That was very provocative to Russia. The EU and its ever-desperate attempt to expand its own pool of cheap labor moves into Eastern Europe as well. Uh, eventually even flirting with moving into the Ukraine, which was one of the reasons why the Ukrainian civil war would, would would break out in 2014. So, we did almost immediately see how incorporating Russia into the New World Order forming a new partnership with it, wasn't necessarily going to work. And it was disastrous for the economy as a whole. In the 90s the Russian economy was chaotic at best.

AIMEN: Remember 1998? The collapse? I mean, it was awful.

THOMAS: Overnight the Ruble collapsed and you know, any, any lingering dream that following the fall of the Soviet Union the Russian economy might boom and Russia might match, you know, match the, the prosperity of the West… was destroyed. But first of all, to start us off, what does Aimen Dean, former jihadist, have to tell us about Russia?

AIMEN: It seems for some reason, basically, that I always used to pop up in places where Russia, you know, had a beef or two with. I was in Bosnia, I was in Afghanistan and I was in the Caucuses. Um, you know, supporting the Chechen jihadists.

THOMAS: Chechnya, for the listener, is a tiny Muslim country—officially called the Chechen Republic and is a part of Russia. It’s located in the North Caucuses, that sliver of mountainous land between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. Now, Russia’s relationship with Chechnya over the past thirty years is a great illustration of the way Russia responded and adapted to America’s New World Order. And Aimen, you were involved in the Chechen Jihad, were you? When did it all begin?

AIMEN: The first Chechen-Russian war really started in 1994, it was almost two years conflict. When Dzhokar Dudayev, uh, the president, the first declared, self-declared president of the Chechen Republic, declared independence from Russia.

THOMAS: Part of the wider trend following this collapse of the Soviet union for Russian satellite states, certainly in Eastern Europe but also within places like the Caucuses, to declare independence. To wrest independence away from the, the evil Russians who had dominated them for, in some cases, centuries.

AIMEN: Of course. I mean, basically the Chechen-Russian Wars, or I would say basically the Northern Caucuses-Russian Wars, you know, lasted since the days of Catherine the Great.

THOMAS: Yeah, they’re proverbial. And you know, the Caucasian peoples of the North Caucuses are famously warlike.

AIMEN: Very much so. Few in number in comparison to the numerous Russians. But nonetheless, I mean, they were really formidable foes, you know, to the Russians. And I was there, you know, witnessing the first conflict, um, evolving.

THOMAS: So how did you get there? After you left Bosnia, uh, in ‘95 would it have been?

AIMEN: Yes. I mean, by late ‘95 in, uh, the Bosnian war came to an end. And so, uh, before I went to Afghanistan, there was a detour where I went to Azerbaijan and then later Georgia in order to become what we, what I always used to term as an office jihadist.

THOMAS: But at that time you weren't actually a member of Al-Qaeda. You were a kind of freelance jihadist. Who arranged for you to go to Azerbaijan and then to Georgia in order to join the Chechen fight against, uh, against Russia?

AIMEN: Ah. Now in order for this story to make sense, we need to understand the life, or at least the name, of one single individual. He is known in the jihadist circles as Ibn Khattab.

THOMAS: Ibn Khattab.

AIMEN: Yes. Now, Ibn Khattab, you know he was assassinated by the Russians in the year 2002. You know, using a poisoned letter.

THOMAS: In Chechnya?

AIMEN: In Chechnya.

THOMAS: Is this man a Chechen?

AIMEN: No. He is from nowhere else except my hometown. Hubbard in Saudi Arabia.

THOMAS: Oh, what a marvelous city Hubbard is.

AIMEN: [Laughter] Hey, we gave the world Aramco! And we gave the world the list of famous terrorists

[Laughter]

THOMAS: None more famous than Aimen Dean.

AIMEN: Oh dear.

THOMAS: So, Ibn Khattab… Why did the Russians assassinate him in 2002 and what does he have to do with you?

AIMEN: Well. First of all, even Khattab was my hometown boy. In fact, he went to the same school I went to except he went… he went many years earlier. And then he went to the Afghan jihad in 1989. Then he made the detour into Chechnya in 1994 when they declared independence because he wanted to lead the first Arab jihadist or international jihadist contingent to fight the Russians there… in Chechnya. The war really was mainly anti-Russian as in the Russian, you know, state itself. So, it was about being pro-independence for Chechnya. Not only Chechnya, but also the other Muslim republics like the Dagestan…

THOMAS: All these places in the Caucuses.

AIMEN: Exactly. So, the whole idea was about an Islamic awakening in the Caucuses. It wasn't meant to be anti-Russian. If it was any other nationality there, it would have been anti that nationality, anti that ethnic, anti that state in order to start something, because… why? Chechnya is a mountainous country with warlike, devout Muslim people. But of course, Ibn Khattab, uh, being an international jihadist who spent years in Afghanistan, decided the Chechnya is the next Afghanistan. Because it's going to spread from there into the rest of the Caucuses. And it's a mountainous region. It's sandwiched between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. It's perfect.

THOMAS: And Ibn Khattab just called you up, you're in Bosnia, you get a call from Ibn Khattab, he said: “Come on over to Chechnya! Fight some Russians!”.

AIMEN: Well, I, I'm, I'm flattered you say that he called me, but no, he didn't. It was his financier from Saudi Arabia who said: “Well, we need you there, but you know, I have bad news for you. You are not going to the front straight away. You know, we need you basically to run some logistics in the office in Azerbaijan. And then later in Georgia.” So actually, I went there to become someone who basically add up sums, make sure basically that enough supply of mayonnaise and other materials basically made it into Chechnya.

THOMAS: An accountant and a grocery supply, uh, agent.

AIMEN: Exactly. Which actually, you know… was boring. But nonetheless, that was an eye opening. Because I started learning Russian, uh, because it's easier basically if you are going to cross many different, uh, Caucus states, whether it's Georgia, Osettia or Azerbaijan or Dagestan… I mean, they speak so many different local languages and learning one local language is a waste of time. Just learn Russian. Everyone speaks Russian there. So basically, that was the time when I started learning Russian.

THOMAS: So you never fought the Russians in Chechnya?

AIMEN: Well, I didn't fight them with bullets just with jars of mayonnaise.

THOMAS: Mayonnaise? What are you talking about?

AIMEN: Well you know, one of the requests, the frequent requests, I used to get from Ibn Khattab and his group of Jihadists in Chechnya was to keep sending them, you know, hundreds of jars of mayonnaise. Because in the mountains, mayonnaise was the source of protein that maintain, maintained them basically, maintain their levels of energy.

THOMAS: That is so weird. Are we talking about like Kraft mayonnaise? Jars of American made mayonnaise?

AIMEN: Yes.

THOMAS: But mayonnaise goes off so easily. It doesn't last long.

AIMEN: Not in the cold mountains of Chechnya.

THOMAS: So when that first Chechen war against Russia ended in ’96, why did it start again three years later?

AIMEN: That's when I can tell you the entire story as to why it all happened. It all come down to that man I mentioned, Ibn Khattab. And many of his deputies, who many of them come from my city again, Hubbard. I'm sorry about that. I, on behalf of all the good, decent people of Hubbard, I apologize to the world.

[Laughter]

AIMEN: Um, so what happened is that because these, you know, the Chechens follow a particular brand of Islam which is Sufism. You know, it's mythic, it's ritualistic. But Ibn Khattab and the mainly Saudi and Jordanian, uh, jihadists who arrived in Chechnya…

THOMAS: All of them Salafists really.

AIMEN: Salafist, Wahhabis as they are called, basically…

THOMAS: …and therefore anti-Sufi. In theory, they don't like Sufism at all.

AIMEN: Exactly. So Ibn Khattab realized that the Sufis are compromisers who compromised, um, on the goals, you know, basically off the Chechan uprising in 1996 when they negotiated with, uh, the Russian government in Moscow to achieve some sort of autonomy within elections and a referendum later, on full independence.

THOMAS: So in Ibn Khattab’s mind, the Chechen leadership sort of betrayed the jihad by signing a peace agreement with Boris Yeltsin and the Russian government.

AIMEN: Exactly. I mean, it was Alexander Lebed, you know, a famous Russian general and then later politician, uh, who brokered this deal, uh, with the then Chechen president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev.

THOMAS: So how did, uh… what did Ibn Khattab do next?

AIMEN: As any good Jihadi Salafists, you know, on the same lines of Al Qaeda would do: establish a religious academy to graduate, uh, local Chechens and Dagestanis and other Caucuses minorities to become Salafi preachers.

THOMAS: He, he sort of educated them.

AIMEN: Oh he brought, you know, quite a few preachers from Saudi Arabia. Uh, of course, with the disapproval of the Saudi government. Many of them became, you know, wanted by the Saudi government because the Saudi government and Russia had a good relationship at the time. So, they were brought in order to teach a new generation of Chechens and Dagestanis other Caucuses minority people the principles of Salafism so they spread it and therefore dilute the Sufi character of the Caucus’s Muslims.

THOMAS: They must have worked very fast. If by 1999, only three years later, another war breaks out between Chechnya and Russia.

AIMEN: Indeed, and actually I go into quite, you know, in detail analysis of this in my book..

THOMAS: Ah! Aimen, so shameless plugging your book in the middle of our conversation.

AIMEN: I know I'm not being, you know, not trying to advertise anything here. But I talk about, you know, the reason why the second Russian-Chechan war started, which is the fact that they did not want to just remain confined within the borders of Chechnya. Because they had almost full independence by then! Although not recognized by the UN or anything, but they were on their way to have a full independence by 2002, 2003. But for Ibn Khattab and the Salafists and as you know, basically the Salafi jihadism do not believe in borders. For them borders, you know, they are just lines… you know, dotted on a map that has no meaning whatsoever. They wanted Dagestan The bigger… well, the biggest Republic within the…

THOMAS: Muslim Caucuses.

AIMEN: Yes, Muslim Caucauses to become independent and so they made more and more incursions, killed so many Russian soldiers, you know, Dagestani police who are cooperating with the Russians. And as a result, the Russians were threatening again and again that they will do something. But Yeltsin wanted to maintain the peace. However, something that the jihadists, did not, uh, take into account. Which is: while they were planning to launch massive attacks inside Russia, in Moscow itself, against the Russian army residential compounds, you know, which will kill at least 300 Russian soldiers and their families, uh, and wound another 600 in September and August of 1999, they did not count that Yeltsin who was changing prime ministers more than he was changing his socks, would appoint the head of the FSB, you know the…

THOMAS: The successor to the KGB.

AIMEN: Absolutely. I mean, the head of the Russian intelligence, Vladimir Putin, as his prime minister.

THOMAS: Ah! Vladimir Putin. I wondered when he’d come up.... Because Vladimir Putin is obviously an enormously important figure from recent history about which much has been written… much is said. He's played the role, something of the classic Russian bogeyman for the West and the world for the last 20 years now it's been a long time.

AIMEN: But who created him? Who made him into what he is right now?

THOMAS: And you're saying that the Chechnyan war has everything to do with his emergence as, as the new Russian strong man.

AIMEN: I can assure you that it almost the catalysts which propelled him into the leadership. And I tell you why. I met in 2013 with a senior Russian diplomat, slash spy most likely, and he's basically had a personal friendship with Putin. And he said that when he was appointed as prime minister he saw this as some sort of a destiny, fate calling him. And he basically, you know, as a devout Orthodox Christian, he saw that being a prime minister is a calling. But he needed a sign from God. That this is his destiny to fulfill.

THOMAS: Before you tell me what that sign was, I just want to press you on this. Putin a devout Orthodox Christian. I am, as it happens, an Orthodox Christian, because I, you know, I even lived in an Orthodox monastery for a while. I would question your description of Vladimir Putin as a devout Orthodox Christian. I admit to you that he definitely pretends to be an Orthodox Christian and invokes Orthodox Christian symbolism, uh, in, in the new Russia that he's building. Which, uh, which, you know, he's trying to kind of, he's trying, trying to bring back the glory days of the old Orthodox czarist empire. But a devout Orthodox Christian? Really?

AIMEN: Well, I have to take the word of the person who told me. Who basically is a senior diplomat and someone basically who knew Putin quite well.

THOMAS: Okay. So what was the sign from heaven that devout Orthodox Christian Vladimir Putin was looking for?

AIMEN: The bombings of the army barracks in Moscow.

THOMAS: Tell us that story. Tell us the story of the Chechen jihadists and your hometown boy Ibn al-Khattab’s attack on the barracks in Moscow.

AIMEN: Well, the jihadists for 19 months, and I go into great details of that, of that operation in my book, but the jihadist planned for 19 months to avenge massacres, took place in Dagestan and Chechnya by the OMON and the Alpha, uh, units of the Russian Special Forces. They located where these special forces live alongside their families in military compounds and they attacked them in the summer of, uh, 1999. Just weeks after Putin was sworn in as the prime minister of Russia.

THOMAS: What did Putin do?

AIMEN: Putin saw this is as ‘This is the Lord's calling’. That's what he basically, you know, interpreted these attacks. Russia is challenged and therefore we should not shy away from more. Until then, basically the Russians suffered major losses in the first Chechen war, and they were not organized and they didn't have a good leadership. Yeltsin was a drunk, you know, incompetent idiot. But Putin decided that he will take charge of this Russian war you know, using his exceptional skills as a spy in order to execute the, uh, war against these people. So, this is why I always say that it is ironic that as Russian bombs are falling on jihadists in Syria, I always used to say ‘You want to blame someone? Blame yourselves. You made this man when you bombed Moscow in 1999.’

THOMAS: How was that greeted in the West? Because I imagine at the time the West must have itself been shocked, uh, at such a heinous crime by jihadists in Moscow.

AIMEN: Well, actually the West believed that it was Putin who orchestrated the whole thing.

THOMAS: Why did they think that?

AIMEN: Well, first of all, basically, okay. There is this man, he is the head of the FSB, the Soviet intelligence. So now he is the head of the Russian Intelligence. Then he became a prime minister. And then suddenly there are these, there are these bombings which basically you know making him so angry that he basically invade Chechnya again. And surprisingly, drive away the jihadists way into the mountains and take back Grozny and other Chechen cities. Uh, so everyone was saying… ‘Oh, how convenient, the timing. You become prime minister, six weeks later, you know, the pretext for the war that will make you a war hero and Russia’s strong man to the point where Boris Yeltsin appoint you as his successor. I mean, how convenient!’

THOMAS: But you're saying that's not true?

AIMEN: Not true. Because why? In Christmas of 1999 I just returned back from [Afghanistan. I was, you know, loaded with letters from Al Qaeda to say certain operatives here in London…

THOMAS: You're already a double agent at this time.

AIMEN: Exactly. I was already spying for MI6 and these letters actually were already opened, expertly scanned, and then put back again as if they were never opened. And then I have to deliver them myself without knowing the content. So… So basically I was supposed to deliver some of the letters to Abu Qatada, you know, famous, you know, Al Qaeda linked cleric who was based in London.

THOMAS: Abu Qatada… gosh, up takes me back.

AIMEN: Exactly. So I called him and he said “Come tonight.” It was Ramadan I remember. He said “Come tonight after the evening prayers. You will be hearing from an old friend of yours. So I said “Okay, fine. I'm coming.” So when I went to his house, we were sitting around, you know, like corporate managers, five of us. We were sitting around a speaker phone and from Tbilisi in Georgia, we were listening to Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri who I knew from Afghanistan years earlier. He was the head of the logistics for the Chechan jihadists.

THOMAS: Ah.

AIMEN: Including Ibn Khattab because he planned the whole thing. He told us when we asked him you know, “Was it disadvantageous to you?” Because even us thought that Putin did it.

THOMAS: You asked him about the, about the attack in Moscow.

AIMEN: Exactly. So you know, it's good basically that the whole thing was recorded. So, um, so basically I asked uou know “Was it disadvantageous that the war, you know, the, the timing of the war was determined by the Russians?” And so he asked “What do you mean, determined by the Russians?” “Uh, well, because Putin carried out, you know, these attacks in Moscow as a pretext”

THOMAS: A false flag. A false flag mission.

AIMEN: Exactly. False flag. I mean, it has all the hallmark of a false flag. And he said “No, we did it.” And he went on to explain the whole process, the reasoning, the pretext, and why they did it. It was damning evidence because he talked about details only the bombers would have known.

THOMAS: So, you have just been told from the horse's mouth as it were…

AIMEN: Yes.

THOMAS: …that what the whole West believed that Putin had launched a false flag operation killing his own soldiers in Moscow was not true. The jihadists had actually done it.

AIMEN: Yes.

THOMAS: And it was just amazingly convenient for him. A sign from God even.

AIMEN: A sign from God like in the later years, like you know, almost 15 years later I had a Russian diplomat who knew him told me that he viewed this as a sign from God. I, however, immediately called my MI6 handlers and told them, that “There is something that you need to know. And immediately.” So we met, I told them the information. It was a bombshell and it landed on Tony Blair's desk within days, basically. And as a result, he shared it with other world leaders and suddenly Putin was no longer treated as a pariah. Putin was treated as a victim of terrorism. And Tony Blair invited him to a pub a few weeks later where they shared the pint. They were wearing jeans and casual and everything, and suddenly everything seemed in a going Putin’s way.

THOMAS: But his reputation did not remain very high in the estimation of the West. What happened? Why? Why did the… People forget now because Putin is a big bad guy, but in the noughties, he wasn't a big bad guy. He sort of was playing along.

AIMEN: He was playing along, but then he was playing along, but then several things happened along the way. 9/ 11 happened. And not many people know but again, jihadists. Putin’s path was forged by jihadists. You know, if you want to blame, you know the rise of Putin on anyone, it's the bloody jihadists.

THOMAS: So why didn’t 9/11 have an impact on, on Putin?

AIMEN: Okay. So, he thought that 9 11 is a good thing in a sense that basically the Americans will realize finally that there is a serious war against terrorism.

THOMAS: He'd been fighting jihadists in Chechnya. And now he says, look, we're all fighting jihadists.

AIMEN: Absolutely. And he offered his help, you know, against the Taliban. Which he did actually. You know, the Russian military and intelligence provided, you know significant help to the US and the UK war efforts in Afghanistan.

THOMAS: And of course, they were experts on Afghanistan. They'd fought in Afghanistan for 11 years.

AIMEN: Exactly! And they have their own assets there, they have their own allies…

THOMAS: So Putin was an ally of the West in the war on terror.

AIMEN: Absolutely.

THOMAS: What happened to change that?

AIMEN: Iraq war….Because Putin was absolutely against it.

THOMAS: Because?

AIMEN: First, he believed that Saddam Hussein, just like Bashar al-Assad and others, they are the pillars of stability. They are, you know, the pillars of Arab nationalism because Arab nationalism protected Arab Christians. Because you know, look at who was Saddam's foreign minister? Tariq Aziz.

THOMAS: Yes, Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi deputy prime minister and foreign minister under Saddam Hussein.

AIMEN: He was a Christian. And there were many Christian officers in Saddam's army and in Saddam's government and in Saddam's Ba'ath Party.

THOMAS: Certainly in Syria, the Christian community are very close to the Assad regime.

AIMEN: Exactly. I mean, he viewed both Saddam and al-Assad as the pillars of Arab nationalism and Arab nationalism was an important buffer against Islamic extremism.

THOMAS: So Putin begins to realize that America's war on terror is not being prosecuted wisely.

AIMEN: No, he started to see that the war on terror had a more sinister ulterior motive. He started to doubt whether the neo-cons of Washington really wanted to fight terrorism or wanted to basically, you know, have an American hegemony in a project in the middle East. Which would then basically make America far more powerful because they will have access to the world natural resources. They can then flood the market with cheap, Iraqi oil, which would then undermine the Russian economy. Russia was a massive net exporter. So if you bring down the price of energy, both oil and gas, then the Russian economy would suffer significantly. So he saw that you know, with America being there, America will have its you know basically its foot on the hose like they can basically just press and cut, you know, the dollars to theRussian economy by manipulating oil prices.

THOMAS: This is very interesting because this is putting us into Putin's head. And often, you know, people aren't encouraged to see the world from Putin's point of view. Now….

AIMEN: By the way, I'm not the Putin apologist. I'm just basically stating facts. I don't like the man. I don't like what the Russians did in Syria whatsoever. I condemn it with the most, you know, you know, strongest way possible. I condemn it the strongest way possible. But we have to talk about facts. Here at Conflicted we are dissecting conflicts in order to come up with the right diagnostics.

THOMAS: So, from Putin's point of view, he's looking out at a certain foreign policy decisions that America is making and realizing ‘I'm not sure I really want to be a part of this new world order or I'm not sure if this new world order actually has my best interests in mind.’ Of course, there are other foreign policy decisions that America makes in this time. It expands NATO into former Warsaw pact countries.

AIMEN: Yep.

THOMAS: This is happening in conjunction with the EU which is trying to expand its influence into former Warsaw pact countries in Eastern Europe, which, which Russia considers to be something of a threat to its sphere of influence and this definitely includes the Ukraine as I mentioned before.

AIMEN: Thomas, remember… Kiev?

THOMAS: Well the Orange Revolution in Kiev... I mean, Ukraine would definitely come up in this conversation because we all know that, uh, that a civil war has been raging in Ukraine for six years now. Russia has covertly, sometimes overtly, intervened on the side of the Eastern Ukrainian pro-Russian separatists.

AIMEN: Yeah. And guess whose forces, whose irregular forces are fighting in Ukraine now alongside the Russians or alongside the pro-Russian separatists in order to keep K… you know, the Ukrainian forces at Bay.

THOMAS: Don't tell me the president of Chechnya is…

AIMEN: Yes. Ramzan Kadyrov…

THOMAS: Alrght, for the listener… Ramzan Kadyrov became president of Chechnya in 2007. His father was also president, though he was assassinated in 2004. Now Ramzan Kadyrov… the thing is he has this cherubic face. He looks like a little baby with his sort of soft, downy beard. But he’s a really fucking hard guy. He’s a real tough warlord.

AIMEN: He has a private army of many Caucuses Muslims, Sufis who are, you know, brave warriors. And…

THOMAS: A private army?

AIMEN: A private army…

THOMAS: You mean it's not the army of Chechnya?

AIMEN:

No, it is basically a private army you know, of Ramzan Kadyrov and they are deployed according to whatever they are needed. So in Syria they are deployed. They are between 4 and 5,000 of them. They are deployed as the Russian military police in order to, uh, police, newly liberated areas where I know… basically so-called liberated areas from the opposition. But because they are Sufi Sunni Muslims, they make it easy for the Syrian population to accept them.

THOMAS:

Uh, I mean, this is blowing my mind. A private army separate from the Chechnyan military. This, this is very much like…

AIMEN:

They are the Chechnyan military, but they are not a regular Russian military.

THOMAS:

This is, this is similar to the privatization of espionage you were talking about in the first episode. Are we seeing the privatization of the military completely?

AIMEN:

Not only that, Ramzan Kadyrov has his own mercenaries fighting alongside, you know, UAE and Saudi Arabia forces in Yemen. They are fighting alongside Haftar, General Haftar in Libya. You know, it's all for money. And he has actually a military Academy, uh, in Grozny where he is training…

THOMAS:

In Chechnya.

AIMEN:

In Chechnya. Where he is training, you know, soldiers from Saudi Arabia, from the UAE, from Nepal. You know, even Nepalis Gurkas in order to be deployed to war zones according to the whims of certain leaders in the middle East.

THOMAS:

War zones, including the war zone in Eastern Ukraine.

AIMEN:

In Eastern Ukraine and wherever Putin wants them to.

THOMAS:

This is amazing. So, Putin rises to power in 1999 on the back of Chechnyan separatism, he crushes Chechnyan separatism, installs in Chechnya a president that is basically his lapdog and now Chechnyan soldiers are everywhere fighting… jihadists, fighting anti-Russian forces, fighting whoever. They're the great mercenaries of the world?

AIMEN:

Yeah. And they are devout Muslims who believed, who believe that, you know, Russia is actually pushing back America's evil influence and therefore they are fighting Putin's jihad. I know it's, it's mind boggling.

THOMAS:

I'm actually speechless cause there's just such a conflation of everything we've talked about now for, you know, for almost a year… You know, Russia, it's not actually that Russia is simply geopolitically America's enemy. But Russia has actually allied itself with Islamists who think that America is the antichrist. And in a similar vein, before you brought up Russia’s presence in Syria today because it's an amazing thing. It's in fact one of the most amazing things about America's failure in the Middle East, that for so many decades, America did whatever it could to prevent Russia from, uh, having a untrammeled control of a swathe of the middle East. And yet now we have Russia, which can do more or less what it wants throughout Syria.

AIMEN:

Exactly.

THOMAS:

Now. They're there for many reasons. Why is Russia in Syria?

AIMEN:

Again, that diplomat who I spoke to… and… he said that there are multitude of reasons why the Russians felt confident enough that they can intervene in Syria. Because one, Obama is weak and wobbling and wasn't willing to intervene. And that even though Assad cross the red line, the chemical weapons red line, twice, Obama did not do anything.

THOMAS:

Obama's… Obama's lack of response emboldened Putin, fine. But that's not why he's there.

AIMEN:

The second reason we have an intervention in Russia, according to the diplomat is that again, it comes back to Putin's, you know, if it's not belief in the Christian Orthodox church at least it is, you know, acquiescing to the pleas by the Russian Orthodox church that the Czarist a treaty with the Ottomans, which basically granted the Syriac Orthodox Christians of Syria the protection of the czars of Russia. So, the idea is that since France was always viewed as the natural protector of the Catholics of the middle East…

THOMAS:

Like the Maronites in Lebanon…

AIMEN:

Exactly. It’s the same thing there. That the Russians are tasked since hundreds of years with the protection of the Orthodox Christians in Syria.

THOMAS:

Now for the listener, from well before the Russian Revolution made the Soviet Union an atheist state, Russia was the biggest Orthodox country. And as such it considered itself the protector of the Orthodox Christians of the Middle East. In the 18th century in fact, the Czarina, the Empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, who was in fact a German not a Russian, but she took to it like a duck takes to water, she was the first one to explicitly say that she was going to protect the Orthodox Christians of the Middle East. She had this idea and it, and a lot of Russians did at the time, that eventually the czar of Moscow, heir to the ancient Roman and Byzantines emperors would conquer Istanbul, Constantinople, and become the great leaders of the entire Middle East. Of the entire formerly Christian world. In fact, Catherine the great named her grandson, Constantine, the founder of Constantinople with this ambition in mind. Now, in January 2020 Vladimir Putin visited Syria. We all know the Russians are in Syria. The Russians are allied very closely with Bashar Al-Assad. But when he visited Damascus in January, he went along with the Orthodox Archbishop of the city, the Patriarch of Antioch, to the cathedral of the city, the Orthodox cathedral, to worship there alongside Bashar Al-Assad.

AIMEN:

Well… As you know, the czars of Russia has always been tasked with the protection of the Orthodox Christians of the Middle East. That's the first thing. The second thing is that Qasem Soleimani has just been killed. He is the major competitor to Russia's ambitions in Syria because he represents Iran's interests in Syria. He's dead - perfect. Putin is there to consolidate.

THOMAS:

Well, it's interesting. I was in Syria… I lived in Damascus in 2007, 2008.

AIMEN:

Lucky you. [Laughs]

THOMAS:

And I used to worship at that cathedral. I remember specifically, I'll never forget a Psalm Sunday, you know the Sunday before Easter…

AIMEN:

Yeah.

THOMAS:

…at the cathedral. You know, Arab Christians are a wonderful people… Quite bourgeois, very middle-class, but also slightly chaotic. So, I remember just at the end of the mass, outside of the cathedral an enormous ruckus began. A sort of din of brass band music. Because all of the young Christians of the old city of Damascus had organized themselves into a brass band. And then they spent the next several hours just wandering around the city playing this sort of brass marching music. It was very strange, but it was a tremendous sign of the depth of Orthodox Christian penetration in an old Middle Eastern city like Syria which, which we often forget about.

AIMEN:

Exactly that they predate Islam. We forget basically that they've been there since before the Muslims actually arrived in Damascus.

THOMAS:

And Vladimir Putin considers himself their protector. Clearly he has cultivated very close relations with Orthodox Christian communities in Syria and elsewhere.

AIMEN:

Absolutely.

THOMAS:

But how does that support his wider strategic vision?

AIMEN:

Because then we come to the third issue. You remember we talked about the Chechen war before and how that lasted years and years? Now you remember I talked about the friction between the Sufis and the Salafists in the Chechen war?

THOMAS:

Yeah. You can take it for granted that I remember what you say.

AIMEN:

Yeah. Putin decided that he will split the jihadists from each other. The Sufi jihadists he will court. And he will court them in order to cultivate their enmity against the Salafists to use it to beat the Salafists.

THOMAS:

To divide and conquer?

AIMEN:

Absolutely. So he showered Ramzan Kadyrov and his father before him, Akhmad Kadyrov.

THOMAS:

Who is, who are these Kadyrovs?

AIMEN:

Basically, they are members of a prominent Sufi clan in Chechnya. Uh, they were promised the presidency of Chechnya afterwards within the Russian Federation. And that they will be having the backing of the Kremlin, the backing of the Russian armed forces if they just basically turned their back on the Salafists, the Wahhabis basically, who are trying to ignite a never ending war in the Caucuses against Russia and against other ethnicities in the region.

THOMAS:

So Putin gave the Kadyrov family the control of Chechnya in exchange for turning against the Salafists?

AIMEN:

Exactly. So a war raged between the Kadyrovs and the Salafists, including Shamil Basayev and other people who were the leaders of that Salafist movement along with the successors of Ibn Khattab there. But you know, as the war raged and it claimed actually Kadyrov’s father, Ramzan Kadyrov, his father Akhmad Kadyrov was killed actually by a IED place under his podium by the jihadists. So what happened is: the Arab spring happened. Syria happened. And suddenly Syria became the magnet of jihadism. And what Kadyrov did? He opened the Southern border towards Georgia and allowed all of these people to exit.

THOMAS:

Bye, bye.

AIMEN:

Bye, bye. Go to Syria, wage your jihad there, go establish your califate there. So they went there and then what happened is – when they were all there, between five and 6,000 of them, then this is basically when the Russians thought ‘That's it. We have emptied the Caucuses from them, let us now pound them there.’

THOMAS:

So Russia has been fighting its own enemies in Syria.

AIMEN:

Exactly.

THOMAS:

Why doesn't anyone know about this? That's fascinating.

AIMEN:

Well, you need to be quite intimate with the events as I did when I was in Azerbaijan and Georgia in these days.

THOMAS:

We should all be more intimate with jihadists.

AIMEN:

[Laughs]

THOMAS:

You should create a dating app for jihadists. ‘Get intimate with jihadists’.

AIMEN:

Yeah, except basically I mean, it will entail some sort of slavery contract. [Laughs]

THOMAS:

But let’s get back to this. Russia. And Russia’s role in the formation, or perhaps subversion, of George H. Bush’s New World Order. The economic collapse in Russia that happened at the end of the 90s followed several years where Russia really did dance to the beat of America's drum. Americans insisted on radical economic surgery. The IMF, which along with the World Bank, tries to manage the global economy as it fitfully lurches towards free markets and liberal democracy, and America more or less insist on radical economic and financial surgery to what was a completely sclerotic post-communist economy. And very quickly it caused all sorts of economic problems. The ruble collapsed in value in 1998 I think quite famously, state assets were sold to the highest quote unquote bidder but actually that meant…

AIMEN:

The oligarchs…

THOMAS:

Insiders within who had influence within the government there, and most of them actually seem to live just down the street here in London but…

AIMEN:

Indeed.

[Laughter]

THOMAS:

That’s another story. Um. So initially, Russia did dance to the beat of America's drum. ‘98 the ruble collapses and from then on Russia really stops playing along. That decision, to go its own way again, is largely the result of Vladimir Putin who came to power at that time.

THOMAS:

There's obviously a lot more we could have talked about in this extremely complex episode of Conflicted. I mean, 20 years of Russian history is not easy to summarize. We could've gone into greater detail about the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Or we could've talked about the war in Georgia, Russia’s war in Georgia, in 2008. And, of course, the ongoing Ukrainian civil war which we did touch on. But as we’ve seen through the story of Russia’s relationship with Chechnya, America’s strategy toward Russia at the dawn of the New World Order was a bit of a roller-coaster. And it was, once again, jihadists, this time in Chechnya, who played such a huge role in undermining that strategy by creating the conditions for the rise of Vladimir Putin. A man who, you know love him or hate him, began to look around and realize that America’s global ambitions weren’t necessarily in the interests of Russia. In the end in a sort of twist, Putin partnered with the Sufi Muslims of Chechnya and gave them independence of a sort in exchange for becoming his vassals. Which is why we now see Chechen mercenaries in every Middle Eastern hot zone fighting for Russia and ironically enabling Russia to regain its age-old role of protector of Orthodox Christians everywhere. An unexpected dimension of Russia’s power struggle with America in the Middle East. So we see that despite efforts on both America’s and Russia’s parts to forge a new partnership following the collapse of the Soviet Union, that relationship soured over the course of the noughties leading us to where we are now. Russia with a strong foothold in the Middle East. Russia becoming an opposing force to America, definitely not their partners. Russia allied with Muslim warriors of the Caucuses who are in almost every war zone in the region and beyond supporting and projecting Russian power. It was certainly not what George H W Bush had in mind when he first invoked his New World Order.

[THEME MUSIC]

THOMAS:

Conflicted is a Message Head production. It’s produced by Sandra Ferrari and Jake Otajovic. Edited by Sandra Ferrari. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley.

This week we’ve got another book to giveaway to one of our lucky listeners. Our recommended reading for this episode is: ‘A Dirty War. A Russian Reporter In Chechnya’ by Anna… let’s see if I can get this right… Politkovskaya. Anna Politkovskaya is a hero among journalists and an early victim of Putin’s crackdown on independent journalism. Assassinated in 2006 for exposing the dark side of the new Russia. In this brutally honest book, Politkovskaya courageously documents the Chechnyan War from the ground. To be in with a chance of winning a copy, join our Facebook group before Wednesday 18th March when we announce the winner. The link to the group is in the show notes or search ‘Conflicted Podcast Discussion Group’ on Facebook. You can also find the show on social media – Twitter and Facebook at MHConflicted. And if you’re a fan of the show, please subscribe to Conflicted in your podcast app and leave us a rating and a review. It will really help us to spread the word.

You’ve been listening to Conflicted with me, Thomas Small, and my good friend Aimen Dean. See you again in two weeks!

Conflicted S2 E2 - New World Order

In 1990, George Bush proclaimed the dawning of a New World Order. The Cold War was over, the nation-state and capitalism had won, and the US was ready to deliver their strategy for global governance of the world. Aimen and Thomas discuss how this played out in the Middle East and where the grand vision fell short.

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THOMAS: Hello Aimen

AIMEN: Hello Thomas.

THOMAS: Nice to see you again.

AIMEN: Nice to see you too.

THOMAS: And hello to you, dear listener. Thanks for tuning in to the second episode of the second series of Conflicted. A podcast where we try to take you through the history of the last 30 years. The history of America's attempt from out of the ashes of the Cold War to build a new, and the glorious world, where freedom, liberal democracy and capitalism would thrive everywhere.

AIMEN: And unicorns flying everywhere [Laughs]

THOMAS: [Laughs] [Overlapping] And unicorns as well.

[THEME MUSIC]

THOMAS: In the last season, we started our story on 9/11. The infamous day when Al-Qaeda attacked New York City and Washington D.C. In this season, we're also going to start on September 11th, but not in 2001, in 1990. When George H. W. Bush, that is to say, George Bush Senior, the first President Bush, delivered a speech to Congress in which he said this:

[ARCHIVAL CLIP STARTS]

GEORGE BUSH: We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. Out of these troubled times, a new world order can emerge. A new era, freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South can prosper and live in harmony. A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor, and today that new world is struggling to be born. A world quite different from the one we've known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice.

[ARCHIVAL CLIP ENDS]

THOMAS: So there you've just heard President Bush Senior invoke the New World Order, which he hoped to establish following the Cold War. What was the New World Order? Well, I think we can define it like this. America, now unopposed, a global hegemon with no Soviet Union to oppose it, uses its military to police the world, prevent one nation state from invading another… with the exception of America itself of course but that's another issue. [Laughs]

AIMEN: [Laughs]

THOMAS: And in general support the establishment and the strengthening of nation states everywhere in order to allow international organisations like what became the World Trade organization, to spread neoliberal capitalism everywhere, which they believed would spur global trade and lead to economic growth.

When President Bush Senior delivered that speech to Congress, Saddam Hussein had recently invaded Kuwait. You Aimen were living not so far away at the time down in Khobar on the Eastern coast of Saudi Arabia. Uh, and in the first season you told us about your memories of that time of having American troops come to Saudi to help rescue Kuwait and prevent Iraq from invading Saudi Arabia.

We don't want to go over that story again, but what I'd like to know from you is: do you remember the first time you heard this expression, New World Order and heard about America's ambitions following the cold war to create a new and prosperous world for everyone?

AIMEN: You know what, Thomas, you will be surprised to know that I did hear that expression in the run up to the first Gulf War between, you know, Saddam invading Kuwait and the launch of the war to expel him from it. Why? Because the listeners might not think of it like this right now, but actually at the time, we were afraid, and we were genuinely afraid, that the Gulf could become the battlefield of the Third World War. Because there was that general belief that Baghdad was part of the Soviet access. That… Baghdad was part of Moscow's Alliance.

THOMAS: If Saddam Hussein had been allied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, at least on and off let’s say…

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Indeed.

THOMAS: He was a bit of a wily character.

AIMEN: Absolutely. So many people thought that Moscow wouldn't allow the Americans to launch an all-out war against Iraq to expel them from Kuwait, and that Moscow would, uh, push for a status quo. And I think even Saddam might have thought this way.

THOMAS: And that's how it always had been during the Cold War. In general, America had not been able to project its power militarily very directly with some exceptions of course, because Moscow would counter their power, so the world was held in a kind of stalemate.

So you're saying that Saddam Hussein thought he could take advantage of that Cold War scenario to… to press his advantage in, in Kuwait.

AIMEN: Indeed. But what happened is suddenly, we started to see that, you know, there is, there is a new shift. First of all, Moscow wasn't exactly very supportive of Saddam's move. That's the first thing. And Moscow was already weak, beyond weak. I think we didn't know how weak it was until Saddam invaded Kuwait.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Well the Berlin wall had fallen...

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Yup.

THOMAS: …the previous November and you know, communism was unravelling.

AIMEN: Exactly, so Moscow was in a weak position, but what actually made this seem like a new world order is that another of Moscow's allies, Damascus – Syria – sent 27,000 troops to protect Saudi border against possible Iraqi invasion.

THOMAS: So even you, a young, well young, 13 year old, 12 year old boy in Saudi Arabia could tell that things had changed. Did you see President Bush give this speech? Were you watching it on TV? Were Saudis watching it?

AIMEN: Of course, because we were living with the idea that, you know, my house was only 800 meters away from the fence of the largest air base, you know, in the entire Middle East, King Abdulaziz Air Base. And you know, not far away to… two kilometres away is the gate to Aramco, which is the largest oil company in the world. Where, you know, two of my brothers were working, my two uncles were working there, and so of course we knew that we will be the next target, you know, Iraqi tanks could be in our town within four hours.

THOMAS: So you're watching television with your family and Bush introduces this idea, the New World Order that he wants to create. What was your family's response to this?

AIMEN: We deduced really three things. One, Moscow is not coming to the aid of Saddam, so brilliant. It means there is no new world war, there will be no World War Three. That's the first thing. Second thing is that the Americans are building the coalition, which means basically that they are going to overwhelm Saddam, and by extension Moscow, with so many countries coming side-by-side together. It means that there will be no two sides fighting this war. Saddam will be alone, which means that Moscow is going to abandon one of her allies in the region. And the third thing is that, well perfect. It means there is no invasion, it’s going to be a simple war later basically to expel Saddam out of Kuwait. The question is, are we going to witness chemical war or whatever? That's what we were worried about.

THOMAS: What did you think the new world that America was now going to lead would be like?

AIMEN: We didn't think that America is going to lead yet because they haven't been yet tested in the battlefield. Yet, all of us in, you know, my family, the extended friends circle, we were worried about America's previous performance in Vietnam. I'm not kidding. Seriously. We were really worried that yes, the Americans are coming, but can they really expel Saddam out of Kuwait and is it going to be short or long, protracted war? We were worried about that.

THOMAS: It was certainly a short war, very quick. I think within a hundred days, Iraq was destroyed.

AIMEN: Yeah.

THOMAS: And then on the 6th of March 1991 again, George H.W. Bush gave a speech in which he again, invoked the New World Order.

AIMEN: That is the speech in which we believed that there is a new world.

THOMAS: And what, how did you imagine it? What did you think it meant?

AIMEN: I liked what my brother said. You know, my brother spent years in America studying for his degree and his masters degree, and he said something interesting, you know, he said: “What this means is that McDonald's is coming to Saudi Arabia.”

THOMAS: McDonald's.

AIMEN: That's what he said.

THOMAS: You didn't have McDonald's yet?

AIMEN: We didn't have McDonald's yet, but he, he said what this new world order means is that we would become similar culturally, economically, to the Americans.

THOMAS: And was he saying that in a spirit of expectation, of anticipation, of excitement?

AIMEN: Uh, no, more disappointment actually. [Laughs]

THOMAS: Oh, so people weren't looking forward to this New World Order where they could have McDonald's at every waking hour of the day and night.

AIMEN: Some were, some weren’t, so it all depends on who you speak to. Do you speak basically to liberal Saudis, or do you speak to conservative Saudis? Conservative Saudis especially… Don't forget, many conservative and liberal Saudis studied where? In the US. Aramco used to send so many people to study in America and then they come back and, you know, some have the opposite, you know, view of the U.S as you know, being a hegemonic, uh, culturally encroaching…

THOMAS: Great Satan.

AIMEN: Great Satan, but others basically have more positive view of the U.S and its influence in the world. But I think his words stuck with me when he saw that speech after the defeat of Iraq.

THOMAS: Well, that's very interesting. It shows your brother's prescience because about eight years later a book came out, a very famous book at the time, by Thomas Friedman, still a highly regarded New York Times columnist called The Lexus and the Olive Tree, which sort of became for the liberal intelligentsia, for the metropolitan elite if you like, the kind of Bible of globalisation. I mean, globalization is a word that sort of grew in precedence, but it’s expressing the same thing. This New World Order, where the globe is knitted together, united under American military, economic and cultural supremacy around the ideals and principles first of capitalism, let's be honest. And second, of liberal democracy.

AIMEN: When possible.

THOMAS: When possible. Um, and Thomas Friedman's book, the Lexus and the Olive Tree actually introduced a principle, which became quite famous, in which he said that two countries, each of which have a McDonald's in them, would never go to war with each other. In the end, this proved to be untrue. In fact, the very year the book came out in Kosovo, there were McDonald's there. [Laughs]

AIMEN: [Laughs]

THOMAS: And Siberia had McDonald's, but it expresses a sort of idea that thanks to American led global capitalism, peace and prosperity would rain and your brother thought that would happen immediately. He thought McDonald's is coming.

AIMEN: Exactly. That's how he saw it. And funny enough, when the Soviet Union collapsed months later-

THOMAS: The Soviet Union collapsed about nine months later.

AIMEN: Exactly. Yeah. So, months later, we saw the first McDonald's open in Moscow and we saw lines and lines stretching a kilometre. And he told me, basically: “Do you remember when I told you it would be McDonald’s?” You know, that McDonald’s represented both the cultural and the economic hegemonic arm of the United States.

THOMAS: It's funny that you say that in Saudi Arabia, people, uh, greeted the New World Order differently depending on whether they were liberals or conservatives. Because certainly I, in America at the time, growing up in a kind of quite right wing, fundamentalist evangelical environment, I was given to believe that the New World Order was absolutely terrifyingly, apocalyptically, horrible that it was the reign of antichrist about to arrive on earth. And in fact, the same year that Bush gave his first speech on the New World Order, a famous American Evangelical Preacher and Broadcaster called Pat Robertson, he published a book called The New World Order, in which he said: “It may well be that men of Goodwill, like George Bush, who sincerely want a larger community of nations living at peace in our world, are in reality unknowingly and unwittingly carrying out the mission and mouthing the phrases of a tightly knit cabal whose goal is nothing less than a new order for the human race under the domination of Lucifer and his followers.

AIMEN: Wow.

[Laughter]

THOMAS: So, amongst the right wingers of America, there was a lot of consternation about this New World Order and what it could mean. Of course, they thought it was going to undermine American national sovereignty as America's political class pursues something like an international global order, which would dilute national sovereignty in pursuit of international goals. Inside Saudi Arabia amongst, say, the conservative preachers and conservative teachers that you were socializing with on your way to becoming a Jihadist Terrorist a few years later, was there a similar, almost paranoia about this, this New World Order?

AIMEN: Let me tell you something, Thomas.

THOMAS: Please do, Aimen.

AIMEN: You will be surprised to know that the three months that followed the American victory in the Gulf War against Saddam, these three months were incredibly weird and surreal. And of course, when Bush spoke about a new world and a New World Order, it was almost visible above our heads. Why? Because before Saddam left Kuwait, he blew up all the oil wells, and so the smoke, the heavy dark smoke from the oil wells, covered all of our region. You know, the tri-city area of Dammam, Dhahran, and Khobar, my city, were covered in dark clouds for three months.

THOMAS: So you must have thought the apocalypse had arrived.

AIMEN: [Laughs] Indeed. And what happened is, you know, basically we wear white robes, they’re called thawb.

THOMAS: Yes, the white thawbs of the Saudis.

AIMEN: Yeah, so I go to the Mosque, or the school, whatever, basically like, I mean, and they closed the schools actually at the time, because of the health hazard. So whenever I go to the Mosque or to the shop or whatever, I, come back. And when it rains, it becomes black you know, basically it becomes so grey, you know, because of the rain that comes with oil in it. So, it was and smells, really smells awful. So, in this environment we were forming our opinion of what the world will be after the defeat of Saddam, the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union and the Soviet access, Communism is defeated in Afghanistan. Remember, it was collapsing in Afghanistan also. It was collapsing in East Europe and Arab nationalism was defeated by Bush when he expelled Saddam out of Kuwait. So, we were thinking, yes, you know, the world is changing around us. And is it for the better? Well, you know, the dark clouds, literally, were hovering above us.

THOMAS: Take us into the minds of the conservative religious Saudis at the time, like my religious contemporaries in America. Were you afraid that the reign of Antichrist had arrived?

AIMEN: Well, I tell you something. You know, you remember there is a preacher. Not many listeners would have heard about, but of course, many, many, many within the Arab world and Muslim world heard about, his name is Safar Al-Hawali. Safar Al-Hawali, you know, you know, he has a PhD in Islamic studies--

THOMAS: He’s a part of a movement in Saudi Arabia called the Sahwah movement or the Awakening movement.

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Absolutely. Thomas, you always impress me.

THOMAS: Which was a movement of primarily Saudi clerics who it is alleged were to some extent allied to, or at least sympathetic with, Muslim Brotherhood ideas. And they petitioned the Saudi government over a series of years to increase the government's Islamic credentials, if you like, or-

AIMEN: Basically, to have a stricter introduction of Sharia into everyday life. To fight off the westernizing influence of globalization, culturally, economically, and all of that. And they wanted to ban interest-based lending. You know, in the kingdom. They wanted to ban conventional banking. Uh, you know, they wanted to go as far as Saudis condemning the new peace process started in 1992 in Madrid between the Palestinians and Israelis.

THOMAS: We'll get to that shortly.

AIMEN: So basically, there were so many things they wanted-

THOMAS: They were… They were, to some extent, successful in shifting attitudes within the government and certainly outside the government towards a more hard-line Islamic direction.

AIMEN: To an extent. But Safar Al-Hawali, he basically was looking at the American arrival to the Middle East, especially in the Arabian Peninsula as they used to call it, to push away Saddam and to safeguard the energy supplies in the world. He saw it as another episode of the crusades. He said that this is not because people wanted to save God, the sovereignty of one small little country like Kuwait. This is bigger than Kuwait. This is bigger than Saudi Arabia. This is bigger than anything else. This is about American Christian crusading hegemony that is in the service of the Zionist project in Israel.

THOMAS: Of course, we know that another person who was around at that time, Osama bin Laden, interpreted, uh, America's arrival in the Middle East in the same way.

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: Which led to Al-Qaeda. Which led to 9/11 and everything we talked about in season one. But I think it's interesting that within Saudi Arabia there was almost immediately, in response to the New World Order, in response to America's new unopposed role in the world, that within Saudi Arabia people responded to this. Some people at least, with a call for a more Islamic order. Because the year after Bush’s speech, an extremely famous and influential book was then released by someone called Samuel Huntington. It's a book called The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. It started in ‘92 as a lecture, in ‘93 an article, and then finally in ‘96 a book. And in this book, Samuel Huntington quite infamously says that America's dream of a New World Order is not going to happen because actually, though, perhaps capitalism has defeated communism, in a new world it's not a clash of political ideologies anymore. It's a clash of culture. And he specified two cultures in particular that were not gonna play game. One was China, and we'll get to that in another episode, and the other was Islam. And as we saw to some extent, Samuel Huntington was proved correct. That to some extent, and in some ways, the Islamic world was not easily or successfully integrated into this New World Order.

AIMEN: Some more than others. You know, the problem is it's not so much basically that Islam in itself did not play a part because Islam is absent to be honest. Because of the fact that it's the Muslims who did not successfully integrate into this New World Order or into this you know, global economic model that the Americans wanted to install. And I tell you why. Because while Egypt, Algeria, you know, Iran, Pakistan – these countries failed to embrace, you know, these principles.

THOMAS: The principles of capitalism, liberalism, et cetera.

AIMEN: Well, capitalism, not so much liberalism. But I would say basically in a free market, economic liberalism. Those were embraced by countries like Malaysia, the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia. These countries embraced it, and as a result, basically the living standards in these countries basically are far better. Of course, oil helped. But in the case of, for example, Malaysia, you know – hardly any oil. And in the case of Turkey, you know, in 2003 onwards, basically when they embraced, um, free market capitalism, thanks to Ahmet Davutoğlu. Also, there was unprecedented levels of prosperity there. So, there are some countries that successfully embraced you know, free market liberalism. And other countries who did not embrace… They did not embrace, or they failed, because of the excessive dictatorship and autocracy that was implemented there.

THOMAS: Well, eventually, George W. Bush and his advisers would, would, uh, come to the same conclusion and thought that they would have to remove a dictatorship from the Middle East in order to see the New World Order through – with fabulously catastrophic results, as we saw in again, in season one.

Now, initially you're America. It's 1991, you've decided we won the Cold War. We have this unbelievable opportunity to erect a New World Order. You're basically going to have three objectives in mind. First, you need to establish a new partnership with Russia going forward. You've been their enemy for the last 50 years, but you've won and now you have to establish a new partnership with them. You need to incorporate China, this incredibly enormous and rising economic and, indeed, military power. You need to incorporate China into the world economy thinking that by doing so you will encourage the spread of liberal democracy there, and you will finally have to sort out the Middle East, a strange collection of monarchs and dictators and Islamists and post-Ottoman failed states. You finally have to sort out the problem. I would like us now to talk about that third objective, the Middle East, because immediately things started to happen. You mentioned before the Israel Palestinian peace plan that was relaunched in Madrid in 1992 by George Bush Senior, and then it was taken forward by President Bill Clinton. At the time, Yasser Arafat was the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The Palestinian authority hadn't yet been set up. It would be set up as part of this peace plan. And on the Israeli side, most famously, Yitzhak Rabin, who was eventually assassinated by a hard-line Jewish Israeli who felt that he had conceded too much to the Muslims. That peace plan didn't succeed. Why?

AIMEN: Well, it didn't succeed because, you know a multitude of reasons.

THOMAS: Well, first of all, let's talk about the plan. What was that plan? The Madrid peace plan which was supposed to sort out the Israel Palestine problem, finally. What was the plan?

AIMEN: I love the fact that the plan was a slogan. The slogan for the, [laughs] for the conference was also the plan. Land for peace.

THOMAS: Land for peace.

AIMEN: Yeah.

THOMAS: Meaning?

AIMEN: Meaning, give the Palestinians lands. And they give the Israeli's peace.

THOMAS: So they'll stop attacking Israel if Israel gives back lands, basically.

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Yes.

THOMAS: That's the idea.

AIMEN: That's the idea. The 1967, you know, lands in return for peace...

THOMAS: In 1967 there was a war between Israel and Egypt.

AIMEN: [Overlapping] And Serbia and Jordan

THOMAS: And Serbia and Jordan, [Laughs] and in the course of that war, Israel conquered huge amounts of land in the West Bank and in Gaza.

AIMEN: Yep.

THOMAS: And so, it became a sticking point of the Palestinians that in order to have a peace plan put in place, they needed to get those lands back.

AIMEN: Exactly, because there was a precedent for that which is in that war also, Israel conquered the entire Sinai Peninsula but they returned that to Egypt when Sadat, who was way ahead of his time in reading events, went to Jerusalem, reached peace with the Israelis unilaterally, and got most of the Sinai back. And piece by piece, basically it was returned. Until finally, in 1986, the last small drop called Taba you know, was given back to Hosni Mubarak.

THOMAS: So Egypt got the Sinai back and now the Palestinians say: “Well, we want all of the Westbank back, please.”

AIMEN: Indeed. And Gaza. Um, however, here, there is a problem. You know, this is where we have to tread carefully because we don't want to be, you know, siding with one side, Thomas, here.

THOMAS: No, I hate siding with one side. [Laughs]

AIMEN: Exactly. So, so on one side, the Israelis are saying that, you know, this is the land of Judea and Samaria, and this is our ancestral homeland. You know, basically, we came all the way from all over the world, basically not because of Tel Aviv or Haifa or Acre. We came actually for this particular piece of land, Judea and Samaria. So now that we have them by right of conquest… But you know, still don't, don't forget. Many people basically think that the Israelis are Europeans or enlightened or whatever. No, they are Middle Easterners. [Laughter] Like everyone else, they behave like such. I've been to Israel before basically, and you know, it was so refreshing to see the way they talk, they behave and everything. It's exactly like we talk and behave.

THOMAS: And so, they say we've conquered the land. We're not giving it back. And the Palestinians?

AIMEN: And the Palestinians say basically: “Excuse me, we are living here.”

THOMAS: Okay, so to explore America's perspective in the early nineties as they're creating the New World Order, why was it important for the Americans to solve this problem and what was the Madrid Peace Plan? How was it going to solve it, and how did it come unstuck?

AIMEN: Well, the Americans thought, and rightly so, that the Palestinian issue is the cause of you know, radicalization. Is the cause to which Arab Dictators use as a stick to beat, you know, their people into submission. Look at Syria, for example. Look at Aleppo. So, Saddam used it to say: “I'm pro-Palestinian and that's why the West is hating me and that's why we have sanctions”. And Hafez Al-Assad, you know, Bashar’s father in Syria, always use the Palestinian issue as a way to say: “If you are not with me, you are with the Israelis.” You know, to be honest I mean…

THOMAS: [Overlapping] They still invoked the Palestinians when it served them.

AIMEN: When it served them. [Overlapping]

THOMAS: As all Arab leaders and Muslim leaders did. [Overlapping]

AIMEN: All of them yes, indeed. So here is the issue, you know, is that one of the things that was really stark for me is that I visited a Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus.

THOMAS: I've been there too.

AIMEN: Yeah. I visited the Ain al-Hilweh in Southern Lebanon. It's a refugee camp. It's a thousand meter by a thousand meter, but inside it there are a 140,000 Palestinians living. So you can imagine basically the awful living standards there. I visited The Baqa’a camp in Amman, in Jordan, and then I visited the West Bank, you know, in 2018 and what a contrast.

THOMAS: A positive contrast?

AIMEN: A positive contrast. The living standards of the Palestinians in the West Bank, far, far better than the living standards in Lebanon, in Syria, and Jordan. I was thinking, what is going on here?

THOMAS: Well, that that is actually a sad and tragic fact that most visitors to Lebanon and Syria and Jordan learn, you know, that ultimately the Palestinians who are not granted citizenship of those countries, even though they've been living there for decades, up to 50 years, 60 years in some cases, and they're not provided with the level of public service that the normal citizens are provided…

AIMEN: Yeah in Lebanon [Overlapping]

THOMAS: …In order to maintain this idea that the Palestinians are victims and need our help.

AIMEN: Exactly. I mean, the hypocrisy over in Lebanon – they are barred from 84 jobs. 84 jobs they can't even do. They are barred from education. They are barred from so many things. They can't go to university in Lebanon. So, you know… And when I visited the West Bank, you know, you notice basically that they had the places that were destroyed in the 2004 Intifada. Intifada, which means uprising in Arabic. You know, when you look at Jenin, for example, they have a brand new university now there and you drive around and you find BMWs and Mercedes and you know, the levels of prosperity is far better. I'm not saying basically they are living the life...

THOMAS: No, I mean Palestinians suffer a lot injustice in the West bank.

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Exactly.

THOMAS: There's no question. And in Gaza strip, no question. But what is often not pointed out is that they suffer sometimes similar or even worse forms of injustice in their fellow Arab countries. [Laughs]

AIMEN: It’s worse in the Arab countries than in Israel. It's worse. Much worse. The hypocrisy of it, you know, is astounding. And I think that's one of the reasons why the Americans wanted to solve this issue, is to make sure that it cannot be ever used again to beat the Arab people into submission.

THOMAS: So, the Americans want to neutralize their opponents within the Arab world's ability to do that.

AIMEN: Exactly. And the Islamist… And don't forget the Iranians. The Iranians already created the IRGC, Al Quds Force. We talked about Al Quds force in the last episode. What does the word Quds force mean?

THOMAS: It means Jerusalem.

AIMEN: Exactly. So, you know, when you have an entire, you know, army in Iran called Jerusalem Army [laughs] Al Quds force. You know, so basically for the Americans, they looked at all of this in 1992 and said “Only when there is a viable peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis that we can tell the Syrians, the Iraqis, the Iranians, and the Islamists of the region – that's it. Put up or shut up. The Palestinians have signed up to this peace. You can't be more Palestinians than the Palestinians themselves.”

THOMAS: But they didn't sign up to the peace. Why?

AIMEN: Aha. Again, you know, peace require compromise. And both sides, in a way, were not willing to compromise enough for each other, basically, to accept. For the Israelis, who remember, basically, they are people who, you know, just a generation earlier, you remember this is 1990, a generation or two generations earlier, suffered one of the largest, you know, ethnic cleansing and genocide that ever happened in the world.

THOMAS: The Holocaust.

AIMEN: The Holocaust. And they'd been attacked again and again by multiple countries. 1948, 1967, and 1973, so they always basically, have above anything else, a worry called Security.

THOMAS: Absolutely.

AIMEN: And the country is so tiny. You know, basically, if you drive from Tel Aviv to the Hills of Sumaria and Judea, basically it's only like in a 12 kilometers or 12 miles, I think. I can't remember. But you know, we're talking about a small stretch of land, which means any opposing force can cut Israel in half and basically just divide the country very quickly and swallow it. So, they always have this, you know, unbelievable, irrational almost, obsession with security.

THOMAS: So they don't want to compromise their security and the Palestinians, they want their land back and Israel said we’re not giving it to you.

AIMEN: Well, you know, this is where things get really complicated. The headline is the Palestinians basically would like to have yes for an answer, or no for an answer. They take either yes or no. For the Israelis, they don't like answers. They like questions. They like hundreds of questions to be raised. You know, okay, well, the sovereignty over the airspace, the sovereignty, where is the airspace defined? Is it like in 200 meters above the sea level? 300 meters above sea level? Okay. What about the water underneath? Does it belong to Israel or the Palestinians? What about the settlements that already been built there? What do we do with them? Do we annex them, but, okay...? What about the roads between them? Basically, are they still a part of Israel or not? Can you believe these issues took years and years and years to just basically, you know, being hashed out and then in the end they were never agreed.

THOMAS: But why not?

AIMEN: Because, while these talks were continuing, the Israelis continued to build more settlements.

THOMAS: I see. So, they were antagonizing the Palestinians more.

AIMEN: And this is where we are stuck now.

THOMAS: So, America's goal of solving the Middle Eastern problem failed at the first hurdle. But, very soon, there was a second hurdle in the Middle East, or let's say the Muslim world which was in Somalia. Briefly because Somalia is goddamned complicated, tell us Aimen – what happened in ‘92, ‘93 around Somalia?

AIMEN: What happened is that what was put together, post-colonialism by force, ended up basically separating by force. Remember that Somalia was a socialist, planned economy, kind of a country.

THOMAS: Allied with the Soviet Union?

AIMEN: To an extent, it was, you know, kind of didn’t know what it wants. And so basically with the weakening of the Soviet Bloc, add to this basically the fact that Siad Barre was a dictator who ruled the country with an iron fist. Somalia is a tribal country and its borders were a construct of post-colonialism. It was bound to break. The question is when. In 1990…

THOMAS: [Overlapping] In 1991

AIMEN: Finally, the breaking point was reached. Siad Barre after ruling the country for 20 years with an iron fist, faced an armed uprising against him by some of his generals. And that led to the tribal powder keg to finally explode and the country to this day, 30 years on, still divided. If you want my opinion, you want to solve the problem, partition the country into three or four countries.

THOMAS: That may be the final solution, but at the time, the United Nations, uh, decided to get involved. A number of security council resolutions were drawn up and ratified to keep the peace in the country. Peacekeepers were sent, led by the United States, of course. Um, and that attempt by the United States to police these United Nations security council resolutions failed. Perhaps the listener will have seen that excellent Ridley Scott film, Black Hawk Down, which tells the story of some American peacekeepers there. When their Black Hawk helicopter was taken down and they were subjected to a prolonged assault from Somalians, which became infamous and ultimately led or helped lead to the withdrawal of America from Somalia. And the country's continual collapse into a state of total misery. So, America failed with Israel, Palestine. They failed with Somalia, and then they were forced to turn their attention to another part of the world. Not exactly part of the Muslim world, but slightly part of the Muslim world. The Balkans, specifically Yugoslavia. Ah, the Balkans, Homeland of war and… [Laughs]

AIMEN: [Laughs]

THOMAS: …and ethnic strife. Um, so people may know Yugoslavia was a member of the Eastern Bloc, although quite a, uh, independent member. It's long, uh, living, Communist dictator Tito did not get along with Stalin and the Soviets so well. So he kind of forged his own path and Yugoslavia was a relatively prosperous and peaceful place.

Uh, he died in the 80s, and a man called Slo.. Slo.. Slo-

AIMEN: Slobodan.

THOMAS: Slobodan Milosevic came to power there, who as the Eastern Blocc and as communism began to fall apart everywhere, decided that the best way to move forward was to become a, perhaps even a Trump style, let's say, [laughs] a nationalist, a dictator. So he leaned heavily on the Serbian rhetoric on supporting Serbian ambitions. That Serbs are the greatest people in this part of the world, and they need their rights to be protected. Uh, which was seen to be very threatening by the other peoples of Yugoslavia, the Bosnians, the Croatians, although they're actually all the same people. What really divides them is religion.

AIMEN: Exactly. I mean, the Slovenians and the Croats are Catholics and the Bosnians are Muslims and the Serbs are-

THOMAS: [overlapping] Are Orthodox

AIMEN: [Overlapping] Orthodox Christians.

THOMAS: That's right. Uh, and this led to a lot of suffering. Especially in the Muslim area of Bosnia where, not just from the Serbs, but from the Croats as well the Muslims were subjected to extremely harsh treatment. And as the the two larger partners, if you like, wanted to prevent their own ambitions for national sovereignty and statehood, again, in a way, addressing this larger question of the Muslim world and sorting it out. Yugoslavia and the descent there into sectarian warfare, which targeted the Bosnians particularly badly. Of course, this is where your own journey through life really starts because you signed up as a young man to join the jihad in Bosnia. What, at the time amongst your jihadist comrades in Bosnia was the attitude towards America's, let's say, hegemonic leadership? By this time, you're, you're, you're, you're not a member of Al-Qaeda, so let's say you're not a jihadist maniac yet. You're just defending Bosnians who are being targeted mercilessly by Serbs and Croats. But nonetheless, what was the attitude towards America at the time?

AIMEN: You know, when I, when I decided to go to Bosnia I didn't wake up that morning and say to myself, I'm going to join a terrorist group. I'm going to become a terrorist. No, of course not. I mean, it wasn't viewed this way. It was viewed that you want to go and join the defence efforts of the Bosnian people against the Serbian genocide. You will be surprised to know that there wasn't so much anti-American feelings within the jihadist movement at that time. It was more of anti-European feeling mainly Britain, France, and Germany…

THOMAS: That were failing to intervene.

AIMEN: Exactly. You know, their failure to intervene. Although there was some interventions by the Americans and the French, you know, forbidding the Serbs from placing heavy artillery weapons around Sarajevo during the siege of the city. But all of these basically were viewed as too little, too late, a window dressing. You know, it's not going to solve the problem. The slaughter is still taking place. Again, it's the obsession with heavy weapon, but in fact, basically in those small mortars and sniper rifles killed more people than heavy weapons in Sarajevo.

THOMAS: And the slaughter definitely took place. I mean, you must have witnessed this with your own eyes.

AIMEN: The discovery of mass graves was something that was happening all the time. So for me, basically I've seen the effects of the war, the, you know, I've seen the suffering. I've seen the mass graves being discovered and dug up. So of course, you know, there is no question that genocide took place there in Bosnia. The problem was that the European powers were just so unwilling to intervene. And I think, because don't forget, basically, you know, the European powers, you know, just also two generations ago, experienced a world, very destructive world war in their continent. Um, you know, but the question is…Russia was so weak to intervene in the side of the Serbs if they even wanted to. Boris Yeltsin was still basically begging DC and the Europeans basically for cash. So they could have intervened militarily and put an end to it, but they did not. And I think basically this is the lesson that Blair and Clinton learned later. Uh, when Kosovo, you know, uh, genocide was about to start…

THOMAS: In 1999 that they did intervene early in Kosovo.

AIMEN: Exactly. However, in this case here…

THOMAS: [overlapping] In the Bosnian case, so this is where? ‘92, ‘93, ’94?

AIMEN: ‘95. ‘95 was the end of it with the Dayton Accord which again, the Americans are the ones who basically intervened um in this case.

THOMAS: So in this case, in the, in the case of Bosnia and the, in the collapse of Yugoslavia in general, America's leadership in initiating this New World Order succeeded would you say?

AIMEN: Succeeded in putting an end to a war. Uh, that's for sure. But, in the words of another person, another man who will have a very profound effect on America, you know, when he sat down next to me, knee to knee, uh, in a wedding in Bosnia in October of 1995.

THOMAS: You're talking about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

AIMEN: Indeed.

THOMAS: He was the architect of the 9/11 attack.

AIMEN: Exactly. He viewed it differently. He said the Americans, you know, are not trying to put an end to the war, but what they are doing is that they are going to reward the Serbs, who are only 35% of the population, they’re going to give them half the republic. Half the Bosnian Republic is under a Serbian - Bosnian control. And the, and the rest which is, you know, the Bosnians, who are about half the country and the 15% of the Croats basically, they are going to share the other half. So, he was saying they intervened but he actually twisted it. He said on the side of the Serbs. They came here to ensure that there will be no Muslim Republic in Europe. And they ensured that by making the Muslims half diluted with the 15% Croat who are going to be there.

THOMAS: But that's not really true. That was his paranoid conspiracy theory.

AIMEN: Of course, but what do you expect from someone who hated the Americans so much that in six years’ time he's going to launch 9/11 on them? Another thing is that of course, the Americans also had to convince the Serbs. They, they needed to persuade the Serbs…

THOMAS: To come to the table by bombing them.

AIMEN: Yes, by bombing them. They, they used in a force to bomb certain sites in order to tell the Serbs we are willing to do it. So, I think Slobodan Milosevic and Franja Tudjman, you know, Slobodan Milosevic was the…

THOMAS: [Overlapping] President of Serbia.

AIMEN: [Overlapping] President of Serbia. Franja Tudjman who was the President of Croatia. You know, both of them in the end basically decided, you know, it's time for the war to end. And Alija Izetbegović who was the president of Bosnia, who wasn't exactly happy with the terms – the Muslims had to give up so many lands basically. But in the end, he thought that the alternative to this is an ongoing war for another five years. Can the Bosnian people take it? And, um credit goes to him basically. I mean, he, in the end agreed.

THOMAS: Imagine if Yasser Arafat representing the Palestinians had come to the same conclusion in the 90s when the peace between those two countries was being ironed out.

AIMEN: You know, in Alija Izetbegović you have a politician-philosopher. Um, in Yasser Arafat, you have a flamboyant revolutionary. So, these are the two differences between you know, Arafat and Alija Izetbegović. Izetbegović showed leadership.

THOMAS: As I said earlier, America faced three main challenges in its pursuit of the New World Order. The first was sorting out the Muslim world, which as we've seen today largely failed. The other two: incorporating China into the international community and establishing a new partnership with Russia following decades of antagonism during the Soviet period. These two challenges we will discuss in upcoming episodes as we focus, in general in this series, on unpacking the story of the New World Order. First up in the next episode, Russia.

AIMEN: You know, Russia was for everyone to see, was about to fail. Was about to disintegrate.

THOMAS: Aimen You're giving away- you’re giving away the game. In two weeks, everyone!

AIMEN: Yeah. [Laughs]

[OUTRO MUSIC]

THOMAS: Conflicted is a Message Heard production. It's produced by Sandra Ferrari, Jake Warren and Jake Otajovic, edited by Sandra Ferrari. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley.

Now, as we mentioned last episode, we are going to be running giveaways for our listeners this season. This week, a recommended reading is a book I didn't mention during the podcast, but which is equally fascinating and extremely groundbreaking, very important when it comes to explaining the New World Order.

Francis Fukuyama's classic ‘The End of History and the Last Man’. This hugely influential book appeared the year after the Cold War ended and set out to explain why now that the Soviet union was gone, mankind had reached its predestined endpoint in the American-led global order of Western liberal democracy.

A controversial book, indeed. For a chance of winning your very own copy, join our Facebook group before Wednesday the 4th of March when we announce our winner. A link to the group is in the show notes, or you can search Conflicted Podcast Discussion Group on Facebook. You can also find us, of course, on social media at MHconflicted on Twitter and Facebook.

And if you enjoy the show, please subscribe to Conflicted in your podcast app and leave us a rating and a review. It will help the show to grow.

You've been listening to conflicted with me, Thomas Small, and my good friend Aimen Dean. We will be back in two weeks’ time.

Conflicted S2 E1 - World War Iran

With the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the world found itself teetering on the edge of a conflict, the scale of which has only been threatened a few times since 1945.

Aimen and Thomas kick off Season 2 looking at who Soleimani was, his role in defeating ISIS, as well as the place of privatised espionage and drone technology in modern warfare.

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THOMAS: Well, hello! Dear listener, we're back. I'm Thomas Small, your co-host, with me as ever is… Aimen Dean. If you’re new to the show go ahead and binge listen to every episode of Season One right now. It'll give you a lot more about Aimen’s amazing backstory and my… my less amazing one. [Laughs]

AIMEN: Excuse me! [Laughs]

THOMAS: [Laughs] And you'll also hear us tell the whole story of the War on Terror, from behind the scenes. And discuss the issues involved in that war in a different way, really, from how you usually hear them discussed. Or… You could just start right here.

[THEME MUSIC]

THOMAS: Hi Aimen, how are ya?

AIMEN: Hi Thomas. I'm still alive.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Still alive!

AIMEN: [Overlapping] I’m still alive.

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Oh! I’m so glad to hear it. Not only alive, but in fact celebrating a new birth. I believe you have a son now.

AIMEN: Indeed. Now I have one of each…

THOMAS: Aw!

AIMEN: [Overlapping] …and they are delightful. But also, they come with the usual tax of sleepless nights.

THOMAS: [Laughs] Well, I imagine that your life as a spy also led to several sleepless nights.

AIMEN: [Laughs] Indeed.

THOMAS: In fact, frankly given the threat that you constantly live under of assassination and other such things, have you really ever had a good night's sleep?

AIMEN: Before the kids? Yes. I always had good night's sleep.

THOMAS: That’s not true. You’re lying. You once told me that you couldn’t sleep until you had endless audiobooks playing in your…

AIMEN: Exactly! That’s the source of my, you know, wonderful sleep. [Laughs]

THOMAS: [Laughs] So Aimen you know, here we are, series two, season two of Conflicted… Season one, it seems, was rather appreciated. In fact, we have been nominated for Best Independent Podcast at the ARIA awards – the Audio and Radio Industry Awards. Can you believe it?

AIMEN: I was… I was surprised, to be honest.

THOMAS: I'm sure that we owe any, any adulation we are receiving… we owe to you, dear listener, for sticking with us through these extremely complicated stories which we will now continue with a whole new series of Conflicted.

[PAUSE]

THOMAS: If you are starting here, then I’ll do a quick recap. In season 1, we told you the story of The War on Terror from 9/11 onwards. And we did it through the prism of Aimen’s life story. Aimen joined Jihad as a young man. He fought in Bosnia. He fought in the Philippines. He ended up in Afghanistan where he swore allegiance to Osama Bin Laden, becoming an Al-Qaeda terrorist. Couple of years later, he decided terrorism wasn’t really his thing. So ,he left and was given an option: you go to prison or you join MI6. He joined MI6, they trained him up and sent him right back to Afghanistan as a double agent inside Al-Qaeda. Which he was for eight years until Dick Cheney outed him [Laughs] and he had to flee the embrace of MI6 and go into the banking sector. One form of terrorism for another.

AIMEN: [Laughs]

THOMAS: Was that fair?

AIMEN: Oh yeah. [Laughs]

THOMAS: [Laughs] This season we'll be looking at another swathe of history. But before we go back in time, we want to start with a bang in the present.

[NEWS CLIP STARTS]

BBC NEWS PRESENTER: Iran says it will take revenge for the US killing of its most powerful military commander. General Qasem Soleimani died when his convoy was hit with a US drone at Baghdad airport.

[NEWS CLIP ENDS]

THOMAS: So Aimen… who was Qasem Soleimani?

AIMEN: Well, sometime if you ask this question in Iran, people will tell you, well, you should say, or you should ask, who Qasem Soleimani wasn't, because he was so many things. He was the leader of the Quds force.

THOMAS: So, the Quds force is part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And I think it's important – it's, it's usually known in the press as the IRGC. And people think that the ‘I’ stands for Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. That's not true. It is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Which I think indicates what its purpose is. And the Quds force within that corps is an elite group of fighters who are devoted to spreading the Islamic Revolution beyond the borders of Iran.

AIMEN: Well, if you remember, we talked in the previous season about the civil war within Islam. And we talked about the fact that, you know, the entire Islamic world is divided between those who believe in the modern nation-state and those who don't. Whether they are on the Shia side or the Sunni side. So, on the Shia side, you have the Iranian nation-state. But people always forget that Iran is actually two Irans. One Iran is the nation-state and one Iran is the revolution.

THOMAS: So Qasem Soleimani was devoted to spreading the second Iran, the revolutionary Iran.

AIMEN: Exactly, because the Quds Force transcended borders and national identities. They didn't believe in the modern nation-state.

THOMAS: And so, what are some of the things that Quds force did to project Iranian power and the revolution?

AIMEN: Let's put it this way: The Al Quds force, you know, might be 20 or 30,000 Iranians, but there are 280,000 non-Iranians who actually are fighting under the banner of the Al Quds force.

THOMAS: Afghan mercenaries, other sort of other mercenaries. All Shia, some Sunni?

AIMEN: No, no, all Shia. And we are talking here about bigger than just Afghan mercenaries and Pakistani mercenaries. We're talking here about all of the Iraqi militias like Asa'ib Ahl Al Haq and Hezbollah Iraq. And then you have Hezbollah in Lebanon. You have the Houthis in Yemen.

THOMAS: All of these proxies around the region, they're sort of, in a way, they're members of the Quds force. And Qasem Soleimani was their commander.

AIMEN: To put this into perspective, 280,000 active troops fighting for Iran in the region. That's more than the standing armies of the UK, Sweden, and Netherlands combined.

THOMAS: So why was Qasem Soleimani assassinated by the Americans and why now?

AIMEN: Okay.

THOMAS: And he's been, he's been in the IRGC for decades, I guess, and the commander of the Quds Force since 1998. So why now?

AIMEN: Well. You know, ironically, I did encounter, not Qasem Soleimani personally, but I did encounter his influence when I was, you know, basically spying for the British intelligence services. So, when I was stationed within the Gulf after the 9/11 attacks and the movement of Al Qaeda from Afghanistan into Iran, especially many of his leaders relocated to Iran. So, I did encounter Al Quds Force influence when they hosted the commanders that were giving us instructions. The Al Qaeda commanders who are giving us instructions in Saudi and Bahrain and Kuwait and other places to attack American and Saudi interests.

THOMAS: You mean these commanders were in Iran at the time …

AIMEN: Yeah

THOMAS: … or they were with you in the Gulf?

AIMEN: No, no. They were in Iran. They were hosted in Iran. Abu Hamza Rabia who was the head of the external operations for Al Qaeda he's quite famous. He's the one who masterminded the assassination attempt against Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt at the time, in Addis Ababa in 1995. And he is the one who actually was responsible for planning the 7/7 attacks in London.

THOMAS: So, he was being held under house arrest in Iran with someone like Qasem Soleimani’s knowledge, and coordination even.

AIMEN: Total coordination. Because Qasem Soleimani saw these people as perfect, useful people. They want to attack Saudi Arabia, they want to attack America. How about basically we give them safe haven? They’re in Iran, and let them, let them do whatever they want to do. Let them wreak havoc in the region.

THOMAS: Just so… what I want to know, actually Aimen is: what, you know, what has the assassination of Qasem Soleimani achieved?

AIMEN: A former senior US intelligence official just told me that killing Soleimani is the equivalent of hacking into the military service of a belligerent nation and disabling them and, you know, wiping them out completely. Soleimani was always electro-phobic or electronic phobic. He believed the Israelis and the Americans were trailing him. So he never wrote any phone numbers. He never wrote any plans. He never basically, you know, put his plans together in written form, whether paper or online. And…

THOMAS: He was a walking hard drive, this guy.

AIMEN: Exactly. He was the ultimate hard drive, the ultimate brain, of Iran’s external operations.

THOMAS: So...

AIMEN: Iran’s revolution.

THOMAS: So, by wiping him out, basically, America has just formatted the hard drive of the Quds Force.

AIMEN: They have set them back 10 years.

THOMAS: Hmmm.

AIMEN: They have set them back 10 years. So, taking him out was a shock. You know, just look at the Iranians to this day, they are still in shock that the Americans were so bold to do it. And that's why when people say, you know… You remember the “World War Three” trending.

THOMAS: Yeah.

AIMEN: And I was thinking ‘guys, come on, world war three…’

THOMAS: This isn't going to lead to world war three?

AIMEN: No, it’s simple. Because the Iranians, they do not want to war, especially a direct war with the Americans, because they know it will only take 72 hours for all of their military hardware to be destroyed.

THOMAS: Yeah. I mean, everyone has to remember that even though it seems these days, with good reason, that American power is in decline, when push comes to shove, the American military can pretty much destroy any country, especially a second-tier country.

AIMEN: Exactly… And that's why wiping him out… This is important because he was the engine of Iranian aggressive expansionism in the region in Iraq, and Syria, and Yemen, and Lebanon, in Bahrain.

THOMAS: Not only that, a lot of analysts have suggested that he was actually being groomed to replace the Supreme leader Khamanei when the Supreme leader dies.

AIMEN: Not only that… he was actually groomed to become the newly elected president of Iran. You know, once Rouhani is, you know, the current one, basically finishes his term. [Overlapping]

THOMAS: So, this assassination has some serious consequences for Iran… politically, militarily, geopolitically. [Overlapping]

AIMEN: Exactly. It is their Chernobyl moment.

THOMAS: As we know, there have been these protests rocking Iran since early October with a sort of ferocity and an extent that has never been witnessed before. The regime has been cracking down, killing people in the street. We haven't heard much about it because they've done a good job of silencing the media and shutting off social media, but it is happening. Instead of World War Three are we perhaps seeing the second Iranian Revolution in as so many as 50 years?

AIMEN: I don't think if… This is my analysis: that if Iran descends into chaos, it's not going to be a revolution or an overthrow of the regime because they have the IRGC. It’s going to be another Syria… it’s going to be a civil war.

THOMAS: Oh God.

AIMEN: You know… As much as many people basically wish for a toppling of the regime, the regime will not topple because it’s an ideologically committed, driven regime. It’s going to be a civil war. Another point I want to make: many people objected, especially in the West, objected to what's happened based on two reasons. First, it was Trump, and they say: ‘Oh, Trump, the idiot. He's starting another war.’ They don't understand that the killing of Soleimani was engineered by none other than Mike Pompeo.

THOMAS: This is the American Secretary of State. But since when two secretaries of state organize the assassination of foreign generals? That's very odd.

AIMEN: Well, he is not organizing the assassination… He is actually putting it as a policy forward. And remember, he was the former head of the CIA.

THOMAS: [Laughs]

AIMEN: So, Mike Pompeo has a beef with the Iranians – that's well known in DC. And also, basically he believes that Iran's aggression in the region needs to be checked. For him, the killing of Soleimani is pushing back against aggression. [Overlapping]

THOMAS: I.e. It's not causing the third world war, it's preventing it.

AIMEN: It's preventing it because, you know, the two forces in the region, the Sunni and the Shia forces, basically are colliding. And therefore, to rebalance the conflict, you have to push back against Iran because they were being aggressive the six months prior with the oil tankers and the attacks and the ballistic missiles and you know, arming of the Houthis and the, you know, blockading the Strait of Hormuz, you know, or threatening to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. So therefore, it was important. So, when people were saying: ‘This is Trump, he's the idiot, how could he have a strategy? He doesn't know anything.’ It wasn't Trump. It was Mike Pompeo.

THOMAS: Former head of the CIA, who we assume knows one or two things about the way the world works.

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: So, I return to my original question. Why now? If, if Soleimani has been involved in this kind of activity, anti-American activity, for 15 years, 16 years, 17 years, why on January, 2020 did the president say ‘okay, take this, this guy down’?

AIMEN: So many things happened during that time that really led to that moment. Because first, Qasem Soleimani had a low profile in 2003, 2004. But then it's the American invasion of Iraq that really propelled Al Quds force into prominence. So in 2006, was a pivotal year for Qasem Soleimani. First, there was a decision taken by the Iranian leadership that the Americans have overstayed their welcome in Iraq and they need to leave in order to make place for Iran’s hegemony in Iraq. The second thing is the Israeli war with Hezbollah in 2006, in Lebanon.

THOMAS: So, Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy allied with the Quds Force overseen by Qasem Soleimani. And in 2006, it initiated a fighting war with Israel which lasted about a month I think… in the summer. [Overlapping]

AIMEN: 33 days.

THOMAS: Yeah, 33 days in the summer.

AIMEN: So… So, for Qasem Soleimani his involvement in first of all instigating the beginning of the Shiad resistance to the American presence in Iraq in 2006 by supplying… First of all, by establishing Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq which is the foundation of the PMUs or the Popular Mobilization Units.

THOMAS: So, these are Shia militia groups armed by Iran, coordinated by Iran that are within Iraq, agents of Iranian foreign policy?

AIMEN: Absolutely, they are the IRGC of Iraq. They are the Hezbollah of Iraq.

THOMAS: I see.

AIMEN: Basically. So, when, you know, he established that and then gave them sophisticated IEDs that were targeting American armoured personnel carriers and American tanks, which basically led to the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers and the maiming of thousands of them.

THOMAS: I think most people remember, who were around then, remember these IEDs that were targeting American soldiers in Iraq, or British as well… you know, coalition soldiers in Iraq. But I'm not sure people then realised that they were being directly funded and coordinated by Iran.

AIMEN: Manufactured in Iran. Because they were so sophisticated, you know, they worked basically with infrared sensors and you know, a video imaging targeting. So, they were absolutely amazing in their own sophistication.

THOMAS: Okay. But you've taken us back to 2006. I'd like you to answer the question: why now? Why in 2020 has Qasem Soleimani been assassinated?

AIMEN: Because there are milestones. So, 2006 was a milestone here.

THOMAS: What was the next milestone?

AIMEN: The next milestone is 2011.

THOMAS: 2011 with the Arab spring and Syria?

AIMEN: Absolutely.

THOMAS: There is now evidence, hard and fast evidence, that Qasem Soleimani, as representing the Quds Force, was on the ground in Syria at the outbreak of the conflict there. Really moving it towards civil war from the very beginning.

AIMEN: Absolutely. I mean, the defence… The Syrian defence minister himself, Ali Ayyoub, was talking and giving an interview. He said: ‘I knew Qasem Soleimani. I met him and from the beginning in 2011 we planned to counter the uprising of the Syrian people.’ And the first battle was the battle of Baba Amur in Helms in 2011. Which basically was the first armed clash, you know, of the Syrian Civil War. So, you know, after six months it was peaceful. But then of course, basically the Assad regime you know, during the peaceful period killed more than 8,000 protestors. So of course, basically it was inevitable that it will turn into a civil war.

THOMAS: So, 2011 Qasem Soleimani plays a role in the destruction of Syria. So why 2020?

AIMEN: Again, another milestone is 2015. [Overlapping]

THOMAS: 2015.

AIMEN: Yeah, the outbreak of the Yemen War, which we talked about extensively as well as the Syrian conflict.

THOMAS: It does seem that Qasem Soleimani has been behind the scenes of Series One of Conflicted the whole time. [Laughs]

AIMEN: [Laughs] He was behind Al Qaeda’s relocation to Iran, he was behind, you know… [Overlapping]

THOMAS: In every great sequel at one point, you know, someone rips off the mask and says ‘I was there the whole time.’

AIMEN: Exactly. I mean, the man was really a pivotal, you know… He was a pillar of the terror in the region. Because, you remember when we said, basically there are three tectonic plates moving on in the region, moving in in the region, basically, colliding. So, you have the modern nation state, and you have the Shia political and militant Islam, and you have the Sunni political, and militant Islam – all of these plates basically joining together. So when you have three plates, tectonic plates colliding, what's going to happen?

THOMAS: [Overlapping] Earthquakes.

AIMEN: Volcanoes, and earthquakes, and seismic shifts. So, Soleimani, you know, was basically moving between the three plates, basically organising this chaos.

THOMAS: So, Aimen, why 2020?

AIMEN: Because he overstepped. That's really… That's it. Because in the six months prior to his death, he escalated so much.

THOMAS: What did he do? [Overlapping]

AIMEN: Beyond America's endurance. And beyond the region’s endurance. One, he escalated by attacking oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz several times, you know, in May and June and June, you know, so he continued to attack and seize oil tankers.

THOMAS: And then there was that famous drone strike of the oil facility in Saudi Arabia. People probably heard about that.

AIMEN: Not only that, like you're talking about the largest producer of oil in the world. You know, you're talking about a country that produced 12% of the world’s oil every day. So, when you attack it with 26 cruise missiles and drones [Overlapping] ...

THOMAS: 26 cruise missiles, I don't think that's what was reported?

AIMEN: It was 26, a combination of cruise missiles and drones.

THOMAS: That is, that's an enormous strike

AIMEN: In one facility alone, 17 explosions. 17 explosions and actually it was so accurate, it was because there was an insider job. Someone placed tracker beams from members of staff who are actually Shia and belong to the IRGC in secret. They are [Overlap] ...

THOMAS: Working for Aramco in Saudi?

AIMEN: Working for Aramco in Saudi.

THOMAS: It's really cold war stuff. My God.

AIMEN: Exactly. They placed tracker beams basically to guide the drones and the cruise muscles to hit their targets with precision accuracy.

THOMAS: I'm very glad that you brought this up because I want to move away from the politics…

AIMEN: Yeah.

THOMAS: … and just go to the nuts and bolts of how someone is assassinated in this way. So obviously as, as you've established, he escalated beyond America's endurance. So, Trump said: “go”. Probably a long-planned assassination strategy was put into effect and a missile from a drone just came out of the sky and obliterated him. But how does that happen? Literally take us into your knowledge of how that kind of thing happens on the ground. What would have America had to do to kill Soleimani, in that way when they said “go”.

AIMEN: Well, when you have targeted assassination, we have to go back into the beginning of the decision. So basically, the decision was taken that Bin Laden must go, Baghdadi must go, you know, Imad Mughniyeh who was the military commander of the Hezbollah during the 2006 war where he was killed

THOMAS: In Damascus. I was there when that happened.

AIMEN: Exactly. In 2008, that was a very sophisticated attack by the Mossad and where they placed a bomb basically in his car seat. You know, obliterated him. So, it was very sophisticated.

THOMAS: So, someone decides this guy needs to go.

AIMEN: Exactly. So, the process is like this: you decide this person is the person I want to get rid of. So, this is your strategy. So how do you go about it? First of all, you have to establish pattern. You have to establish…

THOMAS: But how do you do that? I mean, you literally have to tail them so that you follow their life. You find what? He wakes up at six, he has a boiled egg for breakfast. He shags his wife at seven, he has a shower.

AIMEN: [Laughs]

THOMAS: How is that? How does that who, who's doing this?

AIMEN: Well, when you are a country like America or Israel, you have an army, of intelligence assets on the ground, and in every single country.

THOMAS: You mean CIA agents?

AIMEN: More than that. CIA agents, defence, military intelligence agents, for the Pentagon, the Pentagon have their own intelligence capability: the DIA. Not many people know about it, but it exists.

THOMAS: The DIA is the defence intelligence agency, which is American military intelligence. It's like a CIA inside the Pentagon.

AIMEN: Indeed. Then you'll have the Mossad, and then you have a network of regional assets that helps you. We will talk about that later, what I call basically the privatization of intelligence. This will be another episode. We will talk about how [overlapping]

THOMAS: It's actually this episode, and we're going to get there in a second. [Laughing] So I'll... Let me, I'm in charge of what episode.

AIMEN: Okay. So, so basically you have a a network of privateers, you know, private intelligence.

THOMAS: They’re freelancers, mercenaries. This is Star Wars stuff. This is Han Solo and Greedo shooting out in the Mos Eisley Cantina.

AIMEN: Exactly. The Mossad, the CIA, you know, MI6, the French intelligence, even countries from far away, China, Russia, all of these organizations have networks of people who cooperate, and these people are privateers, intelligence collectors who sell information to those who pay.

THOMAS: They do sound like pretty shady individuals. How are they trustworthy? For example, I can imagine one of these privateers being hired by one government to get some intelligence, but then just selling that intelligence to a rival government. Do they work for rival governments and are they trustworthy?

AIMEN: I work with teams that sometime basically work for competing governments. You know, these are teams in Syria.

THOMAS: They're not your employees. They have other people they work for.

AIMEN: Exactly. I just hired them between now and then for whatever project that, you know, comes across my way from whatever government around the world basically that asked the question, you know, or, you know, have the inquiry. So, the problem here is that: you can't control these people on the ground so much because basically they are living in hellish circumstances. They are living in a war zone, man. I mean, it's a war zone. They don't know if they will survive to the next day and if they are found out in Syria, they will be, you know, a head shorter and six feet underground.

THOMAS: Have you ever, ever lost one of your contractors? Have you ever had to face that rather tragic reality?

AIMEN: Not while on the job, but basically over the years I always, you know, almost like I know three or four times a year, we hear about the deaths of these people due to … It’s collateral damage basically, I mean, bombs falling from Russian airplanes, you know, the regime basically shelling of the villages where they are based. Sometimes they lose family members and many of them end up making good money from the work we give them, that they end up basically moving on to Turkey and from there, possibly to other European countries.

THOMAS: I see. So, America has lots of these in Iraq, the American government says to one or two of them: trail Soleimani or maybe even infiltrate within the, within his bodyguards … [Overlapping]

AIMEN: It’s more than that.

THOMAS: … Become a bodyguard

AIMEN: Soleimani because of his constant movements across Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, other places. So, what happened is you don't tell him in the classic way, get someone and that's it. No. So basically what you have is that you have what we call basically points on the map where whenever he appears, someone would alert you. So basically, you know, Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, these are the three weak points in Soleimani’s itinerary. So, you have assets in Beirut who can alert you. They are working in the airport that Iranian VIP is coming and based on the protocol, who picks them up? What car comes? All of these things you can deduce from that, from the repeated nature of that, that this must be Soleimani.

THOMAS: Okay, fine. So, on the morning of the assassination, you know, how does the reaper drone operator who's probably sitting in Utah or something, how does he know that when he pushes the button, the missile is going to get Soleimani?

AIMEN: Several things. First, the American intelligence just learned that he is on a flight from Damascus. Coming to Baghdad. It is a commercial flight so they can shoot it down.

THOMAS: But that's about a 45-minute flight, 50-minute flight.

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: So, you can imagine like, you know, red klaxons are going [Thomas making siren sounds].

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: The countdown starts.

AIMEN: Exactly.

AIMEN: But remember, the decision has been taken that he will be killed. And remember that for the several months before that, they would have known about his movements too, but there was no decision to kill yet. There was the planning to kill, the decision has been taken that if certain escalation happened, we will kill him. But until then, the trigger never took place. There was no trigger yet, but the attack against the US Embassy, the attack that killed an American contractor in Kirkuk in Iraq just a few days prior. So, when they happened, now they are going to wait for the next time they know his movement and then take him out. So now they are aware of his movements. He is leaving Damascus airport coming to Baghdad and therefore the Reaper was just waiting. And what the Reaper does is that it has a facial recognition software in it.

THOMAS: This is like stuff out of a Marvel movie. They're just looking at our faces and sort of Thomas' and Waitrose, Thomas's and going into the pub. [Laughs]

AIMEN: Yeah, I think they can't see inside the small buildings, but no, I mean, of course if Soleimani is stepping out of the airplane and then he is moving into a car and while he is on the tarmac, the drone can actually just look at his face, detect his facial features and …

THOMAS: I thought that there needed to be something on the ground, either near him or attached to the car or something. Some, some electronic device that tells the drone where he is. That's not the case?

AIMEN: That's not the case. In this case, basically, they made it easy for the drone because he was a VIP who was taken immediately from the plane stairs into a car and being driven. So, this protocol has been done many times before, so the Americans already knew his protocol. So that's why it was easy for them to recognize that it's him, and then to target him and kill him.

THOMAS: So, what kind of missile was it?

AIMEN: Hellfire.

THOMAS: And a Hellfire missile, what kind of damage does that missile do?

AIMEN: Oh wow. It obliterate a car, easily.

THOMAS: So, I mean, something like: how many people died in that attack?

AIMEN: I think there were about nine people because, you know… [Overlapping]

THOMAS: We’re talking about vaporisation here.

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: I mean, I saw a picture of his maimed, mangled body after that, basically. I mean…

AIMEN: Why didn't you share it on social media, Aimen?

THOMAS: [Laughs] Well, I mean, it's out there. But you know when I saw this, the first thing that came to my mind is that he died when his car was targeted the same way when he planned and orchestrated and gave the order 15 years earlier, almost to the day, 15 years earlier in February of 2005, to kill the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. While he was in a car, his body was thrown out of the car, he was maimed. So it felt as if karma, it looked, you know, when they say karma is a bitch, and looking at that in a photo of him mangled like this because his car was attacked and the same way that he ordered another decent, good human being like Rafic Hariri to be killed this way, and I was thinking, you know, that's it. You live by the sword. You die by the sword, you live by the bomb, we die by the bomb. [Laughs]

THOMAS: Well, Aimen. It's always fascinating to hear your insightful comments about these things and you know, just to veer towards a different topic now, the reason you know about these things is because you actually are, to some extent, one of those private practitioners of espionage in the 21st century.

AIMEN: Indeed. To some extent, yes.

THOMAS: So, tell us about this world.

AIMEN: I know we're talking here about, you know, an exceptionally, not just, I'm not going to say secretive, but I would say a fascinating world where you have a lot of former spies continue to be spies, but in a very different manner. They are no longer basically answerable to one single government. Sometimes they are answerable to several governments, because basically they sell their services.

THOMAS: It's a private sector job.

AIMEN: It's a private sector job. What's happened is of course, when you are working in espionage and then you move into working for the banking sector, which basically when I was there, I was a financial investigator into the, you know, the money-laundering and terrorism finance world. As well as security. So then when you are in these jobs, you create a, a network of contacts. You see, espionage is not just only about what you know; it’s who you know. And when you have a massive network of people, friends all over the world, basically, especially in the hotspots centre…

THOMAS: [Interrupting] And to be blunt, these are all bad guys. You have a big Rolodex full of bad guys that you can call.

AIMEN: Oh no. Basically every manner. Bad guys, good guys. You know, neutral guys. People talk about sometimes people who are, even some of them, royalty. You know, you have people basically sometime who are teachers, people basically who are taxi drivers.

THOMAS: And what unites them all is a thirst for money.

AIMEN: Yeah, the desire. You know, why we don't call it the thirst for money. We call it the desire for a better life.

THOMAS: I see.

AIMEN: [Laughs]

THOMAS: So, they're all mercenaries to some extent.

AIMEN: Yes.

THOMAS: Intelligence, mercenaries.

AIMEN: You see, what does intelligence, I mean, just just to give you an idea…

THOMAS: Frankly, I know so little about it. I don't know. [Laughter]

AIMEN: Just to give you an idea and I give the listener an idea. You know, one of the best sources, if you are landing in a city, and you want to know a lot about the city that you landed in, for example, basically I remember I landed in Sao Paulo and I was there investigating Hezbollah finances because Sao Paulo is an important financial hub for Hezbollah. Not many people know that, but it is the case. So, when I land there, you know the most important thing is to find a taxi driver who speaks English. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that when you sit down and talk to them, the taxi drivers know more about the locations of people in the city than anyone else.

So, he will tell you all, “yeah, Shia Lebanese people basically they have, you know, a mosque. They are in this particular neighbourhood. Oh yes. They, you know, they do have a particular get together, you know, in this area or this area. I heard about them.”

THOMAS: Taxi drivers are great sources of information.

AIMEN: Exactly. And actually, even terrorists use them as a source of information. For example, the Bali bombers, when they landed …

THOMAS: The Bali bombers, yes. They landed in 2002. [Overlapping]

AIMEN: Yeah. In 2002. So, when they landed there, it was a taxi driver who told them where the Americans and the Australians go for parties. So basically, taxi drivers are a great source of information. Do not discount them, basically as just people who talk nonsense all the time. No, they see things the average people don't. And as a result, we and the terrorists basically utilize them without them knowing, poor things, for information.

THOMAS: What I want to know is, why would a government need to hire you? I mean, governments have James Bonds, you know, they have guys they can call up and say, leave the girl, put on your tuxedo…

AIMEN: [Laughs]

THOMAS: … You know, fly to Baghdad and assassinate that guy, or find out this or that. You know, and HQ gives some magic watches and amazing Aston Martin cars with ejector seats. I mean, governments have these sort of guys, so why do they need you? I mean. No offense, but you know …

AIMEN: [Laughs]

THOMAS: That's not your lifestyle. I know you very well. You're a good boy.

AIMEN: Okay? What does intelligence, but really, most of the intelligence gathered around the world, I'm talking about the human intelligence here rather than the, we talked about it before and season one, signal intelligence and other forms of intelligence, basically, you know, eavesdropping and all of that and electronic, and surveillance. But if you look at the human intelligence, most of it has gathered, really, in restaurants and hotels. Really.

THOMAS: But by freelancers like you, not ... I mean, why would a government hire you or someone like you?

AIMEN: Okay, so let's take an example like Syria. What do you think the survivability is of a white blonde agent going in for the first time into Syria without that much support from local people?

THOMAS: So, Daniel Craig touches down, he walks off the tarmac, everyone says, “I think that guy might be a British spy.”

AIMEN: Exactly. His life expectancy would be measured in minutes. Let's put it this way. So, so what you need then is a local, because you can't put your own people at a stupid risk like this because they will be known immediately. I mean you can't just land in, in a tuxedo.

THOMAS: I'm actually always wondered when I'm watching James Bond movies, look out for the guy in the tuxedo.

AIMEN: Exactly. So, you can't just land in, and even basically if you were, you know, very normal clothes. It's still, casual or whatever. Still you are recognizable as foreigner, so therefore, and even if you send people who are of Syrian origin or Arab origin from your own, but you have to send them slowly, you have to send them gradually and you have to integrate them into society. It takes months.

THOMAS: So...

AIMEN: But what if you need something now?

THOMAS: What if you need something now?

AIMEN: Yes. Therefore, basically you look for people basically who run networks, these privateers and there are quite few of them. I know these private intelligence companies and sometimes they must create as research groups, or research offices. What they do for you, you come to them, you know, let's say basically they have an office in Beirut, or Amman, or Istanbul, and you go to them and you say, “Oh, okay. These are pictures of individuals we are interested in Syria. We want to know where they live. We want to get the exact coordinates. We want you to get close to them, so switch on your wifi and basically find out their IP addresses and all of that.” So, you know, I want to know what caused the drive. Take a video, take a photo. So I would say, “okay, no problem at all. I'm in that office in Beirut.” So basically, I call my, you know, friends, let's say in Adlib or in Raqqa in the past, or in Deir ez-Zor, or in Damascus.

THOMAS: All Syrian cities.

AIMEN: Yup, exactly. So, I called and I say, you know, my friend inside Syria, “who do we have? Let's say in the city of Deir ez-Zor in Idlib, and he would say basically why we have quite few. I have this guy, this guy, this guy, and this guy. Do they have motorcycles or cars? Motorcycles. Okay, perfect. I need motorcycles. Okay, fine. I need…”

THOMAS: Just ordering up, a kind of a menu.

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: Of intelligence. [Laughs]

AIMEN: I'm going to send you by either Threema or other, you know, I'm not going to mention other apps, but in certain apps, I’m going to send you basically four pictures of four individuals who are seen in that vicinity. You know, these are what they are known by. This is their Kunya, or the aliases. I want information on them within two weeks. So, within two weeks I would receive full information with fresh photos, fresh videos. I know the exact coordinates of their houses, who they're married to, if they're married, where do they go to pray, what cars they're driving. So perfect. And then I hand over this. Now, if that government wanted to do it on their own, they would have to send someone to find them fast and basically that someone would be at risk. But because the individuals we tasked for this are locals who wanted to do it for money and they have no idea actually, who is the ultimate Tasker,

THOMAS: [Interrupts]

AIMEN: Who is the one who actually, they have no idea. They just know that this is the target. This is what you need to collect. Need-to-know basis. So, then we'll collect all the information and then based on the information, that government will decide either to liquidate…

THOMAS: [Laughs]

AIMEN: ... or to extract. I mean, there are certain, even EU governments did it.

THOMAS: Liquidation. Woah.

AIMEN: Liquidation even. I know, governments did this.

THOMAS: I should really press you on which governments, but I don't think you'll tell me.

AIMEN: No, but I know sometimes what happened is, you know, some governments even installed live feed cameras. For example, one of the secrets not known actually is that these privateers, these individuals inside Syria placed a live feed camera for more than 16 months outside of the main ISIS court in Raqqa photographing everyone going and coming, and that live feed was in a 24 hours basically beaming into one of the European capitals.

THOMAS: For what purpose?

AIMEN: For basically facial recognition. Just going and coming. People basically going into the court and to ISIS court. So, they identified the judges, their commanders just …

THOMAS: But I don't understand. I can understand, you go into an ISIS court, you can see your face, but you know, you don't come out with your head so …

AIMEN: [Laughs] Well you start to come out with your head, but the execution happened in the public square…

THOMAS: Very pleasant. So, this privatization of espionage that you're talking about, to some extent, you know, I've seen Casablanca, I've seen these movies. I mean, to some extent, governments have always employed freelancers on the ground. But would you say in recent years, decades, even the privatization of espionage has gone up in a way like governments in general outsource to the private sector these days. Are they outsourcing to the private sector in this regard as well?

AIMEN: Yeah, I mean, basically. [Overlapping]

THOMAS: Why? Why did it change?

AIMEN: First in Iraq, we started to see the privatization of armies. You know, we have Black Water. We had EGIS, we had G4S.

THOMAS: These are American security consultants. [Overlapping]

AIMEN: American, British, everything you can imagine.

THOMAS: They’re providing mercenaries on the ground.

AIMEN: South African even, the Maltese. I mean basically, you know, registered in Malta but they are private companies, even basically people from Nepal basically being recruited to go and fight in other Wars. So that's already happened. But the privatisation of intelligence, I’ve never seen it like this before. In the past, it used to be like this: you want to spy on a certain country. You have your own embassy staff in that country. You form really good relationship with businessmen, civil servants, military officers, law enforcement agencies. So, they cultivate all of this and they get the intelligence. However, these days, because the source of the greatest and the gravest security threats happen in places where there are no embassies anymore.

THOMAS: This is a consequence of really the Arab Spring, the War on Terror in general, the nation-state has been weakened throughout the region, and therefore nation-states and the embassies that are meant to dialogue with those nation-states just aren't where the real power lies, in many cases.

AIMEN: I mean down to war zones. I mean, basically this is the problem with gathering information in a war zone for example…

THOMAS: Not just war zones. I think it's important they’re civil war zones.

AIMEN: Exactly.

THOMAS: It’s not that it's a nation-state fighting a nation-state. These are non-state actors within governments, within states, transcending state borders moving. You can't just anymore throw some swanky embassy party, don your tux, handout some champagne, and talk to your Soviet counterpart. You can't do that anymore.

AIMEN: So, places like Afghanistan, Syria, Libya. You are basically at the mercy of people who have strong connections inside.

THOMAS: … these non-state actors.

AIMEN: Non-state actors, basically people basically who have, you know, a small company with a title, or managing director or CEO, or whatever. Basically, I'm a private individual, but I'm a private individual with a massive phone book. And this phone book includes lots of people on the ground there who will do anything for a buck or two because basically they are desperate. They are in a war zone.

THOMAS: So, you say that we started to see this developing in Iraq.

AIMEN: First, and then Syria, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan. These are the places now where a lot of intelligence, especially Syria, a lot of intelligence is gathered by private individuals. Well, private groups together basically forming these intelligence gathering networks. I mean, basically, when people say data in the West, what Mark Zuckerberg and you know, the owner of Google is doing, you know, data is the new oil. Data is the new wealth. That's in a very crude way what is happening on the ground in Syria and Yemen and Libya. And to some extent, even in Turkey, among the refugee communities. That's what's happening. Data information is so important. And this happened and I've seen it myself. People sometime risk their lives to go and collect the mobile phones and the laptops off a bomb site in Syria. If a site is bombed and this site belonged to either Al Qaeda [Insert Group Here] or any of their affiliates or ISIS, they will go and collect all of these because this can be sold for two thousand, three thousand dollars. Because they contain addresses, phone numbers, email addresses of people within Syria, in Turkey, outside, in Europe, in the Gulf, in the Arab world, which means that every phone have a treasure trove of intelligence. So young city people go collect them very quickly.

THOMAS: It's like mining. They're mining for the gold of post-terrorism atrocities. [Overlap]

AIMEN: Exactly. Then these phones and devices, they make it into Turkey where then they are sold to brokers. And these brokers, people like myself and others.

THOMAS: These espionage privateers, aren't they criminals? Isn't this illegal?

AIMEN: Are you saying I’m a criminal?

THOMAS: Far be it for me to say that a former Al-Qaeda bomb maker might be a criminal …

AIMEN: [Laughs]

THOMAS: But I don't understand. Surely this isn't legal. Is it that governments turn a blind eye to this stuff because it's so useful to them?

AIMEN: No, it is perfectly legal because basically, first of all, you know. Imagine. Let's say you, Thomas Small, you have friends in Syria, don't you? Yes. Okay. So basically if I come to you, I’m government, I come to you, Thomas, and I say, Thomas, I know we have heard a rumour of know, basically a coup in Damascus or something like that, you know, there was a coup within the intelligence, and we are trying basically to ascertain is it true or not? Can you tap into your local people that are basically and see what they have heard? And I mean, basically you say yes, of course. And we would say, okay, we want detailed report and you know, then I push an envelope to you basically with five, $6,000. And I say, this is for your trouble. And also, you can basically send gifts, your friends there in Damascus, but we need, really good, juicy information.

THOMAS: So, you…

AIMEN: Come back to me and you say, yes, we found out this, this, this

THOMAS: Ok, that doesn't sound so illegal. But you know, come on. Sometimes you're going to be asked maybe to do something illegal or certainly immoral. How do you navigate the thorny moral swamp of private espionage?

AIMEN: That is where you have layers and layers of different levels of commitments. So basically, for example, you know, I wouldn't do any, how can I say assassination, engineer any extraction.

THOMAS: Why now?

AIMEN: Because basically, there is so much, you know, legality issues behind this. You're right, in a sense, because you know, if you just kind of, my work, my work is information gathering. That's it.

THOMAS: [Laughs]

AIMEN: You know? So, what they do with that, what the governments do with that after that, I mean, that's their own business.

THOMAS: Have you ever been in a position where you, you heard, saw on the news or heard through your, through your networks, of a strike against a facility or a strike against a person and you thought to yourself, “Hmm. I know how they knew where that guy was.”

AIMEN: Well, to some extent, yes. I'm not going to say no. It does happen, but sometime you're wondering. Because sometime you pass this intelligence basically to a particular government, but then the Russians come and destroy it, and then that's when you know that definitely it wasn't the government that supplied the Russians with it. Why? Because they are enemies. They are not talking to each other whatsoever. So then how did the Russians know about that? Because if I knew about it. If I knew about it, if my sources on the ground confirmed that this is a weapons storage facility for Al-Nusra…

THOMAS: Al-Qaeda

AIMEN: Yeah, Al-Qaeda. Then basically the Russians would have their own privateers, possibly the same privateers who I have, might have been tasked by the Russians.

THOMAS: Hmm.

AIMEN: It's a murky world.

THOMAS: Very murky. So back to Qasem Soleimani then. He is often credited. Let's play devil's advocate here. So obviously, you know, you weren't a huge fan of Qasem Soleimani. You probably smiled to yourself when you found out that he had been assassinated.

AIMEN: Smiled? I danced in the house!

THOMAS: Danced in the house. Let's imagine, I mean, there are some people who say that Qasem Soleimani is a hero because he played such a vital role in the destruction of ISIS.

AIMEN: Well, first of all. Okay. Soleimani did not defeat ISIS. Let's put this a myth to rest. It was the American firepower, from the sky raining on ISIS that ended them. Because the Iranians and the Iraqi militias did not have the capability to just take cities and then hold them because they couldn't. Because only the American precision firepower, massive overwhelming firepower that did that for them. So, you know, what Soleimani provided is boots on the ground.

THOMAS: Shia militia men.

AIMEN: Exactly. But Soleimani wasn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart. He was taking advantage that, “Oh, this is the chaos through which I can create a massive unregulated army.” He wasn't recruiting men to join the Iraq army. He was recruiting men to join a revolutionary Iranian-backed army.

THOMAS: And he recruited tens of thousands.

AIMEN: Hundreds of thousands.

THOMAS: And they still exist. I mean, even though Soleimani might be dead, but they exist –– what's going to happen to these Shia militia who, who actually feel perhaps, more allegiance to Iran than Iraq?

AIMEN: Well, that is what the protests happening right now in Iraq is about. Is Iraq going to end up like Lebanon, having a state within a state. I mean, Hezbollah in Lebanon being a state within a state, having a private army, private welfare network, private finance, private everything.

THOMAS: Which would suit the Iranians very well.

AIMEN: Exactly. So, in other words, it is a very weak nation-state. So, the protest in Iraq right now, gathering momentum and not only Sudanese. But also, many, many Shia Arabs who do not like the idea of Iraq becoming just another province for Iran.

THOMAS: But we can understand why the Shia of Iraq think that caused Qasem Soleimani was their saviour. Because ultimately ISIS is coming, you know, down the road. And anyone who's going to fight ISIS is probably your friend.

AIMEN: And we can say the same thing about Al-Qaeda in Yemen. Yemenis in the South will view them basically as the saviours against the Houthis. At the end of the day, we cannot basically just sit there and cheer packs of wolves fighting each other. And ignore the fact that lambs need to be saved. So, because they are fighting each other over who will eat the pack of lambs.

THOMAS: So, who is the shepherd here? Is it, with this newly muscular America and President Trump is America once again, playing the role of the shepherd, trying to fight the wolves off the sheep, the lambs, whatever? I'm screwing up your metaphor.

AIMEN: I mean, I just had to have a very difficult time picturing Trump as a shepherd, basically with his stick and a turban over his head. [Laughs]

THOMAS: I've heard some of these Jeffrey Epstein revelations.

AIMEN: [Laughs]

THOMAS: I don't have a hard time imagining that.

AIMEN: But, can I tell you something? Yes. America is playing to some extent, basically, the role of the shepherd. But the role of the shepherd as a whole is played by the nation-states. We come back again, Thomas into the question of what do we want? Do we want the modern nation-state to prevail because they are the best guarantors of safety, security, stability, prosperity in the region, or do we want trans-national ideology built on revolutionary ideas, perpetual revolution that will keep shedding blood on, and on, and on, until they build their empires on mountains of skulls and oceans of blood.

THOMAS: Well, I think we know how America would answer that question. It sides with the nation-state. As long as the nation-state buys into America's hegemonic role as chief shepherd of the sheep. Now, that really brings us to what series two of Conflicted is going to be all about. In the first series, we focused more narrowly on the War on Terror and the modern history of the Middle East. In this series, we're going to widen the scope of our investigation out a bit. And we're going to tell a slightly larger historical story. It's what has been called and indeed was called by George Bush Senior, just at the end of the Cold War, America's new world order. America's attempt to create an everlasting, prosperous and peaceful world and really lies behind so much of what we see in the headlines today.

[OUTRO MUSIC]

THOMAS: you've been listening to Conflicted with me. Thomas Small and my good friend, Aimen Dean. Conflicted is a Message Heard production. It's produced by Sandra Ferrari, Jake Warren and Jake Otajovic, edited by Sandra Ferrari. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley. New episodes of season two of Conflicted will come out every other week on Wednesday, so tune in.

This season, we're trying something a little bit different. We want to hear more from you. Dear listener, what did we get right? What did we get wrong? What topics do you want to hear us chat about in future episodes? We've set up a Facebook discussion group. You can find the link in the show notes or search “Conflicted Podcast Discussion Group” on Facebook to join in the group. We'll post early access to episode teasers, recommend further reading for people, looking to go deeper into episode topics as well as running exclusive giveaways. Each week we'll be giving away some recommended reading to one lucky listener. All you have to do is join the group. This week's book is The Twilight War: the secret history of America's 30-year conflict with Iran, an excellently written and researched account of US-Iranian relations from the 1979 Iranian revolution onward. Join our Facebook group before the 19th of February and you might just win. You'll hear from us soon in two weeks’ time.