Chas Freeman on the Israel-Turkey rivalry over post-Assad Syria and the broader regional realignment
Glenn Diesen interviews former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Chas Freeman.
Summary
Glenn Diesen interviews Ambassador Chas Freeman about the intensifying rivalry between Israel and Turkey over influence in post-Assad Syria, and the broader strategic realignment underway across the Middle East. Freeman argues that Israel's strikes in Syria and its broader expansionist posture are pushing Turkey — a formidable NATO military power — into open strategic competition, and that Israel is making a serious long-term error by manufacturing an enemy it cannot defeat. He contends that the tripartite alignment between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan represents a declaration of regional independence from American backing, and that Syria's signals toward both that grouping and Iran suggest a historic realignment away from ideology toward national interest. Freeman also addresses Israel's internal fractures, the tarnishing of its international reputation, and the risks of Trump's economic warfare against Iran — including the prospect of uniting China, Russia, and others in opposition to US sanctions policy.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
The Israel-Turkey rivalry over post-Assad Syria
Glenn Diesen: We are joined today by Ambassador Chas Freeman, the former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and also the former Assistant Secretary of Defense. Thank you for coming back on the show.
Chas Freeman: Very glad to be with you, Glenn.
Glenn Diesen: We knew for a long time that the relationship between Turkey and Israel was a difficult one. We see this has become much worse in the struggle over post-Assad Syria. Indeed, all those years of war against Syria, we saw this grand coalition between the US, the Gulf States, Turkey, Israel, and various jihadist groups — all with a common goal of toppling Assad. But a lot of this coalition would predictably fall apart after Assad was gone and the common interest disappeared. The main two contenders for influence in post-Assad Syria would be Turkey and Israel. Now we see that Israel attacked the Abu al-Duhur air base in Syria. We are told — although I don't think Turkey has confirmed it yet — that they either had troops there or were planning to send troops. It seems that the rivalry over influence in Syria is now sparking or intensifying a conflict between Israel and Turkey that could potentially escalate to something like a war. If you listen to some of the rhetoric from people like Naftali Bennett, Turkey seems more of a threat to Israel than even Iran. I wanted to get your view on this — how you read the situation and the recent developments.
Chas Freeman: I think it's very complicated, as everything in that region seems to be. The state of US-Turkish relations is also a factor in this, and I'll come to that. But basically, one of the major strategic achievements of Israel in the region, in its view, was the disarmament and subjugation of Syria — the subordination of Syria to Israeli control. That is not just the seizure of some territory in Syria, which Israel clearly plans to keep, but the removal of what the Israeli defense minister described as a hostile force on Israel's borders. There is a certain irony there, because Israel has no borders — it simply expands them wherever it wishes and then is surprised that the people it has dislodged have an opinion against it.
The contest going on in Syria between the Turks and Israelis is real. The Turks have, according to Israeli sources, supplied Syria with military equipment including tanks, which would give it some minimal ability to resist Israeli incursions. I don't believe there were Turkish troops at that air base — they've clearly said there weren't. Of course, one has to take denials from governments with a grain of salt. The usual rule is you should never believe anything until it's been officially denied. But in any event, this is a real contest.
It has just been further complicated by the Syrian foreign minister declaring that Syria is considering whether it should join the Pakistani-Saudi-Turkish alignment, one function of which — perhaps the principal function — is clearly to counter Israel. This is, I think, a clever diplomatic move. There's no indication that Syria would actually be welcomed into that entente, but there it is. There is also a Syrian statement that they might be open to a Pakistan-brokered rapprochement with Iran.
The eclipse of ideology and the rise of national interest in regional foreign policy
Chas Freeman: What all of this illustrates is something we've talked about before: the displacement of ideology and theology as guiding forces for the foreign policies of countries in this region. They are now guided by national interests. The Shia-Sunni split, which was a defining factor in the affairs of the region earlier, is now far less important. Turkey is obviously Sunni.
With regard to the Turkish-Israeli relationship, there are several elements worth thinking about. The last poll I saw showed that 97% of Turks were against Israel — and why not? The Israelis killed Turks who were attempting to aid Palestinians in Gaza with humanitarian assistance. And as you indicated, the rhetoric from Naftali Bennett and others in Israel now equates Turkey with Iran as a potential enemy of the existence of Israel — which maybe it is.
Then there is the question of the F-35, which President Erdoğan wants to acquire and which Donald Trump appears inclined to release to him. Israel is going hammer and tongs in the United States against such a transaction, on the grounds that it would impair the so-called qualitative edge that the Israelis enjoy as a matter of US law — that is, American underwriting of military superiority for Israel in West Asia. So that's a factor.
Lurking behind all of this is the continued American neglect of relations with Turkey, going back to previous administrations, not really repaired by the bromance between Trump and Erdoğan. The fact is that Turkey is an essential partner — or at least an essential non-antagonist — in a wide variety of American and European interests. You simply cannot conduct a policy toward Syria, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Greece, Cyprus, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Central Asian region including Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf region, the European Union, NATO, or Russia without Turkish agreement or acquiescence.
Israel sees Turkey as a rival not just in the region but as a rival for American affection and attention, given the level of interest involved and the widening realization in the United States that Israel is not a strategic asset for America but a strategic liability. This is a dangerous situation. And if indeed Syria becomes a prospective partner in the tripartite alignment between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, then I think we've got a game-changer in the region.
Let me just finish by saying that this tripartite entente, whatever else it is, is a declaration by the major countries in the region of independence from reliance on American backing and support, which they no longer consider reliable. They now believe they must acquire self-reliance. This will involve further diversifying their international relationships away from America, but more importantly building capabilities collectively and developing a habit of consultation on regional security affairs. This is obviously designed as a counter to Israel, which they see — correctly — as the principal source of instability in their region: a state that has no borders, that is expansionist, and that has aspirations for still greater domination of the region.
The open question is what relationship this entente will develop with Iran. I think it is entirely plausible — putting together the two Syrian statements, Pakistan perhaps mediating a rapprochement between Syria and Iran, the Iraqis developing a slowly improving relationship with Syria (which is quite contrary to historical precedents, driven by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the Iraqi requirement to send oil out to the Mediterranean through Syria) — that all of this comes together. The eclipse of theology as the driving force in relations between Syria, now under Salafi Islamic Sunni rule, and Iraq, under Shia rule, makes this more possible.
I can foresee a consultative relationship — not membership in the entente, but something like the consultative relationship with Egypt that the other three parties had in dealing with regional activities and developments. In other words, a coordination mechanism, not membership — maybe a dialogue partner relationship, to use the ASEAN term. What is happening between Turkey and Israel is really very important and a bit dangerous, because Turkey is a formidable military power, and the Israelis, who aspire to dominate the entire region, have little hope of dominating Turkey.
The Westphalian parallel: transcending religious divisions through national interest
Glenn Diesen: Just a quick thought on the possibility of Syria and Iran improving relations — that would be quite interesting. Last time we spoke, you also mentioned that the Saudis could move a bit away from religious thinking and lean more into national interest. It reminds me a little bit of the Thirty Years' War in Europe five hundred years ago — when you saw Catholic France allying with the Protestant Swedes to balance off the Catholic Habsburgs, to avoid encirclement or domination.
Chas Freeman: That is indeed a parallel, and the Saudis have moved well away from religiously driven foreign policy. They are very much pursuing their national interest as they see it — sometimes ineptly, of course, with the reigniting of war with Ansar Allah, the Houthis in Yemen, standing out as a prime example of foolish action.
Let me draw a further parallel, because I think if you go back and look at the Peace of Westphalia, which resulted from that confused contest, people found a way of transcending religious differences and creating a new state system in Europe. I think this is entirely possible within the Islamic context. There is an Islamic law of statecraft which is very rich — 1,500 years of it — and many principles in common between Shia and Sunni. Of course, Shia Islam and Sunni Islam are both internally divided, but they have common principles, as people found in the Peace of Westphalia in Europe, and it could happen in the Gulf as well.
One thing worth noting is that Israel has succeeded — especially with the latest comments by Itamar Ben Gvir, the minister of national security in Israel, advocating the killing of 560 Palestinians a day as a matter of principle in Gaza, revealing himself to be not just a sadist but a mass murderer with no humanity at all — in uniting the 57 Muslim-majority countries in the world behind an anti-Israel policy. That policy is yet to be fully realized organizationally, but it is out there as a potential that Israel and its friends should be worried about.
Russia's position in Syria and the Turkish-Israeli escalation ladder
Glenn Diesen: Not just along religious lines. It's quite interesting that the Russians were there for so long helping Assad fight essentially Jolani and his crew, and now we see Russia seemingly being allowed to keep its military bases — something that annoys the Europeans. I think that was a key motivation for supporting the toppling of Assad as well: not just to disentangle Syria from Iran but also to disentangle it from Russia. But what do you think might be the reactions here? If Israel wants to deter Turkey from establishing a base in Syria — if that's indeed what they were intending to do — I assume the Turks won't just pack up and go home. How do you think they're responding? Will they strengthen their own presence in Syria, send a lot of arms? How might they respond? There's a possibility now of Turkey and Israel going up the escalation ladder — I stress possibility, not certainty.
Chas Freeman: At the moment they're shadow boxing. They're not actually landing punches. But that could happen. History teaches an important lesson: don't mess with the Turks. You do that at your peril. The Israelis are right to be concerned that they have a formidable opponent in Syria.
The Russian presence in Syria is indeed another indicator — as you suggest — of the eclipse of ideology or theology as a driving force in foreign policy, in this case in the foreign policy of Syria. I note that the Russians retain a diplomatic capability, even though they are distracted at the moment by the war in Eastern Europe. They retain the ability to mediate, to intervene, to broker various arrangements between Turks and Israelis if that's possible, between Syrians and Iranians. The United States and Western Europeans don't have that ability, because we have cut off our dialogue with Iran. And Israel is now at odds with us across the board — defiant on virtually every front, determined to finish the extermination of Palestinians in Gaza, to drive Palestinians out of the West Bank, to annex southern Lebanon, to keep the territory it has taken in Syria, and to attack at will its neighbors whenever they defy it. This is the source of instability in the region, and the appetite for instability among Europeans and Americans is running quite low.
Glenn Diesen: By the way, the Russians I speak with argue now that it's not so bad that Assad is gone, because it put an end to Russia's military participation, and standing so close with Assad created a lot of tensions between Russia and the Gulf States. Now that they've divorced themselves from this, it's easier to work with the Gulf States. It's interesting how things turn out. But what else is there in this relationship between the Turks and the Israelis? I would add that I think this is problematic for the Israelis. Turkey has a massive conventional army, a huge population. And as you said, the rivalry for US affection — Turkey is a NATO member, the Americans have nuclear weapons there. But you also see Erdoğan's rhetoric suggesting that Israeli actions in the region are now affecting Turkish security. Is there an actual security competition, or is it more limited to Syria?
Chas Freeman: No, I think it's a broad-based competition on all the fronts you mentioned. You've inadvertently reminded me of my chairmanship of the US-Turkish Joint Commission on Military Cooperation, which took me to Ankara. One of the issues at the time was that the Turks were attempting to procure tanker aircraft from the United States, and the Israelis, working through the Greek lobby in the United States, were trying very hard to snatch that contract away. I was present at a discussion between our military representative in Ankara, Major General Philip Nuber, and the head of the Turkish Air Force, General Burhan, in which General Burhan — in the congenial manner of the Turkish General Staff generally — said to Phil Nuber: "Phil, if you don't get me those aircraft, I'm going to put you in a Turkish jail. Have you ever seen a Turkish jail?" Phil said no. And General Burhan said, "Well, did you see Midnight Express?" Phil said yes. And General Burhan said, "They exaggerated the amenities."
The Turks don't play around. In the end they did get the aircraft, and they used the tankers very effectively to send F-16s to Libya against American wishes. So everybody in the region is behaving quite independently. Nobody regards the United States as reliable — that includes Israel, of course, which as I mentioned is now at odds with the United States across the board. This isn't going to go away if there is a new leader elected in Israel or if Prime Minister Netanyahu is reelected somehow. It's structural. And everybody in the region is reacting to this, believing that Israel is now vulnerable. Perhaps the Turks are motivated in part by that.
Turkey's internal divisions and its role as a regional fulcrum
Glenn Diesen: How stable do you see Turkey? If I were to assess Turkey in the region, I wouldn't just look at its interests — I would look at its predictability and its path forward. What I find interesting about Turkey is that on one hand they talk a lot about harmonizing interests with others in the region. Indeed, last year I had a meeting in the Vatican with Jeffrey Sachs as well as the First Lady of Turkey, and she was stressing a lot how important it is to bridge differences between different religions and different ethnic groups — a lot of harmony in the language. But at the same time, you also see in Turkish foreign policy that they make deals and you think you have an arrangement, and then suddenly there's a knife in your back. Especially with the Russians — they had a few incidents. For example, the Azov fighters the Russians had apprehended were sent to Turkey and weren't supposed to be sent back to Ukraine before the end of the war, but the Turks went ahead and did it anyway. Same with the attack on Syria — the Russians thought they had an arrangement with the Turks, and it didn't last very long. My impression of Turkey is that yes, it's a very independent actor, and many countries like Russia prefer to engage with the Turks exactly because they are capable of acting independently — but at the same time they don't always seem predictable, or trustworthy.
Chas Freeman: You raise a number of issues. It's been some years since I've been in Turkey, but Turkish society has been divided between the secularism of the Kemalist element and the Muslim Brotherhood orientation of Erdoğan and his followers. There was an alleged coup against Erdoğan, supposedly led by the Gülen movement, which has been ruthlessly repressed. These fissures exist in Turkish politics, with quite sharp differences between the followers of Atatürk and the more Islamist democratic element behind Erdoğan.
But in the middle of all this, let's not forget that the major national security issue the Turks have faced internally — the violent opposition and terrorism of the PKK, the Kurdish Communist Party in Turkey — has been set aside. Abdullah Öcalan, the head of that party, has made his peace with the Turkish government. The PKK is basically disarmed. The Kurds over the border in Syria also seem to be integrating slowly with the government in Damascus, not focused so much on opposition to Turkey. And in Iraqi Kurdistan, there also seems to be quite a move toward reconciliation with the Turks.
So it's a mixed picture. The erratic nature of Turkish policy reflects a strong man — Erdoğan — who is now in charge. By comparison with Trump, he's steady and predictable. But most people would not apply that standard. Yes, one can't take the Turks for granted, and it's a mistake to do so. But I think what Israel is doing in Syria generally — and I refer back to the alienation of the 57 members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation — is making an enemy of Turkey. I know you and I have discussed before that whereas Henry Kissinger remarked that even the paranoid have enemies, I would add that the paranoid are particularly good at making enemies. In this case, Israelis — who are very paranoid, dominated by theories of global antisemitism which really don't hold up but which guide their policy — are making an enemy of Turkey.
Glenn Diesen: I agree. And the quote about Kissinger is a wise position to take, because Israel, as you say, could be very paranoid — but Turkey is a huge country with a formidable military force. Given that it has proven in the past to be a bit unpredictable, and also that the region is shifting quickly — you don't know where the United States is going to be standing in a year from now, especially after the situation with Iran — and then you see Turkey making this defense pact with the Saudis and Pakistan, the strategic alignment is shifting very rapidly.
Chas Freeman: You're absolutely correct. There is a parallel — you're an expert on Russia — there's a parallel to what the Russians are doing: giving up 300 years of effort to Europeanize themselves. The Turks have done the same. They now straddle the region. And don't forget the vast list of Turkish influence on other interests that I mentioned. I can't think of a country which is as important in the management of other relationships as Turkey is. Turkey is really a fulcrum from which it can leverage all kinds of things. It's a mistake not to pay attention to Turkey. Maybe the Israelis have finally figured that out, but they're giving it the wrong kind of attention, in my view, for their own long-term interests.
Europe's declining gravitational pull and the broader strategic realignment
Glenn Diesen: I like the way you compare Turkey to Russia on this, because it's hard to overstate how much Europe is undergoing change. After the Cold War, the EU aligned itself closely with the US, and the EU itself became — as it's always conceptualized in the literature — a gravitational force: the entire region, all its neighbors, leaning in toward the EU. Everyone needed trade agreements and was willing to accept the political conditions for trading with the EU. Everyone was essentially standing at the door asking what they could do next. This was the foundation of the regulatory power that Brussels enjoyed. But now the Russians have essentially said that 300 years of a western-centric foreign policy — looking toward the Europeans for economic development and technology — is over. We're going to look to the east. And now you see the same from Turkey. Even the Americans are now losing interest in Europe, saying you're perhaps third in our priorities. With the end of this gravitational pull, the EU itself can begin to fragment, because suddenly the collective bargaining power that created this gravitational pull — which was the main incentive for transferring sovereignty to Brussels — is gone.
Chas Freeman: I think it's very important. Conceiving of European influence as a gravitational force is exactly the right metaphor. It's been remarkably successful in extending its standards to its periphery and incorporating new members who accept standards pioneered by Western Europeans. This has been a great success story. What Europe has not been able to do is cohere sufficiently to act beyond its immediate periphery. And in the case of the Ukraine war, it has acted so foolishly — without any dialogue with Moscow, no effort to find a stable resolution of the security issues that Ukraine represents both for Russia and the rest of Europe — that it has fouled its own nest, as it were.
But at least one can count one blessing: Donald Trump just threatened to bomb Oman — an inoffensive, neutral, diplomatically effective, and very helpful country on the Arabian Peninsula facing the Arabian Sea and Africa, an imperial power in the past. So far as I know, he has not threatened to bomb Norway yet. Presumably the Save the Whales people will try to persuade him to do that, but I don't know if Laura Loomer has yet been converted to their cause.
Glenn Diesen: I find it very strange. These are the people who are influencing Trump. It's deeply concerning.
Chas Freeman: Think — you've probably been, as I have, to the house of Rasputin. Some of this is reminiscent of that. The last days of the Tsars.
Glenn Diesen: Fascinating who gets the ear of the leaders. But what I want to ask — going back to what you started with, the competition between Turkey and Israel, with the US relationship as a big variable — from the Israeli perspective, there are good reasons to fear Turkey. I do think they're unnecessarily making an enemy out of Turkey where it's not necessary. I always make the same point about Europeans and Russia: you have reasons to be concerned about the Russians, but making an enemy out of them must rank as something for the history books in terms of stupidity. But if we do recognize that Israel has some legitimate concerns about Turkey, what can Israel really do? Their weapons stockpiles have been depleted, their military systems and personnel have been largely exhausted. The head of the IDF warned that they were already profoundly overstretched. They're already engaged in wars with Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, and Yemen. What is the actual capacity of the Israeli army to take on a massive power like Turkey?
Chas Freeman: I don't think they have that capacity. I think a good deal of this is electoral rhetoric. Israeli politics revolve around declaring everybody to be an antisemitic enemy, and in Turkey, 97% of Turks apparently are happy to accept that appellation. So part of it is that. But it is foolish, because they don't have the capacity.
It is possible to look at the past and argue that one of the reasons the Turks had a diplomatic relationship with Israel and did trade with it was because the Turks had an overwhelming desire to appease American interests, which were manipulated by Israel to its advantage. That's gone. The Turks still apparently facilitate the transport of oil through their territory for the benefit of Israel — oil from Azerbaijan, I suppose. But they're not actively acting against Israel, and Israel isn't really actively acting against Turkey either. This is a war being carried out by proxy — a struggle in Syria and in Iraqi Kurdistan, where the Israelis have entrenched themselves, as have the Americans. This is the reason the Iranians have been bombing Iraqi Kurdistan. Everything in the region operates independently but is all interconnected somehow.
Israel's tarnished reputation and internal fractures
Glenn Diesen: That's a good way of framing it. But besides the material losses and exhaustion in Israel, there's also the question of reputation. The reputation of Israel was quite important. On one hand, yes, the brutality used against their enemies was always condemned, but on the other hand, the overwhelming superiority of force established a powerful reputation — you would be careful before going against Israel, and you would have a powerful America standing behind it. But the idea of that reputation now seems to have suffered somewhat.
Chas Freeman: I think it's been gravely tarnished. Israel is a state established by European Jews, and it has enjoyed honorary membership in Europe — that's why it's at Eurovision and other things, which is now controversial in a way it never was before. Israelis are in West Asia, but they would prefer to be in Europe. I think it was a grave mistake not to allow European Jews to set up a state in Bavaria after World War II, but that is not what happened, and we're left with the results.
This European identity has worn thin to the point of disappearing. No European would say anything like what Ben Gvir just said. No European would say anything like what Bezalel Smotrich says. No European would dare say the sorts of things that Netanyahu says about the seizure of territory by force and the eviction of the existing population. Israel is now a complete outlaw. It has departed from the norms of international law crafted by Europe. It espouses no principles other than its own survival at whatever expense to others that entails. It has lost the admiration of the West. It never really had the admiration of the rest of the world, but now it has the opprobrium of the rest of the world and a rising percentage of people in the West who do not want to be associated with genocide, mass murder, torture, sodomy in the prisons, and all the other ugly things that Israelis now stand for.
So now when you talk about the IDF, and if you were to say — as Netanyahu used to claim — that this was the world's most moral army, people would snicker. They would condemn you for moral blindness. This is the world's most sadistic army. It is the most uncontrolled army. It is the most brutal army. And it is the most successful army at making enemies for the state it serves — despite some competition internationally.
Glenn Diesen: And it's not just reputation. Israel itself has changed profoundly, at least since the 1960s and '70s. The kind of secular and different moral compass Israel was assumed to have back then is not recognizable compared to what they are today. But this is also fueling internal problems. There seems to be a lot of consensus on key issues like attacking Iran or what they're doing in Gaza and Lebanon — the wars seem to be a unifier. But beyond this, they have some profound divisions at home which are hard to overcome.
Chas Freeman: Some of those divisions reflect the evolution of Zionism. The initial impetus for resettling European Jews in Palestine was actually a Christian invention, not a Jewish one. It was picked up later by secular Jews who, you know, had Christmas trees in their living rooms. The initial impetus for the establishment of the state of Israel — Zionism — was basically modeled on Eastern European nationalism: that is, ethnolinguistic self-determination, in this case involving the transformation of religious communities into a presumed ethnicity. One of the great ironies is that Golda Meir and others used to refer to the Palestinians as an invented people, but Israelis are an invented people. Zionists are an invented people.
Zionism has left Judaism far behind. The ultra-Orthodox in Israel — the Haredim — do not accept the existence of the Israeli state or the moral justification for it, and continue to practice a form of Judaism which has nothing to do with Zionism. They don't want to be associated with it. They're not prepared to defend it. They won't join the army if they can avoid it. They devote themselves to religious studies. Secular Jews have been squeezed out. There is now net emigration at quite a rate from Israel. There is concern among Israelis that the best and the brightest — the people who made Israel a formidable innovator in science and technology — are leaving. There is concern in some neighboring countries, Cyprus for example, that the exodus of Israelis is implanting new colonies on Cypriot soil. There are billboards in Cyprus extolling the virtues of various candidates in Israeli elections, to which ordinary Cypriots take exception — it's almost an extension of Israeli sovereignty in their view.
Within Israel, the divisions between the ultra-religious, the secular, and the simple nationalist are acute. Israel in many ways is a society that is fissuring and dividing in multiple ways. The war in Gaza has produced a crisis in the army — the commander of the IDF has expressed grave concern about the possibility that the army might simply fall apart. Reservists no longer report for duty often, and the popularity of wars at the level of the citizenry is not necessarily shared by the army. The atrocities being committed in the West Bank horrify decent Israelis, of whom there are quite a few.
Israel has no strategy for survival in the long term. It assumes that it can always live by pointing a gun at everyone else, and this is not a survival strategy by any standard. There are grave doubts in Israel about its longevity as a state. More and more one hears analogies to the Christian Crusader kingdoms established 800 to 900 years ago, which lasted about a hundred years or less, and which fell afoul of the same forces that are diminishing Israel — the loss of foreign support, which was essential to their survival, and the failure to make peace with their Muslim and Christian neighbors. This is a story that is not over, and it does not necessarily have a happy ending for Zionism.
Zionism, Judaism, and the internal contradictions of the Israeli state
Glenn Diesen: I've seen articles in the Israeli media — like Haaretz — questioning whether Israel should leave Zionism behind. Some of the arguments remind me of arguments put forward in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov — the argument that if you mix the church with politics, you don't bring the divine into politics; rather, you bring the corruption and decadence of politics into the church. So you should keep them separate. This is essentially the secular argument about religion. But of course, one can argue the same can be applied to Judaism. One can understand why many Jewish people in Israel wouldn't feel completely comfortable with this mixture.
Chas Freeman: Zionism is the analog — I like the Dostoevsky reference — but I think of it as the analog to the Islamic State in its relationship with conventional Islam. Judaism is a global religion, practiced in Europe and the Americas in ways that are completely incompatible with Israeli behavior, statements, interpretations, and Jewish supremacy — which is what Zionism has evolved to advocate. That is anathema to most Western Jews. I would argue there has been a divorce between Zionism and Judaism. I'm not Jewish, but if I were, I would cringe at the pretense of Israelis to speak for me. Israelis do not speak for world Jewry. Increasingly, world Jewry is aware of that and reacting. Of course, there are those who are still scarred by the Holocaust and who are paranoid and support Israel regardless of what it does — and they include many in positions of influence. But Israel is in crisis internally and externally, and one has to hope that it will pull itself together and rediscover the merits of the religion it was founded in the name of.
The US-Israel relationship and its impact on regional tensions
Glenn Diesen: Just the last question, going back to what you started with — the competition between Turkey and Israel, and of course the US relationship as a big variable. How do you see the US, having tied its strategic position so closely to Israel, managing this? It's becoming difficult to sustain, and you see that in the region and in domestic politics in the United States — the way Israel is now referred to. You didn't see any of this only a few years ago. How does the US-Israeli relationship play into the wider regional tensions, and into some of the Israeli concerns about Turkey?
Chas Freeman: It has become acceptable in the United States to ask whether Israel is a strategic liability rather than an asset. And I think very clearly the evidence supports the thesis that it is. It is the source of instability in West Asia. Its actions have repeatedly embroiled the United States in dangerous situations — not just recently, but during the Cold War. The surprise attack on Egypt and Syria in 1967, for example, led to a US-Soviet crisis. The same thing in 1973, although that was an Egyptian counterattack across the Suez Canal. The establishment of Israel as an independent state in violation of the terms of the United Nations Charter also caused a crisis. And of course, now we see the depletion of American strength on a global level as a result of a war that Israel advocated and basically suckered the United States into — and then Israel walked away from that war, leaving us holding the bag.
Israel is not concerned about the Strait of Hormuz. We haven't really talked about that, but I would say where we are on that is that both the Iranians and the Americans now recognize that there's no military solution to this war. Iran can't defeat the United States. It can do grave damage. The United States can do some damage to Iran, but we now have enough experience to know that doesn't solve any problem. So Donald Trump has announced all-out economic warfare against Iran, including secondary sanctions against any country that trades with Iran. If that includes China, I suppose that is going to be a new wound on the US-China relationship — perhaps fatal to the proposed Xi Jinping-Trump summit in Washington. Quite aside from that, I think European allies of the United States have been careful to dissociate themselves from the American war on Iran, but they've not actively opposed it. I think this might actually generate outright opposition, with countries doing what Spain has done and simply saying, "Not only are we not with you on this, we're against you."
This is a gamble. I don't think Scott Bessent has the cards — to use a phrase made popular by this administration — to pull off what he proposes in a shaky bond market, with the dollar unstable and rising antipathy to the United States internationally. We shall see this coming week. Apparently we will see a shot in the dark by the Secretary of the Treasury.
Glenn Diesen: This whole conflict — you can see it spreading. Trump announced this economic day of reckoning on Iran, and today the Chinese responded saying they're not going to play ball. That affects everything, because if it was only North Korea, they might play ball; if there was a little bit of pressure on Russia, they might prefer just to work with the US. But now everything is going to go to the side, and they're just going to have to accept difficult relations with the US, and all of these sanctions are going to become less efficient.
Chas Freeman: They are illegal under international law. These are secondary sanctions — they're illegal. Actually, primary sanctions are illegal unless they're approved by the Security Council, but who cares about international law these days? What the issue really is here is that Russia and China, when there was the snapback to sanctions on Iran, said that was an illegal decision which they would not respect. They will clearly oppose this economic warfare on Iran. But I think the prospects are good that many others will join them. We are doing something that is uniting opposition to our policy. Of course, Donald Trump can always reverse his economic warfare tomorrow — he has a habit of doing that. If he can figure out how to make money by doing that, I assume he'll do it.
Glenn Diesen: Well, thank you for sharing your insights and your analysis. As always, quite fascinating. Thank you so much.
Chas Freeman: Well, thank you, Glenn, for what you do.