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Radio War Nerd EP #543 — Syria, Hezbollah & Palestine-Israel, feat. Cyrus (Patreon)

Published:
2025-08-19 20:42:30
Imported:
2025-08
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Guest: Cyrus, MENA researcherRecorded: August 17, 2025

Cyrus returns to RWN to update on Syria's worsening descent into Sunni-supremacist violence under the Jolani regime, Druze and Jews, stillborn plans to disarm Hezbollah, Israel's genocide on Palestine, and more...

*Map

Further listening with Cyrus:-EP #509 — Jolani & The Making of Syrian Sunni Ethno-Supremacism-EP #487 — Israel-Hezbollah Ceasefire + Syria Collapse-EP #478 — Israel's War on Lebanon

Total time: 1:43:39Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

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Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

Order your print or ebook of John Dolan's new book Erdogan Pizza: Dispatches from a Violent & Grotesque World

Files

Comments

Inmybirkin

Peter Korotaev #2 Rob Ashlar #3

Blorst of times

All good, but gotta put in for Annibale and Aamer.

Inmybirkin

I like Annibale I just think the topics he usually addresses are less engaging for me I prefer the current events episodes

Jayme Bagri

As always a very informative episode with Cyrus. An inimitable voice.

CR

Congratulations to the GOP for creating in Syria the very islamofascism that they’ve been railing against for 25 years even though it never really existed until they created it. John McCain must be looking up from Hell with such pride.

N

Yasha Levine should be in this conversation.

CR

That former chief of staff’s statement isn’t beating the allegations made by American antisemites. They are racist towards everyone else, too, but they’re still American. They’re like Homer Simpson: Only I’m allowed to ruin family vacations!

William

Never go up against the only Druze member of an isrally gang; you don’t know what crazy shit that guy had to do to get accepted

Ander Pierce

It's weird how good the GOP (and American right in general) is at arming, financing, training, and otherwise enabling Islamic terror. From the mujahideen (including none other than Osama Bin Ladin) to Jolani to East Turkistan Islamic Movement (which Pompeo worked to have removed from the list of international terrorists), they're very busy

Itai Segre

Also, just to elaborate on the Druze within Israeli controlled territories. The Druze living in the occupied Golan Hights, do not see themselves as part of the Israeli Druze and some are/were staunch Syrian nationalists. The Golan area occupied by Israel in 1967 used to have 6 Druze villages all around the mount Hermon area. While Israel ethnically cleansed the Golan from all it's former inhabitants, including putting people on buses and donkeys sending them across the nearest border, the Druze were left in place. In the 1970s two villages were evacuated and all the population was consolidated in 4 of those villages. Golan Druze were allowed to sell their prized apples over the border in Syria and send their kids to study in syrian universities and return. Golan Druze were not only allowed to go to university in Damascus but at times received scholarships to study in the Soviet Union because of their special status. As a result, there is a deep religious divide within the Golan Druze between religious and non religious members of the community. Non religious families tend to have members who went to school in Moscow or something, and no longer feel Druze religiously. There would be huge fights over selling alcohol in bars. There used to be a thriving bar/fancy restaurant scene in the late 2000s and into the 2010s in there. One of the first restaurants opened in that scene was called "undefined" because, as someone from Majdal Shams told me "We are not Palestinian, we are certainly not Israeli, we haven't been part of Syria our whole lives, we are not Druze because we're not religious, I guess we are Arabs because we speak Arabic, but besides that, we don't know how to identify. There was a big rift after 2011 between the Asadists and the leftist/liberal pro-demonstrations ppl. Once the Syrian situation devolved into civil war, support for the opposition wained significantly. Anyways, Israelis always forget that Golan Druze don't like them at all. Golan Druze are allowed to gain Israeli citizenship but only 20% of them have taken the opportunity to do so, most of them in the past 10-15 years. Many who did take Israeli citizenship did not do that for love of Israel, but as a pragmatic/political maneuver to gain state support for their faction in a given village. Usually the secular Druze were the ones who took citizenship as a pragmatic stand, and as a protection against certain religious leaders they did not like.

Curtis Cook

Let Mark Ames know his old friend from Moscow days is trying to contact him. Avid Exile reader who he stayed with in DC anticipating anarchy.

GoyBulletStopper

Its not just the gop. American support for Mujahideen began under carter

Muirneach

What the hell is going on in Libya these days with mike Tyson promoting boxing there.....regime change lol

xnfec

I believe that the Israeli commander of the Gaza operation previous to the current one was a Druze.

Kyle Erickson

Christopher Hitchens is celebrating his vindication in Hell with his 9th gin and tonic

Tyler Hanel

Democrats actually do a super good job of giving back to their constituents, and in that regard they are an incredibly successful political party (their constituents are NOT necessarily their voters)

Lord-Admiral of the Pyrenees

I also prefer current events related episodes especially now. However there are a lot of very interesting Anabale episodes

blazed uncle

What’s your War Nerd pseudonym-in-waiting? Mine’s Peter Bartholomew

JoR

It was never their real goal tbh . 9/11 was a godsend but the enemy itself wasn’t really their first choice. Culturally it’s definitely there for them (see their stances on “Muslim migrants). But, deep down they’re all culturally conservative.

Martin

Super interesting and illuminating

aqueous_steve

Regarding how Trump only trusts people making money at ~44:50, it reminds me of the quote from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies: “A dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly stupid.” Dishonesty is at the very least, predictable.

Jason Thompson

I know (?) Bedouin is a transnational term, so… this might be a racist question… are the Bedouin in Syria especially sectarian right wing jerks or is this actually sadly common among (poor, rural) Bedouin throughout the Arab world? I mean, I know in Arab TV dramas for city dwellers they usually come off as cool romantic cowboy types, so are they actually the Trump voting kind of asshole bigot cowboys?

Jason Thompson

Why are Sunnis in Lebanon basically sane and Sunnis in Syria nextdoor are degenerating into these hateful fucks

xnfec

Many, many years ago I rented a room from an elderly American lady. We got to be friends and she explained to me that she always voted for a guy who she knew to be a crook over a guy who sold himself as honest. That way, she knew what to expect. Also, to quote (roughly from memory) Sidney Greenstreet in the Maltese Falcon - "Never trust a man who doesn't drink; he never trusts himself to keep quiet when he does."

a clash of purple

When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

a clash of purple

My understanding, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, is that with the collapse of Arab nationalism and any meaningful left-wing movement, all politics in the Middle East are tribal. So talking about "the Bedouins" or "the Druze" or "the Kurds" or "the Arabs" is pointless, you have to specify which clan or tribal group you're referring to. If there's any ideology worth mentioning, it's Wahhabism.

Schaeffer Mallory

Not really tryin to be spicy but Landis' "optimism for Syria's future" take is sounding stranger and stranger

a clash of purple

If there's anything we've learned from RWN, it's that victors take all the wrong lessons from winning, and while defeat exacts a painful price, it can make you stronger.

Wheeler

No evidence for rape on October 7? I love these guys and Cyrus is a great guest but them never pushing back portends a character that could be described as pusillanimous.

Martin

I’m not really interested in going back and forth with you but the Israeli government has not been able to provide any evidence to or find a single victim of sexual violence during Al Aqsa flood. Electronic Intifada has covered this extensively over the last 20 months. There is however a lot of evidence for the Hannibal directive on Oct 7 and direct testimonial and even video evidence of Israeli sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners inside of Israeli military prisons.

Wheeler

A claim that there is no “proof” would be one thing. No “evidence” smells of agenda, which I try and reject wherever I sniff it out.

JoR

It’s not the hosts being “ pusillanimous”. The hosts have had that same view for basically 3 years now

drizzly_november

Cyrus’ description of al faza’a is fascinating, and mirrors a Boston concept best exemplified by the famous exchange in The Town: - I need your help. I can't tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we're gonna hurt some people. - … Whose car we takin’?

JDF

Highly recommend Ussama Makdisi’s book, Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World (UCP, 2021) … fantastic, richly detailed and tightly argued. Excellent to consult with reference to the emergence of typologies of Sunni —and other sectarianisms in general—especially in the strictly limited sense Cyrus describes as being in the ascendancy in Syria today. But the book deserves to be read and thought with in its own right. It’s phenomenal PS Great episode guys!

Zach

This may be covered in the comments on previous episodes but is there any way to read or listen to any other of Cyrus’s work?

CR

A lot of the Sunnis in Syria are from Chechnya, China, and “turkestan.”

CR

Exactly. The west and the ayatollahs killed everyone to the left of Ataturk

CR

That’s why I considered voting for Trump but wouldn’t have voted for Hillary, Joe, or Kamala is the fate of existence was on the line.

Jason Thompson

Maybe he was super optimistic that day. Or: he has family in Syria and well, i wonder if he has to say certain things to preserve their chances

Peter Z

Have to wonder if Cyrus thinks Oct 7 was intentionally allowed to occur (casus belli)

G

The Culture of Sectarianism is also great, shows how the entire notion of religion as a primary identity marker was a colonial introduction to the Levant as a tool of governance

ATH409

There has been zero provided evidence of rape on oct 7th. Palestinians parading around captured and killed idf soldiers who were stripped naked isn't evidence of rape, if that's what you want to bring up, since that's the only "evidence" zionists can muster.

JDF

**responding to Jackson’s milquetoast comment below ** The sexual assaults were/ are exclusively victimizing Palestinians, typically those who have been caught in the dragnet and tossed into the black hole of indefinite detention in various Maw of Moloch type installations across “Israel”. This phenomenon has been extensively documented (by Israeli authorities as well as by Western/ UN experts. In fact, you’ll recall that the furor over the initial disclosure of this (ongoing; systematic; sanctioned) abuse some months back sparked RIOTS BY CIVILIANS AND ACTIVE IAF / security forces in DEFENSE OF THE “right” to r**e and torture detainees. So yeah. Plenty of evidence, but from 10/8 onwards. Probably a coincidence .

JDF

Crime Dog McGruff over here… 🕵️ 🐕

Wheeler

I don’t know what milquetoast means. Maybe I’m not smart enough to participate in these comment sections.

a clash of purple

I don't really see why it's such a controversy to begin with. Even today, over half of American Indian women and over a quarter of American Indian men have been raped. This is what colonizers do to captive populations. Compare the situation to Gaza, which is an active warzone where the Israelis can do whatever they want to Palestinian civilians with impunity. It's not hard to figure out what's going on here. The manufactured outrage over rapes supposedly carried out by Hamas is no different than the manufactured outrage over rapes supposedly committed by black Americans in order to justify a lynching. Haven't Americans read To Kill a Mockingbird? Or seen the movie? It's frankly embarrassing that anyone would be dumb enough to fall for this type of obvious bullshit in the present day and age.

Hector Jaime

Cyrus sounds kinda like Yasha Levine. Are you sure they’re not the same person?

IRIDYSCENZIA

You're on the right track, keep pushing! 👏

Wm

Bland. It means bland or tepid or inoffensive or annodyne. I always think of Mitt Romney.