8/22/25 William Van Wagenen on the CIA’s Covert War to Remake the Middle East

Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews

Scott Horton

News, Politics

4.8 • 989 Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2025

⏱️ 77 minutes

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Summary

Scott brings William Van Wagenen on to talk about his new book Create Chaos: Inside the CIA’s Covert War to Topple the Syrian Government. They talk about why Wagenen was first drawn to the topic before digging into the details we know about covert US policy in Syria, Iraq and the region more broadly. Discussed on the show: Creative Chaos: Inside the CIA's Covert War to Topple the Syrian Government by William Van Wagenen Why he was drawn to this topic “Questions Mount Over Failure to Hit Zarqawi's Camp” (Wall Street Journal) Israel, Winner of the 2003 Iraq Oil War: Undue Influence, Deceptions, and the Neocon Energy Agenda by Gary Vogler “The Redirection” (The New Yorker) William Van Wagenen is the author of Creative Chaos: Inside the CIA’s Covert War to Topple the Syrian Government. He has a BA in German literature From Brigham Young University and an MA in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. You can read his other writings on Syria for the Libertarian Institute here. Follow him on Twitter @wvanwagenen This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Incorporated; Moon Does Artisan Coffee; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	All right, you, welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
0:11.6	I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com,
0:16.4	and author of Provoked, how Washington started the new Cold War with Russia and the catastrophe in Ukraine.
0:22.9	Sign up for the podcast feed at Scott Horton.org or Scott Horton Show.com.
0:27.4	I've got more than 6,000 interviews in the archive for you there going back to 2003.
0:32.5	And follow me on all the video sites and X at Scott Horton Show.
0:40.5	All right, guys, introducing William Van Wagonin.
0:46.7	He is a research fellow at the Libertarian Institute and is a great investigative journalist.
0:57.7	And we are so proud to announce that we have finally published his great book, Creative inside the CIA's covert war to topple the Syrian government and it is our 17th book I believe at the Libertarian
1:08.1	Institute and you can find that libertarian institute.org slash books.
1:13.1	And of course at Amazon.com.
1:15.2	Where right now, of course, it's number one in Syrian history
1:17.3	and I think it's number two or three in terrorism,
1:20.0	but it's doing great.
1:21.5	And this is such an important work.
1:23.5	And the long-form, you know, massive investigations that William did for the Institute, you know, previous to this,
1:35.6	that were, you know, basically the basis of the research for this book.
1:40.4	I was so heavily dependent on all of that work for my explanations of the war in Syria and Iraq War III in enough already.
1:49.0	All errors mine.
1:51.1	And a lot of other sources too.
1:52.7	I read a bunch of books and this and that, but man, did I reread everything that William wrote for sure before I was done with that to make sure that I knew I was right.
2:01.8	And so this book is so fantastic and I demand that you all not just get it, but also read it,
	...

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