Amen, you're not a fan of the Lord of the Rings are you of course, I'm a fan. You know my favorite character was always sauron

Oh, Amen, that can't be true. Surely it's it's it's Samwise Gamji come on everyone loves

Come on like what a doofus gardener. I mean no no no no no no no no no no for me sauron sauron was always the most

Intriguing character in the entire trilogy. You have an insatiable thirst for power

Absolutely. What about the Silmarillion? Did you ever read that book? Yeah, I mean it was just a little bit of you know history

Of the Lord of the Rings where you learn about the elves and the Mayar and the Valar and whatever and all of that and then I got lost

Completely. Oh, dear. I'm afraid that our listeners in this season of conflict will be feeling the same way every time we go to the bronze age

Because I was thinking I was thinking that like the main storyline is the Lord of the Rings but every time we go to the deep

Pass, it's going to the Silmarillion, but oh my goodness. Now I'm afraid they might hate it. All right, let's get into it

This episode Aiman is all about Syria, but before we launch into Syria's past what's going on in Syria right now?

It's not in the news as often as it used to be has the Civil War ended?

Is it a stalemate like how much of Syria does Bashar al-Assad's government in Damascus actually control?

Well, I can tell you that the war in Syria is in some sort of hiatus like, you know, it has taken a sabbatical

You know for batteries of a world

At the moment Bashar al-Assad is controlling rough let's say about roughly two thirds of Syria and in that two thirds of Syria

Coexists two competing powers here first is Iran and its proxies whether it is Hezbollah or the Iraqi Shia Amalicious stationed in Syria or the Afghan and the Pakistani Shia Amalicious stationed also in Syria and they are part of a global

Quds Force so this is one part you know of the equation the other part of the equation you know will be the Russians and so the Russians and the Iranians they have you know they exist they coexist in the semi-harmonious zone of influence within the two thirds at Bashar al-Assad controls.

I see so two thirds of the country Bashar al-Assad Iran and Russia control it what about the other third?

The other third is well divided I mean one fifth you know of Syria as a whole is controlled by the Kurds known as the YPG or the PYD depending basically on who you ask.

The Kurds they're mainly focused in the Jazeera that that area of north eastern Syria that's between the Tigris and the Euphrates is that right?

Yeah Al-Hasaka der Zor this place is like and I mean so this is where we're the comically these were the Kurds are based and that is to some extent an American zone in the Americans are mostly based there and that is where the oil is by the way.

I see.

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