What the World Left Behind in Syria
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2020
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Even though Kareem Shaheen left Syria a few years back, the reminders of his time there are everywhere. For nine years a brutal conflict has left millions seeking refuge with millions more still stuck in limbo. This past December, the Assad regime launched its latest attempt to seize back control of the largest rebel-held territory in Syria, Idlib.
Today on the show, Kareem tells us about Idlib, its importance in the war, his experience covering the region, and what the world turning their backs on this conflict tells us about the international order today.
Guest: Kareem Shaheen, journalist and columnist covering Syria.
Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts and bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence. Sign up now to listen and support our work.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey there, this episode contains just the tiniest bit of salty language. |
| 0:05.7 | Okay, here's the show. |
| 0:11.5 | Kareem Shaheen is a journalist, lives in Montreal, but he carries around in his pocket a sort of window to a world thousands of miles away. |
| 0:23.5 | Syria. You know, if you spend so many years covering the conflict, the information kind of comes to you. Eventually, it's hard to, it's hard to |
| 0:30.7 | sort of disconnect yourself from what's going on. This window, it's his phone. |
| 0:36.2 | It's somewhat upsetting, actually, because you scroll through your phone and you're looking through pictures of, you know, you and your wife or you and your kid or you're in your cats. |
| 0:46.7 | And in between, there are pictures of, you know, dead children. |
| 0:52.4 | Back when he was reporting in Syria, what he did for five years, Kareem's phone was his |
| 0:58.0 | Swiss Army knife. There was an app to warn him of incoming warplanes. An encrypted messaging |
| 1:03.6 | meant he could get voice memos right from the front line. |
| 1:07.0 | You know, towards the end of these sieges, you'd get messages from doctors and activists and people you've been in contact with on the ground telling you, you know, that they might not be able to speak to you again because they might die in the next few hours. |
| 1:26.7 | Now that Kareem is so far away, having his phone buzzing around in his pocket, it's like a constant retort to the world around him. |
| 1:36.4 | You know, it always felt like what was unfolding in terms of Western politics was this just sort of surreal thing. |
| 1:44.3 | And you'd sit there and ask yourself, like, really, is this what everybody's concerned about? |
| 1:48.8 | Is this what everybody's talking about? |
| 1:50.7 | This December, Kareem's phone got louder, more insistent. |
| 1:56.9 | It was the latest carnage in the Assad regime's intensified offensive against Syria's last rebel-held stronghold. |
| 2:05.8 | Back in Syria, he could see people getting ready for a brutal assault. |
| 2:10.2 | Bashar al-Assad was about to launch what was meant to be, a final campaign, against the biggest province that's remained out of his reach, Idlib. |
| 2:19.7 | In Northwestern Syria's Idlib province, the latest target was this schoolhouse. |
| 2:26.5 | But in the physical world around him, Karim saw people getting ready for Christmas, saw Donald |
| 2:33.6 | Trump about to be impeached. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.