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Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American power, politics and prejudices.

The election is over, but the Americano never stops, and there will be a lot to talk about

with the second Trump administration. And so we'll bring you more and more Americano,

because judging from the feedback, that's what you guys want.

So please keep listening. There is a lot going on in the Middle East. There's always a lot going

on the Middle East, but things really seem to be escalating right now. To talk about this,

I'm delighted to be joined by Charlie Gamal, who used to work for the British and Foreign

Office on the Iran desk, the Iran and North Africa desk. And he's also a writer, he writes

of a spectator, and advises businesses, people, various clients on Middle Eastern politics.

Charlie, we should start with the kind of weekends news, which is seemingly

a coup, attempted coup going on in Syria, a threat to the Assad regime, because as you said,

the war in Lebanon will have knock-on consequences, and we could be looking at the creation of ISIS 3.0.

Is that what's happening here in Syria? Well, I think what's happened over the weekend in Syria,

there's just so much to get into. There's whether it touches on what's going on in Lebanon,

whether it touches on what's going on in Iran. What we're seeing in Syria is the advance of

Heathar al-Sham, which is an anti-Assad group

that has been fighting against Assad since the start of the civil war. It has its intercedents

in sort of al-Qaeda, sort of Sunni fundamentalism. And yet, what it's trying to do is it's

taken Aleppo and then it's moving south to Hamar. And when I was talking about the article that I wrote in October, I wasn't necessarily thinking of Syria exactly. I was thinking

that a coalition of Sunni fundamentalist groups against what's going on in Gaza and Lebanon, that

...