Brian Carter
Appearances
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Pleasure, Mike. Thanks for having me on.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Well, the most recent one involved what we're told is about 90 vessels, which is a pretty significant uptick in total numbers. There's been an uptick in number of kind of encroachments of Taiwan They all seem to fit a pattern of encirclement, trying to demonstrate an ability to have a blockade, whether that is a short-term shock or something they'd like to try to do long-term.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
This is a little bit of what people tend to talk about a gray zone operation that isn't full-on attack, destruction of Taiwan, and also not just sitting back behind the middle line of the Taiwan Strait and counting their ships. So it's pressure, it's intimidation, It also touches our allies. You can't have a blockade against Taiwan without encroaching on Japan or the Philippines.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
And Xi Jinping, in his infinite wisdom in recent years, has been kind of picking fights with them. So there's a lot in all of this. We often just think of it as it's just China and Taiwan or it's something of the United States. I think whatever's going on with Xi Jinping right now is kind of bigger.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
And in some ways, it's harder to try to counter because a lot of our policy habits would just look at this and say, okay, well, can't the president talk to Xi Jinping? Or is there something going on in Taiwan we have to address? China's got a lot of capabilities now. We've given them a lot of money. They've taken a lot of technology and we've been really distracted.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
So this is not a great set of circumstances coming together in these headlines.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Well, that's the money question. And we don't really get the luxury of knowing the answer. They're kind of able to go pursue both at the same time. They get a lot of what they would really want, we think, by just pressuring Taiwan and allies in the United States to sort of back off and make a deal and just concede that this area of responsibility is China's jurisdiction. And they push
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
allies and the United States out beyond the first island chain to the Pacific impacts an immense amount of global trade, the likes of which I don't think people have really digested. But you don't have a tech juggernaut out of South Korea and a huge amount of economic exchange with Japan without encroaching on the territorial sea and airlines and communication around Taiwan. So a lot's at stake.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
But I think it's really ultimately a pressure campaign and a messaging campaign. But when you're playing with big ticket items like aircraft carriers and things that can go out in the deep blue water areas, you have to take it at face value. You can't bank on it just being a comms exercise.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Yeah, I don't think a lot of the world stage has really paid as close attention to China's military modernization as our intelligence community and a lot of specialists and policy areas have. And so it might be news to a lot of people how many big ship platforms they have. Now, this is kind of one of the dilemmas we've faced. This is a big, new material navy that they have.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
It's untested in combat. You know, China has had a perfect record under the Communist Party of killing other Chinese people. They don't really have much of a track record in modern warfare. I don't think we can afford to be overly hubristic about that. This is this is a tough challenge, but they should also be a little bit cautious. We've.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
We've come up across some big navies when you look at order of battle or armies when it comes up to order of battle. That doesn't mean they stand up in combat, but I don't think we really want to try to find that out anytime soon.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Yeah, and that's one of those areas that's extremely frustrating where I think we've gotten in our own way. I don't understand whether it's overregulation on environmental issues or if it was sort of globalization of supply chains. But America really pulled back from refining of energy and building proper supports and And when it came to submarines and big vessels, we really pulled back.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
China jumped way ahead. South Korea's still got some significant capabilities in this area. But we have to figure out how we're going to work with our allies to rejuvenate these supply chains. We should do more in America, not quite on off switch.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
And maybe we ought to consider a novel idea about not transferring immense wealth and technology to a country like China so they can put it into jumping ahead in these kind of areas.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
And it's done. So they've received the data, the input, the plans.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Part of the answer is just the tough reality that we've lived with this kind of a threat for decades. And just the tools for Beijing being able to test us or impose its will or try to do things with Taiwan, their range of options have expanded. Their capabilities have gotten bigger and stronger.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
But really, even going back from the missile exchanges in the 50s and the threat from the Taiwan election in the mid 90s, where they had tests and splashdowns, we've lived with this all along. I think that really the main factors are, are we doing anything when I say we, anybody that is on the receiving end of the CCP, do we doing anything to increase doubt? with inside China?
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Are we doing anything to increase concern that should they behave irresponsibly, they pay a price that's too high? I mean, when they look at what's happened with Russia relative to the Ukraine conflict, do they think that they would fare better or worse than Russia has with the threat of sanctions or cut off from the wider West in certain ways.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
I think, unfortunately, Beijing probably is more optimistic that they would fare better than Russia has. But if we do better at sowing that doubt and that credible pain to be imposed, I think that we buy more time and deterrence improves. Second variable is Japan. Japan is a much more powerful country.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Well, some of that is a lot of what we have by way of capabilities and cyber and a lot of other operational areas, we have fought with one hand tied behind our back because we only talk about executing things that are defensive. China has no such restriction. That's kind of why they've been able to run roughshod over some of the areas of our critical infrastructure.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
They've gamed all that out with Taiwan and Japan and others too, but they don't distinguish between offensive and defensive. They don't distinguish between foreign and domestic. For them, the world is their oyster. They go wherever they can go. And we've basically been an open door on that front. And they've closed us off. There hasn't been reciprocity on that.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
But there is a wide range of things we've never even made them believe we would be willing and able to do. in their own country.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
I think there's some fun tests we could conduct that might send that kind of a message, but really getting our allies more prepared for these kinds of realities and having greater independent capabilities where they don't wait for Uncle Sam, they act on their own, I think that complicates things for Beijing. It doesn't make the world scared that they'll have to live without the US.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Well, I mean, John Ratcliffe is a friend and he's someone who's been in the intelligence world in multiple ways, but most recently at the office of the director of national intelligence, now going to be director of CIA. I think there's some big questions that are sort of a side issue, but just 9-11 was a long time ago. We lived in different circumstances.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
I think we put some of these structures in place and priorities in place at a time of crisis. I think it's worth looking at what makes most sense about how to organize the intelligence community, resource the intelligence community all these many years later.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
I don't think that it has been reformed to look at a world where we say the Communist Party of China is the largest existential external threat to America's way of life. believes that. I think President Trump believes that. Frankly, I think a lot of Americans do and don't think that the topics of recent years of climate change or other kinds of things are the top threat.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Leave aside how those should be addressed, but I think people tend to see this this way. If this is a transformational moment for looking at reform and whether Doge is a real thing that's looking at how to
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
find efficiencies and reorder things, then, you know, aside from being Republican or Democrat, blue, red, whatever, it appears to me from what's being talked about, we're at one of those moments. I think the CIA has frankly been right for something like that for a time.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
I don't know whether the Office of the Director of National Intelligence plays a forever role or maybe things get reordered there, too. But What are we doing to make sure that we have the technology, personnel, language capabilities, and collaborations out in the world that reflect the priority that I articulated? A lot of members of Congress will echo that priority too.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
I think that's the heavy burden for the incoming team. I think it's worthy. The time is now. But that's where I think the work is. And I would just emphasize there are many Democrats that I've known over the years that will think this way. It's sort of been the hot politics of recent past where they sort of pulled back from where that emphasis was.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
But the Select Committee on Strategic Competition with the CCP and the House of Representatives was bipartisan. And there are a lot of Democrats that signed up with the thinking that I just articulated. And so I hope that's that's where it's going. I wish I knew.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Mike, I mean, it's really been an interesting contrast where if you look at the Biden administration, he had a war breaking out with Russia's reinvasion of Ukraine. And President Biden, best I can tell, never talked to Vladimir Putin from the time of the reinvasion forward. And Yet there was this other challenge looming on the other side of the world in Asia.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
And President Biden did have conversations back and forth with Xi Jinping a time or two. There was some in person, some by video conference, et cetera. And so in some ways, this idea that you should keep a channel of communication open wasn't held consistently and wasn't really kind of explained very well through that time in my estimation.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Now, I also think that the content and the quality of the conversation matters much more than, you know, how did they talk and how often did they talk. President Trump has his own style of doing these kinds of things. Steve, that's a very diplomatic way to put it.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
In my lifetime, I can't think of a president-elect throwing out there, hey, how about the leader of China come and attend the inauguration? It's a kind of a form of communication that really hasn't existed. And I don't think in a million years that Xi Jinping is going to show up and listen to the brilliant oratory, the best words coming from the Capitol on Inauguration Day.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
But clearly, Donald Trump is a kind of leader that is going to talk. to adversaries and others. I mean, he talked to Little Rocket Man after insulting him for a long time, and then they met and had their conversations.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
He's clearly, I think, said that his objective is to open these channels of communication to try to lessen tensions and to explore alternative paths to peace and prosperity without necessarily opening with concessions. I can understand that logic. I can also see some things like that playing out.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
It goes against the grain of what sort of the dominant views have been in past Republican and Democrat administrations. But when you look at a situation like this, does he want to pull Xi Jinping into a conversation and say, You know, you really did a number on me on that COVID business. You lied to my face and it cost a lot of people a lot of money.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
And the thanks you're going to get for that are some tariffs for a time. And, you know, something near and dear to me. I hope he goes and looks him in the eye and says, hey, you know, we know that you have subsidized the chemical precursors for fentanyl and you've trans shipped these things in a number of ways. And hundreds of thousands of Americans have been killed by this.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
You're going to pay for that. So how are we going to talk about how you're going to pay for it? It's going to be some tariffs. But, you know, I lost my own daughter to the fentanyl plague. I want him to make them pay. But is he going to do it in his own way with these tariffs or negotiations? Is he going to invite him in for a talk? It sounds all good.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
And you get the quiet punch in the in the in the private meeting that that does seem to be some of what they have in mind to do. But we're just going to have to see how the results shake out. But I think they have to demand accountability on COVID and fentanyl. I think they're going to have to press on not having the phase one trade agreement honored.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
And then, you know, once you got them at the table, what are you going to do? What do you got? What's your offer, Mr. Shee?
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
I've lived and shared that experience that you expressed on the skepticism, and I also can't say whether this is four-dimensional chess, which I don't understand, or whether this is one-dimensional chess, which I also don't play. But it's clearly something has to be tried differently, and one of the redeeming qualities I've seen in the Trump approach
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
is that he is clearly comfortable in the most uncomfortable situations. And part of what he does to set up negotiations is he's blunt and direct about things that the counterpart might be uncomfortable being raised. I've worked for presidents before who were not comfortable making those kinds of conversations happen, and we didn't necessarily get the movement we wanted.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
So I kind of support trying this other way and just sit back and measure those results, but we've kind of glided along a path where the economic trends have to change. I think Xi Jinping is forcing some of those changes. He began a process of strategic decoupling before Americans even understood what those words were.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
And I think that COVID and economics and if you look at investment, some of this changing of supply chains is moving of its own inertia, whether our leaders want it to or not. I want it to. But so, you know, she has to see some of this writing on the wall. I hope Trump's style and opening salvos will move things forward.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Every administration comes in with high hopes and people sort of try to feel out where the progress can be had.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
I agree a lot with Gordon's general analysis of these things. The only sort of twist I would put on it really is it just reminds me of how we saw and talked about the war on terror after 9-11. It's this idea that a war is declared on us and we can choose whether we saw it or not, but really our only choice is whether and how we're going to respond.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
I think that basically the Communist Party of China never was planning to be our friend, but it certainly was happy to receive advantage over many years. I think it's been in a low-grade economic and political war with us for some time, and it's acquired the capability to be in a hot war with us.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Whether and how that plays out, I think that whether you look at what happened with COVID, whether you look at what's gone on with weird efforts to compromise parts of the United States or sow division through psychological apps like TikTok and other kinds of things, they clearly are engaged in what the Communist Party is built around, which is political warfare, ideological warfare, above all else.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
so that you get your opponents to divide and sort of get conquered by themselves so you don't have to rise up as high to be the top dog. That, I think, has been tried and true for them. It's playing out more. And so are they on a war footing? I'd say they always have been to a degree. It's just these different lanes where it's accelerating or getting emphasized more.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
I think it's a little more shocking to see the military part space, AI, and technology really reaching farther and faster now. But the fundamentals really were us deluding ourselves that they thought otherwise during a reform and opening period. And Xi Jinping, I think, is a different leader that way.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Yeah, well, there are more questions than answers when it comes to China's economy. It's always been thus. When I was a very, very young intelligence officer and my job was to kind of assess what was going on in the Chinese economy, some of our sources in government were better than what the private sector had. Now I'd say it's absolutely the reverse.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
The private sector has a better view into what's happening inside of China in terms of data. But that's still very, very incomplete. When it comes to their statistics, I think we fall back on the truism. They lie, but we still can sort of see trends. Their property sector has been weak for some time. Their people have significant restrictions on moving capital out of their country.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
They have significant lack of trust in the viability of their banks. And so they put a lot of their life savings into real estate.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
And so when people see pictures of real estate high rises crumbling or largely vacant, that's the hopes and dreams of a generation of Chinese workers who haven't been living a lavish lifestyle, but we're trying to save for retirement or their children's better life, etc. They have some really bad fundamentals inside, but they're at scale very big.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
And these authoritarian totalitarian regimes like North Korea and in some ways we'd rather not admit China, they can stick around a lot longer than we would expect. And in some ways, that's more troubling to me. I see a weak and at risk China as maybe even more likely to risk conflict. than one that is on the gravy train rocketing up in performance.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
And so I think in an odd way, that's why we're seeing some of what we are with picking fights they didn't need to around their periphery.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
Absolutely. I mean, he basically has said that he doesn't believe in the reform and opening policies of Deng Xiaoping. He wants the ideology of socialism and the ideological struggle to be first priority because he wants control as the way toward stability. He doesn't see openness and growth as a way toward stability. And I think that is really in conflict with what
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 14th, 2024: Inside The Collapse of Assad & China’s Massive Military Drills
our policy has been, what our assumptions have been. And I think it's leading to a lot of risk around China.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
But we haven't actually been doing the things to defeat ISIS. We've been containing ISIS. And so I think we've looked at this conflict for so long as a frozen conflict and we're saying, okay, well, you know, the Assad regime has practically won and these borders aren't gonna change anytime soon and it'll just keep chugging along like this. But, you know, this situation just goes to show
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
you can't really freeze or manage a conflict that runs the risk of being surprised in this way. And, you know, I talked a little bit at the beginning of the program about how ISIS is is strengthening in some of these regime held areas. Well, U.S. Central Command and policymakers weren't willing to strike in those areas very often to really get at ISIS there.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
So now you have a problem where ISIS knew it could be interfered with the regime, but the regime is far less effective than the United States and the SDF. And so it strengthened there. And now we got surprised. And I think we're going to have to really do some hard thinking about what our policy objectives are in Iraq and Syria going forward.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
especially as it relates to ISIS, that if you look at Iraq, we're saying, oh, we're going to withdraw in 2026. Do you really want to withdraw in 2026 now, having seen what's happening in Syria? So I think this policy of, oh, we can just manage and keep chugging along is really a failed policy. And it was the easy policy to take, but it was the wrong one.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Thanks for having me.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Yeah, sure. So it's not entirely clear to me why they chose to go now. I have a feeling that they probably had some sense that the regime around the Aleppo area was hollowing out and they thought they might have an opportunity to do this. I don't think they thought they would be as successful as they were.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
The initial objectives of the campaign, insofar as I understand, was actually to push the regime a little further away from the HTS-controlled zone in northwestern Syria, centered around Idlib province, and push back regime artillery to prevent the regime from shelling civilian areas. Now, once the regime kind of just collapsed, they took advantage of that.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
They exploited that situation, HTS did, capturing Aleppo and then driving towards Hama and capturing Hama. And now they're well on their way to Homs. So, you know, I think it started as kind of like a small scale, a relatively small scale campaign, of course, in a Syria that's had static lines of control for so many years, it would have been a big deal.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
But it really exploited it and it's become something much larger, much quicker than anybody could have expected. Do we have any real credible or accurate sense of troop strength for the rebels? No, not to my knowledge, at least. The rebel coalition was forged by HTS over several years, and they had basically put together a conglomeration of different rebel groups.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
I don't know how badly this will impact the region yet, but Assad is definitely in big trouble. And I think one of the things that we have to look at as we watch the regime sort of collapse and crumble is what other groups are going to take advantage of this situation and exploit it to their own ends. So for me, the big one to watch is going to be ISIS.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
And I'm not exactly sure the exact size of those forces. How well armed are they? They're pretty well-armed. They've been doing some things in recent years to kind of prepare for something like this. So, for example, they established a night fighting unit that's really been giving the Syrian Arab Army a lot of trouble.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
So, fighters, I believe, they're equipped with night vision and that sort of equipment. They also have their own drone manufacturing capabilities, which is really impressive. They also have done some soft things. And what I mean by soft things is things like training. How can you... coordinate between these different rebel bodies? How do we professionalize our force?
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
So for example, HTS founded a sort of like a war college in their controlled areas that began producing more professional military officers. And I think that's really played a role in this offensive.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Coordination that's going on between HTS and SDF is very – very tactical in nature and very designed around making safe routes for evacuation and stuff like that. For example, when HTS took Aleppo, they created a safe zone for the SDF to begin evacuating their fighters from Aleppo.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
In fact, one of the things HTS did was they tried to prevent some of the more, I'll say, thuggish and more militantly Salafi jihadi factions backed by Turkey from interfering with the SDF's evacuation.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
which has really grown in strength in some of the regime areas, such as the central Syrian desert, in the past couple of years. And I think that will have big impacts for the main U.S. priority in Syria for the past 10 years now, which has been the defeat of ISIS.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
So I'll start with the big one, Hayat al-Tahrir al-Sham, which is the main opposition group that is conducting the offensive in kind of the north and western areas of Syria right now. So it was created by a man named Abu Muhammad Jolani.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Jolani grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq as an al-Qaeda guy, and he eventually took over the branch in Syria as al-Qaeda in Iraq began to transition in the Islamic State. He broke away from the Islamic State and pledged baya, or allegiance, to Zohiri, al-Qaeda's leader at the time.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
However, over the years, he's kind of tried to moderate himself and has begun to present himself less as a Salafi jihadi like Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State and more of what we call a political jihadist. He's not interested or he says he's not interested in external attacks outside of Syria. And instead, in recent years, has put a lot of effort into fighting
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
rehabilitating his image, working with minorities in the northwest of Syria.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
And this is one of the things actually that has made his offensive, his group's offensive, so successful is he's actually, when he liberates towns from the regime, he's doing it oftentimes without fighting because he will negotiate with local Shia or Christian notables and say, hey, if you join me, we're not going to have any problems.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Possibly, but I think he's also learned a lot over his career. He kind of seems to have evolved through the years. And so he started in that very Salafi jihadi, very sectarian mindset. And I think one of the things that we're seeing now and what he is doing, especially in engaging with the Shia and the Iraqis diplomatically, is...
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
He says things in a way that signals to me that he has learned some lessons. He knows the Shia fear these Sunni militant groups breathing down their necks. And he knows that's one of the reasons that Assad was able to convince so many people to fight for him back in the early 2010s. And I think that's really notable. Now, granted...
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Jelani is operating from a position of, I mean, he's getting stronger every day, but a weaker position. So when he gains power, does he maintain this sort of mindset? I don't know.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Yeah, sure. So I kind of walk through. I'll walk through the regime and I'll walk through who the U.S. is backing and all that sort of stuff. So the regime, Bashar al-Assad is an Alawite from the sort of western coast of Syria.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
One of the reasons that this area was so hard for the opposition to gain any ground in back in the early 2010s was because there was a fear among the Alawite minority that were Assad to fall, the Sunni would retaliate against them. So that is one of the reasons Assad is able to build up such support there.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Now, the Iranians back Assad and the Iranian-backed Shia groups in the region back Assad because they see him as critical to their regional aspirations. So they see him as a way, as a conduit to get weapons to Hezbollah, for example, and to kind of strengthen themselves at the expense of the Gulf states and other Sunni powers in the region. Now, U.S.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
is backing a Kurdish group called the Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria. Now, that group has begun also taking some territory from the Assad regime. We actually just saw them take Deir ez-Zor city this morning, which is a very big development. Deir ez-Zor city has been under regime control for many years. It's on the western bank of the Euphrates River.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
The Syrian Democratic Forces were the U.S. partner chosen to destroy or defeat ISIS during the campaign that the United States kind of led in northeastern Syria. It contains a large contingent of Kurdish groups that were built out of a cadre of a Kurdish organization called the YPG, which is affiliated with the PKK, so Turkey YPG. has big problems with the PKK.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
The United States sees the PKK as a terrorist organization, so it gets very, very complex. Nonetheless, the Kurds have also incorporated some Arab elements, which is why I think you see those Arab elements agitating to liberate some of their homes on the western side of the Euphrates River.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Yeah, the Russians, for their part, haven't been able to actually help Assad during this round of fighting because they're running into a situation where they have to prioritize Ukraine. And so they can't send him the sort of forces that he needs to be able to turn the tide. The Russians were the critical target. actor that turned the tide in 2015.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
The Iranians realized they couldn't do it alone and asked the Russians to help provide air power. The Russians provided that air power and Assad started to kind of turn the tide on his opposition. The Russians back Assad because they like having access to the ports along the Western Syrian coast. And again, Assad's kind of home country.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
But as the position unravels, I expect we'll see more and more Russian withdrawals from Syria.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
I think if you asked me that question on Monday, I would have said, you know, I think the Rebels have had a lot of success. HTS has had a lot of success, but it's pretty unlikely. Today, I think it's greater than 50% and it's really getting higher every hour. The complete collapse of regime forces has been astonishing.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Personally, I've compared it to the way that the Afghan National Army began to collapse in 2021 and the ramifications of that. So I really think that he is in danger. And one of the key pieces that we're looking at right now is whether or not home city will fall here in the coming days.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
Yeah, so Holmes, in my view, is probably second only to Damascus. Holmes is very important because if the opposition take Holmes, it cuts off Assad from that home country I was talking about, that western coast. So once he's cut off there, he is in very dire straits.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 7th, 2024: Will Assad Survive in Syria? & Iranian Hackers Target Kash Patel
What is going on in Syria right now is a byproduct of what we have seen successive administrations do for the past going on 15 years. This isn't an Obama problem, a Trump problem, or a Biden problem. It's really all of them. The U.S. policy in Syria, especially since after the territorial defeat of ISIS, has been, in air quotes, defeat ISIS.