Jenny Keesden
speaker
114 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Mar 2025
last heard Mar 2025
Jenny Keesden’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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And we'll get in a minute, we can talk a bit specifically about the role that, and almost your listeners are in the States and that the American government has been playing here, but yeah. Yeah, so there's a big qualifier on how much people are celebrating because of the very dodgy history and the real threat that HCS's politics holds, unfortunately, particularly for ethnic minorities and women.
And they're establishing their power and it's by no means a kind of non-violent or peaceful process. And there's a lot of tensions flaring up and a lot of problems. However... Yes, it is the case that in a lot of Syria, the majority of Syria, outright like warfare on the ground has pronounced stop because this one group has taken power. And so we're in a different moment.
We're in a different kind of process. So what's different up here? What's different up in the north and east and what's not being discussed as much? And the point that I'm often trying to make when I'm trying to write articles and doing interviews at the moment is that like, Actually, the war in the whole of Syria has not completely stopped.
Mostly, yes, we can say in most regions, but significantly here in north and east Syria, it's not just that there is still classes or flare-ups between different groups, like there might be in other regions. There is a full-scale invasion, a ground invasion with air support that has also been going on. And that was timed. Where does that come from? What is that? What does that look like?
This is another group, another three-letter acronym for you. But the important thing to understand is that this offensive was tying to coincide with the HCS takeover. HCS also has a lot of links with the Turkish state. And I personally would not go so far as to say that that government is a Turkish public government or that the relationship is that direct. But there is a relationship there.
And what you saw when they kind of successfully went on the offensive was that at the same time,
other armed groups which operate are kind of loosely affiliated and mostly operating on a mercenary sub paid basis rather than being kind of ideologically driven or whatever yeah but are affiliated under the name the sna the syrian national army which is even more confusing because they're not and were never the national army of syria yeah yeah um what they are is yeah these um
Paid militias, which, yeah, we can describe, you might describe as jihadist gangs, mercenaries, et cetera, et cetera. And it kind of depends. It's like a mix of different forces. What's very important there is the very close relationship that they have with the Turkish state.
Essentially, the Turkish government has made the choice that it wants to continue its aggression and its expansionism on Northern Syria. And rather than immediately sending their own army, they instead pay and fund and direct and support.
these militias, who are also operating for their own benefit, yes, but the relationship between them, their actions right now in the Turkish state is much more direct.
So at the same time as you have this sweep to the south that caused the regime change in Syria, heading to the east, so to originally the region of Sheba, followed by the city of Minbij and the region around there, you have this onslaught from the SA. And that is what the SDF, who you originally mentioned, are currently up against. And that's the situation that we're in, and it's
It's still ongoing. It's very much not stopped. It's still very much like hot engagement and hot fighting that is happening.
Well, yeah, for now.
there's a little bit more to it than that right yeah absolutely and again it's it's such a big question and it's a question of how far back do you go how far do you zoom out uh because in both senses as you keep moving back from today the plot kind of thickens um and as you you know if you imagine if you're looking at the google maps of syria and then you you click the button that takes you out and out and the map gets wider and wider
The story kind of fills itself in as well. Things make more sense when they are put in that context. And I think a good place to start, maybe, is this consistent for a long time American attitude to this whole region, not just Syria, which is to play...
to play very carefully to your advantage and make alliances where it suits you and continue them where it suits you and not stick to them where it doesn't. And that is, yeah, one aspect of that is the resources, which goes further than just oil, is also gas, and is also the resource of the space to create a trade group, right? That's a really important question in the Middle East at the moment.
Yeah. And it's one of the reasons that Kurdistan is such an important place politically. A lot of these lines of potential trade routes and these kind of lines of power and money, they intersect and they cross over here. And so there are all these different resources at play. And I think another thing that's important to look at is that, yeah, the... the U.S., as the U.S.
government, as you put it, as distinct from the citizens in any way, doesn't just go into this blind and kind of react day by day. It's not like a reactive force in the world. The U.S. government is, and would proudly announce, I think, as well, the previous thing on this one point, that
they are, no matter who the administration is and where it's politically leading at the time, a very proactive force. They have a plan where they go and they try and put it into practice.
And famously, historically, and very intensely, a lot of that has played out in the Middle East because of the Middle East's position in the world, resources, and the role that it's played in kind of who gets to be the big dog in the world over the years and throughout history. It's become, for those various reasons, very important.
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