The President's Daily Brief
December 26th, 2024: Top 6 Global Stories of 2024: A Countdown with Mike Baker
26 Dec 2024
In this episode of The President's Daily Brief, Mike Baker reflects on the top six foreign policy and national security stories that defined 2024. From seismic geopolitical shifts to underreported events with massive ripple effects, Mike counts down the stories that not only captured headlines but reshaped the world. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. Email: [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
It's Thursday, 26 December. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. Today, the day after Christmas, of course, we're doing something a little different. As the year comes to a close, we're taking stock of the events that reshaped global geopolitics.
Now, we'll be looking back at the top stories in foreign policy and national security, stories that didn't just make headlines, but altered the direction of the year ahead. Now, this isn't a ranked list, okay? It's not in any particular order of importance. Each story essentially stands on its own. All right, let's get started. We're calling this first segment, A Terrible Year for Tehran.
And that could be the title of a Broadway musical, although probably not a very entertaining one. Okay, topping the list for Tehran's troubles, the collapse of the Assad government in Syria. 50 years of Assad family rule came to a dramatic and decisive end just weeks ago when rebel forces swept through Damascus, toppling President Assad's regime.
The fall of his regime is one of the most significant geopolitical shifts in the Middle East in decades. For Iran, the implications, frankly, are profound. The Assad regime was a critical pillar of Tehran's so-called axis of resistance, a network of allies and proxies stretching across the region.
Syria served as Iran's corridor to funnel arms, funds, and logistical support to Hezbollah, its crown jewel in Lebanon. With Assad gone, that corridor is, frankly, severed, and Tehran's regional strategy has taken a devastating hit. But the fallout extends beyond Iran.
Syria has now become a geopolitical chessboard, with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran scrambling for influence as the country's future. Well, it remains uncertain. And while our focus in this segment is on Iran, there's also Russia. Let's not forget them. Assad's closest military backer. Russia is also maneuvering to secure its interests as a post-Assad Syria takes shape.
Putin's military spent years helping Assad suppress and kill Syrians in order to maintain power. And now, with two key military bases in Syria, the question is whether the new Syrian leadership has any interest in working with Assad's former BFF. The big questions for 2025. Can Syria stabilize and form a lasting government, or will extremist groups capitalize on the chaos?
Will Iran attempt to destabilize the country further in a desperate bid to restore its influence? And what role, if any, will the U.S. play as this power vacuum unfolds? Our second story, related to the Iranian regime, marks an unprecedented escalation, the direct conflict between Israel and Iran.
For the first time, these two adversaries moved beyond proxy battles and covert operations to openly exchange missile fire. It shattered decades of shadow warfare and raised fears, of course, of a regional conflagration.
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