A Conversation: Mark Mansour and Phillip James Walker

Join me for a stimulating discussion with Phillip James Walker, a lawyer and former foreign service officer with decades of postings in the Middle East. We discuss Iran, various other foreign policy issues, and some domestic politics as well.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to America's Fractured Politics. Today I have with me Philip James Walker. Philip is a uh a lawyer and an expert on American politics as well as international affairs. And we're going to touch on the Iran War, on voting, and a few other issues today that are of consequence. And I want to kick it off with Philip by talking about the war. We have a president who's basically threatened to end the war, threatened to extend the war, threatened to bomb Carg Island, threatened to open the Strait of Hormuz by force, threatened to bomb facilities, nuclear facilities as well as uh power plants. What is this guy doing?

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Uh first, Mark, uh, thank you for having me. Uh it's a real pleasure to to be here with you today. Um, to dive right in. I don't know what he's doing. He does not know what he's doing. This is um what is most worrisome about all of this. That there's no clear objective stated. He's bounced around between objectives. He's because we have no objectives, his strategy is unclear, because his strategy is unclear, the tactics are even unclear. Um leaving aside what he says, because what he says uh, you know, maybe irrelevant, both because he's um muddled in his own mind and he's a chronic liar. If you look at what we've actually done and our force posture, um we have degraded their military capacity, we have thus far done very little to um degrade their economic capacity, and we do not have sufficient forces in the region for any kind of a sustained ground invasion of Iran. So um, in terms of what he's up to and where we're at, um if we have any objective, it's just to make trouble and to put them on the back foot.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

And wouldn't you think that the Iranians' main objective right now is to persevere? Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

The Iranians have an objective, they have a strategy, and they have tactics supporting it. Their objective is literally to preserve the regime. It is to stay alive, and they've done that. They have successfully had a transition of power to a new generation of leadership in the midst of war. Uh, they continue to strike targets in the entire region. Um, I'm not sure if it came out much in the media, but uh they actually had a missile that um came very close to hitting Diego Garcia well out in the Indian Ocean. That's a, I think, 4,000-mile range, which is um indicative of significant capacity. Um Iran has a strategy and tactics to support their objective, which is in a nutshell to hold the world economy hostage, and they have done so by exerting control over the Strait of Hormuz, and they are holding that control despite American efforts to end that.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Aside from turning Lebanon into a pile of rubble and trying to effect regime change in Iran, what is Netanyahu's game?

SPEAKER_01 3:39

His game is to stay in power as long as he possibly can, on a personal level. I'm not even sure if he thinks in terms of what's best for Israel. The irony is Israel is clearly setting up some form of occupation in the south of Lebanon. And those were the conditions in, I believe, 1983, and correct me if I'm wrong in the year, right, that led to the creation of Hezbollah as a military force. There was no Shtia Lebanese militia prior to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the 80s, and the forebearer of Hezbollah was uh the militia that put up the stiffest fight against Israel in the south of Lebanon. That was Amal. Huh? That was Amol. Was it? Um because I remember Amol as mostly a political force and never never built a militia of of any um repute. No, they did. But I I could well be wrong. Not on the scale of Hezbollah. Not on the scale of Hezbollah. Yeah. Yeah. You may, you know, I'm sure you're right about that. This um, but to come back to today, this is the you know, the irony of it. They're you know, they're repeating the risk mistakes of 40 years ago in an attempt to bring security when Israel has interlocutors for peace, willing to talk about long-term solutions. Lebanon is an awkward situation because the government does not fully control the country and does not have a monopoly on the use of force. And Israel has sent all kinds of signals that they would like to see the government of Lebanon curb and disarm Hezbollah, which it has you know, up until now been unable and unwilling to do. But um, this invasion is not going to solve that problem. They're just creating new problems for themselves. And they're creating absolute chaos in Lebanon. Um, 700,000 internally displaced people, um, infrastructure that was already failing, on the verge of utter of complete collapse, um, political destabilization in a country that in the best of times is not stable, is a is a just a bad situation.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

I'm of Lebanese origin. I spent three years there back in the early 70s and visited in 2019, and I've studied Lebanon most of my adult life. Um it is a tragedy beyond all imagination. It's a beautiful country. It has a vibrant political life, even though it's been riven by corruption. But the Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, has already said that he would negotiate with the Israelis. They don't want to. Yep. They don't want to.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

They do not want to. They're not interested. They're not. They are not interested. What they're interested in is their so-called buffer zone. They're interested in, I I mean, I don't know why this is not talked about more, but but Israel is literally depopulating the south of Lebanon.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yes, they are. They are. And and and they're turning parts of South Lebanon into something resembling Gaza.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Yeah. Yeah. Which is a human tragedy. Yeah. I mean, this is one more um instance where uh the Leahy law is um honored in the breach more than in the detail because these are war crimes taking place with U.S. military assistance.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Do you think the United States should cut off aid to Israel until it stops? Is that a question or a statement? I didn't quite hear it. No, no, question.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Uh yes. I agree. Yes. I think that's the only way to stop it. Yeah. You know, I will tell you, I believe in following our own law. And just for the listeners, it it is against the law, U.S. law, for recipients of U.S. aid to use that aid um for um military actions that could constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity. That's written into U.S. law, black and white law. There are nuances that you know would be a whole show. And the State Department has hid behind those nuances to not scruple scrupulously enforce the law. But that's that is the law, plain and simple. And um nothing for or against Israeli assistance to military assistance to Israel in the abstract, but I feel we should be enforcing the law scrupulously around the world, including Israel. Yes, it would. And uh I think it would have simplified the situation in Gaza.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

I agree completely. Let's move let's let's move to a slightly different subject. Um Trump has completely disordered our international relationships. He has alienated NATO. He has demonstrated an affinity for the Russians that is completely inexplicable unless you believe that they've got Comprehont on him, which they may. Um where do you think this ends? Do you think that a future administration can restore this or are we stuck?

SPEAKER_01 9:18

We're stuck. For the simple reason that this is part of our political culture now. Once could be brushed off as a midlife crisis or a little bit of a breakdown or a mental health holiday, but twice is indicative of something deeply wrong with our body politic and that we cannot be trusted. And if we cannot be trusted as an entity, as a nation, then our hoped-for allies will be much more cautious with us, even when there's a friendly government in Washington.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

78 million people voted for Donald Trump last time. That is not a negligible number. That is indicative to the Europeans of exactly what you said, a rot-in-the-body politic of the United States. And I don't think any European power believes realistically that this is going to go away. We could have a giant Democratic victory in 2026 and another one in 2028. But what's to say that there isn't another Trump around the corner or that MAGA survives and continues to infect the body politic in a way that makes our um our uh allies so reluctant to do business with us that those alliances are fractured beyond repair?

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Yes. That is that is an accurate statement of the reality that we're facing. Um thing that gives me a little bit of hope is I feel like um we have, you know, we, when I say we progressive, inclined voters and activists in the United States, have been a little bit sanguine when things are going in the right direction. And um I was just having a conversation with a few folks the other day about this, that after that 2006-2008, we had um a substantial Democratic majority. We did not capitalize on it. There were some good things done, but the focus was on the crisis of the moment. The 2008-2009 financial crisis took precedence over pretty much everything else. Um, the Biden administration, when it came in in 2020, rested on its laurels. The the idea of the repudiation of Trump was, oh, get back to normal. And get back to normal was not the right attitude because normal is what gave us Trump in the first place. And if we have a wave election this year and in 2028, I think people who care about the United States in the long term need to be fully ready to capitalize on any opportunity that may arise to decisively change the political conversation for the next generation and address the genuine needs of people that precipitated the turn to Trumpism.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

I'm gonna digress slightly into the elections. Um your substack is all politics is local, which leads me to the question of whether or not the Republicans have cleverly subcontracted the disruption of the elections to the states and the localities. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Uh I am worried because both the you know hoped for federal, well, the the federal legislation that the um Republicans are pushing for will create some havoc and prevent voters and uh from going to the polls. And some of the states that are potentially uh the swing states in 2026 and 28 have Republican majorities and can engage in uh voter suppression as well. Um I I think how this turns out this year and in three years is being decided in the courts as we speak.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

I think that I think that's exactly where it's being decided. And I think that the the federal courts will have a lot to say about it, and I think that they will respond exactly as they did back in 2020. I have faith in that. The Supreme Court, I have no faith in. And that's what worries me more than anything else.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

But the Supreme Court has also shown not a degree of integrity, but a degree of cowardice. And if they can avoid a if they can avoid a hard decision, I think they will. Do you think that they may regret how much power they've given Trump? Yes, absolutely. I think they will I think they will regret it. I think they are already regretting it. And they're in a position where even if they have a genuine belief in the rule of law, which I doubt in the case of some justices, they're in the situation that that, frankly, I've seen in some of my overseas work where you have a fully developed legal system and judicial review on paper, but no capacity to enforce decisions and an executive that is willing to just simply ignore what the court says.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

How about your background in history a little bit, your work overseas and what you've done? Uh, I think a listener should be really interested in hearing about your life.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Uh, sure. Well, um, after grad school, I uh joined the Foreign Service, grad school and law school, I joined the Foreign Service. Uh my wife, uh uh my wife was also a Foreign Service officer for a period of time. We served in uh Riyadh during the uh George H.W. Bush Gulf War. Um I was part of the group of officers who went up to reopen the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait after after uh Saddam was thrown out of uh Kuwait. Um after that, um we were in Tunisia for a while. And then after that, uh Cairo, Egypt. Um I was trained as an Arabist and speak Arabic moderately well. I'm a bit rusty, but you know. You never entirely lose it. Um at when the kids started coming along, we thought it would be nice to live a more normal life. So I came home to the states, to New Hampshire, to practice law, but that didn't last more than a few years. I started taking work from the State Department and going back overseas again in a contract capacity. Um in those years, uh Palestine, Iraq with the uh invasion of George Bush's invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, uh, Yemen back to Egypt, another Yemen stint, uh four plus years in Afghanistan, which um some ways I I felt very strongly about Afghanistan, and I and I still do, that it's a country, it's heartbreaking. The country has so much potential and such wonderful people and such bad governance and such an unfortunate history. Um and then um several years uh working in Iraq, bringing us up to the present. Um earlier in my career, it was mostly focused on um um public diplomacy. And um, as time evolved, I've developed some expertise in um rule of law, democracy, and governance, and uh a lot of work in economic governance as well. Um when I was in Afghanistan, I was um senior legal advisor at the Ministry of Finance. Um, so we dealt with pretty much everything that the government faced in the in the economic realm, in in um um financing the government, taxes, um, a lot of international negotiations, uh a lot of development assistance work. It was you know, it was interesting. What years of those? Uh Afghanistan, that was uh the first time I went out to Afghanistan was 20 uh 2008, I think. And then I was out there again uh 2010 to mid-2014. And then after that, uh I started um in Syria. We were based in southern Turkey, but um the focus of the work was the opposition in Syria, support for the opposition in Syria from 2014 to 2018.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

You know, a friend of mine, John Sopka, who I practiced law with for a little while, spent quite a bit of his time in Afghanistan. Do you know John? Yep.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

I do not know him personally, but I know the name, I know who he is, and um I think that the special inspector general uh did some pretty good work.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

I thought he did too. He exposed a lot, and uh nobody listened to him. And I think that was a source of deep frustration for him. Oh, I I disagree. I think people did listen to him, they just didn't act on it. Yeah, that's probably a more fair assessment. Yeah. That's probably a more fair assessment. Um let's go back to the elections a bit. I know we're bouncing around, but I'm I'm kind of doing a little bit of stream of consciousness here. Do you think that a um um a very large shirt not can overcome what the Republicans are up to?

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah. I'd love to I'd love to predict that. I have no idea. I I am very worried that when you're talking about thin margins and you're talking about um legally dubious interferences, that even small interventions could have big outcomes. That's that said, that said, the best way to counteract that kind of um intervention is big turnouts. I I don't I can't predict anything. All I know is if all of us work hard to make sure that everyone who can vote does vote, we're safer.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

I agree. Um the Swedish IDEA did a report on democratic backsliding, and we did a very poor job. Um talk about that a little bit. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 20:50

You know, um our backsliding is more obvious under Trump, but it is not a Trump-created phenomenon. This has been happening for a long time. Um uh just by way of um anecdote, um, several years ago I was in Sweden. This was uh early Bible. I was in Sweden uh for a conference organized by the Swedish Foreign Ministry, and I was uh chatting over dinner with um some of my colleagues and counterparts. We were talking about the U.S. justice system, and I was talking about some of the more I feel abusive aspects of our justice system, and and they were har you know, these Swedish lawyers were horrified at some of the things that go on in our justice system. And these are not Trump creations, these are things that have been developing for years, if not decades. That keeps that put us out of step with the mainstream of advanced industrial democracies.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Particularly our criminal justice system, which is a disgrace. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

But the criminal justice system aspects of our voting systems are anti-democratic. Media consolidation is not a Trump phenomenon, although it's accelerated under Trump. Access to information, regulation, prudent regulation of the administration of elections has been lacking for some time. Money in politics is an old, this is not a Trump-specific phenomenon. This has been going on for some time. So yes, we are backsliding.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

So talk about Trump a little bit. How has he accelerated things? What sorts of things has he done in your mind that have been probably the most um uh odious accelerations?

SPEAKER_01 23:21

There's so much to choose from. I mean, what a what a wealth of toxic, you know, wealth of a toxic buffet. It's it's hard to know where to start. But if I had to pick one thing that slaps me in the face with its um the danger of it, is Trump's willingness to ignore the separation of powers and willingness to um spend money that has not been appropriated or not spend money that has been appropriated. So I I was very upset with the first rescision um do over, I don't even know what to call it, but when Trump refused to spend money that had been appropriated by Congress and sent the Doge Boys into various government agencies and departments and started closing things down willy-nilly. USAID, U.S. Institute for Peace, um, other entities without regard to the law. And then Congress retroactively said, yeah, it's okay. It's just ridiculous. Um the extrajudicial payments that were made to, I believe, Department of Defense in the course of the first Trump administration, first year of the second Trump administration, it's somehow it's illegal, but nobody's really raised it as an issue. Now Trump is talking about paying Department of Homeland Security without a congressional appropriation. And that again, if he does it, it's illegal, pure and simple. It's one of the most basic elements of the separation of powers that Congress appropriates, raises and appropriates the money. And that you know, along with everything else. I mean, you can talk about um extrajudicial pilling on the streets of American cities. And that's horrifying, and it's happening. Um rid of habeas corpus out the window. It's so many things. It's hard to know where to start. But if if I have to pick one thing, it's it's the money.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Those people you mentioned did quite a bit of damage, but they did damage to the Foreign Service in particular.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

They did.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

How lasting do you think that damage is? We've lost a lot of good people. How do you replace them?

SPEAKER_01 26:17

We did lose a lot of good people, but the truth is that the foreign service has been in decline for a couple of decades. And good people have been leaving the foreign service for some time. The uh also some of the foreign affairs bureaucracies needed a shakeup. Now, this is not a defense of the Doge Boys at all, but you know, trying to look at it as a glass blast health full rather than blast half empty, it will be an opportunity, inshallah, to rebuild better in a few years' time. It we are losing skills, we are losing expertise. Uh it will it will literally take years to rebuild the foreign affairs establishment. But the foreign affairs establishment has needed some reform for a number of years. This is it's it's yet again, Trump came into office successfully pointing to legitimate problems. But rather than make an attempt to actually fix the legitimate problems, he made them worse because he thrives on chaos and because his MO is to crow about the problems rather than roll up his sleeves and try to fix them.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Um let me try something on for size with you. Sure. Um about the Foreign Service. I always have had the impression, um, through my friends at the State Department and through others, that part of the problem was morale, and that was a direct relationship to the fact that the politics, no matter who they were and what administration, gave short shrift to the opinions of the professionals. Talk about that a bit. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 28:34

My personal direct experience was that the political appointees that I dealt with from time to time were reasonably competent. But I have also heard from friends that it's a different story when you have individuals who have no background or relevant experience. Um but then again, I spent most of my career, well, all of my career in the Middle East, and political appointees generally don't go to the Middle East. And the handful that do or that serve at state in Washington in senior capacities tend to be people who have relevant background and they bring something to the table. Um, I think that's very different when you're talking about Europe. It's very different when you're talking about some of the um non-region specific bureaus at state.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Um just along those lines as well, I thought that Rex Tillerson did a lot of damage because he was basically a loof and did not give anybody much shrift. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

Now that's the thing is it is Rex Tillerson came in. He he had some idea about how to reform the State Department, but he didn't actually talk to State Department people. He didn't have um a solid grasp of what the agency did or could do. And um, and frankly, at the end of the day, he didn't have the the political clout to do the hard things. You know, he he slipped into easy chaos making because it it kept Trump happy for a moment until it didn't, and then he was out on his ear. Uh to go back to the the subject of um political appointments and related, uh one more thing I wanted to add is a real source of um uh damage to morale is not simply the existence of political appointments, but the political calculus that goes into the policy-making decisions, especially in the Middle East. You know, most Foreign Service officers of my acquaintance in the Middle East understand very well the toxic relationship that we have with Israel. And um there are varying degrees of support for Israel, for the nuances of the Israel-Palestine conflict, of attitudes towards the Palestinian Authority. Um, but it's it's very dismaying when sound advice is just ignored. And um I I remember a lot of the folks that I came up with left the State Department around um the George W. Bush Iraq invasion. And those that didn't leave the State Department, we're talking all the Arabists, those that didn't leave the State Department altogether tried their best to be assigned to locations or departments where they did not need to deal with the Arab world or Iraq specifically. Now, I don't have numbers on that, that's just my impression based on conversations with people I know. But that's a sad, sad statement when you when the State Department and the government in general desperately needs people with expertise in the Middle East.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Let me jump to a final subject. Aside from voting, and aside from No King's Day or No King's Days, what should people be doing?

SPEAKER_01 32:57

I think that there's a couple of things that people could be doing. One is tuning in to independent media, which is often nowadays nonprofit media. If they have the means, donate money, become a subscriber. Um I don't love the New York Times, but I subscribe to the New York Times because it remains the paper, the paper, quote unquote, of record, and it is relatively independent. Um there's a lot of great nonprofit media outlets out there that do good work. Uh pick your outlet of choice and support it. Similarly, I think one of the most important um um actors right now on stage are the several legal-oriented nonprofits that are contesting some of the anti-democratic measures that both state legislature, that state governments and now the federal government are trying to implement. And those lawsuits may determine whether we have um a democratic election next year this year and in 2028.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Mark Elias is doing some great work.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Yes, he is. Yes, he is.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

And I wish we had more of him because he's overburdened.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Yeah, yeah. Uh Mark Elias and his firm are doing great work. The best evidence is Trump proofs about him personally. You know, he's on he is on the enemies list. And if you're on that list, you're doing something right. Yep, exactly. Um, any final thoughts? Oh gosh. I guess my final thought is the conversation is uh is a riff on the conversation that I seem to be having with a lot of folks nowadays about is there hope? I personally think there's hope, possibly even a lot of hope, that the grief and the instability that we're all experiencing right now, I feel is because we're at a transition point, that the previous model of our country has, and I don't mean like the the the constitutional structure writ large, but but the pattern that we fell into after nine after the fall of the Soviet Union has run its course. That we have not um fully come to grips with changes in the world and also changes domestically. We are uh soon to be no longer a majority white country. I think for many people that doesn't matter one bit. For other people, it matters a great deal. Yeah. And folks are coming to grips with that. And that's not a matter of people being racist, it's a matter of self-identity and how we think about ourselves and how we think about the nation as a whole and who we are as a nation. That because we're in a point of transition, and because of the uncertainty that comes with it, bad actors and charlatans have been able to take advantage of us. Relating to that, we established a pattern of economic growth that worked for a while, you know, starting in the Reagan years, that has just run its course. That we're in a situation now where a handful of oligarchs have an extraordinary amount of power in this country, but it is becoming very clear that this is the next battle. It's almost like um a hundred years, a hundred odd years ago, the dominant politics was between the Gilded Age oligarchs and the progressives who would take them down a notch. And that was a period of uh retrenchment, a period of upset. It was a very, you know, the night 1925 was a very reactionary period. But it changed rapidly. I just hope we don't have to go through another Great Depression to effectuate that change. But but but to just to conclude, I am optimistic that what we're feeling now is birth pangs of something new and better. Because I think I think the 21st century can be another American century if we play our cards right. One last question, one I forgot to ask. What do you think happens in Syria? Great question. Nobody talks about Syria nearly enough. Um, as I mentioned, I spent uh pretty much four years working on Syria, uh, late 14, uh, well into 2018. And uh a number of my friends from that time have gone back to Syria. A few of them have joined uh the new government there. Uh I am cautiously optimistic about Syria, very cautiously optimistic, and the instability in the region is doing no good at all. But the the fact that Ashera has tied himself so closely to the Saudis, and the Saudis are willing to uh spend freely in Syria to rebuild the country will help stabilize Syria in the short run. The ongoing negotiations between the government in Damascus and the Kurdish and SDF forces in the Northeast, it's touch and go. There has been violence, but there has been negotiation. Um what I've heard, and I and I don't have um citations to support it, but what I've heard is that most of the area that had previously been controlled by SDF has just melted away, and the government in Damascus has has reasserted control in um Raqqa, for example, in that area, and that the retrenchment is to really the Kurdish heartland in Hasaka. So where it goes next is a matter of negotiation, but they there seems to be an appetite to negotiate. What is most worrisome to me about the new government is if they cannot maintain type control on their own armed forces. Some of the clashes um in the Latakia area I had been told were the result of rogue actions by uh by militia belonging to um the government, but not regular forces. Now that might just be PR to sweep some ugly stuff under the rug. Um but it's plausible. Are there any remnants of the Alawites? Oh yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. This was this was the uh the essence of the clash is um pro-Shara militia had been in Latakia and started um seeking out military-age young men with Alawite heritage. And once word got out that they were just grabbing and dragging away young men, uh people came out in force armed, ready to fight and defend their homes. And then it started to escalate, and then um Shatter pulled his people back. Then there was negotiation, and now there seems to be some calm again. Uh and something similar happened in the south, in uh Jewel Swaed, uh in the uh the Druze area in the far south of Lebanon, uh Syria, excuse me. But the lid appears to be back on that can of worms. Um, and beyond that, it's it's the will of the Damascus government to keep control of their own forces and the and the willpower to um actually walk that fine line between allowing disintegration on the one hand and attempting to avert disintegration with an excessive use of force on the other hand.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

What do you think a stable Syria would mean for the region?

SPEAKER_02 43:06

A stable Syria. It will no longer be a negative on the table.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

I do not think a stable Syria can be a driver for positive change, but an unstable Syria can be a driver for negative change. Um don't forget that in recent years, one of the sources of instability in the region was the huge numbers of Syrian refugees fleeing Syria. Some of them have gone back, others would like to go back, but can't because the infrastructure is not there, and frankly, the economic opportunities. Are not there.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

Stunned at how many there were in Lebanon when I went in 2019.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Huge numbers. Huge numbers in Lebanon. And there's still quite a number there, but a lot have gone back. Yeah. And same for Turkey. Turkey had vast numbers of Syrians. A lot of them are still there. I was always very impressed that both the Syrian government and the Syrian people, excuse me, that both the Turkish government and the Turkish people were as accommodating to the Syrian refugees as they were. I mean, it showed a degree of generosity and solidarity that is uncommon in the world. But even that generosity really started to fray in the later years. And you could see the tension growing because of the numbers and because of the burden that those numbers imposed on Turkey. Turkey, I guess they're calling themselves now as a country.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Yeah. Phil, this has been great. Um, I want to have you back again. I think that there's plenty to talk about, and it would be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Absolutely. You know, I I I just have to thank you, Mark. I really enjoy talking about these subjects and and possibly uh nerding out a little bit and getting down in the weeds, which I don't get to do very often. So I really didn't appreciate it. I'm glad you did it.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

It was a real great thing. And I think our listeners will enjoy it too.