The Modern Middle East, Explained

the Middle East, the part of Asia that Europeans see as the middle of what they see as the East.

Sort of arbitrary, whatever we call it, the Middle East. This part of the world is literally where civilization started.

right here in modern-day Iraq. And over

the years, the borders here have been redrawn many times as empires have ebbed and flowed through this region. By the

way, I didn't make this time lapse. Uh,

a very talented YouTuber did, and he deserves a medal for it. Or perhaps just a new patron. Thanks, man. Anyway, the

most recent carving up of this region happened by European powers, the French, the British, the Russians. I mean, are we surprised? No. Like, of course, of

we surprised? No. Like, of course, of course it was the British. Of course it was the French. Of course it was Europeans. Of course, the lines they

Europeans. Of course, the lines they drew didn't really take into account language or ethnicity or regional identity. They just sort of sliced it

identity. They just sort of sliced it all up amongst themselves and said, "These are our new regions of power in the Middle East." Eventually, those European powers left, but the lines they

drew stuck around and became the skeleton for what the borders look like today. And this is where our story

today. And this is where our story starts. in the 1930s here in the modern

starts. in the 1930s here in the modern Middle East. At this point, across the

Middle East. At this point, across the ocean, there was this growing superpower that had spent the last century moving west, taking over this whole continent and beyond deep into the Pacific Ocean.

We've talked about that a bit, but things were changing. The world had just fought a brutal world war that was fought with new weapons that were

powered by this new important substance, oil. Germany lost that war in part

oil. Germany lost that war in part because they didn't have access to enough oil to keep up with this new style of warfare that relied a lot more on machines. The young superpower

on machines. The young superpower realized that access to this stuff would determine who would be powerful and who would not. So they stopped looking west

would not. So they stopped looking west for a moment and turned east with hopes of finding the fuel they needed to build their power. The US presence in the

their power. The US presence in the Middle East started with one little dot right here. But soon that dot would

right here. But soon that dot would expand into a sprawling network of alliances, covert attacks, flows of weapons, money, and the building of

innumerable bases, and eventually turning into full-on ground wars.

This is how the US stole the Middle East, ready and willing to employ all means necessary. Okay, so it's the 1930s

means necessary. Okay, so it's the 1930s and the US doesn't have a significant presence in the Middle East at this point. But that's about to change

point. But that's about to change because there's a company based in California that wants to explore this vast desert for oil. 11,000 m from San

Francisco, there lies a primeval desert, a mass of drifting sand and sunbaked earth 1/3 the size of the United States.

This was sort of a risky decision for the California company because first off, they had no idea if there was actually any oil here.

>> They knew it would mean sinking into the desert the money of thousands of stockholders in a project that might well end in complete loss.

>> And second off, this desert was a part of a very hardcore religious kingdom.

>> The fact that Mecca is the source and the shrine of Islam gives Saudi Arabia a central place in the Islamic and therefore the Arab world. that was home

to the holiest sites in Islam, run by a dogmatic royal family that did not like outsiders, especially non-believing Westerners. But even still, the king of

Westerners. But even still, the king of the desert kingdom eventually gives the California company permission to explore almost a million square kilmters of this

desert looking for oil. And after a few years, the bet paid off. And on March 3rd, 1938, in this little patch of coastal desert, they struck gold. Well,

actually they struck oil, but it might as well have been gold.

So throughout the 30s and 40s, American oil executives, workers, and their families started flocking to the Middle East, establishing the first significant American presence in the region. They

set up little cities around the oil operation that were little slices of America, full of the deepest sinful behavior like allowing women to drive

and the consumption of alcohol. Here is

another American colony complete with air conditioned houses, two hospitals, and an outdoor movie theater. This is

the sort of stuff that is very off limits in Saudi Arabia. It's literally

illegal at this point. So you have a lot of Saudis who are not happy about their government letting the Americans in to behave however they want. But the oil kept flowing and soon the US government

goes to the royal family and says, "Listen, the oil is flowing better than ever. This is awesome. How about we

ever. This is awesome. How about we build a little military base attached to our little oil city so that we can, you know, protect you and protect us and protect the oil and stuff." And the

Saudis are like, "Okay. Um, having the great Satan come to our country for oil is one thing, but letting them set up a full-on military base on our soil and especially when like everyone in our

country is not happy with their presence in the first place. But said the royal family, all of this oil is really valuable and it's really nice and we're getting super rich. So, they're like,

"Yeah, sure. Set up the base." But there

"Yeah, sure. Set up the base." But there was one stipulation that the Saudis had for the Americans. You are not allowed to literally plant a flag. no flag poles of the United States. You cannot put

your flag anywhere on this base.

Instead, you can put a little plaque on the side of the building so that your flag is not literally on our soil. And

that was the deal. And that's exactly what happened. The US sets up its first

what happened. The US sets up its first military operation in the Middle East in the form of a landing strip that is right next to this oil field.

Okay. So, all of this infrastructure that the Americans were building required someone to build it. They

needed a construction company. And there

was one construction company that the Americans really liked that helped them build their oil city and their base.

This company was founded and run by a guy named Muhammad. Now listen, do you think I'm really giving you the backstory on the construction company that built the air base in the oil city just because that's interesting and I

like to talk about construction. No,

this is actually very relevant to the story and you will see why very soon.

So, the Americans and the Saudis are having this forbidden oil bromance and it's going really well and they are just the oil is flowing. Everyone's getting

rich and meanwhile the rest of the Middle East is looking at Saudi Arabia and they're like, "Dude, WTF, why are you like in bed with America and like why are you letting them set up a

landing strip in your country?" And the Saudi royals are like, "Do you realize how rich we're getting right now? Like

if you were in our position, you would do the same thing. Egypt. Okay, so it's the 1950s and let's get back to Muhammad, the construction guy. His

company by this point is thriving. The

American presence in oil land is just exploding and he is building all of the stuff for it. And so this guy is just has a giant business. And he starts to

have children. Well, in fact, he had a

have children. Well, in fact, he had a lot of children, like 54 children because he had 22 wives because that is a thing in Saudi Arabia to this day.

Anyway, the point is, one of Muhammad's sons is named Osama.

I told you this was going to be relevant. Okay, a reminder that Saudi

relevant. Okay, a reminder that Saudi Arabia is not the entire Middle East.

So, I'm going to leave the Osama bin Laden cliffhanger for a moment to tell you what else was going on in the Middle East at this time. Remember that it was the hunt for oil that brought the US to

Saudi Arabia originally. But now, in the ' 50s and60s, there was a new reason for the US to think about the Middle East.

And that reason is because there's another big superpower that has nuclear weapons called the Soviet Union who is coming into the region and saying to

everyone, "Come join team communism."

And the US is like, "Hold my beer."

So in addition to oil, the US is now involved in trying to not let the Soviet Union have any power in this region.

Over in Iran, there was a democratically elected leader that the US didn't like.

They thought he was maybe a little too friendly with the Soviet Union. So they

worked together with the British to literally overthrow the government of Iran so that they could install a dictatorial leader that was more friendly to the United States. Little

side note here, the airport that I fly out of here in DC is named after the guy who like gave the go-ahad for this coup in Iran, John Foster Doulles. So I'm

reminded of the whole Iran thing every time I fly. So the US has its oil thing.

It's now involved in trying to prop up a dictator in Iran. There's another big thing happening that brings the US into the region, which is that the newly declared state of Israel is starting to

piss off its neighbors and starting to look to the US for support. And the US gladly offers it, seeing Israel as a

friendly nation in the region that could be a big proponent of US interests. So,

the US starts to fund Israel with tons of money and fighter jets and all of these things to help them fight their wars against their Arab neighbors. There

was a debate happening in the United States on whether or not they should actually do all of this to support Israel so intensely because they knew if they did, they were going to piss off all of the neighbors in the Middle East.

And all of the neighbors are the ones who had the oil. In the end, the US did decide to support Israel. And with that came a major backlash from all of these oil producing countries in the neighborhood.

>> There's a crisis of such proportion that we probably haven't even begun to grasp it yet as far as the country is concerned.

>> Scenes like this are becoming all too common on both sides of the Atlantic.

But for America, they are more ominous.

They tell the Arabs that their oil weapon is wounding America, the country that supports and supplies their enemy Israel.

>> Eventually, this backlash against supporting Israel kind of calmed down.

There was some peace talks. Anyway,

let's get back to Muhammad the construction guy and his son Osama because this is where it really starts to heat up. We decided to put together this compilation of all our Middle East

videos because there are transformative events happening in the Middle East right now. The recent attacks on Iran

right now. The recent attacks on Iran from the US and Israel have reshaped the Middle East and are doing that right now as I'm recording this. And hopefully

these videos are providing some context.

But keeping up with the headlines is proving to be really difficult because every source comes at it with a different angle and a different bias.

This is why I have partnered with Ground News. They are the sponsor of this

News. They are the sponsor of this compilation and I've been using Ground News for over a year now. They've been a partner of the channel and I'm really grateful they exist. Ground News is an app and a website that allows you to

very quickly and thoroughly compare thousands of headlines from all around the world. It organizes them and breaks

the world. It organizes them and breaks them down by what their biases are, their reliability, their factuality, and even tells you who these outlets are owned by. They've been recognized by the

owned by. They've been recognized by the Nobel Peace Center for Advancing Media Literacy. And let me just show you how

Literacy. And let me just show you how this works and why it matters. Take one

event, like the story about Iran's next Supreme Leader. The strikes on Iran and

Supreme Leader. The strikes on Iran and the killing of the Supreme Leader in Iran was covered by over 800 outlets, all with different angles. With ground

news, you're able to quickly compare and see how the left and the right are covering it differently. For example, a left-leaning outlet emphasizes the human response from the Iranian diaspora in

Washington. The right represented by Fox

Washington. The right represented by Fox News focuses on the political backlash of the attack framing the critics of these strikes as siding with Iran or in their words rooting for the Ayatollah.

Every news outlet chooses their narrative. So do we. This is impossible

narrative. So do we. This is impossible to avoid. What Ground News does is it

to avoid. What Ground News does is it helps make that visible by allowing you to quickly compare lots of different headlines. I've used the app for years

headlines. I've used the app for years and I'm grateful it exists. It's a kind of comparison that I can't get elsewhere. It's an important part of

elsewhere. It's an important part of being a critical consumer of the news and it's completely subscriberfunded.

There's no like rich billionaire back there deciding what you see. It's

completely funded by all of us who pay for it. If this is interesting to you,

for it. If this is interesting to you, you can get in on the Vantage plan, which is the plan I use. You can get 40% off if you go to ground.news/jny

harris. You can also scan the QR code here on screen. You get that 40% off. It

ends up being like five bucks a month for you to get the whole picture on the events shaping the world. With that,

let's dive into our next video about the modern Middle East.

>> And it is this world of religious authority and deeply rooted traditions that is now being challenged by the wealth of oil and the western invasion it has brought. So, it's now the '7s and

Muhammad bin Laden, the construction guy, is now insanely rich. His

construction company is giant. His 54

children are also rich. and his son Osama is growing up and he's in his 20s and is looking around at all of this stuff happening in Iran and in Israel

and is starting to feel really uncomfortable with the notion of his family being so supportive of American presence in the Middle East and his government this religious kingdom home

of Mecca and Medina being so okay with the US so embedded in the Middle East at this point. These are ancient holy

this point. These are ancient holy lands. Why is my government and my

lands. Why is my government and my family supporting this great Satan superpower coming in and becoming so involved in the Middle East? So, Bin

Laden sets out on a lifelong quest to fight back against these superpowers, not just the US, but also the Soviet Union invading the Middle East. He heads

to Afghanistan where the Soviet Union is invading Afghanistan, trying to take it over. Bin Laden wants to fight back. By

over. Bin Laden wants to fight back. By

the way, the same year in Iran, that dictator that the US put in gets overthrown in a giant religious revolution that gets rid of the old

dictator that the US liked and puts in a religious government headed by this guy, Ayatollah Humeni. This new government

Ayatollah Humeni. This new government takes a bunch of Americans hostage and starts off hating the United States. And

I mean, can you blame them? If someone

overthrew the person I elected, I would be pretty pissed, too. So, anyway, back to Bin Laden. He arrives to Afghanistan with a few things. Number one, a bunch of money. Remember, his family is like

of money. Remember, his family is like super rich. He also comes with

super rich. He also comes with construction infrastructure because he's like a construction guy. Like his family knows construction and infrastructure building. But most importantly, he comes

building. But most importantly, he comes with an obsessive dedication to fighting back against any superpower that is invading the Middle East. So Osama joins

in with all of these rebel fighters who are fighting back against the Soviet Union and they fight a long brutal war.

By the way, the US was secretly loving this, loving that the Soviet Union was getting like beat back by these like rebel fighters. So they end up sending

rebel fighters. So they end up sending loads of weapons and money and support to these fighters. Something that will come back to bite them a few decades

later. Eventually, Osama and the Afghan

later. Eventually, Osama and the Afghan fighters beat back the Soviet Union. It

was 10 brutal years of war, and by the end, these fighters were battleh hardened. Osama was now completely

hardened. Osama was now completely dedicated to his cause of fighting back against superpowers who were coming into the Middle East. So, he returns back to Saudi Arabia where he starts raising

money and awareness for his new group that he started while he was in Afghanistan. It's called Al-Qaeda. And

Afghanistan. It's called Al-Qaeda. And

the mission of the group is to protect Islam through violently striking back against big superpowers coming into the Middle East. And Saudi Arabia is like,

Middle East. And Saudi Arabia is like, "Os, like, do you have to do this, dude?

Do you realize how rich we're getting?

Like Saudi princes are living on yachts in the south of France and like flying in their private jets." And they're like, "Dude, chill. Like, it's fine. We

get it. We don't like the United States, but like can you like maybe chill? Our

partnership with the United States is actually turning out to be really great." And I know, yeah, they're really

great." And I know, yeah, they're really into Israel and they're really bad and everything, but like they buy our oil and they give us weapons and we're like doing just fine over here. Osama doesn't

chill and the Saudi government eventually takes away his passport, not letting him leave and told him to hush up with all the anti-American holy war

talk. So Osama finds another plan to

talk. So Osama finds another plan to maybe win back the heart of the royals.

Saudi Arabia has a nextoor neighbor named Iraq who is run by Saddam Hussein who Osama sees as a really bad Muslim.

Totally secular and brutal and he's just like not a good guy. Saddam is also cashing in on the oil boom. He's

building big palaces and statues of himself all over the country. Oh yeah,

and he also used the oil money to build a giant army, like the fourth biggest in the world. With this massive army,

the world. With this massive army, Saddam decided that he could maybe multiply his oil reserves if he popped down to invade this little tiny country

of Kuwait, where there's also loads of oil. This sort of freaked the Saudis

oil. This sort of freaked the Saudis out. If Saddam with his giant army could

out. If Saddam with his giant army could grab Kuwait, what would stop him from marching right across this desert into Saudi Arabia? So there's this moment

Saudi Arabia? So there's this moment that like it's like the moment of infamy of this whole thing where Osama goes to the Saudis and he says >> I volunteer as tribute.

>> He doesn't actually say I volunteer in tribute. That was uh Hunger Games.

tribute. That was uh Hunger Games.

>> I believe we have a volunteer.

>> But he effectively says I have me and my battleh hardened men who like can go in and fight against Saddam and and defend the kingdom. And the Saudis are like,

the kingdom. And the Saudis are like, "Um, no, we're not going to like let this rag tag group of like rebel fighters fight off the fourth largest army in the world." And Osama's like,

"Well, we beat the Soviets. Like,

they're a big army with nuclear weapons and everything." And the Saudis are

and everything." And the Saudis are like, "Yeah, because you hid in the hills in caves in Afghanistan." Prince

Sultan literally told Bin Laden verbatim, quote, "There are no caves in Kuwait." And then he asks them, "What

Kuwait." And then he asks them, "What will you do when he lobbs the missiles at you with chemical and biological weapons?" Osama's response, "We will

weapons?" Osama's response, "We will fight them with our faith." And the Saudis are like, "Um, awkward. Sorry, dude." Like,

awkward. Sorry, dude." Like,

instead, the king met with somebody else that he thought would make a much better fit than Bin Laden and his faith fighters.

Dick Cheney had flown to Saudi Arabia the day after Saddam had invaded Kuwait.

At this point, the bromance between the US and Saudi Arabia had cooled a little bit as Saudi had gotten more and more flak for being in bed with the US. But

even despite this, he told Cheney to come with as much force and as quickly as he could.

And that is exactly what Dick Cheney did.

>> Ready and willing to employ all means necessary.

The US went insane here. They recruited

37 other countries and then they sent more firepower in terms of ships and bombers and troops and all this stuff than you and I could ever imagine. It

was insanity. and they totally crushed Saddam. Within a few weeks, they had

Saddam. Within a few weeks, they had pushed Saddam back and completely won over the hearts of the royals. The

bromance is back in business. So now you have these Saudis that are beaming at the Americans for helping them fight off Saddam. And you have a bunch of bases

Saddam. And you have a bunch of bases that the US set up to mount this attack way more than before. The US came with all of this firepower and manpower and

bases and artillery and then they just sort of never left. Something that

really pissed off a lot of Saudis who were very uncomfortable with US presence to begin with. But the guy who was most pissed off than anyone in the Middle

East at this point, Osama bin Laden, who had not only been rejected by his own country, but then who got chosen instead? But the great Satan, the United

instead? But the great Satan, the United States, a power that Osama had built his entire life fighting against. So Osama

bin Laden starts to double down on his original mission. He leaves Saudi Arabia

original mission. He leaves Saudi Arabia and begins coordinating very precise attacks that could really only be coordinated by a guy who was good at

technical details of a construction company and who had lots of money to fund it. He carries out attacks against

fund it. He carries out attacks against the United States all around the world.

And by the late 90s, he starts planning the attack that would change our world forever.

>> So, this is just the first half of the story. What happens next is something

story. What happens next is something that we're all kind of familiar with.

In fact, I think we're all still kind of processing the US presence in the Middle East today and how that all went down.

But it deserves taking a look at, and I'm not going to do that right now. I

want to make a separate video for Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel and Iran and dive into each of these cases to show how the US presence in the Middle East is not just about oil. In fact, oil is

becoming less and less of a vital aspect of the US presence as we have alternative sources of this sort of energy. Instead, our presence in the

energy. Instead, our presence in the Middle East has become a fixture of how we think about foreign policy and how we think about the map. It's become so embedded in our military doctrine and in

our foreign policy doctrine that it's proving to be really hard to think about how we could ever get out.

One of the most important wars of the last 50 years is one that we don't hear about much. When in 1980, two of the

about much. When in 1980, two of the Middle East's most powerful countries, Iran and Iraq, waged 8 years of some of the worst trench and chemical warfare

since World War I, leaving both countries devastated. This is the war

countries devastated. This is the war that fractured the Middle East into lines that still play out in nearly every conflict there today. It set the US and Iraq on a path that ultimately

led to the American invasion. And it

defined Iran's often hostile relationship with the wider world. This

is the Iran Iraq war.

It's 1979 and Iran is in the middle of a revolution.

The country is coming off of decades of being ruled by the Sha, a king that the US and UK had installed in the 50s after covertly overthrowing Iran's democratically elected leader. But after

years of the Sha's corrupt autocratic rule, a mass uprising violently overthrows him, creating what becomes an Islamic republic headed by an Ayatollah

named Rouola Humeni.

Hmeni and a group of Shia religious scholars want to impose fundamentalist rule on the country and are hostile to both the Western powers and the

neighboring Soviet Union. They establish

a military force called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, which is meant to protect their hold on the revolution and to suppress the other groups who helped overthrow the sha. The US is watching

all of this in shock. Their biggest ally in the region and a major oil producer has just turned from friend to fierce enemy. But the biggest tremors of this

enemy. But the biggest tremors of this revolution are felt in the rest of the Middle East.

Iran sends out radio broadcasts to Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, and Iraq, calling for people to rise up and overthrow their own rulers.

They're trying to export their revolution to their neighbors to gain new allies in the region. Neighboring

leaders, most of them Sunni Muslim, don't like this. Saudi Arabia's king fears being overthrown just like the Sha was. And in Iraq, Saddam Hussein sees

was. And in Iraq, Saddam Hussein sees this Shia religious revolution on his eastern border and worries that the Shia majority that he rules over will rise up against him, too. But he also sees this

as an opportunity.

Iran and Iraq have been fighting over this border territory for years. This

waterway is a critical access point to the Persian Gulf where both countries export their oil to the rest of the world. In a treaty between the two back

world. In a treaty between the two back in 1975, Saddam had to give up full control of this waterway as well as access to oil

richch regions in what was now Iran.

Saddam hates this treaty and is considering taking the waterway back by force. The Iranian revolution has left

force. The Iranian revolution has left the country weak and fractured. Hmeni

and his revolutionary guard are still fighting other political factions for control. The Iranian military, which

control. The Iranian military, which used to be funded and trained by the United States, is now weak. Its leaders

having been jailed or executed after the revolution.

Iran's military would normally be able to crush Iraq in an invasion. But maybe

not anymore. Saddam sees this as an opportunity to weaken a major rival.

Saddam is also riding on a delusion that he himself is going to unify the Arab world under his leadership. If he

invades Iran, maybe the rest of the Middle East will rally behind him against this new common enemy. He thinks

it'll be a quick victory. So, in

September of 1980, he decides to prepare 10,000 Iraqi troops to cross the border to invade Iran. What's about to happen here isn't just the start of a new war.

Saddam is kicking off a dynamic that will dominate the Middle East for more than 40 years.

The fight between revolutionary change and status quo power.

The war officially starts when Saddam sends his air force over the border in a surprise attack on Iranian air bases.

His 10,000 soldiers cross from Basra into southern Iran. Further north,

Saddam opens a second front to seize strategically located border towns and put pressure on his enemy. These air

attacks mostly fail, and Iran responds with air strikes of their own into Iraqi territory, hitting oil facilities. Iran

still has sophisticated jets that the United States had given the previous regime. This gives them an edge in the

regime. This gives them an edge in the air.

The war quickly sucks in the rest of the region. Israel is among the first. It

region. Israel is among the first. It

wants to keep these two adversaries occupied, fighting with each other, keeping both sides weak. So, almost

immediately, Israel secretly sells supplies and parts to Iran. This helps

the Iranian air force keep planes in the air. Now, Iran and Israel are not

air. Now, Iran and Israel are not friends, but Israel sees Iraq as a greater threat here, so they're willing to support.

Iran needs to get its military organized if they're going to fight this war. So,

they release military officers that they had jailed during the revolution. War

tends to unify a nation. And in this case, the fractured country of Iran is unifying around Iraq's invasion, creating this irony that Saddam is the

one who actually cements Humeni's hold on power.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait also step in here, giving billions of dollars to fund Iraq's war efforts. They want to weaken Iran and turn back its revolution. The

Middle East is now dividing between on one side Arab states who are ruled by aging Sunni monarchies and strong men who fear change and on the other side a

Shia Iran bent on revolution on remaking the region in its image.

China is also watching this war. They

say they will maintain strict neutrality, but they take the opportunity to sell weapons to both sides of the conflict. They eventually

become Iran's top supplier of weapons.

For most of 1981, the two armies are in a stalemate with Iraq holding small but important stretches of border territory.

The global powers see this stalemate and try to negotiate a ceasefire, hoping that this conflict that threatens so much of the global oil supply will end

soon. What they don't know is that this

soon. What they don't know is that this is really just the beginning.

Saddam agrees to the ceasefire, but Humeni does not. This war has become so useful to his goals, unifying the country and keeping the military occupied so that it doesn't become a

rival to his power. Humeni needs the war to continue. So Iran demands that Saddam

to continue. So Iran demands that Saddam Hussein step down. They say the war will continue until his rule is ended.

Saddam, of course, refuses. So Iran goes on the offensive. Their forces are now organized. Their officers have been

organized. Their officers have been freed from jail, and they're able to recapture the territory that Saddam had taken, even pushing into Iraq. Saddam's

hopes of a quick victory and a gain of some valuable territory are now dead. So

he turns to the United States for support and the US agrees to help. They

hope to weaken Iran and its call for anti-American Islamic revolution across the region. So the US starts giving

the region. So the US starts giving Saddam intelligence and satellite imagery on Iranian troop movement.

Iraq also gets another big backer, the Soviet Union. The Soviets are at war in

Soviet Union. The Soviets are at war in neighboring Afghanistan, trying to suppress another religious uprising, but they also have allies in this region. So

over the course of the war, the Soviets become a top supplier of weapons to Iraq.

Now remember the situation between these two. It's a tense moment in the Cold War

two. It's a tense moment in the Cold War and the United States and Soviet Union are suddenly supporting the same side of this Middle East conflict. Both backing

the country that will support the status quo. Nothing changing, allowing their

quo. Nothing changing, allowing their great power struggle to continue as it has. But by the summer of 1982, Iran is

has. But by the summer of 1982, Iran is now pushing into Iraqi territory. Much

of their campaign focused on the city of Basra. If Iran can take Basra, it will

Basra. If Iran can take Basra, it will cut off Iraq from the Persian Gulf, preventing them from shipping out their oil. Iraqi forces are outnumbered here,

oil. Iraqi forces are outnumbered here, so they start to dig in and build trenches, erecting barbwire barriers, planting landmines, and surrounding the city to stop Iran from taking it. The

fighting starts to resemble the brutal warfare of World War I. Waves of

artillery strikes and the Iranian military resorting to human wave attacks where thousands of boys and men charge over open fields leading to huge numbers of casualties.

Iran is not successful in taking the city, but this attack does weaken Saddam, showing that he's vulnerable.

And this is where we need to look to the north to talk about the Kurds.

The Kurds are a minority group in the north of Iraq. They've been long suppressed by Saddam Hussein and they see this moment as an opportunity to break away from Iraq to make their own country. So Kurdish forces start

country. So Kurdish forces start fighting with the Iraqi army, taking towns and villages. So now Saddam is fighting two different armies, one of

which lives in his own country.

Iran starts sending support to the Kurds who have a presence in this mountainous oil richch part of Iraq. If the Kurds can hold it and keep Saddam's regime

away from all of this oil, it would have a major effect on this war. This is a big deal for Saddam, and he switches tactics to make sure he can control this

northern area. He escalates by using

northern area. He escalates by using chemical weapons against the Kurds as well as the Iranians.

Shells filled with mustard gas, weapons that cause extreme burning and blindness. a weapon that is illegal

blindness. a weapon that is illegal under international law. But even still, the global powers who are supporting him mostly look the other way. The US starts

sending technology and money to Saddam, even restoring official diplomatic ties with Iraq. This allows Iraq to buy

with Iraq. This allows Iraq to buy technology from the United States that helps them develop their weapons programs, including the horrific chemical and

biological weapons that he will soon be using on the battlefield. They need him to keep fighting because this war has changed. It went from protecting Saddam

changed. It went from protecting Saddam from revolution to now using Saddam to weaken Iran. So, they keep supporting

weaken Iran. So, they keep supporting him, showing him that he can use chemical weapons without being punished.

The chemical attacks help push back Iranian forces, and the war reaches a new stalemate.

1984 is the year that the oil war begins in this conflict.

Iraq starts attacking Iranian oil tankers in the Persian Gulf using new jets provided by France, a new entrant to this conflict. Saddam warns that

he'll also attack any ship going into Iranian ports. Iran retaliates by

Iranian ports. Iran retaliates by attacking oil tankers carrying Iraq's oil. The oil that the entire globe

oil. The oil that the entire globe relies on is now at the center of this increasingly brutal conflict. Hundreds

of commercial ships are attacked by both sides, resulting in the death of over 400 civilian sailors. The US has to send in two frigots and a guided missile destroyer into the Persian Gulf to

escort US ships, hoping that their presence will stop these attacks.

Meanwhile, Iran is making progress on the ground, slowly taking territory from Iraq and continuing attacks on the vital port city of Basra.

It's 1985 and Saddam is about to escalate to a new extreme.

He starts shooting missiles and dropping bombs on Iranian cities all over the country, including the capital. This

kills 16,000 people and leaves many homeless. Iran responds, striking Iraqi

homeless. Iran responds, striking Iraqi cities, firing these massive missiles primarily at the capital of Baghdad.

These strikes hit civilian targets like a school in a bus station with hundreds of casualties. Civilians on both sides

of casualties. Civilians on both sides are now caught in the crossfire of this brutally escalating war. Their cities

and their homes are not safe, so many flee. These events leave an entire

flee. These events leave an entire generation scarred by the trauma of war and a disdain for the outside powers that have ripped their country apart.

And speaking of outside powers, this is when the US starts double dealing. They

start selling missiles to Iran, which gives Iran an edge against Iraqi forces, who the US is also supporting.

Behind all this is President Ronald Reagan, who wants to use the money from this deal to fund an anti-communist militia group in Nicaragua.

It's all supposed to be a secret, but will eventually come out and be known as the Iran Contra scandal.

Meanwhile, Kuwait is asking the US to be more aggressive to protect their oil tankers. Iranian attacks on their ships

tankers. Iranian attacks on their ships have started to take a toll. The US is getting more involved in the war. Their

presence in the Persian Gulf is growing.

They start putting American flags on Kuwaiti tankers to deter Iran from attacking them.

And then in March of 1988, Iran partners with the Kurdish fighters to take over the Iraqi town of Halabja. The Kurds

know that this is going to set Saddam off, and they brace themselves for a brutal retaliation. But what comes next

brutal retaliation. But what comes next is worse than anyone could have prepared for. The Iraqi army drops bombs and

for. The Iraqi army drops bombs and artillery shells containing deadly chemicals, blanketing the entire town with a cloud of deadly gas that sinks into homes and buildings and the

underground shelters where many were hiding for protection. It's a brutal attack that kills over 5,000 Iraqi Kurds, mostly unarmed civilians.

And it was a part of a broader campaign that Saddam was now waging to wipe out the Kurdish people entirely. He now had what he believed was a justification. So

the Iraqi army starts going village to village, dropping chemical weapons on civilians and executing any survivors.

This resulted in an estimated 50 to 100,000 deaths in what has now been deemed as a genocide. One of the many war crimes committed by Saddam Hussein.

The US knows this is happening. And yet,

according to now public documents, the official government line was to turn a blind eye to blame everything on Iran.

Saddam's horrific war crimes project a new fear onto the civilians in Iran, who now worry that a missile loaded with deadly gas could land on their cities.

Many flee to take shelter in the mountains. And by now, after eight years

mountains. And by now, after eight years of devastating war, Iran's economy and social order is frayed. Their leader,

Ayatollah Humeni, is feeling the pressure to end this war.

More than a million lives have been lost in this war. All sides are looking for a way out, and the UN Security Council is pressuring the parties to accept a

ceasefire. Then in July of 1988, a US

ceasefire. Then in July of 1988, a US ship in the Persian Gulf shoots down an Iranian passenger jet, killing all 290 civilians on board. The

US shakes it off as an unfortunate accident, saying that they mistook the airliner for a hostile F-16 fighter jet.

They pay compensation to the victim's families, and President Reagan sends a letter apologizing, but the government never formally apologizes. And the

captain of the ship who did this later received a medal which fed a deep suspicion in Iran that this attack was deliberate. That it was a scheme to

deliberate. That it was a scheme to coers them into accepting peace.

Fear of more American attacks along with a new offensive by Iraq pushes the Iranian forces to withdraw from the country and both sides finally accept a ceasefire.

The war is finally over. And after all of this, the borders were unchanged from before the fighting. But in some ways, this was really just the first round in

a larger conflict that has continued through to today. A war for the future of the Middle East. one that the United States is deeply involved in, but that

most expresses itself as a cold war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, who now fuel civil wars around the region in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, backing their

own proxy fighters and making these conflicts worse. But another major

conflicts worse. But another major takeaway here is that this war defined Iran's relationship to the rest of the world, especially the United States.

Iranian hardliners came to feel confirmed in their belief that they could never trust an outside world bent on Iran's destruction and seemingly unconstrained in their violence, leading

some leaders to conclude that only nuclear weapons could stave off disaster from the outside. Saddam Hussein's Iraq emerged battered by this war. Humiliated

by this failure against Iran, he faced growing internal resistance from his people, which he suppressed with more and more violence. He also came out of

this with huge war debts to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Angry that his allies had

Saudi Arabia. Angry that his allies had build him to fight a war on their behalf. A few years later, Saddam

behalf. A few years later, Saddam invades Kuwait, seeking its oil, taking the spoils that he felt he was owed. And

this is when his one-time backer, the United States, quickly turns against him, expelling him from Kuwait and beating him back in a swift 43-day victory, cutting him off from the world

economy and turning him into a pariah, an enemy. A decade after Saddam had

an enemy. A decade after Saddam had gassed his own people, the US finally blamed him for it, turning it into a byword for his cruelty and the centerpiece for their demand that he

step down. A few years later, George W.

step down. A few years later, George W.

Bush would cite these weapons of mass destructions, the ones that he would never find, as a reason to invade the country, to topple Saddam. Bush's war

room was filled with the same officials who had covered for Saddam and his war crimes in the first place, and making it so crystal clear that even though this war between Iran and Iraq ended decades

ago, the Middle East we see today is built off of what happened during those eight brutal years. Before we go into the next video, I just want to remind you that this is all made possible

because of Ground News, the sponsor of this compilation. Ground News helps me

this compilation. Ground News helps me do these deep dives by helping me compare lots of headlines and revealing the different biases and reliability of the facts in those headlines. You can go

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to ground.news/jny Harris to get 40% off their vantage plan and start comparing headlines and seeing clearly into the news that you're consuming.

In the summer of 2002, the director of the British intelligence agency MI6, Richard Deerlov, traveled to Washington DC to meet with the director of the CIA, George Tennant. The topic of the meeting

George Tennant. The topic of the meeting was Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein.

In the meeting, the CIA director shared classified information with his British counterpart, who then traveled back to London to 10 Downing Street, the home of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

Dear Love told his prime minister everything about what was really happening behind the scenes in the United States, how the US was planning to invade Iraq no matter what. It was a

highly classified meeting, but notes were taken and classified and put into a memo. That memo was later leaked to

memo. That memo was later leaked to British author and journalist Michael Smith who published it in 2005. And

that's what we're looking at, a secret meeting. And the memo it produced meant

meeting. And the memo it produced meant only for the eyes of top British officials. It was an explosive leak.

officials. It was an explosive leak.

What we see is that Dear Love tells his prime minister everything he heard in Washington a few days earlier, and that this was a very different story than the one the Bush administration was telling to the public. That an American invasion

was inevitable. that Bush's people were

was inevitable. that Bush's people were fixated on removing Saddam Hussein from power no matter what, and that the US government was blatantly cooking up intel and facts to help sell their

invasion. This document shows us how

invasion. This document shows us how power really works in our world. How a

small group of people decided to topple a dictator, to occupy a country, and then invented a story to support their plan. It was a false story, but it

plan. It was a false story, but it helped them sell a horrifying war. It's

a story that is revealed in detail by the Downing Street memo.

>> States like these constitute an axis of evil. One last chance to avoid war. The

evil. One last chance to avoid war. The

entire world must know that we will take whatever action is necessary.

>> On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. The United States military

our country. The United States military has begun strikes against al-Qaeda terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

Let's start by looking at another document from the fall of 2001 when Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolawitz created this memo for his boss Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of

Defense. This was just 10 weeks after

Defense. This was just 10 weeks after the attacks that changed the course of history. But this document wasn't about

history. But this document wasn't about that. It was about Iraq, a country that

that. It was about Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. Rumsfeld

reviewed the document before meeting with an army general. He marked it up with his notes, giving us insight into what the Secretary of Defense of the United States was really thinking about after 9/11. How this group of military

after 9/11. How this group of military leaders were set on quote building momentum to topple Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein to decapitate the government. A government that was no

government. A government that was no longer useful to them. Saddam Hussein

had been a useful client to the United States, especially in the 80s when he was waging a war against Iran, an enemy of the United States. But those days were now over. Saddam had turned into

just a troublemaker in the region, creating instability that could threaten the US's easy access to oil.

>> Two hours ago, Allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait. This conflict started August

and Kuwait. This conflict started August 2nd when the dictator of Iraq invaded a small and helpless neighbor. And in many ways, Iraq was an old mess in need of

cleaning up. A mess that Bush Senior had

cleaning up. A mess that Bush Senior had failed to resolve during the First Gulf War. Iraq was supposed to disarm itself

War. Iraq was supposed to disarm itself after that war, but had kicked out the UN weapons inspector teams. But that wasn't the main reason why right after 9/11, these guys were

talking about invading Iraq. A bigger

reason is that these leaders wanted to remind the world who the global superpower was. They needed to after

superpower was. They needed to after being brutally attacked on their own soil. A non USfriendly regime like Iraq

soil. A non USfriendly regime like Iraq couldn't be allowed to stand in a post 911 world. Or in the words of Rumsfeld

911 world. Or in the words of Rumsfeld himself, hours after the towers fell, quote, "We need to bomb something else to show that we're big and strong and

not going to be pushed around. Iraq and

its leader was that something else."

And now Bush and his advisers were looking at a plan to make it a reality.

But how to start the war? Could they tie Saddam Hussein to something that Americans feared like 9/11 or anthrax?

Or could they tell a story about weapons of mass destruction? What other

countries could they bring in to support their invasion? And of course, the most

their invasion? And of course, the most important consideration, Rumsfield jotss it here at the end, they would need an influence campaign. They would need to

influence campaign. They would need to sell the war. And when should they begin? How about right away?

begin? How about right away?

>> Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror.

>> 3 months later, the president was telling the world that Iraq was one of a group of evil countries that the US must oppose in the global fight against good and evil. States like these constitute

and evil. States like these constitute an axis of evil. The price of indifference would be catastrophic.

>> By the summer of 2002, this idea that Bush's advisers had scratched down after 9/11 was developing into an official policy. That handwritten influence

policy. That handwritten influence campaign to sell the war was now in full swing.

>> There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

>> The Iraqi regime has been free to pursue the development of weapons of mass destruction.

>> We know they have weapons of mass destruction. There isn't any debate

destruction. There isn't any debate about it.

>> And this is exactly what the head of MI6 told Prime Minister Tony Blair at his house in the summer of 2002 after meeting with the CIA in Washington. It's

what we see in the Downing Street memo that there was a perceptible shift in attitude in Washington and that the US invasion of Iraq was now seen as inevitable and that they were now fixing

intelligence around a decision that they had already made and that the US wasn't really planning to work with the UN.

They didn't want weapons inspections or getting UN approval for military force.

And crucially, the head of the MI6 tells the prime minister that these Bush people aren't really thinking much about the aftermath of such an invasion.

>> What is inevitable is not regime change.

It is disarmament of weapons of mass destruction.

>> This memo wasn't supposed to be seen by anyone but just a few. And that's why we can learn from it. It serves as one of the most potent pieces of evidence that the Bush administration was maneuvering

two very different stories. Their

private story about the need to remove a dictator to project US power, which was in stark contrast to the public story that they had to tell to sell the invasion, their influence campaign.

>> Any country on the face of the earth with an active intelligence program knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. because they knew that if

destruction. because they knew that if they were really going to sell this war, they would need to convince not only the American public, but also Congress and at least partially the international community. What we learn in the Downing

community. What we learn in the Downing Street memo is that they had settled on two main focus points for their story.

That Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and that they're also working with the masterminds of 9/11.

Not long after this meeting between MI6 and the CIA, Bush and his allies ramp up their influence campaign to sell their war. We've learned that Iraq has trained

war. We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb making, poisons, and deadly gases.

>> The sales pitches to the American people for an invasion of Iraq were made with absolute certainty. Certainty that Iraq

absolute certainty. Certainty that Iraq had WMDs.

>> He had agreed and the UN had agreed that they would he would not have a WMD program. We know he does have one.

program. We know he does have one.

>> Certainty that they wanted to use them against Americans and American allies.

simply stated, "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

>> Certainty that Iraq was harboring terrorists >> and al-Qaeda terrorists escaped from Afghanistan and are known to be in Iraq.

and certainty that Iraq was working on obtaining nuclear weapons.

>> And Iraq's state controlled media has reported numerous meetings between Saddam Hussein and his nuclear scientists, leaving little doubt about his continued appetite for these weapons.

>> And these speeches were working. By the

fall of 2002, Americans were in favor of an invasion of Iraq by just a narrow majority. But there was just one

majority. But there was just one problem. That all of these statements

problem. That all of these statements were lies.

Indeed, this was already known in the secret rooms of Downing Street that the US was fixing their facts and their intel to match their alreadymade decision. Iraq's supposed links to

decision. Iraq's supposed links to al-Qaeda were based on one interrogation of a guy whose testimony lacked quote specific details and who was intentionally lying about it to mislead

his interrogators. Bush and his allies

his interrogators. Bush and his allies knew this. It was clearly documented

knew this. It was clearly documented back in February of 2002. And yet

publicly, the scary story about al-Qaeda being in Iraq continued to be sold by Bush and his people.

>> The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade.

>> The case for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was equally thin, and senior officials knew it. Like in September 2002 when Donald Rumsfeld received this report from the Joint Chiefs assessing

what real evidence there actually was for WMD in Iraq. The report is shockingly honest and it says that the conclusion that Saddam has WMD quote

relied heavily on analytic assumptions and judgments rather than hard evidence.

That's word salad for it was speculation and conjecture. The report goes on to

and conjecture. The report goes on to say that they didn't have anything solid on nuclear weapons related facilities and concludes that they don't know of any facilities where Saddam may be producing or testing biological weapons.

And so we know now that they had almost no evidence for their story about why the US should invade Iraq. And yet even knowing this, they kept selling the same

story, convincing the American people.

>> There's no doubt in my mind he wants to have a nuclear weapon and he's got some capacity.

>> Wherever threats are forming against our country, we will respond.

>> But they couldn't go on like this forever. They knew that if they were

forever. They knew that if they were really going to sell this war, they were going to need to show real convincing evidence, not to the people, but to Congress.

And this is where we get another instance of fixing the intelligence to fit the policy. It came in September 2002 when President Bush asks Congress to give him the authority to invade

Iraq. In response, Senate leaders

Iraq. In response, Senate leaders requested an immediate national intelligence estimate, which is a report from the entire intelligence community meant to help Congress make informed

decisions. This could be really bad for

decisions. This could be really bad for Bush and his allies. So, he and the CIA get hard at work pulling together a report that fits their story, intelligence to back up all their public

statements and speeches. They come out with this highly redacted report that they deliver in October of 2002. The

report makes some very strong claims. They claim that Iraq has been building more WMD, that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they will have a nuclear weapon during this

decade. And to congressional leaders,

decade. And to congressional leaders, this appeared rock solid. Here was the entire intelligence community coming together, saying that Iraq had horrific weapons and that they wanted to get

more. Saddam Hussein has composed a

more. Saddam Hussein has composed a scarlet chapter of terror. Our only

responsible option is to confront this threat before Americans die. There is no such thing as a Democrat or Republican war.

>> So in that same month, based on this report and all of these public speeches, Congress gives the green light for war.

But this national intelligence estimate was deeply flawed. It was a perfect example of the fixed intelligence described in the Downing Street memo. It

was put together in less than a month, totally rushed. The report had been

totally rushed. The report had been plagued by group think and directed by political pressure with the Bush administration pushing analysts to deliver a report that matched their conclusions that they had already come

to months earlier. And they did this using very old intelligence. The CIA

hadn't had any human assets on the ground for years. So their report wasn't even based off of anything after 1998.

But it didn't matter. Bush and his allies had successfully sold the war to Congress and the American people. But

there was one last hurdle. It was the international community, which would mean they would have to face the UN process that they apparently had no patience for. Iraq has answered a decade

patience for. Iraq has answered a decade of UN demands with a decade of defiance.

>> So, it's November 2002, and in response to the rising tensions between Iraq and the US, the UN Security Council passes this resolution 1441. It was a measure

that was meant to give Iraq a final opportunity to comply with weapons inspections to show the world that they had fully disarmed and had no weapons of mass destruction. Bush and his allies

mass destruction. Bush and his allies saw this as an opportunity. If they

could somehow show that Iraq wasn't complying with this new inspection process, this resolution implied that they would be justified in invading the country. Their long-desired war would be

country. Their long-desired war would be on. But they had a problem, which is

on. But they had a problem, which is that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were complying with the weapons inspections.

Over the course of four months, UN weapons inspectors searched Iraq from top to bottom. They were led by Hans Blicks, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. They

conducted over 900 inspections at over 500 locations and they didn't find anything. No WMD, no biological weapons,

anything. No WMD, no biological weapons, no nuclear weapons programs. Iraq has on the whole cooperated rather well. Access

has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect, universities, military bases, presidential sites, and private residences. Hans Blicks did find

private residences. Hans Blicks did find two things that were important. First,

they did find some ballistic missiles that the UN says have an effective range that makes them illegal, so they would need to be destroyed by Iraq. And

second, there were some chemical weapons that the Iraqi regime said cannot be accounted for. But Blicks insists that

accounted for. But Blicks insists that this does not mean that they have these weapons. It just means that they need

weapons. It just means that they need more time to work out the accounting situation. But this error was exactly

situation. But this error was exactly what the Bush circle needed to justify their invasion. I call now on the

their invasion. I call now on the distinguished Secretary of State of the United States of America.

>> They sent their most respected cabinet member to the UN, Secretary of State Colon Powell. He came equipped with

Colon Powell. He came equipped with photos of what he says are mobile weapons facilities. Sodam Hussein and

weapons facilities. Sodam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction.

>> He plays tapes that he says prove that the Iraqis are hiding their weapons.

>> We evacuated everything to make sure it was not around when the inspectors showed up.

>> And then he says that this is solid evidence that shows that Iraq is violating the UN resolution that told them to disarm. This whole thing contradicts what the UN weapons inspectors had found in their hundreds

and hundreds of inspections. They

bulldoze the process and say they have justification to invade.

>> My colleagues, we have an obligation to see that our resolutions are complied with.

>> They've got the American public on board. They've got Congress on board.

board. They've got Congress on board.

And now the UK is in lock step.

>> This is the time for this house to show that we will stand up for what we know to be right. To show that we will confront the tyrannies and dictatorships and terrorists who put our way of life

at risk. The Bush administration

at risk. The Bush administration abandons the UN process. And that March, his people do what they set out to do 18 months earlier when they were looking for something else to bomb

to show who's really in charge on the world stage. My fellow citizens,

world stage. My fellow citizens, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger.

America faces an enemy who has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.

Bush's war took the life of an estimated half million Iraqis and thousands more who fought for their country. And over

the course of a decade occupying Iraq, no weapons were found, no nuclear facilities, no mobile weapons labs. In

fact, it seemed like Iraq had dismantled its nuclear program back in 1991 and the rest of its chemical and biological weapons just a few years later.

After the invasion, the US never allowed the UN inspectors back into the country to help with their search. The US would never find a way to link the Iraqi regime to al-Qaeda or to anthrax. Coen

Powell, the Secretary of State, who played a major role in selling this war to the international community, would later say that he regrets his part in starting the war.

>> I deeply regret that some of the information I presented, which was multissource, was wrong.

>> Hans Blicks, the chief weapons inspector for the UN, would comment later that year that it is sort of fascinating that you can have 100% certainty about weapons of mass destruction and zero

certainty about where they are.

We may never know what was in the heart and minds of these senior leaders, whether they truly believed their own lies, whether they felt justified in the choices they made. But what we can learn

from this story is how these leaders behaved when they thought no one was watching. When they thought they could

watching. When they thought they could tell a compelling story to the public while having a totally different set of motivations, and how with enough fear and enough deception, you can lead an

entire society into an unprovoked war.

changing the course of history in the process.

Up in the Zagros Mountains have long lived a people called the Kurds. There

are people with a centuries long history of fighting back against invaders who have crossed through their lands, resisting conquest in the name of defending their shared cultural

identity. Some living as nomads, a

identity. Some living as nomads, a people with no friends but these mountains.

Eventually, the Ottoman Empire did take over all of this territory, but even then, the Kurds maintained large amounts of autonomy and freedom in their land.

Then came World War I when the European powers defeated the Ottoman Empire and conquered all of this.

The winners got together and discussed how they would carve it up between them.

If you look back at old European maps, you'll see that all of this area would be labeled Kurdistan, an area where the Kurdish people lived and had some self-ruule.

So, while drawing these lines, the British wanted to mark all of this as Kurdish territory, paving a way for an independent country for the Kurds. But

the new leader of Turkey opposed this plan. He didn't want to give all this

plan. He didn't want to give all this land and resources to the Kurds. So, he

pushed the European forces out of Turkey.

They gave up on this plan to give the Kurds their own land. And in the end, instead of drawing borders around the Kurds,

the Europeans drew borders through them.

What could have been Kurdistan was now five different territories. The Kurds

split between them. But at first, these were just lines on a map, and the Kurds continued to move through this region.

Eventually the Europeans left and these became independent countries with leaders who wanted to consolidate and centralize power. So these lines

centralize power. So these lines hardened restricting the Kurds movement and their livelihood in this region. But

even still across this region the Kurds didn't give up on their idea of someday gaining independence, self-ruule, or maybe even a country of their own.

Throughout the 1900s, the Kurds in each of these new countries took different approaches to fight for an independent Kurdish state. Some Kurds would use

Kurdish state. Some Kurds would use politics, others would use violence. The

early uprisings were crushed by the leaders of these new countries who saw the Kurds as a threat to their efforts to unify their country around a common language and culture.

Like in Iran, where the Kurds had some political rights, but they fought for more. They wanted autonomy and

more. They wanted autonomy and independence. The government of Iran

independence. The government of Iran wouldn't have any of this. They would

crack down with violence on the Kurds, often supported by Western powers. By

the 1970s, Iran was going through a revolution, and the Kurds tried again to rise up. But this new regime had no

rise up. But this new regime had no tolerance for a group that would challenge the leadership of the ruling religious leader. So once again, they

religious leader. So once again, they were put down.

Over in Iraq, Kurdish fighters fought hard against the government throughout the 20th century until the 1970s when this new regime came in and made a deal with the Kurds, saying that they would

be recognized as an ethnic group and would be guaranteed political representation. It seemed like a huge

representation. It seemed like a huge deal for the Kurds, but it turned out to be a false promise. The Iraqi regime, now led by Saddam Hussein, would continue to repress the Kurds,

eventually dropping deadly chemical weapons on Kurdish towns in Iraq, systematically killing thousands of Kurdish civilians in a genocide supported by Americanmade supplies that

were sold to Saddam.

Over in Syria, the Kurds were treated decently under the French controlled government.

They were citizens and had some rights.

But after the French left in the ' 40s, the regimes that came after oppressed the Kurds and by the 1970s, the Syrian government was arresting and deporting

them, taking their land and giving it to Arabs. In total, the Syrian government

Arabs. In total, the Syrian government would remove 140,000 Kurds from the country. Decades later, Syria and the

country. Decades later, Syria and the United States would both find the Kurds in Syria useful for their political goals.

But first, let's talk about Turkey.

There's more Kurdish people here than in any other country. The same government that had fought against a Kurdish state early on continued to oppress the Kurds, denying them citizenship, outlawing

their language, and keeping them out of politics. all with the goal of wiping

politics. all with the goal of wiping out their culture from Turkey. As a part of this Turkification campaign, which tried to unify Turkey under one culture,

targeting the Kurds and other ethnic minorities, some Kurds fought back against this in the early years, but were quickly crushed by the Turkish state, leading to the creation of an armed

insurgent group with communist ideology.

They're called the Kurdish Workers Party or PKK and it would become one of the biggest Turkish resistance movements.

The PKK would use violence like suicide bombings and improvised explosives as well as youth militia fighters against the Turkish government. Tactics that

they say are the only way to fight back against such oppression. And as a result, Turkey and most Western powers consider the PKK a terrorist group.

So that's how the Kurds in these four countries became locked in a conflict with their governments. They all have different struggles, but they're all unified by the dream of some version of

Kurdish independence.

But it doesn't take long for these regimes to see that they could use the Kurds as a tool, as a weapon.

One of the earliest examples of this happens at the end of World War II when the Soviet Union sees an opportunity to gain land and access to oil by supplying and arming the Kurds in Iran, allowing

them to rise up against the government and declare their own country supported by the Soviet Union. But it didn't work.

The US pressures the Soviets to leave.

And now without support, the government of Iran, which is backed by the US and UK, go on to crush this movement of Kurds in their country. The Kurds are back to being repressed by the

government.

In the 1980s, Syria uses the Kurds as a weapon against its rival, Turkey, when it allows the PKK to start operating within Syria, giving them money and

weapons so that they can hurt Turkey.

Syria is doing this in spite of having spent years removing hundreds of thousands of Kurds from its own country.

This escalates the conflict between these two and Turkey threatens to invade Syria.

So Syria backs down and kicks the PKK out to avoid being invaded, showing once again how the Kurds willingness to fight can easily become a pawn in the

geopolitics of the region. discarded

once they aren't useful anymore. In the

1980s, Iran and Iraq both use the Kurds at the same time as a weapon to hurt each other. Even as both countries are

each other. Even as both countries are cracking down on Kurds in their own country, Saddam Hussein funds and arms the Kurds in Iran, while Iran funds the

Kurds in northern Iraq. Both sides

hoping to spark a Kurdish uprising that will distract and weaken their enemy. In

Iraq, Saddam Hussein retaliates against the Kurds in his country with that genocidal chemical attack we talked about earlier that killed at least 50,000 Kurdish people and probably much more.

Once again, the Kurdish dream of independence was used by outsiders as a weapon and the Kurdish people paid heavily for it.

The US would get involved when in the '90s they would come to this region fighting against Saddam Hussein for the first time. The US rallies the Kurds

first time. The US rallies the Kurds calling for them to overthrow Saddam.

George Bush Senior literally calls them to action with television and radio broadcasts throughout the country.

>> That the Iraqi people should put him aside and that would facilitate uh uh the resolution of all these problems that exist and certainly would

facilitate the acceptance of Iraq back into the family of peaceloving nations.

>> And it seems to work. It sparks an uprising that looks successful at first.

The US had instigated this uprising and they have forces in the region that they could send to support the Kurds, but they do nothing. This allows Saddam to

reather his forces and crush this coup and to increase this oppression, ensuring that nothing like this ever happens again.

Now, the US and UK do eventually step in to create this nofly zone meant to protect the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south. This gives the Kurds some autonomy over their region

and protects them from further air strikes by the Iraqi army.

Soon, the US is back in Iraq. It's 2003

and the Bush administration decides to invade and remove Saddam from power. The

Kurds in Iraq hope that the US presence in this region will mean finally they will get their own state. They will be independent. They join the US in

independent. They join the US in fighting against Saddam and his loyalists, battling insurgents and later against ISIS.

>> The Kurds would even go on to hold a vote showing that 92% of the population was in favor of independence. But the US won't support this. worried that it

might destabilize this new Iraqi state that the US just propped up. Even when

the Kurds fight on the side of the US and their interests, US support for their cause still remains very limited.

They still look the other way as Turkey bombs their towns in Iraq hunting for the PKK.

This same pattern has continued in recent years in the country of Syria, a country that descended into civil war around 2011. This chaos looked like an

around 2011. This chaos looked like an opportunity for the Kurds in Syria, a chance to establish real control over what they see as a part of Kurdistan.

The PKK in Turkey helps create a new Kurdish militia called the People's Protection Unit or YPG.

They seize large swaths of land in the north and they declare self-governance.

Around this same time, the terrorist group ISIS is taking huge swaths of territory in the north and east of the country, creating their so-called caliphate.

And here comes the US once again asking the Kurds for help, hoping that they will fight against ISIS on the ground for them. But because this group is

for them. But because this group is allied with the PKK, which they consider a terrorist group, the US asks this militia to rebrand themselves to the

Syrian Democratic Forces, which obscures their connection to the PKK. The US then trains, funds, and arms them to fight ISIS. The Kurds are once again the US's

ISIS. The Kurds are once again the US's weapon. This plan works, and with help

weapon. This plan works, and with help from US air strikes, this Kurdish militia kicks ISIS out of more and more land. But Turkey hates this. All they

land. But Turkey hates this. All they

see is a potential Kurdish state right on their southern border, a safe haven for the PKK that will allow more attacks against the Turkish military. But Turkey

can't attack this branch of the Kurds while they're being supported by the United States. Lucky for them, there's a

United States. Lucky for them, there's a new president in the White House, and he's promised to pull the US out of the war in Syria. And in 2019, to the dismay of the Kurds, he makes good on this

promise. With the US out of the way,

promise. With the US out of the way, Turkey invades, launching air strikes and artillery against the Kurds in this border region, saying that their plan is to create a 32 km deep safe zone right

here along the border and that no Kurdish forces are allowed to be here.

The plan was to then resettle Syrian refugees currently living in Turkey.

It's a brutal campaign that looks a lot like what Syria was doing to the Kurds in the 70s.

The US completely abandons the Kurds even after using them to fight their enemy ISIS. Turkey, a NATO and US ally,

enemy ISIS. Turkey, a NATO and US ally, continues to bomb them, using weapons from the United States. They spend the next four years sending drone strikes

and air strikes into Syria and Iraq, anywhere they think the PKK has a presence. This map shows all of their

presence. This map shows all of their attacks during this time.

You can see that it's not just against the Kurds in Turkey, but across this whole region.

Today, the Kurdish groups in this region vary more widely than ever, each with different values and visions for the future, forged from each of their unique

struggles and traumas. Kurdish groups

still fight the government in Iran with the goal of creating their own state.

The Kurds in Iraq did gain some autonomy from the US in the new Iraqi constitution, but it doesn't seem like this autonomy will last. As recently,

the Iraqi army is fighting with the Kurds to maintain control over the oil resources in this area to keep the Kurds economically dependent on the central government so that they never break

away. Once again, the US is not

away. Once again, the US is not supporting the Kurds in this fight.

Turkey continues its offensive against the PKK and other Kurdish groups in the region, and they continue to crack down on the Kurds politically, arresting Kurdish politicians and activists,

censoring journalists to intimidate the Kurdish people from participating in the election. The Kurds in Syria face a new

election. The Kurds in Syria face a new and uncertain future. They do have some autonomy up here in the north, but are surrounded by enemies, no longer

counting on any support from the US.

The story of the Kurds is the story of a people who are willing to fight like few others, all in the name of their culture and identity. That willingness to fight

and identity. That willingness to fight has presented a threat to regional governments, bent on control of their people and the resources within their borders. That willingness to fight has

borders. That willingness to fight has also been hijacked by outside powers, turning the Kurds into a pawn to fulfill geopolitical objectives. each time

geopolitical objectives. each time showing how willing these powers are to use the Kurds and then abandon their cause.

>> Do the Palestinians have a right to a separate state?

>> No, I don't think they do.

In 2007, the head of military intelligence for the Israeli army had a meeting with the US ambassador in Tel Aviv. We're looking at the classified

Aviv. We're looking at the classified cable that summarizes what was talked about in this meeting.

The topic of discussion was Iran, Syria, the Gaza Strip, and Hamas.

Hamas had just won the Palestinian elections which kicked off a fight with the other Palestinian group which ended in Hamas taking over Gaza completely.

They controlled it. And if you're an Israeli citizen or the US government, this is a terrible set of events. A

Hamas is a violent extremist group known to commit heinous violence against civilians in Israel and they were now in power. They controlled the Gaza Strip an

power. They controlled the Gaza Strip an hour away from Tel Aviv. But look at this leaked document. In this leaked cable, you see that the Israeli official says that Israel would be happy if Hamas took over Gaza because it would mean

that Israel could now treat Gaza like a hostile country.

>> 3 days post the ceasefire and there's unrelenting bombing in Gaza. This

document is a view into a strategy that right-wing factions within the Israeli government have used for decades in an effort to win one of the most divisive conflicts in the world today in which

two groups are fighting over one piece of holy land. And one side is winning by using a very specific tactic. One that

the world says is illegal and immoral.

and one that worked for a short time, but that recently has been shown to be a recipe for even worse violence and conflict and suffering.

In this video, I want to lay out what this strategy looks like and show you how it failed. I know this is a topic that is full of deep emotions that has real stakes in people's lives. Please

know that I am earnest in my effort to tell this story with clarity and with accuracy. And also, please note that

accuracy. And also, please note that this is not a full account of the conflict between Israel and its neighbors, but I do hope that it sheds light on a view of the conflict that sometimes gets lost in all of the

yelling.

It's a gadget.

For 2,000 years, Jewish people around the world have been persecuted and segregated and ostracized from society.

That is a fact. By the time the 1800s came around, it became clear that wherever the Jews went, persecution would follow.

This is when a movement emerged calling for Jews to come together and to create a country for themselves where they could govern themselves and be free from all of this racist hatred. The creation

of a Jewish country would have at the top of its priority list the security of the Jewish people. But the big question was where? Several places floated around

was where? Several places floated around in proposals. Argentina, even modern-day

in proposals. Argentina, even modern-day Kenya, which back then was Uganda.

But most people in this movement wanted the Jews to return to their historic homeland, a place called Palestine, where Jews built their temple and their

culture 3,000 years ago, but then were exiled. And now there was this call to

exiled. And now there was this call to return so that Jews could feel safe after 18 centuries of Jewish suffering.

So as the 1900s came around, tens of thousands of Jews, mostly from Europe, flocked to Palestine, which eventually came under control of the British. The British were getting

the British. The British were getting ready to leave this region and were struggling to contain the growing conflict between native Arabs and all these Jewish immigrants. Then in the

1940s came a horrific genocide against the Jewish people in Europe, led out by Hitler and his Nazi regime. This created

a wave of international support for this idea of giving the Jewish people a homeland where they could be safe.

Before they left, the British asked the UN to determine what would replace them in Palestine. And the UN decided that

in Palestine. And the UN decided that Palestine would become two new countries. One for the Jews and one for

countries. One for the Jews and one for the Palestinian Arabs that had already been living in this region.

>> The Jewish state colored light, the Arab state dark. Jaffa to go to the Arabs,

state dark. Jaffa to go to the Arabs, Jerusalem internationalized. But as

Jerusalem internationalized. But as happens when outsiders draw lines on old land, there was a problem here. Within

these borders that were meant for the new Jewish country, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs were living who would soon have to leave their homes to move to their side of the

line.

Okay, wait. I'm going to pause there because, as I said, this is not a full history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. We

actually just made a video on our new channel, Search Party, which focuses on what happens next, the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors. You can

go watch that. Links in the description.

It'll give you some useful context. For

now, just know that this led to a horrific conflict. Jewish militias

horrific conflict. Jewish militias forced over 700,000 Arabs out of their homes, turning them into refugees. The

proposed borders shifted around, turned into ceasefire lines, and after all was said and done, the Jewish people did indeed get their own country, the state of Israel. And the two important points

of Israel. And the two important points here are that number one, the very foundation of the Israeli country is for security of the Jewish people after nearly 2,000 years of persecution. And

number two, the location they chose to set it up was becoming, as a result of this conflict, not much safer than Europe.

That's a tension that follows this whole story.

Okay, so now let's fast forward to 1967.

Israel has its country and they fight a short war with their Arab neighbors and they win that war and they take over all of this land.

It's a huge victory for them. I'm going

to take away the Cyan Peninsula from here because they did give that back to Egypt as part of a peace deal a few years later. Israel now controls

years later. Israel now controls important pieces of land that enlarged their Jewish country.

Many saw this victory as a sign from God that they were actually entitled to be here. But once again, Palestinians,

here. But once again, Palestinians, nearly a million of whom had been kicked out of their homes, were living here in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which Israel now controlled. But they weren't really sure what to do with it. And it's

this territory that would become the stage for the strategy that is the topic of this video, where over time this land would be sliced up with roads and checkpoints, walls, and other military

infrastructure that would control the movement and lives of the Palestinians.

Soon, even Israeli citizens would start to move out here in large numbers, building full-on towns and further dividing up this territory. Moving

citizens into occupied territory like this is something that the world has deemed illegal and immoral.

So this occupation starts in 1967 and it goes on for decades till eventually the Palestinians living here can't handle it anymore and they start fighting back.

This is known as the first uprising or inifat.

It started with boycott, but escalated into mass protests where Palestinians of all ages would throw stones and sometimes Molotov cocktails at much better equipped Israeli soldiers. It was

Palestinian rage exploding against Israeli occupation and it went on for years. The Israeli government would

years. The Israeli government would respond by cracking down, killing many Palestinians.

Another important thing that happens around the same time down in the occupied Gaza Strip is that a new movement forms promising to fight back against this occupation, calling for the destruction of Israel. The group is

called Hamas.

The first inifat showed that this wasn't going to work. Chopping up Palestinian land, oppressing them, keeping them in this occupation was only going to produce more violence. wasn't going to

fulfill Israel's promise to provide security and safety for the Jewish people. They had to switch course.

people. They had to switch course.

>> The security of the Israeli people will be reconciled with the hopes of the Palestinian people and there will be more security and more hope for all. So

in the 1990s they start getting serious about peace talks with the Palestinians and they come to this agreement called the Oslo Accords which for the first time establishes a Palestinian government authority and

giving it power to govern pockets of land in the West Bank. It also gave the Palestinians some authority over almost all of the Gaza Strip, though there were still settlements in all of these

places.

This was a big deal for this conflict.

like both sides were talking to each other and coming to agreements that was giving like authority to the Palestinians. But another theme of the

Palestinians. But another theme of the story is that hardliners can use violence to derail peace. And that's

exactly what happened here.

Right-wing Israelis start holding rallies calling their prime minister a traitor and a Nazi for giving land to the Palestinians. Some of these rallies

the Palestinians. Some of these rallies are led by a now familiar character, Benjamin Netanyahu. The people of Israel

Benjamin Netanyahu. The people of Israel want a real peace. And real peace means peace with security, peace they can trust, with a partner they can trust.

And they don't feel they have it here.

We want a real peace, not a fake one.

>> But the peace talks continue >> with all our neighbors, a comprehensive peace.

>> And shortly after signing the second part of this deal to give Palestinians some land, the prime minister Yeetszak Rabbin is assassinated by a far-right Israeli.

Hamas conducts bus bombings and the next year Benjamin Netanyahu is elected as the prime minister of Israel.

Netanyahu is a key figure in this story because his worldview embodies a way of thinking that has taken root in Israel in recent years. The idea that the only

way to give true security to the Jewish people is by doing whatever is necessary to stop the Palestinians from having a state anywhere in these borders.

Look, I'm 28 years old. I've had to defend my country in two wars and in many battles. Nobody wants peace more

many battles. Nobody wants peace more than Israel. But the stumbling block to

than Israel. But the stumbling block to the road for peace is this demand for a PLO state, which will mean more war, which will mean more violence in the Middle East. And I think I sincerely

Middle East. And I think I sincerely believe if this demand is abandoned, we can have real and genuine peace.

>> So that was Netanyahu when he was a 28-year-old. But when he becomes the

28-year-old. But when he becomes the prime minister a couple decades later, he spends his terms sabotaging the peace accords that his predecessor had worked so hard to create, claiming that the

occupation of all this land and its people wasn't actually conquest, but rather the key for security of the Jewish people. They had to do this.

Jewish people. They had to do this.

Security was the one and only justification for all of this. So under

his watch, settlers continue to move into the West Bank.

We found this leaked video of Benjamin Netanyahu talking to some settlers in the West Bank.

>> The cameraman does turn off the camera for a moment, but then turns it back on moments later.

He is admitting to sabotaging the peace accords that the Israeli government had signed with the Palestinians that because he disagreed with them, he

wanted to sabotage them because he was so against a Palestinian state or any form of Palestinian autonomy in this land. And then he goes on to explain

land. And then he goes on to explain what his real thinking is on the situation.

Netanyahu is a fantastic politician and statesman and he's able to sort of cover up a lot of these policies in the name of security. But here we see what he

of security. But here we see what he really thinks as he's talking to these settlers thinking he's not being recorded. So unsurprisingly, the

recorded. So unsurprisingly, the appetite for peace breaks down on both sides. Palestinians come to the

sides. Palestinians come to the conclusion that the Israelis aren't really serious about giving them any kind of autonomy in the West Bank or Gaza. That their situation will never

Gaza. That their situation will never change. And once again, they rise up in

change. And once again, they rise up in a second inifat. This one much more violent, much more coordinated.

Hamas becomes a major player in the violence with suicide bombings and attacks. Israel responds with great

attacks. Israel responds with great force and during the fighting, a thousand Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians are killed. At this point, the Netanyahu

are killed. At this point, the Netanyahu way of seeing the world is starting to look a lot better. Peace talks didn't work. All they did was produce more

work. All they did was produce more violence. And so maybe the only way to

violence. And so maybe the only way to ensure security is to go back to full-blown occupation of controlling every move of the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. So at this

point, the occupation gets more and more suffocating. More walls, more barriers,

suffocating. More walls, more barriers, more checkpoints, more settlements.

Then in 2005, Israel withdraws from the Gaza Strip, letting the Palestinian Authority have total control there. They

turn their attention entirely to their historic homeland of Judea and Samaria, which is the West Bank. The next year, an election is held in the Palestinian authorities and the winner surprised the

world and would create a new chapter for this conflict. The winner of these

this conflict. The winner of these elections was Hamas.

>> This is a very, very bad result for the Palestinians and for Israel.

The incumbent Palestinian party that had lost the election tried to forcibly hold on to power and soon the two Palestinian parties were fighting with each other and it results in this split between the

two Palestinian governments. It turns

into violence and when the dust settles there's suddenly a bitter divide between these two Palestinian groups. Hamas

completely taking over the Gaza Strip.

And this gets us back to our leaked document that we started this video with where an Israeli official is saying that they would actually be happy if Hamas took over the Gaza Strip because now

they can treat Gaza like a hostile country.

Now that they're not occupying it, they're not responsible for the 2 million civilians who are living there.

They can impose a blockade to control anything coming in and out of the Gaza Strip. People, food, medicine, money,

Strip. People, food, medicine, money, building supplies. But there was another

building supplies. But there was another reason why Israel was happy that Hamas now controlled the Gaza Strip. The

Palestinian government was now deeply divided. Hamas ruling Gaza and the West

divided. Hamas ruling Gaza and the West Bank being run by a more moderate secular Palestinian faction. And

crucially, neither considered the other to be legitimate, which weakened their ability to negotiate for any kind of state, or any kind of country, especially when Hamas still refused to

recognize Israel's right to even exist.

This division played right into the hands of the Israeli right.

And this gets us back to Benjamin Netanyahu, that enemy of the earlier peace talks.

He gets elected once again in 2009, declaring himself Mr. security and promising to provide safety to Israeli citizens who are still shaken from the second Inifat and are now worried that

Hamas now controls the entirety of the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu's playbook was

Gaza Strip. Netanyahu's playbook was already made clear. He had said it point blank to what he had been doing for years, sabotaging peace talks that would give Palestinians any kind of authority over this land and continuing to build

settlements while continuing, in his words in that leaked tape, to hit the Palestinians hard, to make it unbearable for them. a complete assault on the

for them. a complete assault on the Palestinian government, dividing and slowly conquering the Palestinian people, making life hard and desperate for them, controlling their lives,

watching their every move. And this is where we get to this paradoxical alignment, almost alliance, between Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas, the enemy

of Israel.

As long as Hamas held control over the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian cause would remain weak and divided, Netanyahu would feel justified in imposing this crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip,

which in turn gave Hamas legitimacy among the people of the Gaza Strip, showing that their armed struggle against Israeli oppression was justified, provoking them to launch rockets into Israel to show that they were actually doing something, unlike

the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which in turn bolstered Netanyahu's narrative that The Palestinians actually don't want peace.

They want violence in the destruction of Israel. And the only way for security is

Israel. And the only way for security is more occupation, more oppression.

So instead of try to take Hamas out, Netanyahu overtly supported them by approving huge transfers of untraceable cash, literally delivered in suitcases,

into the Gaza Strip. cash that would inevitably end up in the hands of Hamas to be used against Israel. He

legitimized Hamas by negotiating with them, releasing a thousand Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one Israeli.

>> The Israeli soldier held captive by Palestinian militants for 5 years is expected to be freed within days.

>> The more Netanyahu could keep Hamas in power in Gaza, but keep them contained, the more he could ensure that Palestinians remain divided. he could

keep peace talks from ever happening, which in turn gave him time to continue to pursue his expansionalist project in the West Bank. And indeed, since 2009, when Netanyahu became the prime

minister, the number of settlements in the West Bank has only gone up.

And if you look at this map, you can see how these settlements just weave through and carve up this land, making it impossible to even fathom what a

Palestinian state could look like, which is precisely the point of the strategy.

I actually reported out here visiting the settlements back when I was at Vox.

considered a series talking to the settlers trying to understand why they live out there, what it's like to live in these settlements that are strangely peaceful and benol and just mundane.

People living their lives because they're protected by the army. If you

want a deeper dive on settlements, you can go watch that series. But if you're Netanyahu over the last 16 years, you think your plan is working. Like you see all these settlements going up, the international community can't do anything about it. They keep supporting

you. Every once in a while, there's some

you. Every once in a while, there's some flare up in the West Bank where Palestinians get into a fight with Israeli soldiers, but it gets contained.

Every few years, Hamas fires some rockets, which then gives Israel the excuse to go, as they put it, cut the grass by conducting a short, swift, violent military campaign to keep Hamas

at bay. And every day that goes by, the

at bay. And every day that goes by, the notion of a Palestinian state becomes less and less feasible.

This is one reason why a far-right Israeli lawmaker called Hamas an asset.

So divide and conquer has been the name of the game in Israel for a long time, but especially in the last 16 years under Netanyahu. And again, to the

under Netanyahu. And again, to the people in charge, they think it's working. Maybe this violent status quo,

working. Maybe this violent status quo, this equilibrium can hold and the far right can get exactly what they want, security for the Jewish people and expansion into all of this land. and

maybe the occupation will break the Palestinian spirit and they would give up on their dream of having a state. But

that's not what happened. On October

7th, 2023, we saw how wrongheaded this theory of security was.

>> In an unprecedented surprise attack, the militant Hamas rulers of Gaza sent dozens of fighters into Israel by land, sea, and air. This deadly attack launched by Hamas showed us that while

Netanyahu's strategy of divide and conquer might be good for taking over more land. What it's not good for is

more land. What it's not good for is making good on the original promise of Israel, which is ensuring the security of the Jewish people. In fact, his

strategy has produced exactly the opposite.

Now, the responsibility for what happened on October 7th lies with the people who committed those acts of terror, Hamas fighters and their leaders. There is no excuse or

leaders. There is no excuse or justification for their actions. But the

point I'm trying to make with this video is that there's also others that need to stand accountable here. Those who used Hamas as a pawn to continue this divide and conquer policy, who are now engaged

in a campaign of mass bloodshed on civilians. They deserve to stand

civilians. They deserve to stand accountable as well to the Israeli people and to the countries that support Israel. I believe in the need for a

Israel. I believe in the need for a Jewish state. I do. I think that's a

Jewish state. I do. I think that's a very reasonable proposal that Jewish people should feel safe somewhere in this world. And yet what we're looking

this world. And yet what we're looking at isn't it. The Israeli project, the way that it's been wielded in its current form produces the exact opposite

of security for the Jewish people.

Look at this map.

This map shows the thousands of attacks that have occurred right here on this border just over the past year in this fight between Israel and one of their

biggest regional enemies, Hezbollah.

>> Hezbollah is one of the biggest armed groups in the world that isn't a nation's military.

They have tens of thousands of trained soldiers and hundreds of thousands of missiles and rockets capable of reaching targets all across Israel.

This threat led Israel to conduct a massive set of attacks against Hezbollah.

>> This large explosion was seen near Beirut's international area >> in which they killed almost all of the group's top leaders, weakening Hezbollah immensely, followed by a full-on

invasion by Israeli troops to denigrate this group even further. This has been a massive escalation that is now spilling over into this entire region. And to

understand how we got here, you really have to understand where Hezbollah came from and what this group's fierce 40-year struggle tells us about how the modern Middle East came together and how

it's now coming apart.

The story of Hezbollah really starts when the vast Ottoman Empire broke apart in the early 1900s. Europeans came in and sliced all of this up. France taking

all of this territory. But then they drew a line here to carve out this little mountainous region, one that was populated mostly by Marinite Christians.

But the border didn't include just Christians. The French made sure to

Christians. The French made sure to include this area to the east and this area to the south. Areas that contained large populations of Shia Muslims who were now forced into this new country

where they were made a minority to the Christians along with a few other religious groups. We're going to focus a

religious groups. We're going to focus a lot down here on this Shia heartland that would eventually become one of the most important regions in the whole Middle East.

In 1943, Lebanon gains its independence from France. It creates a constitution

from France. It creates a constitution meant to balance the power between all of these religious groups. But that

balance wouldn't last, mostly thanks to what started happening down here, where another set of borders were being carved into the Middle East. The British had controlled this, but in 1948 they left

and the UN helped draw these new lines, creating a new Israel and Palestinian state. Decades of war forced out

state. Decades of war forced out millions of Palestinians, many of whom ended up here in Lebanon. These

Palestinians are mostly Sunni Muslim, so this upsets the carefully laid power balance in Lebanon and further marginalizes the Shia Muslims who were fighting for their place in the country.

Then in 1971, an armed militia made up of Palestinians called the Palestinian Liberation Organization moves to Lebanon and they turn this whole region, which again was made up of mostly Shia, into

their own little mini state. You start

to see that Lebanon is descending into division between the different militias and powers controlling parts of the country. And in the mid70s, it all

country. And in the mid70s, it all breaks down into a full-fledged civil war between a dizzying number of religious factions.

It's a war that will pull in much of the Middle East. And it's a war whose most

Middle East. And it's a war whose most important region is down here in this border zone between Israel and Lebanon, the place that will soon give rise to Hezbollah. Now, let's talk about Syria.

Hezbollah. Now, let's talk about Syria.

They're here right next door and they're watching this civil war. And they decide to invade to prop up the Marionite Christian ruling class who have become Syria's allies. They want to do this to

Syria's allies. They want to do this to prevent the civil war from spilling over into their territory. At this point, Syria also considers annexing the entire country of Lebanon, making it a part of

Syria. But eventually, the relationship

Syria. But eventually, the relationship between Syria and Marinite Christians breaks down and Syria continues to occupy this part of the country.

Meanwhile, to the south, Israel fears that Syria is growing too powerful. It

also wants to wipe out the PLO, who is attacking them across the border from Lebanon. So in 1978, Israel enters the

Lebanon. So in 1978, Israel enters the fry, invading from the south and driving deep into the country. Israel succeeds

in temporarily suppressing the PLO, but in the process, it displaces hundreds of thousands of locals, most of them Shia Muslims.

It eventually withdraws after a UN resolution. But then in 1982, after more

resolution. But then in 1982, after more PLO attacks, Israel invades again. this

time pushing all the way to Beirut, fighting both the PLO and Syria.

And this is where the conflict takes on a new dimension.

It's 1979 and over in Iran, the people have risen up against the USbacked dictator in this Islamic revolution led by a Shia Muslim

cleric who wants to spread this revolution throughout the region. He's

looking for allies and in 1982 they find their perfect match here in southern Lebanon. It's a militia that rose to

Lebanon. It's a militia that rose to defend against outsiders trampling their heartland. It's called Hezbollah, which

heartland. It's called Hezbollah, which means party of God. Iran picked this group in particular because it shares its goals of Islamic revolution and a

deep distrust and disdain for Israel.

Iran starts providing Hezbollah with money weapons soldiers training and leadership. And in return, Hezbollah

leadership. And in return, Hezbollah proclaims loyalty to the Iranian revolution and its supreme leader. What

started as Lebanon's civil war is now a regional war that is heating up. So the

United States enters leading an international peacekeeping mission to try to calm these tensions. But of

course Hezbollah and Iran hate this.

They now have two prime targets in their backyard. Israel and these Western

backyard. Israel and these Western powers led by the US. So in 1983, they launch a series of terrorist attacks. a

truck bomb detonated in front of a US and French barracks in Beirut that kills over 300 people.

Most of the world blames not only Hezbollah, but also its backer, Iran.

The fighting continues until 1989 when the many groups fighting this civil war come to a peace agreement, one that bans all militias and requires them to give their weapons back to the government.

But there's a big catch here. Israel

still occupies what they call this security buffer zone in southern Lebanon. So, the peace agreement makes

Lebanon. So, the peace agreement makes an exception specifically for efforts that resist the Israeli occupation. Aka,

they allow Hezbollah to continue to exist, turning them into something more than just one of these militias fighting for their group. It gives them a kind of official status to continue acting as a

defender of southern Lebanon, the country's bull work against Israel. They

also develop into more of a political party that gains seats in Lebanon's legislature, kind of serving as a parallel government, providing social

services in the areas that it controls.

So, let's look at Hezbollah in this moment because they find themselves in the middle of shifting power games in the Middle East, balancing their mandate to defend their Shia heartland, which

was their founding motivation, but also trying to gain further influence in the region, while also appeasing the demands of their major supporter, Iran. In 2005,

Lebanon's prime minister is assassinated, and most Lebanese blame Hezbollah along with its other foreign supporter, Syria. Lebanese people rise

supporter, Syria. Lebanese people rise up in mass protest, and Syria eventually withdraws its forces that have occupied Lebanon for 28 years. Hezbollah is

disgraced. Its legitimacy is supposed to come from resisting foreign meddling, and it's becoming clear that they have become a pawn in the geopolitical game

of regional powers, Syria and Iran.

But the group is able to turn Syria's withdrawal into their advantage. The

Syrian occupation had kept Lebanon somewhat stable. So as soon as they

somewhat stable. So as soon as they left, it creates this power vacuum and allows Hezbollah to take more territory, ramping up attacks across the border against Israel and leading to another

brief war with the IDF. Hezbollah

continues to be a useful proxy for Iran, and Iran continues to fund them and arm them.

And by 2011, Iran and Syria pull Hezbollah into another unpopular conflict, Syria's civil war. But this

hurts Hezbollah's reputation. Because

now they're fighting on behalf of Syria's brutal Iranbacked regime. These

once liberators have turned into foot soldiers of oppression, doing the bidding of outsiders. But its last source of legitimacy continues to be its resistance to Israel. Something that

Lebanon's own government is too weak to do. This remains their source of

do. This remains their source of legitimacy today.

So on October 7th, 2023, when Hamas and Israel descended into this most recent war, Hezbollah jumped in, launching more attacks against Lebanon's southern border. This is meant to support Hamas

border. This is meant to support Hamas in the Gaza Strip and to threaten Israel with a war on two fronts.

At first, it seemed to be working. Tens

of thousands of Israelis have had to evacuate the towns and villages in northern Israel. So, Israel started

northern Israel. So, Israel started firing back across the border, forcing 90,000 people in southern Lebanon from their homes. This, in addition to

their homes. This, in addition to Israeli strikes on Iranian proxies and military officials, led Iran to fire its first ever direct strike on Israel,

trying to deter it from going any further. But it didn't work. In

further. But it didn't work. In

September of 2024, Israel escalated, surprising Hezbollah with a series of attacks that killed a large part of the group's top leadership, including their decadesl long leader. A few days later,

Israel sent troops across this border with the goal of further weakening Hezbollah, trying to make the situation safe for Israelis to return home to the north of the country. And now, with

Hezbollah in shambles, its sponsor, Iran, felt compelled to act.

Oh Jesus.

>> We're seeing what we are all seeing with our own eyes is a major attack from Iran.

>> It's a major attack, Dana, and it's an escalation. It's an escalation.

escalation. It's an escalation.

>> So even if Hezbollah eventually begins to rebuild itself, it's unclear what role they will play in Iran's proxy network. But what is clear is that the

network. But what is clear is that the clash between these two Middle East powers remains the central force animating this region towards more and more violence. And these recent events

more violence. And these recent events show us clearer than ever that Hezbollah was just one foot soldier in this growing conflict between these two powers. Checking in one last time to

powers. Checking in one last time to remind you that this video is made possible by Ground News, the sponsor of this compilation. Ground News is the

this compilation. Ground News is the service that I use to look deeper into the headlines that I'm consuming. Very,

very deeply aligned with their mission to help reveal the narratives behind all of the many headlines that are covering the world's news. If you want to get 40% off their Vantage plan, which is the one I use, you can go to ground.new/jny

Harris to get in on that discount and support this very useful service. Okay,

on to the next video.

Along the banks of the most important waterway on Earth sits the country of Yemen. A place that was two countries

Yemen. A place that was two countries for decades until the year 1990 when it was unified into one. A fragile

patchwork of groups all with different tribal backgrounds, religious beliefs, and political aspirations. The story I want to tell starts in the '90s when one group forms up in the northern mountains

of Yemen. It started by a group of

of Yemen. It started by a group of religious Yemenes who called themselves the believing youth who were members of a Shiite Muslim sect called the Zedi.

Zedi Muslims used to be the majority when the country was split in two. But

in the new unified Yemen, they became a minority and felt neglected and discriminated against. At first, the

discriminated against. At first, the group focuses on rebuilding the Zedi religious identity, hosting summer camps for young men and offering religious education. But in the late 1990s, the

education. But in the late 1990s, the group starts to change in important ways.

A member of Yemen's parliament resigns in protest and joins the believing youth. He felt that the government of

youth. He felt that the government of Yemen was corrupt and far too influenced by Yemen's neighbor to the north, Saudi Arabia.

Al- Houthi blamed outside influence for many of the country's problems. So as he leaves the government, Alhouthi uses his wealth and family connections in the Zedi community to become the leader of

the believing youth. He wants an Islamic revolution modeled after the one in Iran, one that kicks out any foreign influence and restores Islamic values.

>> With Al Houthi's influence, this group of young men in the mountainous region of Yemen starts to change. They begin

protesting Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Salai. Soon they start taking

Abdullah Salai. Soon they start taking up weapons, taking over territory, and eventually setting up their own security checkpoints in their region. The

believing youth are starting to look a lot less like a summer camp and a lot more like a militia, like a rebellion.

President Salet, who had previously supported the believing youth, is starting to get worried. And then in 2001, the entire Middle East would change forever. After 9/11, the US

change forever. After 9/11, the US launches a war on terror.

They ask President Cai for help and he cooperates, taking military aid and allowing American special forces to operate inside Yemen, where the terrorist group al-Qaeda has a presence.

18 months later, the US presence in the region would balloon even more when the American military invades and occupies Iraq. For Alhouthi and his group of

Iraq. For Alhouthi and his group of young men, this crosses a red line and deeply radicalizes the movement.

Alhouthi criticizes the president publicly for pandering to what he sees as American imperialism in Muslim lands and many in Yemen agree joining the

movement and bolstering their numbers.

Al Houthi adopts the violent slogan that sits on the flag of his movement to this day. God is great. Death to America.

day. God is great. Death to America.

Death to Israel. Curse on the Jews.

Victory to Islam.

President Cai feels threatened by the growth of this increasingly radical movement that is taking control of territory in the north. He issues an arrest warrant and a bounty for Alhouthi

and brutally cracks down on their protests. In response, the believing

protests. In response, the believing youth launch an armed rebellion in the north of Yemen, leading to counterattacks by the Yemeni military.

Shortly after the fighting begins, Al-Huti is killed in a cave in the north.

The rebels he leaves behind fight on with new conviction, and the world would know them by the name of their martyr, a symbol of imperial resistance that would

soon be firing rockets at Israel and hijacking cargo ships in the Red Sea.

By 2004, the Houthis have morphed into a full-blown rebellion, fighting against Yemen's government from their northern strongholds. They know this land well,

strongholds. They know this land well, and they have local support, allowing them to fight a guerilla campaign against the government forces, blending in with civilians, hiding in mountains

and caves, and allowing them to resist the much better equipped Yemen army. As

the conflict turns more violent, more tribes in the region would feel that the military is being overly brutal, leading them to join the Houthis. And it's at this time that the conflict goes

international. The Houthis say that

international. The Houthis say that Saudi Arabia is letting the government of Yemen position troops right across this border. So they invade into Saudi

this border. So they invade into Saudi Arabia, killing Saudi soldiers and taking hostages. This pulls Saudi Arabia

taking hostages. This pulls Saudi Arabia into the conflict as they respond with air strikes and troops and push the Houthis out of their territory, punishing them for this invasion. Now

over here, Iran is watching this war and they see an opportunity. The Houthis are now fighting directly against their biggest rival, Saudi Arabia. So they

start secretly sending weapons to the Houthis. At least that's what Saudi

Houthis. At least that's what Saudi Arabia claims, saying that they intercepted an Iranian ship filled with weapons and military trainers on their way to the Houthis. It looks like Iran

is directly supporting the Houthis. Now,

though, how much support they provide behind the scenes will always be intentionally unclear. As the conflict

intentionally unclear. As the conflict between the Houthis and the government continues in the north, Saudi Arabia has been fighting their own war on terror against a branch of al-Qaeda operating

in Saudi Arabia. Seeing that their days are numbered, this branch of al-Qaeda flees south over the border into Yemen, where they merge their forces with the Yemen branch of al-Qaeda. They create

al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, one of the most dangerous and well-funded versions of the group to ever exist. The group's goal is to

ever exist. The group's goal is to create a strict Islamic State across the whole region while violently waging holy war against foreigners in Muslim lands.

This puts them at odds with both the Yemen government and the Houthis. The

conflict is getting more complicated.

Around 2011, the region starts to change in big ways. In one country after another, there's an outpouring of public anger on the streets demanding change from their government, removing old

leaders. This is called the Arab Spring.

leaders. This is called the Arab Spring.

It's upheaval that spirals the region into hope and chaos.

Iran and Saudi Arabia see this as an opportunity to strategically choose sides in all of these countries in hopes that when the dust settles they will come out with a stronger hand of allies

in the region. And one of their main focuses is Yemen, a country that is also rising up calling for President Salai to step down. The corrupt dictator of Yemen

step down. The corrupt dictator of Yemen is running out of time, which is something the Houthis have been fighting for for years.

But Salai refuses to step down, adding fuel to the uprising. Saudi Arabia sees this situation at their southern border and decides to step in with the help of the UN, convincing Salai to transfer

power to his vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution. On his

way out, Salai takes the billions of dollars that he corruptly amassed during his time in office. And he also retains the loyalty of key parts of the military, fighters that are only loyal

to him. But the people aren't satisfied

to him. But the people aren't satisfied with this new Saudibbacked president.

The government remains weak and unorganized. Meanwhile, the Houthis are

unorganized. Meanwhile, the Houthis are taking advantage of this infighting and only getting stronger, taking more and more territory from the government, adding to their forces, and receiving

more support from their backer, Iran, who is supplying them with more training, missiles, drones, and other advanced weapons. They use these weapons

advanced weapons. They use these weapons in the fall of 2014 to march into southern Yemen, taking over large swaths of territory.

Now that the Houthis have momentum, the former president Salai joins them in an alliance of convenience. In fact,

Salai's forces are critical in helping the Houthis take the capital city of Sana. Salai is now working with his

Sana. Salai is now working with his former enemy against his own vice president, the man he had to give power to when he stepped down. President Hadi

and his government flee south as the Houthis take over. But the Houthis are right behind them.

So Hadi has to flee to Saudi Arabia trying to govern Yemen from there.

But the Houthis just keep gaining momentum. By the middle of 2015, they

momentum. By the middle of 2015, they now control the capital city completely where they create their own government and take control of the government's military weapons, helping them expand

even further into the south. Now that

the Houthis are in power, they run an oppressive regime that silences free speech, crushes descent through arrest and torture, and recruits children as soldiers. all while imposing strict

soldiers. all while imposing strict religious laws that undermine women's rights. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is

rights. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is getting nervous. Their southern neighbor

getting nervous. Their southern neighbor is now controlled by a group that is funded by their biggest enemy. So, they

recruit the support of countries around the region and invade Yemen with the goal of removing the Houthis from power.

The war is led by Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's upand cominging leader and defense minister.

He starts with a widespread bombing campaign and a naval blockade that prevents shipping in and out of the country with the goal of trying to cut off support coming in from Iran. The

crown prince turns to the United States in need of more weapons for this war.

While the US leaders are reluctant to get involved in another Middle East conflict, they also want to maintain a good relationship with Saudi Arabia, who is their major security and energy

partner in the region. They also have an interest in weakening al-Qaeda's growing presence in Yemen. So, in addition to supporting this war with logistics and intelligence, President Obama approves

billions of dollars of weapons, planes, tanks, and even weapons banned by most of the world for how dangerous they are for civilians, like cluster munitions.

This quickly turns Saudi Arabia into the largest importer of American weapons for the next 4 years. So, it's 2015 and Yemen is in a full-blown war between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia and their

coalition. This is when al-Qaeda, who's

coalition. This is when al-Qaeda, who's not on either side, takes advantage of this chaos and makes a land grab in the middle of Yemen. They take major cities and clash with government forces. Also

taking advantage of the instability is the terrorist group ISIS who come to Yemen and fight the Houthis and al-Qaeda at the same time, though their attacks are scattered and they don't control

significant territory. The US then gets

significant territory. The US then gets more involved by launching air strikes at al-Qaeda and ISIS targets to stop them from gaining any more territory.

They try to kill their leadership, but the US has to do this carefully because they don't want to engage the Houthis.

Their fight is with al-Qaeda and ISIS.

In May of 2015, the Houthis attack a city just across the border in Saudi Arabia, killing two and taking hostages, forcing an airport to shut down. The

crown prince doesn't take being attacked on his own soil lightly, especially by Iran's proxies. So over the next 24

Iran's proxies. So over the next 24 hours, the Saudis launch 130 air strikes in Yemen, hitting homes, schools, and hospitals. Thousands are forced to flee

hospitals. Thousands are forced to flee from their home. Hundreds are reported dead, though we'll never know the real death toll. These strikes are almost

death toll. These strikes are almost immediately called war crimes. But the

crown prince doesn't back down. His

coalition then sends in ground troops from the south, pushing back the Houthis and taking back the city of Aiden. He's

behaving as if he's fighting his greatest enemy, Iran. It's a vicious cycle that is common in proxy wars like this, and it lands the people of Yemen in the worst humanitarian crisis in the

world. The international community tries

world. The international community tries to intervene with diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting. But over the next 6 years, those efforts would fail and Saudi Arabia would continue its brutal

campaign, all using American weapons.

The Houthis continue to fight to show that they are legitimate, that they are the government of Yemen. They aren't

just doing Iran's bidding.

The war continues to destroy cities and land. And the blockade continues to keep

land. And the blockade continues to keep trade out. The Saudis continue to bomb

trade out. The Saudis continue to bomb indiscriminately. And with time, 2

indiscriminately. And with time, 2 million Yemenes are displaced, forced to leave their homes to flee this violence.

>> 50,000 civilians have had no >> But this doesn't stop the Houthis from escalating their offensive. They start

attacking Saudi Arabia directly with missiles and drones in their capital city and their civilian airports using weapons that most believe are coming from Iran.

In December of 2017, the Saudis and the UAE convinced President Salai to break his alliance with the Houthis and return to power as president of Yemen. They

hope that Salai, the former dictator, might be able to hold on to power and rule more effectively. So takes the deal and changes sides yet again, breaking with the Houthis and joining the

Saudiled coalition.

Fighting breaks out between the Houthis and Salet's militias and Salet is killed just 2 days later.

Meanwhile, in the United States, there's a new president. President Trump orders increased drone strikes and raids against al-Qaeda, helping government forces take back large amounts of

territory. Despite the war crimes

territory. Despite the war crimes committed using American weapons, Trump approves more weapon sales to Saudi Arabia to wage this war.

And then in 2018, the conflict takes on a new dimension. The UAE, who is a part of this Saudiled coalition, is starting to lose faith in the direction this war is going. They don't like the current

is going. They don't like the current government of Yemen, and they're losing soldiers on the ground. It's damaging

their reputation on the world stage. So,

the UAE leaves the coalition, but they still want to influence who will ultimately control Yemen. So they start backing a new group in the south called the Southern Transitional Council or

STC. This group isn't aligned with the

STC. This group isn't aligned with the government or the Houthis. They're

calling for a separation of the southern part of Yemen. They want their own state. They want their own country. So

state. They want their own country. So

the UAE starts to withdraw their troops from the south of the country and the STC separatists start taking control of southern provinces. The Saudi coalition

southern provinces. The Saudi coalition is fracturing and yet another group is jumping into the fighting, showing just how up for grabs Yemen has become.

By the fall of 2019, the war has reached maximum complexity. You've got the Saudi

maximum complexity. You've got the Saudi coalition backing the former government of Yemen, mostly relegated to the east of the country. The UAE is now backing this separatist movement in the south,

who are fighting against the former government of Yemen. The Houthis, backed by Iran, still maintain majority control of the major cities in the north.

Al-Qaeda and its militia allies are still fighting to control small slices of the country, and the US continues to conduct air strikes against al-Qaeda and ISIS while supporting and selling more

weapons to the Saudi coalition.

Yemen is fracturing further, and if there's any hope for peace, power needs to be consolidated. So Saudi Arabia and the UAE make amends and then together

they convince the government of Yemen and the separatists in the south to form a new coalition to fight against the Houthis together as a united front. But

it doesn't stop the Houthis who are getting really good at fighting and are firing more Iranian missiles and drones into Saudi Arabia, hitting state-owned oil refineries and threatening to drive

up oil prices globally. By January 2021, the Houthis, a group started to provide religious summer camps to young men, are now battleh hardened, and they control

70 to 80% of the population of Yemen.

Later that year, the UN announces that approximately 20 million of those people are dependent on humanitarian aid for their daily needs. And at this point,

the war starts to settle in to an uncomfortable stalemate.

In April 2022, the UN brokers a ceasefire and the fighting stops.

Behind the scenes, Saudi Arabia and Iran have been in diplomatic talks sponsored by China. Regional tensions are cooling,

by China. Regional tensions are cooling, which means that their proxy war in Yemen is also cooling. Saudi Arabia has had enough of the fighting. President

Hadi resigns and hands power over to a council meant to govern Yemen and manage the war. and both sides are tired of the

the war. and both sides are tired of the fighting. So when that ceasefire is set

fighting. So when that ceasefire is set to expire in October 2022, the conflict mostly stays quiet, even without a new agreement. By 2023, Saudi Arabia and

agreement. By 2023, Saudi Arabia and Iran have officially restored their diplomatic relations. Saudi Arabia

diplomatic relations. Saudi Arabia hoping that this means Iran will stop supporting Houthis to attack their southern border.

But the Saudis keep their maritime blockade around the country, making life in Yemen unlivable for millions. But at

this point, the heaviest of the fighting on all sides has stopped.

But then in the fall of 2023, the Houthis were back in the news. After the

Palestinian group Hamas launches a brutal attack into Israel, the Israeli military invades the Gaza Strip, vowing to destroy Hamas and free the hostages

that they took. The campaign leads to tens of thousands of Palestinian civilian deaths, and it provokes a response from Iranianbacked groups all throughout the region. The Houthis are

one of those groups. They launch drones and cruise missiles into southern Israel, vowing that their attacks won't stop until the invasion of Gaza stops.

And then they start firing their missiles and drones at cargo ships that are traveling through the Red Sea, where 25% of container traffic travels, a major artery in our global economy. In

the days after these missiles start flying, traffic through this Red Sea route declines by 73%. In response, the US and UK shoot down Houthi missiles and

drop bombs on Houthi military targets in Yemen, pulling the US and its allies deeper into this enduring conflict.

The reason I wanted to tell you the story of this conflict in Yemen because it represents the vicious cycle present in a lot of proxy wars where geopolitical rivals use their neighbors

as battlefields instead of fighting each other directly. They fund and add fuel

other directly. They fund and add fuel to local conflicts, escalating them to the entire country and often to the entire region, leaving violence and power vacuums in their wake, which are

then filled by bad actors trying to take advantage of the instability. All of

this changes borders, destroys cities, and ruins lives.

It's the story of powerful countries and their cynical scramble for influence and power in vulnerable places, leaving behind them a wake of tremendous human

suffering.

Breaking news because Yemen's Houthi rebels, they could attack a commercial ship and could bog the straight up for weeks if not months.

There is a part of the world that everyone is keeping an eye on right now.

>> The joint military strikes were in response to nearly two months of attacks by the Iranbacked Houthy movement on cargo ships in the Red Sea.

>> It is becoming more and more important for the global rivalries and tensions that are heating up on our globe right now. It is this choke point in the Red

now. It is this choke point in the Red Sea.

It's pretty small. It's a few dozen km wide. But through this little choke

wide. But through this little choke point flows a lot of important things.

The internet, millions of barrels of oil per day, 30% of all containers ships that connect global markets.

And this choke point is surrounded by unstable situations, countries that are in civil wars, rebel militias, proxy

wars, unstable governments, failed states, and pirates. In recent decades, pirates have hijacked thousands of ships here, extracting hundreds of millions of

dollars in ransoms, a topic we did a whole deep dive on in another video. And

lately, as war has raged in the Gaza Strip, the fiercely anti-western Houthi rebels in Yemen have been firing rockets at cargo ships traveling through this water, leading the US and UK to strike

back.

>> A ship attacked by Iranbacked Houthi rebels last month sank in the Red Sea.

The region is vital yet volatile all at once. And yet in the middle of all of

once. And yet in the middle of all of this is this one beacon of stability. A

little piece of land that is easy to miss, but that is more important than you might think. It is the country of Djibouti.

Djibouti is this small arid country right on the choke point and it is home to the militaries of the United States of several European powers of Japan Japan's

only foreign military base by the way and right down the road from the American base China's first military base outside of its country.

Qatar has peacekeepers here. The United

Arab Emirates ran the biggest port.

Eratraa seized some of its territory recently. And Ethiopia, one of the

recently. And Ethiopia, one of the largest countries in Africa, runs almost all of its trade through Djibouti.

Ethiopia is landlocked and this is their like gateway to the world. It's a lot.

Djibouti is a lot. There's a lot going on in Djibouti, which is why today we are talking about this place. I want to explore why so many powers want to be

here. why everyone is converging on this

here. why everyone is converging on this little tiny patch of land the size of New Jersey. And I want to ask if little

New Jersey. And I want to ask if little Djibouti, one of the poorest countries in the world, can balance all these rival powers against each other without falling victim to them.

>> You know, 10 to 15% of global trade moves through the Red Sea.

>> We will not hesitate to defend lives and the free flow of commerce.

This little choke point is called the Bob Almandeb or Gate of Tears. It used

to be nothing but a recipe for shipwrecks.

It was known mostly for strong winds, unpredictable crosscurrens, and shallow reefs that made navigating it dangerous.

And it wasn't very valuable because if you go through it, you just end up in the Red Sea, which was a dead end for most of history. That is until a French company miraculously cut a canal through

this part of Egypt and changed the world forever. Nearly having the time that it

forever. Nearly having the time that it would take for Europeans to get to Asia, where they were all racing each other to conquer, colonize, and bring back unfathomable wealth to their countries.

The Suez Canal was a massive upgrade to this hunt for resources. Was this video kind of an excuse for me to buy these really old, beautiful books about the

Suez Canal? Yes, it was. For France,

Suez Canal? Yes, it was. For France,

this engineering miracle called the Suez Canal was their chance to beat out their big rival, the British Empire, who was clearly winning the race, dominating the

routes to Asia before Suez opened. The

canal was supposed to change that. So

now you have a new front in this race, a scramble for control over this new route to Asia. This windy little choke point

to Asia. This windy little choke point was no longer just the gate of tears. It

was an important bit of water, one of the most important on Earth, at least for the empires. They had to keep an eye on it.

So, the British take this little island right at the choke point. They put a lighthouse on it.

They also take control of a port just south of the choke point. The Italians

then show up and purchase this bit of coastline from local sultans, eventually taking over this whole stretch of coast called Eratraa. And the French would

called Eratraa. And the French would start fixating on this strip of sparsely populated coast right on the banks of the choke point, the land that would become Djibouti.

The sultans here told the French that yes, they could have a bit of this newly strategic land in exchange for protection. The locals here knew what

protection. The locals here knew what was going on. The great empires were all scrambling and racing and they were going to use their prime real estate to get what they wanted to leverage the

situation. Smart and totally a theme

situation. Smart and totally a theme throughout this video.

So the French set up their colony. They

call it Kot Frances de Somali or French Somali land. This choke point would

Somali land. This choke point would become a key base for projecting power and refueling on their way to carve up and plunder Asia.

France would hold on to their little colonial invention for a long time. Even

as the world would decolonize after World War II, France held on to this strategic colony along the choke point until eventually the locals rose up.

There were protests. They clashed with the local authorities and it led to an independence vote. And in 1977, Djibouti

independence vote. And in 1977, Djibouti became a new country.

Djibouti was independent, but they had a problem. In the words of some New York

problem. In the words of some New York Times reporting from 1977, the tiny new nation had no army, less than one square mile of arable land, and no resources

except for sand, salt, and 20,000 camels. Yeah, not good. So once again,

camels. Yeah, not good. So once again, they made a deal with France. Djibouti

wouldn't be Frances anymore, but they would be allowed to retain a military base in the country in exchange for security and protection as well as economic aid. But this didn't change the

economic aid. But this didn't change the fact that Djibouti had very little natural resources or arable land. Their

economy fell into a crippling depression. Eventually, there was a

depression. Eventually, there was a civil war and it wasn't looking good for Djibouti. Djibouti's salvation would

Djibouti. Djibouti's salvation would eventually come when they realized that they should hearken back to the old days and start exploiting the thing that had made them valuable all those years ago,

their location.

>> Let's go. Come on. Go back. Go stop

shooting.

Has crashed into the world.

>> Our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. 3 months after 9/11, the

terrorist acts. 3 months after 9/11, the United States was about to come crashing into the Middle East in a new way. And

they asked Djibouti if they could set up a base there and Djibouti says yes.

>> Suddenly after the global war on terror, America realizes that it's one of the key locations. It matters to be there.

key locations. It matters to be there.

You had, you know, al-Qaeda in Yemen.

You had al-Qaeda in even horn of Africa.

So they needed a base and Djibouti was one country which was willing to offer them. It would become America's only

them. It would become America's only permanent military base on the continent of Africa, and it would be a key jumping off point for George Bush's war on terror. And reminder that it's now the

terror. And reminder that it's now the 21st century. Things have changed in the

21st century. Things have changed in the world, and this little choke point was becoming more valuable again, but for different reasons than the old days.

Number one, the world had become addicted to fossil fuels, oil and gas, which was the lifeblood of their economies. And most of that oil and gas

economies. And most of that oil and gas was coming from over here from the land and waters of the countries around this Persian Gulf where it was then put on

ships and sent around the world. A lot

of it heading west through this vital choke point up the Red Sea into the Suez Canal and onto Europe. The world knew that their energy was vulnerable because

Egypt in earlier decades had weaponized the canal by closing it, by blocking it.

one time for eight years, inflicting immediate pain on the countries that rely on this constant flow of energy and goods.

By the way, semi side note, this flow of energy becomes even more important when Europe almost entirely cuts ties with Russian natural gas after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. So, they have to get

more natural gas from this region. Qatar

was not sad about that. Let's put it that way. Anyway, we're getting off

that way. Anyway, we're getting off topic. Europe needs this route to stay

topic. Europe needs this route to stay stable. They need these little dots to

stable. They need these little dots to keep flowing.

So that's one reason that the choke point has become more vital than ever.

The other reason is China.

China rose to become a manufacturing superpower. They make a lot of stuff and

superpower. They make a lot of stuff and they send it to the west and a lot of that comes through this choke point. And

all of this vital trade is happening in a region that is full of unstable governments, rising anti-western militias and Somali pirates, making this

route precarious and dangerous and subject to problems. So Djibouti has become this vital place here at the choke point, an incredibly

important strategic location in a sea of turmoil. Okay, but there's more. In

turmoil. Okay, but there's more. In

addition to all of this global economy importance, there's also regional importance to Djibouti. Notice

Djibouti's neighbor, Ethiopia, the second most populous country in Africa and as you can see, one that is totally landlocked. It is not good to be a big

landlocked. It is not good to be a big country that is landlocked because the water is where we trade. So, Djibouti is the gateway to Ethiopia's millions of

people to trade with the world. 95% of

Ethiopia's trade passes through Djibouti. So Djibouti, this colonial

Djibouti. So Djibouti, this colonial creation from France in the 1880s, is now once again an incredibly important

place on the map. It's become once again a highly strategic location.

And when there are highly strategic locations, superpowers start moving in.

In 2011, Djibouti approved Japan, a pacifist sort of non-military country, to open a military base on Djibouti, their one and only foreign military base.

Then you have Italy who set up a military base here in 2013. Spain and

Germany also have a military presence here. They are not permanently hosted

here. They are not permanently hosted with a base. They're actually hosted by France. And the soldiers live in these

France. And the soldiers live in these hotels permanently. Okay, that's not

hotels permanently. Okay, that's not weird at all. But yeah, as you can see, the great powers are back. They're back

in Djibouti like the old days. Not to

compete with one another, but to all band together to police this vital choke point so that the global economy that has brought prosperity to all of us can stay stable. Everything keeps flowing.

stay stable. Everything keeps flowing.

Everyone is happy. And this solved a big problem for Djibouti who again didn't have a big industry or any kind of resource. They make a lot of money off

resource. They make a lot of money off of these leases to foreign countries which has helped build their economy.

And like the old days, when one side shows up, the rival won't be far behind.

>> China has agreed to set up a support base in Djibouti.

>> So, the Chinese base is right here and they are going to be watching us as we're watching them. In 2016, Djibouti announces that they've been talking to China and that they've agreed to give

them land to open their own military base, which was built and opened right down the road from the American base in 2017. So, China says they're there

2017. So, China says they're there because of pirates. Pirates have been wreaking havoc in this area. So, they're

there to stabilize their economic interests because of pirates. But, as we discovered in our deep dive on pirates, by 2017, the pirate issue was basically over. There was almost no hijackings in

over. There was almost no hijackings in this region. I mean, look at this graph.

this region. I mean, look at this graph.

Oh, and the Chinese base has this big deep pier that is like large enough to handle an aircraft carrier and nuclear submarines. So, this isn't about

submarines. So, this isn't about pirates. China also did the most China

pirates. China also did the most China thing when they moved in here, which was instead of just building a base, they also came with all of these big ticket infrastructure projects as like gifts to

win the favor of the locals. We're

talking railway, pipeline, port, all very expensive. All putting Djibouti

very expensive. All putting Djibouti into a lot of debt to China. They're

doing this all over Africa, which we talk about in another deep dive video we did on the topic, mapping all of China's giant infrastructure projects in Africa and what that means. Man, a lot of shout outs to other videos today, huh? So,

Djibouti is now the only place on Earth where the United States and China, these two rivals, have military bases right next to each other. And so far, everyone's been playing nice. There's

been no shenanigans other than both sides accusing each other of spying on each other constantly. Oh, and there was the lasers. The US says that China was

the lasers. The US says that China was pointing lasers into the eyes of pilots while they were taking off, which like if they really did that, that's just like why why would you do that? Like

why' you do that? Don't do that. Okay,

but Djibouti doesn't let every country in. Russia wanted to have their own base

in. Russia wanted to have their own base in Djibouti and Djibouti said no. It

probably helped that the American National Security Adviser flew to Djibouti and told them that the US would double how much they're paying for their lease if Djibouti didn't let Russia in.

Okay, but what about the people?

Djibouti isn't just one big military base. There's almost a million people

base. There's almost a million people who live here, and their dayto-day probably consists of a lot of jet engine sounds. We got to talk to my old grad

sounds. We got to talk to my old grad school professor David Vine who is an expert on US military bases and how they affect the locals. So what we were

talking about is a foreign government, foreign military occupying large swed off and hosting large amounts of

weaponry, high-powered weaponry of many, many kinds.

Because these bases are so close to like the big city, there have been accidents, especially with drones. The US used to take off their drones and some would fall and actually crash onto like

civilian infrastructure. So, they had to

civilian infrastructure. So, they had to open a separate air strip.

Apart from occasionally running over cows, the soldiers mostly keep to themselves. US soldiers don't even go

themselves. US soldiers don't even go into the city to like buy stuff. All of

it is flown in, creating a little slice of America right in Djibouti. Like they

don't even drink the water from Djibouti. It's all flown in.

Djibouti. It's all flown in.

Night and then there's the dictator. I want to welcome President and his delegation here today. the US base in particular,

here today. the US base in particular, but also the French and Chinese bases, which are the largest of of the collection are all helping to prop up undemocratic regime that has, you know,

been accused of widespread human rights abuses.

>> Every time a foreign power makes a deal with Djibouti and pays them a lot of money in exchange for them being able to be there, they basically validate this terrible dictator who's been in power

for 25 years. There's no real elections, free press, freedom of speech, plenty of human rights abuses. But on the other side, there's at least one way that regular people in Djibouti benefit from

all of this. Fewer people go hungry today than at the conclusion of the civil war. And even though the economy

civil war. And even though the economy is still poor, all of this foreign aid still does support it. Is that worth it to them? I don't actually know. And

to them? I don't actually know. And

another version of this video that I want to do someday is to go there and talk to the people and hear what their thoughts are about the bases in Djibouti and what that feels like to live so close to all of these foreign

militaries. For now, we're talking about

militaries. For now, we're talking about the geography, the history, the geopolitics.

Okay, speaking of geopolitics, there is another angle to this story that is devilishly complicated to get into, and I'm not going to get into all the juicy details. You'll understand why when I

details. You'll understand why when I start talking about it. It has to do with the regional geopolitics, the rivalries and the concerns and the issues of all of these countries that are right next to Djibouti, not just the outside powers. I want to just give you

outside powers. I want to just give you a little sampling of what this looks like because it's pretty wild. So, you

have all these Gulf countries and some of them are not totally on the same team, but almost all of them are thinking about the future and they're realizing that oil is not going to be a big part of their future because oil is

not going to be a big part of any of our future hopefully. and they're realizing

future hopefully. and they're realizing that they're going to need to invest in the horn of Africa, this region here, which they believe is probably going to be the future of their food, their

future bread basket. So, hold that for a second and then look at Ethiopia and Eratraa. Ethiopia, as we mentioned, uses

Eratraa. Ethiopia, as we mentioned, uses Djibouti as their gateway to the world.

They need it to feed their millions of people. All of this geopolitics is also

people. All of this geopolitics is also playing out in Djibouti, this little country that has to navigate everyone's interests. So, here's a quick episode of

interests. So, here's a quick episode of this drama to give you an idea of what it looks like.

The United Arab Emirates, UAE, used to be like best friends with Djibouti. It

was like one of their most important partners. The UAE built and owned this

partners. The UAE built and owned this giant port that basically runs Djibouti's entire economy. But then the UAE got really close to Djibouti's

neighbor and kind of enemy, Eratraa.

This was very worrisome because Djibouti doesn't want Eratraa to become the new Djibouti. They're a mortal threat. They

Djibouti. They're a mortal threat. They

don't want the UAE to just shut down Djibouti's like strategic offering.

Okay, fast forward to like 2017. The UAE

with their close friend Saudi Arabia are in a feud with Qatar, which also has a military presence in Djibouti right up here on this border. Now that Qatar and

the UAE are fighting with each other, they turn to Djibouti and say, "Hey, you are too close with the UAE. We're out of here." Qatar takes their soldiers out of

here." Qatar takes their soldiers out of this border area and right away Eratraa takes some of this land from Djibouti.

This may seem like some petty border skirmishes, but remember where we are here. This is the vital choke point. Bob

here. This is the vital choke point. Bob

Almandeb, every inch of land matters.

Every little conflict could be the spark that stops the global economy. And what

this little flare up shows us is how Djibouti finds itself in the center of conflicts between other countries that it kind of doesn't want to be in the middle of, but like has found itself in the middle of because it hosts all of

their militaries. But wait, there's

their militaries. But wait, there's more. Djibouti is actually really good

more. Djibouti is actually really good at this. They know how to play the game

at this. They know how to play the game and to play all these powers off of each other and we'll see what happens next.

So they're kind of beholden to the UAE.

UAE has way too much leverage over them.

So finally it all comes to a head and they kick the UAE out from this really vital port and they give a massive chunk of it to wait for it, China. The new

arrival to Djibouti that no one wants to mess with. They now have the port and

mess with. They now have the port and Djibouti is now on their side and the UAE can't do anything about it. Djibouti

saved itself from one power by pleasing a bigger power. Do you see how this works? Do you see what game they're

works? Do you see what game they're playing here?

So that is why this tiny country in East Africa is so important. It's kind of the definition of geopolitics. Politics

happening because of geography to project legitimacy. This choke point is

project legitimacy. This choke point is only going to become more important. Day

by day we're seeing it happen. I mean

like right now as I'm filming this, the Houthi rebels are like potentially cutting internet cables in this choke point.

>> Three crew members have been killed in a Houthi. the first death since Houthi

Houthi. the first death since Houthi rebels began attacking shipping in the Red Sea >> after months of bombing merchant ships to punish the West for supporting the IDF war in Gaza. I mean, it's this kind

of threat that Djibouti was set up to handle. That is why all these foreign

handle. That is why all these foreign militaries are here. And yet, for me, there is a subtler threat that is emerging here, which you can see when

you just look at this map of bases.

Djibouti hosts rival countries during a time when we are transitioning away from a rules-based order where all the great powers have an incentive to work together under one system that is

dominated by the United States that deeply benefits the United States and its allies. But that works because the

its allies. But that works because the United States imposes and protects those rules. Those rules are being challenged

rules. Those rules are being challenged and what is emerging is a system that is messier, more disruptive to these reliable rules that have kept everything stable, kept the United States on top.

And unfortunately, we know all too well what happens when great powers start competing with each other more and more over vital resources and vital

geographies. In fact, most of the

geographies. In fact, most of the history of war is what happens when great powers are competing with each other. It's ugly. It's messy. It's

other. It's ugly. It's messy. It's

violent. It provokes a zero someum way of thinking. Competition racing to

of thinking. Competition racing to secure and control and exploit vital geographies like strategic choke points that lead into the most important

waterway on the planet. As this rivalry heats up, Djibouti's role is going to become more complex. Its government will continue to do what it's done, playing the big powers off each other,

exploiting its great real estate to benefit itself. But I believe that there

benefit itself. But I believe that there comes a point in every escalating conflict where you kind of have to choose sides. I want Djibouti to

choose sides. I want Djibouti to continue to embody the positive some thinking that has kept the world relatively stable these last 70 years,

but it's definitely playing with a very delicate balancing act and there's a chance that it could stumble. So, as you all know, I will be keeping an eye on

the global order as well as Djibouti to try to see where this is going to see if the great powers can continue to cooperate and compete, but cooperate or if we're heading back into the old days

where competition threatens to rip the world apart. I don't think it's

world apart. I don't think it's inevitable, but it's going to take effort to avoid it.

I've been sleeping every night in the desert.

Up here in the northwest corner of Saudi Arabia, it's quiet up here. All you can hear is the wind and the sand that it whips off

these endless dunes.

But not far from where I sleep, there's a new sound.

For years, I've been hearing about this trillion dollar futuristic city that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is building at top this sand.

They're calling it Neom. and they're

investing a huge amount of their vast oil wealth into making it come to life.

I've been hearing about all the reasons it can't work. How this is all just a mirage of royal ambitions.

And yet, even from space, you can see that they're building it. They're

building something.

Why would anyone try to build a futuristic city in a barren desert?

That is a question I've had for a very long time and one I intend to get to the bottom of.

So, I'm going into Neo to see what it looks like, to get a sense of its scale.

We're looking at this fleet of dump trucks.

The amount of construction activity is insane and it hasn't stopped as we've been driving along the line. The

magnitude I've never seen anything close. They're building mountains out

close. They're building mountains out there.

I'm joined by my friend who was born in a tent out here.

He knows this desert better than anyone.

Every dune, every valley, all the secret water spots hidden deep in red rock slot canyons.

>> Oh my god.

I asked Solemn to bring me out into the desert. Not only to get up close on the

desert. Not only to get up close on the construction of Neome, but also to show me how people live out here, to introduce me to members of his

tribe, how they've survived for centuries. nomadic Bedawin who represent

centuries. nomadic Bedawin who represent the origin story of this desert kingdom.

I wanted to put a human face to this collision of worlds, old and new.

I believe this little shape on the map represents the story of Saudi Arabia, where it came from, how it got here, and why it is attempting to build these

cities in the sand.

I'm officially in Naom. And let me tell you what I'm seeing so far.

Trucks, trucks, trucks, dump trucks, cargo trucks, trucks carrying excavators, trucks carrying more trucks.

I've never seen so many trucks in my entire life. Oh, and these roads, a lot

entire life. Oh, and these roads, a lot of them are brand new. A lot of them don't even show up on Google Maps. Like,

I'm looking at my phone and I'm just sort of floating in no man's land because these are all brand new roads.

This is new. Everything is popping up so quickly. There's so many trucks.

quickly. There's so many trucks.

>> All of the sudden, solemn turned off one of these pristinely new roads.

>> Why do you deflate the tires?

>> Uh for the >> We're now going to start driving just into the desert.

>> Wow, this car can go everywhere.

Are we going up this dune? Yeah.

>> Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Jeez, this is insane.

Damn, it's gorgeous. Okay, now we're really in

it's gorgeous. Okay, now we're really in the desert.

We found a little canyon to camp in.

And while I thought we'd be eating granola bars or canned soup, solemn had other plans. Did

other plans. Did >> you try camel meat before? You

>> try hashi.

>> Hashi is dian camel.

>> Ah, rice with camel meat.

>> The evening tradition here is to wind down with a cup of coffee.

Saudi coffee is unroasted and green, infused with cardamom.

It's a different taste. I like it though. But it's still very caffeinated.

though. But it's still very caffeinated.

Oh, and then after the coffee comes, >> thank you. Which again is very delicious. But how can they drink so

delicious. But how can they drink so much coffee before bed?

>> Yeah, I can't drink too much because I the caffeine I won't be able to sleep >> in the morning. I'll drink a lot of it.

>> Okay.

>> Wow.

M. Wow.

So, until what age did you live in the desert?

>> Maybe until 7.

>> Till seven.

>> Yeah.

>> Do you like it?

>> Yeah, I like it.

>> Yeah, >> I like it.

It's >> so rare to find families in >> real families living in desert.

>> The people that we are going to, they are real.

Yeah. But when we move to the city, >> I study >> I go back.

>> Oh, you go back to the desert.

>> Yeah.

>> Even for me, I like like to have a job in the city, but I want the bedin life. I want them to stay.

>> Soon, we'll meet the Bedawin nomads who sleep under these stars every night.

Look at this night full of incredible stars.

Wow.

The Saudi desert is proving to be exceptionally peaceful.

Despite the army of trucks that, by the way, are still working here in the dead of night.

They don't ever stop and haven't for years.

It is so silent here. My brain doesn't know what to do about it. It's so

silent.

But as the sun rises and Solemn feeds me dates and green coffee, oh, and of course more tea, I'm thinking about my mission for today.

My plan is to drive all throughout Neo to all the big construction sites and show you what they're planning on building out here with their initial

budget of $500 billion, which has since ballooned to an estimated $1.5 trillion.

And you're about to see why. So, I made it to the coast and I'm looking at the beautiful Red Sea, which is a very beautiful kind of blue.

In fact, >> this is Oxyon, the place where ideas can change the world.

>> Oxagon is planned to be their futuristic industrial city. Half of it built on the

industrial city. Half of it built on the water. It'll be a port where shipping

water. It'll be a port where shipping can connect the world to a bunch of high-tech manufacturing, research, and logistics.

And then there's Sindala, which is going to be right here on the Red Sea. It's going to be a luxury

Red Sea. It's going to be a luxury resort island with plenty of parking for yachts.

>> Hello.

>> We picked up a hitchhiker who has been working on Sindala for years.

>> How's it looking in Sindala?

>> Finished like 99%.

>> Really?

>> Yeah.

>> Sindala.

And then there's Magna, which is actually the name of one of these coastal villages we've just been driving next to that is no longer a

village. They've forcibly relocated

village. They've forcibly relocated thousands of people for this project.

A top the ruins of these villages, the kingdom is building 12 luxury coastal resorts and communities.

Hey, just one quick clarification here.

Um, all of those visuals are 3D renders.

They they are visualizations done by NEOM to see what they want this to look like. This stuff doesn't exist yet. And

like. This stuff doesn't exist yet. And

I think that maybe is obvious, but it looks so real that I just want to just make crystal clear I'm showing a lot of this stuff from the hypy promo visuals that have come out from Neon. So, that's

one thing. Also, check out some of this footage I got while I was on a dune. Was

floating around on this dune. This is me shooting from the drone. But suddenly on the other side of this massive dune, there are these green circles.

When I was planning my trip to Saudi Arabia, I got really interested in these things, but that has nothing to do with Neo. So, I hopped on the phone with my

Neo. So, I hopped on the phone with my new colleague, Kristoff, and asked him to go down the deep dive rabbit hole of why there's a bunch of green circles in the Saudi desert. And he did so, and he made an entire video about what he

learned. That video is live right now on

learned. That video is live right now on our new channel, Tunnel Vision. I think

you're going to like it.

built on some pretty wild designs, ideas, and concepts, including a vast subterranean digital

community inside a mountain. Magna, the

coast of Neon.

>> Yeah, right there.

And then there's Trojana up here in the mountains. Yes, there are big mountains here. It's going to be a luxury tourist destination for adventure

and wellness retreats complete with an artificial lake and outdoor activities like mountain biking and skiing. Yes, I

just said skiing. Up here in the mountains, it gets kind of cold in the winter and snow falls. Definitely not

enough for skiing, but enough for them to make fake snow and make ski slopes.

They're building a man-made lake. In

fact, they're doing it right now. I'm

looking up at the mountain and seeing the plumes of smoke from the dynamite that they're using to do whatever they need to do to build an artificial lake. Oh, and by the way,

that's the mountain where Moses talked to God and got the Ten Commandments like a few thousand years ago.

>> There is no freedom without the law.

Who is on the Lord's side?

>> Welcome to Trojanna, the mountains of Neon.

>> This is all so strange.

And then of course the one you've maybe heard about and yes, it's being built.

I've been driving along it all morning and I can't really fathom what I'm seeing.

I continue to have my mind blown at the scale of this.

They say the line is going to be a futuristic city that stretches 170 km and run on renewable energy and artificial intelligence.

They want 10 million people to come live here. Like a whole New York city of

here. Like a whole New York city of people inside of this line in the desert.

Just the digging alone, the amount of earth that they are moving is jaw-dropping.

The magnitude is like they're building they're building mountains out there and moving so much earth.

Now, I thought I had seen a lot of trucks before, but as I drove along the line, I started to get slightly dizzy, having a hard time processing the scale

of all of this. All of these machines working nonstop every hour of every day for years,

moving sand, making mountains, and carving a straight line into the desert.

All of this seems impossible.

So much of the reporting on Naom has been focused on how implausible, expensive, and delusional this project is. And that's all well and good if

is. And that's all well and good if that's what you want to focus on. But to

me, that's not that interesting. What

I'm most interested in understanding is why we found a little cave last night and camped here.

Soomn invited some of his friends out.

Hey guys. Hi.

>> How's it going? Good.

>> This is so cool, right? Yeah, it is.

>> We all sat around the fire, me listening while they laughed and joked in Arabic.

>> And then began cooking yet another delicious meal. This time, goat. Cooked

delicious meal. This time, goat. Cooked

in goat milk with flatbread.

>> Wow. This is awesome.

>> Yeah.

>> Wow. Not good.

>> I'm admittedly a little groggy after sleeping a few nights on the desert floor.

We're just sledding down a massive dune in a car and it's as smooth as butter where they're making. That's going to be

kind of crazy to have skiing in Saudi Arabia right?

>> Yeah.

>> Was like a hiking trail. Yeah,

>> really.

>> But with this Noah, this is new.

>> Today, Soomn is introducing me to members of his tribe.

>> Is this him?

>> Hello.

>> It'll be the polar opposite of yesterday's tour through Neam's construction.

He put on his traditional Saudi clothing so as not to surprise the members of his tribe that he has indeed become a modern city man.

We arrive to a remote patch of desert where a few tents are set up.

The elder of this family warmly invites me in >> Johnny. Hi

>> Johnny. Hi >> to sit for coffee.

And then of course more tea.

>> And at this point I'm just embracing the caffeine.

They tell me that the only Westerners they've ever seen out here are the ones looking for oil. That it's very strange to see me showing up to learn about their culture and especially with a

camera.

So, how how long have you lived here?

This two months. Yeah.

>> Wow.

>> I got to meet their animals, extended members of this nomadic family.

So, this family's been here in this site and um they'll move again when the season tells them to.

They basically are here grazing their camels and their goats. And God, they've got a beautiful view. My god, those mountains.

>> So, wait, he's the shepherd.

>> You're the shepherd?

>> Yeah.

>> Wow, that's cool.

>> Do you ever get lost in the desert?

No, >> no, >> he's a pro. He's a pro on that donkey.

>> These people's lives depend on moving these animals through the desert in search for scarce food.

A theme I hear from a lot of people who live out here is the just sense of peace and simplicity that they get that they realize that the

city could never bring. What What do you like about out here that makes you stay?

So when you go to the city >> city no >> this is a better life man

this sunset is gorgeous.

>> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

As the group faces east to perform their fourth of five prayers they do each day, I'm looking west.

Just over those mountains, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is digging a giant line in the sand.

working day and night to reshape this desert. Building their high-tech eco

desert. Building their high-tech eco city.

For most of its history, this was the way of life out here on this peninsula.

and it may have remained such to this day, but eventually the Bedawin on this peninsula united and unbeknownst to anyone was sitting at top a sea of black

gold. Oil in commercial quantities

gold. Oil in commercial quantities averaging about 200,000 barrels a day.

To handle this huge volume, the expanding program requires an increase of permanent personnel to a total of more than 15,000 AR.

Oil changed everything.

The kingdom rapidly modernized.

>> The king sees the oil development as the greatest single means to modernize his country and improve the living standards of his people.

>> All while still maintaining a deep connection with Islamic law and the rules and norms of Betawin life.

And despite this rapid modernization, hundreds of thousands of people still maintain the nomadic lifestyle.

It is a link to their past.

They're talking They are talking about something that they they see it these days.

>> The people travel by uh like by >> cycling.

>> The conversation goes into the night and I knew I had to ask them about Neil.

>> Can you ask them what their thoughts are and all the all the building that's happening?

>> I have to be sensitive here. cuz I'm

reminded where I am. Saudi Arabia isn't a place where citizens, nomads or not, can speak critically about their kingdom.

I got nervous looks and vague answers.

But one thing is for certain that the Saudi government has been paying and compensating anyone who has been affected by these projects.

Out of respect, I decide not to push it.

It's not worth it.

We're sitting around a huge platter of camel meat and fragrant rice. So, where

I'm from, there's no camels. No, no

camels. I've never seen a camel until yesterday. The elder generously showing

yesterday. The elder generously showing his hospitality by finding the juiciest chunks of camel meat and fat and passing them to me.

>> Thank you.

>> No.

>> And I'm realizing that this moment is a glimpse into one of the oldest surviving cultures on Earth.

>> Thank you.

The family invites us to sleep near their tent.

>> Another night, another sky full of stars.

I'm really feeling it. just how fast the change has come to this desert. Where

nomads whose movement and lifestyle hark back to the earliest civilizations and who are now living a stones throw away

from the construction of a futuristic city that is attempting to define the next chapter of human civilization.

It feels like too much to process.

>> I couldn't help but feel worried for this link to the past.

So oil transformed this desert but soon a problem began to arise.

Slowly, the world has started coming to terms with the reality that burning oil to run our world is turning the planet into a place that's not

conducive for human life.

The International Energy Agency predicts that the world will hit peak oil demand in 2030, at which time demand will start to fall.

Other predictions say it'll take longer, but everyone agrees that the future of this world is not oil.

This is bad news for Saudi Arabia, a country that has nothing but oil.

>> Aramco, the stateowned oil company.

Second quarter profits there, tumbling by more than a third from last year's record highs.

>> Oil transformed this desert kingdom into a modern, powerful country. And in order for them to retain that status, they're going to need to use the money from that

oil to transform themselves again. Enter

NEOM.

Saudi Arabia wants to replace its oil economy with new economies, new industries, some of which they want to invent.

This kingdom that has been historically closed is now open. Welcoming tourists

for the first time.

>> Welcome to Arabia. Get your visa now.

>> Let's go to Sund are here.

>> Hoping to attract the world. This is

something neighboring Dubai has done successfully.

>> The spirit of Dubai, >> but Saudi Arabia plans to do it on a whole new level.

I'll tell you one thing, the water here is beautiful.

On that note, I was surprised at how welcome I felt here. Every person I met greeted me with kindness, an eagerness to show me their culture.

But it's not just about tourism.

Nom is manufacturing, sustainability, technology sports education media and even an attempt to reinvent cities themselves.

They also want to use all this oil money to stay on top of global energy. All of

this hot sun is great for solar energy.

And while driving around, I saw endless fields of wind turbines.

And they can use this to make new forms of hydrogen energy that they can ship around the world.

And the reason why all these promo videos look like a Hollywood movie is because they can't do this without investors from the outside world.

>> They need people to come live here.

>> So my husband got offered a job for Nom in Saudi Arabia and we decided to make the move.

They need them to play here, raise children here, somehow have a life here, and most crucially to invest in these projects. And

projects. And >> what are we calling it?

>> The line.

>> The line.

>> The line.

>> So, not unlike a startup, NEOM is pitching the world on this impossible sounding vision with the hopes that people will buy it, invest in it,

and make some version of it a reality.

So do you feel excited about Neo? Like

>> yes.

>> Yeah. Why?

>> I wouldn't do this this business without Neo.

>> Before Neo.

>> Wow.

>> Everyone want to like check on internet what is Neo. Then uh they need a tour guide. I have more than uh 30 tour

guide. I have more than uh 30 tour guides working with me. Wow. So it's

it's a big business now and it's all because of Neo.

So, while Soomn is seeing the benefits of this project, the effects for others in this region are less certain.

We're driving by some of the towns that have been demolished.

The people forced to move to make way for the construction of Neome.

They were given money to rebuild their lives somewhere else.

But some refused to leave, signing a petition to protest this forced eviction.

>> One even posted to social media voicing his outrage. A risky move in a place

his outrage. A risky move in a place where freedom of speech isn't really a thing.

Soon he was locked in a shootout with security forces that left him dead.

This is when Saudi officials reportedly handed over the body of Abdul Rahim al-Hueti to his tribe. His family denies the official narrative that Abdul Rahim was a terrorist.

>> At least 47 other villagers were detained on terror related charges and five of them are now on death row.

The scale and riskiness of these projects speaks to the scale of Saudi Arabia's challenge. They need something

Arabia's challenge. They need something to keep them afloat after oil goes away.

So, they're betting the family farm on a few massive projects.

Many will likely fail, but even if a few of these work out as planned, it could be their next oil.

Lifting this kingdom into the future.

That's the calculus here.

But what's clear is that this kingdom isn't stopping anytime soon.

Our economy is in recession and the civilized world faces unprecedented danger. dangers.

danger. dangers.

Yet the state of our union has never been stronger.