On Syria, the fall of Assad, and nationalism in the Middle-East.

[Patreon Exclusive]

Historian Djene Bajalan talks to Alex about a major rearrangement in the Levant. We discuss:

Who are Syria's new rulers HTS, and what is their vision – if any?

Did geopolitics really determine the fall of Assad and the Ba'ath Party?

How HTS's victory is so profoundly different from Islamism in Iran 1979

Why 2025 finally closes the book on the Arab Spring – and on secular Arab nationalism

Were the Kurds wrong to rely on US protection?

And in the full episode we continue by discussing...

Is Turkey the big winner of the decade?

What the Left gets wrong on nationalism

Civic versus ethnic nationalism, revisited

What was democratic, liberal and revolutionary about nationalism – and whether it can be again

How conservatives recuperate left-wing ideas, which were always conservative from the start

Links:

Djene's writing at Jacobin

/95/ The Fall of Rojava? ft. Dani Ellis / Alexander Norton