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Recorded: 12-18-24

On this edition of Parallax Views, in the first segment of the show James W. Carden, a contributing editor to The American Conservative and a former adviser to the U.S. State Department, returns to discuss his article "Iran: America’s Next War Of Choice", co-authored with Col. Douglas MacGregor, and "How the Neocons Won the Transition". We'll delve into what the overthrow of Assad means in relation to a weakened Iran. James believes we are closer than ever before to a potential conflict with Iran as Israel's Netanyahu and neoconservative ideologues in Washington D.C. are chomping at the bit for regime change in Iran. We'll also discuss the Israel-Turkey relationship and how that relationship may become more contentious over Syria, however Carden notes that, for the time being Turkey and Iran will cooperate with each other against their shared enemy of Iran. We'll also discuss a key player in Trump's transition team, Howard Lutnick, and how he seems to have his fingers all over Trump's rather neoconservative and foreign policy hawk appointments for the 2nd Trump administration.

In the second segment of the show, international relations analyst Eldar Mamedov returns to discuss what the overthrow of Assad means for the Caucasus, with a particular focus on Armenia and Azerbaijan. With Iran's power now weakened in the region, Armenia has a lot to worry about from Azerbaijan, a country that says it wants "peace" with Armenia but only on its' own rather maximalist terms that are not going to be accepted by Armenia. We'll also discuss how the U.S. should respond to the new leadership in Syria, specifically the Islamist HTS led by Jolani, and what must be avoided to prevent instability in Syria. Moreover, Eldar and I will go over what Turkey's ambitions in Syria and the region are under the leadership of Erdogan.