Joshua Landis is Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and Associate Professor of Middle East studies at the University of Oklahoma’s Department of International and Area Studies. He writes “Syria Comment,” a daily newsletter on Syrian politics that attracts some 3,000 readers a day. It is widely read by officials in Washington, Europe, and Syria. Dr. Landis regularly travels to Washington DC to consult with the State Department and other government agencies. He is a frequent analyst on TV and radio and has appeared on the Jim Lehrer News Hour, Charlie Rose Show, CNN, Fox News, and been quoted widely in the NY Times, WSJ, Washington Post, LA Times, and comments frequently for NPR and BBC radio. He has spoken at the Brookings Institute, USIP, Middle East Institute, and Council on Foreign Relations. He was educated at Princeton (PhD), Harvard (MA), and Swarthmore (BA). He has lived over 14 years in the Middle East; having been brought up in Beirut, he returned to the region in the 1980s to teach in Beirut and study at universities in Damascus, Cairo, and Istanbul. Most recently, he spent 2005 in Syria as a Senior Fulbright Research Fellow and lived several months in Damascus in 2007. He teaches: Political Islam, International Relations in the Middle East, Islam, The Modern Middle East, Culture and Society in the Middle East, the US in the Middle East and other courses.
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Episode 291
Joshua Landis
Turkey-Syria & the New Geopolitics of the Greater Middle East | Joshua Landis
Joshua Landis is Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and Associate Professor of Middle East studies at the University of Oklahoma’s Department of International and Area Studies. He writes “Syria Comment,” a daily newsletter on Syrian politics that attracts some 3,000 readers a day. It is widely read by officials in Washington, Europe, and Syria. Dr. Landis regularly travels to Washington DC to consult with the State Department and other government agencies. He is a frequent analyst on TV and radio and has appeared on the Jim Lehrer News Hour, Charlie Rose Show, CNN, Fox News, and been quoted widely in the NY Times, WSJ, Washington Post, LA Times, and comments frequently for NPR and BBC radio. He has spoken at the Brookings Institute, USIP, Middle East Institute, and Council on Foreign Relations. He was educated at Princeton (PhD), Harvard (MA), and Swarthmore (BA). He has lived over 14 years in the Middle East; having been brought up in Beirut, he returned to the region in the 1980s to teach in Beirut and study at universities in Damascus, Cairo, and Istanbul. Most recently, he spent 2005 in Syria as a Senior Fulbright Research Fellow and lived several months in Damascus in 2007. He teaches: Political Islam, International Relations in the Middle East, Islam, The Modern Middle East, Culture and Society in the Middle East, the US in the Middle East and other courses.
In Episode 291 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Joshua Landis. Landis is the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and a widely recognized Syria expert. He was last on the podcast over three years ago to discuss the then ongoing invasion of northern Syria by the Turkish military and the long-term withdrawal of American forces from the Middle East and Central Asia.
The background for today’s conversation are the ongoing negotiations between Turkey, Russia, and Syria and President Erdoğan’s desire to expand Turkey’s military presence in northern Syria. Erdoğan’s stated aim is to create a larger buffer zone in which to transfer Syrian refugees and from which to defend Turkey from the threat posed by an independent Kurdish state aligned with elements of The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Ankara’s jingoistic rhetoric may be in part responsible for bringing Russia and Syria to the table and we may be on the verge of a normalization in Turkish-Syrian relations and a reproachment between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Bashar al-Assad. The implications of such a reset would be profound for the Syrian people and is further evidence of Turkey’s bid for strategic autonomy. It is also reflective of the emerging geopolitical complexities of the Middle East and Europe, which have only been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.
Joshua Landis and Demetri spend the first hour of their conversation focused mostly on the historical antecedents of the conflict in Syria and the larger American presence in the Middle East. They devote the second hour to assessing long-term prospects for Turkey as a regional power, the role of the EU and NATO as counterbalancing forces to Turkish aggression in the Aegean, and the prospects for normalization of relations between Turkey and Syria and what this means for the US and Europe long-term.
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Joshua Landis is Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and Associate Professor of Middle East studies at the University of Oklahoma’s Department of International and Area Studies. He writes “Syria Comment,” a daily newsletter on Syrian politics that attracts some 3,000 readers a day. It is widely read by officials in Washington, Europe, and Syria. Dr. Landis regularly travels to Washington DC to consult with the State Department and other government agencies. He is a frequent analyst on TV and radio and has appeared on the Jim Lehrer News Hour, Charlie Rose Show, CNN, Fox News, and been quoted widely in the NY Times, WSJ, Washington Post, LA Times, and comments frequently for NPR and BBC radio. He has spoken at the Brookings Institute, USIP, Middle East Institute, and Council on Foreign Relations.
He was educated at Princeton (PhD), Harvard (MA), and Swarthmore (BA). He has lived over 14 years in the Middle East; having been brought up in Beirut, he returned to the region in the 1980s to teach in Beirut and study at universities in Damascus, Cairo, and Istanbul. Most recently, he spent 2005 in Syria as a Senior Fulbright Research Fellow and lived several months in Damascus in 2007. He teaches: Political Islam, International Relations in the Middle East, Islam, The Modern Middle East, Culture and Society in the Middle East, the US in the Middle East and other courses.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
