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Episode Transcript
Christian Smith: Hello and welcome to this podcast from Geopolitical Futures. I’m Christian smith. It is two years ago to the week since the attacks on October 7th stunned Israel and the world. And now, for the first time, there is palpable excitement that the war in Gaza may be about to end. The first part of Donald Trump’s 20 point Gaza peace plan seems to have been agreed by Israel and Hamas. Despite their small sizes, the battle between Israelis and Palestinians continues to draw in geopolitical capital. But despite the hope that is in the air, the plan still faces many seemingly insurmountable hurdles. So today on the podcast, I’m joined by Geopolitical Futures chairman and founder George Friedman as we discuss how we got here, whether the plan will work, and why the Gulf states are so important to all of it. George, welcome. As we record what we know is that Israel and Hamas have agreed to the early stages of the peace plan. Hostages are set to be released to Israel in the coming days. Israel will withdraw its troops to an agreed line, allow aid to enter Gaza and free nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. I mean, George, to start off with, how did we get here? And for you, I suppose, why does it go all the way back to the First World War?
George Friedman: In the First World War, the Turks were involved in that war. On the German side, Turkey at that point had an empire, the Ottoman Empire. Palestine was a small part of that. The British, in the course of the war, wanted to weaken the Turks and announced that it would support a Jewish state in Palestine. This was an idea that had been present in Jewish thought. It never was expected to be addressed like this. They did that to weaken Turkey and to some extent to gain support among Jews. Nothing happened until after World War II. After World War II, the British Empire began to collapse and the British hold over Palestine was challenged in many ways. And the claim which was called the Balfour Declaration, which was made by the British, was seen as an obligation on Britain to create a Jewish state. It was, but given the circumstances of the Second World War and the Jewish experience in became a general Western theory that this was the least that was owed to the Jews. On the other hand, the question of Palestinians never really arose. It was agreed that the state would be divided between a Jewish and a Palestinian part. The fact that the Palestinians were the dominant population in the Israeli part and it meant their expulsion, was not considered. The United nations, by the way, was the entity that legitimized the claim for the division of Palestine. The Palestinian state never emerged because the Arab state, Jordan, the Kingdom of Jordan, occupied the Burstbank, which was the part that was by the division of the United nations, the Palestinian part, so that in part victimized the Palestinians over and over and over again, first by the Turks, then by the British, then by the United nations, and the latest comer being the Jews, the Israelis. The problem of Israel is that is basically a very vulnerable country. At its widest point, between the river of Jordan and the sea, it is only 80 miles wide. @ other points, at the narrowest point of Israel, it’s nine miles wide. Therefore, Israel cannot lose a war or be destroyed. 80 miles is not much depth in which to fight a war. That means from a military point of view, any threat to Israel is far more fundamental than it appears to the rest of the world. On the other hand, the tragedy of the Palestinians is they were in fact expelled from Western Palestine, if you will. But it was under UN mandate that this happened. On the other hand, no attention was made to repay the Palestinians for the land they lost. So they dominated the Galilee. They were simply expelled, and no one cared what happened to them. And this was what happened. A state of Israel was created that was profoundly geographically vulnerable. Any attack, all it had to go is nine miles in the south by the Negev, would split Israel from the Palestinian view. They had lost their homeland. Their homeland was then put under Jordanian rule. They never really got to have the Palestinian state that the United nations wanted to create. The United nations took no action in this matter, as it normally does, takes no action. But more importantly, it created a situation inside of Israel and inside of the Palestinian community that was inherently hostile. In other words, the Palestinians wanted legitimately their homes back. The Jews were guaranteed a state by the British Empire and by the United nations, and this was it. And it was a very vulnerable state. And so what happened was that Israel developed a massive military force quite unpredictably large and capable because it was desperate. Israel cannot lose a war. If an attack is made and broken through, then Israel will cease to survive. Therefore, the Israelis have extreme military measures and are highly sensitive to any intent to encroach. The Palestinians have no homeland, they have no government. They’re a distinct nation, if you will, whatever you want to call them. They’ve been screwed by the Ottoman Empire, they’ve been screwed by the British. They were screwed by the United nations, and everybody’s walked away. And the Israelis were created, and the Palestinians exist, but we’re not. The Palestinians. And other Arabs that support them constantly probe at Israel, terrifying the Israelis, which is not understood. Their army is their psychological defense but in reality, it’s their one war away from disaster. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have nothing to lose. They’ve lost everything. And so we have the Arab Israeli crisis. Now, the idea that Trump has put forward is to resurrect the old principle of the United nations, which is two states living together. The question is, after all this time, can these two states reach accommodation?
Christian Smith: And, George, let me just jump in there because I want to sort of set that out, I suppose, because what you’re sort of saying there from that background and in many ways, what we’ve seen in the last few years since October 7th is Israel trying to expand its strategic depth in many ways. And of course, as you said out there, you’ve sort of got a situation where you have and has been. I’m not saying anything new here, but you’ve got a situation where you’ve got two sides, Palestine and Israel, Palestinians and Israelis, who have two sets of imperatives that don’t match up and can’t really match up. Palestine wants a state. Israel is nervous about Palestine on its border. And October 7th, to many of them, proved that. So when we look at a potential peace deal, how can that those two imperatives sort of be overcome?
George Friedman: It’s extremely unlikely to succeed, just given the nature. From my point of view, Israel will survive until the first massive strategic error in 1973, they were simultaneously attacked by the Egyptians and the Syrians. The Syrians moved forward on the Golan Heights and was a couple of miles from Israel. Had they descended the Golan Heights, they would be about 70 miles, 60 miles away from splitting Israel in half. That they didn’t have to do with Israeli military power. And remember also that in this region the Cold War was fought. The Egyptians and the Syrians are armed by the Soviets. The Israelis were armed by Americans. There was a massive influx of power into the Arab world with the Soviets trying to radicalize them and draw them into their structure at the same time. The United States wanted to block them and Israel became a major tool for doing that. So we shouldn’t forget that as well as everything that happened with the United nations and everything. Israel, Palestinians and the Arabs as a whole became battlegrounds for the Cold War between the United States and that this is why the United States became so close to Israel. It was a powerful force under American defenses, if you will, to destabilize the pro Russian forces like in Syria or Egypt. So the truth of the Middle east is generally massive tragedy everywhere, with this tragedy resulting from goodwill on all sides and all sorts of dreams. We now are dreaming that there can be a settlement with Hamas. That would mean that the Palestinians have to accept that all of Palestine will not be regained. The Israelis have to accept a Palestinian state on their border in the West Bank. These are two terrors on both sides facing each other. And therefore there has to be a third party that is super powerful and able to control both.
Christian Smith: Well, let’s just come onto that at the moment, but I want to just ask about what’s kind of changed in the near term, in the near history since. Since what, in the last six months even. I mean, deals like the one that has been proposed, and we can kind of go into some of the aspects of it in a moment. They’re not, you know, they have been proposed in. In similar forms over the past two years. There’s nothing enormously groundbreaking here, or at least there are aspects of this that. That. That are similar. What has changed in the war in Gaza and Israel in the past few months to bring these two sides to a temporary agreement, at least?
George Friedman: Well, fundamentally exhaustion Hamas and the attack, and the fact that Israeli intelligence failed to detect it and that the military was not in position to stop it terrified Israel. What other mistakes are going to be made? On the other hand, it emboldened the Palestinians. They said, okay, we can do this. And in doing so, it led them into a disaster. The very fact that they believed they could do this was also believed by the Israelis. So the worst thing they did, the Palestinians, was feel triumphant at what they achieved. They had triumphed in a military sense, but they convinced the Israelis that they were existentially at risk. The result was a catastrophic event in Gaza, where the desire to destroy Hamas as an organization was actually the desire to build a massive barrier against such attacks. Because really, it doesn’t matter if Hamas disarms or not. They can buy guns in many stores in the United States if they need, or in any other country, they can be rearmed. The issue is that this particular organization of Palestinians has been destroyed. But there have been many organizations of Palestinians, many Arab organizations, so the threat with the destruction of Hamas doesn’t end. The Israelis have made this a fundamental need, possibly under the expectation that Hamas would not give in. But on the other hand, it has seemingly. We have not seen that. And now Israel has to face the question with the United States, not just brokering, but imposing this deal. Implicit in it is a Palestinian entity. We’ll see what kind of state it is on the West Bank. And that creates a situation where if a new Hamas forms New terrorist force. They’re very close to Tel Aviv as the crow flies. So this is a very difficult thing to do. And what the United nations failed to do when it passed this resolution was send a United nations force to manage the transition to make sure the Palestinians had their place. The Jordanians didn’t take it, and that didn’t happen. It just was announced as a nice thing to happen, and they’ve let them fight for this long. The extraordinary thing about Trump’s decision is that it violates a fundamental principle that he was operating under to reduce American exposure to the wars of the world and so on to the economies of the world, to make America more self sufficient and island away from all this. In this case, he is taking the role. Ultimately, when you talk about third parties guaranteeing these things, there’s only one third party that both sides would regard as reliable, and the Palestinians, I’m not sure believe the Americas would be reliable.
Christian Smith: So there’s much to go and in many respects what’s relevant about the US Involvement here, and we can talk about that more as well. But other Gulf states, and in many respects, they are the ones that want the U.S. involved. But I mean, start from the beginning, George. Why are the Gulf states so important in this deal when they’re not actually bordering any of these countries?
George Friedman: They’re not bordering these countries. However, they have enormous influence in the Arab world, in Europe and the United States, because they’re extremely wealthy. The Gulf states, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and so on have emerged as major economic powers, major economic powers who feel as threatened by groups like Hamas, even if they give themselves sanctuary in their country as Israel is. They badly want to see this war to end. They have lots of economic possibilities. They don’t want to waste it on this. Therefore, these states have the ability to finance a Palestinian state, have the ability to arm it without Hamas. But some. And they can exercise a degree of control over a Palestinian state not exercised by Jews, not exercised by Christians, but by other Muslims, Arabs. And so they are critical in this both because they, along with Saudi Arabia, of course, have emerged as major global economic powers and because somebody has to underwrite this deal.
Christian Smith: Well, I mean, that’s really interesting, the idea of underwriting it. We’ve got actually a question from a listener here, George, on that point of Qatar in particular, and as you mentioned there, the attacks on Hamas in Qatar. The listener asks, is there substance to the idea of the US Security guarantee for Qatar? They write noting the fact it was done by executive order. This is Trump’s security Guarantee instead of a bilateral treaty of the two nations? Or is this order effectively just to appease the Qataris following Israel’s attack on Hamas’s leaders? And I mean for me as well, just to expand on that, how much has that attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar, in Doha, how much has that accelerated this process?
George Friedman: Well, to the broader question, the United States already is a defender of Qatar. They don’t need a treaty. Central Command is based there. A major air base is there. These were put in when Iran and the United States were at odds after the fall of Shah, during Operation Desert Storm and so on. So many of these Gulf state countries with Iran over the border across the ocean are very concerned about that. So the idea that we formalize a pre existing reality which existed for 20 years, this is not an issue. Does this require a vote by Congress for a treaty? Yes, but a treaty is a piece of paper. We never had a treaty beyond what we had. So the current situation is that the United States is deeply committed in its own interest to the fugitive gutter and these other countries. And whether or not there’s a treaty or a presidential statement for presidents going back many decades, we had a fundamental interest in the safety gutter and so on. So this is a non issue really in practice. If they want a treaty, well, we’ll write a treaty. We already have many agreements with them. But if no agreement is reached, but the President has said we will defend Qatar. We said that for 20 years. So this is not new as to how this is engineered, if you will. Okay, the question of US troops in Qatar is settled. There are US troops in Qatar. As for the killing of Hamas, I don’t think in Qatar, I don’t think Qatar carried that much. They were willing to support Hamas. In other words, give them a homeland. They limited the amount they could operate outside of it. They did that because they were Arabs and they didn’t want to be seen as outcasts. But remember that these Arab principalities and princedoms that exist are as afraid of radical Islamic terrorists as are the Israelis in a way. So they had them there. It satisfied something. But that they disappeared in a flash of smoke did not cause much unhappiness in Qatar.
Christian Smith: Enjoying the show? Take a moment to follow and rate us on your preferred podcast platform for video versions of the show and much, much more. Subscribe on YouTube Eopolitical Futures GPF that’s EopoliticalFuturesGPF. And as always, you can find expert geopolitical analysis at Geopolitical Futures. So I Suppose now the key question is whether the deal itself will stick. I mean, this is just stage one. I mean, in many respects I’ve been a bit surprised at how enthusiastic everyone, enthusiastically everyone has been responding to the deal, aside from the question of prisoner swaps, which of course is very important. But there’s a long way to go before any form of permanent peace can be agreed and the more difficult issues seem to be still to be surmounted. Let’s, let’s start with the Hamas side of things. I mean, Hamas is exhausted, as you say, George. They’ve lost their allies in Hezbollah to a large degree and Iran as well. I mean, one of the key questions is who will run Gaza and also will Hamas give up their weapons? I mean, what do you make of that? Will they go? And just to say, just before we recorded this, a senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, was talking to a Qatari based broadcaster, Al Arabi, and saying that it rejected Trump’s proposal for an interim board of peace to oversee Gaza’s administration, which would have been headed up by Trump himself. I mean, that’s a huge speed bump, that roadblock that, that they’ve now rejected. I mean, is this actually going to work out?
George Friedman: Well, the truth is that both Palestinians and the Israelis are deeply divided. There is a deep anti war faction inside of Israel. There’s another faction that says, you idiots, you saw what happened this time. You’re fantasizing that it won’t happen again. Now’s our time to finish them off. Okay, there are the Palestinians divided, they want to have home country. And there’s a radical side that says, you idiots, don’t you understand that you can’t resist the Israelis? They’ll come and go as they please. They’ll come in and drive you out if they want. So in other words, there is a deep political reasonable difference. One is that the history of these two nations against each other has been terrible. The fact that Israel won the wars doesn’t mean they’re not terrified of the Palestinians of losing one. The fact that the Palestinians have consistently lost doesn’t mean in their minds that they can’t win a war. So that statement from the Hamas member may or may not indicate what Hamas is going to do because it’s not relevant. Hamas is gone. It is shattered as a military force. However, anti Israeli feeling among the Palestinians is not gone. Anti Palestinian feeling in Israel is not gone. So now what really evolves is can this peace be held long enough to within the Palestinian and Israeli communities to allow a time of healing within the country, in the division between. You can’t trust them, you idiot. And you can’t win a war, you fool. And these various positions. So it’s very useful for this that Netanyahu is going to do the one making the decision on peace because he is known to be a rabid Israeli nationalist. The question is, who on the Palestinian side will emerge with the authority of having waged war to stand there saying, hey, I’m as tough as anybody. And I’m saying, let’s stop it. On the Israeli side, Netanyahu is going to do this because he has no choice. Inside of Israel, politically, he’s weak. The Americans demand it, and that’s fundamental. In the Palestinian side, I don’t know how they operate. I don’t know how much feeling of resentment there is a great deal enormous. How much need for revenge is how great the need for peace and being left alone, can the Israelis trust them along a long border not to have another Hamas attack? Can the Palestinians trust the Israelis not to charge into them? Well, these are the things we’re going to look at. So the question is, you cannot answer this question without answering the internal political questions unless the United States is prepared to place troops on the border between Palestine and Israel. And if I were in the army, again, I would say, hell no, I’m not going there. That is the last place I want an American army. So it’s complex.
Christian Smith: And then, I mean from the Israeli side as well, one of the proposals or suggestions might be that there would be an Arab peacekeeping force, perhaps with people from Jordan or Egypt and other locations. Trump is said to be going to Egypt this weekend to sign the peace deal, perhaps. I mean, that strikes me as something that very unlikely that Israel would agree to. And adding to that, one of the final points of the plan is moving towards Palestinian statehood. Again, a red line for Israel.
George Friedman: Well, that red line moved. If they want to continue the war without the United States there, well, they can’t. And you also have to remember that Israel has excellent relations with many Arab countries. Not formally. There’s tremendous intelligence sharing with the Saudis military cooperation. In the attacks on Iran, the Saudis were quite pleased to see that happen. In the attacks in Yemen, which were testing the ability to export oil, they were not unhappy. So it’s a mistake to think of the Arab world as of one mind. Also a mistake to think that Israel doesn’t have very good relations with Qatar, with the Arab Emirates, with Saudi Arabia and other countries. So the truth beneath the apparent structure is that many Arab Countries badly want an end to this nonsense because they want to be developing radically themselves, and they were afraid of being pulled into it. The Israelis trust the Saudis. Over many years, they’ve worked together. This was the Abraham Coalition, okay, that formed. So it’s not that in any way the Arab world is united on this issue. They’re quite divided. And therefore peacekeeping forces drawn from appropriate countries would not be unbearable for the Israelis. There are countries with which they collaborate. The Palestinians may find it more troubling to have the ones that collaborate with them. It’s a very complicated thing, but in the end, you need a neutral force. The United States is not conceived of by the Arabs as a neutral force in this, by the Palestinians. They are simply a dimension of Israeli reality. So who would be a normal peacekeeper? Well, the Europeans stand up. You started this, Britain. It all started with you. Get your guys on board and head in town. In other words, there will have to be peacekeepers. That border has to be closed. It has to be defended. The Americans are not trusted enough by the Palestinians to do it. The Arabs don’t want to be in this position. The British own Palestine. They created this situation. The United nations approved it. It seems to me the two entities that are responsible for this are the British and the United Nations. As Trump pointed out, the United nations has not been a very useful entity in past. This is the time for the UN to set up a peacekeeping force, capable, willing, and so on. Now, will the United nations do that? I don’t think they can even decide what time to have dinner. So this is now the next stage of the evolution.
Christian Smith: Well, I mean, speaking of the British there, it’s somewhat interesting, I found, is that the large part of this plan, or the general outline of it, came from Sir Tony Blair, the Blair Institute, the former British Prime Minister who led the UK during the Afghanistan and Iraq war wars. And he has been proposed, I think, by Trump as the sort of interim head of the potential government that might take over Palestine until. Until more can be decided. So there’s certainly plenty of discussion in the UK about. About what might happen there. Looking at Netanyahu again, though, I mean. I mean, his whole spiel for the past two years in particular, has been we must destroy Hamas. I mean, there’s a good argument, of course, to say that Hamas can’t be destroyed, as you say there, George, even if it is technically another organization may well take its place. That sentiment isn’t going anywhere. But without destroying Hamas as a political force, and I mean, there’s still spokespeople of course, there, as we just discussed, could this be the end for Netanyahu? Can he and his government survive this?
George Friedman: If this war had gone on, I think he would not have survived as prime minister. I think the intensity with which the Israelis wanted to end this war struggled against the principle of releasing 20 people still alive. The thought of those 20 people really was one of the forces that was keeping the Israeli public together. It was the one thing they all agreed on. But Israel is deeply divided in this war, that ending the war actually strengthens him in terms of that. In other words, the demand by those who wanted the war to end has been met. He may have a lot of trouble on those who want the war to continue going to a final end. That’s where he might be weak, but he has a better chance of surviving now than that. But this is not a matter of personality or politics or anything else. In the end, it doesn’t matter who is the prime minister of Israel. The reality is that Israel cannot continue to exist in the reality it’s in, and it cannot possibly reach an understanding without a Palestinian state. So the point is here, as in all cases, the matter is impersonal. Whether Netanyahu survives or not matters to his wife, his children, and so on. But in terms of Israel, something must emerge that is simultaneously nationalistic to Israel in favor of military force and able to accept the existence of the UN Terms in the first place with the Arabs of the west bank. For the first generation, this will have to have foreign guards. The Blair solution, which I think in large measure was the solution in Ireland in a certain way when that period was going on, is a very good one. And Blair would be a very nice whipping boy for both sides to condemn for favoring the other side.
Christian Smith: I don’t doubt it. Look, George, let’s move on to our last topic. I suppose we touched ON earlier, the U.S. role in this and the broader picture of. You can call it what you want, you can call it America first, you can call it the US Wanting to become less involved in the world. It fits into the US Trying to get the Gulf states more involved in the Middle East. But, I mean, Trump has gone all in, in many respects on this. He is heavily involved. He is said to be the potential leader of this new board that might control Gaza, with Tony Blair being his whipping boy, as you suggest. Why is he so. I mean. I mean, again, a story as old as the Second World War, since the Second World War, I suppose. But why is Trump pinning so much on Israel and Gaza right now.
George Friedman: He’s afraid that if Israel is severely endangered, the United States will be forced in militarily. He’s quite happy to be involved in these things. He doesn’t want to send military force and doesn’t have to pay for it very much. You can look at the Ukraine situation. The United States is very much interested in ending this war. It doesn’t want to be sucked into it. On the other hand, it is not going to send troops. So this is a policy that he has. If there are wars, there’s a high probability of us being sucked into it. Somehow or another. His position is, I’m not going to do everything I can to avoid wars that might suck us in, save send troops as a, as a measure.
Christian Smith: And so, and George, just let me ask, let me ask you on that. Why would they be sucked in? Why would the, I mean, couldn’t the US Just say, oh, Israel, we’ll send you weapons if you want, but we’re not, you know, it’s up to you.
George Friedman: Well, I’ll give you two ways in which could be done. Why did we hit Iran? We didn’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons, in large part because what would a 911 look like if Iran had nuclear weapons? Al Qaeda is still operational inside of Iran. Put a nuclear weapon on a ship, sail into New York harbor under a French flag, and what happens? So the United States had a fundamental interest that wasn’t very widely spoken of about having a nuclear weapon. We have interests in the area. We have friends and enemies in the area. We certainly want to maintain our relationship with all countries in Asia, Africa and so on. There is no reason in Trump’s mind that he can’t cut a deal and can’t get it done so long as he’s not sending massive US Troops. The Iranian situation was different because I think there was a 911 thought in a lot of people’s minds. It certainly wasn’t mine, and we don’t want them to have that option. Now, if you look at him, ignore the various ways in which he acts and talks and everything else. This is the old Democratic line. It’s odd to say after Vietnam, there was a massive anti war movement in the Democratic Party, constantly opposing engagements in wars and so on and so forth. There is now in the Republican Party a massive desire to withdraw from the world entanglement and everything. And what you see Trump doing is trying to disarm certain conflicts that might draw us in possibly, and to avoid economic interaction beyond the minimal point, which is tariffs are to Move back from NATO and let NATO will remain in NATO. But the Europeans must believe there’s a consistent foreign policy which for some reason he’s unable to verbalize or unwilling to verbalize. He comes out very strangely, and I’ll call it that. But in fact, if you step back, ignore all the speeches, all the statements and everything else, there’s a consistent model. Reducing threats in the world reduces our need to go into them. We will not go into them anyway, no matter what. But we will try to disarm them. He did that in Ukraine, has not succeeded yet. Possibly he will, possibly he won’t. We don’t even know if he’ll succeed here. But this is a consistent foreign policy that’s emerging. That for some reason he could be a Democrat on this is the funny part. And that’s unthinkable for everybody because right now we hate each other as Israelis and Palestinians do. But it’s very odd when you look at what he does as opposed to what he says. There’s a lot of rationality and seemingly deep understanding of the situation. I say seemingly because when I hear him talking at the United Nations, I wonder what’s he talking about. But I think there’s more here to him than meets the eye.
Christian Smith: It’s really interesting, George.
George Friedman: There must be more. For God’s sakes.
Christian Smith: That’s really interesting, George. I mean, well, I mean on there. Is there any credibility, do you think, to this idea that lots of people like to push, that he’s just doing it because he wants a Nobel Peace Party prize like Obama?
George Friedman: Why shouldn’t he like a Nobel priest prize? If he stops the Ukrainian war and Gaza, this SOB deserves one. So in other words, that he presents himself to the public as a semi maniacal narcissist and what he actually does are two very different things. And he is smart enough to become President United States. You got to be pretty sharp to do that. But before you dismiss him, burn all your speeches, get rid of all the tapes you have of what he said, step back and look at what he does. What can I say?
Christian Smith: Well, to finish, George, do you think this will work? And when do you think we’ll find out if it does or not?
George Friedman: The measure of it is how desperate are the Israelis for peace? How desperate are the Palestinians for a homeland? If it turns out that the Palestinians want war more than a homeland, it’ll fail. If it turns out the Israelis are so embedded in war they can’t stop doing it, then it’ll fail. But if, and I believe this is true. If the Israelis want this nightmare to end and the Palestinians want their nightmare to end, both of them will accept this as a solution. Now we will find out now it becomes not a geopolitical matter, but a political matter inside these countries. The Israelis are ousted, exhausted and horrified by this war. The Palestinians have been lost for generations. The generation that lost it has gone long ago. The most important question is, I think the Israelis will welcome this. Are the Palestinians so deeply culturally divided at this point that they can’t find a common acceptance? That’s the question. I think they can.
Christian Smith: Well, George, as always, thanks so much for coming on the Geopolitical Futures podcast. Thank you out there, of course, for listening as well. We’ll be back again with another podcast soon. You can, of course, find everything that George is writing about and everybody else, all of the other many analysts based around the world at Geopolitical Futures. You can find their writings@geopoliticalfutures.com but until we see you again, thanks very much for listening. Take care and goodbye.
George Friedman: Goodbye, everybody.
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