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Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com slash podcast. Terms apply. The sanctions were brutal and crippling and served as an important, really an important function, nevertheless, at the time. But now it's their time to shine. It's their time to shine. We're taking them all off and they're going to have, I think they're going to have based on the people and the spirit and everything else that I'm hearing about. So the president decided to take the sanctions off Syria and leave his and asked Marco Rubio to meet with the foreign minister or the temporary foreign minister of this new country, Syria, with some people with dicey backgrounds.
I get it. I'm not saying that these are a Hall of Fame human beings, but Turkey and the government of Saudi Arabia asked the president to do this and he did. Moaz Mustafa is fully in support of this. He would know he's been on the ground almost since the civil war started there and saw all the ugliness with the Russians and Iranians.
Al Qaeda, ISIS, the Kurds have been fighting about up close and personal. He's the executive director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force after he met with the new leader of Syria for three hours. Moaz, thanks for joining us on television. And now please give us your perspective on the president's announcement and what it means. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. And I am just so proud and so grateful to President Trump.
I mean, I do think there's a lot of misinformation out there. I do think that a lot of people don't really understand the implications of what the president's decision means and also the way that he did it. I mean, the fact that he made this meeting with the new Syrian leader in Saudi Arabia, balancing off, you know, other countries with leverage in Syria like Turkey and Qatar and empowering the crown prince has been a really good partner for peace with President Trump. Number two, making sure that he's lifting all of the sanctions. Now, that's important because that prevents Syria, which was weeks away from becoming a failed state, from becoming a failed state, which means perpetual war, which means that Iranians back in, ISIS back on the rise, etc. And also by lifting sanctions and bringing Syria towards democracies and becoming a potentially important and influential ally of the United States, he closed the door on China. So instead of Huawei right now in Syria, rebuilding the telecommunications system, which is bad news for everyone, having China do this.
AT&T could be one of these companies that are doing this. And in terms of gas and oil as well, instead of Russia and China and Iran being the ones that take the oil, develop it in their corrupt systems and steal it from the Syrian people, now you have American companies that can bid on this with the best technologies in the world, the most efficient way to exploit natural resources to help the Syrian people. And so, you know, it was really a master chess move, the lifting of sanctions and normalization. So this is what people are saying. Even last week, there was a surge in violence against the Syrian Druze religious community.
Over 100 people were killed since the start of May. What about the looking, making sure the Christians have a place in the Druze have a place, even the Shia, you know, Assad was Shia, right? He was a Shia sect. So even that they have a place. That's right.
That's right. Well, look, I think this is a really important point that you raised. And in here, I think what's important is I was in Syria during that violence that happened where there was violence against the Druze community from some armed groups. But it was and that's true, but it was the Syrian government that actually lost lives, stopping that violence. And I've been in touch regularly since December 8th, the fall of Assad, Iran and Russia in Syria with the with the bishop of Syria, the highest ranking Catholic representative there with the Eastern Orthodox churches, with the Evangelical churches and with people in the Kurdish community, Alawite community. What they all see is that the new Syrian leadership is one that is trying to stave off revenge killings, to stave off any civil war in Syria. And so and so that's important to highlight and look at a country like Syria, which has been 14 years of war, a million people dead, 14 million displaced. You know, it's a country that's trying to come together after Iran and ISIS and Assad divided these people against each other.
And today they have hope. They have hope in their new leadership, which Moaz, are you Syrian? Yes, I was born in Damascus, but I moved to the United States to Arkansas when I was about nine years old. So I grew up in the U.S., proud to be an American, but but really happy to see the United States help Syria potentially become probably the first democracy in the Arab world. But you met with this former head of al-Nusra for three hours.
You met him before. I mean, why you can do you understand the American people look at these extremists and wonder, we hear they never can turn the page. Why did why don't we don't believe that he turned the page?
That's a great question. And again, I think actions speak louder than words. I can very proudly tell you that my organization, the Syrian Emergency Task Force, has helped facilitate direct contact between the U.S. military and the new Syrian government. And today, this new Syrian leader who just absolutely had the checkered past, absolutely has evolved, you know, you know, in different times in his life, joined terrible groups, you know, but he is a changed man.
The fact is, people change. And today, this new leader works directly with the U.S. military, both Operation Inherent Resolve, Lieutenant General Leahy, our special forces led by Lieutenant General Brooks on fighting ISIS, on securing ISIS prisoners, on making deals that that that bring together the SDF Kurdish forces and the Syria Free Army American partner forces under a new Ministry of Defense. So this guy is actually right now ISIS's worst nightmare. He fights them. And if ISIS was to come across them, they'd kill him.
These are facts. Yet, unfortunately, because of his checkered past, people assume that he, you know, is somehow, you know, an ISIS person. He's not. He's actually ISIS's worst enemy in Syria and vice versa. Moaz is, Mustafa is joining us now, Executive Director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force.
Moaz, now we want to see a couple of things. We'd like to see the Russian presidents gone. They are lobbying hard to keep their port and to keep their base. Why are they even considering it, considering how many Syrians the Russians have indiscriminately killed over the last five years? Well, you know, for the last three months or so, since December 8th, when the Assad regime fell, the new Syrian government and the new Syrian leader have been holding out against deals with Russia or China, et cetera, until President Trump was able to have the time to look at Syria and address it and make a decision, which has now happened. And effectively, what President Trump has done is allowed the Syrians not to have no choice but to work with Russia and China, because Syria can't develop its oil and gas alone. Syria can't print its own currency alone.
Syria doesn't have, you know, electricity and so on. And the Russians were saying, look, we'll do this. We'll lift sanctions. Just keep our bases. Today, the Syrians now have so much leverage to tell the Russians, which have killed countless innocent civilians in Syria, to get their bases and go packing. What President Trump has done is close the door on Russia and allowed the Syrian government not to be forced to deal with the people that killed them in the first place. And because it was either that or a financial collapse, you know.
I understand. Hopefully this is options. My hope is that the president brought that up. Protect all these religious sects and also kick out the Russians. Moaz Mustafa, you do great work, great communicator, too. Hopefully the administration keeps reaching back to you. Thanks so much for joining us. God bless you, sir.
