484. War in Europe, Trump’s Destruction of Institutions, and Britain’s National Treasures (Question Time)
1 January 2026
372. Syria, al-Sharaa, and the future of the Middle East
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Podcast
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15 February 2025
What does al-Sharaa's rise to power mean for Syria? Given his surprise takeover, how will today’s CIA analysts be changing the way they think about the country and what happens next? Will Syria be the next Libya?
Join Rory and Alastair as they discuss Syria’s rapidly shifting political landscape with former CIA analyst and The Rest Is Classified co-host David McCloskey, who spent almost a decade covering Syria from Langley and Damascus, both before and during the Syrian civil war.
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I listened to your podcast of Thursday evening, 13 February 2024, with great interest both before and after the self-imposed short-ish mini break mid-podcast.
I was mightily impressed by your reassurances that your podcasts and blogs are absolutely free of all adverts! Is this so?! All very ‘tongue in cheek’. No mentioning of freebies, special deals, new utility providers, Trip or NordVPN whatsoever and no plugging of bestselling spy novels written by American ex-CIA authors with past postings to Syria either….. with whom you happen to plan future podcasts…….? ‘My, my’,….. I say to myself in mock horror what has the world come to.
Now I listened – as one says ‘with great interest’ – to your questioning session on Syria and, more importantly, Syria’s future with David McCloskey whose bestseller ‘Damascus Station’ I admittedly have yet to read.
These are early days for Syria’s new President, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, and there is widespread hope that Syria will be rebuilt and become a democracy to last going forward. Its heritage, its cities and with it their architectural gems and historic sites having been destroyed by relentless bombings by different fractions either backed by Russia,Turkey, Iran, Iraq or the US between 2011 and 2016, again and again right up until very recently, not to forget the ravages of conventional civil war.
The Syria of old, pre civil war, was a different matter and the mere mentioning of Syria or a Syrian connection could have had drastic, far reaching consequences.
Pre 9/11, my late father had twice travelled to Syria at the invitation and suggestion of two of his Syrian students reading Architecture at the HfdBK Hamburg and he had found these two trips, two excursions, on both occasions travelling with a group of his students as their professor, very interesting and highly informative. A large map of Syria hung years later, long after his last trip, pinned to his pinboard wall in his lounge in his flat in Berlin for all to see.
Although his own Syrian students had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, he had been – as the rest of the world had been – shocked by the events that had taken place on that day in September 2001 and even more so when CIA investigations revealed that those involved and held responsible in the end had been of Syrian origin, had originally been based in North Germany, had been students in Hamburg and/or Bremen and had learned to fly passenger aircraft in North Germany.
I personally, know Syria only from war photography and BBC News and Channel 4 News coverage of the civil war, with one particular colour photography of a bombed out street in Aleppo taken presumably by Don McCullin in early 2012 having stuck in my mind.
David McCloskey makes an amusing interviewee whose expert avoidance strategy of refusing to give outright straight answers to very clearly put forward questions is admirable and highly entertaining, if not amusing. One can only assume that – once having been in the employ of the CIA one remains bound not to divulge any information other than that already in the public domaine – even years after the event.
So one learns that there is hardly any military presence on the streets of Syria’s cities nowadays as they have all withdrawn, been disbursed and are now based in the hills of the country. There is still a general feeling of uncertainty but also one of euphorism, of hope to rebuild a safer, better, politically stable and democratic future for Syria in which to bring up their children.
One also learns that David McCloskey is the proud owner of three what he calls ‘holiday homes’ – one in Old Blighty, one in Greenland and one in Canada, while calling Texas home. He also manages to get in two mentions of this vital fact. Congratulations! I assume that the CIA does pay reasonably well all of those potentially risking their lives in their line of duty, or pushing pens seated at desks in far away countries wrecked by civil war – whether involved in espionage or counter-espionage – but trust that David McCloskey whose new found wealth is awe inspiring and who at the same time still manages to come across as a thoroughly likeable chap, ‘me old beam’, has earned a bob or two writing spy thrillers and good ones to boot if one believes the blurb. I am positively ‘green with envie’ at the gills. Well done! I am looking forward to the next instalment.