Paul welcome to the journal editorial report, The Middle East is on as the world prepares to mark the 1year anniversary of the October 7th Terror Attack with the israeli military pressing forward on multiple frontend taking the fight to irans socalled Axis Of Resistance in gaza, lebanon and yemen. Benjamin netanyahu vowed to change the Balance Of Power in the region. How has the at least changed since the israel hamas war began . Lets ask seth jones, senior Vice President and director of the international Security Program at the center for strategic and international studies. Good to see you again, happy to have you here. How has October 7th and the Israel Response to that changed The Middle East . There is both a shortterm and longerterm impact in the change of the Balance Of Power. The first is in the short term, weve seen hezbollah knocked on its back for the Command And Control structure that has been severely degraded. The leader of hezbollah has been killed and its interesting to
there are any number of groups in iraq, in afghanistan, in syria who are drawing into the chaos in which they live and operate, drawing people who have ambitions well beyond what they may be seeking to achieve in damascus or in baghdad, that they want to go international. so no question that whenever you have chaos like you do in syria, and these areas become magnets for people from all over the arab world, from people from europe to train and learn. some of them have transnational ambitions and it s something that we need to keep a very close eye on. and are you concerned? i mean, just directly, does the war in syria, does this pose a threat to the u.s. homeland? well, you know, look, if it weren t syria, it would be somewhere else. there are chaotic areas all over the world, whether it s libya or afghanistan or parts of iraq, parts of yemen where people who would seek to do us harm can find refuge. so i wouldn t overfocus on syria, but of course, where you have ungoverned areas a