US Hegemony CRACKED: Bases Gone, Syria Not Over, Russia Involved | Prof. Leila Hudson

## Middle East or West Asia? The linguistic choice between "Middle East" and "West Asia" is more than semantic hair-splitting; it signals how we frame history, geography, and politics. The conversation underlines that this is a region defined as much by waterways, migration routes, and imperial legacies as by modern nation-states. Calling it West Asia does two things: it dislodges the Eurocentric vantage implicit in "Middle" and it encourages attention to geographic continuities — from North Africa across the Levant to the Persian Gulf — that national boundaries can obscure. This shift in framing is not merely cosmetic. It changes what questions scholars ask, the scales at which they investigate, and the actors — state and non-state — whose movements and connections become central to analysis. The region resists tidy categorization. Colonial and imperial histories created many of the states and borders now treated as natural. Yet the social, cultural, and economic circulations — diasporas, trade, religious networks, and historical empires — cut across those lines. The conversation highlights the value of looking at the area through multiple lenses: language and culture, ecological and hydrological systems, and imperial trajectories. Such a plural approach allows us to see patterns and continuities that national histories miss. It also brings to the fore the ways in which contemporary upheavals are often geographic problems in new political clothing: control over routes, access to water, and the legacies of military presence. Prof. Leila Hudson’s reflections remind us that disciplinary and institutional naming matters. The move, even at universities, to broader "global studies" umbrellas is not simply an administrative choice; it can nudge scholars and students toward seeing West Asia as part of planetary processes — climate, migration, and global markets — rather than as an isolated, exceptional region. That wider vantage is precisely what the present moment seems to demand. ## Water, Chokepoints, and Hormuz If any single factor stitches together the history and present of West Asia, it is water — both in its scarcity and its strategic abundance. Rivers, irrigation systems, and coastal routes have long structured settlement, agriculture, and trade. The modern economy overlays those older patterns with a hydrocarbon geography: oil and gas flows run along maritime arteries that connect producers to consumers. That makes chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb more than cartographic curiosities; they are economic nervous systems whose disruption radiates globally. The recent closures and threats to Hormuz illustrated this starkly. When traffic through a narrow strait becomes contested, the costs are immediate and broad: petroleum markets surge, fertilizer supplies are disrupted, and ordinary people feel the impact at the pump and in the grocery aisle. The episode also exposed a grim lesson about hubris and ignorance in policymaking. The transcript underscores how knowledge about geography — often taken for granted in academic settings — became a rare and valuable commodity in public debate. The inability or unwillingness of decision-makers to incorporate that knowledge had strategic consequences. More than a lesson in logistics, control over maritime chokepoints is a form of political leverage. Historically, actors that could deny passage or impose costs through these narrow waterways could shape outcomes far beyond their modest physical size. Today, the contest over Hormuz is as much a contest over the regional order as it is over tanker routes. The implications are twofold: first, no power can assume permanent control or unchallenged security of these passages; second, states and non-state actors that can credibly threaten or assure passage gain outsized bargaining power in any reordering of regional alignments. ## Empire, Suez, and Regional Change Great-power decline and regional reconfiguration are not new in West Asia. The Suez Crisis of 1956 is a useful historical mirror: it marked the end of Britain’s comfortable dominance and inaugurated a new era in which regional actors and emerging superpowers recalibrated influence. That episode shows how geography and politics converge to accelerate imperial decline. Attempting to sustain a declining order through coercion often produces the opposite effect — galvanizing local forces and stimulating alliances that undercut the erstwhile hegemon. The recent crisis shares that dynamic. A dominant power’s overreach, coupled with misreading local conditions and purging expert institutional capacity, set the stage for strategic failure. The transcript draws a line between the Suez moment and the present: both illustrate how a hegemon’s projection of force can expose vulnerabilities rather than secure control. In the aftermath, the region tends toward multipolarity. Local actors seize openings to renegotiate security bargains, and extra-regional powers — Russia, China, and others — find new openings to deepen ties. But the ensuing order is not simply a rerun of inter-imperial competition. Contemporary change is shaped by additional variables: transnational militias and political movements, the diffusion of missile and surveillance technologies, and the global economic interdependence anchored in energy markets. Gulf monarchies, small and risk-averse by design, face a stark choice: remain anchored to an unreliable patron or diversify security and economic arrangements. The likely outcome is a patchwork of adaptations — hedging, partial neutrality, and selective partnerships — that together mark a substantive dilution of unipolar American influence. ## Israel, the US, and Iran 00: 34:39 Iran’s Resistance Strategy One of the clearest contours of the emergent order lies in the shifting relationship between Israel, the United States, and Iran. The conversation underscores how U.S. policy choices — in personnel, posture, and priorities — shaped the initial trajectory of the latest conflagration. When a hegemon appears more committed to the security of one partner than to the reciprocal bargains that underwrite broader regional alliances, two things can follow: allies feel betrayed, and opponents feel emboldened. Iran’s survivability in the face of intense pressure is thus not only a matter of military attrition. It reflects a deeper strategy of resilience and regional embeddedness. The transcript frames Iran’s posture as a lesson in asymmetric endurance: it has cultivated networks, proxies, and political capital that make a decisive blow to its capacity costly and uncertain. When a powerful patron appears to have misjudged both the tactical and political terrain, the result is often a reputational shock that redistributes influence. Israel’s role complicates the picture. A regional order that privileges one actor while sidelining the broader security concerns of others invites realignments. Middle powers and smaller states perceive a need to insulate themselves from contagion and to secure independent lines of supply and protection. Thus, the immediate aftermath is less about triumphs and more about testing and recalibration: bilateral talks, quiet diplomatic overtures, and the slow realignment of military basing and procurement. The outcome will likely be a more plural security architecture in which Iran remains a central actor rather than an isolated pariah. ## Ahmad al- Sharaa and Syria’s Future Syria’s trajectory after Assad remains one of the messiest and most consequential puzzles in the region. The conversation highlights Ahmad al-Sharaa as a figure of interest — emblematic of how internal leadership and local political bargaining will shape post-conflict transitions. Whatever macro-level shifts occur across West Asia, Syria’s future will turn on a complex interplay of local actors, regional patrons, and international constraints. One lesson from the discussion is that pow

Bases Done, Syria Not Over, Israel Desperate | Prof. Leila Hudson We are witnessing the biggest change in West Asia since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Professor Leila Hudson, anthropologist and historian at the University of Arizona, discusses the region, water routes, the Strait of Hormuz, US decline, Israel’s role, Iran’s survival strategy, and the future of Gulf states. She also examines Syria after Assad, Ahmad al-Sharaa’s leadership, regional neutrality, and her book on Syrian women displaced by war. Links: Lines of Flight, Assemblages of Home: Syrian Women Displaced: https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/8621/lines-of-flight-assemblages-of-home- syrian-women-displaced/ Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Merch: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Donation: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Timestamps: 00: 00:00 Introduction 00:00:53 Middle East or West Asia? 00:03:14 How to Study the Region 00:07:21 Water, Chokepoints, and Hormuz 00:10:54 US Policy and Strategic Failure 00:17:01 Empire, Suez, and Regional Change 00:19:30 Gulf States and Multipolar Order 00:27:34 Israel, the US, and Iran 00: 34:39 Iran’s Resistance Strategy 00:40:18 Syria, Assad, and Iran Compared 00:49:03 Ahmad al- Sharaa and Syria’s Future 01:06:00 Lines of Flight, Assemblages of Home #Pascal Welcome back to Neutrality Studies. Today I'm speaking to Professor Leila Hudson, an anthropologist and historian, as well as chair of our faculty at the University of Arizona. Leila, welcome. #Leila Hudson Thank you very much. And let me just point out at the outset that, in fact, everything I say here today is my own personal, professional, and scholarly opinion and does not represent the University of Arizona, my employer, in any way. #Pascal Of course, of course. Everything we say on these podcasts is always our own opinions, but it's good that you are setting that record straight. You are also a scholar, of course, of West Asia, and that's what we want to discuss today. You've been looking professionally for many, many years now at what is happening in what some people still refer to as the Middle East, but a lot of us are switching terminology. Can you maybe tell me a little bit first about the terminology? Which one of the two do you prefer, Middle East or West Asia? And secondly, what is your assessment of where the entire region is moving at the moment? -- 1 of 18 -- #Leila Hudson Well, of course, we were trained in the imperial conventions, right, of the Middle East, and that's still what's most recognizable to our students and our public here in the United States. But, of course, your point is well taken that thinking in a larger and less relativistic context is very appropriate, especially since the moment of transformation that we are in right now is a moment that engages with geography. It's a moment in which empire and the political status quo of the last few decades, in many ways, have been brought into stark relief by the struggle over the Strait of Hormuz and the actual geographical factors, which are so often seen as ancillary to human events. So your point is well taken. I think West Asia is a highly appropriate way to approach the subject. And interestingly, at the University of Arizona, for all the wrong reasons, a longstanding School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies, which I've spent my career in, has currently been rolled into a School of Global Studies for, again, all the wrong reasons—financial reasons, penny-pinching reasons, etc. And yet it's a timely renaming because, of course, when we look at migration, when we look at diaspora, as well as the effects of regional geography, it's nice to frame it in a planetary or global sense so that we can see movement, trajectories, and change from a slightly removed and helpful perspective. #Pascal I mean, framing is very, very important, especially in academia, right? I mean, how you approach a topic will largely define what you're able to find. How did you try to approach West Asia as your subject? #Leila Hudson Well, I come to it with a family heritage. I am half Palestinian and half, for want of a better term, American by birth. And my family ranges far and wide across Lebanon and Palestine. I married into a Syrian family in the course of doing my dissertation research in the 1990s. And, again, as an anthropologist, as someone approaching from a linguistic perspective as well, I have spent my career and the training of my students ranging all across North Africa, you know, from Mauritania to the Mashriq to West Asia, and then also training students in that area. The inherited field of Middle Eastern studies engages with Iran, with Turkey, as well as the Arabic-speaking world. And I found that actually to be a helpful, broad canvas, not necessarily limited by language or by culture or certainly by nation-state and nationalism, but to try and elicit patterns and dynamics across the region and not simply focus, as we historians also do, on a particular national history. #Pascal Yeah. I mean, these national histories are particularly problematic in the case of West Asia because a lot of the nations that we have today are kind of inherited from colonialism, from imperialism. A lot -- 2 of 18 -- of these nations, the way that they exist today, didn't exist 150 years ago. I mean, the Ottoman Empire was very important and so on. But also this issue that you already alluded to, that you cannot really divorce West Asia from North Africa. If you divorce the experience of Lebanon from the experience of Algeria, you're kind of missing a very important point. How is it possible for you to kind of put all of that together? Because we are also kind of conditioned to view the continents separately, right? #Leila Hudson Yes. Well, again, you know, you can come at it from a very conventional, inherited Anglo-American perspective of the Near East and North Africa to the Middle East and North Africa. And at various times in my career, again, I've approached it with a centering of the Arabic-speaking world and the many, many different dialectical forms of Arabic. I've come at it from the perspective of the lands dominated largely, but obviously not entirely, by Islam. And so, depending on the particular question, it gives you the ability to literally reframe around culture, around religion, around language, around geography, or around the dynamics of empires, contemporary and modern nation- states. But we also need to look at non-state actors and forms of resistance, which, again, move and transfer across the entire region. So all of that is fair game, I think. #Pascal Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com. Links below. See you there. How important to you is the issue of water, of the oceans? Because one of the things is, of course, that the Mediterranean connects a lot of these places, if not all of them, but also the Pacific. I was blown away when I realized that the Empire of Oman extended all the way to Madagascar. It's like... No, wait. Yeah, to Madagascar. Yeah, to Madagascar. #Leila Hudson No, no. Well, certainly into East Africa. #Pascal Sorry, to Tanzania, to Tanzania. To Zanzibar, into East Africa. Yeah, sorry, Zanzibar, not Madagascar, to Zanzibar. But it was huge. And that's, of course, a maritime connection, not so much land. #Leila Hudson -- 3 of 18 -- Not so much an overland connection. Well, when I teach my introductory lecture course to American students who are, again, because of, for all the wrong reasons, of course, very innocent, I should say, of geography and world history and things like that, I actually start out with my first substantive lecture being on water, in all its different forms, as, again, the source of life, the source of agriculture, the platform on which Middle Eastern civilization appears to have taken a head start well ahead of many other parts of the globe because of the general scarcity of water. And then within that framework, looking at the importance of river systems for irrigation, but also for trade and transport, and also those coastal and maritime systems. And that's a very helpful perspective to start not necessarily with the land, not necessarily with the people, although the people very quickly enter the picture, but to look at the geography of water and climate as an enabling, connecting, transport, and culturally empowering system. So absolutely. And I've been teaching my introductory course on the cultures of the Middle East for many years now. And as part of our geography, and I teach this every time, a quiz about the world's maritime choke points. And I make the students who, again, approach, you know, as first-year American students by and large, but also first-year global students, including many from the Middle East, quite innocent students of the geography, which is so strategic and so defining. So we have an entire lecture that starts with the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab el-Mandab, the Suez Canal, in particular also the Bosporus Strait, and really helps the students to understand the interconnection of these historical waterways with the contemporary world economy that runs on petroleum and other hydrocarbons. #Pascal I suppose the current U.S. president never took your lecture, right? No, no. So what do you make out of this? I mean, one of the mind-boggling, I think, outcomes of these last three months of war, ever since the 28th of February, 2026, is that it really, really drove home the point that the Strait of Hormuz is not just this little place, and if it's closed, then you route traffic somewhere else. I mean, the fact that Donald Trump actually signed this MOU, which is largely a document of surrender, actually, the way it was formulated, shows how desperate the U.S. now is to reopen this trade route. Can you speak to that? #Leila Hudson Well, of course, and one of the very small consolations of this last semester was my ability to remind my many students that they were now in a position, simply understanding that maritime geography and its critical importance in the contemporary era for the petroleum-based world economy, and they were among the most educated of Americans on this particular topic. And in spite of their general low level of knowledge, I was happy to send them out into the world of their friends, their families, and their social groups with some key knowledge and understanding of the dynamics back in January and February, which would take the rest of American society by surprise when they -- 4 of 18 -- began to understand the impact on the price of gasoline, the price of food, the availability of fertilizer, and other chemical byproducts. So, yes, the fact that the Trump administration and the president, in his impulsive approach, you know, presumably high on the so-called victory in Venezuela, which, of course, has now been overshadowed by the horrific earthquake tragedy in Venezuela. But Trump comes into this full of hubris, devoid of the most basic geographic, cultural, historical understanding, and has already purged his own administration of so many of the career professional diplomats and analysts who would have offered that impulsive acquiescence to the Israeli project in a way that, you know, would have saved so many lives, so much treasure, and the last shreds of American credibility in the region and in the world. #Pascal So what do you make out of this situation, that, you know, knowledge that is widely available—like knowledge that you have, that others have, that students have, that a lot of people, probably even in the administration have, because otherwise you wouldn't have had to purge them so much, that people in the military had, otherwise you wouldn't have had to purge them—that all of this is being purged, and that the purges then happ