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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. This is the Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Daybreak You podcast, available every morning on Apple, Spotify or

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Speaker 1: wherever you listen. It's Monday, the ninth of December in London.

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Speaker 1: I'm Caroline Hepke.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Stephen Carroll. Coming up today, Israeli troops cross

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Speaker 2: into Syria for the first time since nineteen seventy three

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Speaker 2: as a Sad fleas to Moscow.

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Speaker 1: Rebel forces take control of Damascus as the regimes collapse

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Speaker 1: leaves rival groups vying for control.

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Speaker 2: Plus as Russia and Durand lose a key Middle East ally,

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Speaker 2: Joe Biden warns against Islamic extremism, and the US strikes

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Speaker 2: ISIS targets in Syria.

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Speaker 1: Let's start with a roundup of our top stories.

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Speaker 2: Israeli ground forces have crossed into Syria for the first

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Speaker 2: time in more than fifty years. According to the country's military,

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Speaker 2: troops have been operating in the Syrian Hermann region, advancing

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Speaker 2: beyond the demilitarized zone on the border between the two countries.

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Speaker 2: The move underlines the fears of further instability in the

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Speaker 2: region after Syrian rebels advanced into Damascus and toppled Bashar

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Speaker 2: al Assad's regime over the weekend. Here's how is early

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Speaker 2: Prime Minister Benjamin Ettannia, who reacted to the news in

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Speaker 2: a video posted on social media.

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Speaker 3: This is a historic day for the Middle East. The

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Speaker 3: collapse of the Acid regime. The tyranny in Damascus offers

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Speaker 3: great opportunity, but also is flought with significant dangers. This

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Speaker 3: collapse is a direct result of our forceful action against

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Speaker 3: Kibaala and Iran Asad's main supporters. It's set off a

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Speaker 3: chain reaction of all those who want to free themselves

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Speaker 3: from this tyranny and its suppression.

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Speaker 2: Latania, Who's claim of responsibility for the collapse of the

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Speaker 2: Assad regime, will be viewed with skepticism by many, but

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Speaker 2: the speed of the developments in Syria has taken many

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Speaker 2: in the region by surprise. It's seen as a major

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Speaker 2: blow to Russia and Iran, who have supported Assad since

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Speaker 2: twenty fifteen in the civil war, which began during the

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Speaker 2: Arab Spring in twenty eleven.

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Speaker 1: Up to half a mins billion people have been killed

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Speaker 1: in Syria's decade of conflict, which has decimated cities and

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Speaker 1: forced millions to flee. Ousted Syrian President Basha Alasad has

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Speaker 1: now landed in Moscow, where he's understood to have been

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Speaker 1: granted asylum. The collapse of the regime will be seen

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Speaker 1: as a significant blow for Vladimir Putin as the war

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Speaker 1: in Ukraine continues to consume Russia's military resources. Meanwhile, the

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Speaker 1: UK Prime Minister Kirs Starmer has welcomed the fall of

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Speaker 1: what he described as a barbaric regime in Syria.

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Speaker 4: Syrian people had to put up with his brutal regime

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Speaker 4: for far, far too long, and we're talking to regional allies.

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Speaker 4: It's very important now that there's a political settlement forward,

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Speaker 4: and it's very very important that we emphasize that civilians

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Speaker 4: and minorities must be protected.

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Speaker 1: Starmer says that he would now like to see the

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Speaker 1: restoration of peace and stability in the country. As residents

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Speaker 1: celebrated on the streets of Damascus after the lightning advance

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Speaker 1: of rebel forces across the country, well.

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Speaker 2: The four of US had has been met with jubilation

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Speaker 2: in many quarters, there are significant concerns about what now follows.

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Speaker 2: The capture of Damascus was led by a group called

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Speaker 2: Hayatari al Sham known as HTS. The breakaway faction of

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Speaker 2: al Qaida now casts itself as a more moderate group,

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Speaker 2: but remains classed as a terrorist organization by the US

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Speaker 2: and other countries. Over the weekend, the United States hit

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Speaker 2: dozens of Islamic state targets in central Syria, as President

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Speaker 2: Biden cautioned that Bashar al Assad's fall from power could

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Speaker 2: open the door to a resurgence of Islamic extremism.

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Speaker 3: We're cleared eyed about the fact that isis will try

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Speaker 3: to take advantage of the vacuum to re.

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Speaker 5: Establish his capability and to create a safe haven.

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Speaker 3: We will not let that happen.

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Speaker 2: Biden's comments come as the administration keeps up heavy involvement

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Speaker 2: in Israel's multi front war. This as he prepares to

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Speaker 2: pass the baton to President elect Donald Trump, who has

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Speaker 2: signaled a more isolationist stance in global conflicts, including Syria

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Speaker 2: and the broader Middle East.

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Speaker 1: Now in other news, Ukraine's President Vlodomir Zelenski says that

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Speaker 1: the country has lost forty three thousand soldiers in the

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Speaker 1: war with Russia. It's a rare estimate, as both sides

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Speaker 1: in this conflict have avoided publishing casualty estimates. The number

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Speaker 1: was announced hours after Donald Trump claimed on social media

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Speaker 1: that Ukraine had lost ten times as many troops. Zelenski

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Speaker 1: and his allies are anxiously watching the US person to

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Speaker 1: elect for signs of how he plans to approach the conflict.

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Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Donald Trump says he has no plans to replace

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Speaker 2: the Federal Reserve. Charge your own. Powell, the Central Bank chief,

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Speaker 2: is made clear he would try to defend the Fed's

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Speaker 2: independence from political pressure. Speaking to NBC's Meet the Press,

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Speaker 2: Trump was pushed on whether he would ask Powell to

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Speaker 2: step down. I don't see it, but.

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Speaker 5: I think I told him too he would. But if

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Speaker 5: I asked him.

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Speaker 2: Too, he probably wouldn't.

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Speaker 5: But if I told him too, he would.

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Speaker 1: You don't have plans to do that right now.

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Speaker 2: I don't. Collect also renewed his threat to impose tariffs

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Speaker 2: on US trading partners in the interview, saying trade with

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Speaker 2: Mexico and Canada amounted to subsidizing their economies. Trump added

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Speaker 2: he would grant pardons on his first day and office

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Speaker 2: to rioters involved in the attack on the US capital

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Speaker 2: on January sixth, twenty twenty one.

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Speaker 1: The UK government wants people in the tech sector to

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Speaker 1: do tools of duty in the public sector as the

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Speaker 1: government tries to run itself more like a startup. The

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Speaker 1: plans are part of a wider overhaul of the civil service,

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Speaker 1: which follows the Prime Minister's attempts to reboot his government.

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Speaker 1: Last week, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner was asked about

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Speaker 1: the government's falling popularity.

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Speaker 6: We're already delivering within the five months that we've been

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Speaker 6: in power, but I understand that people are impatient for change,

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Speaker 6: and that's why kir is pressing ahead and asking a

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Speaker 6: lot of his cabinet and the civil service and local

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Speaker 6: authorities to say people need to see that change and

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Speaker 6: we've all got to be part of that delivery.

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Speaker 1: Rainer's comments to the BBC com as data shows UK

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Speaker 1: firms scaled back job postings by the most in over

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Speaker 1: four years last month. It's the latest sign the government's

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Speaker 1: post election honeymoon has come to a swift end as

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Speaker 1: economic and confidence data worsen.

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Speaker 2: Those are your top stories on the markets. We saw

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Speaker 2: US stocks at all time highs again on Friday after

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Speaker 2: the US jobs data, the S and P five hundred

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Speaker 2: notching it's fifty seventh closing record for twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 2: In Asia. Today data from China showing inflation easing, showing

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Speaker 2: that stimulus hasn't been enough to boost demand to the

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Speaker 2: hang sayings down six tenths of one percent, and the

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Speaker 2: Shanghaikmas that is done by two tenths Elsewhere, a kasha

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Speaker 2: start to the week. European stock future is down two

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Speaker 2: tents of one percent for euro stocks fifty, the dollars

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Speaker 2: up by a tenth of one percent on the Bloomberg

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Speaker 2: Dollar Spot index, and the tenure treasury yield is down

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Speaker 2: to basis points at four point one four percent.

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Speaker 1: Now, in a moment we'll bring you the latest and

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Speaker 1: what's happening in Syria, what it means for the region

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Speaker 1: and also for people here in the West. But first

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Speaker 1: seeing you back from France, where you are of course

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Speaker 1: covering well the French political term or for the last

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Speaker 1: few days, there's still no new prime minister having been

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Speaker 1: picked by Macron.

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Speaker 2: No, we're now parising what exactly in the coming days

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Speaker 2: meant when Emmanuel Macron said it on Thursday evening. Of course,

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Speaker 2: the weekend for Emmanual Macron very much dominated by the

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Speaker 2: ceremonies around the reopening of Notre Dame, and he also

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Speaker 2: hosted this meeting with Vlodemore Zelenski and Donald Trump as

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Speaker 2: well in the Elise. So this was a weekend of

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Speaker 2: foreign affairs, with the shift now very much back to

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Speaker 2: domestic affairs. One of those is thought to be in

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Speaker 2: the running for the prime minister job. Fransosbayrou has warned

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Speaker 2: that we can't continue like this, a pressure mounting on

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Speaker 2: Macron to make an announcement quickly. The President of the

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Speaker 2: National Assembly, Yale bron Piv, who's actually a member of

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Speaker 2: Macron's party, cold on yesterday to make a decision in

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Speaker 2: the next few hours. Still the same names floating around,

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Speaker 2: some from the center, some from the center right, former

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Speaker 2: Prime Minister Bernardcasno from the left as well. Those are

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Speaker 2: the names in the frame, perhaps even summer to talking

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Speaker 2: about for a president Francoisland. Could he be enticed to

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Speaker 2: take the job as prime minister? Would be an interesting choice.

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Speaker 2: But when we're watching.

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Speaker 1: Closely, yeah, okay, So that on France, then let's bring

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Speaker 1: you more now though on the situation in Syria. After

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Speaker 1: Basha Ala Sad fled to Moscow. Our EMEA news director

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Speaker 1: Roslin Mathieson is with us and we're also joined by

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Speaker 1: gold Nabon Motavali, who covers Iran for US at Bloomberg.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to both of you to discuss an enormous set

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Speaker 1: of events in the last few days. Ros What do

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Speaker 1: we know about the situation now in Damascus?

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Speaker 7: It's pretty quiet there today after those extraordinary events that

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Speaker 7: we saw yesterday, which was the culmination, as you were saying,

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Speaker 7: of a really rapid and surprising event by these rebels,

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Speaker 7: and obviously with the news that Asad went with his

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Speaker 7: family and fled the country to Russia. So what we

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Speaker 7: saw yesterday in Damascus, obviously there were scenes of jubilation

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Speaker 7: on the streets. There were seen of looting and writing.

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Speaker 7: Also those pictures of people moving through Assad's palaces, his

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Speaker 7: residents are trying to take chandeliers and everything. I mean,

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Speaker 7: obviously that's just the kind of the expectation in that moment.

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Speaker 7: You do see people coming in, looting, a bit of writing.

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Speaker 7: So it was a little bit chaotic yesterday. It seems

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Speaker 7: like it's fairly quite there today. Because the question is

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Speaker 7: for a lot of people, including in Syria, what now.

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Speaker 2: I mean, While as those scenes in Damascus yesterday bring

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Speaker 2: back memories of twenty eleven, in Libya and more Margadafi's

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Speaker 2: house and of similar scenes that we saw then the question,

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Speaker 2: quite similar to what we saw in Libby, is what

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Speaker 2: happens now in Syria? Who could step into the power

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Speaker 2: of vacuum that's been left.

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Speaker 7: It's also a bit reminiscent also, of course of Iraq.

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Speaker 7: I remember, of course the looting and the toppling that

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Speaker 7: went on there, and the question always in those moments,

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Speaker 7: are you a leader like this who's been in power

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Speaker 7: for so long and has been quite a repressive and

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Speaker 7: controlling leader goes what comes in its place, And we

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Speaker 7: can see from the rebels obviously hts l Jelani not

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Speaker 7: really a lot of clarity yet. He spoke at a

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Speaker 7: key mosque yesterday in Damascus, but was talking in generalities.

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Speaker 7: He was talking about Assad, he was talking about the

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Speaker 7: need to take a moment to reflect and so on,

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Speaker 7: but he didn't talk about how he might form a

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Speaker 7: government and what that might look like. We don't know

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Speaker 7: when the Prime Minister, who's ostensibly still in power and

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Speaker 7: some kind of caretaker position might formally hand over, and

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Speaker 7: there's no sense of who he might hand over to.

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Speaker 5: Gold.

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Speaker 1: Now you're a longtime watcher of the region. Iran was

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Speaker 1: one of the regimes that backed and propped up a

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Speaker 1: sad Why did they turn their back on him now?

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Speaker 5: Well, I think for a number of reasons, they just

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Speaker 5: couldn't afford to stay there. And I think the interview,

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Speaker 5: the interview that the foreign minister gave last night, the

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Speaker 5: Radian foreign Minischi was very telling. He said, we had

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Speaker 5: intelligence about the movements of Hayata Tahita or Sham coming

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Speaker 5: from the north towards Damascus. We had intelligence about that

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Speaker 5: about maybe a week or ten days. What we didn't

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Speaker 5: expect was that the Syrian army would pull back so

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Speaker 5: quickly and so soon and so easily. And I think

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Speaker 5: when you're in that situation, if the army of the

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Speaker 5: country that you're sponsoring effectively doesn't appear to be able

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Speaker 5: to hold the fort, then a country like Iran isn't

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Speaker 5: going to kind of stay around for very long. And

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Speaker 5: I think one of the fundamental reasons for that is

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Speaker 5: because this is not a very popular engagement at home

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Speaker 5: for the Uranian government, for the Islamic Republic. I don't

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Speaker 5: think the Uranian population, especially given the past decade that

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Speaker 5: the Islamic Republic has had in terms of lots of

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Speaker 5: internal descent, uprisings, unprecedented levels of public displays of dissent

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Speaker 5: and disobedience, in terms of the way that people are

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Speaker 5: challenging the laws of the Islamic Republic. The system doesn't

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Speaker 5: have very much support at home, and one of the

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Speaker 5: least popular policies domestically Neuron, I think we can safely

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Speaker 5: say is its regional policy and the way it's that

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Speaker 5: it has expanded itself across the region, particularly in the Levant.

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Speaker 5: So I don't think they would have been able to

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Speaker 5: support any kind of a military, prolonged military engagement, especially

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Speaker 5: one which would involve any kind of ramp up or

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Speaker 5: increase of troops on the ground, Iranian troops on the ground,

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Speaker 5: which would I guess incur a level of financial toll

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Speaker 5: and also the potential of the lots of Iranian lives

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Speaker 5: in a theater that's deeply unpopular amongst Iranians.

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Speaker 2: Ross thinking about another player in the region as well,

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Speaker 2: Israel says that it's sent troops into Syria.

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Speaker 7: How significant is that Well, you can see from the

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Speaker 7: comments yesterday from Prime Minister Benjamin who was near the

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Speaker 7: Syrian border, this is a buffer zone that's existed for

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Speaker 7: almost fifty years. And it's about also having the Syrian army,

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Speaker 7: you know, man the border area and these border posts,

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Speaker 7: and so that's the crossing into Israel. And Benjamin and

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Speaker 7: now who said, the Syrian army has abandoned these posts,

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Speaker 7: and so there's no one really guarding the entry of

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Speaker 7: the border to Israel, and so we had to go

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Speaker 7: in there and secure it. And he cast it very

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Speaker 7: much as a defensive maneuver. That's obviously to safeguard those posts,

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Speaker 7: and therefore the Israeli border as probably pushing further than

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Speaker 7: they have in some time. But again he really described

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Speaker 7: it as a defensive maneuver. This is not about trying

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Speaker 7: to seize an annex territory. This is about trying to

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Speaker 7: secure the Israeli border.

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Speaker 1: Gold line in terms of the region. Now, obviously this

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Speaker 1: is said off alarms in many capitals the other conflicts

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Speaker 1: that Iran is involved in via proxies in Lebanon and Gaza.

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Speaker 1: What does the toppling of the Assad regime mean for

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Speaker 1: that an Iran's role within the Middle East.

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Speaker 5: Well, I think it has potentially really quite dramatic consequences

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Speaker 5: for Iran specifically because now I think I think one

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Speaker 5: of the things they probably may not have predicted following

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Speaker 5: the October seventh attacks by Hamas last year was the

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Speaker 5: fact that they would face their three most important proxy

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Speaker 5: allies in the in the levant these you know, Hezbola, Hamas,

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Speaker 5: the Assad regime that are so closely like geographically, you know,

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Speaker 5: obviously very close together. But when you're looking at Hezbola

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Speaker 5: and the Assad government so closely linked as well being

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Speaker 5: defenestrated on this level and scale, and it's, uh, it's

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Speaker 5: basically we're looking at the sort of within a quite

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Speaker 5: short time scale, although they're obviously Hamas and Hezbolla is

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Speaker 5: still very much fighting and there are very much active

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Speaker 5: units and elements of those groups on the ground obviously,

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Speaker 5: but a massive, massive depletion and weakening and almost destruction

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Speaker 5: of those groups within within the course of a few months.

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Speaker 5: We're looking at like from July basically since the assassination

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Speaker 5: of Hania in Isma, Hania the political head of a

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Speaker 5: mass and Tehran onwards, and it's been extraordinary. And what

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Speaker 5: I think this is very much turning into and this

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Speaker 5: is something that a lot, a lot a lot of

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Speaker 5: analysts have been pointing to for some time now is

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Speaker 5: this idea that this is now possibly Israel trying to

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Speaker 5: shift the goalposts of their military operation to try and

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Speaker 5: actually change the makeup of and the and the very

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Speaker 5: sort of dynamics of their conflict with Iran in the region,

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Speaker 5: and that involves turning the tide on these proxy allies

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Speaker 5: of Iran or the so called access the access of resistance,

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Speaker 5: so that so that it's you know, they get the

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Speaker 5: upper foot on them, and then and they're gone or

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Speaker 5: they're they're weakened to such an extent that they're they're

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Speaker 5: no longer an issue. And I think again I go

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Speaker 5: back to this point that the Islamic Republic is not

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Speaker 5: popular at home in Iran. It can't. I don't think

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Speaker 5: it can afford to push back on this at all.

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Speaker 5: There are obvious financial reasons for that, given that the

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Speaker 5: economy is heavily sanctioned, but they just don't have the

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Speaker 5: popy that the popularity and the political chips. They don't

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Speaker 5: have enough of them and enough credit with the population

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Speaker 5: to be able to sustain anything like that. But it

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Speaker 5: will be interesting to see what they do what they

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Speaker 5: do going ahead. I think Turkey's role and obviously Russia's

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Speaker 5: role is going to be quite critical for Iran at

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Speaker 5: this stage.

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Speaker 2: Rather, a final question to you, what does the US

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Speaker 2: do with this? What should we be expecting given the

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Speaker 2: change in the White House coming in January? And what

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Speaker 2: about the rest of Europe? How should we be expecting

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Speaker 2: capitals in Europe to react?

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Speaker 7: Well, you can see that really no one in Europe

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Speaker 7: or the US was really mourning the departure of Asset.

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Speaker 7: I mean, he was an incredibly oppressive ruler and obviously

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Speaker 7: he really suppressed his people over an extended period of time. However,

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Speaker 7: his departure does create that vacuum that we're talking about,

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Speaker 7: and you can see the comments from European officials from

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Speaker 7: the US. Joe Biden, the US President last night, warning

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Speaker 7: about that the possibility Islamic state because it's still there

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Speaker 7: and the US has still got troops in Syria trying

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Speaker 7: to deal with Islamic state. Is this a moment that

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Speaker 7: Islamic State seeses for example? You've got to be very

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Speaker 7: careful around that. Do you have a peaceful transfer of power?

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Speaker 7: What does that new administration look like? How stable is it?

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Speaker 7: There's a lot of unknown unknowns here and you can

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Speaker 7: see that in the messaging from the US in Europe.

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Speaker 7: I mean, the interesting thing is that Donald Trump, the

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Speaker 7: incoming US president, was out commenting way before Joe Biden

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Speaker 7: did on this and saying very clearly it's not something

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Speaker 7: for the US to be involved in. It's not something

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Speaker 7: he says, for Russia to be involved in anymore, supporting

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Speaker 7: Assad and that Vladimir Putin. It's to focus on the

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Speaker 7: war in Ukraine and getting that towards a negotiation and

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Speaker 7: decease spy. So certainly a very strong message from Trump,

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Speaker 7: who'll be in the White House only in a matter

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Speaker 7: of weeks from now, this is not one he wants

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Speaker 7: the US to continue to be pulled into.

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Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Daybreak Europe, your morning brief on the

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