 the crisis in the Ukraine on the so-called Middle East. My name is Arshin Adib Mokadam. I'm a professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies at the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS University of London, which is hosting, co-hosting this event together with the SOAS Middle East Institute. It really gives me great pleasure to introduce two authorities on the international relations of the region and the wider, indeed, world politics that is enveloping the crisis in the Ukraine and this crucial region of the world, West Asia, North Africa, usually referred to as the Middle East. Our first distinguished speaker is Professor Hizai Nakanishi. Now, Hizai is a great friend and colleague who is currently a visiting professor at the Department of Politics at SOAS. She is a superstar of Middle Eastern studies in Japan. Everyone talking about the region knows her in the country and beyond. And her former title is Professor of International Relations of the Middle East at the Graduate School of Global Studies, Doshisha University in Kyoto, beautiful Kyoto in Japan. Our interlocutor and second speaker is Dr. Kara Bekir Akoyunu, who is a very dear colleague at the Department of Politics here at SOAS, a lecturer in the politics of the Middle East published widely on the region, on Turkey, but also on a second crucial region of the world and that is Latin America. So he has really a wide spectrum of knowledge of the international system. He has a forthcoming book, The Guardianship and Democracy in Iran and Turkey, so a comparative study which is forthcoming with Edinburgh University. So what we will do is we will have Professor Nakanishi start off around 17, 18 minutes. Dr. Akoyunu will respond and will give his comments and then we should have plenty of time for a question and answer. And I'm really looking forward to what my two dear colleagues have to say. So without further ado, Professor Nakanishi, please start us off. Thank you. Thank you, Professor Dean Mogadam for kind introduction. And it is my great honor and pleasure to talk today. And my special thanks to SOAS, particularly the Middle East Institute. Also, I'm so grateful for accepting to be having a partner for dialogue, Professor Akoyunu. I'm very glad to have a conversation with you after my brief talk. And let me share the screen. I don't know what happened to my PowerPoint slides actually, so I think let me give me a few seconds and then I will get my PowerPoint back. And then I think... No problem. I just wanted to say that you can address your questions in the chat at any time. And I will then go through them and ask our two distinguished colleagues to comment. And I should have actually also thanked Aki Alborzi, who's our man at the SOAS Middle East Institute, who's been trying to organizing everything. Ready? Is that it? Yes. Yeah. Okay, go ahead. Okay. And then since I don't know what happened to my screen, but this always happens when we rely on technology. But if I can get the zoom on my maps and search probably, I can show it later. But anyway, first of all, I'd like to start talking about the concept of Middle East. And I was very inspired by Professor D. Mogaddam's lecture delivered at DOS University in December 2018. And in his talk, he talked about the concept reflects Eurocentric and imperialistic legacy. And I'm using this concept still as the title of my talk. However, this is only to challenge it. And the magnitude of the conflict and the Ukraine crisis covered in the media really indicated how much the impact is quite immense. But on the other hand, I found out analysis on the Middle East and or I should say actually West Asia or Great Middle East has not been enough. So in order to fill the gap in the scholarship, I'd like to talk about the impacts. And then I found out there are four impacts. The first one is impact on Syria and the second impact on Northern Iraq. Thirdly, impact on Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. And then the last one is actually not exactly the impact, but that is indirect repercussion of the existing and going phenomena of the three countries I'm going to talk about today. That is possibility of prevalence of cyber operations in the region. So I consider to use Eurasia is more appropriate for my talk today. And I consider there are three key players after the crisis, Turkey, Iran and Israel. Regarding the political dynamics and the power balance in the Great Middle East, it is to be seen that the Palestinian question has been neglected by Arab states, particularly after 2018 Abraham Accord. But on the other hand, after the crisis started, intensification of Palestine conflict came back quite intensively, but no one really pay attention to it. That is also a problem. But then while we are focusing on energy security, food security for Europe and the rest of the world, conflicts are intensifying first in Syria. United States and Russia got both involved in Syria at the same time. United States let Russia play a crucial role for the Assad government to come back to maintain territorial integrity. But the Ukraine crisis started and we don't know when to end. So Russia is preoccupied with Ukraine and the conflict started between Iran and the Turkey and Israel. The one of the phenomena can be seen in the sense that everyone started to intensify its battlefields even when beyond the safe zone of northeast Syria. And it's called the safe zone, but after it's safe, it's dangerous. So we should change the name, I suppose. But anyway, then since the military operation in Northern Iraq became severe, that really intensified its confrontation with Iran because Iran is also interested in as a quite important key player after Russia almost ending or leaving the region. I will elaborate more if there's any more questions about this. And the second aspect of the impact is we can see in Iraq. In the case of Iraq, Northern Iraq in particular is an area of autonomous region at some point. But at the same time, Turkey has ambition to expand its battle against PKK. And this also pressured Iran because Iran wanted to secure its passage to Lebanon and then also Syria. So I think some passage is blocked. So tension is seen in Northern Iraq. And we can see a series of attacks happening from Iranian side to attempting to targeting some Turkish bases in Northern Iraq. So that is quite a big one of the impact. The thirdly is Nagorno-Karabakh. Since we pay much attention to the conflict in the Great Middle East, the Syria, Palestine and Northern Iraq, we tend to forget about the crisis impact on the Central Asia and the Caucasus. As Nagorno-Karabakh was waged in the fall of 2020. And that was quite a significant event in the region. And due to Turkish drone, which was quite effective and then Israel's assistance, Middle assistance to Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan was able to restore or I should say, captured quite a big region. And according to the peace agreement, the so-called Lachin corridor is kept by and maintained by Russian peacekeeping force. And if Lachin corridor will be quite well functioning in the future and that will impact much on the trade and the economic routes are going to develop much, much more in the future. So that would impact on existing trade routes of Iran. It may bypass existing and corridor from Azerbaijan Iran to Turkey. So that is another aspect of conflict, which is changes the map of Central Asian Caucasus. And also Turkish, not only Turkish drones being effective in Azerbaijan, but also Israel's military presence also provided much tension to Iran. Because already Azerbaijan and Iran relationship is very, very sensitive. And then Turkish, not only Turkish Israel's presence on the border with Iran is naturally considered a quite a big threat. So in the short term, some intensification of conflict may happen more and more, but on the other hand, I don't think it will be quite a big total kind of war. It's a low intensity in nature. And after Russia and the United States more or less left or leaving the region, more regional players compete each other for seeking much larger influence in the region. They are Israel, Turkey and Iran. And lastly, I'd like to touch upon the cyber operation aspect of the region. As everyone knows, JCPOA almost died and the United States is really a drug to resume and disappear back. But on the other hand, Iran's enrichment program progressed much high and there is no carrot for Iran to jump on under these circumstances. So we cannot expect much about the lifting sanction against Iran, sometimes so near future. So sanction regime actually impacted on Iran's economy and also it impacted on Iran's increasing conventional military power. So cyber capability is quite a big option not only for Turkey and Israel, but also Iran because it's not so expensive as buying fighter jets and conventional weapons. And also Iran is quite good at already in the cyber technological advancement. So it is likely that one thing in common among these three key players is cyber capability at present and then that will be grow in the future. I'd like to provide just a short statement about the midterm prospect for Eurasia. As I mentioned already, severe over effect of the crisis went beyond conventional concept of Middle East. It went to Nagorno-Karabakh, which is Eurasia. So we have to think about what's gonna happen regionally is the regional integration will progress in the future? And I suppose so because the economy matters much more than politics on the ground and this is more and more so under energy food crisis as well as a securitized phenomena of human security and the state craft and the economic security. So economic security is far more important for the majority of nation right now. So conflict and the competition of power actually both sides of the coin I suppose. So I'm saying the short term conflict will continue in a different format, low intensity, but at the same time there is also a trend for integration regionally at large because as I mentioned cyber capability will increase in this region. And then let's say five years later, 10 years later if falling policy making can be done by the power of AI and we will ask what is the best solution for the conflict resolution and the AI may say, oh, well, you just have to cooperate. So probably very different future will come I suppose in the future. So I stop here because I just have more dialogue and a conversation with Professor Kunlou and also the audience. Thank you for listening. Thank you very much, desire. I will try to summarize things a little bit so that we can move on with a kind of understanding. I believe what you were trying to indicate in your very illuminating talk is that things are more interdependent, not only because of forms of security interdependence, what is happening in Azerbaijan has an effect on Turkey what is happening in Turkey has an effect on Israel, Iran, not only because of the radiating regional power of these three actors, but also because of an increasingly interdependent and integrated cyber world which makes access that much more possible not only in terms of our Alexis and Ceres but also for instance, destructively so with John Wolff, right? So I think this is a crucial point and really important for a future understanding of how peace and security can be achieved in a region that already has a long jury of interaction and interdependence that is cultural and ethnic and otherwise. So this is really crucial. Thank you so much, Kara please take it away. Okay, thank you very much, Arshin and thank you very much Professor Nakanishi for this expansive expose of the various sort of regional local dynamics and how they're moving forward or changing with the crisis next door. And I think I can only agree with your opening framework of questioning the concept of the Middle East as an internally homogeneous region that is essentially different and delineated and separated from its surroundings. And this is problematic to begin with. We know this already but I think the war in Ukraine is just making that more obvious that the impact, the reactions within the region, the dynamics for different countries are various, they're diverse but more than that as both of you have pointed out there's so much more interdependence that cannot be just analyzed within the confines of what we call MENA or the Middle East. So I wholeheartedly agree with this sort of pushback against what we might call methodological regionalism and of course the sort of not forgetting the colonial oriented this underpinnings of the concept of the Middle East. So we are in a much more transnational, transregional, interdependent era militarily, economically, technologically as well. I guess what I'm going to try to do is take away a few points both from your presentation and also from what I have been observing and thinking with regards to the impact of the war in Ukraine on this region. And I think, and what I'm going to do is both try to unpack some of what you've already talked about and maybe sort of push for us to discuss a little bit more some of the points that maybe we haven't mentioned yet. So when I think about the impact of the war in Ukraine on the Middle East, I think about three main categories or three analytical sort of frameworks. One is the area of energy and food security. And that also shows us the sort of interdependence, global interdependence that cannot be ignored because it has a dramatic impact on the ground for millions of people. So perhaps we could talk a little bit more about the societal impact of the crisis in Ukraine, a very sort of imminent, urgent societal impact and especially with regards to food security. I mean, energy is another complicated issue but especially food security is something that is being felt very directly on the streets. And we're talking about countries like Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia that I can just think about being very much dependent on wheat imports from Russia and Ukraine. And these countries are already in economic dire straits. There's a very fragile social political scenario on the ground. And we know the social economic as well with rising inflation, economic crisis. And we know the symbolic importance of bread as a source of protest and unrest and demand for change in the Sweden. So add to that environmental impact, worsening droughts. I would like to ask if you think we're on the possibly cusp of another wave of discontent that pours out and what would that look like? Especially, we're not at 10 years on from the Arab uprisings with completely new technological instruments also in the hands of the governments as well. So what is that sort of, how do you see that in the perhaps short and medium run? That would be the first sort of analytical framework. The second category relating to the impact of the war on the region is the question of on a more sort of state level taking sites, right? There's this conversation about a new Cold War emerging, who's on the side of the West, who's on the side of Russia, the Biden administration tried to sort of put the narrative of democracy versus authoritarian regimes of freedom versus tyranny again. But it doesn't seem to have worked in a sense if you look at it, many of the countries on the region prefer to sit on the fence as much as possible. And there are some that are more clearly supporting the territorial integrity of Ukraine, others are more ambivalent, but we haven't seen a type of polarization that would sort of give us a sense of a Cold War redux. And my reading of it is that this just shows not only the waning influence of Russia, Russia has had limited capacity, but this has become much more exposed, I think, with the war in Ukraine, but also the waning influence of the West. So I think connecting with your presentation, Professor Nakamishi, we have this phenomenon of both the US and Russia sort of withdrawing from the region or being distracted. So, and that opens up a lot of possibilities of new dynamics, perhaps more local dynamics taking sort of prevalence. So you talked about whether this would lead to some type of regional integration and normalization in the long run with also this sort of paradoxical relationship of conflict and cooperation together. I question maybe from a bit more cynical perspective, but also looking more specifically from the Turkish angle, whether we are actually seeing this possibility or new potential for normalization and regional integration, or what we're seeing is a bunch of pragmatic alliance shifts on the base of short-term geopolitical interests. In other words, is there a long-term convergence in the horizon of values of interests and identities? Maybe, if we think about the new relationship between the Gulf monarchies and Israel, there is something that could be said, that's something that's going to stay for the long run, I think so. But I think overall, the sort of short-termism and pragmatic alliance making and shifting still prevails at the moment in the region. So if we have time, what I would like to explore a little bit more because you've mentioned three countries, Turkey, Iran and Israel, I'd like to perhaps explore a little bit more what you make of the position of the Arab countries, especially Gulf monarchies in this entire saga. They are traditionally the more pro-Western, pro-U.S. states. However, they have the exception of Qatar, which is interesting because it was considered to be the more closest to Iran, right? Qatar has come out quite actually forcefully in support of Ukraine, but UAE and Saudi Arabia have been very much sitting on the fence. What is the sort of logic there? So perhaps that's something we could explore a little bit further. And the last point I'd like to get into is actually what you talked about the most, and that's the geopolitical vacuum from Russia getting stuck increasingly in Ukraine and the impact that lessened Russian influence would have on existing tensions and conflicts you've elaborated on Syria, Northern Iraq and Nagorno-Karabakh. My two cents on this would be, especially with regards to Iran and Turkey, I think I see that both countries in different ways have been trying to use Russia as a leverage against the West. They have not had ever imagined replacing the Wests with Russia. So in that sense, it's important that Russia is not completely out of the picture so they can maintain this balancing act. And you can see in both governments' reaction that they want that sort of equilibrium somehow to prevail. A few words about Turkey on this because I think it has really sort of, the Erdogan government has really tried to reap as much benefit from the crisis as possible. Before the invasion started, many of us thought that Turkey's sort of balancing act between NATO and Moscow would be untenable because the situation would be so polarized and polarizing, Turkey would have to choose a side. But that didn't happen, interestingly, partly because of the Russian debacle that showed limitations of Russian capacity, but Turkey has maintained this balancing act fairly successfully so far. And interestingly, Erdogan benefited from the fact that Putin is now the number one enemy in the West and he is much more sort of tolerable in the eyes of his Western counterparts and more sort of strategically important. And so he has become strategically, and Turkey has become strategically more important both for Moscow, for Putin, for Kiev and NATO. And Erdogan is trying to reap the benefit of this strategic importance as much as possible, sometimes even pushing his hand, I think, too much. But interestingly, bringing the topic to your emphasis on the drones and cyber warfare, Turkey has emerged in this period as a fairly aggressive, I would say, with a fairly aggressive nationalist militarism, which actually is also a result of the internal social political coalition in Turkey that is relying more and more on hard power tools rather than soft power tools as it did about a decade ago. And it's putting this to use in various conflicts, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh in Syria and Iraq against the Kurds. But the Western narrative on this Turkish resurgence, it's very interesting to follow because since the beginning of the Ukrainian war, it has somewhat shifted. So let me give you just one quick example. During the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the German tabloid build, which is not representative of perhaps European viewpoints, but this one good example, had a feature about the Turkish drones, which, and the title was Turkey's killer drones, okay? Recently they had another feature about the drones, which, by the way, is getting a lot of attention in the West, how the Turkish drones have revolutionized warfare, et cetera. And in this new feature, in the framework of the Ukrainian crisis and the use of the Turkish drones against Russian military, they call the same drones, which were killer drones. This time they call them weapons of hope. So from killer drones to weapons of hope, you see this narrative shifting and Erdogan is using this sort of space to expand as much as possible his influence and also make up for a lot of insecurities back home. So we have an imminent operation, military operation in Talcefat and Manbij. And I think this is one of the resurgence, sort of one of the countries that will try to reap as much benefit as possible from the conflict will be Turkey. Anyway, that's, I should probably stop there. We would like to hear more on this from you and from our audience. Thank you, Aksin, as well. Thank you, Professor Makhach. Excellent, Akara. This gave us exactly the complimentary insight that we needed and open it up more specifically to the direct impacts of the Ukraine crisis on the region and indeed, you know, fantastic also insight into the dynamics in Turkey and beyond. Izay, I would like to invite you to respond and we already have questions in the chat. So, you know, by all means respond and then we can move on to a dialogue with the audience. Thank you. Thank you very much for a lot of insightful comments and also, you know, brought the perspective of also quite then, you know, diverse issues involved in the topic we're covering today. And as far as I counted, you made six points and asked me six questions, but I don't think I have time to answer them all. Please don't get obliged, yes. But I like challenge always. So I try to do my best to answer as much as possible within the time constraint. So first of all, regarding food security and it's already so visible and then Lebanon and Egypt quite seriously affected and I think food poverty rate increased dramatically. So I think that will impact on the governance issue of both states and then already a situation in Lebanon is already fragile, but then this crisis food insecurity crisis may illegitimate the current government. And then so there is a possibility that Lebanon's government will be getting more more challenged by the people. So it's a question of legitimacy and how much governance can really manage this crisis is quite a big issue. And you mentioned Yemen. So, you know, Yemen is a forgotten conflict and the peace agreement was made, but I don't think it's really implemented. So then of course, Yemen has been heavily depend on Ukraine's grain. So I'm very sure tragedy is occurring in Yemen even though it's not covered in the media. So we shouldn't forget such, you know, forgotten conflicts in the region. And the regarding, let's see, a lot of Turkey. And when I looked into the reports published by IISS about the cyber capability and the national power published last year, they examined the 15 states and then they categorized the first year, second year, third year. And the first year is of course the United States. And the second year, there are five states mentioned in which Israel and Iran are mentioned. And then Turkey is not even mentioned because it's not even covered in the report. It's not counted among significant states of 15 country they analyze. So this really indicates how much Western world did not understand the magnitude of Turkish power. And then even though Nagorno-Karabakh conflict demonstrated Turkish and drone powers, but they didn't even think about the cyber capability. And the Western narrative is always done from security kind of needs of the West. They do not address needs of the region. So you talked about the Cold War style of demarcation of the world. It is almost like revival of September, I mean, 11. You are with us, or you are not with us. But from the beginning of the conflict, I was always questioning why the EU is emphasis too much about the real fight against Russia because of the sake of democracy, but how much we can really consider the Ukraine even in the pre-war period as a democratic state. But saying this, I'm not really saying democracy should be always implemented all over the world. And I think there is some needs of being authoritarian in order to fulfill national security of its needs. So I think that this kind of state security needs seems to be quite more vital after the crisis. It became more clear. So how to strike a balance between strengthening or maintaining alliance and fulfilling state security is quite a big question for many countries in Eurasia. Saying this, I think each state has a lot of strategy developing to cope with the new reality of almost incompatibility of the alliance and the state security, but you really have to more or less have approach to make it compatible. So regarding the question of how much region is going to be integrated or still some pragmatic alliance would result in the conflict for some times, I think it's both. And the small conflicts are always happening, are happening and also will continue. But at the same time, and then for example, we didn't need a lot of high technology and we need soft power capability. So why, for example, United States was willing to sell and the fighter jet to Turkey, but the Turkey went to Russia and because we are paying much attention to conventional weapon. But how Gulf States developed its relationship with China really shows and what the Gulf States wanted from China is not only selling oil, but also highly technological equipment and even weapons from China to enhance both conventional and then cyber capability to enhance. So this is quite a pragmatic attitude, but then in order to survive in the hybrid warfare and also in the age of interdependence, I think each state has to be quite pragmatic because they have to share technology. So that needs on the ground shape to what extent each state has to cooperate each other and at the same time, they would confront each other. I'll give you one specific example. I think it's recently Iran and Tajikistan get closer even though there was some tension. And then Iranian factory, drone factory was going to be built in Tajikistan quite soon. And this is the first time such a factory will be built outside Iran. So what this really means? And who is going to make use of Iranian drone produced in Tajikistan? It is likely China's technology may be involved and then Russia may use it, they can easily procure it. So then can we interpret this and Iran is leading to Russia? I think that's too simplistic. So I think each state has to choose foreign policy and also domestic security. As a quite a prior to the right to the goal to survive, by so doing, they have to utilize the soft power and then also conventional kinetic power as well. But eventually, I suppose, cyber capability will have more upper hand. So that will make the region, more or less more regionally integrated in the long run. That's my answer at this point. And I have more to talk about, but I think we have to open the floor for discussion. So I stop here. Thank you. Thank you very much, Yazad. Akara, maybe the two or three minutes, elaborating on what was said here and then the next question is elaborating on what was said here. And then we can open up for questions. Should give us enough time for the questions. Yeah, please go ahead. Okay. Yeah, I think one of the things that maybe we can sort of, take from Professor Nakanishi's response and what we haven't really mentioned is also the sort of the way that the West and especially the US administration has tried to portray the situation in Ukraine has fallen mainly on deaf ears, not only on the state level, but on the sort of popular level in many of the countries of the region as well. So there we're not really talking so much about a sort of diplomatic foreign policy calculus, but rather a more emotive, a more honest perhaps response. So it's not a matter of whether Ukraine is a democracy or not, which I think it's more of a democracy for sure than Russia, but the sort of the urgency that was seen in the West and was expected by Western governments to also be seen in other parts of the world, in the Middle East. It just didn't seem genuine to many people in the region who have seen illegal invasions and occupations and warfare and complete disregard of human rights and international law over the last decade or so, two decades, right? I mean, we're talking about the Iraq war, we're talking about Afghanistan, we're talking about Yemen and US, UK weapons have been used extensively in the destruction of Yemen. We don't need only direct invasion. So I think this notion was met with skepticism at best at a popular level too. So I think in that regard, that's something that also needs to be taken into account when we're talking about the sort of regional reactions. And that has some sort of resonance probably with governmental sort of responses as well, although not entirely. I mean, I think I defer to you to analyze better the sort of the potential, the political and diplomatic potential of cyber technologies. I would admit it's not one of my areas of expertise, although it needs to be, I guess, more and more for everyone because this is not just the future, it's the present. But I was interested when you first mentioned in your talk that there will be cooperation in the region once AI comes in and tells us it's better to cooperate. I mean, at the level that's a very depressing analysis too, right? That just means that us here in the region won't be able to do it on our own and we need artificial intelligence to show us the way forward. Anyway, I mean, I think those are some of just the immediate reactions that I had to some of the points that we discussed. There's obviously a lot more to say, but I think we can probably open up to floor. Yeah, excellent. I mean, the two interventions by you actually speak to the questions in the chat. And it's quite interesting. I mean, if there is something like the SOA school of Middle Eastern studies, right? Then it came out in the presentations and also in the nature of the questions. Indeed, we do study the impact of artificial intelligence on the regions, part of our MSC in Middle East politics, our postgraduate students have the options to study this. And we also study. This came out in the talk of both Professor Nakanishi and Ako Yungu that we do need to also consider hypocrisy in European US foreign policy towards the region. And not out of some kind of anti-Westernism. No, it's about learning from past mistakes and making sound and rational policies towards the region, which is better for everyone concerned. There is just too much bad analysis that yields bad policies, right? So the two questions are interrelated and amazingly interesting. One from a dear colleague at the American University in Cairo, Dr. Marwa Handu Salim. And the question here is about authoritarian resilience, the Zino-Russian model, and how far the war adds to this democratization crisis in West Asia and North Africa. Are people following or are governments there following this model of authoritarian resilience now? And what is the kind of power resistance dynamics that you both talked about in a decade after the Arab revolt? So please, Izai and then Kara, then the second question there after. So if you can keep it to kind of five minutes and then we have time for a second very pertinent question. Please, Izai. Okay. And regarding authoritarian resilience, much debate has happened already, that's 15 years ago, and the representative on case was Iranian Syria and the book published on, you know, how much authoritarian regime is so strong that is the resilience issue. So when it comes to Russia and what will be the impact of this crisis on Russia, there's a lot of debate in Europe and the rest of the world. And I think people talk about the sanction because of the, you know, international sanction, probably Russian economy will doomed. But if you just think about how much Iran, excuse me, Russia gained out of the high peak of oil and natural gas price, I do not think that sanction can really curtail Russia's economy as much as Western society, Western countries hope. So as long as, you know, Russian economy is concerned and oil and natural gas are quite important for Europe in particular and also some other part of the world like China too. So, and India in particular, Russia will prevail as a quite important energy supplier even if crisis is over at some point. Then question is what kind of, you know, oligarchy will take over the power of Putin or Putin may remain in power. And even if Putin is pushed aside after a lot of pressure, still I think oligarchical governance will prevail most likely in Russia because in order to make quite effective judgment about how to sell natural resources, authoritarian regimes are more effective. I'm not really supporting authoritarian regime, but that's always the case. So I think the reason why why United States has been aligned with South Raven UAE because they are authoritarian regimes anyway, so they can easily manipulate. So I don't think authoritarian resilience will be out of the scope, even after the European crisis, rather Russia remains as quite a resilient power in Eurasia. That's my prospect. Thank you so much, Izay. Kara, what is happening in the region? Is authoritarian resilience the model that will be followed and will be followed? Is there any hope for societies to resist as they did a decade ago? Well, I think the literature on politics in society in the Middle East has been mystified by this authoritarian resilience or democratic deficit question for way too long. And the Arab uprisings gave a sort of change in narrative and certain hope, but then the return of renewed autocracies has sort of crushed that hope a little bit. So I think we need to step a little bit back and not be presentist in our hopes and our despair. There is still as much demand for a dignified life, a sort of safe, secure and representation, a proper representation in the region. So if that's how we define democracy, the push or demand for democracies as high as ever in the region. The question is whether local, regional and international dynamics allow these demands to come to fruition or actually create layers of obstacles. And I see in this juncture that there are more obstacles and constraints than possibilities of going beyond just frustration into something positive, turning governance. It was very quickly, specifically looking at the question, the question asked about the Sino-Russian model of authoritarian resilience, I would distinguish between Russia and China. I don't think Russia has neither the economic or political capacity nor the sort of imaginative capacity to be a model. And I think it's sort of the exposure of its rotten core in the Ukrainian crisis, in this Ukrainian war, has actually made that imagination even more sort of a far-head. Russia is not, I think, a model for the region. China, on the other hand, is another question. It's much more potent. It's much more quiet and much more effective. I don't think we have time to discuss this. It's been the elephant in the room. And China has been relatively quiet and inward looking throughout this COVID period. But that's not going to last forever. Once it sort of comes out again, we're going to have to talk about the Chinese effect, both direct economic, political, but also as a model on governance. We're going to have to talk about that more. Thank you very much, Kara. There is another question about the specter of the double standards. And here, in particular, in comparison between the Ukraine crisis and what happened in Yemen, and both of you talked about this, it goes back to this issue of bad policy and bad analysis yielding hypocrisy. And hypocrisy is a problem research has shown even in the implementation of foreign policies. If your foreign policy do not seem legitimate, if they're revealed as hypocritical, then you have problems implementing them in a contested and in many ways, power congested region, such as West Asia and North Asia. So why is this? Is this hierarchies of power? I mean, Palestinians, of course, have a lot to say about this as well with the current crisis. But Hezai and Kara, why is it so pronounced still that we have these double standards? Hezai, please. Well, I think it's so convenient and also effective in the age of information. And then when I was analyzing who is winning in the east part of Ukraine the last three weeks and then what kind of information we are receiving from Western media. I've been watching, you know, BBC, UDN News, the ZEDA, TRT, CNN, NHK World News, you know, and then comparing what kind of information we're receiving. And then there's a assumption what the Europe say is always true while what Russia says is fake. And then I witnessed this kind of, you know, phenomena, particularly after the Ukraine crisis happened. Because, you know, it's... So anyway, when I think about them, what Europe has been claiming about them, Ukraine is fighting back well effectively against Russia here and there. And then three or four days later, suddenly it says, you know, actually the Russia incited the region much and then there's no chance but for, you know, Ukrainian forces can really fight anymore. So can you really believe like two months Ukrainian is, you know, the ground and then three, four days later suddenly, actually not? So I'm wondering and who is transmitting this information? But I think this information, that's also my judgment, but who decided this is correct and incorrect? I think power really determines which discourse is stronger and then receive more validity or legitimacy on the ground. But because of social media and then media is so globalized and then you can get a lot of information but at the same time, there's a lot of manipulation of any stakeholder to serve its own needs. So I think in the aid of ICT, I think double standards easily, more easily transmitted than before, which is quite dangerous. Kara, please, in one or two minutes and then there is maybe you can address another question about this return of nationalism. My dear colleague, Dr. Ali Alavi, asked about this, you know, there is a form of, you know, make psycho nationalism, may call it a nationalist or hyper nationalism in Russia. Is that also reoccurring in the region? What do you think? Yes, I mean, very quickly because of the lack of time. I think nationalism is, has never gone away as we assumed it would. It's always been potent, but I think definitely it's resurgent. I mean, Turkey is going through a new wave of nationalism, for instance, from very different angles, you know, conservative to left, to Islamist to, you know, secular, but and it's the, again, the force that drives politics, you know, on both sides of the, you know, political divide, nationalism is the main ideology, interestingly. So, but I'll only say that on this. With regards to the question of hypocrisy, very quickly again, first of all, you know, hypocrisy is not, you know, a Western monopoly. Let's remember this again, looking at Russia, looking at Turkey. I think hypocrisy is very much there, but what makes the Western sort of hypocrisy, so, you know, interest or so maybe unique is a, because of the global power that especially United States has, it's much more amplified. And secondly, it's shrouded in a rhetoric of, you know, liberalism and liberal democratization. And in a sense, you know, the West bind itself or puts himself in a bind by trying to use this normative sort of framework of liberal democracy to while it's pursuing very, you know, I would perhaps realist geopolitical goals. I mean, in one way, you could say that, you know, perhaps in Russia, there's also this rhetoric about, you know, Nazis, et cetera in Ukraine, there is a core realism that is quite stark. And that makes it look more honest, you know, in a sense. But when you use this sort of normative sort of argument of democracy, human rights, but then you don't actually use it selectively according to your own interests and you violate it when it fits your interests. Of course, that's, and there are a lot of people on the receiving end of this, that's going to create a huge amount of distrust and resentment across the world. So I think that's a huge disservice to the concepts of democracy, of human rights, which I think are to be cherished. They're very, very important. And I think, you know, so yeah, anyways, I guess that's enough. Excellent. Thank you very much. We ran out of time. And we have to end it here. Thank you so much. He's I car. Thank you to the audience was really an illuminating event. I learned a lot. And at so as we don't shy away from the big questions. That's what I take out of this. So thank you very much. And you will have the opportunity to also share this event. It is live screened on Facebook. And it will be on our website very soon. Thank you very much. Everyone from hot and steamy London. Bye bye. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.