Daron Acemoglu: belief

Transcript context

…The PKK — are they terrorists? And should America be supporting them? Well, PKK are, of course, terrorists. There is no doubt about that. The YPG’s relationship with the PKK — that’s much more complex, but it is an arms-length relationship, and they are not independent of the PKK. But the situation, of course, in Syria is much more complicated. First of all, the US, for a variety of reasons, made the choice of working with YPG, and going back on it is costly as a signal to US’s allies. And the alternative is that creating a vacuum there is not going to help anybody. I think the biggest threats that we are facing right now are Islamic State terrorists getting free or getting a toehold in that area, or the Syrian and the Russian army now completely controlling that strip, or at least much of that strip. I think none of those are good for the future of the Middle East, and they’re not really good for the security of the West, especially there, again, if the Islamic State comes back. So I think the current situation before the Turkish offensive had a lot of problems, but where we are heading right now is even worse. Is women’s autonomy a variable in your theory? And how should we think about the apparent inability of many countries in or near the Middle East to mobilize the productive opportunities for women?…

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