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Jeffrey Sachs: America Accepts Peace, But Still Demands Global Primacy https://youtu.be/9AZAHaZS7jE https://t.co/sZTnHvQcrx
Video Transcript AI Summary
Speaker 1 argues that 'this will be a peace agreement, not a ceasefire,' forcing the U.S., Russia, and Europe to define peace beyond a halt. He says the war reflects 'an unnecessary set of provocations from the West, not the unprovoked war of aggression by Russia.' He favors Ukraine's security through neutrality, insisting 'Ukraine's real security is neutrality' and 'Neutrality is desirable.' He envisions a monitored security arrangement via the UN Security Council, with 'Russia is one of the guarantors of peace because it's got security interests that need to be respected alongside Ukraine.' He notes 'there was no treaty to end World War II' and that 'promises unfulfilled by the West of no NATO enlargement.' He criticizes Western leadership as 'a gang of the rankest amateurs' and laments 'the Russophobia is rampant and wild' in Europe, urging renewed collective security discussions.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hi, everyone, and welcome back. We are joined today by Jeffrey Sachs to discuss the wider conflict between, the West and Russia. So welcome back to the program.
Speaker 1: Great to be with you, Glenn.
Speaker 0: So The United States and Russia appears to be moving toward a common understanding of how to end the war. So there's a recognition that the root causes of the war has to be resolved, which is why Trump now walked away from the ceasefire. There's also talk about something like article five type security guarantees for Ukraine, which makes me wonder that, well, perhaps Trump doesn't understand the root cause of the war. Anyways, I just want to get your opinions on what is your main takeaway from this recent diplomatic developments that is what's needed for peace and is this possible?
Speaker 1: I think the big advance actually is that Trump and therefore the American side, the American negotiators have said explicitly that this will be a peace agreement, not a ceasefire. That forces The United States and Russia and eventually Europe to act look at what peace means. It requires an understanding of the deeper causes of this conflict, the essential role that the NATO enlargement played. And I think it's moving in the right direction with a lot of obfuscation and foot dragging because in part it exposes what this has been about and that exposure is uncomfortable for The United States and for Europe. It basically says that this war was an unnecessary set of provocations from the West, not the unprovoked war of aggression by Russia.
Well, that's that's a big admission to to make. It it's a big change of view to swallow. But I think we're getting there, unfortunately. But before getting there, the war continues. It takes too much time to arrive at conclusions that you and I and many others have arrived at years ago.
This war could have ended. Of course, it could have been avoided entirely, and it could have ended at the negotiating table on better terms for Ukraine than today as of April 2022. But that option was turned down by The United States and UK, but especially The United States. So, here we are. Now, the specifics are still to be worked out and that is taking time.
Surely, there will not be NATO like guarantee for Ukraine that is tantamount to inviting a war between Russia and NATO. Russia's not going to agree to that. The United States and Europe should not agree to that. It's too easy to get drawn back into conflict or into an even escalated conflict. What does security therefore mean for Ukraine?
It's a good question and we should ask that directly. In my view, history and logic shows that Ukraine's real security is neutrality, that that is security in and of itself. In fact, because the history of Europe, it's a long history, but even the history of post World War II is that countries that were neutral remain neutral and basically unbothered by the Soviet Union or by Russia or by the Cold War or by the the post Cold War Cold War. In other words, countries that were neutral, like Sweden and Finland, which chose for wrong reasons recently to end their long neutrality, were not bothered by the Soviet Union or by Russia. Austria is my favorite case because it was an explicit design that Austria would become neutral in 1955.
The Soviet troops would leave. And I think it's right to say the Soviet Union never bothered Austria again, nor did Russia bother Austria. So we exaggerate the need for boots on the ground or Article five foot like guarantees. Neutrality is desirable. For both sides of a conflict.
In other words, Ukraine being in the middle, but neutral is by itself a major guarantee because both sides have an incentive to leave well enough alone so that neither is bothered by the other. And it was exactly undermining neutrality that led to the war in the first place. A second point is that Russia has proposed, and I think there's a very logical and reasonable way to do it, that Russia is one of the guarantors of peace because it's got security interests that need to be respected alongside Ukraine. The logical place for a real security arrangement is the UN Security Council that automatically brings in The US, UK and France, but also Russia and China. And it brings the public exposure and the ways to monitor an agreement.
Now we all know it's not perfect, but this is a way I think to make very clear what is agreed to have independent monitoring. And in our world that is pretty good and probably the best that should be aimed at in fact, rather than trip wires and mechanisms that one way or another lead to war by accident or by machination or by false flags, or by miscalculations. All of this is to say this security arrangement issue is solvable. It is not a breakpoint of negotiations. It should not be used in a way to try to break the negotiations similarly.
So if we get down to work and have some practical solutions in an arrangement that is monitored and and blessed by the UN Security Council, this war can end very quickly.
Speaker 0: It is strange to see the recognition that NATO is the source of the conflict, but yet they envision a role for NATO as the solution. But but this root causes of a more durable peace, it it's based on the recognition, though, that Ukraine is a mere symptom of a wider conflict, which is, yeah, the lack of a mutually acceptable post Cold War settlement, which has plagued us now for thirty years building up to this war. Now we actually had agreements for for an inclusive indivisible security architecture that abides by the principle of indivisible security in which we would then also consider Russia's sec security concern. But but I guess this is where NATO came in because instead of pursuing this indivisible security, we went with hegemonic peace, which entails expanding NATO. Now I'm just some levels, I'm still questioning the willingness even from Washington to actually reconsider the entire hegemonic system.
So I I wanted to ask you there for about the origin as well. I mean, you were there in the early nineteen nineties. You were advising not just Poland, but also Gorbachev, Yeltsin. What was the mindset and strategy of The United States for this post Cold War order?
Speaker 1: Yes. And as I answer that, let me say that this question goes back to 1945, not only to 1991. What kind of order will there be? Will it be collective security? Or will it be a block security and The US attempted hegemonic security?
Well, back in 1990, '91, '92, events were revolutionary. Of course, let me start it in 1989. Gorbachev, the president of the Soviet Union unilaterally ended the Cold War by saying that the Warsaw Pact Military Alliance would be dissolved. But more than that, and I was a direct witness to it, Gorbachev orchestrated the end of one party rule in Eastern Europe. He brokered the deal that, led to, Poland's first post communist government in the 1989.
He called, the communist president, Yaroslavsky, and said, take in that solidarity movement into your government, absolutely extraordinary. He was offering a true peace. He was offering a peace from Rotterdam to Vladivostok as it was described at the time, or a common European home. I was an advisor. I was absolutely smitten with this vision of a peace that would extend from Rotterdam to Vladivostok.
There's no doubt that Gorbachev meant it. And there's no doubt that the West prevaricated. What happened is that Gorbachev made unilateral concessions immediately with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Chancellor Helmut Kohl called for reunification of Germany. This brings us to this point that the questions really start in 1945 because there was no treaty to end World War two, and Germany became divided, until, 1990.
When, German reunification was raised, that was the moment of setting a new architecture for European security, a collective security. And in the context of German reunification, The United States and Germany promised Gorbachev in February 1990 and many, many, many times onward that NATO would not enlarge eastward. In other words, that the peace and the German reunification would not take advantage of the Soviet Union or compromise Soviet security. This was key. Gorbachev said this is essential.
And the point was made. One can watch the tapes or look at documents. And I always encourage people to look for themselves at something called the National Security Archive of George Washington University. A, in a file called What Did Gorbachev Hear? Gorbachev heard an earful that NATO would not enlarge.
And this was the basis for reaching the four plus two agreement that reunified Germany in 1990. And that in essence ended World War II. It sounds strange that World War II was ended forty five years later, but there was no peace treaty after World War II. Now, The United States almost immediately cheated afterwards, because when the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991, and again, I was there in the Kremlin as that happened, in fact, the Elsin said the same thing as the successor state. We want peace, we want cooperation, we count on the West as a peaceful partner.
But as soon as the Soviet Union was dissolving, The United States pursued an extension of the Cold War. This is the point. The Cold War did not end from the Western point of view. It did in surface rhetoric, but immediately the security state in The United States started to plan NATO enlargement. And by 1994, it was official US policy.
And in 1997, in a paper for Foreign Affairs magazine by Zbigniew Brzezinski called A Geostrategy for Eurasia, Brzezinski lays out The US strategy, including the expansion of NATO to Ukraine by around 2010 discussed in the article. And the article explains that the point is to weaken Russia, even to divide it into a set of loose, state, loose, confederacies, part of a confederation. Brzezinski talks about Russia, basically, dissolving from a unitary state into three pieces, a European Russia, a Siberian Russia, and a Far Eastern Russia linked together in a loose confederation that would have no imperial power, Brzezinski says. But this was Brzezinski as the Polish American anti Russian patriot, in his, wish list that the Cold War would continue onward to the point of the disintegration of Russia and NATO enlargement would be the linchpin of that and surrounding Russia in the Black Sea, meaning that Ukraine and Georgia, Romania and Bulgaria would join Turkey as Black Sea nations that would surround Russia and therefore surround Russia's naval fleet. So this story actually goes back to, yes, 1991, to promises unfulfilled by the West of no NATO enlargement.
But if I could, Glenn, I'd like to go back to 1945 just very briefly. There was no peace treaty at the end of World War II. In fact, by the 1945, both The UK and The US were already gearing up for a possible war against their ally, wartime ally, the Soviet Union. This is the most incredible fact that a military alliance that had defeated Hitler, in which the Soviet Union had suffered 27,000,000 deaths, broke apart within weeks of the end of World War II with Churchill asking his war command about the possibility of continuing the war against the Soviet Union. They said, no, not a good idea.
And the US military already foreseeing within weeks of the surrender of Germany, the possibility or even likelihood of war with the Soviet Union, by the early nineteen fifties. And because of that vision by The US and UK in 1945, in my view, the post war turned into a cold war rather than into a peacetime, because the peaceful approach to ending the war, which would have been the neutrality of Germany, of post Hitler Germany, was blocked by the Western powers. The West said, no. Germany is divided into four parts, the four occupying powers. Three of them, the Western side, will form the Federal Republic Of Germany, and it will be remilitarized.
And by 1955, it would join the new NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Alliance. So the West turned down the idea raised repeatedly by the Soviet Union of a demilitarized and neutral Germany as the key to a peace agreement in Europe. This was raised by the Soviet Union in 1945. It was raised again by Stalin in 1952. It was proposed again in the context of the Austrian neutrality in 1955.
But at all points, the West said, no. We will remilitarize our part of Germany. NATO will be our defense block. We will not have a neutral Germany in the center of Europe. To my mind, of course, this is heatedly debated among those historians that look at this.
To my mind, this was the lost opportunity to avoid a cold war, to avoid a harsh peace and one that nearly brought us to nuclear war on several occasions after World War II. And it was the chance to overcome that again in 1990 with German reunification. NATO could have been dissolved, should have been dissolved. At least it should not have moved one inch eastward. But we did in 1990, 9192, the same thing that the West did in 1945, that hegemonic idea.
It's a British idea, ultimately, not a US idea. The US learned it from Britain. But it's ultimately, we don't accept peace as equals. We must be hegemonic. And that idea, I think, was the basis of the Cold War and then the basis of the post 1991 system.
And it's what's in part on the table today. So the question is, can The United States accept a post hegemonic system? Globally, probably not yet. Within, Europe, probably yes, vis a vis Ukraine. But this is really what's on the table right now in in my view.
We've never gotten over eighty years of the British ultimate British idea, which became the American idea that peace through hegemony.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's quite amazing that all the British strategy, they all planned. They called it operational unthinkable, which immediately after the war was over, they were planning an attack on the Soviet Union, surprise attack on their ally on the 07/01/1945. That is right after the war, consisting then of American, British, and also what remains of Nazi Germany's army, so using their eminent soldiers as well. It's kind of extraordinary to to that this would be, yeah, the the the plan.
But it kinda begs the question there for what to to what extent do you think the Washington is prepared for peace? Because I I hear that they they talk about ending the Ukraine war, but I don't hear anyone recognizing basic Russian security concerns. I hear no one talking about a common peace. I hear no speak of indivisible security where we recognize that all sides have to be yeah. Have have the security concerns met.
Instead, the rhetoric appears to be we lost Ukraine, but then that doesn't mean abandoning hegemony. That suggests a temporary ceasefire would do. So I I'd also just don't see anyone walking away from the idea that crime controlling Crimea and black the Black Sea is ultimate goal. Recently, general Donahue, he argued that NATO has plans for and has been training for invading Kaliningrad, which not just an attack on Russian territory, but would also put 1,000,000 Russians under NATO occupation. But, again, it's same with China.
I don't see any willingness to live side by side with the Chinese either. So it kinda begs the question, have have the hegemonic peace been abandoned? If not, is is a temporary peace or a temporary ceasefire all that's on the table in Ukraine?
Speaker 1: Well, I think first to say that the the low level of of discussion in Washington, in Brussels, in Berlin, in London, in Paris is shocking. Where are statesmen? Where are diplomats? We don't see any of them. Just the quality of this discussion is abysmal without any voices of inside governments of history, perspective of this point of view that we need to find a way to end this cycle of violence, of recognizing the choices before us.
Well, if you look at the US administration, it's a gang of the rankest amateurs. There's no thinker around in Washington right now. And this counts because the level of discussion is, it's sometimes mystifying. We don't even know what the words mean. And it's not only because of obfuscation, it's because of utter confusion.
Or you look at the discussion in London or Brussels, it's without even these concepts being asked or raised or debated. So I think that this is part of the story. The art of diplomacy, which is a skill, it requires knowledge, history, perspective when it's done very well, As in many examples in keeping the peace in nineteenth century Europe, it is the result of enormous skill and historical knowledge and perspective and active engagement in diplomacy. None of that happens right now. Within Europe, the Russophobia is rampant and wild.
The voices have been raised of the most Russophobic, elements. The fact that Europe is represented, by its probably single most Russophobic region, the Baltic States. One can understand in some way the Russophobia of the Baltic States. But on the other hand, one would think that there would be some perspective of prudence as well, but that's lacking. And to have Kayakalas from Estonia as the voice of Europe as the high representative vice president for external affairs is truly dismaying.
And to hear such simplicity and crudeness coming from Brussels is very dismaying. I should have added on that list of shocking lack of insight, of course, Germany. Mertz, can't I even I couldn't imagine a government to rival, how bad, the Scholz period was. But Mertz is actually worse. Mertz shows no perspective at all.
And how can it be that a Finnish president, just to add to my list of complaints, Stubb, who knows that on the basis of neutrality, as painful as Finnish history may be from Finland's perspective, in World War II or vis a vis the Soviet Union, neutrality for Finland brought Finland to number one in the world in world happiness and well-being. And it brought Finland to a state of peace and prosperity beyond imagining. And he can't bring himself to say anything other than continued war towards Russia. Can't explain anything about Finland's success. Can't explain anything about the real history, after 1944 about what neutrality means and how it can work.
So we don't have anybody trying to draw positive lessons right now. This makes a difference because ideas count. And when you have a complete vacuum of thought, as we have right now, You don't make progress beyond old failed ideas. The fact that a lot of the hegemonic tools are the toolkit of the CIA and the security agencies really hurts, because a huge amount of foreign policy of the West is like the iceberg. It's submerged below the surface.
It is truly deep state operations. It's covert operations. It's regime change operations. And by the way, one piece of evidence completely in support of your proposition that the thinking hasn't changed is even as we're trying to make peace in Ukraine, we are messing up the South Caucasus royally right now, with the The United States claiming a ninety nine year corridor on the border of Iran. Unthinkable things that will lead to new wars through the same kind of machinations as in the past.
So all of this is to say, this is the time when we should be rethinking more fundamentally the collective security, exactly where you started. Ukraine at least could push us to thinking again. It's been a long time since there has been thinking. Foreign policy in The US has been on autopilot basically since the 1990s. It failed miserably.
It failed Ukraine miserably. It failed Western security miserably. It failed everybody miserably. Maybe as people contemplate what does security really mean in the coming weeks, somebody will learn something from history.
Speaker 0: I'm glad you mentioned the Europeans. I just have a very brief last question before we run out of time is the Europeans now, not only are they opposed to Trump's peace efforts, they don't even wanna talk to Russia. Is this is this a failure to imagine a multipolar world or to live without The United States? Or how how do you make sense of refusing to end the war they're losing?
Speaker 1: The structural problem of Europe being 27 independent countries remains unsolved. There is no clear security architecture for Europe, and the Europeans have not devised one. And The US was their security blanket and their security umbrella, if you want, all this time. And so this led to an utter decline of European thinking and a simple dependency on The United States. And we don't see among any of the actors right now, Starmer or Mertz or Macron or others, any leader with ideas.
They're absolutely, not, presenting, structured ideas about European security. So this is this is very disappointing. I think it shocks all of us who view Europe as, you know, a very sophisticated place. This is the most unsophisticated discussions one can imagine. I I would use the word primitive.
And the failure of any Europeans to sit down with Russian counterparts and actually discuss these things is mind boggling. You learn when you discuss and meeting for the ten thousandth time with Zelensky and not once with Lavrov is, is the huge blunder.
Speaker 0: Well, thank you so much for your time and, yeah, look forward to seeing you very soon in New York.
Speaker 1: We'll talk soon. Thanks a lot.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Douglas Macgregor: U.S. War on Iran Risks Triggering World War https://youtu.be/S7ze8RFhqXk https://t.co/2dma1vdOhj
Video Transcript AI Summary
Colonel Douglas MacGregor discusses the likelihood and dynamics of a potential new war involving Iran, the Middle East, and broader great-power competition.
- On a possible Iran strike: MacGregor says there will be a resumption of the war, though he cannot predict timing. He cites Western attempts to destabilize Iran (Mossad, CIA, MI6-backed unrest) and argues Iran is more cohesive now than it was forty years ago, with demonstrations representing a small minority and not a broad collapse of support for the government. He contends that those who want to destroy Iran or empower Israel believe the regime can be toppled with Western support and Israeli action, but he asserts that such a regime change is unlikely and that Iran will respond forcefully if attacked. He notes that current deployments are heavy on airpower with limited naval presence, and he suggests Israel’s broader goals (Gaza, Lebanon, Syria) will not be achievable without addressing Iran.
- Regional actors and incentives: Netanyahu’s regional aims require confronting Iran, and Turkish involvement with the Kurds could influence the balance. He describes a recent Kurdish incursion into northern Iran that Iran suppressed, aided by Turkish coordination. He frames BRICS as militarizing in reaction to Western actions, including in Venezuela, Russia, and Ukraine, and says disrupting the Persian Gulf oil flow would harm China, prompting cooperation with Azerbaijan and Turkey against Iran to undermine the One Belt, One Road project. He also argues that BRICS countries—Russia, China, India—will not easily align with U.S. plans if Washington proceeds toward war.
- Russian and Chinese calculations: On Russia and China, MacGregor says they have supplied Iran with military tech and missile/radar capabilities and helped counteract efforts to disrupt Iran with Starlink. He believes many Iranians still oppose regime collapse and that a broader war would risk escalation with Russia and China backing Iran. He cites Moscow’s withdrawal of Russian personnel from Israel and the sense in Moscow that Trump is unreliable, leading Russia to hedge against U.S. actions. He notes Russians are concerned about Europe and envision potential conflicts with Europe, while he questions U.S. strategy and end states.
- No first-use and nuclear considerations: MacGregor discusses the idea of no-first-use (NNU) as a potential framework to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation, suggesting a multilateral agreement among the major nuclear powers (US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, Britain, France). He posits that such an agreement could advance diplomacy, including on Korea, and reduce the likelihood of Armageddon. He mentions that Trump could leverage such a stance, though he notes Trump’s tendency to pursue more aggressive policies in other areas.
- Europe and NATO: He argues Europe is unprepared for renewed large-scale conflict and has disarmed substantially over decades. He criticizes Britain and France for rhetoric and capability gaps and suggests the United States is fatigued with European demands, though he doubts Europe could sustain a conflict against Russia.
- Venezuela and domestic budget: He emphasizes the futility of long wars in certain contexts (Venezuela) and the mismatch between spending and real capability gains. He references the defense budget as largely consumed by fixed costs like veterans’ medical care and pensions, arguing that simply increasing the budget does not guarantee meaningful strategic gains. He notes the role of special operations as valuable but not decisive in major wars.
- Concluding view: MacGregor reiterates that war in the region is likely, with many overlapping alarms and uncertainties about timing, leadership decisions, and the risk of escalation. He stresses that both Russia and China have stakes in the outcome and that the Middle East conflict could influence global alignments and deterrence dynamics. He closes by underscoring the potential importance of no-first-use diplomacy and broader nuclear risk reduction as a path forward.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back to the program. We're here today with colonel Douglas MacGregor, a highly decorated combat veteran and also a former adviser to the US secretary of defense. So thank you for coming back on.
Speaker 1: Sure. Sure. Of course. Good to see you, Voin.
Speaker 0: We already now see that there's some new increased military activity in The Middle East, primarily, you know, involving these different aircraft carriers or at least a lot of battleships coming, new equipment moving in. We heard stories about troops as well and refueling tankers. Do you do you think another strike is pending in Iran? I know Lindsey Graham seemed very excited about the prospect that, yes, strike could be imminent.
Speaker 1: I I think there will be a resumption of the war. I'm surprised it's taken this long. I don't know when it will occur. Obviously, the Mossad, CIA, MI six, sponsored unrest inside Iran was supposed to disrupt preparations to defend the country, if not ultimately to replace the government. We have a lot of people who believe first and foremost that you can change a regime, and that means to remove the people at the the top and suddenly peace will break out everywhere.
And then you have a lot of people who are absolutely convinced that Iran is exactly the way it was forty years ago. Nothing's changed, and therefore strongly believe that the Iranian population has come to its senses and is now devoted to the idea of, destroying its own government. Then you have those who are diehard Israel supporters, and, they believe that, Israel just needs to be, given the go go ahead, the green light, and Israel will destroy Iran. And, as as a result, once again, the entire region will benefit. The world will be a better place.
So which lens do you wanna look through? All three lenses are the predominant ones here in The United States. Anybody who suggests as I do and others have, first of all, Iran is not about to fall apart. Iran is probably more cohesive in a social sense now than at any point that I can remember. That these people that, took to the streets were a small minority, And initially, large numbers of them were very sincere, but they weren't as upset with the government as they were struggling for more reform or in some cases, conservatives opposing reform.
But eventually, that gave way to what you saw on television, the more violent, unrest that was induced by the CIA, Mossad and MI six. So I I think that we have a lot of people that are anxiously awaiting the imminent destruction of Iran, And I think their belief is that, if we give the Israelis enough of what they need, they'll be able to do it without our help. I don't think that's the case. I'm not sure that president Trump was very excited about the idea of going back to war with Iran, but he obviously has no way to stop it. And he's obliged for a whole range of reasons strategically to support them.
What's interesting is that we have not seen the movement of, one or two carrier battle groups back into the region. Normally, expect to see that. There those are short legged fighters, but nevertheless, they contribute enormously to the punching power of, the force of the region. So right now, it's almost all air force with some modest naval presence. So I I don't know.
I think it's coming. Let's face it. Mister Netanyahu cannot walk away from Iran in his current position. Nothing he wants to accomplish. The wholesale elimination of the population in Gaza, the complete conquest of Southern And Central Lebanon, which means the elimination of Hezbollah, the encroaching movement into Syria.
You know, these things are not gonna work unless he finishes off Iran. There's a lot of activity involving the Kurds right now. And as you know, we and and the Israelis have worked very hard with the Kurds, so have the British, to turn them into a a dangerous force. And a few days ago, we had an incursion of somebody said to me that's knowledgeable about 400 Kurds headed into Iran, Northern Iran. Thanks to the Turks who were working closely with the Iranian, Revolutionary Guard Corps, they identified this, and the Iranians were able to annihilate virtually the entire contingent without much difficulty.
So I think what we're seeing happening is that globally, BRICS is being militarized. And that's largely our fault because of our behavior in Venezuela, our behavior towards Russia and Ukraine, and obviously what's happening in The Middle East. We have an interest in the destruction of Ukraine insofar as we think it will harm China, and it could if you can forestall the movement of oil out of the Persian Gulf, and that represents probably 25 or 30% of all the oil that China utilizes. So if you're interested in harming China per se, that's one way to do it. It also creates the opportunity for you to work with us, you know, with Azerbaijan and the Turks against Iran insofar as you're disrupting the One Belt, One Road project.
I mean, there are a lot of things. Mean, depending upon whom you talk to in the administration in Washington, you get a different story. That's why I say it's hard to know with president Trump because president Trump, whatever his faults, is really privately not somebody who wants to bomb the world. Unfortunately, that's exactly what he ends up doing because of the people that surround him. But, you know, that's another matter entirely.
So I think we have to conclude that, yeah, war is coming. Exactly when, we don't know, but we see all the conditions that are being developed with the hope of dooming the Iranian regime to defeat. I don't think the Russians or the Chinese are gonna go along with it.
Speaker 0: When you say the Russians and Chinese won't go along with it, to what extent, though, would they back Iran? I mean, they don't they don't they don't want a direct shooting war with The United States as that would be well, we wouldn't be able to control the escalation if this happens. But but this is in terms of economic support or supplying weapons, or how how how can they prevent The United States from knocking out Iran?
Speaker 1: Well, I think the Chinese and the Russians have provided military technology and technical assistance. There's no question about that. And this time, I think the Iranians have welcomed more assistance technologically, particularly with missiles and radars from the Russians than they previously received. Secondly, I think the Chinese have been instrumental in defeating the use of Starlink by the MI six, both sides, CIA opposition, inside the country. We now think that 40,000 starlight terminals were smuggled into Iran.
Remember, this is a huge country. It's the size of Western Europe. It's got 90,000,000 people in it. So no one should be surprised that you can penetrate the borders. I mean, they penetrate our borders.
They're penetrating Iran's borders. And they they were able to bring these startling terminals in, but the Chinese apparently came to the rescue to shut them down. And they've they've enabled a blackout largely of all all the urban areas, and it may be national at this point, to regain control. But the point that needs to be kept in mind is that there are millions of Iranians, tens of millions, that have demonstrated in favor of and in support of the government, and the vast majority of people do not welcome the kind of disruption that the destruction of their government would bring at this particular point in time, given the dangers that confront Iran. Iran's living in a state of siege.
I mean, somebody earlier today was critical of me because I when I said that, yes, I'm sure that several 100 people are being round up and probably facing summary execution for treason. But I said, you're talking about a nation in a state of siege. What do you expect to happen? Stalin, we know, from the time the Germans invaded until the end of the war, executed 1,000,000 Soviet soldiers who refused to fight for communism. That's what he had to do.
He used the NKVD. That kept the other several million soldiers in line. The Germans in contrast, by the way, only had to execute 23,000 out of some six or 7,000,000 German soldiers. That's a very modest number given the numbers that we're talking about and the pressures of that battlefield. But I think we have to understand that if you don't impose that kind of draconian measure, it will continue.
And I think that's what the Iranians are aware of. So I think the Iranian regime is recovering. It's putting things back together again. I I don't think it disrupted in any way their, air and missile defense. I don't think it had any impact whatsoever on their missile stocks and their ability to attack Israel or for that matter, our bases in the region.
So we're back to the initial question. Everybody wants to know when's this going to happen. Nobody knows, but there are plenty of indicators that suggest it can't be that far off.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And I thought it was strange, the the narrative for the for legitimizing the new war that is, of course, is not in the Western Hemisphere. So instead, we see Trump referencing, well, his love for freedom and protest and democracy in order for you know, as as why, you know, he stands with in their solidarity. I thought this was strange. I thought it was kinda breaking a little bit away from this liberal imperialism, but apparently not.
However, though, how how would this war be different? Because the first round didn't go well. The Iranians proved that they were able to overwhelm the the air defenses of Israel, which were quickly being depleted. And, also, Trump seems to have an aversion for for long wars. He he likes to finish them off quickly, it seems.
A little bit like Venezuela and do not get dragged into a long war. So did you think they would just try to go for overwhelming decapitation strike or going after key government figures? Because they tried this last time.
Speaker 1: Well, I think, first of all, we have to keep in mind that president Trump is aware that in the senate and the house, he does not have support for the use of American ground forces in Venezuela. The senate has already voted on a measure that would prohibit the use of US ground troops, and they voted 52 to 47 against it. That means the Democrats had Republican support. So I think president Trump, is now, I don't wanna say he's being humiliated, but he is certainly being chastened, in a sense that, he's not pushing to get US troops on the ground. Now I think in Venezuela, he's a bit, naive to think that, the population of Venezuela, is going to go along with whatever we want in with regard to their minerals and mines, gold mines, emerald mines, silver mines, rare earths, plus all of the oil.
That's not gonna happen for a whole range of reasons. It may be that he just decides that, he's done all that he can do. He'll turn his attention elsewhere. I I don't know. There has never been a viable executable plan in my judgment for Venezuela or for that matter for operations in general in Latin America.
So that's the first thing. Now when you move to Iran, that's a that's an entirely different matter because that really does attract, Russian and and Chinese intervention. Even even India is is not supportive of, anything we might do to do against Iran. So I think if you're looking at BRICS, Russia, India, China, that's a substantial chunk of the world. Now we could probably go through the rest and find even more, opposition.
I don't know how he's gonna handle that. There's nothing clean about an airpower only operation. I mean, this this notion that airpower can achieve miraculous outcomes is a big lie. It always has been. We we bombed and bombed routinely in all numbers of places, but until we ultimately went in on the ground, nothing fundamentally changed.
Now after that, we weren't weren't very successful either, but that speaks more to the wisdom of having gone to begin with than anything else. So I think at this point, he's trapped. He's going to have to take action in support of Israel. He may go in with Israel simultaneously when they finally attack. Now we don't know what the Iranians will do because for the first time, the Iranians have actually talked about potentially a preemptive attack.
I don't expect them to sit around and wait for negotiations to have an impact. I don't think anybody really trusts us anymore. I don't think anything that Trump says is going to be believed. It's that simple. So if you're an Iranian right now, you've got your finger on the trigger.
And I think if it looks like something's imminent, they're gonna pull the trigger. And this time, I think they'll throw everything they've got, including the kitchen sink at Israel and our bases in the region. My great concern is always the same. What does Israel do if it's facing potential destruction and annihilation, from Iranian missiles and rockets and so forth? Does it turn to the use of a nuclear weapon?
If it does, do we have any influence over that? Can we constrain them in any way? I don't know. Now the the thing we haven't discussed again that has to be taken into consideration is Turkey. You know, Turkey has enormous problems with inflation.
They wanna get it down to 5%. It's been up to 20%. So that is operated as a brake on things that they might do. Erdogan is very clever. He wants to be on all sides of every issue, but is he going to be compelled finally to intervene?
And and the reason for that would be the Kurds. The Kurdish threat to the Turks is substantial and serious. The Turks could be mobilized in a in a few days to fight the Kurds. Will that spill over and involve Israel? I mean, I I don't know the answers to these questions, but this this region is not stable.
It's not predictable. It's it's at a slow boil. The question is when does it boil over? But everyone is beginning to coalesce against Israel. Think that's clear.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Though you mentioned the possibility of a preemptive strike, and I think this is a, yeah, a variable which should be taken, seriously because this whole idea that The US can, just, well, place all its air force around Iran in a perfect position and then go for a strike, which Iran knows is intended to knock out their country, a decapitation strike. The idea that they would sit by and just wait for this to come, I, yeah, I I would take that warning from Iran rather serious. They have a lot at stake here. But with you you mentioned that the Russians, again, the Chinese wouldn't sit by.
But how do you see the Russians calculation having changed, though? Because if this was a few months ago, they would have been perhaps more optimistic about the possibility of a diplomatic solution with Trump that is to improve relations between The US and Russia and ending the Ukraine war at the negotiation table. But over the past weeks with this, we learned that there's been more US involvement in tack on attacks on refineries, on Russian civilian ships, even on Russia's nuclear deterrent, and, of course, the continued efforts to sanction Russia in order to break its economy. So it it I get the impression now from Moscow that they they, well, that they well, lost hope in the Trump presidency that he would be the one who would be able to, well, end a century of tensions between Russia and and The US and essentially become, if not allies, at least much, much closer. Do you think this would impact how Russia would respond to an American attack on Iran?
Speaker 1: The Russians have withdrawn their citizens. In other words, evacuated them from Israel. They've evacuated their embassy and staff from Israel. I think, mister Netanyahu has poisoned relations with the Russians. Then you add to that particular matter what you just discussed regarding president Trump.
We used to have something, and I'm sure you're familiar with this, we called Kremlinology, where we had all sorts of people sitting around trying to evaluate, estimate, analyze who was going to be in the Politburo, who was next up to be secretary general, you know, of the communist party and so forth. I think a lot of that is going on inside Moscow's inner circle. I think they're they've looked at Trump, and I think they've concluded a few things. First of all, I think the Russians like president Trump. As a person, I don't think they dislike him at all.
And they would like to get along with him, but I think they've concluded that he's unreliable. See, he may say one thing at one point in time, and then a day or two later, he changes his mind and launches in a new direction. You remember that in January, February, there were discussions. Well, we're we we need to find a way forward, and we're going to meet with the the Russian leadership in Saudi Arabia. Remember they went to Riyadh.
They held these meetings. You had lots of top people, people representing business interests. The usual suspects that supported Trump are showing up to cash in on a particular deal. Unfortunately, these billionaires align themselves or Trump aligns himself with them. I don't know which chicken or egg.
You have to figure that out. But bottom line is we thought there would be a normalization of relations with Moscow. And I think the Russians thought that that was coming. All of a sudden, that stops. Everyone goes home and forgets about it.
Then, Donald Trump, who doesn't change the sanctions regime, refuses to completely divorce himself from Zelensky despite Zelensky's bad behavior and routine tendency to ignore what Trump says, he turns around, has a meeting in Alaska, shows up with no new proposals, and then tells the Russians, we want a ceasefire. Reading nothing, studying nothing, paying no attention whatsoever to Russia's security interests. That meeting went off well. It was it had great atmospherics, wonderful optics, but it went nowhere. It produced nothing.
And I think now the Russians have concluded that's the best you're gonna get out of Donald Trump. Excuse me. It's not that he is a menace or he's deliberately, misleading. He just can't deliver. And they're looking at other people, whether it's somebody like Lindsey Graham in the in the senate who is the chief warmonger, on the senate side, but he's not alone.
He pulls in lots of Democrats like Blumenthal and others who are willing to join the the Russia hate club. Then you have the usual suspects in the White House. You have Rubio. You have Hagsef. They're they're in the camp of bombs away.
Let's let's go for it. Let's get these bastards and so forth. It's why I wrote in that that piece that came out a couple of weeks ago. It's team America. And I think they truly believe that there's not much anybody in the world can do to stop us.
And I think that was president Trump's comments within the last twenty four hours. Well, what what counter counterforce is there to what you wanna do? In other words, what are the constraints or limitations on you, mister president? And he says, well, none except my own morality. Whatever that means, and I'm sure everybody's asking that question, just what does that mean, mister president?
That's why Greenland is up for grabs. That's why Venezuela's up for grabs. That's why Iran's on the agenda. As far as he's concerned, it's whatever his whim is is his will. His wish becomes reality.
Now I don't think it works very well, but I have a feeling that's where we are. And I think the Russians have figured that out. So what do you do? You you prepare for the worst. Everybody in Russia on the ground in the military is saying we have to prepare for a war with Europe.
They're absolutely convinced that's gonna be unavoidable. Now they're hoping they won't have to fight us because they don't want to. They would like to have good relations with us. There there is, for some strange reason, a lingering sense of genuine mutual, respect and and, affection for America. It's it's really amazes me.
I don't know how it persists, but it does. So I think the Russians are torn right now. They figure, well, we're gonna have to fight the Europeans, even though you try to tell the Europeans have nothing to throw at you. They they sort of say, well, you know, we we we see what they say and do. We're gonna have to fight them.
And, of course, the French and the British, have given them plenty of reason for that. Same thing with the Germans. You know, you saw that enormous, arsenal of Taurus missiles down in Odessa that was targeted and destroyed. An enormous, enormous impact down there. Huge explosion.
And Mertz went public and said, oh, well, this is a terrible thing. And instead of, sort of feeling someone embarrassed, which he should have, he did the opposite. So I I could understand why the Russians are taking that position. But I look at us, and I just ask the question, what is the strategy? In other words, what's the end state?
What are we trying to achieve? And I don't think we've moved beyond Biden's previous positions. Harm Russia, bully Russia, push Russia into an agreement that it would otherwise never sign. You and I know that's not going to happen.
Speaker 0: Do you share that sentiment though, the, or the expectation that a war between Europe and Russia is, unavoidable?
Speaker 1: No. I I don't think it's unavoidable at all. That's the Russian view. Because of all the rhetoric and statements and behaviors, I don't think the Europeans have anything to put into the battle. And if they push hard enough, I guess, potentially, they could come under attack.
What are they gonna do about it? I mean, when this war started, there was a a study done in NATO of just how much of the territory within NATO could be defended against air and missile attack. And the answer was less than 5% of the territory. That hasn't changed. You know?
So you're talking about going into a war completely unprepared. You know, in 1941, when Pearl Harbor was destroyed or at least partially destroyed, the expectation by the army was that the navy would carry through on its prewar plan. Its prewar plan was we attack immediately straight across the Pacific all the way to The Philippines and relieve the Philippine garrison. In other words, reinforce its strength and so forth. Two divisions from the United States Army, fully manned, National Guard formations were in San Francisco ready to board ships and go to The Philippines.
Well, the Navy suddenly said we can't do that. They'd had this plan for a decade. They'd tweaked it every year. They couldn't do it. Why?
Well, one of the reasons was they had six operational oilers. In other words, vessels that carried fuel for the surface fleet. At six in the entire Pacific. And you know what the size of the Pacific is like. How far are you going to get?
The answer is not very far. There was another problem called Japanese submarines. They were afraid. They couldn't protect the troop transports. So you know where our troops went?
They went to Australia. And so the whole war took a different course. My my point is right now, that's the position the Europeans are in. It's even worse. They just don't have anything to throw at anybody.
I mean, they they have effectively disarmed themselves over the last thirty five, forty years. So I tell the Russians forget it. I mean, I would if I was asked. I would say you're you're waiting for something to happen. It's not gonna happen.
But remember, it's their country. The Ukrainians are using our intelligence and our technology to attack deep targets. So the Russians look at that and say, this is gonna go on until we ultimately crush you everybody in Ukraine. I mean, that's the position they're in right now. We have done nothing to change that.
We could have intervened a long time ago, had a real impact. We could have forced the Europeans into an agreement with us and Russia. We have done nothing. So the war continues, and it's dangerous because it could involve us, especially if we do stupid things in the Middle East. Venezuela, remember, the difference between us and the Russians and Chinese is as follows.
We're dumb enough to think that we could fight a war in Ukraine against Russia and win. Impossible for strategic reasons. Should be patently obvious. We have stupid people that think you can fight a war over Taiwan against China and win some six, seven thousand miles from The United States. Stupid.
Can't be done. The Chinese and the Russians are not dumb. They are not going to intervene in the Western Hemisphere against us militarily over Venezuela. It's not gonna happen because they know they can't win that fight, not in the Caribbean Basin. So now we go to the Middle East.
We can project power, but for how long and how much? And the last time around, we were getting close to the end in terms of our ability to project that much power successfully. Fortunately, the Iranians were also low in their capabilities, and so were the Israelis. What happens this time around? We don't know.
But this time around, both the Russians and the Chinese have more at stake. The Chinese, particularly because of the Strait Of Hormuz and because of the one belt, one route, and the Russians because of their southern flank, and we've talked about that. They're not going to allow that to fall into enemy hands. They've they're already quite upset over what's happened in Azerbaijan. So, bottom line is this is a terrible strategic position for us to be in.
It's a terrible strategic position for the Russians and the Chinese. Something's got to give.
Speaker 0: Just looks like we might be heading into this perfect storm because this 25% tariffs on anyone trading with Iran, it seems that China would be the primary target of this, and that would restart the economic war with with the Chinese. As you said, the the Russians and Chinese would likely back Iran at least indirectly with intelligence, weapons. But also if there is a war, wouldn't wouldn't there be some opportunism? I I feel like if The US gets, well, held up in the Middle East, that the Russians would then feel a bit more confident in terms of retaliating against any European provocations. I just saw two days ago that the British foreign ministry was or defense ministry was making a point that, oh, well, we're developing missiles now, which can go 500 kilometers with 200 kilogram warheads so we can start bombing Moscow.
I mean, how it it at some point, the Russians will we will see it as irresponsible not to retaliate because it only emboldens the Europeans. Because in Europe now, it's kind of accepted as normal. We can strike Russia all we want, and we just call it helping Ukraine. And but it looks as if the now that the Russians are coming in a stronger position, they're not gonna accept this anymore.
Speaker 1: I think that's entirely valid. And I think of the three when you look at Germany, France, and Great Britain that are the principal culprits responsible for what goes on from Ukraine into Russia. They're not alone because let's face it, we still provide targeting data and information. Our overhead surveillance is still critical to all of that. But of the three, they really, really have had it with the British because they know how weak the British really are.
The British have nothing to fight with. They're in terrible shit. They don't hate the British people, but they hate that damn government that is talking and behaving the way it is. Now the interesting part is they seem to want to challenge us over Greenland. That's about as ridiculous as the Russians or Chinese trying to challenge us in the Caribbean.
So hopefully, the British and the French will show that that dumb idea. And they're all talking about, well, America is bringing an end to NATO. They don't seem to understand that that's fine as far as this administration is concerned. We we have been tired of the Europeans and their demands on us for a very long time. The problem is we can't seem to shed the Russia hate problem, which I think is entirely an artificial construct that sits in Washington as a result of powerful lobbies.
And the American population doesn't share that view. They they don't know much about it. Their knee jerk reaction is to think, oh, it must be the Soviets again. Oh, that's right. It's not Soviet Union anymore.
I mean, Americans don't know much about what's beyond their borders. Let's face it. You know that from having been here. But nevertheless, it's not a systemic problem in The United States. But I think the Russians, if they're pushed, they could respond.
And I think the British want to seriously examine their fragility, their vulnerability. The Russians aren't gonna attack London and blow anything up, but there are lots of military targets that could easily be brought under attack and absolutely annihilated, and there's not a damn thing the British can do about it. Now there's something else, I you know, this is something I've been working on with some friends, and I'm gonna try and make this presentation in the near future, but I'm trying to get people to think a little differently about our relationship with Russia, and that's about no first use. This idea has been kicked around many times. JFK, before he was killed after his experience during the Cuban Missile Crisis, wanted to pursue a course that I think would have ultimately led to something like that.
The Chinese have a declared no first use policy, but we dismiss that because after all, their arsenal isn't that large. Well, it's actually growing, and it's very potentially lethal. But we have many nuclear powers today, Pakistan, India, Israel, North Korea, Russia, China, Great Britain, France. I think given the dangers that we're talking about in Eastern Europe, and in The Middle East, if we cannot come to any sort of agreement that would bring those conflicts to a head, perhaps we can come to some sort of arrangement that prevents the use of nuclear weapons. Because once a nuclear weapon is used, the escalation is inevitable.
Every every study that we've done, every model that we've looked at inevitably leads to escalation because every side decides, well, if I don't use it, I'll lose it. So I'm going to use it. And this is this has been discussed for many years behind the scenes. I think president Trump, who's talked a great deal about his qualifications for the Nobel Peace Prize, most of the time that evokes laughter. But if he were to step forward and say, you know, we can't solve the Ukraine problem today, but we can at least prevent Armageddon now and look at it from that standpoint and stand up for no first use and then sit with, Moscow and Beijing and then ultimately India, Pakistan, and the rest, and put together an agreement under which everybody says none of us will be the first to use a nuclear weapon under any circumstances, I think that could be very good.
It would also promote a new way forward on the Korean Peninsula because I know that the Republic Of South Korea wants to put this away, wants that to go away, the nuclear problem, but they'd also like us to leave because we're now increasingly seen as a catalyst for war on the Korean Peninsula. We're no longer seen as a security blanket that we once were. So I would hope that the president will think about that. We're gonna make a push in the very near few future about that. I hope to talk about that in Vancouver at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference that's coming up at the January '25 through twenty seven January.
But I that's the only thing I can think of right now that would circumvent this this, sort of jammed up diplomatic mess and get to something that is really critical to the survival of the planet, something that we could agree on, I hope.
Speaker 0: Well, the START treaty is due to expire next month, if I'm not mistaken. And it it seemed to some point that Trump was prepared to make the nuclear weapons a key issue. He talked about denuclearizing the relationship between The US, Russia, and China. And indeed, if you wanna go with the largest nuclear powers, then, well, this this would be a a good approach. But I haven't heard much talk about it lately.
Instead, I've heard talks about increasing The US military budget to $1,500,000,000,000, which, well, could have imposed. I'm sure they find the money, but this will have some consequences.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, there's somebody named William Hartung that you should continue consider interviewing. I don't know if you've interviewed him or not. But William Hartung, who writes frequently at the Quincy Institute, talks about the budget, and he makes the point that this leads to more foreign interventions, and it's inherently escalatory in terms of moving us down the road to greater violence. I think that's part of it, but something that most people don't understand inside or outside of The United States is that a large part of our defense budget is fixed. It involves the cost of medical care.
You know, that may seem you say, well, why is that a big deal? Well, we have a lot of veterans. We have a lot of wounded. We have a lot of people who were killed, and their families have suffered. There's a lot of money in in that for that purpose, dealing with those issues.
Then on top of that, you have pensions. Huge numbers of people have retired because we've gone to this quote unquote all volunteer force. That's very expensive. So at the end of the day, that's a big chunk of the budget. Now moving beyond that, an awful lot of money that he's talking about will not produce the dream military establishment he talks about.
You're just gonna get more of what you got because, ultimately, that's what the generals and the admirals want. And the people on the hill don't pay any attention. They just wanna spend money. If I take you to Washington and walk you through the senate and the house and you ask these people, what do you do here? They say, well, we spend money.
If we're not spending money, we have nothing to do. Now when you say that, then they also look at the budget as an opportunity to do what? Agrandize themselves, their donors, you know, the various corporate structures that are rooted in their districts and states. And so they start piling on in this massive feeding frenzy at the public trough. So just before you add more money doesn't necessarily mean that you're buying more real capability.
Now, you just saw us go into and out of Venezuela in what everybody is describing as this brilliant operation. Well, it was. And we have remarkable capabilities in the special operations world, but special operations don't win wars. They're a niche capability, and you have to have an environment conducive to the use of special operations. That worked very well in Venezuela.
I wouldn't try it in North Korea. I wouldn't necessarily try it in China or Russia. Right now, Iran, maybe. But even there, you're going to have problems. And then we have, we haven't really told everybody just how much money we spent to buy off key members of the Venezuelan government and security forces.
So what I'm saying is that you're liable to see a lot more money go into those things, but you may not necessarily see anything that fundamentally dramatically improves your position in a strategic sense. And then finally, you have the problem of the debasement of our currency, because all of this is push button money. It comes out of thin air.
Speaker 0: Yeah. The economic crisis coming, I think, is gonna be come as a unfortunately, as as a as a surprise, which will complicate all of these conflicts, which are now seemingly playing out at the same time. So, yes, interesting times ahead. Well, colonel, as always, thank you very much for your time.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Glenn. Bye bye.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. War on Iran - "An Attack Is Imminent" https://youtu.be/sYAW_XvvreU https://t.co/Q1QXZV3EA4
Video Transcript AI Summary
Jeffrey Sachs and Glenn discuss the threat environment around Iran amid Trump-era tensions.
- Observed mobilization: The United States has a massive military build-up in the region; allied transports appear en route to the Middle East. The impression, from Tehran’s view, is that an attack seems unavoidable, with Israel and Washington seemingly seeking regime change.
- Threat framing and regime change: Sachs says Israel has pursued over thirty years to overthrow the Iranian government, with the United States broadly acting in lockstep with Israel. He notes that last summer’s effort aimed at regime change did not succeed, and that a carrier task group is now moving toward Iran, signaling imminent attack. He asserts that “the goal here has never been negotiation.”
- JCPOA history and negotiations: A nuclear deal, JCPOA, was reached and ratified by UN Security Council resolution 2231 (2015). Trump ripped it up in his first term. Sachs argues there has never been genuine readiness by the United States or Israel for a negotiated settlement; when negotiations occurred, Israel resisted, and the attack on Iran two days before scheduled U.S.–Iran negotiations in June 2025 is cited as proof that the goal is regime change, not diplomacy.
- Hybrid warfare and tactics: The plan is described as a regime change operation carried out through hybrid warfare—cyber, street unrest, economic strangulation, bombing, assassinations. Trump is characterized as blustering to pressure Iran to comply with demands that would amount to dismantling the regime.
- UN Charter and legality: Sachs invokes UN Charter Article 2(4), stating that all members shall refrain from threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, and argues the current posture is a gross violation of the charter.
- Venezuela comparison and propaganda accusation: He likens the current stance to the coercive U.S. approach seen in Venezuela, accusing the United States of invasion, kidnapping, oil seizures, and confiscation of oil profits, with Trump claiming the money goes to him. He alleges similar propaganda is present in major media regarding Iran, including misrepresentation of economic collapse as a sign of Iranian misgovernment.
- Economic statecraft and its effects: Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, is cited as stating that sanctions aimed to “collapse” Iran’s currency and provoke mass unrest, enabling a political outcome favorable to U.S. aims. Sachs claims sanctions caused a December economic collapse, bank failures, currency issues, and imports shortages, driving people into the streets.
- Marketed outcomes and media treatment: Bessent is accused of describing a “positive” outcome from destabilization, with mainstream media avoiding coverage of this stance. The claim is that weaponized finance is a tactic to destabilize Iran without conventional warfare.
- Containment risk and nuclear considerations: Sachs warns that if the situation deteriorates, Iran could decide to dash for nuclear weapons, particularly if existential threats mount. He emphasizes that a broader regional war could involve many countries and risk nuclear escalation, making prevention imperative. He argues the UN Security Council should convene immediately to stop escalation.
- Prospects for Europe and regional actors: He criticizes European leaders for not resisting aggression, noting skepticism about who would oppose U.S. aggression. He suggests some regional players (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Turkey) may not want a wider war, but questions whether they can prevent it given U.S. leadership and Israeli influence.
- Final note: Sachs calls for a strong, principled international response to prevent an explosion in a highly volatile region, urging opposition to unilateral threats and actions.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined today by professor Jeffrey Sachs to discuss, the threats now being made by Trump against, Iran. So I'm very grateful you could come on because if you're sitting in Tehran, you're assessing threats. Essentially, you assess capabilities and intentions. Now you would then see this massive accumulation of military force by The United States in the region.
You would see the British, German, Spanish, Italians transport plane seemingly heading towards the Middle East. And in terms of intention, it seems that an an attack is unavoidable. The Israelis want it. Washington wants it. It's speaking of regime change.
And on social media, Trump writes that, yeah, quote, a massive armada is heading to Iran. It is moving quickly with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose. Then goes on writing that time is running out. What do you make of these threats?
Speaker 1: I think it's clear. Well, for Israel, this has been a thirty year effort to overthrow the Iranian government. The United States basically does what Israel says, and so Israel has been pulling The United States into war with Iran and attempting to do that endlessly. It did that last summer. The goal was to create regime change, to have an overthrow that didn't work.
The US then has been using economic instruments, what our treasury secretary Scott Bessent called economic statecraft. But he laid out the deliberate measures by The United States to destroy the Iranian economy. The idea again was regime change. That didn't work. And so now we have a carrier task group, strike group on its way to attack Iran.
So an attack is imminent, I think. The goal here has never been negotiation. Whenever there has been negotiation, Israel has jumped up and down saying don't negotiate. Of course, a nuclear agreement was reached with Iran a decade ago, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA. It was actually ratified by the UN Security Council resolution twenty two thirty one on the 07/20/2015.
Then Trump ripped it up, in his first term. So there's never been any desire by Israel to have a negotiated settlement. And since The United States does what Israel tells it to do, there has never been a readiness of The United States to have real negotiations with Iran. And, Trump proved that again, last summer, because we can recall that when Israel, with US support bombed Iran, which was, on the June 2025, that was two days before scheduled negotiations between The United States and Iran. So this whole idea that this is about Iran negotiating is phony.
This is a regime change operation that's being carried out through hybrid warfare, meaning, you try cyber warfare, you try, street, unrest, You try crushing the economy, and, you try bombing. You try assassinations. They're trying, in every which way to overthrow this government and Trump, being Trump, blast this out, that, well, if you don't do what we say, I this is, like Venezuela. We this what does it say? This fleet is ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission with speed and violence if necessary.
You know, it's pure thuggery. People should understand under the UN Charter, which Trump's deputy chief of staff called a nicety. It happens to be the international law, not for the gangsters in the White House, but for the rest of humanity. It says under article two section four, all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations. So this is where we are right now, Glenn.
I I think, of course, we just went through this with Venezuela. Brazen gross threats followed by an invasion, a kidnapping of the president and the first lady and a claim by The United States that it runs Venezuela, including stealing oil off of tankers and sending that to The United States with Donald Trump declaring that the money goes to him. So this kind of brazenness and lawlessness is part of our scene right now, but Iran is is vastly more dangerous for the world and still waiting for a European country to say boo about it, to say something, oh, maybe that's not a good idea. Maybe we shouldn't have a war. Maybe we should obey the UN Charter.
The question for Europe is does it only speak up when The United States is about to attack Europe? Or does Europe have any principles at all? And we're gonna find out in the next few days.
Speaker 0: Chancellor Mertz, who said during the first attack on Iran that Israel is doing our dirty work, has now said that Iran's days are numbered. It may be weeks, but this regime has no legitimacy whatsoever to govern. So I think the the Europeans are jumping on board on this fully.
Speaker 1: But
Speaker 0: But Trump also said that, well, now it's time we now it's time for Iran to make a deal. Otherwise, we'll hit them hard. What deal is he referring to? He's is it we're still back at the nuclear deal? Because this seems very dishonest at this point, because they're already been very open that the goal is regime change.
And any regime change, you wouldn't be able to get a unifying opposition. So this is the destruction of Iran we're looking at, which is
Speaker 1: That is correct. There there is no interest in any negotiated deal because negotiated deals have been available for more than a dozen years. And whenever they've been reached, The United States has ripped them up. And Israel has been the chief proponent of ripping up any negotiated deal. And since Trump works for Israel, there's absolutely no intention of any negotiation at all.
They are out to overthrow the government. Shame on Mertz, but again, it's it's just so typical. I had not seen that statement before. The thuggishness of Europe shouldn't surprise me, but it always disappoints me. The only attempt ever to rally to principles it seems is when Europe's own narrow interest is on the line.
Then suddenly it's not right for The US to attack Denmark by claiming Greenland. That would be an abuse. But overthrowing the government of Iran, that is fine. I think it's worth us spending just a a few minutes on the propaganda that is now flowing freely in The New York Times, The Washington Post, I'm sure in the European media that the economic collapse shows the corruption and mismanagement of the Iranian regime and why they're not fit to govern like chancellor Mertz has just declared as you read to me. And people should understand this is part of the game.
And the game is absolutely vulgar, but it is perfectly understandable if one directs just a little bit of attention to it. And it happens that our treasury secretary in The United States, Scott Bessent, laid it out very clearly and explicitly in Davos, almost in a cartoonish way. And if if I may, Glenn, just to read his words so that people understand what has been happening during the past year. He's asked by the interviewer, what do you wanna say about sanctions? Something else you've been working on, of course.
What are you planning there in terms of Iran and the impact there? And Bessent says, okay, okay, there are treasury sanctions. And if you look at a speech that I gave at the Economic Club of New York last March, I said that I believe the Iranian currency was on the verge of collapse. That if I were an Iranian citizen, I would take my money out. President Trump ordered Treasury and our OFAC division, Office of Foreign Asset Control, to put maximum pressure on Iran.
And it's worked because in December their economy collapsed. We saw a major bank go under. The central bank has started to print money. There is dollar shortage. They are not able to get imports and this is why the people took to the streets.
So this is economic statecraft. No shots fired and things are moving in a very positive way here. It's an amazing statement. So amazing that the New York Times didn't dare to report it. The Washington Post didn't dare to report it because what Besant is explaining is that The United States has used its financial means to bring down the government, to bring people out on the streets, to bring mass unrest.
And things are going in a very positive way, says mister Besant. So the vulgarity of it is so stunning that, of course, the mainstream media won't even touch it. But what they do is run stories every day about the mismanagement, the corruption, the economic collapse, the suffering of the people without saying that our treasury secretary explained that's the American game. And I have spoken to, people recently explaining, yes, they cannot get paid for their oil because of what The United States is doing. The payments don't come.
Everybody's under sanctions. Everybody's under threat. Every bank, in the world refuses to handle, any of the transactions. That's The US weaponization of the dollar. And the design is to create chaos, to create bank failures, to create a currency collapse, to bring people out on the streets.
As Besson says, this is why the people took to the streets. So he even gives the chain of causation and blesses it. It's moving in a very positive way here. Okay. If this is the kind of world that people think we're going to be safe in, I'm sorry to say they're going to find that this is the absolute route to annihilation and disaster.
This is pure gangsterism against every principle. And why Mertz is a party to the gangsterism or the Europeans are a party to the gangsterism beats the hell out of me, I have to say. Because they were also parties to the negotiation of the JCPOA. And they watched how The United States killed it. So they know the truth, but they don't speak the truth.
Speaker 0: Well, this is the overwhelming propaganda because you can have all evidence in front of you. You can have Bessent sitting there as he does, say, this is how we're gonna destabilize or how we did destabilize Iran that has caused an economic problem. This will drive people to the street. You have Mike Pompeo saying, well, in the street, they're among the rioters. We have Mossad agents on if you turn on the Israeli news, they explained that they're pumping weapons into this to fuel the violence among the riots.
And, you know, I was in hope debate about what's happened in Iran because I didn't say that this was, you know, a completely organic movement without any Western interference. It meant that I do not care about the suffering of Iranians, and I'm a regime apologist. So if you really care about Iranians, you will advocate for the bombing of it. I mean, this is how perverse but this is with all wars. If you care about the Syrians, you would call for the toppling of Assad.
If you care about, Ukrainians, you would keep the war going forever. It's just it's so it's so vile.
Speaker 1: Yes. But what's interesting is that if you care for the Iranians, then you might pay attention to what Bessent himself said, which is that they're out to hurt the Iranians. That's the goal, to hurt them so much that people pour out to the streets. And then when it happens and there's violence and so forth and much of it false flags and stoked by provocateurs and by Mossad and so forth, then Besson says it's moving in a very positive way here. By the way, he had a little smirk on his face.
He couldn't he could not resist the smirk as he finished that last sentence. It was just an added touch of vulgarity. People should understand who Besant is, by the way. He's our treasury secretary. You might think that this means he knows something about the macro economy or that he knows about fiscal policy or he's a tax policy expert.
No. It has nothing to do with that. He is a hedge fund operator whose claim to fame is working with George Soros to destroy the British pound more than a decade ago, and that's what brought him this in when when the pound was attacked, excuse me, in the 1992, I guess it is. And that's that's his credentials. Here's a man who can destroy currencies.
So this this is so vile and flagrant that, again, it's it's not worth reporting.
Speaker 0: Well, when the treasury secretary is a economic hitman, you should be worried, especially Yes. Trump's behind the wheel. Let me just ask, though, about the possibility of this war actually spreading because it seems that both what The US side is aiming for as well as the what the Iranians are indicating is this will be very different from the former war, that this is essentially all or nothing. So how how likely do you think that this can be contained to the region? Because Israel Iran's been already saying that anyone who participates will be they will retaliate against.
But and then you had Saudi Arabia saying, well, our airspace won't be used, so they take it serious. But but do you think this will be contained? Because this is gonna be very different, I think, from the the previous war.
Speaker 1: I I think we learned again, I'm not a a military expert, but from what I gather, we have learned a few things. One is that Iran can penetrate Israeli air defenses. And I think they clearly demonstrated that they have hypersonic missiles that can do that. They did not aim them at highly sensitive targets the first time in a war that is existential. They will aim them at highly sensitive targets.
So this is, one thing that I think, will be very, very different. They are prepared for that. A second thing we learned is that the strikes on the nuclear facilities obviously did not end or perhaps even hinder Iran's path to nuclear weapons if they want that path. The amount of enrichment that they would have to carry out to take their current enriched uranium to the levels for a an atomic bomb or several of them, in fact, is not much. And so if this became an existential struggle, Iran could, I think, absolutely, without question, make a dash for nuclear weapons.
They have said, and they have said credibly, we don't want that. We want the IAEA here to monitor. We will keep stringent limits on, any kind of, enrichment processing. But that's what The United States ripped up already a decade ago under when Trump came in in his first term. So the next point is that Iran themselves and especially, I I think, the, revolutionary guard, could decide this is the fate of our nation, and we make a dash for nuclear weapons.
If the situation became dire for Iran, I assume that, other countries would support Iran. Iran is a big country. It is, of course, Israel tried through assassinations and through Mossad attacks and through the bombing, a decapitation strike. It did not work. I don't believe it would work.
And so this could be quite the prelude to greatly expanded war. This is not Venezuela in America's backyard. This is would be a war in the most explosive region of the world with plenty of nuclear armed countries all around here and with significant stakes in what would be happening. So I think it would be completely reckless and potentially globally ruinous. And so it should be prevented now before we have to speculate about how it's going to end.
And again, I'm just dismayed to hear the German view of this. Not shocked, but dismayed. If we don't have countries in the world that are ready anymore to say you cannot launch wars like this in, these explosive regions completely against every principle that we have of the UN system. The chance for utter wreckage is very, very high. I believe the UN Security Council should be forced to meet immediately and stay in meetings and take its responsibility, which is unique in the world, to stop this and to say clearly to The United States, to the president of The United States, no, you cannot even threaten that way, much less make an attack.
The threat itself is a gross violation of the UN Charter.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I fear that it can't be prevented anymore, though, if all these capabilities are built up and the only way to avoid it according to Trump is a deal which essentially is nonexistent. It does it's hard to see what else they can go for.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Trump Trump sometimes backs down if he faces really a wall of opposition. In fact, he often backs down. He hasn't faced that wall right now. But I wouldn't stop trying to create the wall of opposition up to the moment and even after, but up to the moment where Trump recklessly pulls the trigger.
It hasn't happened yet. And God help us, there must be someone in Europe that has a brain left that, if only you were in charge, Glenn. But, there must be someone in power, that has some minimal sense of responsibility for humanity. And there are many countries around the world that don't want this to happen. And interestingly, I firmly do believe that the Saudis don't want a war, that Qatar doesn't want a war, that The Emirates do not want a war, that Turkey does not want a war?
Do they really want to be in another Israeli created regional war that could escalate to full disaster? I don't think anybody wants that other than Israel and its vassal state, The United States.
Speaker 0: On that grim note, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on this, and I really hope, yeah, there will be pressure and doubt from the Europeans, but ideally from some of the regional allies. So thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Great to be with you, Glenn. Thanks.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Economic Coercion & the Death of the Dollar https://youtu.be/ls3ynNpMMPk https://t.co/w5SOVbWR9H
Video Transcript AI Summary
Jeffrey Sachs argues that "economic statecraft" is a euphemism for coercion, describing it as "war by economic means" used largely by the United States to crush other economies rather than to promote development or cooperation. He notes that treasury officials have framed it proudly as a tool to bring about regime change, citing Scott Besent’s Davos remarks about crushing the Iranian economy to foment change. Sachs emphasizes that this machinery is "warfare" aimed at destruction, not at improving well-being or enriching the United States, and it has real human costs—driving impoverishment, health crises, and rising mortality.
To understand this tool, Sachs situates it within American imperial practice, which he says relies on indirect rule through puppet regimes rather than outright territorial conquest. He traces the lineage to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the phasing of interventions in Latin America under the Monroe Doctrine’s Roosevelt Corollary, and the 1954 Guatemalan coup against Jacobo Arbenz. He cites Lindsey O’Rourke’s Covert Regime Change, which counted 64 covert regime-change operations by the United States between 1947 and 1989. Economic statecraft, in his view, can function as a regime-change instrument by weakening an economy enough to destabilize a government, facilitating CIA-led or CIA-backed interventions, sometimes wrapped as color revolutions.
In the Venezuela case, Sachs traces the shift from a failed 2002 coup attempt to economic coercion as the primary mechanism of pressure. He explains how Venezuela’s oil wealth, once seen as the world’s largest reserves, interacted with U.S. corporate and political power—ExxonMobil and Chevron among them—and how that dynamic fed efforts to topple the Chávez/Maduro governments. He describes the sequence starting with 2014 color-revolution attempts, the role of U.S. funding and media operations via organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy, and the crackdown that followed protests. Sanctions escalated under Obama with the designation of Venezuela as a national security emergency and intensified under Trump, including confiscating foreign-exchange reserves, freezing accounts, and declaring PDVSA under sanction. This culminated in Severe economic collapse: oil production fell about 75% from 2016 to 2020, currency and import capacities deteriorated, and per-capita output dropped by about two-thirds, which Sachs characterizes as "worse than a war." He also points to Trump’s unorthodox actions, such as naming Juan Guaidó as president in IMF context, signaling a unilateral reshaping of legitimacy.
For Iran, Sachs describes decades of comprehensive sanctions and Trump’s renewed push to crush the economy using OFAC and extraterritorial sanctions. He cites Scott Besant’s interview claiming that by December, the currency had plummeted and dollar shortages followed, framing this as a deliberate regime-change strategy. He notes that mainstream media largely omitted the causal narrative—U.S. role in provoking protests—despite Besant’s public account.
Looking ahead, Sachs discusses the multi-polarity challenge. He suggests that the dollar's dominance is waning as alternative settlement systems emerge, such as non-dollar currencies and parallel institutions, notably driven by China and BRICS members. He envisions a shift toward non-dollar settlements—potentially 25% of global transactions within ten years—enabled by digital settlements and new infrastructure that reduces the reach of U.S. extraterritorial sanctions. However, achieving this requires new, dollar-independent institutions, since existing banks remain reluctant to abandon dollar-based business due to sanctions risk. He concludes by noting that the United States’ heavy-handed currency policy may not be sustainable in the long run, as sanctions reach could lessen once non-dollar settlement networks gain traction.
The host closes, recognizing this as a pivotal moment where U.S. coercion could either deter rivals or precipitate broader self-harm, and thanks Sachs for his insights.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined by professor Jeffrey Sachs to discuss, economic statecraft and, how it might be used, excessively and, coercively. So thank you for coming on. Economic statecraft, though, it can be a very effective tool of governance that is using money, trade, finance, and access to markets as an instrument of influence and facilitating cooperation. But economic statecraft, it feels, has begun to replace diplomacy, and we see economic statecraft almost exclusively now in an accordive form.
What do you see being, I guess, the long term risks of relying on this economic coercion as opposed to, yeah, having negotiated multilateral solutions?
Speaker 1: Economic statecraft is a euphemism. It is coercion. You could call it war by economic means. So economic statecraft, if you just hear the term, could suggest that you're using economic tools for promoting development, or promoting cooperation, or supporting trade, or stabilizing the economy. No, the way that the term is used right now is rather cynical.
It means using economic tools by The US to crush other economies. This is a very strange use of the term in my view, and it's a very pernicious set of policies. I have a personal resentment about it because my whole life is, my career is aimed at trying to help economies to be more productive, more prosperous, to help people's well-being. But economic statecraft in quotation marks, as our treasury secretary, Scott Besant used the term recently in an interview that he gave in Davos meant, and he said it proudly, to crush the Iranian economy in order to bring people out onto the streets with the idea of fomenting regime change. So this is quite a remarkable use of economic power.
It is warfare. It aims at destruction. It doesn't even transfer well-being. It's not extraction or appropriation. It is not aimed at enriching The United States.
It's aimed at crushing other economies. And if you're in the line of activity that I am of economic development, and you know how hard it is, and how many years, and how much effort it takes of everyday people to create economic prosperity and well-being, to escape from poverty. Watching the deployment of these instruments to bring people to impoverishment, to misery, to health crises, to rising infant and child mortality, to measured reductions of years of life expectancy. It's terrible. Now having said all of that, it is now a very common tool, if you wanna call it that again, a euphemism, an instrument of American power.
And I find it deplorable as I've explained, but it's used pervasively. And I think, Glenn, to put it in context, we have to understand something unique about the American imperium, about American imperialism. In American imperialism, unlike the British Empire or the French Empire of the nineteenth century, America rules indirectly. America has rarely done what Trump says he wants to do, which is just take over territory. We've done that for a lot of islands and military bases, but generally it hasn't been The United States invading in order to directly rule an overseas territory.
It's been The US invading to impose a puppet regime in an overseas territory. And this idea is regime change. So a core of American foreign policy is regime change. Just to say, that's an extraordinarily unusual kind of foreign policy. For most countries, in most of history, you dealt with other countries as they were.
You didn't dream of overturning their government and running their country. You had to address their country either through diplomacy or deterrence or some other way. But The US mentality that started in the eighteen nineties when The US overthrew the Kingdom of Hawaii, and then when The US created the pretext for war with the diminished and disappearing Spanish Empire in order to claim The Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba in 1898. The idea came to put The United States that it would create an overseas empire by controlling the governance of overseas territories by regime change, overthrowing governments. And you could say that it, that idea came naturally because creating the Continental United States was dozens of regime changes, but against indigenous populations, or war with Mexico, and so forth during the nineteenth century.
But for the overseas empire, that started at the end of the nineteenth century. Then The US practiced this under the Roosevelt corollary of the Monroe Doctrine, where Theodore Roosevelt basically declared, we will be the policeman of The Americas. And what that meant in practice is we will determine who is in government in The Americas. And when a government arises that threatens American land holdings, for example, that wants to do land reform as Jacob Arbenz wanted to do in Guatemala in 1954. Well, company United Fruit picked up the phone, called its law firm Sullivan and Cromwell.
They called their old associate John Foster Dulles, who at the time happened to be The US Secretary of State. He picked up the phone and called his brother, Alan Dulles, who was the CIA director. And they overthrew Arbenz. So it was a regime change operation. If you count the number of these operations, it's amazing.
There have been dozens in The Americas alone. And in one of my favorite books of recent times by Lindsey O'Rourke, a student of John Mearsheimer and now a professor at Boston College. She wrote in 2018, I think it is, a book called Covert Regime Change, where she counted 64 covert regime change operations by The United States between 1947 and 1989, the Cold War era. I mention all of this because this is where economic statecraft so called plugs in. Economic statecraft can itself be a regime change operation because you can squeeze an economy to the point where a government collapses.
It's not so hard to do. More often, you can squeeze an economy to the point where the government doesn't collapse, but it is fragile, and then you push it over through a CIA operation. You bring people out onto the streets. You do what came to be called, in the last thirty years, color revolutions. Because they often were CIA operations that operated under a banner of a color in the flags that were being waved, or the Rose Revolution or the Orange Revolution, in Ukraine in, 2004, 2005, and so forth.
What these are are instigated regime change operations, often softened up by economic means that have weakened the regime. So we have to understand that the so called statecraft is part of a broader strategy of empire. But the American empire is rule through puppet governments rather than through directly changing the map to put The US flag on it. Though Trump, because he's especially vulgar, seems to want to do that as well. So he wants to put aside the covert part because that's nothing to hide.
He wants to do overt regime change. And at the same time, maybe, Canada, and Greenland, and other places under The US flag. But typically it's not that. So when we come to recent events, both Venezuela and Iran have been targets of US regime change operation in which economic means played a very direct role. And in the case of Venezuela, The US has been aiming to overthrow the left wing government that has been in power for a quarter century in Venezuela.
America is absolutely at a government level, always aiming to overthrow so called left wing regimes because left wing regimes threaten American extortion by US companies or plunder by US mining companies or big oil like ExxonMobil and Chevron and so forth that operate in poorer and weaker states. So The US has been out to overthrow the the Chavez Maduro government that has been in power in Venezuela for a quarter century. In 2002, they tried the direct route, which was a CIA engagement with a local coup attempt by a part of the Venezuelan military. The coup took place. The US said that's great.
And then within a day, the coup failed because Hugo Chavez, was the president, had popular support and he was back in the Presidential Palace within a day. After that, The US then used economic means. These accelerated interestingly by the curse of natural resources that occurred in the late years of the first decade of this century when the US Geologic Survey officially determined that Venezuela's petroleum reserves were the largest in the world. And that set in motion on the Venezuelan side a determination to essentially make those reserves owned by the Venezuelan nation and by the lead Venezuelan company, the state oil company, P. D.
Vesa. And it put Venezuela on a war path with The United States because there is ExxonMobil, there's Chevron. These are powerful companies that pay for the presidents, that pay for the congress, and that suddenly are being pushed aside by this quote unquote left wing regime. So in 2014, The United States worked to try to make a color revolution in Venezuela. People came out on the streets.
If you think that's spontaneous, I have some more, stories to tell you. But this is what color revolutions are. The CIA is all over, these operations. Other institutions like the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute, the National Republican Institute, and so forth, work with the local media, work with groups that they create or that they fund to foment unrest. That's a standard playbook for such covert operations.
They're not very covert, but they're called covert because The US role is denied. Well, the government cracked down on these protests. No doubt there are local protesters, by the way, because people ask that have many objections or disgruntlements with the government, no doubt. But the organization, the financing, the bussing in of people, the mass media, that doesn't happen spontaneously. And so The US played its role.
There was the crackdown, and then part of the game is, oh, when the crackdown comes, now we put on even more overt sanctions. So Obama declared an emergency that Venezuela represented an emergency to US national security. Can you imagine? We were so threatened by Venezuela. It was so dangerous.
That's what Obama declared in 2015. He started the escalation of the sanctions. Then Trump came in in 2017. Trump being Trump said, I don't get it. Why don't we just invade?
And he had a dinner with Latin American presidents on the margin of the UN General Assembly in September 2017. And I've spoken with two presidents that were there at that dinner at some length. And they described exactly the scenario both of them ended separately to me. And basically the scenario was that the president's assembled and then Trump said, why don't I just invade Venezuela? And they were shocked by this.
And they explained, mister president, maybe that wouldn't be such a great idea. Maybe it would be a little complicated. There might be a backlash. It could result in chaos. It could result in millions of refugees.
It could result in big loss of life. In Latin America, there's a lot of anti Americanism, anti US sentiment. It would stoke that. So they tried to talk him down from this. And Trump said, okay, I'll just crush the Venezuelan economy.
So what began was a ratcheting up of punitive economic measures, confiscating Venezuela's foreign exchange reserves, freezing Venezuela's accounts, designating PDVSA as an entity under sanction so that other companies couldn't do business with Venezuela. And The US tools are varied and many. And we have a number of emergency acts, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the IEEPA, which gives the executive branch essentially unbridled authority to impose a very wide range of financial sanctions, cutting off the economy from the dollar based payment system. So for most of the world, doing international business involves using dollars as the medium of exchange, and doing it through international banks that facilitate the payments and settlements of an international transaction. And because these are dollar based transactions, ultimately they involve dollar accounts of US banks held with the US Federal Reserve.
And so The US can impose a blockade, a choke point on payments for international trade. For example, on Venezuela's ability to receive dollars for the oil that it exports, or the ability of PDVSA, the oil company, to pay for repairs for operations in the oil fields. So Trump imposed extraordinarily comprehensive and very tough sanctions on Venezuela. And between 2016 and 2020, oil production collapsed by about three quarters. That's the physical flow of oil.
And since that's Venezuela's essential, essentially only export, the Venezuelan economy collapsed. The currency collapsed, the inflation soared, the ability to make imports collapsed, the standard of living collapsed. And according to the data of the International Monetary Fund, for example, the national output per person fell by about two thirds between 2016 and 2020. That's worse than a war. That is a cataclysm.
That's not a downturn. That is a destruction of the economy. Of course Trump did many other things that were seemingly farcical, but were not treated as farce. He named a different president. Suddenly one day, the White House said, no, mister Maduro's not president, it's Juan Guido.
So we all scratched our heads. Who's Juan Guido? Oh, he's in the National Assembly. And The US just picked him out, said he's the legitimate president. And you might think this is a comic book, this is a joke.
But it had two implications. One is that The US used its economic sanctions to say they now belong to mister Guido. And this could hold from The US unilateral point of view. The US said in the IMF, it's mister Guido that gets to appoint the executive director and so forth. So The US, by using its power, just declared a different president.
And the second point was about 60 other countries, basically vassals of The US, that means Europe, and others said, oh yes, Mr. Guido is president now. In a way you can't even imagine. Okay, fast forward to this past year. Trump just decided, now we're gonna invade.
We've crushed the economy, we've put on the sanctions, we've weakened the regime, we're just gonna invade. And all of our so disheartening mainstream media, like the New York Times, says, well, there's so much unhappiness about the Maduro regime, and people are suffering, and they don't explain one word about what the root causes are. I don't know whether they're just utterly ignorant, utterly bought out, whether the reporters God knows who they work for. But the point is they don't understand or tell the story. Iran is the same story.
Of course, played out in a very different context. But The US has been imposing comprehensive economic sanctions on Iran for now, actually decades. But when Trump came in to power again in the second term, one of the first actions was to take extra steps to crush the Iranian economy. And the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who is there, I think mainly because he is willing to use the US Treasury to crush other countries, invoked the emergency operations mechanisms. Trump gave the order that Venezuela constituted an emergency.
And as Besant explained in an interview to Fox Business on January 20, just a few weeks ago in Davos, Trump ordered the crushing of the Iranian economy. And OFAC, which is the part of the US Treasury that operates the sanctions, went to work to basically bring down the Iranian currency by cutting off Iran from any remaining dollar based transactions internationally. And you tell banks all over the world, if you do any business directly or indirectly with Iranian entities, we will sanction you. You may be 5,000 miles away just facilitating a trade transaction, but we're coming after you. And that's how extraterritorial sanctions by The US are enforced.
And what Bessen says in this interview is quite remarkable. He says, we went out to crush the economy, and by December it worked. The currency plummeted, the dollars ran out, there were shortages of dollars, and people came out onto the streets because of this, Bessen says. And then he says, this is all moving in a very positive way. So the cynicism of it is extraordinary.
Of course, go to the New York Times, go to the Washington Post, go to the Wall Street Journal. What is the narrative there? That people came out onto the streets to protest the corruption and mis management of their regime. And what is amazing for me, Glenn, is that even after the US Treasury Secretary explained it, for those people who know the Wizard of Oz when the dog Toto pulls the curtain aside and exposes the wizard as some old guy speaking into a megaphone. Even after the game is exposed, no mainstream medium reported it.
Nobody had an article saying, oh, this is why people came out onto the streets. This is the reason for the protest. This was a US game. This is a US regime change operation. Not even noted.
Even after it's explained gleefully with that grin on the face of the treasury secretary, not discussed. So that's the background as I see it. This is regime change, top to bottom. This is economic instruments, and The US has them because of the role of the dollar in the international system, and the fact that The US alone of any country essentially controls the IMF because it alone has the veto. And I like to remind people, the World Bank is on 18th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, one block away from the executive office of the president, two blocks away from the White House, and three blocks away from the Treasury.
And the IMF is one block further on. And so it it is the row of US international power to crush other governments.
Speaker 0: Yeah. This isn't, though, without consequences anymore, I think. Yeah. Well, after the Cold War, of course, America was the only game in town. So without any alternatives, one can do this economic coercion quite efficiently and without that much consequences.
But it seems that as this multipolar world emerges, there's there's a dilemma because on one hand, it is more incentive to use this economic coercion to prevent the rise of rivals. On the other hand, the economic coercion comes with consequences because now there's alternative centers of power that offers access to technologies, to industries, the supply chains, physical transportation corridors, as you said, the banks, the currencies, alternatives to SWIFT. So it seems it can be a very self destructive process as The US goes into hyperdrive and new alternatives are set up by organizations such as BRICS. But I guess that belongs to a different day.
Speaker 1: Well, just if I if I may just say, not to keep us too long, but these alternatives are moving faster than people realize. And one of the reasons is that it is not technically difficult to have settlements in a non dollar basis. But the point is the following. If you are a Russian enterprise, or an Iranian enterprise, or a Venezuelan enterprise, and you say, I wanna settle in rubles, or in renminbi, or in some other currency. You cannot go to your bank to do that.
Even though for the bank it would be very straightforward to have a correspondent account, not in dollars, but in these other currencies. And the reason is that even if you make the transaction in rubles or in renminbi, the bank is still vulnerable to The US reach if it also deals in its normal business with dollars. And that's because the sanctions could still be imposed on that bank. So what is needed is not sophisticated technical fixes, because that's not so hard to do the plumbing. But it's institutions that are completely separated from the dollar system so that they're not subject to US sanction.
So what's being set up is a parallel system of settlements. It can't go through the main banks, but in non dollar currencies. It has to be in distinct institutions. In Russia, there is a new set of digital institutions that have nothing to do with the banks, but can affect transboundary settlements almost in real time. It's better than swift in many ways.
And that has emerged in the last couple of years. China has determined we've got to move forward, because otherwise, we are constantly under the gun of The United States. We're constantly threatened. Chinese banks don't wanna be cut off from The US settlement system, the swift settlement system. So China is creating an alternative system, and non dollar new institutions are arising to operate under the Chinese interbank payments system.
So my view is this will move faster than people think. I would think that in ten years from now, maybe an extra 25% of global transactions will be settled in non dollar currencies. Because technically, it's absolutely feasible. With new digital settlements, it's even more efficient than swift to do it. But the challenge is it requires setting up a wholly new set of institutions, because any institution that has at least some dollar business can't do that non dollar business except under the shadow of potential US sanctions.
The bottom line for me is that The US use of the currency as a weapon, which has gone into overdrive across the world, will not be sustained. It won't end immediately, but within the next five or ten years, The US itself will have dethroned the US dollar by misusing it, by abusing the privilege of being the issuer of the key currency. And we will have a very significant proportion of global settlements in non dollar currencies. And then the reach of US sanctions will fall decisively because The US won't be able to impose its will extraterritorially. In other words, it may still be able to prevent US businesses from doing business with a targeted country, but it won't be able to stop third countries from doing business with that targeted country.
Speaker 0: Well, interesting times indeed. It seems this is a all or nothing moment where The US can either break its rivals or destroy itself in the process. So as always, I know you have a busy day there in Greece, so thank you very much for giving us the time.
Speaker 1: Of course. Pleasure to be with you, Ben. Thanks.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Alastair Crooke: Iran's Strategy - Evict the U.S. from the Middle East https://youtu.be/AknMi7th6Uo https://t.co/OUR59GpeG4
Video Transcript AI Summary
Alastair Crook outlines a two-component Iranian retaliation that is unfolding in three stages. The first component, driven by Iran’s missile and drone capabilities, was expected to target American bases in the Persian Gulf and Gulf area rather than Gulf States themselves. Ali Larragyani has stressed that the attack is not on Gulf States but on American bases and CIA facilities that use Gulf States to pursue Iran’s conflict. The second element, aimed at Israel, focuses on degrading Israel’s early warning radar systems and AIGs that allow United States and Israel to monitor Iran. This involves striking major radar sites in Gulf States such as Qatar and other locations to hinder Israel’s ability to attack Iran. The second phase then employs older missiles and drones to exhaust Israeli air defenses, wearing them down so they can no longer intercept subsequent strikes. Observations of Israeli intercepts against incoming missiles, with many intercept attempts yet frequent misses, are cited as evidence of this wear-down strategy.
In the Gulf, Iranian drones have begun to operate more freely over Dubai and other sites, indicating that Gulf air defenses are strained or exhausted. Iran may continue destroying American bases and evacuating certain installations, notably in Bahrain, where the Fifth Fleet facilities have suffered significant damage. In the Israel domain, after degrading radar and defense networks, Iran may transition to more modern, faster missiles. There is speculation about hypersonic missiles with higher speeds (potentially Mach 8–10) and multi-warhead configurations arriving in Iranian inventories, though Crook hedges that he is not a military expert.
A longer-term objective of Iran, according to Crook, is to drive the United States out of the Middle East, with the broader aim of reconfiguring regional power dynamics and energy infrastructure—potentially shifting influence toward BRICS and reducing Western dominance over seaborne oil and gas routes. He notes signs that the United States is attempting to control chokepoints and detain or seize tankers linked to Russia, China, or sanctioned states, albeit with questionable legal justification.
The economic and geopolitical costs are significant: gas prices for Europe have surged, oil prices are up, and markets are crashing. He suggests the Gulf States may never be the same, with security concerns driving some Western residents to relocate. The conflict is also prompting discussions among Gulf States about changing their relationships with Iran and potentially limiting future American or British military presence on Gulf bases, as illustrated by warnings to the British about the Cyprus and broader Gulf basing roles.
On the American side, Crook argues that the U.S. strategy is not going as planned. He asserts the killing of the Iranian supreme leader (Khamenei) was a grave miscalculation that failed to trigger regime change and instead sparked widespread protests in Baghdad, Bahrain, and Iraq, potentially destabilizing Bahrain’s ruling Emir and provoking regional unrest. He emphasizes that the attack undermined U.S. credibility and highlighted the vulnerability of American interests, with protests and regional backlash challenging the U.S. narrative and complicating domestic political considerations, including potential ramifications for Trump’s political standing.
Regarding the Israeli-American relationship, Crook suggests the clash and miscalculations are likely to affect U.S.–Israel ties. He argues that attempts at decapitation strikes and hopes for a Western-aligned Iran have not only failed but also intensified anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment in parts of the region, challenging the traditional “Israel-first” posture and implying significant implications for how the United States will engage with Israel in future policy, diplomacy, and security commitments. He also notes that even within the Democratic Party, there may be demand for a thorough rethink of U.S.–Israel relations.
Crook concludes that Iran’s hard-to-predict responses, combined with U.S. miscalculations and regional blowback, signal broad and potentially lasting geopolitical shifts in West Asia, with the possibility of broader implications for Russia–Ukraine dynamics and global energy security. The discussion ends with an acknowledgment that an immediate diplomatic de-escalation seems unlikely unless substantial concessions—such as lifting sanctions, returning frozen Iranian assets, and a broader shift in U.S. policy—are offered.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined today by Alastair Crook, a former British diplomat and negotiator who worked for decades on conflicts in The Middle East. He's also the founder and director of, the Conflicts Forum. So, make sure to read his sub stack, and I will leave that link in the description. So thank you very much, for coming back on.
Speaker 1: It's always a pleasure. You don't have to you don't have to ask. It's always the pressure.
Speaker 0: Well, we are now way into the third day of this war against Iran, and Iran is retaliating in a big way. If you look at Iran's strategy or structure, how do you how do you read it? Is do you see the retaliation organized in phases, or is it is it planned properly, or how how do you make sense of this?
Speaker 1: Yes. I I mean, there are two sort of separate components to it. But the the first component, largely because of the array of missiles that they have in their possession, is was always going to be, first of all, and I think I may have said this at times to you, but it was always going to be the main focus was going to be on American bases in the Persian Gulf in the Gulf area. And why I say it depends on the array is because they can be reached. They have a large stock of drones with big stock of drones and short range missiles, missiles that can't reach or easily reach Israel.
So it made sense, if you like, to focus to begin with on the Gulf, on the American base. Ali Larragyani has emphasized, again, that this is not an attack on the Gulf States per se, but on the American bases and CIA facilities that take advantage of our Gulf States to pursue their conflict against Iran. So that was one element. The second element is likely related and does have three phases. The second element, which is more focused towards Israel, of course, the first component of this is attacking the radar systems.
The radar systems, the AIGs that allow America and Israel to see into Iran. And they've done that taking out major radar bases in Gulf States, in Qatar and in other places, embarking to, I think, I can't remember, but they've taken out a large number of major radar sites belonging to the Americans in the Gulf States. So the first exercise is is focused on the radar, which also incapacitate or limit, if not incapacitate perhaps, Israeli missile systems and their attack on Iran. And the the second phase is to continue to use older missiles and drones to draw out and to deplete the Israeli air defense intercept capability to wear it down, to reduce it to the minimum. And you can see that I mean, this is pretty obvious.
You've probably seen the videos or any way you can see the videos of Israeli strikes into Tehran, although now they've moved to the faster into the higher, more sophisticated missiles in some cases. But you can see that I mean, the Israelis are using huge numbers of intercepts against each single inclusion. So, I mean, you you see easily eight, ten, 12 used against every arriving missile strike and missing, mostly missing. So where we are now is at this sort of stage, stage three, the Gulf States have almost exhausted entirely their adipose system. So, I mean, there are signs you can see Iranian drones that fly, you know, freely over Dubai and other sites.
They they have used all their air defenses, and so, you know, the the Iranians can, at their leisure, destroy continue to destroy American bases, and they are destroying American bases to a very large extent. I think, you know, they're evacuating a number of bases. I don't know exactly which ones, but they're evacuating bases and others, particularly in Bahrain. And they in Bahrain, there's been huge damage done to the facilities of the fifth fleet, The US 5th Street. But going back then to the phases, so in in with Israel, the aim is to use older TUXLOWA missiles, again, to deplete their intercept capabilities as in June.
And then the next phase, the next, you know, if you like, stage of the plan is to move to the more modern and more sophisticated and faster missiles. I think they say I'm not a military expert at all, not at all but, I mean, they say that, you know, the air defense of Israel can't cope with anything about MACH four, so anything that's faster than MACH four is not likely to be intercepted. That, of course, hypersonics are moving much faster at match 10 or match eight. So eliminating those, reducing those is the priority. And then the third stage that the Israelis that the Iranians have and we don't know anything about is that they say they have new new weapon.
I think we have had a glimpse. I don't know if it's all of their new weapons, but we have seen now hypersonic missile missile with a multiple warhead arriving. Certainly a while. I don't know if it would be Mauthnack that have been new weapons because we haven't seen them with sort of cluster warheads before, to my knowledge at least. Right?
I I don't I'm not a nerd. I may be wrong, but I think I'm pretty much right about that. So that's essentially the plan. And so the objectives of it really ultimately, I think, are to drive The United States out of the Middle East, which is underway. I'm not sure that, you know, as things stand, if it continues in this way, that The United States will be able to keep their presence, maintain their presence in the Gulf States.
I mean, they are being hammered by by by these drones only. And I think the second element, of course, with Israel is to degrade the Israeli military test such that it can no longer really threaten Iraq as it has done, to degrade it sufficiently that it is no longer a threat to to Iraq. I think the other objectives are to impose a price on The United States and on Europe, an economic price. And the economic price is the price that comes from closing of the Hormuz Strait. Well, they're not entirely closed, of course.
I mean, because what they're doing is allowing vessels from states that are not have not been complicit in the attack on Iran. They come back pass. But and Chinese, for example, vessels pass without hindrance, but not NOK ones of The United States or NOK ones from states that are associated with a large American base in the area. So the economic costs are important element. And I think there's more to it.
I mean, this is my own speculation. I haven't got no support for it. But in a sense, in the bigger geopolitical picture, we have seen how The United States is taking control trying to take control of choke points, if you like, seaborne choke points, and to try and control the the passage of tankers reaching both China and Russia by attacking and seizing tankers, which they say are part of the shadow fleet of Russia or of China or or that are sanctioned in connection with Venezuela, Chinese vessels sanctions in connection. I mean, what the legal position of that is beyond me. I mean, there's no Security Council resolution.
I mean, you know, this is just, again, you know, The United States just stating it and doing it willy nilly without any sort of legal basis. I can't see how on what basis America can claim, you know, the legal right to seize Chinese vessels at sea, but they do. So I think in this context, what we're seeing actually is perhaps a retaking of some of the, if you like, the energy infrastructure. That is the energy infrastructure of the Persian Gulf and perhaps also that the that whole of the of you like that West Asian area, taking it back, first of all, under Iranian control, but more broadly under BRICS control. So I think it is an element also in sort of maneuvering and reorganizing the encountering the American attempt to dominate oil and gas corridors itself by showing that it is going to the BRICS are going to dominate some of its corridors, of course, in that in this geography.
So I think, yes, pain is going to be a very important element, and you can see it already. Gas prices because, of course, it's not just oil. I mean, from LNG, Qatar and so on is is being a star. And so gas prices for Europe is have already I don't know what they are at this very moment, but they shut up already by 40% overnight well, over the weekend and the dead. Oil prices are up.
They're substantial and markets are crashing quite whiting. So there is a big economic cost as well as a political cost of losing the basis of that. I do think also. I don't know quite how you term it and what you how you sort of put a cost on it, but I don't think the Gulf States will ever be the same again. You know, they were they had a certain I would call it a certain Kaohok brand, which was, you know, markets, AI, hotels, tourism, fun, hotels, you know, the easy liar.
And airlines and revenue from airline airline, major contribution to go prosperity. I think that this is a change. I don't think we will see because I we really have telephone calls from reaching us from people in Dubai saying, how do we get out? We wanna get out, you know, and trying to take taxis across the six hour desert drive to Oman to catch a flight. I don't know if they got their flight, but, anyway, that is I mean, you know, some people will stay, of course, but a lot of, you know, security conscious Europeans, I think, will probably move on or take a permanent somewhere else if they can.
So I think that's changed. I think also, you know, the the question is what happens to the to the wealth and how they are going to look at the future. I mean, the Iranians have said to them, you have been attacked because you chose to facilitate Israel and The United States and to have bases and CIA offices on your territory, case of Dubai, which has been attacked. So, you know, do they then shift and move and decide they would like to have a different relationship with Iran and, you know, they will not have American bases in the future. We'll have to see.
I noticed even the British have been warned, by Greece that, you know, you if you're you're not allowed to use your base for anything but humanitarian reasons, you can't join in providing defense for the Israel and The United States from a criteria base or your other base in Cyprus. So, I mean, I think that's just it's not in itself serious, but it's a harbinger that, you know, the change might come and people would say, well, you know, if you're gonna be here, it's not gonna be for military purposes or intelligence purposes. And so all of that sorry. A long answer, but all of that seems to me to suggest, you know, geopolitical shift potentially is unfolding, and that is the intention. And, of course, then we look at what might be the case, what will happen with Israel, and of course it's too early to draw any real conclusions from that at that point.
Then we look at The United States and we can draw a few early conclusions, I think, from that and from the headlines in The US, even today, say, you know, that the antigen is in neoptymic mode and they are very worried and they think, you know, that the whole thing is out of there's a risk of the whole of this exercise getting out of control. It is out of control. It's like shit. It is definitely out of control. They say there's a risk of it getting out of control.
They don't want to see, you know, dead Americans coming back and, you know, what are they going to do? And it seems, you know, that American officials are scrambling around to sort of change again, you know, what was the justification for this war and who started it, and was it Iran started it? Was it Israel? It wasn't us anyway. We didn't do it.
So, you know, you can see that already this is the problem. And the second one so one is public relations problem, presentation problem. And the second big problem is how long will Israel's intercept capacity last. And my guess is it will by Friday, they may be in trouble.
Speaker 0: Well, on the American side of the strategy appears to not be going well, as they had hoped. I was wondering how you interpret them.
Speaker 1: The That's that's a that's an understatement.
Speaker 0: Understatement. Yeah. Well, the the the killing of the Khamenei was I was wondering how you see the significance here, because it it appears in the American calculation that they would, you know, kill the highest religious authority in Iran, and somehow the people would then be liberated and take to the streets and celebrate their American liberators. I'm not sure exactly why this would trigger a regime change or or what the calculations were. But how do you assess the killing of Khomeini, what it what it was, or what they hoped it would achieve, but also what is actually happening?
Speaker 1: An incredible error if you take it on its own merits of what it was supposed to do. A complete error of judgment, which shows how the heat cognitive dissonance of not understanding was who or what he meant at all and just seeing him in the sort of crude terms of prank calling him and his colleagues thugs and murderers. And so what it has done, I mean, has two things. It started a fast dunk around the reach, a real fast dunk around the reach. You've, I'm sure, been seen.
Mean, there'll be massive protests over the weekend against the American embassy in Baghdad. The green zone is being stormed by protesters. There were protesters attacking the constituent in in Pakistan. In Bahrain, there may be the first regime change of this whole operation. Between 7080% of Bahrain is Shia, and the ruling Emir is Sunni, and he is surrounded himself with a Sunni protective defense, of course.
And there'd be massive protests. And they're trying to imprison ringleaders and stop it, but they've been they've been already, you know, again besieging the the the Bahrain as the state by the protest already very well. And then you have this in Iraq with the Iraqis attacking the American air defenses in Erbil and elsewhere. It is really fired up everywhere because he was either the first or the second, depends who you ask, most important. Xi, Maja, in in the Middle East, hugely significant as a religious leader, as a scholar and a religious leader.
And they killed him, murdered him. He was killed in his office at work on Saturday morning, and it's pretty clear to me that he actually deliberately chose us. I mean, of course, he could have been in some protective place somewhere else. But as he himself said, you know, he is. I'm eighty sick.
I'm semi crippled. He said, I have the only thing I profess for is my dignity, and that comes from you. And so my life is more significant in those. So I think he just stayed working, and he must remember very clearly given the sort of mentality of the Americans and the Americans that are supporting Israel and of Israel. They would surely come and want to kill it.
And he thought maybe that was the best in the best interest of Iran. So I do think they completely misunderstood. You open up a very important question, but one which really is probably beyond this program to get into, which is, I mean, what are the roots of this deep hatred that exists amongst those elements that were determined to to to that the supreme leader would be held. But why did they why do they I mean, why did they why were they so vicious and vitilpous against him and dancing in the streets that he's there, not in Tehran, but in Tel Aviv. You know, this is something to do with psychology and and western ways of thinking that, you know, would have to be explored a bit further, but it was enormous.
You know, there is something very deep, but even when there was a journal a journalist an Israeli journalist working on the nine seven two magazine coil, and she was writing about how she sort of put up a post about the killing of all those school bells with fire bomb attack, killed many, many school girls in Iran, and how many she was inundated with hate messages saying, good, you know, we're pleased. I mean, it it's really you know, there is a sort of ugly side to just on to just sort of vicious and embossary. Not saying that, you know, that that isn't in other parts of the world and other places too, but it's very pronounced at the moment in in this geography between Israel and Iran. Anyway, you know, they have made I mean, this of the biggest messages that comes out of this, I think, most clearly is that we all have been told how wonderful Israeli intelligence is, the Mossad's so clever. Technically, you know, when it comes to exploding pages, maybe they are.
But when it comes to understanding the region, how badly they have done, Three times in this last period, they assumed that, you know, that the whole of Iran was just waiting to erupt against the state to take it over and to turn it into a pro Western, like, Pelavist government. And, you know, on Earth, I mean, do they not do, you due diligence on their analysis? I mean, it's so it was so obvious you be to tear off nervous. I mean, you I don't think you experienced this sort of vicious anger against the supreme leader while you were there. I said, and it didn't happen over the years I've been in Iran at all.
In fact, mostly, they love him and. And he's a highly respected person. He's, you know, he's very humble. As he knew, I went to see his house at one point, you know, Tehran. I think it's the one he would probably kill them.
I don't know too sure. Very simple. Very, very, very basic. Very simple, clean, empty house. I mean, he he he was not a man of potential.
Speaker 0: Well, you mentioned now that it seems the main Iranian strategy is to push The United States out of the Middle East. Of course, hitting its bases, imposing some casualties, weakening the Gulf States, imposing a cost for hosting American bases, going after economic interests. Of course, degrading Israel will be a key aspect. But I was wondering, to what extent might there be an unintentional, well, let's call it achievement? That is, how do you see this war impacting the relationship between The United States and Israel?
Because this seems to be more there seems to be more tension in this relationship than it has been, well, at least in my lifetime.
Speaker 1: Oh, you you make a very important and correct point. I mean, it is going to change, that's the whole question. I mean, first of all, you know, the miscalculations that I've just been describing, the idea that, you know, that regime change was likely. And, you know, this was the third time after there was a decapitation strike festival in June. Then there were the protests that was supposed to where a a a, you know, militant train insurgence were put in to to give the impression of a a state that was collapsing in January.
And then now, again, they've killed and tried to do a second decapitation strike. Not quite as extensive, but a a decapitation strike, including the screen reader, in the supposition that this would change the whole state and that it could become a prose a sort of ally of Israel. I mean, you know, really, it's unbelievable what you see. You know, gushky statements about how, you know, a new world has opened me up before us with The United States at our side, and that very soon we will have a new coalition working with Israel, Israel, a new westernized Iran, and India taking on all the radical Islamists from both Xi and Sunni. I mean, fantasy, religious fantasy.
So, I I mean, yes, it you know, it is going to affect The United States because I think Trump is not gonna recover from Elizabeth Day. I mean, even if he finds, I think it'll be very hard for him to find an exit, a quick exit as he usually likes. You know? Okay. I'll just say I'm out.
Well, the Iranians are not open to negotiation. The Arab jammies may back. Yeah. No. Thanks.
No negotiator. So he'll find it hard to get out. And already, I think if you look at the American press, you see many of those in the Pentagon now sort of trying to say, well, you know, we warned, we, you know, avoiding blame or the, you know, the the retribution that might come back. Well, will be a humiliating, you know, extric from the dark? They they they're already sort of, you know, throwing the leadership under the bus and say, well, we did tell him.
We told him. We told him that we couldn't guarantee, you know, there would be regime change. We told him we couldn't guarantee there'd be no casualties. We told him, you can't guarantee a quick in a type of, you know, in boo of the Trump fight, and we told them it wasn't gonna be like Maduro and Venezuela. So already this is starting to come out.
And so, yes, I think there's gonna be political consequences. And I think if you look at the MAGA reaction, they are strongly against the Israeli first policy and the betrayal by by Trump of his repeated promises. He was not here to start wars. He was here to stop wars, and there would be no more forever wars. And the era you know, it was only in I think it was May he was in Saudi Arabia or was it March?
May or March. But earlier this yeah. He was in Saudi Arabia proclaiming the end to regime change. He said there will be no more that's over, that era. It failed.
It wasn't successful. There will be no more. And he said that in Riyadh saying there will be no more regime change. So I think there's going to be quite profound consequences in in The United States on this, especially in Mantis Bay, and the consequences could be very serious because the popularity for this war was never high even before we've reached this point. It was only had something like 21% support, I believe, and switched power.
The ones I saw was by 21%, Of course, higher support in the Republican Party. But the end of it is, you know, he is likely to lose the midterm election. I mean, of course, midterms are, you know, a week in politics is a long time and this is until November. But his his ratings and everything signaled very clearly he could lose the house. But if he loses the house and the senate, then I think he will risk impeachment or even imprisonment.
So it's very serious from the point of view, and he recognized that. And he said that literally in coaching. He said, you know, if we lose the house, you know, I'm I could be finished. But if we lose the house, we lose both houses, then I'll be in court, and that won't be pushy. That's what he said.
That's the way he's worked. So, you know, this is Carries. Now people will say, oh, yes. But the Democrats will come back, and they'll, you know, make peace with the Israelis, and it will be back in normal. I I I mean, it's early days, but I see something different taking place.
I see something slightly different in that I think even in the Democratic Party, people are saying, you know, what we have to have, we, democrat, we have to have a thorough discussion about the future relationship between The United States and Israel and how they interact together. Clearly, that hasn't happened yet. It would be wrong to sort of try and guess what it's going to emerge. But I think even there, there is the thinking that, you know, this will have to be radically reviewed about exactly what is how we relate as in United States with Israel. Yes, big changes.
Speaker 0: My my last question is about how if there's a possibility of getting well, get walking this back or or putting an early end to this war. Because overall, first, let me say, in regards to what you said about the Pentagon, I thought that was interesting because domestically, if Trump wants to make this legal, I think he has to make the case that this was imminent, an imminent threat by Iran, which he had to respond to. But when the Pentagon comes out and tells Congress there was no immediate or imminent threat from Iran, they they are literally throwing him under the bus here. It's well but
Speaker 1: And by the way, sorry to interrupt you just quickly on that point because they've even come gone further. Now I can't remember who it was, but I think in in the briefing to the gang of eight briefing, I may be wrong, but I think it was in in in this when questioned, American officials said, no. There is no we have no assessment that Iran will would will preemptively attack Israel. There's no assessment that they would preemptively of course, there was no assessment of the African was there any threat to The United States? But they specifically, I think, said in that briefing, and it's been reported, they said there was no intelligence to suggest or assessment that they would attack us.
And quite clearly, you know, the attack by Israel had been talked about at the end of the year and agreed. And even the timing of Baoxing agreed at that meeting of Mar A Lago on the December 29. So, I mean, you know, to the legal basis, of the action is on very, very shaky grass. And, you know, the the the the language coming out about how from I think it was Rubio saying, oh, you know, yes. It's absolutely right.
I mean, they're building ICBMs. They're under threat in The United States. I mean, I don't think even in the sort of heightened atmosphere of politics today in The United States, anyone believes that. And certainly, there's no evidence of it or what can be produced. So I think that, yes, the legal grounds are are indeed very shaky.
And that's why I say, you know, the difficulty is he has not sought permission of congress. And, you you he I mean, he has not sought permission of congress, and he has taken the initiative to kill a head of state. We are congressional consultation. I mean, I think the I can't remember the exact times. The the kind of way generally, people who period, are the eighth most the key congressional leaders in The United States from both congress and senate, from the house and from the senate.
Either he was the the the leader of the houses and so on. The eight must sort of see the institutional placeholders get special breeding, classified breeding, which is not available to armaments, to the senate or congress. And it was out of that, I understood, his comments came. So, you know, so he is on on on shaky grounds which would could easily provide if they can't find a better reason, could would find whether it would whether it could be turned down or not, but would be the basis for an.
Speaker 0: But it seems based on the previous conflicts over the past year that Trump's main approach is well, he sees the weakness of and relative decline of America be caused by weakness, and he sees this in leaders such as Biden and, Obama. So the idea is to, you know, have a show of strength, go in, don't get drawn in over too long period of time, so a quick victory. Ideally, regime change in Iran, but, of course, you can walk away with some other trophy to, you know, to give him credibility at home, but also to, I guess, strike some fear into other adversaries on the international stage. This would be ideal, but it's not playing out as he had hoped. And I think the longer this goes on, the more the advantage shifts to Iran in terms of, you know, being able to absorb these different blows and being able to dish it out.
But but I've heard some comments now that I well, at least I expected if Trump wanted to put an end to this, he would make statements that, well, the Iranians want to talk. You know, they they're coming to the table. You know, there's something along the lines to make a
Speaker 1: Well, he said that. He just said that, I mean, you know, the Iranians want to talk, and they got, you know, to held to air for by by the Iranians when they the Italians brokered the So the. Cease fire.
Speaker 0: What does this mean then? If if Trump wants to put an end to this war, do you is it possible? Do you do you think the Iranians would let that happen, or do they have other objectives they want to achieve before they're willing to let Trump walk this one back?
Speaker 1: No. They won't. They won't let they won't help them out. I mean, first of all, you know, they he's, you know, he's perceived them twice. And even and this is a long history of deceptions because the killing of Qutan Sohamane was a deception too.
You know, he was coming to he'd been invited at being all set up. And, of course, the Americans knew about it for a discussion about peaceful relations between Iran. I think it was Saudi radio or something, but they was going to be and he was there on an official visit coming on a commercial airline, and he was he was he was shot down with a missile as the Iranian official delegation was standing in this meeting. So, I mean, you know, deception after deception of, you know, amiased into Iranian thinking, clearly, about how they should behave. And I think, you know, they know that they're in the driving seat.
I mean, there are, you know, factory things that important that perhaps people are not seeing very much, but it is not going well. I mean, I talked about, you know, interceptors, but there are only a limited number of tomahawks. You know, we keep hearing the talk about, oh, Tehran has been bombed badly. It's like well, when people talk about being bombed, they imagine aircraft going over and dropping bombs. That's not what's been happening.
There are no there's no evidence of Israeli aircraft in the Iranian airspace at all. And in fact, what we've seen actually is signs of aircraft being shot down. One could have been in an in in Iranian airspace, but three may have been taking off from Kuwait and were locked on by the Iranians, f fifteens, and were shot down. They say it's friendly far, but friendly far for three aircraft taking off at the same time when they don't have much far far. I don't know.
Anyway, look. There are no signs, visible signs up to now despite the defense minister Katz saying, we're gonna have a corridor. We've got air superiority, dominance of the skies across Tehran. We can fly where we want. There's actually all of the evidence points to the opposite, that they cannot fly because they are frightened.
And, obviously, things have changed in the last seven months because Iran seems I mean, you just take the evidence of drones. All 22 drones that have been flown over, pilot's drones, of course, flown over into Iranian airspace or are being shot down. 22 being destroyed by the Iranians. So something is working. Something is working quite well.
You see, these were some of the most advanced drugs that The United States and Israel has. So these things means, you know, Iran feels pretty confident with the physician. Yes, of course, it's paying a certain price, but then so is Israel. And so they are quite confident they're changing the geopolitics of the West Asia, of the Gulf States. And so if you say to me, is it what would it you know, just to stop diplomacy again?
Come on. You know, they've been through this and what and twice, you know, as they sat down with or about to sit down with the Americans, they they they get attacked. I I think you know? And and, you know, this is gonna have a wider repercussions on Russia and Ukraine talks. I mean, about, you know, what is a phone to talking with Ian Trump.
I'm not saying that won't happen, but I'm just saying it is going to make people reflect happily about the whole approach there. What would they take? Well, I I have no idea, and I'm not saying that in the basis of some, you know, information I've got, but I would say anything less than a complete lifting of sanctions, tariffs, and the return of all the Iranian frozen plants in total or at once now, they might consider that.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, I I can understand why the Iranians wouldn't want to simply put an end to the fighting and wait a few more months for for the next attack or the next, you know, stage revolution. So I I guess shifting realities on the ground in terms of pushing the Americans back or ideally out of the region or get some proper diplomatic victory. It's just that's gonna be very hard for the Americans to to swallow, though, after thirty five years of hegemony and being able to dictate all outcomes and, yeah, to simply accept this. It's yeah.
I'm curious.
Speaker 1: You know, that it it is you know, there is just a risk in this. I mean, because, you know, I don't think they had anticipated what's happened in the dark. I don't think beforehand they thought this was, you know, possibility, so they are shocked. And, you know, people can do dangerous things or unwise actions when they're desperate and in those circumstances and feeling they will otherwise be humiliated. So, of course but what we're talking about then, we're setting a course into error created one, which is is not really sensible to speculate because it's not possible to speculate.
Speaker 0: Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule. I appreciate sharing your insights.
Speaker 1: My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me on further.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Douglas Macgregor: A New World Emerges: Iran Will Win & Israel May Not Survive https://youtu.be/yd_uJiRcl0Q https://t.co/mTmmysndFG
Video Transcript AI Summary
Colonel Douglas MacGregor and Glenn discuss the unfolding Iran war three days in, arguing that the conflict has become a regional war with global economic and strategic reverberations.
Key points and allegations:
- Iran has targeted at least 27 bases and port facilities across the region, from Kirlik Airbase to Dubai, effectively regionalizing the war. Oil markets anticipate disruption; Europe’s open price rose about 20% on expectations of supply cuts, with a potential rise above $100 per barrel.
- In the Gulf, inexpensive drones have breached what appear to be expensive air and missile defenses, affecting airstrips and airports. A large expatriate workforce in the UAE (about 4.6 million Indians and many Europeans and Americans) is stranded, highlighting economic disruption. Oil infrastructure damage is just beginning, with some Saudi refineries struck; more damage anticipated.
- The war’s consequences extend beyond Iran and Israel, potentially affecting India, Northeast Asia, Turkey, and Europe. The conflict did not begin with a joint US-Israeli attack; it began with an Israeli attack, with Rubio (Secretary of State-like comment) indicating that Israel started it, which the US later joined due to perceived insufficient posture.
- Reports indicate three F-15s were downed; casualties include American sailors and Marines, though the exact numbers are unclear.
- The rhetoric from Secretary Hagel (likely Hagerty) and Trump about Iran as a state sponsor tied to Israel is criticized as incautious. MacGregor argues the focus should be on Pakistan and Syria (where remnants of ISIS/Al Qaeda reside), noting Pakistan’s long-standing role as an incubator of radical Islam. He views the war as primarily about Israel’s aim to destroy Iran to enable greater Israeli regional hegemony, with the US fully committed.
- He predicts a long regional war and warns that logistics will be decisive: missiles are finite, and the US may exhaust its stock; many missiles used in Ukraine reduce available stock for Iran-related defense. He notes Hypersonic missiles and decoys complicate defense capabilities.
- European involvement is uncertain; Britain’s rapid response is unclear, and the broader European willingness to intervene remains doubtful. China and Russia are viewed as potentially pivotal if they decide to intervene; India is suggested as a potential mediator, given cultural ties and BRICS interests.
- The US’s strategic credibility and military power are questioned. MacGregor contends the US has shown unreliability, damaging its legitimacy and triggering broader regional and global realignments. He emphasizes that the world is moving toward a new order, with the end of Sykes-Picot-era maps and shifting alliances; Gulf monarchies may seek US withdrawal.
- Iran’s resilience is stressed: even if the supreme leader was killed, unity of command remains, and Iran’s dispersed military network complicates US efforts. Iran’s survival could enhance its regional influence; the longer the conflict lasts, the weaker the US and Israel appear, and the stronger Iran, Turkey, and others may become.
- The possibility of an escalation to nuclear warfare is raised: if Israel uses a tactical nuclear weapon to stop Iran’s missiles, Russia and China might intervene; this could force a broader confrontation. MacGregor doubts Israel’s ability to sustain a large front and warns this could lead to a strategic pivot by major powers.
- On outcomes and endgames: Iran seeks US withdrawal from the region; the US’s presence is likely to be forced out as Gulf states demand it. The interview suggests a collapse of US influence and a reshaping of the Middle East, with Persia re-emerging stronger. Israel’s survival is uncertain; extended fronts and exhaustion are anticipated.
- Trump’s role is described as constrained by Netanyahu: Trump is not a free agent, and there is little expectation of near-term strategic change in Washington. The potential for a negotiated end is deemed unlikely so long as Iran remains intact and steadfast.
Overall, the conversation frames the conflict as a turning point: a regional war with profound economic and geopolitical ripple effects, signaling the decline of US military hegemony in the Middle East and the possible reconfiguration of global power blocs, with Iran poised to gain relative strength if the conflict persists.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined today by colonel Douglas MacGregor, a decorated combat veteran, author, and former adviser to the US secretary of defense. Thank you for coming back on. We are now, yeah, heading towards the end of day three of the war against Iran, and I I think well, it's fair to say that I think Trump was hoping for a quick war, but this it doesn't appear that there will be any quick regime change operation happening here. How are you assessing it, though?
Is how how how should we, I guess, measure the developments of the war and what to expect?
Speaker 1: I think the first thing we can say is that the Iranians have targeted at least 27 bases, including port facilities in The Middle East, ranging from in Kirlik Airbase all the way down to, Dubai in The Gulf. So the war has been effectively regionalized, and the consequences of these actions cannot really be fully appreciated yet. Everyone knows about The Gulf and what the what has already happened in the oil markets. Today, the oil markets in Europe opened about 20% higher simply based on the probability that the oil supply would be disrupted for some period of time. So I think we're headed towards more than a $100 a barrel, and we'll get there pretty quickly.
How high? I don't know, but I think that's gonna happen. And if you look at a place like The United Arab Emirates, very inexpensive drones have defeated what appear to be some of the world's most expensive air and missile defenses and put a number of airstrips, airports out of business. You have to understand that in The Gulf, there are all sorts of international conglomerates, especially a lot of Indian conglomerates that do a huge, huge business through The United Arab Emirates and Dubai. All of this is effectively being shut down.
You also have millions of people. There are about 4,600,000 Indians who own businesses in The Emirates who are now stranded, and they are a critical component of the economy. In addition to those are, you know, hundreds of thousands, probably millions of Europeans, Americans, and others who are stranded. Right now, you've gotta cross the mountains down to Muscat in order to find an aircraft that'll take you out. I think the damage that's being done to the oil infrastructure is only now really beginning.
We have evidence that some oil refineries have been struck, particularly in Saudi Arabia. I think we're going to see more of that. So we're at the beginning of what is ostensibly a long regional war, And we haven't even begun to assess the possibility that others may become involved because this emergency created by the Gulf War affects India, it affects Northeast Asia, it affects Turkey, It affects Europe. Effectively, the entire world is now focused on this, war that is ostensibly between Israel and Iran. Now the funny thing about this war is that it did not begin with a joint Israeli American assault.
It began with an Israeli attack. And senator or I shouldn't say senator, secretary of state Rubio seems to have told the group of eight, these are senators in the US senate that are part of the senate armed services committee, that Israel began the attack. We had not been informed of it. We were not warned that they were going to do this. All we knew it was always a possibility.
And we decided to simply join in because we were not yet satisfied with our posture at the beginning of this. So we seem to have come late to the party, and now we've begun to feel the full impact of all these missiles. Number of missiles have been fired at ships that have yet to strike them, and we know that three f 15 fighters were downed. We're attributing that to friendly fire, Although, are some disputes about that in terms of others in the region and the world who seem to think the Iranians did it. In any case, we lost three f fifteens.
We didn't lose the pilots, but we have lost American sailors, soldiers, sailors, airborne, and marines. We just don't know how many. We've admitted, I think, to three or four, but I suspect there's more than that. So the question is, where are we headed? I think we're headed into a long campaign.
And, you know, you listen I'm sure you listen to statements by secretary Hagsef and president Trump laced with all this business about the the state sponsor of terrorism and how it has to be it will have to submit ultimately to Israel and The United States. I think these are very incautious and stupid statements. They don't comport with reality. I mean, frankly, Glenn, if we were interested in combating radical Islam, we would probably be focused on Pakistan and certainly on Syria right now, which is headed by the remnants of ISIS and Al Qaeda. Those two states don't seem to come up for discussion very much, and Pakistan in in particular has been the sort of incubator of radical Islam and Islamist terrorism for a long time.
So this is really about Israel's interest in destroying Iran and removing it as an obstacle to Israeli military hegemony or Jewish supremacy, however you wanna put it, And we're we're into it. We're committed to it. And I think, ultimately, logistics will probably have a big impact because we will eventually run out of missiles. And I think we're on the road already because I just don't think president Trump or his, advisers really believe that they would end up in a long war with Iran, and that's where they are right now.
Speaker 0: Well, besides from the military targets, we as you mentioned, we've seen attacks on ports, oil refineries oil refineries, shipping, airports, some hotels. There seems to be several civilian targets as well. How how do you did this take you by surprise, and how do you see the, I guess, the cost benefit to Iran here? Because on one hand, they wanna inflict as much pain as possible, but I assume they don't wanna pull in too many other external actors. Because doesn't this risk the the entering into the war, the Gulf States, even the Europeans suggested that they would come in and, you know, defend their assets, their bases, and their allies.
How how do you assess the, I guess, the calculations on the Iranian side?
Speaker 1: I think the Iranian is know that the Emirates and the Saudis have played a duplicitous game, that they have tried to play both sides to the middle as we say. So I don't think the Iranians regret any of that, and I think they want to make the world feel pain because they are feeling acute pain. So that's not surprising in the least. As far as Europeans are concerned, they've known from the very beginning Iran presents no threat. You know, that that was laughable when we insisted on this installation in Romania, this anti ballistic missile installation on the grounds that we were protecting our European allies from Iranian missile attack.
Nobody believed in that. That's nonsense. As far as Europeans intervening to do anything, I think the British have sent their f 20 twos. Whether or not they've done anything, I don't know. Now I know that their bases on Cyprus have been struck, and I assume probably put out of action.
So I I don't know what to make of European intervention. I think that's more hot air, but we'll see. They could certainly send some ships, but then again, they would be in harm's way. And it all depends on whether or not the European peoples are going to sign on for this. Again, you've got to distinguish Iran and the Shia from the vast majority of is is Muslims, who are Sunni and Arabs and Turks.
And I think the Europeans are a little more sophisticated than the Americans. They do not mix them up. They understand Iran is different, and Iran's interests are different. And Iran as a civilizational state, Persia, is a different is an entirely different animal from the rest of these post World War one artificial constructs. So, you know, we'll we'll see, but I I I don't expect much out of the Europeans.
I'm I'm more concerned about the Chinese than the Russians. And when I say concerned, I mean, I wonder how long they sit on the sidelines and allow this to go on because this is not in their interests, obviously. They want Iran to survive. Iran is a critical component of BRICS. It's part of the Belt and Road Initiative.
The Turks want Iran to survive. I haven't heard any complaints out of the Turks about destroying our air base at Enkirlik because they know that that's our air base, and they have always been reticent to allow us to operate from that base against anyone we wanted in the region. So I think we're we're seeing the world sort of move in an entirely new direction. I would argue this is the end of Sykes Picot. I think the maps are going to change.
I'll be very surprised if all these family dictatorships in the Persian Gulf survive in their current form. I think the damage that's being done economically is going to stay with us for some period of time. The Indians have already turned to purchase oil again from the Russians, and that makes perfectly perfect sense for them. I'm surprised they ever went along with us to begin with. The dollar is losing airspeed and altitude.
I mean, economically, this is a catastrophe. Financially, for us, I think it's a disaster. It's gonna take more time, but over time, it's going to get worse for us. Remember, we are the ones that have been boasting to the world about how powerful we are and how the entire world needs to shake in fear of the, American military power. Well, then people are gonna expect us to perform.
Iran, on the other hand, hasn't got to do anything other than survive. As long as Iran survives and the longer the war lasts, the weaker we look, the weaker Israel looks, and the stronger Iran looks. And I think Iran is going to survive. I don't see any evidence that it's going to suddenly pick up the phone, call Washington, and beg for mercy. Don't see that happening.
So we're in a real we're in a real trick. I think at the end of the day, we're gonna be swept out of the region. Look at what's happening in Iraq right now. The Shia are rising and the the Iraqi government wants us out of the country. It's wanted us out for years.
I think we're gonna have to get out. I don't think anybody living in The Gulf is gonna want us in in proximity to any of their harbors or or airports or anything else. So I I think this is a developing disaster for us. And Israel Israel's iron dome isn't working very well, and although we are definitely trying to fire missiles in support of Israel at air air and missile defense, the is the Iranians seem to have moved technologically much further than we anticipated. They are now able to deliver missiles that have decoys that, you know, produce multiple warheads, and then the real dangerous missile that you're trying to penetrate with flies through while we are preoccupied with decoys.
So this this is not working terribly well for us. But the interesting part is in the West, the media, as always, is showing us a a wonderful picture of American and Israeli military success. It's quite astonishing. I don't think that's the picture the rest of the world is is beginning to get.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Recently checked the media, and they one gets impression they're already planning for the new government to take over and how relations will be shifted. And it's quite strange how the narratives deviate so much from reality. But but this is then looking to be a long war. So do how do you expect the The United States and Israel, for that sake, to be exhausted?
Because you said you assume they will be exhausted first, and then I guess it's over. But will they run out of interceptive missiles? Are they have the limited ability to hit Iran? Or or what is it that you expect to first give in, or or is it simply that the Gulf States will demand that The United States put an end to it?
Speaker 1: Well, all of the ports that we habitually use to replenish our naval forces and to reload our naval forces with missiles and rockets and so forth, all of those have been destroyed. In other words, we're forced to fall back all the way to India, which is quite a distance from the region. Now we we can fall back to Italy at this point. I think Crete may be just out of reach. I hope so.
But but the point is that everything that we were accustomed to doing now has to change. War has become a much more arduous task for us. Remember, they've not only shut down the Straits Of Hormuz, they've also shut down the Suez Canal for all intents and purposes because they've shut down the Red Sea. So the commercial picture is grim. The military picture is problematic.
And I don't think that we can manufacture missiles at a sufficiently fast rate to keep up with their expenditure. And we have been supplying all the time vast numbers of missiles to Ukraine, And now we're beginning to feel the pain because so much of that is gone. It won't be long, perhaps a few more days before we begin to more economically expend our missiles, and that means that you can't shoot down most of what's being shot at you. Remember, you're talking about shooting at least two or three missiles at every incoming missile, and we still can't target successfully and knock down hypersonic missiles. And a lot of these missiles are coming in at Mach three, four, five, and six.
Those speeds are beyond our technological capability to to defeat. So I think logistically, yes, we're going to have a huge problem, and we may pause. Now whether or not the Russians and the Chinese are willing to mediate or the Indians. I think India would probably be the best choice for mediation. They are after all neutral despite Modi's recent visit to Israel, which I think was ill considered.
But nevertheless, Modi and and India have cultural ties to Iran. Sanskrit and Indian civilization are a component part of Persian civilization itself. So I I think there's an opportunity for the Indians to bridge the gap between us, the Israelis, and Iran, but we'll have to see. Right now, I think Iran is not dissolving into chaos. Yes.
We killed the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, but I don't see any evidence that that has disrupted unity of effort and command and control. So I and the other advantage that the Iranians have, and this is an important one, is that much of their capability is widely dispersed. That makes it very hard for us. And even on the best day, you know, historically, we've had a lot of trouble dealing with anything that's mobile. So, you know, I I just don't see in the near term any good news at all, and I hope that we are talking in Washington to others who may be able to help mediate some sort of end to this catastrophe.
But I know that over the weekend, we apparently expressed an interest in negotiation. I don't know through what channels, but apparently that came from the Trump White House, and the Iranians said not only no, but hell no.
Speaker 0: This is the cost are not ready to put an end to this war then. I mean, all it seems a bit foolish perhaps to put an end to it now given that, you know, the the other side could simply just replenish their missiles and come back again in a few weeks. But what what do you think the Iranians would want out of this war before they would let it come to an end?
Speaker 1: I don't know what they will say, but I think what they want is to get us out of the region. And I think we are going to oblige because this this war is something that we've helped to bring on, and we've aligned ourselves with Israel, which is a Pariah state in any case. Meaning Israelis are all already widely hated and despised for their program of mass murder and expulsion in Gaza. Now this war is only going to make those those matters much, much worse. So I think the Turks are now going to feel much more comfortable asking us to leave.
And I think, as I pointed out earlier in The Gulf, we will be invited to leave. In other words, I think we're sacrificing our position in the region strategically for the benefit of Israel, but I don't think Israel's going to benefit. And, you know, this sort of thing is going to have widespread repercussions. If you're sitting on the Korean Peninsula, you're already tired of the American military presence. You don't see the need for it because the Chinese are not interested in starting a war, and the Chinese have made it very clear to the Koreans that if they do anything, they will not be helped in any way by China.
I think the Koreans are probably saying it's time for the Americans to leave, and then we need to work with China to reunite the peninsula and come to some sort of stable solution on the peninsula. I think the Japanese are watching this and beginning to wonder just how tightly aligned with us they want to be. I guess my point is, do we look strong, powerful, and invincible and vulnerable or not? And unfortunately for us, we need to look invincible and invulnerable. Now we've opened ourselves up to all sorts of extraordinary problems that we might have otherwise avoided.
You know, military power is one of those things where until you use it, nobody really knows what you've got. Remember it in 1940, everyone was saying, thank God for the French army. The largest army in Europe, the best equipped, more tanks, more of this, more everything. That went away pretty quickly. So did the British army.
It didn't last very long. I I think we're living in a world today where the old era is ending and a new one is beginning, and there will be new rules for the future. And those are not going to be written in Washington. They're going to be written, I think, largely in Asia and to some extent in Europe and The Middle East, but it's going to be written by indigenous peoples, not us. That's the long term forecast.
How long will this take is anybody's guess. But right now, the Iranians are feeling a lot of pain, but they're inflicting a lot of pain, and there's no incentive for them to stop.
Speaker 0: Well, if one would wanna kick The United States out of the Middle East, I guess, well, we can go for three areas. The one would be, of course, the military presence, and the military bases are being pummeled, but the second, of course, is the economic interest. But the third would be what you also alluded to, The US credibility that is as, you know, all powerful, and essentially all countries that wants to have security should align itself with The US. How how do you see them wider, I guess, geopolitical ramifications of this, of US credibility being shattered in this way because this was seemingly what opposite of what Trump wanted. He he wanted to build up a very well, his whole approach, I think, is to show a lot of strength and hope that adversaries, yes, stand down.
And I thought this was also kind of the assumption that he would mount all this military force. As Witkoff said, Trump was very surprised they hadn't capitulated yet given that they saw all of this US military might. But what what happens now if it becomes evident that it's The United States that has to walk this whole thing back and find something of a dignified exit?
Speaker 1: Well, you're you're talking about an ignominious retreat, which is the last thing in the world that Donald Trump wants. We need to talk about, you know, how do we get there from here. And the problem is that we we've already displayed in the first twenty four to thirty six hours our tactical expertise, our tactical supremacy, if you will. We managed to kill a number of key personalities, not only the supreme leader. Tactics win battles, but ultimately, strategy wins wars.
We we have no strategy. When everybody asks, well, what's the purpose? Well, it sounded like it was regime change, but I think we've discovered at this point that regime change hasn't worked. This is a large country, 93,000,000 people, size of Western Europe. It seems to be holding together.
There's no reason to believe that it won't stay together at this stage. And the strategy is what then? If you can't remove the government, what do you do? Do you continue to lob missiles and rockets at it in the hopes that somebody will say, please please stop. We'll do whatever you want.
Maybe that's the goal. I don't think that's a reasonable goal. I don't think anyone has thought through the criticality of ending the war. How do you end it? And the thing that's funny is that I listened to secretary of of war say this morning, we didn't start this war, but we're going to end it.
Well, I think we did start this war. The Israelis started it, we jumped on board. All of the things that we continue to cite about it, the reasons for going to war are specious, but the most most depressingly stupid reasons are ones that go back forty seven years ago or forty years ago. You know, the numbers of people that have actually you could whose death you can trace back to Iran is in the low hundreds. It's not a large number, and the Iranians did not behave during the Iraq war any differently than we would have behaved if there were a similar war in Mexico.
In other words, you do what you can to deter the force that's on the ground in the neighboring country from entering yours. You know, the other thing is that we have, I think, 4,000 missiles left in our inventory, something in that in that regard. Maybe those are different kinds, cruise and ballistic. I don't know. Iran has about 450,000, so that's, that's quite a gap.
You know, the other thing is, you can kill a leader, but but you can't bomb a civilization into submission, and we've never understood what we were dealing with in Iran. Everybody talks about Iran as some sort of radical Islamic state. Nothing could be further from the truth. Iran is ultimately Persia, and that civilization is much older. And Persian civilization, Persian thinking, Persian philosophy, Persian art and history, all of those things have been asserting their dominance over the last twenty five to thirty years.
And the people of Iran have largely walked away from this more ideologically rigid form of Islam. It's not they didn't hate Khomeini and they didn't dance in the streets when he was killed. On the contrary, people saw him as a very, I I think, humble and decent human being. He sacrificed his life. He he stayed where he knew he would be killed.
Killing him has made him a martyr that even people that don't like Islam can honor. So I think we've galvanized the place against us. We've mobilized the people against us. I don't see anything good coming out of this. And and this is this is the problem with us.
We we project our values, our thinking, our experience onto others. Well, our experience may hold up in connection with European experience, but it doesn't match the experience of people in The Middle East and Asia or Africa for that matter or even Latin America. So that's why I think, you know, we're we're in a different world right now, and we don't even understand it. The the world is changing, and the old world is is ending, and we're fighting the emergence of the new world. I think we could say that, you know, the future of the world is not being written by us anymore.
And what is victory in this war? Well, I think truthfully, victory is stability. And we've done everything that we possibly could to destroy stability. Stability in markets, stability in trades, stability in commerce, stability in in interstate confidence. You know, we've once again demonstrated conclusively that we're completely unreliable.
You know, I've I've been saying for months that the decision to attack Iraq is made, and it was. It was only a question of when, never if, yet we continued with the fiction that there were negotiations underway. This has hurt us with Russia. It's hurt us with China. It's destroyed us in the Middle East.
We are rapidly following Israel into this corner reserve for pariah states. You know, I I you know, for instance, the Indians depend on 2,600,000 barrels of oil from the Persian Gulf to flow into their ports every day. You know, when that closes, every Indian family is going to effectively be made to pay a war tax that they never voted for. A $10 rise in crude means $15,000,000,000, in terms of the burden on the Indian economy. They're not the only ones.
This but we're we don't think in those terms. We don't think of what the impact is on others. There's no sense, of this sort of thing. And we're gonna pay I think we're gonna pay a terrible price, Glenn, and it's only just beginning.
Speaker 0: When Trump came to power a year ago, he I mean, he seemed to have some of the right ideas. Again, one of my concerns about The United States is it seems that the the strategy of the past thirty years doesn't work anymore. That is The United States exhausts itself and then incentivizes the other great powers to collectively balance it. So from my perspective, made sense for The US to pull a bit back, then it can strengthen its position, and the Eurasian powers will, to a greater degree, balance each other. And it looked like Trump was heading in that direction, so pull back from Europe, from the Middle East, focus instead on the Western Hemisphere, and and, well, it it all made sense.
Doesn't mean the Venezuelan operation was, you know, stroke of genius or anything, but at least, you know, he looked towards, yeah, their homeland, if you will. What happened here? How how I mean, after a year, he hasn't he's still in Ukraine. Again, that's one of the problems now, I think. They gave away a lot of the air defenses and other weapons, which could have been used, but also now cementing used position in in the Middle East.
Perhaps not cementing it, but he's spending a lot of resources. How how do you explain how well, what seemed to be a strategy, yeah, doesn't seem to be followed?
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, there is no strategy. You know, this is the problem. This new document that was published as a was supposed to represent new national military strategy, there's no real evidence we followed any of it. You know, focusing on the Western Hemisphere does not and should not mean invading other people's countries in the Western Hemisphere. You know, this is just ridiculous.
And, you know, again, it's sort of similar to what I said before. Talk about radical Islam and Islamist terrorism, and you attack Iran. It doesn't fit. If you turn around and say, we're gonna focus on the danger in Pakistan, the danger in Syria, that would be plausible, but not in Iran. At the same time, you say, we've got a huge drug problem.
We have a problem with human and drug trafficking. The locus for that, the main locus for it is Mexico. That is what is most dangerous to us, but we attack Venezuela when there was no real reason to do so. Venezuela was willing to do business with us. And then we kidnap the president and his wife.
We paid millions of dollars to pay off various people in the country to let us in. And then we talked about this brilliant military operation. Well, I'm sure it was brilliant. It's a police operation, a paramilitary police operation enabled by the US military. It's not a strategy.
It's not really an outcome. We don't control Venezuela. Venezuela controls Venezuela, and they can wait us out almost indefinitely. And that's exactly what's happening right now. In the meantime, we've changed nothing on the border with Mexico.
Oh, it's better than it was, but we haven't stopped the drugs and the human trafficking from pouring into our country. It's still coming in. It's not coming in as in the same rate as it was, but it's still coming in. And billions of dollars in in terms of hard cash are still flowing south into Mexico. So there's an awful lot that's just fiction, and I don't think there is any strategy because any sober minded American would have looked at the Middle East and say, this place does not need American military power.
If we involve ourselves here, we'll blow it up. Now that may suit Israel, at least temporarily, but I've never believed that that was good for Israel. I don't see any evidence that this thing called greater Israel that they talk about openly, which involves the acquisition of territory all around Israel to make Israel into this great state with, what, six, seven million people in it that are Jews has any chance of success. And I think what it has done is it has offended, angered, alienated virtually everyone in the region. So that I think before this is over, the question we'll be trying to answer is does Israel survive all of this?
That's the real question. I'm not sure they will. Iran will survive. It's been with us certainly for two thousand seven hundred years. You know, it's like going to war with China.
Will China survive? Of course, it will survive. It's been around for five thousand years. So will India. You know, the question is if you involve yourselves in these stupid wars is whether or not we, Americans, can survive it.
We're relative newcomers to the world. We're not a civilizational state per se. So all of these things are going to come up for discussion over the weeks ahead. And I think that for the moment, president Trump is just going to order everybody to continue to attack and bomb and and target and strike. That's all he can do.
He can threaten more sanctions, but I think that's lost its bite to a large extent. I think that's responsible for the hatred and hostility inside of Iran towards us. So I see nothing good coming of this for us. I think Persia, though, will reemerge from this as a much stronger and more influential entity.
Speaker 0: You say Israel may not survive. How would it go under, you think? Is it from The US pulling out, or is it economic consequences from this war? People will simply flee, or do you see them being militarily defeated? What what is the path?
All of the above.
Speaker 1: I mean, just go back and listen to mister Netanyahu explain his so called seven fronts. You know, that's not sustainable. Supposedly, the Israelis have now mobilized another 100,000 reservists. It'll be interesting to see how many of them show up for duty. There is talk in Israel about invading Lebanon to go after Hezbollah because you can't do everything from the air.
At at some point, Israel is going to end up exhausted and tapped out much like Ukraine. Today, the question is not will Russia survive, it's whether or not Ukraine survives. What will it be? It it certainly won't be what it was. So does that mean that Israel survives in some form?
Maybe. But it won't be what it was or what it is today. You know, the these things depend on a a number of things, but you've gotta look at the trend lines. The trend lines right now are not favorable.
Speaker 0: Well, what do you see now happening, though, over the days and weeks? I mean, what is a possible escalation? I I don't see necessarily what The US can do differently except perhaps, you know, attack or continue what what it's doing. But how do you see Iran possibly escalating? And given that, as you said before, the conflict's already very quickly become regionalized, do you see a possibility of it becoming global?
Well, under what condition do you think the the Chinese or the Russians would join? I mean, if they're watching what we're watching, they they might conclude that the Iranians are taking care of things on their own.
Speaker 1: Well, if the Israelis decide to use a tactical nuclear weapon or any nuclear weapon with the goal of stopping Iran's relentless missile attacks, attacks, I think that will change the situation dramatically. I'm not sure Israel will survive it. The Russians, the Chinese at that point would definitely intervene and make it clear to us that if this is not stopped and continues, that they will actively join the fight against Israel and us. And remember, I I don't think the Israelis are gonna do something like this immediately. I'm I'm forecasting that at some point, the Israelis say, you know, if the if if Iran will not stop, we will launch a nuclear weapon.
That's kind of what I think might happen. Well, we don't have any control over Israel controls us. That's very clear. So if we can't control Israel and Israel does this, then Russia and China intervene. Well, they would intervene at a point in time where we've exhausted our inventories.
So how do we how do we put up a significant fight? You know, until this point in time, all during the proxy war in Ukraine, behind the scenes, and even in public, people raised the issue of we we can't go too far. We have to think in terms of our war reserves. But eventually, over time, those that caution was thrown to the wind because there was no evidence that Russia was being defeated, that Russia was being destroyed, that the sanctions were doing their work. And so we we decided we'll put more and more and more into the Ukraine war.
Well, that's failed miserably, and they've exhausted their war reserves in Germany, in France, in Britain, and other countries. We have done the same thing with much of our munitions. So if you've done that and then all of a sudden, the Russians and the Chinese say, that's it. Stop. Israel's used a nuclear weapon.
We will not tolerate that. And if they don't stop, we may use a nuclear weapon in response. That's always a possibility. What do we do? I think we have to tell the Israelis, you've got to stop.
And if you won't stop, we're leaving. I think we'll get to that point. And that's not a an end state that we've planned for. We've planned for the other end state. Iran and its evil leaders who are responsible terrorism and threatening the whole world will have to submit.
No. They don't, and they won't.
Speaker 0: It's difficult to predict how this will develop. I mean, if you look towards the Ukraine war, how cautious the rhetoric was in the beginning, how cautious the west was in terms of sending weapons, and where we are today when you have a German chancellor bragging about how they or we have caused untold casualties in Russia. I mean, this is you you didn't see this in the beginning of 2022. So given how fast this war with Iran is escalating, it's definitely possible. Just a last question.
Do do you see any possibilities or any pathways for Trump to to put an end to this war, or is it simply impossible because the Iranians need to, I guess, evict the Americans from the region?
Speaker 1: Netanyahu is in charge. So listen carefully to Netanyahu, and you will know what Trump is going to do. Let's be frank. He's taking his orders from Netanyahu. He is not a free agent.
He has people at home pushing him in particular directions. As a result, I don't see anything changing near term in Washington at all. Everyone will simply say, well, we'll continue to bomb. We'll continue to launch missile strikes, and eventually, we'll be successful. We did that for seventy eight days over Kosovo, and ultimately, it was not the air and missile war that persuaded the Serbs to get out of Kosovo, it was Russia's decision to pull the plug on the Serbs and say, no, we can't provide you with fuel and food and medicine over the winter.
That happened because Strobe Talbot, the deputy secretary of state, went to Moscow and negotiated a deal, as president Trump likes to say. And the deal involved some numbers of promises we made to persuade the Russians to do that. The Russians now, in retrospect, regard that as a moment of deep shame in their history, and indeed, I think they're right. But I don't think they had much choice at that point. Well, they have a choice now.
The Chinese have a choice. The rest of the world is no longer as weak as it once was. This is part of the groundswell of of new changes in our civilization and world that the American government doesn't want to accept. We we we are in a in a fight at this point when it comes to missiles and rockets and conventional capabilities with almost a near peer, as they say. You know, that's something we we could never have imagined, you know, and I think president Trump has expressed shock and surprise just as mister Witkoff said that the Iranians had not already capitulated.
Because from their standpoint, based on their experience in the New York real estate business, this kind of damage is so terrible that you cry uncle and and walk. You walk away. You submit. You sign the deal. Well, this is not real estate.
This is not New York City. This is a a civilizational state that absolutely will not surrender to the demands of the Jewish state in the Middle East that are then backed by American military power. So I don't think we're gonna get very far with president Trump at this time. Maybe down the line, something will break. The one the one area that we haven't talked about that everybody needs to watch carefully is our bond market, especially the ten year bond, and the yield will rise.
Look at de dollarization. Look at our financial weakness. Those things are important. I think we could end up in a very serious financial crisis, certainly worse than what we faced back in 02/1978. That is probably the other factor in this multivariate equation that could fundamentally drive us out.
But whatever whatever ultimately happens, we're seeing the end of the old Middle East. We're seeing the end of American military hegemony and political That's what we're watching.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Jiang Xueqin: New World Order - Iran War Ends U.S. Empire https://youtu.be/6rTlI_Qwd1I https://t.co/tIwdOitPyE
Video Transcript AI Summary
Professor Zhang returns to discuss the Iran war and geopolitics through historical patterns and game theory. He argues that Trump has failed to articulate a clear purpose or strategy for the war. Initially, the narrative centered on preventing Iran’s nuclear uranium enrichment, but the Oman foreign minister reportedly told observers that Iranians had already agreed to zero uranium enrichment even for civilian purposes, calling the nuclear weapon pretext into question. He notes that Rubio proposed preempting Israel’s anticipated attack, suggesting the U.S. acted to defend itself. After initial strikes, Iran bombarded U.S. bases in the GCC and closed the Strait of Hormuz, causing significant global economic disruption as oil prices rose toward around $120 a barrel. Iran’s aim, Zhang says, is to pressure global economies and the GCC to push Trump to end the war, while the United States and its allies pursue a destructive approach, including strikes on desalination and oil facilities, which he characterizes as civilian targets that would jeopardize civilians’ access to water and fuel. He cites a 170 schoolgirls’ deaths in a Tomahawk strike as an example of the civilian toll and argues the war’s conduct suggests a focus on destroying Iran rather than regime change.
Glenn observes the narrative’s inconsistency and compares it with other wars, where a single organizing narrative typically emerges. Zhang expands the view: the war is a war of attrition for Iran, pressuring global energy supplies and GCC partners to influence Washington to end the conflict, whereas the United States and Israel pursue a path of destruction. He emphasizes Iran’s vulnerability of Gulf States, arguing their dependence on U.S. protection—despite their vulnerability when Hormuz closes and their desalination capacity is threatened. He explains that Gulf economies depend on oil revenue and import food and water; closing Hormuz and attacking desalination plants could collapse the GCC’s economic and physical stability. He contends that the Gulf’s petrodollar system ties the region to the U.S. economy, and destroying that link would threaten both American debt and the AI/flood of investment in the United States from Gulf capital.
Zhang further argues that the war’s broader global impact could unsettle the current liberal international order. Iran seeks to push the U.S. out of the Middle East, gain control of Hormuz, and finance rebuilding domestically, while the U.S. and its allies resist recognizing the limits of empire. He asserts that the petrodollar system ties Gulf investments to the U.S. economy; if Gulf States stop funding American growth, an AI-driven financial bubble could burst, triggering a severe downturn reminiscent of a Great Depression. He counters a belief that the United States could gracefully withdraw from the region, labeling such thinking as wishful and attributing the U.S. position to imperial hubris.
Glenn asks about the war’s potential global spread and how the conflict might draw in other powers, including Russia, China, Turkey, and Pakistan. Zhang contends there is likely no off-ramp; Israel intends to widen the conflict to achieve its Greater Israel project, while Iran would strike GCC targets more than Israel. He notes Turkey’s weakness and predicts possible broad regional engagement, with Pakistan obligated to defend Saudi Arabia and potentially becoming a participant due to mutual defense pacts. He suggests a multi-vector expansion: from Pakistan, Iraq, and Azerbaijan to secure the Shatt al-Arab and Hormuz, leading to broader regional escalation and eventual intervention by Southeast Asian economies reliant on Hormuz oil.
Discussing Russia, Zhang argues that Vladimir Putin has a grand strategy. He believes Putin is waiting for a U.S. ground invasion of Iran; once U.S. forces commit ground troops, Russia could exploit the distraction to advance objectives, notably Odessa, potentially triggering a European defense and a prolonged, draining conflict. This, he says, would exhaust Europe and push for a political realignment favorable to Russia, potentially replacing the current order with a new balance of power.
Towards the end, Zhang forecasts three major post-war trends: deindustrialization due to energy scarcity, mercantilism with localized supply networks, and remilitarization as Pax Americana ends and Pax Judaica or similar regional orders emerge. He suggests Japan might lead East Asia in deindustrialization and remilitarization, while China remains tied to the old global order. He predicts a potential rapprochement between the United States and China but maintains the global order will not be saved. He also notes that Europe is in a dire condition, facing demographic and economic strain, refugee integration challenges, and political fragmentation, which undercuts Western liberal hegemonies.
In closing, Zhang reiterates that his earlier prediction from two years prior—that the United States would invade Iran—has been fulfilled with shock, and he expresses sympathy with the unsettling realization of the unfolding dynamics.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined today by professor Zhang, who uses historical patterns and game theory to predict the direction of geopolitics. And professor Zhang is famous for many things, among some predicting the return of Trump and also the war against Iran, now a second war that is. So thank you for coming back on the program.
Speaker 1: Thanks, Glenn.
Speaker 0: How how do you make sense of this war, though, against Iran? I mean, how how do you measure how this war is developing in terms of where the successes or failures are?
Speaker 1: Right. So first of all, Trump has failed to articulate a purpose and a strategy for this war. At first, it was about nuclear uranium enrichment in Iran and the fear that Iran would develop a nuclear weapon. In fact, in Trump's state of the of the union address, he said that he would never allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. And both chambers of congress, the both the Democrats and Republicans rose to cheer and applaud.
It was really the first time that congress demonstrated any unity during that speech. It was a extremely political speech. But the problem with that is that the Omani foreign minister, a few hours before the Americans and that's really struck Tehran, told us that the Iranians had already agreed to zero uranium enrichment even for civil civilian purposes. So the idea that Trump needs to prevent a nuclear weapon, that doesn't hold. It's just a pretext.
And they tried different many different excuses. And then finally, Rubio said this. Rubio basically said, look. We had to attack because Israel was gonna attack first, and then the Iranians would retaliate against both the Israelis and us. So to defend ourselves, we had to preempt Israel and attack first.
Okay? So they're struggling for a narrative. They're struggling to explain to to the American people why this is happening. They're also struggling to contain a fallout because after the Americans initially struck Iranians, the Iranians start to bombard US bases in the GCC, and they closed off the Strait Of Hormuz. This is doing tremendous damage to the global economy.
So oil right now, it's approaching $120 a barrel, $110 a barrel. I'm not quite sure. Okay? But this is double from a a week ago. And remember that the Sheriff Hormuz delivers most of this oil to the Asian economies of Pakistan, India, China, South Korea, and Japan.
Japan relies on 75% of its oil from the servant of Hormuz. So in about seven, eight months, prime minister Takayashi has informed her cabinet that Japan will be out of oil. And Japan is, you know, a manufacturing powerhouse. So this war has been a disaster. And even today, Trump has failed to articulate why the Americans are doing this, what the purpose is, and what the off ramp is.
And what we're seeing day by day is pretty rapid escalation. In fact, I think sec the second day or third day into this war, there are rumors of ground troops. Yesterday, there's rumors that the eighty second Airborne Division of of the American army was given deployment orders, meaning that meaning it is possible Americans will choose to airdrop these soldiers into the middle of Iran. For what purpose? We don't know.
There's talk of the Americans seizing Karg Island, which is the oil depart of of Iran and which accounts for 90% of Iranian oil exports. There's talk of the Americans funding proxies. There's talk of using tactical and nuclear weapons. There's talk of a national draft to find 500,000 soldiers for ground invasion of Iran. So this war is completely out of control, and it's completely unclear what the Americans hope to accomplish with this war.
Speaker 0: Yeah. The narrative, I think, was very poorly planned, even worse than the war has been planned, because it began, as you said, with nuclear weapons, then moved over to ballistic missiles. Then as apparently, they want to help protesters, and they was about to oil, that they should be taken out of the hands of Iranians. Then Trump mentioned Iran might take over the Middle East unless, you know, so we had to go in. And as I said, the Israel thing was interesting because if the argument is that, Israel will attack Iran, then Iran will retaliate against Israel now, I guess, Israel and The United States, so they had to go in first, and they're essentially admitting that they're fighting Israel's war, but they can't say that either.
So so the, you know, the the ability to find a narrative is was kind of poor compared to other wars. Other usually have one narrative, all the media, they they organize around it, and everyone obediently repeats the same talking points. It's hasn't been done well. But this is a war of attrition, though, to a large extent. That is both sides seeking well, not both.
There's many all all sides seeking to exhaust each other. But this is in terms of weapons, ammunition, but it's also spilling into energy and, yeah, water, if you will, or just general economics. How how do you see who would exhaust whom first?
Speaker 1: Right. So I think Iran is trying to fight a war of attrition where it is putting pressure on the global economy, on the GCC nations because Iran believes that the GCC nations, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE, can apply pressure on Trump to end this war as quickly as possible. By closing on the street of Hormuz, Iran is trying to pressure the Southeast Asian economies of China, Japan, and South Korea to press apply pressure on Trump to end this war as soon as possible. So the Iranians are fighting a war of attrition. Unfortunately, the Americans are fighting a war of destruction.
So even though they haven't stated the purpose, it is clear from what is happening on the ground that the Americans and the Israelis are intent on complete and out of destruction of the government's of their any government's capacity to deliver basic services to its people. What I mean by that is that they yesterday struck a desalination plant in Iran. It and, you know, so you're denying fresh water to the civilian population. That is a war crime. Then the Americans struck oil facilities in Tehran.
These are these are civilian oil facilities so that citizens in Tehran can drive their cars. And if you look at footage from Tehran, it is the apocalypse. It there's acid rain. The entire the entire sky is black, and these people have to breathe that air so they're they will develop cancer. They'll have birth defects.
It's almost like chemical warfare. So if you are just saying it's a war of attrition, that makes no sense. A war of attrition means when you embargo Iran economically. Why are you targeting civilians? You know, in the first of the war, a Tomahawk Tomahawk missile hit a school in Southern Iran and killed about a 170 school girls.
These are this is an elementary school. 170 school girls were killed in that. And and this war, the way it's being constructed, the way it's being fought, seems to me that the Americans are first and foremost focused on the destruction of Iran as opposed to regime change.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, I guess that's a good description of that. Iran is fighting a war of attrition, so time won't be on their side while The US is, well, seeking to destroy the country with its, yeah, 90,000,000 people inside. So this is quite problematic. But the Iranians, of course, is limited what they can do to to The United States.
They can, of course, hit their bases. And but but it seems that Iran is obviously prioritizing going after the Gulf States because that's a good way of creating some pain for The US led alliance. How vulnerable do you see them being here, though?
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the Gulf States are the great vulnerability of the American empire because Israel, it has an eschatology. Unfortunately, religiously zealots have taken over the state of Israel. So they're perfectly okay to die for what they believe in, and they can live in bomb shelters for years and years. That's how strong their faith is.
And Israel was designed as an extremely resilient, extremely creative society. So Israel will emerge from this war intact and probably even stronger. The but the Gulf States are different. The Gulf States are basically mirages. These fifty years ago, these were just deserts.
Right? They and for most of human history, the the Arabian Peninsula was not that inhabited because it didn't have access to fresh water. It didn't have much agricultural output, and so it cannot sustain a large population, and most were desert nomads engaged in trade. But Pax Americana changed all that because Pax Americana could could needed oil to fund its empire, and it could offer protection to the Gulf State. So they they developed really rapidly.
So cities where maybe tens of thousands of people before now are in the millions. And one striking example is Dubai. You know, you go to Dubai, it's just skyscraper after skyscraper. It is a very glitzy city, and it it's trying to be the financial capital of The Middle East. And there are thousands of extremely wealthy individuals who've transferred their savings to Dubai because they believe that it's safe, it's comfortable, lots of good Michelin restaurants, lots of good five star hotels, and I'm not taxed.
But this image of Dubai as a financial hub is now shattered by this war, and they'll never recover from this. In fact, we're already hearing rumors of of millionaires just fleeing with with their wealth. Now they're going to Singapore. Now they're going to Southeast Asia. A bigger problem is this.
A bigger problem is that because the Strait Of Humores is closed, their oil economies have collapsed. They can no longer sell their oil and they shut down their their oil production facilities. What people don't recognize is that the Shreve Hormuz takes GCC oil to to Asia, but then it brings back food. This is usually import eighty eighty to 90% of its food supply. So Dubai was the rumor is Dubai will run out of food in about a week's time.
Then there there's issue of fresh water where the greatest vulnerability is actually desalination plants. So the GCC nations desalination plants provide about 6% of all their water needs. And so if these desalination plants are destroyed, then they run out of water in one or two weeks. And this means the entire destruction of the GCC. Now now, I mean, destroying desalination plants will be the nuclear option for Iran, and so I don't think they would use it very lightly.
But there's really no coming back from what's happening. I mean, for the longest time, the GCC had a reputation for being safe, for being extremely wealthy, and now that mirage, that illusion has been shattered. And once the illusion is shattered, you can't ever resurrect it again.
Speaker 0: No. I'll no. I very much agree. The well, the Gulf States not just are not just dependent on energy, but the the finance, the real estate market, which is propped up by all the expats. But what you're also describing, though, is that is the these small monarchy is selling the oils in in dollar and The US in return offering protection.
This was also the petrodollar system that replaced Bretton Woods once they closed the gold window. So how what do you see being the possible consequences for the global economy?
Speaker 1: Right. So what Iran wants to do is basically kick The US out of the Middle East for a lot of reasons. And the main advantage is that once The US leaves, Iran will be able to control the Shreve of Hormuz. Therefore, it will control trade access for the entire world. And that and and so the Gulf States will base basically become client states of the Iranians rather than Americans, and that oil money now will be able to finance the rebuilding of Iran.
So so that's the end goal or the end game for the Iranians. The problem with empire is the hubris. And so another saying this is the empire would rather destroy the world than surrender its power. Right? So the idea that the Americans will just leave the Middle East peacefully is this wishful thinking.
Everyone's saying that, you know, this war can only lead to the defeat of America. So America should just admit defeat right now and then go home and let Israel and Iran settle whatever problems that they have. Like like, the Middle East is not America's problem. But again, the problem is that America is addicted to the petrodollar. Leaving the Middle East would destroy the petrodollar.
And if the petrodollar is destroyed, it would collapse the American economy as well. So America has $40,000,000,000,000 in debt, And this debt is a is a ponzi scheme. Like, the American economy is is sustained by a ponzi scheme. And so the Gulf States, what they do is they sell the oil, get petrodollars, and then they recycle it back into the American economy, mainly by investing into AI, into data centers, which is now the main engine of growth for the American economy. So the Gulf States were to stop investing in America, the AI financial bubble would burst and with it the entire American economy.
America would suffer a much greater depression than the nineteen thirties. That's how dire the situation is for America right now.
Speaker 0: But The United States though, they must have known that this would be a disaster. I mean, they many of the top military people in The United States warned in advance that they they would have limited weapons. They would have a limited ability to go on for too long, which, of course, could explain why they're instead going for burning down Iran if if they can't if time is essentially on Iran's side. But but there's been war games in the past where they show that they they couldn't pull this off. I mean, you had god knows how many American presidents who wanted to attack Iran, but they always knew that, yeah, that's not a good idea.
So how how do how do you make sense of this? Because that was my one when when they were building up to this war, sending more and more military hardware to the region, my main reason for thinking this might not happen was it would simply be too crazy. The the likelihood of success, the amount of things that could go wrong, I mean, it just indicated that this that they can't possibly go down this path. So so why I guess, why why did they? They do have informed people in The United States.
I you know, we know. So how how do you make sense of this?
Speaker 1: Right. So, again, you I agree with you in that this war doesn't make any sense. It's not rational. And everyone everyone knows that America was gonna lose this war. The problem is that when empires are in decline, this is just the way they behave.
And this is the the the historical record, it's pretty overwhelming in that when empires decline, they lash out against the world. They start these stupid war to kind of possibly win. They overextend themselves and the collapse is terrible for the world. And America very much is an empire in decline. Look at things such as the collapse of the family.
Look at things such as the collapse of the currency. Currency debasement in in America is just a tremendous problem. US dollars no more worth as much as it was like like ten years ago. The political polarization in America, congress just cannot function properly. The president has so much power nowadays because congress has basically decided to just not do anything to avoid any political responsibility.
And so it's destroying the checks and balance systems of the US constitution. The economic depression in America is great. Young people feel as though there's absolutely no hope in the world. They're refusing to have families. They're refusing to invest in the future.
They gamble all the time. And so America is really the end of empire at this point. And so what they do is they go and start wars in order to distract people's people's attentions, in order to prove to the world that they still have it, to you know, they're still the bully in a playground, and they can still beat up every other kid even though they're old and they're and they're weak and they're handicapped. And so, you know, you were talking about Iran, but, like, look at what was happening before Iran. Right?
Trump kidnapped the president of of Venezuela, which went which went against national law. Trump deployed his navy in the Caribbean and started to bomb drug boats, which is again again against international law. Trump was trying to annex Greenland. He was threatening to invade Canada. He was threatening to attack Mexico.
Right now, he's embargoing Cuba. And people people people don't even recognize this is happening because there's so much going on in the world, but Cuba was dependent on Venezuela oil. That was its energy supply. And now that Venezuela has fallen to the Americans, the Americans have embargoed Cuba, and so now people don't don't have access to electricity. And there are actually people who are starving in Cuba.
So this is an empire in decline. It just lashes out against the world. It attacks everyone. And Iran is just the most current iteration of this anger and this hubris. But this hubris made the Americans underestimate the capacity of Iran.
They went in thinking that once they decapitate the regime, then the government would fall. And what they what the Americans didn't recognize was the resilience and resolve of the Iranian people.
Speaker 0: Well, about to say imperial decline, it it reminds me of something that Emmanuel Todd, the the the French scholar, argued because, well, again, he predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union already in seventies by looking at these different social variables. But he also predicted the US empire was heading towards, well, a similar fate already in the in the early two thousands. And he described essentially what you did, this strange, she called it, micromilitarism, this this, yeah, brutal use of military force in an effort to show power when it's obviously draining. So it is an interesting development. But you you mentioned that the Americans are losing as if it's a given.
How how do you why do you assess this? Is this the mainly the focus on on the military hardware at their disposal, or is it the lack of a clear objective? Or I guess regime change will be very hard without the ground troops.
Speaker 1: Right. So America right now has several disadvantages. The first major disadvantage is the lack of political will, and that just means the lack of of a strategy, the lack of a purpose. It cannot unify the American people in order to make the sacrifice necessary to win this war. In fact, most Americans are against this war.
Right before the war started, seventy seventy to 80% Americans voiced their disapproval of a possible war with Iran. Usually, when a war starts, people rally behind the flag, but not in this case. Most Americans are still against the war. So the first issue is the lack of political will. If you look at the Iranians, they believe that this is a struggle of of life and death.
So they've set aside the political differences, and they've committed to winning this war. Okay? So that's the first factor, political will. The second factor is just manufacturing capacity. So these past thirty, forty years, America went from a manufacturing based economy to a financial based economy, and they export their manufacturing capacity to China.
Now when you fight a war, what really matters is your capacity to produce ammunition, to replenish your your ammunitions, logistics. And America doesn't have manufacture capacity to fight a long war. In fact, what's happening already is that America is cannibalizing munitions from other parts of the world. So stuff so they are now transferring munitions from South Korea over to the Middle East, which is stupid to do because now you've you've basically opened more flanks, opened more vulnerabilities throughout the world. So manufacturing capacity is a very important factor.
On the other hand, Iran uses drones and ballistic missiles, and we know that Iran is able to manufacture about 500 drones a day. Quite honestly, you you only need to, like, have 10 drones hit their targets in Middle East every single day in order for the GCC to cry uncle. Right? So manufacturing capacity is a very important factor as well. And the third factor is that America is hamstring by a lot of political considerations.
So because they lack political will, they do not want to take too many casualties. Right? So Trump has said that six Americans have died in this war so far. There's absolutely no way this is true. We are we are having hearing rumors that there are a lot of casualties being flown to Germany to try to disguise the fact that the middle in the Middle East, many Americans are are are dying.
But this tells us that America has actually no appetite to sustain any casualties. If you refuse to have any casualties, how are you gonna fight a war? Right? On the other hand, the Iranians are very eschatological. They are very religious.
They are Shia Muslim, and they're not afraid to die. In fact, they believe it is the highest honor to monitor yourself for the higher good. And the the clear example of this is the Ayatollah Karmanad who was killed in the first day of strikes. And, you know, he could have gone to Moscow and he could have hit his bunker, but instead he chose to go go to his office and carry on with his life because he he's 86 years old and he does not wanna die afraid of Americans. And so he set the example that is galvanizing the Iranian people.
Just look at some social media footage from Iran. The Iranian people are now extremely energetic, extremely galvanized, and they will fight this war to the bitter end.
Speaker 0: Yeah. No. I was in Tehran last year, and I was also a bit well, that's one thing that really stood out, the culture of martyrdom, the way they would put the martyrs' pictures on the walls at many places. The it this is, you know, an important variable, but beyond the material variables, if you wanna assess how a country would actually fight. And the whole idea of, you know, killing Khomeini, and now everything will fall into place, I mean, his son has taken over now.
And it has to be pointed out that Americans killed his father, his mother. They killed his wife. They killed his sister, and they killed his son. I mean, the idea as Trump said, well, we we will pick the next guy, and, you know, he will have to be acceptable to us. He has to be more favorable to America and accommodating and more moderate.
It it doesn't make any sense. How how can you, you know, burn down the country and, again, just if you look at the new leader, slaughter his whole family, and then assume that they will just fall in line. If you look at the culture in Iran, again, the martyrdom culture, which is strong, you know, you can say among Shiites in general, this was always crazy, but for somehow, this seemed to have been the assumption. But how do you see, though, the possibility of this war spreading? Because they're, of course, they're attacking US bases, which, you know, covers a lot of country.
So you have US proxies being used, such as Kurds, which could then trigger a civil war in a country of 90,000,000 people. There's now I mean, the American and British media, especially, they're all up in arms that Russia is giving intelligence to Iran to try to, you know, make Trump push harder against Russia in Ukraine even though this, you know, is a, yeah, also also dangerous path. I'm not sure if what to what extent China would get get involved. I mean, do you see a pathway here from it being coming a proper regional war or or a world war? How how do you see this?
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, I don't think there's an off ramp for this war. I think it's very hard to deescalate. The idea that the Americans will just give up their petrodollar and the American bases and just go home is just absurd. That is not how empires behave. Also, Israel, because it wants to achieve the greater Israel project, is heavily invested in creating a regional conflagration to create as much havoc as possible so that that they could destroy the region and then be the only one left standing.
K? And so what Israel wants to do is drag everyone into the war, including Turkiye, including Saudi Arabia, including, basically, the entire Middle East. And so during the first couple of days, there's reporting that an Iranian throne had struck a Saudi Aramchol oil facility. And so Aramco closed down all its energy production. But then later reporting came out to reveal that, actually, the drone came from Lebanon.
So it didn't come from the E East. It came from the West, which meant Israel. Torok Carlson on his TV show sorry, sir, on on on his show said that he had received information from the Qataris, but they they had arrested two Mossad agents. And they suspected these Mossad agents of trying to sabotage the Qatar oral facilities in order to create a false flag. So the Israelis are heavily invested in trying to create as much conflict between the GCC and Iran as possible.
And now there's talk of Turkey coming in as well. Recently, there was a drone attack from Iran against Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan was very angry about this and even felt the possibility of sending in ground troops against Iran, but then it was later discovered that this was probably a false flag of of the Israelis. So the Israelis are in are heavily interested in spreading this war as far as possible and creating as much destruction as possible. And they want this war to continue for as long as possible because they have nuclear weapons. So Iranians the Iranians are not gonna hit them too hard.
The Iranians are going to hit the GCC much harder. And so it's just for the for the Israelis, they just have to endure. Right? It's a war of attrition. And then once Saudi Arabia is destroyed, once the GCC is destroyed, then Israel will be the only power left standing.
Okay? So that's so that is Israel's intention. Other nations will eventually have to be drawn in as well. So one wild card is Pakistan. So during the twelve day war, Pakistan supported Iran.
But after that, a few months after that, Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense pact with Pakistan. So if Saudi Arabia is attacked, Pakistan must come to its aid, and we know that Pakistan has nuclear weapons. So it is very likely that at some point, Saudi Arabia will join this war on behalf of the Americans because the animosity between Saudi Arabia and Iran go way back. Iran is a theocracy. Saudi Arabia is a monarchy, and they see each other as as as heretical.
Okay? As against Islam. The Iranians hate Saudi Arabia because Saudi Arabia is the home of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest sites in the Islamic world. At the same time, they host a lot of American soldiers. These are infidels in the eyes of Iranians, and so the Iranians are heavily interested in trying to topple the Saudi regime.
And they're gonna apply pressure to cause uprisings throughout the the GGC. And I believe that at some point, the Saudi government will decide to enter this war. And if they enter this war, then Pakistan is obligated to enter this war as well. If the Americans were to launch a ground invasion, it would make sense to attack from multiple vectors. And one vector would be from Pakistan.
Another vector, of course, would be from Iraq. The last vector would be from Azerbaijan. They would also try to seize the should of Hamus as soon as possible in order to maintain global trade. So that in the short term so in the short term, we can expect the entire Middle East to be engulfed in this war at some point. In the long term, eventually, the Southeast Asian economies will have to intervene.
So South Korea and Japan are extremely reliant on oil from the Strait Of Hormuz. In fact, they will basically starve to death if it were not from this oil from the Strait Of Hormuz. But there's a wild card, and that's North Korea. So if you're in North Korea and you are analyzing the situation, you recognize that now is the perfect opportunity to threaten South Korea because Americans are distracted in the Middle East, and the South Koreans don't have access to the oil they need to protect themselves against the North Koreans. So just threaten South Korea, and then the Americans are forced to to direct their attention back to Southeast Asia, and Japan is forced to come into this conflict as as well.
And the North Koreans aren't doing this to start to start a war, that means to settle. They're doing this to extort as much as possible from South Korea and Japan, And so I expect that to happen as well. The Western Hemisphere will not be quiet this time because while this is happening, Trump is still intent on toppling the Cuban government. Okay? So it's possible two weeks from now, while this war is still raging, Trump attacks Cuba or Mexico or Colombia.
It is complete insanity. But this is again, unfortunately, this is the way an empire behaves as it declines.
Speaker 0: So, yeah, what you're describing is more or less a suicide or death of empire at least. But after this war is over, of course, there's no going back to the way things were. So how do you see this the wider change to the Middle East as a region?
Speaker 1: Well, I think the GCC is done for. I don't think it's possible to come back from what's happening. And after this this war is done, I think that Israel emerges as a dominant power in the Middle East. It achieves the greater Israel project. And the Iranians will not lose this war.
They will maintain their sovereignty, but this war is gonna destroy a lot of their infrastructure, and they'll have to rebuild. Fortunately, they will be able to control the Shirdir Hormuz, and so they'll have the financing necessary to rebuild their nation. And I think that after this war, the Iranians will actually come out much stronger than before. They will be they will control the Khosil who moves. They will have a more vibrant, coherent national identity, and they will will have upgraded a lot of their military capacity.
So maybe at this war, they're destroyed, but they'll rebuild and they'll come out much stronger. And this will lead to, in a long term, regional regional conflict between Iran and Israel. And in eschatology, in Islamic and in Jewish, and in Christian eschatology, this conflict between Iran and Israel and this is a long term thing. Right? But it is often referred to as the wharf gog and magog when the entire world attacks Israel.
K? So but before that happens, Israel will achieve the greater Israel project, and it will create something called Pax Judaica. So imagine that the center of gravity basically transfers from Washington DC to Jerusalem. Why? Because at this point in history, Israel, it controls all global trade.
It's it's already built the Ben Gurion Canal, which cuts through Gaza and replaces the the Suez Canal. It is the technological and financial center of the Middle East because GCC has been destroyed. And so since whatever oil money there is is put invested into Israel. You know, the Indian prime prime minister Modi visited Netanyahu before the war struck out before the war began. And it was a very pleasant meeting.
And the reason why is that in order to build Pax Choudhaka, Israel needs to import millions and millions of cheap laborers and India is the best source of cheap laborers for for Israel. So I think that that is what they have in mind. You know, a lot of technological companies in United States, Google, Nvidia, Oracle, they are they will probably move to Jerusalem and help help build the technological center of the world, create an AI an AI surveillance state. So these past few decades, they create this surveillance model in Gaza, and then they'll just scale it out to include the entire Middle East. So that's what I see happening.
In the short in the short term, this will be devastating. In the midterm, Israel, what's the greater Israel project and create Paxhedeka. In the long term, Israel will face the world in in in a global conflict.
Speaker 0: But to what extent would Israel be in a positional to to project this kind of power? Because after this war, there would be a seemingly very diminished US presence in at least the ability to project power in the Middle East. Turkey is also growing more concerned about Israel. Indeed, Israelis also have a very tough rhetoric about Turkey and especially Erdogan. And with the war as well, the the amount of destruction that will be levied against the Israelis, the economic complications, the demographic problems as many settlers might be simply leaving.
I mean, it's not a big country. What is this? Million people now? Seven, eight? How how how would they be able to, I guess, sustain themselves in this region once all of these things begin to kick in?
Also, political instability, one could put out to the list, I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think let let's talk political instability because Israel is notorious for political divisions. Right? It's almost impossible to get people to agree on anything. Israelis argue all the time. But this war is gonna have a traumatic traumatic effect on Israeli society.
The democracy is going to to give way to a theocracy. The religious zealots are going to gain greater control over Israeli society. And what is whatever is left of an open cosmopolitan democratic society will wither away. Basically, Jerusalem will replace Tel Aviv as the heart and center of Israeli society. So that's part one.
Point two is that people severely underestimate Israel because it is a small nation in a desert with very few resources, but the real wealth of Israel is a Jewish diaspora spread all around the world. They are extremely well educated. They're $10 really savvy, and they are and and they are extremely united. Like like, they believe in the greater greater Israel project. So it's possible for Israel to draw on basically unlimited financing on the most advanced technology, on political support from all over the Jewish diaspora.
And I think that once this war is over, Israel will have no peer competitor in the Middle East, meaning that Saudi Arabia Saudi Saudi Arabia will probably be destroyed and Turkiye will be similarly weakened in the process. I'll be honest with you. I have very little hope for Turkiye. It has suffered a great deal under Edelgarn. If you go back and look at how how Edelgarn came to power and how he cemented power, I believe it it it was in the '20 what what year what year was it?
Twenty eighteen coup? And, anyway, my my point is that Turkiye is a extremely corrupt and ostified society that is a paper tiger. And if Turkeya were to enter this war, you'd be surprised by how badly it it it does. So the so Israel, in other words, doesn't have a regional competitor. Iran will be a competitor in the future, but that is in the future.
Speaker 0: Yeah. No. I think yeah. No. No.
The the the coup attempt in 2016, I think this was very clear. Well, it's not the first time they have this every now and then that the stability might be quite fragile. But you you kinda covered very well the Middle East, how The US is impacted, how this could spread to East Asia. Israel could become a theocracy. Iran, even more confident regional power.
How about Europe? Because we, you know, our the Americans liberated us from the Nord Stream pipeline by blowing it up. European leaders recently congratulated themselves for liberating themselves from Russian energy and gas and oil. Sorry. And now, of course, we've also been cut off from energy from the Middle East, and all of this was the backdrop of The United States seeking to pivot away from Europe.
So how how does this debacle in The Middle East with the war in Iran impact the Europeans?
Speaker 1: Well, it's I mean, like, the Europe Europe is completely hopeless. It's a hopeless situation. You know, for the past twenty years, it's America has screwed over Europe. So these wars in The Middle East created millions of refugees who then went to Europe. And I don't know what the Europeans were thinking in allowing these millions of refugees to come into their society when they didn't have the capacity to absorb these millions of refugees.
Right? So Edmund Merkel, the chancellor of Germany famously said, we can do it. No. You can't. And time has shown that these millions of refugees have put a turn on a strain on the social cohesion, on the capacity of the state to govern Europe.
So there's tremendous political fissures within Europe at this point, and so that's why you see the rise of these right wing parties throughout Europe. The but the main problem as you point out is the economy. So Europe suffers from an aging population, so the population itself is not no longer as dynamic as it used to be. Before, the model the German model was very good. It was this, you know, buy cheap Russian energy, make really good German cars, subcontract the labor to Poland, and then sell extremely expensive German cars to China.
It's a great model for Germany. But then when Trump came to office, the China market Germany lost lost access to the China market. And then when you have this war break out, Germany will can no longer buy cheap Russian energy. As you point out, the Europeans then pivoted to the Middle East, primarily Qatar, and now Qatar has basically shut down all in LNG production. And so Europe is completely screwed in the process, and Macron has talked about sending an aircraft carrier to the Middle East.
What's that gonna do? I mean, send an aircraft carrier so that the Iranians can sink it with ballistic missile? I mean, what's the point of that? So and and still at this time, the Europeans are still talking about drafting young men to go die in the trenches of Ukraine in in 2029. So the Europeans, the European elite have their head in the sand.
They have actually no idea what's going on. They have actually no solution to the multiple crises that they face. And the Europe is a dumpster fire. I hate to say this, but it's a dumpster fire.
Speaker 0: Well, it's hard to disagree with that assessment, but, no, things are going from bad to worse. I think the the reason why Europe went from this immense optimism to now just crash, you know, you can say hubris and all this, which is all correct, I think it was post cold world order, though. It it became ideal for the Europeans. That is, The United States were, you know, declared a unipolar moment. The the role of the Europeans in this world was, well, let's have a collective hegemony of the political West standing on these two legs of The US and the EU, hoping that Europe would be an equal partner to The United States.
And not only would the political West dominate the world, but it would be a force for good because not only would it prevent great power rivalry, but also by dominating the liberal democratic West, we'll be able to elevate the role of liberal democratic values, humanitarian ideals. So, again, it's it's almost like a civilizing mission. The dominance is us, and sovereign inequality is a force for good in the world. The world will thank us for dominating. So this is the benign hegemon.
It's very appealing if you're a politician, you say we dominate, and the world will love us for it. So now that, of course, this is falling falling apart, I guess a bit of a mirage like the Gulf States that we're relying on, it's there is no no no clarity what what to do, and there's no political imagination because they they outsourced all strategic thinking to The US for the for eighty years. Now The US is essentially, well, pulling out its knives for the Europeans. They they've done this, as you said, over the past twenty years, but they did it did it more covertly. Now they were quite open about their contempt for Europe.
So no. No. I think Europe is done. But what what does this mean for the wider world order? Because this idea of, you know, the international distribution being focused around US global primacy legitimized then by liberal democratic values.
This world order, the post cold world world order of the liberal hegemony is gone. So The US is not dominant anymore, and liberal democratic values I mean, no one really thinks this is what the Western powers are, that these are their objectives in foreign policy. It's a thin veal which has been tossed away. So what is the new world order then from your perspective, or what will follow this? Right.
Speaker 1: So there'll be three major trends that follow from this. Okay? The first major trend is deindustrialization because you don't have access to cheap energy. So you need to make your economy much more balanced before we have the growth of urban centers, which engage in a knowledge economy, which engage in AI, in EV, in solar panels. Right?
But all that but all of that requires access to cheap energy, which is what The Middle East provided. But now that The Middle East is gonna be destroyed or being gulfed in war for the next ten, twenty years, you have to deindustrialize. Have to focus more on self sufficiency. Okay? So that's the first trend, deindustrialization.
Second major trend is mercantilism. Okay? And what I mean by that is that the global order is dead. And so what you need to do is basically focus on local trade or creating your own supply networks, spirits of influence. Okay?
And the third major trend, which is most troubling is remilitarization Because pax Americana is dead and pax judicas are interested in protecting you from big bad bullies. Okay? So it's either you rearm as soon as possible and defend yourself or you will be or you'll be eaten alive by a wolf. Right? So I think in East Asia, the the first nation to recognize the changing world order, because it has no choice in the matter, is Japan.
I think that they brought in partnership with Takeuchi because she appealed to the young, and she has the charisma to galvanize the young to make make this make the sacrifices necessary in order to de industrialize, remilitarize, and create a self sufficient economic system. So I think that Japan will actually suffer in the beginning, but they will actually be in the forefront of global change. And nations that absolutely refuse to make these three necessary changes will be the most likely to suffer. And quite honestly, I have very little hope for my own country, which is China. I think that because of these changes, Japan will start to emerge as the local hegemon while China is still stuck to the old global order.
But in the short term, what this means is that The United States and China will have a rapport month. Okay? So even though this war has started, Trump will still visit Beijing March 31 at the end of this month for a three day state visit. And I think that people will be surprised by how friendly and productive this meeting will be. And in fact, actually, this year, this vote, there are scheduled three major summits between China and The United States.
And so I think that both nations are working towards a rapprochement in order to repair the global order, but there's no saving the global order. It's dying. And so if you omit this reality and commit to revamping society, the as sorry, deindustrialization, remilitarization, and moving towards a self sufficient economy, then you are much more likely to weather the storm that is coming.
Speaker 0: Well, you said that China's, yeah, stuck in the old world order, and one can see why well, with forty years of unprecedented prosperity and growth in human history, one can see why one would want to, at all cost, keep this world going even though it already went away. It's not that unlike the Europeans, though, because then, you know, the nineties, you know, it's a rebirth of Europe or, you know, thought together with The US was the center of the world. I remember having books at university, which were with the title why the twenty first century belongs to Europe. I mean, was kind of the mentality. I thought that was also always a bit ridiculous.
But, anyways, there was reason for optimism, it seemed. So that's why they also cling on to a world order, which is dying, which is why they're not able to to adjust to the new world. One place though where there's a lot of pressure to readjust to the new order is Russia. That is, you know, the spokesperson, Peskov, he was he made a comment now recently saying that we have lost what well, we have all lost what we call international law. So the system is essentially dying, if not dead.
And I think what really shook them was the decapitation strike on Iran because this is, you know, the desperate act of a dying empire, and why wouldn't they do the same towards Russia? Indeed, they've been attacking their nuclear deterrent very openly, I would say. They there was a I I think this is likely that they tried to assassinate Putin at Valdai with this attack, at least, you know, it's a theory. And, again, why why wouldn't they go for a decapitation strike against Russia? This is what many are thinking.
They look what they have done to Iran. There's no rules. So why then is Russia doing this slow war of attrition? And, also, they did this at expense of their deterrent. That is they allowed the Americans and Europeans to openly, you know, launch missiles deep into Russia.
You can have a German chancellor sitting on stage saying, oh, yes. We imposed untold casualties on the Russians. I mean, this there's so much pressure now on the Kremlin to drop this whatever they've done the past four years, and why not do like the Iranians? Time to, you know, bring some pain to the Europeans because the Europeans for the past four years said, why should the war be limited to Ukraine? Why not also extend it to Russia?
Well, why shouldn't the Russians bring it to Europe? This is what I see as the direction, which is, well, terrifying because this is you know, recipe for a much larger war. I was wondering how do you see this, the Russian component here? Because, you know, they're also one of the great powers.
Speaker 1: Right. So what so look. Look. I personally think that of all the world leaders, Vladimir Putin is the only one only one with a grand strategy. He's a very capable leader, and he sees the big picture.
He he plays chess. And so what he's waiting for is a US ground invasion of Iran. That's what he's waiting for. Because once The United States sends in ground troops, then The United States is all in. It can't extricate itself from the situation.
And at any point, The United States can stop this air campaign and say, you know what? We killed the Anatolia. We destroyed the Iranian nuclear threat. So we're gonna go home, guys. Goodbye.
Okay? But once The United States is in ground troops, then it's locked in to this Iran quagmire for five to ten years, and there's no escaping. It'll be like it'll be like another Vietnam. Right? This gives Putin and Russia the perfect opportunity to move towards Odessa, which is the real goal and the end goal of this war in Ukraine.
Because once they have Odessa, then they have basically achieved all their major military objectives. And so what's gonna happen is the Europeans will have no choice but to defend Odessa to the last European. And that's where the next major conflict will be, the siege of of Odessa. And if the siege of Odessa were to happen, the Europeans would exhaust themselves defending against the Russian attack. The Russians have perfected drone artillery warfare in the trenches of Ukraine, and that's a perfect combination if you are to besiege Odessa.
And so the Europeans, they may be fresh, but they will be inexperienced. And so they will make a lot of mistakes. They will lose a lot of casualties. And this war will eventually become so unpopular back in Europe that the that the population would would revolt against the governments. Okay?
So remember, this is a time of nuclear war, so you can't actually destroy each other's military. What you what you can do is put so much stress and pain on the global system that the citizens ultimately rebel and overthrow the the political system and and impose a new system that is much more friendly towards Russia. So that I think is the grand plan that Putin has, and it's gonna work.
Speaker 0: Well, as I think it's a Chinese who say it's we live in interesting times, so thank you very much.
Speaker 1: It's not too interesting.
Speaker 0: Well, thank you for taking the time, and, yeah, it's as as you began saying this war against Iran, like, it's hard to believe that they went through with this given all the risks, but this is I always make the point that this is gonna be the the greatest catastrophe is this illusion of escalation control, the assumption that they can control all the variables, decide how it ends, who's allowed to participate, how they contribute. I mean, this is really the same as with the Russians in Ukraine. The this assumption of escalation control. This is what's gonna kill us effectively, though.
Speaker 1: Well, I will say this. I made this prediction two years ago of The United States will would invade Iran. I've been saying for two years consistently that this would happen. The moment that it happened, I was shocked and bit wilder, and I couldn't sleep because I was like, why would they do this? So so yeah.
I mean, I I I sympathize with what what you're feeling.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
John Mearsheimer: U.S. Already Lost Iran War - No Off-Ramp in Sight https://youtu.be/1e9NhLfPNKU https://t.co/cc7CUaaIDa
Video Transcript AI Summary
John Mersheimer argues that the war against Iran is not proceeding as the United States hoped and that there is no plausible off-ramp or decisive pathway to victory. He contends that Washington cannot narrate a decisive end to the conflict the way it could have against Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan, because the war has not produced a decisive Iranian collapse. Instead, Iran has an incentive to convert the fight into a protracted war of attrition and possesses the means to do so, including a broad set of missiles and drones and the ability to retaliate across the region. The result, he says, is a stalemate in which Iran would drive a hard bargain to secure sanctions relief or other concessions, and escalation by the U.S. and Israel will simply provoke Iran to escalate further.
On why Iran will not settle on American terms, Mersheimer emphasizes that Iran has a strong hand and time on its side. He notes that the more time passes, the more desperate the U.S. will be to settle, which strengthens Iran’s position. He argues that even heavy bombardment would not compel Iran to quit; rather, Iran could strike back against Gulf states, Israel, and American assets with significant effect. The Gulf States are particularly vulnerable due to a small number of petroleum sites, short-range missiles, drones, and, crucially, desalination plants that provide most of their fresh water. He cites Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman as heavily dependent on desalination, implying that destroying such infrastructure would have catastrophic humanitarian and economic consequences. Iran could also target energy infrastructure, and even if the Strait of Hormuz remains open, widespread damage to Gulf energy infrastructure would devastate the regional and global economy. He warns that Israel could suffer increasing Iranian pressure as time goes on, especially as interceptors become depleted.
Regarding energy and the Strait of Hormuz, Mersheimer stresses that 20% of the world’s oil and gas passes through the Persian Gulf, making the energy dimension the war’s most consequential aspect. He argues that opening the Strait of Hormuz would be exceedingly difficult, and destroying desalination and petroleum infrastructure in the Gulf States would negate any advantage of keeping the straits open. He suggests that escalation without a viable endgame will have grave economic repercussions for the world, pushing the U.S. toward a coerced end that would not be a victory.
Mersheimer contends that strategic bombing or air power alone cannot win such wars. He contrasts World War II and Korea/Vietnam with the present, where there are no boots on the ground and no clear path to victory via air power alone. He notes that the deterrent value of air power is limited, and a regime change strategy is notoriously difficult without ground forces. He argues that the decapitation strategy and ongoing escalations are unlikely to produce a decisive American/Israeli victory, and could instead lead to a stalemate or American concession under economic strain.
On leadership and credibility, Mersheimer critiques U.S. leadership, particularly President Trump, for ignoring warning from generals and the National Intelligence Council that regime change was unlikely to succeed. He cites General James Mattis-era warnings that there was no viable military option and notes the pre-war intelligence that suggested limited prospects for quick regime change. He points to Trump’s sometimes contradictory and inaccurate statements about Iranian capabilities, including claims that Iran possessed Tomahawk missiles and that U.S. strikes had erased Iran’s nuclear capability. He argues that such statements undermine U.S. credibility, though he distinguishes between outright lies and genuine mistaken beliefs by leaders.
The discussion also covers Russia’s involvement, with Russia believed to be providing intelligence to Iran and possibly supplying matériel and oil if needed. Mersheimer asserts that the war benefits Russia strategically: it diverts U.S. resources from Europe and Ukraine, potentially worsens Ukraine’s trajectory, and could raise global energy prices that benefit Russian revenue. He suggests that Russia, and possibly China, have strong incentives to aid Iran to counter American power.
Europe’s role is analyzed as largely symbolic or marginal in determining the war’s outcome. Mersheimer argues that European elites are aligned with the U.S., prioritizing NATO continuity and the maintenance of American military presence, despite the damaging consequences for Europe. He suggests a radical approach for Europe: adopt a hardball stance toward the U.S., diversify its economic and strategic relations (including with China, Russia, and India), and resist being economically manipulated or coerced by Washington. He emphasizes that Europe’s interests would be better served by reducing overreliance on the United States and pursuing a more balanced set of strategic partners.
Towards the end, the hosts revisit the idea that leaders lie and that liberal democracies tend to rely more on public persuasion and propaganda, with Trump’s statements illustrating the complexities of truth in international politics. The conversation ends with a reflection on whether Europe should recalibrate its posture toward the United States and broaden its strategic hedges to protect its own interests, rather than assuming continued U.S. leadership in a costly and protracted confrontation with Iran.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined by professor John Mersheimer, to discuss the war against Iran, which is, definitely not going as planned. So thank you very much for coming back on.
Speaker 1: My pleasure, Glenn.
Speaker 0: So, well, as I said, the the war definitely not going as, Trump had hoped, but, it seems to be going as, many would have predicted. Indeed, Trump himself had, was met with a lot of warnings before he went down this road. And, now, of course, it's unclear what direction he should take. We also see reports from the Israeli sorry, from the American media that even Israel is now growing concerned. They don't think is that Iran's gonna collapse.
They don't think it's going to surrender. So what exactly if time is on Iran's side, why go down this road? And the Wall The Wall Street Journal said something similar that Trump's adviser would like to find a quick exit from this war. So what do you make of this? Is is this reaching the end of the war, or will Iran not permit this?
Speaker 1: Well, it's quite clear that the war is not going well for The United States, and that president Trump, I think, would like to put an end to it. And the problem that he faces is he can't find an off ramp. I think nobody can tell a plausible story about how this war ends. If we had decisively defeated Iran the way we decisively defeated both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II, then you can say the war is over with, we are the winner, and we're gonna impose terms on the loser. But that's not what's happened here.
They haven't won anything approximating a decisive victory. And in a very important way, the Iranians have an incentive to continue the war, to turn it into a protracted war of attrition, and they have the means to do that. So the question then is how does President Trump get Iran to agree to settle this war. When you listen to people in the administration talk, they sometimes talk as if we're the only player in the game. Of course, the Israelis as well.
But the Americans and the Israelis are in the driver's seat. We determined when the war started, we determined when it ends, we determined the conditions that the Iranians have to accept. This is the sort of view you get from inside the administration. But this is not the way the real world works. The Iranians have a say in this.
And the question is how do you get the Iranians to agree to stop fighting? Now some people might say that we are inflicting so much punishment on the Iranians that they would be happy to quit. Pete Hegseth has been saying that today is going to be the day of the heaviest bombardment that Israel and The United States inflict on Iran. Okay. Let's assume they inflict more punishment today than they have in any of the previous eleven days of the war.
Does that mean that the Iranians are gonna throw up their hands and quit? I hardly think that's the case. I think that Iran has prepared itself to accept massive punishment by The United States and Israel. So we can dish it out, but the Iranians are not going to throw their hands up. And in fact what the Iranians are gonna do is they're gonna up the ante from their side.
As we go up the escalation ladder, they'll go up the escalation ladder. If you start destroying critical infrastructure inside of Iran, they'll destroy critical infrastructure inside The Gulf States and inside of Israel. And they can do it. They have lots of ballistic missiles, they have lots of drones, almost all of them are highly accurate, and they're operating in a target rich environment. It's not like they can't find targets to hit.
They can hit vulnerable and important economic and strategic targets with relative ease. So they have a strong hand to play. And when I say they, I mean the Iranians have a strong hand to play. And they have no incentive to settle this one on America's terms. They have a deep seated interest in making sure they get something out of a settlement, sanctions relief, reparations, who knows?
But they're going to drive a hard bargain because the more time goes by the more desperate we are going to be to settle this one. So all of this is to say, I don't see what the off ramp is at this point in time for President Trump. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm missing something and the war can just be shut down. But nobody's been able to tell me a plausible story as to how you bring this thing to an end anytime soon.
I would just say one final point, Glenn. I think if the effects on the international economy are significant, it looks like we're heading off a cliff and that is possible, I think at that point the Americans will bring the war to an end, but that will not be a victory. We will have caved in to the Iranians if that scenario plays itself out. And that is, as you well know, a very realistic scenario.
Speaker 0: What do you describe though, what The United States hoped or thought the war would be like, it it's, you know, what we refer to then as escalation dominance, this assumption that one can decide the pace of moving up or down the escalation ladder. This seems to be something that is reasonable once one is in a comfortable hegemonic position, that is, when one can dominate, that is to dictate when the war starts, who should be involved, what are acceptable targets, when do we put an end to it. But but but it just seems that Iran can't end this war because if they end it now, except some ceasefire, then I guess the main fear, not unlike what the Russians are fearing, is then that The US would just be back again in a few months. So but but if there is no deal I mean, if if you look at the Russian conflict, if they can't get a deal which gives them security, they will take territory to make sure. But on the Iranian side, if they can't get any deal which gives them proper security to make sure this doesn't happen again, you know, they're not going for territory.
It looks as if, well, kicking The US out of the region by eliminating these Gulf States could be a reasonable pathway. I used the word reasonable, well, probably not correct here. But but what do you think is the consequence for the Gulf States here? How vulnerable are they?
Speaker 1: Well, the Gulf States are remarkably vulnerable. I mean, first of all, they have only a handful of petroleum sites where they reprocess the petroleum and the liquid natural gas and so forth and so on. The petroleum infrastructure is just very vulnerable. These are big fat targets and there's no question that the Iranians can take out the petroleum infrastructure in all the Gulf States with relative ease. They have the short range ballistic missiles and the drones to do it.
But the other set of targets that really matters are the desalination plants. These countries in The Gulf States are heavily dependent on fresh water that comes out of the desalination plants. I was reading the other day that there's one desalination plant that services Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. And if you take that desalination plant out, you're taking away 90% of the water that Riyadh depends on. And overall it appears that the country of Saudi Arabia depends on 70% of its water from desalination plants.
Kuwait, the number is 90%. Oman, the number is 76%. I mean these countries are just massively dependent on desalinization plants. And water, you can't live without water, just think about that. So you have this vulnerable set of targets, these desalination plants that the Iranians can easily take out.
And then you have the petroleum sites that I talked about earlier that are few in number, easily targeted, and can be taken out. You can wreck these states. You can take, you know, Abu Dhabi and and just wreck it. So Iranians have really serious options here. And then if you turn to Israel, I don't think that Iran could do that to Israel.
But as time goes by and as the Israelis run out of defensive interceptors, you know, interceptors that can knock down these incoming ballistic missiles, the amount of damage that Iran can do to Israel will be very great. And, you already see evidence that the Iranians are pounding Israel and that pounding will get greater with the passage of time. So this is why it's so obvious that the Iranians have real options. The idea that we have escalation dominance and that, you know, we can beat the Iranians as we go up the escalation ladder think is a fallacious argument. They have in a way an assured destruction capability.
They can destroy The Gulf States and that would have a profound effect on the world economy. Surely President Trump and his advisors have begun to realize that That's one of the reasons I think they're interested in looking for an off ramp now. But then the question is how do you find the off ramp? And I don't think there is an off ramp at this point. And I think what they'll do is they'll escalate.
And they'll think that escalation will solve the problem. This gets back to my point about what Pete Hegseth is saying about today, Tuesday being the day when we will inflict the most punishment on the Iranians that we have inflicted so far. Okay, we start walking up the escalation ladder, but then this brings me back to my point about what the Iranians can do if they go up the escalation ladder with us. And the point is they can do massive damage to the Gulf States. So they have options here and they can do massive damage to the international economy.
So I think going up the escalation ladder is not gonna produce a satisfactory outcome for us, for The United States, and for Israel.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Given that they're so vulnerable with the desalination plants, it's a bit strange that The United States would have chosen to escalate by attacking the desalination plant within Iran because now Iran can almost well, can can retaliate by by the same means without being seen as the the main aggressor, essentially having an alibi to do so. But what how significant though is the attack on the or the suspension of the trade in energy? Because did you know, when people make the point, it's also linked into the entire international financial system with the petrodollar, but but this is seems to be one of the areas where the Trump administration is worried. Again, they make the point now that if Iran tries to block the Strait Of Hormuz, then well, according to Trump's tweet, they will hit Iran 20 times harder.
And now we hear Macron also say, well, we're gonna come and help defensively somehow to open up the Strait Of Vermouth. So how how do you see how important is the energy aspect here, or what what kind of dimensions are there to it?
Speaker 1: Well, the energy dimension is of enormous importance. 20% of the world's oil and gas comes out of the Persian Gulf. It just matters enormously and everybody understands that if this turns into a long war it will have disastrous consequences for the world economy. Again, this is one of the principal reasons that President Trump is looking for an off ramp. He likes to talk about opening the Straits Of Hormuz.
All I can say is good luck on that one. If that was easy we would have done it earlier. I don't think we can open the Straits Of Hormuz. You remember not too long ago President Trump was talking about escorting tankers in the Persian Gulf And the Navy basically told them that was not possible. Those naval ships, American naval ships, would be too vulnerable.
So I don't think that they can open the straits. The other thing you want to remember is if they actually destroy the petroleum infrastructure in the Gulf States, it doesn't matter whether the Straits Of Hormuz is open or not because there's going to be no oil coming out of the Straits Of Hormuz. And if they destroy the desalination plants and the petroleum installations in the Gulf States, are effectively not going be any Gulf States left. I mean the point is that the Iranians have options here. They can play hardball and the consequences would be devastating for the Gulf States.
And as I say, then it wouldn't matter whether the straits are open or not. But I don't think we're going to open the straits anyway. I don't think we're going to put naval ships in the Persian Gulf either. So I think in a very important way the Iranians are in the driver's seat. If I can just make a historical point that gets back to an issue that you were raising before having to do with escalation dominance and air power and even decapitation.
If you go back to the period before World War I, as we all know wars before World War I had no air dimension. Wars were fought between armies and navies. And it was in World War I where we first saw air forces employed by the fighting forces in Europe. Then after the war, this is in the nineteen twenty's and the nineteen thirty's, this is before World War II, you developed independent air forces. And those air forces became very interested in strategic bombing.
And strategic bombing is another way of saying long range bombing. And the idea was, and this was of course popular in the air forces of the world and among air force thinkers, that an air force by itself could independently win a war. In other words, you would no longer have to win that war on the ground or at sea. You could just take your air force and you could hit the other country's homeland. You could hit its economy, you could hit its population, you could hit its military forces, whatever.
And you could bring that country to its knees with air power alone. And in a very important way we tested this in World War II and we have tested this theory many times since. Now there are still some people who believe you can do magical things with strategic air power, which again is another way of saying with air power alone. But the fact is there are real limits to what you can do. There's no question that you want to have a powerful air force if you go to war.
And there's no question that in some cases strategic bombing helps win a war. But strategic air power by itself cannot win a war. It just can't. The historical record is unequivocally clear on this. So when you go to war against a country like Iraq in 2003, you definitely use air power.
You remember shock and awe Glenn. That was the American Air Force pounding Iraq before we sent the ground forces in. Strategic bombing came before the ground forces went in. But the fact is to create regime change and win a decisive victory in Iraq we had to use land power. We had to send in ground forces.
We couldn't do it with air power alone. Fast forward to the present. This is a campaign where we have no boots on the ground. There's no land power. And we're talking about doing it with air power alone.
We're talking about doing it with strategic bombing. This is what the decapitation strategy in the opening stages of the war was all about. And when people now talk about going up the escalation ladder, when you talk about Pete Hekseith announcing that we're going to punish Iran more today than we have in any of the previous eleven days, what they're saying is that we're going to win this war with strategic air power, with air power alone. We don't need ground forces. Well the historical record again is unequivocally clear on this.
You can't win wars, especially against formidable adversaries, with air power alone. It just doesn't work. So here we are in a world where we have no boots on the ground and president Trump does not want to put boots on the ground, I mean serious boots on the ground, are we gonna conquer Iran the way we conquered Iraq? I don't think so. So of course the end result is that we're relying on strategic air power alone.
And what are we gonna do? We're gonna punish Iran like it's never been punished before. There's no question about that. You turn the American and Israeli air forces loose on Iran, they're going to inflict an enormous amount of punishment, do an enormous amount of damage to Iran. No question about that.
But again, the historical record is clear that countries can absorb that punishment. Look at what we did in World War II. Look at what we did in Korea. Look at what we did in Vietnam. You can inflict massive punishment on civilian populations and the countries fight on.
And in terms of military targets, we're not going to get all those ballistic missiles and drones. They're going to continue to fire ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, at The Gulf States, and at American military assets. So strategic bombing is not going to produce a decisive victory here in all likelihood unless there's a miracle. And I don't believe in miracles. I hope I'm wrong.
You know, I hope this war comes to an end. But I don't think that's going to happen. And I think the historical record is on my side. So when Pete Heksith and President Trump talk about escalation dominance and pounding Iran more than ever, don't believe that that's gonna gonna work. It hasn't worked in the past, and there's no reason to think it's gonna work now.
Speaker 0: Yeah. This is a problem, how to put an end to the war on stars. I think it was Ottoman Bismarck who made the point that it was something along the line that it was easy to lure the Russian bear out of his side, but difficult to get him back in. You can say the same about the Iranians here, because they they didn't want this war, but now that it's here, it's it's very dangerous for them, I think, if it ends on terms, which would will allow the whole thing to play out yet again. So not not to draw too many parallels with the Russians again, but I also think that for them now restoring their deterrent to make sure that no one goes down this path again is, I guess, a key a key objective.
But this comparison to Iraq, though, I mean, even if even if one would introduce ground troops, Iraq is Iran is almost four times the territory of Iraq, and it has almost twice the population. This is a massive country. The I don't know. I thought it was strange that the idea of introducing some a few Kurdish troops was was somehow gonna overrun this country. It's I mean, as you said, it will contribute probably probably significantly to disrupt and destroy things, but but but in terms of if if there's an objective besides just causing death and mayhem, then it it is unclear.
Is is this the source of the miscalculation, though? Because the idea that you could regime change a country only with an air force, because, you know, there had to be a plan. It appears to be have have been regime change. And it again, in in this country, we actually had in Norway, we actually had a political leader of one of the political parties who who went out on Facebook or Twitter and actually wrote that, well, now the Iranian regime has fallen because they saw that Khomeini had been assassinated, so that's it. Now the government is over.
I mean, is this the kind of the thinking that, you know, you have one bad man. If we just kill the bad man, then the regime is gone. I it's very hard it's so remarkably stupid if if this is the case. Well, that fact that you have leaders, political leaders who think in this way, communicate in this way, it makes you think no one's behind the wheel, I guess.
Speaker 1: Well, a couple points. I think that the initial strategy, and we have gotten at this issue in our previous comments, but the initial strategy was decapitation. And then if the decapitation didn't work, I believe that we felt that we could punish them in ways that would force them to throw up their hands and surrender. We would have escalation dominance. And this is another way of saying we thought we could do it with air power alone.
Now, very importantly, the administration was told by insiders, two sets of insiders before the war, that this was unlikely to work. You remember that General Cain, who was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was handpicked by President Trump to be the Chairman Remember, he brought him out of retirement. He was only a three star general. President Trump brought him out of retirement, made him a four star general and made him chairman of the Joint Chiefs. So he was, in a very important way, Trump's general.
Much to his credit, General Keane told President Trump that we did not have a viable military option. This is before February 28. Furthermore, the National Intelligence Council, which is separate from General Kane, did a study before the war that said, you're unlikely to get regime change and bring this war to a quick end. This was careful analysis done by the National Intelligence Council, done by insiders. So there were two flashing orange lights, if not red lights, that were in the president's face that he just ignored.
And as I said to you before, you know, we have a huge body of literature on air wars and sanctions and regime change that anyone can easily access and easily figure out what the bottom lines are here. It's not a complex literature in the sense that almost everybody agrees that air power alone or strategic bombing doesn't win wars, that sanctions have real limits, that regime change is wickedly difficult. First of it's almost impossible without ground forces, but even with ground forces the whole process is wickedly difficult. The literature is unequivocally clear on this. So when you marry what we know from previous analysis by scholars and policy analysts with the fact that you had General Kane and the National Intelligence Council warning the president not to do this, And when 20% of the American people approved it but the rest didn't, you want to think about that, only 20% of the American people were enthusiastic about this war.
The other 80% either opposed it or wasn't too sure. To go to war, you know, in those circumstances is quite remarkable and you just sort of wonder what was Trump thinking? How could he have possibly done this? And when you look at where we are today, given everything I just said, it's hardly surprising that we're in a real mess and there's no apparent way to get out of it. It's just not surprising.
What is happening now is consistent with the historical record. And just to add one more dimension to this, go back to the twelve day war last June. The twelve day war between Israel and The United States on one side and Iran on the other side. It was the Israelis and the Americans, not the Iranians, who wanted to end that war after twelve days. Decapitation didn't work in that war.
We didn't have escalation dominance in that war. I mean, what more evidence do you need before February 28 to tell you that this is a bad idea? But nevertheless, Trump jumped in along with Netanyahu who, of course, was pushing him and promising him that we would have a quick victory, and here we are.
Speaker 0: See, that's a great point. That makes this even more extraordinary, the fact that we already had this war back in June for twelve days, and it was the same problems. I mean, the the weapon shortage, that was a key problem. That's why they had to put an end to it. And, of course, because it was only with Israel, Iran was more willing to put an end to it.
But how does it surprise you The US didn't pack a bigger bag for this war, though, and that they didn't have more weapons? Because I heard they only prepared for a few weeks at most, but this is yeah. Or it was was or was it just assumption that if it didn't work, then we can just put it to halt again after twelve days like last time?
Speaker 1: Well, you're assuming that president Trump is a rational legal thinker. Right? You're assuming that he does the careful analysis that you would do or I would do if we were taking our countries into war. But that's just not the way he operates. And it's clear from listening to him talk that he has all these pictures in his head that bear no resemblance to reality.
He's constantly saying things that are just simply untrue. And if he believes them, you know, you can see why he just does foolish things. He's recently been saying that, first of all, Iran has weapons that are not accurate at all. These are all inaccurate weapons. Nothing could be further from the truth.
They have ballistic missiles and drones that are highly accurate. Not all of the ballistic missiles for sure, but many of them and certainly almost all the drones. But to say that they have an inventory of weapons that are all inaccurate is a foolish thing to say. And then furthermore, he made the outlandish comment that Iran has Tomahawk missiles. There's no way Iran would have Tomahawk missiles.
How could he say that? And then he tells all these stories about, you know, how we decimated last year Iran's nuclear capability. We basically erased it from the map. But now we find out that that wasn't true, that 60% enriched uranium that Iran had before the twelve day war started, before we, The United States, bombed those critically important Iranian nuclear sites on 06/22/1965. Despite all that, the Iranians 60% enriched nuclear material is still there.
We didn't destroy it, but he said we did. So you never know exactly what he's thinking, but it does seem quite clear that the pictures, many of the pictures that he has in his head, don't square with reality. And in that circumstance he can understand how he could be bamboozled by someone like Prime Minister Netanyahu into thinking he could win a quick and decisive victory. And by the way, if there's one person who was telling him that this was all going to work out in a magical way and we were going to live happily ever after a quick military victory against Iran. It was Prime Minister Netanyahu.
He's been arguing for a long time that the regime in Iran was vulnerable and all we had to do was hit it hard and it would collapse and apparently more moderate leaders would take over in Iran who would be willing to be subservient to The United States and Israel. But we just had to show that we had the courage this is Prime Minister Netanyahu speaking we just had to show that we had the courage to really hit Iran hard, to pursue a regime change strategy. And Netanyahu, for God knows how long, had been trying to get The United States to do that. He's trying he had been trying to drag us into a war against Iran by promising us that it would produce a great victory. But every president before Trump, including President Biden, avoided falling into that trap because they all understood that it was a trap and that we would not win a quick and decisive victory.
But anyway, it appears that prime minister Netanyahu bamboozled president Trump, convinced him that we would win a quick and decisive victory. And we have not won that quick and decisive victory.
Speaker 0: We can set another great irony here that is the whole argument that the Iranians are, you know, an irrational actor while we see now this kind of a bit unhinged rhetoric coming from the White House because only over the past twenty four hours, I've seen Trump's claim that, the Iranians told Witkoff that, you know, they would insist on developing nuclear weapons no matter what, that Iran was gonna take over the whole Middle East if we hadn't, attacked first. We had maybe three days before Iranians would have attacked The United States, and, again, with this attack on the girls school, killing 160 girls, very young ones as well. It looked many of them were between eight and ten. I I use again, I went with assumption that this was at least well, I think a safe assumption that it was a mistake. You know, no one hopefully doesn't target and kill 160 young girls on purpose, but I don't understand, first, the claim, well, there was an Iranian missile, then find out there's a tomahawk.
His whole administration then goes on, you know, moving away from, okay, Iran didn't bomb, you know, kill these girls on their own. But then moving on to the tomahawk that, yeah, Iran could have it. I mean, nobody else in the administration would go out, you know, with such an absurd statement. Just seems that, you know, governments always lie, all governments, but this really, you know, takes it to a new level to the extent that the credibility, not just of Trump, but The United States could be at at risk. And, you know, that's a, you know, it's a nonmaterial asset, you can call it, but it's still very vital, it would seem, though.
Speaker 1: Well, I think if you look at both Iran and Russia, whether you like the regimes in those two countries or not, I think the leaders, and here we're talking about Putin in the case of Russia, and of course Ayatollah Khomeini and now his son, all the evidence is that these regimes are rational legal, that they're thinking strategically. I mean, just to segue to Putin for a second, Putin is a first rate strategic thinker. I don't know how anybody could disagree with that. The idea that he's some sort of fool who's detached from reality makes no sense. You don't have to like what he's doing.
You can think that he was wrong to invade Ukraine. I understand that. But he thinks in a very logical way. I think he has a powerful strategic mind. And I think if you look at the Iranians, you listen to the foreign minister talk, he is an impressive individual.
Again, you don't have to like the Iranian regime and you can view Iran as an adversary. But I think it's very important when you're in a war and you're trying to assess the other side that you do it in a rational, legal way. And if the other side is smart and clever that you appreciate that fact and take it into account as you put your plans together for dealing with the adversary. But all I would say is that The United States, when it comes to dealing with Russia, when it comes to dealing with China as well, and when it comes to dealing with Iran, you're dealing with leaders in those countries who are smart and who know how to think strategically. But then when you look at the Europeans and you look at the Americans, especially President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and you listen to them talk, you say to yourself, it's not clear that these people understand strategy 101.
It's not clear that they're operating in a rational, legal way. Sometimes I think it's quite frightening to hear President Trump talk about a particular issue because the things he's saying are just simply not true. Again, the point about Iran having Tomahawk missiles. This is just not a plausible argument aside from the fact that it's not true. It's just not plausible.
And he tells stories like that all the time. So I think that when you look at our side of the equation, it's not a pretty picture.
Speaker 0: Well, you have no. No. Definitely. You have written a book on this topic that is titled Why Leaders Lie? So the truth about lying in international politics.
What how do you make sense of this then? Or or why? Because I I remember from from your book that one of the key arguments was that often we find more lying in from from liberal democracies. I remember I cited that once in political propaganda because we often portray propaganda simply coming from authoritarian states. But if you go back to Walter Lippmann, Edouard Bernays, all the original scholars on on propaganda, they all made the point that, you know, if you're a liberal democracy, then, essentially, sovereignty has been transferred to the people.
There's more need to to manage the masses. So there was was more demand for propaganda. But kinda we we we propagandize the concept of propaganda to only mean what other people would do. But but how do you have any conclusions why how it came to this? Because as I said, this is the stories in the media is is just you know, it it yeah.
It's beyond belief. It's it's not credible in any way.
Speaker 1: Let me excuse me, Glenn. Let me make a couple points. First of all, in the book that I wrote about lying, one thing you discover is that there are not many lies told by states to other states. And one of the reasons is that if you lie all the time then lying becomes an ineffective tool. In other words, lying only works when the other side suspects that you're telling the truth.
So if you're a habitual liar, lying is just a waste of time. So I was actually shocked to discover when I wrote the book and many of my audiences refused to believe the argument that states don't lie to each other very much. And the argument I made was that you see more lying by state leaders to their own publics than you see cases of state leaders lying to other leaders. And this is counterintuitive and I found it hard to swallow at first, but I just gave you the logic. Now, as you point out, I also found that in democracies leaders are more likely to lie than they are in autocracies for the reasons that you laid out.
So you see quite a few instances of presidents lying to the public. And of course this book was written before President Trump. So how does President Trump fit with this book? First of all, President Trump doesn't lie on a lot of occasions because he actually believes what he is saying, which is scarier than him lying. I think he actually believes a lot of these statements that he makes that bear little resemblance to reality.
I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if he believes that Iran has Tomahawk missiles. He has a lot of false beliefs firmly embedded in his brain. So that's point one. Point two is I do think that he tells lots of lies. I think he lies, one could argue, almost all the time.
He's constantly telling lies. But the fact is that they're ineffective because everybody understands that he's lying. He just says whatever he thinks. As I said before, he may believe some of those things and if he believes them then they're not lies. But then there are other occasions where he says things that he has to know are not true.
But the fact that he tells so many lies means that lying is not an effective instrument for him. Lying, again, is only effective when people think that you're a truth teller or that you're not going to lie. If you and I have a personal relationship that spanned twenty five years and we've had a huge number of interactions, you, Glenn and I, and I've always been truthful to you, it's easy for me to lie to you because you trust me and you let your guard down. But if you've dealt with me for twenty five years, we're friends but you know that I lie all the time, I really can't get away with a meaningful lie because you just don't trust me. You see the logic?
So I think with regard to president Trump, the fact that he lies just doesn't make that much difference. It doesn't buy him anything. And if anything, because some people think some of the time that he really believes what he says, you think that he's not playing with a full deck.
Speaker 0: Well, I'm I'm glad you well, before pivoted a bit towards Russia because that seems to be a possible well, an an important component now. Well, for for two reasons. I guess one would be well, how how do you see Russia's involvement here? There's been a lot of noise in the media that the the Russians are providing intelligence to Iran to, yeah, to hit American targets. I, yeah, I kind of assumed that this was happening.
I think I assumed the Chinese were doing the same as they have a war concern, of course, that Iran could be defeated. But also, of course, because, well, The United States is doing the exact same thing in Ukraine, but but also how what do you think the the extent of the Russian involvement is? But also, how do you think this war is affecting our war in Ukraine at the moment?
Speaker 1: I think, to start with the latter part of your questioning, that this war is wonderful news for the Russians. First of all, it means that The United States is wasting precious assets in this fight that it might otherwise give to the Europeans or allow the Europeans to buy to give to the Ukrainians. I think that there's no question that this is hurting Ukraine's efforts on the battlefield because we're expending huge amounts of munitions in this fight. Patriots, THAADs, things like that are being used. And by the way, you notice that we're bringing THAADs and patriots from East Asia to the Middle East.
And this means that we're weakening our deterrent against China. We're weakening our containment policy vis a vis China. But going back to the Russians, the Russians fully understand that this is going to have deleterious effects for the Ukrainians. Furthermore, as you know, The United States has been working overtime, the West has been working overtime to inflict pain on the Russian economy. This war is going to have the opposite effect.
If, you know, the flow of oil and gas out of the Persian Gulf is greatly reduced, that means the demand for Russian oil and gas is gonna go up. And we already see evidence that The United States is willing to allow India now to buy more oil from the Russians because India is hurting as a result of the cutoff in The Gulf. So economically this is wonderful news for Russia and again in terms of the battlefield it's wonderful news. So I think this is a net positive for the Russians from that point of view. With regard to what the Russians are doing to help the Iranians, as you know that's hard to tell, I think that it is quite clear that the Russians are providing intelligence for the Iranians and that that intelligence is helping the Iranians wage the war.
And it's limiting what the Americans and the Israelis can do to defend against Iranian ballistic missiles. So I think that is almost certainly being done. And I wouldn't be surprised if at some point if Iran needs oil that the Russians provide oil or gas to the Iranians. It's hard to say for sure what's going on there, but that's another possibility. And I wouldn't be surprised if they provided some weaponry before the war and they'll provide weaponry during the war.
What exactly they'll provide in terms of numbers and quality, who knows? But I wouldn't be surprised if the Russians and the Chinese as well are helping the Iranians. Both of those countries obviously have a deep seated interest in seeing Iran defeat The United States and Israel in this war. I mean, if you or I were playing China's hand or playing Russia's hand, we would want to see the United States suffer a humiliating defeat in its fight with Iran. So the incentives here for Russia and China to help Iran are great.
And exactly what they're doing is hard to say, but it does look like they're helping out, especially with regard to intelligence. And that's complicating our problem.
Speaker 0: It seems another benefit for the Russians though would be to, I guess, improve their image within Iran because, you know, if you take a step back and stretch out for, you know, your viewpoint over the past centuries now, the Iranians and the Russians have you know, they had quite a few wars behind them, and there's every reason in the war in the world for the Iranians to distrust the Russians as well. This is a, I guess, a good opportunity for the Russians, though, to be seen as a savior instead of a nemesis or, you know, someone who who, you know, stab them in the back at the most critical hour. But it's yeah. I my last question was really about Europe, though, because it doesn't it it also has, well, responded in some very strange ways. The the the EU, of course, is, you know, is giving its full full support, at least rhetorically.
I think Mertz, he positions himself now as the number one Trump man to support whatever Trump wants to do. The British are also, of course, supportive, but they didn't wanna send any weapons. Then now they do wanna send weapons, but Trump doesn't want it because according to Trump, they already won. How how do you make sense of the European position on this? And, you know, how much what's the relevance of French participation, you think?
And how how how is Europe impacted by this war? Because, you know, we just cut ourselves off or we like to say liberated ourselves from Russian energy, and now the Iranians are liberating us from Middle Eastern energy. It's it's not much more, coming our way, it seems.
Speaker 1: I think the economic consequences for Europe, if this war escalates and some of the scenarios we described at the start of the program play out, the consequences of that for Europe would be catastrophic. And I think the European elites understand that. I think they wish very much that this war had never started. This is a war that is not good for Europe. But as is almost always the case, the Europeans do pretty much what the Americans want them to do.
And they're kissing up to the Americans and supporting the American war effort, failing to condemn The United States and Israel for this brazen war of aggression, for assassinating the leader of a foreign country. The Europeans are not condemning this, save for the Spanish. It's really what you would expect from the Europeans. And what drives this, as we've talked about many times before, Glenn, is the European fear that The United States will leave Europe or at least markedly reduce its military footprint. The Europeans don't want that.
They want to keep NATO intact. They want to keep the Americans fully committed to Europe. And the European elites believe that the only way you can do that is to lick America's boots. And in this case that means lick president Trump's boots. And so as you would expect, the Europeans are following the Pied Piper.
The question is do the Europeans matter in terms of winning this war? And the answer is no. I mean who cares whether the Europeans get involved or not. Maybe they'll help on the margins but that just doesn't matter at this point. There's nothing the Europeans can do to, you know, fundamentally affect the balance of power between Iran on one side and The United States and Israel on the other side.
I mean, President Macron talks like, this is, 1799 or eighteen o five where France is, you know, under Napoleon and by far the most powerful state in Europe. It's Europe's Godzilla and France can do X, Y, and Z. Those days are long gone. France has very little military capability and it certainly has little capability to affect events in the Middle East. So it just doesn't matter very much.
This war is gonna be settled between the Iranians on one side and the Americans and the Israelis on the other side. And what's in the interest of those three actors is what really matters here. And from Europe's point of view, the sad truth is that their interests are going to be largely ignored because the Americans are just not going to pay Europe's interests much attention. We don't care that much about Europe. President Trump views the Europeans with contempt.
The idea that he's going to go out of his way to help Europe is not a serious argument. In fact, if the Europeans get hurt in the process, I would imagine that President Trump will think that's a good thing. Know, he has contempt for the European elites. So Europe is in real trouble. It started with the Ukraine war, and this war just makes a bad situation much worse.
Speaker 0: That seems like, again, I I always agreed with the idea that The United States is the pacifier, and we and Europe's gonna have a lot of problems fragmenting if not so much if more than when United States departs, but it it looks as if the efforts now to keep The US there is will will only fragment Europe faster because we're gonna keep The US there by prolonging the Ukraine war, which means we're turning we we turn on the Slovakians, the Hungarians, you know, ignore them, or now that Mertz was sitting next to Trump, and Trump could just hammer away threatening Spain, and, you know, Mertz has to sit there obediently, not say anything critical because he has to show loyalty to Trump. And now, of course, they're alienating the Spanish, so it just seems, you know, always the worst of both worlds is what the Europeans are are going for. It's quite, yeah, it's quite extraordinary to watch. It doesn't give one a lot of optimism.
Speaker 1: Yes. Let me make a radical statement, Glenn. I think that one could make an argument that it's in the European's interest to in effect pursue the Spanish model vis a vis The United States, to play hardball with The United States, to tell The United States that you're going to greatly improve your relations with China, you're going to trade with China, and you're going to trade sophisticated technologies with the Chinese. And if the Americans don't like that, well, we'll cut a deal then. But in the meantime, we're going to fundamentally change our relationship with China.
And furthermore, with regard to the Middle East, we're going to condemn what you're doing in the most powerful terms. And we're even going to look for ways to punish you. Aggression. We're going to condemn you for collaborating with the Israelis and waging a genocide. We're going to condemn you for assassinating Ayatollah Khomeini.
Pursuing a really hardball strategy with The United States, and given that The United States needs Europe in all sorts of ways, that will provide the Europeans with some leverage so that they can protect their own interests. And what we're saying here is that by constantly kowtowing to the Americans by licking President Trump's boots, you put your situation you put yourself in a situation where your interests are not protected and if anything your interests are hurt and you're getting yourself into more and more trouble as the years go by. That's the way I'd look at it if I were a European, but again this is radical argument and the European's brains have been grooved to think that this is heresy. That the arguments I'm making are wrong. They're just simply wrong.
We don't have to analyze them. We just dismiss them out of hand. We've learned all along that the only way to deal with The United States is to be nice and to be subservient. That might have been true at one point, but I don't think that's true with President Trump. And I'm surprised they haven't figured that out.
I think the Spanish leader has figured that out. President Trump is a classic bully. In many ways, The United States is a country that is a bully and long has been a bully. But President Trump is a classic bully. The only way you deal with a bully is you stand up to that bully and if you show weakness, the bully will walk all over you.
And of course this is what President Trump is doing with the Europeans. He walks all over them. He doesn't pay attention to their interests. He does what he thinks is in America's interests and if that hurts the Europeans, tough luck for them. That's his approach.
And you would think that the Europeans would have learned this by now and would have altered their policies towards The United States in fundamental ways. But apparently, that's not the case.
Speaker 0: No. I just like I said, I I don't think it's radical at all. I I always make the point as well that the the most important partner for Europe, should be The United States. But if you want to keep this relationship, then, you know, the Europe should do exactly the opposite of what its instincts tells it, that is not to put all its eggs in that one basket. What you wanna do is diversify, work with the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, and all others, because if you have this asymmetrical interdependence where all of Europe's relations depend on The US, but Europe is not really that important to The US, with this asymmetry, The US can walk all over Europe, and the relationship isn't any more sustainable.
So if you wanna save the relationship, you need a balance of dependence, diversify as well. I mean, this is the logic of the Russians. For them, the the Chinese relationship is the most important they have, but they also realize there's asymmetry there, that they would become much too dependent on China compared to China's dependence on Russia. So they recognize if they want the Chinese relationship to work. You diversify as well.
You also would deal with the Indians and all others. And, you know but I think the mindset in Europe is just, America's our liberal democratic partner, so let's just show our loyalty. Let's cut ourselves off from the Russians, cut ourselves off from the Chinese, you know, threaten the Indians a little bit, and now the Americans will reward us for our loyalty and, you know, sit in front of his desk, call him daddy, and somehow everything will be fine. It's it's very strange. I don't understand where where the thinking is, but yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. With with regard to India, I've given a number of talks in India recently, and I was recently in Mumbai. And my advice to the Indians, I hate to say this as an American, but if I were an Indian, I would not get too close to The United States. As I like to say, The United States is a rogue elephant and if India gets close, it will pay a certain price. It discovered this last year when we put when President Trump put 50% tariffs on India.
And I think that basic logic which applies to India applies to the Europeans as well. You just do not want to get too close to The United States because when you do that you give The United States all the leverage and The United States will use that leverage. That's certainly true of President Trump. So you want to give The United States as little leverage over you as possible and you want to maximize the amount of leverage that you have over The United States. This is my point about trading with China.
The United States has a vested interest in making sure that European states don't trade sophisticated technologies with the Chinese. Okay. But that tells me that the Europeans therefore have leverage. They can threaten to trade sophisticated technologies with the Chinese. The Americans will not want that and the Europeans can exact the quid pro quo from the Americans if they cut off the flow of cutting edge technologies to, China.
Speaker 0: Well, thank you very much, John, for taking the time. As always, I always learn a lot listening to you. So, thank you, and I hope you come back on soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me, Glenn. I enjoyed the conversation. I just wish the subject wasn't so depressing.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Yanis Varoufakis: Iran War Collapses U.S. Neoliberal Economy https://youtu.be/sxMrNecpBjM https://t.co/P3xqBOxby6
Video Transcript AI Summary
Glenn: Welcome back, with Janis Varoufakis, former Greek finance minister and founder of DM25. The world has grown more dangerous. He notes the war in Iran is asymmetric: the US is more powerful but Iran can shut down energy trade and view the conflict as existential, willing to shut down the global economy to avoid defeat. Glenn asks where the war is headed and whether there is an off-ramp.
Yanis: The US has a history of asymmetric conflicts where it enters with confidence and exits with its wings clipped—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria. Iran has faced stronger opposition than those cases, and despite striking Tel Aviv and Gulf bases, the US pain threshold seems lower than Iran’s. He points out the difference this time is a broader regional and global resistance and Iran’s capacity to respond through strategic actions like shutting Hormuz, making escalation costly for the US.
Glenn: Economics show that industrial might, supply chains, and technological sovereignty matter, suggesting a shift away from free trade. He asks whether these lessons will redefine Western ideology and asks about the role of deindustrialization over the last decades.
Yanıs: He says the shift began after Bretton Woods and the era of financialization and neoliberalism, with industrial capacity shipped out and the West leveraging finance and, later, big tech. He notes Margaret Thatcher’s role in deindustrialization and shipping capacity abroad, and he is surprised Trump fell into a war against Iran without a clear exit strategy. He argues Netanyahu’s influence pulled the US into a long war, framing it as a tactic to keep Israelis in fear and justify annexation moves in the West Bank, thus sustaining conflict. He also addresses the liberal-imperialist claim of liberating women, stating that women of Iran do not need bombs and that liberation would require defeating the powers that prevent peace and democracy, citing the 1953 coup and the suppression of the left in Iran after 1979. He emphasizes that the regime’s survival has involved neoliberal policies within Iran and that both reformists and conservatives in Iran ultimately align around survival and regional power, with the regime having benefited from long-term Western hostility and recent escalations.
Glenn: Raises the point that the US miscalculated even the narrative—often incoherent, with statements about “liberating women” fluctuating between aims of freeing women and destroying Iran’s ability to rebuild.
Yanīs: He challenges the idea that this war is about liberating women, and reiterates that the people of Iran face a stark choice between the current regime and a failed-state trajectory. He argues the regime's popularity is enough to sustain it, and that external pressures are not driving a straightforward democratic outcome. He notes that the real losers are ordinary people in the US, Iran, and globally, with rising food and energy prices, while the leaders of Iran may see gains in rallying around a common external threat.
Glenn: Cites Trump’s tweets about higher oil prices and questions the populist credentials when the impact is on the average person.
Yanīs: He discusses the changing nature of warfare, highlighting drone technology as a major shift. A drone economy makes cheap drones capable of challenging costly missiles, altering the political economy of war and enabling autonomous, AI-driven weapons. He notes that drone warfare, as seen in Ukraine and now Iran, could lead to a permanent-war dynamic where peace becomes a system error. He mentions how tech companies like Palantir train AI for civilian and military applications, including hospital management, illustrating the broader commercialization of war tech.
Glenn: Reflects on how competition among NATO, Russia, and China could reshape power dynamics, particularly with autonomous weapons and the ability of adversaries to strike at vulnerabilities.
Yanīs: He cautions about the risk of a broader great-power war and notes that drones, autonomy, and AI could enable rapid decision-making with less human oversight, expanding the lethality and reducing accountability.
Glenn: Observes that Iran can absorb pain and still threaten Hormuz, while the US and Israel may be unable to declare a decisive victory without economic and political costs. He asks where US and Israel go from here.
Yanīs: He argues Netanyahu seeks permanent war to justify expansion, while the Trump administration would like a quick victory. He underscores that a clear victory is hard to define when Hormuz remains contested, and that Trump’s options may be to declare a triumph or continue the conflict, depending on midterm politics. He emphasizes that the war’s outcomes are measured by the cost to ordinary people rather than leaders’ narratives.
Glenn: Adds that the war’s casualties and economic effects will hit working people hardest, and notes Trump’s failure to align populism with real-world costs.
Yanīs: Returns to the moral dimension, explaining that he has opposed illegal wars by the US and Israel in various contexts and that his duty is to call out both sides, stressing international law and stopping his own governments from dropping bombs on Iran as the top priority.
Glenn: Agrees, adding that human rights should restrain war, not justify it, and warns against substituting humanitarian rhetoric for power plays.
Yanīs: Concludes by recalling past anti-war activism and reiterates that solidarity should resist imperialism, not substitute it with bombings of other regimes. He emphasizes choosing international law and opposing the gang-like rule of Western governments.
Glenn: Thanks Yanis; Yanis thanks him as well.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined today by Janis Varoufakis, a professor, the former finance minister of Greece, and a founder of DM twenty five, that is a democracy in Europe movement. So thank you. It's good to see you again, and the world got a lot more dangerous since last time we spoke.
Speaker 1: Yes. Indeed. Thank you, Glenn. It's always good to be back. Your your podcasts are, you know, array of sanity in this dark environment that we increasingly descend it into.
Speaker 0: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. But I do see that, well, this war in Iran, besides being dangerous, though, it's also very interesting as it's asymmetric warfare. So The US is obviously much more powerful, which, probably is why there has been a significant amount of hubris. It entered this war with a lot of confidence and assumption of escalation dominance, yet we see the Iranians are forced to fight with other means, including the ability to shut down the energy trade.
And given that they also see this as an existential threat, not just an efforts to, you know, liberate women or something, they they seem to be willing or prepared to shut down the global economy in order to avoid defeat. So where do you see this war heading? Because it seems like everyone is betting everything on it, and I don't see an off ramp for anyone.
Speaker 1: Well, you must remember that this is not new. The United States has engaged in a series of asymmetric conflicts where it entered with immense confidence and exited, sometimes many, many years later, with its wings clipped. So, you know, Afghanistan. They invaded Afghanistan. It took them twenty years to be defeated, but they were defeated.
And they left, you know, with the Taliban whom they had initially intended to eradicate by the original invasion, they left the Taliban stronger than ever. Iraq, you know, shock and awe. George W. Bush walks in there, effectively takes Iraq in a day or two, declares victory on the aircraft carrier, if you if you recall, I'm sure you recall. And then the the the attrition began until, again, The United States were defeated.
I think the difference here is that The United States, if anything, faced a lot more opposition than it did in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, countries that they devastated with ill intent from the beginning, then you know? So, you know, the Iranian regime has been preparing for this, and it is quite interesting, is it not, that they still are capable of striking Tel Aviv, striking American military bases in the Gulf area. And in the end, within a week or so, we now see that the United States government's pain threshold threshold seems to be much lower than that of the Iranian regime.
Speaker 0: That also seem that the if you look at the economics of this war, that much like in Ukraine, one sees that industrial might is important, that one can't rely on this international supply chains anymore. That is you know, the past, we would just assume if everyone does free trade, we'll do our comparative advantage. It seems that our lessons from both Ukraine and Iran is, you know, a great powers need technological sovereignty, some supply chain security, and, of course, the industrial might. Did did did this does this change our entire ideology now? Because over the past decades, everything had to be free trade.
That is, if someone else can make your weapons, then you should outsource it. But but but how do you think this is gonna change, essentially, essentially, the world? Because, yeah, this lesson seems to be, well, slowly learned.
Speaker 1: Yes. Well, you you make a good point that, the difference with the Vietnam War was that, everything that followed after the early seventies and the demise of Bretton Woods, the era of financialization and neoliberalism, which, as you indicated, was an era during which the industrial foundations of the West were given away by Western elites, by Western ruling classes. They were shipped out, and essentially, they leveraged their financial sector. Now they are leveraging leveraging their big tech sector. And they thought that they could get away without having an industry.
In the case of The United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, who actually led the neoliberal assault on industry, in order to eradicate the trade unions, essentially to defeat, the working class in a very nasty class war. She was the first to, pay the ground for this deindustrialization process and, shipping out of, industrial capacity to places like China, Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and so on and so forth. So, you know, the chickens are coming home to roost, but, I'm particularly surprised, Glenn, that, Donald Trump, fell for it. Now I would have thought before the foolish decision to start a war against Iran without any exit strategy whatsoever that he would try to do what he did in Venezuela, which is, you know, come in, do something really against international law, like abduct Maduro in the case of Iran, kill Khomeini, then declare victory and go home. Because if had if he had done just that, then he would have been okay, you know, in the same way that Venezuela in the end was just a very brief moment during which he could claim to have toppled a dictator, in words of commas, you know, some some to use Roosevelt's terms, a bastard that he considers to be his own bastard or not to be his own bastard as in the case of Trump.
But he didn't do it. And I think that the reason why he fell into this trap of, entering a war that is now sacking him in with devastating political effects on him is, Israel. Netanyahu proved yet again perfectly capable of dragging The United States Government into a never ending war, a permanent war, which is the strategy of Israel for the purposes of creating permanent insecurity in the mind of Israelis in order to constantly pursue another war in the region, whether it's South Lebanon or Yemen or Syria or now Iran, all that for one reason, to create a lot of noise, to have all Israelis hooked on warmongering and on, you know, this false notion that Israelis are fighting for their lives and for their survival. False notion, which is necessary in order to continue the one thing that Netanyahu cares about, which is the annexation of the West Bank, the steady permanent ethnic cleansing until there's no Palestinian life left in Palestine, which, of course, goes hand in hand since the days of area of Sharon, if you remember, with the conversion of Gaza into first a concentration camp and now a genocide site.
Speaker 0: But well, you mentioned Iraq and Afghanistan. And well, I guess what was different there, though, is that the The US had more, I guess, escalation dominance. It was able to control the, I guess, the war to a greater degree. This time, of course, not answering these questions that why go in, what can be achieved, how do we get out, it seems that well, I heard that the the Americans didn't consider well, they considered the possibility of Iran shutting down the Strait Of Hormuz as being, well, unlikely. So it wasn't really factored in as something they assumed would happen, which is very strange because this, you know, would should be the first thing they would do if if they face such an existential threat, that is to deny America this escalation control, to put Iran on the slow burner, and why do you think the miscalculation was so so radical?
Because we see this not just poor war planning, but even the narrative planning in advance. They haven't even come together with a shared story why they attacked. Once they try to come up with a shared story, they end up, you know, making it sound like Israel chose this war for them, and they can't say this. So you saw them flipping back and forth. They you know, is this about liberating women, you know, liberating Iran?
And the next day, Trump is saying, you know, our goal is so the Iranian nation won't be able to rebuild again. I mean, this is they it doesn't seem to be any cohesive narrative either. How do you explain them? Not just the miscalculation, but the poor planning. Is this just hubris?
Or because this is kind of spectacular.
Speaker 1: I'll be controversial and brief in my answer. Just because none of this makes sense to me. I just didn't think that Trump who let's not forget, in his first term, resisted successfully Israel's drive to cop him in the war against Iran. There was immense pressure on Trump as it was on Obama and other American presidents coming from Tel Aviv, coming from Israel, to, unleash a war against Iran. And Trump one point zero resisted that and very successfully.
So the question your question is, how did he fall into the trap that he's now, dwelling within? Because I don't see how he will be able to escape from that Trump. And the only answer I can come up with, Glenn, and this is is going to be the controversial part, is because there's no absolute no sense of why he's doing what he's doing. It seems to me that the only rational explanation is that Netanyahu had something on him, that Israel had some hold over Trump two point zero, which it didn't have on on over Trump point one point zero. And this explains why, he got in there, because there's can be no other explanation.
You you put it brilliantly when you said that what what were they what were they thinking? Did they think that the Straits Of Hormuz would remain open if they wage a never ending bombardment campaign against Iran? So in the absence of any other rational explanation of why they did this, the only conclusion I can reach is that, you know, Netanyahu had something on him, which Trump feared more than the quagmire in which he has now landed just before the November for for congress. But but this one very crucial point that you raised twice in our conversation so far, and I need to address that. You mentioned the excuse that they are trying to liberate women.
And this is a question that I think we have a duty to answer. I feel I have a duty to answer. When liberal imperialists say to me, whether it is now or years ago when it came to Afghanistan, but what about the women? Yanis, you are condemning American imperialism, but, that was a solution for women, wasn't it? Well, no.
It wasn't. The women of Iran, Glenn, do not need bombs coming out of f 30 fives being dropped upon them by, let's not forget, a misogynistic, misanthropic, racist Washington administration, or indeed by the genocide of the supremacists of Tel Aviv to evoke the wonderful slogan of women and men demonstrators, especially after the murder of Amini, the young 17 year old girl that was that died in custody in Iran for not wearing her hijab. Woman life freedom. Right? That movement.
Well, the path to woman life freedom does not run through the smoking ruins of Tehran. The idea Czakaravorty Spivak, the feminist political philosopher, put it beautifully when she said that the notion that white racist men will liberate brown women by bombing them, their children, and their brown men, and that they this is going to pass to their liberation from brown men. That is absurd. Absolutely right. Their liberation, the liberation of women in Iran, as in Afghanistan, as in Iraq before that, it runs through the defeat of the very powers that have spent seventy years ensuring that Iran can never know peace or democracy.
Remember the nineteen fifty three coup d'etat that overthrew the democratically elected government of Mosaddegh? That was the CIA. So my point is that the people of Iran must first be liberated from the clasps of the hideous choice between the current regime and a fate which is worse than Iraq, Libya, and Syria combined, because this is what the wants for Iran. And he's the driving force in this. This is not Trump.
Trump has been corrupted for reasons we would find out in five, ten, twenty years. Netanyahu's plan is to turn Iran into a failed state like Libya, like Syria. That is not going to be the liberation of the women of Iran. We have to be very clear on this. This is a feminist point, I believe.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, I saw yeah. The CPAC president, he was making the point that those 160 young girls, them dying might be better than them having to wear burqas, but, you know, they he did they don't wear burqas in Iran. He didn't seem to know that. And, you know, I was in Iran last year as well, in May, right before the Israeli began to bomb, and even there's across the streets, there's many, many women who choose not to wear the hijab either.
So it's I think the the impression one all all almost gets is that it's like the Shia version of the Taliban, but it's I I just it doesn't mean that the the government there is, you know, liberal and tolerant in every way. Just it just seems like it's been demonized a bit beyond what seems reasonable. But I like your data, this idea that the whole concept of liberating other peoples because you saw this after the French Revolution that is, you know, supposed to be a liberal ideal, and then, of course, they move on. We're gonna liberate other peoples as well. Or after the Bolshevik revolution, we we were now free from, you know, the capitalist class now.
We're gonna bring freedom to other peoples. It's always dangerous when when when this becomes when one mix these values of freedom with with the dominating abroad. But, I I how how do you see, though, the the the government of, Iran? What their objectives are now? Be well, first, I think many people in The US missed that the theocracy they have in Iran today.
That's also linked to this fifty three kudo. That is after the Americans installed a very brutal shah and his savak, which is essentially the Iranian SS at the time. You know, the only place you can have some open speech were in the mosques. So it kinda made sense that political discourse merged with religion. But, again, a lot of this seems to be something of their own creation.
But but the way Iran is today, how do you assess their objectives, their their goals? What what do they want to achieve in this war? I I know they didn't choose the war, but now that they're in this Mhmm. I mean, if if you're advising them or someone else is advising them, what what advice do you think they're getting?
Speaker 1: Well, before I answer your question, which is a very important question, let me say that in the end, The United States don't really change much today. Do you remember after my lie in Vietnam that American general who came out and justified the massacre of the of the Vietnamese civilians by saying that, oh, well, we had to we had to we had to destroy their village to save them from communism? This is very much, you know, the same argument that we had to kill those young girls in their school, bomb them bomb them to smithereens, turn them into a human pulp of flesh and bones and blood in order to save women. You know? This there is a continuity in the misanthropy of The United States imperialism.
Now coming to your question about the Iranian regime itself and whether it's been demonized or not. Of course, it's been demonized. And, know, I'm saying this as an opponent of theocracy. I'm saying this as a, you know, as a libertarian Marxist, as I call myself to confuse people, and a feminist. But, you know, compare and contrast Saudi Arabia with Iran.
Now in which country do you think women are more oppressed? I would say it's Saudi Arabia. Nobody's thinking of bombing South Saudi Arabia into the Middle East. Indeed, mister Trump and his sons, are doing brisk business in Saudi Arabia, and they are considered to be, you know, they are very faithful allies. So let's dispense with all this nonsense.
Now regarding the regime, look, here I'm going to speak to you as a left winger because the left in the West needs to be reminded of what this regime is like. In 1979, Glenn, when the people of Iran rose up against, as you put it, the fascist dictatorship of the Shah and his gestapo that the CIA had helped him build up the SAVAK. You know? To that you know, an intelligence and suppression agency that became synonymous with torture in Iran. First, have the 1953, overthrow of democracy by the CIA and British intelligence services.
They imposed this ruthless fascist dictatorship. So, you know, that's when they lost all moral rights to be talking about, you know, democracy in Iran. And that created the spontaneous revolution of ninety seventy nine, which was not just Islamic. There were progressives. There were socialists.
There were communists, And they all recognized the importance of the figure of Agathollah Khomeini, and they supported him. When The United States realized under, yeah, president Carter at the same at that time, who was supposed to be the most liberal and, you know, the nicest of of the presidents of the postwar era, When they realized that the Iranian revolution was going to succeed in toppling the Shah, the CIA, the Pentagon, the State Department immediately took the side of the most virulent Islamists within that movement. And lo and behold, once the Islamists took over that revolution, the first thing they did, Glenn, was to murder the left. They took the whole central committee of the Communist Party of today, you know, a party that had participated in revolution of nineteen seventy nine and who they had supported Khomeini and murdered them. Moreover, from the day the the the the the the from the beginning, while being less plutocratic than the Gulf States, than Saudi Arabia, and despite having more of a social conscience than those Sunni regimes in The Gulf.
Nevertheless, very soon after ninety seventy nine, nineteen eighty, the Iranian regime adopted in the context remember, this is the time when neoliberalism is beginning to establish itself in the West with Thatcher, with Reagan, and so on. They start adopting neoliberal policies. Especially in the nineteen nineties, there was a wave of privatizations, of subsidy removals, of effective austerity. Yeah? Effective austerity that was being imposed by the Islamic Republic regime upon the majority of Iranians.
And, you know, if if you go to 2017, 2018, the first rebellions, then again, 2022 when Masham Amini was murdered, so in police custody, as I mentioned before, and there was this uprising again, the undercurrent of that uprising was a response, a social upheaval, a social rebellion against the neoliberal policies of the regime. And, you know, anybody who has been watching the Western coverage of Iranian politics for the last, you know, twenty years, thirty years, would have noticed that in the West, we talk about the reformists and the conservatives. Well, you know, these are indeed two factions within the Islamic Republic, the regime, and they have differences. But their differences are not that much regarding, you know, right wing or left wing. No.
The difference is that the so called reformists are keener to integrate the private enterprises that they are controlling, the result of the privatization drive. They want those private enterprises to be connected, integrated with particularly the European Union and The United Kingdom. And if possible, The United States, but they understand that this is hard. And they were the ones who were so gung ho about the the Obama plan because Obama, you know, he actually said this to me personally when he was still president in the White House in April 2015, that his number one priority before leaving office back then in April 2015 was to reintegrate Iran into the international capitalist financial circuits. And, you know, he had signed the agreement.
He had the European Union on board. Then Trump comes in and tears this up. The conservatives were not keen to see their own own, the enterprises that they had appropriated through privatization, be integrated with the West. They they didn't trust that the West would allow them to be integrated without ditching their projects of creating an Islamic golden age. So they were more oriented towards China, towards Russia.
That's the split. Now ever since the Israelis turned the long standing, long term campaign of ethnically cleansing Palestine into a pure and undiluted genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. And following the bombardments last June of Iran by Trump and Netanyahu, the conservatives within the regime and the so called reformists, I think, realized that, you know, there is no room anymore for them to be at odds with one another. And they entered a new phase of survival. And, you know, they've been preparing for thirty years for that.
They have apparently very large stocks of drones and of missiles. And in any case, let's not forget that they sustained a hideous eight year war that The United States unleashed against them via their stooge in the area, who was their stooge, Saddam Hussein, whom, The United States controlled and whom they directed to invade, Iran in 1980 in order to topple the regime, funded by Kuwait and by the Gulf state the other Gulf states. And they they suffered more than 500 600,000 dead. They suffered chemical weapons provided by The United States. So it's important to remind ourselves of that because, you know, the the bombs that Israel and The United States are now unleashing from the sky just above the heads of the Iranians, both the people and the regime, I don't think they have the capacity to achieve that which Saddam Hussein failed to achieve using chemical weapons.
So to put it bluntly and to answer your question, I think that in terms of survival and maintaining their regime, I think that they owe a debt of gratitude to Donald Trump.
Speaker 0: Well, no. Definitely. Well, this is a common feature, though. Nothing creates more internal solidarity than an external power attacking you, but but they're also able, besides the government, to hold hold on to control and, you know, enjoy enough public support. They're also able to absorb the pain, it seems, in terms of the attacks on, well, military facilities, economic and other civilian infrastructure.
So given that they're able to absorb this pain and more or less Trump confirmed that they run out of military targets to hit, who do you think will win this war? And what would such a victory actually look like?
Speaker 1: Well, I know certainly that who's going to lose this war? It the people who are losing every day are the people of Iran, the women of Iran that supposedly the West is liberating, the people of The United States, the working class of The United States. So the working classes of Iran and The United States are losing. If you are a MAGA supporter who voted Trump into office, And, you know, you're driving on average a 100 miles an hour to go to work and come back from work a day. You're driving a very thirsty S U SUV.
You are hardly making ends meet, and now you have double petrol prices. So you are the great loser. You are a great loser if you are an Iranian who is not connected to the chronic capitalism of the regime, if you're a woman. These are the people who lose. So the vast majority of the Americans, of the Europeans, of the Iranians, of the people in the global South who now see increases in the price of food because fertilizers are going up, bit one because oil is going up, because natural natural gas is going up.
So, you know, the the workers of the world are united in being the losers of this war. And who is winning? I think, if anyone is winning, it is the leaders of the regime. Think of Khomeini, you know, the younger, who is now the supreme leader of Iran. From his perspective, he is occupying a high moral ground.
You know, his father was killed. His wife his wife was killed. His mother was killed. His sister was killed. His son was killed.
And he remains, to the extent that he's still alive, at least for now, he remains embedded within Iran where there is still very high support for the regime because that regime was not imposed from abroad. It rose up organically. Whatever one may think about it, and as I said, I'm an opponent of that regime. But nevertheless, it is one that has popular support, maybe a minority support, but a large minority support. And the most important thing is what I said earlier.
I'm gonna repeat this, Glenn. I hope you forgive me. Amongst the rational sen sensible dissidents, the Iranians, who on the one hand, loathe this regime, but on the other hand, have a capacity to think think things through, they can see that they don't have a choice between democracy and theocracy. This is not the choice that they are being offered. If if if that was their choice, they would have chosen democracy.
Normality. But that's not the choice. The choice that the Trump, Netanyahu illegal war is forcing upon them is between theocracy, the current regime, and a failed state, Libya, Syria. And they are reluctant to choose the latter just in order to get rid of the theocracy, and that is a great success story for the regime.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Find that Trump actually tweeted out that oil prices going up is good. America is an energy exporter. We're getting rich but rich, but as you said, it's important to look at the classes, I guess, because I assume the oligarchy will gain some money from this, but the average person is not gonna see anything. They will have
Speaker 1: Of course not.
Speaker 0: Higher prices at the pump. So, no, this does this does make any yeah. It's a bit strange because he ran not just on being anti war, but he also ran on populism that is arguing that the elites were too detached from the public. It seems like his tweets makes him the worst populist ever. He's he's he doesn't seem to appreciate how how this affects the man on the street instead only, yeah, how the large corporations will do.
How do you see, though, the warfare has been changed? Because I when I watched the Ukraine war over the past few years, I you know, one one couldn't help but to see that the western were able to put up a nice firing position in Ukraine, that is that they could essentially shoot at Russia, and Russia wouldn't be able to hit them back. You know, they could attack and destroy Ukraine, but but but for the West, we kinda have immunity. You can, you know, strike Russia. But but now we see, you know, Russia sharing intelligence with Iran or allegedly, but also it seems very, very likely.
And China also has a great surveillance in the region. I assume they would also be sharing with Iran. We see the Iran holding the Gulf States responsible for using, their territory. There's some talk about they should have compensation after this war. So the the rules of war appears to be coming more complex.
Do you did did you see this as being a, I guess, stable format, or or is this ready to or has it a potential at least to begin to expand into a larger great power war?
Speaker 1: Well, I hope it doesn't expand into a greater power war because then, you know, a nuclear winter is going to consume us all. Look. I'm not in the business of prediction, but what I can say is that the the the major change in relation to the past and to past wars is drone technology, the way in which drones have changed the political economy of war and the balance. I'm not gonna say anything that you don't know that our audience doesn't know, but it's important to bring this in. So when you have a $5,000.6000 dollars worth of a drone that is being knocked down by the Americans using a $1,600,000 worth of a Patriot missile, then the political economy is operating in a way that is inimical to the interests of to to the project of Donald Trump.
In in Ukraine, the drone wars have, I think, alerted us to a very serious danger that we are facing as a species, as humanity. And I think the war in Iran is now confirming that. Now if you look at the Russian Ukrainian war, it's a war between drones, and in particular, it's a war between the technicians that try to jam the signals of the drones of the enemy. That means that we are moving very quickly to a situation where the winners will be the ones that manage to create autonomous drones based on AI so that there's no need to have a human, directing the drone, wirelessly. That that that is important because once we rely on machines that we send out into the and then they operate autonomously.
Point number one. Point number two, when you have so many of them that all the other conventional weapons are rendered useless, like leopard tanks and, you know, conventional cannons and all that, and you have essentially a swarm of AI driven machines that kill each other and kill people. And no there's no human in the chain reaction where decisions are made every fraction of a second as to who is gonna be shot and who's going to be killed. Then suddenly, we are in a techno feudal kind of war game or, you know, battlefield or killing field where, you know, The United States president, the general of the American army, or indeed of the other side as well, have the capacity to make a decision. That they have a capacity to decide, okay, let's go to war.
In other words, we're again we're moving there's a very serious risk that we're facing as humanity, as a species, that we're going to move into a permanent war where, you know, war is the default and peace is a system error. And, you know, we are not there yet. But, you know, with the war in Ukraine, the manner in which Palantir and Tropic and Amazon and Google and so on trained their programs in Gaza, in order to sell software to the military, militaries around the world, but also for civilian use. Palantir developed a program for management managing the, you know, difficult moments in British hospitals, difficult moments, let's say, is a pile up and lots of patients, lots of injured people arrive at the doorstep of a hospital. How do you manage the nurses and the doctors in order to minimize panic?
Well, you know, Palantir trained its models, AI bots and software in Gaza to sell for millions and millions, if not billions, to the British National Health Service. So if you bring all this together, then I think we need to reexamine everything concerning war and peace.
Speaker 0: That's also interesting. The the competition would not just be, you know, more advanced technology. It's also more reckless decision that is the whoever would lower, I guess, the threshold for drone autonomous drones making kill decisions, they would have a competitive advantage on the battlefield. So it becomes a very ruthless weapon, the whole idea that we'll have moral guidelines. That's something that would hold you back, essentially.
So it creates very dangerous incentive system, but but also, you know, with technologies, you see opens often see this leapfrog that is, you know, the NATO countries had this very, you know, military advantage for many years now. But with the introduction of drones, suddenly, of course, after the Ukraine war, the the Russians will have the most battle hardened, you know, well, well well trained army in terms of knowing how to use this on battlefield, while the Chinese would have, I guess, a technological standpoint, very advanced weaponry, also given that they have the proper supply chain dominance. They, you know, they they're actually getting the rare earth minerals, the antimony, all these things which they need to build all these weapons. It looks as if the the shift in power is not just economic. It's also military technology.
Russia and China will look very different than they did only ten years ago.
Speaker 1: That's correct. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. But
Speaker 0: if if we're going down the path, it looks like we're going. That is that The US the the Iran is able to absorb all the pain. Yes. There will be dealt a lot of death and destruction, but they're able to absorb it and essentially begin to weaken America's bases in the region, shut down continue to shut down the Strait Of Hormuz. This destroyed the economy.
Well, how do you think where where does US and Israel go from here? Because, you know, these are both two deeply militarized states. Mhmm. They base their security, Israel, on regional dominance, The US on global dominance. None of them can just pack their bags and go home and say, well, know, give you some superficial claim of victory unless they actually have a victory, and the Strait Of Hormuz is open, for example.
So where do they go from here in terms of
Speaker 1: I think the Yeah. I think the important thing to note is that Israel and The United States, even though they are completely united in this war a series of war crimes that they are implementing, that they are doing, they are very different when it comes to what their administrations are interested in maintaining. Netanyahu wants permanent war. Netanyahu wants to continue to expand the killing fields around Israel. He doesn't mind a few ballistic missiles falling into Laviv in order to keep the Israelis insecure.
This is what his game is. Maximum Israeli insecurity to justify his permanent war so that it creates a lot of noise in the cover of which he can continue with the that are part of his coalition with the IDF, with other agencies to throw Palestinians out of their homes, to burn down their olive trees, which is happening as we speak, the West Bank is totally annexed against the the, you know, the prohibition that even The United States under Trump has issued toward the notion of annexing the West Bank. So, you know, Netanyahu ideally would like to continue this bombardment of Iran and the engagement with Iran, the murders ad infinitum. But that's not the Trump administration. The Trump administration would like to end it as soon as possible.
The problem it has is that just like, you know, Lynton Johnson in the nineteen sixties or, you know, Richard Nixon after that, the he needs to to to to declare victory. Now, of course, Donald Trump has what it takes, unlike other American presidents, to do that which Roman emperors used to do when they sent legions to what is today Germany, and they got their backsides kicked by the Goths. And some of those Roman emperors just said, okay. Alright. Fine.
We can defeat those Germans, these Goths. So what we're going to do is we're going to declare victory and have a triumph in Rome and have a party, and, you know, eat and drink and enjoy ourselves. He could do that, but he's got the midterm elections. This is not a popular war in The United States. Unlike other murderous wars by The United States, illegitimate wars by The United States, illegal wars by The United States, which were popular in The United States.
This is not a popular war. So he needs to be able to say, look. Here's something that I achieved. He can't do that if he removes his troops and his troops, his aircraft and aircraft carriers. And the Iranian regime continues to close down the state of Hormuz and to say that, you know what?
This is not over for us. He killed our supreme leader. He murdered so many people. He murdered those girls in the school. We are not going we are going to decide when this war is over.
You're not deciding when this war is over. And this which is what they're saying now. That puts Trump in an awful situation because he can't even claim with any degree of credibility that he achieved something. So unless he proves audacious and he, you know, gives the spin and says, oh, I killed Khomeini. I killed so many of them.
I've taken out so many targets. He has no compunction. He could say that. Remember, he in June, he said that he took out the nuclear program of Iran. Well, now that he started this war, what was his excuse?
That he wants to take out the nuclear program of Iran. Well, mate, you know, you tell told us in June that you took it out. He doesn't care about being caught in a lie. That's the best hope we have, that he would do one of those, you know, Roman triumphs. And, you know, who cares what whether people believe that he won or not.
That is the best case scenario. But if he wants to open the stage of hormones and show the American people something that will convince enough of them to reelect Republicans in the mid November they in the midterms in November, then I think that we may be in there for the long haul.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Because there's nothing he can do really to open the Strait Of Hormuz's arrow. I mean, I mean, he keeps bragging about destroying the navy, but the I don't think they need that big of a navy to
Speaker 1: You just need a drone. Sorry? You just need a $5,000 drone. Yeah. And Iran has an endless capacity to produce those as, you know, not just Russia.
Ukraine does. Because, you know, the you mentioned Russia having panoply of drones, so does Ukraine. Yeah?
Speaker 0: Oh, well, they can build a set of apartment buildings, so there's no there's no need for massive military factories. So yeah. Maybe. No. This yeah.
That I guess that's what this makes the war so dangerous. Everyone's is locked in a position they can't withdraw from, and, yeah, the stakes are only raised. But
Speaker 1: Yeah. But can can I can I say something on a personal note?
Speaker 0: Yes, please.
Speaker 1: Glenn, I'm tired. I'm speaking personally. You know? Once again, I find myself caught in a in the conundrum of opposing an illegal war unleashed by The United States on a country whose regime I vehemently oppose. And and even bring just remind our viewers, because maybe some of them or many of them would have a similar feeling or experience.
In 1999, having previously campaigned against Milosevic in Yugoslavia, you know, I was forced to denounce NATO's and America's bombing of Yugoslavia. In 2003, after two decades of campaigning against Saddam Hussein, I was even arrested once in London for opposing Saddam Hussein when Saddam Hussein was the blue eyed boy of the West. Remember? You know, I demonstrated after that against the American coalition's invasion of Iraq. In 2011, I was indignant with Gaddafi's regime in Bolivia, and I opposed the American led bombings of Libya that turned that country into a quagmire.
Last year, I always called Bashar al al Assad a ruthless dictator, and yet I was lamenting the American Israeli machinations that turned Syria, in fact, overturning over to an al Qaeda operative. And now, you know, after having celebrated the woman life freedom rebellion, I find myself in a situation where I have no alternative than to, you know, condemn the American Israeli plan to devastate Iran. And there are many people who accuse me both of being a stooge of the Iranian regime and, you know, a stooge of The United States. And they accuse saying, oh, you're trying to be neutral, Yanis? This what what is this?
Both both sides and we are taking both sides. No. What I'm saying, and I I felt the need to Glenn, you know, to finish off with this statement, is that, you know, my duty as a westerner, leftist, is very simple. When the gang ruling our neighborhood because this is what we have. Our leadership now operates like a gang, both in The United States and in Europe.
So when the gang ruling our neighborhood launches an utterly unprovoked attack on a faraway gang that I also don't approve of, killing innocent bystanders, I refuse to stay neutral. And at the same time, I refuse to pick sides. What I do is I try to call out both. But at the same time, I recognize a special overriding duty we have in the West to stop our gang. Because, Glenn, it is our taxes funding their bombs.
It is our silence that grants them consent. It is our governments that are doing the killing in our name. So we need to stop our governments from dropping bombs over Iran, and that's our number one priority at the moment.
Speaker 0: I agree. Well, it doesn't have to be a contradiction. One can, you know, take a position on human rights and responsible governments without diminishing sovereignty. That is yeah. Just, I think, overall, being critical of of governments, you know, not using human rights as an instrument for great power politics.
Yeah. I think that's where often many people make the mistake. So that's why I I just often find it fascinating that for twenty years, they were able to tell people that we occupied Afghanistan for twenty years, so little girls could go to school, or we invaded Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction or democracy or destruction of Libya and Syria because The US and NATO really cared about, you know, human rights, or in Iran that we just wanna help, you know, girls or, you know, democracy or it's Ukraine for that sense as sake as well, the idea that this is about democracy or freedom or sovereignty. I you know, great powers don't fight goals for altruism altruism. They have a power interest, and you dress it up.
So I think it's often easy to take advantage of, yeah, the yeah, higher values, if you will. It doesn't mean that people shouldn't have some higher values, but no. It's it's a it's a it's a shame as well because democracy has now become almost an and human rights become an ugly world almost. That is when you hear governments speak of human rights, you can hear the bombs being loaded onto the plane already, which is, you know, not what it was supposed to be. Human rights was supposed to restrain what you do in wars, not to enable wars, but this is the path we've gone down.
So
Speaker 1: Indeed. Indeed. Can you imagine if, you know, back then when we were some of us were participating in the anti apartheid movement in South Africa, that was solidarity. That was international solidarity. You know?
Free Nelson Mandela. Let's work towards having sanctions against that regime in South Africa. Let's not allow the Rakuten to participate in in international games and all that. I was part of that. Now if somebody had said, let's bomb the population of South Africa, I'd say, what?
Are you confusing solidarity with imperialism? This this would have been absurd back then. So, you know, I'm I'm saddened sometimes by progressives and imperialists who say, oh, you know, if you're not with the the Khomeini regime, you that means you are with The United States bombers. No. Not in the slightest.
Speaker 0: I don't think we have to pick pick you know, whenever people ask you to say, are you with a or b, then, you know, they ask you to stop thinking because you shouldn't have to own the position of either side.
Speaker 1: So That's right. We are with international law. How about that?
Speaker 0: I like that. That's one thing we should have discussed, which is dying very quickly, but perhaps next time.
Speaker 1: So Next time.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much for taking the time.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Glenn. Thank you.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Jeffrey Sachs: Iran War Could Escalate Into Nuclear War https://youtu.be/gmtJZvmOOes https://t.co/CNvb081Aqe
Video Transcript AI Summary
Professor Jeffrey Sachs discusses the Israel-Iran conflict, the risk of nuclear escalation, and a pathway to end the war. He clarifies that David Sacks is not related to him and was speaking as a Trump adviser, advocating that Trump declare victory and stop the conflict to avoid deeper disaster. Sachs outlines the economic and strategic dangers: the Strait of Hormuz could be closed, 400 million barrels released from reserves would cover only about twenty days of normal oil flow, and ongoing tit-for-tat strikes are destroying energy infrastructure, increasing global calamity risk.
Sachs recounts the five-step framework he and Sybil Ferris proposed to end the conflict, which he attributes to a need to recognize all security interests and to reduce aggression against Iran. He emphasizes that the US and Israel’s escalation harms Israel, the US, Iran, and regional stability. The five steps are:
1) Stop brazen, illegal armed aggression against Iran and recognize Iran’s security interests, noting that Iran does not want a nuclear weapon and had adhered to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) until the US ripped it up in 2018. Iran reportedly wants negotiated oversight under UN scrutiny, and the plan’s collapse is linked to broader regional violence.
2) Acknowledge Iran’s desire not to develop nuclear weapons and acknowledge the JCPOA’s original framework, highlighting that Iran’s leadership signaled a preference for negotiation under international inspection, contrary to the perception that Tehran seeks to acquire a weapon.
3) Open the Strait of Hormuz through Gulf Cooperation Council states and Iran, with Gulf states reasserting sovereignty over military bases on their soil and pledging that bases will not be used for aggression against Iran. The Gulf states and Iran should negotiate bilaterally to ensure open trade routes, with regional solidarity in backing this approach.
4) Return Israel to its 06/04/1967 borders, creating a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem on internationally recognized borders. Sachs argues this addresses the root cause of continual conflict and links it to Netanyahu’s policy of denying a Palestinian state and pursuing broader regional control.
5) Establish a state of Palestine within the UN (as the 194th member) so that Hamas, Hezbollah, and other militant groups are disarmed, with disarmament supported by the regional consensus and the UN Security Council, contingent on Palestinian statehood.
Sachs asserts that what blocks peace is a coalition of Israeli supremacism, Israeli apartheid, and US support for aggressive actions. He references the Likud ideology and the historical “clean break” doctrine, noting that the US veto in the UN Security Council has repeatedly blocked recognition of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Speaker 0 adds a discussion on indivisible security versus hegemonic peace, arguing that true security must be indivisible and that hegemonic peace—enforcing dominance—has led to the current crises in both the Middle East and Ukraine. Sachs agrees that the delusion of overwhelming force undermines security and highlights parallel dynamics in Taiwan and Russia.
Finally, they address why Iran was underestimated: the U.S. has pursued a self-created reality approach, leading to improvisation and escalation without a coherent planning process. Sachs criticizes the American security establishment for improvisation, lack of careful analysis, and dependence on a hegemonic approach, suggesting that this mindset increases the risk of miscalculation and escalation. The conversation ends with acknowledging the late hour in Kuala Lumpur and expressing thanks.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined by professor Jeffrey Sachs to discuss how the war in Iran may be spiraling out of control, but also how it's possible to put an end to it. So thank you very much for joining us again from Malaysia.
Speaker 1: Great to be with you, Glenn, as always.
Speaker 0: So Israel has what is often referred to as the Samson option. That is it's considered to be the last resort if Israel faces an existential threat, that is to use nuclear weapons against its enemies. So this is dangerous because The US and Israel seems to be exhausting their arsenals, including their interceptors, and the situation is not just deteriorating, but it's escalating very quickly. And I saw that Israeli newspaper, Harets, they reported that one of Trump's top advisers, David Sachs, warned that Israel could be destroyed, and under these conditions, Israel could use nuclear weapons against Iran. So I was wondering how you assess this, I guess, spiral of escalation and the possibility of this actually going, yeah, falling into a nuclear war.
Speaker 1: Yes. David Sachs, no relation to me, by the way, but a friend said a couple of days ago that Trump should declare victory and go home. And he was speaking essentially as a Trump adviser. He's the AI czar in the White House. So he advises on digital and AI policies.
And he's an influential, observer. He wasn't predicting a nuclear war, and he wasn't saying we're at, that juncture. But what he was saying is, if this just continues, it will be awful. And he was saying to his boss, Donald Trump, just go home. That was the message.
Just end this. This is a debacle, but call it a victory. Trump easily does that. But don't pursue this more. It's leading to worse and worse for the reasons that you said.
On the economic side, the risk of global calamity is absolutely growing day by day no matter how they try to talk calm to the markets, no matter how they talk about releasing emergency reserves from the strategic oil reserves. The fact of the matter is people can do arithmetic. The, Strait Of Hormuz is closed. The release of 400,000,000 barrels of oil, which was what was announced, is roughly twenty days of normal flow through the Strait Of Hormuz. Not very impressive actually for what looks like, could be a deadly long crisis and disaster, not only because The Straits are closed, but because production of oil and gas is shutting down and the physical facilities, one after another, are being destroyed right now in the tit for tat fire between The US and Iran.
And so this is why David Sacks advised his president whom he serves, just stop and go home. Since Trump lives in a delusional world to begin with, We can declare victory. He can say how wonderful it is. Look at how many people we murdered. Look at how many leaders we killed.
Look at how much infrastructure we destroyed. Remember last summer, he declared victory and went home. Of course, it was absurd then as well. But this is the option. What David Sacks was saying is that that is actually the best security for Israel as well.
That's not only the right thing to do from the point of view of the world economy, the right thing to do from the point of view of US security, but the thing that would keep Israel safest as well. In other words, this war is to nobody's advantage. It's a pure lose lose lose all around. Lose for Israel, lose for The United States, and lose for the rest of the world, and especially, of course, Iran and the Gulf countries. Yeah.
Speaker 0: No. I I spoken a bit with David Sachs on email. I've been trying to get him on the program. He seems like a good guy, so I Yeah. Yeah.
But, you know, but I was thinking as well that if if The US actually escalates one step further and go after Karg Island and Iran retaliates against the energy installations across the Gulf States, it doesn't really matter anymore if the Strait Of Hormuz is open, if everything is in flames and destroyed. And, of course, it's gonna take much more than twenty days, and I also thought the same by opening the strategic reserves. It doesn't communicate a lot of confidence either when one is willing to deplete it to such an extent. But you, with your colleague, you wrote that is you and civil affairs, you wrote about the five steps that which Trump could take to put an end to this war, essentially, ramp, which David Sacks advocated for. So if Trump reads it or calls you or listen to this podcast, what are these five steps you would advise?
Speaker 1: Well, one is he's not gonna call. Maybe David Sacks will read it.
Speaker 0: If I if I could interject very quickly. Yes. You at at one point, before he got elected now, he actually tweeted out a video of you when you were talking about The Middle East. So he you know, I'm I'm glad he listens to Reason, but sorry for
Speaker 1: Yes. And that was a video that warned about Netanyahu. I said that is one dark person. I used a little bit less temperate language. But I said that this is one big problem.
And Trump tweeted that out at the time, a mystery. But what I said turned out to be absolutely right, which is that not only is Netanyahu mister genocide, but now he is putting the whole Middle East in flames. And the whole world is going to come very soon to understand Israel created our global economic crisis. It's not gonna be good for Israel's security, this kind of approach. So, yes, mister Trump did tweet that out.
Maybe he can listen to somebody to tell him, cut your losses, declare them a victory in your own way. That's your business, but don't drag us into disaster. This is the point. Now what I and, my colleague, Sybil Ferris, recommend is a a real end to the conflict in The Middle East because we say that there are interlocking parts. It probably won't happen.
We stress that in the article. We're not naive optimists. We're just saying that the way you make peace is to recognize everybody's security interests. That is also the point about Ukraine. Since Russia's security interests are never recognized, there's no peace.
I the same in The Middle East. If you want peace, which most normal people in the world, I'd say all normal people in the world do, then you recognize everybody's security interests. What are Iran's security interests? Not to be bombed repeatedly by Israel and The United States and not to have Netanyahu say, for thirty years, overthrow that government. It's okay.
It can't be more simple than that. The US and Israel need to stop their brazen, blatant, illegal, armed aggression against Iran. This is not even a preemptive attack because Iran wasn't attacking anybody. This is just brazen, naked aggression, and it's the essence of the violation of international law. So that was point number one.
Point number two, Trump says every day, I need to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. I don't know whether this is fatuous, whether he's so ignorant he doesn't understand what he does, or whether it's a game. But the simple point is there was such an agreement, and you, mister Trump, ripped it up. Of course, that was the joint comprehensive plan of action negotiated in 2015 between Iran and the permanent five members of the UN Security Council, not just The United States, but Russia and China, Britain, France, and The US and Germany, and then ratified unanimously by the UN Security Council. And the essence of it was to underpin the supreme leader's religious command that Iran would not get a nuclear weapon because the supreme leader said this is against our faith.
And so Iran put itself under scrupulous inspection and honored the agreement. It was The US that ripped it up. Trump in 2018. I don't know if he remembers the man on the surface remembers nothing, learns nothing, knows nothing. But I don't really know whether he remembers that he ripped up the agreement that accomplished exactly what he said.
Maybe he can remember that the Iranians said again last year and this year, they don't want a nuclear weapon. They want to have a negotiated agreement. They want to be under UN scrutiny. Maybe, I doubt it, but maybe he could find an aid to let him know what the Omani mediator said the day before they killed all the leadership, which was we made great progress and we're going on to a next round of negotiations in Vienna because the Iranians don't want a nuclear weapon. And so this is the second point is, yes, it's not even hard, mister Trump.
It's never been the issue with Netanyahu. It's not about the nuclear weapons. It's about overthrowing the Iranian government. That has always been his dream. The third point is to open up the Strait Of Hormuz, and that is not by Trump pitifully, pathetically demanding NATO, do this.
China, do this. To get him out of the incredible mess that he and Netanyahu have created for the world. It's something for the Gulf Cooperation Council, that is the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, and Iran to work out bilaterally. And what is needed is for the Gulf countries to say that they are taking sovereignty of the military bases in their territory, And those bases will never be allowed to be used in aggression against Iran. So that's how to get the Strait Of Hormuz opened up again.
It's the Gulf countries on one side. It's Iran on the other. All Islamic nations, all part of the organization of Islamic cooperation. In fact, both The United Arab Emirates and Iran are part of the BRICS countries. It's not even hard for them to agree with each other.
The mistake that the Gulf countries made was to hand over their sovereignty to The United States as if that's some kind of protection for them. But what they should do now, seeing that there's no protection to having these bases, is to reassert sovereignty over the bases in their country and to agree with Iran. The strait will open and these bases will never be used against Iran. The fourth plank is the one that, is is the is the one that is so obvious, but the one that is actually the cause of all the wars of the last thirty years. And that is that Israel needs to return to its borders of the 06/04/1967 so that a state of Palestine is created in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem on the internationally recognized borders.
And this is what Israel has gone to war repeatedly to block. And this is the basic point of all of these wars, including this one. Why has Netanyahu dreamt for forty years of overthrowing the Iranian regime? Why has Netanyahu been part of every war in The Middle East? Because his doctrine is that Israel will control all of Palestine and with some of his zealous zealot partners, even more part of Syria, part of Lebanon, part of who knows what.
Because according to The US ambassador, Mike Huckabee, who's another part of this disaster, Israel has the right to haul the land from the Nile to the Euphrates, says ambassador Huckabee. Okay. Well, the whole reason for all these wars from the Israeli point of view is they're they've said there will never be a state of Palestine. We'll kill them. We'll expel them.
We'll rule over them, in an apartheid state, but there will never be a state of Palestine. And any government in this region that backs the Palestinians, we will overthrow. That is the so called clean break doctrine of Netanyahu that has been in place for thirty years. So the fourth plank is a state of Palestine alongside as the state of Israel. And you know what?
Israel has no veto over that. The reason it doesn't happen is The US and The US alone. This was voted in the Security Council last year and the year before. The US blocks this. This is simple.
People should understand. Almost every country in the world says, of course, there should be the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel. But The US uses its veto in the UN Security Council to block that. So that's the fourth plank. Enough of this.
This is the most basic point. And Israel got insanely greedy or insanely zealot zealous, depending on who exactly we're talking about, to say we get a 100% of the land. You know what we're talking about for this Palestine right now? It's 22% of what was British mandatory Palestine. And Israel says, no.
Not even 22% for what is half the population. Not even 22%. We demand everything. That's why we're a nonstop war. So that's the fourth point.
And the fifth point is that with a state of Palestine established and welcomed into the United Nations as the hundred ninety fourth member state, Hamas, Hezbollah, and any other militant groups will be disarmed. They will disarm. And they will disarm because all of the region will insist that they disarm, and so will the UN Security Council. And that will be, and they will disarm because the state of Palestine will be created. And this is how to make peace.
So what blocks this? What blocks this is a coalition of Israeli supremacism, of Israeli apartheid, of Israeli violence that goes back to Netanyahu and his party, the Likud, which in its founding charter in 1977 says that all the territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea will be Israeli sovereignty. That's why all of these wars across the region have raged, because that basic fact is against every standard of international law and decency, and countries have supported the Palestinian cause, and therefore, Netanyahu and The United States have gone to war to overthrow those governments that have supported the Palestinian cause.
Speaker 0: Wait. I yeah. No. I like this five step, but also like here our focus on indivisible security, though, because I think this goes at the heart of of what is required as well. Because, you know, states, they compete for security, and weapons for one state is often you know, security for one is insecurity for another.
So you have two ways of producing security. Either you have indivisible security where we elevate our common security. In other words, you know, I don't point a gun at you to have more security for me. This is one indivisible security. Alternatively, one can pursue hegemonic peace.
In this, you don't care about indivisible security. You have one dominate to such an extent no one can even dream of challenging it. I think this is this Iran source of the Iran war, but it's also the Ukraine war. If if we just Exactly. Accept that the hegemonic era is over, just as a matter of fact, the distribution of power has shifted, then we would have to essentially restore the principle of indivisible security.
Otherwise, if one wants hegemonic peace again like the nineties, one has to restore it. That means defeat Russia, defeat Iran, defeat China, and, you know, I would read China Israel's clean break into this because, you know, when it merged in '96, this is part of the hegemonic era. That is abandon diplomacy and compromise instead go for everything because they were backed up with overwhelming military force. And
Speaker 1: That is exactly right. And it and this is the delusion that such overwhelming force exists. It's immoral. That's another matter, but it turns out to be disastrous to hold such delusions. The United States held those delusions in, Ukraine because we should remember the Ukraine war started with The United States attempt to assert its, hegemony over Ukraine.
Zbigniew Brzezinski spelled it out. It was the doctrine of, the neocons. We're going to expand NATO anywhere we want up to Russia's borders surrounding Russia in Georgia, in the South Caucasus, in Ukraine, around the Black Sea. That's our business. We are the superpower.
Well, Russia had different thoughts about that, but that's where that war came from because no one cared to listen to Russia's security concerns at all, and that's still true today. It it's a blank wall to talk to any European leader that Russia has legitimate security concerns. Okay? And now in The Middle East, it's exactly what you say. Netanyahu thought, well, I got the easy plan.
I don't have to compromise on anything. We win because we have The United States. And there are famous clips of Netanyahu explaining to, I don't even know who he's talking to, we own the Senate. We own the Congress. We we can get The United States to do what we want.
The truth is our crazy CIA and, and, military as well have delusions. So they see Israel's hegemony in The Middle East is just fine because it's part of America's global hegemony. What's happening right now in part is Trump thinks I'm gonna corner every export of oil, Venezuela. I'm gonna demand that Mexico behave itself. I'm gonna take over The Americas as he's explained.
I'm gonna take over The Middle East. I'm gonna choke off Russian oil through sanctions. I'm gonna decide who gets energy in this world. Well, is a madman thought. It leads to global disaster, but it's exactly that hegemonic idea.
I don't have to deal with anybody. We don't have to discuss with Iran. We just have to kill them. That's all. And and that's what they think they're doing right now.
And it not only is it murder, but it doesn't work to achieve your own security. Israel is at far graver risk than it's ever been because of this, and so is The United States at graver risk because our risk is nuclear war. And we keep pushing the world closer to nuclear war through these actions of not respecting, even in discussion, the security interests of the other side. It's the same in Taiwan. We say, we're gonna send arms as we like to Taiwan.
China says, excuse me, Taiwan is part of China. Do not send arms on your own. That for us is a red line. The United States filled with the idiocy that it is, the recklessness that it is, says, we don't have to listen to them. It's our business.
We are The United States Of America. And by the way, it's Trump, but it's also the CIA. It's also the congressional armed services committees. It's also the arms contractors. It's also Silicon Valley.
They all have this delusion of we don't have to take into account anyone else's concerns. And that's what's leading us to disaster.
Speaker 0: Just as a last question, how do you make sense of the way that Iran was underestimated? Because, you know, you worked with a lot of state leaders around the world to see how they work, their strategic thinking, their considerations. How could it be that, you know, we have the reports suggesting that Trump dismissed the likelihood of Iran closing the Strait Of Hormuz, which should have been the most predictable thing. The attacks on The US bases seems to be underestimated the weapons that Iran has at its disposal or the belief that killing Khamenei would collapse the government and make people, you know, pour into the streets with American flags and essentially, also now the assumption that the threats will make Iran capitulate. Even though they see this in an existential fight, it's you know, it I'm just wondering how they got it this wrong.
Is this just hubris, or is this a, you know, disconnect with the intelligence community? I I just it's very you know, the the this I don't haven't seen this in previous wars. There have always been mistakes, but this seems to be something very, very different.
Speaker 1: Well, remember the Iraq war, for example, how every single thing was wrong, every prediction about the cakewalk that we were gonna have and how democracy was going to come and so on. And there was an interesting interview in 2004. I think it was a Time Magazine reporter, if I remember correctly, and a White House official, maybe Karl Rove. I'm not absolutely sure. But he was asked about, you know, about the reality of the situation and the response from the White House is, excuse me, we create our own reality.
And this is part of the issue, which is when you are so powerful and arrogant, you just think we'll make it work. Trump didn't know what he was gonna do after the first hour, but he said, we'll make it work. It's complete improvisation. Of course, the real lessons are that these are disasters. It said that it took twenty years for The United States to go from the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
So that was a twenty year effort. And they credit Trump that it took nine days to go from hominy to hominy. So this is American efficiency. In other words, we're not accomplishing anything. We're going around in circles, killing a lot of people, spending a lot of money.
Maybe that's part of the point because they wanna spend a lot of money. That is profits for somebody and losses for all the rest of us. But I think the main point is we don't even have a process in the security state right now. The United States planning on anything has collapsed. We're just in improv mode.
We have a psychologically unstable president. We have a constitutional process that is over because Congress does not, use its constitutional, I mean, it rejects using its constitutional authority and responsibility. And I can tell you in every area that I know of, there's no thinking going on. There are no reports. There are no studies.
There's no careful scrutiny. There's no review. It's improvisation. It's flailing around. So frankly, none of this surprises me.
We don't even have minimal processes of thought. We have a president who just makes up things as they go along, and you end up with everything fake, and then desperation. Oh, NATO has to come to our aid. Even China, which was the target of much of this, has to come to our aid. Where are our friends?
Says Donald Trump. My god. A five year old would show more self awareness and responsibility, frankly.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And I'm thinking with all the religious adviser who comes comes to his office, he should have known that, you know, pride comes before the fall or that God opposes arrogance, but he has different religious advisers, it seems. So Anyways, it's late over there in Kuala Lumpur, so thank you very much for taking the time. I was very much appreciate it. You.
Speaker 1: We'll see you soon. Thanks.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Pepe Escobar: Iran's Strategy of Attrition Warfare https://youtu.be/Bzy0p_FeW30 https://t.co/ST7jDlH8wH
Video Transcript AI Summary
Pepe Escobar and Glenn discuss the Iran situation amid escalating US-Israeli pressure and Iran’s response. Key points:
- Iran as “the holy grail” in US policy: Iran has long been seen as the ultimate target within a broader project that includes Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran, with the goal of reshaping West Asia and advancing a Greater Israel concept. The project dates back to at least the nineties, with frameworks like the Project for the New American Century and Clean Break cited as influencing DC thinking.
- War planning and messaging: The war was described as planned for decades, with Iran identified as the likely target when other measures failed. The Trump administration reportedly pressed forward, and the “barbarian baboon in the White House” metaphor is used to underscore perceived Zionist influence and financial beneficiaries around the war.
- Domestic US-financial dynamics: The war’s perceived profitability for insiders is highlighted, naming Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Steve Lutnick, and others as profiting from related moves. The discussion emphasizes that financial markets (bond yields, gold, oil) influence US decisions, with high bond yields constraining US action.
- Iranian strategic posture: Iran’s leaders reportedly signaled that there are no conversations with the US at the moment, and that a deal is impossible given the lists of demands from both sides. The Iranians have shifted from defense to offense, with missiles and drones increasingly employed.
- Iranian deterrence and capabilities: The talk notes Iran’s use of missiles such as the Khorramshahr 4 and Fateh-2, with added emphasis on underground missile cities in the Sistan Baluchistan region and near the Afghan border. Iran’s deterrence is described as decentralized and mosaic, enabling precise targeting and escalation control. The Iranian approach includes limiting attacks to dual-use civilian infrastructure in Israel while avoiding civilianTargeted attacks in Iran, and threatening Dimona if Natanz is bombed.
- Israeli and Iranian targeting: Iran has begun to attack civilian dual-use infrastructure in Israel and is targeting Haifa refineries and military installations near Ben Gurion Airport, while Israel continues to strike near Natanz and other Iranian sites. The balance of escalation is framed as a deterrence dynamic, with both sides escalating in different ways.
- International alignment and support: Russia and China are described as backing Iran diplomatically and with intelligence support, including satellite intel and the movement of Iranian Shahids between Russia and Iran. The three BRICS actors—Russia, China, and Iran—are cited as central to a multipolar Eurasian integration project, with BRICS described as currently comatose or nonfunctional due to internal divisions and external pressures (e.g., UAE and India’s actions).
- BRICS and SCO status: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization released a weak statement; BRICS is portrayed as having internal problems, with India’s actions, especially in relation to Iran, criticized as betrayals from many countries. Russia and China are positioned as active backers of Iran, while BRICS’s future is uncertain.
- Iran’s regional strategy and neighbors: The discussion covers Azerbaijan, Turkey, and India’s roles. Azerbaijan could be drawn into potential conflicts, with Iran warning that involvement could bring severe consequences. Turkey is described as hedging and pursuing its own strategy; Erdogan’s stance is viewed as unreliable. India’s involvement is criticized for inviting Iran to participate in naval exercises and later backing away from condemning US actions against Iran, while still seeking to preserve a Middle East corridor aligned with energy and transport routes.
- Long-term outlook: Iran is portrayed as fighting for the global South with Russia and China, challenging Western-dominated orders. The potential for a postwar settlement remains remote, given the Iranians’ demands (no more US bases in West Asia, reparations, no sanctions). Mediation is considered unlikely unless Russia intervenes as a mediator. The conversation concludes with the view that Iran’s resistance, continuity through leadership like the IRGC, and soft-power appeal have changed global perceptions, while the broader Eurasian integration project remains dependent on Iran, Russia, and China.
- Closing note: The participants reflect on the costs and uncertainty of the conflict, noting that ending the crisis will require navigating deep geopolitical fault lines, including Azerbaijan and the broader energy architecture of Eurasia.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined today by Pepe Escobar, a political analyst and author focusing on the greater Eurasian continent. Thank you for coming back on.
Speaker 1: My pleasure, Glenn.
Speaker 0: So I I wanted to ask about Iran, obviously, as the world is looking at, you know, shock and horror of what's happening. And I often think about US general Wesley Clark. You know, he made this comment regarding what happened after the September eleven attack, arguing that they had a plan to take out seven countries. They were gonna take out Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and, of course, the grand finale was Iran. And even Bush, you know, thereafter put, you know, Iran on this axis of evil.
And why why is this so important to the Americans? Because this is a very different target than they had over the past thirty years. Everyone all The US presidents, it seemed more or less wanted to go after Iran. They all shared the same rhetoric of Trump, but they they knew that it would be too much, too too big, you know, to to try to take. But still, Trump went all the way.
What what do you see as being the strategic significance here besides, you know, liberating girls and all, this helping protesters, this nonsense?
Speaker 1: No. This Glenn, this is way more complicated. Iran is the holy grail. Well, I am one of the last old school foreign correspondents on the planet. I I was in Afghanistan before, during, and after, including 09/11, and I was in Iraq before, during, and after.
And I was going to Iran during the February many times, including at the time when Rumsfeld, the the Cheney regime was talking about bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran. That was John McCain's refrain every week, in fact. So we all knew Iran was the big price. It always was according to the project for the new American century, according to Clean Break, according to the Zionist influence in DC already in the nineties everywhere. So, of course, they couldn't do it before.
And what the famous Wesley Clark quote, in fact, they got everybody. And, of course, the only missing piece was Iran. So this war was planned. We can say that this war was planned since the late nineties, in fact, not only the past twenty years or twenty five years, even more than that, the previous millennium. And, of course, now they found the perfect messenger.
What some of my Chinese friends, scholars call the baboon in the White House, I love it. The barbarian baboon in the White House, totally controlled by Zionists, totally controlled not only by Netanyahu, but the circle around Netanyahu, the International Zionist Alliance, especially financial, and, of course, his inner circle, the people who he actually listens to, there are not many, they're making a lot of money out of this war. And that includes everybody, starting with the ghastly Jared Kushner. This should be an investigation in itself, but obviously, because there's no more investigative journalism in The US. Only you see this only infringes sub stack accounts, for instance.
But how Kushner is profiting, even starting when he left the White House after Trump one point zero when he got the first $2,000,000,000 for his affinity partners from MBS directly. Basically, MBS wrote a check for for Kushner. And now the price is even high as 5,000,000,000. He's getting $5,000,000,000 from the Saudis for pushing, of course, the the father of Ivanka. Let's put it this way.
And the real brains in that couple is not Jared Kushner. It's actually Ivanka. He is absolutely ghastly, low life, cheap, real estate entrepreneur, but, of course, Trump's listened to him. That's very, very dangerous. So he was the main seller of this of this war face to face to Trump or ear to ear to Trump.
And everybody is profiting. Lutnick, Chris Wright, secretary of energy, all these it's absolutely there's all these people, percent, all of them. So for them is also a free free ride financially. The big big picture, of course, is Eretz Israel, Greater Israel. And that's according to them is advancing fast if they can eliminate the only regional superpower, which is Iran and the only competitor to Israel to be the number one power all across West Asia.
So there was never any planning about that. And they thought it would be a decapitation strike, and the whole thing would be over over the weekend. And on Monday, we would have mission accomplished, you know, the Wall Street, you know, going through the roof and all that. So that was the planning. When Sinks started to be derailed half an hour after the decapitation strike on February 28 against Ayatollah Khamenei and a great deal of the leadership, they had no plan b, and they still don't.
And what just happened a few minutes before we start talking, which is something absolutely extraordinary, when we were all expecting the beginning of the real highway to hell of bombing the electricity grid of Iran, there was taco. Trump always check us out all over again. And why? Because he looked at the numbers. He looked at the markets.
He looked at gold. He looked at the bond market, and obviously panic set in. So he had to back off. And by some time, for the moment, it's five days. We don't know how this is gonna play.
But the most interesting thing is that a few minutes later, the Iranians went online and basically told the whole planet that the president of The United States is a liar. There are no conversations going on at the moment. And this is something that we hear from Arakashi, the foreign minister, from Khalibaf, the the head of the parliament, from other source political sources across Iran. He made that up. And the main reason, and this is simply when you talk to financial analysts, they tell you, the main reason is the bond market.
When Trump saw that the bond bond market was going totally out of control, like, you know, the the yields for ten year treasuries is getting to 5%, actually went to over 5%, came back to four four point five, and now I think it's 4.4 or something, and it may go up again. The United States simply cannot survive with the bond yields so high. Simple as that. And they cannot finance anything. It collapses financially.
You have, like, mortgage rates in The US going to 7% or 8%. This is suicidal. So much more than the oil market, the threat to the oil market by the Strait Of Hormuz being closed but not closed, which is fantastic. That in fact, actually in fact, it's not closed. There is a toll booth.
You have to pay the toll to get in. If you pay the toll, no problem. You navigate in Iranian territorial waters. And first of all, your cargo must have been settled in Petro U 1. These are the three imperatives.
If you follow these three, no problem. You can cross. Anybody can cross, including the Japanese which are saying, should I should I stay or should I go? You know? But the most important thing, much much more important than oil is the bond market.
So it's all about follow the money. It's all about money. And, obviously, the people who are making money out of those who are inside The US, they are absolutely terrified because it's getting out of control. So that would be the number one rationale for some sort of deal. But, Glenn, we know that a deal is impossible when you look at the list of demands on the Iranian side and the list of demands on the American side.
It's absolutely impossible to find a common ground. And that's why it's still so dangerous. So, like, you know, the inferno machine, which is an escalation machine for the past three weeks, which today we thought would be okay. And now it goes totally out of control. It's just postponed for the next five days.
But the escalation machine is still there, and there's no way out, and there's no off ramp for Trump if he chooses an off ramp. That is, in practice, the end of the American empire. And even people with an IQ of 10 can understand that in The US. And at the same time, he cannot fulfill the demands by the Iranians, and some of them are really, really hardcore. No more US bases in West Asia anywhere.
Payment of reparations. Some figures are floating around at $500,000,000,000. And, of course, we continue with our nuclear program, our missile program the way we want. All of those are from the point of view of The US are, you know, out of the question. So it's still a cliffhanger.
The cliffhanger was supposed to be today. Now I have to wait for another five days.
Speaker 0: Well, I'm glad, yeah, the torture was postponed a bit, but it is interesting that what as you framed it, that what Iranians are after essentially is the capitulation of The US in that region. But what The US is asking of Iran is their capitulation. That is, you know, give up its regional allies, its ballistic missiles, you know, its conventional deterrence, keep components of its economy. So given that this is the the the case, the only way this can be achieved is through victory. So we seem to be locked in this war of attrition where the goal is to exhaust the other side.
Now Trump says that he has, you know, unlimited weapons, which, of course, is nonsense. Otherwise, they wouldn't be pulling their missile defense out of Asia. It doesn't make any sense. But we have a general, you know, somewhat idea of what The United States has and also its ability to produce new weapons. But Iran's Iran's weapon, we know a lot less.
That is, you know, the Iranians said they have a lot of weapons stored into their tunnels
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Tens of thousands. Again, but it's very difficult to get this verified, not just the quantity, but also the quality. So what is it that we actually know about the weapons of Iran, especially the quality? The quantity is a bit more difficult, I guess.
Speaker 1: The quality has been already proven by the way they employ some of their best missiles, like the Khorramshahr four and the Fatah two. They only started to use them only in the past year. Let's say, during the past week. And very parsimonious, you know, not not yet in huge quantities. And we don't know, nobody knows what is in store in the underground missile cities, which are in the Eastern part of Iran.
In the Southeast, Sistan Baluchistan Province, in the Far East near the Afghan border, and none of these areas has been touched by the Americans so far. The Americans don't even know where these underground cities are. So every time that they have, let's say, a technological leap on the kind of missiles that they are using, it's always very, very impressive. And now that there's no protective shield over Israel for all practical purposes, David's sling, arrow three, TED, this is most of it, it's all gone. They can bomb Israel the way they wanted, and this is part of their new strategy.
They they keep tweaking their decentralized mosaic strategy, I would say week after week. And now they are seeing openly. Now we have an offensive strategy. So far was defensive, and now it's offensive. Why?
Because they know that they have exhausted the response capacity of American and Israeli air defense. So now they can choose their targets precisely. And for instance, when they they didn't attack the Demona Nuclear reactor. They attacked a building around 10 kilometers away from Demona housing scientists. So this was a message.
Basically, they're saying, look. If we we can bomb Dimona anytime we want it, but we won't do it now. If you bomb Natanz, we're gonna bomb Dimona. That's part of the message as well. And the Israelis bombed the vicinity of Natanz already, and the Russians were absolutely furious about it.
There are still a lot of Russian technicians over there. So the Iranians, their their deterrence is incremental, and they always come up with new weapons that we never saw being employed in the battlefield. So we can say that they have not it's true. They have not shown everything they they they have for obvious reasons because they are planning for a long war. And when they say that we can we can last until for the next six months, yes, they can.
First of all, because we we don't know where most of these missiles and drones are. Second, every week they come up with new weapons that we never seen before. Third, we have not even seen what they have to actually defend the Strait Of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, assuming the Americans get nearby. Let's put it this way. So that's what this is what deterrence means, and this is how you have a decentralized mosaic strategy that it can be fine tuned on purpose, progressively, methodically, meticulously, and it is extremely impressive.
And on the other side, we see what? The only thing that they do, bomb indiscriminately, bomb a civilian targets, bomb residential neighborhoods in Tehran. But that's the logic of, in fact, a terror the syndrome of the the terror regimes intertwined. These are two terror regimes that are walking side by side and bombing side by side with no regard to civilian lives. They never had.
And the Iranians still because everything we can talk about Shiite theology and their ethics of resistance and their respect for human life, they are not attacking civilian targets. They are starting to attack, civilian dual use infrastructure in, Israel. That's another story. Because now they want to concentrate on basically smashing all the key nodes that make the state of Israel function. That's what they call the great constriction.
That's their own terminology for it. And this has started in this past three or four days, and it will continue this week a lot. And you can count that they will continue to bomb Haifa refineries, military installations. Military installations are next to the Ben Ben Gurion Airport. There's no question about that.
So, obviously, the Israelis can even while the enormous censorship in Israel, they cannot admit that. But now that some images are floating around everywhere, anybody can see that they are being hammered again just like during the twelve day war. But because for them, they simply cannot pick up the phone and call Trump again and send get us a ceasefire, first of all, because nobody wants a ceasefire as it stands, it's the logic of escalation on both sides, on three sides if a country's rail is one side. They will continue to get hammered.
Speaker 0: Well, I also picked up on, yeah, the Iranians making this argument that they are shifting from defense to offense, and I am well, I expected, yes, something similar after The US had and Israel had, you know, spent a lot of its munition and its air defenses for the Iranians to escalate. But what do we know yet about about Iran's strategy in the war? Not the ambitions, but also how they expect to achieve this. Because as you mentioned, the the wish list of the Iranians in terms of a postwar settlement, it's quite high. I can't see the Americans agreeing to essentially any of it.
But but how how do you see them moving forward with this? What what are the yeah.
Speaker 1: The number the number one demand is, of course, no more US military bases all across West Asia. Well, they are already on it because from 70 to 80% of these bases are already completely destroyed and with only three weeks of war. If we have three more weeks, they will destroy all of them, period. And yesterday, something beyond extraordinary happened, which nobody's talking about it, but the significance is stratospheric. Twenty three years after shock and awe in Iraq, The United States and NATO have been expelled from Iraq, period.
They are not there anymore. That's it. It's over. They only have a base in Erbil, but it doesn't count. Iraqi Kurdistan is basically a bunch of gangsters.
It doesn't count. It's not it's not even in Baghdad, they look at Kurdistan. Ah, those gangsters. But Iraq itself, there's no more US and NATO troops. It took twenty three years.
And because in the end, they had to do a ceasefire because they were being bombed relentlessly by the different strands of the Iraqi resistance, Hashd al Shaabi, Qatayb Hezbollah, and many other different groups and militias. So it it's possible long term, relentless, you know, clarity of vision, spiritual strengths. You can you can put it you know, there's many declinations of how resistance works. And in the case of Iran, being they are have been they have been preparing for this war not for forty seven years. They have been preparing for this war since 2005, 2006.
Let's put it this way, twenty years. You remember in the mid two thousands when there were active plans to really bomb Iran coordinated by Rumsfeld at the time. And but they said the Americans were thinking that we don't have enough because at the time, they were thinking in terms of also a ground invasion. Everything that was gained in Washington was a total disaster, so they abandoned it. So they said, no.
We need to undermine the regime, the mullahs, all that crap that they that they talk about all the time for a few more years. And then when the time is right, which the way they see it, it's now, So it's not only hardcore Zionists, but old school neocons. The people from the project of the new American century, the the remnants of the project of the new American century. Now is the right time after they try to undermine it through the so called protests, which there were legitimate protests, they were weaponized by foreign forces. The time is now.
And they are in for a very rude awakening because especially after the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei. Very few people in Washington know that Moor Staban was for years, for at least fifteen, sixteen years, he was working very, very close with the IRGC leadership. So when I was we were together in Iran last year. When I at that time, I was asking practically everybody that I could, what was the relationship between Moerstaba and IRGC? And everybody said, yes.
It's very close. He's the kind of bridge between his dad, which is has so many dossiers to take care of and the IRGC. He knows exactly how the IRGC works. He's totally respected by the IRGC. And I remember that in May, they were telling me, yes.
He's one of the top candidates to to be the next supreme leader. There were three or others, but he was very well positioned, especially because of relationship with the RGC. So the fact that he was elected by the the council of experts to be the new supreme leader, even if he's not a top Ayatollah, they are betting on the idea, on the symbology, on the fact that he is continuing the work of his father. And this is so powerful that even if he doesn't appear in public, his aura and his reach is tremendous, and he's universally respected from day one. So that that in itself is extraordinary.
He doesn't need to come out, you know, give fantastic speeches. No. That's not the point. So this implies a continuity of government, a continuity of an idea of resistance with the difference that now the people who are completely in charge now are the IRGC. There's no question about that.
They are running Iran at the moment. So, obviously, there's the survival of the Iranian state is their survival. It's the next building. So they're going all the way. And, of course, don't they never you should never forget.
They have the Shiite spirit of martyrdom fully incarnated. They if they are martyred, they are dying for the cause. So you you cannot break people like that. It's out of the question. Especially when on the other side, you see people who can barely read.
They can barely string two sentences together, not to mention read a book by Kant written by Ali Ladigiani, also assassinated. So the the imbalance between the spirit of barbaria on one side and the spirit of Persian culture on the other is brutal. And they learned something that they didn't know before, the art of PR. Their PR is working very, very well all across the global South. Now they they became hits in in terms of public opinion.
Support for Iran all across the global South is practically unanimous now. They're making making those little funny videos with Lego characters and and all that works a miracle in terms of PR, showing that they have a little bit of leeway. You have one of their spokesmen saying, Donald Trump, you're fired.
Speaker 0: Yeah. So
Speaker 1: What's up? Absolutely true. They turned the whole thing up upside down. So this, with young people in The US, across the West, in China, in Africa, in Southeast Asia, wow. This is absolutely priceless.
So the Yapstin syndicate, they already lost the battle for public opinion on a global level. That's for sure. And married to the Iranians who learn how to play the soft power game as well. So when you put this all together, they have military cards, soft power cards, and pressure cards on their hands that nobody saw that they would have three, four weeks ago, nobody would bet that they would resist, first of all, that they would resist so long and counter punch fiercely like they're doing. Of course, once again they were underestimated and that's one of the traits of empire.
The empire underestimates everybody. Everybody is by definition inferior, Not to mention that death cult in Tel Aviv, the whole planet for them, the whole planet is inferior. So it's it's part of my personal thesis that Iran is fighting for the whole global South in this war. It's much more than a war against three BRICS, and we could talk a lot about the implosion of BRICS at the moment. BRICS now is in in a coma.
Pains me to say that. I dedicated a lot of work this past few years just to follow bricks, and at the moment, it's in deep coma. And we don't know if he's going to be resurrected. But, basically, this is a war. Iran is leading this war with the back with the backup of Russia and China.
And it yes. It's three BRICS trying to defend the whole global South from the cancer, essentially.
Speaker 0: Like, I also found it fascinating, the the image of Iran. I you know, if you would have gone back twenty years, it would have been unthinkable to have this kind of sympathies for Iran around the world. Of course, two surprise attacks and this kind of savage destruction of Iran, you know, tends to whip up sympathies. But, of course, I think it's more to more to it. But what you said about continuity, I think that's also a very good point because this is a problem when you demonize your opponent to to assume that they're all weak, you know, just one evil leader holding the whole house of cards together.
The continuity, I think, was underestimated. I've seen politicians and journalists make the argument after Khamenei was killed that, oh, well, now the Iranians finally have an opportunity for peace and, you know, freedom. So, first of all, I'm not sure he took away that I don't even know where to begin. It's just it's very strange. They thought, you know, you you killed this one guy, and now tomorrow, it's it's a new country.
I mean, it was very I don't understand it. I usually, you know, think it's ignorance or malice, but I think I underestimate ignorance at times, what what they actually thought would happen after killing Kavanee. But regarding Brickstow, I thought this was an interesting point because this is given that it's a war of attrition, it's largely a war of all or nothing. That is The US hopes, of course, if you can knock out the Iranian government, then they can, you know, may maybe replace it with a pro US government. Otherwise, just destroy Iran, you know, balkanize it, whatever it would be.
This would also then weaken Russia, China. On the other hand, if the United States fails, you're gonna see a much more strengthened Iran locked in closer with Russia and China. So, essentially, this greater Eurasian project will be much more powerful than it was before. But why is it then that you you see BRICS being in a coma and also the Shanghai Cooperation Organization? What do you see you know, Iran is now a member of both.
How do you see the future of them?
Speaker 1: Well, they didn't say anything. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, they released a statement of pitiful statement for that matter when we see one of their full members being directly attacked. BRICS is even worse because this is something, of course, that we had been discussing for years, the internal problems of BRICS. This is something that we discussed with the Russians a lot. And the Russians are always the agglutinators inside Bricks.
Now they are always bridging differences. But how can you bridge differences now when you have The UAE prodding directly the abstinence syndicate to go all out against Iran, full member of BRICS. When you have what India did to Iran, like a series of betrayals, everything, including the absolutely ghastly episode with the ship that was invited for that show and when he left Iranian Indian territory water, sorry, was torpedoed by by the Americans. And nobody knows for sure. It's still being endlessly debated if the Indians passed the coordinates to the Americans or not.
There's a huge debate about that in including a lot of very well informed and prepared people in India. And some of these analysts and scholars in India, they are absolutely appalled, embarrassed, and they said, look. We have no words to express to our friends all across the global South how Indian foreign policy is betraying Indian values. This is we are not that thing in government right now, but there's not much they they can do. So this the internal splits of bricks are terrible.
Brazil is a joke. I prefer not not even to talk about it. And South Africa is irrelevant. So, you know, we still depend on Russia and China. For the moment, two different strategies, but very effective.
We all know how Russia and China are defending Iran diplomatically, including in the UN Security Council. There was a phone call between Lavrov and Arakshi yesterday. Very, very important. The the what was leaked from that phone call was the usual blah blah blah, but I'm sure they talked about very, very important bilateral issues, including this backup, short and and long term. And China is also helping, Iran diplomatically and, of course, with intel, both Russia and China.
I wrote about this in some of my previous columns in detail, how Russia and China are helping Iran in terms of twenty four seven intel, satellite intel. In the case of Russia, even better, those, Shahids which went to Russia, transformed into Geraniums, and then went back to Iran, and now they are in the battlefield. Much enhanced compared to the original, Shahids. Not to mention the the famous Astrakhan at Tehran shuttle where we have no idea what was inside those Ilushin cargo planes coming from Russia to Iran in terms of hardware and software as well. So they got Iran's back.
There's no question about that. But they are looking at the bigger picture long term, And they know that the only way to constitute the project that we all of us independent analysts, you, included, have been talking about and writing about for many, many years. Eurasia integration depends on these three actors players, which happen to be Bricks and SEO, the three of them, Russia, China, and Iran. So they cannot possibly allow Iran to fail or to be dismembered or to be decomposed or to be blown up. So that's the number one thing.
So this this is what guides their strategic considerations in Moscow and in Beijing. On the nitty gritty on a day to day basis, it's fascinating because, for instance, the Russians say, look, the Iranians are not asking for anything, as they did not ask in the past, in the recent past. If they do, we will be there. And, of course, the Persians, as we all know, they are very, very proud. They would only ask if they are really against the wall, and they are not at the moment.
They are controlling the narrative. They have practically all the cards in their hands apart from indiscriminate bombing. All the other important cards, the Iranians have it. And the Chinese, of course, they are looking at a strategic partner, one of their sources of energy, one of the key nodes of the Belt and Road, the new Silk Roads. And, of course, they do it the Chinese way in ways that none of us see, but it it's there, you know.
So this will be the the future of the multipolar Eurasia integration world depending on these three actors. And at the moment, we can say that BRICS is a nonentity. Completely. I hope it changes. I hope the Russians could tell the Indians a few things in a run up towards the BRICS summit in Delhi later this year.
That's a horrible year to have India as share of BRICS this year because there's no trust on India from many of the BRICS nations. But it's gonna be hard to come up from the dead. It's gonna be very, very hard, very different. I assume you you have the same point of view. So let me ask you, Glenn.
Do you agree with this mini analysis at the moment, or are you more auspicious, or is it realistic? Well, I was also, yeah, a
Speaker 0: bit shocked by the the behavior of the Indians that is the way they invited Iran to participate and then in this naval exercise, and then see the Americans destroy the Iranian worship on its way home, and then not even being able to condemn it in any way. I thought this is quite shocking. But then on the other hand, you see now Iran giving access to India to pass, you know, in the Strait Of Hormuz. So it's I'm not I'm not I am not sure if some of these things are able to be fixed. Also, the international North South transportation corridor, the one running from Russia, Iran to India, at some point, this is just in the strategic interest of India to preserve.
So if if if they don't develop this with Iranians, then they're not gonna be able to connect properly with the Russians, which means that the Russians would then be leaning even more into China. And I think it's the Indians' ambitions or interest to create a more of a balance of dependence in Eurasia, to make sure there's many centers of power that, you know, does China, it has become too heavy. And the only way you can do that is to diversify. So you need Iran. If you don't have Iran, Eurasia will be Exactly.
Very, very China centric. And this is why it's not in India's interest. It's not in US interest. So I don't understand this obsession with trying to disconnect this corridor. It seems very foolish.
But, yeah, my my my last question for you was about Azerbaijan, though, because I spoke to a well, a common friend of ours, professor Marandi, and he was making the point that it's very likely that at some point in this war, Azerbaijan will be pulled in given that it's in the past at least been, yeah, more than indirectly involved in the attacks on Iran. How how do you see this? Do you see or Iran being Azerbaijan being pulled in, but also what would be the wider consequences? Because if you look at the energy architecture of Eurasia, you know, Azerbaijan has this little energy corridor between Iran and Russia. This is essentially what the Europeans look to for for diversification.
Even now, they don't have Iran. They don't have Russia. They don't have the Gulf States. I mean, they they can't live without us and Russia, and so it's it's becoming more sensitive now than it was in the past.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. And, of course, there is the BTC BTS angle. No? 30 it's it it the numbers vary. It's between 30 something to 49% or so that of Israel's oil that comes from the BTC, the Baku Tiblitzi Chehun pipeline, which is a story that I followed from the beginning when Brzezinski went to Baku in 1995 to sell the idea to the Aliyev clan.
That's a very, very long story. And at the time, it was already the same story. We need to bypass Russia and Iran. So why not build a pipeline that's gonna cost almost $4,000,000,000? So that's what it is.
But the problem is, Aliyev and Erdogan, they didn't do anything to cut off, supplying Baku oil to Israel. It's it's part of their shady, dodgy deals, Erdogan and Aliyev. One Aliyev is a pure gangster, and Erdogan is a hedger. He's always hedging. Very, very, very complicated alliance.
And from an Iranian point of view, they have to pay in they do pay enormous attention to everything that they do in Minusia. They know that they cannot antagonize Turkey and vice versa. Erdogan cannot antagonize Iran. First of all, energy links as well, neighbors, and, of course, Turkey still has in the back of Erdogan's mind maybe to be a key Eurasia player. For the moment, they are not.
They are not part of important and they have their own strategy, which is something that it's when I was in Istanbul, I went there, talked to them. They couldn't explain what they want. The famous, what's the name of the thing? Sorry sorry, Glenn. It escapes me now.
The, Foundation of Turkish States, Organization of Turkish States. I'm I'm I'm sorry. Headquartered in in Istanbul. Basically, it's a real state scheme of under of Erdogan's friends to build to have a real state contracts all across Central Asia. That's that's that's essentially it.
So there it's not power projection. And in geopolitical terms, when you put Turkey competing with China and Russia in Central Asia, it's a joke. They don't even register. Right? But the ambition is there.
And, of course, the relationship between Turkey and Israel, which is still extremely shady. Our friend, professor Marandi, in fact, he talks about it all the time. His position is very his position is aligned, I would say, with, let's say, the ruling classes in Tehran, including military analysts. You cannot trust anything about Erdogan, and he's always playing a double game. It's true.
He plays a double game with everybody. But Azerbaijan is very complicated. If they would be dragged eventually, assuming this war goes on, if they are dragged to do something and allow, for instance, attacks against Iran coming from Azerbaijan territory, they're gonna pay a huge price Because this is what happened during the twelve day war, and Iran didn't do anything about it. And Iran had full evidence that drones were coming from Azerbaijan territory to attack Iran. If that happens again, Aliyev is gonna be in deep, deep, deep trouble, to say the least.
For the moment, it's a wait and see thing because they consider themselves, well, this war has nothing to do with us. And in the end, depending on how it goes, they may even profit from it. But nothing is is is secure yet. But, well, I got an an invitation to go to one of these forums in Baku. I'm gonna take it because I would love to have this place these questions to these people on the spot, assuming they don't throw me in jail.
Speaker 0: No. It's well, it's just too many I always make the point with this war on Iran. The I think the reason why
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: So many American presidents avoided this because there's so many uncertain uncertain unknown and uncontrollable variables, like what's gonna happen to Azerbaijan, you know, if it gets pulled in. This is huge. This is it's gonna change, you know, part of not just the Eurasian, but the European landscape. So it just it seems so reckless to have gone down this path. But I think for for the Iranians, though, and, you know, this is the main miscalculation for The US, that Iran is not simply trying to, you know, get out of this war, get a ceasefire, so it can go back to normal.
The idea that Iran this is time to clean up, like, after all these decades of sanctions, threats, attacks, proxy wars. It it wants to settle some scores and do it on its own terms. So, yeah, this is was an easy war to start, but it's gonna be very, very difficult to to finish because when it's over, something well, the world will look very different, I think. So
Speaker 1: Completely. And you you see, Glenn, a part of their, I would say, most the categorical imperatives of their list of demands. No more sanctions, meaning no more sanctions period, which is absolutely impossible because these sanctions will have to be abolished by the US Congress, and we know this will never happen. Payment of reparations, this will never happen. Can you imagine the empire paying reparations to Iran?
And for the Iranians this is a matter of faith. It's part of their three or four top points alongside no more US military bases in West Asia. So The Gulf literally, metaphorically and otherwise, between both sides is unbridgeable, unbridgeable. And there's nobody who could possibly mediate. The only possible mediator could be Russia.
And this is something that what it was this according to if if if you look at what Ushakov did not say about Trump to Putin phone call, of course, they they touched upon the subject. And Putin might have said to Trump, yes. I can be the mediator. All the players over there, they respect us. The problem is, do the Iranians want mediation?
And for the moment, this is what we hear day after day from the Iranian leadership, including Ayatollah Mostafa Khamenei. No. No ceasefire. No mediation. We're going all the way.
And that's what makes it so volatile. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Now the only thing The US can do, it seems, is offer, you know, a way out, a ceasefire, and to put pressure this direction just escalate. But once they notice now that Iran can match their escalation, it's I I don't see where this is gonna go. It's, again, a foolish foolish war to have begun to start off with. So, anyways, Pepe, it's always good to see you, and I hope to see you again soon in person Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. All the best.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
John Mearsheimer: "Iran Holds All the Cards" - The Strategic Defeat of the U.S. https://youtu.be/DBOVT0UdHXg https://t.co/uJtuYW6Z4a
Video Transcript AI Summary
John Mearsheimer and Glenn discuss the trajectory of the United States’ foreign policy under Donald Trump, focusing on the shift from an anticipated pivot to Asia and a reduction of “forever wars” to the current Iran confrontation and its global implications.
- Initial optimism about Trump: Glenn notes a widespread belief that Trump could break with established narratives, recognize the post–Cold War power distribution, pivot to the Western Hemisphere and East Asia, end the “forever wars,” and move away from Europe and the Middle East. Mearsheimer agrees there was early optimism on Judging Freedom that Trump would reduce militarized policy and possibly shut down the Ukraine–Russia war, unlike other presidents.
- Drift into Iran and the current quagmire: The conversation then centers on how Trump’s approach to Iran evolved. Mearsheimer argues Trump often vacillates between claims of victory and deep desperation, and he characterizes Trump’s current stance as demanding “unconditional surrender” from Iran, with a 15-point plan that looks like capitulation. He describes Trump as sometimes declaring a “great victory” and other times recognizing the need for an exit strategy but being unable to find one.
- The escalation ladder and strategic danger: A core point is that the United States and its allies initially sought a quick, decisive victory using shock and awe to topple the regime, but the effort has become a protracted war in which Iran holds many cards. Iran can threaten the global economy and Gulf state stability, undermine oil infrastructure, and harm Israel. The lack of a credible exit ramp for Trump, combined with the risk of escalation, creates catastrophic potential for the world economy and energy security.
- Economic and strategic leverage for Iran: The discussion emphasizes that Iran can disrupt global markets via the Strait of Hormuz, potentially shut down the Red Sea with Houthis participation, and target Gulf desalination and energy infrastructure. The U.S. should maintain oil flow to avoid devastating economic consequences; sanctions on Iran and Russia were strategically relaxed to keep oil moving. The longer the war drags on, the more leverage Iran gains, especially as Trump’s options to harm Iran’s energy sector shrink due to the global economy’s needs.
- Exit possibilities and the limits of escalation: Glenn asks how Trump might avoid the iceberg of economic catastrophe. Mearsheimer contends that a deal on Iran’s terms would entail acknowledging Iranian victory and a humiliating US defeat, which is politically challenging—especially given Israeli opposition and the lobby. The Iranians have incentive to string out negotiations, knowing they could extract concessions as time passes and as U.S. desperation grows.
- Ground forces and military options: The possibility of a U.S. ground invasion is deemed impractical. Mearsheimer highlights that Desert Storm and the 2003 invasion involved hundreds of thousands of troops; proposed plans for “a few thousand” light infantry would be unable to secure strategic objectives or prevent Iranian counterattacks across the Gulf, Red Sea, and Persian Gulf, with Iran capable of inflicting significant damage on bases and ships. The discussion stresses that even small-scale operations could provoke heavy Iranian defense and strategic backlash.
- European and NATO dynamics: The Europeans are portrayed as reluctant to sign onto a risky campaign in support of U.S. objectives, and the episode warns that a broader economic crisis could alter European alignment. The potential breaching of NATO unity and the risk of diminished transatlantic trust are underscored, with Trump’s stance framed as blaming Europeans for strategic failures.
- Israel and the lobby: The influence of the Israel lobby and its potential consequences if the war deteriorates are discussed. Mearsheimer notes the danger of rising antisemitism if the war goes catastrophically wrong and Israel’s role in pressuring continued conflict. He also observes that a future shift in U.S. strategy could, in extreme circumstances, diverge from traditional Israeli priorities if the global economy is at stake.
- Deep state and decision-making: The final exchange centers on the role of expertise and institutions. Mearsheimer argues that Trump’s distrust of the deep state and reliance on a small circle (Kushner, Whitkoff, Lindsey Graham, media figures) deprived him of necessary strategic deliberation. He contends that a robust deep-state apparatus provides essential expertise for complex wars, offering a counterpoint to Trump’s preferred approach. He contends the deep state was not fully consulted, and that reliance on a limited network contributed to the strategic miscalculations.
- Concluding tone: Both acknowledge the grave, uncertain state of affairs and the high risk of escalation and miscalculation. They express a desire for an optimistic resolution but emphasize that the current trajectory is precarious, with signs pointing toward a dangerous escalation that could have wide-ranging geopolitical and economic consequences. They close with a note of concern about the potential for rash actions and the importance of considering responsible exits and credible diplomatic channels.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined again by professor John Mersheimer. So thank you very much for coming on the program. I I was hoping today we can, yeah, maybe first take a step back and look at the wider strategy of The United States under Trump because I was quite optimistic about his reelection. That is, he seemed to be capable of breaking from, you know, narratives and ideologies, which I think the political West followed blindly over the past decades.
And this seemed to be a requirement to navigate or adjust at least to the new realities of the world, which was that the unipolar distribution of power was gone. So he recognized The US couldn't be everywhere, so it's more or less suggested, you know, we have to go to the Western Hemisphere and East Asia, which means we have to pivot out of the Middle East and Europe, and that meant ending the war with Russia. This trapped US resource in Europe, and it pushed the Russians towards China. And also in the Middle East, he was quite consistent on ending the forever war. So overall, what I'm trying to say is although, you know, he's, you know, a man who was not very civilized in his demeanor, what he said was a lot more rational than what I heard from other politicians.
So that's why I wanted to hear from you. What do you make of his direct his direction now? What's gonna happen to the pivot to Asia and this wider strategy which we saw outlined in the national security strategy of December 25?
Speaker 1: I think, Glenn, the best evidence of what you're talking about regarding how people like us thought about Trump, initially in terms of foreign policy, and what people think now is, reflected in the lineup of people, on Judging Freedom, Judge Napolitano's show. And, of course, both you and I are regulars on the judges' show. I think if you go back to the first maybe six, seven months after president Trump was elected, virtually everybody who appeared on that show was quite optimistic that Trump would represent positive movement in terms of American foreign policy, that there would be no more forever wars. He wouldn't start any new wars, period. And there would be much less emphasis on a militarized foreign policy.
And I think most importantly at the time, think we all thought that there was a reasonable chance he would shut down the Ukraine Russia war. So there was a lot of optimism about him. And of course, lot of the people on the show, the Americans, didn't vote for Trump. Some did. But everybody, I think, was generally pretty enthusiastic about the direction that he was gonna take The United States.
I think now if you watch Judging Freedom, almost everybody on that show is, and I'm choosing my words carefully here, very critical of president Trump, that, he is seen to have blown it, to missed a terrific opportunity to change the direction that American foreign policy was going in. And if anything, he's on the old path. I think the key issue today is the Iran war and all I can say is it's truly remarkable that he allowed himself to fall into this trap. This is much worse than Afghanistan, much worse than Iraq. I mean if you think about the Iraq war in 2003, at least in the initial stages, George W Bush could land on the aircraft carrier and effectively declare mission accomplished, which is another way of saying we won.
Trump can't do that. It's been clear almost from the beginning that this is the lost cause. But more importantly, the potential for really serious damage here is enormous. And here we're talking mainly about the international economy, but not only the international economy. So he's entered a war that he can't win and could haveand one could argue was likely to have catastrophic consequences for the world, not just for him and his presidency.
So it's really quite remarkable when you think about it, where he has ended up in a quite short period of time. You know, he was put in office 01/20/2025 and the war started against Iran on 02/28/2026. That's effectively thirteen months after he's in office. So he starts off looking like he has a winning strategy, but thirteen months later he's jumped into a huge quagmire that he can't get out of. Truly amazing.
Speaker 0: Well, regarding optimism, though, it's I wouldn't say that it was rooted in being naive because if you look, he did have a first term. And unlike all his predecessors, you know, going back to World War two, he didn't start any new wars, so he seemed to follow through on his rhetoric. So that that's why this has come as a bit of a surprise how many, you know, his his foreign policy in the second time around, why he went down this path. But how how do you make sense of the demands he's making now? Because you said he can't really get out of this.
But if you listen to his language, he suggests that the Iranians are now begging for a deal. They're offering him all these ships full of oil if they just, you know, he will be so kind to give them a deal. And Iranians are simply saying they're not even talking to The US at the moment. So how how do you make sense of it? Because the demands he put for the Iranians, it was essentially full capitulation.
It was no nuclear enrichment. It's no ballistic missiles. No partnership with regional allies. It's yeah. Capitulation, I think, would be a good description.
Speaker 1: Well, think the words that he used that always stick in my head, Glenn, are unconditional surrender. Right? And by the way, if you look at the 15 plan that he's now putting forward to the Iranians as the basis for working out a deal, it looks like unconditional surrender. And when I first saw the 15 plan, I thought it was a joke. I thought that this was disinformation that the Iranians or the Israelis had put out.
I couldn't believe this was a serious plan. But as you know, some days president Trump thinks that we've won a great victory, that the war is over with and we just have to sign the documents of surrender. Other days, you can tell he's quite desperate and he understands that he has made a huge mistake and that he's got to find an exit strategy and he really can't. So he goes back and forth. His rhetoric just changes all the time.
It's quite remarkable. But the fact is, Glenn, he is and we are in profound trouble. Now what's going on here? We started this war thinking that we would win a quick and decisive victory. When I say we, I'm talking about the Trump administration because people like us, of course, understood that this was a cockamamie strategy from the get go.
But the West, The United States, and Israel started this war thinking that they could employ a shock and awe strategy built around decapitation. We'd decapitate the regime, we'd shock and awe the Iranians, and people would rise up in the streets, they'd overthrow the regime, and we would live happily ever after. This was the basic strategy. We had to win a quick and decisive victory for this to work. And it failed.
By the way, anybody who has a basic understanding of international relations should have understood that this would fail from the get go. It was just not going to work. And it didn't work. But then, we found ourselves in a protracted war. Here we are.
And I don't think most people fully realize it, but the Iranians hold almost all the cards in a protracted war. First of there's no real good exit strategy for Trump and if he goes up the escalation ladder, which is the other alternative, the Iranians beat him at almost every step of the ladder. I think it's very hard for most Americans to understand this, especially people who watch Fox News and are loyal supporters of the president. They think that we're winning. They listen to him say that, you know, we've already won.
Why haven't the Iranians signed the surrender papers? But if you look carefully at what's going on here and you have a basic understanding of military history and military strategy, you see very quickly that we are in terrible shape as you go up the escalation ladder. So again, the point I'm making to you is he has no exit strategy. He can't find the exit ramp now. And if he thinks about going up the escalation ladder, he gets stymied on every rung.
Now, why do I say that? First of all, Iran can wreck the international economy. It can wreck the international economy. And one could argue that we're sort of heading in that direction. I like to say there's an iceberg out there in the water and we're heading towards that iceberg.
We are the Titanic. And I think President Trump basically understands that and I think his advisors understand that and they're trying to turn the ship so that we don't hit the iceberg. But anyway, my point is, my first point is, that Iran can wreck the international economy. Furthermore, it can destroy, literally destroy, most of the Gulf States because those states depend on desalination plants and they depend on oil infrastructure. And those targets are easy for the Iranians to hit.
And if the Iranians decided that they were going to go after a country like Saudi Arabia and take out all their desalination plants and take out their oil or energy infrastructure, they'd basically wreck Saudi Arabia as a functioning society. Then there's the whole question of the Israelis. The Israelis are running out of defensive missiles. The Iranians obviously have lots of missiles. They can do enormous damage to Israel.
I don't think they can do to Israel what they could do to countries like Saudi Arabia or The UAE, but there's no question that they can do enormous damage to Israel. Then there's the whole question of ground forces. We should talk more about this. We don't have any serious ground forces option. This is a joke.
Right? There's just no ground forces option there. And in fact, if we go down that road, we're just gonna make a bad situation even worse. Then, to take it a step further, what we have to do, what President Trump has to do to avoid a catastrophe in the international economy is he's gotta make sure there's a lot of oil out there in the global market. It's got to be a lot of oil.
This is why he took economic sanctions off of the Russians. Just think about that. We have taken sanctions off the Russians so that their oil can get out into the market. More importantly for what we're talking about here, we've taken sanctions off the Iranians and we're allowing just think about this. We're allowing Iranian ships to go through the Strait Of Hormuz because we want that Iranian oil out there in the market, the global market.
So what's happening here is although we are bombing Iranians and doing significant damage to their country and murdering innocent people. At the same time, the Iranians are not suffering economically. So what this tells you is that President Trump has to be extremely careful that he doesn't go up the escalation ladder because if he goes up the escalation ladder, the end result is that the Iranians will win and we will lose in a truly serious way. So we're in deep, deep trouble.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's a good point with the escalation ladder because, like, the Iranians have a lot of cards to play here that is not just to shut down the Strait Of Hormuz, but if they use Yemen to shut down the Red Sea, as you mentioned, with Saudi Arabia, now they're cut off from all access if you destroy their desalination plants. Easy. No water hit their energy fields, no energy. And in places like Qatar, where 85 to 90% of the population are foreigners, they would begin to leave, and it would only be a desert lift, which is how they found it.
So it is it's probably one of the most vulnerable countries of the world, this this state. So it is but you would have thought they would have considered this before going into this war because the Iranians were quite open about what they could do and what they would likely do. I know Trump said, you know, who would have ever ever thought that they would strike US bases around the region? You know, they they kept saying though, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna shut down the Strait Of Hormuz.
We're gonna attack your bases. And even now in Iraq, I'm not sure if there's Americans left, but the Europeans are pretty much all out. So it's after twenty three years. So they they they seem to be able to, at least so far, achieve some of the objectives they set out. But you often made the point that in Ukraine, a political settlement is unlikely because the different sides there, you know, they're too far apart.
There's nothing to agree on. But in this instance, though, you know, even if this would only be Trump's opening position, you know, demanding full unconditional surrender, the Iranians also have their own conditions, which makes it very difficult even for, you know, Trump to declare victory and go home. So how how do you see this playing out then? Is is there any solution to this war at all? I mean, can Trump go home?
Speaker 1: Here's the problem, I think, Glenn. It's twofold. First of all, as you noted, the two sides are miles apart on in terms of their demands. Right? There's no bargaining space here.
And, of course, you and I have made this same argument regarding the Ukrainians and the West on one side and the Russians on the other side. There's just no bargaining space. The demands of each side are so in so at odds with the demands of the other side. You just kinda can't see how you get a deal. That's point number one.
The second point I'd make is that if you're playing Iran's hand, you have no interest in cutting a deal now. You have huge leverage now for the reasons I described before and the longer the war goes on, the more leverage you have. The longer the war goes on, the more desperate President Trump is gonna get. He has to you know, the Titanic is heading toward the iceberg and you have got to start changing course now. Otherwise, you're gonna hit the iceberg.
That's where we are. All you have to look at is the yields on ten year treasury bonds in The United States, which many people view as being in a danger zone and in a situation where it's only gonna get worse. Right? This is really potentially disastrous. Right?
We have to do something to fix this problem. This is why President Trump said on Monday that he was not going to attack Iran that evening. Remember, he had promised that he was gonna attack Monday evening, I think that was the twenty third, March twenty thirdand the day of March 23, in the morning, he called it off. And he said, I'll give them five days. And he just said, Now I'll give them ten days.
What's going on here? It would be suicidal for President Trump to launch an all out attack on Iranian energy infrastructure. This would be nuts. Again, as I said before, we have a deep seated interest in making sure there's as much Iranian oil out in global markets as possible. By the way, just parenthetically, you know, there's all this talk about us conquering Cargilland people say, You want to understand that 90% of Iranian oil goes through Cargilland and we can conquer it?
I don't think we can conquer it, but let's assume we conquer it. What are we going to do? Conquer Cargill and cut off the flow of oil into global markets? We're not going to do that. You remember when President Trump said that we bombed Cargill and he emphasized very clearly that he only hit military targets.
Why did he do that? Because he understands again that you have to get that Iranian oil and you have to get that Russian oil. You have to get all the oil you can out into global markets because if you look at what's happening in the Strait remember, about 20% of the world's oil comes through the Strait. I would argue that today it's been reduced. What comes through the Strait has been reduced to about 5% of what it was before February 28.
Just think about that. 20% of the world's oil comes through the strait. And we're not even talking about fertilizers here, which is another huge problem, but just oil. 20% comes through the strait and at this point in time only 5% of what was going through the strait on February 27 is now going through the strait. This is a huge problem.
So this tells you that we cannot go after Iranian oil and wreck their energy infrastructure. And that means the Iranians have huge leverage over us. And the longer this goes on, when you think about the consequences for the world's food supply of all these fertilizers not making it through the strait, and then you think about the consequences of only 5% of the prewar flow of tankers through the strait is now taking place, you see that the potential for disaster is huge. And the Iranians have a vested interest in stringing this out because the more they string it out, the more desperate president Trump gets. And the more desperate president Trump gets, the more leverage they have.
What's really gonna cause president Trump to cave in a major way is when he comes to understand that if he doesn't shift course, the Titanic is going to hit the iceberg. And the pressure is already there. Again, that is why I believe he did not attack this past Monday, gave them five more days, and has now given them ten more days. And what happens at the end of ten days if the Iranians don't cave to his preposterous 15 plan. Is he going to bomb Iran?
Is he going to bomb their energy infrastructure? I don't think so. He has no option here. You know, just getting back to your original point about five minutes ago to how we got into this situation, how we could have allowed ourselves to be put in such a vulnerable position, the fact is, again, Glenn, they thought they were going to win a quick and decisive victory. I've studied a lot of military history, you see this in so many cases.
Countries go to war and they go to war because they're optimistic about their chances. It makes perfect sense. You don't go to war if you think you're going to lose. President Trump didn't go to war thinking he was going to end up in the situation that he is in now. He went to war thinking he was going to do another Venezuela operation: float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, bring the Iranians down, be able to proclaim victory, have a parade in New York or something like that.
That's what he thought. But once that doesn't happen and you're in a war of attrition, oh, you are in deep trouble. And you are especially in deep trouble in this case because the Iranians hold so many of the cards. And again, the point I'm making to you is we want a deal now. Trump wants a deal But he wants a deal on his terms, but he can't get a deal on his terms.
And in fact, again, just to repeat myself because I think it's such an important point, the Iranians have a vested interest in just letting this one go. And at some point down the road, when they have much more leverage then than they do now, then trying to work out a deal that's favorable to them.
Speaker 0: I think that's an important point, which important that people also understand that the idea that time is on the Iranian side. Because if you look at the military component, the Iranians can continue to just pump out these very cheap drones. You know, they can it is is easy to manufacture. They're cheap. The industrial potential can remain, and and these, you know, $5,000 drones are sent, and The US has to use this million dollar interceptive missile.
So they they kinda continue to pump them drones while The US diminishes its potential. So, again, time is on their side. And also, as you suggest no. So as I just said, in the economic era, they they're actually making more money now that the prices are going up. So while The US is, you know, going somewhere very dark and dangerous.
So it it does I can see, you know, if you were advising the Iranians, you know, you would say, you know, you're not in a rush to to wrap this one up, especially when these are the deals or the terms they're putting on the table. But but I was wondering, when he started this countdown, first forty eight hours, then five days, then ten days, it reminded me a little bit about what he did with the Russians. He was also putting, I think, fifty days, then he went down to twelve days. You know, when the countdown was over, they were Russia was gonna be hit by the toughest sanctions ever. And when the clock finally ran out, instead, you know, he's called Putin, they agreed to meet in Alaska.
So, you know, it just pushed the whole thing aside. But is this something similar that can happen here? Because I guess the difference is that the Russians really wanted a deal, but for the Iranians, it's unclear what Trump can actually deliver. Because if they hold on to Hormuz, they can they can, you know, essentially put up a toll booth. They can get reparations from The Gulf States for this attack.
They can demand that they expel The US bases, which have already been many of them blown up, and they can even compel them to ditch the dollar in their energy trade. So which links The US financially to the region. So they they can get everything they want with military means, which means Trump really has to have something else to offer if he wants to get them to the table. I'm just wondering what is it? I if, again, if Trump calls you, how do he, you know, avoid the iceberg?
How do we get out of here? What can he do at this point in time?
Speaker 1: The truth is he is gonna have to make major concessions to the Iranians, and it will be clear when he makes those major concessions that the Iranians won a clear victory. It will be a humiliating defeat for The United States. If he wants to end this, given what you and I have been saying about what happens is you go up the escalation ladder and the fact that there is no easy, exit strategy here. He really has no choice in the final analysis, but to cave in to most of Iran's demands and accept a humiliating defeat. And that will be extremely hard to do.
And it'll be extremely hard to do in part because of Israel. The Israelis will not want us to make any concessions. The Israelis will want us to continue the war. But I think this will be a case where we will be so desperate to avoid a global catastrophe that Trump will ignore the Israelis and do what he has to do. Now, he may not do that.
Right? He may feel that he just can't make the necessary concessions that the Iranian demands are just too outrageous. And those Iranian demands would be hard for anyone to swallow, anybody in the White House, whether it's President Trump, President George H. W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, the demands that the Iranians are making are really quite amazing. So even if you accept only, you know, 75% of them or even 50% of them, that would be very difficult to do. And this is the enormous problem that he faces. And one can easily imagine let me take away the word easily one can imagine him not accepting a deal and just thinking that he can stick it out and the end result is we'll basically go off a cliff economically. I think a lot of people don't see that as a serious possibility at this point in time.
But I think if you look at newspapers like the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal carefully, you look at the business section, the articles that are written about the economy and about fertilizers and food and so forth and so on, you see that we could very easily go off a cliff here. We're talking about a serious situation and it's not clear what President Trump will do. As I like to say, Glenn, I think that when you study international history, there are these handful of cases that stand out where policymakers get into desperate situations and when policymakers get into desperate situations, they sometimes roll the dice, they do things that lead to catastrophe, and my favorite example here is the Japanese decision making process that led to Pearl Harbor. The United States was squeezing Japan economically between, actually between the 1940 and Pearl Harbor, which was 12/07/1941. And we really began to squeeze starting 07/25/1941.
This is shortly after Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union and we were really putting pressure on Japan after that. And the Japanese were desperate because they were heavily dependent on The United States. They were remarkably dependent on The United States for oil, scrap iron, and scrap steel. And we had basically made it impossible for them to import those things from The United States. We had frozen their assets, their economic assets, and they were just desperate.
And they understood full well that attacking The United States at Pearl Harbor was likely to end in catastrophe. It's very important to understand this. The Japanese understood that they were attacking Godzilla and that it was likely to end in disaster. But they did it anyway because they were desperate. And when the level of desperation reaches a certain point, states, countries, leaders sometimes do remarkably foolish things that end up with catastrophic consequences.
And this, of course, is what happened with the Japanese. So the question you have to ask yourself is what is President Trump going to do as his level of desperation increases? And by the way, you catch glimpses of how desperate he is on occasion when you sort of watch his body language and you watch what he's saying about the war against Iran. He understands full well that he's in deep trouble. And I'm sure his advisors are telling him that if we don't shut this one down, we could go off a cliff.
His advisors, especially his economic advisors, are not fools. They understand what's going on here. And they're looking for an exit ramp and they can't find one. And they understand full well that the Iranians are playing hardball with them. And I'm sure they understand full well that the Iranians have powerful cards to play.
And what's happening, I'm sure, behind closed doors I'm sure that behind closed doors the level of desperation is increasing every day. And they're searching, you know, they're looking for a solution here. But as you and I were saying before, where is the solution? Where is the exit strategy? You know, a number of my friends who I talk to about this say, What President Trump should do is declare victory and get out.
He can't do that. Who's going to believe that he achieved a victory? Furthermore, the other side gets a vote in this one and the other side's not gonna quit, right? They're gonna continue to put pressure on The United States and they're gonna continue to put pressure on Israel even if we say we won. They want us completely out of the Middle East.
This is truly remarkable. One of their demands is they just want us to go home. Is President Trump going to declare victory and go home? I don't think so. He may declare victory, but he's going to stay there militarily, maybe not employ military force against Iran, but we'll be there and the Iranians will continue to attack us.
So declaring victory and getting out, so to speak, where does that leave you? Nowhere. So he's got to figure out a way to shut this one down, and that means reaching some sort of modus vivendi with Iran. How does that happen? Again, goes back to our earlier discussion of that 15 plan that Trump put forward and then the various demands that the Iranians are putting forward.
You know, how do you find some bargaining space there? And again, I don't see how you do it. It you know, the Iranians have no incentive.
Speaker 0: Oh, the well, Iranian demands, they seem excessive. However, they they're also achievable, it appears, because not only can they strike the bases, but as I mentioned, as long as they control the Strait Of Hormuz, they can squeeze the Gulf States to decouple in terms of either, you know, not rebuilding the bases or hosting the troops. They can, you know, decouple from the petrodollar. There's a lot of things they can do, which, you they can continue to do even if Trump goes home and declares victory. So it is a difficult position.
But in terms of the pressure, though, I think this is also a problem with all the pressure which has been put on Iran because not only do they have a lot of cards to play if they decide to go up the escalation ladder, But also, they they can't really afford though to go back to the status quo either. I mean, they've been living decades under these crippling sanctions. They had two surprise attacks on their country only a few months in between. They don't want another one. And also, if even if they get an agreement saying, oh, we promise not to attack you, you know, there was just these surprise attacks happened during negotiations.
There's no trust anymore. So so I think they are in a position where not they only have a lot of cards to play, but they're willing to absorb an immense amount of pain in order to to to put a final end to this, which, as as you said, would be to expel the US bases. And, again, it sounds excessive, but they're already pulling out of Iraq, and this is after twenty three years. So it's not inconceivable. Again, they as we as you said, they can shut down the Gulf States as well if they don't fall in line.
So it's just hard to see except, you know, if he's reaching for a nuclear weapon, what else he can possibly do to to push this one back. But sorry. You were
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just wanna I wanna make two points Just to piggyback on what you said, one thing we haven't talked about, which is enormously important, is the Houthis and the Saudis I mean, the Houthis and the Iranians together can shut down the Red Sea. And about 20% of the world's oil and gas comes through the Persian Gulf and through the Strait Of Hormuz, but another 12% comes through the Red Sea. And if the Houthis join in with the Iranians, which is a serious possibility, and they shut down the Red Sea as well, that will further exacerbate the situation. So we don't want to lose sight of that.
But also, Glenn, just building on what you said a minute ago, and of course I agree completely with what you said, it is important to emphasize that Iran is dealing with an existential threat here. The Israelis especially, but also the Americans, want to wreck their state. They talk about regime change but the Israelis are interested in more than regime change. They want to destroy Iran. They want to do to Iran what happened to Syria.
They want to break it into pieces. They want to make Iran a number of states or one single state that is remarkably weak. This is an existential threat. And when you face an existential threat, and as you pointed out, they've faced this existential threat for a long period of time, they know they can't trust the Americans and the Israelis, given that dimension of the equation, they have a deep seated interest in continuing this war and pushing the Americans and the Israelis to make huge concessions to them. So if you look at their incentives and you marry that to their capabilities going up the escalation ladder, which we've talked about and which you were just talking about, again, you just say to yourself, How do you end this one quickly?
Just doesn't make sense from an Iranian point of view. And given that they get a vote, you can't get a deal.
Speaker 0: Well, this is why it's so dangerous when a strategic situation boils down to all or nothing. This is when countries are willing to do a lot of crazy things. But it is if if there was a possibility, though, for example, if The US realized it can't dislodge Iran from Hormuz, if it realizes the difficult position, if there was a situation where, you know, Trump could offer the Iranians, you know, you can co manage the Strait Of Hormuz with the Gulf States in return. We remove the sanctions. You know, Trump can say, we are this you know, are bringing our home troops our troops home from the Middle East according to our grand strategy.
You know, the the Iranians now have peace with the Gulf States. You know, he solved the Shi'a Sunnah problem. I mean, it it it could come as a victory, but it seems hard to achieve now that he keeps doubling down on this very dangerous rhetoric that you know, I even watch Sean Hannity on Fox News arguing that the Iranians should also pay for the war, you know, for all the bombs that we had to drop on them. It is it's just I think his rhetoric's becoming a a key problem, though, by overselling this victory he proclaimed. I Well, if I
Speaker 1: can just say something very quickly here, Glenn. I think what happens in situations like this is that when the war goes south, the people who got you into the war don't wanna retreat. They don't wanna say, we were wrong, let's pull back. That's not their response almost always. The response is instead, let's double down.
So the Wall Street Journal, Sean Hannity, Lindsey Graham, General Jack Keane, that whole crowd that helped produce this disaster fully understand what's happened. And they don't want to retreat now and concede defeat. What they want to do is double down. And they are putting pressure on President Trump to up the ante, and they are making arguments that we can win, we have cards to play, we can go up the escalation ladder. So the problem that Trump faces is that he and his advisors surely understand that there is a great deal of truth in what people like you, Glenn Deeson, me, John Mearsheimer, think.
They understand that. But at the same time, they have all these people on the other side and these are their close supporters. These are their compadres who helped get them into this mess who were telling them that we can get out of it. And they're of course spinning all sorts of stories about how we do it. And this will go this means that the war will probably go on for, you know, a couple more weeks before we're on the verge of falling off a cliff.
And at that point it may just be too late. So this is why we shouldn't be too optimistic about President Trump figuring out that he's in a desperate situation, and in that case, what he ought to do is back off and try to work out a deal.
Speaker 0: Well, an important component of this war, though, is, of course, Israel. They're the ones who launched the first strike here. And you you often make the point that, you know, if US and Israeli interests and security was, you know, completely aligned, then there wouldn't be a need for the lobby. But, again, there is a lobby which suggests that these differences have to be, you know, ironed out. How do you see this being impacted by when The US has to get out of this war?
Because, you know, the the Israelis have been lobbying for this war now for, what, thirty plus years for an attack on Iran. They finally got it. If The US leaves now, Iran's gonna probably end up in a much, much more favorable position. So do you see a break or further break at least in US Israeli relations as a consequence of this war? I know it's not over yet, and, you know, it can still some unknown directions this war can take.
But what are the risks you think of The US and Israel, I guess, parting ways to some extent?
Speaker 1: Well, as you know, I think that in almost all cases, certainly in the past, when Israel's interest and America's interest pointed in opposite directions, The United States always did what was in Israel's interest in large part because of the power of the lobby. And I've argued or I should say Steve Walt and I have argued for long, for a long time, that this is not in America's national interest obviously. But it's also not in Israel's interest either. But this could be a very different case because if we're in a situation where it looks like the global economy is going to crash, I think that would lead President Trump to just tell the Israelis and to tell the lobby he doesn't care what they think. He's gonna do everything he can to avoid going off the cliff, this sort of thing.
So this could be a different case. This could be a case that in a sense, contradicts the basic argument that Steve Walt and I lay out in our work on the lobby. There's another dimension to this that bears mentioning. It's a very sensitive subject, but almost everybody I know believes that Israel and the lobby led us into this war. And if it's a catastrophe, there is a great danger that people will say that the Jews are responsible for causing this war, which is simply not true because huge numbers of Jews oppose this war.
And the Israel lobby is comprised of Christian Zionists as well as Jews, and by no means do all Jews belong to the lobby. So it is very important to understand that. But nevertheless there is a real danger here that if this war goes south in a serious waywe go off a cliff, we hit the iceberg, whatever phrase you want to use, and people see it as a war that Israel and the lobby is principally responsible for, that would cause a wave of anti Semitism, not just in The United States but outside The United States as well. And I actually think that a lot of people inside of the lobby and a lot of Israelis and certainly a lot of American Jews understand this danger here. So I think if it looks like we're going off a cliff, I think the lobby would not put much pressure on Trump to cut a deal with the Iranians because of the potential threat of a massive increase in antisemitism as a result of a lost war, a catastrophic war that's blamed on Israel and the lobby.
Speaker 0: I think you're probably correct in this. And but it also has to be said that a lot of the leading critics within The US Of Israel are American Jews, though. It's so it's it's not as if and, you know, a lot of the hardcore Zionists are actually Christians. So to to just say, you know, everything Israel's do is to to compare to to Judaism, I think, would be a you know, the wrong direction to take. And but, of course, the racist are rarely, you know, purely rational, of course, in their rhetoric.
So but, no, I I see that danger as well. How do you see, though, the the Europeans in this? Because they played a very strange role. They, you know, they initially they well, they weren't invited, and then they suggested that they would send weapons. Trump didn't want their weapons because he already won.
Now he wants them to open up the Strait Of Hormuz. They don't want to because, you know, it's too late. It's, you know, it's all I think he says he used the iceberg and the Titanic metaphor. I think it was a French general who said that, you know, the Titanic already hit the iceberg, now Trump invites us to join. You know, like he says, he should have invited us before at least.
This is more or less the argument. How do you explain the European position on this? And how, I guess, to widen it further, do you think this would affect NATO? Because Trump already, on more than one occasion, argued, you know, NATO now is a paper tiger. Mark my words because you'll remember this in a few months' time.
We will remember you betrayed us. You know, you didn't come to help us. We do everything for NATO. Marco Rubio said, you know, Ukraine is not America's war. It's a European Europe's war, and we helped you, and you don't help us.
So it looks like they're building up a case against the Europeans and against NATO. I was just wondering how how do you see this dimension of the war because it is an important you know, it would have further ripple effects is my point.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There are a lot of points to be made here. One thing that gets lost in the discourse today because the focus is laser like on Iran is the Ukraine war. And if the Ukraine war were to go south this summer, the Ukrainian military were to start losing in a serious way on the battlefield, this would have disastrous consequences for Trump, for NATO, and for transatlantic relations. So we wanna keep in the back of our mind that there is this other, I would say, impending disaster out there that could make a bad situation worse.
But just focusing on the Iran situation, you know, here we are again with the Americans doing something, not consulting the Europeans, getting into trouble, and then asking the Europeans for help. And the Europeans, of course, understand full well that this is a lost cause and they don't want to get involved. I mean, the idea that European countries should send their navies to join the American Navy as they try and push through the Strait Of Hormuz with naval power alone, This is, you know, crazy. The American Navy, the most powerful navy in the world, won't even go near the Strait Of Hormuz, right, for fear that Iranian cruise missiles will sink those American naval vessels. The idea that the French Navy or the British Navy is gonna be this huge force multiplier that allows our Navy plus their navies to forge through the strait is kinda crazy.
Who believes that? You know, we're talking about 1915 all over again when the British Navy tried to push its way through the Dardanelles and ran into mines and had to turn around. I mean, it's just not gonna happen. And, you know, there's all this talk about maybe using ground forces. This is not a serious argument.
Ground forces. And the European ground forces, few in number. You really think the European armies are ready to invade Iran or conquer Karg Island or any other island? I mean, this is just not in the cards. And of course, what's happening here is Trump is desperate and now he's blaming the Europeans.
Understands that he's gonna lose and he's got to blame somebody else. It can't be him. After all, he's a genius. Right? He's one of the great strategists of all time.
So this disaster can't be his fault. So whose fault is it? Well, has to be the Europeans' fault. All we needed was for them to come into the fight and we would have won. But they didn't come into the fight because they're useless, they're just free riders, and that's why we lost.
It wasn't my fault. So that's what's going on here. And the Europeans play right into his hands because the Europeans hardly ever stand up to him. And as the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Chinese, and the Russians have demonstrated, there's only one way you deal with President Trump, and that is you stand up to him. If you behave like Marc Ruta, he's gonna walk all over you.
He's a classic bully. Everybody should have figured that out by now. If you show weakness, as the Europeans consistently do, with the exception of the Spanish Prime Minister, If you show weakness, if you behave like Marc Ruta, President Trump is just gonna slap you around and continue to slap you around because, again, he's a bully.
Speaker 0: So I guess, yeah, The US will blame Europeans for Iran. The the Europeans seemingly are planning to plan to blame The US for Ukraine. So, you know, there will be a big blame game going around, but it is it's an interesting dynamic because as you suggest, there's, you know, if the Iran war, which can't be contained, is spreading everywhere, if that was the only thing, it would be one thing. But there's so many other variables at play, which won't stay constant. At any point, we could have an unraveling global economy.
The Ukraine war can go spiraling into a collapse. So it's very difficult to, I guess, to bet on a wider strategic stability as things in Iran goes terribly wrong. But at this point, though, do you see any final you know, if Trump decides to go up the escalation ladder, is is there any possible final solution he can go to? You you you were dismissive of the ground the ground operations, sending in, you know, boots on the ground. Because this appears to be, you know, man no matter how foolish it is.
And leaders often double down on, you know, foolishness, but but the troops are on their way, thousands of US soldiers. It's unclear how they're gonna use them. I thought the way they would the most what will make most sense, I guess, would be to invade Yemen or something to make sure that their Red Sea wouldn't be closed off. But anything else, and that as well, by the way, sounds like a disaster. I'm not sure.
What do you see the possibility of using these troops for?
Speaker 1: I would just point out to you that when we did Desert Storm back in 1991, remember we invaded or we attacked with ground forces on 02/24/1991, the attacking forces comprised about 700,000 troops. And of that 700,000 troops, 540,000 were American. 540,000. And a lot of those forces were mechanized infantry divisions, armored divisions. Then in 2003 when we invaded Iraq, the total force was about 300,000.
I would estimate about 190,000 were US troops and probably about 45,000 or so were British troops. And again, many of those units that went into Iraq in 2003, like in 1991, were mechanized infantry and armored divisions. And as you know, is a much smaller country than Iran geographically, and it has a much smaller population. What
Speaker 0: are
Speaker 1: we talking about here? We're talking about sending a couple thousand troops, maybe 10,000 at the most. I don't think the number is 10,000. I think, you know, all total at this point, we're more or less committed to sending probably about five or 6,000. When you look at, you know, what we're actually doing and just don't listen to the rhetoric.
But even if it's 10,000, they're light infantry, 10,000. Just think about those numbers that I was giving you for Desert Storm in '91 and for the second Gulf War in 2003. What are you going to do with light infantry? Then the question is where are gonna put them? You know, we have about 13 bases in The Middle East.
Almost all those bases have been evacuated because the Iranians have slammed those bases. They've done great destruction to American military bases in the region. This tells you that our bases are vulnerable. So where are we going to put these troops so that they don't get hit like the bases got hit? What bases are we going to put them on?
And what kind of equipment are they going to use to go into places like Karg Island or the Iranian Mainland or what have you? And what's going to happen when they get there? Are the Iranians just going to say, this is a fait accompli, there's nothing we can do about it, or do you think the Iranians are going to fight back? I mean, we know the Iranians are gonna fight back. So what are you gonna do with a handful of troops?
And they talk about taking these small islands in the Strait Of Hormuz. There are three of them. One is bigger than the other two. I don't think that that's gonna work out very well. The Iranians will go to Great Lakes to defend those islands and if we take the islands they'll pummel the troops on the islands.
And furthermore, they've told The UAE that if that happens and they cooperate with the Americans and The UAE is bent on cooperating with the Americans, they're going to basically wreck the UAE. So what are we going to gain by taking those small islands? Well, might say we can open the Strait Of Hormuz. I don't think that's true at all. First of all, if you're on the verge, you the Americans are on the verge of opening the strait, they'll mine the strait.
And mines are deadly effective ways of preventing ships from coming through the strait. But let's assume that I'm wrong and the ships come into the Persian Gulf. They can make their way into the Persian Gulf. It'll be like a shooting gallery, right? Those ships will be in a narrow body of water.
The Iranians will be on one side of the Gulf facing this target rich environment. They have huge numbers of cruise missiles. They have all these fast boats. They have additional mines they can lay in the Persian Gulf. They can wreak havoc.
But let's assume I'm wrong. Then we go to Karg Island, right? We have an amphibious assault on Karg Island. To put it in Lindsey Graham's terms, we have Iwo Jima two. What are we going to do then?
As I said before, are we going to cut off the flow of oil at a Karg Island? No, we're not. Not if we're smart because we're letting all of this Iranian oil out on the market now because we need it. So invading Karg Island and cutting off 90 percent of the flow of Iranian oil into global markets makes no sense at all. And furthermore, once you take Karg Island, let's say you take it, do you think the Iranians are gonna sit there and just leave you alone?
They're not going to do that. They're going to bomb the island. They're going to bomb your troops with ballistic missiles, with drones, and make life miserable for you. And furthermore, what's the story as to how taking Karg Island or taking those three islands in the strait actually produces, a lasting settlement here? Again, the Iranians, you don't want to forget, are facing an existential threat.
And when you're facing an existential threat, you have to fight to the death. You have to fight to the death. That's the way this works. You're dealing with an existential threat. And they have lots of cards to play.
Again, we were prepared to win a quick and decisive victory. We had this concomamy strategy that didn't work out. We ended up in a war of attrition. And once you're in a war of attrition, they hold, I would argue, almost all the cards. And if you don't think they hold almost all the cards, they hold many cards.
They have the ability to cause enormous trouble, as we've talked about on the show here. So, you know, the ground force is an option. I don't know what people are talking about. And by the way, Glenn, just to beat a dead horse here, you remember how long we prepared the troops for Desert Storm? When did Saddam invade Iraq?
I think it was 08/02/1990. 08/02/1990. And when did we launch those ground troops against the Iraqi army? It was 02/24/1991. So you went from August, early August of 'ninety, to 1991.
That was the time it took to build up the force, train the force, and then launch the offensive. That's a long time. And as I said before, it was a huge army, 540,000 troops. And the same thing is true with the two thousand and three offensive. We just didn't do that overnight.
President Trump made no preparations for a ground war before February 28. This is something that he and his advisers have recently invented as a way to deal with this problem. They just sort of pulled it out of their back pocket. Oh, we'll do ground forces. Let's see what we can do to invade Iranian held territory.
So that's what they're talking about doing now. There was no planning for this. There's no strategy there. We're basically screwed.
Speaker 0: And as I said, Iran is about four times as large as Iraq. It's mountainous. It's facing down on the other Gulf states, which are essentially flat deserts. There's they have the whole coastline. I mean, it's a fortress and populated by more than 90,000,000 people, and they've been preparing for this ever since Bush called them.
They put them in the axis of evil. So it is and yeah. So you're right. To put together a few thousand troops and, you know, ship them down there with you know, make up the plan as you sail down there. It it does sound very cartoonish.
Not the way one one fights a war. So, yeah, it's it's not reassuring, though, when you have this kind of desperation, this much at stake. And, yeah, it seems like someone's gonna do something very rash when things start to go very wrong. I don't know. I'm just very yeah.
Pray that no one's reaching for the nuclear weapons for a quick fix. But Oh. Yeah. But that's another chapter we can look at a different time. Do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up?
Speaker 1: Just one final thought. You know, people like us are frequently critical of the deep state and people on both sides of the political spectrum are critical of the deep state. But the reason that you have a powerful state, the reason you have powerful institutions like the CIA and the Pentagon and analogous institutions in Russia, China and so forth and so on, is because you need a lot of expertise. You need a lot of people who can help you staff problems. In other words, if you decide that you're going to invade Iraq in 2003, you just can't do it by yourself if you're the president and with a handful of advisors.
You have to have lots of experts. You have to have lots of help thinking about how to deal with the problem and how to execute the right strategy and so forth and so on. And the problem with President Trump is he doesn't have any respect whatsoever for institutions and certainly for the deep state, which he views as a mortal enemy because he thinks the deep state opposed him in all sorts of ways during his first term. So you have this actually very interesting situation where he does not rely on experts at all. He relies on Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and Lindsey Graham.
These people are not serious strategists. These are not people who are capable of thinking through how to deal with major foreign policy issues or questions of war and peace. They can't do that. And again, the reason that you have a deep state is because inside that deep state is all sorts of expertise. I don't want to paint two poles rosy a picture of the deep state here, but there is an upside to having a deep state.
And Glenn, it is very important to understand that all of the evidence that's in the public record now says that the deep state was at least very doubtful as to whether this would work, this war, and maybe was even opposed to it. If you listen to what General Kane, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was saying before the war and what he's been saying since the war started and you listen to what the Pentagon was saying, absent Pete Hegseth of course, and you look at what the intelligence community was saying, especially the National Intelligence Council, it's quite clear that the deep state was highly skeptical of this operation. And for good reason because as you and I know, anybody who understands basic military history knows that the idea that you're going to get regime change with air power alone is a delusional perspective. So the deep state in this case was not consulted, did not provide any expertise, right? And instead what President Trump did was he relied on himself because of course he thinks he's a genius and he, to the extent he relied on anybody, he relied on people like Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff and Lindsey Graham and Rupert Murdoch who was calling him all the time and so forth and so on.
And you know, people on Fox News and you name it. But you don't go to war relying on people like that. You need experts. Have to really think these things through. As we know very well, you and I, when you go to war, the potential for disaster is great.
It is the realm of unintended consequences. This is one of the central messages in For anybody who's read Klausmitz, you understand very quickly. Going to war is in many ways a giant crapshoot and you want to do everything you can to maximize the chances that you'll be successful. And the way you do that is you rely on smart people. You tell smart people to turn their critical faculties on and to think about what's the best strategy for pursuing a particular goal.
And ask people at the same time, is this goal worthwhile pursuing? You know, can we come up with a strategy that will allow us to achieve the goal? And so forth and so on. But he just had none of that with President Trump in his decision making that led up to the war that's now ongoing. And on top of all that, not to get too carried away here, but he relied on the Israelis who were selling him a bill of goods.
Really quite remarkable. He was bamboozled by Prime Minister Netanyahu. So here we are. And again, I just want to say it one more time: what happened here was foreseeable. It was foreseeable.
You did not have to be a strategic genius to understand what was going to happen. And again, the deep state, I believe, understood this.
Speaker 0: I understand why Trump would have been distrustful, though, of the intelligence agencies and the permanent bureaucracy due to the whole Russia gate of fear in his first presidential term. But, again, I couldn't agree with you more. That being said, you still need those guys, and the fact that the idea that you can replace them with a crew of people you trust, which consists of your friends from the real estate business, your family members, some people from the media, from Fox News, that this will be the replacement. I mean, that sets up a whole new category of problems. So no.
I it's a yeah. No. It's a real mess. Anyways, it's whenever we talk about the Ukraine war ends on a very dark note, I don't think well, it's any positive spin one can put on this war. It's gonna be a real mess.
So thank you very much for taking the time.
Speaker 1: Welcome, Glenn. All I will say is I hope that before I die, you and I have a conversation where we can have an optimistic conclusion to what we say over the course of the show. It does seem like we're a long way up from that point, however.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I look forward to that. Hopefully, that opportunity. So thanks.
Speaker 1: You're welcome.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Michael Hudson: World Will Not Be the Same After the Iran War https://youtu.be/htokR5lYvv0 https://t.co/bOBMMjOTT5
Video Transcript AI Summary
Professor Michael Hudson and Glenn discuss how the war against Iran is reshaping the global economy and international order.
Hudson contends this is World War III in the sense that energy, fertilizer, and oil exports are fundamental to the world economy, and the conflict targets these choke points. He notes a recent US stock market rally of about a thousand points, driven by hopes of reversibility, while insisting the war’s effects extend far beyond Iran and are irreversible. He asserts the US is waging a war to maintain control over the world oil economy by preventing any sovereignty that could export oil outside US influence. This includes sanctions on Iran and Russia, and earlier sanctions on Venezuela, with the aim of ensuring oil proceeds flow to US-controlled channels. He argues the US sought to control the Strait of Hormuz to decide who gets Gulf oil, but Trump’s advisers warned that attempting to seize Hormuz would leave troops as “sitting ducks,” yet the underlying goal remains “grab the oil.” He claims Iran’s objective is to guarantee security by removing all US bases in the Middle East and by relief of sanctions imposed by US allies; without that, Iran claims the world will not return to the previous order.
Hudson emphasizes that the war disrupts key supply chains: oil, fertilizer, helium, sulfur, and related inputs. Although Iran allows oil exports via Hormuz for payments, it does not permit fertilizer exports, impacting the upcoming planting season. He forecasts the world entering the most serious depression since the 1930s due to these interruptions and the consequent financial ripples.
On the financial system, Hudson explains that since the 2008 crisis, the US pursued zero or near-zero interest rates to rescue banks, enabling asset price inflation in real estate, stocks, and bonds. He describes a shift where non-bank lenders and private equity could borrow cheaply and buy up assets, creating a debt-led, Ponzi-like dynamic that depended on continued access to credit and rising asset prices. As long as rates stayed low, this system could keep rolling; now, with 10-year treasuries around 4.5 percent and 30-year mortgages above 5 percent, the cost of rolling over debt intensifies. The war-induced disruptions to energy and inputs threaten defaults and a feedback loop of debt collapse, catalyzing a depression.
Regarding the broader international system, Hudson argues Europe is following sanctions on Russia at great economic cost, with Germany already experiencing GDP declines after energy sanctions in 2022. Europe’s shift away from Russian energy, the Ukraine-Hungary/gas dynamics, and the broader energy choke points threaten the cohesion of NATO and the EU. He predicts Europe may suffer consumer price increases and living standard cuts as deficits expand to subsidize heating and energy, leading to a reordering of alliances and economic blocs. He characterizes Asia–Russia–China as increasingly separate from Western systems, with a shift toward Asia as the growth center and Europe/US lagging. He asserts the West’s operational vocabulary frames the conflict as a clash of civilizations, but the underlying dynamic is a clash of classes, where the US seeks to subordinate others through energy and trade controls.
Hudson argues the current trajectory signals not simply a decline but an abrupt systemic change: the end of the postwar Western-led order. He calls for rethinking international institutions and law, including a new framework to replace a discredited United Nations and to organize economic and military arrangements that protect sovereignty outside US-dominated systems. He highlights the need for energy and food self-sufficiency to resist weaponized foreign trade and to avoid being drawn into US-imposed economic chaos.
In closing, Hudson points to Britain’s looming non-viability under deindustrialization and limited energy resources, illustrating how advanced economies may struggle to adapt to a new multipolar order.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. Today, we are joined by professor Michael Hudson to discuss how the war against Iran is impacting the global economy. So thank you as always for coming back on the program.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad to be back, Glenn.
Speaker 0: So we often discuss the deteriorating state of The US economy, as well as the global economy, which is now based obviously on the foundation which is no longer sustainable. The US knows this is the case. Some countries try to adjust to new realities. Others are trying to delay. Others are trying to reverse what has happened.
But this war against Iran, it really seems to intensify all these dangerous symptoms which we speak of, and it seems like the world can't really go back to the way it was after this war. I was wondering how do you assess it, because this war impacts the global economy on so many levels. Energy, obviously, fertilizers are key, but how do
Speaker 1: you see the ramifications of this war? Well, we've discussed before how I think this is World War three precisely because energy, fertilizer, and the other exports of, oil producing countries are so important for the entire world. That makes it a war that has worldwide implications. And despite the fact that in the last hour or two, the stock market in The US has gone up a thousand points because they imagine that somehow, what has happened is all reversible and that, when Donald Trump says, well, Iran is talking about making an agreement and there are signs on the Internet that Iran says, well, all we're trying to do is protect ourselves, that somehow the world will go back to the way it was, not only before the attack, but really back to the nineteenth century, maybe the eighteenth century. The this isn't simply a war in Iran.
This is a war that, as we've discussed, it's a war by The United States to maintain a choke point on the entire world economy by controlling oil because everybody needs it. And, the reason it went to war with Iran is the same reason why last month it went to war with Venezuela and kidnapped the president and, took Venezuelan oil under US control so The United States can can decide who will get this oil from Venezuela and who will get the money from the oil exports, The United States. Now the The United States, as I think we've discussed, realizes that in order to, base its foreign policy on the ability to cut off oil shipments to the world, it has to, number one, prevent any other country's sovereignty from being able to export oil that's not under US control. And so so far, The United States has imposed sanctions, first on Iran that remain in place. Secondly in Venezuela, which are now relieved, and finally on Russia.
So that the only place where America's allies that agree to impose the sanctions on Russia can get their oil is from places that The United States controls. That's why the United States was so insistent in trying to con last week, and trying to control the Strait Of Hormuz through which much of the Saudi and OPEC oil is exported apart from the Saudi pipeline. Well, Donald Trump apparently is listened to his military advisers that said, look, our any troops that we try to grab the Strait Of Hormuz Islands to control it are going to be sitting ducks. And this is not a defensible situation. And any rate, Donald, don't you wanna just grab the oil?
And Donald Trump has said, despite that, yes, the real aim that we're in Iran and have waged the war has nothing to do with Iran wanting to get an atom bomb because it hasn't been trying to get an atom bomb. It has really nothing to do with Iran's foreign policy. It just wants American oil just like it wanted to grab Iraq's oil and has grabbed Iraq's oil. So all of this this fight is an attempt to use oil and control of its exports in the same way that Donald Trump has used his tariff policy of saying, we will create chaos in your economies if you don't agree to follow the what US diplomats ask you to do in the form of what Trump called gives back givebacks for his access to The US economy by reducing tariffs to a a less extreme level. Well, he's saying the same thing, basically now.
He wants to, grab Iraq Iran's oil. And with that, he will complete the long attempt by The United States stretching, for OPEC since, I guess, 2003, to take control all of the OPEC, the Arab monarchy's oil. And Iran was the last country of all of these, Iraq, Syria, Libya, the whole range of oil exporters. So now The United States alone, is seeking control of of the the Near Eastern oil. Well, that's supposed to give it a stranglehold.
The problem is that Iran is not going to allow itself to be conquered even though it said that, it's, willing to permit, oil exports again and to stop locking them, if other countries will supply its guarantee its security. What it means by security is number one, removal permanently of all US military bases in, The Middle East. And, of course, the largest military base is Israel, which, of course, The United States is not, going to do. Iran will also insist for its security that all of the sanctions that have been imposed by America's allies, by Europe, Japan, Korea, and others be relieved. Until these sanctions removed, until The United States removes its its presence, and in effect surrenders and admits that it's lost the war with Iran, the world is not going to go back to the way it was.
And even if somehow miraculously The United States would say, alright, we've given up our foreign policy. We are no longer going to be The United States as an imperial power. We're going to be just another country following the rules of law that the United Nations lay down. You know, we're, we're going to go back, to a normal world Even if it were to do this obviously impossible policy, the fact that the the oil has been interrupted and the helium supplies that were coming out of the Middle East have been blown up. There are no cutters.
Helium is already cut. And so the foreign companies that were obtaining helium before, certainly here in The United States and throughout the world, have all put cutbacks on helium. There are cutbacks on fertilizers. And although Iran is permitting oil exports through the Strait Of Hormuz in payment for $2,000,000 per ship, it's not permitting fertilizer exports. And so you're having the world going into the planting season.
So no matter what happens, the world is going to be in the most serious, depression since the great depression of the nineteen thirties. No matter what happens, there is no way of avoiding this depression. And that's what's so crazy about the stock market and its recovery. It's as if somehow they can't come to terms with the fact that the actions taken by The United States and Israel are irreversible. Who's going to pay for the reparations to Iran for all of the damage done to make them whole?
All of this is going to take probably at least the balance of this year to work out. So the whole world to answer your question, The US economy and the rest of the world are going into a very serious depression.
Speaker 0: Yeah. This the the energy aspect of this whole thing. I mean, it's you see some clear consistency coming from The United States over the past decades, but Trump has been often more, well, call it blatant or honest as opposed to his predecessors, where he very openly said that in Syria, we want their oil. We want their energy. In Venezuela, we want their oil.
And, of course, the latest now with Iran, we want their oil. It's well, you know that other leaders the other presidents are thinking the same, but it's interesting that it's being said in such an open way. How do you see, though, the this impacting the financial system? Like, to what extent would be energy trade linked to The US financial system? Because, again, with such a financialized economy, if something goes wrong there, something, you know, could unravel in The United States, it seems.
Speaker 1: Well, first, regarding your first comment about the fact that Trump's policy is simply following that of, the all the preceding American presidents. There has been no change at all, and you'll notice not a single former president, not Biden or, Obama or either of the George Bushes, not a single president has criticized Donald Trump and what he's doing. And in fact, the German leaders are all applauding Trump even though they're not letting, America use the airspace over Spain and, Italy now blocking the American airspace in Sicily and France, they're still maintaining the the, sanctions. And nobody in the world, no country has come out and accused Trump of being a war criminal, violating the international laws of war. Nobody's it's as if they are all hesitancy even to imagine a world that is not run by The United States in the way it is.
And such was the confidence in The US economy, to answer your question, that, ever since the crash the junk mortgage crash of two thousand eight, the financial sector has been very overburdened. And the solution by president Obama was to say, well, there's only one way to get the banks out of the negative equity that they've fallen into, and that's to pursue the zero interest rate policy. And with low interest rates, that made it profitable for the banks to lend to real estate, to lend to buyers of stocks and bonds, and that pulled the value of their the price of their collateral, their backing their real estate mortgages and their corporate loans to pull not only to pull The United States, financial system out of the negative equity that it was in, but to achieve the aims of, the Obama administration and the Wall Street interests behind him to, greatly provide a bonanza for the financial sector. Since 2008, American wage levels have been absolutely flat. 40% of Americans today don't have any savings at all.
All of the growth in in wealth has been financialized growth in wealth, real estate, stocks, and bonds. And this is the result of the low interest rate zero interest rate policy making it profitable for private capital. All of a sudden, non bank lenders have big firms, Blackstone and others, have borrowed from the banks at a very low interest, like 1%, and they bought all sorts of companies to do, what required a new word to be introduced into the English language, ensifification, to buy the companies and, just sort of bleed them for whatever they could and to maximize the financial returns by debt leveraging and, to buy them on credit on so little credit with 1% or even 2% interest rates that they could get everything that they could make over this minimal low interest rates. And so you have this enormous financial inverted pyramid based built on this bank credit. And the Federal Reserve system, as treasury secretary Bessent has noticed, has extended enormous credit to the banks based on collateral that they've put up from all of this.
The Federal Reserve will create the credit for banks that will then make make the loans to private equity and then, put all of pledge all of this their collateral, with, the Federal Reserve. So it's been a asset price inflation. In the monetarists, Milton Friedman, monetary economists, make this false assumption that creating money is going to increase the price index, meaning consumer prices. That's not what banks lend money for. They lend money for assets to buy real estate stocks and bonds and what and and the value of a home or an office building or a a stock company is however much the bank will lend against it.
And the lower the interest rate is the more money that can the larger the loan can be capitalized on the basis of whatever the buyer or owner of this asset can squeeze out of it. So you you've had The US economy squeezed in terms of the labor force is squeezed, real economy, the industrial economy has been squeezed and to pull out all of these commitments to the financial sector. And, the this financial, asset price inflation has attracted pension fund money and private investment money, all of which is committed to, somehow making this financial debt pyramiding work. And the only way that you can make it work is to turn the economy into a Ponzi scheme, where you lend the debtors the money to pay the interest to keep current on their loans so they don't default. Well, now you've just seen the interest rates on thirty year mortgages, to, this week went over 5% and the ten year treasury securities of four and a half percent.
This is all of a sudden there's no zero interest rate anymore. All of a sudden all of these loans that have to be rolled over, from the large banking institutions that have made these loans to the private capital companies, find themselves unable to recover their cost of capital by lending these companies enough money to pay to continue the Ponzi scheme that is underway. That's the whole problem for the economy. And the fact that the, war on Iran is it has created irreversible for the time being, interruptions in the chain of payments that was based on oil and gas and ammonia and fertilizers and sulfur and helium. All of these thing there these breaks in the chain of payments are going to lead to defaults.
And once there's a default, you have this exponential growth process of debt reversed, and you have exponential shrinkage on the way down. That's what a depression is.
Speaker 0: You know, it's what's hard to predict how it will play out as well given that there's so many variables and so many actors who will be affected by this. Indeed, it's hard to imagine any country in the world who won't be affected, especially due to the energy alone. But if we look at the other great powers, how do you see them being affected by this war? I mean, we we we see the energy well, for example, energy war, it's not just, you know, with Iran, with with the Russian, for example. You know, NATO's tried to cut off or at least limit the reliable access to a lot of key maritime corridors or choke points, as you referred to them earlier on, for Russia.
That is not to limit Russia in the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, and also in the Arctic. We see the efforts to not just to, well, hijack Russian oil tankers, but now they wanna seize the oil as well. It's, you know, attacks on its refineries. We you know, the Chinese are worried about these choke points. They they're they're also worried that The US going after Iran is a way of targeting China's own energy access.
And, of course, India will also be greatly impacted by this. The Americans had just convinced them to reduce their purchases of Russian oil, and now, of course, all of it has to be reversed and indeed encourage them to buy more Russian oil to keep the markets up. Yeah. How do you see the, I guess, wider international system adjusting to this? Because The US is trying to sell it very hard, that this is Iran's fault, but but this is The United States that had attacked Iran with Israel, of course.
Speaker 1: Well, is the international system is not adjusting. Russia has said, well, Europe has stated, the NATO countries have stated they're going to stop by buying Russian gas and oil, but actually they've been managing to get some, ever since 2022. Europe has already said that, I think by May, they're going to stop, importing Russian oil and gas. And so Russia says, well, why not stop right now? They've all they've already threatened to break all of their long term contracts that they'd promised.
You know, we'll we'll sell our oil and gas to other countries. And, obviously, with Hormuz closed, the Russia has no problem at all finding other countries to import this. Europe seems to be committing economic suicide by following the sanctions on on Russia, and you'd think that it would see the results that have happened to Germany, above all, of, cutting off, Russian gas and oil. The the the whole of Europe is going to end up looking like Germany looked like after 2022, and its GDP has been going down, and probably will continue to. It seems, not it seems not only dead set or not importing Russian oil and gas, but, Ukraine has cut off the, gas the pipeline supply to Hungary, and I think, the Czechia also.
And, this is, this is a non NATO country. Ukraine has virtually declared war on Hungary, and NATO is supporting the attacker, the foreign attacker of a NATO country. I don't see how NATO and the European Union can survive all of this, you know, because the result of this economic, crisis of is going to force the governments either to violate all of the restrictions on how large can a government deficit be as governments try to pay subsidies to the homeowners and the business to heat their homes or office buildings and have a like presidency to turn on the lights at the higher gas and oil prices. Something has to give. And so far, what you're having is Mertz, in Germany saying, we have to cut back living standards.
We have to cut back social spending to spend more on military to fight Russia so that Russia cannot invade us again and take over East Germany like it used to. This is crazy. There's still the this is the enabling myth of, that, Europeans have, been told that they need American support to protect them against this, the fact that, elephants are going to, somehow invade or flying saucers will invade. Anybody. They can make in any kind of an enemy, that the Russians actually have any interest in invading, when, invading Europe.
Or, obviously, Russia has turned its attention towards Asia and some of most countries. You'll notice a change in the vocabulary of the newspapers and television and media over the last year. I think thirty years ago when I was writing archaeology books, we called Mesopotamia, Iraq, Iran, the Near East. Well, then then it changed to the better term, well, Middle East. But in the middle of what?
In the middle of Europe and Asia. Well, now the word that is used in polite company is West Asia. It's not the Near, Near East that's part of it's recognized that this is now and henceforth part of Asia. And this the whole world's growth area is going to be a part of Asia leaving Europe and The United States, leaving the West behind. So it's a it's a polite way of saying Asia is the East, no longer the West.
And that is the division you're having in the world. America's allies, in Europe, the Western Hemisphere, plus Japan, Korea, and Philippines in Far East Asia, that that's part of a whole different economic block. And what we're seeing is something that I think for years the Americans call, well, it's a clash of civilization. But it's not a clash of civilization. It's a class of it's a clash of an attack on civilization by what The United States is doing and its allies and, breaking all of what people think are the laws of civilization.
The laws of national sovereignty, of non interference with other countries affairs. The laws of war where you're not supposed to attack civilians but limit your attacks to, military targets. You're not supposed to go to war without declaring war. You're not supposed to make sneak attacks, and pretend for war. You you almost every international law in the last few years, and I could almost say decades, has been broken by The United States and president Trump and, his foreign secretaries have said, we don't need international law anymore.
International law no longer serves The United States. But this international law was the integument that is was supposed to hold civilization together. The laws of decent civilized behavior. Well, you're seeing the, the ethnic and religious hatred from Ukraine to Israel to the fundamentalist Christians, that are violating, you know, all of these respect for individualism, respect for freedom, and yet The United States calls this class a clash of civilization between democracies headed by the Ukrainian and, Israeli democracies and the end of The US under Trump against, autocracies, meaning countries with a strong enough government to resist this attack on civilization, of which I must say Iran has been even more, strong than, Russia in making this defense of itself. But, to be sure, it wasn't really left with any alternative.
It's fighting for its its existence and its unwillingness to surrender and essentially to follow what Patrick Henry said, in The United States, in the American Revolution against Britain. Give me liberty or give me death. Well, America didn't have the concept of martyrdom, but, certainly, Iran does and, so did Africa in the British and Dutch and European attack on African tribes in the nineteenth century, willing to fight even against machine guns. That was the morality was, you don't, we're fighting for a way of life against, against people who want to enslave us or deny us of any kind of self independence and self support of autonomy, of the ability to make our own future. This is this is what the fight's all about, and it's ultimately a moral fight, as well that is finding itself translated into, an economic fight and a trade fight, and is leading that's what's leading to the the split.
And it looks like this, no matter what Iran may agree to regarding, oil trade from, through, The Gulf and other countries, this split is going to continue because it's the it's the last chance by America to hold on to a power that it can't hold by being a prosperous country, offering other countries a win win scenario and a or any benefit from, joining and subordinating their interests to American interests. American interests are now juxtaposed to those of every other country quite explicitly in American foreign policy. And yet other countries aren't realizing that in order to avoid being subordinated to American policy at the cost of being pushed into depression, closing down their major industries, unemploying much of their industrial labor, and actually deindustrializing while the rest of, the world, West Asia to the rest of Asia is, growing that, this is this is the the world's destiny. There's no attempt to say, oh, what kind of institutional change a structural change do we need? This is not a marginal change.
And I think we need a new word for it. The word remember the Great Depression? When people had coined that word, it seemed like, what's the depression? Well, you have the world going up, and it's just like a little bit of a downturn to go up. Depression was a euphemism, intended to be a euphemism for just a slight interruption.
But, of course, as it became a plunge leading to World War two, it took on a bad word. So then a new euphemism was developed. Well, recession. Recession was supposed to be even less than a depression. Okay.
A recession is, only a slowing or a a bit of a just, you just tread water until you return to your growth path. But the growth path that the West has followed now has ended. We're, not only, stable it not growing, But as you see in Germany and Europe, you're having the economies actually turned down and you're seeing a desperate downturn in the global South countries that cannot outbid the more the wealthier Asian countries from bidding from obtaining oil and gas and helium and other products, fertilizer at higher prices. So something is going to have to give for all of these countries. And it's not only The US market that where you're going to have an inability of many companies to pay their debts to the banks because of the high price of energy, but, you're going to have, the same break in the chain of payment by countries with heavy foreign debts that, all of a sudden also have to now pay heavy trade deficits to pay for the oil and the gas and the fertilizer and the other commodities whose distribution has been interrupted and whose price is going up to crisis levels.
And there's no way of using regression analysis, trend analysis to project this. It's off the charts everywhere. And if you look at how the stock market has done, even in today's recovery on Wall Street, what's up more than anything else are the high technology, information sector monopolies. And yet all of the growth in these seven big companies that have been leading the whole Nasdaq average in The United States have been companies whose expansion requires energy. And I think we've just before, there's hasn't been very much increase in electric utility output at all in The United States.
There's no energy for them. So what did they do? Well, they begin to say, well, let's go to where the energy is. Let's go to Saudi Arabia and The Emirates and let's go to Bahrain and Google and Amazon and other company Facebook. These other countries have been relocating in the OPEC countries.
But now, Iran has said, well, we will not be secure as not only as long as other US military bases there, but as long as the OPEC economies are in a symbiotic relationship with The United States, depending on The United States for all of their investment in this energy and saving all of their oil revenues by investing in The United States. As long as that symbiosis exists, they're going to be a a threat to our security by being part of The US, group that is encouraging war on us and destruction in on this. So this whole attempt to somehow solve the expansion of The US information technology sector by investing in the OPEC countries is being wiped out as Iran has been bombing all of these centers to say, we want you you, other Arab, Emirates and monarchies, sheikdoms. I hate to call them monarchies. That sort of elevates them in in size to we want you to relocate along Asian lines because you you can't remain as part of The US or we won't feel secure because you're going to try to attack us again and again and again to follow your US, controllers.
So this is part of the political sit system, how it is intertwined not only with the financial system in general, but specifically with the, information technology sector that has been, leading the whole stock market boom and all of the array of companies sent around this sector.
Speaker 0: What I find fascinating though is that for decades now, at least over the past forty, fifty years, there's been a lot of work and literature on what you more or less described as a benign hegemon. That is, said The United States, you know, if it it needs to restore this ability to to dominate. And, countries should see this as being a benefit. Well, we had all these ideas of a benign hegemon, but, you know, it was rooted very much in this concentration of power, which meant that there wasn't any competition. But, you know, making that point short is what's been argued since the seventies and eighties was essentially what happens over time when The US power will begin to wane, when other countries will have rival technologies, when other countries will have their own, you know, navies, they will seek to, you know, not be dominated by The United States.
You have other rising currencies, economies. What happens overall when the hegemon is declining? And the argument then will be, well, it wouldn't be possible for The US to be benign hegemon because a benign hegemon would then secure. It would have open access to maritime corridors, would have free access to technologies, free access to, you know, use of banks, currencies, all of this. But once you have a declining hedge fund, it it has two problems.
First, one, of course, it's it's it's less reliable because it's bankrupt, and also likely it would use a lot of its economic instruments of power as an instrument to keep other great powers down. And, essentially, what would the benign hegemon do if it's in decline? It would have two options. Either it could stop being a hegemon or it could stop being benign. So this, you know, more aggressive approach to essentially restore control over international oil supply or, you know, cutting off tech for the Chinese, cutting off oil trade for the Russians.
All of this is was very much predicted by many people, yet it seems to come as a shock. I my my question, though, was
Speaker 1: Let me say one thing before we just on your vocabulary. We need a much better word than decline. The people who you mentioned who we forecast a decline didn't have a clue as to what they were talking about. A decline is something you know, it's like a business cycle. It goes up and down, then it always recovers, up and down.
But, every there's no there's never been any such thing statistically at the cycle. Here's what happened. There's certainly the so upsweep of the psych upsweep of the psych upsweep upsweep of the cycle and then a crash. Upsweep, it's a ratchet effect. It's not there's no decline.
It's a crash. A decline is sort of like the counterpart to an ascent. The ascent is slow, exponential perhaps, growing, peaking, and then a crash. And that's what's happening now. And it would have been a decline if other countries would have thought of, yes, there'll be a decline.
We have to think of what's going to take the place of the system that, we've been working in under US leadership. But they haven't. And so the this ending we're seeing the ending of an era, not a decline, but an abrupt change. And this change is not stemming from without. The ending of the American power did not re result from any foreign civil war or for or other war against American dominance.
The end came from The United States itself in trying to juxtapose its interest to every other country thinking, you know, we're going to put sanctions against, everyone who doesn't agree with this against we we we hate China because, they're more prosperous than us. We hate Russia because Russia's supporting China. We hate Iran because we don't control its oil. We hate, Iraq and Syria because we don't control, its oil. And now Trump in the last few days has said, we're really angry with Europe because Europe didn't send its navy to commit suicide and, all be killed by joining us in opening the Persian Gulf.
He said, hey, Europe, if you want oil, why don't you send your navy to open up the the Persian Gulf and go and come and get it? We don't need it. It's our war, but your problem. That and well, if the it's The United States, all the way from the Bushes, through Obama, through Trump that has given the rest has closed off The United States from the rest of the world and virtually declared war on the rest of the world, leaving the whole rest of the world with no option except to join Iran. That's what's so amazing in all of this, that it's, The US has ended its own empire.
Well, many of the people talking about decline say there are slow processes that change all of this, but they didn't they've never acknowledged the inherently hostile, position of The US to other countries saying, we will not join any institution internationally in which we do not have veto power and any country wanting the sovereignty to pursue its own interest, we will treat as an enemy and call it an autocracy. An autocracy is a country with the strength to say we will go our own way and not submit to The US democracy, Ukraine, and Israel style. I mean, this is what it is. So we're seeing the we're seeing a systemic change, And a systemic change is a changeover. The the world is no longer part of the past trends.
Those trends and the connections that have, created this trend as a matrix are all ended now. And, you're having a new world trying to structure itself, and there's been so little thought about it. The guests that you've had on your show talk about it, but, we're pretty much in a minority and, other people haven't thought, well, in order to have an alternative to The US run International Monetary Fund, World Bank, United Nations, and a control World Court and Army, We need our own international organization and ultimately our own military force to defend ourselves so that what has happened to Iran and the rest of the Middle East and the other countries that America has gone to war with again and so often since the the nineteen fifties. So this will never never occur again, certainly not in the way it has. And so that we can have a world that indeed is supposed to have a body of international law and rules of war so we're never plunged into this kind of crisis again.
That nobody's talking about how to what kind of a monetary system, a financial system, a trade system, a new body of international law, and a meeting to replace the United Nations, which is now as obsolete as the League of Nations had become by World War two time.
Speaker 0: No. This is, yeah, a great point. I mean, it's easy to point out the mistakes and the decline of the existing system, but what should come next? You know, you would hope there would be more debates around this, but that's a, yeah, excellent point. I I just my last question was, I guess, more specific.
I wanted to look at well, just ask when you see this shortage of energy and fertilizers to focus on these two, how do you see the how can we essentially trace the ripple effects through through the timing? No. Not. It's a specific it has a very vague and wide question, I guess.
Speaker 1: Everybody's answer is going to be the same. Without fertilizer, crop yields fall. And when crop yields fall, prices go up is the way markets work is the people with the most money get to buy the crops that are left available when they when they fall. That's what happens in a crisis. Farmers make more money when there's a crash of output, when there's a when the harvest fail and the prices go up than they make when the the harvests are fine.
Well, in America, you're still having the agricultural system give subsidies to farmers to grow corn to make gas a hole from. That's crazy. I mean, you'd think that in a logical society, these American farmers making gas a whole would be growing food crops to feed the population. That's not happening. I'm not sure what other other countries are going to do.
There's going to probably some countries will shift from plantation export crops to food crops to feed themselves. There's going to be throughout the world a recognition that, you need food self sufficiency to, save yourself from The US weaponization of foreign trade in food, in oil, in fertilizer, and just about anything that The United States can create a choke point for and weaponize. You have to stop foreign trade from being weaponized in the first place. So obviously, there's going to be a lot of people. There are warnings especially for Africa and parts of starvation.
For the big countries in Latin America, Brazil, Argentina, they're gonna be okay in terms of agriculture because they have a lot of people can eat soybeans. Their westerners may not like them as much as Asians, but soybeans are very good for you. High protein, there are all sorts of solutions. Brazil and, Latin America, can probably do okay, but Africa is a real problem because of the distorted monoculture economies that Europe, backed by the World Bank, have created there, especially since World War two, where they've gave up the self sufficiency that they that World War two forced them, to do. And now they're back in a wartime situation where, the only way of survival is to become self sufficient, and that self sufficiency is probably going to last longer than a return to the kind of international specialization of labor that you had between the trade surplus countries and the trade and payments deficit countries.
All of that's going to be changed. The whole philosophy of economic growth is going to be changed to reject the World Bank's emphasis on plantation agriculture and US for foreign ownership of raw materials, land, and basic rent yielding resources.
Speaker 0: It's funny how the world is flipped on its head in this way because ever since World War two, the the countries who allied with The United States, they had reliable access to to international trade. They could make they could afford to make themselves dependent on these trade networks, and they could essentially take this, you know, Ricardo's comparative advantage to the extreme, you know, don't have to co make their own food, don't have to do, you know, develop their own fertilizers. They can become completely dependent on energy. But now, meanwhile, the countries who are adversary adversaries of The United States, they have to develop self sufficiency in many ways that that that technology will across the board. Now that The US is, well, struggling, let's say, this, and the system is breaking down, we see that the lack of strategic autonomy of some of its allies is is quite shocking, and Europe, I think, is a great case.
So I'm not sure if you have any final thoughts before we wrap up?
Speaker 1: Yes. Let's look at Britain. And Britain has access to foreign trade, certainly. But what is it going to how is it going to trade? What does it have to pay for its imports in?
It's been deindustrialized by the combination of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair and the conservative and labor parties together have deindustrialized it. So how on earth is Britain going to survive? What does it have to offer the world for, for food and essentials and energy and the other things that it needs? It doesn't have the North Sea oil anymore or rather it's, dwindled way down. I guess Norway is all in Scandi is also finding that its reserves in the North Sea are getting sort of low.
How are, what are these, countries going to do now that they followed neoliberal economics and deindustrialized?
Speaker 0: We'll find out shortly, I guess. It's surprising, though, how how quickly everything changed from the nineties. You know, it was more or less consensus around the end of history that this was it until now this massive crisis. And, well, many people did warn, though, that the war on Iran would just exacerbate all these poor fundamentals, but yet here we are. So, thank you as always for taking some, time and to, yeah, share your insights on these issues.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you've given me a chance to talk about, the big questions.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Douglas Macgregor: Iran War Destroyed NATO, Gulf States, Israel & U.S. Empire https://youtu.be/vBlS-S9AEoY https://t.co/aSZsinEoRj
Video Transcript AI Summary
Colonel Douglas MacGregor discusses the evolving and unclear state of the U.S. war posture in the Persian Gulf, challenging the repeated claim that “we’ve already won.” He notes that each time President Trump makes lines about victory, Iran responds with substantial missile and drone attacks, calling into question whether Tehran’s defeat is real. He says inside sources suggest Iran’s ballistic-missile capability may have been reduced from 100% to around 70%, and their air defenses have been effective against unmanned surveillance aircraft, but Iran “has always been willing to absorb the strikes,” believing the payoff justifies the damage.
MacGregor questions why the campaign, which has involved significant air and missile strikes, would move to ground troops when such a shift would require overcoming robust Iranian air defenses, a deep intelligence-surveillance network, and potential shoulder-fired missiles. He argues the administration’s narrative lacks a truthful assessment from the U.S. side and suggests the president is desperate, facing domestic and international humiliation if he admits the truth. He criticizes the unilateral pressure on Iran and the Europeans, noting commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has plunged (15 million barrels of oil a day offline) and Lloyds of London won’t insure ships through the Strait, highlighting how the economic and logistical costs of war already bite far beyond Iran.
The host, Glenn, and MacGregor discuss the broader strategic context: Israel’s pressure and neocon aims to remove Iran as a threat, and the possibility that the war’s aftershocks would realign regional power. MacGregor asserts that the war’s sold premise—“short campaign, Iran off the board, Israel safe”—was never credible, and that Gulf Arab states have discovered they cannot rely on the U.S. to guarantee their security indefinitely. He notes the Chinese mediation offer via Pakistan has not been seriously engaged by the U.S., while Russia remains opposed to the Ukrainian war and skeptical about Western aims. He predicts Iran would seek to end Western involvement by moving to a negotiated settlement if possible, but believes the U.S. is not prepared to walk away, given domestic and pro-Israel pressures.
On the regional and global implications, MacGregor emphasizes that NATO’s relevance has faded in the post–Cold War era and that European publics are largely indifferent to long-term U.S. troop deployments abroad, especially if they threaten domestic economies. He foresees a possible shift toward a “petro-yuan” backed by gold as an alternative to the dollar, noting China’s gold hoarding and new energy-finance dynamics. He argues the Gulf Emirates have bet on the U.S. staying engaged, but their security dependence is fading as the U.S. signals a potential withdrawal.
Regarding Russia and Europe, MacGregor says Russia understands how the U.S. government operates less than Americans do, blaming “Zionist billionaires” and financial capitalists who control much of Western policy. He contends Russia and China will back Iran, and that NATO is effectively finished, having “died on the battlefields of Ukraine.” He suggests Europe must rethink its strategy toward Russia, abandon the weaponization of relationships with Moscow, and foster cooperation with their powerful neighbor rather than treating Russia as an existential threat.
In closing, MacGregor contends there are two possible paths: (1) Trump announces unilateral end to U.S. involvement and opens negotiations with Iran, which he believes is unlikely due to the Israel connection; or (2) the U.S. escalates with ground operations in the Gulf, which MacGregor views as impractical given the need to neutralize Iran’s comprehensive strike networks and the terrain of key islands. He predicts the Iranians hold the strategic initiative and that the administration faces a “train to hell” scenario if it pushes forward. The discussion repeatedly returns to the central tension: can Washington disengage and accept settlement, or will it double down in a costly, potentially unsustainable confrontation that reshapes regional and global power dynamics?
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined today by colonel Douglas MacGregor, a decorated combat veteran, author, and a former adviser to The US secretary of defense. As always, thank you very much for taking the time.
Speaker 1: Oh, happy to be here.
Speaker 0: So we're getting some mixed messages from president Trump. That is do you
Speaker 1: That's a that's a big change.
Speaker 0: Well no. Yeah. Good point. So what well, we heard here that the that The US already won the war. But if the Iranians don't agree to a ceasefire, they will destroy all of the infrastructure in Iran if they don't open the Strait Of Hormuz.
At the same time, he also argues that The US is ready to leave, and the Strait Of Hormuz should be the problem of the Europeans and the regional states. So how are you assessing the state in this war? Because, I guess, you know, I understand, you know, there's a lot of different audiences to communicate to. And, you know, one wants to put pressure while at the same time have something offered on the table. But how do you make sense of the current position now?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not sure a decision has been made. Or if it has, he's not sharing it. I think it's a very strange set of circumstances. I mean, you have the claim, this insistent drumbeat, we've already won. We destroyed everything that could be destroyed.
They're down to nothing. They can't keep up. They're running out of missiles. Their back is against the wall, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Well, if that's true, why is it that every time he makes some sort of statement along these lines, a wave of missile attacks comes out of Iran?
Tactical theater ballistic missiles, drones that do enormous damage to Israel and to frankly the Gulf Emirates. I mean, if that's really the case, why hasn't Iran already hoisted the white flag? I mean, I I just don't. I think that those claims have to be dismissed up front. What I am hearing from people who are on the inside that I trust is that we have perhaps reduced Iran's ballistic missile capability from 100% down to perhaps 70%, that their air defense has been very effective against the unmanned surveillance aircraft, selectively against other kinds of aircraft, but has not performed as well as they'd hoped.
But they have always been willing to absorb the strikes. They've always known that their infrastructure would be brutalized, and they think the the payoff is is worth the trouble. So that's the first thing. Second thing is if things are going so well, and we've had so much success with the air and missile campaign, why do we want to introduce ground troops into the equation? Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
So I don't think you're getting a truthful assessment from The US side. I think the president is desperate. I think he faces public humiliation inside The United States as well as overseas if he admits the truth. And when he starts talking about, well, maybe I'll just leave and dump all of this into the lapse of Europeans, we ought to stop and and consider a few things. First of all, commercial traffic through the Strait Of Hormuz has fallen by about 95 to 97%.
15,000,000 barrels of oil a day have been taken offline. The physical shortages have already hit so hard that right now Singapore jet fuel is selling at $231 a barrel. And as long as the war persists, the real people who shut down the Strait Of Hormuz who are not Iranians, they're sitting in London. They're called Lloyds of London. The insurance brokers aren't going to insure anything that goes to the Strait right now because it's a war zone.
So if you really wanna open up the Strait, you've got to stop the war. Simply passing an ultimatum against to the Iranians and then turning to the Europeans who were really never consulted on this whole business, neither were the Japanese, neither were the South Koreans. I mean, frankly, we ignored all of our lives and simply acted independently in a way that we decided to act. And it was never really in our interest to do so. When you turn to a friendly country country like India, you discover the Indians are apoplectic.
Well, they do a $180,000,000,000 of business in trade a year with The Emirates. Suddenly, that's gone. And if we continue to destroy infrastructure in Iran, the Iranians have said, fine. If you hit our desalination plants, if you hit our oil infrastructure, we're gonna turn around and obliterate everything in the Persian Gulf. So what does he plan to do?
He wants to land troops on some islands presumably? Right now, the United States Navy sails 500 to 800 miles away from the Gulf and stays on the move cutting giant squares in the ocean because it doesn't wanna be sunk. It doesn't want its ships on the bottom. How do you get the troops in there? Can you get close enough without being detected and without coming on fire to sort of put the troops in a position from which they can attack something?
Then how do you propose to attack wherever you want to attack? Can you account for all the potential air defense systems that might be there, including shoulder fired missiles? Can you ensure that you've neutralized this brilliant network of intelligence surveillance reconnaissance platforms with strike systems that are all over Iran, and they're miles deep inside the country, anywhere from 10 miles to 200 miles to 300 miles. You know, all of these questions are never really answered. It's the big hand wave.
Oh, successful. We're brilliant. We've done everything right. These pesky Iranians are too dumb to surrender, but we think we've done enough damage. Now from whom have we not heard?
Who is really in charge? Israel. Why are we in this war? Because we suddenly decided that Iran was this satanic evil element in the international system that had to be purged for anyone anywhere in civilization to be safe? No.
That's a lot of nonsense. We're there because Israel wants Iran taken off the board, which is the the phrase used by the neocons in Washington. This whole thing was sold from the very beginning on the on the assumption that, first of all, this will be a short campaign. We would be surprised if they didn't fall apart in ninety six hours. That's what I was told.
Secondly, once we've taken Iran off the board, Israel is safe. It has no worries. It can bully the region. It can push its power and influence to the limits. And, oh, don't worry about the Turks.
We'll keep them under control. We're close with the Turks. Turks don't want trouble with us. They'll do what we say. So the attitude in Israel was fine.
Now we just need to obliterate Iran. And, oh, by the way, if we do this right, we and you can move in and take control of the oil fields. Never mind Iraq, don't mind Syria, don't mind Turkey, forget those things, they're not important. And the Emirates, they depend on us for everything, so they'll do what we say. Well, the Emirates have discovered that depending on us is not a very good idea.
We have been woefully unprepared for the attacks that have been launched against them, and they paid a terribly heavy price for our bases and their support to us. So where are we today? There is no trust between The United States and Iran. Zero. The Chinese have offered to mediate through the Pakistanis.
We have not really responded to that, but we have given no evidence that we'd be interested because the worst thing that could happen to us in the minds of people in Washington is that the Chinese supplant our power and influence in The Gulf, and the Chinese are well on their way to doing that. So you're not gonna take anything that's on offer from the Chinese. Well, what about the Russians? Well, we're still trying to harm Russia. We haven't given up.
We're still doing everything in our power to sustain this fiction in Kyiv called a Ukrainian government. We keep helping MI six and other countries in Europe to put standoff attack weapons in there so that periodically they can wake up the international community to the realization, look at us. We have powerful drones that can reach just outside of Saint Petersburg and destroy an important oil terminal for Russia. Well, that's about all they can do. And inside Russia, as you know, there is tremendous discontent right now with the way the war is being handled.
Russians want an end to the war. They're sick and tired of the nonsense. So it'll be interesting to see what happens in two weeks when the ground dries out in Eastern Ukraine. Will the Russians push ahead and and finally put an end to this war, or will they sit there as they've sat for months and months and months now behind this defensive line? They take some casualties, certainly not on the skill of the Ukrainians, but nevertheless, it's a it's a constant irritant.
So all of these things seem to be coming together right now, and I think president Trump realizes he's gotta make a decision. He said, can we do everything? Probably not. Then what can we do? How much longer can we keep this up in the Persian Gulf?
Everybody forgets we're visiting. We're not a resident. We're very dependent on other people's harbors, other people's air bases. How much longer can we do this? How many missiles can we produce in a particular day?
Five, seven, six, eight? How many can the Chinese produce? And how about the resupply from China? Where does that figure into all of this? We haven't even talked about the space based intelligence that's been on, loan to the Iranians.
So he's got to answer this question, and I think tonight he he recognizes he's got to go one way or the other. He's got to say it's over. We've won. We're leaving, in which case Israel is in trouble because Israel hasn't won, and Israel must have us backing them unconditionally to win anything. So I don't think the Israelis will approve of that, And it's very hard for me to believe that the immensely powerful Zionist billionaires in The United States who are real really the foundation for the Israel lobby's influence and power are prepared to throw Israel under the bus, as they say.
So I I I find that hard to imagine. And perhaps president Trump will say, well, we're going to continue to support Israel. Well, that's like saying, you know, I have all these dead cats, but I'm gonna continue feeding them as long as possible because that's what Israel looks like right now. It's in ruins, and it's not getting any better. We don't know how many people have died, but certainly a lot more than the Israelis were prepared to accept.
I think that's pretty obvious. So what do the Iranians want? Well, the Iranians want us out of the Persian Gulf. What have we done for decades? We've surrounded Iran, placing bases wherever we could from which we could threaten Iran.
Iranians have said, no thanks, not anymore. The Sykes Picot states that were created at Versailles in the aftermath of World War I, gone. We don't accept that anymore. So what do they want besides us out of the Gulf? They want change in Israel.
They're not going to accept a peace with the Israelis or us as long as we continue to back Israel's campaign of mass murder and destruction in Gaza and on the West Bank. They're not going to come to peace terms with the Israelis as long as the Israelis are expanding into Lebanon and killing people there by the thousands or expanding into Syria. So how do we deliver on Israel? Are we really in control? I don't think we are.
Speaker 0: No. I spoke to an Iranian as well who made the point that if they go up the escalation ladder, they can do a lot of different things. Some most of them I would have predicted, but one of them I thought was interesting that is to reward Iraq for its assistance. They could also change the borders of the region since you, you know, mentioned the Sykes Picot. That is the Kuwait could go be joining Iraq essentially.
So there's a lot of surprises which seems to be outside our control at the moment in terms of how the region will be impacted by this. What I wanted to ask as well though was how do you see the region beyond The Middle East being affected? That is especially the NATO relationship. I find this to be interesting. That is for on one hand, Trump has been arguing that NATO is now a paper tiger.
Marco Rubio said perhaps we should just you know, we have to reconsider this relationship. They're only they're there when we need to help them, not the other way around. And, I kinda can understand from both sides. That is from the European perspective, the Americans never told them, didn't inform them, never cared, and then now they want them to go on the suicide mission into the Strait Of Hormuz. On the other side, the Europeans blocked the access to military bases, airspace.
Poland was asked to hand over some Patriot batteries to help out The United States and region, and they declined. So I kinda can understand where the mutual frustration comes from, but what what do you think this war, though, will do to the transatlantic partnership?
Speaker 1: Several years ago in 1991 during the air campaign, while most of us that were prepared to invade Iraq were sitting on the sidelines watching the air campaign unfold in front of us, we were literally up on the Saudi border watching all of the sorties every night that went in with bombers and various kinds of aircraft. And one night, this was very early in the morning, actually this would have been about four in the morning, I was trying to get some rest and I was suddenly awakened by a soldier. He said, sir, quickly, get to the CP, we need you right now. I said, okay, what's happening? He said, well, we have a report that we're under fire.
I said, really? I thought that was interesting. I didn't think the Iraq Easter in the air campaign would risk an attack, but all things are possible. So I got up, walked into the command post and I said, now what's going on? Said, well, Ghost troop, that was G troop, has an observation post up here.
That meant a couple of Bradleys up on the border, and they say they're under fire. I said, what? You know, get this man on the phone. Well, this man on the phone was very we we have air to ground bombs fully on our location. Well, I've never heard of anything other than air to ground bombs.
I haven't heard of any antigravity bombs. And I said, what the hell? Is this man sober? Of course, there was no liquor to consume, so I assumed he was. And the next thing I get is, well, we we need help.
We need help. And one of the sergeants who was there was a very smart non commissioned officer. He said, yeah. That's a great idea. Let's all get under the artillery fire with ghost troop.
In other words, if everybody up there is under fire, why are we going up to join them? Why don't we do something intelligent and try to find out where it's coming from and whatever? Anybody who thinks that American soldiers are stupid is wrong. They're actually very intelligent people. So finally, got the executive officer on the phone and he said, look, I'm sorry about this.
This man had been watching flares that were dropped by A-10s and others and these flares were dropped to distract air defense weaponry so that the missiles ended up being diverted by the flares and instead of striking the target. I think that's kind of what Donald Trump is asking the Europeans to do. Hey. We did something immensely stupid. We're sending The United States into a recession and most of the world is at risk of going into a depression all because we went into the Persian Gulf for Israel.
And we've set back, you know, the world for God knows how long, ten years before we recover because food, fuel, feedstocks, fertilizer, the big ones right there, the four f's are screwing us. You know, we're screwed. Thank you so much. Yeah. Let's all go down to the Persian Gulf and contribute to this catastrophe.
And Trump said, well, if you're not gonna help us, well, we don't need you. You know, this goes back to the false assumption that the North Atlantic Treaty was designed for anything other than defense. And the defense was against the Soviet Union, period. That's it. And ever since the Soviet state system collapsed, we've been trying to repurpose and repurpose the famous statement.
If NATO is not out of area, well, then it's out of business. We don't need it. And I told everybody in NATO, get smart, get out. You don't want to go to all of the hell holes that we have identified for invasion and occupation. But Europeans, well, you know, we're afraid and, we really need the Americans here.
It's vital to our security. Okay. Fine. Here we sit. Now the Europeans are saying, this is a dumb idea.
Don't really wanna participate in this. And why aren't we talking to the Iranians? Because the Iranians have said, look, the Strait Of Hormuz is closed to countries unfriendly to Iran. That's all. Which means, even though the numbers of tankers used to average 75 a day going through the strait, now it's three to four.
But that number can rise provided the tankers and their destinations are not to places unfriendly to Iran. So many people are saying, well, let's talk to the Iranians. And the Americans are saying, that is unacceptable. You can't talk to those people. If you do that, you're going back to Munich.
You're negotiating with Hitler. Yes. Here you go again. So we're in a bit of a pickle and I think the Iranians hold the strategic initiative. They are not at the end of their rope.
I think he's got to make a decision. Do I bail on this? It's a stinker. I made a mistake. Find a way to get out and blame it on other people, which is the standard Trump approach.
Or do I say no, I'm going to obliterate you. You know, you refuse to negotiate with me, the great marketer, the great salesman, then I'm going to wage a war winning air and missile attack, and I'm gonna bring in ground troops, and I'm gonna cut you off for the gulf and force the gulf open. And I think the Iranians are sitting there saying, okay, go ahead. Because if you're gonna put ground troops anywhere in that area, you have to neutralize all the strike weapons, neutralize the intelligence surveillance reconnaissance network, stop all potential air defense including shoulder fired missiles. Because if you can't do that, first of all, they may never reach the destination.
They may be shot out of the sky before they get there because they're gonna have to fly in. I don't see a massive amphibious assault working. That means that they have to get there without already being identified in Kuwait or Bahrain or The UAE, and I don't see that happening. So I think the Iranians hold a strategic initiative, and we stand an excellent chance of ending up like a giant 14 or 15 or 16 or 18 wheel truck headed down the side of a mountain for a concrete wall. We'll just end up battering ourselves against the concrete wall one more time.
Speaker 0: I heard many commentators argue that, you know, if The US could just control the coastline, then they would be able to control the Strait Of Hormuz. They don't seem to recognize that, you know, there's a vast amount of territory behind the coastline of Iran, which can also be used to target. But either way, the coastline would be there was a vast area, so it doesn't really make much sense, especially if one hasn't planned for this in advance. But
Speaker 1: Well, what about Bandur Abbas? That's a city of 580,000. They also have a uranium mine that's not far from the city where they harvest yellow cake. They also have a desalination plant there. The desalination plant could be destroyed, that would harm the people that live in Bond Rabas, but I think they have some backup plans for that.
But the bottom line is, what are we gonna do about that? Are the islands all sit in proximity to Bondar Abbas. If you can't control Bondar Abbas, what makes you think you can control these little islands? In other words, it's a it's a damned if you do and damned if you don't. And the Iranians may take the position, let them all land, and then we just erase the islands.
And see, this has been a problem that we've been dealing with in all of our war planning for years. You have the Marine Corps and the Navy that want to repeat World War two. They talk about island chains. Well, unless the island is about the size of Borneo, the island is gonna be annihilated from the air. Top attack, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, they'll all land on top of you and kill everybody on top of the island.
And we've attached so much significance to little islands without understanding they no longer hold a strategic value that they did eighty plus years ago. They're just an invitation to lose people. And that's the other issue. Assuming you get on there and you can survive for any length of time, how do you feed yourself? How do you evacuate wounded?
And then ultimately, how do you get out when it becomes clear this is a dumb idea? At least the British in the Dardanelles were able to pull vast numbers of ships into the Dardanelles and systematically evacuate the 500,000 troops that were there. That's not so easy in the Persian Gulf. You know, if you stand above Karg Island and look down, you're on top of an escarpment. All of the terrain is very high, and it's very, very steep.
So what are you gonna do on those islands? The other thing is the notion that all of the oil will cease to move at that point is false. The Iranians have other means of exploring oil. Now they're making a lot of money right now. That's obvious.
They're charging toll. But, again, you you listen to the Chinese, the Russians, the Indians, and others, they're very intelligently saying, look. We need to end this. We'll get together. We'll have a commission.
Maybe we sign a treaty that that guarantees access to the Strait Of Hormuz. We did that after World War one for the Dardanelles. We have a treaty. The Turks control the Strait, but it's all carefully measured. It's all carefully managed.
The Turks do not arbitrarily say you can come and you can't. They haven't done business that way. That can be organized as well. But the key thing is we can't be in The Gulf. Our time there is now over.
And if we can't be in The Gulf, I don't know where else we're going to be.
Speaker 0: Well, this could have fit within Trump's wider plan. If the goal was really to pull out of Europe and The Middle East, then, well, this is really the time he can clearly argue that the Europeans weren't reliable, that the Middle East should look after their own problem, and then focus on the Western Hemisphere and East Asia if this is to be an objective. But a key problem, though, is Israel here because The US and Israel do appear to be joined by the hip. And Israel, of course, has been pushing hard for this war for several decades now. It finally has the war.
If Trump now decides, you know, no matter how he wants to end it, even if he just declares victory, we don't need the Strait Of Hormuz. We'll go home. Where does that leave Israel? Because if they're locked in a war with Iran, which they don't wanna end, is The US still able to leave? And if The US is able to leave, what to do with a vulnerable Israel armed with nuclear weapons, which is not ready to give up this fight against Iran.
I mean, it's you know, one doesn't wanna be hyperbolic, but on the other hand, this is a very strange situation to be in, and and there's a lot of desperation. And then a lot of countries have bet all or nothing on this conflict.
Speaker 1: Glenn, you're absolutely right. The key thing to remember about NATO is that once you leave the Beltway, you drive across America. The vast majority of people don't even know what it is. And if you ask people, do you know that we have US Army ground troops in Germany? They'll say, really?
I didn't know we had any troops in Germany. And some people who moderately smart and educated will say, why after eighty years do we still have troops in Germany? So I don't think that's a big deal here at home. Now you'll have all sorts of people in Washington who will hurl abuse at Donald Trump for destroying NATO, the greatest alliance there. It's all crap.
Nobody cares. The electorate does not care about that, but they care about the economy. And this is accelerating very bad trends. If you talk to someone like Alastair MacLeod, he says this is the end of fiat currency. And all you have to do is point to the rise of the value of gold.
And as gold goes up, the value of the dollar goes down, down, down. We are seeing in real time the yuan petro take shape. In other words, instead of a petro dollar, you get the petro yuan. I think that's coming. And the interesting part is it's gonna be backed by gold.
China has been hoarding gold, purchasing gold, buying gold. It has a vault in Riyadh, a vault in Hong Kong. It's real. That's the future of bricks. That's where they're headed.
Now, will it will it ultimately encompass a basket of precious metals or something? I have no idea, but it's got to be based on some tangible concrete value and right now that's gold. Now we can't do that. We just can't. So what do we do?
Do we watch our currency go down the toilet? A lot of people think that's where we're headed. And Nasim Tully, you know him, the man who originated this idea of the black swan, he's been saying for months and I agree with him that frankly speaking, gold is now the reserve currency. It's not the dollar. And if the yuan is backed by gold, well, I guess yuan will become the petro yuan.
So I think we've lost. We've actually lost by this stupid action, all because of Israel's greater Israel imagination and aspirations. And because the Israelis hate all of their neighbors, think all of their neighbors are inferior and deserve to be essentially exploited, bullied, and and run and and governed by them, it's not gonna happen.
Speaker 0: So how does this end then? I mean, if Trump doesn't pull back again, it's hard to say. He made some reference to this, but, again, he pretended to do peace negotiations, you know, during two surprise attacks. So, again, I I I do think at some level, he he doesn't want this war, that his intentions from not just the first presidency, but the second was to avoid these kind of things. But now that he's in this war and he can't really, well, afford to pull out, it seems, what are the options for Washington here?
Can they I mean, do they put boots on the ground? Do they do they try to invade Yemen? Because, you know, if Yemen shuts down the Red Sea, I know it's a huge country. It's like, what, 34,000,000 people? It's I I wouldn't wanna enter this country, but, again, desperate situation results in foolish policies.
So what do you expect to happen from here on?
Speaker 1: Well, one of two things. Either he announces, I've decided unilaterally to end our involvement in this war, and I welcome opportunity to negotiate with the Iranians and to assist in any way possible to return the Persian Gulf to normalcy. That's an admission that he made a mistake, which is fine. He made a mistake. I don't know if that'll happen or not.
Personally, I would welcome that development, but I think the Israel connection really makes it impossible at this stage. We don't understand the connection that Israel has to Trump. I don't understand all of it, but I understand enough to know that yes, you're right. When I spoke to him in April 2020 in the Oval Office, it was supposed to be short, turned into a longer session. And I was enormously impressed with the things that he had to say.
And one of the things that was very clear to me is he didn't want a war with Iran. In fact, he was looking for some sort of negotiated agreement. And I'm sure he felt that way when he was elected. However, these Zionist billionaires were very instrumental in his winning that election, not only because of the money he was given, his campaign was given, not only because of the many ways in which his family and he had been enriched by the Zionists, It's also by what they didn't do. They didn't provide any support whatsoever to his opponent.
And the last time around when he lost the election or lost bid for reelection, they invested heavily in his opponent. So he knew they could deliver the goods. In other words, if he had them on his side, he could win. But when he did that, he had to make some promises. And I think one of those was that he would back Israel's attack on Iran.
Whether or not he was aware that Israel's plan is to turn most of the region into the facsimile of Gaza, I don't know. But that's really Israel's answer for Iran, Gaza. And whereas we started out with this decapitation nonsense, and I think a lot of that goes back to Israel. We can get the leadership. If we get the leadership, this will encourage internal upheaval and so forth.
Then they lied of about thirty thousand people being killed, that wasn't true. It was about 3,000, and they had a very important role in stirring up that violence, passing out weapons and encouraging people to shoot at police and so forth. It failed. So then the decision was we'll try the decapitation, that'll probably work. It didn't work.
So what is the goal now? Well, since Lloyds of London shut down the Strait Of Hormuz and the Iranians can now charge people to move through it, the idea is that you have to destroy Iran. Period. The destruction of Iran, the disintegration of its society. And after all, that's what we wanted to do to Russia.
That's what the Europeans don't understand. That's what we wanted to do. And when I say we, I'm not talking about the average American. I'm talking about the same people who are backing Trump now. We're very interested in the same thing in Russia.
Destroy Russia, rape it, divide it, fragment it, steal its resources. Well, now we're turning to Iran with the same purpose in mind. And I just don't know that Donald Trump can get off this train to hell, and that's what he's doing. He's riding a train to hell.
Speaker 0: But this is a last question. How do you see Russia responding to this? Because I always make the point that the Russians were genuinely very optimistic when Trump got reelected because with the Russiagate thing being over and Trump seemingly having the genuine objective of improving bilateral relations with Russia, be it either for, you know, common views on the world in terms of, you know, conservatism or just pragmatic and great power politics that are getting Russia on our side of the ledger instead of pushing it towards Iran. It's nonetheless, whatever the reason was, it seemed genuine. And now, of course, we're one year into this.
It's you know, The US, much like the Europeans, are still participating in the proxy war, and the surprise attack on Iran appears to have shook the Russians a bit. That is the willingness to throw out the rule book, kill leaders, you know, attack nuclear power plants across the board. They they also lost some faith in the whole diplomacy. How do you see Russia, though, responding to this? Because on one hand, I see the disappointment, but there's many who also seem to have a hope that, you know, there won't be another Trump, someone who really actually wants peace with Russia.
If he does want peace, of course, as you said, it's a even though it's Trump behind the wheel, it's the same objective. Nonetheless, it seems to destroy the to destroy Russia, break it up, and seize its resources.
Speaker 1: Well, first of the Russians do not understand how the American government works. Very few people beyond the borders of The United States do. The most astute observation that Putin has made is that he's spoken with several presidents and then discovered that nothing really changes because others are in control. Now some people call it the deep state. Okay.
I call it Zionist billionaires, people that are among the wealthiest in the world. They dominate Wall Street. They are financial capitalists. These are not people who made money from building anything, from creating anything. These are the kings of financial transaction.
And they have enormous quantities of money, and they're willing to employ that money in pursuit of their agenda. We talked about what the agenda in Russia originally was. Now we're looking at the same agenda. The good news for them is that if this works, then Israel will be in charge of the entire region in their minds. And that means that they, from their positions in New York and London and the banks, they're controlling everything because ultimately that's what they wanna do.
They want to control the region's resources. Now my view is that's not gonna happen. And I think that the Russians are now figuring out it probably won't happen. If anything, we have demonstrated not our brilliance and our supremacy in every field. We've demonstrated that our superiority isn't that great, that our effectiveness is not what they thought it was, that there are more chinks in our armor than either the Russians or the Chinese or anybody else really thought.
That's the danger of using military power when you don't need to. There was no pressing reason for us to attack Iran, none. And when you have to go back to Netanyahu talking points into 1982 and the bombing of a building that contained Marines where the Marine guards had not even been issued ammunition, what a disaster, That's your justification for destroying a nation of 93,000,000 people. Or that they simply say things you don't like, but they're a threat to Israel. Okay, I think the biggest threat to Israel other than Israel itself at this stage is probably Turkey.
And in fact, that's what Naftali Bennett has said and even Netanyahu has admitted that, which means I guess the expectation is so as long as they control us and our armed forces that if we're successful at utterly destroying Iran, then we can turn our attention to do the same thing to Turkey. Disaster. Insane. So NATO is finished. NATO died on the battlefields of Ukraine.
It's over. The Russians need to wake up and discover that they, not anyone else, but they are going to have to settle this war. The only way I think they can do that is by advancing. So we'll see in two weeks when the ground is thoroughly dried out whether or not President Putin is willing to finally end the war. And he can do that.
He has the military power to do it. There's nothing really standing in his way. He can obliterate all the opposition. But he's got to do it. No one is going to help him.
No one is gonna offer him a good deal. Doesn't exist. And Trump, no matter what he privately thinks, has demonstrated he can't deliver. Now we're dealing with the gulf and the Russians are watching this, and I think the Russians have always advised the Iranians to be conservative, to cooperate, to negotiate. Whether or not they continue to do that at this stage, I don't know.
But I think that now more than ever, the Russians and the Chinese will back Iran. So I see no evidence that whatever we do is going to result in the outcome that the Israelis want.
Speaker 0: Well, sorry. Let me squeeze in one very brief last question.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute now. You said that was the last one, Glenn. It's better be a short one.
Speaker 0: I know. Well, I know you hate this word when, well, what is the strategy here of the Europeans, you think? Because, well, they they they seem to have bet everything on backing The US hoping to win over the love of the Americans. But but now suddenly they have this, you know, they they Iran is essentially the conflict where they decide to turn the back on The US. Well, what do you think is the strategy now?
Because they don't have energy from Russia, from the Middle East. The American backup is kinda gone. Ukraine is falling apart. The Middle East, again, the mess. Well, how do you how do you make sense of their current positions?
Speaker 1: Keep in mind that in nineteen sixty four, sixty five, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was approached and asked whether or not the British would support the Americans if they intervened in Vietnam. And he said in a very straightforward manner, absolutely not. We have no intention of involving ourselves there. Did that destroy our relationship with Britain? No, of course not.
But in those times, people understood the limitations of treaties and alliances, and the alliance with us pertained primarily to the Soviet threat. So I think you're still going to have bilateral relations between us and the Europeans regardless of what happens. They buy a lot from us, we sell them a lot, we buy a lot from them. That's still unchanging. But the energy question is critical and they are not prepared to go on the same path to extinction that the Gulf Emirates are on.
The Gulf Emirates are finished. I don't see those being rebuilt at all. We are not coming back. That was very clear from Trump when he said, well, we'll just leave and that's it. We've done as much as we can, or we'll do whatever we can to obliterate Iran, after which we will leave too.
Alright? So the Gulf Emirates have bet on the wrong horse, and they have cultivated hostility for their big neighbor. They're paying a terrible price for it. The Germans, the Poles, the French, the British have done the same stupid thing towards Russia. They have cultivated an enemy in the big neighbor to the east.
Huge mistake. Unnecessary. You know that. I know that. Russia has no interest in invading or threatening Western Europe.
That means you need new governments. You gotta get rid of of mats for God's sakes. I was so happy to see the AFD announced quite recently, we support the complete removal of all US forces from Germany. Absolutely. Should have happened thirty years ago.
We should never have stayed in that country. There's no justification for it whatsoever. And I think others are gonna reach that conclusion. De Gaulle was right. We should remember that.
Orban has been right. The British need a new government badly, and so do the French. And before they get that or when they get it, they may end up fighting an internal rebellion of various types and sorts. As David Betz has pointed out. I don't know if you've had David Betz on your program or not.
Speaker 0: I did.
Speaker 1: But he is absolutely right. So these are things that have to be dealt with, that have to be addressed, and can only be addressed by the Europeans. And while they do this, put an end to the hostility with Russia and tell these maniacs I like them. They're wonderful people. Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, the Baltic States, stop.
Stop the stupidity. You've got to live with your neighbor and get along with your neighbor. It's not that scary an idea. And by the way, that's what Bismarck told them back in 1879. Knock it off.
Get along with the Russians. Whatever you think you're suffering from, it's not as bad as you think it is. And he was right. It wasn't. It got a lot worse out of the Soviets.
That's a different era, but that was catastrophic. We we gotta get out of this business of treating Russia as this perpetual Stalinist threat. They're not.
Speaker 0: Well, thank you for accommodating my second last question. And, as always, thank you for your time.
Speaker 1: You owe me, Glenn. You
Speaker 0: owe me. I'll make it up to you someday. Thank you.
Speaker 1: See you. Bye bye.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Jeffrey Sachs: Iran War Broke U.S. Empire & Alliance Systems https://youtu.be/KJsNuI9VVyI https://t.co/174eTCBbi2
Video Transcript AI Summary
In a discussion with Glenn (Speaker 0) and Professor Jeffrey Sachs (Speaker 1), the speakers analyze the current Iran war in the context of a shifting world order. Sachs argues that two things are unfolding simultaneously: the erratic behavior of the United States (personalized in Donald Trump) and the broader question of American hegemony, alongside battlefield realities that challenge the claims of “shock and awe” and irreversible American victory.
Key points raised:
- The US, under Trump, exhibits “brazenness, lawlessness, the viciousness” in rhetoric and actions, including a statement about sending Iran back to the stone age. Netanyahu’s speech is described as equally shocking, with Netanyahu portraying himself in a biblical, godlike framing and extending “10 plagues” to Iran.
- On the battlefield, the idea that American power guarantees victory is questioned. Counterattacks in Israel and the Gulf region have occurred, downing American jets and showing Iranian retaliatory capability and waning missile defense. This challenges the notion that US military supremacy is unassailable.
- Sachs notes a stark contrast in public opinion: in the United States, there is widespread opposition to the war; in Israel, the public appears to largely support the war and the associated violence.
- He characterizes the conflict as one driven by a “war of whim” with unclear aims, and asserts that the claimed U.S. “shock and awe” does not align with the observed battlefield and morale realities.
- Beyond Iraq/Iran, Sachs discusses broader structural factors: American hegemony is pursued as a policy objective but often unfulfillable; the military-industrial complex and figures like Trump contribute to the propulsion of war; personal traits of leaders (described as psychologically unstable by some forensic psychiatrists) influence decision-making.
- A possible path toward de-escalation, according to Sachs, hinges on dialogue among global peers. He suggests that Trump listens to leaders he regards as peers (Putin, Xi, Modi) and that these leaders need to tell him to stop, though he remains skeptical whether this would be sufficient.
- Sachs emphasizes a multipolar world as the reality: countries should avoid hosting US bases, which he argues undermine sovereignty and security. He advocates neighbors engaging with one another, cooperation with major powers (China, Russia, India), and reducing dependence on the United States.
- He critiques Western and European reliance on US leadership, noting that Europe’s internal politics still echo imperial mindsets and that NATO’s expansion and anti-Russia policies have complicated security. He argues that European and Gulf leaders often pursue “peace through strength” rather than genuine diplomacy.
- Specific regional advice includes: be wary of US hegemonic guarantees; avoid dividing lines that empower a hegemon; pursue regional engagement (GCC-Iran dialogue) and view China, Russia, and India as potential partners rather than adversaries; understand that technologies (AI, data centers, chips) are not substitutes for credible security.
Towards the end, Sachs reiterates that the current approach is producing insecurity and economic crisis, urging readers to adjust to a multipolar reality and to seek regional cooperation over reliance on US dominance. He closes by expressing the hope that governments will embrace reason and adapt to current realities.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined today by professor Jeffrey Sachs to discuss what is happening in Iran, but also in the wider world order. So thank you very much for coming back on the program.
Speaker 1: Great to be with you.
Speaker 0: So we see that the consequences of this war against Iran, it's well, it's difficult to measure. We see it on the global economy, the world order, but also the alliance systems. So that is over the past decade, you can say even eighty years, many countries from The Gulf States to Europe, East Asia, they essentially bet their entire security on, yeah, US protection that is linking themselves to The US hegemony. This now, as the head of US hegemony is in decline and Trump appears to becoming more and more erratic, again, we see that the whole order is unraveling very quickly. Of course, a lot of this came the last speech by Trump, of course, is something that also put some shocks through the international system.
I was wondering, how do you assess this?
Speaker 1: I think two things are are going on simultaneously here and in Ukraine and in other crises. One is the extraordinarily erratic behavior of the United States government and personalized in mister Trump. He shocks the world. He shocks most Americans. Nobody can really rationalize the brazenness, the lawlessness, the viciousness of, US actions and of Trump's rhetoric.
His line about, sending Iran back to the stone age shocked everybody in the world, I think. We can add that his partner in this crime, Benjamin Netanyahu, gave a similarly shocking speech that fewer people saw the day before and the start of the Jewish Passover holiday. And in the Passover holiday, which is the story of the Israelite exodus from Egypt, God visits 10 plagues on the Egyptian people. And in Netanyahu's speech, he visited 10 plagues on the Iranian people. It's, again, a speech of shocking brutality, and also a a geopolitics, I would say, of maybe the ninth century BC, the mindset, the the biblical framing, Netanyahu casting himself as god is all so stark, so sharp that anyone that is watching what is happening right now sees that we have a an extraordinarily violent war that seems to have justifications coming out of ninth century BC mindsets or simply psychopathic ideas of sending other nations to the stone age.
We heard Trump chortle about the destruction of a bridge in which nine people were killed crossing the bridge, which was a nonmilitary target and reportedly ninety five people injured at the attack on the bridge and the president was delighted by that. So this is one thing that's happening is all over the world and inside The United States, there is a sense of absolutely violent and lawless regime in The United States. The second is the battlefield. American hegemony ultimately tests on the belief, rests on the belief that America dominates the battlefield and all of the rhetoric of Trump and Netanyahu has been since the start of this operation. But it's true in every US operation that shock and awe will overcome the foe, and that the inevitability of US victory is so overwhelming that, everyone will bow down to The United States.
More and more, that idea is unraveling. One say that it unraveled decades ago in Vietnam. One could say that the same failure was shown in Central America in the Contra Wars. One could argue that the same has been seen throughout The Middle East and Afghanistan, that this overwhelming force doesn't prevail. But each time, the same proposition is put forward, that the might of The United States, the unprecedented ability to project power and force is overwhelming.
And Trump made that claim a couple of days ago, and then the next day, two American fighter jets were downed, and counterattacks, came, in Israel and in the Gulf Region again. So to many observers, many people, you are, meeting with and discussing, the battlefield evidence, is quite the contrary of what's being claimed by The United States. Iran seems to have a continuing massive retaliatory force. The depletion of anti missile systems seems to be real. The breakdowns of morale in The US even reportedly forcing aircraft carrier to return to base because of some kind of insurrection or insubordination or collapse of morale among the sailors as reported seems to show the opposite.
So there's a fundamental question, what is America's power? And ultimately, that turns on its military and economic power. And second, what is America's intention? And that turns on the statements, the goals, the behavior of the US government. On both counts, this is a shocking period to mean, let's say on the question of aims and goals, this is shocking.
We can't even piece together as hard as we try exactly why we're in this war. This seems really to be a war of whim. That's the best description that I've heard of it. And when it comes to American power, debate is open and the days will tell what the real situation is. But at least to this moment, the American and Israeli claim of shock and awe overwhelming the Iranian government is not true.
And quite the contrary, it seems that there's a lot of worry, in fact, beneath the surface that the ability to defend against, especially the Iranian missile attacks is waning and in the Gulf Region almost nonexistent. So this is why the whole world is watching this in in amazement. We are seeing fundamental things play out, and they're also extremely dangerous. They can escalate to nuclear war without question on the one side, on the side of Israel. The, I would say, the level of violence, dehumanization of Israel's foes, the biblical language, which in this case of the Bible, the Old Testament story of the Israelite capture of their promised land is so ruthless, so violent, so genocidal that the rhetoric and mindset coming from Israel suggests no no limits.
That seems to be not just tactical. That seems to be actually ideological. The hatred for the other in Israel seems to be unbounded. And a difference of The US and Israel is that in The United States, the public opposes the war quite overwhelmingly. And, nothing that Trump has done has changed that.
And this unease and opposition is very widespread. In Israel, I'm sorry to say, it seems that most of the public backs, the war and backs the violence, and backs the idea behind the war of the hatred of the other side and the belief that the other side is an implacable foe that must be totally annihilated, which again is maybe ninth century BC mentality, but it seems to be infused in the society.
Speaker 0: Well, common friend of ours, John Mersheimer, he keeps making the point that he no one has told him any story of how this could end in a positive way that is in US victory, and it's a good point. I I just find it difficult to see what the best possible outcome is. The whole idea that if there's just enough death, destruction, and carnage, then somehow the Iranians would simply capitulate. It seems like part of the problem with this strategy, though, is that what The US demands of Iran is the capitulation would then become an existential threat. You know, if they would have to give up even their conventional deterrent, what would stop the destruction of Iran?
And there seems to be some parallels to the to the war or the proxy war against Russia. That is if we just escalate enough, then we'll get a deal. But when your adversary considers this to be an existential threat, there is no bowing down. It's only escalation. So do do you see any possible end to this war?
Or how how can this be ended? Because at the moment, it doesn't seem that Trump can is willing or her to Yeah. To to to pack up and go home.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that this is the point, the difference of, can, and will. Of course, Donald Trump can and should pack up and go home, but it's very unlikely to happen. And the backdrop of all of this is the continued American assertion of hegemony. That's not only Trump. That is, the dominant American foreign policy idea that America must be and is the most powerful country in the world in every region and must constantly prove that or demonstrate that if there are any doubts.
So a war in Iran is not about Iranian issues. A war in Iran is about demonstrating America's full and unconstrained power, and it must be proved to the whole world that it is full and unconstrained. That's the backdrop. That goes beyond the question of Trump. But on top of that problem, which is the assertion of hegemony, which is a claim that The US believes in and makes, but cannot fulfill because The US doesn't have the predominant power to do that other than in utter destruction.
There is the personality of Donald Trump, and personalities make a difference in wars. Wartime leaders make a difference. And the more we understand the situation in The US, the more, the personality factor plays in. You know, we can give structural reasons for the American demands on hegemony. This is something that goes back decades.
We can also talk about financial motivations and, the pressures, or not even pressures, I should say, the lobbying and the money making from the war profiteers. There's no doubt that a lot of Silicon Valley Palantir being case number one is a great proponent of these wars. By the way, just parenthetically, they want to test their new AI driven weapon system. So this is also for them experimentation, it's lab work, the fact that people are killed and there's a war, all the better. It's very realistic.
We can see how these weapons work. There's a certain madness, greed, tens, hundreds of billions of dollars driving this, saying is true in Israel. So there's a side of this that is very direct. But I was saying that even with all of those structural features, the claims of hegemony, the size of the military industrial complex, the huge money making and grift that goes into this, the personal grift of Donald Trump and his family who are the most corrupt officials in US history mean, corrupt family and and president in US history. There's a personal element of psychological instability here that I believe is is at work, which is that Donald Trump is a is psychopathic.
This is a a clinical judgment that is made by forensic psychologists and psychiatrists since he came on the public scene and made repeatedly. And I think very cogently. This is not a man who gathers information and rationally processes it and maybe vicious, but is highly tactical, closes the deal and so forth. This isn't an unhinged man who is impulsive, paranoid, psychopathic, and a megalomaniac. This is not the kind of person one wants in the presidency of the United States.
Would say that Netanyahu has similar psychological traits. These are very violent, unhinged people, and it means that, stepping back is not easy. Everything is a test for them of their own world, as well as brought more broadly a test of the American political class mindset of hegemony, which despite all the evidence to the contrary of the fact base of hegemony is still believed in Washington. So we have a very big structural and individual problem of getting any kind of de escalation or any kind of resolution. I have one and only one thought about this, frankly.
It's not a very persuasive one perhaps, but it is the one that I've been, holding, which is that Donald Trump, listens to the extent that he listens at all. He listens to those he regards as his peers, and he does regard president Putin, president Xi, prime minister Modi as peers that he wants to be part of and live up to. These are leaders of superpowers. He inevitably, almost without exception, expresses respect for them, for the power that they hold, for their lead of superpower nations, they need to tell him to stop. It's I think it's extremely important.
They need to tell him, Donald, this is not going anywhere. This is not going anywhere good. This is not helping you. It's not putting The United States in a better position. It is not helping any country in the world.
It's dangerous. It needs to stop. I don't know if that is even remotely sufficient under these circumstances, but I think it is important to try. This is not the bluster we're going to enter the war against you. Quite the contrary.
It is to try to explain this has to stop because if it continues on the path that it's continuing, it's going to bring us all to disaster.
Speaker 0: Well, certainly having some, yeah, coordination and more cooperation by the great powers, Certainly something we need. If Putin and Xi are able to do this, it would be great. But what do you say, though? Well, you've been you have advised many governments around the world over the years. And what would you tell the the allies of The United States?
Because it it appears that well, the Gulf States, they very much also have embraced this principle of a hegemonic peace. Also the Europeans, I mean, if we looked to Venezuela, for example, their their main concern was that Trump talked about the oil rather than human rights, but actual actions to work really against. And I I assume as well, if he would have included them from the beginning, they would have been much more supportive of the attack on Iran as well. Instead, he let them, you know, wait until the war had failed before inviting them in, in which they now do not want to partake. But but they they also, especially Europeans, have very much embraced this the idea of peace through strength, which is a nice way of saying, you know, militarism instead of real diplomacy.
That is will be so powerful that our opponents will have to do what they're told, yet they they shouldn't arm themselves to balance our might. So this kind of hegemonic idea of peace, this is something not just the Gulf States have benefited from, but also Europeans still don't wanna give up on as we see in the conflict with the Russians. So how would you how would you advise them today if they still, you know, pick up the phone and call and ask, you know, given The US losing its position in the world, you know, where do they go now?
Speaker 1: Of course, I've been saying exactly for the the last decade at least, be careful of The United States. It's, got a delusional foreign policy. It believes that it runs the show, but it gets, you into deep trouble. I have repeated dozens, if not hundreds of times, my favorite adage of Henry Kissinger that to be an enemy of The United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal. How many times have I said that to governments, or in, the European Parliament or to the Gulf leaders personally in recent years, not just because of this war, but because of all of the circumstances that go back a very long time.
I do not believe, for example, that countries gain any security whatsoever in hosting US military bases. I've argued for years and suggested for years that these countries invite The United States to go home. You don't get security. These bases are a magnet for conflict. But more than that, they suborn your own sovereignty.
European countries remain eighty years after the end of World War II, semi occupied by The United States. And The United States meddles deeply in European politics to a shocking extent, actually. And so my own recommendation has been repeatedly, this idea that you are finding security in The United States is wrong. The United States has its own rather bizarre ideas about the world, which is hegemonic control. If you subscribe to that, you're subscribing to an unreality.
And moreover, if you host The United States Military and CIA on your soil, then you are also basically relinquishing your sovereignty. You cannot speak straight. You will find that if you are in politics and you oppose The United States, you will be knocked out of your politics within your own country. And so generations of politicians arise that can't even find the words to express opposition to even crazy American ideas. And there are so many crazy American ideas because hegemonic dominance is an unreality.
And if everything is built on the foundation of an unreality, there's a lot of craziness that goes along with this. So Glenn, I I was in the Gulf Region last year speaking with leaders exactly expressing this sentiment. This is before the war. This is not an ex post idea that these bases will not protect you. I said to friends in The Emirates, you know, why are you joining this coalition with Israel and The United States?
You think that this is really prudent, that this is correct, that this is accurate, together with Israel that has committed a genocide, before the world's eyes in Gaza, you're part of the so called Abraham Accord. This makes no sense for you. This is no security. This is no realism. Whichever your favorite foreign policy position is, well, I think realism is, if it's done right, means that you are taking a realistic view of the situation.
And the idea that The United States is going to protect you is not exactly realistic. You know what I heard? Oh, but mister Sachs, we're getting NVIDIA chips. We're getting data centers. This is key for us.
This is that actually was the currency of foreign policy, I would say, in the last couple of years. We turn on or turn off the data centers in your country, the high end chips. Well, these are now all being blown up by the day, by, Iran. A data center does not have anti missile defense, systems around it. So governments need to take a much more realistic understanding.
We're in a multipolar world. That's the foundation. The United States political leadership, and by that, I mean the the White House, the National Security Council, the CIA, the Armed Services Committees, the military contractors, they don't accept that. They don't get that. They don't believe in it.
They think, well, AI and NVIDIA chips in our weapon systems, in our, Palantir, based target identification systems, in our AI empowered killing systems. This is still dominance. They wanted to show in Gaza, we can kill everybody. We can level Gaza. By the way, after a genocide, Hamas is still there and still operating.
Israel couldn't achieve its gains even in a small neighborhood that was bombed and leveled over two years. Now we're talking about Iran with almost 100,000,000 people and a formidable technological base and military base. This is also something that is the mindset of The United States cannot understand, which is that there are technologically sophisticated people everywhere. And Iran is one of them. They view Iran again as medieval, if not stone age, But they don't understand that Iran has highly sophisticated technological capacities, and those have been also put at the service of the military.
So I think the advice was right, but not heeded. And today, I say all the time to any government, look at your neighborhood, be friends with your neighbors. Don't let the American empire divide you because your safety and well-being depends on your neighbors. And don't build or think you're going to build the wall, whether it's the Berlin Wall or a new wall to hem in Russia, or don't think in The Gulf that you can be on our side, on, the Western Side of the Persian Gulf, but on the Eastern Side of Iran, that's the enemy. Don't think in those terms.
Look at your neighbors. Make peace with your neighbors. Cooperate with your neighbors, trade with your neighbors, and then on a regional basis, that your safety and well-being depends on good relations with all of the major powers. China's not your enemy. Russia's not your enemy.
India's not your enemy. The United States should not be your enemy. But we also need The United States to get beyond the mindset that, it displays now, which is either you're for us or you're against us. That's, the American mindset borrowed from the Athenians, in, the Peloponnesian Wars when they told the Melians, if you're not with us, we kill you. Unfortunately, that is part of the American playbook as well.
But countries cannot succumb to that without giving up their own sovereignty and their own future. And now in a multipolar world, they don't have to succumb to it. So this is my basic advice in general, which is don't let the American empire divide your own neighborhood. I say it in Japan and Korea, China is not your enemy, it's your neighbor. I say it in the Gulf region, Iran and the GCC should be the first ones talking with each other.
Not only do they share the Persian Gulf and the Strait Of Hormuz, but they share a lot of other things as well. They share culture, history, transit points, ecological risks in a very dry part of the world beset by major water crises. I say this in every and I say it to the Europeans. Russia is not your inveterate enemy. This Russophobia is a historical fiction.
It's a complete misreading of history, but it's also a complete misjudgment about European security, which can only be achieved collectively with Russia, not in opposition to Russia. And so this is the same everywhere. Empires divide and conquer. The United States has used division as a way to extend hegemony. It's always saying the one on the other side is the enemy.
It's always trying to extend to the other side. The US position, ideologically in The Middle East is we already run the gulf. Now all we have to do is, bring Iran back into the fold, which we happen to succeed in doing in 1953, but then lost in the nineteen seventy nine revolution. We need to bring them back into the American empire. So every region faces a divide that The US stokes.
The US tells ASEAN, oh, China's your enemy. It tells Japan and Korea, China's your enemy. It's stoking these divisions. And of course it has stoked the division with Russia because the whole point of the end of the Cold War and there I was present personally at the watching at the highest levels, was that peace had come to a common European home, but The US wouldn't have it. It needed to expand NATO.
It needed to keep an alliance against the country that no longer existed for a threat that absolutely didn't exist, but it needed for American hegemonic purposes to expand NATO, and not just to expand it, but right up to Russia's borders and to put in anti ballistic missile systems and all the rest and to abandon treaties with this that had been signed with the Soviet Union in which Russia was the continuation state. So that was the mindset. Europe fell into it so dutifully, privately uneasy, publicly without a murmur. And by the way, as crazy as this mindset is, let me just add two points. Europe has its own hegemonic mindset that remains even eighty years after the end of the European empires.
So Europe ran the world in a rather vicious way for a long time in Asia and in Africa. That mindset's not gone. So that's why the subservience to The US imperial mindset is not so hard because it's also seen to an important extent as keeping the West dominant. And so the Europeans, yes, they're subordinated to The United States, but in a way, it continues to be a projection of the Western dominance in the world. And they view The United States as therefore, in a way, helping their empires that no longer exist, to continue their international, control.
So that's really part of what's happening right now. Europe goes along because the idea of controlling the Middle East, that's a totally European idea. That's not just an American idea. That has deep roots. The worst of this is the British.
The British absolutely still maintain the trappings and mindset of empire that has gone for almost eighty years, but it's still there. And so we hear the most remarkable rhetoric coming from Britain vis a vis Russia, or, other, showdowns where Britain has no power to deliver on any of this, but to make a lot of rhetorical and political mischief. What's interesting is even in the Iran war, there's been a little bit of hesitation by the British. This shows how completely outrageous this war is because the British elbows never hesitate, to support an imperial venture. I have always said America's basically our successor empire.
But in this one, it's so outrageous that the British have tried a little bit. Don't bring us in. This is, almost, unprecedented. The British jump into every American war, but not this one because it's so completely outrageous what's happening right now.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I think that's inherent contradiction of the hegemonic peace, though. If you wanna be a hegemon, you have to you're very dependent on the alliance system because you divide regions into dependent allies versus the balanced or contained adversaries. And I don't think often European leaders appreciate this that once you one once you are in a conflict then with your opponent, be it Russia, then this is what makes them so dependent on The US. This is why they have to sign all these horrible trade deals.
This is why they end up in this situation. The same with the Gulf States. I mean, their conflict with Iran is the reason why they've become hostage to The US, and I think it was acceptable when The US was more of a comfortable hegemon. But now that it's declining, and it's as Mark Kurutti said, NATO's also not just for protection, it's for power projection. If this is for power projection for The US and so they're being used to go after rising powers, and then The US isn't in the position to defend them anymore, then it looks like a disaster.
It's just shocking to me that there's not more efforts to readjust to current realities.
Speaker 1: What what's so interesting about it is that it does not deliver. It delivers insecurity. It delivers economic crisis and the publics know it. So the politicians that continue their subservience to The US in Europe are profoundly unpopular. They're running strongly against public opinion.
The leaders in The Gulf Region that continue their subservience to The United States and Israel, because this is a US Israel War, are very much facing opposition from what's called the street there, but just is public opinion. The public in the Gulf Region does not want to be an ally of Israel in this, but this is the position that their governments have put themselves into by saying our security is an F-thirty five or our security is an F-sixteen or our security is a military base of The United States. Unfortunately, it's a very naive idea. But it is the idea that got them into this and it traps them not only in their national interest, but it puts them in direct opposition with their own publics. And you can watch step by step as Trump is reviled in Europe right now.
His net approval rating is something like minus 70%, and that was before the Iran war. In other words, maybe 15% approval rating, 85% disapproval rating. The man's despise for very good reason. He's a despicable person. But the governments have continued to try to appease him, try to support him, try to say that we're on side, and they lose support.
We're seeing this in Italy right now where prime minister Maloney basically made her politics as Trump's best buddy in Europe. And that was a calling card for a while, and it no doubt made some people in Italy feel that, well, at least we have The United States, you know, on the inside track. But now it's completely turning because young people are saying, what is this? We're siding with this. This is madness.
Madness. And so you see everywhere in Europe, if you side with Donald Trump, you lose your own political base. That doesn't necessarily mean you lose power immediately given the constitutional order. Maybe you have a parliamentary majority that can last two or three years, but you don't have a political base within the country.
Speaker 0: Well, thank you for taking the time, and, let's hope that governments begin to embrace reason again and, yeah, adjust to realities.
Speaker 1: Very good. Glenn, great to be with you. Talk to you soon.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
John Mearsheimer: World Changed Forever as Iran Defeated the U.S. https://youtu.be/H2K3qDshr70 https://t.co/33vIYTDCQb
Video Transcript AI Summary
In a discussion about the Iran confrontation and its wider implications, Glenn and John Mearsheimer analyze the sequence of events and underlying dynamics behind President Donald Trump’s statements and policy shifts.
- Trump’s two Monday tweets frame the episode: an initial threat to “wipe Iran off the face of the earth” to force concession, followed by a reversal to announce a ceasefire based on Iran’s 10-point plan. Mersheimer emphasizes that this sequence reveals Trump’s desperation to end the war and to secure a ceasefire quickly, then to shift to negotiations with Iran’s plan as the basis.
- The framework of the negotiations is contrasted with the US’s prior maximalist aims. The United States had demanded four core goals: regime change, Iran’s nuclear enrichment cessation, elimination of long-range missiles, and cessation of support for groups like the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Mersheimer notes none of these have been realized, while Iran reportedly gains leverage through control of the Strait of Hormuz.
- The Iranian 10-point plan is presented as a basis for negotiations that would, in effect, concede the big US demands. Trump’s evening tweet signaling acceptance of the 10-point plan is read as a defeat for the US position and a shift toward Iranian maximalism on its own terms. The claim is that the ceasefire, if it occurs, would involve concessions that Iran had already proposed.
- The feasibility of a ceasefire is questioned. Iran’s open Strait of Hormuz depends on Israel halting attacks in Lebanon (on Hezbollah), which has not happened. Therefore, a true ceasefire is not in place, and the Israelis’ actions are seen as undermining any potential halt to hostilities.
- The broader strategic picture is outlined. Iran’s leverage includes allied groups (Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas) and the ability to close chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz or the Bab el-Mandab strait via the Houthis. The discussion notes Iran’s large missile/drone arsenal and potential to threaten American bases, though Mersheimer stresses that sanctions and the prolonged war have devastated Iran’s economy, which complicates assessments of its strength.
- The role of external powers and economies is highlighted. Mersheimer argues that the global economy—especially oil and fertilizers—drives the push to end the conflict. He suggests China and Pakistan, with Russian input, pressured Iran to negotiate, given the global economic risks of a prolonged war. He also notes that the New York Times reported that all 13 US bases in the Gulf were damaged or destroyed, undermining U.S. presence there.
- Domestic political concerns are discussed. Trump’s ability to declare victory while acknowledging defeat creates a political hazard. Vance is presented as a potentially capable negotiator who could press for a ceasefire, but there is concern about internal political blowback if he concedes too much.
- Israel’s position is considered crucial. Netanyahu’s government is described as having promoted the war, and the war’s outcome is said to damage U.S.-Israel relations. There is speculation that Israel may consider drastic options, including nuclear consideration against Iran, given the perceived failure of conventional means.
- The Ukraine war and its relation to the Iran conflict are explored. If Iran’s war ends or is perceived as winding down, European capacity and willingness to support Ukraine become central questions. The U.S. may shift blame to Europe for Ukraine’s defeat if Russia advances, while withholding weapons to Ukraine to avoid further strain on U.S. stockpiles.
- The discussion on rationality in international relations emphasizes that states act rationally when their decisions align with a plausible theory of international politics and a sound decision-making process. Mersheimer argues Europe’s behavior toward the U.S. is not irrational, though he criticizes its liberal-theory basis (NATO expansion) as potentially misguided but not irrational. He contrasts this with Trump’s Iran attack in February 2029, which he deems irrational due to a lack of a plausible theory of victory.
- The multipolar world dynamic is reinforced. The war’s outcomes are viewed as weakening U.S. ability to project power, diminishing transatlantic cohesion, and boosting Russia and China’s relative position. The loss of Gulf bases and diminished American influence are expected to push Europe toward greater strategic autonomy, with NATO potentially becoming less meaningful by 2029, depending on future leadership.
- Final notes include concerns about the political risk for Vance as a negotiator, the likelihood of a difficult peace process, and the possibility that misperceptions and propaganda—analyzed through historical parallels like the Vietnam War and Walter Lippmann’s ideas—have locked leaders into an “evil enemy” narrative that complicates peacemaking.
Overall, the conversation portrays Trump’s messaging as a sign of desperation to end a costly conflict, the ceasefire as a fragile construct dependent on Iranian terms, Iran’s expanding leverage in the region, the fragility of U.S.-Israel and transatlantic bonds, and a shifting global order moving toward multipolarity with lasting economic and strategic consequences.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. Today is Friday, April 10, and we are joined by none other than professor John Mersheimer. So thank you for coming back on.
Speaker 1: It's always my pleasure, Glenn.
Speaker 0: So these are, yeah, crazy times indeed. We saw that Trump threatened to wipe out the entire Iranian civilization with its 90 plus million citizens. Then he embraced this sudden ceasefire, which he then seemingly undermined immediately thereafter. Then he claims victory and, yeah, begins to distance himself from some of the key requirements of this ceasefire deal. It's a it can be confusing.
So I was hoping if anyone can shed some light on this, it would be you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it is somewhat confusing for sure. And I think because president Trump, you know, frequently contradicts himself and says outrageous things that it sometimes feels like it's hard to make sense of what's going on here. But I I actually think it's quite straightforward. And I think if you look at his two tweets on Monday, it it tells you a great deal.
And what exactly am I saying? I think at an over arch from an overarching perspective, you wanna understand that president Trump is desperate to end this war. He fully understands that we are close to going off a precipice, that if this war is not shut down, we could end up in a global depression that's worse than we saw, in the late nineteen twenties. And he wants to do everything he can to avoid that. So you get two tweets on Monday morning and on Monday evening.
And they're very different tweets for sure, but they both show evidence of the desperation. In the morning, he says that he's going to wipe Iran off the face of the earth. He's gonna destroy Iranian civilization forever. This is a genocidal threat of the first order. This is the kind of language that you expect from Adolf Hitler, not from an American president.
And what's going on here is he's desperate and he's threatening to annihilate the Iranians to get them to throw up their hands before he has to attack them that evening. He wants them to concede defeat. By the end of the day, he does a 180 degree turn and he says there's gonna be a ceasefire. But most importantly, he says that the ceasefire will be based on Iran's 10 plan. Now you want to understand that there are two plans on the table.
One is the 15 American plan which has all the maximalist demands of The United States and Israel. And then there's the Iranian 10 plan, has all the maximalist demands of the Iranians. And he says that the negotiations will take place on the basis of the Iranian's 10 plan. This is really quite remarkable. He says the 10 plan provides a workable basis for an agreement.
And again, these are the maximalist demands of the Iranian government. He says furthermore in the tweet that almost all of the points of contention between the two sides have resolved. Again, remarkable. What's going on here? He's basically found the off ramp and the off ramp is to concede defeat.
It is the only off ramp. He's long had two options. One is he could go up the escalation ladder, which is what he was threatening to do in the morning. But as I've argued for a long time, he can't go up the escalation ladder because he loses at every step. And the idea that he's going to obliterate Iran, this is not acceptable.
This cannot be done. So he can't escalate, so he's gotta find an off ramp. But the only off ramp is surrender, is to concede defeat. And what he does in the second tweet, again, he reverses gears, goes in the opposite direction, and he concedes defeat. He says, we're going to negotiate on the basis of the 10 Plan.
This means none of our demands are going to be achieved. None of the big four demands that we made before the war started and after the war started are going to be realized. And we're going to negotiate on the basis of the maximalist demands that Iran has put on the table. So what I'm saying to you, Glenn, is if you look at the morning tweet and you look at the evening tweet, you see that Trump is desperate. He's desperate to end this war, and he wants to get a ceasefire as quickly as possible, and then he wants to start negotiations.
Speaker 0: But it seems like he wants, to have it both ways because, yes, his concedes defeat will accept, you know, that Iran will set up a toll on the Strait Of Hormuz, will put a ceasefire, which includes Lebanon, all these things. And but then once the ceasefire is in place, he seems to be still wanting to claim victory. So now his tweets are about, well, you know, you better not put any tolls on the Strait Of Hormuz, and, you know, Lebanon's not included. It looks like he wants to have it both ways. He concedes defeat to get the ceasefire, but once he has the ceasefire, he wants to make this victory claim.
Because I noticed that Pete Hegsef, he also tried to do this victory lap, was just reading out all the people who are dead, you know, all the people they killed as a way of suggesting that this was victory. But it's and did you see it in a similar way that he well, did you see the the the attempt to claim victory here? Because, you know, what they had agreed to and what they're claiming, it's there seems to be a massive gap there. Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, Glenn, they don't have a ceasefire because to have a ceasefire, the Iranians have to open the Strait Of Hormuz. And the Iranians have refused to open the Strait Of Hormuz because the Israelis are bombing Lebanon and attacking Hezbollah inside of Lebanon. And the Iranians say there will be no ceasefire. The Strait Of Hormuz will not be opened until the Israelis stop attacking Hezbollah and that hasn't happened. So the Israelis are undermining the ceasefire.
You want to understand here that first of all there's the ceasefire but then there's the negotiations to end the war. But before you can get to the negotiations, you have to get a ceasefire. But we don't have a ceasefire. That's a key point to understand. And the question is whether or not president Trump is gonna be willing to lean on Netanyahu in a really serious way to get him to stop attacking Hezbollah.
And then we'll get a ceasefire. Then the strait will be opened. But in terms of Hegseth and Trump declaring victory, this is putting lipstick on a pig. Come on. This is it's clear.
We've lost. I you just wanna think about it. We went into this war with four demands. One was regime change. Two was Iran would get rid of its nuclear enrichment capability.
Three is Iran would eliminate all its long range ballistic missiles. And four, Iran would stop supporting the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas. None of those four demands have been realized. None. Furthermore, Iran now controls the Strait Of Hormuz, which gives it enormous leverage.
Furthermore, Iran still has a huge inventory of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones, which allows it to attack American bases in the region, American forces in the region, the GCC states that are allied with The United States, and Israel itself. So Iran is in an excellent position today compared to the position it was in on February 27. And furthermore, as I said, President Trump in his truth social post on Monday night, this is April 6, said we're going to negotiate on the basis of the 10 plan that the Iranians have put on the table. This is a clear defeat. And by the way, it's an even bigger defeat for Israel.
And in Israel there is all sorts of talk to that effect. The Israelis fully understand that if you look at where this train is headed, this is a catastrophic defeat for them. And, of course, it is for president Trump as well.
Speaker 0: Well, in the future as well, if Israel or any of the Western states would want to attack Yemen or, you know, attack Lebanon or genocide the Palestinians again, then Iran could just, yeah, shut down or increase the toll. You know, they have some different steps up the escalation pattern on the Hormuz. They can, you know, block some ships. I don't know. There's this gives a massive instrumental power to the Iranians.
I mean, they seem like they will exit this conflict as maybe superpowers a bit too much, but at least, yeah, adjacent to a great power. This is this is quite a, yeah, instrument of power they have. And as you said, they didn't have this before the war.
Speaker 1: So Well, there's two points to be made. First of all, I think you don't wanna overestimate how powerful a position Iran is in. Because of years of sanctions and because of the destruction we've wrought on Iran since February 28, Iran, in a very important way, has been devastated. This is a country that has been wrecked in a lot of ways. So the idea that they're coming out of this war in great shape is wrong.
They're gonna have to spend many billions of dollars over many years to recover or to come close to recovering from all the damage that we and the Israelis have inflicted on them. There's no question, however, that given the fact that they control the Strait Of Hormuz, they have a huge amount of leverage. And I take it a step further, Glenn. You want to remember that the Houthis are their allies. They're one of the three groups that the Iranians remain very close to, the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas.
And the Houthis can they can shut down the strait that leads out of the Red Sea as they have done in the past. So the Iranians working with the Houthis have the ability to shut down traffic coming out of the Red Sea, out of the Strait Of Bab El Mandab, and they have the capability to shut down the traffic coming out of the Persian Gulf through the Strait Of Hormuz. So they do have enormous leverage. There's just no question about that. And, this is gonna present huge problems for the Israelis moving forward and for the Americans moving forward.
And by the way, Glenn, just to take this a step further, if you look at the maximalist demands of the Iranians, One of them is that all American military forces leave the region. I find it hard to believe that that will happen, but I would note that we have 13 bases. Well, let me put it differently, we had 13 bases in the region on February 28. And the New York Times reports that of those 13 bases, all of them have either been destroyed or badly damaged. I just want to think about that.
Our presence in The Gulf has been seriously undermined by this war. The 13 bases that we depended on are basically gone or almost gone. And then you have to ask yourself the question, are the Gulf states that hosted us on these bases going to want The United States to come back and rebuild those bases. And as I said, there's also the question of whether we're going to want to do that. And then there's the point that the Iranians want us out of the region.
So what our military presence in the region looks like when all the dust settles is hard to say, but we are going to be no more we're not going to be more we're going to be less influential, have less power in The Gulf, less power projection capability in The Gulf, when all is said and done than we had before February 28.
Speaker 0: It's quite extraordinary that, how horrible this war was. And, but, again, it was defeat, but I'm I'm not sure what else Trump could have done than to accept defeat because there was obviously a growing desperation. I was just wondering how where you think most of the pressure came from. Was it that they were running out of missiles, interceptor missiles, in other words, the military? Was it the massive economic pressure, especially the growing oil prices?
Or was it, you know, fueling the political havoc at home, loss of voters? So we what what do you think or or is there other dimensions to this disaster that we're missing?
Speaker 1: Well, I think the secondary factor is that militarily, we couldn't figure out how to win the war in any meaningful way. Just the you know, ground invasion didn't make sense. We couldn't use the Navy to do much of anything. We just didn't have many options and I think that was becoming manifestly clear. And you want to remember that in this rescue operation, where they got the second pilot out, we lost more aircraft that day than we have lost on any single day since the Vietnam War.
And think about that. Since the Vietnam War, right, we have never lost as many aircraft in one day as we lost in this rescue mission. This just tells you that we were not doing well militarily. So I think that was of secondary importance. I think what's of primary importance here is what's happening to the world economy.
I think the Chinese and the Russians are very scared about what the long term consequences of this war are going to be for the world economy, and that includes the supply of food around the world as well as oil and gas. And I believe the Chinese put pressure on the Iranians and talked at great length to the Pakistanis about getting Iran to come to the negotiating table, and to work out a ceasefire and then get talking about settling this war. I think the Chinese understand full well that this will have disastrous consequences for everyone, and I wanna underline that word, everyone, if this war continues. This war has to be shut down. If you look at what's happening in East Asia, and this includes countries like South Korea, The Philippines, Indonesia, India, and the potential for really grave damage in China and countries like Russia, over the long term everybody understands.
And I believe the Trump administration understands that we have to shut this one down. So I think you see Trump trying to do that. It's Trump who's actually been pushing hard for some sort of exit option, some way of settling this war. No question that Trump is deeply interested in doing that. But the Iranians, as I've long argued, have a vested interest in stringing this out.
The Iranians don't wanna settle this war quickly because the longer the war goes on and the more damage that's done to the international economy and the deeper the panic that Trump is in, the more leverage the Iranians have. So it's no problem, I think, from the Iranian point of view if the ceasefire doesn't work out Because as it goes on, the conflict that is their leverage increases. But nevertheless, I believe what happened here is that the Chinese working with the Pakistanis and directly with the Iranians put great pressure on Iran. They might have even brought the Russians in to put pressure on Iran to go to the negotiating table because this one has to be shut down. So I think as you look at the situation today, you go back to those two tweets of president Trump on Monday, this is April 6, and you ramp forward up to the present, and then you project out into the future.
I think it's the global economy that really is driving the train here.
Speaker 0: Yes. Probably true. I think even now that well, even if the war comes to an end now, the amount of damage that has already been done is quite tremendous, especially for the Europeans and the Asians. We can maybe put Africa in that same category. But but we've seen some reports of more US troops heading to the region.
I I don't know. I haven't seen the exact numbers, but do you think this is I mean, it seems unlikely that Trump wants to have another go at this because I'm not sure what it's gonna do with the troops. As you said, boots on the ground never really made any sense at all. Or is it just for pressure to hope that The US will have a little bit more leverage in the negotiations because, you know, this is just a two week ceasefire supposed to produce an actual peace agreement. Then that that peace agreement is gonna be very difficult for Trump to get because at the moment, the ceasefire deal, which is a bit ambiguous, there doesn't seem to be a written paper which they can point to, it's, you know, it it's it's easy for him to harmonize, you know, his claim for victory and also the need to, I guess, capitulate.
But, in an actual peace agreement, it's gonna be very hard to square this. I'm I'm just just wondering how how do you see the possible ways of this war actually ending? Because, again, we have to get from a ceasefire to an actual peace agreement. Or do you think Trump's just gonna try to extend the the ceasefire indefinitely and get, you know, like, I don't know. Just try not to get any pen on paper so he doesn't have to admit defeat, essentially.
Speaker 1: Glenn, he has to admit defeat. He admitted defeat Monday night. Again, we're we're on the precipice. We've got to shut this one down. He has no choice here.
You talk about sending ground forces to the region and a ground force option. That's really going to work well. That's going to get a quick agreement? Are you kidding? That's just going to make a bad situation worse.
There's no ground force option here. There's no naval option. There's no air option. I guess he could use nuclear weapons and destroy Iran forever. We could do that, we have that capability.
Is he going to do that? No, he's not going to do that. So he's got to shut this one down. And, he's between a rock and a hard place because the Israelis won't cooperate with him. The Israelis won't even allow him to get a ceasefire.
Again, the Strait Of Hormuz is still effectively closed. The only ships that get through are the ones that the Iranians let through. So he can declare victory and talk about the fact that we've gotten everything we wanted and our goals have been achieved and so forth and so on. But nobody's going to believe that. We lost.
The Israelis lost. The problem is that there are just so many alternative media outlets where this is all made clear, your show being one of them, that they can't put lipstick on a pig and get away with it. Pete Hegseth can say we won, Donald Trump can say we won, but who believes that? Hardly anybody. You see this in the Israeli case, you know, they'll be talking about all the wonderful things they've done because the government has a vested interest in saying that, but all sorts of people are going to point out that this is a ludicrous argument.
They didn't win. They lost. What I would say to President Trump, and I don't think he needs me to tell him this because I'm sure his advisors are telling him this, This thing has to be shut down immediately. I am sure that this is exactly what Vance is telling him. I bet a lot of money on that, that this has to be shut down.
And they're sending Vance to head this team of negotiators because they know Vance, is capable of reaching some sort of agreement. You don't want to depend on Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. I mean, are basically Israeli assets, not to mention the fact they're incompetent. They have a demonstrated record of incompetence now. So you want someone like Vance in charge and hopefully he can shut this down.
But it'll be tough. You know, Glenn, just to go back to the Ukraine war and think about all the endless conversations we've had on ending the war in Ukraine. President Trump was determined to end the war in Ukraine even before he came into office. But if he didn't settle that war before he came into office, he was gonna settle it after he came into office. And he's been a colossal failure.
Right? He and his lieutenants have bumbled around and really made a hash of the negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. It's the gang that can't shoot straight, right? Well, here we are now trying to shut down another war and it's the Trump administration again. And the question you have to ask yourself is can they do it?
If the cast of characters involved just President Trump, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, I'd say we're in deep trouble. But Vance is our great hope here. He's the new boy in town in terms of negotiating with an adversary and we're just all hoping that he can pull it off. I'm sure the Chinese and the Russians, not to mention the Indians, the South Koreans, the Japanese, the Indonesians, people all over Africa, people all over the world are pulling for Vance to work out a ceasefire than to sit down and negotiate some sort of settlement so that we can get the strait opened and we can get the fertilizer. We have to get that fertilizer flowing and we can get the oil and gas flowing as well.
We're not going to immediately go back to the status quo ante in terms of how much those goods come out of The Gulf, but it'll be a good start. But we have to do this immediately. And I believe that President Trump understands that. It's just difficult to miss what's going on here. I'm sure that countries all around the world are calling the White House every day saying this is a colossal disaster.
Something has to be done. And again, I think the Chinese and the Russians fully understand this. These are the responsible stakeholders in the system, the Chinese and the Russians, not The United States. But I think at a certain point even The United States, even the Trump gets the message. This is my reading of the situation.
And again, Glenn, I would say just go back and look at the two true social posts that he wrote on Monday. What he said in the morning about annihilating Iranian culture, and then look at what he said in the evening. Did a 180 degree turn and said, we accept Iran's 10 plan as a basis for negotiations. This is truly remarkable and it reflects the desperation. And by the way, just if he doesn't understand if I'm wrong, if he and his lieutenants don't understand, just give him another week or two.
They'll understand what's going on here in terms of the world economy.
Speaker 0: I think we should all probably be happy that, Vance will take over some negotiations, but something good could come from this. So if he is successful, at least he should be more successful than Whitcoff and Kushner, then perhaps Trump will have the wisdom to also send him to Moscow because I I it seems more well, Van seems more genuine, not just in opposing the Iran war, but actually wanting to put an end to the Ukraine war as well. It doesn't seem to have any more appetite for throwing more lives and money into this big black hole. So, again, something good could come from this perhaps, but it it is Can make one
Speaker 1: can I make just one quick point on what you said? You do wanna remember though that if Vance negotiates a settlement in which we lose, and this is certainly true in The Gulf, and I believe it would be true in settling the Ukraine war, the right in The United States, the neoconservatives, which are a key element in the Republican Party, will blame him and go after him hammer and tongue. So you just wanna understand that politically for Vance, he's in a very dangerous situation. There's no question that for the good of The United States, for the good of the Trump presidency, and for the good of the world, we need him to behave in smart and brave ways to end this disaster. We we just need him to do that.
But if he's successful, and let's hope he is, he will pay a political price here in The United States. And the question you have to ask yourself is whether that will affect how he approaches these negotiations. He is surely aware of the point that I just made. I mean, he's a very smart man. Whether you agree with his policy views or not, he's a smart man and he has surely figured this out.
But let's just hope that he puts the good of the country and really the good of the world. It sounds funny saying that but really we are talking about the good of the world here above his own narrow political interests and does work hard to get a settlement and is successful.
Speaker 0: Yeah. That's a great point. Actually, didn't consider the the domestic politics of the whole thing, but, making the kind of humiliating piece which has to be made well, maybe not humiliating, but well, yeah, perhaps humiliating. It's definitely gonna come at a price.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. No. It's gonna be a humiliating piece. I hadn't thought of the language you used but I think you're right.
And and as I said to you before, I don't think you can put lipstick on a pig in this case. It's just not gonna work because people like us are gonna point out what's going on and even places like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal will in the end have to fess up and say that this is a real defeat. And by the way, you'll see this in Israel as well. I mean, you know, we talk about Donald Trump making a catastrophic mistake. I mean, Bibi Netanyahu, a huge mistake.
And as I said before, you do not want to underestimate the trouble they're having in Lebanon. Right? They're not doing well. The Israelis are not doing well in Lebanon. So Israel is in, you know, terrible shape as a result of what's happened since February 28.
Speaker 0: Well, it's a good point because I think the Israelis also bet everything on knocking out Iran here. I mean, that was supposed to be the head of the snake. And because they were already overstretched. They're not successful in Gaza. They're not successful in Lebanon.
And and now, of course, this none of the objectives were achieved in the war against Iran, and I saw today that the IDF, it told Knesset, the Israeli parliament, that the new government in Iran was, quote, more extreme. So, again, this goes a little bit against what we're hearing from Washington, that this is a better government, easier to work with, but I think that made never they never made any sense. You can't, you know, you can't bomb a country to bits and then assume that relations will be better, especially if the country bomb to bits comes out on on top in terms of the war. So, yeah, it it I do wonder, how how the Israelis are gonna deal with this because they they can't really afford to back down either because they, again, they bet everything on this. I mean, if what you're saying is correct, that The US presence will be diminished severely in the Middle East, Israel's position will be weakened.
Iran, which was the main adversary, which was supposed to be destroyed in this war, if not regime changed and, you know, broken up or at least chaotic like Syria, Now it's gonna come up on top. I mean, this is a horror show for the Israelis. It's it's hard to imagine that they will accept this. I'm not sure what else they can do, of course, short of launching a nuclear weapons at the Iranian capital. But how how do you think the Israelis gonna deal?
Are they gonna you know, will this fuel domestic divisions into a civil war? Will they, you know, seek another victory on a different front? How are they gonna deal with this? Because it's just hard to see how they're gonna recover.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Before I try to answer that question, let me just also point out that this war has done significant damage to The US Israeli relationship. The United States is now in a catastrophic war. Right? This will be long seen as the most foolish foreign policy decision The United States has ever made.
You know, the Council on Foreign Relations did a big study a few months ago where they surveyed American diplomatic historians and they asked them what was the most foolish foreign policy decision that any president in the history of The United States had ever made. And what was clearly ranked number one was George W Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Well, there is absolutely no question in my mind that the decision to attack Iran on February 28 will be seen as a much worse decision than the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. There's no question that the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 led to major league trouble. It was a catastrophic decision in its own right.
There's no question about that. Did enormous damage in the region to America's reputation and so forth and so on. But it, in my opinion, pales in comparison to the decision that president Trump made on February 28. Now, in terms of US Israeli relations, it is becoming manifestly clear because there's an abundance of evidence that it's the Israelis who led President Trump into this war. This big New York Times story that recently came out that described the decision making process made it clear that hardly anyone in the deep state, hardly any of Trump's close advisers were enthusiastic about this enterprise.
And in fact, many of them were serious doubters, including the head of the CIA, the vice president, and so forth and so on. But President Trump did it because Prime Minister Netanyahu and David Barnea, who was the head of Mossad, convinced him that this would lead to a quick and decisive victory. So it is widely recognized that it is the Israelis who led us into this disastrous war. That's point number one. And point number two, as we are watching what's happening now, it's the Israelis who are preventing us from getting a ceasefire to put an end to this disastrous war.
This point is not lost on most Americans. So U. S. Views, the American public's views, the American elite's views on Israel is undergoing a sea change. You could see it in the poll data.
And in my opinion, this situation only gets worse with the passage of time because once the shooting stops, the dust settles, and people begin to reflect on the causes of this disaster. And you want to remember one thing, Glenn. I learned this during the Vietnam War. When a country loses a war, everybody goes back to the causes. They want to figure out how did this ever happen.
When you win, you don't care that much about the causes, right? You won and you celebrate the victory. When you lose, especially when it's a disastrous loss like this, people are going to want to say to know, How did this happen? How could a country like The United States do this? How could President Trump, who had been such a great politician and had been so careful in the employment of military force, allowed himself to fall off the cliff like this.
What happened? And what they'll discover very quicklybecause again, the evidence is clearis that it was Israelis who led him by the nose into this disaster. And that is going to damage US Israeli relations. So you want to remember that on top of all the things that you and I have talked about up to now, US Israeli relations are going to be badly damaged as well. So your question is where do we go from here?
And in particular, where do the Israelis go from here? I think this is gonna cause huge trouble inside Israel. I think it's going to lead to all sorts of domestic unrest. There are gonna be serious political fights between Netanyahu on one side and other political leaders on the other side as to who's responsible for this and what price should be paid and so forth and so on. But I think most importantly and most disturbingly is I think the Israelis will begin to think long and hard about using nuclear weapons against Iran.
I think for most Americans we understand, and this is certainly true for Europeans as well, that Iran is not a serious threat to us. I mean, Iran is not a serious threat to The United States. They did not attack us. We attacked them. How is Iran a serious threat to The United States?
You just can't make that argument. But that's not the way Israel thinks about Iran. Israel thinks that Iran is a mortal enemy. They think this is the second coming of the Third Reich. They've convinced themselves that Iran is determined to get a nuclear weapon and to use that nuclear weapon to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth.
They don't believe that Iran can be deterred. And they now understand, the Israelis now understand that they can't prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon with conventional means. This is what the war demonstrates. They can't do it even with us, conventionally. The only way they can do it is with a nuclear weapon.
And given how ruthless the Israelis are and how willing they are to engage in genocide and murderous behavior, I would not put it past them to use a nuclear weapon against Iran. So one could argue that yes, Israel is in deep trouble and that the Iranian threat is not less than ever, it's greater than ever. You can make that argument easily from their perspective. But the question you then have to ask yourself is where does that lead? And, you're talking about a country that has no problem executing genocides, and, that is convinced itself that it will face a genocidal state armed with nuclear weapons in Iran down the road.
In that situation, you can imagine them trying to use their or using their nuclear arsenal against, Iran.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, it all seems to that for Netanyahu, the the effort of portraying Iran as dead set on acquiring nuclear weapons and also being profoundly irrational that this is was also instrumental in terms of making Israel's problems into the Americans' problems, because that would be the only way one could conceive Iran as a threat to The United States. If it would require weapon nuclear weapons and have no way of being deterred and, you know, being devoted to using this in an offensive manner. But it is interesting that they seem to buy into their own rhetoric, though, about the irrationality of Iran and its determination to acquire a nuclear weapon. But it all seemed that this is gonna be devastating for a Trump administration, I'm thinking, though, because Trump's whole bit, I think, was, you know, what he was able to appeal to.
He was he was looking at The US relative decline, that is its power in the world, its military, its economy, the the work of well, position of people in society, and he essentially blamed this on weak and foolish leaders. So the weakness of Obama, the weakness of Biden, and also the foolishness of engaging in all these wars. So the solution was essentially strength. You needed a strong man. That was Trump.
He was strong, and that is you know, if he was just tough, decisive, and assertive, this is this is essentially the medicine that will bring America, you know, make it great again. And also, his toughness would be matched with, you know, this intelligence, his high IQ as he he always say, because he wouldn't do this harder this foolish forever wars. And but now, you know, he went in. The the rhetoric was all about no no one else dared to do this. Trump did it, but there's a reason why no one else did it.
And now, of course, he is the war president, and he did something foolish. I mean, his whole persona, his whole the core of making America great again seems to have been damaged, and even he lost his key supporters, and you probably saw him scolding Tucker Carlson and, Alex Jones, Candon's own Candon's own of these people who had supported him when he was a peace president. So he essentially had a lot of problems already before this war, and all these problems are now much, much worse. So how do you think this is gonna you know, the international economy, of course, is a mess. The military defeat was an embarrassment.
But what do think this is gonna do to the political situation within The United States?
Speaker 1: Well, I think that this is all going to destroy the Trump presidency. I mean, he may remain in office all the way to the end of his term, but he's damaged goods in a truly serious way. But you want to think about sort of where we stand on the world stage today. Before this war started on February 28, the Trump administration had already done enormous damage to America's position in the world in large part because the president, who is the ultimate unilateralist, was wrecking international institutions, paying no attention to the rules that underpin those institutions. He was disregarding and disrespecting international law.
And he was treating allies with unmitigated contempt, especially the Europeans. He was talking about invading Greenland. He was talking about making Canada the fifty first state. And if he went to East Asia, the Japanese and the South Koreans this is before February 28 had real doubts about relying on The United States for security. And of course, in the course of twenty twenty five, he had seriously damaged what had been good relations with India.
US India relations went south during 2025. So The United States, before February 28, was in real trouble in terms of its foreign policy. And what's happened since February 28 has just damaged us further. If you look at U. S.-European relations, you think about all the damage that was done over the Ukraine war, then all the damage that was done over Greenland, And now we have this situation where President Trump is effectively trying to blame the Europeans for the fact that we can't defeat Iran.
He's implying that if only the Europeans had sent their military forces, especially their navies, to the Middle East, we would have been able to break through the Strait Of Hormuz and we would have ended, Iran's stranglehold on the world economy. But that didn't happen. We failed. But why did we fail? Not because of The United States, but because of the Europeans.
So if you think about US European relations today, they're terrible. And what about other countries around the world? The Japanese and the South Koreans, the Indonesians, the Indians. I mean, The United States is a rogue elephant. Do you want to get too close to the Trump administration?
No. You want to keep your distance. So I think in terms of our foreign policy, he has, you know, done even greater damage than he did before February 28. And I don't see how he digs himself out of this hole. In fact, I think if anything, his behavior will become more erratic with the passage of time.
This is a man who thinks he's a genius. He thinks he has the Midas touch. He thinks anything he does works out well. And he always emerges victorious. He simply is not gonna be able to make that argument in this case.
This is not like all the previous cases that he got away with. And he's therefore seriously damaged goods as president of The United States, even if he manages to shut this one down reasonably quickly. And that remains to be seen as we were talking about before. And in terms of his standing here in The United States, there's no way he's not going to take a huge hit politically. And you see him already, as you pointed out, going after people like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones.
These are all people who have been big supporters of his in the past and he's now in a major league war with them and this is not going to help his standing. And furthermore, if you just look at what's happening inside the MAGA base, you look at what's happening with Christian evangelicals under the age of 50, I think he has truly profound political problems at home and on the foreign policy front as well.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I was also expecting that after disasters such as this, of going through this process you described before, that is having some openness, where did we go wrong, air out of trouble, you know, learning something from the mistakes, I would assume that he would seek to blame others. I guess the Europeans would NATO would be a good fall guy, and also divert attention, maybe go for a quick victory that is seize Cuba or Greenland, something like this, such a shift focus as quick as possible because you don't wanna sit around thinking about all the things, having too many debates in the country about all the things you did wrong. This can't do anything well for him, so I guess erratic behavior moving forward is a pretty reasonable prediction. But if we take a step back to the wider picture, what do you think the world will look like after this?
Because you and I spoke in the past about the merges of a multipolar world that is simply the international distribution of power suggest the concentration of power we had in the nineties is now dispersed. Now you have many centers of power. The the fact that, well, it it looks as if this would intensify this development.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that The United States has obviously lost this war, and that will become manifestly clear to more and more people. That's for sure. I don't think it will diminish American power. I think American power is based on material capabilities. And I think losing this war will not affect how much power The United States has.
In making this point, I like to point to the Vietnam War. We lost the Vietnam War. It was a catastrophic defeat. It was a decisive defeat, but it didn't affect American power. We remained as powerful as ever.
But this is not to deny for one second that losing a war in Iran will have a profound impact on our ability to project that power around the world and to influence other states in ways that are favorable to The United States. So this really matters. So again, I just want to be clear. We will remain as powerful as ever. And we do live in a multipolar world.
As you know, Glenn, my argument is we've lived in a multipolar world since 2017. And the other two great powers on the planet are China and Russia, and they're not going away. And in fact, one could argue that they're better off as a result of this war vis a vis The United States. But it's not that China and Russia have become more powerful relative to The United States because of the war. I don't think that's what's happened.
I think that America's ability to project power and to influence other countries has been seriously damaged and that works to China's advantage and to Russia's advantage. In other words, just to take the Russian case, the Russian economy, has benefited from The United States taking sanctions off of Russia in terms of selling oil. And furthermore, the Russians have benefited from the fact that there are less weapons available for us to give the Ukrainians to fight against Russia because we're using up weapons and munitions at such a rapid pace in Ukraine excuse me, in Iran. So this all works to Russia's advantage. And in terms of China, what's happening in East Asia is that we're pulling forces out of East Asia.
We're pivoting away from East Asia because we have to move forces that are physically located in East Asia to the Middle East. This works to China's advantage. It doesn't change the balance of power, but it changes our ability to contain China in East Asia. It creates a situation where our allies in East Asia really don't trust us very much anymore. Not only are we pivoting away from East Asia, moving military forces out of the region, but also can you trust American judgment?
Do you think that The United States is a responsible ally that will take care of you in the crunch? I think if you're Japanese, a Japanese leader or a South Korean leader, the answer to that question is no. You can't depend on The United States the way you once thought that you could or the way that you once could. So again, you see the damage that we have done to ourselves. And again, to go back to our discussion of The Gulf and where we end up, we may end up losing those 13 bases, never returning to them, and having much less ability to project power in The Gulf after February 28 than we had before February 28.
So you see, our power position around the world in terms of our ability to project power, influence other countries, has been badly damaged. And again, as we were saying, as you and I have said on numerous occasions, we have done enormous damage to international institutions, international law, and our treatment of allies before, before February 28. So The United States is in just so much trouble.
Speaker 0: You know, I think, you know, what I might say is a relative decline as you have the rise of other other powers. Because if Iran could have been knocked out, that would have been something that would have weakened the Russians, the Chinese, and, I guess, strengthened the hand of The United States. So but what measuring well, the ability to project power in terms of the alliance system as well is probably also a good approach because, as you said, The Gulf States are in a very vulnerable position now. I know the rhetoric now is a bit harsh towards the Iranians, but at some point, if The US presence is expected to diminish, then they're gonna have to try to make some peace with the neighbors. I would say, eventually, the Europeans would have to do the same.
We can't fight against the Russians on our own. If the Americans will reduce their presence, we're gonna have to learn how to get along with the Russians, and, you know, you can say this this is might be some of the calculations they're having in East Asia as well. On on NATO, this is seems to be one of the not a casualty, but one of the organizations which has also been hit hard by the Iran war simply by the mutual accusations. The how do you think NATO will be affected by by the way this war ended?
Speaker 1: Well, I think this is all disastrous for NATO, or or to put it in slightly different terms for transatlantic relations. And I think the main reason is that president Trump is going to need a scapegoat for this disaster. And I think that the Europeans will probably be the number one scapegoat because he won't blame Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the person he should blame. And he can't really blame his advisers because none of them were enthusiastic about this. Maybe Pete Hegseth was.
Maybe they'll get rid of Pete Hegseth. But I think what he's gonna do is he's gonna blame the Europeans, and he's gonna make the argument that if the Europeans had antied up, if they had come to our rescue, we would have won the war. The reason we lost was because our allies failed us. And given that situation, what we should do is basically stop supporting them. Will he end the alliance?
Just put an end to it? I don't think so. He might. But I think that he will so seriously damage the alliance, that in the end it'll be largely meaningless. The other thing is, Glenn, he has what, two years and three two years and nine months left in his presidency, almost three years left.
You know how much damage he's done in the first, let's say, fifteen months? Can you imagine how much damage he's going to do in the remaining two years and nine months? It's going to be enormous, right? And in the meantime, the Europeans have to come up with some sort of defensive strategy for dealing with the Russians. I mean, you and I think their assessment of the Russian threat is completely overblown.
But the fact is the Russian elitesI mean, excuse me, the European elites do believe there's a serious Russian threat there. Let's take that as a given. And they also recognize that they can't rely on The United States anymore. The transatlantic partnership no longer exists. Call this a partnership?
It's no longer there. So the Europeans over the next two years and nine months have to figure out how to deal with this situation And that's gonna push them to put NATO in the background and not take NATO seriously. So I find it hard to believe that NATO will be a meaningful alliance in January 2029 when President Trump steps down. Now one could argue he may step down before then. He could be impeached, he could have medical problems, and J.
D. Vance could become president. And who knows what Vance would do? I tend to believe that Vance would have a more positive attitude towards NATO than Trump would. But how much more positive is hard to say.
We all remember his Valentine's Day speech in Munich in February 2025. Mean, Vance didn't look like he was friendly toward Europe then. And if he became president, maybe he wouldn't be once he was in the White House. Who knows for sure? But the future of NATO looks grim, to put it mildly.
Speaker 0: Yeah. No. It seems to be heading towards an end. But but but by extension, what what will all of this mean? That is the the the loss in the Iran war as well as, all the weapons and money that was spent, the economic, further economic problems for the Europeans.
What does this mean for the Ukraine war? Because, I see Zelenskyy has been taking to Twitter, and now that the Iran war is over, encouraging everyone to shift focus back to Ukraine. But it's gonna be hard to see the, yeah, the the appetite for Trump to deepen involvement there. Or how how do you think well, if, you know, if take into account all of these different variables, what would you expect how would you expect the Ukraine war to be affected by the loss of the Iran war, but also the fragmentation now we see of NATO?
Speaker 1: I think, first of all, I wish that Zelensky were correct and the Iran war was over and we could now focus on Ukraine. I think we're gonna be focusing on Iran for the foreseeable future. I mean, this is a catastrophic situation. And with regard to Ukraine, let's assume that I'm wrong and that two weeks from now the war is effectively over. I don't think that's gonna happen, but let's assume that happens.
Okay. And let's assume that we focus on Ukraine. What does that mean? Are we gonna give Ukraine a whole bevy of weapons that are gonna allow Ukraine to prevail on the battlefield or do well on the battlefield? I think the answer is no.
I don't think they're gonna get those weapons. We have run down the inventory to the point where the last thing we wanna do is give precious, weapons and precious, military assets to the Ukrainians. Just not gonna happen. And with regard to the Russians, we need Russian oil and global oil markets. It we just need it, right, to head off economic catastrophe.
And, so the Russians are gonna continue to do well economically, at least in the short term. And I'm sure the Russians are getting ready to launch a major set of offensives against the Ukrainians. And the Ukrainians, as you and I have talked about many times, are in desperate straits, and we're not in any position to rescue the Ukrainians. And this is a perfect situation for president Trump to say the Europeans are responsible. As you know, he's been pushing in that direction for a long time.
So what do Europeans deal with the Ukraine situation? Because you wanna understand that if people like you and I are right, Glenn, and it's only a matter of time before the Ukrainians collapse on the battlefield and the Russians push them out of Donbas and the Russians conquer even more territory on the Eastern front, president Trump is gonna want to avoid being blamed for that. And he's gonna wanna blame the Europe the Europeans for Ukraine's defeat. So I'm sure he, in his head, is positioning himself to create a situation where if the Ukrainians lose to the Russians and the Russians win a victory in that war that he can say it's the Europeans' fault. We were in the fight for a long time, and as long as we were in the fight, the Ukrainians did quite well.
But we could not go on forever because we had other responsibilities around the world. And by the way, in those in terms of those other responsibilities in places like the Middle East, the Europeans would not help us. So we were in a position where we had to turn the responsibility for dealing with Ukraine over to the Europeans, and they failed. They are responsible for this defeat. So what he'll do moving forward, is he'll blame the Europeans for what's happening in Ukraine while at the same time not giving the Europeans the necessary weaponry to give to the Ukrainians to hold their own on the battlefield.
And furthermore, he'll blame the Europeans for the defeat in, in Iran. I mean, this is the way president Trump operates. He's not somebody who ever accepts responsibility. So I I think that is what the future looks like.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I think in one tweet, he was able to squeeze in both blaming the Europeans for Iran and also say bye bye to Greenland or something. So he seems to be, yeah, preparing both for the blame game as well as a distraction, it seems. But, no, this well, you can see what's gonna happen, I think, in in Ukraine. It's a bit strange the Europeans aren't preparing themselves.
They're not sending more weapons, but preparing themselves in terms of picking up the phone. That would be a a good first move before this whole thing begins to begins to unravel. But I I I spoke recently with colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, and he he was making the point that he feels not just United States, but Europe is growing increasingly irrational. And I after that, I thought about asking you actually because do we have a good theory in international relations about, I guess, rationality in declining hegemons or collective hegemons, both United States and Europe? Because it seems over the past years now that we're in well, at least relative decline as there's problems in society, the assumption we had we built up a society about, you know, ideological superiority.
How how would we do you expect society and our leaders to embrace, you know, reason fully with military defeat such as we suffered in Iran or, yeah, economic decline, social havoc? I mean, how do you I know in political realism, we put we assume that the state is rational, but but, you know, at least for the neoclassical realists, they would challenge this assumption. So how how would you assess, or how do you expect the the the reason or rationality of states to function in the years to come?
Speaker 1: Well, as you know, I wrote this book with Sebastian Rosato called How States Think, which deals directly with the question of rationality. And in fact, the opening case that we talk about is Putin's invasion of Ukraine on February 22, 02/24/2022. And our basic argument in the book is that states are rational if they pursue a policy that's based on a theory of international politics that makes good sense, that it's a plausible theory. And if you don't have a plausible theory underpinning your policy, then what you are doing is acting irrationally. And we also said that the decision making process matters as well.
You have to have a decision making process that allows all the key players in the room to voice their opinions in a rational, legal way. So that was our definition. I think if you look at various cases like Putin's invasion of, of Ukraine in 2022, I think that was clearly rational. He thought that NATO expansion, was a threat to Russia. He thought it was an existential threat.
And he launched a preventive war to make sure that Ukraine did not become part of NATO. So that was, in our opinion, a rational decision. One could argue that it was the wrong decision. One could argue it was an illegal decision. One could argue it was an immoral decision.
But whether a decision is rational or not depends on whether or not you have an underlying theory that is a proven theory and that that theory underpins the policy. Now, let's just talk a little bit about the Europeans. I believe that the Europeans' behavior towards The United States, which often is labeled as irrational, is actually not irrational because it has a simple theory that underpins it, which you can argue is a legitimate theory. What am I saying here? The Europeans have a deep seated interest in keeping The United States actively involved in Europe.
The Europeans want the American pacifier to remain in place. Another way to put this is the Europeans want NATO to remain intact. And therefore, they want to do everything they can to accommodate the Americans so that the Americans don't get angry at them and the Americans remain in Europe. Because it's so important from a strategic point of view for the Europeans to have the American pacifier in place. Now you can argue that that strategy is wrong.
You can have a different theory that says that it would make much more sense for the Europeans to grow a backbone, understand that their close relationship with The United States is over, that they can't depend on the American pacifier anymore and therefore they should act differently. A good realist like me would say that's how they should behave. But that's not to say that the strategy they have employed is irrational because there are different strategies based on different theories out there. And the question is do you have a plausible theory? And I think that the Europeans' behavior towards the Americans is based on a plausible theory.
I think it's the wrong theory. But there are lots of different theories and those theories are all plausible. I could go into this in greater detail, I won't now. But anyway, I think a lot of what the Europeans do is not irrational. I do think it's wrong, right?
But just because something is wrong does not mean it's irrational. And let me just give you one example of that. It's NATO expansion. NATO expansion was opposed by almost all realists because all realists like me have a simple theory that says if you move NATO up to Russia's border, the Russians are gonna react and you're gonna have conflict. You're going to have really serious trouble.
Therefore you do not want to expand NATO and if you do expand NATO it's going to lead to big trouble. There was a whole set of liberal theories that underpinned our policy. Not realist theories. The realist theories were rejected. The advice of realists like George Kennan and John Mearsheimer were ruled out of court.
But the liberal theories said that what we want to do is we want to move NATO eastward and what we want to do is we want to create a zone of peace in Eastern Europe. And that zone of peace will be based on a series of liberal theories. One is democratic peace theory. The idea was that if we could spread democracy eastward into Eastern Europe to include Russia at some point, we would create a giant zone of peace because democracies don't fight other democracies. They also relied on the theory of economic interdependence.
The idea was you would move the EU eastward. You would create a situation where you had a great deal of economic intercourse in Eastern Europe and maybe eventually include the Russians in that. And the end result is economic interdependence produces peace and we would all live happily ever after. So there were a set of liberal theories. These are prominent theories that are highly respected in academia that underpin the policy.
If you read the commentary of Strobe Talbot and Madeleine Albright at the time of NATO expansion, this is in the nineteen nineties, their policy prescription for NATO expansion was based on these liberal theories. I thought it was wrongheaded, but I did not think it was irrational. That may sound funny to certain viewers, but I think there's a difference between whether one thinks another theory is wrong or whether you think it's irrational. So I think a lot of what is done in international politics one can think is wrong, but it's not necessarily irrational. But I could go on, there are lots of cases of American behavior in particular, but even European behavior times that would fit under the rubric of irrational.
Speaker 0: No. I think that's a good, you know, way of explaining it. And no. I I would agree. I don't think the European policy was irrational.
As you said, it was a powerful theory, and, you know, you can link it a little bit both in political realism as well as liberalism. That is the hegemonic peace. As long as The US was all powerful, you know, the Europeans could benefit. For one, there there would be no great power rivalry as The US all all power concentrated in The US would essentially mitigate the international anarchy. There would only be one center of power and no anarchy.
Second, because it was The United States, we assumed that the liberal democracy and human rights would be elevated, so we would have this democratic peace as well. And, also, you can put a third leg on it, would be that The US would be the pacifier in Europe, which would allow Europe to function as it had because we never been stood together since after World War two when the Americans came. So so yeah. No. I that you can argue that's given that they can explain what they were doing.
It is it is rational, and I think that's also why they were willing to make an enemy of Russia by expanding NATO because this made sure that America's presence was cemented. But my my view, though, is that it could have been a good strategy, but it became the only strategy, which meant there's no political imagination for anything else. So now that the actual political realities of it, that is that the unipolar order that is it's not just a policy, it's an actual distribution power, is gone. And we see that for this reason, it's in America's interest to shift its policies that is focused less on Europe. Now it starts to feel irrational because now we're just, you know, returning to hope and expecting The US to stay in Europe out of, you know, just some alliance of democracies even though it doesn't serve necessarily its interests.
So it is very strange to see. Let me just ask sir.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, can I just make two more points about this whole subject of irrationality? Because this is a very important subject. People surely who are watching this show will wanna know whether it was rational for president Trump to invade or to attack Iran on February 28. And I believe it was irrational.
And why do I think that? The basic theory that underpinned the decision to attack Iran on February 28 was that we could use air power alone to topple the regime and put in place a regime that would basically dance to America's tune, would throw up its hands, surrender to us and do what we wanted, okay? We know from the literature on international politics, which is well understood by many people in the policy world, that it is virtually impossible to create regime change with air power alone. There is no theory of victory that can be considered rational that is based on the idea that you can use air power alone to produce regime change. In fact, the literature says that's impossible.
So what president Trump, not only what President Trump did in deciding to go to war on February 28 was not only a foolish policy, it was irrational because he had no plausible theory of victory. Just very important to understand that. Let me give you another case. The decision that The United States made before the war started in Ukraine on 02/24/2022. What's really remarkable in the run up to the war is despite the fact we thought we, the West, The United States in particular, thought The United that the Russians were gonna invade Ukraine.
We did nothing, virtually nothing, to stop it. Then the war started, negotiations started in Istanbul, and both sides were making very good progress. And The United States told the Ukrainians to walk away from the negotiations. Then later, I think it was in November year, general Milley said that Ukraine had reached the high watermark. Remember, the Ukrainian army had done quite well in two big offensives during 2022.
General Milley, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, said, Ukraine has reached the high watermark. Let's cut a deal now. He was told to close his mouth and not raise the issue again. Now the question you want to ask yourself is why was that the case? Why was The United States not attempting to prevent war and then why did it tell the Ukrainians to walk away and tell General Milley to keep his mouth closed?
The answer is actually quite simple. We thought that we could bring the Russians to their knees with economic sanctions. We had a theory of victory that was based in part on the Ukrainians holding the Russians off on the battlefield, number one. But number two, we believe that we could use crushing sanctions to cripple the Russian economy and literally knock the Russians out of the ranks of the great powers. That was our theory of victory.
I thought at the time that it was wrong. I thought that it wouldn't work. But I think it was a plausible theory of victory. I think at the time most people I know thought that it would work. They thought that we had so much economic leverage.
They thought all of this globalization of the 1990s and the early 2000s had created the situation where The United States sat at the center of this economic web that allowed it to use its coercive leverage over countries all around the planet. The way we've done with Iran, the way we've done with Venezuela, the way we tried to do with China. That's what we thought would work with the Russians. And I think it was a plausible theory of victory. I did not think it would work.
I had a different view, a different set of theories. But the point is it was not irrational. It was wrong, but it was not irrational. But again, to go back to Trump invading Iran, that was irrational because there was no plausible theory of victory there.
Speaker 0: My view on the Ukraine war, though, was initially, I thought it made a lot of sense. That is if you spend all these years investing all this money and training to build a massive Ukrainian army of hundreds of thousands of men, why would The US and NATO accept it to go neutral when you can use that big army to fight and weaken Russia as a strategic rival. So, again, I think it's, you know, brutal, and I wouldn't advise it. But, yeah, it may made sense, rational. But my my view is that after you mentioned November 2022 when general Milley said, well, it doesn't get better than this.
This is when we strike a deal. It feels like at that point, we were a bit swept away already by our own propaganda. That is that the Russians were inherently weak. They would they they could be defeated. Their economy you know, their gas station masquerading as a country.
And and and at this point, it looks like all the rhetoric we had to fuel the war, suddenly, we began to buy into it. And here, I started to wonder how rational is this? Because if someone came along and said, well, actually, we have to assess what the Russians actually have, then immediately, no. No. Well, that's pro Russian.
You can't you know? So so suddenly, our ability to assess the information available to make reasonable predictions, it it seemed like it was all gone. And you see that today as well. Everyone more or less understands that the war can't be won, but they still want to fight it. I mean, for me, now there's no reasonable strategy anymore.
There's no reasonable theory of victory anymore. So it feels as if, yes, it began rational, a bit brutal, I mean, Ukrainians to fight their arrival. But now I feel like we drifted far away. But, again, it's just my view.
Speaker 1: Well, just leaving aside the the issue of rationality where I think I've said enough Yeah. Let me make another point. I think, Glenn, when countries get into major wars, it's very difficult for them to get out. I've said over the years, and I think it's because for me the Vietnam War was a formative experience, but my rhetoric is it's easy to get in. It's incredibly difficult to get out.
I like to say it's like turning a giant supertanker around in the water. You don't do it quickly. And I think Iran may actually be something of an exception because of our whole discussion about the economic consequences. You know, if you take what I was saying before, and I know you agree with me on this, that the potential economic consequences here are catastrophic, right? The incentive structure may be such that we do shut this war down quite quickly, right?
And it would be, I think, quite unusual in that regard. I mean think about the Afghanistan war, twenty years. Vietnam, oh, that went on for year after year. It was very hard to get out of that war. And this is what happens when a great power like The United States or major powers like the Europeans get involved in a war.
It's just very difficult to walk away. It's the whole sunk costs argument. And I think that is what has really paralyzed the Europeans and made it very difficult for them to get out. The other thing is, and you know, you were talking about this in the context of Benjamin Netanyahu before, that, you know, after a while, you begin to believe your own arguments about Iran. You know, if you say Iran is the boogeyman for forty years at some point along the road, even if you didn't believe it in the beginning, you certainly believe it after forty years.
And I think in terms of the Europeans, before the war in Ukraine started, I don't think the Europeans thought the Russians were a great threat. You wanna remember in 2008 at the famous Bucharest summit, NATO Bucharest summit in April 2008, the Europeans, in the person of Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy, argued against bringing Ukraine into NATO. Merkel was adamantly opposed, as was Sarkozy. It's not like the Europeans thought there was this great Russian threat out there that had to be deterred. In fact, they thought, like you and I, Glenn, that if you expanded NATO to bring Ukraine into it, Putin would interpret it as a declaration of war.
That's what Merkel has said. Right? That's why she was opposed. We agree with her. But anyway, The United States foolishly pushed ahead and we ended up in this disastrous war.
But I think what's happened over time is that the Europeans have convinced themselves now that the Russians are the second coming of Nazi Germany. If Putin is Adolf Hitler, that the Russian army is the Wehrmacht, then oh my god, if they don't do something, they're gonna have the Russian army on the beaches of Dunkirk. I mean, I find it all hard to believe, I know you do as well, but they do believe that. But it's very interesting if you think about the change that has taken place over time in European thinking about the Russian threat. And by the way, just to elevate up another 10,000 feet, if you go back to NATO expansion and the decision to bring Ukraine in in April 2008, it is very important to understand that we were not interested in bringing Ukraine into NATO because we thought there was a Russian threat to Ukraine or a Russian threat to Eastern Europe.
That's the realist view. The United States, was driving the train on NATO expansion, was not operating according to realist theories. Otherwise, they would not have expanded NATO into Ukraine. They were operating on liberal theories. You ought to remember that Putin was at Bucharest.
They invited Putin Putin to Bucharest. The Russians and The United States and the Russians and the Europeans actually had quite good relations at the time. We didn't see Ukraine as this great threat. Now Ukraine is seen as a really powerful I mean, Russia is now seen as a really powerful threat. Sorry, not Ukraine.
Russia is now seen as a very powerful threat. It's really quite remarkable, the change that has taken place over time. But I bring all this up because it just shows you how difficult it is now, right, for the Europeans, to change their view and and put an end to this war, which is you and I, Glenn, agree would be in, the interest of every European state.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Now this is, this was the warning of, Walter Lippmann that when you go into war, you have all this incentive to build up your adversary as the just the embodiment of evil. And then when it's time to make a peace, you can't make peace anymore because you just convinced everyone that you're fighting evil. And that's essentially, yeah, where I think where we are today. Anyways,
Speaker 1: any final thoughts before we wrap up? Just one final point. You wanna remember that in the Iran war a few weeks ago, president Trump called for unconditional surrender, which is powerful reinforcement for your point.
Speaker 0: Yeah. He did not get that. So no. It's very difficult to climb down after making such a thing, but I'm hoping that Trump's ability to shift focus and, BS his way out of things could be something that helps deliver peace, but, we'll see. Anyways, thank you so much for being so generous with your time.
Speaker 1: My pleasure, Glenn. As always, I enjoyed our discussion immensely.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Jiang Xueqin: The Iran War & the Battle for the Petrodollar https://youtu.be/P_DHMUdOVdo https://t.co/d2wOIE5Guu
Video Transcript AI Summary
In this discussion, Zhang Shuay Shin and Speaker 1 analyze the evolving U.S.-Iran confrontation through the lens of global power dynamics, the petrodollar, and the shifting balance among major powers.
- The war is framed as primarily about preserving the petrodollar. Speaker 1 argues the United States, burdened by enormous debt, seeks to maintain the dollar’s dominance by controlling energy trade through naval power and strategic choke points. The belief is that the U.S. can weaponize the dollar against rivals, as seen when it froze Russian assets and then moved to stabilize oil markets. BRICS and others are moving toward alternatives, including a gold corridor, challenging the petrodollar’s centrality. The aim is to keep Europe and East Asia dependent on U.S. energy, reinforcing American hegemony, even as historical hubris risks a global backlash turning growing powers against Washington.
- The sequence of escalation over six weeks is outlined: after the American attack on Tehran and the Iranian move to close the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. eased sanctions on Russian and Iranian oil to maintain global stability, according to Treasury statements. Escalations targeted civilian infrastructure and strategic chokepoints, with discussions of striking GCC energy infrastructure and desalination plants. A U.S. threat to “bomb Iran back to the stone age” was countered by Iran proposing a ten-point framework—encompassing uranium enrichment rights, lifting sanctions, and security guarantees for Iran and its proxies. The Americans reportedly suggested the framework was workable, but negotiations in Islamabad stalled when U.S. officials did not engage seriously.
- The broader objective is posited as not simply a tactical war but a strategic move to ensure U.S. imperial supremacy by shaping energy flows. Speaker 1 speculates Trump’s motive centers on keeping the petrodollar intact, potentially forcing China and other partners to buy energy with dollars. Iran’s willingness to negotiate in Islamabad is linked to pressure from China amid China’s economic strains, particularly as energy needs and Belt and Road investments create vulnerabilities for China if Middle East energy becomes unreliable.
- The proposed naval blockade is discussed as difficult to implement directly against Iran due to ballistic missiles; instead, the plan may aim to choke off alternative routes like the Strait of Malacca, leveraging trusted regional partners and allies. Iran could respond via the Red Sea (Bab al-Mandab) or other leverage, including the Houthis, challenging Western control of energy corridors. The overarching aim would be to force a global energy reorientation toward North America, though it risks long-term hostility toward the United States.
- The roles of great powers are analyzed: the U.S. strategy is described as exploiting Middle East disruption to preserve the petrodollar, with short-term gains but long-term risks of a broader alliance against U.S. hegemony. Europe and Asia are pressured to adapt, with China’s energy needs especially salient as sanctions tighten Middle East supply. Russia is identified as the principal challenger to U.S. maritime hegemony, while China remains economically entangled, facing strategic incentives to cooperate with the United States if required by economic pressures.
- The dialogue considers NATO and Europe, arguing that the real contest is between globalists and nationalists in the United States, with Trump viewed as an agent of empire who may threaten the existing globalist framework. The speakers discuss whether this competition will redefine alliances, the future of NATO, and the possibility that a more Eurasian-led order could emerge if Western powers fail to maintain their maritime advantages.
- Finally, Russia’s role is emphasized: Moscow is seen as the key counterweight capable of challenging American maritime dominance, with the war in Iran serving, in part, to counter Russian actions in Ukraine and to incentivize alignment with Russia, China, and Iran against U.S. leadership over the next two decades.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined today by Zhang Shuay Shin to discuss the developments between The United States and Iran. So thank you very much for coming back on.
Speaker 1: Thanks, Ryan.
Speaker 0: So I I well, the the first thing I think about is in regards to this war is that the Iranian targets all seem to be very well calculated in terms of economics. And I think this is interesting because usually in all American wars, they there's some economic interests to go to war. But now we see them well, not just shutting down the Strait Of Hormuz, but you see them when they essentially forced Americans to spend their expensive interceptor missiles. All of this has seems to have an economic underpinning. But the really big thing appears to be the possible attack now on the petrodollar.
I was wondering how do you see how do you see the vulnerability of the petrodollar in this war?
Speaker 1: Right. So I would argue that right now, this war in Iran, it's primarily about maintaining the petrodollar. Because these past ten years, the world has become increasingly concerned about the viability of the petrodollar. Right now, The United States is $39,000,000,000,000 in debt. The United States, right after the the Russians, invaded Ukraine froze over $200,000,000,000 in Russian assets, which makes the world question the legitimacy as well as the credibility of The US financial system.
Because if the Americans can weaponize the US dollar against the Russians, they can weaponize US dollar against everyone. So after that, you saw this massive exodus from US treasuries. And right now, China is establishing the, gold corridor. So BRICS is trying to create alternatives to the petrodollar. But for the Americans, the petrodollar is the very basis of their empire.
And quite honestly, it's the very it's a it's the objective of their empire. So The United States right now is in a fight tooth and nail to protect the petrodollar. What this basically means is to use its naval supremacy, its control over strategic choke points, maritime choke points to control trade access, and basically force nations to depend on US resources. So we saw that United States in January attacked Venezuela, and now it's attacked Iran. Recently, these past few days, there was a Ukrainian drone strike on Russia's main export hub, which basically took off 40% of Russian oil from the global market.
And so Europe and East Asia are now forced to depend on The United States, North America for energy. And right now, we're seeing a pivot from Europe and East Asia over to North America. And so that's a strategy in place where The United States basically wants to take take off Russian GCZ oil and force the world to buy from The United States, which protects the petrodollar. But what we know from history is that this sort of hubris will lead to a backlash, and it will lead to the world unifying against America eventually. Because quite honestly, America used to be the policeman of the world and has become the pirate of the world.
And so maybe in the short term, you will see the strategy working out, but definitely in the long term, you will see the world becoming much more aggravated by this piracy.
Speaker 0: So what do they need to achieve then in in this war? Because well, I was wondering if you were surprised that the Americans appeared to have walked away from the negotiations. At least that's what it seemed like in Islamabad. Do you is is this to continue the war then, or or is it simply because they can't or the petrodollar won't survive if the Strait Of Hormuz is with Iranians? Or what is the thinking here?
Speaker 1: Right. So we've seen a very strange sequence of events these past six weeks. The war's been going on for about six weeks, and we've seen a lot of strange event events. So the moment that the Americans attacked Tehran and and killed their supreme leader, the Iranians basically closed off the trip of Houmouz. And in response, what the Americans did, which was very surprising, is they basically removed sanctions on both Russian and Iranian oil, allowing the Russians and Iranians to make a lot of money selling the the oil.
So that was sort of surprising. And Scott Bezin, the the treasury secretary explained that this is to maintain global stability. He's afraid that oil will reach $200 and this would destabilize the global economy. And as this world progressed, we saw The United States escalate to attacking civilian infrastructure like universities, bridges, and railways. In fact, there's real concern that the Americans in Israelis planned to choke and strangle Toronto to death, meaning cutting off the railway system, the roads, which would put Tehran under siege.
They couldn't get food and water from the other parts of Iran. And Tehran, a city of 10,000,000 people, would be in a lot of trouble if that that that were the case. So what we were seeing was constant escalation. Then last week, we were on a brink because Trump basically declared that if Iran did not open the Strait Of Hormuz, then the Americans would bomb Iran back to the stone age. And Iran obviously would would would retaliate by destroying GCC energy infrastructure and the desalination plants.
So last Tuesday, we're really on the brink, and it seemed as though we were heading towards war three. But then Trump did something completely surprising, which is he basically offered an unconditional surrender. Iran had a 10 plan, which included that Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium. It also included that all economic sanctions against Iran would be lifted. Iran will be given sovereignty over the Shreve Hamuz, and all security guarantees will be applied to both Iran and its proxies, the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas.
So these were the 10 points that Iran demanded. And Americans, Donald Trump basically said that this is a workable framework. And so they agreed to meet in Somabad to discuss these 10 points and use them as a framework for a possible long term ceasefire. We know that once they reach Islamabad, J. D.
Vance, Dierk Kushner, and Siegf Reykov basically blew off the Iranians. They were not serious about negotiations. The Americans went in with some goodwill hoping to reach an agreement, and that and that's where the Iranians went. But the Americans just just basically said, no. We're we're gonna stick to our original demands, and so the negotiations went nowhere.
And so now we're back to where we were a week ago. So the big question then is, why would the Americans do this? What what's the point of this ceasefire? And so we we can only speculate here. Okay?
So so so let me try to figure out how Donald Trump thinks because he's a businessman. And what does he want? Well, his main objective is to maintain American imperial supremacy by maintaining the petrodollar. And that basically means forcing China and Japan and South Korea and Europe to buy energy using the US dollar. That's what the petrodollar literally means.
And so maybe the point of this war was to destroy the GCC and Iran's capacity to deliver oil to the world market and force the world to rely on North America, Canada, Mexico, and The United States. K. So let's just say that is the main objective. And, obviously, Trump can't announce this because this would piss off the entire world and you have the entire world against The United States. Well, in order for him to pull this off, he would basically need to gauge China's reaction because we know that China and Iran are very strong allies.
China has invested a great deal in Iranian infrastructure as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, and China buys a lot of oil from Iran. In fact, China buys about 90% of all Iranian oil. So, basically, Trump needs to figure out, can I pull this off and would China agree to buy oil from me? Okay? So he's a negotiator, he's his businessman, he's practical, he's trying to figure out what the pressure points on China are.
And I would make the argument that this Iran Iran agreeing to this Islamabad negotiations would not have been possible if China did not apply pressure on Iran. K? I would make this argument because the Iranians have been negotiating with Americans these past few months, and they know that the Americans use these negotiations as a pretext in order to, assassinate leaders, in order to, do surprise attacks. So the Iranians know the Americans have absolutely no credibility at all. The Americans are not serious at all about peace negotiations.
And these past few weeks, the Iranians have been adamant saying, you start this war. We're just protecting our sovereignty and there's some point in negotiations. Let's just fight this to the better end. I think that was the right approach. This is what you this is the attitude you must take against bullies.
So why is it that the Iranians suddenly had a change of heart and says, fine. Let's negotiate in Islamabad. In fact, set a pretty they set a pretty high level delegation to Islamabad, including the foreign minister, to partake in these negotiations knowing that Israel has a history of assassinating negotiating teams. Okay? So they put their diplomats at tremendous risk.
And I think the only explanation is that right now, the Chinese economy is under a lot of strain. China receives about 6% of its oil and energy from The Middle East, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia. With China receives receives about third of its energy needs from Venezuela, Russia, and Iran combined. And China's been very lucky in that these three places have been sanctioned. So China was has been able to receive these these the oil at a very deep steep discount, which has really helped the Chinese economy.
And now and now a lot of this energy is being is moving offline. So the Chinese economy is a lot under a lot of stress. So Trump's trying to figure out, can I when I go to China in mid May, can I propose to Beijing? Hey, man. Let's have a grand alliance where you start to buy energy from North America.
And he's trying to figure that out. And given that Iran agreed to negotiations, I think that he's figured out that the answer is yes. China must agree because of the state of their economy. And this is why we saw right after the negotiations were canceled, Trump announced a naval blockade against Iran. Because he knows that right now, China's a lot of strain and he can bring China into into an agreement and and thus protect the petrodollar.
So so that's my explanation for what's going on. I could be wrong. It's all speculation, but I think this is what makes the most sense so far.
Speaker 0: The naval blockade, this is well, a strange conception because it's it's unclear how it's gonna be upheld because they're not naturally in the strait either. They will be far away. So it's essentially, the blockade is would it entail attacking Chinese ships entering? I mean, it seems absurd. What if they would the Iranians open up for Indian ships?
Are they gonna start attacking Indian ships? It it doesn't really make that much sense. How how do you see this? What is how this blockade actually function, or is it just meant to choke off the the Iranian ships?
Speaker 1: Right. So from a practical perspective, it's actually very hard to implement because if you go close to the Iranian coastline to the Strait Of Hormuz, then you're in range of Iranian ballistic missiles. And so the Americans won't risk that because we we've seen that their aircraft carriers, including the Gerald Ford, Naple, Lincoln have intentionally stayed away far away from Iran's ballistic missile range. So they're afraid of ballistic missiles, and they know that these ballistic missiles can sink their aircraft carriers which would be sorry. Which would be a tremendous tremendous defeat strategically for the Americans.
So I think this is a pretext to choke off the Strait Of Strait Of Malacca. Right? So there are two major choke points for East Asia to receive oil from the Middle East. The Strait Of Hormuz is what Iran controls. And so in response, America plans to choke off the Strait Of Malacca, which is right now basically controlled by Indonesia and Malaysia, both of which are American military allies.
And these these nation have been heavily infiltrated by the CIA. So I think that's the grand strategy to basically use the Strait Of Malacca to chop off East Asia from the from GCC Energy.
Speaker 0: Yeah. But if the Americans actually go through with this attempt to blockade, the the Iranians would probably respond with their ally in Yemen, that is to close off the Red Sea at Bab Al Mandab. So I'm just it it seems that this could be well, it just seems like this plan is weak at many levels. But it kind of begs the question of how what do you see being the likely success of The United States achieving its objective, not just with the blockade, but also with preserving the petrodollar because Iran is quite resilient. And I'm assuming that the Chinese, you know, much like with the war against Russia, that they they know that they could be next on the chopping block or that they at least are the ultimate targets.
Speaker 1: Right. So what America is mostly interested in is trying to sustain its debt. Right now, America has $39,000,000,000,000 in debt. That's not that's not that's not a promise long as nations continue to buy up US treasuries. And we've seen these past few years a movement away from US treasury and more and more towards gold.
The Chinese especially are moving towards, gold. So how do you force East Asia and Europe to continue to buy US treasuries? Well, if you are the only supplier of energy, of oil and gas, LNG, they have absolutely no choice but to sell their gold and buy US treasuries in order to sustain their economies. Right? So, yes, you're absolutely right in that the Iranians have countermeasures.
The Iranians could use the Houthis to close off the Red Sea. They could attack the pipeline that connects Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea. There's many many measures that the Iranians can do, but the influence of the Iranians is contained to the Middle East. Remember, the ultimate objective is to knock off Middle East oil and energy from the market And that is very easy to do as long as long as you continue to provoke this war. Now, I think the next step is a ground invasion in order to force Iranians to attack GCC energy and desalination plants.
Right? So the entire goal is to destroy the Middle East, which will force the world to pivot to North America. So in a long in in a short term, this strategy will work out because there's absolutely no alternative, for the world to, the Middle East energy. But in the long term, this will create a great deal of animosity, towards United States, which will ultimately destroy their empire.
Speaker 0: Well, Romano Prodi, the former prime minister of Italy and also, yeah, former president of the European Commission, he he said something interesting along those lines. He was making the point that, well, at some point, Europeans will have to start getting energy again from the Russians if they wanna thrive. But he also made a prediction that the energy would open once the Americans would begin to control the energy infrastructure between Russia and Europe. So, essentially, the Americans taking over Nord Stream, this is when the energy will start flowing again, which is, well, an assumption, I guess, that that that that Americans want to be in control over the energy architecture. Otherwise, they will not permit it.
But but but beyond this, you know, what what Trump might be planning, our common argument is often that Trump is not necessarily fully in control, that he's all if not compromised, at least under great influence from various interests, be it the neo cons or the Israelis. How do you see this, the extent of Trump's control? Because well, given how different his second administration is compared to the first, one often gets the impression that it doesn't always matter who, you know, sits on the throne in The US.
Speaker 1: I think in the first administration, there was a lot of concern within the deep state and the neocons and the different political factions who were in Washington DC about Trump's capacity
Speaker 0: to be
Speaker 1: a leader because he was outrageous in his speech, in his rhetoric. The Europeans were very much concerned about Trump. Trump started this trade war with China that was hurting the global economy, and it was hurting American consumers. Trump did not seem like a viable leader, and he did not seem as though he can maintain the empire. And people felt that if he stayed in office longer, the Europeans would drift away, China would drift away, the entire world would drift would drift would drift away, and American hegemony would would die.
But then what happened, of course, was that Biden came into power, and Biden was essentially comatose. He did nothing for four years. So Putin invaded Ukraine, and Americans didn't really have a forceful response. I mean, they did do a lot of things like blow up the Nordson pipeline. They sanctioned Russian energy.
They removed Russia from the SWIFT system. They sent they froze 20,000,000,000 in Russian assets. They did a lot of things, but none of these things were actually useful. And the empire decided that regardless of what we feel about Trump, he is forceful. He will act.
Whereas Biden and the Democrats may not act because essentially they're a bunch of pussies. And so the decision was made to reinstate Trump in 2024, and that's why we are here today. So Trump is an agent of empire. He is doing what the empire requires. Okay?
And so what what happened before during the Europolem moment, basically from 1991 up to today, was that America had a lot of goodwill and it was able to achieve the consent of the world, mainly by co opting the global elite. Right? So all these elites in Europe, in Russia, in China, they were mainly concerned about engaging as much corruption as possible so they can basically transfer their ill gotten gains into America. And this doesn't work really well for the elite for a long, long time. But obviously, these nation states are were not were not very happy with the state affairs.
That's why you saw the rise of Putin in Russia and the rise of Xi in China because there was a lot of concern among the nationalists that America was hauling out these these countries. And they were completely right in the matter. So so now you're seeing a direct challenge to American empire. And so the only challenge is you don't have the consent of these nation states, then you must use force to enforce your empire within these nation states. And so before the American military was used in order to guarantee peace in the passage Americana was used to guarantee a national trade.
They were the policemen of the world in order to maintain the rules based national order. And now that's and now that Russia and China and other nations are questioning the legitimacy of the rules based national order, what Trump is doing is he is transforming the military, the American military from a police force into a pirate force in order to extract tolls from, the world. So we are in this situation because Trump's first strategy was to use tariffs, like, on the world, right, to force Europeans to pay tariffs to the American empire. But the supreme supreme court struck that down because they said that the he said that Brantz doesn't have the authority to enforce tariffs only congress does. So Trump's like, well, you know what?
If con if you want me to enforce tariffs, then I'll just enforce tolls. Okay? I'll make the world pay tolls in order to have trade around the world. And and that's why we're seeing the Americans employ went through their navy into the Caribbean to block trade into the Western Hemisphere. That's why we're seeing this war in Iran to block off the world from Middle East energy.
And that's why we're seeing right now the the US Navy basically boarding Russian shadow fleet tankers, basically stealing shadow fleet tankers. And and we'll see more of this as the months go by.
Speaker 0: Yeah. What's interesting with Trump though, there's some consistency here. I mean, many people, I guess, mistook his rhetoric for being, you know, all about peace. But if you listen to what he said all the way going back to the nineteen eighties, he was essentially scolding all the Japanese and others for for, you know, taking advantage of The US the way he saw it. So he he didn't say that we shouldn't have a big empire.
He just said the empire they should pay us for the privilege of being protected. So it's not that he didn't want an empire. It seemed he just wanted a better return on investment. That is, you know, you have to monetize the empire somehow. Otherwise, the the empire will kill off the republic.
So in other words, they should feed it. It looks as this is where his his main difference is, but that means not just extracting from adversaries, but also allies. But I don't think it's limited to Trump. I think overall, The United States will tilt more and more in this direction because as they have said, they exhaust themselves with $39,000,000,000,000 in the hole. This it's not as if you can vote for a Democrat, and suddenly they go back to paying for the security of allies anymore and having generous trade agreements, the the there's no going back after, you know, exhausted to this extent.
Sorry.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So this is a really important point that you make. Okay? So remember, in 2016, when Trump first came into office, he was seeing the same things you're saying which is everyone's taking advantage of us, especially China. So let's impose tariffs and make sure that that it's America first, that America is winning in this in this trade relationship.
But after Trump left office, Biden came in with the Democrats and they institutionalized his policies. Okay? So during the first Trump administration, a lot of it was personal, especially his tariff war against China. And then Biden and the Democrats made it institutional. And so we're sort of the same, process here where maybe Trump leaves office in 2028, the Republicans lose, the Democrats come come into office, and they won't change anything.
All they're do is institutionalize it and make it a long term sustainable policy because this is what benefits American empire.
Speaker 0: So how will the great powers respond then? Because The US, obviously, is shifting the strategy. It's becoming more extractive and more aggressive. Again, it's not going well, it's not going down without a fight. How do you see the the Chinese and the Russians, well, reacting to this?
You mentioned before that China's it's gold corridor in terms of shifting more to, yeah, gold instead of being reliant on the US dollar. But what is it being the overall all strategy here? Because my impression is, at least from the Russians, that they the the interpretation that Trump was someone they could make peace with and, you know, reset relation, it appears to be backsliding. I think they were quite appalled by what has happened to Iran, not just the attack on economic infrastructure, but also the, you know, the killing of its leaders. And it seems, yeah, very much to go against their interest.
And, also, Trump never actually did what he promised, which was to end the war in Ukraine. In all fairness, this could have been done if you would have cut off, you know, the intelligence agencies still working there.
Speaker 1: Alright. So, again, I think we give too much credit to Trump. I think that this is a natural response of empire to its decline. We historically, empires have never have never gone quietly into the night. They have flailed against the wind, and they have tried to destroy the world as they decline.
And so we can see much more hubris. We will see much more thuggery and piracy in America. We have a rule about Trump. And so I think we are in a situation because of the limitations of Chinese strategic thinking. So when China built the Build and Road Initiative, which was proper, with with which was a good strategy of trying to secure resource independence from The United States, the problem was that when these Chinese ships went to collect commodities from overseas, they were escorted by the US Navy.
When they came back, they were escorted by The US Navy. It was the US Navy that guaranteed the protection of Chinese trade. And it never occurred to Chinese policy policymakers that one day, one of these days, America could be like, why don't you steal the cargo? You know? Why are we escorting these Chinese ships around the world?
Why don't countries steal it? And so it never really occurred to Chinese pause pause policymakers of this possibility. And I don't know why why this is the case, but, we we can go into many possibilities. But the the reality is that China is now in a lot of trouble where China has invested $200,000,000,000 into the Middle East in infrastructure. China right now imports 50 to 50 to 6% of its oil needs from the Middle East.
Now that the Strait Of Hummus has been closed off, now that this war is raging in The Middle East, China is in a lot of trouble. And again again, this is all has to do with the limitations of Chinese strategic thinking. And so now China is in a lot of trouble. And in a short term, China has actually no choice, absolutely no choice at all, but to agree to Trump's demands which is that China will become a major purchaser of American American LNG. China has actually no choice in the matter.
Okay? Absolutely no choice. There's no there's something China China can do. Now, in the mid and long term, what's gonna happen is that Russia will start to challenge America in the seas. It's gonna challenge America American maritime naval supremacy.
Basically, what what Russia is gonna do is it's gonna arm its shuttle fleet. And there's no way that that Russia could defeat America militarily in the seas, but America will be forced to fight a war of attrition and over time, the American Navy will be downgraded. It will be degraded. And it'll be very hard for the American Navy to replenish its lost ships. And so that's what what we're seeing in the long term.
In the in the short term, there's absolutely nothing Russia and China can can do.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I often think about the current situation. It resembles a little bit like before World War one. That is you saw Germany building and becoming stronger and stronger in terms of industrial production, steel production, essentially all the key measurements. Meanwhile, the British controlled the seas.
The entire their ability to actually compete against the British was, you know, was in hand of the hands of the British. So all they had to do is is begin to cut off or threaten their supply lines, which is why the Germans also had to find, you know, other other possible corridors, either land or sea. But it's a little bit with the Chinese, I feel. They have all this. Well, probably one of the motivations behind the Belt and Road Initiative that is you can't rival The US as the economic leading economy while the Americans are then organizing their or, you know, organizing their supplier lines and their their physical transportation corridors.
It doesn't make much sense. But this return to, I guess, well, piracy, as you say, or or choking off these different transportation corridors, We've seen, of course, the blockade on Venezuela, Cuba, the hijacking of these Russian ships. By the way, the hijacking of Iranian tankers have happened for some years now before this war as well. So so I I get it that our hegemon in decline will begin to weaponize all the economic levers of power. There's access to its technologies and industries, transportation corridors, banks, currencies, all of this is weaponized.
But The United States isn't all powerful either. I mean, how what is the main challenge for The US to hold out? Because as you said, they're struggling with their own debt. This is all their economic trouble is also translating into social and political instability. So it looks as if, you know, they they they can't afford to play this game with the Iranians for too long that, you know, at some point, they will have to put an end to this thing.
Speaker 1: I think, like, the goal is to have this war continue for as long as possible. And the reason why is that if there were peace in the Middle East, what would happen is that Russia, Iran, and China would get together and form a trade alliance to counter America's control over the seas. And this trade alliance could extend easily into Europe, into Africa. This is what what McKenna calls a heartland thesis. Right?
Where America and Britain, the way for them to maintain their empire is by controlling maritime navigation. And the great concern is that a power would emerge in Eurasia to unite the heartland and basically negate Anglo American naval power. And so this war in Iran cannot stop. If it stops, then Russia could achieve its North South trade corridor and China could implement its Belt and Road initiative. And given the how America is starting to behave, then I think that Europe, The Middle East, Africa would happily join this trade alliance and basically try to try to ignore the Western Hemisphere and Britain.
And so there's no way that Brit that America will seed Iran and and leave Iran alone. It's gonna send in ground troops to create as much chaos as possible and try to disrupt the Belt and Road Initiative. What we're seeing is that the Israelis and the Americans are targeting railways in Iran, which is crucial to the Belt and Road Initiative. And so we can we will we can expect maybe mowing a lawn of Belt and Road in in in infrastructure for years and years.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I couldn't help but to notice the targeting of the railroads as well, as well as some ports in the Caspian. So this entire
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 0: International North South transportation corridor from which have been building from Russia, Iran to India, this is being undermined, but also, of course, Iran's connectivity with with China. So but but I'm just wondering about the feasibility here because how what exactly can boots on the ground achieve? But, also, can The United States get the boots on the ground? Because they're quite overextended already.
Speaker 1: Right. So the boots on on the ground, it's basically to maintain the war. Right? So the problem with air with air warfare, which is what the American syndicators have been using for the past six weeks, is that your your it's gonna be very hard to maintain your your air power. We're already seeing some planes crashing because they're not well maintained.
We're seeing the Iranians adapt very creatively and resiliently to American air power. So you you can only establish air supremacy by having boots on the ground. And so I I think the main objective of of of the boots on the ground is not necessarily to take over Iran. I mean, that's a suicide mission. But it's basically to secure the coastline and try to degrade Iran's air defenses and basically force Iran on the defensive.
The main objective, I think, if if I'm fighting this war, I think my main objective is to choke off Tehran. Basically, to cut off all railways, cut off all roads, and basically force the population into starvation.
Speaker 0: So this is where you think we're going? I think so. Destroying the population or as Trump would say, kill off a civilization?
Speaker 1: That's right. That that that would be the strategy moving forward. Yes. To to basically besiege Tehran.
Speaker 0: Just a such a big country. It seems hard to yeah. Again, if the railroads are undermined. But it it also has his domestic problems, though, the that Trump needs to you know, it's not a popular war among the public, and it has some fierce political opposition only intensified with the political polarization. I I I do wanna ask about NATO, though, because this is was often perplexing to many Europeans because while, you know, in the Gulf States, they're now discussing the extent to which, you know, being frontline states for The US is actually harmful to the security, they're having some of these talks in East Asia as well.
But in Europe, I mean, they must be the most loyal, obedient allies or frontline states of The United States. I I'm I'm convinced they would have possibly joined the war on Iran if you would have asked them before it went south. But but but why why is does it seem to be such an objective for Trump to, I guess, undermine NATO? Because this is the main I mean, the Europeans don't have much political imagination to have security without The United States. So, you know, it looks like a massive resource to have the Europeans essentially buy whatever America wants to to, yeah, use, you know, use their currency, buy their energy, buy their expensive weapons.
I mean, the Europeans will do anything if they believe America will be there for them. So I make this big show out of we're not gonna be there for you anymore, because if there's one thing that would make the Europeans break off and seek an independent path from The United States, it's essentially The US has to shut the door on them because they're not otherwise, they wouldn't shut the door on America. So it's a bit strange how I can understand that NATO's not that the Europeans, they're not really a force amplifier. They're not bringing much to the table. They're a bit of a cost, but still, it's a bit, yeah, strange how dismissive he is of them, though.
Speaker 1: So I think that the real war is actually not between United States and Iran. I mean, the real war is between between the globalist and the nationalist. Right? So in The United States, it'd it'd be a war between the financial elite as as represented by the city of London and Wall Street versus MAGA in America First. And so what Trump wants to do is basically transition America from an empire into something called a technique, which is the idea of a greater North America.
Right? So move away from the world and just focus on consolidating greater North America, taking over Canada, taking over Greenland, taking over Mexico, taking over Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua. Okay? So so these countries that Trump has been pissing off for the past few months. Okay?
But the grand vision is to transition America into greater North America and become a continental fortress that sells resources to the rest of the world because the rest of the world is at war and in in in in desperate need of both fertilizer and energy. And so Trump really sees NATO as part of the deep state, as part of the globalist globalist class, and so he's using this war as a pretext to severe relations with NATO. Basically, Trump would be perfectly happy if NATO were to go into Ukraine and be absolutely massacred by the Russians. That would solve a major headache of his. So, yes, there is this war going on between United States and Iran, but we have we have to forget that there's but we we should not forget there's also a shadow war going on between the globalist and the nationalist in America.
This is also why Washington DC is supportive of Trump's war because the globalist want Iran to be humble. They want Iran to be destroyed so that they can extend the hegemony of the empire. And they think that Trump is a useful idiot, a puppet in order to achieve this goal. And that's why the Democrats have not stopped him. You know, there was recently, two weeks ago, no kings protests in United States, millions of people.
And like, you you you were allowed to say no kings, but you were not allowed to say no war. Right? You would think like that people would be much more governized by an anti war settlement than it is than they are are by like an anti tyrant settlement. But during the protest, which were organized by democratic lobbyist lobby groups, which were very pro Zionist, you you are not allowed to voice any anti war settlement. So it just goes to show you that all of Washington DC is fully behind this war, and they think that Trump will be the scapegoat.
That that that even if this war goes badly, Trump will be the one that takes all the blame. The Republicans will will be wiped out in the midterms, and then Democrats can steamroll back in office in 2028. And then they can implement a globalist agenda and destroy MAGA once and for all.
Speaker 0: Yeah. This language, though, the globalist versus the nationalist, it's fascinating that the the first time I read about this divide was by Samuel Huntington, none other. Back in 2004, he wrote this article Dead Souls, where he was making the point that all this globalization had essentially created a a political elite detached from the nation. So he was making the prediction that the future divisions in the world would be between the cosmopolitans or globalist versus the nationalist or patriots. So I thought it was insightful.
Again, it's 2004. Yeah. It's been twenty two years. And if you listen to a lot of the new populist leaders we have, this is what they're yeah. Marine Le Pen to Afte, this is essentially the same language they also use now.
Let me just ask a last question. How does Russia fit into this? Because all the pieces kinda make sense there. I understand the the rivalry between The United States, China, the the the problem of Iran, but but Russia is, you know, is an energy superpower in many ways. It's not doesn't have to be an opponent of The United States.
It's within this rivalry between the cosmopolitans and the and the and the nationalists. It's it belongs to the the latter, it seems. So how how do you see this, yeah, impacting the thinking in The United States? What is the most partner to Iran and China should have had?
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. Right now, United States' main adversary is not China. It's really Russia because Russia is the only country that has the resources, the political will, and the territorial integrity in order to challenge American hegemony. And so right now, America's major concern is is Russia.
And this war against Iran is really seen as a way to counter Russia's aggression in Ukraine. Basically, once Russia went into Ukraine, America has actually no choice but to attack Iran in order to counter Russia's possible control over the heartland. And so this is going to be the defining struggle for the world for the next twenty years, not between United States and China, but between Russia and America. And the great question is, where will the world align over the next twenty years? If history is a guide, most countries will start to align with Russia.
Because if you go back go back to the Peloponnesian War, the main aggressor was Athens. And what happened ultimately was that the entire world ultimately aligned against Athens because Athens was seen as the great aggressor. So right now, the great aggressor is America. And we can see that the world, especially Europe, and Iran, and China turning to Russia as the great salvation. And what Russia will do is start to challenge America in the seas.
Again, I don't think there's any hope that Russia will win against America in the seas, But Russia has absolutely no choice but to start to challenge America.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Jeffrey Sachs: Trump's Naval Blockade of the Strait of Hormuz https://youtu.be/H_2lvQHuAYo https://t.co/qv0vOu24pi
Video Transcript AI Summary
Jeffrey Sachs and Glenn discuss the chaotic state of U.S.–Iran diplomacy and broader U.S. foreign-policy dysfunction as of mid-April. Sachs argues the events are not linear or transparent: a ceasefire seems announced, but then Israel escalates in Lebanon, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, and U.S. officials debate the format and basis of negotiations without consistency. He notes that the United States previously demanded a maximal list and Iran countered, but those details fell away and no clear path emerged. In his view, there is no “deeper cleverness” behind the moves; rather, a chaos in the process.
Sachs emphasizes that one partner in the conflict, Israel, does not want a ceasefire or negotiations and aims for Iran’s destruction, which helps explain the abrupt shifts around ceasefires and mediation. He points to the U.S. “blockade” and the inconsistent signals from Trump and his aides, including the claim that Iran was “begging for further negotiations,” which Sachs sees as inconsistent with the earlier hard demands. He suggests the episode is not a rational statecraft process but a one-person show centered on Donald Trump, with advisers around him either skeptical or insufficiently influential.
Sachs cites NYT reporting (as an inside-account example) that Netanyahu and Mossad pitched war to Trump, with Vance and other senior officials doubtful or opposed, yet Trump pressed ahead. He describes this as a potentially individualized decision-making process rather than a formal, institutional policy debate, implying a de-institutionalized approach dominated by a few insiders and Trump’s impulses.
He also contends that Trump’s approach—bluster, bombing threats, and attempts to “bully” through negotiations—has not been historically effective and may reflect a delusional or incompetent leadership style. Sachs notes Trump’s publicly erratic posts and rhetoric, including provocative statements about civilizations, which he reads as signs of mental instability or at least a departure from normal presidential conduct. He contrasts this with Iran’s demeanor, which he says appears polite publicly, though Iran is not simply yielding to U.S. demands.
Beyond Iran, Sachs broadens the critique to U.S. strategic thinking: the United States has failed to anticipate multipolar realities, leading to miscalculations with China, Russia, and Iran. He argues that sanctions and choke points have not produced expected outcomes and that both China and Russia have responded in ways that contradicted U.S. expectations. He attributes much of the problem to a “deinstitutionalization” of U.S. decision-making: incompetent or poorly chosen personnel, a perceived corruption of political power, and leadership that operates more as a personal show than as an organized, collective process.
Sachs contends that the underlying backdrop is a decline in U.S. relative power and a failure to adapt to a multipolar world, which, coupled with internal political polarization and an ailing administrative system, drives the current instability. He suggests the trade policy and sanctions experiences during the Trump and Biden periods illustrate a pattern of amateurish, impractical decision-making in high-stakes geopolitics.
The conversation ends with a reflection on how the current U.S. apparatus—especially in security and foreign policy—appears increasingly improvisational, with governance processes sidelined in favor of personal prerogatives and reactive moves.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. Today is April 14, and we have the great pleasure of being joined by professor Jeffrey Sachs. So thank you as always for coming back on the program.
Speaker 1: I'm delighted to be with you, Glenn. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 0: So we see that The US Iranian negotiations appear to have failed and largely because The US set conditions, which more or less amounted to capitulation. And as a result, The US is now starting a naval blockade on the Strait Of Hormuz even before the ceasefire has expired. So I was wondering, hey. How do you make sense of this?
Speaker 1: The the events day to day, of course, make no sense. You're it's very hard to discern. A few days ago, Trump was going to destroy a civilization. In the evening. Suddenly, there's an announcement of a cease fire.
The next moment, Israel is essentially carpet bombing Beirut. The straits don't open. Then The US vice president goes for marathon session of negotiations completely unclear about the format and the organization. And to my sense, completely inconsistent with the statement that had been made two days earlier that the basis of the negotiations would be Iran's 10 plan, which we never heard of during the visit of Vance or the aftermath. Then the negotiations fail, then The US blockades a blockade.
This must be a first. We object to the blockade, so we blockade you. Then we hear statements made by Trump that Iran is begging for further negotiations. So honestly, this is not either linear or very transparent or very clear. I don't think that there's deeply a profound cleverness beneath all of this.
I think there is a chaos that is part of this story. Part of the chaos is that there are two partners on one side of the war, Israel and The United States. Israel doesn't want to cease fire. Israel wants the full destruction of Iran. It's not hidden that fact.
So the moment there is a supposed ceasefire, Israel goes into escalation mode in Lebanon and then we have a weird day of debating whether Lebanon was part of the ceasefire. The intermediary Pakistan says definitely yes. Iran says of course. Israel says of course not. The United States hems and haws.
So this is not deep. This is simply that one partner in this war, Israel, does not want a ceasefire and does not want a negotiation. Then there's a question of what the negotiations are about. The United States had put its maximal demands before. Iran had rejected them.
Iran had put back a counter list of objectives. Donald Trump had posted that those were acceptable as the basis of negotiation. Then we didn't hear of those again. Okay, what's going on there? Well, in some sense obviously, The United States and it's a strange term to use, Donald Trump because it's not The United States, it's one person, believes that he can bully and bluster his way to some kind of outcome.
And this is the overwhelming idea that he has had all along. That he could demand huff, puff, bluster, post, bomb, whatever it is that that will yield an outcome. This is partly a delusion. Partly, it may be, it may be strangely enough, the Iranians are very polite in their public demeanor in the negotiations. This may be taken as a sign of weakness by The United States which does not believe in politeness or expressions of hope for trust and other things.
Iranian negotiators say, we would like trust with The United States, Trump thinks these people must be idiots. I'm trying to kill them. What are they talking about? And so it may be this kind of bizarre, even cultural, absolute lack of contact that is taking place. Trump, whether delusional or for whatever reason, believes that he can force his way through this.
That he to put it in his vernacular has all the cards. And the Iranians, I think at the core believe that they have a lot of the cards to use that strange expression in this context. But I don't think that they are simply exceeding to US demands. If that were the case they would have exceeded to US demands a long time ago. If anything has become clear in recent weeks, it is that The United States cannot actually militarily defeat Iran.
That's the overriding lesson. So why the bluster and demands and bombing and threats and killings of by Trump, which didn't work before. Why would they work now? But clearly, Trump believes that they will work. And I don't think he's bluffing about that.
I think he believes that he can either bluff or bomb his way to success. It seems to be the case. I wasn't there and I only heard it of course second hand. But that Trump was calling constantly to Vance during these negotiations. If that's true, it's also a little pathetic and very bizarre.
But it could actually be the case. It would certainly underpin what I believe is a fact. I may be wrong, but I believe that this is really individualized behavior. This is not the US government in some institutional way rolled out to accomplish something. This is a one person show.
I think a delusional, incompetent one person. But my interpretation, Glenn, is that it's one person, Donald Trump. Maybe that's wrong, maybe that's naive, maybe I'm just reading superficially the reality. But I don't see a deeper reality in this than an incompetent, delusional old man blustering and shouting and bombing and killing, trying to get his way with a partner who doesn't want to have any way other than complete destruction. So that's why it looks so weird.
It is weird. That's my interpretation.
Speaker 0: Well, it's certainly very confusing statecraft. Use the word delusion, and I I often wonder if there is some lack of rationality behind this because when we heard the reasons to go to war, be it nuclear weapons or Iran being this, you know, irrational mullahs, which can't be deterred, or this assassination attempt on Trump, which was also attributed to the Iranians for some reason, you know, then this was the reasoning. I didn't see this wasn't very convincing. And then, of course, the reaction was this regime change war, and they seem to have severely overestimated how fragile the government in Iran is and also the assumption that the regime change could be done with air campaign. Also, Iranian reaction that Trump made a point that they could not predict that that they would start to strike all the bases, shut down the Strait Of Hormuz, and essentially pursue a long war.
But in advance of the war, this is, you know, this is what we were discussing on my podcast. Yeah. This was the likely thing they would do because they see this as an extensional threat and they need to deter. But I just it begs the question about the the irrationality behind the whole thing. How how are you assessing this?
Because it's none of the reasoning or reactions or assumptions seem to be based on anything that makes much sense.
Speaker 1: As best I can judge, again, we're outside the room as it were. But from all accounts, this seems to be a deinstitutionalized and irrational process. Meaning that as you and I are close observers of governments and how they act normally. How they behave, how they process information, how decisions are made. It's usually with files, bureaucracy options, deliberation, memos, and then final decisions that have a character of group decision.
And in The US political system on paper, it's more complicated because we have at least two branches of government that would normally be involved. The judges not, but the legislature certainly. There would be deliberations. The President of The United States would meet with senators and congressmen. Senior administration officials would be routinely briefing key members of Congress and congressional committees.
Congressional staffs would be engaged. There would be not quite an all of government process, but a very extensive process. We sometimes have the absolute detailed records of such a process. The most famous example being the Cuban Missile Crisis when the executive committee of President Kennedy met repeatedly and it was taped. And it's been studied by historians for decades.
And that executive committee had principles from each of the key departments of the government. From the Pentagon, from the CIA, from the Justice Department, from the State Department. And so the principles would go back to their own headquarters of their own ministries And then there would be process there as well. And there was written documentation, there were verbal arguments, there were diplomatic back channels and so forth. When we look at the current process, it's very hard to discern any of this right now.
What is reported, and it's pretty widely reported, is Trump and a few people around him. Mostly yes people, listening to Trump opine and make decisions. This is not a rational process. We've now heard repeatedly, and especially I wanna commend a paper I often criticize, The New York Times has had inside accounts that have seemed very credible, detailed, and not denied in any way by anybody involved. That have portrayed this as Netanyahu and the chief of Mossad pitching a war to Donald Trump in a small group where the rest of the group from Vance, the CIA director, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, were all skeptical of this.
Some thought it was farcical. But Trump said, yeah, this sounds good. And Mossad played the card that the Iranian leaders were all meeting together. Let's kill them all. And so they went for it.
With Trump making the decision, Vance reportedly saying, disagree with this, but I will support you, mister president. With the others expressing various degrees of doubt and skepticism about the likelihood of success. This seems to me like Trump's show. That is not a normal process for grave decisions such as this. We can then add the absolutely bizarre behavior of Trump in the last couple of weeks.
But he's bizarre for his whole public life, but especially in the second term. And I would say especially in the last six months where something even seems haywire compared to previous bizarre behavior. Trump seems to be unhinged. He is making statements and posts that are outside of, let's say, not just three standard deviations, four standard deviations of the normal. Kinds of statements that we have never seen in American history by a president.
Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards. It was Trump's attempt a few days ago at public diplomacy, let us say. Civil your civilization will end to never return. I'm paraphrasing. This evening was another.
Trump's attack on Pope Leo yesterday. His posting of Trump as Christ and then saying, no, that wasn't Christ. That was the Red Cross. Of course, that that was just Trump trying to get out of a PR disaster. But the rest is absolutely bizarre.
And we have to, we have to factor in the real possibility that not only is there no institutional process, but that this man has lost his mind. I It's not a partisan statement. The previous president of the other party, Joe Biden, lost his mind too in the last year. Something that was denied by those around him. A bad sign for The US, but we should remember it because it was just two years ago.
Many of us heard from people meeting Biden that he wasn't all there. But this was strongly denied by his team until one evening in a debate. He had to stand there by himself. And then we saw that he wasn't all there. And then some people rather disgracefully said, oh no, he was on medicine.
He had a cold that day and so forth. They hid his dementia during the past year or two of the government. Well, Trump shows profound signs of mental instability right now. They can't hide Trump because in the middle of the night he starts posting on his true social. These seem to be unfiltered.
They are not put on by staff. They are put on by Donald Trump, the one and only. And they are irrational. And they are a sign of of of some kind of serious mental problems. This is being widely talked about in the last few days in Washington right now.
So this is not me piping off. This is something that has become the common currency in Washington as well. None of it looks like normal government at the moment. The saddest part for me is that even if everything else were true about what I have just said, and I'm not sure, but that's how it looks. We would normally have members of Congress taking some action in this context.
It's their constitutional obligation. It's their assignment under the constitution, war and peace. And they're not acting because it's the party in charge, because Trump is even more dangerous to Republicans than he is to Democrats. Because with Republicans, he can wipe out his own partisans more easily than he can the opponents. And so they are paralyzed and terrified And repeatedly vote not to say anything about anything.
We don't wanna be bothered. Leave us alone. We just wanna hold our jobs. So they duck their heads, take no responsibility, and we're off to the races as it were.
Speaker 0: No, think definitely with Trump we see there's some deficiencies with his personality. There might be some mental problems adding on top of this. And the fact that he divorced himself from key institutions also, of course, undermines rational statecraft. But as you said, we saw similar things with Biden that is not just a cover up, but that also begs the question who was essentially running the White House when he was not mentally present. So, you know, you could point to maybe a polarized society and political system where where you don't only hate the opposing side, but you make excuses for your own because you have to protect them and because the alternative is someone, you know, you think is the enemy.
But
Speaker 1: but it's I knew by the way during the Biden period since it was more typically my former colleagues or friends that were in the administration. I knew that even the most senior people in the administration barely saw the president of The United States. So even the most senior people in departments were telling me, oh, we don't really know what's going on. It's the White House. There are a couple of handlers, his wife, couple political advisors, couple insiders.
That's how the administration was run. We had the same phenomenon at the aftermath of World War one when Woodrow Wilson had a stroke. And this was known inside but kept hidden from the public by the wife. And so this is an American tradition actually of incapacitated presidents. Were not a parliamentary system where there's a prime minister who's head of the lead party of the coalition of a parliament.
Where presidential system where one person is vested with the profound powers. And when that one person is incapacitated, the first instinct of the powerful around that person, whether it's the wife or somebody else, is to hold on to the power and hide the fact of the incapacity. And I think that there is a reasonable chance that this is what's happening right now.
Speaker 0: But it just seems the problem is wider because just very briefly, that is under under the the the policies against China, the assumption the intelligence suggested that if we just cut them off semiconductors, the economy will begin to falter. We saw the Europeans, they were shocked that the Iran no. Sorry. That China would respond with two sanctions because they assumed that China would think the discipline would be legitimate. We saw the same with the Russians.
The assumption everyone bought into that it was unprovoked even though all evidence suggested otherwise. We assumed that they would be beat on the battlefield, that they had a hopeless economy that would collapse within a week. They would be isolated internationally. All these things which were very easy to realize was were not true. We we still base our policies on it, and when the reactions come, you know, you see the politicians are genuinely baffled.
It's just I I don't understand anymore what what is how how this is real. The the
Speaker 1: incompetence of the administrative system in Washington is extremely high now. First, remember that in The US political system, when a new government comes in, the top six or seven levels of the hierarchy actually are political. People are vacated. The people that come in, especially these days, are incompetent. This is a corrupt political system in which money buys the office.
And so the people that are coming in are not people of deep professional talents. They are people that are either placed in the position by a powerful interest that has paid for the campaign or perhaps they're a friend of Trump or Biden. But we have a deinstitutionalization. All of the issues you mentioned have been handled by amateurs of the most amateurish kind. The entire trade war last year was again just like this war with Iran.
Handled by a few people completely out of knowledge or professional experience or training for these issues. Trump is whatever one, whatever else one says about him, completely illiterate economically. He has no concepts of what he's talking about. No formal training and no understanding of even basics like trade deficits. Then he picked Howard Lutnick, a incompetent business friend from New York.
Peter Navarro, I think the worst PhD my economics department ever issued. An utter incompetent with no professional reputation or experience but an ardent protectionist. And it was a handful of these people that implemented last year's illegal destabilizing, confused, and failed trade policy, including with the retaliation by China, which in two days told The United States, you can't win, you just lost. And so, yes, this is exactly what has happened. With Biden, I sought the same thing, the same issue that you just raised that they thought Putin would fold or fall immediately.
Our sanctions, the nuclear threat of cutting Russia off from SWIFT, this will bring down the Russian economy and so on. My god. Are you kidding? So this has been simply a deinstitutionalized process, not competent people, and with an objective which is impossible to achieve. And the objective is a hegemon, a would be hegemon that has lost a tremendous relative amount of power and influence flailing around to protect its dominance.
And that is the story of Ukraine. It's the story of China, and it's the story of Iran in three different cases. Each one of which is the assertion by these amateurs in a failed process that The United States can simply pound its way through anything. And this is Trump's MO until this moment, which is I make the demands and the other side folds. None of it works.
He was gonna settle the Ukraine war in a phone call. He was gonna show China who's who. He was going to choose the next leader of Iran. So that's a personal level delusion. It's an institutional failure.
And the backdrop is a failure of The United States to recognize a multipolar world. That's the fundamental failure. Because if there was the overarching idea, hey, we have to deal with other people. We have to deal with other governments. You'd have already a different kind of response.
But the basic point is we don't have to deal with anybody. We're The United States Of America. We have the most powerful military in the history of the world. We can do what we want. They'll fold.
I demand a 100% not 95%. All of the backdrop thinking comes from the broader structural factor of a decline of US relative power. But then it runs through this collapse of our governmental processes, the corruption of Washington politics, and at this point, the personalization of decision making.
Speaker 0: Well, through history, one often sees a large empire. They often build these complex bureaucracies. Then when they come in decline, you see this bureaucracy becoming slow, corrupt, and also very hesitant to resistant to reform. And the elite competition, it continues to intensify. So it's not unprecedented, but I'm not sure where this is coming from, to be honest, but
Speaker 1: Yeah. In in The US case, just to say, The US bureaucracy has always been less of a structure in most of the government than in other governments because of this very high turnover of, and politicization of the senior levels. The one place where that's basically not true has been the CIA, which is a core to US foreign policy, which has been structured and you put in a director who was quickly owned by the rest of the organization. So the deep state has been there. But for what's happening now, it's people like Hagsett or Lutnick or Trump really making decisions.
They happen to be awful and ignorant and unstable, delusional, but they're really making decisions. So that is that is actually the surprise as it were.
Speaker 0: Well, thank you for taking time. I know you have a busy day there, so
Speaker 1: thanks Great to be with you. Good. Thanks a
Speaker 0: lot. Bye.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Seyed M. Marandi: U.S. Naval Blockade & Ground Invasion of Iran? https://youtu.be/BwUL5ftAi38 https://t.co/iIOt94MejP
Video Transcript AI Summary
Syed Mohamed Marandi discusses the collapse of the Islamabad negotiations and the wider implications of the current U.S.-Iran confrontation.
- On what happened in Islamabad: Iran participated despite low expectations, aiming to show willingness to resolve the crisis if Americans are reasonable and to ensure the world sees Iran’s efforts. The Iranians believed the United States lacked will to make progress. During talks there was some progress on various issues, but near the end the United States shifted to a hard line on the nuclear program and the status of the Strait of Hormuz. Vance claimed Iran wanted to build a nuclear weapon, a claim Marandi notes was contradicted by former counterintelligence official Joe Kent’s resignation letter. Netanyahu reportedly maintains direct influence, with Vance reporting to Netanyahu daily, which Iran views as undermining an agreement. Netanyahu’s insistence on control and “being the boss” is presented as a central obstacle to any deal. The ceasefire in Lebanon was touted as failing, with Netanyahu and Trump accused of conspiring to wreck it, and Iran’s actions after the ceasefire aligned with this view. The Iranian delegation flew back by land after the flight to Tehran was diverted, reflecting the perceived danger and the Washington Post piece calling for the murder of negotiators. Iran’s approach is framed as attempting to resolve the problem while signaling willingness to negotiate if U.S. policy becomes reasonable.
- On the blockade and its consequences: The U.S. blockade on Iranian ports has just begun and will likely worsen the global economic crisis, pushing more countries to oppose the United States. China is angry as Washington dictates terms against oil and trade in the region. The blockade could be used to strangle China’s energy supplies, creating a double-edged impact by simultaneously worsening the global crisis and pressuring U.S. allies. Iran says it may respond by striking ships in the Red Sea and blocking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Oman if the blockade continues. Iran notes it has substantial financial resilience from oil sales at higher prices without middlemen, with about 100 million barrels left to sell after selling half of its declared oil stock, and it views energy shortages as likely to trigger broader economic disruption, including shortages of helium, LNG, and fertilizers.
- On war readiness and possible outcomes: Iran anticipates a major assault and is preparing defenses and offensive capabilities. Iran argues negotiations were not taken seriously by the United States and believes the U.S. is buying time. Iran would view victories as having the United States back down, preserving Iran’s rights, and protecting its regional allies, with a long-term ceasefire. Iran contends it should control the Strait of Hormuz to prevent future aggression and seeks compensation for damages caused by the conflict, emphasizing sovereignty over Hormuz and peace for Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, and Yemen. Iran states that if the U.S. and its regional proxies strike, Iran would respond by targeting energy and infrastructure in the Persian Gulf.
- On broader geopolitical shifts and regional dynamics: Marandi argues the current crisis accelerates a move toward a multipolar world, with the United States’ hegemonic position eroding. The UAE is portrayed as pushing for war, while other Gulf states are increasingly wary. He predicts a possible land invasion of Iran, but emphasizes Iran’s long-term preparedness and resilience. Weather and terrain are cited as factors likely to complicate a potential U.S. invasion, particularly in the hot summer conditions of the region.
- On potential definitions of “victory”: Iran’s victory would involve U.S. backing down, Iran preserving its rights, a long-term ceasefire, and sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. A broader victory would see the end of supremacism in Palestine and the end of genocidal actions in Lebanon, with peace across the region as a key objective. The discussion ends with the notion that a shift toward an American focus on its republic, rather than empire, would benefit global stability.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome
Speaker 1: back. We are joined today by Syed Mohamed Marandi, a professor at Tehran University and a former adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiation team. So thank you for coming back on the program.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much for inviting me, Glenn. It's always a great honor being on your show.
Speaker 1: Well, last we spoke, you were in Islamabad for the negotiations, which we now fail no. Which we now know failed. It's at that point, when you spoke, it was still unclear what exactly had transpired. So I was wondering, given the significance of the negotiations breaking down in terms of possibly, yeah, restarting the war, what do we know about what happened in Islamabad?
Speaker 0: Well, before we went, I met people in the delegation at the airport. And also on the plane, we spoke. And, in the hotel before the negotiations, we we had different conversations. And it was clear that no one had any real expectations. The belief was that, Netanyahu was the person in charge and that the Zionist lobby was dictating terms to the United States government and that the chances for any success were very slim.
But Iran participated for two reasons. Just like before the twelve day war, Iran knew there was going to be an attack. Just like before this war, Iran knew there would be attack, but it negotiated both to see if Trump, wanted an off ramp and, and all, but more importantly, to make sure that people across the world and Iranians recognize that Iran was attempting to resolve the situation so that no one could later blame Iran for not negotiating and thus causing or being also responsible for war. The the same, the same logic applied for this trip. There was they believed that The United States did not have the will to, make this successful negotiating progress process.
And but also Iran wants to make sure that everyone knew that we were willing to we are willing to to resolve the problem if Americans are reasonable. So there were low expectations. When the negotiations took place, from my understanding, during the day, there was progress on different issues. But near the end of the day, The United States suddenly shifted position and took a very hard line, especially with regards to the nuclear program and, been reassuring that Iran has and the status of the Strait Of Hormuz. So when the talks broke, it was expected that the following morning there would be further talks.
Then later we saw Vance walk away, claim Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon, which, of course, Joe Kent in his resignation letter, being the highest ranking counterintelligence officer in The United States and then a Trump appointee rejected. So, obviously, he wasn't telling the truth, and also saying that Iran didn't accept our demands. So, of course, Iran won't accept demands. Iran didn't wasn't the side that lost the war, but and those demands violate Iran's sovereignty anyway. But I think what was what came out from the negotiations was clear for the Iranians that bans had no mandate because, doctor Golubov, the speaker of parliament, who's also a professor an associate professor at my university, he, he had extend extensive conversation with Ayatollah Khamenei, and he had a mandate.
He negotiated. He did not call Tehran during the talks, but, Vance was constantly on the phone. And one of the people who he spoke to was Netanyahu. And as we know, Netanyahu himself said, that Vance reports to me, and so do other American officials. Every day, they report to me, which I find extraordinary that he can talk like this, and no one in The United States and The US media and the US government, show any outrage.
Basically, Netanyahu is is saying, I'm the boss. And so it was clear that Netanyahu will not allow an agreement to be achieved, and thus he is pushing the world towards a great economic catastrophe. And we also saw that when the ceasefire was agreed upon, because Lebanon was a part of the ceasefire. So Netanyahu, the and Trump conspired to wreck the ceasefire. And, so even then, it was Netanyahu who was pushing Trump.
And that's what forced Iran not to abide by its commitments. As soon as Netanyahu, made it clear that they would not abide by the ceasefire in in Lebanon, Iran blocked, continued to block those extra ships that were supposed to be going through the Strait Of Hormuz, as a result of the ceasefire agreement. So Netanyahu, for the last few days since the cease fire, he's been impeding, any, easing of the global economic crisis, and he's making it worse faster. And then now, of course, by imposing the block, blockade himself, Trump is quickening the pace of global economic collapse. So this is basically where we are.
When, by the way, when we flew back, as we discussed last time, after the Washington Post, piece, the, opinion piece where it was advocating that they murder the, that The United States and the Israelis murder the negotiators. We, of course, all thought that the chances that our plane would be shot down were very high. So the Iranians, flew us basically into Iran, but immediately landed near the, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan border in the city of Mashhad, a very second largest Iranian city. And, from there, we, we drove to Tehran, which is about a thou well, I took a train, but others some drove, some I mean, some took cars, some took buses, and I took I and others took the, a train. You know, it's about, I guess, a thousand kilometers roughly.
So we came by by land. But, it's quite extraordinary that the Washington Post, US media, the Fifth Estate would now be advocating crimes against humanity in this way, competing with the most ugly of the, lioness, you know, killers, in in politics. But, you know, that's where we are today. So, also, the ceasefire isn't really working, and but nonetheless, there's discussions now or talk about extending it. On the other hand, Trump is saying he doesn't necessarily want it extended, so it's hard
Speaker 1: to say what is happening. But we also have The US blockade now, as you said, on Iranian ports, which, you know, can't help but to think that a key target of this would be China given that the vast majority of this oil will be heading to China. How successful is the blockade so far, though, on Iran? And and what do you think how how how durable is it in terms of and the consequences it will have?
Speaker 0: Hard to say because the blockade has only just begun. It's I think it'll take a couple more days to figure out what's happening. I think that that it's going to make the global economic crisis worse, and it's going to turn more countries against The United States because, for example, as you rightly point out, the Chinese are very angry. The Americans are basically dictating terms to China and saying that you cannot have oil and, that you cannot do trade and then you're not allowed to enter this part of the world. And and we've already seen that happen in Venezuela, and now it's clear that the Americans want to strangle the Chinese through controlling the means of energy.
But it's a it's a more it's a double edged sword because, simultaneously, he's intensifying the global economic crisis. And for, US allies who are much more vulnerable than China, this is going to be catastrophic, and the catastrophe is going to happen earlier, sooner, quicker because, because now nothing or at least the plan is to have nothing leap straight forward. Most Iranians have also, by the way, as I'm sure you know, said that they will if this blockade continues, they'll start striking ships in the Red Sea, and they'll block the Red Sea in the Gulf Of Oman. That will make things even worse because the Saudis are now exporting, I guess, roughly 4,000,000 barrels a day from the Red Sea. And, of course, trade goes with the Red Sea.
But, in addition to to that, the as the Iranians escalate and as the world goes towards crisis, the Iranians don't have a shortage of money right now because, the Iranians have been putting a lot aside a lot of money during the last few years, especially in gold. But, also, the Iranians have made a lot of money during the past few months ever since The United States began increasing its presence in the region and then during the war. Iran has been selling its oil at a much higher price without middlemen, without discounts. And, Iran also had 200,000,000 barrels of oil on the seas, and, it sold about half of it now. And it still has another 100,000,000 barrels, which it will probably sell within a few weeks, and that's a huge amount of money.
That's, itself, I guess, two months of Iranian exports of oil. So but it does indicate how much you know, how little oil is left on the market. Ex ex oil is all disappearing. Russian oil on the seas was not as much as Iran, but they they also had oil and tankers on the sea. They've they've finished all of that.
They've sold theirs. Iran has sold half of its oil. So, you know, this is this just shows how how bad the situation is going to be shortly with regards to all energy related items and helium and energy related commodities. And and, you know, this is when when the factories run out of helium and run out of LNG and when they when agriculture is, faces a crisis because of a shortage of fertilizer and all that, I think I think then we're going to see dramatic change. At the moment, from what I'm hearing from people who understand politics far better than I is that we this is the tip of the iceberg and that we're moving very swiftly to a turning point where things will go downhill very fast.
And Trump is intensifying the the speed towards which we are moving in that direction.
Speaker 1: You know, definitely, I think, going into a global economic crisis as a consequence of this. Often pointed out that even if the war would come to an end today and everything would flow freely, still the the lack of fertilizers now will have some massive repercussions on the food prices, which would then again spread the conflict further. But besides the economic aspect, do you see the possibility now of The United States going back into, you know, the same high intensity war against Iran? Or because I I wasn't sure how to interpret the blockade. On one hand, it looks like it it could be an effort of escalation control.
We put a blockade on your ports. You know, you don't respond, and, you know, it could be more favorable to the high intensity conflict where the Americans might be running out of interceptor missiles and, you know, losing a lot of planes. But at the same time, the Americans are moving a lot of military hardware into the region, it seems, troops as well. How do you assess it, though? I mean, as a threat, how do you see the capabilities and the willingness of The United States to go back to this high intensity fighting?
Speaker 0: Well, the Iranians are expecting a a major assault, and, they are preparing day and night. And they too, like the Americans and the Israelis, are rearming and reorganizing and preparing defenses and prepare preparing offensive capabilities. So Iran does not, you know, doesn't see the negotiations as necessarily serious at all, and, that most probably the Americans are buying time. The Iranians are naive. As I said before, there you know, before the twelve day war, many thought Iran was caught off guard.
Iran wasn't caught off guard. Iran had to negotiate for the sake of its own, for the sake of its own you know, so so that its own people, first and foremost, would see that we tried. Because if we did not negotiate in The US, assault Western media, which like the Washington Post, which is right now calling for the assassination of negotiators, they would be the first to say, well, if the Iranians had negotiated, we wouldn't be where we are. They're never going to blame the aggressor. They're going to blame the victim.
And then a part of Iranian, well, global, public opinion would be affected, but most importantly, Iranian public opinion part of it would be affected if we want to make sure everyone is on board. And that's that was true about the the the forty day war, the Ramadan war, and that's true now. So the Iranians are going to definitely continue engaging with negotiators, but Iran's not naive. And, as we saw when the Israeli regime began hammering Lebanon, Iran cut off. It stopped its side of the bargain and said, well, nothing is going to leave the we promised to do to to increase the number of ships going through the Strait Of Hormuz, that stops.
So, ultimately, by violating the ceasefire, The United States is hurting itself more than it's hurting Iran. The Israeli regime is hurting the global economy more than it's hurting Iran and or Hezbollah. And by doing that, the Israeli regime is being viewed across the world as a a reason for, global misery and the rising, hardship that we're seeing across the world. So after two and a half years of genocide and now genocide in Lebanon, they're going to be blamed across the world. So Iran wants to make sure that it is seen as trying to solve the problem and that people see that it is Netanyahu and Zionism that is pushing the world towards economic catastrophe catastrophe.
So Iran is preparing itself for war. But every day that goes by where we have a ceasefire, this is putting more pressure on Trump because the the global economic crisis is is is approaching. Now we don't believe that Trump will disobey, Zionists the Zionists. They are the ones in charge. They're in control, and so is Netanyahu through through the Zionists.
The only way in which we can bring about change is to put so much pressure on Trump, economic pressure, that he is forced or the US government is forced or some Zionists in The United States are forced to prioritize America over Israel. In other words, to make it so painful that they say, no. We cannot continue listening to letting you know the cost has gone, to if the cost is too high. But still, we believe that there will be a war. We believe that there will be a land invasion.
There will be a massive attack on Iran, a massive active aggression, and there will be propaganda talking and you know, from from proponents and supporters, all of them will say how great successful it was. They've captured here. They've captured there. Perhaps a couple of ships will, you know, quietly, or quickly, pass through the Strait Of Hormuz, and they'll announce some sort of victory, but it's not going to work. The Iranians are prepared.
They're preparing further, and they will strike back. They'll destroy, the the facilities in the Persian Gulf, the oil and gas infrastructure, and everything else that's necessary on the other side of the Persian Gulf and in a in a bigger way than last time, Ron, as we saw during the last day of the war. Ron hit very, very hard. But, there's also another element here, Glenn, and that is that, we're we're approaching the you know, we are leaving we're this is the end of spring. When The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and when it, attacked Iraqi forces in Kuwait, those were carried out well before mid April.
And they were during the pool weather. In the next four weeks or so, the weather goes up very much. It and and it did then we enter the that hot season. So you'll have sandstorms in the Oregon Peninsula. You'll have few great humidity, and, and it'll be very hot.
Fighting under those conditions is very difficult. I I have experience of that because during, Saddam's war against Iran, I did fight in the South in in the summer, and you can barely do anything, during the day. You can, you know, you it's just it's it's very difficult. So I think that, American troops, will not be able to perform, well, and under such difficult circumstances. And the the damage done to American hardware, military hardware will will increase because of the humidity humidity, the heat, and the sandstorms.
I just don't see any opportunity. And, you know, the Iranians, just as they prepared themselves for over twenty years, for oh, well over two decades, and we've discussed this together for years, everyone can go back. You know? All the things that have happened, we've predicted before the war. You know?
Just as Iran prepared itself, and it has a huge missile and drone capacity. And as if when the war starts, you'll see Iran hammering them day after day after day again, twenty four hours a day, both the Israelis and the Americans and the the the proxies in the region. But they've also prepared themselves for an American invasion. They even just prepared themselves for an American air strike or an American air attack. They prepared themselves for a land invasion.
So the Americans really think that they'll just walk in and do what they want. They've already failed in their operation to steal Iran's rich uranium. They will definitely fail on the battlefield. So the weather is no longer, appropriate. It's sort of like winter in Ukraine, if not if not worse.
The the summer in in the Arabian Peninsula is and then imagine if there is war, then if they started striking Iranian targets or Iranian infrastructure and we start targeting infrastructure on the other side of the Persian Gulf, if we strike their electricity in this weather, in the weather that we're going to have in the weeks ahead, everyone will have to leave. The the the the Persian Gulf, these Arab regimes, the weather there is good for, let's say, six months a year and terrible for six months or good for seven months, six months, something like that, and terrible for five, six months a year. So if Iran strikes their electricity, then everyone will have to leave not over the like, a week. Everyone will have to leave immediately. All of these regimes will immediately collapse, especially since they're you know, the the elites in these countries are so well off that they they cannot tolerate any form of hardship hardship.
Whereas in Iran, they cut if they strike our electrical power plants, I mean, Tehran at in the in the in the middle of summer, it would be warm. We'd we'd be uncomfortable, but it's not at there's no comparison. Right now, as you know, there's snow on the mountains to the North of Tehran. A lot of snow. It's so it's last night, when I was out, it was I had to wear a jacket.
It was and with my jacket, a light jacket, I was so cold in Central Tehran, not in the North where it's more mountainous. So it would be both very difficult for American soldiers, and it would and if you and if there's if the two sides are striking one another, it would be the end of Kuwait, The Emirates, Qatar, and so on.
Speaker 1: The London National, this sounds like a disaster. I mean, with such a large territory and also the limited troops on The US side, it it doesn't seem like they have anything near the troop levels they would require. Also, planning a land invasion, it seems like something want to do prepare well for, especially for countries like Iran, which appears to you know, with its mountains and the oceans appears to be built like a fortress, it seems well, it wouldn't be the first country I would wanna invade. How do you see The Gulf States' appetite, though, to return to this war? Because you I I get the impression there's some mixed, feelings there.
The UAE, they seem to be, strangely optimistic, while others may be a bit more cautious. So how how do you see the the willingness to perhaps to take on a bigger role in the war against Iran if we go back into now a full scale war again?
Speaker 0: I think that's more or less how it is. It is The UAE that's seems to be pushing for war and probably the first country that will be eliminated. And the others are increasingly worried about the situation, including Saudi Arabia. But, but as I said, the Iranians, if there's war, that would mean that, like, for The UAE, just it'll be finished. If Iran's infrastructure is destroyed, it'll be difficult.
But if UAE's infrastructure is destroyed, it'll be the end. And it can it's a tiny country, and it can be destroyed very swiftly within a a day. You know, they they're you know, they they they're arrogant. The arrogance of the ruling family and, their reliance, on Israel and The United States is, is extraordinary. My I'm not sure, but I heard that the Emirates, their direct flights to the Israeli regime have once again been, established.
They stopped, I think, during the war. It's just, they don't seem to recognize the amount of anger that exists in Iran among Iranians, towards that regime. It is, it is it is enormous. And when they did on the last day after the ceasefire strike Iran, Iran hit them much, much harder in return. So, yeah, except for them, though, everyone else wants an end to this.
But I don't think that that's what's going I don't think that's going to happen. I think the Americans, are preparing for a major assault on Iran, and the Iranians are preparing. They've been preparing for many, many years. And, now they're just putting the final touches on whatever it is they have, and, they've they're working twenty four hours a day to prepare for the next phase. And as I said, in my opinion, some may disagree, time is on Iran's side because we're approaching summer.
It makes those regimes more vulnerable. It makes life more American soldiers more difficult. But the global economy is a ticking time bomb. And every day that the, straight up almost is closed, it create it intensifies this the crisis. Countries put more pressure on Trump.
Internal politicians in The United States, American people, put more pressure on the Trump regime. And, the, you know, the possibility that, US national interest, which are completely at odds with Zionist interest, I consider the Israeli regime to be the enemy of the American people. But, the the the divergence, will become so great. This is the calculation here, that it will become so great that the elites which are bound to Israel will have to make a decision to pursue a different route.
Speaker 1: This is the last question. What what do you think a victory could look like? Because it both Iran, it's you know, what what he wants to achieve is essentially to, yeah, push back the heavy military the American military presence, has been built up quite powerfully and all the economic architecture built up with it. And, you know, it's yeah. It's it's a it's difficult thing to achieve also given that the the Americans aren't I can't imagine they were going down, you know, without, you know, possibly even using possibly a nuclear weapon if they have too great of a humiliation.
Meanwhile, it's not clear. Well, I think The US victory would be, I guess, defined by regime change and, making balkanizing Syria, perhaps, not just balkanizing Iran. Iran. Yeah. Sorry.
But but how do you see this? So why what would the victory look like?
Speaker 0: Well, it depends. I mean, ultimately, victory the the final victory would be ending at this at the supremacism in Palestine, ending the genocide ending the genocide in Lebanon too. The Israelis are slaughtering families day and night out of rage and anger that resistance is effective, so they take it out on women's children. But in at this that would be the real victory. But at this stage, I think what Iran would define as victory is The United States backing down and the Iranians, preserving their rights and, Iran's allies in the region, having protection, no longer being attacked, Long term ceasefire, let's say.
But but also I think that the Iranians' victory will mean that Iran controls the Strait Of almost permanently. And, it didn't have to be this way. Iran ambition to control the Strait Of Hormuz. But Americans started this war and its proxies in the region, know, Qatar, The Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait, they all were all involved. Jordan, were all involved.
And, so that's the price they pay. So the Iranians, in order to make sure that this never happens again, this war of aggression never happens again, it believes it has to control the Strait Of Hormoz and also for to receive compensation. This is a means of doing it. So sovereignty, the Strait Of Hormoz, and peace and quiet for its allies across the region. Iran didn't start the war.
Iran had no stage escalated even now that Iran said it's going to if this siege on the Australian foremost continues, they will respond by blocking the Red Sea and, Bab El Mandeb and the Sea Of Oman. This is its you know, Iran is saying this and and plans to do it in response to The US siege. And Iran refraining from allowing more ships to leave the pass through the Strait Of Hormuz and leave the Persian Gulf is in response to the violation of the ceasefire agreement where the Israelis have been slaughtering the people of Lebanon in violation of the agreement. And during the war itself, it was always the escalation began on the American side, the Israeli side, and then Iran would retaliate. So Iran struck, let's say, energy and so the energy, infrastructure in the Persian Gulf, oil and gas, after Iran's infrastructure was targeted.
So, you know, Iran doesn't want this, but, ultimately, I think that the victory would mean sovereignty, control over the Strait Of Hormuz, and, peace for people in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, and Yemen.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it seems like a big ask. But if you look at the shift in the world order, the one that was organized for the past decades around The US hegemony and how it's rapidly shifting towards a multipolar system, it's it's it's not as if the world isn't changing at an incredible rate already. So it's yeah. I mean, it looks as if Iran's gonna probably exit this war in a stronger position.
I know there there's been a lot of deaths and destruction in Iran, but the the the wider distribution of power, the the geopolitics of it appears to be possibly coming in Iran's favor. If so, this would go down as one of America's worst wars, greatest disasters, you know, compared to Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya or any of the other that this is a yeah. This is gonna be a massive disaster, it seems, for the empire. But perhaps if, it incentivizes The US to instead focus on rebuilding the republic instead of the empire, perhaps, you know, everyone benefits at the end.
Speaker 0: So Absolutely.
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 0: Absolutely. I mean, if if someone actually came and, you know, said that I I really want to be American first, I think the entire world would welcome that.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for taking the time and sharing your insights. Thank
Speaker 0: you for having me, Glenn. Great honor.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
John Mearsheimer: U.S. Expands Iran War & Divorces Europe https://youtu.be/8dUsurWcFdI https://t.co/5mRKQONfB1
Video Transcript AI Summary
In this discussion with Glenn, Professor John Mearsheimer analyzes the U.S. handling of the Iran war under Trump, the role of Israel and the lobby, and the broader implications for the international system as power shifts from unipolar to multipolar.
Key points on U.S. strategy and diplomacy
- Trump’s approach is a unique form of diplomacy: he pursued a ceasefire grounded in Iran’s 10-point plan as a starting point for negotiations, then moved to a blockade of Iranian ports and allowed escalation elsewhere. The aim, according to the speakers, was to gain breathing space to rearm and regroup, and to press Iran into concessions.
- The absence of a viable military option: there is no credible American military path to victory in the Iran war. Escalation would be Iranian-dominant, and further escalation would damage the world economy, creating political and economic consequences domestically and internationally.
- The administration’s diplomacy is hampered by incompetence, notably in Ukraine-Russia diplomacy, which erodes confidence in negotiating with Iran as well. The Israeli lobby adds pressure to avoid a peace that acknowledges Iran’s gains.
- Four goals in the war, from an Israeli perspective, are regime change, eliminating Iran’s nuclear enrichment, destroying long-range missiles, and stopping Iranian support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Israel and its lobby view the situation as existential and push for continued pressure unless Iran is decisively defeated. From the U.S. perspective, this means consensus among allies is fragile and often subordinated to domestic and lobby pressures.
The strategic logic of the blockade and escalation
- The blockade is not a war-winning instrument. The naval option is constrained by ship counts, wear on assets, potential Chinese escorts, and reciprocal Iranian actions (Iran already captured ships in retaliation). Iran’s tolerance for pain is high, and the blockade is not a reliable lever to force compliance.
- Air power failed to defeat Iran, confirming that the war cannot be won through bombing alone. Ground invasion is unlikely due to limited American combat troops, political will, and public tolerance for casualties. Consequently, the U.S. has turned to naval coercion via the Strait of Hormuz and global oil interdictions, but this too is unlikely to compel a definitive Iranian capitulation.
- A ceasefire is seen as essential to halt the fighting and begin negotiations; however, the ceasefire has not achieved meaningful negotiations because the blockade remains in place, and Iran has demanded its end as a condition to return to talks.
Possible Iranian responses and risk dynamics
- If the United States were to resume massive bombing, Iran could launch a “Goderdammerung” response—shutting down the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, attacking energy infrastructure and desalination plants, and wrecking the world economy. This would imply a broader regional and global calamity, with Iran threatening to pull down others with it.
- The Iranians are expected to leverage the Strait of Hormuz and toll revenues, and to press for sanctions relief and ongoing control of the Strait as bargaining chips. The blockade may inflict pain, but Iran has shown a high capacity to tolerate it, making the naval option unlikely to deliver victory.
Europe, diplomacy, and the evolving alliance system
- Elbridge Colby’s remarks suggest Europe should take primary responsibility for conventional and Ukraine support, reflecting U.S. weapon stock depletion and a shift toward East Asia as the priority theater. This signals a “buck-passing” of security obligations and a withdrawal of the United States from Europe at the conventional level.
- The Colby framework implies the U.S. is reorienting away from Europe and toward East Asia, potentially weakening NATO cohesion as American weapons support diminishes. This could push Europe to diversify security arrangements and rely less on U.S. guarantees.
- There is a broader pattern of “divorcing” from allies: as the Gulf, Europe, and Ukraine face continued pressures, the alliance system frays. The U.S. may seek to offload security burdens, while Russia and China adapt by intensifying their own strategic ties and exploiting the rifts within Western alliances.
The multipolar world and regional flashpoints
- The discussion emphasizes that the world has moved from a post–Cold War unipolar moment to a multipolar system, with East Asia (China) as the primary U.S. strategic focus, but with persistent, volatile conflicts in Europe (Russia-Ukraine) and the Middle East (Israel-Iran, and allied networks like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis).
- The speakers stress the interconnections among conflicts: resolving Israel-Iran involves Hezbollah and Hamas; resolving Ukraine involves European commitments and American supplies; and the evolving alliance structures—where the U.S. may reduce its conventional footprint in Europe—could heighten tensions or provoke Russian reactions.
Final reflections
- The conversation closes by acknowledging the plastic, uncertain moment in world politics: many possible futures depend on diplomacy, leadership choices, and how quickly new equilibria are formed among emerging great powers. The two speakers stress that avoiding a major conflagration will require careful diplomacy, recognition of interlinked flashpoints, and a willingness to rethink traditional alliance structures in a multipolar world.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. Today is the 04/22/2026, and we are joined by professor John Mearsheimer. Thank you again for coming back on, my friend. It's always good to see you.
Speaker 1: Good to see you, Glenn, and glad to be back.
Speaker 0: So I'm trying to make a bit sense out of The US strategy in the Iran war because it seems to me that Trump was in a difficult spot, and he needed an out. So he accepted the ceasefire conditioned on Iran's 10 points as starting point at least for negotiations. Then he finally had it, but he then moves forth with this blockade on Iranian ports, and then there appears to be a sabotage of the Islamabad talks. I'm trying to make sense of this. I mean, is this was this only to get breathing space to rearm and regroup, or is did the Israelis intervene to keep the war going, or is this just a unique style of diplomacy that Trump is pursuing?
Speaker 1: It is a unique form of diplomacy. There's no question about that. Whether it makes any sense is another matter. And I think it's quite clear it doesn't make any sense. I mean, the bottom line here is that Trump needs an exit strategy.
He he just has to put an end to this war, sooner rather than later. And the reason for that is that he has no military strategy that he can turn to that can allow him to win the war. There's just no military option here. As we've talked about before, if you go up the escalation ladder, it's the Iranians who prevail, not the Americans. So there's just no military option.
Furthermore, the world economy is teetering and the longer this goes on, more damage that's gonna be done to the world economy. And by the way, if you do go up the escalation ladder, that'll really be another hammer blow to the world economy. And this has political consequences inside The United States for President Trump, not to mention the fact that it has huge economic and social consequences for countries all over the world. So he's under tremendous pressure to come up with some sort of agreement with Iran that allows us to walk away from this. The problem that he faces is that he's incompetent.
The administration is incompetent when it comes to diplomacy, and the best example of this is a subject you and I have talked about ad nauseam, which is the Ukraine Russia war. You wanna remember that president Trump promised when he came into office that he was going to settle that war. And in fact, he said that he might even settle it before he moves into the White House. And he's made a complete hash of those diplomatic negotiations with the Russians. It's really quite remarkable as you have recorded in a whole slew of different interviews with a variety of people over the past year or so.
It's really quite amazing. So why would anyone expect him to be any more adept in negotiating with the Iranians than he has been in negotiating with the Ukrainians and the Russians? He's just not a good diplomat by any stretch of the imagination. And to add to the trouble, he's got to deal with Israel and the Israel lobby. And this is a very important issue, Glenn.
The fact is that the Israelis understand that up to this point in time we've lost the war. We meaning The United States and Israel. We had a set of goals going into the war. Four main goals, as you know, regime change, getting rid of Iran's nuclear enrichment capability, getting rid of their long range missiles, and getting them to stop supporting Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. We failed on all counts.
And on top of that, as everybody knows, the Iranians who did not control the Strait Of Hormuz before February 28 and did not have a toll booth located in the middle of it, control the Strait Of Hormuz and have a toll booth located right there. So the Iranians have won. From an Israeli point of view, this is a disastrous situation because the Israelis view Iran as an existential threat. You and I can disagree with the Israelis but that doesn't matter. They think it's an existential threat and of course the lobby here in The United States goes along with Israel no matter what.
So the end result is that Israel wants to continue the war. It's just very important to understand that. They want us to continue hammering away at Iran to try to beat them into submission. And if we don't beat them into submission, well, we'll just destroy them. Do what we did in Gaza to Iran.
That's the Israeli view and that's the Israel lobby's view. So if you think about the situation in Ukraine going back there and then you think about the situation with regard to Iran, you see inept diplomacy on the part of the Trump administration in both cases. But in the case of Iran, the situation's even worse because you've got Israel and the lobby leaning on him not to come up with a peace agreement that reflects what's happening in the war, which is another way of saying which reflects the fact that Iran has won. So Trump is veering back and forth between two positions. One, which is pushed forward by the economic realities and the realities of what has happened in the actual fighting to work out some sort of deal.
He has powerful incentives because of the state of the world economy and because of what's happened in the fighting to cut a deal. He understands he has no military option. He understands we've effectively lost. And he understands the damage that could be done to the world economy. That tells him, let's cut a deal.
But on the other side, he has the Israelis and he has their minions here in The United States. And they are powerful and they're honeycomb throughout the entire administration to put enormous pressure on him not to cut a deal and instead to play hardball with the Iranians. So what you see him doing is wavering back and forth between these two positions. And in the end, we have been unable to get a ceasefire, much less meaningful negotiations started. You want to understand, we don't even have a ceasefire yet because the ceasefire involved shutting down the fighting in Lebanon between the Israelis and Hezbollah, which has kind of been done.
And number two, opening the strait. And the strait opened for one day and then because President Trump wouldn't take off the American blockade of the strait, the Iranians put the blockade back on. So we haven't even fulfilled all the conditions that were required for a ceasefire, much less began to move seriously towards an agreement. And all the time this is happening, the clock is ticking on the world economy and this is a very dangerous situation.
Speaker 0: Is it possible though with the ceasefire that this could be a way for The United States to get Iran to fight the war on America's terms? Because this appears to be one of the things that has failed since the beginning. That is, when The US attacked, it looked as if Trump would have favored to do a little bit of bombing and then stop, and, the Iranians essentially didn't wanna give him this kind of escalation control, and they made it clear that any attack would get a massive response. So yeah. So shutting down the Strait, Rimuz, attacking the Gulf allies, essentially denying The US this kind of escalation control.
Now, in the ceasefire, it seems to follow the same logic. Yes. Initially, The US appeared to agree to this 10 plan, at least as a point of departure to to start discussions, but then it seems to be this incrementalism. Well, The US should be allowed to put a blockade on Iran. Should Israel should be allowed to bomb a little bit in Lebanon.
US should be able to seize or fire on some Iranian ships and to keep it, I guess, low intensity. Do you I mean, is it is it is it possible that it's just to get the war under control, or is it the ceasefire gone gone wrong? Because I think Iran will probably interpret this as a wider effort. Well, whatever minor escalation there's now, the overarching objective would be the effort to destroy their nation or wipe out their civilization to use Trump's language. So do do you think this is has anything to do with how the war is fought or just to bring it down, the intensity of it, and limit the targets that Iran are, you know, targeting?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's a great question. And let me give you my two cents on it. I think that what Trump wants to do here is he wants to use military leverage to get the Iranians to agree to a ceasefire and then to come to the negotiating table. And he wants to use that military leverage to get a good deal.
Not a great deal, he's not gonna get a great deal. Know, he wants, I think, to get something that's better than the JCPOA when it comes to the nuclear enrichment issue. But but he he needs, he thinks, military leverage to do that. So let's talk about military leverage. My view is that any country has any great power, should say has three levers that it can use, three military instruments that it can use to get what it wants, either through coercive purposes or by fighting the actual war.
And one is air power, two is ground power or land power, and three is naval power. Those are the sort of three instruments that a state has. And we started the war on February 28 and waged it before the ceasefire largely with air power. We struck Iran from the air and we struck them with naval aircraft, but we didn't have a blockade at that point in time. It was all about air power.
And that air power campaign, Glenn, failed. That's why you moved to a ceasefire and that's why we can say today that up to this point Iran has won the war. The air power campaign failed. And by the way, everybody knew or let me put it differently, everybody should have known beforehand that air power alone was not going to defeat Iran. The historical record is clear here.
So that's air power. Then there's ground power. And here we're talking about using ground forces for invading, for the purpose of invading Iran. This is not a serious option. First of all, we don't have many combat troops at all in the region.
You know, there's talk about 50,000 American troops in the region. Only a small slice of them are combat troops. And the idea that even if all of them were combat troops, you could invade Iran and do something to end this war is not a serious argument. We don't have the combat forces there to launch a ground invasion. Furthermore, President Trump is allergic to boots on the ground.
Furthermore, the American people are not willing to tolerate the kind of pain that would be required if you were going to launch a full scale invasion of Iran. Just think about how deeply concerned we were about the life of that pilot who was shot down. The idea that he might be killed was a horrible thought. Our tolerance for pain over the Iran war is not very high. The idea that you're going to launch a massive ground offensive into Iran, suffer lots of casualties, have soldiers coming back in body bags, that's just not possible.
It's just not going to happen. And seems to me that President Trump, although he occasionally hints it may be a tiny ground force incursion, The ground force option is just not a serious option. So what I'm telling you is up to now the air power option was tried and failed. We have no serious ground power option or land force option. And unsurprisingly, what have we turned to?
We've turned to the naval option and we have a blockade on the strait. And furthermore, we're running around the world hunting down ships carrying Iranian oil way out in East Asia or Southwest Asia. And the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not you think this blockade is gonna bring the Iranians to their knees. And I would say to you, first of all, Glenn, if the blockade is such a war winning weapon or is an effective war winning weapon, why didn't we turn to it earlier? Why are we only turning to it now?
And the answer is it's not a war winning weapon. First of all, I don't think the US Navy can sustain a blockade for a long period of time. We have a limited number of ships. The wear and tear on our ships is enormous. I think a lot of ships, based on what I read, are getting through the blockade.
We run the risk at some point that the Chinese will escort ships into the Strait Of Hormuz, which will put us in a very difficult position because then we'll have to face the fact that we might have to attack Chinese ships if we wanna prevent those Iranian cargo ships or oil tankers from going into the Gulf. I mean, there's all sorts of trouble that one can imagine with this blockade. And I think very importantly what you saw today is that the Iranians have captured two ships in the Persian Gulf. They've seized two ships in retaliation for the two ships that we have seized. So they're playing tit for tat.
Moreover, the Iranians have made it manifestly clear that if you want to come back to the bargaining table, you have to put an end to the blockade. So at some point, Trump is gonna have to end the blockade just to go back to the bargaining table. He can't dilly dally forever and ever. We have to get negotiations going here, And that means he's going to have to take the blockade off at some point. But my previous point is the blockade's not going to be that effective.
Is it going to inflict some pain on the Iranians? Yeah. But the Iranians have demonstrated that they have a high tolerance for pain, a much higher tolerance for pain than we do. So the naval option is not a war winning option. We have no war winning option.
You know, President Trump talks about sort of going back to air power and a lot of people say we're going go in and bomb this and bomb that. That's not going to work either. If it was going to work, he would have done it. We tried bombing, it didn't work. What's the new formula that's going to allow us to succeed?
Oh, we're going go in and destroy all of their energy infrastructure and basically make Iran unlivable. That's not going to work, everybody knows that, because the Iranians can retaliate. So we're out of options. And what he has to do here is he has to get a ceasefire in place ASAP, and then they have to start negotiating. And he has to come up with a clever set of proposals that he can work on with the Iranians so that we can work out some sort of deal and shut this down as much as possible and rescue the international economy before it goes off a cliff.
Speaker 0: Well, this tit for tat, so this has been one of the interesting, well, ways this war has developed. That is whatever The US does, it appears that the Iranians can mirror it and go up that escalation ladder with the Americans. But that's why I'm wondering if this is what The US will do. What do you expect on the Iranian side? Because there doesn't seems to be a diplomatic path here.
At least it seemed to be too far apart at the moment. The US, again, it will it might do this heavy air campaign and then, yeah, complemented with the sea blockade. Some people like Keith Kellogg are, you know, arguing for a land campaign as well that is to seize islands and these kind of things. But what do you see Iran possibly doing? I know the IRGC has suggested they that they could do things like cut undersea Internet cables or, you know, they could shut down the Red Sea.
Indeed, Yemen has more or less, you know, has said that they're prepared to enter the war now. But what is the secret weapon you think of Iran if The US, let's say US pursues this strategy of just bombing Iran, inflicting as much pain as possible, and then, yeah, either in perpetuity or just until they decide to leave. What what do you expect to see from the Iranians?
Speaker 1: Well, if you're describing a situation where The United States goes back to a massive bombing campaign, where they're attacking energy infrastructure, bridges, and doing enormous amounts of damage inside Iran, killing many, many thousands of civilians. I think what Iran will do is that it will shut down the Persian Gulf completely. It will shut down the Red Sea, and it will attack energy infrastructure and desalination plants all across the Gulf. It will do everything it can to wreck The Gulf. It's what I call the Goderdammerung response.
We're gonna bring everybody down with us. Right? The idea that you're just gonna inflict punishment on Iran and get away with it and everybody else is gonna be able to stand idly by while our country is destroyed is not in the cards. We are gonna take others down with us. We will take every state in The Gulf down with us and we will wreck the world economy.
And we will do that by shutting down the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. And this will have disastrous consequences over the long term and surely everybody understands that. That would be the threat that I would make if I were playing their hand. And I believe it is a very formidable threat and I believe the people in the Trump administration and people all around the world understand this is what is likely to happen if The United States turns the dogs loose and really goes after Iran's infrastructure and its population in a major way. And that's why I think it's not going to happen.
This is why I say if you go up the escalation ladder, the Iranians hold all the cards. You can do enormous damage to Iran, but the fact is they can do even greater damage to the world economy and to states in the region.
Speaker 0: But I was wondering, though. I sometimes you get some commentary that, you know, that well, yes, that this could melt down the global economy. But do you think there's anyone that there would be some in the administration who would think, you know, so what? Because The US is independent on the Strait Of Moshe. The US doesn't have to be reliant on energy from the Middle East.
Is it some I guess, based on history of, you know, World War two that, you know, whole world burned down, but The US remained, and now it was the last one standing. Do you think there's anyone who would, you know, maybe not welcome such a scenario, but who would be willing essentially to sacrifice the Gulf States if it meant weakening or destroying Iran and weakening, for example, China significantly, or do you think that's over the top?
Speaker 1: No. I think that Israel and its supporters will be inclined to adopt the position you just described. Again, it's very important to understand that from Israel's point of view, Iran is an existential threat. And they thought that when we went to war against Iran on February 28, that the end result would be that Iran would suffer a staggering defeat. We would win, we meaning The United States and Israel.
And the exact opposite is happening. And what we're talking about here, Glenn, is working out some sort of agreement that reflects the fact that Iran won. We may get certain concessions from the Iranians, but they won the war and they'll do very well in these negotiations. That's just the way it works. The winners on the battlefield are the winners at the negotiating table.
Common sense tells you that, but the Israelis definitely don't want that. So they're gonna push very hard for us to start the war up again, and the Israelis and their supporters in The United States will be inclined, not all will buy this argument, but they'll be inclined to make the argument that we can withstand the response that Iran comes up with after we turn the dogs loose. And I think that at that point, I think President Trump will side with common sense and he will go to great lengths to tell the Israelis that they just have to accept the fact that we lost and that we're going work out a deal with Iran. Because President Trump has a deep seated interest in avoiding an economic catastrophe. I mean, there are all sorts of people who are students of international economics who say that if this one spins out of control militarily and economically that you could end up in a situation analogous to what you had in the 1930s.
You could have a Great Depression. And there are some people who argue and these are not foolish people, these are smart people who argue you could have an economic depression worse than you had in the nineteen thirties. Is that for sure? Of course not, because we don't know exactly where this train is headed. We live in an uncertain world and how it all plays out is very hard to say.
But it just seems pretty commonsensical that if you shut down the Gulf completely, you shut down the Red Sea and you wreck all of those GCC countries that the economic consequences worldwide are just enormous. It's not only gas and oil, it's the fertilizers that come out of the region, out of the Middle East, out of the Gulf, out of the Red Sea. It's the aluminum, it's the helium. It's just hard to imagine us doing anything to create a situation like that, and it would just seem to me that we will go to great lengths to avoid that. But again, I think there'll be pressure from Israel and from its supporters in The United States to really go after Iran and to not reach any sort of any agreement that gives them concessions, major concessions.
Speaker 0: Well, I think one of the reasons why we get locked into this wars and not able to pull out, even now that the war has been lost is, you know, so or even predict the consequences that will come. You mentioned the global depression. You know, we have a possibility of a famine. It's because in human nature, there's always the assumption that the present era is permanent. You know, this has only been thirty five years since the Soviet Union collapsed.
It's it's yeah. The the the current era, it's the conditions of it, it hasn't been here for very long, and the assumption that it would stay like this forever is is quite extraordinary. So you often get the impression that politicians aren't ready to make the necessary adjustments because they don't appreciate or recognize the severity of the situation. But but on that, though, how how willing do you think how long do you think how far do you think Trump is prepared to go to put an end to this thing? Because let's say he goes in, just takes what remains of American missiles and just carpet bomb what they can of Iran, but they can't achieve what they want.
Is it just pulling back then and going home? I I mean, do you think it's possible for The US to leave the Middle East without having the Strait Of Hormuz open? Because this seems so critical if the Iranians can hold the Strait Of Hormuz. We've already seen more or less what they can do to dismantle The US presence in the Middle East. They can, you know, collect their, you said, toll, but, yeah, that that would be reparations as well.
They would be able to I think The UAE already said that they might start to sell some of their oil in Chinese one, or they they're open to it. There could be efforts to pressure these countries to scale back the presence of this US military bases in the region, something that I'm sure some of them are already discussing if that invites conflict instead of bringing security. So it seems like a massive cost for The US to leave without the Strait Of Hormuz being opened. But, again, if if it can't be achieved, what do you do? Do you think it's possible for The US just to leave?
I know Joe Kent advocated for this, but is it possible?
Speaker 1: Well, there's a difference between The United States leaving with the strait closed or open versus The United States leaving with Iran in control and with a toll booth on the road or or in the strait. I think that Iran is going to end up controlling the strait, and it's going to have a toll booth in the strait. I think it's linked to the business in good part of reparations and sanctions. I think that it's hard to imagine The United States and Israel, certainly Israel, but The United States even paying reparations to Iran for all the damage it's done. And in terms of sanctions relief, it's gonna be almost impossible to get the American sanctions off of Iran because that would have to go through Congress, and Congress is anti Iran in the extreme.
They may get the international sanctions off. But given the problem that we're gonna face with sanctions relief for the Iranians and given that we're not gonna pay meaningful reparations, they're gonna want to keep the tollbooth in place for a long, long time. And furthermore, they're going to want to control the Strait just because it provides them with huge amounts of course of leverage. Anytime The United States or Israel in the future start to play tough or threaten to play tough with Iran, I think the Iranians will just remind The United States and Israel that they control the Strait and they will shut things down once again. That's a powerful deterrent.
So I think no matter what, Iran's gonna end up with control of the strait in a very obvious way, and they're gonna end up with a tollbooth in the middle of that strait. And it may be that boats or ships traversing that strait or they're going through that tollbooth will have to pay a new one. Who knows on that count? So I think that's a given. But the discussion or the question that you raise gets at the fact that we're at a very plastic moment here.
And what I mean by that is that there are just so many different issues on the table and how they're all resolved, how they all fit together is just very hard to say. If you ask me, sort of, where is this train headed? What does this all mean for The U. S. Military presence in The Gulf?
And that was one of the questions that you were pushing forward. I don't have a clear answer. I'd be curious to know what you think, but do you think we're going to go back to the naval base at Bahrain? Do you think we're going to go back to any of those bases in The Middle East that have been either destroyed or badly damaged? Do you think that the Gulf states that hosted those bases are going to want us back?
And what about the negotiations? How do the bases play in the negotiations? Do we make concessions on the bases so that we can get a better deal on the nuclear enrichment issue? In other words, will the Iranians be more willing to accommodate us on nuclear enrichment if we are willing to put an end to the bases in the region. I'm not saying that will happen for one second, but this all remains to be determined.
I mean this is what the negotiations will hopefully resolve. And if they don't resolve these issues, this conflict will just go on and on forever and that will not be a good thing, obviously. But what I'm saying here, Glenn, is you raise a great set of questions, but what the answers are just not clear here.
Speaker 0: Well, I think a lot of the conflicts we have today, be it with the Russia, Iran, China, they all many of them have some of the same origin. That is the wider transition of the world order, that is sort shifting distribution of power from a unipolar to a multipolar. Now in the hegemonic system, I think the hegemon will have an interest in building alliances. That is that's a good way of her maintaining a hedge money. That is, like in Europe, divide the continent into dependent, thus loyal allies and the weakened adversaries.
You're see the same dynamic in The Middle East when the Chinese try to negotiate some more well, improved relations between the Saudis and Iranians. This essentially could become a you know, if peace breaks out, then what's gonna happen? Then the Saudis will be less, you know, loyal or obedient, and the Iranians won't be contained. So one does need an alliance system to preserve a hegemonic position. And I think as the world becomes multipolar, many of these states probably have an interest to have a more independent political position, but then you need to to diversify your ties.
That is not to tie yourself too much down with one actor. So I think from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, across the region, many countries now looking to diversify and decouple a little bit from these alliance systems. And especially if you have a declining hegemon, not saying that The US is, you know, finished. I think this people ask me how I compare it to, you know, Britain in 1956, but I think by no means The US will remain a massive power. It's but but relative decline, I think, is important.
Because if a power is in relative decline, the alliance system, of being a form of a well, monopolizing on security. Every everyone wanted to tie their security to The US in the nineties, but if it's a declining hegemon, and it might use the frontline states to weaken its opponents, you know, you see this in the Gulf States. They have to question whether or not this is a good position still to be. I mean, it's not the nineteen nineties. I know they're talking about this in East Asia and South Korea, because whenever one enters an alliance, yes, one gets security, but one can also provoke a response.
And at the moment, the security, the gain, it seems to be reducing while provoking, for example, China isn't worth it. And at some point, I think Europeans will talk about this as well. But I think this is a overall shift, I think, in the international distribution of power. So I think at the end of the day, The US will have less interest in the Middle East simply because it has better priorities, and the Middle Eastern countries will have to diversify, and, you know, the Saudis will have to hedge a bit. And yes.
I think there will be no going back to the way things were. I mean, this is historical times. You can't have a country, for example, like China, you know, with this spectacular rise, and then the world order will remain the same. There has to be massive changes, and I think that's what we're undergoing. Some of them will be, you know, born through blood and fire essentially instead of, you know, through diplomacy.
But, no, I I don't think we're going back to where we
Speaker 1: were. Yeah. No question about that. Let me just tell you how I sort of think about the world at macro level to try to make sense of it. And I'm not arguing that this is an approved solution, but it's just my sort of simple framework for thinking about how the world looks today.
Of course, you know, up until about 2017, certainly through all of the nineteen nineties and the first decade and a half or so of the twenty first century, we lived in a unipolar world. And in that unipolar world, The United States was by definition the only great power. That world went away, in my opinion, in about 2017. And we now live in a multipolar world. And what's very important to understand about that multipolar world is that for The United States, the most important region in the world is East Asia because China is a peer competitor in the sense that China is a rising great power that threatens to even be more powerful than The United States.
I'm not saying that will happen, but China is a formidable adversary for The United States. So you now have this multipolar world where East Asia is of paramount importance for The United States. And The United States still cares about two other areas of the world. One is Europe and then the third is the Persian Gulf. So that's sort of the macro view I have at the highest level.
But then if you look at the Ukraine Russia war and you look at the Iran war, what you see is that these two conflicts almost are guaranteed to never go away and to have to create a poisonous security environment in both Europe and in The Gulf. And why am I saying that? It's very important to understand, I think, that from Russia's point of view, the situation in Ukraine is an existential threat. From Ukraine's point of view, Russia is an existential threat. I fully understand why both actors in that conflict, Ukraine and Russia, view the other as an existential threat.
And Europe has piggybacked with the Ukrainians to the point where the Europeans think Russia is an existential threat and the Russians think the Europeans and the Ukrainians together are an existential threat. And when you have two sides that both think the other side is an existential threat, how do you shut that down in any meaningful way? So I think you're gonna have huge problems in Europe moving forward, mainly based on the Russia Ukraine conflict. Turning to The Gulf, as I said to you before, the Israelis view the Iranians as an existential threat and Israel's supporters in The United States view Iran as an existential threat. And Iran views The United States and certainly Israel as an existential threat.
But let's just focus on Israel and Iran. Those two view each other as an existential threat. How are we ever gonna get a meaningful ceasefire between Israel and Iran? Especially when Iran supports Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and has no intention of giving up that support. And the Israelis view Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis as not as dangerous as Iran but almost as dangerous as Iran and joined at the hip with Iran.
So what you're going to see moving forward, even if we get some sort of agreement between The United States and Iran, is a permanent state of hostility between Israel and Iran in the Persian Gulf or in the Middle East. And then back to Europe, you're going to see endless trouble moving forward, a poisonous relationship. You and I have talked about this before between the Russians on one side and the Ukrainians and the Europeans on the other side. So again, just to go back to where I started, you have these three great powers in the system now, right, who compete with each other in all sorts of different ways. And with regard to The US China conflict, from an American point of view, China is the principal threat.
East Asia is the number one area of the world. If you look at the other two areas of the world, Europe and The Middle East, you have this very dangerous situation that doesn't seem to look like it's going to go away in both of those areas. And my final point would be to you, Glenn, you can tell all sorts of stories about how you hook the Chinese up to what's going on in The Gulf. Very easy to do. And the Russians, of course, were already involved in Europe.
They're one of the principal participants in the war in Ukraine. And the Russians, of course, are involved in The Gulf. They're helping the Iranians. Both the Russians and the Chinese are helping the Iranians. And the Chinese, obviously, because they fear an American containment strategy in East Asia, the Chinese have a vested interest in seeing the Ukraine war go on and seeing the Americans pinned down in Europe.
And in a certain way, they even have a vested interest in seeing The United States remain militarily in the Persian Gulf because that means they won't be able to go to East Asia to contain China. So what I think you see with this rather simple framework that I'm putting on the table is that we live in a very dangerous world and there's not much prospect that I can see. I hope I'm wrong, but there's not much prospect of creating a more peaceful world moving forward.
Speaker 0: No. I'm not sure how the new, yeah, equilibrium will be established. But but but I'm I'm curious, though, of what The US goals then would be towards Europe because, you know, if you have a world becoming polar, The US can't be everywhere, has to make priorities. So The US more or less prioritizes the Western Hemisphere and East Asia, where you said its peer competitors. Well, then The US has to get out of the Middle East and Europe.
Again, this is why the Iran war doesn't make much sense in the wider strategy, and but in Europe, it seems even more important to get out of because they consume a lot of resources. But more importantly is perhaps by having a too heavy American footprint in Europe, they're pushing the Russians closer to to China. So when Trump said, wanna put an end to this war, you know, in twenty four hours, which was never, you know, realistic, but at least it seemed to reflect that he recognized how the distribution of power was shifting. But that being said, I kind of assumed that he wanted to put an end to that war. But now we see this kind of this new statements.
I I I did send you an a link earlier on with head undersecretary of war for policy, Elbridge Colby, was you're making some remarks. It didn't sound like you wanted to put an end to the war. On the contrary, you called for the Europeans to essentially step up to the plate. He sounded not to end the war, but to outsource the war to the Europeans. So while the Europeans would like to pull the Americans into the well, deeper into the war, it seems the Americans want to outsource it to the Europeans.
But do you read it the same way, or or do The US want to put an end to it or just to make it a because if it's a European war, then they can continue to contain the Russians, and, you know, it's the Europeans' problems and the Russians for you know, they they signaled they're willing to improve bilateral ties with the Americans even though The US is still involved in in Ukraine in terms of intelligence and sending weapons. But do you do you see a willingness to end the war? Is it, like perpetual war, forever war, which is possibly a strategy just to drain the Russians and, yeah, make sure that the Europeans do it on their own?
Speaker 1: Well, you should put that speech that Elbridge Colby gave in Europe up on your website so that people can access it. Glenn sent it to me. I'm talking to the audience here. Glenn sent it to me earlier today and I read it very carefully. And of course, Elbridge Colby is a very important figure in the Pentagon and his statement that Glenn sent me on April 15 is I think enormously important.
And my interpretation of it, Glenn, is it said nothing about solving the war or shutting down the war in Ukraine. This was all about what I would call buck passing, shifting the responsibility for security in Europe at the conventional level almost completely over to the Europeans, and shifting responsibility for supporting Ukraine in the Ukraine Russia war almost completely over to the Europeans. And this was a case of moving almost completely away from the Biden approach to dealing with Ukraine, where we were fully involved in the process and committed to fight till the end. And I think it's very clear that what's going on here is that The United States is deeply committed in Iran and in the Iran war, and we are using up significant amounts of our weapons inventory in The Middle East in this Iran war and that is weakening our position vis a vis the Chinese. If you look at the numbers of THAAD missiles and Patriot missiles and smart bombs and Tomahawks that we've expended in Iranand by the way, Glenn, just to get off the subject that we're talking about for one second, one of the reasons that president Trump does not want to start the bombing campaign again and start the war up because it would involve Iran retaliating against Israel and The Gulf States is that he would have to use up more of the American inventory of weapons.
They don't want to use any more weapons than they have to in a future conflict in the war against Iran. So we have very powerful incentives not to start the war up against Iran because we have so depleted our inventory of weapons. And this has huge consequences for East Asia, where we're supposed to be in the process of containing China, the principal threat to The United States. So what Elbridge Colby is saying very clearly to the Europeans is we can't provide the weapons anymore for you to give to the Ukrainians. You Europeans have to develop the necessary weapons and you have to do it quickly for Ukraine.
We can't do it because we have other responsibilities. So this is, I think, Colby speech, a clear statement of the Americans divorcing themselves from Europe at the military level. It's basically saying to the Europeans, You deal with the Ukraine war. They're not saying, You shut down the Ukraine war. In fact, I think the document reads like we expect the war to go on and on and that's hardly surprising.
We failed to shut the war down. They're not going to shut the war down. In fact, they have no interest in shutting the war down. The Europeans want this war to go on forever and ever. And the end result is that Ukraine is going to have to be supplied with lots of weapons.
And the question is where are they going to get those weapons? And up to now, it's been pretty much a case with the Europeans by the weapons from The United States and then give them to the Ukrainians. And what Colby is saying is the cupboard's bare. There are no American weapons we can give you. We're running through weapons in The Gulf at an incredibly rapid pace and that's having huge consequences for East Asia which is strategically the most important area of the world.
So in a very important way, what Colby is doing is divorcing The United States from Europe, especially at the conventional level. That's the way I read it. Do you disagree with that?
Speaker 0: No. I think they're yeah. No. They're handing it over or or cutting it cutting their ties further. I think this also could be a consequence of the Iran War as well.
The the fact that Trump has put a lot of all the rhetorical efforts to blame the whole thing on the Europeans, it it that could provide a a a reason or at least to get mobilize some support from decoupling The US a bit more from the from from the Europeans. But that also puts the Europeans in a well, puts us on a much closer to war, I think, here in Europe because with the lack of American weapons, the situation is going more and more in Russia's favor, and the Europeans will have to escalate in a big way, which you see all these drones being made and sent and the very openness about our participation in this war. And at the same time, the reports now of the Baltic States and or Finland allowing their territory be used to be used to strike Russia. At some point, you know, the escalation will put more pressure on the Kremlin to respond, and there is a growing pressure. And all of this is happening at the same time that Americans are divorcing themselves, so now the Russians would have less constraints to retaliate.
I mean, why would they fear striking some German logistics center if if America's not standing behind? Is it the same as the Baltic States? The reason they've been behaving this way is you had always, you know, big bad uncle Sam standing behind you. If if uncle Sam's not there anymore, you know, and instead of toning it down, they have to escalate. I think we're looking at a recipe for war.
But
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, this gets to this whole point we were making before about what a plastic moment this is. I mean, just listening to you talk, what about the American security umbrella, the American nuclear umbrella over Europe, especially over Eastern Europe? If something happens in one of the Baltic states, what are we gonna do? We, meaning the Americans.
It's really hard to imagine The United States getting into a fight with the Russians in one of the Baltic states at this point in time. So I think the Russians are kind of flexing their muscles these days vis a vis the Baltic States because they understand that. The other thing is, Glenn, I wonder what's gonna happen when Ukraine finally loses this war. I mean, it's hard to say what the final arrangement is going to look like. But at some point the shooting is going to stop, number one.
And number two, the Russians are going to end up controlling a huge slice of Ukrainian territory, which they've already annexed. I mean they've annexed for Oblast and Crimea. And this is going to be seen as a devastating defeat for NATO. Right? NATO lost.
And President Trump will blame the Europeans. And if you think about Colby's speech, Colby's speech is putting President Trump in a position where it will be easy to blame the Europeans because the Ukrainians have lost not lost now. We're divorcing ourselves, and at some point the Ukrainians are gonna lose. And when they lose, Trump will be able to say, we shifted the burden almost completely onto the shoulders of the Europeans. We were doing well, or the Ukrainians were doing well up until that happened, and then Ukraine fell apart.
And of course it's because of those pathetic Europeans who wouldn't help us in The Gulf, who wouldn't help open the Strait Of Hormuz or who wouldn't unilaterally open the Strait Of Hormuz. Of course this is all nonsense but this is the rhetoric that he'll use. And this will just further tear at the seams of the alliance. It'll just make a bad situation worse. So I think what you're going to get in Europe, and I'd be curious to know what you think about this, I think you're going to get a situation where The United States is much less committed to Europe and to NATO.
And at the same time, the relations between the Russians on one side and the Ukrainians and the Europeans on the other side are gonna be even worse in the future than they are now.
Speaker 0: No. I've no. I agree. I think it was also very predictable. Indeed, on on this podcast, I interviewed the the German general, general Harald Kuyatt.
He was the head of the entire German army, and he also had the highest military position within NATO. Forgot what it's called. Yeah. And, anyways, my my my my point is three years ago, he was May he he made the point that, you know, he was speaking very openly about what was actually happening unlike the rest of his countrymen. He was making the point that, yes, US and the British sabotage the Istanbul agreement, all of this.
But he also made the point, again, three years ago that we're losing this war, as you and I were always saying back in those days. And but the consequences at some point, The US, when it's being lost, they will, you know, have the common sense to pull away. And at this point, we, that is the Germans, will stand to face a very angry Russian or Russia all by ourselves. And I thought that was interesting. That was one of the reasons I wanted to talk to him as well.
And I I think that's where we are now. The the war is being lost. The US is handing it over to the Europeans, and now we're gonna face a very angry Russia. And instead of seeking to make a peace, we're making it much worse because many of the European leaders seemingly genuinely believe that Russia is an existential threat, so they don't have any political imagination for peace, so it's only escalation. And but I think on the wider I think there's also mutual divorce because you mentioned before the missiles being depleted.
Once missiles or weapons are being depleted, people lose trust in alliances. That is, you know, the South Koreans are asking, you know, why did the Americans pull out their thou and the patriots? In Europe, they're saying, oh, all these missiles were supposed to get to fight the Russians being delayed or diverted. And even in the Gulf States, they're saying, oh, why are the the air defenses, they you know, Israel's being prioritized. So you're seeing this side distancing themselves, and on the other side, you see the Americans who are essentially blaming some of the partners.
They're, you know, they're not a force amplifier anymore. They're drained on US resources. They're not gonna be able to look after their own backyard or go contain China. And and, yeah, all of the failings are their their faults. I mean, Europeans, they're the ones to blame in you know, for Ukraine, for Iran.
So I I think you see a a mutual split. And, again, I don't know what would follow, though.
Speaker 1: Just one other dimension to this, Glenn. I I like to say that when you think about the poisonous relationship that's gonna exist between Russia on one side and Europe and Ukraine on the other side, that there's six other potential flash points that are loosely associated with Ukraine. And of course the Ukraine war could start up again. You It, know, we'll get some sort of frozen conflict, that could start up again. But then there are the sort of other potential flash points that I focus on or I have focused on.
One is the Arctic, two is the Baltic Sea, three is Belarus, four is Kaliningrad, five is Moldova, and six is the Black Sea. But you know if you think about it we're talking about not the Baltic or Kaliningrad, we're talking about the Baltic states themselves and potential trouble in the Baltic states. So you could add that as a seventh category. But all of this just goes to show that the potential for really big trouble in Europe moving forward is really enormous. And I would argue that you and I like to say that there's no real Russian threat there and that the Germans and the Europeans in general, especially the West Europeans are hyping the threat.
This is classic threat inflation. But if the Russians were to go into one of the Baltic states with military force or into Kaliningrad, there was a fight over Kaliningrad or something in the Baltic Sea. This would really give the Europeans cause to think that the Russians are coming, this is the second coming of the Soviet Union and that would just make a bad situation worse. Anyway, all of this is just to say you can tell all sorts of stories about how a conflict down the road just takes the present situation, which is very bad, and makes it even worse.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, if someone would have asked me a few years ago or only last year if a Russian attack on Estonia is likely or the Baltic States, I would say, you know, it's it's crazy talk, but there is the security dilemma. Now I'm not so sure anymore because Yeah. After all that Estonia, for example, been doing, you know, having its geographical position there as well on the Baltic Coastline, I think it's quite it's become increasingly likely, I think, that the Russians will do something in retaliation. I it's probably gonna be more something something where they can have some plausible deniability, but overall, I I think we're moving in that direction.
But but that goes back to the whole idea, what what is the security? Because Europeans are recognizing that things are all these flash points we're talking about. But their their their well, their assumption, their the cause of this conflict is, well, it's the Russians wanting to restore empire. So, okay, we can have security, but then we have to defeat the Russians. I think it's just the wrong we which would trigger a security dilemma.
We need to to bring it down. I think this is the problem. Anyways, I think we ran out of time. Do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up?
Speaker 1: I just make one final point. It's kind of a big point, but it's just worth throwing out on the table when we're talk while we're talking about the big picture here. And just to segue away from Europe back to The Middle East, If you look at the Israel Iran conflict, in recent times I've focused on trying to think about how you could settle that conflict, and I focus mainly on Iran and Israel. But what I've come to realize over the past week or so is that that's not the right way to think about it because it's not just Iran and Israel that you have to deal with if you wanna come up with a settlement. It's also Hezbollah and Hamas.
I think the Houthis are much less of a problem, but Hamas and Hezbollah are inextricably linked with Iran. And of course, for Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas, especially Hamas, matter enormously. So if you're going to work out some sort of modus vivendi between Israel and Iran, you have to include Hezbollah and Hamas in the equation. And how do you do that? I don't know.
So it just goes to show that these conflicts that we're talking about, you know, whether you're talking about the Russians and the Ukrainians in Europe or whether you're talking about the Israelis and the Iranians in the Middle East, multidimensional. Right? It's not just those two players who matter. They have all sorts of interests and they're linked to all sorts of other flashpoints in ways that make it very difficult to think about how you shut down the conflict either in Europe or in The Middle East.
Speaker 0: I agree. And, yeah, thanks for bringing back to the original point across the Middle East because I think this can be well, can spin out of control. You know, often people assume that the alliances are also written in stone, but a lot of the countries which have been hostile to Iran, be it Saudi Arabia and maybe lesser extent Turkey, you know, if Iran would weaken, they you know, their position would change as well. The Saudis aren't quite comfortable with Israel's territorial ambitions. The the Turkey is also very aware of the hostility of Israel towards Turkey.
So Yes. If you lose your Iranian boogeyman, then suddenly you're next on the chopping block perhaps. So there's a you know, you don't necessarily wanna defeat your enemies. So I think that, yeah, instead of having this zero sum thinking, there might be countries in the region who wants to find a new equilibrium, something that puts a check on the Iranians, but also on the Israelis. So, essentially, move away from this hegemonic vision where of, you know, US global primacy or Israeli regional primacy.
I think this is yeah. I think the alliances can switch more, that the stability we see in the alliance systems throughout the Cold War probably is something of the past. But, again, anything can happen now, as he has said.
Speaker 1: It is a plastic moment as we were saying before, and it it it is hard to predict exactly where this train is headed. But you can what's so depressing, Glenn, is that we can tell just, you know, one horror story after another. I mean, you know, cooler heads will prevail and we won't have any really disastrous conflicts down the road. But it's gonna take a lot of luck and a lot of smart policy making and a lot of diplomacy to avoid trouble moving forward.
Speaker 0: Well, I'm not looking towards our political leadership, least with great confidence. Maybe new people will come in. Anyways, John, thank you so much for taking the time. I know you have a big day there in Chicago, so I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: My pleasure, Glenn, as always.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Jeffrey Sachs: Trump's Defeat in Iran & Decline of the U.S. Empire https://youtu.be/8lRC8r8Qzk4 https://t.co/HD0L1FaIY9
Video Transcript AI Summary
Jeffrey Sachs argues that we are witnessing the limits of Western power, including the limits of U.S. power, and that this is part of a long-term trend toward the waning dominance of the Western world as Asia rises. He frames the broader arc as follows:
- After World War II, Europe lost its colonies and the United States emerged to replace European empires, competing with the Soviet Union as the two major imperial powers. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States appeared to be the sole superpower, leading to an era some called the unipolar moment. Sachs contends this moment was largely an illusion economically: for about a century and a half leading up to 1950, the West dominated, but the long-term trend was the narrowing of the gap between the West and Asia.
- From the end of World War II onward, Asia began a sustained process of catching up in literacy, education, infrastructure, and industrialization. While Western economic and military dominance remained evident, Asia’s rise gradually altered the balance of power. By the 1990s and into the 2000s, Asia’s relative power had grown substantially, with China emerging as a major economic and technological force.
- The “unipolar moment” faded as reality: Asia has been rising since the mid-20th century, and the post-1991 euphoria in the United States about unipolarity was economically questionable. Sachs notes that even at the height of U.S. power, the U.S. could not defeat Vietnam or sustain European empires, and that China’s rise began well before 2010, becoming evident in manufacturing and heavy industry led by China.
- He highlights the Ukraine war as another demonstration of the limits of American expansion and NATO’s enlargement, arguing that the war marks the end of NATO enlargement and challenges the notion that the U.S. could redraw power on Eurasia at will. He recalls Zbigniew Brzezinski’s idea of U.S. dominance over Eurasia and argues that Putin’s stance showed that such dominance would not be realized.
- Sachs emphasizes that technology and economic growth diffuse over time, making monopolies unsustainable. He cites historical examples: Britain’s early industrial edge, Germany and the United States catching up, and even the limited lasting power of nuclear monopoly due to espionage and scientific advances. He argues that “choke points” are a recurring meme that eventually fail to prevent rising challengers.
- He discusses realist theories: offensive realism (John Mearsheimer) arguing that great powers cannot find stable balance and constantly seek advantage, versus defensive realism (and Kissinger’s Concert of Europe-inspired view) suggesting some stability through negotiation and norms. He notes that U.S. strategists often view China and Russia as destabilizing and dangerous, though he himself advocates cooperative accommodation with China, avoiding confrontations over red lines and arms sales to Taiwan.
- Sachs connects these ideas to ideology, noting that dominant powers often rationalize dominance through imperialist or civilizing ideologies. He references Robert Kagan’s liberal imperialism concept and traces it back to European imperial thought, suggesting that Western mentalities persist even as formal empires fade. He argues that imperial mindsets continue in Britain and the United States, with imperial ideologies shaping how power is exercised and justified.
In sum, Sachs frames the current era as a gradual but undeniable shift away from Western, particularly American, dominance toward a more multipolar order led by Asia, with the Ukraine war and Iran as illustrating events showing the limits of unipolarity and the enduring, complex dynamics of great-power competition.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. Today is Friday, 04/24/2026, and we are joined by professor Jeffrey Sachs. Thank you for coming on. I'm yeah. I've been wanting to speak with you about this, what appears to be the, yeah, the decline at least of the hegemonic era after the Cold War.
Because after the Cold War, we really saw that the image of The US as being all powerful was very important to shape the international system. That is, states linked their security to The United States as they tended to monopolize the security, and other sorry, other adversaries tried to keep a very low profile, not to provoke The US. But as we know, hegemons become overstretched and exhaust themselves, and it seems this is what Trump wanted to reverse. But with the Iran war, it seems instead it exposed even more so the limits of US power. I was just wondering how how do you see this, or how do you assess the, I guess, the longer term relevance of the Iran war?
Speaker 1: Certainly, we're seeing, the limits of US power. No doubt. I think what we're seeing is is a long term trend. A long term trend actually that is a decline of Western hegemony or an end of Western hegemony, which one can date already back to the end of World War two when most of Europe lost its colonies around the world. The United States, in a way, replaced the European empires to become an American empire.
It competed with the Soviet Union as the two major imperial powers, but The US was within that competition in some way always dominant economically and technologically. That was a very frightening time because these were two nuclear superpowers that were at each other's throats often at least in proxy wars. When the Soviet Union dissolved or disintegrated in 1991, it looked to The US leadership and to much of the world that The US was the sole superpower and was completely dominant. But I would say the long term trend that had led to the decline overall of Western power after World War two was continuing. What happened at the end of World War two with the end of the European imperial age was that the rest of the world and especially in Asia was given new space for catching up technologically, catching up in terms of education levels, literacy, urbanization, industrialization.
And so all the way back from the end of World War two on, there was a narrowing of the gap between the industrialized West, which broadly speaking was Europe and The United States, and the countries of Asia, and at least some partial economic development success stories in other parts of the world as well. So the way I view it is that for around a hundred fifty years, roughly speaking, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the end of World War two, the Western world and especially Europe dominated the world. That really was a Western hegemony. Basically, Britain in the lead of that, but a number of powerful European countries with imperial possessions around the world. After World War two, the gap between the West and the rest narrowed.
Within the West, The US was clearly the dominant power, but underneath the surface was the year by year economic progress of much of Asia. And that means that on a long term trend, not on a year to year trend, but on a long term trend, the dominance of the Western world was bound to diminish. But I would say two things hid that. The dominance of The US and Soviet Union made it look like it was really a two empire affair battling with each other, and it was easy to take one's eyes off of the rise of Korea or the rise of Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, the so called Asian Tigers, or even the rise of China economically, began in the late nineteen seventies. So it looked like it was two powers battling each other when more fundamental change was underway.
And I keep coming back to Asia as central to this because Asia's home to 60% of the world population and has always been the center of gravity of world population and of the world economy for two millennia or more. And so what was happening was that Asia was slowly coming back from a century and a half of European imperial rule. But that was beneath the surface. It was gradual. It was year to year.
And it looked like The United States and the Soviet Union were duking it out so that when the Soviet Union ended in December 1991, there was one superpower remaining. The end of history was declared. The United States looked like the sole superpower. It was the unipolar moment. US was the indispensable country.
Every superlative one could imagine was given. The neoconservatives in The United States believed their own headlines. And the portrayal that the fundamental change in the world was US dominance became the meme. But I would say the from an economic point of view, the fundamental story was the year by year, step by step narrowing of the gap between the West, again meaning Europe and The US, and Asia. And the rise of Asia was the real story in terms of relative power.
Now one could add a few points that even in the heyday of US power, The US could not defeat Vietnam. The US could not overcome the anti colonial wars and anti colonial sentiments. The US could not keep European empires intact or replace them with the American empires in much of Asia, though The US influence in postwar Japan and Korea was nearly total, we we can say. But all of this means that from my point of view, the unipolar moment after 1991 was an illusion to an important extent. If you were looking at this as an economist as I was during that period, I was rather routinely saying that Asia is rising and that this is creating a different kind of world.
If you were in geopolitics, power projection, and military, it didn't necessarily look like that. And what's interesting, I think, and I think it would be fun to actually go back to look at what the strategists were saying about China back in 1991 and 1992 when the unipolar moment was projected. My memory, which may be wrong, is that they weren't saying much about China, That China was not viewed as a likely important actor. It was a poor country that assembled goods for US markets. It would be good if it rose in power perhaps because it would continue to check Russian influence.
But I don't think that China was viewed as a strategic issue by The United States until after the start of the twenty first century and really until around 2010 when Obama started talking famously about the Asia pivot or the China pivot. So all of this is to say, Glenn, that the broadest trend of all in the world scene, in my view, is that from 1800 to 1950, roughly speaking, the Western world led by the European empires and within Europe by Britain dominated the world. They industrialized. They had the vast preponderance of military power. They had the vast preponderance of technology.
The overwhelming leadership in science. Whether that balance was in Europe or The United States already began to shift by the beginning of the twentieth century, but decisively shift shifted at the end of World War two. But taking the West as a whole, that dominance of the West peaked around 1950. And while there was no well, I'd say the the headline was European empire is over, India independent, People's Republic Of China declared, and so forth. Those political headlines started a deep economic process that we loosely call catching up.
It's not an adequate phrase, but at least for the first fifty years of the period from 1950 to 2000, it's not a bad phrase to think that what was happening in Asia was catching up in the sense of literacy for the first time, mass public education for the first time, basic infrastructure being built that had not really been built during the European imperial heyday. Catching up no longer is the right phrase because China's clearly in the lead technologically in a lot of areas now, and The United States is by far not the hegemon or the sole superpower in the world. On most criteria, economically and technologically, China is at least the peer of The United States. But I would say in manufacturing almost across the board and in heavy industry almost across the board, China's way ahead of The United States right now. So in this sense, the idea that American hegemony is coming to an end, I would say that has been true gradually for decades.
I would say that the post 1991 euphoria in The United States about the unipolar world, and it really was euphoria. I was around to see it, to see it in the think tanks, to see it in the universities, to see it in Washington, to of course listen to it in the rhetoric of every president and so forth. This was always, in my view, economically ignorant. I was also part of a debate back in the nineteen nineties. Was the rise of Asia real or something that was going to collapse.
And there were articles about the myth of the Asian miracle and so forth. And my view all along was we're seeing a a long term real catching up process. And again, after 2010, a going ahead process in many ways. So I never bought into this unipolar story as being real. And having witnessed the Vietnam War debacle, I always felt that America exaggerated its power.
I would say that the Ukraine war is another demonstration of the clear limits of American unipolarity because basically, the Ukraine war was the end of NATO enlargement and the end of The US putting its pieces on the board wherever it wanted. We can remember that in this unipolar moment, Svyniew Brzezinski basically had the idea that The United States would come to dominate Eurasia, nothing less, and that Ukraine would be the pivot for doing that. And president Putin basically stood up and said, no. Not on, my watch. It's not gonna happen.
And the Ukraine war is essentially a war of the limits of American expansion. So the the limits were already demonstrated. The US thought that it would just blow off Russia financially, economically, by sanctions, or militarily, or through subversion inside with some kind of color revolution or something else. And all of that proved to be a complete illusion as well. So long answer to the question.
Yes. We're seeing the limits of Western power. We're seeing the limits of US power. But my answer is that Western power, which is a relative concept after all, has been waning because of the rise of Asia already since seventy five years, since the middle of the twentieth century, and the unipolar moment was never real. It was always a bit delusional to think that The US was riding supreme.
Now having said all of that, The US clearly still has a lot of power and a lot of influence and a lot of destructive capacity. So this isn't the collapse of US power, but it is definitely the limits of US power.
Speaker 0: It's interest interesting or by comparison though that in the nineteenth century, much of the power politics was seen through the prism of Britain versus the Russian Empire. And then as this rivalry was going on, you saw new powers emerging at the periphery, The US, Germany, Japan. And, yeah, to some extent, this is what twentieth century was as well, The United States versus the Soviet Union. And then but, of course, now in this rivalry, you saw especially ace Asia really emerging at the periphery, and there's still this assumption that the the normal state of things, which is, again, the Western hegemony, that will go back to this somehow. But but but I'm This curious
Speaker 1: is a a basic point that and it's a it's a basic lesson of all of history, is that advantages of any one place are temporary. They could be temporary over the course of centuries or they could be fleeting over the course of decades depending on what you're really looking at. But technology, which is usually the key to giving some kind of advantage, military technology or productive technology. And in the case of the nineteenth century, I put the steam engine as absolutely central to that unique advantage of Europe over the rest of the world. Wasn't the only advantage, but it was very key.
Eventually, ideas, technology, know how diffuse. And so keeping a monopoly of power is almost never possible. You can try to hold trade secrets. You can try to limit the exports of high technology, but reverse engineering, copying success stories, understanding the underlying science and technology. This is a worldwide gift.
And so leaders find competitors because the basis of that leadership was typically some kind of real substantive technological advantage, very often a military advantage that had come, but then one that was quickly copied elsewhere. Of course, the whole nuclear age, it was like that when the atomic bomb was developed at Los Alamos and then dropped as a demonstration by Truman, a demonstration to Stalin by killing massive numbers in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US planners thought that The US would have the atomic monopoly probably for about thirty years. It lasted four years because the Soviets spied, because they had great scientists, because of a lot of things. But monopolies don't last.
The idea that The United States has choke points is a constant meme. You know, it's almost ludicrous, but you go back to the beginning of 2022. The US talked about cutting off Russian banks from SWIFT as the nuclear option. It was gonna bring down the Russian economy. We had the choke points.
We had the definitive hold on power. It basically meant almost nothing in the end. So this is a a constant refrain of history that if if one country takes the lead, which Britain did in industrialization at the late nineteenth century and then especially after the Napoleonic Wars, other countries innovate, catch up, steal good ideas, narrow the gap, and often leapfrog. And that was true of both Britain of Germany and The United States vis a vis Britain in around 1870 onward. And this is but it was kept within the Western family, I would say, broadly speaking for a long time.
It led to many racist ideas that this is a white people's hegemony, that this is a European cultural hegemony, that this is a Christian hegemony. But the idea was that, yes, even as the reach of technology spreads with Germany and The US, it's somehow all within the broader family. It's the Western dominance. One country and one country only joined that by the end of the nineteenth century, and that was Japan. And Japan began its own imperial adventures on the basis of imitating the European empires.
And very cruelly, Japan invaded China multiple times and other parts of Asia in imitation, I would say, of the European empires. But other than Japan, this was a this this was a a western white Christian hegemony over the rest of the world, and it was taken by and large to be a permanent feature. There were glimmers of insight that this was temporary. Napoleon supposedly warned that when China awakes, the world will tremble. And, you know, he supposedly said that in, I think, exile already in the eighteen tens.
But the point is that the natural dominance of the West was assumed. It became very deeply part of the mindset of The US and Europe. After World War two, Europe accepted that The US would carry the lead baton, but still the assumption of Western dominance prevailed. And I'd say it still prevails till today in some mindset change. China is viewed as an absolutely improper intrusion, as something that can be contained, as something that needs to be contained.
How did we let that happen? Our biggest mistake was we let China into WTO is a constant refrain in Washington. We let them develop as if that's the American choice. But that's also part of this delusion that the natural order of things is the western dominance. In any event, I think that's over.
That's the point.
Speaker 0: Well, in in realist theory, though, it's often assumed that states are security maximizers. That is if we're unbalanced, we'll continue to expand. So NATO expansion, Middle East, all of this until we're balanced. Once once we're balanced, then we'll seek a new status quo in order to essentially maximize our own security. And you would think that as NATO expansion came to a grinding halt in Ukraine as NATO has been balanced by Russia or what we see now with The Middle East or what we see with China, you would assume that there would be a diplomatic effort to shift to new status quo.
Do you see it? But I I I don't see it essentially. Instead, if I look at Iran, I think there this this is part of the reason why there can't be a peace because Trump only wants a hegemonic peace. And, you know, we we saw that The US was quite desperate for a ceasefire. They agreed to Iran's format, then walked it all back once, you know, the guns went silent.
And now The US appears to be marching toward all out war against Iran. Is this based on their reluctance to, I mean, find a peace that's not based on dominance, or or what do you think Trump's place?
Speaker 1: This this is a great question, and I think it comes to the very schools of thought of realism. There is the school of thought of our good friend John Mersheimer, offensive realism, which says that you can't really find an equilibrium among the great powers. They're they're always looking for an advantage. They're always annoying each other. And in John's theory, you end up with what his great book is titled, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
John says, no, there really can't be balance of power that's satisfactory. In what is sometimes in in US schools called defensive realism rather than offensive realism, the idea that security is at the center, but you can find a kind of modus vivendi of the great powers and a bit stay out of each other's way and treaties can matter and stabilize things to a bit is the predominant view. I would say Kissinger was somewhere in between the two. Strangely, Kissinger studied the Concert of Europe. This was his great model, the nineteenth century relative stability of the major powers of Europe through a concert of systematic negotiation and basic norms of behavior.
But Kissinger also succumbed to the offensive realism that when the other side is down, take advantage of it. So he was in favor of NATO enlargement in the nineteen nineties even though he knew it would provoke Russian unhappiness. And others argue for that prudence is feasible. I think the I think what one of the things that makes John Mersheimer's work so important is that while I I don't agree with it myself as the the necessary description of international politics, I think it's not a I think let me put it positively. I think it's a very good description of the mindset of American strategists.
So American strategists don't take enough as a basis for stopping. They there there is a problem in The United States, which is if any other major powers are standing, we are threatened is the idea. And so The United States has a and by US, of course, I mean Washington. And by Washington, I mean mainly the security establishment. Has a very hard idea, a very hard time with the idea that Russia is a stable great power.
It has an extremely hard time with the idea that China is a stable great power. It's gonna have a hard time with India being a great power. Because in the American mindset, and I think it is I don't wanna over interpret John Mersheimer's thoughts, but I think he does portray, right, the idea that it's too dangerous just to leave these other powers. You can't really trust them, and you should do what you can to undermine them. So John does generally view China as a threat that we should be doing what we can to contain.
I disagree with that viewpoint, actually, rather deeply because I don't view China as a threat to The United States at all. And so I would like to work on cooperative accommodation in a number of ways and stay out of each other's red lines and stop The United States stopping from arming Taiwan and many other things that I think would make the world a lot safer. But the American mindset is it's a dangerous world out there and we have to push wherever we can. And we have caricatures of that. Our most caricature ish senator who is a warmonger every occasion.
If you want a new war, you trot him out is Lindsey Graham. He's always saying, we need more war. Don't stop. Escalate. Whatever it is, whether it's Ukraine, whether it's Taiwan, whether it's Iran.
And there is a course like that. One theory is they get campaign contributions from military contractors and so they're mouthpieces for them. They're warmongers in other ways. But there's also an idea that America should be the unipolar power and that it should fight its way to do that if necessary. And it should put a stick in the spokes of any other major power to tie that power up in knots and create trouble for it.
And that, to my mind, is an accurate description of American foreign policy making and statecraft, but also a disastrous approach that is unnecessary, destabilizing, and ultimately dangerous for The United States itself, not to speak of all of the rest of the world.
Speaker 0: Well, when there's extreme power disparities, or over the past centuries of Western dominance, it makes often sense for it to generate or be accompanied by ideologies of superiority. So when you address the rise of the rest, as you say, or the rise of China, the reaction one often gets would be, I guess, encapsulated in in work. Like Robert Kagan, he wrote the book, The Jungle America and Our Imperial World, in which, essentially, the answer is the garden, which would be The Us, the civilized Us, would have to go out and trim back the jungle again and civilize it. I mean, this is this is a
Speaker 1: very deep ideology. It goes back centuries. It is it's also very interesting from the point of view of the history of thought. Philosophers, inadvertently, or inadvertently often really are just the scribes of power. And so when countries become powerful, the philosophy arises to underpin that power.
And we had centuries of European ascendance and then a hundred fifty to two hundred years of unchallenged European dominance over the rest of the world. Basically, while Europe lost some battles, it won most of the wars in Africa and in Asia. And a whole ideology developed many variants of it, scientific racism, pseudoscientific racism, I should say, but scientific racism. And and of course, the religious impulse, god's on our side, and many other similar philosophical ideas, the civilizing mission. We have the key to civilization and even the most enlightened subtle impressive thinkers like John Stuart Mill were basically imperialists.
John Stuart Mill worked for the East India Company. He wrote tracts for it and he wrote that it's Britain's mission to bring civilization to backward India. And so it's okay if there's a tutelage period. This is what empire is for. So a lot of ideology developed and it goes away very, very slowly.
You look at British and French behavior, while they don't have empires anymore, they absolutely have imperial mentalities and often even more naive and militaristic than than The United States, which actually has an empire. But British british Russophobia and Britain's drum beats of war against Russia in Ukraine is they're even louder than in The United States and cruder and more simple minded, but they come from a longer period of empire. The the idea that the British dominance is natural, inevitable, that Russia was the enemy of British dominance, and if they still continue that battle even though they're an island, not an empire. And it it it it would be humorous if it weren't so dangerous.
Speaker 0: Well, in the nineteenth century, John Stuart Mill advocated for a liberal empire. Today, we have NATO advocating for liberal hegemony, so there's some consistency in history, though. But
Speaker 1: I say we learned everything we know from the British Empire. Everything America thinks it knows from the British Empire. And and actually the links are very direct. Of course, language, culture, direct education. It's it's all there to to be seen.
And if Bill Clinton was a Rhodes scholar and Rhodes was the great imperialist of Africa, the great in the large at the beginning of the nine twentieth century. Clinton sucked that up at Oxford so that when he became president of The United States in the nineteen nineties, he was filled with American grandiosity that he had somehow learned from the British experience.
Speaker 0: Well, you have a big day there in New York, so I wanna thank you for taking the time to speak
Speaker 1: with us. Anytime.
Speaker 0: Great
Speaker 1: great to be with you. Talk to you soon.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Michael Hudson: Iran War Ignites Global Financial Armageddon https://youtu.be/pPvP9ojKmpY https://t.co/zIydkp5Fv8
Video Transcript AI Summary
Michael Hudson discusses how the Iran war is accelerating a global economic crisis and signaling a struggle over what the world economic order will look like after the current system breaks down. He emphasizes that energy markets are central to the ripple effects, since disruptions affect fertilizer and agricultural inputs, pharmaceuticals, helium for hospital and tech uses, and highly refined fuels for transportation. In India, fertilizer prices are rising; in the U.S., farmers face constraints from higher input costs and the need to borrow to plant, risking profits as crop prices may not compensate the costs. He notes that crop traders may profit more than farmers, and that the wider impact cascades into electronics and manufacturing through electricity-intensive processes like aluminum refining.
The broader point is that energy is the linchpin of the economy; a disruption in energy flows threatens production across sectors, raising unemployment and undermining manufacturing. Hudson argues that the Iran threat, and the possibility that the United States and Israel would destroy Iran’s refining capacity and electricity, would provoke a depression larger than the 1930s because the physical flow of goods would be constrained beyond what debt relief or wartime Keynesianism can fix. To avoid this, he says, the world must restructure how trade, payments, and international reserves work, which would require reform—or replacement—of the United Nations, since U.S. veto power and international-law violations hinder cooperation and the transition away from fossil fuels toward atomic, solar, or wind energy.
He characterizes the current dynamic as an economic mutually assured destruction: Iran resists being crushed by U.S. and Israeli aggression, while the U.S. seeks to maintain dominance by weaponizing energy and finance. He attributes extreme risk to the U.S. political leadership, describing the internal White House tensions and the possibility of a nuclear impulse as driven by political personalities who would gamble with civilization rather than accept a loss of dominance.
Hudson then contrasts Iran’s position with the U.S. and its allies, noting that U.S. military capability is constrained: the United States has burned through missiles and bombers and cannot easily invade Iran on land. Iran, despite punitive actions against its navy and air force, retains a resilient defense and decoupled administrative networks, and it wields moral authority by opposing what it sees as American-dominated, one-sided control of oil, food, and the dollar. He argues that other countries confront a choice: align with a more independent, multipolar order or accept continued pressure from the United States to surrender sovereignty or face economic isolation.
He critiques the Western use of the term liberalism as misapplied, arguing that the term in contemporary discourse often denotes neoliberals who favor deregulation and reduced government, whereas, historically, public control of essential services and strategic sectors—transportation, banking, health care, education—guided growth. He compares China favorably for keeping banking under public direction and maintaining state-led credit for productive investment, arguing that Western economies have shifted toward financialization and rent-seeking, fueling inequality and instability. He posits that open, liberal trade and investment are not genuinely open under U.S. dominance, since the dollar’s supremacy and centralized control enable coercive extraction.
In closing, Hudson emphasizes that the real question is what economy and political system will replace the current liberal order, with attention to why China’s model—combining public banking, subsidized infrastructure, and state-led development—has produced higher productivity and living standards. He calls for a realistic redefinition of democracy and economic policy to prevent further polarization and decline, and for an international framework that supports productive investment and equitable growth rather than financial extractivism.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined today by professor Michael Hudson to discuss the devastating global economic struggle, which is resulting from the Iran war, and also essentially what is becoming then a, you can say, a competition for the economic world order that will follow well, whatever this world order, whenever this world order comes to an end. So thank you as always for coming back on the program.
Speaker 1: It's always nice to be here because the questions you ask are have to do with the how the whole economy throughout the world is evolving.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And there's so much happening all at once, and these are really, again, historical times when we see the economic architecture from the past eighty years falling apart in front of our eyes, and we wanna I'd like to know what what might follow after this and also explain how the different actors behave. And you wrote you published very recently an excellent article with the name yeah. The sorry. There was the title postponing the world's financial winter for how long.
And I would recommend everyone to to read it, and the link is in the description. So I thought a good place to start would be the energy markets because this is obviously a big hit for the world economy. The US war on Iran essentially plunging all these international energy markets into crisis. I was wondering if you see a silver lining for The US in terms of these energy problems.
Speaker 1: Well, energy markets is just about everything. You have fertilizer, for instance, and fertilizer prices, I'm told in India, have already gone way up. Certainly in America, they're going up to such an extent that farmers are saying if they pay for the fertilizer and for the equipment and for all the other inputs whose price is inflated, they're not going to be able to make money on their crops. Well, course, crop prices may go up because all over the world there's going to be a crop shortage without fertilizer, but farmers need to go to a bank and borrow before they can spend for the spring planting and and the summer and that usually entails selling the crop in advance for a guaranteed price. So the big companies that are the crop trading companies are gonna make a big profit, not the farmers.
So they're really, really being screwed. And, of course, they're the ones who are most loyal to Trump and the and the Republicans. So, of course, they can afford to screw the the farmers because they're, they're his base. But pharmaceuticals are also in there. That's made out of all this, fertilizer, pharmaceuticals.
Already the neon, I'm sorry, the helium, has already been stopped and so that interferes with the, hospital scanning machinery as well as cryogenic freezing of computer chips, then you have just the basic energy for transportation, especially the highly refined, airplane fuels that have already led to huge cutbacks in the airlines planned flights for this summer for the tourist season. So energy is really the whole economy and people, you get the sort of simplistic economic analysis say, well, energy is 10 of GDP, so GDP will go down 10%. But that's not very helpful because if, you have all sorts of things that you need to make a profit, product. And if you don't have energy for it, then that means all the other things are not able to be employed either. And you have unemployment and manufacturing industry.
Aluminum has already been cut back because aluminum's really made out of electricity to do the electrolytic refining of the bauxite. Right down the line, the effect will be more than a 10%. And the genius of Iran's political stance is, if you, the rest of the world, do not stop The United States and Israel from destroying us, which is their explicit threat, They're going to blow up all of our bridges. They're going to destroy all of our refining capacity. They'll destroy all of our electricity.
They'll bring about a regime change and reimpose a police state like the Shah had that led us to have the revolution to overthrow him in 1979 to begin with. If you're just gonna sit by and let the let the world ignore all of the body of international law and the laws of war that the United Nations Charter was supposed to do, then, we're not gonna go down alone. We're going to take the other Arab oil producers with us. That's going to cause such a shortage that it's gonna cause an international depression worse than the nineteen thirties. And the reason why it's worse than the great depression is because that was really a financial, depression, but a cutback in energy and the tangible physical flow of goods is part of the production process itself that that cannot be solved by writing down debts, cannot be solved by saying, let's have a war economy and military Keynesianism to pull us out of the depression.
It's much more serious. So in terms of the world economy, it it's all going going to suffer if other countries do not restructure the way in which all of world trade and payments and finance and how countries save their international reserves is all reformed together. And that requires really a reform of the United Nations or even a it's sometimes easier to create a whole new institution, a new United Nations rather than trying to fix something that is so broken by the United States interference and the corruption not only of the veto power that the United States has to prevent the United Nations from doing anything that The United major that the United States doesn't want, but the corruption of the Atomic Energy Authority acting basically as a spy for Israeli terrorism against Iran or for the fact that the United States is driving the United Nations bankrupt by refusing to pay its bills. And the fact that the United States is blocking any kind of international movements to cope with the global warming, and replace fossil fuels, oil, and gas to begin with with either atomic energy or solar energy or wind energy or, alternatives.
So all of the the entire spectrum has to be changed as a system. It's not just, oh, let's just get the oil flowing again. And that's why I don't I don't understand why the stock markets are saying, well, maybe there can be a a happy medium and everybody can, make a there'll be a position in between global depression and total surrender of Iran and total control shift of international control of the oil trade to The United States to weaponize it to become, basically the world dictator and do to the world what threatens to be the result of destroying OPEC trade today. That's that's the choice, and this choice is seems to be unthinkable as far as the large investments, investors behind the stock and bond markets are concerned.
Speaker 0: What you're describing though is an economic, mutually assured destruction. That is, and I and I can see why, yeah. I think you used that word as well, by the way, in your article, but I can see why Iran is is is is doing this because and no one came to its aid, essentially. That is when The US and Israel attacked in this way, in a very savage way as well, destroying infrastructure, targeting nuclear reactors, talking about killing an entire civilization. Know, what I saw in European papers were, well, now the, you know, the Iranians will have time for will have the opportunity to have freedom now that we you know, now that they have been liberated from, you know, the the dictatorship.
And, essentially, every article, especially in the beginning, seemed to be about how to legitimize this. No one's talking about the international law or pulling back. So, again, if it's only them gonna be destroyed, again, destruction of their civilization, yeah, of course, they wanna push back in this way. But, yeah, it's it does appear to be something that seems like a mutually assured destruction. But if The US you know, it doesn't want the I guess, doesn't want the international economic system to completely melt down, but it doesn't wanna give up its dominance either.
So where do you see this going? Is it
Speaker 1: It would rather crash the whole economy, the world economy, and itself than give up its dominance. It's willing to crash everything. And then you have the personality. Trump wants to be famous. And how, how can you be more famous than ending ending civilization and pushing and taking a thousand years to rebuild it from atomic war?
He will go down as the person that ended the whole, a whole historical epoch of civilization. He he has a motivation for blowing up the world and he's appointed Hegseth is his is the head of the war department who is a Jesus freak who believes that, well, if you end civilization, Jesus will come and he'll save the Christians and send them all to heaven and everyone else to hell. You have crazy people in charge. And so it's not a this is not a situation that you can handle according to all the rational models. It's an irrational model, as you've seen by all of the newspaper reports of the fights that are occurring within the Situation Room of the White House when there are the generals are simply refusing to give Trump the code for the atom bomb because he would they said he would have used it last Saturday.
That's how crazy it is.
Speaker 0: You know, it's, it's just it's incredible that that it's actually gone, to this, distance or length, especially for someone, you know, like Trump was gonna bring Iran who ran on bringing back normality or ending the forever wars. And about the religious dynamic of this, I mean, it's it's quite strange. On on one hand, you see them being overly religious in the way they justify war and try to mobilize, the military and the public, except for when the pope criticizes war, then suddenly there's zero respect for religious authority. I mean, it's it's it's quite extraordinary. It doesn't seem very genuine, to be honest.
But but what do you make of the Iranian defense here, though? Because, again, they're faced with an existential threat. They wanna take down their their their opponents. How how do you see their their ability to withstand all of this? The Economically, this.
Speaker 1: Let's compare the, Iranian and The US ability. The US is, essentially used up most of its available missiles, its bombs, its, missile launchers, it's cut back its airplanes, it's afraid to move its navy within shooting distance of Iran. So The United States has lost its military power to compel. That's why Trump said, well, the army says I can't involve can't invade on land to grab a Karg Island or to grab the uranium. We tried that and it failed.
So if I can't have a military invasion like we we had in such a nice operation in in Venezuela, and if I can't just bomb them because they have their anti aircraft radars that are going to shoot down our planes and the refuel refuelers and, will lose their aircraft. And it's not gonna knock them out anyway because Iran's defenses and Iran's whole administrative network is so decentralized, then we have only one solution, the atom bomb. That's why he asked on Saturday, give me the atom bomb codes. I don't see why the rest of the world doesn't see, where this is is going to lead Because way back in the nineteen seventies, when I worked with Herman Kahn, the Hudson Institute, it was all about working, out what the sequence of political and military responses would be to an atom bomb, and it pretty much means that everybody's going to need one. And, you'd think I mean, the the joke is that in trying to prevent the fiction, the pretense that Iran was trying to get an atom bomb, now everybody realizes we need an atom bomb.
If we don't have our own atom bomb, Israel can bomb us. Israel is the only country in the world that's permitted to have 200 atom bombs to use against whoever it wants, and we can't. So we need 200 countries. Let's we we all need them too. This is the double standard that's occurred.
And, again, countries are not taking steps to isolate The United States and Israel and say, look. If you're going to go down this route of threatening the atom bomb, if you don't get take control of the world oil trade to weaponize it and use it as a choke point to say, can't get oil unless we succumb to, your foreign policy and give and agree to shift our investment, in our major industries into The United States, as a center that you're going to force us into a depression by cutting us off from oil. If if if you're you're you're offering threatening exactly what, Iran has, anticipated for the threat. So, the the US military doesn't have an ability to do anything to really conquer Iran. All it can do is bomb it.
And the Iranians have, main have, despite what, Trump says, their navy is not destroyed, maybe half of it is. Their aircraft is not destroyed, maybe half as it is. The missile launchers are not destroyed. What were destroyed were the balloons that they bought from China and inflated to look like missile launchers, which were, bombed that, Trump said we've destroyed all of their, missile launchers. So Iran is in a a much stronger military position defensively, and Iran's not an offensive power.
The only countries that Iran can threaten are its, Arab neighbors, in the in in West Asia. It's not going to be a world power in in the sense that America, or China is a military power. It's not going to be an investment power itself because it's been stripped of its foreign means of investment. It's not even going to be a major trade power. What is giving it all the power that it has is the moral power that it's got saying, we we are not going to stand up for letting The United States become the world's dictator and using, oil trade, food trade, the dollar as weapons against other countries, to maintain one-sided exploitative control over them.
We're not going to let that happen, and somebody has to draw the line, and it's Iran that has drawn the line. That's what that's what its moral power is, and other countries really don't have any choice except either to tell Iran, you're right. We have to make a change. We have to stop this, aggression by The United States and Israel to say, we will destroy your economy either militarily or economically if you don't do what we want, or they'll, isolate, themselves from The United States and Israel by going their own way. And essentially, that means isolating The United States, until it ends its military and, financial attempt to weaponize everything that it does in every economic and, social, activity.
Speaker 0: It's interesting that this role fell on the Iranians to essentially check The US on this because you and I spoke have spoken before about how a confident hegemon, that is the British in the nineteenth century or or the Americans in the twentieth century, they when when they're confident, have an interest in having an open, liberal, international economic system. That is everyone should have access to technologies, industries. There should be, you know, free access to international trans transportation corridors by sea or land. There should be free access to currencies, banks, etcetera. But but once the hegemon is in decline, it will seek to will reverse its decline by essentially weaponizing all aspects of economic connectivity.
So all the connectivity, which was previously a source for global growth, is now weaponized to restore the hegemonic power. Now, you know, we we see this being used against China, I think, yeah, to to a large extent, not just tech, energy, transportation corridors, but also increasingly Russia. But Iran, it looks like they yeah. They're the one who put the foot down, and but they they also have some abilities to the Strait Of Hormuz. I think this is quite fascinating because by stripping The US of control of the Strait Of Hormuz, I mean, they they can do a lot of other things.
I see now that they set some conditions. They essentially set up a toll booth now, and they said we have you have to everyone has to pay toll, especially the countries who attacked Iran or sanctioned Iran. They have to pay reparations, so that's an additional bonus on top. And, also, they don't want dollars anymore. This is quite extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Well, they that's not possible they have dollars. They had dollars, and The United States has confiscated them. If you have dollars, you The United States will immediately steal them as they stole Russia's $300,000,000,000. The dollar is unusable by any country that wants its own national sovereignty. I wanna say, you used the word liberal, and this is a completely misused term in general.
The takeoff of the industrial nations, Britain, Germany, The United States, they were not liberal. The word liberal has come really means neoliberal. It means no government. Liberal means Mark Thatcher, Ronald Reagan in today's vocabulary. And it means, you you dis you have to dismantle all government subsidy of the economy, instead of the governments running, natural monopolies such as transportation and communications and, providing free schooling and free health care.
All that was nineteenth century. It wasn't neoliberalism. The word they used was socialism in one form or another or social democracy perhaps. But, they did not use liberalism. They rejected the whole idea of free trade in order for governments to shape the markets to so as to prevent rent seeking, shape the markets to prevent real estate prices from going up by taxing away land rent, to prevent monopolies from taking place either by things like the antitrust act of the Sherman antitrust act of 1890 in America and Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting.
Or the but better yet, the government will take all of these natural monopolies into public hands as was done the case from Europe to The United States. United States with the Erie Canal and on. So as to and there was a whole doctrine of looking at government capital formation. Public infrastructure investment was a a factor of production. But unlike industrial capital or capitalist capital, private sector capital and industry capital, the aim of government investment was not to make a profit.
It was to lower it was to provide its basic services for key sectors at subsidized rates or even freely so that you lower the economy's overall cost of doing business. And at the end of all of this, there this this government control was, in finance achieved most clearly in Germany and Central Europe at the end of the nineteenth century where the government and industry, and the banks moved hand in hand to direct the financial system to, provide credit, not to make money financially for financial investors, but to finance capital formation and industry, to build factories largely in the arms producing industries, of course, but to produce actual industry. Well, there was a all of this was what classical political economy was all about. The ideal of the whole political doctrine of industrial capitalism was cap was to minimize economic rent. It was value theory.
That's what Ricardo talked about. John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, they were all talking about how do you keep prices in line with actual cost of production, the value, and get rid of economic rent, which is the excess of market prices overvalue because of the special privileges that, we inherited from medieval European society. The privilege of absentee hereditary land ownership by a landlord aristocracy, the monopolies that were created by international banks in the fourteenth century on to enable kings to have a revenue to carry their war debts, and general banking to provide credit for economic growth. Well, there was a after World War one, all of that plans for how to develop an industrial economy was essentially put aside and finance replaced industry as the focus of gaining wealth and making a fortune, throughout the West. And if you look at today, the most successful economy in terms of growth of production, living standards is China, and what it's done is exactly the same principle that made The United States wealthy and productive and so dominant in the nineteenth century.
It it's kept natural monopolies in the public hand. Transportation is very inexpensive. It's subsidized. Health care, education is subsidized. But most of all, China's kept banking in the in the hands of the government.
So the bank of the People's Bank of China will create credit for actual tangible production. Unfortunately, lot of this has gone into overproduction of real estate, but the idea is you're not going to make loans for financial speculators to borrow money, buy a corporation, and then essentially loot it, with and, leave it, which is what's happening, in the West. Certainly all week long and for instance, in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, there's a discussion to say, well, the major banks and major investment funds that have lent money for private capital formation to take over companies and finance their in the shitification, their downsizing and essentially just looting these companies, were not letting pension funds cash in their holdings unless they take 50%, 80%, lose lose all their money because the whole American economy has become a bubble. So when I talked about what's the effect of the energy stopping before, one of the effects is to bring down this whole highly leveraged financial sector, the whole debt leveraged, buyouts and the debt pyramid, mainly in The United States, as in the depression, The United States was the most highly debt leveraged economy, the whole financial sector will be coming down.
So what what will be destroyed is not only a physical output, it's the whole system of financialization that has led The United States to lag so far behind China, for instance, in countries that, instead of being liberal, say, well, the government has to play a positive role in providing for certain basic needs and to prevent, exploitation. If you don't have a government strong enough to prevent a financial oligarchy from developing, then, you're going to end up like The United States, a failed economy. Or like Germany and most of Western Europe, a failed economy as a result of their neoliberalism. So, I just wanted to be very careful about using that word liberalism. It's a it's a it's an a term against government and against socialism specifically.
That's what caused the whole reaction against industrial capitalism because industrial capitalism itself was evolving into socialism, into a government playing an increasing role in the economy by investing in infrastructure, by preventing monopolies, by taxing away, or preventing land rent and monopoly rent and financial exploitation from occurring. So there there there's a whole ideological superstructure that is gone by the wayside, along with the collapse of, production. Ideology is the last thing to go apparently.
Speaker 0: Yeah. No. That's a good point. Often the word liberal is used because of the openness of the system. But but But it's not open.
No. No. No. I agree. And and and there's nothing else.
Speaker 1: United States says if any if we have open trade, then we can't control it. The United States says there cannot be open trader investment. If we can't grab if, there's if everybody can use the dollar, then we can't grab it all from them and force them to do what we want. Nothing is open. It's a closed system controlled centrally by The United States.
Liberalism is central planning, but it's central planning not by government, but by the financial sector and by the political, military sector. That's a liberalism. You have to realize that central centralized planning, not by the government, not by democracy, but by financial wealth and and the military to protect its dominance.
Speaker 0: No. That's yeah. That's where I was going. I I think the rent seeking rent seeking, not just from the their own public, that is the American public, but also from other countries as well. I think this is why, yeah, the the the assumption of countries who break away from The US led economic system that they would only suffer, but we see, well, like in the Russian case, that they can actually make have have many benefits as well from not, yeah, paying these rents.
But given that this is The US situation, when he was a hegemon, he had, you know, certain privileges in terms of everyone using the dollar, everyone using the banks, everyone using its technologies. How how do you as The US now struggles as a declining hegemon, it seems to be pursuing a very different approach. It's has a very, I guess, extractive approach to to trade. He wants to maximize
Speaker 1: But that's that's
Speaker 0: one of years. If you don't Maybe that's an other story. But who who in who in this situation do do you think wanna invest in The US economy given that it's kind of obvious what they're going for now?
Speaker 1: Well, that's the fantasy of all this. Donald Trump says, well, you know, we we can go one of two ways. Either we Iran you know, we'll attack Iran, to make one last stab to grab its oil, which is how we began. That's nothing to do with Iran wanting an atom bomb. It's nowhere near an atom bomb if America wants its oil.
Or in in that case, will be a world depression. But if there's a world depression, he Trump said, we'll come out ahead. We look at us. We have oil. We have gas.
We we don't need oil oil and gas. Other countries will suffer more and that means we will suffer less than they do and that's what winning is in a shrinking environment, to suffer less than your, opposition. Well, that's his fantasy. But he doesn't realize that, well, the yes. The United States has oil, and gas, but it doesn't have industry.
It doesn't have any means today of being, of producing industrial goods, because it doesn't have an industrial labor force. And even the construction labor force, most of the blue collar work and the dirty work, the low low wage work was being done by immigrants, and Trump has cut that all off. So you no longer have the in immigrant, personal care, restaurants and other things that immigrants do, crop, crop picking that immigrants do, or the blue collar labor working in factories because there aren't any factories now for them to work in. So immigrants have always done, the hard work just like you, is the case in the Arab, Emirates where it's mostly an immigrant population. Same thing in Saudi Arabia.
That's that's how countries recruit the labor force. And the The United States cannot compete industrially or agriculturally with other economies to say, oh, well, we'll export something for you and, for for what you need. You sell sell us what we need, your raw other raw materials, your high, your your whatever it is you produce. Because the the cost of labor is so high in The United States, not because Americans' living standards are high. The the living standards of labor in America have gone down steadily ever since 2008 and really since nineteen eighties or the '19 late nineteen seventy nine was really the key for American labor living standards.
You could afford to buy housing there out of the wages that you had, but especially since Obama's bill out the banks and the junk mortgage fraud that, essentially wiped out a lot of the low income people. And since 2008, all almost all the growth in wealth in America has been, as we've said, to the top wealthiest 10% and its wealth of the finance, insurance, and real estate sector, not the industrial economy at all. So the industrial the American industrial economy has been essentially, dissolved. You had America make it a deal with, Korea and, also with Japan to build affiliates in The United States. And so, Korea said, well, you know, we'd came over here.
We tried to hire American labor. They're not good at construction labor. They're just too, sloppy. We we have to bring our own labor over. Same thing with Taiwan.
They had a multibillion dollar, big, plans to build a computer chip factory, out west. And they found out, well, we have to use our own workers. We can't use American workers for it. They there's essentially, no one wants to be a blue collar worker in The United States, and the only people who do were willing to do the blue collar jobs are now being deported, or under threat of deportation, because they've immigrated and doing a blue collar job is how you get a foothold, in in this country. So, there's this fantasy that somehow if, there is a world depression, America can come out the winner is all of a sudden going to show that America's hollow.
It will be like, like, John McCain called Russia a gas station with atom bombs. Well, that's all that America would be left with under Donald Trump's alternative. To say, okay, we've brought the rest of the world in depression. We have oil and gas, and we have the atom bomb. We don't have any industry, and our agriculture is broke.
So he's turned in he's turned America into a gas station with atom bombs if he goes that route of causing of forcing Iran to defend itself by saying if, we're going to be attacked and destroy our economy, we're going to bring all of the world with us, which is going to force you to make an alternative or just to live in a permanent depression until you figure a way out of it that'll save us along with you. That's that's the political dynamic at work that I see.
Speaker 0: Yeah. This assumption that if the international system breaks down, the global economy somehow, The US will be able to float to the top. It's well, some of it can have some strength in that argument in terms of The US having a lot of energy sovereignty, but their whole similarity one often hears with World War two, it seems a bit, yeah, wrong because, you know, in World War two, there was the the emergence of the big business. There was a lot of technological development, and, overall, after the war was over, The US was the world's factory. It was the world's bank.
These days, it doesn't it outsourced its industries. It's the largest debtor country in the world, in world history. So it's not it's not positioned well as it was back then. So the idea that one can come out strong in a war like this, it doesn't make much sense. But my my my my last question, though, was just on on the partners of of The US.
Because if The US is shifting towards extracting more economic concessions, and you hear that you see this in Europe where, you know, Trump can hand over the Europeans any trade deal they have to sign, whatever. You know, they have to show up at his golf course and sign deal they don't wanna sign. You see some some suggesting that The Gulf States should repay The US for the weapons it has spent in fighting Iran. In East Asia, there's been comments that Taiwan and others should begin to shift their high-tech industries towards The United States. So, again, this very extractive economic, approach, which is now kicking in to reverse the decline.
You know, nobody wants to do this. It appears that the main leverage The US has is that it's a it's the security dependence, The US' security guarantor. But a declining hedge bond often invites insecurity. It doesn't provide security to the same extent as evident in both Europe and and the The Gulf States. So how do you how how durable do you think this is?
Speaker 1: Well, that's just what the Emirates have just said. We we had thought, two things. We thought that when we bought US weapons, they were going to work and the the weapons are only like to have an expensive Rolls Royce in the garage. It looks nice but it's not really the most efficient car. The weapons are not to fight with.
They're not to fight a war with. They're not to attack. They're not to defend. They're just to hold on the ground and to make America happy. The weapons don't work and having a base here, has ended up a threat.
When America attacked Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Arab countries said, well, we weren't consulted. And the European consult countries said, wait a minute. Donald Trump wants now us to die to the last year European was, trying to have a land invasion of Cark Island and Iran, so we'll die when America's not willing to do. The fact is that, America's acting unilaterally by itself in its own interest, and so having a US military base there is, essentially putting yourself as a bull's eye for Iran and, similar all over the world, to, to destroy because The United States military bases are there is a means of attack. They're not defensive.
They're aggressive. And if they're aggressive against any enemy, the enemies the, opponent is going to fight back and wipe it out, and they'll whip out the country that has the military base in it. So obviously, that's not safe. But most of all, I'm glad you mentioned the thought that, Trump has said, well, Iran has to Iraq has to pay us for all the costs that it had for the war we we waged to destroy them, and, we're gonna get pay capture the repayment for that by grabbing its oil. That's he said that explicitly, and so he's grabbed its oil.
And there is obviously, he wants to do the same thing with the Arab OPEC countries. Well, we defended you. Now you have to pay us for the cost of defending you with our military industrial complex of overpriced missiles and aircraft and missile launchers and everything else that didn't have anything like the military effect that we told you it would have. It we're a paper tiger to use Mao's phrase. And, why on earth would any country want an American military base being a military being a paper tiger that's not going to defend it, that just makes it a bull's eye, a target of countries that America is trying to launch a war with as it tries to threaten to destroy them if they don't surrender their sovereignty, to The United States and to Trump personally.
Speaker 0: It seems like a strange time in world history to be banking on US security guarantees. I mean, it's you know, that's it's just it's not in The that The US doesn't have the possibility anymore either. It's I'm I'm so I'm very shocked by when I look around the world how how little adjustment there actually is to the new realities that is this new distribution of power. The assumption that we can still have the hegemonic policies of the nineteen nineties and apply them to 2026 when the distribution of power clearly is now post hegemonic and, yeah, multipolar.
Speaker 1: This security you talk about for seventy, for eighty years now has been a fiction. It's the enabling fiction to say we will provide you for security in case that Russia invades Europe. That's as if Russia is going to invade Europe. Russia has known it's a a fiction to think that Europe needs security against Russia. Russia wants to be left alone by Europe, and it's willing to fight Europe and to bomb Germany and England and France if they try to attack Russia as they're doing or provide Ukraine with missiles to attack Russian oil and refinery production as they're doing.
Russia has already turned its back on Europe and wants to go with the East because Europe is part of a failed civilization. It's going it's going downhill and it's Russia's not only rejecting Europe economically but its social values and its rotten political system. A system that says, if you say that you're against a genocide, we're throwing you in jail. This is a democracy. We're in charge and, you cannot in a democracy say, oh, we're against we're the Palestinians shouldn't be exterminated.
That's against civilization. You go to jail. Germany said that, Britain said that, and France has said that, and they're arresting people to say that. I mean, this is a despicable culture for the rest of of the world, and they're seeing the whole nakedness of, the the the fact that Europe is not a democracy at all and that all of this say saying, we're here to protect you. You have to pay us to protect you is really just you have to pay us to be able to put in place a military system to threaten you with disruption if you don't do what we want and, follow trade policies that are unequal and benefit us, not you.
America has to win as Donald Trump says, and you have to use the dollar that we can just print to get buy up your industry, your raw materials, and other things. You have to pay the debts that are you run up from running trade deficits as a result of following the the pro American investment policies that the World Bank and the IMF produced that say don't produce your own food, buy buy American. The whole system that was supposed pretended to be keeping the world economy prosperous and free turned out to be making it more and more unequal, more and more polarized, less and less safe, and more or less prone to leading to exactly the culmination of this, irrepressible conflict that we're seeing today?
Speaker 0: Yeah. I was I was interviewed two days ago by a German newspaper, and and, you know, I was making the point that if Europe wants to reverse its decline, it has to end the dividing lines in Europe. That is end the conflict with Russia, you know, remove Ukraine from the front lines of of this new war. And and I was asked, well, to what extent is possible because our values are so different, because we have liberal democracy and the Russians are so authoritarian. I was like, this is the same Germany.
I mean, where where again, where you protest against the genocide and they throw you in jail. I it's it's no. It's quite extraordinary that this is still the the very narrow framework we have to interpret the world around us that is simply, you know, good guys versus bad guys. Anyways, any final thoughts before we wrap up?
Speaker 1: Well, the whole question is what is democracy? What seems to be democracy, in the West is exactly what it was in, Aristotle's day in Greece. He said what claims to be democracy is really oligarchy. But you can let people vote for who is going to be the personal leaders and the administrators, but you cannot vote for what kind of an economy are we going to have, what kind of a society we have. All of that is determined by the wealthiest, oligarchic parts of the population.
The the whole purpose of democracy is supposed to be how do you run an economy to prevent it from polarizing and to act on behalf of the population at large, increasing its, living standards and its productivity and its happiness. That can only be done with a strong enough government, in a position to prevent a financial oligarchy from developing and polarizing the economy and dismantling government authority to put the authority in the hands of the creditors and the landowners and the wealth holders. So the whole idea is that the whole ancient Near East, Babylonia, Sumer, they all had rulers who would prevent debts from impoverishing the economy from prevent the land from being forfeited to buyers to centralized landowners who accumulated it all, to prevent the ancient Middle East, West Asia from suffering in the way that Western civilization did from classical Greece to the Roman Empire. And we're still living in the results of that idea of oligarchy creating a government, calling it democracy, and saying government not controlled by the oligarchy is not democratic. When, you and that a country like China whose government is trying to act on behalf of increasing productivity, wealth, and living standards is called, an autocracy.
Well, this is this is the vocabulary of deception that we're, we're living in and that a part of this, resolution of the economic conflict we're having today has to be a resolution of the ideological misuse of language to provide a a more realistic vocabulary to explain why it is that Western economies are polarized and, getting poorer and poorer and other countries, China is not. What is it that China's doing that we're not doing that has enabled it to uplift its population? That, there has to be that discussion, which hasn't even begun yet. It's it's still in the unthinkable phase.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Far away. Well, thank you very much for, yeah, sharing your insights. It's, quite extraordinary what we're seeing. So, yeah.
Thanks again.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for having me, Glenn.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Richard Wolff: Collapse - Iran Is the Graveyard of the U.S. Empire https://youtu.be/XTM0CxB0Mus https://t.co/HSTPsGYM4A
Video Transcript AI Summary
Richard Wolff and Glenn discuss the implications of the Trump–Xi meeting in Beijing for the US economy, the global economy, and the political economy underlying the encounter. Wolff frames it as part of a broader transition in human history: the decline of American “empire” dominance that has existed since at least World War II, and the rise of China. He argues the US is pulled downward by the end of its dominance and that China has outperformed the West in economic growth over the past thirty to forty years, citing China’s GDP growth about three times the US average (about two to two and a half percent annually for the US).
Wolff claims Trump and Xi’s meeting reveals asymmetrical timing. He says one side wants free trade, multilateralism, and open cooperation, while the other side tries to “smash the Chinese down every chance they get,” without success. He also argues China’s approach is distinct: a developmental hybrid combining roughly half of the economy as private capitalist enterprises and the other half as state-owned and state-operated enterprises, all managed by a powerful government supervised by the Communist Party of China. Wolff presents this as “sui generis,” neither the US/Western model nor the Soviet model.
He describes a decades-long contest among “private capitalism,” “state capitalism” (including the Soviet system), and China’s hybrid system, saying the Soviet socialism collapsed, leaving Scandinavian/Western European socialism and a Chinese form of socialism. Wolff asserts China “won” at least at this point because China achieved rapid development from extreme poverty to a highly developed standard of living and strong economic dynamism, in spite of receiving little direct external development help compared with other countries. He says China supervised and regulated the process even as private capitalists played an important role in later decades.
Wolff then argues the strategic logic of the meeting centers on avoiding war. He says China benefits from time on its side and wants to avoid “rocking the boat,” while the US leadership seeks freedom to resuscitate an imperial order and expects Chinese cooperation. He presents Iran as a “microcosm” of this clash: US aims include removing the Iranian regime, replacing it with a US client, and subdividing Iran, while Wolff says China wants Iran left in place so it can manage the Strait of Hormuz as before and remain aligned with Russia and China. He states China is not driven by oil urgency, citing large Chinese oil reserves, and says the US project fails and has cascading consequences.
Wolff extends the argument to propose that the US attempts to revive dominance through energy control (he mentions attacks related to Russia’s energy, Venezuela, Iran, and other oil-related efforts) reflect “empire fantasy.” He argues these actions reveal a broader phenomenon: a decline in US control rather than an ability to impose outcomes. He adds that American public opinion is largely opposed to war, noting that unlike earlier conflicts where patriotic support faded over time with costs and casualties, he says there is already no appetite now, and that domestic economic concerns matter more than grandiose foreign projects. He also references the controversy around a White House “ballroom” as an example of political symbolism amid economic priorities.
In response, Glenn asks about how shifting power should change ideological assumptions about development and about what each side wants from the other. Wolff says China’s position is to resolve problems and prevent explosive issues, potentially including disputes such as Taiwan, while the US cannot hear or accept China’s appeal to avoid warfare and instead wants room to restore the empire. He concludes that major issues are at stake even if reported discussion points seem limited, and he expects further efforts by a “declining empire” to preserve its sense of remaining time.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined again by professor Richard Wolff to discuss the developments in The US economy, the global economy, and also we how we can make sense of the meeting that has just taken place between she and Trump. So thank you. It's great to see you again.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Glenn. I'm very glad to be here.
Speaker 0: So I was wondering what what your main takeaway was from this, yeah, from this meeting in Beijing between the American president and the Chinese because, I I think, of course, Trump wanted to come there from position of strength, but instead, it it does reveal that The US is in a weaker position now. And, again, it's not stable either, not for The US or the world. What do you ex yeah. Again, what what did you see from this from this meeting, and what what what can we expect to come from it?
Speaker 1: Well, I think everything now is coming together, in my mind anyway, to underscore that we are watching a transition moment in human history. It's a transition from the dominance of the American empire, which has been pretty much the case since at least the second World War. That's now over. The American empire is in decline. I would argue that the American economy is being pulled down by that fact also, but whether or not you agree with with that, and that the Chinese are riding the upswing rather like The United States rose, the upswing of its capitalism in the second half of the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century.
And it it it became the dominant one with World War one because all of its potential competitors, including the British, destroyed each other. It is a cautionary tale that if you allow a system to develop the way Western capitalism did, you culminate in a destruction of all by all, a kind of Hobbesian horrible moment, in global history. The United States escaped it because it had the protection of the Atlantic on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. Absent that reality, they would have been caught up as fully in World Wars one and two as all of their potential competitors were in fact destroyed by that. So that empire now, which should have been clearly advertising its temporariness when it happened, in other words, Americans and others should have understood this can't last.
The United States standing and everybody else is is prostrate on the ground. The United States should have known. It didn't. The second half of the twentieth century will go down historically, I think, as a moment of an almost hysterical pro Americanism in which The United States led the way for many around the world to begin to believe that hooking yourself up to The United States was betting on a horse you knew would be the one that won the race, when you should have known that this horse was doing very well, but pretty soon the other horses would catch up. You didn't see it, and you're gonna pay a heavy price for that.
And now the next winner of this game, the Chinese, are showing you that for the last thirty years, or forty maybe, they have outperformed in terms of economic growth the West by a lot, two to three times. The American average rate of growth of GDP, about two, two and a half percent annual, and the Chinese, three times that annual. Okay. I mean, that's then only a matter of time. And if the meeting of Trump and Xi showed anything, it showed that one side knows that it has time on its side and the other one doesn't.
One one side now wants free trade, multilateralism, open everything, nice guy, let's work it out, And the other side is trying to smash the Chinese down every chance they get and is undeterred in that project by the failure of every effort to slow or stop the Chinese. So, I mean, it is glaring. That's one level. Here's the second one. And stop me, Glenn, if I'm talking too long.
Here's the second level. China is a and here I put on my hat as an economics professor. Okay? China is a unique developmental program. That has to be understood.
Whatever the phrase socialism with Chinese characteristics means, and it means different things to different people, it has meant for me watching the following: that they are not capitalist in the way that we normally define The United States, Britain, Western Europe, and all of that. Why? Because the private enterprise is not the nearly universal form of producing and distributing goods and services. On the other hand, China is not the Soviet Union. It is not the government owns and operates all industry and much of agriculture.
No, it is not that. It is determinately neither the one nor the other. Well, then what is it? The answer is it is a hybrid. It is a hybrid because roughly half of its economy is private capitalist enterprises, both Chinese and non Chinese.
And the other half is state owned and operated enterprise, China. And the whole thing is managed by a very powerful government, which in turn is supervised by the Communist Party of China. That is a remarkable structure, not like the Soviet Union, not like The United States or Western Europe. It is sui genera. It's its own thing.
Just like Scandinavia could call itself socialist because of the government programs and so forth, for decades, that's one kind of socialism, The Soviet Union had every right to call itself the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics because of what they did, and the Chinese have every right to define a socialism in yet another form. Why is this important? Because what we have seen, without it being called that, is a contest over the last seventy years between private capitalism, state capitalism, if you allow me, the Soviet Union, and then this bizarre hybrid, or if you like the Soviet Union, another kind of socialism. Nobody has the right to that name. There's no central bureau that decides whether you qualify or not.
So Scandinavian socialism, Soviet socialism, Chinese socialism, and yet others. But what we have seen, whether we want to face it or not, is that they're in a struggle, each of them. In that struggle, in that race, in that competition, the Soviet socialism collapsed. Alright? It left Scandinavian socialism, if you like, or Western European socialism, if you like, or the socialism of Bernie Sanders and folks like that if you like, and Xi Jinping, that kind of socialism in China.
And they have been competing. And now I have to say what my economics teaches me. The Chinese won. At least at this point, they have proved proved that the economic development out of a condition of extreme poverty to a condition of extraordinarily, well developed standard of living and incredible economic dynamism that the Chinese have done it. And I want to remind people, and here's a personal note, when I was getting my PhD here in The United States in economics, the most popular subfield of economics that graduate students like me were attracted to was called economic development.
And it was all about how poor countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and so on could find their way up. And we had the extraordinarily arrogant approach without being aware of it. Our teachers should have been, but we were the students, that we had the monopoly of knowledge on how to do that. And we would be trained, and we would then go off and be UN consultants or development specialists. Many of my colleagues in the graduate school went on to do that, you know, and they became experts in it, which we thought we were.
And The United States helped a lot of countries this way in Asia, Africa, Latin America. As you know, you know, people from Norway and other ones did that also. We didn't go to China because China was communist, So there was no Marshall Plan for China. There was no economic development missions sent by my university or or a governmental none of it. The Chinese got no help, and they did it better than all the countries who did get help.
Wow. What are we saying? We're saying that China won despite being basically on their own. Even the early help they got from the Soviet Union kind of petered out when they came to disagree in the in the nineteen sixties, the the Chinese and the Russians. So the Chinese really did most of this organizing, planning, structuring on their own.
And however you understand the role played by the private capitalists who come, you know, in the last thirty years and who play an important role and have much credit for the growth, two, you can't take away from the Chinese that they supervised the whole thing. They controlled and regulated the whole thing. And so the bottom line is mister Trump goes to China and is confronted by the defeat of the American model and its replacement by the Chinese. If I were an activist economist in Asia, Africa, Latin America, or for that matter Eastern Europe, it's the Chinese model I wanna look at, borrow from, adjust for our circumstances, but they're the they're the great example, not The United States. And that is changing the whole even if there weren't a BRICS alliance, and there is.
And it's interesting that it gets very little attention in India today while the big meeting in China gets all the attention. But in the long run, those bricks are bringing the Chinese everything to the rest of the world. And probably in the long run, that is their historic function. So I think enormous issues are at stake in this meeting, even if the actual things they discussed given what's been reported so far are relatively much less important.
Speaker 0: What's interesting what you point out, though, essentially, well, political economy, I think, has became an ideology. It's conceptually, it can either be more like us or more like them. I think this was cemented in the Cold War as well. That is one side is capitalist, one is communist, one is democratic, the other is authoritarian, and it kind of cemented itself in terms of identities. But, you know, there were some some some conditions around this.
That is, you know, after World War two, The US was a massive economic power. The US was militaristic. I mean, this is just the way it was, but but these are not permanent states because I'm thinking, you know, Alexander Hamilton, he once made the point that if Britain had been a land power in Europe, it would be as authoritarian as the Germans or the Russians. And, you know, for some, they would say the reason makes sense. Well, that it makes sense because, you know, if you're a land power with huge borders, a lot of neighboring countries, you have to have a huge standing army during during peacetime.
And if you have a huge standing army during peacetime, that that army can also be used against your own public. So there's not that much need for having not that much push for reforms that benefits the public, but the whole thing was premised on on The US and Britain, essentially, as de facto island states were more has stronger proclivity towards liberal democracy and freedom of the people. However, what happens if they would militarize? Then, you know, there's not no reason why they should still remain the same. So so over the past decades, when you see the heavy militarization of The United States as well, it I think it will be predictable that some of the freedoms would then begin to melt away.
You can't have this massive military industrial military industrial complex and still assume that the voters will be able to dictate the future of the country. So I guess my my my my point is it seems more now like the the roles have been switched a bit. That is, of course, you that China has its own problems with authoritarianism and all, but but still that, you know, they they essentially pushed a a policy of peace not to disrupt their development. Well, it's The US that has militarized too much, and even the economic model. The the Chinese economic economic model now seems more like the American one in the nineteenth century as opposed to what what America looks like today.
So, again, one doesn't wanna overstate this, but, how do you see you see the the shift in power now between The US and China breaking up some of these ideological assumptions about, you know, what you define more or less as a the assumption of a universal path to development that for China to develop, they have to become more like us when it seems that, you know, they have essentially found a good formula?
Speaker 1: I I I am persuaded at this point given what I've experienced and what I'm looking at with as you are looking at it, I think the Chinese have demonstrated this hybrid state private, enterprise governed by a socialistically self defined governmental and political party apparatus is a very unique construction, but it has delivered the goods. You know? And that is going to be very is already very persuasive around the world as well it should be. We are all groping in the end, how to do things, how to fix problems, how to move into the future. And the Chinese are saying, with all the confidence now that goes with it, we've figured it out.
Maybe there's a better way, but if so, nobody's offering it. What alternative to our development is there out there that can boast what we have achieved? The president of The United States goes home, and in his crazy way, writes in his his little, you know, account there, social, that he wants a ballroom as big in the White House as the lovely, room in which he was entertained by Xi Jinping. It's like a script written by a not so good playwright to have that. It's I would like to have what he has.
Okay. The whole world would like to have the economic growth that China has shown in the last thirty years. Not a single other country can do that. Even India, which wants to be that again, has to show that. It hasn't done that yet.
It's made some progress, but it's China that sits there, and they can be very comfortable. I wanna hammer home also that China achieved this under the umbrella of the American empire. One of the reasons it is in no rush, does not wanna provoke The United States to do anything catastrophic, is because what's the hurry? We we Chinese are doing spectacularly in a world in which the US dollar is the universal currency, in which The United States has 700 military bases around the world. And we have one in Djibouti, you know, it's silly.
They they have no reason to agitate the global situation because they are doing very well within it. You know, if BRICS doesn't develop its own currency, and I I don't mean to be critical of China, but it's because there's no great pressure from China who dominates the BRICS economically speaking. What's the rush? We're all doing pretty well. And if The United States were to decide to opt out and not be an empire, it's not so clear we would have the same smooth sailing.
My guess is in the in in the decision making halls of the Chinese, they are very aware, but I have certainly spoken to enough Chinese intellectuals in my life to know that they understand what I just said. I got it from them. I had to be shaken into an awareness that it's precisely their experience that teaches them, take it easy. Oh, let's work out so we don't get caught in the Thucydides trap here. Let's not replicate that story.
You know, Britain had to fight two wars. I know I've mentioned this to you before, Glenn. Britain had to defy the War of Independence and then the War of eighteen twelve, trying to squash the independence of The United States. They failed to their own surprise. They had a big British army and navy.
The United States didn't have anything or hardly anything, and they lost the British. After two wars, they no more. For the next century and plus, no war, they escaped the Thucydides trap, took them two defeats in two wars. And the Chinese, what is their hope? To be able to achieve the same thing minus the two wars because we can't afford the wars now.
And in The United States, war against China is an assumption of our political leaders here. They simply assume it. It is sort of automatic. Otherwise, they would have to admit that the time and the history and the economics are meaning that the American empire is now over, and that maybe the real issue that we as Americans should engage is the discussion, is the next phase of human history another empire, in this case, the Chinese? Or will we finally be able to have the multinational, multilateral global regime that you saw foreshadowed in the League of Nations after the horror of World War one or the United Nations after the horror of World War two?
Will those horrors help us this time go in a new direction? I noticed the Chinese have discussions about that. We don't have any discussions about that here because the notion that those are our options is so difficult for Americans that they still wanna hold on to denial, to imagining that the American empire is still alive and kicking. So that if you wanted to know why does the leader of this country act the way he acts, I know it's popular to ascribe to him narcissism and mental deficiencies of one kind or another. I don't believe any of that.
I mean, may be true. I don't think it matters. He is playing a role that we are at. If it weren't him doing it, the other one would have done it. By the other one, by the way, could be mister Biden, could be Kamala Harris, or any of the others.
We're gonna take Greenland. We're gonna take Panama. We're gonna make Canada a a fifty first state. We're gonna this is the be the gestural dynamic of someone whose ship is sinking and who has to flail around with imaginary, conquests and expansions because the real ones are not available. The best he can do is snatch mister Maduro and his wife out of their bed at night and put them in a jail here in New York City.
I mean, it is it is a pathetic effort of desperation.
Speaker 0: That's an interesting way of framing it. But well, given that the two sides have this different interest, is China sees that, you know, time is on its side, the long The US holds on to this, you know, exorbitant privilege that is to to rule the international system. The you know, the more it will weaken on its own. So the so China sees, you know, all it has to do is manage essentially the two cities trap. That is, you have The US as this declining, at least relative declining hegemon while China's rising as the challenger.
You know, mother time will essentially take care of this, that the world will shift into multiplarity. So their main objective should be let's not rock the boat. Let's not make sure make sure this doesn't result in any warfare. Again, it's a delicate time in history to manage. While on The US side, you see more the objective being to to restore the empire that is to but I'm not sure if that's I'm wondering if yeah.
No. Probably, they do think that this can still be achieved. But but given that you have these these different views about where the world is heading, how how do you see this essentially producing specific demands in this in this talks? Because well, if you're looking at this meeting between Xi and Trump, what would each side object like, specifically want from the other?
Speaker 1: Well, I think what the my guess is and and I see the logic of your question. My guess is what the Chinese want is what you just said. No rock the boat. Let's try to put a damper. Let's try to resolve our problems.
We if we can agree that it would be better to have the Strait Of Hormuz open than closed, Let's agree. That's what our goals are. You work on your side to try to get us closer to that. We work on our side. What's out of order, and I think the Chinese said that perhaps in relationship to Taiwan, but it covers many more issues, we don't want warfare.
We don't want an issue that is explosive in either because you wanna reconstitute your empire or on our side that we are gonna hasten history in the sense that we're not satisfied with our rate of growth now, we want a bigger one. You know, the kind of logic that lies behind Lebensraum, if you're a, you know, if you remember the German argument, we need a larger space to live, so we need or or the Israeli version of Lebensraum. You know, we're taking Southern Lebanon and that kind of thing. For The United States, I'm afraid, looking at our leadership now and the way they talk, taking them at their word, they cannot hear that message, and they cannot hear that appeal from China. They do not want to work at that level.
What they want is the freedom to try to resuscitate the empire, and they want the Chinese to help them do that, and the Chinese won't. The Chinese will not provoke them. The Chinese will not attack them, but it will not allow them. And let me give you as an example, Iran. What's the issue with Iran?
Well, in the fantasy life of the American leadership, Iran is a problem because, a, we don't control who they sell their oil to. Number two, we don't control who they ally with. And so they ally with, the Houthis and they ally with Hezbollah and they ally with Hamas, and that's a problem for our ally Israel. We don't want them to do that. Then we would like them not to be the ally of Russia and China, which they are.
And so here's what we would like: we would like to get rid of the regime that's doing all these things, replace it with a client of The United States, and subdivide Iran into three or four other countries. If you know your history, you'll know that Iran was much bigger than it is even today once upon a time, and that there are quite a few countries in that part of the world which if you look at their history, they were once part of Greater Persia. So The United States wants to take what it already did with Britain, get rid of parts of Persia and make them the Gulf States and so on, but they wanna go further. So they want to do all of that, and they thought they could. And so they went ahead and they did.
And the Chinese are looking there saying, we can't we can't allow this. And it's not just because of the oil. That's a mistake. China has oil in reserve ever since 2018. They have the largest reserves strategic reserves of oil in the world, significantly more than The United States, which has reserves too, although they're about half used up now or more.
So Russia I mean, China is not in an urgency about the oil, but they don't want a long term disruption. But they don't want any of what this United States wants in Iran. They want Iran to stay there, run the the Strait Of Hormuz the way they did before, be a good ally of Russia and China, blah blah. They they just want leave it alone. That's what they want.
And The United States has its I think that's a microcosm of where we're at. And so the question becomes, where else in the world, once this Iran thing is put to bed and notice, we kind of all know what's gonna happen even if we can't predict the details. The United States cannot move forward on that project. That's over. They don't have the military means.
They don't have the economic, the political, nothing necessary to win the fantasy that they had. So they're gonna have to go find their fantasy somewhere else. For example, in Cuba, they may make a nice theater of erasing the legacy of Fidel Castro and redesigning Cuba so it's the offshore gambling paradise that it was before 1959. Okay. I don't know what China will do then.
China has already hinted it might protect Cuba. That's the big decision. And it's not just about Cuba. It's wherever else The United States decides to make its effort. But the one it just tried in Iran, that didn't work.
That was a mistake. They misunderstood. I don't think they'll learn the lesson. I don't think I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I see in The United States the awareness of what happened even with the defeat, which, by the way, almost all political perspectives other than mister Trump's hard base of support, even the neocon conservatives in the this country led by mister Kagan, for example, have said it's a defeat. I mean, they they get that they blew it.
They will make a scapegoat out of Israel if they have to. They will make a scapegoat out of mister Trump if they have to. But have they learned the lesson, the larger lesson I'm trying to draw here in which China and Iran are important moments? I don't think so. So I expect there will be more efforts of a declining empire to do things that will allow it to believe that it's got a few more years.
Speaker 0: But, in this effort, though, to revive the empire, what would be the strategy? Or how how can this be achieved? Even if it's not achievable, there has to be some battle plan going on. So for example, one gets the impression that well, just looking at some of the activities over the past two years that controlling energy is seen as being a important source. I mean, you see this from the attacks on the Russian energy.
You see it from the, yeah, the the the attack on Venezuela, the attack on Iran. And even now, there seems to be some recognition of some among some European politicians that gas exports might reopen again from Russia to Europe after The United States gets control over that energy infrastructure because, again, this is, you know, this is are the ones who destroyed Nord Stream, and now they want to essentially take over that infrastructure, and and then gas can begin to flow again. But is is this besides the energy aspect, how how else could The United States revive the empire?
Speaker 1: I don't see it any I don't see the energy either. It seems to me the mistake overreaching trying to control Iranian oil has had the utterly unexpected consequence of putting Gulf State oil into question. I I wanna make sure everybody knows. During the height of the war, Benjamin Netanyahu went to The United Arab Emirates during the war trying desperately, and I have this, you know, from The Wall Street Journal and and and, you know, not left wing sources or anything like that, went to The UAE to line up The UAE to join Israel in pursuing the war against Iran. And then the Israelis tried to line up the rest of the Gulf states to join.
And the rest of the Gulf states said, no, absolutely not. We will not do that. Okay. That means that the rest of the Gulf states have discovered, a, that having an American base on your soil is not a protection, but in fact makes you a target of destruction. You can't you can't continue with that.
You can't rely on The United States with that. You can't. And they also see what what China is. They're already selling oil to China, these countries, in many cases. So the the if The United States even understands it not only did not get Iranian oil, it lost the influence it had or a good bit of it on the Gulf States.
They're gonna end up having, you know, The United Arab Emirates. It's not even clear they'll hold on to Saudi Arabia, which you can see is putting its fingers in the air, trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing and and diversifying its partners in the world because it is adjusting to what you and I have been talking about here. If I'm right and if, you know, it's Thucydides' trap, then the whole world, every country, has to rethink how it relates to The United States on the one hand. So that I would argue that this this Iran misadventure is a crucial moment because it is that effort of The United States which not only didn't work but comes at a moment in which the results will cascade. Let me put it another way.
The war in Vietnam, The United States pursued, and then the war in Afghanistan were both lost by The United States, cold stone loss. Right? The war in Vietnam was fought against the Communist Party of North Vietnam under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh. And who runs Vietnam today? That political party.
The enemy of The United States is in charge. That means they won, and we in The United States lost. The war in Afghanistan, the other side, was the Taliban. Who rules Afghanistan today is the Taliban. They won, we lost.
But because the world history hadn't evolved in the way it is now at the time of, nineteen seventies for the Vietnam War and and then much later in Afghanistan, those defeats could not play the role of shaking the consciousness of the world the way this defeat does. It's not that this defeat is larger or smaller. Those those adjectives really don't apply. It's the context that makes the text speak the way it does. So it's the context, which was more on display in the visit of Trump to Xi Jinping.
It's that context that gives us the meaning of the defeat in Iran, and that will survive no matter what mister Trump says that he has a victory because of the regime change, which he tries to use as a euphemism for the assassination of one Ayatollah who is then replaced by another one with the same policy. This is gonna be called the regime change. It's a joke, and it's a joke that doesn't work. And that's the worst joke. The worst joke is the one where the the person telling it expects laughter, and everyone looks at that person because no one got the funny that's involved here.
Speaker 0: I remember on the when the in the early phase of this war against Iran, Lindsey Graham came on the you know, was on the news. He was part of the, you know, the crowd was doing the same talking point. That is going be a short term pain for long term gain, you know, everyone saw those, you know, those talking points being repeated every day. But he was making the point, are we going to make so much money once we're in control of Iran's oil? And the the assumptions they seem to have had in terms of how this war was gonna end up, collapse of Iran, all the all all the oil ending up in the hands of The United States.
I mean, it was it's quite remarkable. I'm not sure how one ends up with those assumption, but but overall, what it achieved instead, as you said, it burnt down the Middle East as a region, including The United States' own allies. And this is being seen by the Europeans, the East Asians, all now questioning to what extent is a good good strategy to make oneself frontline states. But but but this seems to undermine a wider strategy for The United States, a way it could have positioned itself after the rise of China. Because I assumed The United States would try after globalization as a process, you know, of Americanizing the world that as China rose, if they can't defeat the Chinese, then split into, you know, this exclusive geoeconomic block.
So tell the Europeans, you know, you're not trading with China anymore. You're buying our technology and essentially trying to divide the world along these lines. But but but now that seems to be failing as well if, as you said, if this is really the lesson that comes from the war in Iran that the Arab states should not have bet everything on The United States.
Speaker 1: Yes. They shouldn't have, and the Europeans shouldn't have done it either. But that's always the wisdom, you know, of hindsight. That's the wisdom that's imposed on you by what has happened. Let me go back, though, a little bit on that oil.
Lindsey Graham is a is a good person to turn to. He really doesn't know or care or understand much about international affairs, but he's a good spokesperson for the most aggressive we are the empire, the most aggressive nothing has happened to our empire. We are the dominant and becoming more so. And it's important because he's he speaks for, as mister Trump does, a very significant, excuse me, portion of the employer class here in The United States. So, yes, their expressions may be over the top.
They may, exaggerate, but what they're saying is what is believed by an awful lot of people. So it's not an accident that you had the seizure of the oil rich Venezuelan government, then the attempted seizure of the Iranian oil rich Iranian government. And I wanna remind people that there was this bizarre bombing of a little corner of Nigeria between those two events. Nigeria is an oil. What you're seeing there is what you said a moment ago, Glenn, this energy for we can we can become the corner of the world's oil.
That's a kind of empire fantasy. We are gonna become able to control the world, in this case, by controlling its energy, and in the particular case, the oil, because look, we could do this and we can do that. You know, Canada, that's another chunk of oil. Doing stuff in the Arctic Circle, that's another attack on oil. And then maybe our allies, the Europeans, can have a war with Russia, and we can dismember Russia and control its oil.
Then we've got enough to these kinds of fantasies are crazy, but they're crazy in the way you wouldn't be surprised if it's actually the obverse that's happening. It's a decline of their control that is the actual phenomena we're living through, and it has to be offset. You know, in psychology, it's reaction formation. It's it's an attempt in the world of fantasy to compensate, to offset what is actually happening, and then to have your brain focused so you can have a bombing in the middle of Nigeria at a time when that makes to most of the world no sense. You can't tell the world what you're doing, obviously.
So you have to say we're intervening to protect Christians. You know? What? Yes. Christians in Nigeria.
Because anything is is crucial if it can be used to sustain the implant. So for me, and for many like me in The United States, our worry is what The United States will do and what the, quote unquote, allies of The United States will do. I think, for example, that if there is much more European warmongering against Russia, you will you may be surprised, you Europeans, that mister Trump will be backing away from you and be hostile to you more and more, but he doesn't want that. He that's not anymore a priority. When they thought that they could win in Ukraine and it would be the way to break Russia up, that fantasy, that play the game.
But when it became clear to the Americans, this is not gonna happen, And I think they'll do that in Iran too. They don't have a stomach for war, and that's not because of their lack of the fantasy I just described. That that is unfortunately very strong. But they have this problem. The mass of the American people are not in it.
I cannot overemphasize that, Glenn. People should understand, particularly Europeans. This is the first time that from the first day of this war, the majority opinion in The United States was against it. It didn't take months or even years. It did in Vietnam.
It did in Afghanistan. It did in Iraq. But in the early weeks and months and even the early years of those wars, American public opinion did its patriotic song and dance. Only over time when it cost too much money, when too many young men and women came back dead or hurt or wounded, then you began they they understood. This time, there's no stomach for it.
The demand of the American people is that the government help them economically, and they don't see it. So they have no patience now for grandiose. The president is in trouble about the ballroom, the ballroom in the White House. That's a that's a question of a few $100,000,000, which in The United States today is nothing. It's like a coin in your pocket.
If the coin falls out on the ground and and you don't bother to pick it up, it will not change the experience of that day for you. Why are Americans? Because it symbolizes that the money they would like to have spent on their problems is going to something what? So they don't want that. And for sure, if they don't want a a $500,000,000 ballroom, they certainly don't want a $2,000,000 a day war in Iran.
I wanna remind you, most American, my students here in New York City where I still teach, if you give them a map they can't find in Iran, most of my students. It's not part of their universe. They're not interested. No one has ever interested them. It's too far away.
It's it's a murky, very murky. They don't want government money spent on that. They don't. And and that if anything loses the midterm elections to mister Trump and the Republicans in November, that will be the issue.
Speaker 0: Yeah. No. I think this will go down as, well, not to plagiarize, Robert Kagan, but one of the, the greatest strategic defeat for The United States. There's so much going down the drain with this one, though. But again, I tend to look at The US standing in the world, its economy, the empire, but of course, domestically as well.
There's a lot at stake, which is never a good thing though, when this much is at stake. Politicians tend to do desperate things. Anyways, well, thank you very much for coming on and sharing your thoughts on this. It's yeah, it's hard sometimes to follow. The world is spinning very fast now, so thank you for putting some perspective on it.
Speaker 1: And, Glenn, it's my pleasure. And I know I speak for many people, including many of my students who watch your programs, learn a lot from them. It's a very important service, and I I on behalf of all of us, thank you.
Speaker 0: Oh, thanks. Appreciate it.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Trita Parsi: Iran War Marks the End of American Primacy https://youtu.be/7QUx7GjIOBo https://t.co/0VB4hRSi9y
Video Transcript AI Summary
The Quincy Institute’s executive vice president Trita Parsi discusses the risk that the U.S. goes to war with Iran again and how the dynamics of the last round may shape a new one. He says the risk of war has significantly gone up, though it is unclear whether it is above 50%. He argues the Beijing meeting between Trump and Xi delivered very little to the American side, noting that the Chinese statement about wanting the Strait open is described as “vanilla” and not meaningful because it depends on definitions of “open” and Iran’s control versus traffic flow. Parsi contrasts U.S. desires to “regionalize” the mechanism with China’s arrangement to get its ships out.
He links recent increases in hostile rhetoric to a pattern of failures: the blockade of the blockade failing after the blockade itself and war threats failing, suggesting the Trump administration is being pushed toward another escalatory move. He also says Iran is “almost counting on an attack” while negotiations remain far apart on key issues, and he describes U.S. inflexibility in meeting “maximum demands.”
On nuclear and related Chinese positions, Parsi says China’s stance aligns with the NPT and that China and other P5 states seek to preserve privileged status as nuclear weapon states. He contrasts China never saying Iran should not enrich with a hypothetical supportive signal that would have been made by calling for no enrichment.
Discussing what could differ in a second round, Parsi critiques how Trump handled Iran’s “10 plan”: Trump publicly claimed the ceasefire would be based on Iran’s 10 proposal, but once negotiations started, he pursued a different approach. He then outlines U.S. hawks’ pushes for attacking Iran’s power grids and oil installations and even potentially destroying the state. He says assassinations and limited actions have not led to regime collapse, and that what has not been done is going in with ground troops, taking an island, or going after energy infrastructure.
Parsi argues that targeting energy assets would prompt Iranian counter-escalation against GCC oil infrastructure, shifting the crisis from a bottleneck to a production problem that would drive oil prices above $180–$200 for a long time and throw the global economy into recession or depression. He says Trump has threatened these actions but did not carry them out. He adds that Iran expects retaliation at a higher level than before, including targeting the UAE for its role during the war and its increasing strategic partnership with Israel. He claims Iranian targeting could include companies and industries connected to Trump, such as AI and data centers used by Palantir, potentially harming the UAE’s investment as an AI hub.
He also says Iran may close the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, and explore targeting undersea fiber optic cables that handle 99% of internet traffic in GCC states. He compares potential impact to a “second” Strait of Hormuz, noting Iran’s existing reliance on internal networks due to Iran’s internet being cut off.
When asked about Iraq, Parsi says he has not followed it as closely but notes revelations that Israelis may have set up air bases in Iraq with U.S. pressure, and that GCC states and Iraq territories were used in attacks against Iran, whether voluntarily, without full knowledge, or under coercion. He argues this fits a broader view of Iraq becoming weak and unable to resist U.S. demands. He says it is plausible that Iran could use Iraq as a theater for horizontal escalation, though he does not know if it is likely in the first or second round. He says the U.S. underestimated Iranian horizontal escalation and attributes part of the miscalculation to Israeli efforts to depict Iran as weaker than it is.
Parsi further explains Trump’s worldview: he says Iran’s refusal to talk directly with Trump reinforced an American belief that Iran was weak and would not escalate. He argues that Trump expected the war not to last more than four days, though he was mistaken.
On U.S. primacy and multipolarity, Parsi argues that the U.S. did not achieve a military or political win in Iran: the U.S. “lost it,” with Iran establishing escalation dominance and the U.S. begging for a ceasefire. He says global repercussions include fuel shortages and energy crises across Australia and countries in South Asia and East Asia dependent on Persian Gulf oil. He adds that if the U.S. cannot establish escalation dominance in the Persian Gulf and is not willing to pay the price to open the Strait of Hormuz, this undermines questions about U.S. ability to sustain primacy and hegemony.
In diplomacy, he emphasizes that military options are limited and costly, because defending islands and taking control of the straits would require actions and troop presence the U.S. is not willing to sustain. He claims diplomatic options are more promising, arguing Trump may be in a better position than previous presidents because he is willing to put all sanctions on the table and lift primary sanctions, which he says are executive-order based and do not require Congress, unlike secondary sanctions imposed by Congress.
Parsi says sanctions relief beyond the JCPOA matters, and notes that in Iran’s last proposal Iran became open to a “moratorium” framing of not enriching for 12 years, a “remarkable shift.” He says the talks are currently deadlocked over Iran’s 60% stockpile but that both sides have shown some flexibility on other points. He also says Iran needs sanctions relief even more after the war, citing $300,000,000,000 in damages.
Addressing Iran’s trust and the Strait of Hormuz, Parsi says Iran is unlikely to give up control, arguing it can reopen and reclose the strait due to assets along its coastline. He discusses a GCC proposal for an “environmental management fee” that he describes as functioning as a toll. He says any such payment would not compare to the scale of investments Iran could attract if sanctions were lifted.
Finally, Parsi argues that peace depends on shifting rhetoric from zero-sum, hegemonic messaging toward diplomacy-based expectations of mutual concessions. He says Trump’s counterproductive social media rhetoric can disrupt breakthroughs and raises Iranian questions about his discipline and trustworthiness, while also claiming Trump is uniquely capable of making statements that break political taboos, including saying he wants Iran to flourish.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined today by Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, who is an, yeah, award winning author and the wash Washingtonian magazine for five years in a row, named him as one of the top 25 influential voices on foreign policy in Washington DC. So make sure to follow his substack, and I will leave a link in the description. So thank you very much for coming on. It's a great honor to have you on the program.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Glenn. It's my pleasure.
Speaker 0: Well, I I wanted to ask you about the war in Iran because this is something you follow quite closely. And I was well, I guess a good place to start is how likely is it that we're going back to war now? Because from what I what I understood, nothing was really resolved or achieved that with the meeting in Beijing between Trump and Xi. So is this essentially a return to war?
Speaker 1: I think, unfortunately, the risk of war has significantly gone up. I'm not so sure yet whether it is above 50% or not. There is still a bit of a time to be able to find an exit and it's also not clear to me whether some of this rhetoric is part of the theatrics that Trump is putting on in order to pressure the other side and just kinda sharpen the choices. But if we break it down a little bit, you mentioned the Beijing Meeting. I think indeed the Beijing Meeting delivered very little to the American side on this issue.
You may have noticed that they made a big deal out of the fact that the Chinese said that they would also like to see the Strait open, which is a very vanilla statement. It is actually a rather meaningless statement. Every country in the world would like to see the strait open. The question is what are you gonna do about it and what is your definition of open? And the Chinese idea of open is not necessarily that the Iranians do not control it.
It's just that the traffic flows. The Chinese themselves have made an arrangement with the Iranians in which they are getting their ships out, so from their standpoint, it is open. But from The US standpoint, there's been a desire to not necessarily end the mechanism that the Iran is putting in place, but actually regionalize it. So their definitions of open are very different. But the larger point I'm trying to make is that if that is the best they got out of the Chinese, that tells you how little they got out of the Chinese at that meeting.
So now you're in a situation in which for the last forty eight hours, there's been a significant tick up of very hostile language that in and of itself, let's assume that war actually is in the cards, is an indication that the blockade of the blockade was a failure. And the blockade of the blockade was an indication that the war was a failure. And the war was an indication that the threats of war back were a failure. So what you have is a series of escalatory moves that all have proven to be failures and that are only leading the Trump administration towards the next escalatory move. I do think the Iranians are more or less almost counting on an attack taking place because in the negotiations, even though they have moved closer to each other on several different issues, they're still very far apart on a couple of key issues.
And, Trump has shown very little flexibility and seems to be very adamant about certain things that he needs to get his maximum demands on. Now the Iranians are quite ready for that war based on the conversations I've had with them. Happy to go into detail of things that they're planning to do in such an escalation and why the second round of this war would be quite different in some aspects than the first round.
Speaker 0: Yeah. No. That was actually what I want to ask you about as well. But, yeah, regarding this vanilla statement, as you said, from the from the Chinese, I thought this was quite interesting because the open straight, it can mean a lot, and it can mean nothing, as you said. The idea that this signals support for The US military activity, I would say, will be, on the contrary, not because they if The US was able to defeat Iran, destroy it or conquer it, break it up or whatever the victory would look like, it does mean that open access would be a given.
I mean, there's no open access to Venezuela, Cuba. So the the idea that this would be a statement of support for The US, I think, again, people would read into that statement what they would want. It seems a bit the same with nuclear weapons, though, wasn't it as well? Because China said Iran shouldn't get nuclear weapons, but that's what Iran says as well. So it doesn't sound like an anti
Speaker 1: Iranian statement. Not at all. Exactly. And this has been the Chinese position for a very long time and it's the position of every p five states. They're all signatories to the NPT.
They wanna keep their privileged status as nuclear weapon states within a treaty that prevents the others from getting it, so there's no meaning in that at all. If the Chinese had come out and said Iran should not have enrichment, that would be a very different statement, a statement that would be in support of the American position. But the Chinese have never said that. I don't find it likely that they will ever say that. That is simply and I think it's important to understand, the Chinese are looking at Trump and his decisions, and they're recognizing that at least one element of Trump's calculation was that he wanted to go to the Beijing meeting, having taken control over Venezuela's oil, check, and now also taking control of Iran's oil, not checked.
And that in that effort, he has created a massive mess in the region with repercussions for the global economy as a whole, and he has still not managed to get control of that situation, and he has no plan on how to win or how to actually just get out of this. There is no incentives for the Chinese to step in from an instrument of what they see as Trump's failing strategy. So why would they come in at this point and in support of The United States? It makes absolutely zero sense for them. Now if The US had put a reasonable proposal on the table that was based on a genuine compromise that the Chinese believe is viable, and they believe that the Iranians should accept it in order to get out of this situation because the Chinese would like to get stability, of course.
In that scenario, I can see the Chinese coming in and nudging the Iranians towards an agreement, but they're not gonna do it if the proposal on the table is a nonstarter, and then by that, make themselves part of America's failed strategy.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, I I want to, yeah, get back to your your former answer. That is what might be different in the cards this time? Because if if The US goes back to war now, surely they they can't do more of the same because Trump seemed quite desperate to get the ceasefire last time. You know, he said the Iranians begged him, but given that The US accepted the Iranian 10 plan as a point of departure for negotiations, it it sounds more credible, the the they had the position from Tehran, that it was the Americans who are desperate for this.
But what is each side planning to do different this time you think? Will The US just go let the dogs out sorry, loose and they go all out, or how will they run this differently? Will they be less restrained this time?
Speaker 1: Before I go into that, let me just say something about the 10 plan. So, yeah, on Twitter, Trump came out and essentially said that the the ceasefire would be based on Iran's 10 proposal, which he said is workable or we can work with it. Once the negotiations started, Trump pursued a very different approach, however. So he kind of signaled acceptance of Iran's 10 points in order to get the Iranians to agree to a ceasefire, and then it just completely went in a different direction in the negotiations themselves. Now what will happen in the next round?
So from The US side, you're absolutely correct. There's few things that one can imagine that they could do differently that would really break the situation. What you have the hawks in Washington and in Israel push for is attacking Iran's power grids and oil installations and just try to destroy the state altogether. They recognize that the assassination of leaders, even though that's a very significant amount, a 135, has not led to the collapse of the regime or the implosion of the regime, nor is it likely to do so. The one thing they haven't really done is to go in with ground troops, take an island, or go after the energy grid.
Now if they had done that, of course, if we take the energy grid to begin with, this would have led to an Iranian counter escalation that would be even more dangerous for The United States because the Iranians would go after the energy and oil infrastructure of the GCC states. What they've done so far is very limited. What we have at the core of it when it comes to the oil crisis right now is a bottleneck problem. There is tons of oil sitting on tankers in the Persian Gulf waiting to get out. And oil can still be pumped out because the installations themselves are not destroyed.
If, however, The US were to go after Iran's power grid and oil installations and the Iranians were to retaliate against GCC oil installations, then you have a production problem. That means that oil prices are gonna shoot above 180, $200, and they're gonna stay high for a very long time because you have a production problem. It's not just a bottleneck problem. This means that the global economy will be thrown into a recession, perhaps even a depression. And I mean, it will be just simply devastating.
And this is part of the reason why Trump kept on threatening it, but never did it. But for completely insane people like Lindsey Graham, warmongers, you know, I don't know if there's good enough adjectives to describe them, they're pushing for this. They're willing to risk everything, the entire global economy, knowing very well of course that they're gonna destroy Trump's presidency, but they're still pushing for this. Now the Iranians do expect that whatever this may be, whether it's taking an island, going in with some grand troops, or whether it is just a massive bombardment campaign on the same scale or larger than it was before, they themselves will also try to retaliate at a higher level than they did before. This means, in particular, that they will go after The UAE because of the role that The UAE has played during the war in terms of pushing Trump to restart the war, but also because of its increasingly open association and and strategic partnership with Israel.
Within The UAE, the Iranians are likely going to target companies and and industries that are connected to Trump himself, such as AI, data centers that are used by Palantir and all of these different companies that the Iranians involved in the war anyways because of their support for the Pentagon. This could then also lead to a scenario in which UAE's investment as an AI hub actually gets destroyed, which would and this is outside of my field of expertise, have some implication for The US's AI rivalry with China. But it would also mean that they're actually deliberately going after things that are of value to Trump's businesses because of a perception that he doesn't care that much about US interests being compromised, but if his business interests, his business empire's interests are being compromised, that will be more painful for him. And they're looking for targets that would impose that type of a cost. But beyond that, it seems like this time around, they will be closing the Strait Of The Gulf Of Aden and the Red Sea.
And moreover, they're also looking at these undersea fiber optic cables that are handling 99% of all Internet traffic in the GCC states, including billions of dollars of daily transactions. And see that, or they're exploring to see if that could end up becoming like a second straight of hormones for the Iranians, mindful of the fact that the Iran's internet is already cut off and they're relying on an internal intranet that they created several different years ago. So we're talking about massive escalation on both sides. And whatever the implications have been so far for the global economy is likely going to be very little compared to what what is is about to come. Yeah.
Speaker 0: I think that's was one of the most interesting parts of the of the war was how Iran was essentially mirroring the escalation ladder, how they were willing and also capable of going up up the ladder, but that also suggests if the as you said, if The US decides to destroy its energy infrastructure, there's no reason anymore for the Iranians to hold back. So yes. I've heard a lot of signals come out, everything from shutting down the Red Sea, essentially, yeah, destroying some of the Gulf states, not just the energy facility, but desalination plants. They could cut off their Internet. But with the comments that Iraq could play a greater role as well, seizing Kuwait, for example, or just kicking out what remains of Western troops, Do you see this as a likely scenario?
Speaker 1: On the Iraqi side, I I have to say I haven't followed it as closely. And as you know, we have a new government, but there's also these very, very embarrassing revelations of how the Israelis set up one potentially two air bases in Iraq under the guidance of The United States and with The US pressuring the Iraqis to accept it, although the the New York Times story suggests that the Iraqis did not understand that these were Israeli bases. But bottom line is it's there's more and more evidence that most of the GCC states as well as Iraq, their territories were used airspaces were used for these attacks against Iran. Now whether that was to a very large extent something that they did voluntarily, whether that is something that was being done without their full knowledge, or whether they were just simply coerced into it. I mean, one thing we have to remember is that from the standpoint of someone like John Bolton, this is evidence that the Iraq war was a success.
Because it was never about democracy, it was never about human rights, obviously. It was about eliminating Iraq as a geopolitical player on the chessboard and turn it into such a weak state that The United States could force it to agree to all kinds of things such as opening up two bases for the Israelis to use for attacks against Iran. So Iraq has essentially become so weak that he has no ability to push back against these type of things. Now whether the Iraqis would, in the midst of all of this, go after Kuwait, again, I've I've not heard any of that with any credibility, but the fact that Iraq itself could become one of the theaters of the war in a horizontal escalation by the Iranians is a very very plausible scenario. I don't know if it's likely in this first in the second round, but it's definitely plausible.
Because we saw how the Iranians used horizontal escalation to really throw off The United States. The US side did not expect that the Iranians would target all of the GCC states. They really were surprised by that. They were also surprised by the taking of the Strait Of Hormuz even though US Intelligence had already predicted most of these different things. It's just that Trump has now become into a habit of not listening to US intelligence, but instead listening to the Israelis.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I was surprised by Trump's how surprised Trump was, to be honest, because, in the weeks before the war as well, I had done, my podcast interviewed quite a few times, professor Marandi, is quite influential also in the media. He was always making the same point. If if or when The US attacks, the first day we're gonna shut down the Strait Of Moose and attack all their bases. And at least it should have been considered as a I mean, it seemed quite reasonable that they wouldn't allow the opponent to to dictate the the conditions of how this war should be fought.
Speaker 1: Just to explain a little bit why The US side, as well as the Pentagon, really underestimated Iranians is that there was this massive campaign by the Israelis to depict Iran as much weaker than it was. The Israelis recognized that if he need if he wanted to convince Trump to go to war, something that he's unlikely to agree to because he's he doesn't take huge foreign policy risks usually. The only way you could convince him was to by convincing him that it was easy because he's very much in favor of doing easy things. Things that are easy, low risk is his forte. So they really went at trying to depict Iranians as very weak, incapable of doing something, afraid of having a direct confrontation with The US.
Iran's own behavior had also reinforced that. Everything from strategic patience for the last couple of years in which they were taking hit after hit after hit from the Israelis and never really struck back hard until the June twelfth war. Every time they struck back, it was kind of polite, it was kind of aimed at showing that they could, but without escalating. It was actually a deescalatory move in some ways. All of this just reinforced a very strongly held view within the American system that the Iranians simply do not have the guts to face The United States.
Then there's another element that comes to Trump's own psychology. It's it's one of the biggest mistakes in my view that the Iranians committed prior to all of this, which is that they refused to talk to Trump directly. There are numerous opportunities that they could have just engaged with Trump directly, and I personally believe that had they done so, this war could have been averted altogether. And part of the reason why this reinforced Trump's view of Iran as weak is precisely because of Trump's own belief that he is willing to talk to everyone. You saw him coming in as president and said, I'll talk to anyone.
I'll talk to Kim Jong un. I'll talk to the founder of Al Qaeda in Syria, I'll invite him to the White House. And you know, I do all of this because I'm strong. Because I'm strong, I'm willing to talk to everyone. And this is a very significant shift in the American political culture because for years, the very idea of talking to various leaders was taboo.
Trump is a key reason as to why a lot of that has been broken, it was also broken to a certain extent by the Obama administration. But in Trump's world, he is capable of doing this because he is strong. So when the Iranians refuse to speak to him, and they think they're doing it and showing strength, they're refusing to talk to this to this superpower of the world, that's not how Trump sees it. Trump interprets that as weakness because he is talking to everyone because he's strong, if someone else is not willing to talk to Hill, it's because they are weak. So Iran's own conduct also reinforced the American view that Iran is weak, it's incapable, it will never dare to escalate in this horizontal way, it actually doesn't even dare to have a direct confrontation with The US.
That's part of the reason why Trump thought that this war was not gonna last more than four days. Of course, he was completely mistaken, but I think it's important to understand that some of Iran's own behavior had reinforced that view in Trump's mind.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I referred to Trump before as, yeah, the president of low hanging fruit because he does like the easy, low risk, in and out Yeah. Ideally, one day operations. That is, for example, the threats against Panama that and they and then they folded, and then gave him something for nothing, and that was a one day achievement. And same with Venezuela, in and out, some price to show off.
And and if something goes wrong like Yemen, I thought his strength was that he could just say, well, oops, that didn't work, and claim victory and go home nonetheless. It appears the problem with Iran, though, is there is there is no going back to the status quo. There is no claiming victory and going home because as long as Iran has the Strait Of Hormuz, that changes The US position, not just in the region, but, yeah, possibly in the entire world. So and, well, I guess this is something you have argued as well, that is that Iran essentially threatens the, well, as already undermined, the global primacy of The United States. I was wondering if you could, I guess, unpack that argument.
Speaker 1: Sure. So I think when we take a look at some of these important events in the world that have kinda moved us closer and closer into a more accepted and internalized multipolarity, oftentimes, we're looking at the impact and the strategic folly of the Iraq war as a very important inflection point that really moved the world faster towards multipolarity because the manner that it dramatically weakened The United States, destabilized the region, all of these repercussions from the creation of ISIS, etcetera. But when you would take a look at that war and what The US has now done in Iran, I think it's quite striking that, nevertheless, in the Iraq war, The United States was militarily tremendously successful. The entire country was taken in three weeks, and even the political objective of overthrowing Saddam Hussein was achieved. Now, of course, every all the other problems came afterwards because The United States could not stabilize the country, could not control the insurgency, it ended up becoming a ten year occupation, and then of course, you also had a twenty year occupation of Afghanistan.
But in Iran, The United States cannot even point to these things. It did not win this war militarily, in fact, it lost it. It's been a strategic defeat. The Iranians escalated horizontally, established escalation dominance, the United States had to essentially beg for a ceasefire. It got out of the ceasefire, then committed a major mistake, was to impose the blockade of the blockade.
Had it not done so, The US would actually be in a stronger position now, because the ceasefire disproportionately favored The United States. But that favor, the manner in which oil prices were lowering and that gave Trump a rep a reprieve was erased by his own blockade of the blockade, and we see now that we have higher oil prices during the ceasefire than we did during the war. And the ten year yield is now at 4.6% or so, so bond markets are now in a very bad shape as well. All of this during the ceasefire because he nevertheless escalated and made a very contentious one. Had he not, he would have been in a good position because he had achieved the key thing he wanted to do is just get out of this war, whereas the diviners had still not achieved their key objective, which was to get sanctions relief.
But nevertheless, in the Iran situation, you have a situation in which the The US lost the war militarily. It did not achieve its political objective. The repercussions are not just regional, they're global. We're seeing how in Australia you have fuel shortages, how there's energy crisis in India, in Pakistan, in Bangladesh, in Philippines, how countries like South Korea and Japan are in a very dire straits right because so much of their energy is coming from the Persian Gulf and they're not getting any oil right now. So the global economic repercussions are far far greater as well.
But it also then points to another thing which is, if The United States cannot establish escalation dominance in the Persian Gulf, and it cannot actually assert its military domination there because, yes, it could technically open the Strait Of Hormuz, but it's not willing to pay the price for it. Because what we're talking about is the occupation of all of Southern Iran in order to be able to open the Strait Of Hormuz. And that will require more than 500,000 troops, it would take more than a year to amass it, etcetera. And the entire premise of America's military organizing principle has been that it's able to fight two wars in two continents at the same time. But right now, it cannot even win one fight in one continent.
All of this is now putting under question the ability of The United States to assert primacy and hegemony in various corners of the world. And in the past twenty years or so, you've had a scenario in which the American public has turned against American primacy to a very large extent, and you have pressure from the American public against these endless wars, no longer a strong belief that global hegemony provides security to The United States, it's just not cost feasible any longer. But now you may also have a scenario coming from the very states that used to lobby for this global primacy, who benefited from America's security umbrella because this security umbrella has proven itself to neither be reliable nor effective. So if the public is turning against it and the external benefactors of it are also abandoning it, that in and of itself I think will put a new type of a pressure on America's grand strategy of liberal hegemony that we have not seen yet. And it's all coming down to the fact that if you cannot win that war militarily against Iran, then again, really, what is the basis of American primacy?
What is how is The United States going to be able to conduct itself in the South China Sea vis a vis China in case of an invasion of Taiwan or whatever? Bottom line is this is putting a tremendous amount of question marks about the capability of The United States to sustain privacy.
Speaker 0: Well, it seems though at some point, it would make sense for The US to reconsider this strategy altogether because a lot of the conflicts it has now seemingly could be resolved by walking back the objective of global primacy. Well, essentially, because if you look at a lot of the conflicts The US is in at the moment, a lot of it seems unnecessary or could be challenged. So, again, if The US wants to face its threats, they can look at both capabilities and intentions, but the intentions of many of its adversaries have shifted. That is, if you go back to the nineties, the main objective of the Chinese and the Russians were to be as close as to The US possible. Even the Iranians were seeking to improve relations.
But if you look shift to the aspect of capabilities, if they're growing more powerful, this is a threat to global primacy, so they would have to be balanced. But it just seems like The US hasn't been able to take yes as an answer because if they they they could have had very different relations with all these countries, but all of it is premised on the idea that The US would then have to accept them to to, I guess, be peers or, you know, to to to to reside in a multipolar world. But is is this
Speaker 1: And and and I have to say something something very interesting. Again, you know, during the Biden administration, you could not talk about multipolarity in Washington. It had become a dirty word. It had become a Putin talking point, which was bizarre, mindful of the fact that in 2010, Hillary Clinton as secretary of state already cleared that the world was becoming multipolar, but ten years later apparently became a Putin talking point. But one of the first things that secretary of state Marco Rubio said when he came in in February is that he not only said that the world is multipolar, he also said that unipolarity was an aberration, and it was a historical accident.
And this is a very important statement if this is truly what the administration believes. First of all, if it's an aberration, it tends to then suggest that restoring unipolarity should not be an option because you're not gonna try to. It's just not worth the cost of reestablishing an aberration. But also it means that The United States then absolutely needs to get on get serious about adjusting itself to that multipolarity and see what is it that The United States needs to do and its conduct has to change. One of the question marks that was never really addressed is in a multipolar world, how should The United States relationship with the UN and its attitude towards multilateralism perhaps be revised because it may have a far greater need for those type of instruments than it did during its unipolar moment.
None of those things happened. The only thing we saw was that an NSS came out that suggested that The United States should not give up hegemony, it should just give up hegemony globally. It should redefine the parameters of hegemony and just focus on the hemisphere. And that was in and of itself a shift, that document was the strongest language I've ever seen in any American government document denouncing global hegemony. But nevertheless, it seems to have had absolute zero impact on American strategy because he also said that The United States should deprioritize the Middle East or some of the strongest language as to why The US should no longer be that active in the Middle East.
And three months later, The United States starts a war with Iran. So clearly, that document was not instructive in any way, shape, or form for the actual decisions that the president was gonna make.
Speaker 0: Well, that's why I thought that this could be a victory if they go back to this document because the national security strategy of December 2025, it essentially put the Western Hemisphere and East Asia as, well, the the focus. So and then, essentially, then what they would have to deprioritize Europe and the Middle East. Now I'm thinking if The US would then more or less come to an agreement where Iran does hold on to the Strait Of Hormuz, where they essentially recognize that it's an important regional actor, The US could do many things. It could distance itself from the Middle East. It could blame the Europeans for things going south and pull out of Europe as well.
This could be a major motivation to actually do what that security strategy suggested, but but it seems to be quite strong, this impulse just tried to revive revive the empire, which begs the question how serious it was to begin with. But besides leaving the Iranians the Strait Of Hormuz, what what are the other options for The United States diplomatically at this point or militarily for that matter?
Speaker 1: The military options, I I just cannot see them being any good ones. Again, The US could try to take one or two islands. It would come at a huge cost not because it's difficult for The US to take the islands per se, but because at the end of the day, defending the islands is going to cost The US a lot because then suddenly you would have a lot of US troops on those islands and those islands are static and the Iranians would just rain down missiles and drones on them and get a lot of American casualties, something that they have not been able to do on a large scale precisely because of the fact that most US bases were emptied. And most of the US Navy has been keeping itself 3,000 kilometers away from the Iranian shores in order to avoid being struck by any of the missiles. All of that would change.
So you may take an island, you're gonna lose a lot of American soldiers, and eventually you will have to give up that island and you achieve nothing. So again, this is part of the reason why The US never did these things despite the fact that they were threatened, and Trump seems to have seriously considered them. And again, if you want us to open up the Strait Of Hormuz militarily, it's not about just demining the place and taking one or two islands. The entire control of the Straits is coming because of the manner in which the Iranians have put so many assets, military assets throughout its entire coast, 1,500 kilometers, and you would have to essentially invade the country and take control of of the entire Southern Coast of Iran in order to be able to truly open the Strait Of Ramos, and The US is not gonna do that. So military options, I see very limited.
Diplomatic options, there are actually plenty of them. And in many ways, Trump is in a better position to actually strike a deal than previous president, not because he's trustworthy, he clearly is not from the perspective of the audience, not because he knows how to negotiate, that's another point it seems like he's not really achieving because he's dictating more than he is negotiating, but because he actually is willing to put all sanctions on the table as part of a deal and really lift sanctions, particularly primary sanctions. It's important to keep in mind, in the JCPOA, no primary sanctions were lifted. Those are the sanctions that prevent American companies from going into the Iranian market. The sanctions that were lifted, or were not even lifted, they were waived, were secondary sanctions.
These are the sanctions that target European, Russian, Chinese, Indian companies going into the Iranian market. And that was also part of the reason why it was easy for Trump to walk out of the JCPOA afterwards. There were no business interests in The United States that had any stake in the survival of the JCPOA, with the exception of Boeing that was bought that was written into the deal. But Boeing was bought out because the Emiratis made an order of I forgot how many $42,000,000,000 or something like that of airplanes from Boeing as a way of just replacing the Iranian contract. But other than that, there was no pressure.
There was no real cost of pulling out of the JCPOA. If Trump puts primary sanctions on the table or if there's a deal in which that becomes part of it. First of it's important to understand primary sanctions on Iran are primarily through executive orders, which means Trump can lift them himself. He does not need to have to go to Congress to get those sanctions lifted. It's the secondary sanctions that are imposed by congress, which is the flip of the Cuba embargo in which the embargo itself, the primary sanctions there are through congress.
So Trump can do this with the stroke of a pen, and that would have a profound impact on the Iranian economy. It would be much much more effective than the secondary sanctions relief. In fact, in many ways, sanctions will start withering away once the primary sanctions are lifted. So he's willing to put all of these things on the table, but he wants much more on the nuclear front. And the Iranians have offered much more on the nuclear front.
The fact that they are now open to they won't call it a moratorium, that's the American language, of not enriching at all for twelve years is a remarkable shift in the Iranian position. They never agreed to that since 2005, not even for a week of actually stopping enrichment. And part of the reason is precisely what happened between 2003 and 2005. In 2003, the e three negotiated with Iran. They were terrified that George W Bush was gonna start a war with Iran, and they were they knew that as long as Iran was enriching, that risk was there.
They managed to get the Iranians to agree to voluntarily suspend enrichment. And that voluntary suspension was connected to continuation of negotiations for a final deal. But once the Iranians suspended, the Europeans had no incentive of actually concluding a final deal because they had already achieved their main objective, which was to make sure that the Iranians were not suspending. So the Europeans dragged down on the negotiations. And this is then part of the reason why by August 2005, the Iranians announced that they're gonna restart enrichment because they feel that they had been fooled, that this was a trap.
By January, they restart enrichment. By February their file is sent to the UN Security Council, and eventually several UN sanctions are imposed on Iran. So there was a very high cost in their view of agreeing to that suspension because once you broke the suspension, you were heavily punished, perhaps heavier than you would have been had you never suspended enrichment. This is part of the reason why they've been so adamant about not agreeing to this in previous negotiations. But now they have agreed to, at least in their last proposal, for a twelve year moratorium.
They're the way they're framing it is very different. I can't go into the details of that. But that is a significant concession from the Ivanian side. And it's all aimed at being able to get to a deal. So both sides actually have shown some flexibility, but they're also very maximalist in some other variables.
And right now, both sides are very maximalist on the issue of Iran's 60% stockpile. And as long as that is the case, these talks are currently deadlocked over that issue, and we're now even seeing this murmur of a potential return to war. But in many aspects, they've actually made significant progress, and if real sanctions relief is put on the table that goes beyond the JCPA, in many ways, it will be tremendously valuable to the Iranians. They absolutely need sanctions relief. They needed it before the war, But after this war, with $300,000,000,000 in damages, they needed even more.
Speaker 0: But I I was in Iran in May and before the bombing, and I also went to one of the nuclear facilities there, and they were they were they were making the point. I forgot who who we're speaking to, and he was making a point that the the nuclear deal, it had included very intrusive inspections by the IEA, and they essentially didn't trust them because they were handing over information to the Israelis and Americans. At least that's what they claimed, all this appeared to have been correct. But also there was some frustration that, as you suggested, that the American side didn't deliver on the JCPOA. So if they come to an agreement, sanctions relief, one could expect that it would be simply replaced by other sanctions later on.
In contrast, if they can hold on to the Strait Of Hormuz, they would be able to extract by force almost a lot of the things they want. So but but, of course, the sanctions are an important deal. So
Speaker 1: yeah. No. I I think what what you're what you're pointing to is very important because there is a very significant lack of trust. Everyone's seen how easy it is for The US to impose more sanctions. I mean, this is what congress does better than anything else.
And there is a very legitimate concern that, you know, once these sanctions are lifted, they're just replaced by new sanctions that are imposed at a later stage. But I think it's also important to understand, the control of the Strait Of Hormuz, I don't think the Iranians are gonna give that up at all. It's just gonna be what type of an arrangement will there be, and how regionalized will it be. Even if the Iranians open up the strait altogether, they've already proven their ability to reclose it and take control of it again. They're not losing that as part of a deal.
Because again, the reason why they have that control is because of the way that they're using their entire coastline. So it's no longer mining the strait as it was twenty years ago, it's the combination of mining, using drones, using missiles, etcetera. So they're not they're not really losing that ability whatsoever. But also it's important to understand that if there is a mechanism that ensures some sort of a payment system, there is one proposal from one of the GCC states that says that it would not be a toll, but rather it would be an environmental management fee. A fee that is paid to whatever countries are part of the mechanism because of the amount of resources they have to put into managing the environment of the Persian Gulf and the Strait Of Hormuz, given the fact that there is this ridiculous traffic of oil tankers going through it all the time.
At the end of the day, it is a toll. It's a fee, but it's just a different way of framing it that also then prevents it being replicated elsewhere in a manner that could have very problematic implications for other straits. But even if that were to take place in that manner, that money is not going to be able to compete with the amount of investments Iran can attract if sanctions are lifted. Yes. The fees coming in from the state of Ormuz may not be negligible.
It may be in the billions of dollars. It's not unimportant. But the billions and billions of dollars of investments it can get over a course of a long period of time if sanctions are lifted or just simply there there there's no comparison there. So in my view, it would be quite a significant mistake for the Iranians to have managed to get so many chips through this war, but then failing to cash that in by securing a new order in the region, a new uncontested order in the region in which their position exist is accepted, but also sanctions are fully lifted on them. That would be the true victory in my view, to be able to translate that military victory into a new peace that is beneficial to them.
Speaker 0: Oh, that's a good great point. No. I often, I don't hear much optimism about possibility of a peace, but this of course, it it makes a lot of sense. Our concern though is the rhetoric, think, because when I hear from the Trump administration, this insistence that, you know, they're destroyed, they're weak, we kill their leaders, their military, you know, they will they they're desperate for a deal. Whatever we give them, they will take.
If if there's also a possibility to walk this back a little bit and and shift a little bit to because this is a this is a hegemonic rhetoric. That is we the piece is what what we dictate. If we can shift this to a multipolar rhetoric in which we recognize that while the other side have some security concerns, we will meet some of theirs. In the return, they will give some concessions to us, and we'll meet halfway. You know, diplomacy as we used to have before the post Cold War era, yeah, it might be achievable.
So do you have
Speaker 1: to And and if I could just say something on that. I mean, some of the rhetoric that Trump uses is just so counterproductive. And it there's been key moments in the war in which there were actually breakthroughs that were being worked out in the background, and then he comes out with a tweet and he just completely ruins it. So I think in many ways, his social media handle has been his worst enemy during this war, and his lack of discipline of controlling, this has also been noted on the Iranian side that they're looking at his inability of controlling himself on social media, particularly with some of these angry four AM tweets that he has, and they're asking himself if he can't control his own social media, how can he control and be trusted to live up to an agreement? They're just not seeing the type of a discipline.
At the same time, it's also very fascinating that the spectrum of Trump is just complete. He just covers the entire three sixty because he can be absolutely terrible on social media and counterproductive, but he's also a president that doesn't have any inhibitions and can go out and say, I want Iran to be a completely and an amazingly successful country. I want them to flourish. No other American president would ever say something like this. It's very important to remember that.
The idea that you would say, I want Iran to be successful, was a complete political taboo. Even if you wanted to get a deal, even if you wanted to have a win win deal, you would never say something like that because it would seem as being too costly politically in The United States. Trump doesn't seem to have an understanding of the concept of political cost and just says these things. So he is someone who actually could shift towards a narrative or a rhetoric that could be win win and that could pave the way for this. But when he is losing, that's when you see him become as win lose as possible, as zero sum as possible, which ultimately, in my view, was counterproductive to his own objectives.
Speaker 0: Yeah. No. I I thought that was all his always his strength. That is a breaker of narratives almost. That is Mhmm.
Only him could meet with the North Koreans. Only him would be able to break this boycott of diplomacy and talk to the Russians. You know, this is important, the fact that he doesn't Yeah. He doesn't have to conform to to narratives. I remember he was speaking with, I forgot, Sean Hannity on on Fox News, and he was saying, oh, how can you talk to Putin?
He's a bad man. So, hey. We've done some bad stuff too. I mean, no one else could say this, and and and that's important because you do have to It is. Once you demonize your opponent for so long that you're fighting evil, it's very hard to walk this back and
Speaker 1: then Exactly.
Speaker 0: Return to diplomacy. So I think this is his strength. He's, as you say, 4AM tweets, that's probably not his strength. So Yeah. Anyways, thank you so much for, yeah, sharing thoughts.
I I love your articles, and, of course, the responsible statecraft also excellent. So, yes, everyone, please make sure to check out Substack as I do. So thanks again.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
@Glenn_Diesen - Glenn Diesen
Larry Johnson: Defeat in the Iran War Will End the U.S. Empire https://youtu.be/b9gN6iguB1M https://t.co/YCauovqm2b
Video Transcript AI Summary
Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department counterterrorism official, discusses the ceasefire and the possibility of renewed war between the United States and Iran, arguing that U.S. military options are constrained while Iran’s readiness and ability to disrupt regional logistics have increased.
Johnson says the United States has been prepared to launch strikes for about six weeks since the ceasefire declaration around April 15, but that its remaining operational flexibility is limited by Gulf state access. He emphasizes that Saudi Arabia has not allowed U.S. air operations from Saudi territory. He describes an episode in which, after Trump announced “project freedom” to open the Strait of Hormuz, Saudi leadership shut down the ability to conduct air operations from its territory, even after Trump spoke with Mohammed bin Salman. With Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait affected, Johnson leaves Bahrain out due to its size and says it has been “decimated” by Iranian airstrikes. He also links timing to major religious and diplomatic periods, saying that with the Hajj beginning on Sunday and Eid occurring about next Wednesday or Thursday, Saudi Arabia does not want to be positioned as a target during those activities.
He argues that Iran has rearmed faster than U.S. intelligence expected and that Iran can use multilayered air defense and missile capabilities to threaten any entering ships. Johnson highlights a U.S. constraint: U.S. air refueling operations have been largely confined to Iraq airspace, which he says creates additional risk and also forces attacks through narrower routes rather than across wider fronts. He suggests this narrowed channel makes it easier for Iran’s air defense to concentrate. He also cites testimony by Admiral Daryl Caudle, who said the U.S. lacks the capability to open the Strait of Hormuz due to cost and risk, and says Iran’s arsenal can be brought to bear against ships that enter the strait. He further claims the CIA briefings to Congress align more closely with Iran’s increased capabilities since the ceasefire than with Trump administration claims.
Johnson connects this situation to negotiations. He says reported negotiations are taking place in Tehran and Islamabad and that Pakistan has stepped up with backing from China and Russia. He suggests a possible deal may not necessarily involve the United States if Gulf states and Iran agree, potentially including Turkey and possibly Egypt, in a broader security arrangement. He argues that if Gulf states shut down U.S. operations on their territory, the United States would have limited options, including for sustained air campaigns. Johnson also proposes a possible window before the World Cup begins, saying he does not see renewed action before the first two weeks of June, with international pressure expected once the World Cup starts.
On the substance of talks, Johnson portrays Iran’s negotiating positions as: sanctions relief “up front,” return of frozen assets, and continuing to charge ships entering or leaving the Persian Gulf to comply with rules implemented by the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA). He says nuclear issues are being framed by Iran as a “red herring,” and he cites a claim attributed to Moshe Saba Khamenei (the new Ayatollah) that nuclear material is not even on the table. Johnson also asserts Iran has signed the NPT and allowed IAEA inspections, and he describes Iran as having faced persistent attacks including the “murdering of nuclear scientists,” using this to explain why Iran would assert sovereignty rather than comply with demands he says are being made.
In response to a question about how war could happen if the Strait of Hormuz cannot be opened, Johnson reiterates U.S. capability concerns and says Iran’s ability to disrupt logistics remains a central factor. He also argues that markets are reacting in a way he describes as abnormal: over day 84 since the war began and day 22 of a “complete cutoff,” he lists reductions affecting “20% of the world’s oil,” “10% of the world’s access to liquid natural gas,” “35% of the world’s urea,” “30% of the world’s sulfur,” and “44% of the world’s helium.” He claims the U.S. is emptying its strategic reserves and selling them overseas, calling it a “charade,” and says economic effects are likely delayed and could translate into recession or depression, with shortages becoming more apparent later.
Johnson argues that Russia and China are pushing an inclusive Persian Gulf security architecture rather than an alliance system aimed at containing Iran, and he says Iran could be pragmatic and flexible on concessions with Gulf states for ship passage in exchange for broader security guarantees. He suggests the most likely outcome is ongoing negotiations producing partial progress rather than an abrupt halt, especially if Saudi refusal to allow unfettered U.S. air operations continues to limit U.S. sustainment.
Finally, Johnson ties the likelihood of further U.S. strikes to economic constraints, saying he cannot conceive of strikes strengthening the world economy or the U.S. financial position, and that further escalation would have the opposite effect. He also predicts that by around the end of June the United States will suffer greater economic consequences. He ends by saying the economic situation will ultimately determine whether military strikes continue, and that there are real obstacles preventing a straightforward transition back to major attacks, while pressures for renewed action remain.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Welcome back. We are joined again by Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst who, also worked at the US State Department's, office of counterterrorism. And, by the way, who is also an author at Sonar twenty one, and I'm leaving a link in the description. So it's great to see you again, Larry.
Speaker 1: Hey. Thanks, my friend. I I keep watching you too. You know? You're you're you're everywhere.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Good to know. Yeah. I I wanted to ask, about, where because I keep hearing that, Iran and The US will likely go back to war now. And during this ceasefire, which The US really wanted to, I guess, rearm regroup, make itself ready for a potential well, another round of warfare.
But we also learned that from US intelligence services that Iran has rearmed much quicker than they had expected. Mhmm. How how are you assessing this? How how ready are each side now for war?
Speaker 1: Well, The United States has been prepared to launch strikes for, you know, six you know, since since the declaration of the ceasefire. Good lord. Was that back on April 15? So now we're towards the end of, end of May. The problem The United States now has is basically Saudi Arabia and tending to that Qatar and Kuwait.
Leave Bahrain out of it because a, they're so small. B, they've been basically decimated by Iranian airstrikes, and they're not much of a player in terms of oil or gas or anything. They're But the the we saw the Saudi flex its muscles now three weeks ago when after Trump had announced project freedom to open the the Strait Of Hormuz. The Saudis basically said, you're not gonna conduct any air operations from our our territory. Shut them down.
And that was real. Trump got on the phone with Mohammed bin Salman trying to talk him out of it, trying to cajole him, and then the MBS said no. He was firm. So that shut down that military operation. So here's Trump already to go again, and yet it appears the Saudis have not backed away from that prohibition.
And now with, the Hajj starting on Sunday, and then you've got this, you know, influx of two to 3,000,000 Muslims from around the world, the last thing the Saudis want to do is put themselves in a position where they're going to be attacked by Iran. And and the only way they'd be attacked by Iran is if they allowed Saudi territory to be used to launch strikes against Iranian infrastructure and Iranian civilian targets. Because Iran is valid. If that happens, you, you know, Saudi Arabia, you Qatar, you Kuwait, if any of you are involved with facilitating these attacks on us, you're gonna get hit. The UAE, same goes for UAE.
And I I think Iran Saudis have reached a point where they don't wanna go down that path. So with Eid in the way, and then so you got the Hajj on Sunday, Eid is like next Wednesday or Thursday, but you have a number of this entire journey to Mecca. You know, it's an obligation of every Muslim to do that once in their lifetime. And it is, you know, they go through a variety of rituals and activities to commemorate, to sort of re reenact the lives of the prophet Ibrahim and the prophet Muhammad. So, you know, this is it's very important.
And the last thing Saudi's wanna do is get in the middle of a shooting match with Iran, during during this activity. So, you know, that's why I see see this is whatever Trump wants to do. He's now constrained. I I I have heard that The US air refueling operations have been largely are confined to Iraq airspace, which, you know, that creates some additional risk. But without with The United States not able to transit both Saudi Arabia, Essentially, if they can't transit through Saudi Arabia, it really hampers US military capability as well as Israel's.
Basically have to go up through Iraq. And what you know, once you force them into, if you will, a more narrow channel, yeah, it makes it easier for air defense operations. They don't have to be focusing over a 2,000 mile front. They get to focus over a a 200 mile front. Big difference.
So, you've got that underway. There are reported negotiations taking place in both in Tehran and in Islamabad. The Pakistanis have stepped up. They've got a they have sort of a the back full backing of China and Russia to play a lead role in trying to bring about a peace agreement. If nothing else, it may not necessarily involve The United States.
If they get agreement with the Gulf Arabs and Iran, and then Turkiye is also involved, and possibly Egypt, then all of a sudden The United States is irrelevant. If The Gulf Air shut down US military operations in their countries, The United States doesn't have a lot of good options. Certainly doesn't have the air power from aircraft carriers to sustain any kind of campaign to speak of. So this is this is in flux that I I I could make a case that despite the threats, oh, we're gonna restart, we're going to attack. I don't see anything happening until, you know, the one window would maybe be the first two weeks of June before the start of the World Cup.
Because I think once the World Cup is underway, there's gonna be tremendous international pressure against The United States to stop attacking Iran.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I can imagine a lot of the Gulf States being a bit cautious now about joining in on the war against Iran because if, as it appears now to happen, that Iran is coming out victorious, that it is Right. Coming out on top, controlling the Strait Of Hormuz, and The US might be pushed out of the region, it's not a great idea to, yeah, to be on the losing side. So I can imagine a lot of the countries would want to begin to strike a bit of a different well, balance between The US and Iran, essentially adjust to the new realities which are coming. Yeah.
But if we are if if negotiations still, you know, have a chance of succeeding, what's, Like, where where did this stand at the moment? Because the it's it's hard to get good information coming out. I think Trump referred to the Iranian's last proposals or one of the last proposals as garbage. And but but is this about mainly the the where the stock is Iran's right to enrich uranium, and, of course, what should happen to the Strait Of Hormuz? Because, again, on these issues, it doesn't seem like The US have a lot of negotiation power.
But what I was thinking is even if the Iran becomes out, you know, victorious, it still has an interest in The US removing sanctions. So this is kind of the the the great card that The US holds on its hands. Of course, any deal with gradual removal of sanctions, probably, that's all nonsense. That's not gonna happen. So Right.
But but how do you see this? What can be actually achieved in these talks?
Speaker 1: Well, the the the Iranians have not consulted with me about negotiating strategies, but I put myself in their shoes. The the it's no longer acceptable to say, well, with the as you pointed out, gradual relief on sanctions. No. We tried that before with JCPOA. It didn't happen.
We've had repeated broken promises by the West. So going forward, the sanctions come off now up front. That's number one. The frozen assets, those are returned to Iran. That's number two.
And the other non negotiable point is Iran is going to continue to charge ships that want to enter the Persian Gulf or leave the Persian Gulf. They're gonna have to abide by the new rules that the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, the PGSA, is now implementing. And in fact, yesterday, 36 ships went through despite despite Trump's claim, oh, we got a blockade. It's ironclad. Nobody's nobody's coming through.
The the fact of the matter is otherwise that the the ships are starting to move. So we're we're this will provide some relief on the international economic front. Not not much is still still two thirds of the ships that normally went through are not going through. So this is you've got only one third of the activity of normal. But the the whole nuclear issue, maintain it's a red herring.
It is The United States has now tried to make that its central claim. Yeah. Well, that's really our concern. That's what we got to get rid of. It is if if if Iran didn't have a nuclear program and if they had never enriched one ounce of uranium, The United States is still be trying to destroy Iran.
That's the point. And it has nothing to do with whether Iran is in, quote, a quest for a nuclear weapon. I I watched, the this organization in Canada, the Monk Society. They did though. They host debate.
So they did a debate on Wednesday feature that pitted John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt against Victoria Nuland and Mon Mike Pompeo. And, I mean, what is what caught my attention was this narrative, the neocon narrative that is built up that, you know, like Saddam Hussein was a monster because he had chemical weapons without any acknowledgment whatsoever from Pompeo and Newland that we, The United States, were the ones who provided, who facilitated those chemical weapons by providing the precursors. And not only that, we provided biological agents as well, bioweapons. So there there is as The United States approaches these negotiations, there is no historical memory. I mean, from from Iran's perspective, it's like they're negotiating with an Alzheimer's patient.
The United States can't remember what the hell it did two years ago. You know? They barely know where they are now. So this this claim that, oh, yeah. We've it's it's a deal stopper unless Iran gives up its enriched material.
Now reportedly yesterday, Moshe Saba Khamenei, the new Ayatollah, said, no. Are nuclear material. It's not even on the table. And, you know, frankly, Iran's standpoint as a sovereign nation, why should they give it up? They've they've signed the NPT.
They've allowed IAEA inspections. They they but but they've been they have been the victim of persistent constant attacks, terrorist attacks, murdering of nuclear scientists, not only what took place last June, but what took place before. So I I can see Iran just asserting its sovereignty and saying, no. The the West is not going to dictate to us what we do. We we are a sovereign country and have every right to do this.
Speaker 0: Yeah. No. It's a great point. But I I also hear that, well, that The US intelligence are not just making, you know, the point that the Iranians are rearming, but they're also apparently telling Trump now that the Strait Of Hormuz is, well, it's it can't be opened, that it's yeah. It can't be done.
So I'm not sure who else has been whispering in his ears, probably Netanyahu, that they should have another go nonetheless. But if you can't open up the Strait Of Hormuz, if you can't defeat the Iranians, what is the point of going back to war? Because it appears that this is becoming a very real possibility. Or, again, I'm not sure how likely you think The United States will attack Iran again.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The well, just to reinforce the point, it's not just The US intelligence community. Admiral Daryl Caudle, c a u d l e, testifying for congress yesterday who said, hey, we we we don't have the military capability to open the Strait Of Hormuz. That was his message. It would be too costly, too risky to try to send ships in there to attack Iranian positions because Iran has such an arsenal, multilayered arsenal that can be brought to bear on any ship entering the strait that The United States isn't capable of destroying those.
So the an honest assessment of US military capability, and there are some in the military that have pushed this forward, but it appears that admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of CENTCOM, the boy the boy lacks a spine. Yeah. And I'm calling him a boy because he's, you know, he's about 20 younger than me. And, god, what a what a cowardly bureaucrat this cat is. You know, he was being questioned by before Congress the other day by Congressman Seth Moulton.
Seth was a marine, served in the marine corps. Left Harvard to go serve in the marine corps, so not your typical marine. And Seth was asking just to define the difference between degraded and obliterated. And, you know, he he played word games. He wouldn't oh, I can't I can't talk about the nuclear program.
And Malden goes, I'm not asking about the nuclear program. I'm simply asking about your word usage. What's the difference between degraded and obliterated? And he he wouldn't answer the question. So when you when you've got a military commander playing those kinds of games, and being more of a politician than a military leader because what you need is a military officer that doesn't give a damn about the politics.
And frankly, could care less whether he gets promoted, whether he gets fired, doesn't care that he's gonna come in and tell it exactly as he sees it. And then to say the reality, know, Congressman Moulton is we have not abraded Iran's military capabilities. As the CIA, the CIA I was pleased to see has been briefing Congress at least, something that it appears to be much more closer to the truth than anything that the Trump administration is saying, noting that not only have we not destroyed the majority of Iran's ballistic missile capability and air defense systems and their their ability to construct new ballistic missiles and launch them. But they they appear to have enhanced their capabilities in the since the ceasefire was declared. Now, what is it?
Eight weeks ago? So The United States is caught between Trump's rhetoric and between what The United States actually can do. The only thing we can do going forward would be to launch some some new set of airstrikes. And if we're prevented from using Saudi Arabian airspace, then we have to go through Iraq, which then creates a new security vulnerabilities for the attacking force. Because Iran's no longer Iran with the support of Russia and China, they're gonna know exactly where to focus all their intelligence assets to collect.
They'll know what's coming, where it's coming from, and we'll be able to mount some defenses accordingly. Plus, they can deploy groups with shoulder fired surface to air missiles into theater. All they've gotta do they don't have to take out an f 35. They got all they have to do is take out the tankers like they did before, you know, five you know, three or four weeks into the the start of the war.
Speaker 0: Well, it seems though that as well, we've seen that Russia and China, they've been pushing for a different format for a peace agreement instead of just having a ceasefire and, you know, wait for war to break out again or end up in a situation where either The US will dominate or Iran will dominate, they seem to favor the development of a new inclusive security act architecture in the Persian Gulf that is Right. In which the countries and the regions seek security with each other instead of this alliance system where they seek security against each other. Now such a system which would include not just Iran, but also the other regional actors, be it, yeah, Turkey or the Saudis, to to what extent do you think this could succeed? Because on one hand, yes, it would be an inclusive one. It would mitigate security competition.
On the other hand, it also then puts an end to US influence in the region. So it wouldn't necessarily be anti American, but it would definitely dismantle the well, let's call it here, the US empire.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I this is where I see the I I I think there's this it's a viable solution. It's one that's actually being seriously entertained by all the relevant actors in the region. Russia and China are pushing hard for it. And Iran appears to, you know, even though the rhetoric in the West tries to portray Iran now as this fanatical Muslim state of these ultimate hard line radicals that have no ability to compromise.
No. No. No. No. No.
That's they couldn't be further from the truth. The fact is the Iranians are pretty they're they're they are very pragmatic, and they're actually operating now from with with more confidence from a position of strength. They demonstrated we could take every blow that The United States wants to throw at us along with Israel, and we we stood up to them. You know, none of those other Gulf states can say that. And so Iran, the rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia started two years ago as a result of Chinese intercession.
And so the Chinese are still working that angle, and they're using Pakistan. You know, I I had forgotten this. Colonel Wilkerson mentioned this during my conversation with Nima a little bit ago, that when they had one of the uprisings in Mecca, you know, several years back, the Pakistani troops were actually used to help quell that uprising. So there is a good relationship between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and so the that's why the packs are playing sort of the leading role in this. So I I I could very much see Iran willing to make some concessions with the Saudis and Qataris and Kuwaitis for passage of ships through the Strait Of Hormuz in order to secure their cooperation in a new security arrangement.
I don't see them being so hard line to say, know, I don't care what you do. I don't care what you're how much and how sorry you are, you're gonna pay the damn fee regardless. You know, I think they've got some flexibility on that. And so I'm hoping the most likely outcome is that these negotiations behind the scenes are gonna bear some fruit and the continued refusal of the Saudis to allow The United States unfettered air operations against Iran will prevent The United States. The United States may absolutely want to attack, but the the the, you know, the general in charge of the aviation forces is gonna say, look, if if we can't use Saudi territory, ability to actually sustain these attacks is very limited and it's going to create a greater risk.
So this thing could actually be sort of it's not going to come to a halt because, oh, hey, got an agreement. Both sides have sat down pieces at hand. Instead, it's just sort of gonna sputter out like a dying dying fire.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, you have a good point with the Iran is often criticized in the West for taking a hard line position. But the hard line position in terms of holding up to the straddle or moves, setting up the toll, there is the reason they're they're not compromising on this is because this is the the source for security if they Right. Put tolls on countries that either sanction them or put host American bases that threatens them. So it's a it's a way of making sure that they're not going back to the old status quo of, yeah, economic coercion and military threats.
But, again, if proposals such as put forth by the Chinese and the Russians of an inclusive security architecture, something that could provide security, I mean, that would that would be the ultimate goal of the Iranians, then they they they might soften the stance on needing to, I guess, control the Strait Of Hormuz all all on their own, because I don't think that will be the ultimate objective in itself. But but this kinda goes against the hegemonic security model, the divide and rule, because as long as you have the Gulf States in a conflict with the Iranians, then, you know, The US has an ability to weaken the Iranians and also make sure that the Gulf states remain dependent, thus obedient. It's a bit like the system we have in Europe. After the Cold War, we actually had agreements for an inclusive pan European security architecture, and, yeah, they recognized that's not the same architecture that would have brought The US into Europe, which, to a large extent, is correct. So instead went with NATO expansion.
So, again, we revived the Cold War logic. Russia's marginalized. The Europeans remain obedient. And but at but at some point, of course, if the hedge fund is declining, it's an interest of the frontline states to also seek an alternative. So I'm I I I think it could be a good solution, but, again, they will be very difficult to hammer it through after especially right after war.
However, how long if they don't come to peace, how long can this continue? This because now there's no war. Well, there's a little little bit, but there's no peace either. But the markets, surely, this is this is unsustainable. I think this is what the consensus is as well that this can't continue.
Speaker 1: Well, that's that is the other very curious and disturbing aspect of this. The markets are not acting normally. I'm sure in your as an undergrad, you had to take like introduction to economics, something like that. And I don't know if you took any economics courses. I did.
And, you know, you learn the simple concept of supply and demand. That if if you've got a supply of something that people need, you know, it's called a inelastic good that no matter what the price is, you still need to buy it, you need it. So if the price, if the supply of that goes down, boy, the price is gonna go up because the the the demand is there if for the same amount and there's less of it to go around. You know, that this is I'm simplifying, but you know, that's how it works. Well, here we've witnessed now, we are on so today is day 22.
So 83, we're day 84 since the war started. And in those eighty four days, that's almost three months, there has been a complete cutoff not only of 20% of the world's oil, 10% of the world's access to liquid natural gas, 35% of the world's urea, 30% of the world's sulfur, 44% of the world's helium. So those are not just, you know, nice things to have. Those are essential commodities for industrial production and of a whole variety of applications. That's gone.
So you would think the markets would be going, oh heavens, God Almighty, we particularly with oil. You've got, Assuming that demand has not fallen off the charts, that demand remains stable, if not slightly increased, you've got a decreased supply. Inevitably, the price has got to go up. But what we've seen is both a suppression of oil and as oil suppressed, stock market in The United States keeps going up like, hey, things are great. Things are not great, but the markets are pretending that it is.
And we saw during during COVID when the price of oil went up to a $150 a barrel, we didn't have any actual shortage. There was it was not like the supply got they stopped pumping oil and they stopped running filling tankers and the tankers stopped selling on the seas like has happened now. But yet the price of oil went up to 150 for what? Now when we have an actual shortage, they're pretending, oh, no big deal. We got this under control.
One of the ways they've been mitigating the rise in oil is The United States has been emptying its strategic reserve and selling that reportedly selling that strategic reserve so it's going overseas. So it's all it's all a charade. At some point, that parade's gonna come to a halt. The the actual economic impact will arrive. The shortages will become readily apparent.
The price rise will no longer be managed. And this this will translate into not just economic recession, but probably an economic depression. And then it'll be at that point that The United States will finally have to be honest with itself about negotiating an end to this. So I can see that Iran is in a position to continue to limit the flow of goods out of the Persian Gulf, continue to disrupt the global economy. And yet the irony of this is if you go back and start asking the questions on who are the alternatives to the Persian Gulf, the two two countries most commonly that come up are Russia and China.
So Russia and China actually benefit from this. The United States to a lesser extent because The United States is a major supplier of liquid natural gas. And but but beyond that, The United States is not a major supplier of oil. Certainly not a supplier of helium, sulfur, and urea. And, you know, the the entire shortage of fertilizer, the global impact on that.
Again, we're six months from seeing the full impact of that start to be apparent, where it's gonna be translated into fewer crops have been produced, shortage of food, etcetera. So this I I see this thing able this this can drag on for quite a while. I don't I don't see the Iranians ready to just say, okay. Yeah. Let's open everything up and never mind.
We don't mind having been attacked. They no. They're look Iran is looking Iran's objective in this is to get a firm security guarantee that this is never going to happen again. And I think China and Russia are willing to provide that. And a key to that is enlisting Turkiye, Saudis, Egypt, and getting on board with that kind of broad agreement where, if you will, they come up with the equivalent of a West Asian NATO without Western involvement.
Speaker 0: Well, it seems that the well, the war against Iran and also the war in Ukraine, it it seems to be two you know, it appears to be the same war, and it would also have the same solution. This is hegemonic system which has broken down, and it requires some multipolar solution. In other words, it can't be one side dictating the terms that is peace through strength as NATO loves to say. But but, again, a way in which we also have to accommodate the security concerns of the opponent. That's not something we've done over the past thirty years.
That is to discuss what are the security concerns of the Iranians, the Russians, the Chinese, and what how can they be respected in a security arrangement? Again, it's very different from the block politics we've been pushing, which kinda makes the question of if if The US can't defeat Iranians in war and they have to find a settlement, what will the world look like after such a defeat?
Speaker 1: Well, it would be better off. Here's the problem. The the the Western approach, not only to Iran, but to China and Russia. It was it was on display with this it's called the monk debate. It took place Wednesday between John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt on one hand, Victoria Newland, Mike Pompeo on the other.
And the question, the way it was framed by this is a Canadian group and hopefully they'll have it up available online for people to see on YouTube. Right now, it's you gotta pay to see it. The the attitude of Victoria the underlying question of the debate is goes back to John Adams saying that The United States should not be going out looking for monsters to destroy overseas. And the entire premise of the well, we gotta deal with these monsters. Well, let's start with what's the definition of a monster, and a monster is an imaginary creation.
It's not a real thing. It's it's, it's, you know, Frankenstein, a monster. Shelley, you know, that wrote the book Mary Shelley was it that wrote the book. It was it was a fictional creation. So we got these fictional creations, but they describe as Iran is a monster.
Russia is a monster. China's a monster, we gotta stop the monsters. That mentality, unfortunately, is I would say dominates still in The United States. That anybody that comes out to try to argue that this is completely ridiculous. And and let me just give you one data point.
Here's Mike Pompeo, the former head of the CIA and the former Secretary of State. He's a moron, an imbecile, a cretin. Let me find some other demeaning words to suggest his lack of intelligence because he talked about the thousands of Israelis that have been killed by Hezbollah. And I thought, really? So anybody that's out there watching, go use Grock or use Claude.
Go in and type in how many Israelis have been killed by Hezbollah since 1982. The number that Claude came back with was 872. Oh, you know, forty four years, 800 and 72. But, gee, how many how many Palestinians have the Israelis killed? Well, that number would be in excess of a 100,000.
You know, right now, Claude came back and said, like, 92,000, but that that's being very, very, very generous with assuming that, all these bodies buried buried beneath the rubble in Gaza. But my point is, here are the actual facts. The country that's been the country or entity that's been killing the most of another is the is the Israelis, not the Palestinians, not Hezbollah, not Hamas, and the country that's been killing the most foreigners in the world over the last sixty six years is The United States. It's not China. It's not Russia.
But yet we we we want to see the monster's exterior. We're the goddamn monster, and we fail to accept it.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I I often make the point that whenever we look at these international security issues, I I'm, like you, quite critical of what we're doing. And I'm often well, the accusation often thrown against me would be then, well, why are taking the side of the Chinese or the Russians or the Iranians? But this is not about taking one side or the other. It's about recognizing that the hegemonic system we set up, it's it's not working, and it's not great for us either.
I mean, we've been in perpetual war now for decades. Yeah. It's weakened our security. It's weakened our economy, our political culture. Indeed, it's draining the soul, I would say, out of our nation.
So and there's no going back to the nineties, especially that's what the European politicians keep draining of. But in the nineties, the political West was all powerful. It's also had political stability, economic, social stability. The main foreign policy of countries like Russia and China was to get along with the West as much as possible. Countries like Russia in the nineties even ignored all their traditional partners in the East because they had this dream of integrating into a common Europe, and they didn't want, you know, rushing to the West that they would leave behind the that they would be held back by countries in the East.
So and same with Iran after the September eleven attacks. They were open to using this as an opportunity to get closer with The United States. They were you know, solve some of the historical problems. All of this this this was a perfect condition, and and we couldn't pull it off. We instead went into perpetual war.
Exactly how is this still gonna work? I mean, we exhausted ourselves. Look at the debt, political climate, all of this, and rising powers are balancing us. This is this is why America had a offshore balancer strategy. Don't don't remain in Europe after the war is gone because then the powers will balance The US pull back.
They will instead balance each other. I mean, it's it's hard for me. It is just people, I think, they they confuse the continuation of empire and the global dominance with, yeah, with taking the side of their own as if the only future of the West is to dominate others. This was was frustrating with Marco Rubio when he came at the back in February to the Munich Security Conference where he said, listen, Europe. You used to be great until World War two.
You lost your empires, and, you know, and we can still dominate the world. Is this really all there is to the political West? You know, it became a bit offensive. Anyways, I'm getting a bit off the point. I my my I guess where I was going is, how do you see this kind of settlement which you are describing with The US pulling a bit out of the Middle East?
How would that impact the broader world order, though, you think?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I I think it's gonna it's it's gonna be accompanied by war. The no no hegemonic system surrenders its control without a fight. But the the the challenge that The United States confronts and refuses to recognize is we do not control our destiny anymore. That what used to be an economically powerful country, because we had this robust industrial base, we were largely resource independent. We didn't need to go out and conquer other countries in order to get resources like rare earth minerals.
We do now. We could be self sufficient with energy. We're certainly not self sufficient with fertilizer, a critical component for our agricultural industry. And increasingly, the very technology that's driving modern society, it's being produced in China, not here in The United States. So it's going to be it will be the you will, the economic collapse.
It's gonna be the final wake up call for, the folks in Washington DC. They they can't continue with this fraud that they have been perpetuating. And, you know, because, you know, in in Donald Trump's you know, we are see, we had twelve months in 2025. We're now into the fifth month. So let's call it sixteen months that Donald Trump's been in office.
The the national debt has grown $2,000,000,000,000. So he's added he's added more to the national debt into sixteen months and was added in by Joe Biden in say three years. And so this debt accumulation is increasing. It's not decreasing because The US obligations, spending obligations are going off the charts because of the war against Iran. And we've got all these forward deployed assets, etcetera.
At the same time, you step back and look and say, what's happening on the global front? Are more countries lining up to buy US Treasury bills or are more countries getting rid of US Treasury bills? The answer is the latter. And just this week, we've seen Turkey do a sell off, Japan sold off a number, China's continued to sold off like $41,000,000,000. So the nations, particularly in the global south, they're not rolling around saying, how can we buy more US treasury?
How can we lend The United States more money so it continue its hegemonic activities around the world? That's not happening. Well, at least the petrodollar is still intact, sort of, except again, more countries are making purchases in oil and like these shipments coming out of the Persian Gulf or going into the Persian Gulf through the Strait Of Hormuz, the Iranians are saying, hey, you're gonna pay in real, you're gonna pay in our currency and or you're gonna pay with Chinese Yuan. Dollars forget about it. Russia itself made a statement about three weeks ago that it was gonna start accepting payments in yuan as opposed to the dollar.
So again, you got to shift away from the dollar. So those those two pillars that for The United States have been critical for, you know, its capital flows to to maintain its economic dominance. They're crumbling. The petrodollar is crumbling. The the US Treasury bill is crumbling.
Now is it it's not it's not gonna come to a crashing end here in the next few weeks. And this this may perpetuate for another, for some time to come. But it's certainly, it's not The United States building strength, it's just the opposite. It's getting, it's bleeding out maybe a little bit at a time, but nonetheless, you keep bleeding out, eventually at some point you run out of blood.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, something has to give, though, because I understand the pressure that Trump is under. And from what I'm being told, the Gulf States have now well, like, explained to The United States that they believe that time is on Iran's side. So and I get it. There's a lot at stake.
It's not just how to end the Iran war. Indeed, as you said, the entire world order is more or less at stake here. So I can understand, on one hand, the pressure to have another go at attacking Iran. On the other hand, if you can't win militarily, what what what's the point of this? And from what I understand, the Iranians have plenty of other ways to escalate if The US decides to restart the war.
But my my last question was we heard we heard about this spat now between Trump and Netanyahu. I'm not sure the credibility of it, but Yeah. Apparently, Trump was considering putting an end to the war, accepting some something of a defeat, which, well, would not be good for for Israel, which made Netanyahu quite angry. Again, I'm not sure how much we should believe the news these days, but I want to ask you, though.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, just the simple fact that you have to say it that way tells you tells you everything you need to know. That you can no longer the news you always have to look at the news as it's being presented with a a a point of view or or it's I call it intelligence with a purpose.
It's designed to elicit a particular reaction or to manipulate. It is very much manipulative. Go ahead. Sorry to
Speaker 0: No. No. No. I haven't. So if if I read The Guardian, I I it's to know what the Guardian wants me to think.
It's not because you believe that you're getting a reality there. I think, especially over the past few years now with the war, the focus on elevating the war narratives is always, yeah, pushed to the forefront, you know, prioritized above reality. Yeah. I think one should be a bit cautious, but but if it is true, do you do you think Israel would be in a position to essentially deny Trump or influence Trump to reject the peace? Because I always thought if the core US security interests is at stake at some point, he would have to distance himself a bit from, the pressure coming out of Tel Aviv.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No. I I I think they yes. They can influence Trump to try to make decisions that will be inimical to The US interest. But even though they may get Trump convinced that he needs to do this, the reality is The United States may face constraints on what it can do.
In other words, you know, okay, yeah, we're gonna re relaunch the attacks on Iran, but we're going to have to go through Iraq. We can no longer go through Saudi Arabia. Yeah. Because, you know, what the Saudis and Kuwaitis and Qataris are particularly concerned about. UAE is not concerned about it, but they they would end up taking the biggest blow is that if they get back into facilitating these attacks, they are gonna suffer some devastation beyond what they have experienced already.
And the Iranians have taken the position that, you know, they recognize that we can handle a first strike. It'll be our retaliatory follow-up that's gonna be devastating. So I don't discount that Trump can still be talked into renewing the attacks, but he's also gonna come up against the practical realities of what what can the United States Air Force now do with the constraints if if, again, if Saudi Arabia continues to say no, you're not gonna use our aerospace, then that limits US options.
Speaker 0: So given this reality then, also, if The US attacks, how much worse it can get if the Red Sea is shut down, if some Internet cables are shut off Yeah. The Gulf States have ceased to exist if their desalination plants or energy infrastructure gets blown up. With all of this different consideration also weighing up with the interest of Israel, how likely do you think it is that The US will now attack again? Because when I look at the force buildup, I keep I keep feeling that, you know, if you're gonna build up that much forces, you can't bring them home again in this that they're built up for war. But, again, I'm not a military man.
Speaker 1: So Well, no. I I I you're just you're you're you're you're plagued with logic and rational thought. So yeah. No, you're absolutely right that we have not seen the order come down to say, let's start withdrawing, let's start drawing down. For that that simple reason alone, I would say, yes.
The United States is going to renew the attacks on Iran. But the ability of The United States to sustain that will be extremely limited. And the damage that will be inflicted on US forces in the area as well as Israel. Israel is the one that really I think is grossly miscalculating the kind of damage that is that Iran can inflict on it. And so, you know, this is I'm hopeful that this, you know, this thing continues.
Let's call it the non combat portion of this continues to drag out. Because of the Hajj, well, okay, no attack now. And then the Hajj ends and, okay, we're now at the World Cup. So let's get through the World Cup. That takes us another month.
So that that can give, you know, a couple of months of negotiation. That would be a better outcome. But I think Trump is gonna come under enormous pressure to attack. And so I I can just say that it's not gonna surprise me if the attack comes again. I'm not considering predict all it's gonna happen next week or I I don't know that.
I mean, I don't have privy to access to that information. All I do know is Trump's under pressure to do it, but
Speaker 0: he also faces some real world obstacles that prevent it. Now how those two get bridged, I don't know. Well, as the months will come and go, if there's no war and no peace, the markets will nonetheless suffocate. So the the clock is ticking nonetheless. So I yeah.
I don't see a good outcome out of this. Well, for for The United States, I think for Iran, they they can come out very strong, I guess, if they finally shake off twenty seven no. Sorry. Forty seven years of crippling sanctions and perpetual military threats. If they can get something new, it can be great.
But for for The US, though, it's there's no going back really, which is yeah.
Speaker 1: Well the way you phrased it and I think you bring excellent insight to this, is that the economic situation will ultimately determine if The United States will go forward with military strikes. And I cannot conceive of a scenario in which US military strikes against Iran are going to strengthen the world economy, strengthen The US financial position in the world, increase desire to purchase dollars, make the petrodollar more universal. In fact, I would argue that any further military escalation by The United States will have the exact opposite effect. And once there is that realization I think that argues against, you know, we shouldn't do this because the economies are too fragile. And you know, we're starting to see the full effect is to happen in Indonesia but it's gonna be hitting Europe with greater intensity.
And ultimately, you know, probably by the end of June, The United States is really gonna be suffering the economic consequences.
Speaker 0: Well, Larry, as always, I appreciate your insights. So thank you very much for your time.
Speaker 1: Hey, Glenn. Always a pleasure, my friend. Keep up the good work.