Transcription
Hi everybody. Today's Friday, July 3rd, 2026, and our dear friend, Ambassador Chess Freeman is here with us. Welcome back, Ambassador.
Thank you, Neiman. It's great to be with you.
And I I want to start, ambassador, with one of the main points in the MOU between Iran and the United States, which was the first point. it it's all about Lebanon. Then you see the United States coming and cutting a deal or somehow it it was mo they call it MOU between Israel and Lebanon which Marco Rubio it seems he was behind the scene and bringing these two sides together to sign it and it's all about disarmament of Hezbollah. It's all about Israeli somehow legitimizing Israeli occupation as long as Hezbollah is not disarmed. and totally against the first clause of the MOU between Iran and the United States. And what is your understanding of the move that they're trying to make in Lebanon?
Well, it's very confusing actually because um as you point out the first requirement for talks uh about a peace between Iran and the United States um the first requirement is peace in Lebanon. that is a withdrawal of the Israeli forces and the sessation of the violence Israel has been delivering to Lebanon. Um and so u on the one hand you have JD Vance talking to the Iranians um and um and agreeing that there should be peace in Lebanon and on the other hand you have Marco Rubio uh cementing the Israeli occupation and the continuing war in Lebanon. So this is one of two things. Either it's complete u insanity in the Trump administration, that is to say schizophrenia, or it's some sort of de deceitful maneuver on the part of the Trump administration on the one hand, or it's rivalry between JD Vance and Marco Rubio on the other, with one undoing what the other does. Um, frankly, I don't think any of the any of the Trump administration's policies in West Asia make any sense at all in terms of American interests. They're not even consistent as the case of Lebanon that you raise suggests. And um, it's pretty clear that the Trump administration is not prepared to reconcile itself uh to the failure of its policies toward Iran and Israel. Um and um therefore the belief apparent belief in Thran that um uh the uh 60-day pause followed maybe by another 60 days um is nothing but u an effort to prepare a further attack u to replenish oil stocks, manipulate oil markets, um uh manipulate politics in the United States. as a result and um and to rebuild stocks of weapons and defensive systems like interceptors for missiles. Um that um you know this is all it is and that uh Trump will try to string this out through the midterm elections and then he'll resume the attack on on Iran. I gather that is a pretty widespread belief in Tehran. So, um, uh, Lebanon is, uh, the fly in the ointment. It's the, uh, uh, the the poison in the water well. Um, uh, you can't have peace in West Asia if Israel continues to attack its neighbors in a savage manner as it is doing in Lebanon. And we see, I mean, the Israelis are not hiding their intentions at all. They are increasing their pressure for genocide in Gaza. They are increasing their efforts to cleanse the West Bank ethnically. They are uh increasing their investment in the occupation of Lebanon and the destruction of its infrastructure to reduce it to the level of Gaza. Uh and their politicians are very open about all this. Um they've also been open about uh the idea of assassinating Iranian leaders and more Iranian leaders and negotiators and so on. And we have a report which is quite credible that the United States was sufficiently concerned about Israeli assassination plans to warn Arachi and others that they were they should take uh take great care. Um uh so Israel is completely uncontrolled and yet um some measure of American control of Israel was the basic um uh prerequisite for a peace between Iran and the United States. That prerequisite has not been met and therefore there have been no negotiations. There is a mediation in Dha now suspended for the funeral of the late Ali K the supreme leader. Um and um that those discussions there were not about anything new. They were about whether the uh undertakings whether the United States would uh would make good on its undertakings in the memorandum of understanding. Would it do things about Lebanon? Would it um stop contesting Iranian control of the of the Strait of Hormuz? Would it return frozen assets of Iran which have been in American custody now for 47 years? you know, uh would it remove its sanctions? In fact, um u the United States, would it stop threatening Iran with destruction? One of the clauses in the memorandum of understanding requires each side to avoid threats or the use of force against the other. And the United States has repeatedly violated this both by making threats and by using force. So um uh this is not looking like anything that is uh more than a holding action for another round of fighting unfortunately.
Yesterday I talked with Professor Ted Posal. He mentioned the capabilities in terms of the air defense systems pack three pack two of Patriot systems which were basically the main air defense system for Israel because that system is not that much you know they have four or five of them and they were not that capable as well. So looking at the outcome looking at military experts like professor Ted postal it doesn't seem to me that it would be a viable choice for Donald Trump and Israelis to start a new war but we know that nothing is rational nothing is logical when what is your understanding of that
I think that's the point I think u Ted Postol is absolutely correct um the depletion of American and Israeli capabilities has been very large and the ability to replenish is very small. So, um I don't think it is realistic to imagine that the United States could resume the sort of campaign it made with Israel against Iran starting February 28th. That's just not possible. So, a lot of this is comes under the heading of fantasy foreign policy. Well, we know that Donald Trump um invents his own world uh daily. I mean, it has no res relationship with the world that you, I perceive. Uh it is fictional. So, he may very well believe that he has such an option. Uh and I don't think his military believed that. But um you know um his military the United States military has been remarkably uh responsive to direction from the president. Um uh we have not seen the resignations for that we might have seen. We've seen a lot of firings of generals but it's not clear what the basis for that is. In some cases, it appears to be racial or gender discrimination, but um the military so far have not mutinied. Um I think at some point they might um because in the end uh our military take great pride not only in civilian control of the military which is an article of faith for them. That is policies should be directed by civilians. the means of implementation are up to the military, but they're also they swear an oath to the constitution, not to the president. And um and they believe in that. And I don't think they believe in their secretary of defense, self secretary of war. I think he is widely ridiculed within the military as he should be uh because he's a pompous little um little sadist. Um anyway, um so um I don't think I think Ted Postol is right. He's right about a lot of things. Um I when I was ambassador in Riad during the Gulf War of 1990 911, I watched what I thought were patriot interceptions of incoming Scud missiles from Iraq. And um what I was seeing was the interception of the fuselage, not the warhead, which was separated. And in retrospect, when Ted made his case, I could see that yeah, you know, you couldn't you couldn't explain the death of 28 people in the passport office in the Balad in the downtown area of Riyad. um uh without um accepting that the patriot that had intercepted the missile had not disarmed the warhead and not detonated it. So I think he's absolutely right about many things and he's very empirical and he's correct about this but as you say rationality is not in charge. Um it made no sense to attack Iran in the way that we did. Uh it makes no sense to do it again, but I can't rule out the possibility we will.
Yeah. Israel sees the region as two, you know, in the eyes of Israelis, there are two forces in the region against Israel. One of them is Sunni and the other one is Shia Muslim Brotherhood supported by Turkey and Shia the acts of resistance supported by Iranians and the two sides are the enemies of Israel right now and this is the recipe for the continuous war endless war in the region. It means that you see and you feel that everybody in the region is your enemy. You have to fight them. You have to go basically the Israeli military, you know, strategy is to go preemptive on the enemy. They're doing this a lot. And when it comes to Lebanon, when it comes to other places in Syria, they're attacking some targets. Nobody knows what is going on. For example, in Syria, because nobody's attacking them from Syria. And then every time they're go and attack some targets in Syria. And this is what's going on. And I don't know how much of concern is that for Washington because in a long run it's all about fighting the wars and Israel which we know that they have their limitations. they don't have that cap you know that much of capabilities even JD Vance said twothird of what they have coming from the United States then if they start something the United States has to fight fight it and and Israel is going to back down as we've seen with the case of Iran they started the war and the continuation of the war was between Iran and the United States Israel basically was so much involved with the case of Lebanon and it's going to be the same in my opinion if they start something against for example Turkey or some other players in the region.
Well, I think um you know that unwrapping that is going to take a while. Um um Israel is really a sociopathic state. It has no empathy or understanding for any of the of the other peoples in West Asia. And the reason for that is that it has organized it itself around the Holocaust in Europe. Uh it was created as a homeland for European Jews. Europeans were glad to get rid of the Jews. They felt guilty about their tolerance of the Nazi uh German Holocaust. In fact, anti-semitism was rife in Europe and many um Jews in France, for example, were rounded up willingly by by the French and turned over to the Nazis. Uh so Europeans feel guilty. They were happy to get rid of their of their Jewish population. And if they could have, they probably would have sent the Romany, the gypsies back to India where they originated. Anyway, I mean European European colonialism was very racist and Israel was established on that basis and the Holocaust taught European Jews a very bad lesson which was or two lessons. One was everybody wants to kill you and two nobody is your friend or nobody will help you. So you have to do what they call rise and strike first. preemptive attack is the only way of assuring your survival. And of course, Israel wants um security for its people who now include um uh Arab Jews um the Misraim who who were forced into Israel by the reaction in the region to the establishment of Israel. Um, who are innocent really. Um, and let us remember that contrary to the myth that Donald Trump constantly propagates and that Israelis repeat, uh, there was peace in the Middle East under the Ottomans. Different communities live together. Uh there's an excellent novel uh that um uh that describes Louis Dean describes in a book called birds without wings the collapse of this social order in which Greeks, Armenians, Turks, others uh all lived peaceibly together in the Ottoman era. the collapse, its collapse, the Armenian genocide and other developments that came from that. But you know, let us remember that the uh the the Arab Jews are are innocent. They have been absorbed into this psychotic policy that Israel has which causes it to see everyone else as an enemy. And you know it isn't the case that u the perception of enmity by others stopped in West Asia. I mean the Israelis regard Europeans as potential enemies that they should. I mean the Europeans murdered a lot of them a lot of their ancestors. So uh you have a trauma traumatized population in a country that is behaving sociopathically or psychotically toward its neighbors. Uh and uh let me just finish by saying that um uh what what uh Turkey and Iran have in common is not their respective Muslim heritages, but the fact that Israel regards them as an enemy and is determined to subjugate them. Uh and this gives Iranians and Turks uh a common interest they otherwise would not have. And so I think what Israel is doing is uniting the entire region in including Iran, Turkey, Syria, others um uh against it. Uh so I think Henry Kissinger once said even the paranoid have enemies and I would add the paranoid are particularly good at making enemies because if you treat others as an enemy, they will regard you as an enemy. And that is where Israel is. And I don't think this is a recipe for the survival of the state of Israel. Uh I just read an an account in which is a great newspaper um in Israel uh great for its honesty uh and uh its fearlessness about Ebarak who somebody I I met when I was uh assistant secretary of defense very brilliant man um and he you know has consistently said look we can't go on like this. We can't have a partate. We can't have enmity toward all our neighbors. We need to make peace. Um and he once used the um with me the analogy of Muslim Spain. You know, the Arabs got to Spain when 712 or so AD and u established a whole range of emirates, small kingdoms. um and um um were there for 800 years until 1492. And in that period um of 800 years, they never made peace with the small Christian kingdoms on their borders. They treated them with contempt. They treated them with racial disdain basically. Uh and in the end, this proved fatal. And so wiser Israelis um have uh uh and I know many of them have always argued that the time to make peace is when you are strong and have strong backing internationally. Israel has been greatly weakened domestically by divisions, militarily by destruction from Iranian missiles and drones. uh and politically it has burned its bridges with its previous supporters. Its support in the United States which is the last hold out is evaporating as we speak. So it may be too late for Israel to make peace if it finally decides it wants to. Up to now what it has described as peace is pacification. that is the subjugation or the expulsion or the murder or the genocide of everyone who opposes it including Iran, Iranians and Turks. Now of course there are specific issues between Israel and the Turks having to do with the positions they each occupy in Syria, their relationships with Kurds, um their um the Turkish sympathy for the suffering populace of Maza and other things. But um but at root the problem is Israeli aggression and hostility toward everyone who isn't Israeli. Are we going to have do you think with what we you're witnessing right now in the United States many people would argue that maybe Apac is weakening because of what has happened in New York for example and we have the case of the New York we have the case of Thomas Massie which Apac went against him in primary and defeated him basically while spending more than $40 million it was huge for a primary but when it comes also New York they were defeated and it it's huge. It's something when it comes to the public opinion in the United States many people would argue no the system is too much you know supportive of Israel. So you cannot have any sort of change anytime soon. But it seems that the changes that in the public opinion in the people of the United States is coming to the surface with these new primaries in New York and other places and this is something that should be of concern for Israelis because in a long run they see how the changes is coming to the to the politician. It's going to be maybe the next president of the United States would be one of these people. Who knows what's going on in the next decade for example?
Well, I think they are very very concerned and you can see this you can measure this with the amount of money that the Ministry of Strategic Affairs which is responsible for Aspara the self exculpation propaganda uh of of Israel um the huge amounts of money that they're pumping into propaganda. It doesn't work. No, I think the most telling um result of the recent primary was the election of a a Ethiopian born lawyer woman in Colorado, a very beautiful woman as many as many Ethiopian women are. Um but that doesn't explain her victory. Her victory was because she had been thrown out of her law firm for having supported Palestinian rights. uh and there was sufficient fervor in the electorate to um uh despite huge amounts of money invested by Apac and allied organizations, Zionist propaganda outfits. So she she won by a decisive margin and so I think it's not just New York. Uh I note that in Los Angeles there was an upset also and um you know I think I think a number of things are coming together. We'll see in the midterms whether they are as real as they appear to be. Uh but um uh you're seeing um uh real anger at the indifference of the American political elite, the fact that it's been bought by the Zionist lobby, that it is corrupted by the Zionist lobby, that it does not listen to the values, does not follow the values of ordinary Americans and condemn Israel and its um its militia acts, its evil deeds in places like Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon, or for that matter Syria, although most Americans are not really very much aware of what Israel is doing in Syria. Um, so you've got that, but you also have a title wave of um at tsunami of anger at uh the general corruption of politics, the alienation of the elite from the masses, the inability of the Congress to accomplish anything, the increasing tyranny of the Supreme Court, which is doing things that are most bizarre and um um which most legal scholars reject. The and of course the bizarre behavior of Donald Trump who um uh is totally inconsistent and uh imagines all kinds of things. I mean one of the most ridiculous things that's going on now to my mind is the controversy over the reflecting pool um on the National Mall. Um, you know, if you put dark, you're an engineer, you know, if you put a dark color on the bottom of a shallow pool of water, you heat the water because the sun uh is absorbed by the dark material and it goes back into the water, remitted into the water. Uh, and then you create a perfect environment for the cultivation of algae. And that is what we have. Um and um now we have charges that the failure of this project was not a design issue but was conducted by vandals. It was vandalism. And there's an Olympic champion who has been arrested and charged with a felony for imaginary vandalism. You know, this kind of thing uh causes little boys to say tell the emperor, you know, you don't have any clothes. You may imagine your clothes, but you don't have any. And the irony is all the greater um uh because of course Donald Trump denies that climate change is real and he's done everything possible to dismantle wind farms and paying the companies to take out what they put in which would have provided power for coastal communities or others. uh he has u gutted efforts to produce fuel efficiency for automobiles. He he's follow the Biden administration's absurd ban on electrical vehicle imports or the technology from China. Um and um so he is a champion. He's pulled out of the Paris Accords. He champions um coal and other fossil fuels. Dig baby, you know, drill baby drill. And um and here we have the climate in the reality, the climate reality, meaning that most Americans don't dare go outside on July 4th. uh and uh uh there will be um there will be deaths uh on the Washington Mall from u from heat from the heat and humidity. U so um nature is uh still there and it's not happy with Donald Trump. And so um yeah so you have an upsurge in in this case you're talking about others in New York this is the democratic socialists of America so is the Metam Kirros in Colorado the Ethiopian woman I mentioned um but um on the right this is on the left on the right there's the same force at work and basically ally. The American political system is unraveling because of the absolute abstraction of Donald Trump and his administration from reality. You can't do that forever. As the revenge of the climate change u with the heat wave that we're experiencing illustrates.
Yeah. He he doesn't call them socialists. He calls them these are communists and this is the most you know one of the greatest problems for the United States if not the greatest problem and this is the perception on the part of but that doesn't change ambassador the reality in the democratic party I think as time goes by you see people like Chuck Schumer >> Kim Jeff these people are going to be sidelined >> because of the movement that is happening inside the democra ratic party.
Exactly. The people who are being elected in the primaries are explicitly refusing to commit to support the current Democratic leadership. Schumer, Jeff in particular, and that is a general feeling of disgust in the country with professional politicians. Um, and it's reflected in the attitudes toward Congress. Congress has never had such a low level of of approval as it does now and for good reason. You know it's basically functioning as a rubber stamp. In fact um you know I spent some time in China and the National People's Congress which is often described as a rubber stamp legislature actually has more vigorous discussions of issues than our Congress does now. you know it's it's perhaps less tolerant of maverick behavior like that of Thomas Massie but it does discuss issues and seriously and it makes policy. So the United States has fallen very low and um this is our 250th anniversary of independence. It is uh not our 250th anniversary of the revolution. The revolution really happened in 1787, 21 years later with the enactment of the constitution and the bill of rights. And the revolution is being undone by the Supreme Court which invents all kinds of things that it claims were original which are not by the Congress which refuses to stand up and be gutted. and by the president who is deluded and practices hallucinatory policy.
Yeah. We had a phone call Iranian act Iran's acting defense minister he called for the creation of a joint security mechanism among Islamic countries you know stating that the presence of extra regional forces has become a source of instability during the phone call he had with Turkish counterpart and I assume the same sort of argument the same sort of communic communication is happening between Iran and Saudi Arabia, between Iran and Qatar. And
you would think so. This is actually well, of course, Saudi Arabia has had repeated identity crisis. It has variously defined itself as the original home of the Arabs and then as an Islamic avatar. And then more recently Saudi nationalism has has taken hold. But one consistent theme throughout Saudi history has been identification with the broader Islamic community in the world, the 57 countries that belong to the organization of Islamic cooperation. And in fact, Saudi Arabia responded to the terrorism of 911 which was also which was also directed at them with by trying to organize a panislamic alliance against terrorism. That has not worked really. Um there's not been much in evidence. Um but I think um Israel and the United States have created a sufficiently large crisis in the homeland of Islam in the Persian Gulf region that or in West Asia if you will that some sort of panislamic effort may well succeed. Now I would think the OIC the organization of Islamic cooperation would be the logical mechanism for that and Iran which was once on the outs with that organization has essentially made its peace with it. And I would say you know one of the obstacles to panislamic cooperation in the past has been the fervent Shiite orientation of the Iranian leadership. But the IRGC is not the same as the Ayatollah or even Iran is much more nationalist, much more Persian a little less Islamic in its um in its identity. And so this is logical and it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. Israel is pushing Turkey and Iran together. And just as the United States pushed China and Russia together. And you could hardly come up with a more stupid Israeli policy than the than this. The sorts of arrogant threats that are come out of the mouths of people like Napali Bennett talking about Turkey openly as an enemy are very self-destructive. And it's very hard to see how they serve Israel's interests in any regard, although they may appeal to its bigoted population. We had a report, we know one of the main reasons of, you know, Donald Trump to put an end to the war. One of them was the shortage of missiles and interceptors and the way that war was going on. They were somehow running out of targets in Iran. They had to attack civilian infrastructures. So the other part is this foremost. The problem with this for most Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Iran rejected US offer to unfreeze a part of Iranian frozen funds in exchange for Iran abandoning the plan charging of tolls or fees on commercial shipping in the straight of most. And do you think that the Trump administration is still thinking that they can manage the rate of foremost? He said in his recent interview yesterday, he said we are running the show in the straight of foremost which is basically you know
nonsense absolute nonsense. Um but we've come to expect nothing else from him. Um, you know, I don't think Donald Trump has any credibility anywhere anymore except among the sick offense who surround him. Now, the offer to release u frozen assets which belong to Iran which were seized by the United States after the Islam the Islamic revolution and the hostage taking of diplomats that accompanied it. Um uh this is tied in the Trump administration's imagination to buying American products. That is Iran would be forced to buy American agricultural products, thus mitigating the problem that Trump's tariffs and alienation of our foreign customers have created. Um, Iran is a proudly sovereign country and it will not accept restrictions on its trade of that nature even to get back its own money with interest. After so long. So that is a non-starter. Um, as far as who controls the straight of Armuz is concerned, Iran has just reissued a warning to ships that if they attempt to cross the straight without the Iranian approval and without using the approved routes that Iran controls, they will be shot at. There will be serious action taken against them. And um so there's no quite no doubt about who controls the straight. I mean I think you know the United States has a point in that international law law up to now has has declared that straits are open to everyone without without charge. Um, Iran has just altered that equation. And as I've noted before, the Israelis pioneered the notion that violations of international law create new law. They change the law that the violations become accepted and they become the basis for a new norms. And Iran is achieving that in the state of Armouth. Iran is not going to give up control. Um even Oman is coming around wiggling a little bit but you know talking about fees for for passage through the straight. Um, you know, you can call them whatever you want. Um roadway a you know, roadway ra maintenance fee or something like that. but it's still a toll and u and it's not going to get Iran's not going to give that up. So um what we have and I go back to the ultimate reality here is that both sides are using the pause to replenish their stock of weapons to be able to go at this again. Iran is frankly in a better position in that regard than the United States for several reasons. It retained the majority of its missile stock. It is a very fast producer of drones and it has an ample stock of drones unused. It is in the straight. It is part of the region. It is not forced to project power halfway around the world as the United States is. It has the sympathy of some of its neighbors despite their anger at having been struck. It has narrowed its strikes on its neighbors to basically two countries other than Israel. One is Kuwait which still has American air force and army in installations on its territory and the other is Bahrain which remains the nominal headquarters of the United States fifth fleet. It's not attacking anyone else anymore. which suggests to me that some sort of understanding has been reached. and I note that one of the requirements in the memorandum of misunderstanding as I call it between Iran and the United States is that within 30 days of the implementation of the of the of the accord by the by Iran, the United States will withdraw its military from the region. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean just the navy or does it mean the bases? And as I've argued before, from the point of view of the Gulf Arabs, there really is no choice at all. They have to live with Iran. It's there. It's not going to go away. It's been there for the famous 3,000 years. And so they have to protect themselves. The United States has demonstrated that it can't we can't protect them. they have to protect themselves both from Israel which has attacked them after all remember the Hamas negotiating team in Dha that Israel tried to murder with a direct attack on Qatar and of course there have been assassinations conducted in Dubai by the Israelis and no but they have to protect themselves primarily against Iran because if Iran chooses to destroy them it can so in the end they have no real choice at all. They have to make their peace with Iran and they will do so and I think they're probably halfway there already. My understanding is that we're going to have these sort of discussions about the war in the West Asia, the war in Ukraine till the last day of the last minute of this administration because it doesn't seem that they're going to they they really they're really serious about making some sort of you know agreement with Russia with Iran. They're talking talking a lot and moving a lot and going back and forth but nothing practical coming out of this.
Well, there are no negotiations in progress either with Iran. There is a mediation process directed not at reaching agreement but at bringing about the implementation of the undertakings in the so-called memorandum of understanding and that is being mediated byqatar in Pakistan in Doha. Who are the American representatives Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner? you know, you you know, you might as well have appointed the devil as your representative in terms of a shaitan in terms of of the acceptability of these two men at this point. They have no credibility at all. And they're there just apparently to string things out. Same thing is true with Ukraine. There are no talks going on with Russia. The Russians have concluded that the summit meeting at Anchorage was a farce, not serious. Trump administration never followed up on any of the commitments that allegedly made. The Europeans are talking about war with Russia, not peace. Some in Europe are aiding and abetting the Ukrainian deep strikes into Russia, which are an annoyance to Russia. and they are a problem for Russia. But they basically it illustrate the Russian point that a hostile force that is present in Ukraine is a threat to the Russian Federation that any NATO based force in Ukraine is a menace to Russia that has to be eliminated. And so the Russians are now engaged in eliminating that, not at the negotiating table, which would have been far less bloody and more acceptable, but with deep strikes into Ukraine. In other words, I suspect that what the Russians have concluded is two things. First, there's no point in talking to or maybe three things. There's no point in talking to the United States because it cannot make up its mind and it cannot keep its word and therefore it is agreeable. It is agreement incapable. There is no one in Europe to talk to because the Europeans are too divided and they're living in a fantasy world in which they imagine that during that the history of their little subcontinent is that it would faced invasions by Russia. But in fact that little subcontinent in the person of Napoleon and the person of Adolf Hitler, French and Germans invaded Russia, not the other way around. And when Russia pursued the defeating defeated armies of the French and the Germans into the European subcontinent and in the case of World War II was remained present afterwards. this was the result of a defensive action and not an offensive action. But the Europeans have convinced themselves that Russia lost safer their territory. And that therefore they must sacrifice the Ukrainians, you know, fight to the last Ukrainian to keep the Russians at bay. And the third thing the Russians have concluded is that Ukraine is on the ropes but not willing to talk. And therefore what they're going to do to Ukraine is what they did to Cheschna Grny. They leveled the place. They are going to make part of Ukraine uninhabitable not with infantry attacks but with aerial missiles and glide bombs and other systems. And they were seeing the beginning of that with the attacks, heavy heavy attacks on Kiev. And the all of this is a result of the escalation of the war against Russia by the Europeans and Ukrainians. for many years in this war which has now gone on for what more than four years the for for the first two or three years nobody dared to attack deep into Russia because they knew this would result in counter escalation by the Russians that counter escalation is now happening and I don't think it's necessarily going to be limited to strikes at Ukraine the factories in the UK and elsewhere that are producing the long range missiles for Ukraine are very likely to suffer a sabotage, an accident or perhaps even a strike by a missile because the current situation even though it is intolerable for Ukraine is not tolerable for Russia either. So what we have in common here is a conclusion on the part of Tehran, on the part of the Palestinian leadership, on the part of Hzbalah, on the part of the Russians that there's no point in negotiating with the United States. You have to do what you have to do on the battlefield. And to one extent or another, that is happening. There is no way that the Lebanese government dedicated to cooperating with Israel to destroy Shiite power, political power in Lebanon is going to succeed. And there is no way that propaganda claiming that Ukraine is inflicting huge casualties on the Russians far in excess of what they have done, it's going to win the war for them. and there is no way that Donald Trump claiming the state of Hormuz is under American control is going to produce that result. So we are at a crunch point in a sense. Everybody in the United States of Donald Trump is focused on the November elections. But before that we have an economic crisis in the world with a probable recession possibly even a depression and huge inflation pending in the United States. So this is not going well from the point of view of the Israelis or the Americans. And Iran has shown a degree of stoicism, ability to suffer in support of patient pursuit of realistic objectives that is going to see it through in my view.
Yeah. Ambassador, when it comes to the United States, you see the new people are feeling differently and they talk, they come out, they try to put pressure on politicians. But when it comes to Europe, we have a system running the whole continent is the European Union. They don't care about the public opinion. They're just doing whatever they have. Their agenda is more important than the public opinion.
Well, there's a parallel to the American situation in that the unelected European Commission bureaucracy in Brussels is widely resented for its, you know, it's hubris, it's its belief that it knows more than anyone else and can make the rules for everyone else whether they like it or not. This is unaccountable government. We have it now in the United States. Europe has got it on a Europeanwide basis. We'll see what happens. You there are elections coming up in Europe. I think this is going to be a big factor as it will be in our midterms.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much, Ambassador, for being with us today. Great pleasure as always.
Well, happy July 4th.
Oh, thank you so much. Um, I wish it were happier than it's going to be. But I think I don't think I'm going to go outside into 102°ree weather here in Exor, New Hampshire. Um, supposed to be cold here, but it isn't. Anyway, enjoy.
Yeah, I was still in Minnesota. Yeah.
Oh, I hope the weather's good and you have a great weekend.
So good. 19 degrees Celsius right now.
Oh, perfect. I'm I'm very envious.
Okay. Byebye.
Bye-bye.