Transcription
In uh any kind of uh rational strategic action. Not only is the war lawless, reckless, and destructive, Trump personally is vicious, uh I would say psychopathic and delusional. So, this is not not a good situation. Uh we don't have too many grown-ups in the room. uh almost nobody dares to speak the truth about this disastrous situation and I think it is escalating. I do not think that it is getting under control. Uh the cl energy crisis is definitely worsening the brutality of Israel's strikes on Iran, murdering uh people, innocent civilians. Israel's invasion of Lebanon, the entry of the uh Houthis of Yemen into the war, all of it is absolutely awful.
>> Your characterization of Trump, I think more than half the world will agree with you right now. But what's driving him? Why is he doing this?
>> He himself is a a narcissistic megalomaniac. Uh, and I'm not just throwing around terms idly. I'm I think he thinks he runs the world. Listening to him talk, you've never heard an American president in our history speak with the vulgarity, the brutality, the psychopathy that this man uh utters. It's absolutely gross and disgusting to listen to him at any moment. But basically, he thinks he can murder anybody uh and run any place he wants. And he's talking about invading Cuba this week as well, so we could have a an absolutely expanded war. Uh all of what's happening is part of this uh megalomania which builds on normal uh American exceptionalism and delusional politics because the whole American political machine thinks that it can dictate to the rest of the world. But in this case, it's worse than that because we have a a president who is out of touch with reality uh and everybody bows down to him and caters to him and feeds his delusions.
So what's in it? Well, Israel wants to run the Middle East. The United States wants to run the world. They thought this would be a one-day operation. Netanyahu and and Trump. They're they're both absolutely awful people. Neither of them should be anywhere near power, but they started this and um it didn't go according to plan. So, their plan now is to continue to escalate. Uh and as long as the world remains more or less passive, uh viewing this as a spectator sport, what is Mr. Trump going to do next? Well, the answer is he will continue to escalate. Uh there will be a ground invasion. There will be expanded destruction in Iran. Iran will in turn expand its destructive missile attacks on the Middle East and Israel. So, it's just uh absolutely terrible. There's no clear endgame in this. We're not dealing with rational people. Um and so in this context, uh anything can happen.
>> There are some who are saying that this war is being driven by markets, optics, even domestic politics. What's your view on that?
>> Not exactly. If the war were driven by market optics or domestic politics, it never would have happened. This war is very unpopular. Uh Trump is going to collapse in approval ratings. People are even out on the streets protesting. We had massive marches around the country yesterday. Uh there's no politics in this other than uh trying to uh uh I don't know save himself from his own created disaster. And the way he does this is to lie every moment. Oh, we have negotiations going. Oh, the Iranians agreed. Oh, we almost reached a deal. Oh, we've killed everyone that that we need to talk to. Oh, they're already done. Oh, we're going to finish the war. Yes. I mean, he's playing uh games in his absolute toddler like way. Um the words don't make any sense. They contradict themselves before the end of each sentence. Uh but it's not driven by politics per se. Uh it's driven by megalomania. Uh it's not also quite true that this is a a war caused by Israel. This is a joint venture of Israel and the United States. Both countries led by megalamomaniacs. Uh both absolutely disgusting in their particular ways. Um and so this is a partnership a partnership of absolutely awful rogue governments.
>> Iran is hitting back hard against this partnership you're talking about. Trump probably did not expect this. Netanyahu also did not expect this perhaps because uh especially the hormones blockade. How did the you know apart from these two people, how did the entire US intelligence military uh and economic system miss it?
>> My sense is that the United States does not have any systematic processes anymore in government. um that this is basically kind of a one-man rule. Uh Congress doesn't exist. If you closed it down, you wouldn't even notice uh that Congress is there uh inside the executive branch. We hear all sorts of stories that the Joint Chiefs of Staff tried to tell the president this wasn't a good idea. probably the CIA tried to tell the president that this wasn't a good idea. Although we're not sure about that because nobody really talks. All you hear are the whispers uh that are conveyed in uh in in the media by unnamed sources. But the overwhelming impression that I have is incompetence. Uh megalamania uh together with utter incompetence. Trump is a fool as far as I'm concerned. Uh he doesn't display any awareness, situational awareness, historical knowledge, uh certainly military uh analytics. So the question is how is it that we don't have a process? That I think is the interesting question. But I can say that we've seen this now since uh the beginning of Trump's term. Even before, by the way, it's not that the United States government was working well beforehand. We had a president with dementia that was covered up for at least a year or two during the Biden period. Um when Trump launched his uh trade wars and we talked about that in the past year um this was without concept without knowledge without any sophistication at all. It was doomed to fail to meet its objectives uh which were stated as reducing the trade deficit which it did not do or creating jobs and manufacturing which it did not do. It was illegal. It turned out to be declared illegal by the US Supreme Court. So you could ask the same thing. How could the whole world trade system be turned upside down last year? Where were the grown-ups? Well, we don't have grown-ups in our government anymore. We just don't. People should understand this. Uh, and then they come and they praise Mr. Trump and they love the United States and it's our strategic partner. This is ridiculous at this point. People should grow up and understand what the real situation here is. that this government isn't functioning in the United States and it's doing great damage to India and to the rest of the world.
True. Uh you know as of this moment uh professor Saxs there are eight countries under attack from Lebanon to Iran to Saudi to UAE. Uh this now appears sort of a World War II situation. What is your take on this and where do you think this is going there?
Well, one thing is Israel is at war with all those countries. The Israeli government is fascistic. It is just murderous and there's a murderous spree going on in the West Bank following a genocide in Gaza. I'm sorry to say that Prime Minister Modi went to Israel under these circumstances. Why can people see with their own eyes what's really going on here? This is an attempt to basically exterminate the Palestinian people before our eyes. This time captured on TikTok. It's enough. Uh we should see this for what it is. Israel is at war all over the Middle East. Not out of defense, but offense. The offense is to try to destroy any government anywhere that supports the Palestinian cause. But the Palestinian cause is a just cause because there are millions of people living in Palestine that are facing expulsion or death from attack or uh death from wild settlers coming in and killing people and expropriating the land all under the watchful eye of the US I mean the Israeli police force and IDF. F. So this is Israel's motivation. It just wants control across the Middle East. The US motivation is that it wants control all over the world. It's manipulating every place and it's trying to take full control over the Americas and as I said earlier might well invade Cuba any day because Trump is uh absolutely ready to do that. It wants to confront China. It wants to use India in a confrontation with China. It wants to control the Middle East partly through Israel doing its dirty business. So this is what is happening. There isn't a a smidgen of legality or decency to any of this. Of course, it's all portrayed as America freeing the world, but it's the attempt for America to control the world and for Israel to control the Middle East.
But Iran even despite the fact that it's taken a big hit in its leadership, you know, dozens of leaders destroyed, killed in one fell swoop. Uh but Iran is fighting back really hard and now its proxies, the Hijoulah, the Houthis that you mentioned earlier are have all joined forces and they are all bombarding Israel and fighting back against the against this. How how do you see this panning out?
>> Well, Iran is an ancient civilization and it's almost a 100 million people. It's 5,000 years old. It is what what we say a place of civilizational depth. Persia and Iran.
>> It's not going away because Donald Trump one day declares that he's going to choose the leader of Iran. But that's how they feel about things. And by the way, there is a reason why they feel this way. Because in 1953, the CIA and MI6 did choose the leader of Iran. They overthrew a democratically elected prime minister who had dared to claim that Iranian oil belonged to Iran, not to Britain. Um, so they overthrew Mosedc and they put in place a police state. So they're basically trying to replay uh the 1953 coup. What happened is Iran got itself free from American imperial dominance in 1979. And so partly this is a revenge match by the United States. How dare I not fall into line? After all, the Saudis are in line. The Emirates are in line. Bahrain is in line. Uh Qatar is in line. The US owns the Gulf countries. It owns the Arab world uh more or less. What's the matter with Iran? It's got to come back under uh American control. This is how uh the United States government views things. Then you put that through the prism of a narcissist like Trump and it it's added, you know, tenfold in this ferocity. So he's ready to kill everyone. He says it every day. Uh, you know, if you don't abide by what I say, I'm going to kill you all. Oh, and there'll be no one to talk to. This is a psychopath is president of the United States. Honest to God, we've never heard a president of the United States in history talk like this, man. But it's normalized right now. It's normalized. I bet the Indian government would say they're our ally. This is how weird it is.
>> True. And nobody dares say a word. Look at the entire Europe just keeping quiet, you know. And that's another story really. That's another misadventure. Do you want to segue into that sir and just sort of explain what's happening with Europe right now as far as this is concerned? Because Trump is very clear. He's been very clear now is calling NATO cowards and calling it a paper tiger and everything else. He's just getting ready to withdraw from this entire entire war in Ukraine perhaps.
Well, look, I mean, my feeling is the best thing that could happen to Europe is the United States leaves NATO. Honestly, the US isn't protecting NATO. The US is occupying Europe. It occupied Europe after 1945, and it has continued to occupy Europe to this day. Germany's semi- sovereign. Uh, most of Europe is semi- sovereign. They also don't tell the truth because they have US military bases. They have CIA operations on their soil. So all of Trump's threats will leave NATO. NATO's coward. Good. Leave. Close it down. NATO was designed to prevent an invasion by the Soviet Union of Western Europe. Well, the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. And Russia's not about to invade Western Europe. It's the last thing Russia wants to do.
>> that's what European leaders are saying.
>> Yeah. But European leaders have been groomed by the United States for decades to have a completely crazy rousophobia. Crazy. Russia's fighting four years to take a small slice of Eastern Ukraine. It's going to show up in Berlin. It's going to show up in Paris. Are you kidding? Come on. Somebody needs some sense in this. And the Europeans are they're so badly led. The public despises their leaders. By the way, not one of them has an approval rating of well, I shouldn't say maybe one or two, but Mertz, his approval rating is below 20%. Mcronone's approval rating is about 10%. They don't like these people. and all their rousophobia is completely irrational. So the one thing Trump really could do would be to leave NATO. It's enough. NATO is should have been ended in 1990 when when Gorbachev ended the Warsaw Pact. It >> doesn't serve any purpose now other than American power. And it does serve American power. That's why Trump's uh boasts and threats probably don't mean anything. He's trying to scare the out of the the Europeans and he probably succeeds. But he's not protecting them. He's protecting them the same way that the United States is protecting Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the Emirates. And how is that? Well, it's it's gotten all four of these countries bombed. and they're going to get bombed to smitherines if this war continues a little while longer. That's what's called American protection.
>> And how long do you think the war is going to last given the fact that the ground troops are just landing and Iran is of course all gung-ho saying welcome to hell and so on. And at this point, who do you think is winning the war?
Well, nobody's winning the war because both sides are getting destroyed. So, I'd say this is a global disaster, but nobody's coming out ahead. Uh, Israel will absolutely get shattered by this. The Gulf countries will get shattered. Uh, Iran will face a terrible tragedy. uh the world economy will suffer a huge downturn. War is truly a lose-lose proposition. No one's winning and no one's going to win.
>> There are some >> but I can say Iran's not going to lose in the sense that Trump thinks Iran is not going to surrender. Look, we go through this every few years. Did Afghanistan vastly weaker than Iran lose? No. The Taliban came back after 20 years. Uh that's it. Uh did Vietnam lose vastly weaker than Iran? No. This is so typical of the United States. My whole life has been watching my government make these terrible uh bloody misadventures that are just destructive and that don't succeed at all and this one is going to fail just the same way.
>> There are now reports and we've know about Moshtabakmeni and the hardliner that he is injured or not. We don't know, but he's still around. IRGC is still strong. Um, and do you think they may change now after this invasion their nuclear policy? Do you think that's a possibility?
>> Absolutely. You know, we we hear lots of stories by the hour now. Uh, we hear statements in the Iranian parliament. You you'd think that there would be a lot of support for going nuclear. They can do it. They have the means to do it. They had decided for 25 years not to do it for religious prescriptions. And then these idiots, I'm speaking of Netanyahu and Trump, murder the religious leader who has called all the time for staying non-nuclear.
>> You just can't even make this up. That's a rational policy. You have a supreme leader who says no to nuclear weapons, so you murder him. You have a treaty which puts Iran under uh strict monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency. So you rip it up as Trump did in 2018 at the enthusiastic cheerleading of of Benjamin Netanyahu. These people are not interested in the Iran nuclear issue. They're interested in overthrowing the Iranian government and taking control of Iranian politics. This is something quite different. And um
>> and oil,
>> of course, oil goes with it. Uh the United States wants to commandeer the world's oil supplies. No doubt. That's what Venezuela's uh action is about. That's uh what uh the US interest in the Gulf is. They already essentially dictate the oil policy of of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain. Um, Donald Trump said yesterday that uh the crown prince of Saudi Arabia has to kiss his ass. I'm quoting the president of the United States.
>> The president of the United States.
>> Will someone take notice that this is not right? The reason that I think it's important to take notice is that I do believe that if Prime Minister Modi and President Putin and President Xi and President Lula and other world leaders seriously said to Mr. Trump, you've got to stop this. Before you destroy the world, before you destroy the Middle East, before you destroy Israel, before you risk everything, you've got to stop this. It would make a difference. But we haven't heard that very clearly. That's quite different from saying we call on all parties to stop. That's really quite different. This is a brazen war of aggression by Israel and the United States. I'm saying that the government of India and its other major partners need to say that clearly. If they don't, it's just impunity for the United States, for a president who says that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia needs to kiss his ass. But they don't say that. They they don't dare. It seems
>> But why why is it >> why is it left to a professor sorry why can't a prime minister of a of a country of 1.5 billion people and his colleague the president of a country of 1.4 4 billion people and nuclear superpowers because India, China, Russia are all nuclear superpowers. Tell Donald Trump the truth. Stop your delusions. You're risking the whole world. There should be a person in the White House who's willing to listen, sir. You've heard him yourself.
So anyway, >> I do think that Trump would listen. The reason is he wants to play with the big boys. He doesn't want to be dissed by the big boys and uh he would be and he wants respect. Well, the way he gets respect is by stopping this brazen aggression, by telling Netanyahu, who in these global military terms it can be told to go home and shut up, by the way, because Israel's done nothing but create chaos in the Middle East for decades. That's what responsible leaders should be doing right now before it's too late. Not catering to delusions. Not visiting Netanyahu who is an indicted war criminal whose country committed genocide. Who is at war across the Middle East. No, this is not right. It's really important right now to get off this uh escalatory path. The whole world needs that right now.
>> Right. There are some reports that that suggest indirect talks between US and Iran with Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt acting as conduits uh mediation efforts with them. Do you think Iranians should trust these this process given that more US troops have just landed in the Gulf?
>> Of course they they don't trust it. They know they're about to be invaded. They've said it just within recent minutes just before we get on the air. They understand that um they don't trust these countries. These are not the right countries. How could the bricks lead this to Pakistan? Are you kidding? The reason it's in Pakistan is that India, which is president of the bricks, did not say anything yet. It shouldn't be in Pakistan. This is not a credible place for this. The credible place is with Russia, China, and India. the world's three other superpowers to say to the United States, it's you've got to stop this. And you've got to make your acolyte, Israel, stop this. We've had enough of Israel. How many wars is Israel going to create? Israel's bombing everyone. It's invading Lebanon. It's bombing Iran. It's bombing Iraq. It's bombing Syria. It's destroying lives and people in the West Bank. It's possible, by the way, to get them to stop. It's 10 million people totally dependent on the United States for its security. All the United States has to do is tell Israel, "Okay, your rampage is over. your tantrum is over. But they don't, of course, because no one tells the United States that.
>> Who's the biggest spoiler of peace in the Middle East, according to you?
>> Israel.
>> Israel, of course. But this is so clear because Israel's doctrine is we are going to be greater Israel they call it which means we're going to have sovereignty at minimum from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean which means we're going to rule over or expel or exterminate the 8 to 10 million Palestinians in our midst. So that's the starting point. Then there are some zealots among them who say, "Why stop there? God gave us all the land from Egypt to Mesopotamia." Some of the real crazies say, and one of those is the US ambassador who's a so-called Christian Zionist, who a few weeks ago publicly said, "Yes, Israel has all the land from the Nile to me to the Euphrates." What happened when he said that? Was he fired? Was he reprimanded? Was he called home? Was he instructed to do something different? Not at all. That was just taken as normal. And so Israel says, "Great, we have the US backing to do whatever we want to act with impunity." So of course, Israel is the greatest destabilizer of the Middle East. It's been the cheerleader of every war. And not just in uh in in the Middle East, but also in Africa and the Horn of Africa and in North Africa. It was the cheerleader of overthrowing Gaddafi, in Libya. It played absolutely awful role in Sudan, in Somalia, and all the other countries that we've talked about in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Palestine. So, of course, it's it's the the big destabilizer because it's a country that does not live within its borders and the United States has granted it full impunity and too many countries have granted the United States full impunity.
>> How dangerous do the next 30 days look?
>> 30 days could see the blowing up of the energy infrastructure of the Middle East. It's going quickly. These oil fields and gas fields and refineries and pumping stations and port facilities are all out in the open. They don't have protection. Even simple drones can destroy them, can set them ablaze. 30 days is a long time for this uh fighting. And it's inevitable that it's going to continue at least 30 days unless it is stopped diplomatically. It's not going to be stopped militarily in 30 days. No way. And uh but 30 days is enough time to destroy a great deal of the energy infrastructure of the region. And oil prices this morning are at $114 a barrel for Brent. Could be 130, $140, $150 a barrel. And that isn't only for petrol, that's for diesel, that's for fertilizer, that's for all the prochemicals. It's uh we're just on the verge of blowing up the world's energy supplies and not just the straight of hormuz. I'm talking about the fields, the production.
>> We're very close to that. 30 days is a long time in this war.
>> Okay.
>> It should stop. It should stop now. Do you think Iran was, as Trump has claimed repeatedly, ever on the verge of building a nuclear weapon?
Iran was Iran was uh rather desperately trying to negotiate an agreement with the United States for 15 years in which Iran would subject itself to intense international scrutiny to not build a nuclear weapon in return for lifting crushing economic sanctions which have had a devastating effect on living standards and survival rates of the Iranian people. So they've been trying that for 15 years. I know it personally because Iranian diplomats would contact me. Do you have any idea who in the White House we could talk to? Is there any any back channel? Anything we can do? This was not a game from their side. They were a little bit innocent in this thinking that the US was really going to negotiate with them. I don't think the US ever had an intention to negotiate with them. The US wanted surrender. It wanted to reverse the 1979 revolution. It wanted to put Iran back under US control. Israel wants to assert its hegemony militarily across the Middle East and West Asia and the Horn of Africa. And um so they did not want a nuclear weapon and they've said so for 15 years and every time they tried to show it, they got bombed or assassinated for their efforts. So, how much bad faith does the US have to show before people say, "hm, that's bad faith." But this was absolutely reckless going back at least to the joint comprehensive plan of action. The US wants to control the world. Doesn't want to negotiate with the world. It wants to boss the world around. It wants to tell India you can buy Russian oil or you can't buy Russian oil or you can do this or you can't do that. That's the American way and that's the American way everywhere. Demands not negotiations demands. The only point of optimism that I would say is that if the big players in the world would directly take this on, it would end because there's so much bluff in it. There's so much bravado. There's so much delusion. It's possible to talk the United States down, but not when everyone normalizes it and has just thinks that a president can talk in these vulgarities or bomb in these vulgarities and get away with it. That's the difference. I'm not pessimistic. I'm just a little bit frustrated that we don't have the grown-ups responding.
>> How would you rate this moment in geopolitics? Is this one of the most dangerous geopolitical moments that you've encountered in years?
Yeah, I' I'd say the most dangerous moment in since 1945 was the Cuban missile crisis because we were within minutes or seconds of blowing up the world. Here, I would say this is number two because we're within days or weeks of blowing up the world's energy supply.
>> Okay. So, somebody you're saying needs to get up, tell Donald Trump to stop it.
>> Yeah. And I would say do it do it as a group. Uh Prime Minister Modi doesn't have to do it by himself. He can do it with President Xi and President Putin and President Lula and President Ramaposa and President Elsizi. Uh the bricks can do it and the bricks should do it and the bricks shouldn't leave it to Pakistan. Frankly, that's not the right way to do this.
>> Absolutely. I mean Pakistan in any case really they are happy to throw their lot with anybody right now and do anything for money really because their economy is in a shamble.
>> Well, that's one of the ways that the US keeps control. Look at Turkey. I'm sure that Turkey is not happy about this, but the US has its thumb on or it's I'd say it's grip on the jugular of of Turkey through the finances. If country is financially vulnerable, well, the US keeps the pressure on. It says you behave or we will destabilize your economy. We even had our Treasury Secretary Bessant who was a kind of a thug describe in when he was in Davos how the US applied maximum pressure on Iran this past year to break the banking system and to break the currency. That's their game. So that's that is one of the ways that