Transcription
Isn't the memorandum of understanding signed by President Trump and possession essentially a US capitulation?
Yeah, there's no question about that. Uh, basically the memorandum of understanding that was signed on June 17th reflects the coercive balance of power at the time. And there is no question that by June 17th, the coercive balance of power decisively favored the Iranians over the United States, which is why Trump signed this deal, which was basically a surrender document. Uh, anybody who's looked at all of the points, the 14 points in the document, understands clearly that the Iranians have won on virtually every issue. And the reason this is the case is because we lost the war.
Here's uh, of all people, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser to President Biden for the four years that President Biden was in uh, the White House. uh basically saying the Iranians outsmarted Trump's real estate agents. Cut number three.
>> If you just look at how they work, the wording of the agreements they do, they are highly detail oriented, not just because they're lawyerly, but because they want to extract benefits from those details. Just one example from theou, the provision that says the US would wave sanctions refers to oil. And then there's this little clause that says and derivatives. What are derivatives? The prochemical sector. that is the second largest sector in Iran. Now, do I think the US really even understood what it was signing with that? Maybe not. But Iran knew it would get billions and billions of dollars just by inserting that word. And that's why you bring a very large delegation because you're looking for every advantage in this highly complex detailed negotiation. And I think as long as they're bringing that expertise and we're only bringing a couple guys, it will be advantage Iran.
>> They're bringing expertise. He's being charitable and we're bringing two New York City real estate agents.
I >> I actually think this is all nonsense. I I think that B he's arguing that we were fleeced that it was inexperience that produced uh this document, this surrender document. It it wasn't the fact that we were fleeced. It reflected the balance of course of power. Uh look, those documents that were floated around before we reached an agreement on the final memorandum of understanding on June 17th
>> and the final is almost the same as the inal that they proposed.
>> Yes, it is. But you know, we proposed a counter document, right? There were a number of documents floating around. There were endless negotiations on these documents. I find it hard to believe that we didn't look over every word. And the reason that we had to swallow uh all of these provisions that were to Iran's advantage and our disadvantage was because the balance of coercive power decisively favored the Iranians.
So, how did Iran defeat the United States and Israel? How do you make sense out of Iran's military victory? Well, first of all, it had the military city to shut down the strait and in effect threatened to take the international economy off a cliff. Uh, President Trump likes to talk about how he destroyed the Iranian Navy and the Iranian Air Force. He may have destroyed a big chunk of each of those institutions, but the fact is that the Iranians were left with enough military power they could that they could shut the straight and keep the shut and keep the straight shut down. So that's the first major point. The second point is they have a significant missile capability, mainly ballistic missiles, but also cruise missiles as well as drones. And they have the ability to do enormous damage to our bases in the region and to the infrastructure in the six Gulf States. In addition, they have the ability to pound Israel with those ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones. So if you get into a shooting match with them, which we did, we could only go 40 days and we had to quit. It is very important to understand that we quit after 40 days without a victory. This is the air war because we were running out of precious munitions. And furthermore, we were running out of targets to hit. We had hit so many targets. The fact is that the Iranians could absorb an enormous amount of punishment.
No, >> we didn't find ourselves in a position where we could uh dish out more punishment because again we were running out of munitions. This is what I say when the balance of cos of power favored the Iranians. This is what happened.
Here's why I think um uh Trump will dismiss us. Why didn't the Pentagon plan for that? Why didn't they warn Trump about it? How could they not have foreseen these events? Did they fall? Did the Pentagon fall as Trump fell hooked, line, and sinker for what Mossad and Netanyahu said to Trump?
>> Well, I distinguish between Hexith and General Kaine, who's the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of St. My memory tells me very clearly that before February 28th, uh when we were talking about attacking Iran, uh General Kaine made it clear that we had a serious problem uh in terms of the amount of munitions that we had for a war against Iran. So I think that Kaine was not enthusiastic at all about this war. Uh all the evidence is that Hegsith was. Uh, so I think that there were voices in the Pentagon for sure who said that this was not a good idea. And you want to remember from that famous New York Times article that detailed what the negotiating process between the Israelis and the Americans looked like in the runup to the war. It seems clear from that article that almost all of uh Trump's advisers except for Hexsmith thought that uh going to war against Iran the way we did on February 28th uh was not going to work out. It appears that it was Netanyahu and David Barnea who was the head of Assad plus Hegsith who who were the real hawks here and uh played the key role in convincing Trump that this was a good idea.
How um how about the Gulf States? Aren't they re-evaluating their relationship to the United States? We couldn't protect them from Iran and most of our bases in their countries have been destroyed.
>> Exactly. I mean, uh what what kind of security umbrella does the United States provide for these countries? It's quite [clears throat] remarkable, judge, if you think about the situation on February 27th visav our alliance structure in the Gulf and our basing structure in the Gulf. We had all these bases that looked like they provided significant capability for projecting power against Iran. Uh and we had close relations with all six of the Gulf states. It looked like we had a quite formidable alliance in place. That was on the 27th and I don't think many people anticipated what would happen uh to that alliance structure and to that basing structure once the war started but in fact what happened is that virtually all the bases were either badly damaged or destroyed and we proved very clearly that we could not provide security for the Gulf States that our security umbrell umbrella was inadequate. Uh this is unequivocally clear and the question is where do we go moving forward and it's hard to believe that the Gulf States are going to rely on any rely any meaningful way uh on the United States to provide security for them. They're going to have to choose an alternative path moving forward.
Here's Jake Sullivan again and this time I think you'll agree with them. Cut number four.
I think that they are now questioning the basic model upon which they've built their security which has been essentially a deep partnership security partnership with the United States including forward deployed American bases in their countries. I think now they're asking themselves, what are we getting for that? And do we need basically a more diversified approach that involves a degree of hedging with other powers, maybe including China, and definitely includes quiet diplomacy with Iran to try to make sure that they're deescalating with their neighbor across the
>> hard to disagree. I mean, I think >> I I think he's really right, but this is a case uh where he is correct that uh uh I think the Gulf States have a vested interest in developing a more diversified foreign policy for the reasons we talked about before.
>> What is Netanyahu doing to draw the United States back into war?
Well, he's not doing much to draw us back into war because we are not going back into war. I mean, what are we talking about here starting the bombing campaign? As I said to you before, that is a non-starter. It's not going to happen. We're not going to restart the bombing campaign. In my opinion, it would be lunacy, right? Uh where Netanyahu is causing us trouble is by his behavior in Lebanon. Uh what the Iranians want uh to make this deal between us and them work uh is for Israel to get out of southern Lebanon and stop bombing South Beirut. It appears that the Israelis have stopped bombing South Beirut for the time being, but they're not getting out of southern Lebanon. And this is a real problem in terms of US Iranian relations. So I think what Netanyahu is doing here, he's not dragging us back into the war. Uh what he's doing is he's complicating our efforts to put the memorandum of understanding uh on a firmer footing.
>> Here he is two days ago. Listen to the very end of what he says about from the river to the sea.
>> Much more. I think there are many principles. I'll give you another example. Another principle of the government. I intend the broad national government. I intend to lead. There is no place for two states.
>> What? From the sea of the Jordan, there is no room for two states.
>> From the sea of the Jordan, there is no room uh for two states. In his own mind, the greater Israel project is going well. I think he's sophisticated enough to know her Israel project is not going well. Uh he surely understands he's lost in Iran. He's in deep trouble in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah is inflicting significant casualties on the IDF. The IDF is basically worn out. uh despite what has happened in Gaza regarding the genocide, the fact is that Hamas is still intact and it's still a formidable fighting force. Uh so the idea that Israel has accomplished great goals and greater Israel is looking like uh uh it's working out swimmingly is an argument that's almost impossible to make these days. And I think that Netanyahu understands this. But the question is, what does he then do when he sees himself and his country in trouble? And the answer is he doubles down. This is why when you think about Israel moving forward, it's going to be just more war, uh, more horror, more genocide. They really have no choice, uh, if they want to continue to pursue this goal of a greater Israel.
A little bit about Ukraine and Russia, if I may. The Ukrainians have been uh dispatching drones in large numbers to Moscow uh and elsewhere. Do the Russians have any red lines over which the Ukrainians over which they won't let the Ukrainians uh cross? Are these uh drone strikes substantive or just performative?
Well, I think there's no question that they're doing quite a bit of damage, especially in Crimea. Nobody disputes that. Uh, will it affect events on the battlefield and therefore the outcome of the war? No. I mean, basically what the West working with Ukraine is trying to do here is to punish uh the Russian uh homeland and therefore improve Ukraine's position at the bargaining table. That's the idea here. Nobody's really talking about winning the war uh with these attacks, just getting a better deal. Now you asked the question where is the red line or where are the red lines? It's not clear uh but it does seem quite apparent when you listen to the Russians talk that if this continues and that indeed if it accelerates that the Russians will retaliate at some point and it seems likely that they will retaliate by striking into Europe. Uh but again where that red line is is very hard to tell. But I want to emphasize that if you look at the recent G7 meeting that took place in France, you remember President Trump was there,
>> right?
>> It's quite clear that President Trump uh showed uh that he was uh quite enthusiastic about these attacks and he thought that the uh that the Ukrainians were doing the right thing. And then when the summit was over with, uh, uh, a declaration was issued which said that the G7 countries would continue to support and accelerate. I underline the word accelerate the development of long range uh, capabilities for hitting Ukraine. This is really quite remarkable. Uh and we also read in that same declaration that was issued after the summit again on June 17th that we were going to increase our efforts to damage the Russian economy. And as you would expect, the Russians basically see this as evidence that not only the Europeans are upping the ante in this war against Russia, but so is the United States.
Okay. >> So, um, what are the pros and cons of Russia striking munitions plants in Western Europe and in Great Britain?
>> Would be a coercive strategy. And the idea would be you'd scare the living be Jesus out of the Europeans in the United States. You'd show them how serious the Russians were, and we would then back off from supporting Ukraine. uh and this is the same argument that is used when people talk about uh Russia using nuclear weapons if the conventional weapons don't work. The idea is you just to convince people in the west that what is going on is unacceptable. This drone war and especially an acceleration of this drone war I is not going to be allowed and we're going to stop it. This is the Russians speaking of course and we'll do what'sever necessary and obviously if you strike at targets inside of Europe even with just conventional weapons uh you are really escalating the crisis and what the Russians would be doing in that instance would be showing how deadly serious they are about putting an end to those strikes.
So the media reports in the west earlier today uh in Russia the Russian military shot down 60 drones over Moscow in the area around Red Square. I mean this this targeting that area serves no military purpose whatsoever as far as I can understand. that just as you say aggravates, irritates, to some extent terrifies. Do they really think this is going to bring Putin to the negotiating table?
>> I don't know what the answer is to that. Maybe they do. I mean, they've been telling this story, they, meaning the Ukrainians and the Western elites have been telling this story over the past month or so that Ukraine has basically turned the tide, that the Russian economy is in great trouble. These drone attacks are having a great effect. There's tremendous resistance to Putin. And furthermore, on the battlefield, the Ukrainians have stymied the Russians and may even be turning the tide. And when you put all these pieces together, this is really good news for the Ukrainians and good news for the West. So, what we ought to do is just double down, get even tougher with the Russians, increase the size and scope of the drone attacks. uh on the Russian homeland. Uh it's that mentality that you know we are in a position uh where we can uh really uh get a good deal out of the Russians once we go to the negotiating table. And that's what this is all about. I think it's craziness. This is just a propaganda campaign. If you look at what's actually happening on the battlefield, you look at the state of the Russian economy, you look at Putin's position inside of Russia, there's no reason to think that the Russians are on the ropes and you're going to get them to the bargaining table uh and exact a good deal out of them. I think this is delusional, but Western leaders seem to believe this.
The other one this morning was an off-handed comment by President uh Putin that nothing was really agreed to in Anchorage. Something you and and I and the other guests on this show have been talking about uh for a long time. I I don't know if the Americans came away with the sense that something was agreed to or the Russians came away, but President Putin said today, almost a year after it, that nothing was agreed to.
Yeah, I don't know what to make of that comment. Uh there are a lot of people who argue that there was an agreement. Uh but even if you don't think there was an agreement or there was an agreement, let's just put a put that aside. The Russians and others talk about the spirit of Anchorage. And when people talk about the spirit of Anchorage, and again, we're putting aside whether there were any concrete agreements. The spirit of Anchorage was all about the fact that Trump wanted to improve relations with Putin. [clears throat] And what happened at Anchorage was seen as a major step in that direction. And I think all the evidence is that Putin bought into this and Putin was willing to work with Trump up until recently uh to try and work out some sort of deal uh that would put an end uh to the war in Ukraine. I think what's happening now is that the Russians understand that Trump is no friend, that Trump is an adversary, and that Trump is basically joined at the hip with the Europeans and with the Ukrainians, and those three actors uh are doing everything they can uh to bring Russia down as a great power. So, I think the Russians are mad as hornets now. And this is why I say if you have a situation where we accelerate uh these drone attacks on Russia uh you are playing with fire.
>> Yes. I mean you could add if I can be presumptuous uh to your list there uh that Trump is waging war. Trump is a co-elligerant uh against Russia with the military arms we're supplying and the intelligence that we are providing for aiming them.
>> Absolutely. I mean this talk that the United States is a mediator is nonsense. Uh we all talk as if we are sort of a third party not directly involved in the war and therefore ideally suited to act as a mediator. Anybody who goes back to the start of this war and then ramps forward to the present sees an abundance of evidence that we played a key role in causing the war number one. Uh and number two in terms of how the war has been waged. The Ukrainians could have never waged this war without an abundance of support from the United States of America from the start of the war right up to now. Indeed, from before the war started, going back to when the crisis broke out in 2014 up to when the war started in 2022. Take those eight years, we played a key role in arming and training the Ukrainian army. Then the war started and we did even more of that. And uh the end result is that we have been an enemy of the Russians. And I actually think that Putin to some extent has been been bamboozled uh by Trump into thinking that you know we had this spirit of anchorage and that he was going to work with Trump to get a good deal and so forth and so on.
>> What do you make a speech President Putin gave last week to all of the new military and law enforcement recruits? So, this would be, and you've been there because you're a graduate of West Point. This would be like graduates of West Point, uh, Annapolis, the Air Force Academy, the FBI Academy, the Secret Service Academy, all of them brand new together in one room. He walks down into the middle of them says, "We're ready to take on Europe.