Transcription
Iran has already been victorious. The fact that Iran is standing up against not one but two nuclear powers, not to mention the United Kingdom and France, two additional nuclear powers that are supporting the US in their efforts by allowing them to use their bases and facilities and sending their own uh equipment in the region. That shows you that Iran is extremely capable as a non-nuclear country.
It's one thing if a government leader goes into a hole like a rat and hides. It's another thing if a leader stays at his home knowing that the bombs are coming and willingly martyrs himself. I mean, they grossly miscalculated how Iranians think about this from a not only a nationalist point of view, but a religious point of view. Iran, I think, is going to dictate terms more than the US and Israel will dictate terms.
>> Well, everyone, we're very honored to welcome back into the studio Mr. Christopher Halali, who is an incredible geopolitical insider and commentator. You may know him from DD Geopolitics. They have over 450,000 followers on Twitter, active on YouTube, and honestly, one of the best voices that you can listen to to understand the truth about the Iran conflict. Christopher, welcome back to the show.
>> Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be back with you.
>> Absolutely. Well, we did a live stream a couple weeks ago on the show and our audience really enjoyed your insights and I wanted to sit down with you one-on-one to talk a little bit more about the history of the United States and Iran. You have a very interesting background. I think you're in fact were born in the United States but obviously have Iranian roots. You know, you're fluent in multiple languages. You know, you've lived all over the world. So I just would love to get you back into the studio to give our audience this knowledge so that we can really understand you know the the true problems you know with this conflict between the United States and Iran. So if you could I have a very open question to start our conversation with and you know what would be the biggest misconception that a lot of Americans have about Iran today?
>> I think the biggest misconception is that somehow Iran is a a backward society, a feudal society. uh a society that is akin to the kind of orientalist fantasies they have of theocratic regimes and sort of these, you know, big bearded cave dwellers, quote unquote, that uh go around beating women and dragging them by their hair and and um basically running the country as if it was something out of, you know, 1,500 years ago. And that couldn't even be further from the truth. And it even wasn't the truth necessarily a,500 years ago. These are popular fantasies that are created um to of course support certain narratives uh that are constructed to allow for manufacturing consent for conflict and of course for various uh aspects of control uh over populations and over what they think about other people.
But in fact, Iran is one of the most educated societies in the world. Uh it has 99% literacy for women. uh it has uh most uh people in government have at least a master's degree um which is something that you can't even say in the US um we have a society that is deeply committed to science and technology. >> Of course you've seen its homegrown space program its missile program uh and its uh you know sort of rocketry uh programs its aviation and aerospace um innovations especially in drones. Iran is a uh at the front of medical advances um various other technical achievements especially in engineering and of course it's a land of poetry and literature. It's the land that gave us uh you know historically in its larger sense of Iran it gave us Rumi, Hafez, Ferdowsi, Khayyam. It gave us so many. It gave us the Shahnameh. It gave us so much of what uh many in the West especially a century or two ago looked at some of the highest form of culture. Uh these are I mean Rumi's books and uh Khayyam's books are some of the best sold books in the West. Uh they are required reading at the Ivy League schools and at Oxford and Cambridge. So if a person is to be a a man or woman of letters, they are they must understand the classics from Iran. I mean, the civilization, the Iranic civilizations, Persian civilization is 6,000 years old. Um it's it's part of the historic fertile crescent area. Uh it has so many different uh civilizations that have come and gone and built upon one another. Uh including the Hellenization of uh of Persia under Alexander the Great and afterwards, the Mongols who were greatly impacted, the Ottomans were greatly impacted. So much of what we now know uh from the Enlightenment is also thanks to Arab and Persian and Kurdish scholars who kept the classics of the Greeks alive while they were burned as heretical texts in the West. So we must of course understand that the Golden Age um that we call in Baghdad uh and in other famous centers of learning, they were a result of these civilizations a millennium ago. So when you think about that, it destroys all of the preconceptions that one has.
Um, people travel to Iran all the time. Uh, people can go and see it. We're an extremely hospitable uh people. We have it built into our culture. We have a a standard and a code of respect and ethics and you know um this is something that's so important. It's taught and inculcated you know in us from childhood. Tarof and so many things that you know you always treat the guest as if they are the king and queen of the home. you always give anything you you give. It's something that actually has disappeared uh from most Western culture and it's actually still I long for it because it was something that was very much a part of Mediterranean culture but the past two, three decades of the European Union have almost destroyed that with the economic crisis. But Iran still maintains it even under its brutal conditions of sanctions that have been imposed on it. That people still have this and you see it now. You can see it on images on X. People on shop signs saying, "We're all in this war together. Take what you need. Pay me after the war." Or "Take what you need. If you don't have money, don't worry. God bless you. Let's all stay safe." This is Iranian culture and Iranian civilization. That's how we are as people and that's how we will always be. I I I hope because that's very much a part of our entire ethos of life, our entire outlook, our our even our cosmic view of the universe is very much built around love, compassion, uh and of course service to the other.
So that's, you know, that's to say that these conceptions, whether it be in popular media, you know, "Not Without My Daughter" was a very famous movie about, you know, an American woman marries an Iranian man and, you know, he's brutal to her and it's, you know, after the revolution and tries to steal the daughter away. These kinds of things are outliers. They're not the common narrative. That the Iranians are not like that. This is just Hollywood stereotypes. So I just want people to know that. I want people to know that Iran is a very rich, dynamic land. It's a land that has been influenced by everybody. It was the center of the Silk Road and in that way, uh, it's given so much to the world uh and it's given so much to human civilization.
>> Yeah. Oh, Christopher, thank you so much for that uh amazing history. And I think you touched on something that's very important very briefly. You mentioned sanctions and this of course is has been the backbone of the United States government. Of course, we've seen the United States uh pass an unbelievable amount of sanctions and really just only increasing over the last 10, 20 years as every US president, you know, starting with George W. Bush and then going to Obama. You know, we've seen Joe Biden press an unprecedented amount of sanctions and of course continue with Donald Trump. We can look at a country like Cuba, for example, which is under a tremendous amount of pressure right now from the US government. But I'd like to kind of go back to Iran and I'd like you to tell our audience, you know, how United States sanctions has affected the Iranian economy and really caused a tremendous amount of trouble in this country and that this is actually a very big part of this war that we're now seeing. I'd like you to get to to un let our audience understand just the role of sanctions and what it means to this war.
>> So, first and foremost, sanctions are a form of economic warfare. They're akin to siege warfare in the Middle Ages. They're meant to uh inflict pain and suffering on a civilian population to force the civilian population to at some point rise up and overthrow their government. And that way you can then roll the dice and hopefully have a government that's installed that's favorable to the US or to whoever is imposing the sanctions. So sanctions are coercive economic instruments. They are in many cases violations of international law because they target civilian populations. And how do they do that? So for example, in the case of Iran, uh sanctions of course emerged shortly after the revolution and were built upon and built upon and built upon until now Iran is one of the most sanctioned countries in the world with tens of thousands of sanctions placed against it by multiple countries and blocks of countries.
So when you tear it apart, when you look at the insides of it, when you kind of do this deconstruction as we say, you know that and you end up realizing that sanctions affect for example the airline industry. So Iran has older Boeing jets uh that it services in its fleet and it is unable to buy new parts which means that Iranian jets are flying on either constructed parts made from maybe not the best materials or maybe not to proper specifications because they don't necessarily have the schematics and they don't have uh the ability under license to produce these parts or they have to get it from the black market. So just in the case of airplane parts, Iran has had an unprecedented amount of local air disasters because >> of sanctions. So sanctions have affected the parts it was able to get, the technical support it was able to get for its aging Boeing fleet. And as a result, many airline disasters took place that were totally avoidable had sanctions not been in place on the aviation industry. So people died, civilians died because they weren't able to get proper parts, technical support and um you know proper general aviation support for a lot of these u mechanisms and parts of these airplanes.
Take another example, the pharmaceutical industry. Iran has had sanctions placed against pharmaceuticals, against different types of medications, against different types of medical devices all in the name of you know going after the quote unquote regime. But it's affected people. People have died because they weren't able to get proper dialysis. People have died because they weren't able to get proper medication to treat different cancers, different other types of ailments, preventable diseases. So that's another aspect of this.
Sanctions has affected the educational system because for example uh certain tools and platforms are not allowed in Iran because it's under sanctions. So Iranian students don't have access to the information that other students do in other countries because of sanctions because those platforms are not allowed to go into Iran. Uh we've had so many, there are so many things that we could discuss from as we said aviation to shipping to the medical industry to space and technology to electronics and communications, you name it. And not only that, consumer goods, even consumer goods have had sanctions placed on them. The export of carpets, of uh nuts and uh you know dried fruits, you name it. Across all of these things, sanctions have been imposed which have put enormous pressure on the Iranian economy. And we've seen over time the the currency has gone up. um in in in in in relation to the dollar, there has been tremendous inflationary periods because as those sanctions begin to take hold and as Iran is unable uh because of sometimes because of the global economic situation, because of its own domestic uh needs and concerns, it's unable to provide at the top level what it could provide if there were no sanctions. Then you have an inflationary period. You have and of course Iran relies as a as a former state, Iran relies mainly on oil on petroleum products for a lot of its uh budget. It's trying to move away from that and that's why it's building a nuclear program to have a to have a civilian nuclear program that will not force it to be beholden to petroleum uh in the future. But as you can see, that has become a huge source of contention. Uh so all that to say that sanctions have played a major part in emiserating the Iranian population.
Now, Iranians as a proud people, and I know because it's part of our DNA, we're very proud. And so, we don't always, for example, go to the low-hanging fruit and say, you know, the government is to blame. Yes, the government has made mistakes. No doubt about it. Every government makes mistakes. But most Iranians, especially in Iran, know that the result of their emiseration, the result of their economic hardship is not a result of the Iranian government because the Iranian government has taken some principled positions that the Iranian people support. For example, not abandoning the Palestinian people, supporting the decolonization and national liberation struggles not only in the region but around the world. So, Iran was punished for supporting South Africa, uh supporting the ANC, supporting Mandela against uh the apartheid system. Uh it was uh it was of course um severely um targeted for supporting Venezuela and Cuba and Nicaragua. It was targeted for supporting Russia, for China, for many other countries that it has supported over time. And it has shown that loyalty and support. It has shown loyalty and support to other groups in the region that have been fighting proxies of the Americans and the Israelis and the other European Union and NATO countries. So when Iranians look at the situation and they understand their hardship, they understand that it also is a cost that is paid for having principles. And so some of the some Iranians of course use the religious language, you know, Imam Hussein, Karbala to understand their own suffering that they are suffering against, you know, part of their suffering is against oppression. So they understand that this is part of the of the fight against an oppressor, against an oppressor state or an oppressor empire. So an oppressive empire. So when you take that, you understand that Iranians have been and continue to be very resilient in very difficult situations. But there's no doubt in my mind that that sanctions have played an enormous part in emiserating the population and that is actually tactically what has been done. The US government has been open about it. That that is the goal. The goal is to push the Iranian people to the brink of having popular revolt and that's what happened just two months ago. There were riots in the streets. Uh of course there were at first peaceful demonstrations called by the bazaars, by the markets, by the merchant class and the government supported those. The government said this is correct. We are trying to adjust economic policy. We're trying our best with the central bank. Don't forget the Iranian central bank is not controlled by, you know, if you want to use a euphemism, but it's not controlled by the Rothschild. It's not under the SWIFT system. It's not a centrally controlled bank in the financial system of the West. So it has a level of sovereignty and you know autonomy and independence. And that of course means that it should be punished by that much bigger system. So the use of the dollar, the use of the different monetary mechanisms to punish Iran for being outside of that. Not being able to get, for example, money for oil that it sells on the market because of sanctions. Not being able to get transactions and money that is owed to it. By the way, when when Trump talks about the billions of dollars that Biden gave to Iran, that's Iranian money. That's Iranian money that had been lost away because of sanctions. Iran just wanted to access its own money. Iran has tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars in locked accounts all over the world because of sanctions. That is the source of a lot of these problems. Iran can't even just like Venezuela couldn't access its money from from PDVSA. So I just want people to understand that the sanctions have been a targeted instrument have been utilized by the United States and by others to try to ferment regime change from within. Of course, it hasn't been successful, but you keep on seeing every day, day in and day out, that they use these popular protests with the emiseration as the as the as the sort of the the spark for that to ferment regime change, to bring down the regime. That's what they constantly talk about. People should know that.
>> Yeah. No, Christopher, I just love this. I'm just so excited to bring this interview to our platform and to our audience because your insights into the know to the history is is is second to none. And I just think this is the information that we need to get out and and have more people speak. I do have a a story that I think you'll find very interesting. I went for a haircut a couple weeks ago here in the United States. And the lady that gave me a haircut was from Iran. And this was actually about three months ago. So it was before the conflict, this new this new war started. And I just asked her, I said, you know, I'd like to know more about your country. I'd like to know more about, you know, what the daily life is. And she said, you know what's interesting? If I could use one word to describe Iranian people, it would be resilient. And the interesting thing about our life in Iran is that we are always able to find happiness. That doesn't matter, you know, what the United States government does to us, you know, the sanctions that we're under. Iranian people are very strong and very happy. And actually, I've been living in the United States for many years now. And it's interesting because I would say that in Iran, we have more happiness because we enjoy the simple things in life. Being with your family, having a good meal. Nothing can replace that. Whereas in America, we have an abundance of everything, right? Everybody wants the latest phone, the latest gifts, the latest this. And yet, we also are some of the most depressed people in the world because everything is this culture of of just wanting and consuming. And I thought that was such an amazing perspective where, you know, when you travel the world and you see, you know, the simple things in life. I thought that was an amazing res uh, you know, amazing insight but it actually just exactly verified what you said. That term resilience and what the people are doing. I love that story with in the shopkeeper, right? Take what you need, pay me back after the war. We're in this together. Let's stay together. Let's help one another out. Uh, it's an incredible message, but it leads me to my next question, Christopher, which is we're in day 24 right now of this new war. I'd like to get your thoughts on how the war is going from your perspective. I I think, you know, from the United States perspective, they started this war thinking this would be a a similar model to Venezuela. We've actually heard the Trump administration say that. I believe they thought that they could go in, assassinate the Supreme Leader, and all of a sudden a new government would evolve. It's a very, very um, what is the correct word? Naive way of thinking. Obviously, that would not happen. Iran is a completely different country, certainly than Venezuela. But I'd like to get your thoughts on here. We are day 24. We've had a lot of headlines, a lot of stories. From your perspective, how's the war going? And you know, what are you observing right now?
I mean, if we're talking about today, uh, what I'm observing is absolute panic by the US and by Israel realizing that they've opened, as I mentioned last time on the show, they've opened Pandora's Box and they don't know how to close it. They don't know how to get out of this without losing face. They've already lost face in my opinion on the international stage. Everyone has seen the emperor with no clothes. Iran has already been victorious. The fact that Iran is standing up against not one but two nuclear powers, not to mention the United Kingdom and France, two additional nuclear powers that are supporting the US in their efforts by allowing them to use their bases and facilities and sending their own uh equipment in the region. That shows you that Iran is extremely capable as a non-nuclear country, as a country without nuclear weapons. Even with a conventional military, Iran has been able to destroy so many assets that we could have thought before this it was inconceivable to imagine that not one but multiple jets were downed, that not one but multiple radar systems to the tune of billions of dollars were destroyed, that assets all over the region are being targeted, that Iran using the latest ballistic and hypersonic capabilities was able to target Israel's secret nuclear program at Dimona and not to destroy the nuclear program because it doesn't want to have a nuclear disaster, but to target the the town, the city and to show that we can do it, we have the capability, we don't need nuclear weapons to create a nuclear disaster if you want to. And because the US and Israel attacked Iran's nuclear site. So I just want people to understand that Iran's perseverance, the resilience of the government, of the institutions, which I I have talked about on my on my show, what's called the decentralized mosaic defense. The fact that Iran has studied uh the US's weaknesses for decades, has understood Mao and Che and the Vietnamese experience, Algeria, Angola, Namibia, the experience of the resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan and taken all of that and created a whole new military doctrine where they don't say one-to-one. They don't they are they acknowledge from the from the beginning from point zero, we cannot defeat the US conventionally one-on-one. We can, we're not as big. We're not as technically advanced, but we have time on our side. We have different types of platforms that can draw them in and bog them down. And we can create enormous costs, economic costs that will lead them to the negotiation table or to withdraw very quickly. And you're seeing that as we speak. As we speak, the Trump administration is saying we're in negotiations. Meanwhile, the Iranians are saying that's not true because they're trying to manipulate markets because they know the longer this draws on, drags on, the longer this is drawn out, the economy is going to suffer so big and and have such a long-lasting consequence that we might be in a global recession again of our own making in the sense that the US and Israel brought this upon themselves by choice. They didn't have to do this. There was no imminent threat. Iran did not have a nuclear weapon that they were aiming at Tel Aviv or at Washington. They did this war by choice thinking, as you rightfully pointed out, that it would be like Venezuela. You go in there, you get Maduro, you kill, you know, 100, 200 people and there you go. You capture the government. No. Venezuela is a unique country. It's a country that was a byproduct of the age of revolutions. Iran is a civilization state. Venezuela is only is less than 250. It's less than the US in terms of age. It's a combination of indigenous people, Afro-Caribbean people, and and people from the colonial uh states, right? And not to mention immigrants. Iran is a civilization state. It's people who've been there for millennia. So, of course, they have a much longer cont. They have much more patriotic duty. Even if they don't agree with the government about religion, about this, about that, they agree about one thing. This is their homeland. They're proud of their homeland. Their homeland is in epics. It's in history. It's in museums all over the world. So, of course, they're going to say, "Absolutely not. You can't come here and and and start bombing and killing our leaders. That's for us to do." Some even Iranian opposition are saying, "You can't kill them. We can change our own government. We've had revolutions before, many of them throughout history, but you can't come in and try to dictate terms to us." So I just want people to understand that we are on day 24 as you pointed out and the situation is rapidly uh escalating and the US has no way of solving this issue unless they just say we made a deal and we're out and it's it's game over. Israel doesn't want to stop though. The Israelis have made it clear they want to go for full regime change no matter and they're increasing bombing as Trump's saying don't bomb infrastructure. They're bombing infrastructure. to show you that they've dragged the US into this in many ways. They're pulling the US uh into this and they're creating a sort of vortex, a cyclone where the US can't escape. And that's the real danger here is this is this escalation until we go reach a point of no return where it's going to be all out. And that's the fear. The fear is that we could have targeting in the Med, in the in the Gulf, in the Eastern Mediterranean. We could have targeting of different sites, be it desalination, be it electrical, different uh civilian infrastructure and that could lead to not only regional global uh repercussions, no doubt about it in my mind. We're talking about enormous consequences, long-term consequences, not one, two years. Already the LNG in Qatar is six to 10 years of repairs at $20 billion today cost and that's just from a few drones. Imagine Imagine what else is in the arsenal. Imagine what still is is is available to happen. So I I I think that we need to understand that Iran has shown itself and shown itself as capable. The government has proven that it will withstand these types of shocks. They've lost many of their top leaders and they still continue. So I think that at this point there should be uh the US should agree to Iran's terms. The US anyway, I think should should not be in the Middle East anymore. It has not been to our interest. It has been a money suck. What have we gained from it? The Taliban's back in power in Afghanistan. In Iraq, the resistance is in power. Iran is emboldened. I mean, it's just everywhere we go, we just saw destruction. So, let's just go home and figure out our situation in the US. We have a lot of problems in the US, not only immigration. We have a drug epidemic. We have a problem. We have debt. We have families. We have crises everywhere. So, >> focus on that. But at this point, in my estimation, in my in my sort of calculus, Iran comes out at at at the top. In all metrics, it comes out at top.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. Christopher, I think uh the your message there that the United States needs to pull out of the Middle East and certainly focus on domestic issues. I do think that that is a a large sentiment here in the United States. I I think a lot of people certainly want to see that. This is, of course, what Donald Trump campaigned on. I mean, this was his entire thing. And of course, you've probably seen the clips going back to 2012, 2013 where he said, "Look, if any United States president launches a war with Iran, they should be impeached immediately." I mean, this is something that we've seen Donald Trump campaign on. Honestly, it was the cornerstone of his re-election campaign. And it's remarkable to see that change so rapidly. And I think, as you rightly pointed out, it certainly is Israel. They have absolutely pulled the United States into this conflict. Uh Benjamin Netanyahu has been uh talking about this for over three decades. I think that's something that people need to understand. Literally 30 years he has wanted this escalation with Iran. He certainly wants a regime change. And I think what we're also seeing right now is we're seeing a lot of miscommunication between the United States and Israel. Israel did not seek the United States approval before attacking a a certain site in Iran. Uh then the United States basically had to come out and and try to instruct Israel, hey, don't do that. We've now just seen today, I'm looking at Twitter right now or X as we now call it, is that Trump just a couple hours ago have now said, I have instructed the Department of War to postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five-day period. And this is quite amazing because I think what you you hit the nail on the head, Christopher, is that in a conventional war, Iran cannot take down the United States, right? Obviously that there are no matches in terms of the firepower or naval ships, but also things have changed very differently with the drone warfare. And that is where you've been able to see, like you said, we've got billion dollar radar systems, the THAAD radar systems, uh, all of them, you know, well over a billion dollars each. all of them destroyed to the point where the United States had to go to South Korea, actually physically remove the THAAD radar systems from Korea, and now move them all over to the Middle East because they've all been destroyed by ballistic missiles, by drones. And I think the other thing that's quite interesting is we had Scott Ritter on who's a former United Nations weapons inspector. He was very involved in the Iraq war. Mr. Scott Ritter said, you know, Cyrus, the situation here is that Iran has used a lot of the weaker older missiles first. Israel and the United States have have basically wasted a lot of their missile interceptors on the older weaker missiles, but now there is a lot more firepower coming out, a lot more advanced technology. And similar to the earlier part in the video that you said, some of Iranian, you know, they're they're some of the most well-educated people in the world, some of their scientists actually are leading in pure research. uh, you know, in terms of this. So he's like, actually guys, you need to understand that these are very intelligent people that are working behind the scenes developing some advanced warfare and like you mentioned, you know, they were able to take down multiple fighter jets from the United States, something that we've never seen in United States history.
The next question I have for you is a potential ceasefire. We've seen that the United States has, you know, Donald Trump has floated this idea out. Uh, honestly, it's it's hard to understand where Donald Trump is right now. Uh, in an earlier clip this morning he said, "The Strait of Hormuz is going to be controlled by me and the Ayatollah. The two of us are going to work together on controlling the Strait of Hormuz." That makes absolutely no sense at all. Um, I think Donald Trump is now looking for an exit ramp. Talk to us about the Strait of Hormuz. You know, this is obviously crucial for the world economy, but who's in control right now? What's going on? Break break break through the noise that we're hearing right now from the from the White House.
So the Strait of Hormuz is a is a is a small little piece of territory. It's a it's basically if you can think about it like a channel of water and it basically compresses the Persian Gulf and then the openings uh out into uh the the broader ocean and you can see that this narrow piece of land uh has an area that comes up and basically is part of Iran's uh, you know, exclusive rights. So that's why Iran has such control over this territory and it's it has what almost over a,200 or so even longer kilometers worth of uh border around that area. So of course it has the ability to mine it, anti-ship missiles, you name it. And so what has it done? It has looked at the Strait of Hormuz as the choke point of the entire global economy. And so their idea is so long as we can choke this point, so long as we can control this point and choke it, the United States will have to come and beg for an end because we're going to do so much damage to the global economy. And you are already seeing it happening. >> Correct. >> It's already happening. And it doesn't mean that there's a full stop on the Strait of Hormuz traffic. That's not the case. Iran is allowing all friendly ships to pass. And those that are maybe not so known or maybe could be, you know, Indian or who knows, they're paying and they're paying not in dollars, not in the petrodollar, they're playing, they're paying in Chinese yuan, RMB. And I love that because Iran is single-handedly ushering in the multipolar world in this way by attacking the petrodollar because I could have imagined before it's saying, oh, I know, I want it in dollars, but instead they're saying yuan, which shows you the power of Iran and the power of China and their relationship together because clearly there's a much deeper relationship here, which we we know of course with Belt and Road, uh, with the SCO, uh, but also the integration of Chinese rail and um, uh, you know, sea sea routes and ports uh from Iran and China. They are now very connected. So there's intermodal facilities, you name it. There's a growing integration. That's also what the US fears. The US and Israel are also attacking Iran because of Iran's closeness to Russia and China. Let's not forget it's not only about Iran. It's about Iran that is allied with Russia and China and the DPRK and Cuba and Venezuela. So that should be very understood. So the Strait of Hormuz, this small point, now Iran has control over it. The US has withdrawn all of its major naval assets outside of a zone. I think it's almost 800 kilometers away now uh from that because Iran has capabilities to hit it with drones, hit it with missiles, underwater uh, you know, drones, seaborn drones, you name it. There's a lot of capabilities that Iran has and Trump keeps on saying we've destroyed their navy. Iran never had it in its plans to defeat the US Navy with its own navy. No. >> Correct. >> Iran operates on the Battle of Salamis kind of model. Smaller ships, much more, you know, very small elite craft, three, four people. You get up to a tanker, you put some explosives next to it, you blow a hole in it, that thing either catches fire or sinks, and you've just did it without having to make a destroyer or a cruiser or nothing. You did it with a boat with two two engines, right? A small little craft, you know, that you go fishing with. So, that's what Iran's capabilities are. Iran has these trucks that they have uh surface uh surface-to-surface missiles or surface-to-sea missiles, right? So, they're going they're going to be able to target ships that are coming in. So, what's Trump doing now? Trump threatened to bring in the Marines and the Marines are on their way, right? Marine Expeditionary Unit, they're on their way. The airborne units are on their way. 82nd from what I've been told, they have their deployment orders. >> Now, you ask the question, how to take this territory and where are they going to take? Are they gonna take Strait of Hormuz? Are they going to take Kar Island? Are they going to take both? For Kar Island, I just had Scott Ritter on last night. He's in Moscow with me now. And we were talking last night and both Scott and I are former officers in the military. He a Marine Corps major. I was an officer in the US Army and I was a paratrooper. So when you look when you look at the operations, first and foremost, okay, you fly them over, you lose a couple planes and helicopters, you get them on you get them there. Say you get them on Kar Island. First of all, you can't bring them by ship because the ships are going to be attacked all the way through the strait and all the way up. So there's no way those ships are going down. So you take them by, say you take them by Kuwait or Saudi or another route. You take them airborne, right? How do you resupply them? What about the logistics? Nobody's talking about this. There's no possibility. There's no way to do this. There's no way to do this. There's no proper way. And I think the Trump administration realizes that unless they get into a very, very big war, and I'm talking about a major, major campaign that's going to require hundreds of thousands. I mean, we just made the estimation last night. Scott and I were talking. The estimation from Scott was 750 to 900,000 troops minimum to do this kind of operation. >> Wow. >> But the US Army doesn't even have that at this point. US Army, Navy, Marine Corps combined with the Air Force and their capabilities, they don't have this kind of number right now, not at a combat ready status. What are you going to do? A draft? You think people are going to go die for Israel? So when we look at this, when we understand how critical the Strait of Hormuz is, Iran has had this as its ace card. And it said, and it threatened about this, this was not unknown. It threatened about closing the Strait of Hormuz for many, many years. It said if an escalation were to happen of this magnitude, it is prepared to close the Strait of Hormuz. Everyone said, "Ah, they're bluffing. They'll never do it." They did it. And now they've called the bluff of the US and Israel. So now the question, and not only that, the Europeans, everyone's like, "Well, we didn't start this war. We did we weren't consulted about this war. Why do we have to get involved?" Right? So I think people have to understand that any any possibility uh of military action to take back the Strait of Hormuz or to take Kar Island and to cut off Iran's access to its oil exports, uh, you know, basically these pipelines that then go to its uh, you know, heavy tankers that then, you know, export oil, it's going to be met with such a resistance that we're going to see a tremendous loss of life. I already think that the numbers are not necessarily accurate. I think that there's a bigger loss of life. We don't necessarily know yet, but I I would I would guess and I would actually bet that Iran will do tremendous damage if the US approaches in a capacity to take the strait and to take Kar Island or one of or one or the other. And I think people need to need to recognize that.
>> No, I think you're spot on and I, you know, we've had several guests on the show. One of them was former CIA analyst Larry Johnson who had said that, you know, basically you need a 3 to 1 ratio uh in terms of servicemen if you're going to do a military ground operation. So he said, uh, you know, the Iranian army has close to a million men. Um, our entire force is around 4 to 500,000. So that's not going to happen, right? We we're nowhere close to getting uh the numbers that you need to do that. But I think the other thing that I believe it was Scott Ritter that pointed out on our show is just you look at the difference in the Iraq war as far as, you know, being able to build military stations, the the bases. I mean, there's so much logistics involved in moving even 5,000 men in the desert, right? I mean, you think about the equip, you know, think about the equipment to move these men around, the vehicles, the gas needed for that, the food, the water. Um, and the problem is, is it's also very different, right? That we're now 23 years later since the Iraq war and obviously drones are everywhere and this is a different combat. You're not going to just be able to have 5,000 Marines set up a camp in the middle of Iran, you know, with with with the purpose of a military conquest. That's just not going to happen. So, I think it's uh, it's it's very scary for our for our servicemen and women that potentially could be deployed because I agree with you. I think it would be almost a death sentence for these guys. I think they would really be in a tremendous amount of danger if they were to do that. But I think also we're seeing, you know, some we're we're my analysis is that we're seeing the the United States and Donald Trump really finally realizing that they've made a colossal mistake. We've seen Donald Trump say, we did not think that they could close the Strait of Hormuz. We we didn't think that they had those capabilities. We did not think that they could attack our bases in the neighboring Gulf States. And that is exactly what Iran has done. But of course, as you had mentioned, you know, that we have uh, you know, certainly Iran has mentioned this before, you know, you know, maybe the United States thought that this was a bluff, but unfortunately here we are. A gross miscalculation. Um, we see even a, you know, kind of some internal fighting between the US and Israel where Donald Trump once again has had to get reprimand Benjamin Netanyahu. No, you're not allowed to do this. Please to stop doing what you're doing. Similar thing in Palestine when, you know, when the carnage was being unleashed, Donald Trump tried to reign him in. Of course, we know that uh, you know, who wears the pants in that relationship, if you will, for an analogy there. But Christopher, I want we're coming to the end of our topic. This has been one of the best interviews I've done because your knowledge is fantastic. I want to say, you know, where do we go from here? And I think the kind of conclusion that we're coming to is that there's going to have to be some concessions made from the United States. I've got kind of two follow two final questions for you. Where do we go from here? And, you know, how long do you think the United States can continue this effort? And ultimately, how is this conflict going to be resolved? Is it going to be the United States giving those concessions to Iran? Let me know your thoughts.
>> I think I think first and foremost, the Islamic Republic has shown its resilience and it's here to stay at this point. There's no alternative. There's no opposition. Resali is done. Maryam Rajavi and the Mujahideen Khalq done. We don't see any real movement from the Kurds, from the Baloch, from the Arabs, uh, from as it is from other minorities. Nobody's moving. Everyone's supporting Iran. So uh at this point, we have to recognize that Iran has proven itself. The strength of the government has proven itself and the Islamic Republic of Iran is here to stay. And in fact, it's stronger I believe now than it was before. There's more people now who support it because they understand the sacrifice of the government. If you listen, it's one thing if a government leader goes into a hole like a rat and hides. It's another thing if a leader stays at his home knowing that the bombs are coming and willingly martyrs himself. I mean, they grossly miscalculated how Iranians think about this from a not only a nationalist point of view, but a religious point of view because now they see the Supreme Leader the same as they see Imam Hussein. They see him as somebody who stood up against two oppressive states, two empires and he willingly gave his life for his nation and that of his family as well. They were all together and they didn't leave him. They didn't want to leave him. So I think we have to understand that's going to be an extremely powerful uh source of uh inspiration for many, many years. In fact, I think it will be for centuries if not millennia. If we last this long, it will continue to be an important part of Shia life because he was such a distinguished cleric, he was a marja, a source of emulation in Shia Islam. So that will remain. I think on the other side, the US has to assess Iran's uh, you know, demands. Iran wants compensation for the acts, the supreme crime of aggression and for all the damage and destruction done and compensation for the families who've been injured or lost family members, right? Uh, I don't know if the US will give compensation. What they might do is they might do sanctions relief and give Iran's money as a form of compensation, right? Okay, we unfreeze, you know, I don't know, 10 or 20 billion. But that will be deeply unpopular in the US because the Trump administration has been saying about the Biden administration and the Obama administration that they opened up money uh for the Iranians, especially Obama with the JCPOA, not as much Biden, but Obama, but
Biden was vice president. So he lumps them all together, right? That they gave money to the mas and the, you know, Ayatollas and the and the and the regime, right? To fund terrorism, which is not true at all, but okay, that's the narrative. So I think that that would be unpopular.
Iran has also demanded that the US withdraw its military forces from the region. Now this is something that I think we agree with. You know, I spoke to Ron Paul and Scott Horton. They agree with. I mean, this is a classic libertarian position, left-wing position, right-wing non-interventionist position. I think it's across the spectrum that people are like, let's just get out. Why are we spending all this money? Why do we have our boys and girls over there? It's not necessary. Let them handle what they need to handle. Let them have whatever government they want, so long as they're not bothering us. You know, what's what's the deal? And in fact, take the Chinese model. Business, okay, we come, we're just here for business, let's wait, you know, okay, you have this style, no problem, we'll sit, we'll eat, do, and then we leave, you know, that's it. Absolutely.
I think that that is going to be more attractive. I don't think that the likes of Lindsey Graham and the neocons and the deep state ghouls and these kind of the hawks, right, the pro-war hawks, I don't think they're going to go for that. So Iran's two major demands are compensation, that the US leaves the region, and that this doesn't happen again, which, how can you guarantee that? How can you guarantee when the US already twice in diplomacy and once with an actual agreement ripped it up and said, actually, we don't acknowledge this? So this is a very delicate situation. Certainly, I think that Iran has the better hand in this situation. Iran, I think, is going to dictate terms more than the US and Israel will dictate terms, but I think that both of them will have to accept that the government, I think they're slowly accepting it. We're seeing it in the media. The government is here to stay.
And that two scenarios emerge. Either the US stays in the region and the source of tension is there, and we're going to have another flare-up of violence in a year, two years, five years, or the US leaves, and then we're going to have regional tensions between regional countries like the Gulf States and Iran are not necessarily happy about the situation with one another. We'll see once the US leaves, there could be a big changing of the map. And this is what Professor Muhammad Mirandi said last night on George Galloway's show that I was on. He said that we can see a huge make change up of the map. We can see Bahrain, you know, overthrown, overthrowing their monarchy because it's a Shia majority, Sunni minority. We could see Kuwait changing. We could see, you know, Qatar. We could see UAE, Saudis. There's a lot of things that could happen.
The main thing is this, and I think the deeper thing. One has to imagine that the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, now martyred, he had a fatwa against building nuclear weapons. His son, Ayatollah Mostafavi, might not necessarily agree with that fatwa and might abrogate it in favor of building a nuclear weapon. The thing is now, this entire war has emboldened the voices that have been saying for so long, we need to be more like the DPRK. We need to be self-sufficient. We need to have a nuclear weapon to safeguard our sovereignty and our security and our independence, and therefore nobody will mess with us again. How do you prevent another war? At this point, the only prevention of a war of this magnitude is nuclear weapons. So I think that that specter still remains. That specter now is even more prominent.
But I think that also on the flip side, Iran has shown itself as very capable with conventional weapons to do tremendous damage. And Iran has capabilities that were not well known before. So I just want to say that there's a lot of unknowns. Now we have the famous Rumsfeld, unknown unknowns. I don't know necessarily what could happen. But yeah, I will say that in any scenario, Iran is in a much better position, not only at negotiations, but a much better position in terms of regional power to now project that power to safeguard its own security and sovereignty and independence in the coming years.
Yeah. Uh, Christopher, thank you so much for this incredible knowledge of the history. Um, you know, the actual situation, the culture, I mean, everything has been amazing today. Just my last question to you is, where can we follow your work? I'd like you to let everybody know, um, where exactly we can follow you. And for everybody, we're going to drop all of these links down in the video description below this, so you can follow Christopher's amazing, incredible work. Thank you so much. You can follow me on X, on Instagram, TikTok, Chrysali, on YouTube, Christopher Halali Official, and I look forward to connecting with you all. Um, I do some live streams where I basically do kind of like academic lectures. We go through articles together. We break them down. Come join anytime, free of charge. Just like, comment, subscribe, and share. And of course, keep following Cyrus's great work, all the great work of, you know, Al, so many of our colleagues and friends. We're doing important work. We're trying to bring the truth to you all where the mainstream media is failing. And thank you again for for having me on. It's been a real pleasure.
Absolutely, Christopher. I want to just say thank you again for your incredible knowledge and your work and your hard work as well. Wish you and your family all the best. And everybody, thank you for making it to this point of the video. Again, check those links down below. Make sure that you follow Christopher's incredible work. And I'm Cyrus. Thank you so much for your time, and we look forward to seeing you all in our next video soon.