Transcription
Turkey has broken diplomatic relations with Israel now, especially coming on the heels of Biden's loss and heading into the Trump Administration. This seems kind of ill-timed. I'm sure Trump didn't want to have to deal with this, but can you please explain to people why this happened? Because it's going to come out of left field for most people, and why you're concerned about it.
No, this is a very important development; let there be no question about it. Keep in mind that certainly since this tragic war in Gaza broke out and the expulsion and killing of hundreds, tens of thousands—over 100,000 now, I think the Lancet Journal said over 189,000 Arabs, Muslims, and some Christians—driven out of their homes permanently, driven into camps, and so forth, Turkey has exercised tremendous restraint. Largely because Mr. Erdoğan, like everybody else in the region, doesn't want to be involved in a war. He wants to build up his country and build its prosperity.
But things have gone from bad to worse. Lebanon has changed the equation for Mr. Erdoğan because 1.5 to 2 million refugees from Lebanon are now moving towards Turkey, and they've already got four or five billion refugees living inside their country. They can't afford any more. So he's being pushed and pushed and pushed. In addition to which, keep in mind that Turkey, historically because of its Ottoman past, has been considered the leading state of Sunni Islam. Many of the Arabs, most of the Arabs of course are Sunni Muslims, have been disappointed in the absence of Turkey as a voice for reason and also a willingness to combat what's happening in Israel.
I think what's happened now is the assumption that we and the Israelis made was that everyone would sit quietly and do nothing while tens of thousands of Muslim Arabs, first in Gaza, secondly in southern Lebanon, and increasingly in the so-called West Bank, would be killed and made homeless, and nobody would do anything about it.
The other point is that Mr. Erdoğan has been supplying Israel first with a lot of goods and food; that has largely stopped. But now the question is, what will he do about the oil? Because the Israelis have been extraordinarily dependent upon the oil shipped to them from Azerbaijan through Turkey, down into Syria and Israel. If they don't have access to that oil—and that represents about 80% of the oil that is utilized by the Israelis—they're in very serious trouble. So we wait and see what he does about that.
But the point is that he's now jumped on board with virtually everyone else in the region. Everyone in the region is now aligned with Iran against Israel, something that everybody thought was impossible. There you go; that's it. That line is extraordinarily important to the Israelis. And of course, everybody has allowed black market operations to go on: Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, you know, moving things in and out of Israel. But the oil is by far the single most important commodity. If that's cut off, then Israel's in a lot of trouble.
And I want to go a little bit further because you're talking about a region-wide issue here. Turkey alone is a big, big issue for all the reasons you just mentioned. But it's not just Turkey. You also have what was enmity between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Actually, China helped solve, bring them together not long ago. But now, in the last few days, they're also getting closer and closer together diplomatically.
How do you see that? This is extraordinarily important because not only was there historically animosity or hostility between the two, but I think the two have concluded that their interests obviously coincide, particularly when it comes to the movement of oil and goods and natural gas and so forth, and also with Russia and China. Ninety percent of all the oil that's produced by Iran goes to China. So the notion that if you cut the oil off, that somehow or another you're going to harm Iran, is crazy.
In other words, if we cut it off as far as their ability to export to us in the West, their principal export is to China. If you cut that oil off, then obviously the Chinese are very unhappy, and the Chinese already have a small flotilla of ships outside the Persian Gulf. I suspect they'll send submarines out there, and they will eventually cooperate or coordinate with the Russian vessels that are in the area as well as Saudi Arabia.
Now here's the worst-case scenario, though, and that is that Saudi Arabia and the Emirates decide to pull their wealth from our banks and repatriate it entirely to the peninsula. That's being discussed and would have a very, let us say, deleterious impact on the United States. In addition to pulling their wealth out and repatriating it to the peninsula, I would expect them to dump their remaining treasuries. They've always controlled what, almost 40% of our treasuries? These are the treasury bonds that were issued at very, very low interest rates that now increasingly have no value, at least on the open markets. If they dump those and sell them off at bargain prices, our markets are in a lot of trouble.
So it's not just a question of kinetic warfare; there are many other things that are happening on the sidelines that could have a hugely negative impact on us.
Well, plus we've had, I believe, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have both petitioned to sign BRICS, to join into that as well on top of Iran. So you see, you talked about Russia and China, and you see that whole thing expanding right before our eyes.
To what extent do you think these announcements and these activities are happening after Trump was elected but before he takes power? Is this some kind of signal to the administration that they want to see some sort of change in policy?
Yeah, I think so, but the problem is that they were waiting for President Trump to announce his candidates for office, in other words, his nominees for appointed positions. Having watched the names come out and knowing the backgrounds, none of these people are stupid. They actually pay attention to our media; they pay attention to the figures in the media that are reporting on what's happening here. They look at the figures that are nominees and have concluded—not unreasonably—that all of these nominees are Israeli-approved. Effectively, these people are 100% with Israel's war in the region.
It's not just a question of do they like Israel, or do they favor Israel, or would they support Israel if Israel needed support in the process of simply defending itself; that's not what this is about. They see that these people have effectively sworn allegiance to the Zionist cause. That's the way it is viewed in the Middle East; I think it's viewed that way around the world.
So if that's the case, and these are the people that are going to be in positions of enormous influence and power, and they assume that given the fact that the Senate and the House are both largely in the grip of AIPAC, the American-Israeli Political Action Committee or Political Affairs Committee, they see this as a 100% backing for Israel in its war. They have to assume that we will join it.
So all of these things are now coming out at a point in time where everyone in the region has said the game is up. There’s no hope for something better; there will be no discussions, there will be no negotiating. We're stuck with a very dangerous situation. The question is: what are they going to do about it? I think what they're doing right now is carefully coalescing into an effective alliance, and I think you'll see some very interesting things over the next few weeks.
Now, none of us knows what comes next. Iran has held back because Iran was kind of hopeful that Mr. Trump would turn out to be someone with whom they could talk and negotiate; that doesn't seem to be the case. Others have probably favored the same thing.
The real question is: what does Mr. Netanyahu do? Mr. Netanyahu has everything he wants; this is his dream outcome. Will Mr. Netanyahu simply wait quietly until Iran finally counters the last Israeli strike, or will he say, "No, we're not going to wait?" Historically, Israel hasn't waited when it felt that it was threatened in any way, shape, or form. It has struck at its enemies.
In this case, they're already at war for all intents and purposes with everybody in the region. Why would they wait? So will Mr. Netanyahu in fact strike Iran? I don't know, but I think the situation is very explosive, and something's bound to happen between now and the 21st of January.