Transcription
Probably so. Probably so. As insane as it is, uh, nothing good, nothing good, of course, has come from anything that's happened up until now. And anything that follows with more war will be disastrous. Uh, we've already seen that the United States and Israel cannot achieve anything positive even even for their own objectives, much less for the world.
Uh and uh yet it is likely that it's going to start again. There are some specific issues of timing. Trump's supposed to be in China uh in just a short time in about 2 weeks. Does he want to go with a a disastrous war? Maybe even the meeting again would not happen in those circumstances. So, he's got other things on his mind, but everything points to a resumption of fighting because Trump is that stupid.
You see, I'm uh I was schooled, not formally, but informally schooled in the belief that uh great men uh don't make history. Uh that history follows a more scientific path. Maybe I was taught wrongly, but that's what I was taught. And yet this war seems to be entirely dependent on the personality of Donald Trump. He's not a great man of course, but he is a big man and he is a man uh with a great deal of power right now at this historic uh moment because the markets can't want a war. The oil market can't want a war. Uh industry uh can't want a war. the economic captains uh of uh of our industrial heartlands and so they cannot want a war. We're told the American officer class doesn't want a war. Uh and so if there is a war, it seems to rest on the on the tortured uh fevered speculation and social media ramblings and so on of one individual.
How can that be? Well, first there are two crazy individuals here. Uh there's Trump and there's Netanyahu. Uh they're both nuts. They're both pathological liars. They are both psychopaths actually meaning that they kill and they inflict harm uh without uh any remorse actually any normal human emotion I would say. So we have two fully ad as uh as the psychiatrists call it and they play off of each other. Israel definitely wants this war to restart. They say so without any uh equivocation. The uh minister of war in Israel, the minister of defense says yes, the war should start again. This is Israel's dream that the United States military will uh defeat Iran so that Israel can have military hijgemony throughout the Middle East and West Asia. So they're egging this on.
Then there are parts of our corporate military industrial complex definitely egging this on. Uh strangely enough or maybe not strangely enough in Silicon Valley which has become basically the heartland of the new military industrial complex. George, they want to test their new weapons. They want to test their AI systems. They want to test their drones. They want to test an AI enabled battleground. And and I mean it in a literal sense. Uh you can't have all those weapons developed without trying them. Uh it's not good enough to do a simulation. We want to see how many people can be killed, whether you can really control the airspace. So uh whether you can really do AI based targeting. Yeah, you kill some school girls, but uh come on. This is all in uh in the in the process of learning. So, Palunteer is our most visible part of the military-industrial complex now. But every major uh AI big tech company is deeply engaged with the Pentagon now. They want this war because it's business, but more than that, it's improving uh their their models. uh it's improving their future contracts. It's demonstrating what can be done. And so I think a lot of the Pentagon, maybe not the ones that have to command troops, but a lot of the Pentagon that's interested in procurement, that's interested in technology, uh wants this war to continue.
Uh then of course we have the individual personalities and you raise a very important question. Do individuals make a difference? Well, when there are systems, the answer is no, not so much. But we have completely broken uh all rational systems in the United States. And by that I mean the actual processes of decisionm are quite exposed right now and they rest with Trump. It's weird. Uh, but it's not an exaggeration. We know a lot about how this war started on February 28th. Netanyahu and the head of Mossad came and gave a story to Trump. Trump was a a fool enough to to buy it or to go along with it given uh his uh his range of uh pressure points and interests and delusions. Everyone else in this small room uh basically thought it was nuts except for Hegsth who's an absolute blooming idiot right alongside Trump. And so the uh Pentagon uh chief of staff not interested. CIA thought it was a bad idea. The vice president of the United States openly has said this is a bad idea. Rubio completely worthless joke. Unfortunately, we don't have any diplomacy. Uh Susan Wilds, chief of staff, well, she I don't know if she played a role. Jared Kushner, come on. and Steve Witco. That's the team. We're not talking about a a inter agency process. We're not talking about intelligence estimates. We're not talking about a plan. We're not talking about the president of the United States consulting with congressional leaders. We're not talking about American public opinion, which runs overwhelmingly against everything that is happening. So we are talking about a few people led by a delusional old man uh who never was very good at anything uh but is very bad at this and even in the room of sycopants that he has no one believed it except perhaps Hegsth who is his own special case in all of this. So there's no process. This is a case where uh an individual can make decisions.
Um, he violates the constitution because the constitution says in the United States under article one that uh it's only congress that can declare war. But most presidents have ignored that. Trump completely uh brazenly and almost well no members at all of uh Trump's own party in the Republican leadership murmur even a word about consultation much less uh congressional constitutional responsibility Netanyahu is his own case he's a a very very dark pathol ological figure. I've called him a son of a in the past and feel that that's a mild description for a mass murderer. Uh actually, so this is what we have. We do not have uh either rational leadership or a rational process uh in I think either country, the US or Israel.
Uh Israel, well actually both countries add a uh a strain of religious zealatry which is also pretty strange uh in the year 2026 for two nuclear armed countries. Uh but uh it's not it's not an incidental part of this story also certainly not in the Israeli case even if that's just part of a political coalition. It's uh two of the three leaders in Israel are messianic zealots who read from uh a genocidal account of Israel's conquest of Canaan uh in the book of Joshua and take that as a literal text for what Israel should be doing right now. The United States sent an ambassador to Israel, Mr. Huckabe who says out loud uh exactly that he agrees with that approach. So this is another aspect of the irrationality that we're facing.
>> Peculiarity uh indeed uh and unlucky we are to be alive at this uh moment. Maybe we won't be for very much.
>> Well, we want to stay alive.
>> We want to stay alive. Uh our friend Tucker Carlson, a not inconsiderable man, uh said today that uh spending a day with Donald Trump is peculiarly intoxicating. He seems to have a kind of spell uh that uh creates uh an atmosphere around them. And before you know it, he said, "I wouldn't know. I've never smoked uh marijuana, but he said it's it's a bit like being under the influence of marijuana. A day on the hash is how he described a day with uh with Donald Trump. I don't know if you recognize that. I I would have thought myself looking from the far outside that Donald Trump is a vulgar boore. He certainly wouldn't mess. Well, if he could mesmerize someone as considerable as Tucker Carlson, maybe I've judged him wrongly.
>> Well, I've I've never been with Trump and certainly watching him from the outside. He's deeply pathological. I I agree with a very long list of distinguished psychologists and psychiatrists that say he uh has the so-called dark triad personality of narcissism uh of psychopathy uh of megalomania. Um he has been called uh by very uh uh very important forensic psychologists and psychiatrists a malignant narcissist which was a term invented for Hitler. Um Hitler had a charisma too to use Mox Vber's uh sociological idea. He attracted followers, some of the sickest people in German society of the day. Uh, and Trump attracts people too. He has a following. The following is a minority of Americans, most Americans find Donald Trump repulsive. uh his approval rating right now is according to the latest Ipsos Reutder poll 34% approval and uh I believe it's 62% disapproval and uh when the disapprovals are queried it's strong disapproval for most of those disapprovals in other words most Americans find Donald Trump repulsive actually not charismatic. This is important. Uh he is doing what he's doing not because of American jingoism, not because American society is calling for it, not because of uh selling a story of glory to the American people. He's doing this as as a oneperson act uh or twoerson act if you count Netanyahu in this. and uh Americans are deeply against this.
But to come back to your opening question, if he actually goes forward, I think the point that many people have been telling Trump, which is that within a couple of weeks of such a decision, the world could be irreparably damaged, uh is really the point for us because the next round uh of fighting, if there is going to be one, And it looks likely will lead to massive destruction uh of the physical infrastructure of the whole Gulf region. Uh and uh no doubt uh Iran has all of its targets set. uh and uh they will aim to show uh as best they can deterrence and they have thousands of missiles left and it doesn't take much to knock out desalination plants uh oil and gas fields, refineries, ports, pipelines, uh civilian infrastructure linked to all of that. uh it could happen in hours or days which is why there was a pause in the first place. This is a losing story. Uh this is a disaster. uh nothing was accomplished by the fighting and um Trump un uh was forced in a way to uh understand that even if he doesn't accept that uh nothing was accomplished. Uh and we sit here now with the oil prices at about $115 a barrel. Uh if the shooting resumes, it will soar. That will look like nothing. uh compared to what will come uh in a resumption of a shooting war. But even at $115 a barrel, which is at least a 50% increase of oil prices from what they were uh on February, February 27 before the war started. uh this is already creating grave economic uh harms all over the world. But what will happen if the shooting starts again uh will make what's happened to date uh look insignificant.
>> Indeed. I wanted to uh move on to that uh field uh leaving uh leaving the Gulf itself for a minute. We'll come back to it. And going downstream uh downstream uh where I live or at least ordinarily live uh in Britain in Europe uh it's difficult to overstate uh the catastrophe uh that is coming down that pipeline down that straight uh towards us. We are already in the apparently gravest economic difficulty. Uh and I'm thinking that economic life as we know it will effectively cease across much of Europe. If we are talking of oil at $150 to $200 a barrel or maybe unavailable at all, well certainly any factory I've ever worked in will have to cease uh its activity and the economy in general will simply seize up for one of the greatest essentials. Agriculture is already in crisis. Even in your country uh because the fertilizer that comes down the street of horm also there are many things not just oil gas fertilizer minerals so many things will simply cease to be available and the the supply chain will will be completely broken won't it?
Of course, uh we will have a catastrophic outcome and if unlike the uh previous uh disruptions to oil supplies from this region which were famous in the 1970s uh one after the 1973 uh war uh and one after the Iranian revolution in 1979. Those were huge huge negative uh uh shocks to the world economy which were disruptive for years and in some ways through debt crisis for decades to come for some countries. But what happened then was a temporary closing of uh the spigot. What would happen now, most likely within two or three weeks, is a destruction of the spigot itself that could not be replaced for 5 10 years of physical rebuilding. And even then, the investments that would be needed to do that uh and uh the perilous nature of such investments after just having been blown up would put everything in doubt. So, we're talking about something that has not happened since World War II. And I think the crisis uh that would come within a short period of time would be comparable to uh uh well would I sorry let me put it a different way would be larger than anything that has happened since the second world war all of the big crises that we've had. And what happens as you know is not only would uh of course the economies be deeply disrupted but then come the financial crisis that follow because all of the outstanding lending and borrowing and investments that have come have been predicated on a completely different uh set of assumptions from the ones that would prevail. So there would be bankruptcies galore. Our governments will find the interest costs on massive debts that they have accumulated over the last 20 years soaring. Uh this will create currency crisis. This will create banking crisis. Only only a complete ignoramus and idiot would restart uh the fighting again. But as I said, it's likely. This is the paradox right now. It's likely that absolutely the dumbest imaginable thing one could do is actually odds on.
Now, uh I said we'd come back to the Gulf, and I promise we will. But, uh I'm interviewing you now from Moscow, uh where preparations are, uh heavily underway for the Victory Day, uh celebration, parade, and so on. Uh I attended the Victory Museum the other day and I made the point as when I was coming out that uh that uh the Victory Museum that Russophobia does not survive a visit to the Victory Museum. The cost of the World War II uh to the people of this part of the world was of course uh greater than any other. And the contribution and the defeat >> and the and the shame and the shame of it that we in the United States or in Britain or in continental Europe are so nasty not to recognize that fact that Soviet Union lost 27 million people defeating Hitler and bore the brunt of it and then would not even show up to the 80th anniversary uh of the defeat of Hitler uh because it was Russia but Russia defeated Hitler bearing the vast brunt of the war and this shows the mindlessness of our countries actually of our leadership uh how cruel by the way same with China incidentally China lost an estimated 14 million people to Japan's invasion and when China had the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Japan, no western government would show up. The ingratitude, the lack of the most basic decency and historical knowledge is really something disgusting on our side. And then Trump because I mean it's I hate to come back to him in this context but he says yes um we defeated Hitler and Russia helped. I mean it just is the the cruelty of the stupidity because there's stupidity of course but it it's so stupid it becomes absolutely cruel in its stupidity. That's where we are.
Anyway, I interrupted toxic uh mix.
>> No, not at all. No, fascinating that you did. I I've written a piece for the Chinese media tomorrow because this is the eve of the uh of the Tokyo trials. Uh which of course are long forgotten in the west. Uh I I suspect even by academics uh in which uh and are never referred to. I mean, the Nuremberg trials aren't referred to all that often, but far more often than the Tokyo trials. Absolutely. All kinds of bizarre things happened in the Tokyo trials. First of all, uh it was like Hitler being exempted from the Nuremberg trial. Hirohito was exempted and was allowed to live out his life uh with everyone calling him emperor. The unit 731 that conducted hideous biological experiments on Chinese prisoners and civilians was allowed to trade the results of those experiments with the Americans in uh return for their freedom uh from prosecution.
Uh I don't want to give away too much and George, but yeah
>> no no no but just incidentally uh in in in the German context the US hired those very scientists and uh the the program was called operation paperclip uh which is refers to the fact that when Nazi scientists uh were to be brought to the United States and the State Department was objecting, but the military wanted these scientists cuz they knew how to torture people. They knew uh all of these experiment these absolutely gruesome grotesque experiments. You'd put a paperclip on their file and that would tell the State Department, keep your hands off. This is the military or the CIA. We're bringing them in. Uh and uh this is recounted in an incredible book uh by a wonderful reporter named Annie Jacobson uh about Operation Paperclip. So it's the same with Japan. Uh we we not only exonerated these scientists, we hired them. They became the head of our military research programs. These Nazi scientists, incredible. Uh we're and we're supposed to love Japan now and hate China uh and uh love Germany and hate Russia. For someone my age, that's an impossible ask actually. Uh having grown up in the shadow uh of the Second World War as I
>> and and if I could say something about that, George, could I just add one more word about that because I feel very strongly about it.
>> Sure. I want Japan, which I like. I like many Japanese. I have many friends, colleagues. We've lived in Japan. I want them to say sorry. Uh we were responsible for killing 14 million people in China and we have no animus against China. Indeed, we don't want to be divided by the United States in some geopolitical game anymore. I would like Japan and China actually to work together. I would like uh Germany uh not to be playing games uh with uh let's say revascist or revenge thoughts which they flirt with right now and rather say we're sorry. uh 27 million dead. And isn't it really time that the chancellor of Germany and the president of Russia sit down and start again a normal peaceful uh indivisible security for Europe and put the United States out of this. Uh maybe Trump did I I think he did a favor. I wish Germany would take it up. When Trump said, "We're withdrawing 5,000 troops." If the German chancellor had any sense, he would say, "Take them all home. We don't want to be occupied. It's 81 years since the war ended, and I'm going to go visit my counterpart, President Putin, and we're going to make peace on our continent finally the right way." So instead of the United States siding with the aggressors of World War II against the countries that actually were the allies in World War II, we should in the United States get the heck out of both regions and both regions should understand that their real security comes not from something like NATO, God forbid, or American military bases in Japan. and their real security comes from making peace with their neighbors. That's where security comes from, not from an American military sitting there. And if the Gulf countries had learned that too, they wouldn't be in the disastrous situation they're in right now.
If there's any redeeming feature in Donald Trump, uh it is that he seems not to want war with Russia for whatever reason, uh and many speculate on what that reason might be. I have no idea. But I do get the impression he would like the Ukraine war to come to an end and that it is others uh who are determined that it should continue. the others being in his own circle, in the Democrats, in the Congress, in the military-industrial complex, uh, and above all perhaps, uh, in the European governments. Um, do you think what was established at Alaska, the spirit of Alaska, the spirit of Anchorage in a big full dress summit between Putin and Trump? Is that dead or does it still have legs?
Well, the problem uh among other things is first the constituency for war in the US, in uh Britain, especially uh uh in Britain perhaps uh and in uh Germany is very strong. And so it would take a highly competent American president to say no and explain why to the American people. Trump is fundamentally incompetent. This is a big part of the story. Trump has never s had a a uh coherent uh explanation to the American public about this issue that we're talking about. There's been no speech to say the war should stop because NATO enlargement wasn't a good idea or because there could be an alternative security arrangement. He's not smart enough unfortunately to give the speech and he's doesn't have anyone around him to write it and put it on the damn teleprompter and get it done. So I think you're right. It was my sense too that he didn't want this war to continue. And but when he started to say it should stop, then you had the on a bipartisan basis in the US Senate. No, the war must go on. We're defending freedom. Uh selling military goods. You had the Democrat like Richard Blumenthal, senator from Connecticut and Lindsey Graham from South Carolina from the Republican side demanding war, more war. And then of course uh Britain is the most rousophobic country in modern history. And by the way, for no reason, if you go back historically, it's a fascinating uh fascinating phenomenon. uh British rousophobia which dates from around 1840. But the British uh imperial uh rulers got the idea that Russia was the big threat to the British Empire uh and concocted every crazy story about Russians passing through the Kyber Pass to invade the Indian subcontinent. And they concocted the Crimean War in 1853, Lord Palmerston, all with rousophobia. Well, that rousophobia has continued actually until today. And someone as incompetent as Starmer and it's a long list of incompetence. Uh they're all rousophobic. And Mertz, come on. If you're a German chancellor, are you kidding? Do you have any understanding on of the right kind that you have a certain responsibility to actually address this issue from a historical and a realistic point of view? Germany had such chancellors with Billy Bront and Helmet Schmidt and Helmet Cole and Angela Merkel got it but she was too weak. She was bowled over in the end by the American presidents. But basically, this guy is is unreal. I don't know where where I I got to on this rant except except that um the the rousophobia is so blinding and it's for Britain. It's been I know where where we were. It's been 180 years. I was going to mention by the way there was a wonderful book written in 1950 uh which I had the chance to read a few years ago which I discovered uh only a few years ago by a historian who asked the question where did this rousophobia come from and uh he posed the question he said in 1815 uh Britain and Russia were allies against Napoleon and then 25 years later Britain was a staunch rousophobic country and Russia had done nothing. So what happened? Where did it come from? So he read everything, every speech in the parliament, every magazine article and so forth. And the conclusion of the book, no reason. It just was invented. And it was basically this confabulation of Russia as the great medieval oriental eastern threat to the British Empire. Uh and it's continued for 180 years since then.
Now you ask me about Trump. uh he was not strong enough, knowledgeable enough, capable enough to be a good president, which would require skill actually to manage this. The president would have to speak over the heads of the military-industrial complex to the American public to explain to them this war made no sense. It should stop. It could stop. Russia's not going to invade Western Europe. That's not the issue. But we don't have to put NATO into Ukraine because that's a provocation that we wouldn't like if Russia tried to establish a military base in Mexico or when they tried in Cuba, the world almost ended because we said that's a cause for war. So if a president explained this straightforwardly, when he came into office, the war would be over. But he's he's not capable of this and uh no one around him is capable of that modest maneuver. And so I think on the Russian side they have basically lost interest. They don't believe uh anything good can come out of Washington. President Putin has a very famous interview in Figuro in 2017 where he said at that point he said, "I've dealt with three American presidents. They come into office with ideas, but then men in dark suits with briefcases uh and blue ties come to tell them the way that it really is." And then you never hear of those ideas again. And I think uh Putin really nails it with that that the American system is a militaryindustrial complex. Europe surprised me frankly at how enthusiastic it was to double down >> on this in a kind of economically suicidal way and perhaps even a militarily suicidal way in the future. But that's where we are. And I don't think the the Russians give any serious thought to uh negotiated outcomes at this stage. I think they're just um trying to achieve their military aims at this point and are not expecting Trump to to do anything useful in at.