Transcription
President Trump has been trying since day one into his office to bring the Russia-Ukraine war to an end. Or at least that's what he said. He tried for about a year. That day spread out a long time. Never came into any fruition. Uh, now it seems like he's just said, "You know what? I'm on the Ukraine side and, uh, let's just go down the road there." That has left the entire war in a state of flux because who knows where the war is going. You had the UK, the Europeans seem to have taken a a heart to that and now they have gone even further in the antagonistic category, and one imagines that those things are closely linked.
But where does that leave us in the war and what is that going to mean for how it's eventually sold? Is the Russian side going to lose? Has Russia, has President Trump's movement in that direction, is going to help the Ukraine and the European side win? Or have we just doomed ourselves to be plunged into a war that we cannot win and may outright lose? We're going to talk about all of that today, along with some, uh, breaking information coming out of the Middle East in the, the Iran war. Hard to separate these two, unfortunately, and we have literally nobody better to do that with. And one of our favorites on this show and a lot of our guests, Alistair Crooke, former British diplomat and MI6 officer with decades of experience in the Middle East and European security affairs. He has also served as a senior advisor to the European Union and is the founder of the Conflicts Forum, which you can find on Substack and which we refer to a lot. Alex, uh, Mr. Crooke, welcome to the show.
>> Thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to join you.
>> Well, listen, I, I, I wish we could come and just talk about like Italian cuisine one of these days or something or some of your decor because it's always so nice.
>> You're very, you're very welcome if you would.
>> To do that once. Um, but, uh, man, there is a lot of things going on here and I, I just want to talk about, uh, kind of set the stage here in the last, uh, well, the last period of time, but certainly the last, uh, 36, 48 hours, there's been a lot of back and forth between Russia and Ukraine. Uh, even in the last about month, there was a big strike from the Ukraine side in Daro Bilsk, uh, killed a bunch of college kids and there was a, a, a sports bus that was hit, made a lot of people in Russia really angry. And then, uh, I guess night before last, we guess last night, I guess it was, uh, in, in Kiev, Russia, who had promised to strike back hard as a result of all that stuff, made good on its promise. The Ukraine side said, "Okay, all you did was hit civilian targets. You didn't hit anything military. You're just a terrorist." Um, and so that kind of is the new narrative. In fact, both the Russians and the Ukrainian side and Europeans are both accusing the other side of just being terrorists, which seems to be driving any possibility of a conflict resolution even further away. First of all, just kind of let me ask you, just kind of 30,000-foot level. How do you see the state of the war right now? Is there any end in sight?
>> Uh, I, I think what we're moving towards is a, a general, uh, escalation. Um, an, an escalation which will be partly and mostly orchestrated by the Europeans. Uh, they've engaged in an enormous psychological operation, uh, to try and convince the world that, uh, actually, uh, Ukraine is on the front foot and Russia is on the back foot. Uh, and it's just simply not true. Um, but it's had some effect. Um, but at, at, I, and I think I discussed that with you at the, at the G7 in the, in the meeting before, it was entirely discussed how to organize a psychological operation, um, to try and persuade Trump that actually Ukraine might win the war and that the Europeans by providing missiles and drones to be to strike deep into Russia, Russia, um, were unnerving the Russian population, um, causing problems, causing shortages of gasoline, shortages of diesel, uh, all these things and that there was unrest against, um, Putin. All of this is the psychological warfare and Putin referred to it and he said, you know, we are now engaged in a major psychological offensive against us and we have to respond. So what you mentioned about both sides saying that they were terrorists, I mean, largely fits in with that. The, uh, Russians feel they have to respond to these, um, the, the psychological warfare, um, by saying the opposite. And, and actually, Russia goes to great lengths to keep the casualty figures, um, um, the collateral damage to the minimum. I think in this last one, which was one of the heaviest missile attacks, I'm, I, I heard a figure of about 30 people have been casualties, which is quite small given the size of it. When you look at what happened in Iran during the, the bombing of Thran, I mean, you had a, a casualty figure overall from that war, uh, was just, um, just about 3,000 people dead. Um, and so we're talking about, you know, 30, always regrettable, but, you know, you can't actually get down to no casualties and still have an operational missile attack of this nature.
>> So, so let me ask, in these images that Gary's showing right now, because this is what the Ukrainian media is showing at Nazium, uh, because so far all these are apartment complexes and and a large-scale apartment building houses. Uh, is it true that Russia is hitting intentionally civilian targets?
>> No, it's not true at all. Uh, and, um, you know, some of these buildings, um, I don't know which, I'm not sort of on the spot, but I don't know which, but you know, I know that the sort of Ukrainian intelligence and others operate out of, um, buildings, you know, and, uh, rather, you know, as the United States during the, the Gulf conflict, um, was moving out of the, um, military areas and housing troops and their officials in hotels in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Um, and so those hotels were hit because they were, uh, they contained American special forces and, uh, others that were engaged in the conflict. So, I mean, uh, without knowing the details, all of this is just propaganda. You, uh, it'll take time to sort out, you know, what is true and what is not true. But what is true is very clearly that there was a major attack. It was one of the most sophisticated, um, because there were new drones, it seems, that we used during this. And the, and the Russians are using, um, I think what you call mesh technology, in other words, AI is meshed together. So the drones are talking to each other and operating as a single unit, like a flock of birds, if you like, always communicating with each other. And the Ukrainians have already produced and showed that actually, um, the, some of the missiles which they've, um, taken or, or, or managed to sort of sort through, um, have no, have got no direct targeting, uh, facilities. They're operating optically and targeting optically, which means that they are, um, the AI is collecting information and passing it amongst itself like a sort of a swarm, um, of birds all, all together. And then they choose one or the other to go down and target it. And it's, and it's with that mesh, mesh, uh, technology, it's the group often that makes the choice of which drone will attack which target, not necessarily an operator even sitting in, um, Moscow or sitting in another part of Ukraine. So that's, and the, some of these drones are now rocket-propelled and so they've been very hard to shoot down. In fact, I doubt that many were shot down.
>> You know, let's take a look at what the ramifications of this, uh, propaganda war is going on because it has, it does have its effect on the target audience on each side. It does seem to be hardening resolve. And let me just show you a couple on the US side here. This is, uh, first of all, on American representative Don Bacon said that Russia is losing the war and its economy is crumbling. Putin's leadership has been disastrous. All Putin has in his dilapidated toolkit is bombing civilians. He's hoping to pound civilians into submission. The US and the free world must step up. Then he talks about some legislation that the US has passed and he wants the Senate to get on board. Meanwhile, over, uh, in the UK, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that, "So Putin responds to Ukraine's successful attacks on Russian oil depots, i.e. legal military targets, by targeting civilians, innocent civilians in Kiev, murdering women and children." Using very emotive language. "The Russian president is going to lose his revolving war which he should never have started. But the truth is that Western governments are doing nothing enough like what they should be to negotiating table." Then he talks about a bunch of things that they should do. And bottom line is that he says, "Hey, all we have to do is do more militarily and then the tide will turn." Is he right?
>> Uh, the whole of those two passages are precisely the effect that the European intelligence services were hoping to create of suggesting that it was entirely an attack on civilians, that Russia's economy is crumbling and that, um, there is great opposition to Putin and how disgusting and that Europe and America have to do more. I mean, you know, this is a call to war. I mean, isn't that obvious from these things? They are sort of saying, you know, well, we have to get in and we have, America's got to get into this, too. And, you know, we've got to put enormous pressure on Putin. They still want to go back to the idea of a ceasefire with NATO providing, if you like, um, the monitoring, uh, of the ceasefire, um, from Ukraine coming in. So they want to bring NATO into this process. The whole thing, the whole ambition of the Europeans is first of all, um, to put pressure on Trump. The pressure, by the way, is not on Putin. It's intended to be on Trump, on, on the United States. And as you can see, it's working very effectively, um, from that quotation you just read out. Um, and they're putting pressure on the United States to join with the British, the European three, um, to, um, increase the pressure, more missiles, more attacks, uh, on Russia to force into a ceasefire on the lines of contact. Now, uh, in fact, uh, Ukraine is losing territory, strategic territory in Donbas. It's almost at the point where Donbas is going to fall to the Russians. It, it's quite different to what is being presented. And also at the same time, these strikes are taking place, these missile strikes are taking place. Um, but, and there are advances along the whole line. Um, there is a massive advance and there may be an attack, um, if, um, Zelensky, he's threatened Belarus and Lukashenko, um, with, um, first of all, uh, threatening his relay, um, devices on near the border which do help Russians target, um, Ukrainian forces. Um, and there is, um, the Ukrainians are very worried and fearful that what is coming is there's going to be an invasion through Sumy and through into the towards the Donbas, um, by Russian forces in the near future. They're expecting a big change. The, the head of the army has said that Surovikin, General Surovikin, has just been saying that he's very fearful that something like this is going to come. So what's provoked this is basically a great anxiety on the part of of Ukraine because they can see that the Russian mood, the Russian vibe, uh, has changed dramatically. I think the most important thing that is really been said or uttered in these days was really when Putin said, um, you know, that actually there was no agreement that has arisen from Anchorage at all. Nothing has come forward. And what was striking to, um, was Lavrov then followed it up and he said, "The whole of Anchorage, they believe was a deceit mounted by the United States." He's not quoting Putin. He's quoting himself. And as you recall, Lavrov didn't stay in those meetings with Kushner and Witkov. He kept apart from from them. Um, but, uh, effectively Putin was saying, those negotiations are over. We are going to sort this out by military means. And so there's this great desperation by the Europeans and by Ukraine to try and force a ceasefire. And there've obviously been some contacts perhaps through Lukashenko, uh, of America trying to say, "Well, can we have a partial ceasefire? Can we have a partial one?" And Putin apparently has sent a message back saying, "Absolutely not. Do you think I'm a fool? Of course not. What you're wanting to do is you want a partial ceasefire so you can transfer the Ukrainian forces to Donbas where they're under such pressure and they are surrounded to reinforce the position there. No, I'm not going to help you out with your lack of forces at all. No partial ceasefire. No ceasefire. No ceasefire in the air, which the Ukrainians have also asked for." I mean, you know, this is not Russia asking for these things. It's the Ukrainians saying, "Can we have the ceasefire?" And the Europeans are going all out to try and provoke, uh, an incident or something that will, you know, pull the Pearl Harbor that will pull America into war, um, with, with Russia. What sort of war again? You know, I think I said to you last time, you know, there's never a discussion about, okay, you want war in against Russia. And Russia has responded. Putin responded in these last few days and he said, "I hear the clamor coming from all of Europe for war. My response to you is, we're ready for it and we are preparing. We're building new missiles. We're preparing, um, new innovative, um, weapons. We are mobilizing for war." And he said this clearly. Did you see it in anywhere in the western press that he said that as clearly? Is that, okay, Europe, you say you want war in 27, next year, by 2030 at the latest. I hear your clamor and I'm responding. We're ready and we're preparing and we're mobilizing for your war. I mean, this is a disaster. I mean, how stupid can these European leaders be? Um, what sort of war do they want? And why would America join in with it? Do they really think America wants to go to war against Russia? I think that, you know, they believe, they believe that their temporary advantage, which they've had with these drones, the temporary advantage that they've had, and I say temporary advisingly because, you know, like so often when we've had, you know, the new wonder weapon coming from Europe or from America into the Ukrainian conflict and everyone says, "Oh, this is going to turn the strategic battle. This is going to be something change." And what happens after a few weeks? The Russians work on it and they come up with, um, some means to counter it. And quite obviously from last night, we're seeing, um, that they were able, their drones arrived. They were principally attacking military, uh, industry in Kiev and around Kiev, military depots and command posts. That's what they were targeting, not civilian houses and civilian, uh, buildings. Um, Putin has been very careful, uh, not to do that. At any gone, he leaves that, that's what the Ukrainians do. And that's why they, you know, hold them in such disrespect and they hold Europeans in such respect, disrespect, because of encouraging this and using drones to try and, um, uh, I mean, and are quite admittedly, and the Europeans say it is to unsettle the Russian public, make them feel frightened, a fear, and so that they will then turn on Putin and drive him out.
>> Well, as it's turning out, as it's turning out, it seems it may be having the opposite impact. I just showed you a comment from a US representative and from former Prime Minister Johnson about how that message is translating into our side. Well, let me show you how the message is translating on the other side. First of all, here is Maria Zakharova, uh, talking about how the Russians view this whole situation. "The terrorist nature of the Kiev regime is no secret to anyone, including Zelensky's handlers and patrons in London, Paris, Brussels, and other Western capitals. We have repeatedly and literally every single day with concrete facts in hand, cited examples of the Zelensky regime employing terrorist methods, including the shelling of residential neighborhoods, tourist beaches, and children's playgrounds. We have provided examples of its sabotage operations and political assassinations on our country's territory. We are talking about Starsk, about the murder of college students in that town. We are talking about the attack on a passenger bus in the Bryansk Oblast carrying a youth soccer team from Grodno." What else can you call all this? These are genuine textbook acts of terrorism." So what is going to be the impact on the Russian side of her comments there? Because the question is, in the context of this question is, where is the war going? Is it going to just meander along the front line for another two or three more years, or is something else going to happen?
>> Uh, well, first of all, just to say that, that what she said was quite accurate because it was last summer, um, when there was a meeting with NATO, um, on the Ukrainian side. Uh, there was a decision then because the war wasn't going so very well to move to what they called the Europeans, um, rather, um, in obscure language, called asymmetrical warfare, which is precisely what we've seen. And you remember what happened? What she said was right. You remember at the New Year, New Year's Eve, there was a whole group of children on the beach in, um, Crimea, and there was a, a missile attack on the beach resort on New Year's Eve. Uh, and many, many, many were killed. Then there were all of those, um, girls that were killed in the dormitory, and then there is this bus incident. Um, these are deliberate provocations. This is part of a psychological operation. Um, because they cannot win militarily, they are turning, and they, it's happened, um, and it was said pretty explicitly at the time, you know, "Since we can't win on the front, we are going to turn to asymmetrical war, for which you can call it terrorist war if you want." I don't use the word terrorist because it's become so, if you like, devalued and degraded and, and, and used so wantonly for all sorts of people to whom it shouldn't be used. Um, but some of this is terrorism. Um, and, uh, you know, the Russians are getting extremely angry about it, understandably angry about it. And, you know, you've only got to look at Iran. Look at the impact of that attack on the school with 163 little girls, um, literally incinerated in that school. I mean, the Iranians just never forget it. They never do and wish to hold whoever was responsible for it to justice. But I mean, the anger, the popular anger, if they think this is making Russia weaker and readier to compromise, they are getting it entirely wrong. It's having the opposite effect. And the Russians are looking now at what to do. And I think I've said, and I was on a previous program with you and I said, you know, they're learning the lessons from Iran that you have to be tough. And that if you are tough and you strike, if you like, what they see as the enemy, if you strike them where they're vulnerable and you do it in a very strategic way, they pull back. And that's what the, um, people like, um, Sergei Karaganov and others are now saying, "We have to make it clear to the Europeans. If you do, you think we are going to sit back and let you fire longer-range missiles?" The British have just proudly announced that they've developed a longer-range missile. I think they claim that it has no American components on it, therefore is not subject to Washington restrictions, and that they have one 500-kilometer range, 600 km per hour speed, and a 225 warhead, and they're going to build 150,000 of them or something and give them in knockdown form to the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians just bolt them together again and fire them into Moscow and St. Petersburg. And if anyone in Europe thinks the Russians are just going to say, "Oh, well, you know, they're firing them through, um, NATO airspace, so how can we do anything? We can't really do anything because of Article 5." Then they're making a huge mistake because that's over. The Russians are not going to take that sort of nonsense, uh, from Europe. And Europe haven't thought it through. What is their aim here? I mean, apart from, you know, to punish or vengeance on, on, on Russia, what is the aim? What sort of war do they want? How are they going to manage the war? They haven't got munitions. They don't have men, and they don't have a strategy. Do they think they can create a German army by in two years' time and have it equipped with machinery and tanks and things? You know, as a military person, I mean, these things take 10 years at least to to really give.
>> So, I don't, I, so, um, that, I mean, you know, you're asking me to do something that is impossible to do. You're asking me to give a strategic account of something that is not strategic but stupid.
>> Right.
>> Fair enough. Uh, let's go down that path here. You mentioned Europe. I'm going to, I want to show you some of what is, to me, the most alarming recent news from Europe. But we're going to start with, uh, your home, UK. Uh, here is Lord West, seeming to think that the most important thing in the UK right now is to possibly have a war with Russia.
>> Things like welfare, they are unimportant when you lose a war and you have Russian Chechen stormtroopers coming down the street raping women and killing people. I mean, that's how important defense and security is.
>> Wow. I didn't realize the Russians were going to come down British streets and start raping women if, if we don't get to war with them. What do you make of that?
>> What can I say? I mean, it's really just disgusting to, I mean, you know, to lie to the public and to try and create a sort of an atmosphere of fear so that he can press his ambition, um, for military action against Russia. And military action, you know, Britain hardly has a frigate that it could send to Hormuz. Britain has about 50 operational tanks, I'm told. I mean, it doesn't have the men for all of this. Oh, we're going to be out there stopping the Russians walking down, you know, Westminster. I mean, it is ludicrous. It is also despicable because, you know, there's fearmongering. The thing is that, you know, you can end up in a war because what's it going to take? It's going to take that when you know what's going to happen is the British are going to send these new cruise missiles that they've been preparing that are longer range, bigger warhead, etcetera. And one day they will end up in a kindergarten, whether they're by design or accident. This is what happens in war, and it's going to end up like that. And then the Russians are going to, I mean, go crazy and be very angry, and there will be a response, and then we are on the path to something much bigger unless this can be contained. And what is, I mean, what, I, I think is disappointing in the, in the sense is you have a few voices, but there are no sort of sensible people in the United States saying, "Look, we don't want to be pulled into this." I mean, there are people who are saying that, but, you know, I think you, you would be doing everybody a favor to make it much clearer that you're not interested in being the Europeans pulling you into a conflict which they will then lose, inevitably they will lose it. Russia is in a position to, um, is in a very strong position. By the way, the economy, they're saying it's all going downhill. Um, at the end of last year, there was a slight dip in the economy. It went down about 1%. Um, since the beginning of the year, the economy is growing at 1%, 1 and a half percent. Inflation has come right down. Um, employment is going up. The economy is going, uh, very, very well indeed. Lots of revenue from the high price of petrol and, um, um, oil. So, um, you know, all of this is pure, purely a psychological operation. But the point is, if you know these things, I mean, you know, when you hear these silly comments, you can, you can end up in a war. And I, I remember when I was in, um, uh, in Moscow at the end of last year, and, you know, the, the Russians very reasonably is saying to me, "What, what are we to make of all these calls for war?" And I was saying, "You've got to understand. You've got to understand. You've got to do due diligence on, on, on this. Do the Europeans have the ability to wage war on Americans?" No. Do they have the troops? No. Do they have the armaments? No. Uh, they don't. And do they have the culture? I said to them, in a sense, do you really imagine, you know, that the young people in Britain and in France and in Germany, uh, you know, are dying to leave their nightclubs and sort of give up their, their, their sort of designer clothes and join the army and and fight a war? I mean, the culture is not there. And nor is the thing. There was an old saying about the Chinese emperor, and he was asked, "What is the most thing most important thing, uh, in going to war?" And he said, "Well, food for the troops, first of all." And he said, "The second thing was weapons." And they said, "Well, if you can have just one of these three things you say are important, what would you?" Okay. And he said, "You have to have the trust of the people." There is no trust in the leadership in Europe. Nobody is going to line up because Merz or Scholz, in his previous incarnation as prime minister, is going to really, uh, be able to lead young people into a war. There's no trust in this establishment. In fact, they despise them.
>> You know, one of the things that worries me is, is you mentioned very accurately, you went down the list, does the West, US, UK, fill in the blank, have enough troops? Do they have enough armaments? Do they have the armor, the manufacturing capacity? The answer was, of course, no. All that. Now, the one thing that they do have, which has given me more alarms here, especially worried about how it's read in Russia, uh, is the fact that we do have nuclear weapons. And here, just in the last few days, uh, you have Finland and Lithuania say that they're willing to lift restrictions on their territory to house nuclear weapons. What do you make of that?
>> That it is, this is just what I refer to as hugely dangerous. I mean, these sort of statements are catastrophic. Are they really going to try and tease a nuclear power? I mean, Russia is a major nuclear power. It has, I think it has even more nuclear weapons than the United States. I don't know what the exact balance is, but it is a major nuclear power and it has the most sophisticated nuclear weapons and tactical nuclear weapons. What are they playing with? You know, what sort of nuclear weapons are they going to get? I mean, you, you're not going to get a nuclear, a, a nuclear capability in two, in two years or something like this. It, it's a, it's a process. You have to have the delivery mechanisms. You have to have the weapons. You have to have the enriched uranium and all those things together, and it has to work. I mean, and so what are you doing? I mean, you are really inviting, when you say, "Oh, well, we're going to have a nuclear weapon based in Finland." I mean, do you think that's going to frighten the Russians and say, "Oh, well, there's nothing we can do." And anyway, the Russians don't need to rely on nuclear weapons in the first resort. They have the Avangard, which have the capability of being an, uh, of providing the equivalent of a nuclear weapon. The problem with a nuclear weapon, it, it disperses widely and kills a lot of people, but it's not accurate. It's not something that is accurate in terms of war and is a useful weapon. And it was quite striking at the end of last year when, um, Netanyahu was trying to persuade, um, Trump to go to war. This hasn't been reported very much in the Western press, but when Netanyahu was trying to persuade him to go to war, um, and, and Trump said, "Yes, I know the nuclear weapons." And Netanyahu said, "No, forget the nuclear weapons. What you have to have as your first priority is Iran's ballistic missiles, which are being completely." There is a new paradigm opening there. And he said, you know, "Nuclear weapons are not really so important these days. They're a little bit, can one say, but I mean, he was talking about tactical nuclear weapons, whereas these hypersonic, highly accurate, very damaging, um, missiles, ballistic missiles, um, have overtaken them. And Russia has plenty of those in, you know, in great formats, those sort of missiles. And so if Finland thinks that by saying it has got a nuclear weapon, the Russians go, "Oh God, you know, we can't do anything. We're going to stop." You know, this is the sort of extraordinary, I don't know what to say, sort of closed mind in Europe at the moment that they just are incapable of hearing. And if they're capable of hearing, they're incapable of, if you like, critical thought. Where is this leading? What is this going to take us to? And the exact parallel, and which is playing out now in, in, in Israel, is the fact that, uh, in Israel, and they're all complaining about it. It said, you know, everyone was so gung-ho about war on Iran. It was going to change the world and Israel was going to emerge as a world power. They were literally saying things like this. "This war, America. We're going to fly wingtip with wingtip with America. It's going to change the war." And it failed. And now they're saying, "But why didn't someone say a possibility might be that actually Iran doesn't collapse, that it could emerge stronger?" And the answer came back in all those, at every meeting that discussed and were excited about going to war against Iran, no one stood up and said, "I'm sorry, but, you know, are you sure that Iran is about to be experienced a complete regime change and and revolt from the people? What happens if it doesn't? Where will that leave us then?" And suddenly everyone is admitting no one even asked that. No one even questioned it before that.
>> Apparently, there was, uh, we actually had Joe Kent on the show, and he, he said that there were people at least earlier on that were telling President Trump that, but then later in the process and before the war started, they were blocked out. And so then the only voices left were the ones that were saying it was going to work. And I think that's how we get into the situation now. But let's, since you brought up this topic here, uh, let's, uh, let's go on to that before we let you go as well, uh, because there have been some developments there as well. There, uh, President Trump actually last night made an interesting statement. I'm going to show you something that both President Trump and then Vice President Vance have said in the last few days, which are kind of odd. First of all, here's President Trump just yesterday.
>> I've defeated them militarily. They're totally defeated militarily. They have some missiles left. Could wipe them out, too. And I hit them three times last week very hard because they sent a drone into a ship. I hit them, and we're negotiating, and we'll see whether or not I think they've agreed to just about everything we need.
>> President Trump says, "Hey, I, my military worked, and I've now they're doing whatever I say." But then this odd thing by JD Vance a couple of days before that seemed to be kind of at odds with that discussion.
>> What the president has told us to do is use this MOU to sort of refill the world's oil economy. Yeah. To refill some stocks and then to see where the hand is. If the Iranians are willing to make the commitments that we would like them to make and are willing to back those up with verifiable milestones, then we are going to change our relationship with Iran. And if they don't do that, then nothing has really changed except for what we've already accomplished from the military campaign, which is a lot.
>> So if you had accomplished everything you wanted militarily, you wouldn't even need an MOU. We can just start right there. But where does this leave us right now? And how is this being reviewed on the Iranian side?
>> Well, first of all, I mean, not only on the Iranian side, but from my side, I wonder if the MOU, it was supposed to be, if you like, a de-escalation framework, but I wonder if it was a deceit in order just to open, to try and force open, um, the, the straits. And as you've seen in, in recent days, uh, the US has gone to great efforts to get a couple of, try and get a couple of tankers out, um, through what they call the American corridor, i.e., the corridor that runs in territorial water of Oman, and that hasn't worked because they've been attacked by Iranian, um, uh, IRGC forces. Um, there are tankers that have been leaving. And by the way, most of these are Saudis from the Saudi field that has been permitted to go through by Iran because they're heading to Japan, uh, and to China, not to America, not to American refineries. And so it seems, you know, the whole emphasis and the whole, what we're seeing across the region is because Plan A failed. Plan A was the collapse, that Iran was a house of cards and a single little push and it would all collapse and that would be over, and then there would be no Hezbollah, no Hamas, no, um, Iraqi resistance because they were all dependent on Iran, and Iran was collapsed. Anyway, Plan A failed. So they've gone to Plan B now, and Plan B is disarmament of the region in favor of Israel, and that's what they're pursuing. So the whole, the whole nuclear program, it was very clear, the whole nuclear discussions were leading to intrusive verification. Did you hear the word verification? I did, about 50 times. "Oh, we'll verify. We have to verify what's going to happen in our agreement." What does that mean? They wanted to have the IAEA go in, um, short-term, I mean, no-notice inspections, inspections of, um, all of the Iranian defense establishment, their underground missiles, uh, areas, to interrogate the scientists and the, um, academics working on the program. They wanted to strip. I mean, the aim of this is clearly disarmament of Iran, to strip it naked, flooded with American and European arms inspectors going everywhere, wherever they want, whenever they want. It would be like, remember, I'm sure you do, the Iraq war when the weapons inspectors decided that they had to check in Saddam Hussein's bedroom, under the bed, in case of weapons of mass destruction underneath it, just to humiliate him and to bring the point home. And so what are they doing? They then concocted this, this tripartite agreement, um, with a few factions of the Lebanese government that were, um, shared a similar animosity towards Hezbollah that Israel does. And of course, that contradicts not only the Lebanese constitution. It would need to go to cabinet. It would need to go to parliament to have any validity. It. But what it did do was to stick a knife through, um, Vance's attempt to get a coordinated, uh, structure to supervise Lebanon that would include, um, uh, uh, the IRGC. So on the one hand, you have Vance organizing a coordination meeting that includes America, um, and, um, the IRGC under the supervision of Qatar to manage, um, Lebanon and the MOU, how it fits in, the MOU. And then Rubio is sent straight off, um, well, he does it in, in Washington, but he brings these ambassadors together, and they sign a different agreement, which completely contradicts the MOU, and so it renders the MOU effectively non-performative. It can't work. It won't function because it's in conflict with what, um, Rubio, under some pressure from Netanyahu and Ronda, produces a contradictory agreement with Lebanon, which cuts out Iran, which was the point of it. So the, the MOU has no, I mean, is being quickly destroyed, um, by Trump's team. And where are these evidence that, you know, that anything was going to go to, to, to Iran? You know, they keep talking about the frozen assets. We'll allow some of your money to go back. Maybe six billion will go back. It hasn't arrived. I won't believe it till I hear that it's being found in an Iranian, um, bank account. It has all the makings, really, that this was, you know, another play, um, by Trump just to get the straits open because he needed that for the midterms. And that he contemplates facts, you know, after the midterms, he'll go back and strike at Iran again. Anyway, that is what Iran thinks and expects that there will be another round because they don't think anything will come. Yes, the negotiators are hoping to get, you know, that something will come from it. But there was a very important meeting, um, of the Assembly of Experts. These are the people that appoint the Supreme Leader and are the only people that can remove a Supreme Leader. There are about 87, I think of them or something like this. These are senior ayatollahs, senior clerics, very knowledgeable, um, very, uh, highly educated people. And first of all, it was, I think 64 out of them, and now it's gone up to 70, have written a very tough letter to the negotiators, including Pashkan and Khalib, and saying, "You're straying from the guidelines. You're straying from the instructions laid down by the Supreme Leader. You are negotiating, iating, and allowing, um, America to have some latitude. You are forbidden from that. And if you don't, if you don't stop it, um, we will intervene, and we have the power to intervene, and we're intervening not on a political basis, but on a religious basis." And this was, uh, why, in fact, the constitution that was written by the Imam, um, after the revolution, was deliberately kept that the final decision on security and defense matters rides with a, a highly qualified, uh, judicial person, i.e., the Supreme Leader, because he didn't, he said, in a country with different legitimacies, different ethnicities, you can't trust politicians. So, you have to have a sort of check on them. So, that's what's happened. The check has come, and they put the, um, the negotiators on notice, essentially saying, "I, you know, no more sort of passage through Hormuz. Hormuz indicated no latitude on Hormuz. We are going to stay with Hormuz. It will remain open only to those vessels we decide to allow through. And yes, we are going to take fees from it. After the initial period, we will extract fees, and people are starting to pay fees anyway to the Iranians, and it's been mostly their oil that has been leaving, um, for China. Um, so they've, uh, exported about 40 million barrels of oil during this time, which has produced a huge revenue for Iran. Um, and then Saudi Arabia has been allowed to export with Iranian. Okay. Um, and that's been going to Japan and China. And as I understand it, I'm told, I'm not an expert in this. There are probably the, uh, the US, uh, refineries in the south which needs, um, sour heavy oil, um, for producing diesel and kerosene, are probably down to about nine days of supply of sour crude, um, to turn into kerosene and oil. So, uh, Trump has put himself into something of a dilemma by playing around with them with the MOU and always, um, you know, changing it and saying, "Oh, no, no, no. Well, Iran has agreed to massive inspections by the IAEA." And, "No, we never said they were going to get their money back." Of course, he's under pressure from the neocons. Huge pressure. So, he keeps backtracking. So, how do you negotiate with the United States in this? Because every time, you know, Lindsey Graham spends four and a half hours with him, you know, we have a new MOU that Trump has decided he's going to change it all, um, unilaterally. It's not going anywhere, I'm afraid. It, it's basically in abeyance. It'll probably, the paper itself will stay on the table, but will mean very little. And so this will be fought out basically in the straits, um, by Iran, and that also, um, America will decide, um, to use military force. But, uh, from my understanding, that the US, you understand it probably better than me, because you have people who on your program who, who know it very well. But I think the US is very short of defensive, um, uh, missiles, defense missiles, air defense missiles. And generally, um, if there's no kerosene, if they're not able to crack kerosene, uh, out of the middle distillates, um, in, from the refineries, how can you fly? How can there be an, uh, you know, Iran war 2.0 zero if you've got no kerosene for the aircraft?
>> Yeah, there is, there are some big issues with that. Um, I, I want to ask you something. You mentioned Saudi Arabia. Um, where do you think? Okay, so you, you've really laid out what the real crux of the issue is and where we really are, where the Iranians are, and the flexibility they have and the leverage that they have here. You mentioned Saudi Arabia. Now, this is just, uh, breaking news. This is just a little bit ago. Uh, Saudi Arabian delegation actually marched in a, uh, respect to the Grand Ayatollah at the farewell ceremony in Tehran today. That would seem to be kind of a big deal that, uh, here's Saudi Arabia, who was part of the war coalition and certainly part of what we needed to get the, the war fought. Now that they're at this, what does that tell you, uh, about what their, uh, position is in this? And what can we go through going forward if the United States kind of tries to play hardball with, uh, with the straits to the, to the antagonism of the Saudis?
>> Well, it's divided the Gulf States. The UAE is alone in wanting to continue the war against Iran. Uh, it, as you know, is a coalition of sheikhdoms. It isn't a single state, um, and it doesn't have support from all of the other sheikhs. But the, um, Abu Dhabi is, is, um, taking a hard line against Iran. And when Rubio was there at the Gulf Cooperation Council, I mean, the UAE said, you know, "We've been the ones that are hurt, you know, and you're thinking of giving Iran back some money? Never. We will never agree that you should. We're not going to release any Iranian money that we have because we have suffered damage to our infrastructure." Well, they've suffered damage to their infrastructure because they were taking part in the war against Iran, and that happens in wars. They were, uh, uh, if you like, um, uh, complicit in the attacks on, on Iran. Now Saudi Arabia is taking a different line, along with Oman and some other states are coming together to say, "We need a new security structure. The American one, it's over. They're not going to rebuild their bases in any way. Those bases have become hostage to fortune rather than an asset." And so we are going away from that and we're going to look to a new structure, uh, Gulf-led structure without United States involvement in it. And Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and even Turkey is directly involved in in these talks about whether, um, to how to get a structure. There has been some elements of this before. You may recall there have been naval exercises jointly Chinese, Russian, and Gulf, uh, joining in, and Iran joining in these exercises, and Iran will, will join such an, an element. So Saudi Arabia is moving in that direction with Pakistan, um, towards creating a separate, if you like, security structure because they've decided that that the United States, uh, is, does not, is not a, any longer a protective force for them. That they're better off coming and talking to the Chinese, the Russians, and Iran about protection than going back to Washington. So there's a shift there, and that's what you saw. And it is very symbolic that they should come to it because of, you know, although Saudi had a, a relation, there's always a tension that exists between, um, if you like, those particularly Gulf Sunnis and Shi'a.
Uh, the Shia of Iran, uh, going back to the Shah's day, it's always been a tense relationship because, uh, Iran at that time, and Persia, was the power in the Middle East, and the sheikhdoms were really quite small by comparison. So the real question is, and, uh, just, just real quick, where does that leave us? Especially if the United States is bleeding allies as well as losing military capacity here. Where does that leave us? If, if Iran stays true to what you just suggested they will, which is, the Strait of Hormuz is ours, the fees will be charged. Period. There's no negotiation on that. And Trump says no, you can't. And it comes to a head. Can we go back to military force if we don't have the Saudis on our side?
It's not about that. We're in a holding pattern because I think, um, particularly Trump is totally preoccupied. And I know, having been part of a government, how sometimes, you know, when one thing isn't an issue, you go to the, say, "Can the Prime Minister consider something in Afghanistan?" And they turn to you and say, "Oh, for God's sake, do you know what's on the agenda for today? Don't bother us with all of this." And I think, uh, totally, um, uh, Trump and the team there is concerned with saving the dollar and keeping interest down. And the warfare, if you like, um, with Russia and China, um, to maintain dollar hegemony because it's looking very shaky, particularly the AI after the statements by Alex Karp, uh, the previous day, questioning the whole model of AI. But also because interest rates and Japan is in a real state. So the, the real question is the big war that's going on, which is the war about economic, um, survival of the United States and the possibility of an economic crisis coming. So I think at the moment, we're just in a holding pattern. Israel is in a holding pattern because, um, Netanyahu is in great difficulties in, in, in Israel. I mean, it looks as if he'll lose the election and therefore could go to prison, um, because his immunity runs out, uh, if he is no longer Prime Minister. And, um, I think Trump is very concerned, uh, about the, the, the debt market, about the bond market, and a bond market collapse, um, in, in the United States. So this is the big war. This is the real competition with China, with Russia. Um, how to retain American, uh, dollar hegemony in the world, um, when everything is actually running in the opposite direction.
Got to bring yourself in, Danny.
Sorry about that. Uh, next time we have you back on, I'd like to maybe run down the, the list and see, uh, what, what the world, and then we'll talk about the Middle East, what it might look like on the other side of, once this holding pattern is done, it shakes out. But, uh, because I think that's fascinating, and I don't think it's going to be the way many in Washington think it will be. But, uh, before I let you go here, last thing. Um, I'd like your view on something. You were a British diplomat. Uh, you're still tied up into that world, and you understand how things have worked for quite a long time. Um, I'm going to show you something that was said on, on US television yesterday. Uh, with no embarrassment, uh, no apparent idea that there's anything wrong with this. There was some conversation, you may have seen here recently, that there was some consideration or attempt potentially to assassinate Galibov and some of the other folks during the negotiating period when we were trying to, uh, that question was put to a US commentator yesterday. "I keep hearing that we can't kill the leaders of another country when we're negotiating with them. I'm sorry, that's not how the rules work. The rules say we can't invite them to a negotiation, sit them at a table, and then go all Game of Thrones Red Wedding on them. That's against the rules. But once they have shown that they're not going to work and they're actually an obstacle to peace, then we have every right to go ahead and turn some of those people into their component molecules and fly some missiles in through their windows to make sure that the rest of the people who are negotiating on that side know not to mess around with President Trump. And I can guarantee that the CIA and Mossad have a list of people who could be, that have that happen to that is long and distinguished. That could be a good next step."
I, I, I'm almost just speechless. I, I cannot believe that's passed more mainstream view in America. How do you react to that?
Well, personally, I just like to correct what you just said before because I have no entry into the, um, into the British or European diplomatic system. I'm an outsider, uh, from it, looking in rather than being on the inside, uh, commenting out. Just to make that clear, I have no, uh, no particular entree there. I, I just think that, uh, we are experiencing a complete nihilistic, um, moral collapse in the West in so many ways about money, about, you know, the, the, the sort of absolute brashness with which, um, the administration in Washington just takes money, um, and is, and doesn't even hide it, is actually proud that it's, you know, screwed another billion or two from other people. Um, and also the, just the sheer lack of morality that we see that we've seen in Gaza. And comments like that are just, I mean, what can one say? They're just really quite disgusting.
Yeah. And it's, uh, it's just really, really shameful to me, just as a, as a human being, certainly as an American, and, and hopefully he will, uh, receive, uh, rebuke on. It's, it's not that because how do we get back? That's the question is, how do we rebuild some moral values, uh, in the Western world? That is what, you know, we have to do because we have lost sight of what it is to be human. We are undermining civilization, our civilization, and all civilizations by these sort of completely immoral actions that we take place. We have to try and find a way of, uh, recreating a, a civilizational structure that provides, if you like, the moral foundations for how people behave and how they are. It, they always come from, basically, from your old myths and narratives of a civilization. These are the stories, the moral stories that create the architecture by which ordinary people steer their lives and live. And when you lose that, you are on a path to utter destruction. And that was an example of, uh, someone on the path, um, to having no moral standing at all to suggest that it's fine to kill, um, leaders of other countries. It's, it's really very, very distressing to hear that, but it should be condemned clearly.
I couldn't agree with you more. And, and we certainly are going to do that here on this channel. Thank you so much for providing this moral clarity and the clarity of, of what needs to happen on both these two conflicts, which, God help us both, if anything trips over in either one of them, we have to do all we can to try and prevent that. And thank you for your clarity on how to do that.
Well, thank you for allowing me to speak on your program.
And just a reminder here, go to conflictsforum.substack.com for more of Alistair Crook. You don't have to wait for him to come back on our show here, even though we're very eager to have him back already. Thank you very much, and we'll look forward to seeing you all on the next episode of the Daniel Davis Deep Dive. Don't forget to tell your friends, the ones that love to listen to podcasts. Get them to add Daniel Davis Deep Dive to their podcast list. They need to know what you know. They can get it to where they already get their podcasts. You just got to tell them.