Chapo Trap House - 836 - Pier One Imports feat. Derek Davison (5/28/24)

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

Chief Chapo foreign correspondent returns to take us around the wide world of conflict. We get an update on the war in Gaza including the bombing of Rafah, the failing floating Pier, and the Biden administration's attempts to broker some kind of deal between Israel, Palestine and Saudi Arabia without gaining any concessions or movement toward peace in the process. Plus, we discuss the death or Iranian president Raisi, the situation in Ukraine, and what the hell’s going on in French New Caledonia. For more Derek: The article on Germany Derek references at the end of the pod: www.foreignexchanges.news/p/whats-the-matter-with-germany Subscribe to Foreign Exchanges: www.foreignexchanges.news And American Prestige: www.americanprestigepod.com/

All I wanna do is live chocolate All I wanna do is live chocolate Greetings, friends. It's Tuesday, May 28th. Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend, but Chapo is back at it. In today's episode, Felix and I are joined by senior Chappo foreign policy correspondent, Derek Davison from American Prestige and Foreign Exchanges. He will be giving us a guided tour into the abyss of morality and spirituality that the United States and the rest of the world finds itself circling down. Derek, welcome to the show. Thank you. That was, yeah, I want everybody to join me on my level

This is what I deal with every day. So Welcome to hell. Well, we've been you know, obviously yesterday was a holiday but much of the world and the US government's attention is now fixed on Gaza once again and consumed by the very important question and investigation of are Israel's dozens of attacks on important question and investigation of are Israel's dozens of attacks on refugees in tents in Rafa? Does that constitute a breach of international law? And more importantly, does it constitute a crossing of Biden's red line? You'll be surprised to find out the answer to both of those questions is no. But I'd like to start with a story that I think much of the American and international press is saying we could be on the verge of a big metaphor occurring, and that is of course

the peer. The peer. This is a metaphor of international proportions. The US aid peer constructed by the US military to deliver aid to Gaza has sunk and floated floated away It's this like more embarrassing than the the Houthis are about to get a little Country I like I think the US building Homer Simpson's barbecue pit I like, I think the U S building Homer Simpson's barbecue pit, maybe more embarrassing. I don't know. I don't know why they haven't already called it the Joe Biden Memorial Pier.

I know he's not dead, but he's close enough to think it's just, just name it after him. But yeah, it's it's it's quite a story. Well, you know, I mean, like, obviously, people, people are taking the opportunity to to dunk on Biden right now because of, you know, the sort of allegorical clarity that such an event provides. But I'll say, look, we couldn't get aid in. They wanted to get aid in, we couldn't get aid in, so they built a pier.

We just couldn't. We couldn't get aid in. Our client state that we supply with all its weapons wouldn't let us do it, so we just had no choice. And no leverage, obviously, to get aid in over land, which would be the far more sensible option. Look, did it work? No.

While it was actually still floating, did it deliver any aid? Not as far as I can tell. Not really. I mean, look, several palettes of aid were possibly delivered in the course of the career of the peer. But I want to say, look, Biden truly is like FDR. You know, like if something doesn't work, just keep doing it.

Just keep try something else. If the peer sinks, build another peer. If that peer sinks, build two peers. If those also float away, construct a catapult of some kind that can bypass the sea entirely. We can put one of those kinetic delivery devices like a satellite in orbit and just kinetically deliver them on a tungsten rod to lure the aid to Gaza and take care of a lot of things that way. The aid that we dropped from our orbital platform was delivered but also destroyed all of Gaza.

It killed everybody. The entire Eastern Mediterranean has been wiped out. When the aid landed and connected with the crust of the earth, it caused a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. Master Chief, you might tell me what you're doing with that cardboard box filled with 35-year-old MREs. Sir, finishing this humanitarian aid mission. You know, I mean, just a man, they had a dream to build a pier and the pier sunk, but hopefully it's had another days.

Yeah, like a week ago. Just let's think back to the good times when the pier was still standing at a cost of $300 million. But yeah, it's not like there are roads that we could access to deliver this aid. No, Gaza is famously cut off from land. What makes me sick about all this is how badly I know that the Biden administration really wanted to deliver that crucial humanitarian aid. It's killing them that they can't do it.

I know it eats them up inside, but Pier two mission is a go. I hear they're going to the peers. Yeah, they're towing the pier. My understanding is they're towing the damage parts to Ashdod the Israeli port nearby and they're going to fix it and put it back in place. This is after like, it was, it was basically like an extended three stooges routine. Like there were four ships that ran aground, one ship ran aground, and then they tried to get that one off the coast and another, you know, the ship that tried to do that ran aground and they looked just like piled up on

each other. And also there have been, uh, injuries, like at least one U S soldier was seriously injured, I think, because apparently they couldn't figure out that building this pier out of like bubble gum wrappers and tin foil in the Eastern Mediterranean during storm season, there was going to be some weather. And they just didn't anticipate that. Isn't that like how everyone in the Navy always dies though, like even seals? Like once every two years Navy seals will like actually die during combat because their helicopter crash.

But like 98% of Navy deaths are like it was a training exercise or they were like they were sending a fleet to try and scare someone and like seven guys fell into the nuclear reactor that powers the aircraft carrier. Or like there was that that incident in the Red Sea just recently where two seals I mean what one guy like slipped as he was getting on a boat that they were trying to interdict and then you know another guy went after him and fell they both fell. You're the water guys. You're the water guy. How are you like dying the second you get in water? That's not good. I feel like I could survive in the sea longer than

that. Like, like, everyone in the Navy dies in the most ignominious ways. There are guys getting purple hearts because like a Dyson airblade blew their hands off. We know, Derek and Felix, you know, this is this is the Mediterranean. And I'm hearing reports that the initial construction of the pier did not make the proper offerings to angry Poseidon and they were thus not sparing his wrath. But Pier two, believe me, they're going to make the proper

offerings and that aid or that age is going to get in there you know you won't believe how much aid we're getting in. Speaking of aid I have noticed over the last week is Kirby and Matt Miller and all our favorite spokespeople they have they very slightly changed the metric for like what they say constitutes an aid delivery from like they're like they say things like just last week, 360 metric tons of relief aid was delivered to Gaza, which is like, I don't know, six trucks worth for

two and a half million people. Kirby was talking about shipping pallets the other day too, which is like fucking Costco gets more pallet deliveries than Gaza has. I think that's to hype the pier because you can't do truckloads. I mean, you can sort of do truckloads after it comes off the pier and ostensibly goes someplace else to be distributed, but who knows how much that, I mean, they're doing like five trucks a day or there was one point where they did, I think 15 trucks and they all got

intercepted by hungry people who just looted them, like ransacked them. So they're not really getting that either. So they have to do this like metric tons coming ashore to try and, you know, convince people that this has been worth it. Well, another thing they're desperately trying to convince people of is, as I referenced earlier, that somehow their red line regarding a major invasion of Rafa has somehow still not been crossed or whatever. Like, I mean, how many people?

And you know what? Like over this fucking weekend, we have Biden and like the head of the EU talking about all these videos of beheaded babies they've seen. And then everyone's just like, okay, can we see these videos? Do they exist?

And Israel was like, bet. You want to see a video of this? We'll show you one. And it's just like, like, okay, so like we got, God knows how many people just being incinerated in plastic tents. And I guess like the big change, I mean, like it's not a big change, but the thing that like, when they have nothing left to say, they keep recycling certain tropes.

And the one that they're hitting really hard is this idea about human shields. This idea that like, I know this looks bad, but like it wouldn't happen if Hamas wasn't embedding themselves in a civilian population or literally hiding behind, like the way they make it sound is like every Hamas fighter that's killed was like standing directly behind like a kindergarten class and they just like, well, what do you want us to do? Right. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, the Pentagon is in Ar Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, the, the Pentagon is in Arlington. I mean, it's right outside the Capitol. Like, you know, that seems to be a legitimate military target embedded

in a civilian population. Uh, the Israeli military headquarters is in downtown Tel Aviv. So, you know, these things are, you know, it's selectively applied. And, and when you talk about Gaza, which is one of the most, if not the most densely populated areas on earth, you know, where else would they be other than among civilians? There is no place else for them to go. But I mean, I think, you know, the human shield thing has been talked about in the aftermath of this, you know, horrific airstrike and just outside.

It was just west of Rafa. I've also seen now that that the excuse they're offering, the Israelis are offering is that this attack, which took place late Sunday and caused a fire that ran through this tent encampment and killed at least 45 people and just awful scenes, awful awful gruesome deaths. They said they were attacking a Hamas facility and they killed two senior Hamas baddies. And the claim is that this very small targeted airstrike

that they did with a small bomb, you shouldn't have caused all this. Now they're arguing that it set off an ammunition dump that must have been nearby an ammunition depot that hamas is using and that. Cause secondary explosions that then cause the fire and i don't know if. They teach the concept of cause and effect in israeli military academies are like in schools. effect in Israeli military academies or like in schools, but you're still responsible for that. Like you're still responsible. Your bomb still set off the chain of events that led to all these people being incinerated.

And it's been sort of fascinating to watch them trot that out as an excuse. Like, oh, you can't blame us. We only started this horrifying thing. You can't blame us. We just started the fire. That's all right. It was always burning since the world was turning like would you have like the most advanced fighter and strike fighter and multi-role jets in the world like Israel Israel has and

you're fighting against an enemy that has like no meaningful air defense. It's not like they have like any modern air defenses. They don't even have like triple A's like anti-aircraft artillery. There's nothing stopping them from like going extremely low. They have targeting pods that could see just insane distances. The point is you know when you're looking at a fucking grouping of tents when you're looking directly at well I mean they already knew it because they told the refugees to go here. What right you don't do that by accident you need a lot of visual confirmation to do that it's insulting to anyone who knows even a little bit how these things work. Even if you take them at their word, you know, going along those same lines, you know, when there's an ammo dump dangerously close to what you're going to bomb and there's a risk

of spillover causing, you know, some kind of a horrible chain reaction, you can see that that's not, you know, it's not like this was clearly. It's not like the ammo was being stored 50 feet underground in one of the horrifying tunnels because then it wouldn't have been set off by the first explosion. There's no way they didn't know or at least couldn't have seen what was in the area that they were targeting. Either they didn't know or at least couldn't have seen what they were what was in the area that they were targeting. Either they didn't care or they they did it deliberately. Well I'll expect your Derek and Felix I'll expect your apologies soon to be forthcoming because Israel has just released another Baba booey phone call that shows that exonerates

them completely. It's two masteres that have been intercepted in comms saying, yeah, oh, yeah, like it was our, yeah, we blew them up. That was us. Can you believe everyone's blaming Israel? Oh, Allah Akbar. Allah Akbar to you. Good day to you. Did you know that all the people who died are our fault? Oh, yeah, no, I did know that.

Let's try to blame Israel anyway though. Oh, okay. Yeah, we should blame Israel anyway because we hate Jews. The Holocaust didn't happen, by the way. Hey, I know that we hate Jews and that we're mass rapists. Brett Gellman's actually really funny and we don't admit it because it would invalidate Zionism, but he's actually really funny and we don't admit it because it would, you know, validate Zionism. But he's actually really funny. Modest Yahoo is actually better than most, like, Black rappers.

Okay, goodbye, ala Akbar. And this is a recording. This is evidence. This cannot be refuted. Yeah, there's no refuting that. But yeah, like, it's just the, more of the moral and spiritual degradation of this land we call our own. And the it's just like after what, like a half a year of this shit now, like it's just it's just, it's just not going away.

And then like if you read, you know, Politico and every day or like the press, they're like, God, wow, things are getting real dicey with this election. We're really worried about it. But rather than do this imaginary bargaining, like you're some sort of policy expert or political strategist about counting votes and like, oh, what will this mean for Wisconsin or blah, blah, blah. I just wish Democrats and the people who like Joe Biden would just admit that our policy towards Israel and Palestine is exactly like they approve of it. Like what we're seeing

right now is the United States' policy towards Gaza. It's going according to plan. So there's no red line to be crossed. Like there's no, there's nothing that's going to pull it back and there's nothing that Israel can do that would cause these people to be like, this is too much. This is what they want. And I just wish these people had the balls to just say it out loud. It's interesting because they made the decision that it's better to portray Biden as a weakling, like completely impotent than to just embrace what's happening.

So they, that's why you get these leaks of, you know, he's really disappointed or he's really concerned, or we're really frustrated with Netanyahu, and we're going to really let him have it the next time there's a phone call or whatever. And I just question, I mean, from a purely political perspective, just on the way this race is kind of playing out, I question the wisdom of this, because the big concern that people seem to have with Biden is he's too old. He's weak. He's, he's not up to the job.

We don't, we can't, uh, you know, sort of rely on him being in office for another four years. And, you know, I mean, Benjamin and Yahoo saddles this guy and rides him like a pony once a week for eight months. What the fuck do you think that does to his image as a strong leader or as a guy who's aware of his day-to-day existence and where he is at any given time? It's killer for that.

It just feeds all of these insecurities that people have. On top of that, we can thank Charles Schumer, one of the most senior Democrats in the Senate, for inviting Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress. It's just incredible. Where he's just going to give a re-election speech for Donald Trump. For Trump, yeah. And these people will be like, thank you, sir. Thank you.

We love Israel. It's not Biden's fault that he loses. Just extraordinary. Yeah, yeah. Just, yeah. Just as long as we're talking about Netanyahu, I did enjoy this story about his son and this speaks to like, I don't know, like the crack up of like the basket case. Israel being a basket case country is beginning to like, there is tension that's grating internally

and that includes Yair Netanyahu posted and then deleted a video by a Netanyahu loyalist in Gaza threatening Defense Minister Yoav Galan with a military coup if he did not change tactics to allow an accelerated genocide. This is Max Blumenthal reporting that. But I just, I like, why isn't more of a, like, why isn't a bigger deal made out of the fact that Yair Netanyahu is cooling his heels posting grippers in Miami right now? Like what, this kid isn't gonna do any- Pick up a gun and get on the front line. Yeah, is Scott gonna do his national service or whatever?

Yeah, that would be an interesting question to ask somebody if, or ask him if he was available for questions. And you know what, like as long as we're on the topic, when it comes to what leverage the Biden administration has, I think the son of the Israeli prime minister literally being in the inside the borders of the United States might provide some kind of leverage. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. We'd have to raid Mar-a-Lago or wherever he is to take him out or get him get him into custody. I don't know where he's holed up. Navy SEALs. Where are these Navy SEALs when we need them? But Felix, you mentioned at the beginning of the show,

once again, Operation Prosperity Garden, the Hussies, they've been a fuck far fucked around and found out about the Chuck Norris's of countries. And now they have another capable of hitting ships in the Mediterranean. And basically we have already given up the ghost on this shit. I mean, what a, I mean like, just, yeah, L on top of L. I yeah, no

I the thing that's been amazing about this one to me is like the Exact same people who were like they're about to find out why we can't read they like They are doing the same thing like they just they're undeterred by it like are doing the same thing like they just they're undeterred by it. Like China did a bunch of military exercises around Taiwan, which seems to happen like once every six months and then nothing happens. But these people were like, Oh, China, China is about to fuck around and find out, though there is this is the time. One of these days, we're going to find a country that's tiny enough

and helpless enough that they will fuck around and find out. Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating to me because it's like they don't there's no like data that they can evince from this. Like the Houthis greatly expanded their strength capabilities during our time there. All we did was just like create like, I guess, three new veteran benefits pools for the guys who fell in the water. And they're like, this doesn't say anything about our capabilities or like, you know, how, how short sighted or idiotic our, our, our mission goals are, how like our pilots now they just put markers on the sides of their

planes just when they like fire a missile not even when they hit anything like the red baron yeah baron yeah i think i hit my quota boss i got i fired five missiles like it's it's a it's it is like a time-honored thing to like put something on the side of your plane when you shoot something down like if you shoot down like a helicopter you put a helicopter on it You you know, it's aces have always done that but I've never heard of people just being like I fired this missile today I fired this missile. I fired this missile. Did you hit anything? Probably not No, but I fired them. It's I mean it was shocking to shocking to me, you know, to read these, there's, there've been pieces now about, you know, where we're acknowledging basically that they can hit the Mediterranean.

We're acknowledging that this attrition war that we've been pretending to fight for the last few months hasn't really done anything to their capabilities. But the wildest thing is apparently like the Saudi government is asking the US not to use its air bases to carry out any attacks on Yemen, which is such a reversal from when they were doing the bombing and we were supporting them in every way. Now they're like, yeah, we really don't want to fuck around

with these guys anymore. Could you not get us involved? I mean, because yeah, like they had all the Saudis had all the help in the world. And they I mean, they really didn't shy away from committing horrific war crimes. I mean, the Saudi and UAE invasion of the ebb. It was just like, it was honestly one of the worst, worst, most genocidal uses of air power that we've seen since now and

They still kind of got their shit pushed in they don't want to do that again No there I mean they're trying to negotiate a peace deal and like, you know You guys are really mucking this up for us, which again quite a role reversal I want to get to the the sort of trilateral diplomacy that's currently being cooked up right now. But just briefly, back to the pier. Derek, you said all the pieces of Lego that they used to construct it are being floated to that one major pier. It occurred to me that that's probably the only business that that pier has had in the

last couple of months because of the Huthies. This is like the other guy he's got to sit on the docks. Yeah. Like nothing else is coming in other than the broken shards of our giant metaphor for imperial decadence and failure. There was a big flower shipment that came in to Ashdod several weeks ago that the US was behind that was supposed to go to Gaza, and the Israelis were just like, no, fuck that, we're not doing that. And again, another time when we rode Biden around

like a pony, the US was like, well, we really would like that aid to go in, and it said no, well, okay, sorry. Speaking of another thing that, it's just, regardless of your feelings on the policy, it really makes the United States look completely incompetent and feckless. Derek, what can you tell us about the Israelis killing an Egyptian soldier on the border this week?

Which, by the way, has been subject to a complete news blackout. Yeah, I don't know very much about this. As you say, there's been a dearth of news about it. I'm not sure even the Israeli or Egyptian governments know very much. They both say they're investigating what happened. This took place the same night as the the tent camp airstrike. And I don't know if it was like some Egyptian border guard, like heard about that and just, you

know, reacted and you know, sparked a shootout or what the tensions between the Israelis and the Egyptians have been pretty high for, you know, a couple of weeks now, over a couple of weeks, since the Israelis went into Ra'aqa, they seized the Ra'aqa side of the Ra'aqa checkpoint, which goes, runs between Egypt and Gaza directly. They took over that side of the checkpoint.

And the Egyptians then closed it on their side, partly, I think, for fear that the Israelis were suddenly going to start telling displaced people to head for the checkpoint and cross into Egypt, which the Egyptian government doesn't want. So they've closed it and no aid is getting through that has been getting through that checkpoint for a while now. The Egyptians only just agreed to divert some of the aid that's been languishing in Sinai into southern Israel to the Kerim Shalom checkpoint which also runs through southern Israel in this case into Gaza. But the tension between Egypt and Israel over this has been very high because of course the Israelis feel like they're getting blamed for the humanitarian

situation. And again, this is something that they've caused, but is not in any way their fault. So they're blaming Egypt for closing the checkpoint and that's been, you know, it's led to a pretty heated back and forth, not to shoot out, not to, you know, shooting until the other night, but, you know, having Egyptian border guards who I imagine don't have particularly warm feelings about Israel right now and Israeli forces so close together at that checkpoint is a recipe for stuff like this to happen, I think. But moving on to the larger diplomatic, the grand power game at play here in the Biden

White House and State Department, there were news reports this week of continued overtures of trying to have some sort of security deal with Saudi Arabia in exchange for Israel recognizing Palestine. It's like all the chess pieces on the board sort of moving in concert to get to a situation where Israel will recognize Palestine and will have some sort of normalized relations with Saudi Arabia. Like how is the how does this all work, Derek? So the idea basically, this is the brainchild of and the obsession really for for, you know,

20 or so years of a guy named Brett McGurk, who has been advising four straight U S presidents now on Middle East policy and doing a fantastic job. I might add. Why do you think they've kept them? Why do you think they've kept them on? He is like Robert Ory. He's been on every winning game.

He's at his highest level, been promoted to his highest level yet. He's the Middle East coordinator for the National Security Council under Biden. He actually quit the Trump administration at one point when Trump announced that they were pulling out of Syria. He quit in a huff, but now he's been brought back in by the Biden administration. So he's been obsessed with the idea of doing a normalization deal with the Saudis that would involve the US giving them some kind of security commitment and the Saudis normalizing relations with Israel. The Biden administration, having watched the Trump administration do these Abraham Accords,

which were partly, I think, also McGurk's doing, where they got the UAE and Bahrain, Morocco, all to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for various goodies. The Trump administration recognized Western Sahara as Moroccan territory, for example. Having watched them do that and then lose the election, the Biden administration has decided somehow that doing a deal between the Saudis and Israelis would be good politics and would really help Joe Biden's case in November. They've since rolled that up into the Gaza situation, feeling like this is a way to solve all our problems, to get,

you know, extricate ourselves from this crisis in Gaza, to say to the Israelis, look, we'll offer the Saudis a security deal. They've also now offered the Saudis help with their nuclear program, what could go wrong there, in return for which the Saudis and Israelis would do a normalization deal and the Israelis would end the fighting certainly in Gaza and then take some what they're calling tangible step toward or irreversible step maybe the term that they're using now toward Palestinian statehood. This is in effect a weakening of the Arab peace deal, which has been on the table for a long time.

The Arab states always said, we'll recognize Israel and normalize relations when there is a Palestinian state. This is a weakening of that from Palestinian statehood to some irreversible step toward Palestinian statehood. The Israelis have refused, and certainly since October 7th, they have abjectly refused to consider doing anything in the way of Palestinian statehood. Prior to October 7th, there was some reporting that the deal was going to get done anyway, that they were just going to throw the Palestinians under

the bus the way they did with the Abraham Accords in the first place. Since then, the Saudis, I think, have kind of clenched up. They're not willing to do, they want to have something to point to, to say, we achieved this. And the Israelis are refusing. But now the reporting is that the Biden administration is just going to go ahead with the Biden security commitment and the nuclear stuff, that leg of it, and you know, kind of hope that the Israelis will see the light and come on board with the rest of it. But basically, they're just going to give this stuff to the Saudis, which is great,

especially now that, you know, there's all this reporting about how involved the Saudis were in 9-11. I think it's fantastic that we're giving them a binding security commitment. You know what? If Joe Biden can bring together the two most evil countries on the planet, save for our own, I think that'd be a major foreign policy accomplishment. I mean, on par with the pier. Have you forgotten about the pier? Absolutely. Yeah.

Somebody all forgot about the pier. I mean, we can bring back the axis of evil to this deal. Another major international story that happened over the last couple of weeks that we have not talked on is the death of Iran's president, Ibrahim Rasi, who was killed in a helicopter crash. He basically Kobe Bryanted himself. And I guess my question is, Derek, like, how, what are the implications for Iran? Like, who was Rasi? Like, how would you describe him as a political I guess my question is, Derek, what are the implications for Iran? Who is Rossi?

How would you describe him as a political figure within Iran? And also, why couldn't he have just taken a car? So I would fly an helicopter through that. When this happened, I was like, oh, well, Iranian aircraft are old. They're often out of... They're not in perfect condition because of sanctions that the U S has had in place since the Iranian revolution. Really.

They can't buy new helicopters. They can't buy new airplanes. So maybe there was just a mechanical thing that went that happened. And then they showed pictures of the rescue operation that was in this like pea soup fog. And it's like, why, why the fuck would you fly any helicopter in conditions like that? I guess they just smacked into a mountain because you couldn't see where they were gone. So yeah, it's it's

racy, I would I would describe it was a committed, very hard line, conservative, more or less an appendage in some ways of the Supreme Leader Iran Ali Khamenei. His legacy is going to be very mixed, I think. There were these funeral services that took place last week. They kind of moved his procession. It was not just him, the foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdelahian was on the helicopter along with a

number of other officials but they kind of took their bodies in a procession through Tabriz and then come to Tehran and then took Raisi to Mashhad which was his hometown for late interest and every stop there were these you know big outpouring as processions thousands of people in the streets kind of mourning his passing. I think if you talk to Iranians in general, his legacy would be far more mixed than those images might have conveyed. He was, first of all, long before he was president in the 1980s, he was implicated heavily in

the mass execution of a number of political prisoners in 1988. That is one of the black real black marks against the Islamic Republic. So he had that on his record. And then as president, he's overseeing a pretty dismal economy. I mean, even as sanctions, the Iranians have found more ways to get around us sanctions that the economy still remains pretty, pretty dismal, which is a big thing for any president. And he oversaw the violent crackdown against the Massamini protests in which the few hundred people were killed.

That I think is another tick on his record as far as a lot of Iranians are concerned. So I think in terms of a legacy, that's probably what people would talk about. And what does, I mean, like, does this have any broader implications for Iran? Like, Iran as possibly the only credible deterrence against the nuclear armed rogue state that

is our wonderful ally Israel? It does. I mean, they have to have a presidential election now and it's very unclear to me who's even going to run in this election, let alone who's going to be favored to win. The election is supposed to take place on June 28th. There's been, there's been speculation about a lot of people. Some, some of them who have run for president in the past, like the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammed Kaliabaf, he was just reelected speaker. So I'm not sure he's going to run for president now that he's secured that.

There are some other sort of interesting names that have been bandied about, but that'll, I mean, that's the most immediate concern is that, is who replaces Raesi. If it's another kind of strict kind of principalist, conservative, then you probably won't see much change in Iranian foreign policy. A lot of that's dictated by the Supreme Leader anyway and the people around him. But if they allow a more moderate figure to run, and there have been a couple of names thrown around that are interesting, like Ali Larijani, who's a former parliament speaker, and not really a moderate, but sort of a moderate conservative, kind of the Mitt Romney lane in Iranian politics.

And so if he's allowed to run, and he was screened out, he was denied the right to be on the ballot in 2021, but if they let him run this time, in terms of name recognition, he would certainly be at the top of the list of candidates, I think. That could augur some kind of a change in terms of Iran's diplomacy. Raisi focused a lot and Amir Abdullahian focused a lot on diplomacy with the Gulf states. They were quite successful at that. They had, you know, there was the Chinese brokered deal with the Saudis to reopen embassies and send ambassadors. They've improved relations with the UAE.

So that's been the focus. If somebody like Lara Jani were elected, that might indicate that there's going to be an effort to make more of an outreach toward the West, possibly, because that would be the lane that he's occupied. The bigger issue and the thing that looms behind all of this is that how many is 85? He's had cancer in the past. There's going to be a transition at the position of supreme leader, probably in the relatively near future.

Iran's only gone through that once since the revolution, so there's not a great precedent for how it will go. There was some speculation, there's been speculation that Raisi was being groomed as Khamenei's successor. I think that is probably overblown. I think he was on a list at one point, but his time as a politician, kind of, you know, the run he ran in 2017 and lost he ran in 2021 and one has revealed a couple of things

about him or revealed a couple of things. One is that he had the charisma of like sawdust. And two is that he just wasn't, I mean, partly for that reason, but partly for, you know, his performance as president just wasn't all that popular. I mean, it kind of discredited himself in a sense. Uh, so I don't know that he was, you know, on the shortlist anymore or a favorite to succeed, uh, how many eat, but I think having him as a loyal kind of acolyte of howameini as president, if

there had been a transition in the next five years or I would assume he would have won re-election. So if there had been that transition to have Hameini in the position of president to kind of shepherd things through would have been, I think, important for Hameini to ensure that his successor, you know, that his successor played out the way that he would like. Well, I mean, there's one figure that's been speculated who we know has the risk to do it. But Derek, why are people mistaken to believe that Mahmood Ahmadinejad could make another

go of it this time around? I mean, we know we can get elected. I mean, just a short man. He's got, he's got big, big dick energy. He's got risk. He's got he's got big big dick energy. He's got Riz He's got Riz for sure. Um the Ahmadinejad's problem is that he ended his presidency on really bad terms with how many there were reports that they clashed over appointments of That Ahmadinejad was trying to effectively Usurp some of the supreme's prerogatives to appoint people in security positions.

And they just really ended on a bad note. Now, how many has ended pretty much every presidential term with every, every person who has served as president before Raisi, obviously, but, you know, there was Hashemi Rafsanjani, there was Mohammed Khatami, there was Medina Jad, there was Hassan Rouhani. Every one of them has ended their presidency on worse terms with Khamenei than they had going in. But Ahmadinejad seemed to be like really almost personal

in a sense, like just they couldn't get along with each other at that point. And so Ahmadinejad has registered because Iranian presidents, you can serve two consecutive terms, you have to then go away for a term, but you can come back and run again. And Ahmadinejad has registered to run, filed to run in every presidential election since he's been eligible again. And he's been screened out by the Guardian Council every time, probably because of this

bad relationship with Khamanai'i. So I think there's two things that would block him. One is just the relationship is not good. And two is at this point, they've blocked him so many times for supposed inadequacy, disability, corruption, I think is the claim, that it would be really weird for them to let him run this time. It would be too difficult to try and explain that to the public. Every time he applies, the Guardian Council sends him back a secret

forbidden recording of Randy Newman. Sure, people got no reason to believe. He's like he's like it's so weird because it's like he was president, but now he's like vermin supreme, like every was president, but now he's like vermin supreme, like every every, every, every. He was literally the president. But now for the past like 10 years, everyone's been like, Can you fuck off? Like we get it. Like, go away. He's I mean, he's not as he doesn't have it quite as bad as hot on me, who can't even get like on TV anymore. Like he was

ex president. And he's basically a non-person in Iran now. Like you're not allowed to cover him. You're not allowed to talk to him, whatever. That's more political though. I mean, he really drifted into the reformist camp. And I think, you know, just for political reasons, it's no longer, you know, allowable to, to kind of acknowledge his existence. Ahmadinejad, like I said, there's this like real nastiness, it seems like, and you know, I'm obviously an outside observer, but that's just the way it strikes me is being this real kind of personal grievance.

I actually, I have a question about Iran, Russia stuff that I was wondering if you had any insights on. You touched on briefly how the Iranian fleet of aircrafts are famously in ill repair due to sanctions and other things. One of the funniest things they've done is like, and they don't really have a choice, right? Because it's like, where are they going to buy it? But they have F5s that were made in like the 60s and they just tilted the rear stabilizer,

like the horizontal stabilizers 45 degrees to make them look like American F-A18 Hornets. And we're like, look, we made our own plane. There you go. It's just like an F5 with like a fucked up stabilizer. But they like, since about 2008, they've been saying that they they ordered a bunch of like, you know, fourth generation Russian fighter jets, Sukhoi 35s, and that Russia was set to deliver them. but either one of the two things happen that Israel cock block them, which is like incredibly likely, or that Iran just like did not have the money in the account, which I guess could be possible, but I just don't see them like making the order and then being

like, whoops, we don't have any money. Yeah, you never know. I mean, you know, the Iranian government is not known for its bureaucratic sophistication. True. So you never know. But like, you know, given that it probably like they clearly have money to like pay for other things. They have like modernized a lot of their other weapons systems. Do you think there's any possibility of Russia sort of like just telling Israel to go screw

and like finally giving them some modern fighter jets? It's possible. I mean, I think it would, you know, part of the Russian consideration is that they don't want Israel escalating in Syria. I mean, they're okay with the like airstri strikes that hit Hezbollah or these other malicious sites, but they don't want the Israelis to go any further than that. So they have this concordance effectively in Syria where they're like, we're on opposite sides,

but we're not going to hit any facilities where there might be Russian soldiers, or we're not going to try to take out Bashar al-Assad or anything like that So, I don't know. I mean the Russians have a pretty vested interest in keeping that going I would take something, you know where they didn't care about that anymore anything for them to just tell the Israelis to to piss off I mean, you know, it's possible if the Israelis to piss off. I mean, you know, it's possible if the Israelis, and this is, I mean, this is also what keeps Israel from from or has kept Israel in part from from getting more involved in Ukraine. I mean, the Ukrainians have complained or were at least complaining, you know, for a while there about the Israelis not providing them with weapons with air defenses, with any, you know, that sort of thing, and just kind of providing them with material rather than arms. That's partly why. So I think it goes both ways. I don't know except to say because they don't make it a priority.

I don't know why the Iranians don't go to the Russians and say, hey, could you fit our president out with a helicopter that isn't 50 years old? Yeah, yeah that that to me is is You know a question that I I can't really answer other than again They just don't care as much about that as they do about the the military side. Yeah, I mean it is puzzling Helicopter thing. I mean you can get you could get it like not shitty helicopter for not that much. Yeah, or even I mean, if you if it was for the president, I mean, that's that's the kind of thing that you do as a gift

almost. Yeah, if you want to want to just, you know, tighten the relationship. But you know, it's not to be I guess, not shitty helicopters soon to be available at Chappotraphouse.com slash merch slash helicopters. Guys, you know it, I know it. I've been playing DCS and I finally made my own helicopter. If you're the Iranian government, I have one just for you. Enter code Chappo to get 20% off. Well, we've been up Russia, so let's take a pause to consider the ongoing conflict,

the renovation of Ukraine, that whole theater of war. There was a Reuters report that cited four Russian sources that reported on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to halt the war in Ukraine with a negotiated ceasefire that recognizes the current battlefield lines Derek like what are the like what are the prospects of like any kind of negotiated settlement or end to this war that? Recognizes the current battle lines and if not what like what what is the future of this conflict? Is it ever gonna fucking end? So I mean, there's a there's a few things that Go across purposes here.

And I think we've, we've talked about this, uh, probably, you know, when I've been on here in the past, the, the one that comes to, came to mind immediately when I saw that story is that if Zelensky were to cut a deal with Russia on current lines, the current, the current battle lines, and we would recognize Russia's control over the territory that it, and it wouldn't have to be formal recognition, right? It could just be like,

we're gonna do a ceasefire on these lines, and we're still gonna claim that these parts of the country are part of Ukraine, but we'll stand down. He's gonna get killed. I mean, he's gonna be killed. He will be assassinated. I think that's almost a certainty. So he doesn't have a strong incentive right now to make a deal like that. I think that the appetite for the war is waning somewhat in the West,

and you can see that in the politics of it. They're trying to reinvigorate things by getting into the issue of, you know, how, how far can we go with stealing Russian state assets basically, and, and, uh, giving them to the Ukrainians. And that's been the discussion that's gone on the G7 in the EU. There there's a lot of, you know, can we set this up as a, a funding stream for the Ukrainians that doesn't require us to take any increasingly unpopular votes or do anything that would, you know, cost us politically?

So there's that piece of it. And if they can do that, then there's less incentive for the Western backers to say, you know, maybe it would be a good idea to talk. I don't think, you know, even taking everything in good faith, nobody's gonna agree to do anything drastic on the basis of an anonymously sourced report about something that Vladimir Putin might have said to somebody

because he has no credibility in the West. And that's understandable, I think, at this point to some degree. That said, I mean, I've maintained this whole time. There should be negotiations happening at some level, even if it's just like two guys on a phone that are like, you know, deputy, deputy, deputy, deputy foreign ministry people. You, there should still be some communication that's happening.

There's, there's always this perception in the West that like, if you talk to somebody, you've like given them some big win and they don't want to negotiate with Putin because it would be seen as legitimizing him or something. It always strikes me as just absurd. Let's not forget legitimize. It reminds me of when people are like, why would you platform Trump when he was the president? Yeah. Fucking president. Like, why would you platform Trump like when he was the president? Yeah, yeah. Fucking president.

Yeah, it's it's it's absurd. I mean, it's like like talking to Antony Blinken is some great prize that the Russians are dying to get. And we can't give it to them because, you know, would be would be rewarding them somehow. It just doesn't make any sense. Well, you say that, but could the Russians resist? Unless he was going to bring his guitar. If he was going to bring his guitar.

He's on the old ax. Then, you know, I could speak. B.B. King. You don't get to hear the tunes unless you unless you surrender. You know, it's funny, Anthony Blinken did meet the devil at the crossroads to sell his soul, but unfortunately, he still sucks shit at playing guitar. However, he is very good at doing a Holocaust.

What if like Anthony Blinken got up there, you know, singing like Steve Martin in The Jerk? He did like doing his regular thing. And Putin just like he burst into tears like he can't. It's his favorite thing he's ever heard. He loves it. It changes everything. Like Russia joins NATO. He loves it so much. It's so good. Somebody gets a look in Putin's private office.

He's got like big posters of Anthony Blinken. posters of Anthony Blinken on the wall. Vladimir, why are the lips on your Anthony Blinken poster worn out? Feel like like we've talked before on this show about how dramatically worse everything has gotten in the world ever since Anthony Blinken did his cover of what? Fuck, what's not with it. Who she could choose who I am. It's really that everything is collapsed since

I'm a who she could she may have the world would know who I am. And OK, like you think you think they would have gotten the point after that. But then like what? Like two weeks ago, I heard he was in fucking Ukraine doing a cover of Keep On Rocking in the Free World. So that does not auger well for Ukraine at all. They're going to be a fucking they're going to be a Russian get like fucking supermarket by the end of the fucking month.

I I never want to hear like any Democrat ever again, make fun of like Trump or somebody for playing born in the USA. I know it's like after you listen to a fucking lyric politicians, listen to the lyrics of the songs that you pick challenge. Yeah, rock is amazing. It's not even like born in the USA. If you like sort of passively listen to it, I could see how someone could just think it's like a patriotic song, even though that's also stupid, just musically.

But like, rocking in the free world isn't like an upbeat song in any way. Like, there's no part of it that could confuse you. But we're rocking in the free world. So, you know. No, Anthony Blinken heard the verse about a woman putting her baby in a garbage dumpster and thought, hmm, good. That's actually acceptable foreign policy to me.

In fact, that does not cross my red line, young man. Before we get you out of here, Derek, a few other global hotspots to touch on. So I'm going to ask a very ignorant question. Number one, what is going on in French New Caledonia? And two, what the fuck is French New Caledonia? So New Caledonia is a territory, euphemistically put, it's a colony, it's a French colony in Oceania and the kind of South Pacific region. It is one of the reason why part of the reason why the French don't just decolonize this place and get

out is because it's one of the world's largest sources of nickel, which happens to be an important metal for the green energy transition. And so, you know, France, the French government would like to hold on to this this place at all costs, you know, to compete with China, I guess, if nothing else, the New Caledonia, the indigenous population, the Canoc population of New Caledonia, there is a strong independence movement and has been for quite some time. The French government back, I'm going to actually

look this up so I'm sure I get it right. There was an agreement that the French government made in the late nineties called the Noumea Accord after the capital of New Caledonia, Noumea, in which France agreed to allow over the next 20 years to allow New Caledonia to hold three independence referendums. If any one of them had gone for independence, then New Caledonia would have been allowed to leave. So the third and final of those referendums was held in 2021 and all three of them, you know, voted to stay a part of France.

The Canoc separatist movement argues that the 2021 referendum was rigged basically and not in the counting, like not in the mechanical aspects of it, but that the French government deliberately kind of sprung this referendum on everybody right after COVID was, you know, sort of right as COVID was starting to die down because they wanted basically to suppress turnout and engineer the engineering outcome. So they want to do over. I mean, they reject that referendum as illegitimate and they want to do over. I mean, they, they, they reject that referendum as illegitimate and they want to do over, so that's underpinning a lot of this along with all the sort

of things that go along with being a colony, the inequality, the economic struggles, the, um, you know, uh, all the, the, the various grievances that one would have as a colonial situation. Um, what's happened recently is the French government has been talking about amending the constitution to, uh, reduce the residency requirements for people to vote in local elections in New Caledonia. For example, if there were another independence referendum, uh, that you would have a more short timer French nationals who would be eligible to vote in

a contest like that in the future. And again, this is viewed by the Canoc leaders as an attempt to circumvent the independence movement or undermine it by allowing these interlopers to vote in local elections. So that sparked protests. Those protests became violent. I think at this point, seven people have been killed in various scenarios during the protests. The French government imposed a state of emergency. They've now lifted that extensively to allow civil society to get in there and for negotiations

to take place. The constitutional amendment, that process has been also suspended to allow time for things to calm down, but things are still tense. The protesters have been erecting roadblocks. They, in particular, have targeted the main highway from the Capitol to the territory's main international airport, which is shut down and is going to be shut down, I think, for at least a few more days. So yeah, I mean, those are the basics. It's still a pretty tense situation. Macron was just there, I think, last week to try and calm, you know, of course, didn't calm them down because

they need a Jupiterian presence in New Caledonia. Why would, why would seeing Emmanuel Macron in person make you less angry? I don't understand that. That would seem like it would just outrage people further. Look at his face. So that didn't work. But they've sort of, as I said, they've sort of put all the really egregious stuff that

on hold, like the state of emergency, like the constitutional amendment, in hopes that things will calm down a bit. It's because I know that France is, in the 21st century, still in some small corner of the world, working on one of those censored Tintin books. They're still up there. Yeah. They're sort of the most gripped up country. Gerard Jemardu kind of looks like Gripper. He does.

He fucking does. Lastly, since the last time we talked to you, there is still a horrific and ongoing civil war in Sudan right now. Since the last time we spoke to you about that, have there been any major shifts in that conflict since you last updated us on that? Yes. I mean, the major focus at this point has been the city of Al-Fasher, major focus for several weeks now has been the city of Al-Fasher, which is located in North Darfur state. It's the one big city, big-ish city in Darfur that is still at least nominally in government control, the military control, I guess, if you, the Sudanese military equate that as

the legitimate, so to speak, government of Sudan. The rapid support forces who have been battling the military for over a year now have surrounded al-Fasher. They haven't attacked it yet in earnest. There's been fighting on the outskirts for, as I say, a couple of weeks now. They are recalling tribal fighters, essentially. The rapid support forces unit grew out of the Janjaweed movement, which was the Arab tribes in Darfur who were primarily directly responsible for the genocide in Darfur of non-Arab people. So they still have that network in place.

And they've been recalling these militia fighters from other parts of Sudan, from other parts of the region where they've, you know, some of them have drifted off to go work as mercenaries, for example, in Libya and other places. So they've been recalling them back and I think the aim is to sort of assemble as many fighters as they can before they attack the city. Al-Fasher, because it is the last city in Darfur that's remained out of RSF control, has become a humanitarian hub. It's become a haven for people displaced

from other parts of the region by RSF attacks that have involved in many cases very gruesome, very violent attacks on non-Arab communities that people have compared to the worst days of the Darfur genocide. So there's hundreds of thousands of people. I saw one estimate that was put at like 2.5 million. I'm not sure it's that high, but hundreds of thousands of people are certainly trapped

now and encircled in this city and just waiting for the hammer to come down. The Sudanese military seems powerless to do anything about this. Hospitals, there's only one functioning hospital left in the city, and it's overwhelmed and running out of supplies. They're running out of food, they're running out of water. There's been calls for the RSF to open up humanitarian corridors, and I think at one point they suggested they would be willing to open up evacuation corridors to allow people to leave. I don't know why anybody in this situation would believe that.

Their track record of just massacring civilians, frankly, at this point is well established. And I think anybody who, any groups of people who were in the, you know, getting kind of the non-Arab Darfurian communities, the Mas'alib is the biggest, or there's some others, but any of those people who left Al-Fasher at this point, you know, under quote unquote RSF protection would be opening themselves up to just being slaughtered. So I don't, I don't know if anybody's going to trust them when they say that they'll allow evacuations.

And that's, that's where things stand. It's really horrifying. I mean, it's really just an impending nightmare that has been slowly unfolding and people are just waiting for the, as I said, for the hammer to drop. And like, where does, like US state policy, like, are we doing anything about this? What about other African states or like Gulf nations?

Like, I mean, like who? Like any effort being made regards to this conflict? Gulf nations? Yes. I mean, the UAE has been arming the RSF, so they've been supporting the with drones and other things. So so they're definitely involved. Iran has gotten involved in this. The the Sudanese military has reportedly purchased drones from Iran that they've used to some

success in other parts of the country, but as I say, they don't seem able to even get to al-Fasher, let alone to do anything to kind of lift the siege. They seem pretty much checked out in this situation. That may not be a matter of capability. They may not just not give a shit, frankly, what happens here. So, I mean, there has been involvement from those directions. Saudi Arabia has been, along with the US, they have tried peace talks and JEDRs, ceasefire talks, at least, between the two sides that have gone nowhere. There've been initiatives from kind of super national blocks, the Intergovernmental Authority

and Development, which is the Horn of Africa block, South Sudan and other countries have tried to organize their own peace process that hasn't gone anywhere. Yeah, so really, I mean, it's been it's been ineffectual to the extent that there's outside involvement. It's been arming the parties and kind of intensifying and pushing things to more kind of intense violence and extending the conflict, I think, beyond where either of these sides could have managed to achieve on their own. Well, that's a way to put a button on another wonderful trip around the world of foreign policy and conflict.

Good ending. Yeah. Just, Anthony Blinken, keep strumming away. The world needs your songs. Blessed are the music makers. Yeah, absolutely. We can heal through the power of music, Anthony, if you just keep practicing.

We'll leave it there for today. I wanna thank Derek Davison of Foreign Exchanges and American Prestige. Derek, do you have anything to plug at the end of the show? I, not anything pending, but I did just publish a piece at Foreign Exchanges from Sam Hewnickie, who's a great historian of post-war Germany, about why the German government is so fucked up about Israel and continues to just not be normal about this and has been shutting

down protests and shutting down pro-Palestine events. It's really good. It gets deep into the history of post-war Germany. That was just up to today. If people want to check that out, I would be grateful for that. We will include a link to that piece in the show description. That does it for us today. Until next time everybody see you later. Thanks guys There's a boy in the line on the road, man There's a lot of people playing you, man I'm still life-changing, but I'm not the best So I try to change again when you get to me Keep on riding on the river Keep on riding on the river