Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-03-19 Thursday

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

Democracy Now! Thursday, March 19, 2026

From New York, this is Democracy Now. Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no? Senator, the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president. False. This is the world. As the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard says President Trump alone made the assessment that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States. The Mideast war appears to be escalating. Israel bombed Iran's South Pars gas field, the largest natural gas field in the world, prompting retaliatory strikes by Iran on energy infrastructure across the Gulf.

Will Gulf countries be drawn into the war? We'll speak with Johns Hopkins Professor Valenasa, who says Iran is playing a long game. And as oil tops, $118 a barrel, we'll go to London to speak with Lao Khalili, author of Extractive Capitalism. Then to Washington, D.C., to talk to Congressmember O'Kana about the War Powers Act. And every day we're spending $2 billion of American money in Iran. To put that in perspective, for 20 days in Iran, we could have free public college for every American. We'll also speak with Congressmember Kana about why Democrats walked out of a surprise closed-door hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi over the Epstein files. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. The U.S. Israeli war in Iran entered a new phase Wednesday after Israel bombed Iran's South Pars gas field, the largest known natural gas reserve in the world.

The attacks set off huge fires at a refinery and petrochemical facility that process the majority of Iran's domestic supply of natural gas. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps retaliated by attacking energy infrastructure across the Persian Gulf. Within hours, Iranian missiles caused extensive damage to Qatar's Raslafen facility, which handles nearly 20 percent of global exports of liquefied natural gas. Separate attacks from Iran damaged two refineries in Kuwait, two oil fields in the United Arab Emirates, and a Saudi Aramco refinery at the port of Yanbu, a critical oil terminal in the Red Sea, far from Iran, on Saudi Arabia's western coast. The escalating attack set off panic in global markets and sent the price of oil skyrocketing as high as $118 a barrel. Several governments in Asia are now rationing fuel, slashing public services, and shortening work weeks to conserve energy. Here in the U.S., gasoline prices are now at their highest levels since 2023 are set to climb further. On Wednesday, Vice President J.D. Vance addressed soaring fuel prices after a meeting in Michigan with the American Petroleum Institute.

It's not going to last forever. We're going to take care of business. We're going to come back home. And when that happens, you're going to see energy prices come back down. to reality. But in the meantime, we got a problem. We know that we have a problem. We're doing everything that we can to address it. The Pentagon is seeking more than $200 billion in additional funding for the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. That's according to the Washington Post, which reports the military seeking to urgently increase production of weapons expended in thousands of U.S. and Israeli strikes over the past three weeks. On Capitol Hill, Republican Senators Wednesday blocked a vote on a war power's resolution to rein in President's

Trump's attacks on Iran. Meanwhile, director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that U.S. Israeli attacks on Iran last June had obliterated Iran's nuclear program with no effort underway to rebuild it. Georgia Democratic Senator John Ossuff asked Gabbard whether that aligned with President Trump's claims that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States. Was it the intelligence community's assessment that, nevertheless, despite this obliteration, there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime. Yes or no? It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat. Okay. That is up to the president based on a volume of information that he receives.

It is precisely your responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat to the United States. This is the worldwide threats hearing. Outside the Capitol building, lawmakers joined anti-war activists and memorial display of backpacks and children's shoes commemorating the more than 200 children who've reportedly died in U.S. Israeli strikes on Iran. This is Illinois Democratic Congress Member Delia Ramirez. From Palestine to Iran, our bombs are killing women. They're killing children, little girls who are yearning to learn. And they're displacing thousands and thousands and thousands. Because from Cuba to Lebanon, our governments are violating U.S. and international law. Lebanon's health ministry says Israeli attacks have killed 45 people across Lebanon over the

past two days with over one million people forcibly displaced by Israel's assault. The UN Children's Fund, that's UNICEF, says Israeli attacks are killing or wounding 30 children in Lebanon a day, the equivalent of an entire classroom. On Wednesday, Israeli defense minister Israel Katz said his forces had destroyed two more bridges over Lebanon's Latani River, further cutting off southern Lebanon from the rest of the country. Meanwhile, his bullfighters fired heavy barrages of rockets towards Israel. In the occupied West Bank, three Palestinians were killed and 13 others injured Wednesday night, when parts of an intercepted Iranian missile fell on a hair salon near Hebron. The dead included two adults and a 17-year-old.

Few Palestinians in the West Bank have access to fortified shelters, unlike in Israel, where bomb shelters are common. In Israel, an Iranian cluster munition ripped through the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramatkan on Wednesday, killing an elderly couple in their home. Police said they failed to reach a fortified safe room in their apartment before it was struck. Elsewhere, a man described as a foreign worker was killed by a missile attack in Israel's Sharon area. Israel's health ministry reported 177 people were taken to hospitals with injuries over just 24 hours. Back in the United States, lawmakers grilled Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, President Trump's pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security during his confirmation hearing Wednesday.

President Trump nominated Mullen to replace Christy Nome, whom he fired early. earlier this month. Republican Homeland Security Committee Chair, Rand Paul, opened the hearing by confronting Mullen for calling him a, quote, freaking snake and for siding with a neighbor who physically attack the Republican senator, ran Paul, back in 2017. Paul announced after the hearing he will vote no on the nomination. This is Democratic Senator Lissa Slacken questioning Mullen on the 2020 election. who won the 2020 election? Ma'am, we know that President Joe Biden was sworn into office.

He was a president for the last four years. But I do believe my job as Department of Homeland Security Secretary will be to make sure that we assure that the elections are fair and people can trust them. In related news, ProPublica is reporting that DHS is demanding access to the federal parent locator. service. It's a database holding the name address, social security number, employer, and salary of every employed person in the U.S. plus sensitive information on children and domestic violence victims. The service is used by the government to find people who owe child support. Federal law explicitly bars DHS from using the database, but the Department of Health and Human Services is actively considering the request. CBS News is reporting the FBI and IRS are forming a joint

initiative to investigate nonprofit organizations over suspected possible links to domestic terrorism. This comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo last year, ordering law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors to compile a list of potential domestic terrorism organizations that promote, quote, extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment, unquote. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday walked out of a closed-door briefing with Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, and the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files. According to Democrats, Bondi repeatedly declined to say whether she would comply with a subpoena requiring her to appear for a sworn deposition on April 14th. The briefing came one day after Oversight Committee Chair James Comer subpoenaed Bondi to testify before the committee.

After the briefing, Bondi was asked by reporters if she would comply with a subpoena to which she simply replied, I will follow the law. Democratic Congressmember Summer Lee later asked Comer if he would compel Bondi to attend the April deposition holding her in contempt if she refuses. Comer told Lee she was, quote, bitching. This is Congress member Summer Lee, who's introduced articles of impeachment against Bondi. AG Bondi has been obstructing justice. She has perjured herself multiple times, and she has been withholding critical documents that would inform this investigation into a pedophile, into corruption, impossible, possibly quite deeper, because we do not know who was all involved.

Today, what their attempt was to push us under the rug, do something off the record that they would not have to be accountable for. And a New York Times investigation has found Caesar Chavez, the late co-founder of the United Farm Workers, abused, molested, and raped multiple women and girls over the course of decades. Anamurgia and Deborah Rojas say that Chavez sexually abused them for years when they were girls in the 1970s. Morgan Chavez assaulted said Chavez assaulted her when she was 13 years old. Chavez reportedly raped Rojas when she was 15 years old.

old in a motel room in 1975. Delores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez, told the New York Times he coerced her into sex on one occasion and raped her in 1966, resulting in two separate pregnancies she concealed by wearing baggy clothes. Both of Dolores Werta's children were quietly raised by other families. In a statement, Werta said, quote, I carried the secret for his own. long as I did because building the movement and securing farm worker rights was my life's work. I'm telling my story because the New York Times has indicated I was not the only one. There were others.

Women are coming forward, sharing that they were sexually abused and assaulted by Caesar when they were girls and teenagers, Dolores Wirtis said. The United Farm Workers announced it'll not participate in any Caesar-Travs-Day events this month, while the Caesar-Travs Foundation said, quote, to the survivors, we believe it. you. We honor your courage and we're very sorry for the harm you've been, you have carried in the shadows for so long, unquote. Both organizations have established confidential channels for those who wish to report harm. Local officials in California have called for renaming schools, parks, plazas and streets bearing Caesar Chavez's name. Arizona governor, Katie Hobbs, announced the state

would not recognize Caesar Chavez Day on March 31st, his birthday. Annual parades in Tucson, Arizona, and San Francisco, California, were also canceled, along with marches in San Antonio and Laredo, Texas. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. And I'm Narmine Sheikh. Welcome to our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. In a major escalation in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, Israel bombed Iran's south-past gas field, the largest known natural gas reserve in the world.

Iran responded by attacking key energy infrastructure in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. Iran launched two attacks in Qatar on Raslafan, the largest liquefied natural gas production facility in the world. Israel's attack on South Pars comes days after Israel assassinated three more top Iranian figures, Iran's security chief, Ali Larjani, Iran's intelligence chief, Ismail Khadid, and the head of the siege military, Golanvezza Soleimani. In the latest sign, the war on Iran could be just beginning. Reuters is reporting President Trump's considering deploying thousands of more U.S. troops to the Middle East. The Pentagon also asked for $200 billion from Congress.

We're joined now by Valenassar, an Iranian-American professor of international affairs and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Seis. He's the author of Iran's grand strategy, a political history. His recent piece for the Financial Times is headlined Iran is playing a long game. He's joining us from Washington, D.C. Thank you so much for being with us, Professor. If you can start off by saying exactly what you mean, I think something that people in the United States hear very little of. What is Iran's long game? Tell us about who you believe the leadership is right now in Iran.

what they are doing. Iran is following a strategy that was conceived after the June war, the 12-day war they had with Israel. And it's being implemented systematically by commanders, decision-makers in government and in the military. It's not dependent on one decision-maker. As we saw that Israel killed Iran's supreme leader, and yet Iran was immediately able to retaliate and engage in the war. Iran has established a way of governing and fighting, which is called mosaic military strategy, mosaic government management, which is not dependent on one person. And it understood that it's going against much more powerful militaries, Israel and the United States, and it's not going to fight their war. It's going to fight the war that it wants.

it's willing to absorb the hits that it's getting from Israel and the United States. And he thinks the longer that the war goes on, the less Israel and the United States would be able to defend against Iranian missiles because they're going to run out of interceptors. They had calculated the war would be quick. They have plenty of offensive bombs, but they don't have sufficient defenses. And we're saying that more and more of Iran's deadly missiles are landing in Israel. They're landing in the Gulf. And also Iran decided to wage a longer war on global energy and the global markets, using drones, mines, low-level ammunition, not necessarily ballistic missiles, to attack the Gulf economies across their energy fields as well as trade.

And it calculated that the longer that this war goes, the less prepared the United States is for the consequences. President Trump calculated on a short war. He said he was surprised Iran attacked the Arab countries. He was not prepared to be three weeks into the war and perhaps much longer. The longer this war goes on, the more Iran is building leverage and the more the strategic calculations of Israel and the United States appear to be falling short. Professor Nassad, if you could comment on the fact that the U.S. has deployed now or is in the process of deploying 2,500 Marines to the region, because of course you've mentioned Iran's war essentially on the global

economy in a way to impact both America and Israel who have much larger militaries. So in this asymmetric warfare, the Strait of Hormuz is a central question, its effective closure. But now with these 2,500 Marines in the region who will reportedly be tasked with working towards reopening the strait, how does that change the equation for Iran, if at all? Well, it's not very clear what 2,000 Marines can do, and they cannot arrive in the region immediately at any rate. It takes them 10 days to two weeks to be there. Perhaps the president was calculating that either there's a scenario in which that they could, attack the northern shores of the Persian Gulf, the shore where Iran is sitting on top of the Straits of Hormoz, or capture some Iranian islands, either the Khark Island where Iran exports most of its oil from and the U.S.

has already attacked or other islands. But I think after the United States and Israel tried to put pressure on Iran by attacking its gas field, and then we saw how Iran retaliated, this whole strategy may no longer be. working. In fact, we saw President Trump in a posting on truth social back away from taking responsibility for Israel's attack on the Iranian gas field and saying Israel will not do it anymore. Will not do it anymore means that the U.S. is probably having second thoughts about very aggressive attacks on Iran in the Gulf as well, because it now understands that Iran can escalate in ways that the United States cannot defend against. You know, the way Iran attacked the Qatari gas field and refinery could also be visited on Saudi oil facilities on a much larger scale, UAE, at ports that send oil around the world.

And so U.S. is finding itself in a situation where it's threatening Iran. It wants to threaten escalation and escalate, but it's not able to prevent Iran's counter-escalation and be able to account for the costs of that counter-escalation. Professor Nasir, you did mention earlier that the Iranian regime is not dependent on one individual. So Khamanay's assassination has made very little difference. On the other hand, now, there have been so many high-level assassinations, including Ali Larjani, top security official in Iran, the head of the paramilitary force, Basij force, among others.

I mean, do you think that if this continues Israeli and U.S. targeted assassinations, whether that might make a difference? And also, where is Mujtaba Khamanay? What has the significance been of his ascension to power? People comment that he's scarcely been seen. There are rumors that he's in fact recovering in a hospital in Moscow because he was also injured in the attack that killed not only his father but also his wife. Yes, he's been severe.

It is believed that he was injured. But I also think that the Iranians are trying to take precaution that he will not be assassinated as well, fully well knowing that he is a target. Of course, these assassinations do matter. there are important people who are taken out. For instance, killing of Ali La Rajani was not only killing a very significant node in Iran's power structure, but it was also killing somebody who was most likely to be a potential interlocular for the U.S. if the point came for a negotiated off-ramp.

But what we are seeing is that Iran's system is designed not to collapse easily. It doesn't mean that it will not collapse at some point. But the point of collapse clearly is far further down the road than U.S. and Israel anticipated. So maybe President Trump thought that the Iran war would be only two, three days. If you kill the Supreme Leader and a few other major commanders, that the system would collapse or like Venezuela, it would come to its knees and come to terms with the U.S. And now we're three weeks into the war. The killings of Iranian leaders continues, but Iran doesn't seem to either have changed. course, nor is it actually looking like it's about to collapse. The attack yesterday on

Qatar, the way in which Iran is escalating, suggests that there's a coherent decision-making, at least at the military level in Iran. But one thing the Israeli decapitation of Iran's leader has achieved is that it actually has elevated a far more hardline and aggressive second-tier leadership to the top. In other words, Iran's version of restrainer's, people who may have been more prudent, people who may have not reacted as aggressively have been removed, and they are being replaced by people who are far more aggressive. And also that the revolutionary regards is now de facto has taken over all of Iran. And then mustaba, in a way, was the choice of the revolution regard, is very close to the revolution regard.

So the initial achievement of the decapitation has not been to force the regime to collapse, but is actually to radicalize the regime and produce a much worse version of the Islamic Republic than the one that was there before the war started. On Wednesday, the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Now, ahead of the hearing, she submitted written testimony that asserted last year's U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran had, quote, obliterated Iran's nuclear enrichment program and that Iran had made, quote, no efforts to rebuild it. But during her opening remarks, Gabbard skipped over those sections. She was questioned by Democratic Senator George of Georgia, John Ossoff.

Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no? Senator, the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president. False. This is the worldwide. False said Senator Assov. it's not just President Trump, but she's supposed to be making recommendations. So, Professor Nasser, you were an advisor to the State Department during the Obama presidency there while the President Obama worked out that nuclear deal with Iran that President Trump pulled out of.

Talk about the significance of this and the lesson the rest of the world learned from Pakistan to India to whether you should engage in agreements with the United States around nuclear weapons. I think the whole saga around the Iran nuclear deal has sapped the world of trust in dealing with the United States, and particularly with dealing with President Trump. I mean, the United States entered into a deal that it signed and the other party implemented fully what was agreed to. And then yet it decided that it didn't like the deal. and not only it came out of it, but it actually punished the other side, punished Iran with maximum pressure sanctions,

largely for actually having been, having abided by the deal, and then demanded that it wanted a different deal, he wanted a new deal. So that raises questions about whether you could trust making a deal with the United States. And then fast forward to the fact that President Trump engaged twice with Iran

in nuclear negotiations, and then in the middle of negotiations, allowed Israel to start a war with Iran, in a way, using negotiations as subterfuge for actually going to war. And the way that the war has been waged on Iran, the way that there's been decapitation of leadership in Iran, the way that the United States and Israel have made regime change, the objective of war, combined with what's happened in Venezuela and what's happening in Cuba, I think we'll give a lot of countries around the world great incentive to actually go nuclear, because the ultimate, they need the ultimate deterrence. The United States has taken upon itself to sign deals, shred deals,

enter into negotiations, upend them by military attacks, and then dictate what leader it wants in what country. And this actually has sent a shockwave through the world. And of course, one can always say, okay, Iran is a regime that's been antagonism. to the U.S., and you can characterize it as a rogue regime, try to justify things, whereas some European leader, German Chancellor, has said that international law doesn't apply to Iran. But the rules that are being established around Iran, starting with abandoning the nuclear deal to the military attack today, will ultimately become, are being seen around

the world as the new rules that govern the world. So the Iran rules are becoming world rules. And if that's the case, if we're entering a rule of the jungle or the rule that the United States will decide when to go to war and who can lead whatever country, then countries are going to try to find ways to defend against that. Some will enter into military packs. Some will go under China and Russia's umbrella. But a lot of them will take now going back to having nuclear weapons very, very seriously. Professor Nasda, I want to go back to a point you made earlier, namely, that the regime change, well, within the regime, the people who have been appointed are more

radical than the people that they replaced. You know, some people have commented that it took the U.S. 20 years to go from one Taliban government to another Taliban government, which indeed is far more radical than the one that came to power in 1996 in Afghanistan, and that it's taken eight days to go from one Khamane to another Khamane in Iran. So, if you're If you could, first of all, comment on that. And also, what do we know about the effects of that and indeed of the war on people inside Iran? I mean, first of all, you know, the Supreme Leader that was killed, the older Khomeini was obviously viewed in the West as a radical, as anti-American, as antagonistic to the U.S. And all of that is true.

But at the same time, he was much more cautious than his son and the generation that is coming up. He, for instance, did not allow over 20 years for Iran to build nuclear weapons. In fact, he issued a fatwa against it, which was to shut down the conversation inside Iran about it. He would not allow the revolutionary guards to build missiles beyond 2,000 kilometers to reach deep into Europe. Every time the United States attacked Iran in a major way, first starting by the killing of General Soleimani in 2020 to bombing Iran's nuclear sites, he chose to react symbolically and not to draw blood. And he got some criticism about that.

The generation that is coming up believes that the only way in which Iran could establish deterrence against the United States is to be far more aggressive than the older Khomey was willing to go. And the counterattack against Qatar for Israel's attack on Iran's gas fields is indicative of the new attitude in Tehran. In others, we won't, not only we won't react symbolically, but we will attack much more viciously than we were attacked. Now, domestically, for now, I think the Iranian people are caught between a stone and a hard place. They've been traumatized first with the June war, then they're traumatized by the massive protests and the very bloody crackdown that killed thousands of Iranians in January. they had barely, you know, taken stock of that tragedy in January that they are in the middle

of a war. At the beginning, the war was marketed to them by United States and Israel, that it would be a war of liberation, that there would be only precision bombing against regime targets. But increasingly, they're seeing their country and their cities being destroyed. The infrastructure of the country is being destroyed. So when Israel attacks petrochemical installations, when it attacks gas fields that actually heat up Iranian homes, provide electricity, provide cooking oil, et cetera, Iranians are realizing that the war is on the country, not on them. And they are, as I said, this is a population that is very traumatized.

3.2 million Iranians have been displaced already by this war. Now, how the regime would behave towards them, I would say that it's likely to be incredibly intolerant of dissent. It's going to be repressive, and there's not going to be an opening for the Iranian public after the war. And so I don't see a positive outcome here. I mean, the United States has all its achieved, along with Israel, all they've achieved so far, is actually to worsen the situation for the Iranian public, destroy their cities, the country's infrastructure, subject them to war. transformed the regime that they were already fighting against into a worse version of what had been there.

Professor Nasser, before we go, we just have a minute. If you could say, how do you think this might end? There's always a possibility that the Iranian regime will collapse, that there might be a tipping point that it will collapse or that something very significant happens, that it becomes willing to surrender or come to terms. but more likely is that this war could go on longer, and either the United States decides to escalate in a major way, which at some point mean boots on the ground. You know, wars, you could start with assumptions that they would be short and you have an exit, but then they have their own rules.

Or ultimately, President Trump will realize that this war is getting too costly and he cannot force his will on Iran, and there has to be a negotiated settlement to this war. And Iran already has outlined what is, expecting when that point comes, that it doesn't want to ceasefire. It wants a true end to the war between Iran and the United States, not only on this front, but also in Lebanon and in Yemen. And it wants to guarantee that war would not return. And he wants a significant change in Iran's

economic situation, lifting of sanctions, perhaps some kind of compensation for the war. I mean, that's their asking initial demands. It suggests that they are quite confident that they could at least get some of that. And so at some point, President Trump may have to accept the fact that he started a war that is not going to give him what he expected. And he has to settle for an exit in order to be able to go back to the agenda that it had before. Otherwise, what we may actually really witness is that after close to two decades and three presidents saying that the United States does not want to get entangled in wars in the Middle East. We want to pivot to Asia.

Our priorities, China, that we will end up doing exactly the opposite. We're going to get ensnared in a long war in the Middle East. We're going to take our eyes off of everything else. And China will be, in the end, the winner of this American folly. Vali Nasar, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Iranian-American professor of international affairs and Middle East Studies. at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, author of Iran's Grand Strategy, a Political History.

His recent piece for the Financial Times, Iran is playing a long game. Up next, as oil prices near $120 a barrel. We'll go to London to speak with Lala Halili, author of Extractive Capitalism. Stay with us. I was dreaming in my dreamin. Well, of an aspect, bright and fair.

And my sleeping, it was broken, but my dream had lingered near In the farm of shining valleys Where the pure and my senses are newly opened I awaken into the cry People have the power to redeem the work of fools. Upon the meek, the grace is shower. It's decree.

People have the power by Patty Smith performing a Democracy now's 20th anniversary 10 years ago. On Monday, March 23rd, Democracy Now will be celebrating its 30th anniversary with Patty Smith and Michael Steipp and Angela Davis, Masa, Babu Toha. hooray for the riffraff. And special guests, a surprise. So much more. You can watch our special live stream for more information. Go to DemocracyNow.org.

The event will take place at Riverside Church. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Nirmin-Sheikh. Global oil and natural gas prices are soaring after Israel bombed a massive natural gas reserve in Iran, the largest in the world. Iran retaliated by twice attacking the world's largest liquid natural gas production facility located in Qatar. Iran also attacked key energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. At one point today, the price of oil reached $118 a barrel, a 60% jump since the U.S. and Israel launched its war on Iran. In a post online, Trump threatened

to blow up the entire South Paz gas field if Iran continues to target the Qatari facility. Trump also claimed the U.S. quote, nothing about the Israeli attack on the South Paz gas field. But the Wall Street Journal reports Trump approved the strike to pressure Iran to open up the critical strait of Hormuz. About 20 percent of the world's oil exports flows through the strait of Hormuz. President Trump's asked other countries to send warships to help force open the strait, but many nations are rejecting the request. We're joined now by Lala Halili, Professor of Gulf Studies at University of Exeter,

and the author of several books, including her latest extractive capitalism, how commodities and cronism drive the global economy. She also wrote sinews of war and trade, shipping and capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula. Professor Khalili, thanks so much for being with us. Can you start off by talking about the state of the Strait of Hormuz right now, its closure? President Trump, according to Reuters, perhaps sending in thousands of troops, what exactly this means, and the Israeli bombing of the South Pars gas field, the largest in the world.

President Trump said in a rare rebuke, the U.S. didn't know. Most people are saying that is highly unlikely. That is probably untrue. So the Street of Hormuz is one of the most important choke points for oil. A choke point being an area during which, if it's a. close down, you end up getting a major disruption in the flow of global trade. So the Strait of Hormuz is one, the Suas Canal is another one, Panama Canal is another one. And there are a number of these different choke points all around the world. Now, what's specific about Hormuz and

what's distinctive about it is that it is the choke point where the quantity of oil that goes through is higher than any other commodity that actually flows across the strait. As you just mentioned, about 30% of the global oil flows through that. And part of the reason for that is, of course, that the world's biggest oil producers, some of the biggest oil producers are all sitting around the Persian slash Arabian Gulf. So Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, Abu Dhabi, which all are huge producers of oil in the first place and then natural gas in the case of Qatar and Iran in the second place. Now, what has been fascinating is, is that anybody who has one of these apps

that you can put on your phone, like maritime traffic or vessel finder, you can actually take a look at the flow of traffic, the flow of vessel traffic, ship traffic, through these different seas in the world. And if you zoom in on the Strait of Hormers, what you'll find is that instead of seeing actually a steady traffic of little, usually pink or green arrows going through,

which indicate tankers, what you end up seeing are major clusters of ships that are bunched up, very near ports where oil is produced and usually put on ships. What that indicates is that basically for a number of different reasons, and I'm going to go into that in a minute, the flow of ships, the flow of ship traffic has basically come to a halt. Now, the reasons behind this are multifold. Of course, there is number one that Iran is attacking a number of the ships that are going through. And the way that it is attacking them is through the use of very cheap, either drones or sea mines. And that means that it's basically almost impossible to deal with this particular threat because the drones are produced so extensively in terms of number and they're so inexpensive that they can basically be replenished even if they are destroyed. Also being smaller, they're much harder to target, et cetera, et cetera.

So there has been a number of drone attacks against ships carrying oil through the channel. And so, of course, that scares a lot of carriers, a lot of tankers. The second reason, which I actually think is perhaps even more significant in part because it is actually not something that either the US or Iran can control, is that the moment something like this happens, the moment that there is a threat against ships, what you end up having is that insurance brokers primarily situated in London, but there are, of course, some also in the US, China and in Europe, but really the centre for provision of maritime insurance is London at Lloyds. And the shipbrokers end up putting a specific war risk premium on ships. And that means that going from something like 1% of the cost of the hull,

meaning the ship's body, or the cargo, meaning what it's carrying, goes to something like 5%, or it goes from a fraction of 1% to say 5%. And so that means that suddenly, instead of paying in the hundreds of thousands for insurance for a super tanker, what you're looking at is millions in insurance, which of course increases the cost of the oil that is traveling. So that's the second reason. The third reason is something that the Houthis noticed when they were blockading the Red Sea in support of the Palestinians when Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians. And that is that sometimes the threat alone suffices in getting the ships to stop going through or indeed to make declarations that allows for them a degree of protection. So the Houthis, when they had blockaded the sea, had asked that any ships that claim that they were not,

touching Israel, meaning they were not delivering to or picking up from Israel, could be allowed to go through the canal. And so it happened that this automatic identification system that a lot of ships, well, all ships carry, it's called the AIS system. And the AIS system indicates what ship is in the vicinity of the system, what it's carrying, and what flag it has, meaning which authorities it responds to. And so, now what we're seeing is that apparently Iran has mentioned that any ship, for example, that is going to China will be let through or any ship that is not coming from one of these allied states to the U.S. will be allowed through. Of course, there's a lot of variation in what kind of thing they have requested or what is being reported. So it's a lot harder to see what exactly the AIS systems are being on these ships. And as I said, we are mostly seeing. them clustering and waiting in these locations. One of the main ones being the port of Fajira, which is actually not in the Persian Gulf. It is in the Gulf of Oman. And oil from Abu Dhabi, which is on the Persian Gulf side, is shipped to Fajira through a pipeline. So we're seeing a cluster of ships near Fajira. Iran, of course, also attacked Fijira port. And then we're seeing a cluster of ships near Rassilafan.

which is the main gas production and gas lifting port in Qatar. And the third is, of course, around the oil fields of Saudi Arabia a little bit further up the Persian Gulf. And so these clusters of ships are waiting there and hoping to be able to at some point pick up oil to be carried out, but we're not seeing much of that flow anywhere at all. Professor Khalili, you mentioned that they are looking for the Iranians to see which vessels in the Strait of Hormuz to what countries they're affiliated looking at their flags.

Chinese vessels have reportedly been permitted to pass through the strait. China imports about 40% of its oil from the Middle East and has been one of the largest buyers of Iranian oil. There are also reports that the Iranians are suggesting they'd consider allowing a small number of oil tankers to pass through the strait if the oil cargo is traded in Chinese Yuan rather than US dollars. If you could comment on that. This is really fascinating because, of course, we know that the fundamental basis of the U.S. imperial order since the end of the Second World War has been, on the one hand, petroleum

and on the other hand, the U.S. dollar. The globe's production and finance worlds are dependent on the petroleum that the U.S. has guaranteed the flow of since the end of the Second World War, which until the nationalization of oil in the 1970s and 80s, basically controlled something like 60% of the world's oil reserves. After nationalization, that percentage dropped dramatically. But the U.S. dollar continues to be, and the financial channels that the U.S. has crafted, continue to be a very significant bolster for the empire.

So the fact that Iran is actually looking for alternatives to the dollar in order to challenge the petrodollary regime, which is, you know, as I said, one of the fundaments of the U.S. Empire is a really interesting and quite clever indication of how the Iranians are hoping to influence the crafting of a world post this war or a new world order post this war where there is a multipolar financial system where, for example, the dollar is no longer a single currency that rules the world and the U.S. is the only channel or the only power that controls financial channels because of course the US has used this inordinate power to strong arm various states, to institute sanctions, to make it difficult

for its enemies, for example, to purchase oil. And of course, it has used it to coerce a lot of countries, as we see, for example, in the case of Cuba or Iran, or indeed Russia to do its bidding. So the fact that Iran is calling for petro-Ewan's to become an alternative of the petrodollars is actually quite significant also in indicating that the Iranians are well aware of how extensively the U.S. has used its course of sanction capabilities through its control of the financial channels and through its mastery of the petro dollar and are trying to erode that power. Professor Khalili, you know, the U.S. is now the world's largest oil producer, but because oil is a

globally priced commodity, the price goes up in the U.S. if the world market price goes up. But how important do you think this might be in Trump's calculation? Because another consideration, another aspect of this, may be that as oil supplies diminish from the Middle East, the U.S. could benefit because it is the world's largest oil producer and the price of its oil will go up and the demand for its oil. Absolutely. What a fantastic question. Because in fact, we have seen that when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began and the Nord Stream gas, natural gas pipelines to Europe were sabotaged. There are now indications that this may have been done at the behest of the U.S. and its Ukrainian allies. But nevertheless, when that sabotage happened, it actually translated into massive gains for U.S. natural gas production. The thing is, that there are a number of reasons why oil is not, while the US cannot become the sole oil producer for the whole of the world.

One is a question of proximity, for example. The second is the question of capacity that the US has in order to actually replace, for example, the oil that is produced by Saudi Arabia or by Iran or indeed by Russia. But the third factor, and I think that this is the one that I think we should look out for, is that in the last 10 or 15 years, China has actually begun generating an alternative set of fuels, sustainable fuels, and developing technologies, particularly of electric and battery technologies,

that will allow for, for example, solar or wind energy to displace fossil fuels. And the more that the price of oil goes up, which of course we have seen that happen, as you mentioned earlier. And in fact, this also translates into major windfalls for U.S. oil companies. This oil prices going up benefits Chevron. It benefits Exxon. It doesn't benefit the average U.S. citizen at the petrol stations, at the gas stations. But it does benefit the oil company.

So definitely that does happen. But the higher the price of oil goes up, the relatively cheaper it becomes to actually have sustainable alternatives, which, of course, that means that it means that it. benefits China in a major way since China is way ahead of the rest of the world in producing these technologies and in producing them cheaply. So the solar panels that are being produced in China are a fraction of the price of solar panels that were being produced something like 15 or 20 years ago. And I think this shift is actually a major long-term concern for the oil companies. So in the short term, they're taking all the windfall that they can get. But this, again, is the kind of a

post-war order that we will see will likely also have major implications for the kind of energy people are paying to use or people are willing to use, actually. We just have 20 seconds. But the effect of the bombing of the South Pars facility, the largest gas facility in the world, what it means for Iran, what it means for the world. And President Trump denying the U.S. had anything to do with most do not believe. leave. No, absolutely not. There is no way that Israel would have actually done this without coordination with the United States. And in fact, the channels that deny, for example, that the U.S. coordinated or report Trump's denials are the channels that are often used to feed us the kinds

of lies that the administration tells us. But what is quite significant about South Pars, and I know it's a very short time left, so I'm going to be very quick about it, is that The south part's field is actually shared between Iran and Qatar. The north dome, which is on the south part of the Persian Gulf, is Qatar's share of this major field. And Iran's bit is in the northern part of the Persian Gulf. And so the destruction of the infrastructure there will not only have an effect on Iranians' ability to produce electricity and fuel their various kinds of industries and or homes, but it will also have an effect on the infrastructures that are used by the Qataris

and which the Iranians and Gattaris have been using in an extraordinary degree to an extraordinary degree of coordination since the fields have been utilized. So this actually also affects Qatar. The bombing itself also affects Qatar. And I don't think that this is a calculation that the rather no-nothing Trump administration

has taken into account. Lala Khalili-Wern, thank you so much for being with us, Professor of Gulf Studies at University of Exeter, author of several books, including her latest extractive capitalism, our commodities and cronyism, drive the global economy. Thanks so much for being there. Up next, we go to Washington, D.C., to speak with Congressmember Rokana about the War Powers Act and about the Epstein files. Why did Democrats walk out of a surprise, closed-door hearing with AG Pam Bondi?

Back in 15 seconds. And my sense is newly open. People have the power by Patty Smith, joined by Michael Stipe, performing a Democracy on Democratic Now's 20th anniversary. On Monday, Democracy Now will be celebrating our 30th anniversary with Patty Smith, Michael Stipe, and so many others. Watch the live stream at DemocracyNow.org. I'm Amy Me Goodman with Nermin Shea. This is Democracy Now.

We end today's show on Capitol Hill as the Pentagon is asking Congress for $200 billion for the war on Iran. We're joined by Democratic Congressman Roe Kana of California. He and Republican Congressman Thomas Massey led the unsuccessful effort to pass a War Powers Act in an attempt to rein in President Trump's ability to wage the war against Iran. Representative Rokane, we thank you so much for being with us. If you can start off by talking about in the Senate again, a War Powers Act trying to reign in Trump being scuttled yesterday, and what you think can happen at this point? The American people have already soured on the war. We've lost 13 American service members, and it's counting. The price of gas is up 27%.

And now Donald Trump is saying that he's going to come to Congress to ask for $200 billion to fight in Iran, a total betrayal of his promise that he was going to focus on American needs. To put that in perspective, $200 billion would pay for free public college for every American kid. $10 a day child care. It would fully fund special needs education, and we'd have more money left over. So I do believe that Republicans now, some Republicans are beginning to see that this is hurting the American economy, hurting American workers, and they may start to speak out against the war. And Representative Kana, the Wall Street Journal reported that an extraordinarily small group of people made the decision to go to war, including a vice president.

President Vance, Secretary of State Rubio, Defense Secretary Hegeseth, but a lot of leading U.S. diplomats and figures officials working on the Middle East were entirely excluded from these conversations and learned about the war through, like we did, through social media and the news. Your response to that? Well, it's been totally irresponsibly planned. I mean, the reporting is that they did not anticipate that Iran would strike the strait of Hormuz. They didn't anticipate that the price of oil would go up. They didn't anticipate the difficulty of actually getting regime changes, killing Khamene and having him replaced by his

younger son did not topple the regime. They had no endgame. They didn't even understand how they were going to get the quote-unquote enriched uranium 400 kilograms of enriched uranium at 60 percent that is buried under the nuclear facilities. So they had a split even in their administration, as we see with Joe Kent's resignation, as we see with Tulsi Gabbard saying she didn't look at the intelligence, she just let the president make the decisions, and they didn't consult any of the expertise. I want to go from the, from epic fury, what President Trump has called the war on Iran, to what some are describing, it should have been called, called Epstein Fury, a distraction from what President Trump is very concerned about.

On Wednesday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee walked out of a closed-door briefing with Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, less than an hour after Bondi repeatedly declined to say whether she would comply with a subpoena requiring her to appear for a sworn deposition on April 14th. You're a part of the House Oversight Committee, and you are the co-author of the Epstein Fowles Transparency Act. Can you tell us what happened late yesterday? Well, I was there. Attorney General Pambonni and Deputy Attorney General started out by praising me and Thomas Massey for passing the bill. But then when we started asking basic questions,

like whether she was going to comply with the subpoena, she equivocated. When I asked her why they did not release the files of survivors naming names, they basically said, well, they were protecting survivors. That's not true. So we have insisted that she needs to come under oath on April 14th. James Comer has reiterated that, and I expect that will happen. She will have to answer for hours and hours questions about why there are still three million documents being hidden, why there was a cover-up of those files that implicated Donald Trump. What was that hearing all about? A surprise to you, too, from the day before you'd been calling for her to testify, and yet she wasn't even under oath. And if you can talk about Comer, the

head of the House Oversight Committee, incredibly insulting Congressmember Summer Lee, telling her to stop bitching. Well, it was a sexist slur against an African-American woman. It was totally uncalled for. He owes her an apology. He owes an explanation. I mean, that just harkens back to an ugly past period in American history. I believe she came there to try to earn some goodwill. She was, like I said, gracious initially about saying actually we needed the law. By the way, she herself acknowledged that it was more than Epstein and Maxwell, that there were many men who went to that island who were either implicated in horrendous behavior

or who covered it up and that this was not a hoax. but I think she really was trying to get out of her testimony in terms of the subpoena. It's not going to work. That's why House Democrats didn't ask long questions. We didn't want to give her an excuse not to show up at the deposition. She's going to show up. We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much for being with us.

Democratic Congressman Berocana on the House Oversight Committee. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermin Shea for another edition of Democracy Now.