DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Iran Holds Strategic Regional Cards: Esteban Carrillo Interview

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

"DeProgram" co-host Ted Rall interviews Middle East politics expert Esteban Carrillo about impact of the Houthi shutdown of Red Sea shipping on a looming gas crisis, and why the US might not care about losing its war against Iran due to American domestic considerations. Esteban Carrillo is a Beirut-based journalist and editor serving as Head of News for The Cradle, an independent media outlet focused on West Asian affairs. With extensive experience reporting from the frontlines of the Middle East, he covers geopolitical conflicts, Hezbollah, Israeli-Lebanese tensions, and regional politics. Carrillo frequently appears on international radio and television programs, providing sharp analysis of unfolding events in Lebanon, Gaza, and beyond. Known for his incisive reporting and on-the-ground perspective, he has become a prominent voice challenging mainstream narratives on Middle Eastern conflicts. His work highlights issues often overlooked by Western media. LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow https://x.com/tedrall https://x.com/JamarlThomas #tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

Hello, thanks for joining us. You're watching Deep Program with Ted Raul and Jamarlem Thomas. We're here Monday through Friday at 9 a.m. Eastern time in the United States. Thanks so much for joining and listening. We appreciate your support. Please like, follow and share the show. Today, joining us, we have a long time. Someone I haven't talked to in a long time, Esteban Carrillo. Thank you so much for joining us. Obviously, we've been following the situation in the Middle East with great interest. And there's always, just when you think things are starting to settle down, they change in a dramatic fashion. And there's a lot going on right now in the U.S. Israeli conflict against Iran. But most notably right now, we have the announcement by the Houthis in Yemen to say that they're looking to retaliate against Saudi Arabia by shutting down the Gulf of Aden and shipping of Saudi oil. and maybe other American-affiliated shipping and Western shipping through the Red Sea to the Suez Canal. We already have a dramatic economic impact looming over the Strait of Ormuz, although it's surprising that oil prices are kind of still as low as they are at this stage. I guess I'm going to ask you about that first.

Oil is currently at – it was at about $40, $45 a barrel before. this war began. Now it's at about $72, and that's certainly a significant increase, but we saw it go up as high as $100 a barrel. The ceasefire accord has been completely broken by the United States and Israel. And so the war is now fully resumed, really. So why haven't oil futures prices gone up even over $100 so far, or is that going to happen? Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be talking to you again. I think, you know, this is a question that many people are asking themselves, right? Because even during the highest point of the war, the barrel of oil,

I don't think it ever shot past 120, 140, I think, maximum, that at one point maybe reach even close to that level. But then, you know, of course, you have to talk about the price of oil of futures, as you said, and then the spot oil, right? spot oil prices, which is when it actually exchanges hands. And then you were seeing prices, you know, I think in Sri Lanka was paying as much as $300 per barrel. I mean, across the world, it was a completely different situation.

Now, of course, you know, with a focus in particular, I would say in the U.S. and the Western allies, that you haven't seen these kind of prices shoot up. I would say, well, first of all, there's the fact that in the U.S. specifically they have been dipping into the strategic petroleum reserves, right, which have been essentially they are near depletion at this point, or at the very least near the point in which they can no longer draw any more oil out of them. The same has been the case for the IEA, the International Energy Agency and other, right, other countries in Europe as well. They have been drawing from the reserves to kind of keep a lead on the prices at the pump in

particular. But with what Yemen has just announced with the Yemenean forces, this new equation they have imposed on Saudi Arabia, now you're not just talking about the Strait of Hormuz. Now you're talking about essentially almost oil, all of the oil that comes out of the Persian Gulf is going to be located anywhere between 25 to 30 percent of the global oil supply. And yes, you know, this comes at a point in which the strategic reserves are depleted, in which there's really no end in sight for this war because I think even if Donald Trump tomorrow decides to announce an end like he did last time, I'm not sure the Iranians are going to fall in line with that one.

I don't think they're going to play ball with whatever the U.S. wants to happen next. So I do think we are on the precipice of all of a sudden seeing this situation unravel with the prices of worldwide in particular. right? And I think also you have to consider the fact that China in recent months has actually decreased their imports of oil, which has, in a way also, a decision that has also managed to bring down prices that, you know, according to so many analysts, they should be sky high at this point. And yet, we haven't seen that yet. But again, I don't think this is a situation that's going to last that much longer. I mean, obviously the United States is trying to look for oil the

way someone on laundry days is looking for quarters through the sofa cushions, you know, they're stealing it from Venezuela. They're trying to get OPEC to ramp up production. But it's, it can't be enough, can it? I mean, if you already have 20% of global supply, you know, in peril through the Strait of Ormuz, and you have a $500 million worth of oil tanker trying to decide whether it's going to try to make a run for it or not, you know, prudence is going to tell the shippers best to sit tight and see if this gets resolved, even if it takes months. I mean, exactly, right? Everyone might be suffering or about to get hit by the situation, except, well, you know,

the oil measures, like regardless of what's happening, you see, you know, Chevron, stock, Shell, BP, et cetera, all of them keep shooting up. And they all keep making new deals, right? Especially in West Asia, they keep making deals in Iraq, in Syria, in a, you know, in other places to create new pipelines, to bypass our moves. They keep talking about that, right, bypassing our moves. At the end of the day, I think, you know, what we're witnessing is the United States, it's amassing as much of the available supply, right?

You mentioned Venezuela as possible while essentially killing off the competition, right? I mean, look at how Ukraine has all of a sudden been targeting nonstop U.S., I'm sorry, Russian energy facilities, or shipments, you know, the war in Iran, of course, everything we just discussed, now the Yemeni, blockade, et cetera. But at the end of the day, you know, it's the oil measures who are still benefiting from all of these because all of a sudden, you know, you kill the competition or you sanction those, who even think about going and doing business with someone else, and then you sell your own oil whatever premium the prices are going on at that point.

And of course, at the heart of all of this discussion is the political price, right, that Donald Trump and this current administration in the White House would have to pay for such a, for prices spiking in the pump. And that's yet another thing that we still have yet to see. And I don't know if they have a rabbit out of a hat that they can pull out to, you know, just put a stock to that. I mean, yeah, I mean, this is a game of chicken, right? And it seems like objectively, looking at it rationally, Iran holds all the cards to use Donald Trump's metaphor. You know, I mean, they have control of the Strait of Hormuz. There's no way to pry it away without occupying the entire country. The United States can't do that.

So, you know, the U.S. has a midterm election that presumably President Trump cares about. that's coming up in fewer than four months. So meanwhile, I mean, I'm not really sure. The U.S. just received, you know, the Washington Post just reported that the current conventional thinking inside the Beltway in Washington is that the United States can't possibly bomb Iran into submission that the Iranians can absorb anything we have to throw at them. So I guess my question is, what on earth is Donald Trump and his team thinking? Well, you know, I think that maybe the objectives of this war have always been in a flux, right? There's never actually been a clear, direct strategic objective.

It started with freedom for Iranians or democracy, whatever, whatever term they decided to use. Yeah, then it went to regime change. Then it went to, they closed our moves, right? Now it's about fixing the crisis that they created themselves. they've been in the U.S. So I think at this point, you know, these assessments that the U.S. cannot beat Iran into submission, they are also kind of assuming, right? The first of all, the Iranians would be willing to sit down at the negotiating table again,

which I think is something that we need to continue to put into doubt. Because at this point, the Iranians have been burned by the U.S. three times. Repeatedly, exactly, in the past two years. You know, it's just a constant with the threats and everything else. And so the other actors that have been affected by this war are, of course, the rest of the Persian Gulf states, right? Qatar, which a couple of years ago was the largest LNG supplier in the world. All of a sudden had to declare force major, older contracts, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia as well, right, especially now with Yemen announcing this blockade.

And again, to go back to it, these all benefits Western oil measures. all benefits Chevron and company. And these benefits, those who are close to the oil lobby, right? And in particular, the Trump family that seems to, I mean, these people really know how to make lemonade out of a bag of lemons, right? Like they are just out there making business left and right, using privileged information, using the war to increase their own personal net worth. So I'm starting to see this war, in particular, the war in Iran,

as just a means to that end, right? no matter the chaos, no matter the anarchy, no matter the crisis. Just another Trump grift. Exactly. That's the shape. It keeps taken. So, you know, if it walks like a dog and it walks like a dog. And meanwhile, people die every day.

Exactly. Of course, I mean, there has to be a political cause to all this. And maybe they don't care. Maybe the Trump family is all in it just for their bottom line. And they don't care about the Republican Party. But they've got to care to some extent. because if and when the Democratic Party takes control of the House of Representatives next year, which currently the polls say they will, they get investigatory powers.

They get the chairmanships of these committees. They can impeach the president. They can subpoena records. They can launch investigations and hold hearings and demand that Trump and Hexeth and all these guys drag up to Capitol Hill to explain themselves. And in terms of the politics of it, The polls are dreadful. I mean, 80% of Americans can't agree that cats and dogs are cute, but they agree that the war is bad. And they already, and it happened within weeks of the beginning.

And now we find that the administration has been lying about the casualty count and covering up the number of injuries and soldiers wounded over there. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that they're covering up deaths of. as well. So, I mean, you can, this is one of those things where you can see, it's like you're watching like the Wolf of Wall Street or something. People are cruising for a bruising, you know, enjoy the good times, but your yacht's going down, right? I mean, or am I just wrong? No, I think, you know, I mean, just history itself tells us, right? Like there's a prize for this level of arrogance. And I think, you know, it's in particular to as it pertains to the elections in the U.S. because that's another talking point that we keep hearing, right? Like, it's either the energy crisis or the midterms,

right? And I feel like it's the White House, one thing I will give this particular administration is they have lost all pretense and they are coming out and saying things as they mean it. And I'm halfway grateful for that. Because, you know, now you have Donald Trump, well, first of all, what he said last week, right, about China, Chinese interference, already setting the stage for what may come in November. Then you have the state secretary saying that they're going to dismantled the ICC brick by brick and then declaring war on the leftist terrorism, right? And essentially... All based in Havana.

We're just finding out. We just apparently, you know, like 70 years of sanctions and they managed to do everything that Rubio is accusing them off. I mean, it's just ridiculous. They've been running the giant international Marxist conspiracy. It's insane. It's really, it's ridiculous to even consider the fact that these people go up to a microphone and say these things with a serious face.

But nevertheless, you know, you see them set in the stage for what may come, right? And I think this is a very serious question that needs to be asked internally in the U.S., right? At the end of the day, is the people of the U.S. who must choose and who put Donald Trump in power just a couple of years ago. So if this is the way that this man is acting and talking about elections, and remember he already has his own secret police just like terrorizing the streets of several cities in the U.S., right? and you had a pit hexet last year, gathering all of the generals and admirals and telling them,

we no longer care about international law or international conventions, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, I see this as a very direct threat to whatever is left of U.S. democracy. And I wouldn't bet, you know, the farm on the Republicans losing the elections and then Donald Trump and company just kind of, you know, tumbling down, down this ladder that they climbed up. I think it's going to be a much more difficult fight, and they are setting the stage for this. I mean, truly, it's very concerning. Every statement, every new statement that comes out of the White House

is somehow more concerning than the last one, because we cannot forget just the ability that these people have to wage war in any corner of the earth. I mean, toward that end, Esteban, and I agree with you, do you, what do you make of the president's obsessive messaging on the Save America Act? I mean, I've crunched the numbers on this. And God help the Republicans, if it were to pass, because actually it would make it harder for more, for Republicans to vote than Democrats to vote.

More Democratic voters in the United States have passports and can bring them with them to the polls than Republicans do. More Republican women change their names to their husband's names than Democratic women do. So when they go to the polls, their birth certificate doesn't match the name on their driver's license. So, I mean, the Save America Act, this voting proof act, would be bad for the GOP, which is presumably Trump's party, allegedly. But is this what, and obviously I think there's members of the Senate who know this, which is why he doesn't have the votes in the Senate to pass it. Is it possible that all this is is about setting the stage for the inevitable loss in November and then to say, well, because I told you we needed the Save America Act, we have widespread fraud, we have foreigners voting in our elections,

the Chinese are behind the yellow curtain, and they're manipulating everything. The election was stolen, and therefore I refuse to accept the results. 100%. I mean, I am expecting that, you know, completely. This is obviously what everything that has been happening, all of these new statements, all of these new accusations are about, right? Like, they also see the polls. They also see what's happening, right?

Like right now, Donald Trump is almost as toxic as Israel. I mean, he just still has his very hardcore base that are just committed to whatever this man says. Of course, also, you know, there's the evangelical angle, which is a whole other kind of warms there in the U.S. But at the end of the day, I mean, this is going to be possibly the biggest test that the United States political system and I would even go to say society, the U.S. society as a whole, has ever faced in do they actually want to preserve their democracy or the semblance of a democratic system with checks and balances or have we just, you know, have they just thrown it all out the window and it doesn't. really matter anymore. And, you know, I think

most people will say, no, like, you know, there's going to be a reaction, there's Congress, there's this, there's that. I have my doubts, honestly, Ted, because I just see the dismantling of institutions, of law itself, of, I mean, I will never forget Marco Rubio

a few months ago, when he, like, went up to a podium and started talking about how Western civilization lost his values. And, oh my God, it was so nice back in the colonial era, back when, you know, we just kept spreading from the world and taking lands and killing people and destroying their lands, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, they are turning this into policy. Turning this into actual. Yeah, that report even references it. I had to look it up.

I mean, you and I live and breathe this political space. So when there's a term that, you know, crosses my screen that I've never heard of, it always makes me curious. Third worldism, right, is in that report that Cuba was spreading third worldism. And I was like, like, well, what does that even mean? And apparently it means kind of what you just said that, like, the, you know, they're trying to argue that Cuba wrongly is asserting that as a member of the developing world, which I would argue, it's sort of not really. I think it's an industrialized country. But that, you know, the U.S. perception, that it doesn't have a right to sit at the table with the big countries like the United States. And maybe no other country gets to sit at the

the same table. I mean, it's racial supremacy, it's neocolonialism, it's neo-imperialism, and I think you're right. The test is on. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party, which is the only real institution that could stand up to it, is being, maybe, is being torn apart with this civil war within the Democratic Party between the Mandani-backed Democratic Socialists who are, you know, winning every election. And because obviously, capitalism hasn't really developed, delivered for young people. And, you know, and then the corporatists are kind of citing de facto. I mean, I don't think the corporate Democrats will fight Trump if there's a soft or a hard coup this fall. I mean, between ICE and the Save Act rhetoric and

refusing to, oh, and the claims that there's a lot of illegal immigrants registered to vote, there was just a story out of New Jersey along those lines. I mean, they're discrediting all the election results. And, of course, all the red scare mongering. I mean, it's not effective, right? It's not like going to move the needle politically, but that's not what it's about. If you're right, this is about creating an,

this is a pre-argument. This is like, I say this and this and this now, so that later I can say I said it now and justify it. my actions. I mean, the way they are talking about, and specifically this document, right, that we keep going back to the one about Cuba.

It's insane. It's absurd. I mean, the way that they list people, I mean, not even McCarthy back in the day, you know, could have dreamed up. They're just making things up completely. Like, literally, when they were called out on the idea that most political terrorism in the United

States is carried out by the left. And when pressed upon it, I'm not kidding. They went back to the year, 1972 to 1973, but they stopped there, only there. I'm like, okay, I'll grant you that. I was a kid. I remember there were groups like the weather underground blowing themselves up in the village and stuff back then. That did happen for that year. I was nine years old. I'm 62 now. You know, I mean, but that's literally the argument. They literally were referencing the weather underground and the Black Panthers.

I don't think 95% of Americans even really know who the Black Panthers were. Exactly. And I mean, you know, and now they just bundle up, like, for example, Cote Pink. That is like an anti-war organization or the Amazon Labor Union or even the DSA, which I have, you know, plenty of criticism about, you know, Sorramandani as well. it's preparing to, you know, widespread, possibly even rounding them up, right? Like, I mean, honestly, what's going to stop them at this point? I don't see, I don't see what.

I really don't see, like, if tomorrow... There's no organized left-wing, I mean, if that Havana-based, powerful Marxist conspiracy existed, then ironically, we might have a choice. This is almost, I mean, we might have a, you know, a chance, not a choice. I mean, it's sort of like in 1984 by Orwell, there's no opposition. So the party makes it up. They create a fake one. That's what happens.

That's what's happened here. There is no real one. Who would stop at the Democratic Party? Mike Johnson? Who? No, like, even, you know, I still contend that even if the Democrats come back to power in the midterms. And, you know, let's say that things go through, the elections are accepted.

what exactly are the Democrats going to do? Like, these are people that are constantly snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. I mean, it's insane the fact of just how integrated into the system are, and yet they are presented as an opposition. I mean, if they were an actual opposition, they would be part of this document, right? Which at least just like people who, I mean, Marco Rubio goes out and says, like, they call themselves anti-imperialists. They call themselves anti-capitalist.

What they are is enemies of civil. civilization is the Sionist is the Sionist language, right? Of extermination, of sideline an opponent entirely, right? Not calling everyone a terrorist. They have really

perfected that one. And like everyone who opposes anything that they do, they can just label a terrorist. Look at what they did to Nicolas Maduro or what they're doing to the Cuban government. And the first lady, Venezuela, his wife. His wife, yes. Both. They kidnapped him and no

Nobody cared. And there's no, I mean, you know, this past weekend, was there a single anti-Trump demonstration in the United States of any note or the weekend before? Or during the week, God forbid, when it might inconvenience you, you might have to take time off from work. It's not a rosy outlook, honestly, internal in the U.S.? No, I mean, it's bleak. I have to say, I mean, January 6th. 2021 looks like a sort of a sloppy dry run. It's not a, it wasn't a serious endeavor. But now, I mean, you know, this is the difference between Trump's first term, which was ad hoc trying to figure out

how the phones work to a well-planned out, you know, well-oiled political machine. I mean, you know, But to your point, even in the 1950s, I've read a lot, and I could be mistaken, but I don't think I've heard that figures like McCarthy called communists, the enemies of civilization. You know, he said they wanted to take over the country and establish godless communism and that they were dangerous for that sense, that they were against the American way and capitalism. But there wasn't the implication that they were an existential threat to everything. No, no, no, no. And that's something that you see spreading now.

And it's been like, you know, since the first Donald Trump presidency, right, like all of a sudden political actors could just say the most horrendous things and face almost no repercussion. No, he said it himself famously, like I could shoot a person in Fifth Avenue. nothing would happen to me and I think that's that's still the case I mean and you see it spread around the world right like you see it now with these populist leaders a far right leaders in Latin America or the rise of the far right in in in Europe or in other places right just like this absolute a push towards the the language of extermination and you know you do not have to

discount the fact that for the past three years the entire world has been sitting down staring at their phones looking at a genocide, live streamed by the victims. And nobody lifted a finger. And nobody does anything. And those who do, those who present arrest warrants or those who actually document what's happening, they get slapped with sanctions.

They get, you know, smear campaigns launched against them. Or they get silenced. They get arrested in airports. They get sent to prison, you know, different cases. And what does that leave you with? Even if you participate in a peaceful campus protest in the United States, you get expelled from college. They take away your college degree. They blacklist you.

Yeah. You are not allowed. You won't be hired anywhere. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's terrifying. I mean, so do you, I mean, I would imagine it's more something that Trump, the war. I mean, I think it very clearly was Netanyahu's idea. But then, you know, I think.

I think once these things are happening, they assume a life of their own. Obviously, we all know from history that states radicalize in times of military conflict, particularly extremist states. As bad as it was from the very beginning, Nazi Germany, you know, it's hard to imagine the Holocaust taking place, according to historians, without the war, right? Like it would have not gone quite to mass extermination, if not for World War II. I mean, is the war now at this point necessary for Trump to sort of end his team to set the stage for this sort of end of representative democracy, electoral democracy. And we will have a national emergency of some sort.

Don't worry, we'll have another election. At some point, we know this sort of, you know, coup model. Don't worry, we'll get to you. We'll have, we're trying to figure it out. but just to keep security, we're going to have ice on every street corner. You want to make sure you're safe from the terrorists, the foreigners among us, the enemies inside it. I mean, is the war necessary for that? Yes, I think so.

I think this is something that was put into motion, you know, post-9-11. I mean, the line is clear. It's a direct line from that, those decisions, those laws that were passed. I mean, the fact that to this day, the president still uses the 2001 AUMF to launch a war anywhere, it should be scandalous. It should be scandalous.

Like the moment any congressman like Thomas Macy did, you know, brings a resolution to Congress to repeal it, it should have the support of the entirety of the Congress and somehow it's the opposite because, you know, war is business there. And I think that's pretty clear right now. And war is a great business. And there's a lot of people making a lot of money

out of the genocide in Gaza, out of the war in Iran, et cetera. And you know, to your point to what you were saying, right, like the dismantling of representative democracy. I mean, the United States well and truly is becoming a banana republic. And I will give you an example. You know, I'm from Ecuador. And the situation there is dire, to say the least. I mean, truly catastrophic was happening in my country.

But one of the things that has been happening over the past few years is this exact thing that you just said, the dismantling of representative democracy. Right now we have elections in a couple of months in which only the official party is going to be. allowed to run the government party that is of course backed by the United States. And over the past three years or so, there's been 900 days in which the country has been under a state of exception. With the murder rate going up and up and up every single day, it doesn't stop, and yet we have a constant state of exception because we have an internal armed conflict, as described by the government and supported by the United States.

So it's a bit, you know, absurd really to see that from this, you know, third world country, the strategy be adapted to essentially what is supposed to be the leader of the free world in order to, well, as you said, right, just kind of perpetuate themselves in power by hook or by crook. It's, yeah, I mean, I can't say that, you know, I didn't, I'm a student, I am a student of World War II. I majored in the study. Vichy France was my concentration in college. So I can't say that this is all like, just something no one can see coming.

But still, it's one of those things that's not surprising, but it's still nevertheless shocking. It's kind of like the way I felt about 9-11. Not shocking, I mean, shocking, but not surprising. It's surprising it hasn't happened more often and before, earlier, sooner, later. Let's get back to the state of the who I don't want to let you go without talking about the hooties.

You know, they've been kind of a wild card in the recent, sort of spate, the series of conflicts that we've seen there. How much of their recent threat to shut down the Gulf of Aden is simply about them trying to get even with Saudi Arabia, which obviously is backing. the civil war in Yemen against them, or how much of it is solidarity with the Palestinians and how much of it is about trying to get even with the West in general? And sorry, a lot of questions. And how, like, can they carry out their threats? I mean, they haven't really done a whole lot of damage in the past.

Yes, no, I mean, it depends on how you look at it. And I think you need to look at the results, right? Because in 2024, from November 2023 until early 2025, actually, the Yemeni armed forces closed down the Red Sea. And they didn't need to be constantly attacking commercial vessels. They took two, two Israeli-ling commercial vessels. And that was the end of Israeli shipping in the Red Sea. Then the U.S., the EU, send their navies, send their warships, reopened. the straight, that was a catastrophic failure. I mean, they literally turned tail and ran. And then when

you see the interviews, you read the interviews with the service members who were on those ships, they were saying, this was the biggest battle we've seen, the U.S. Navy since World War II. We had to be on-call 24-7. We knew had seconds to react to these attacks. The Yemenis were firing drones non-stop. So a military solution to Yemen, it failed already. They haven't really deterred them at all. So, yes, they do have the capability. to maintain control of the Babelmandas trade and, of course, the Red Sea. And, you know, since the start of the war, Saudi Arabia started to use the east-to-west pipeline to try to get the oil out of the Gulf of Oman and into the Red Sea.

And this is how they've been shipping most of the Royal for the past few months. Now, that is essentially over. Today, already, ships were turning back from the Babelmandam trade, because the Yemenis told them if you continue, you know, you're going to see the bottom of the sea. And the Yemenis can only need to target the pipeline, the east-to-west pipeline, to essentially put an end to Saudi oil shipping. And, you know, to answer your earlier question. This is, yes, this is, you know, there's different reasons why Yemen is doing this, right? I think the main one is a response to Saudi Arabia's violations of their airspace and their marra-because.

because Saudi Arabia has kept a blockade on Yemen for about 10 years, that caused the deaths of tens of thousands, of thousands of people, and since 2015. So this is a response to that. It's a response to the recent escalation in which Saudi Arabia tried to intimidate an Iranian airliner from landing in Sanaai International Airport, and then they actually bombed Sanaa Airport. So the Yemenis are responding to these,

are saying the equation that you imposed on us for 10 years, we're putting it back at you. We're throwing it back at you in an eye-for-an-eye situation, and they declare the maritime blockade, which, of course, ends up benefiting Iran. Let's not forget that at the end of the day, since the war against Iran started, the Yemenis have been putting out statement after statement, saying we stand with Iran, we are ready, or fingers on the trigger, et cetera. And, you know, just to finish up, this is not the first time that the Yemenis have came in and stood up in support of one of their allies in their access of resistance,

because, and this is always very important to mention, Yemen was the only country on the planet to activate a military front in support of the Palestinians in Gaza, who to this day continue to be slaughtered. So that was what the closure of the Red Sea was. Back then, now it's a similar reason with different actors. So, yeah, I mean, obviously the Saudis can still, get their oil out the long way, right?

I mean, sort of. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I don't know, because the pressure on Oman is huge right now. Oman is really caught in a bice grip right now, stock between a rock and a hard place. So I don't think they're going to be that willing to open up exports to Saudi Arabia. There's the Suez Canal, but the Suez Canal, first of all,

you cannot pass the very large carriers. You need smaller ones to pass through a Suez Canal. There's pipelines that are already being used. There's really no easy way out. Yeah, there are full capacity. There's really no easy way out. Yeah, it's basically the spigots running, but it's at a trickle. That's the problem.

Exactly. I guess, yeah, I mean, we're going to see. I mean, obviously no one knows what the timeline is here, but would you say that by September, October, you know, the U.S. will be, and its Western allies and Israel, well, particularly the U.S., they'll be seeing things and they'll get serious about negotiating. I mean, I don't understand why they think, I honestly, I guess, unless this is about the coup in the United States,

I don't really see militarily the point of this war. Yeah, militarily is a disaster. I mean, all they managed to do is boost Iran, you know, make Iran into the principle of regional power. And strengthening a government that was never very popular. Exactly, exactly. Strengthening a government, yes, that was in dire straits for a bit there. And also, you know, essentially handing them over the Strait of Ormuz. It's a comedy of errors, really, this war militarily, as you said.

I think, you know, saying seriousness and the U.S. and Israel as like, you know, kind of like a contradiction in itself, the war is going to come to an end at some point. Yes, I think, you know, everyone can agree on that. And as most wars end, it's going to come with some treaty, right? Like some treaty is going to have to be signed. The problem is for the U.S. in particular, that right now the Iranians, I mean, I would say they are completely sick of even the hearing the suggestion that, oh, no, the US wants to sit down with you. Why? What is the point? I mean, how many more times are we going to allow them to do this to us? I mean, what the US wants to impose is an equation that is the start and stop, right? We bomb you for a few weeks. We stop, we sit down, we talk. We bomb you for a few weeks, you know, rinse, wash, repeat. I think this is very clear right now in Tehran, and they are going to keep going forward, which I think many people agree it should have been the decision in the first time

before the ceasefire was announced in April. It should have been, you need to continue the war. You need to continue exerting pressure on the aggressors because the prize for them has to be astronomical. It has to be like nothing we have ever seen before in order to put a stop to the war. Totally agreed. I mean, it's almost like the U.S.

basically got this approach from the Israelis with their whole mow the lawn thing. Exactly. Absolutely. And Hamas finally had enough, right? I mean. It is. It is. And you don't have to discount the fact of,

well, first of all, that the Israeli army and its intelligence agencies have had, you know, they've been inside the Pentagon for so long, helping make decisions or are calling for decisions to be made. And now you even have this bill, right,

that is trying to integrate the Israeli and U.S. militaries. I mean, you cannot talk about the U.S. and Israel as two separate entities, right? Like, as many people say, oh, he's the tail wagging the dog. No, it's just a good dog going berserk. And it has, you know, it's just separated by geography. But then it's essentially the same project. Again, you know, that relationship never having been less popular among voters here in the U.S.

Absolutely, yes. I mean, right now the Iran war the most unpopular war since Vietnam, actually more than Vietnam. Israel is so toxic. Let me ask you one last question. I was thinking about this the other day. Nothing's more dangerous than a dying system or regime, right? The U.S. is a dying imperialist country. But I was thinking specifically about Israel and its support in the United States.

I mean, the Zionists are, you know, they're on the ropes here. You know, everyone hates them. And, you know, you can tell from their messaging or their rhetoric, they're getting increasingly desperate. and ridiculous. And I don't see any way they're ever coming back. I mean, there's, you know, no one under 40, you know, supports Israel. They're going to be, these people are just getting older, and they're not going to change their mind about it.

And so, you know, people who do support Israel are just dying every day. You know, is dying Zionism actually a potentially dangerous force in terms of terrorism? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, in terrorism, yes, but I think there's actually a more dangerous angle to all of this. And you have to look at the rise of data centers. You know, this is like mad rush to build data centers everywhere in the U.S. telling you, oh, this is to develop AI.

No, it's to develop a mass surveillance system, right? Like, as you said, right now, a dying system is at its most dangerous. And Zionism is a system that is completely, completely, you know, the pariah of the world. They can spend millions upon millions on Hasbara, right, on Zionist propaganda, and it doesn't get the effect. The numbers keep dropping. The people keep saying, no, you know, what's happening in Gaza is wrong, et cetera.

So what do they do next? Well, they work with the big tech companies to essentially create this mass surveillance state, which is actually the exactly Palantier, Microsoft, all of them. I mean, all of them, none of them have their hand cleansed when it comes. to this. They are all working towards the same objective, right? I mean, you must have seen the Palantir manifesto that they released a few months ago, in which they essentially said, you know, it was very long, but in one part they said it is our duty to serve the United States and its purpose, right? And then you look at just how the amount of lunacy that exists amongst the

leadership of this tech company. So, you know, so. how are they going to fight back against this rising unpopularity? I think it's going to be by essentially, you know, expanding this system of surveillance and control. You brought up 1984 a few minutes ago, and I honestly think in the moment that we're living now, you know, July, 26, it's like they grabbed that book and used it as a manual, you know, word for word. This is what we need to do in order to establish our system of control.

So you have to, you know, look at it as a war. that is going to keep raging on different fronts with different methods, with different people at the front of it, but that looks for the same objective, which is to perpetuate the empire that has caused so much damage to the world, and, of course, at the heart of this empire is, well, Zionism. Yeah, well, that seems like it's a depressing, but very appropriate place to end things.

Esteban, thank you so much for joining us, I'm going to be a political analyst. You're watching Deep Program with Ted Roll and Jamal Thomas live on Rumble and YouTube, Monday through Friday at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. I'm going to play the... If you want to stay on, I'll talk to you after I hit the button. I actually have to disconnect that, but it was great talking to you.

Okay, it's a pleasure. Take care. Take care, Esteban. Bye, bye, bye.