Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar : Russia/Iran/China: The New Triangle

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

Pepe Escobar : Russia/Iran/China: The New TriangleSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? Jefferson was right? What if that government is best which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish

fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, May, excuse me, Wednesday, May 6, 20206, Pepe Escobar joins us now. It's probably tomorrow where you are, so forgive me for fumbling over the day. It is tomorrow. Welcome here, and thank you for staying up late for us, even though you're in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. You intrigued me with one of your recent ex-posts, and I used it as the title for this segment, Russia, Iran, China, of the new triangle. Before we get to your understanding and explanation of the new triangle, and I've been looking forward to this since I picked up the phrase from you last night,

are the U.S. and Iran negotiating with each other through an intermediary and via remote and long distance, or is this just another confabulation from the president? There are talks, Judge, yes, but it's a back and force of several points from one side to the other. The Iranians sent to the Americans via the Pakistanis 14 points, very detailed, which are essentially the same points from the beginning. The breakdown after a while, three key points stick out. in that order. The first one is to end the war and end all wars against Iran and against the axis of resistance.

The second point is a discussion in detail about the Strait of Hormuz. And the third point, the last stage, is a discussion about a possible new nuclear deal, which will be a sort of diluted JCPOA, which was destroyed by Trump. 1.0. Let me start at the end. Does the United States finally recognize that no amount of bombing will change the attitude of the Iranians about their right to enrich uranium for civilian domestic purposes? No, they have not understood that yet, and that's one of the main sticking points, probably the main sticking point, apart from the ballistic missiles, the drones, etc.

Right. Yesterday we had something, I would say this goes beyond any Monty Python sketch in history. Okay. Okay, I'll try to back it up, Judge. Marco Rubio says that our goal now in Iran is to go back to the situation before the war. And he said that with a straight face. Essentially, this is what he said. We have to be speechless, right?

I don't want to give you heartburn. Because you're my buddy. But here is Marco Rubio. Operation Epic Fury is over. Back to the future. Chris, number 19. Operation Epic Fury is concluded. We achieved the objectives of that operation.

I'm not going to, you know, we're not cheering for an additional situation to occur. We would prefer the path of peace. What the president would prefer is a deal. He would prefer to sit down, work out a memorandum of understanding for future negotiations that touches on all the key topics that have to be addressed, a full opening of the straits so the world can get back to normal. And he preferred that that be negotiated through the route that Steve and Jared have been working and that all of us have been supporting.

That's the route he prefers. That is so far not the route that Iran has chosen. And so the result has been that the United States has to do. do something about the fact that we're the only nation on earth that can do anything to open up a lane within the Straits of Hormuz to get product and to rescue these people that are trapped in there. And that's what we're undergoing now. What that may lead to in the future is speculative. I'm not going to speculate about what it would take or what it would do. But look, the message to Iran, these guys are facing, they are facing real catastrophic destruction to their economy,

generational destruction to their economy, generational destruction to the wealth of their country, imposed on themselves by the actions that they're taking. They should check themselves before they wreck themselves in the direction that they're going. Where to start with this nonsense, Pepe? I'll give it to you. No, we would need a few hours, Judge, to go point by point. Right. They would say upside down.

And we have a Secretary of State who never met the Foreign Minister of Iran. Right. Well, he says the war is over. we have achieved the objectives of that operation. Let's see. Let's check him very briefly. Regime change, no. No.

Eradication or degrading of Iran's ballistic missiles, no. Destruction or theft of enriched uranium, no. Control of the Strait of Hormuz. Just that was open before the war. Now the two lanes that are there, both in Iran territorial waters, Mr. Secretary. You remember, Mr. Secretary, that those claims go out 12 and a half miles, not too, totally in the control of Iran.

So to plain English, what the hell is he talking about or objectives have been achieved? Absolutely. And on the American Lane, a judge, very important. Nobody used it. That's why Trump had to cancel a project. humanitarian liberty, freedom, whatever, in less than 48 hours. Nobody used it. No insurer would risk it.

No tank owner would risk it. Nobody. There's only one lane to cross the strait of Hormuz. It's in Iranian territorial waters. And let me get the... Yes, I just found it. With the Persian Gulf Authority, which has just been established, It's probably less than two days old.

Key points. Number one, priority payment in Iran's national currents. So you contact the Persian Gulf Authority by email. You pay the toll in reales, in Iranian reales. And you want to play paying Chinese yuan? Exactly. I was getting there, Judge. I forget it for something to the gun. Go ahead, please. My apologies.

No, no problem, no problem. Because this is not specified so far. The backup currency is going to be UN, of course, because very few people who have access to Iranian reals. And you need a bank guarantee in Iranian banks. I was checking this with friends in Tehran. They told me, look, it's very simple. You can do it online.

So every insurer can do this online. Point number three is very interesting. If a country has caused damage to Iran in the recent war, it must first pay the damages before obtaining passage permission. We still don't know how this is going to work. For instance, I was thinking about NATO bases in Europe that they were used for American planes, for instance. Who are going to build NATO?

Or, for instance, in the case of the base of Sigonella and Sicily, Are you going to build Italy? So we still don't know how it's going to work. And number four, it's fascinating. In all documents, the correct title, Persian Gulf must be written. Wow. It's not Trump Gulf or Arabian Gulf or it's Persian Gulf. Let me get you back to the first question that I asked you about whether or not negotiations are in fact going on through these back channels.

Why would the Iranians negotiate with Israel? agent. Kushner, Whitkoff, and now this new fellow this new fellow steward who Del Giraldi says is more of a Zionist

than the other two, if that's possible. It is absolutely correct. Absolutely correct. Well, I was talking to Iranian connections today and they said there's absolutely no way these people will be on the table in

future discussions. For the moment, for instance, there's no formal negotiation as we speak. Let's say that the main diplomatic negotiator for the moment is Arachi, and Arachi, of course, is talking to everybody. Yesterday, for instance, he was talking with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia. This morning, he was in Beijing talking to Wang Yi in person. And this was immensely important.

And I'll tell you, Judge, why in one. minute. The other thing is Calibah. Calibaf for the moment, he extracted himself from, let's say, the negotiating table, and he's coordinating everything in the background. He is the key man running, because he knows the whole apparatus of government how it works. He is the coordinator guy. And of course, he has a say on any possible future negotiations. The most important negotiation at the moment is between Iran, Russia, and China, which is part of the answer to your first question, the RIC. RIC originally, as codified by the late great minister of foreign relations of Russia, Yevgeny Primakov, was how Primakov in the late, in the end of the millennium, in fact, he said,

RIC, which many of us started to call the Primakov Triangle afterwards, this is the key vector for the integration of Eurasia in the 21st century. And this was the first building block to what later became brick and later bricks. This was a Primakov concept. It was not O'Neill from Goldman Sachs at all. O'Neil Pek. pick that up. The guy who came up with the concept was Primakov. Nowadays, this past few months, and especially since the start of the war, I'm putting this in every column and podcast everywhere. We have a new Primacob triangle, Russia, India and China.

And any solution for the war on Iran against Iran will involve Russia and China. And this is exactly what we are seeing this past two weeks with these two trips by Arachi, first to St. Petersburg, where he was received by Putin. So we have the president of the Russian Federation talking to a foreign minister for one hour and a half. This is unprecedented. And today we had Arachi visiting Beijing and talking to one. There you go, with Wangyi. And this is very, very important.

You know what? The most important thing that Wang Yi told Arachshin about the war. The war of U.S. and Israel, I guess, Iran, is, quote, illegitimate, meaning everything connected to the war is illegal. This is the official Chinese position. So the position of the Chinese is slightly different from the position of the Russians. Last week, what we have is very. was basically Putin trying to instill some sense into Trump's brain.

That's a very complicated operation. Because immediately after the one hour and a half meeting, Lavrov Arachshi, Putin picked up the phone and called Trump. And basically was saying to Trump, look, I may have an off ramp for you. But don't try anything absurd like, ground invasion, more bombing, et cetera, because your position is going to be much worse than your position already is at the moment.

So these are the parallel tracks. And of course, Trump had to back track of that project, liberty, freedom, humanitarian, whatever, because next week is the summit with Xi Jinping in Beijing on May 14th, May 15th. And he arrived at the summit judge with less than zero cards to play.

Would he go to Beijing while bombing Tehran? Exactly. If he was bombing Tehran or, for instance, some Iranians told me today that everybody is ready for the possibility of the world starting this weekend. Well, Professor Mirandi, our buddy, told us that's the same thing, just a few hours. He said the same thing, Professor Marandi.

Of course, because this is what's being discussed in every cafe in Iran as we speak. Exactly. But Trump knew that if he was bombing Iran again, the Chinese will simply cancel

the meeting. In fact, the Chinese are keeping this meeting alive because, first of all, they are sticklers for protocol. This meeting was already postponed once. And they follow the rules. They just want to get

read. of this summit. Let me give you some breaking news which might illuminate your thinking and I think this is good news. The USS Gerald R. Ford, this is from Forbes reporting. America's $13 billion flagship supercarrier

is steaming out of the Mediterranean right now, slipping through the Strait of Gibraltar and heading across the Atlantic back to the United States. This is the one where the toilets weren't working. They brought it to Cyprus to fix the toilets. It's got 5,000 sailors on it. It's America's prize. It's now out of the, as McGregor would say, the theater of war.

By the way, very far from the theater of war, of course. Yes. The theater of war is the Persian Gulf where nobody dares to enter. So is it your view, given the movie, of this monster ship and the likelihood, because the American advanced team and all the equipment they bring, the president's clothing and the president's cars and everything is already there. Is it your view that the Beijing trip is on and therefore there will be no bombing while between now and then?

As it stands, Judge, yes, but we never know. Considering the volatility of the main character, in this play, not Shakespearean, of course. Anything can happen from one minute to another. For instance, the humanitarian operation that he concocted or somebody whispered in his ear was canceled in less than two days, because it simply didn't work. But he keeps the blockade. And I was looking a few minutes ago, they disabled an empty Iranian tanker trying to sail back to one of the Iranian ports.

So the American blockade very far away, of course, from the Gulf of Oman in the eastern extremities of the Gulf of Oman, still there. Is the Iranian blockade a blockade in the literal, traditional sense, with ships literally preventing the moving? of other ships or are they using the insurance market as an instrument for the blockade because no ship, no owner of a ship or owner of the contents of the ship would allow it to go there without insurance. Without insurance, exactly. And it's not a blockade. It's a toll booth. This tall booth has been worked. They have been tweaking the toll booths from the beginning. I'm sure our audience remembers that in the beginning, the Tobus accepted only yuan, for instance. And sometimes it's accepted cash if you didn't have you once, Petro Yuan, crypto, the Chinese international paying system, Sips.

And now they are formalizing it in Iranian Riyadh, because this is what the parliament in Iran is approving, essentially. And they are already discussing with the Omanis. If you want to have your toll booths on the Omani side, no problem. You do it your way. This is our way through our territorial waters. And nobody is going to contest it and everybody will pay because this is the, let's say, the privileged water way to cross the Strait of Hormuz. More or less in the middle of the whole thing, it's mined.

And it's going to take months to demine it. And this is something that he has to be on the table negotiating between Iran and the U.S. Who is going to demand it and how? All right. I want you to explain to us about the new triangle, Russia, Iran, China. But before you do, you'll be pleased to hear this. Colonel McGregor has a piece out arguing that wealth and power are pivoting, global wealth and power are pivoting to the east

and Donald Trump is accelerating that movement. Well, Judge, this is my professional story for the past 15 years or so. I've been writing about this literally every week for the past 15 years. And at the time, they heard all sorts of insults against me, especially from NATO stun, let's put it this way, the NATO space.

And this is exactly what we're seeing. And the RIC, the Primakov Triangle, Russia, China, and Iran, they are at the center of it because they are the three main drivers of this drive towards a multipolar, a multipolar system of international relations, three BRICS members, three Shanghai Corporation Organization members. They have interlocking strategic partnerships. three of them. They are sovereign nations, very, very important. And most of all, they are civilizational states. In the case of Russia with a thousand years of history, in the case of China and Persia, several thousand years of history each. So that's a completely different story.

They have seen it all. They are ancient civilizations. They know that we are at an inflection point in history, and they want to drive it. And of course, they are, let's say, the vanguard of the whole global south. In fact, conceptually, they are the vanguard. Vanguard is a very 1960s concept, you know, but it applies now to what the new Primakov triangle is doing. And this is the new world busy being born, to quote Bob Dylan once again. And the old world is dying, and they are in utter perplexity,

because they don't even know how to manage their decay. So that makes them more dangerous. And what is their solution usually? Ah, if you don't follow what I want, I'll bomb you. Again. This is what he said today, yeah. I think what he said today. He did say that today if they don't come to the negotiations.

table and say what I want to hear. We'll bomb you. Here's one of his accolades. This is one of the leading Zionists in the United States. Forgive me for exposing you to this, but I want your comments. Ben Shapiro. Watch what he asked to say. Cut number 22.

The easiest move for the United States to make right now would be to just blow up Harg Island. Harg Island, you could do an amphibious operation there. It's a lot riskier. Or it could just blow it up. And that means that Iran has no refinery capacity. and that means their economy is basically sunk for the foreseeable future, which means the regime has no money to pay its own people.

And what would happen to the Gulf states and to Israel if that were to happen? Well, this imbecile doesn't even know about Iranian refinery capacity. He's never been to Iran. He doesn't know how Iran works. It doesn't know that several possibilities of refining that Iran has. So that's the problem. This stupid Zionist, they can blah, blah, blah, blah, all the. they want with no evidence about anything, and they're talking about something that they don't know.

Anyway, if it was so easy to blow up everything, the United States blew up a lot of stuff inside Iran. And, of course, they know that they're going to take, in some cases, it's going to take years to rebuild. In some other cases, for instance, bridges, three or four days, they have a brand new bridge. So 47 years of sanctions, Judge. This is something that when you travel across Iran and you see in front of you the effects, the graphic effects of years and years of sanctions that prevented you from modernizing bits and pieces of your economy, it's heartbreaking, in fact. You can only do this if you are a very, very strong nation with a sense of unity. And, of course, technologically advanced. In running several domains is technologically advanced.

And, of course, central planning in a Chinese sense. Okay, we need to invest in these sectors of our economy. And, of course, import substitution. Everything that you see in Iran literally is made in Iran. So they follow the Chinese model made in China. Yes, absolutely. Do the Americans understand the Russia-Iran-China triangle? No, no.

I would say that in academia, a few. Wow. But Mir Shaher understands it. Professor Sachs understands it. Does Rubio, does Whitkoff, does Kushner, does the president, does Hengseth? No, but absolutely no idea, Judge. It's, I would say this is a toxic combination of stupidity and nastiness. The whole grifter circle.

Nastiness has never been so stupid and stupidity has never been so nasty. And this applies to all of them, Besant, Rubio, all of them, HECSET, especially. What are you think will happen in the next couple of weeks? The president's threatening the bomb. We know he's not going to bomb him, or he's going to Beijing. He's going to Beijing. He has no cards to play. The Iranians are demonstrating a resilience beyond which the Americans and the Israelis ever imagined.

And Netanyahu and Mrs. Zaylo Center are still pressing the president to resume the bombing. Where will we be in a couple of weeks? Probably from the point of view of how this is being viewed in the decision circles in Tehran, they are ready for the resumption of war. So it's not going to be this weekend. And they said if it's this weekend already, it might be after the trip to China. Because this, what was, that CIA ops disguised as a journalistic entity with a report that there is basically a Zionist asset, they keep breaking fake stories to manipulate. What entity you're talking about?

I prefer not to name it. Well, I am a professional journalist, a judge. I've seen all the horrors of journalism in the world for the past 40 years. So forget it. People know what I'm talking about. I know what you're talking about also. I won't mention that he is. So they manipulate markets. So the latest is that there is a 14-point

practically a memorandum of understanding of M or you, and it's practically sealed. No, it's not. And the Iranians today said, we are studying in detail what the Americans are proposing. So we already know that everything that the Iranians proposed via the Pakistanis was smashed by the Trump administration. So let's see if there are some points of agreement. And then the Iranians are going to say, maybe we take these points of agreement. What about the rest?

So until we get to a memorandum of understanding is to a very long road. And that explains why, Our main non-Shakespearean character said, okay, if they don't agree to it, I'm going to bomb again. Pepe, thank you very much, my dear man. You're of such unique value to our understanding of all of us. God bless you and your safe travels. I know you're traveling tomorrow. And wherever you are at the middle or the end of next week, Chris will find you, and hopefully we'll have you back here.

It's going to be from China, Judge. guaranteed. We have to organize our schedule, but it's definitely from China. Got it. Got it. Thank you, Pepe. All the best, my dear. Thank you so much, Judge. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Coming up at 3 o'clock, if you're watching us live in 31 minutes, on all of this, the great Phil Giraldi, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.