Shaun Newman Podcast - #1051 - Pepe Escobar

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

Pepe Escobar is a veteran journalist, author, and geopolitical analyst renowned for his coverage of Eurasia, energy politics, and the rise of a multipolar world order. A longtime foreign correspondent who has lived across Europe and Asia, he gained prominence with his "Roving Eye" column at Asia Times, where he serves as editor-at-large, and is also a columnist for The Cradle. Since the 1980s, Escobar has extensively reported from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia, the Middle East, Iran, and China, often focusing on pipelines ("Pipelineistan"), great-power competition, and resistance to Western hegemony. Known for his colorful, sharp style and staunch anti-imperialist perspective, he is the author of books including Globalistan, Red Zone Blues, and Raging Twenties, making him a leading voice in alternative and non-Western geopolitical commentary.Watch the Cornerstone Forum 26’https://shaunnewmanpodcast.substack.com/Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Expat MoneyExpatmoney.com/SNPGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

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This is James Lindsay. This is Vance Crow and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday. How's everybody doing today? I got the oldest sitting beside me. How's Shee doing this morning? Good.

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If that was come off while running your cook. Well, that's true. If they come off while you're running, folks, you are cooked. That is fair enough. When it comes to deck season, when we're looking for any type of wood, character wood, I always like the things Windsor plywood here in Lloyd Minster has. But, you know, you're worried about your deck, maybe a backyard project, maybe you've got something on the inside, mantle, some windows, a door, a shed,

podcast studio table. Look no further than Windsor plywood here in Lloyd Minster. Tell Carly and the team that, I sent you. Substack, free to subscribe to, and then we're going to have some updates going. Are you blowing into the mic? Trying to do ad reads here. And all here in the background is, is that a win?

Is that a win coming through? Oh, my goodness. If you can see this side, folks. Substack, free to subscribe to, of course, all the episodes being published there. That's the only way you can support the podcast. It's where you can sign up for a monthly membership. become a paid member see behind some of the paywalls get to comment on all the episodes so that's one of the ways you can do that if you're listening or watching on spotify apple youtube rumble

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They got the best wood in town. They just do. And if you're building something, don't you want the best? No. You don't want the best if you're building something? What do you mean? You literally have a podcast that's not made of the best wood around it. You're talking about the shell?

The shed? Yeah. All the wood on the inside is Windsor plywood. On the outside, it's not, so you can't say anything. It's still standing after all these years. That's pretty good, would she? So, it's not from Windsor Piewood. I actually don't know where it's from.

You got to ask the person who owned it then. I guess so. There you go. There's your one question. Now, let's get onto that tale of the tape. Today's guest is a journalist, author, and geopolitical analyst. I'm talking about Pepe Escobar. So buckle up.

Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman. podcast today I'm joined by Pepe Osk. Oh man, I'm going to start that again. Oh man. It must be a morning over here. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Pepe Escobar. Sir, thanks for hopping on. My pleasure, Sean. And greetings from an island in the Andaman Sea, total peace and tranquility. The absolute opposite of what we're living now geopolitically. For me, where are you? I am. I am. I prefer not to say which one.

It's one of the islands in the Andaman Sea, north of Pouquet, in the western part of Thailand. Okay. If you keep navigating west from here, you reach India. Fair enough. Well, it's your first time on the show. I've listened to some of your interviews. I've had lots of different guests on the show. Reference your work.

But I mean, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, and you obviously, you know, I've never met me either. So I guess maybe we could just start with a little bit of your background. Who are you? And I don't know, anything relevant the audience might find interesting, I guess. It depends on what angle the audience will be looking at. I am a nomad, essentially. I am a new Raysia nomad.

I was a nomad most of my life. I lived in just about everywhere. I am an old school foreign correspondent. I started as a foreign correspondent 40, wow, 41 years ago, in fact, first post in London. So I worked in Western Europe a lot. Then I went to California. From California, I was back to Europe. And 32 years ago, yeah, 32 years ago, I decided to move to Asia.

to learn Asia from the inside. So then I've been based in Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, went to China zillions of times, and went all over Eurasia. So this is my area of work. I work around from everywhere from Istanbul to Vladivostok, essentially, for this past 30-something years. And of course, I go back to Europe, a lot. I have a base in Paris.

Our house is in Paris, in fact, and we plan to move to the countryside. So I follow NATO as well. I've been to Brussels many times. I have been following NATO in detail for a long time. And my base was in London as well, before Paris for a long time. So I'm anchored in Europe.

in London, in Paris, and in Italy. So this is a ruthless cosmopolitan, a nomad. So you have your anchors a little bit everywhere. My family comes from different nationalities, ethnic groups, you name it. So it's normal. And I became an honorary Asian 30-something years ago. I feel at home here. Absolutely at home, especially Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia,

and not Southeast Asia, South China, see Hong Kong, because I worked a lot in Hong Kong. And many people, including your audience, some people may know me because I was associated with Asia Times in Hong Kong for 20 years. I was the roving correspondent, literally everywhere for Asia Times. And the story ended badly, in fact, a big, big clash. So I left a few years ago. I am completely independent. I write for Russian media, and that's why people call me Putinist, paid by the Kremlin, all that crap. When I was with Asia Times, I was paid by Beijing.

Before that, I was paid by Al-Qaeda, or you name it. So you get used to it. But I like the idea of still being one of the last old-school foreign correspondents around the world. Most of my colleagues are dead or retired from my generation. So that's it. The short version. You know, when you go 41 years as a foreign correspondent, that puts you at 1985 if I'm doing my math correct. And the reason I know that is Pepe, I just turned 40 this past week. So I'm like, So you've literally been doing this for my entire life.

Yes. And I go, I don't know where to begin with that because I'm like, man, that's, that opens up a huge time frame. But you'd said on a recent interview, all the horrors of journalism, you've witnessed them over the past 40 years. And at the time, I wasn't doing math in my head. I wasn't even thinking about the fact you've been doing it my entire life time. More I was curious about it was horrors of journalism and what you meant by the. that because you've been all over the world and certainly here in the west you're you're on the other side covering what's happening absolutely Sean I started in the news in the old newspaper business

this was three and a half four years before I moved to London as a foreign correspondent in 85 I started in 82 in a big national newspaper so I learned a newspaper business from the inside. All the pressures, a newsroom in a big national newspaper is, wow, it's a nest of vipers. Everywhere is the same. New York Times, the Financial Times, the Times of London, Le Monde in France. It's all the same. But it's great to learn, to have learned how it worked from the inside. You know, clashes with the owners, with the advertisers, pressures everywhere, high pressure, when you are in the newsroom deciding, for instance, a front page to when you are very far away and you're trying to explain to the editors what you're seeing in a remote part of the world

knowing that they won't get anything. So it was great to learn that, to do that. And then, of course, little by little, I was transitioning towards the Internet era. For instance, when I moved to Asia, I was still in the big newspaper game. But after a few years, in 2000, I moved to online journalism via Asia Times in Hong Kong, which was a tiny site at the time. But we were very lucky because we were totally independent. And when 9-11 happened, we were there, even before it had. happened in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A dear friend of mine who was later assassinated because he discovered an al-Qaeda cell in the ISI, in the, sorry, in the Pakistani Navy, he was assassinated because of that. He was our correspondent in Karachi. And I was between Islamabad and Peshawar in Pakistan, immediately after 9-11, then I crossed Afghanistan. So especially in North America, in the States and Canada,

people found out, look, there are some crazy freaks up there in that tiny Hong Kong website, and they are right in the middle of the action. It was us. So that's how we became known, especially in Canada and the US in the 2000s. So I stayed with them for 20 years and I went literally everywhere. from Patagonia to Tajikistan and everywhere in between. And now, of course, I am right in the middle of the new business model, which is what we are doing, podcasts.

We cannot escape it. And many of us old school, I have some of my friends, they had a lot of trouble adapting to it. But this is what we have to do now. It's the new business model, which for many of us is not a business model, is podcasts. And old school writing like I do, it's complicated because less people all over the world are reading, especially long essays, thinking, you know, think pieces. It's very hard to find our audience nowadays.

So that's why we also need podcasts. What I love is the new generation doing quality podcasts. I love that. These, like you, you are the future of journalism. Young people doing a journalism via podcast. That's it. That's the model for the near future. And I hope AI does not destroy all that.

Because we need live conversations, high level, informed with real people and with critical. critical thinking, not binary, not zero, one, not digitalized. And I hope that doesn't disappear. When you're living on the other set of the world and you said you're trying to explain at one point in time to editors, but now, you know, in this realm to an audience, what you're seeing. What is the hardest thing to convey or what do you like, yeah, what is hard? You're sitting there on the ground and you're going, they're not going to understand this. What aren't we going to understand?

Or what isn't the audience picking up from what you're seeing? Yes. Essentially the local pulse, whatever you are. For instance, it's very difficult to explain the local pulse in the tribal areas of Pakistan forests. Only with words. It's extremely difficult. Nowadays, you can go, for instance, to a market.

in Peshawar, and then you do your podcast from the market, talking to real people, at least. But in the past, it's impossible. So we had to write and try to convey this in writing. That's the beauty of writing. My background is essentially literature and philosophy. So I am a born writer, in fact. I love writing.

And I'll die writing. But then you have to adapt to visuals. And I have an immense admiration towards high-class photo journalism. Same thing. I hope it doesn't die because of everything being digitalized. But it's the greatest challenge is when you try to explain to your audience, look, I am here in the middle of Jakarta and there's a coup going on. dictator is going to be brought down. And you have only a few paragraphs to explain that. It's an enormous challenge. It's great. So putting complicated thoughts in a concise manner so

people will actually read it and understand it. Exactly. And of course, you have to use all sorts of tricks. Of course, colorful language, metaphors, images. You can borrow from cultural artifacts of cultural pieces as well. This is something that I always did. I was always doing a mish-mash of references, hoping that these references will catch the reader's imagination. It always worked. It always worked because people love, for instance, you are in the middle of a very serious description, and you can use a song from the past, and that song in people's mind immediately brings you know, memories, associations, etc. Before I hop in what's happening in the world today,

I have one other on nomad. You mentioned you're a nomad. What was it that you found in your early days of traveling or reporting in different places that, you know, maybe I'm framing a nomad the wrong way, and maybe you can frame it a different way. But a nomad to me is someone who constantly moves, has no home base, home community. And maybe I'm thinking about that wrong.

But regardless, what was it back then that you started traveling and you just never stopped? Yes. When I started as a foreign correspondent, I never stopped. I used to travel a lot before when I was a teenager. I grew up in Brazil between Sao Paulo and Rio, but I used to spend my summers in Europe most of the time. And sometimes the U.S. And then when I was still in college, I had to be grounded because obviously you cannot go out for three, four, five months, right? So immediately I finished college. I was on the road already.

I was doing my PhD in Europe, literally on the road in Europe. And then when you start in journalism, in my case when I started in the early 80s, most of the time you had to be glued to the newsroom. And obviously I was dying to go out. For instance, at the time, I was already paying attention to the jihad in Afghanistan. I was dying to go to Afghanistan to see this jihad in person. But I had to write about a thriller, Michael Jackson's thriller. You know, it was a completely different story. So when I started as a correspondent, then I said, okay, so now I can go anywhere I want,

assuming the newspaper buys the stories. And if they don't, I'll do it by myself. So I had more or less a plan. Okay, first, the West. I need to understand details across NATO, the NATO space. After that, Asia. So when I arrived in Asia to live in Asia, then it was, wow, it was a picnic. because I really could go everywhere and learn from scratch literally everywhere.

My first trip to Iran professionally, for instance, was still in the Katami era in the 1990s. And Afghanistan, for instance, my first long trip was two years before 9-11. And these are cultures and nations that grab you by the third. throat, you know, and you develop a relationship, an emotional, spiritual relationship with them immediately. Cambodia is the same thing, Indonesia, most of Central Asia. Iran is very, very special, and Russia, because only in recent years I started to spend quite some time every year in Russia. So I started to discover Russia live little by little. And China, it's back and forth because I started to have been to several different regions of China. And we are always learning. Nobody

can say that they are experts in China. It's the absolute opposite of everything that we grew up with in the West. So we really have to apply ourselves to understand Chinese Confucian Taoism, Buddhism, how they interact, the dynastic stories, how they use the past to explain the present and the future and all that. But it's great. If you keep the mentality of a student, it's wonderful. You're always learning. So that's what I tried to do, even in my older years, you know, you keep the mentality of when you are, you know, even before you go to college, when you're still in high school and say, I learn about this, this, that's it.

That's the way to do it. Well, your background of being all these different places, you mentioned, Iran in the 90s, Afghanistan two years before 9-11, that would give you as a journalist a heck of a lot more depth than somebody who just is paying attention to the headlines and all of a sudden you're in Iran and you got a comment on Iran because you have background of this country that is now being bombed or, you know, I mean, well, in the case of both of them, actually, Afghanistan as well, right? And I would assume that gives you a lot of insight into not only the people that are there, but the government, the culture, than most have.

Absolutely. You have to go. This is the essentials of journalism. You really have to go immerse yourself in a different latitude, a different culture. You have to do your homework. You have to read a lot. have to try to speak at least the rudiments of the language. And if you can't, you have to find the right people to translate for you. This is also a very complicated job. Sometimes these people,

they save your life. It's already happened to me in a few occasions. So you're always learning. That's it. You keep the mentality of a student and you have to study hard if you, I wouldn't say pretend, but if you think that you can understand, enough about a place so you can explain this place to your readers convincingly and of course with lots of evidence it's a it's a it's a hard job you cannot this as a tourist you know it's a hard job you know peppy you wouldn't wouldn't know I highly don't you know a whole heck of a lot about me but I passed the thousandth episode I guess what was that folks a couple months ago now Oh man, time flies.

But regardless. A thousand, that's very impressive. Well, thank you. The thing about it is, as I go along, I get almost a touch annoyed because I'm like, I'm talking about things, but I want to go experience them. Right? Everything you're talking about, it really intrigues me. But I got a young family and a wife, and so I've been waiting.

And this July, we're taking the podcast on the road. goals is to um well i'm starting in canada you know here in alberta you know we got the independence movement there's a whole bunch of things going on there but i kind of want to hear what eastern canada has to say about it you know you read something and and then you associate it with the entire population thinks um you know alberans are a bunch of idiots or or what have you and i go i've been across country but it was 20 years ago so i'm like well it's time to go back and and see those people But on top of that, you know, as I've gone through the thousand episodes and started to talk to people such as yourself and a whole host of others from all across the world, that's really pulled on. And I'd really like to go see some of these places and get a feel for it myself.

Not that you can go anywhere or everywhere, sorry, in a year. And certainly under the conditions that the world currently presents and the costs and everything else, that's, it's a huge undertaking. But you remind me of one of the reasons that we're leaving is because in order to properly talk about any given situation, being there is wildly important. Tell me about it. But you're doing the right thing. You're taking the podcast on the road. You're starting with your own country that you know well. And from Canada, you branch out a little bit everywhere, anywhere you want to go.

That's the right way to do it. You'll be doing a digital journalism a little bit everywhere. That's the way to do it. Absolutely. Now, if I fast forward to where we're at today, you know, Iran, U.S., that entire conflict going on over there. I'm curious, your thoughts, you know, like you once upon a time you're in Iran in the 90s. I assume you've been since, but I don't want to assume too much. Yes, I go back regularly. I've been there more than 10 times.

Just to give an idea to you and your audience, last year I shot the first English-language documentary on the International North-South Transportation Corridor, which is one of the great connectivity corridors of the 21st century, linking three bricks, linking Russia, Iran, and India. And I was pretty pretty, In fact, as a foreigner, they gave me everything. They gave me an outstanding crew, all the permits.

We had full access to go anywhere because I had explained to them first. And in fact, this was a gift. I said, look, can you guys help me? I want to do one or two stories about the corridor, trying to explain this to the west. So when I arrived in Iran, they set up this whole production, which was immensely impressive. We traveled everywhere from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf all the way to the Iran-Pakistani border. So all of you, if you want to watch, it's very simple.

You go to the PressTV website, presstv.ir.com. You click documentaries. And it's the number one over there. It's called a golden corridor. It's about this connectivity corridor, which is one of the most important for the 21st century. It's no wonder that the Americans want to smash it. By the way, they bombed some of the stretches of the corridor during the war. They bombed a port in the Caspian. They bombed a base near the big, port of Bandarabas. They bombed another base near the other port of Chabahar, because they know that this

corridor is going to be a huge competitor to the Swiss Canal and completely bypassing American sanctions, swift, and of course direct American interference. So this was one of the things that after years when you were, establish trust as a foreigner in a foreign country, these things happen automatically. In the case of Russia as well, I can have access to talk to people that many foreigners who have been there forever never managed to, but you establish a relationship of trust. In China is much more difficult. China takes a long time, but I'm still building it. And then you are invited for a dinner where there are some absolute top of the line of scholars.

And you can have fantastic conversations where they open up in a way that inside the Chinese system, they cannot. Oh, that is fantastic. But it takes time. And it's always about building trust. And in the case of Iran, don't forget, they have. one of the oldest empires in the world. They are very, very proud. It's an extremely sophisticated society. So when they trust somebody with something like this,

I feel immensely flattered. And I said, guys, I hope I don't deceive you. Because after all, I'm telling one of your stories to wider audience globally, right? Yeah, well, sticking on Iran, you've mentioned 10. 10 times, I think you said you've been there since the 90s, correct? Yeah, my first trip was in 98. Katami was the president. At the time, Katami was talking about dialogue of civilizations.

And I remember that in New York or in Washington, people simply didn't understand what he was talking about. Where I sit, I could be wrong on this. There's two divergent stories. that are told about Iran. One is they're a traditional nation. I'm going to butcher this a little bit, Pepe, that is stuck under a brutal regime for the last 47 years, I believe, is the number that always gets talked about. And then there's the other side that's like, what are you talking about? That's not true at all. and this is about more of what's being built there

and how they're trying to go around the United States and others and what they're building there, a power struggle, if you would. When you hear those two divergent thoughts, right, because I see it in not only my audience, but in tons of people commenting on it, right? That Trump has lost his mind to Trump has a grand plan to put the U.S. back on top or to undermine, I don't know, a long, long, nefarious plan of the elites.

Do those two make sense? And where would you step in? Well, my contribution for, it's not even a dialogue, because Western audiences especially are so brainwashed about. the global south as a whole, not only Iran, they are brainwashed about Iran, as they were brainwashed about Iraq, Afghanistan, they are being rushed about Africa, they are being washed about Latin America, you name it. As an old-school journalism practitioner, what I can tell is what I've seen in my many trips and then reporting constantly about Iran. Once again, you have to do your

homework. I interviewed Ayatollahs. That's a very tough job. To do that, I had to understand Shiism. I had to study Shiite theology, in fact, to interview them properly. It's great. If you put yourself to it, it's great. For instance, many people don't know that. I have friends in Tehran who studied in U.S., for instance. Some of them studied in Berkeley. They are are as well-versed in Kant or Nietzsche than they are in Shiite theology. You don't find people like that in the West. Just to show you how sophisticated they are. It's a culture that is very proud of its philosophical tradition,

and its poetic tradition, and its literary tradition. So everywhere you go in Iran, you have an informed, enlightened conversation. conversation. It's not by accident that they have some of the best universities all across Asia. And in their universities, you find a lot of students from Africa, from Southeast Asia, from Africa, from other parts of Islam, from Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, you name it. So in our case, as independent journalists, to explain these cultures to the West is an uprored. struggle. And it applies to, I would say, everything to the east of Turkey. Turkey included. Turkey is a very complex society. Absolutely fascinating. But completely misunderstood,

even in Europe. In the case of Africa is even worse, because the Western prejudice as a whole built against Africa is, wow. It's a wall, right? And it's basically stereotypes and cheap prejudice. And in the case of Iran specifically, this has evolved into 47 years demonized them because it's the rule of the Mullah regime. But obviously, don't forget that there are people controlling. This is a control soft power operation that has been going on since 1979. So it's no wonder that the absolute majority of the West is completely brainwashed.

You must remember before the attack on Iran, the second one, not the First Gulf War, the shock anewan in 2003. The demonization of not only Saddam Hussein, but of Iraq as a whole, was 24-7. And in Iran, this whole against Iran, this thing started 47 years ago, literally. And now it's no wonder that even the brain washed across the West, they see Iranian resistance during this war. They have been able to stare down the so-called biggest armada in the history of the galaxy. And the Pentagon and the whole American industrial military complex, they are paralyzed. They never expected that. Why? Because they didn't do their homework. The Russians knew it. The Chinese knew it.

Because they go, they send their missions to Iran. They know what Iran has been doing. They understand their military complex, how it works. And they have strategic partnerships. So people across Asia, they were not stunned by what happened. Only in the West. Once again, it's that mix of ignorance and arrogance. which is quite characteristic of Washington and New York especially. And towards the rest of the world, they look down towards the rest of the world, in fact. One of the interesting things I'd had on, I think it was Rebecca Koffler, who first brought it up to me, was the Mosaic Defense Strategy by splitting into all the different, essentially a decentralized strategy.

that way if they bombed one, they didn't, you know, they all operate independent of one another. Exactly. They call it decentralized mosaic, which is a beautiful thing because this is an art and architecture terminology, right? Well, and to me, that doesn't happen overnight. So I assume they'd been planning on this happening for quite some time. You're right. They had been rehearsing, preparing, studying, and especially studying all the possible scenarios. If a war like that just started. And that explains from the beginning how they reacted.

Don't forget that the decapitation strike that killed Ayatollah Khamenei and a great deal of the leadership, was on a Saturday morning. Half an hour later, they were already responding. They knew it. Not only Khamenei himself, who was a master, he was a master. strategist. No question about that. But the top of the leadership, these people, not only many of them have PhDs, seriously, but they have war experience. They are veterans of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. So they know what war, real war is like. So you put this together,

wow. It's a winning mix in terms of strategy. They are very good conceptually and they know the practicalities. So, you know, everything has a reason. You know, the fact that they were prepared didn't come out of the squad. Once again, do your homework. Do you see peace coming anytime soon? Unfortunately not, Sean. I'm sorry. I have to be a realist.

If you do old-school journalism, you stick to the facts. You don't use crystal balls, you stick to the facts, and you try to identify trends. The key problem, well, there are so many, but I would say that the key problem is quite personal. We have a president of the United States who simply does not understand the meaning of diplomacy. he will never admit doing a deal where it's plainly obvious that any kind of deal is going to be framing a strategic defeat of the United States because of a war that he initiated out of the blue not out of the blue of course because the Zionist handlers behind him were forcing him to take this decision. But the ultimate responsibility is his.

And he has to live with it. Even if he has no morals, of course, at three in the morning or when you wake up in the morning and look at the mirror, it's going to hit it and destroy you psychologically, completely. And he's not prepared mentally to accept a deal. that could be, let's say, plausible for both sides. That's why he has this 24-7 obsession about winning. That's it. He simply cannot understand that in, especially in a case like this,

where all the facts on the ground point to a strategic defeat of the United States, it's impossible for him to recognize. Of course, there are many other factors, geopolitical pressure, Zionist lobby, you name it, defense of the petrol dollar. All right, but this psychological aspect is key. President of the United States is simply unable to accept any kind of agreement. Well, I would argue with any president who's came before him and probably to come after him, will have a hard problem with just that.

I don't know in my lifetime of American president. Oh, wait, we got it wrong. Let's just take a step back. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But this case is more with Trump is more acute, right? And of course, he's surrounded by an astonishing collection of mediocrities. That doesn't help at all.

For instance, when Nixon was in power, there were some very, very clever people around Nixon. I wouldn't say around Obama. Around Dabia, Dush, okay, there were not brilliant minds, but there were strategists, hardcore strategies. Dick Cheney was a neutral hardcore strategist. He could think in his strategic terms at least. around Trump, it's a total disaster. Can you imagine that you have the most important diplomatic relationship with your enemy in 47 years? And instead of sending your Secretary of State, okay, you wouldn't help much because the Secretary of State is also an idiot.

You send two real estate developers. What do these people know about diplomacy? about Iran, about West Asia, and about such a sensitive moment. Nothing. No wonder. The Iranians, we got these from Iranians who were at the table. They looked at these students and said, who are these people? What are they doing here? Well, you're talking to a guy who had a prime minister who was a drama teacher. So, you know, like, when you talk about not being qualified for the job, I feel like Canadians know all about that.

Well, I would say you had problematic experience to say to least. Morals. You're talking about Trump. One of the things that in the lead up to this last election was when I listened to people talk about President Trump, they talked about his high character and like how he operates. operated behind the scenes, a family man, a whole bunch of things. Was that from your journalist's point of view, was that just a narrative structured to get people to buy into voting for him? Or did, or is something changed? Because, you know, I listen.

I'm sitting here, you know, how long ago now? Did I sit and listen to all that? And I remember thinking, huh, that's interesting. I remember I'm doing all these, you know, it's one of the things I wish Pierre Polly have here, the official opposition leader, would have done. I was gone on all these different podcasts and all the, you know, the new form of journalism. And you could see what Trump was doing. He was going on all these strange ones. But then you go listen to it. And they were fascinating conversations because there were different people not asking,

what is it going to be your foreign policy on this? They had like, you know, I think a Theo Vaughn comes to mind just straight out the hop, started talking about drugs and pulled Trump into a whole new conversation that nobody ever could have pulled them into. And at no point did I go. man, and Trump is a, is a piece of work. But now you go, well, he has no morals. Well, that doesn't, it doesn't balance for me.

Like, obviously there's pressure and everything else being the president and lobbies and a whole bunch of different things going on. They're going to have nuclear arms and, you know, all the stories that have been sewn to a president. But in your mind, you know, when you were watching the, maybe the presidential run, did you see something different? Look, this is very, very interesting because the picture is quite blurry, in fact. For instance, I have friends in New York who worked with Trump.

Some of them were giving me some background information before Trump 1.0. For instance, they leaked to me his economic plan. I published that at the time was a big, big thing because it was published outside of the US. And they said, look, he can be very, very reasonable with people he likes and people he trusts for some reason. He can be very professional, et cetera. And others were saying, no, he treats everybody horribly. And some were saying, no, he treats people who work for him fairly. So it's a mixed picture, you see.

But all these conversations, they never got into the key element today, which is foreign policy. Assuming he had a foreign policy to start with, even before Trump 1.0. Probably not, because he didn't travel much. He didn't know much about the world. He knew maybe a little bit about the UK and Scotland. That's about it. So he didn't know about how the world works. institutions, nation state traditions.

But Asia, he didn't know anything about Asia. And yet when you had, sorry, when you had Biden, didn't talk to Putin for four years. And we're pushing for like the brink of world war. And what does Trump do? Trump starts talking all these guys again. And so like this, this is where it doesn't balance for me. It doesn't. You're, no, you're right. It doesn't balance because, uh,

He talks to people, and now with world leaders, there is a pattern. He talks to people that he allows himself to respect. There are probably only two, Putin and see. Everybody else, he treats everybody else like shit. The Europeans, all of them, with no exception. And the Africans, he doesn't even talk to them. Latin America is the same. But when somebody is quite forceful in front of him, he starts treating this particular character with respect.

This is something that happened with Lula from Brazil. When Lula met with Trump face to face, Lula, he went for the juggler. And Trump was not expecting. And then he started to respect Lula, which he didn't before. So, okay, let's say that maybe he allows himself a little leeway. But it's always very, the behavior is an imposition from his side. He has to impose himself against whoever that is, which reflects deep insecurity, of course. And it's very hard for him to admit that on the side, the other side of the table, there's somebody that he's equal or even smarter in many cases.

Probably the only one that gets this kind of recognition is Putin, perhaps for the wrong reasons. But Putin register as a strong man for him. And he only respects strong men. on this side if I flip to Iran again you hear one leadership is is negotiating then you hear another leader and then I just go back but there's a mosaic defense I'm like who's like where these stories come like who's actually running Iran or is there a head of state right now that is doing the direct talks for Iran well it's once again Sean it's immensely difficult to explain to the West how the Iranian system of government works. Especially now, that is, it's the old one, but with a few tweaks. In the old system, Ayatollah Kaminé was the absolute number one authority for everything. And he was involved in all the important dossiers.

Now that we have his son, which he is wounded. He is in an undisclosed place for immense security reasons. He communicates only with letters. So everything now is analog, nothing digital. So most people, even inside Tehran don't know where he, in fact, nobody knows where he is. Apart from three or four, I would say Calibath, the head of the parliament, certainly knows where he is. probably a foreign minister Arakshi and of course the IRGC leaders because it's via Ghali Baf that their messages reach Ayatollah Mostava Kamenei. But the system essentially is a good way to describe it is it's a teocratic democracy. The tenets of Shiism predominate, of course, but it's a very democratic.

system with a functional parliament that is very active. I went to sessions of the parliament in Tehran. It's more active than many parliaments in the West. And the level is very, very high. And of course, nowadays, there are two or three figures that more or less disseminate key information. And of course, they are in touch with the Supreme Leader because they need the Supreme Leader to approve very serious decisions.

So this spin, which is essentially an American spin that we don't know who we're talking to in Iran, bullshit, because once again, they didn't do their homework to try to understand how this new tweaked system works. And the difference compared to the past is now because they are in a war situation. The military component of the government is much stronger than it was before. So essentially you have, let's say, two branches. The diplomatic branch is led by Arakshi, the foreign minister. He's the guy who everybody all over the world sees going to meetings here, there, he went

to Islamabad, etc. The guy who articulates everything in the background, the most important decisions, and he has a direct contact with Mostaba, is Galibaf. Why? Because Galibaf knows everything about the system, how the whole system works, which is quite complex. And he's a former IRGC commander. Very, very important. And now he decided himself to take a back seat in two. terms of the negotiation, this kabuki of the negotiation. So Arachsh, the foreign minister, is doing everything. Galibati is in the back because he is coordinating all these different vectors, diplomatic, diplomatic, strategic, security, military, especially the liaison with the supreme leader,

asking the leader about important decisions, etc. So I hope I could explain to you in five minutes an enormously complex system. But this is how it works. So it would be great if these people in Washington around Trump would do this homework, you know, to try to understand it, to see who they are dealing with. But they don't. When you say Iranians have an active parliament, what do you mean by active parliament? Because I see a lot of action out of Canadian Parliament, but I assume you mean something different. No, they legislate like in a Western liberal democracy, the same way.

They pass laws, they debate laws, you name it. For instance, when the IRGC decided to install the toll booths in the strait of her rules. Now, from now on, you're going to have to pay the toll. In the beginning, it was, okay, it was an experience. All right, you can pay with yuan, you can pay cash, you can pay with crypto, you can use the Chinese international paying system, SIPs, etc. So this thing went to parliament, they start to debate and they say, no, we have to use our own local currency. So now they are approving legislation, which was extensively debate, that to cross the strait-offer moves, everything has to be done. don't pay in real. Their currency. And you need a letter, a guarantee letter from Iranian banks. And then I asked my

Iranian friends, how do you do that? Can you do online? They say, oh, yes, it's very easy. You can do online. It's very simple. Bilingual. You can do it in English as well. So anybody can do it. The tank owner, insurance companies, you name it. So this is just an example. And the fact that because they are in a war situation, there were different factions in Parliament, of course. Very, just like in a Western liberal democracy.

Now there is a consensus because after all the nations under attack. So the consensus now is in academia, in parliament, the military, the minister of foreign affairs, you name it. Because now they are fight. For them, it's an existential war. And this is something that the West still does not understand, especially the Americas they still don't understand. You brought up the straight of Hormuz. Does Iran control it? Does the US control it? The Iran control. You can, okay, I'll give you the best example of these past few days.

Trump comes up with this apparently brilliant idea of sending a humanitarian project, freedom, liberty, whatever, the same crap, to liberate the passage, free passage. the freedom of navigation, the strait of Hormuz. Not a single tanker decided to transit the Strait of Hormuz through the American advertised areas, which are very close to Oman. Nobody. Because they know that the only accepted and legal from an Iranian point of view way to cross or move is through Iranian territorial waters, close to the island of Kashim. And to do that, you have to contact the IRGC Navy,

present your documents, pay the toll, you get VHF message, and then you can cross. Everybody knows that. Western, non-Western, Japanese, South Korean, everybody knows that. And that's how it has been working. And for instance, Chinese tankers coming not only from Iran, but from other Persian Gulf monarchies, they're going back and forth through this Iranian control part of the waterway. of the waterway and the Americans cannot say anything.

The Americans are not foolish to pick a direct fight with China, trying to interdict a Chinese tanker from passing through Ormuse and then going to Gulf of Oman, Arabian Sea, all the way to South China Sea. There you go. There's only one way to cross or Muz. And if you don't talk to ERAJC Navy, you don't cross. Period. And it's not by accident, Sean, that the project, Liberty, Freedom,

or whatever, that crap was canceled in lasted 48 hours because nobody was using it. Simple as that. So if they can't open the straight the way the Americans want to, right? You're pointing nobody's using what they're providing. No, the Americans cannot open anything as Sean, first of all, because they are very far away. simple. They are not in the Persian Gulf. If you look at the map, it's very simple for your audience as well. Persian Gulf, Sea of Oman, Southern Indian Ocean. The Americas are in the eastern extremity of the Sea of Oman. And some of their vessels are in the Southern Indian Ocean, 1,000 kilometers from the Persian Gulf.

So they're not there, simple. Simple as it's, this is an enormous PR up, essentially. Visuals. And even the visual, we don't have many visuals because most tankers are going back and forth with no problem. So do you if the only way to get the straight open is to concede to Iran, which we both talked about earlier that that's not going to happen, then this will continue. Exactly. And if you concede, Sean, you admit your strategic defeat.

No American president can possibly admit that. And that's the what we call Zugzwang in German, which is a perfect terminology. Whatever, any way you move, you're trapped. There's not a good move for Trump. Whatever he does, he remains trapped. He will have to concede. And he's in this situation because of himself. And that's exactly what Putin told him in this famous phone call last week.

Arachi, the foreign minister, he went to St. Petersburg. He met with Lavrov and Putin. He explained the whole Iranian position. Immediately afterwards, Putin picked up the phone and called Trump and said, look, they told me everything about it. I can't help you if you want. But what you cannot do is to do something rash. For instance, try a landing invasion or whatever. We still don't know if Trump got the message.

It's a problem because three days after that, he came up with this project, whatever, which lasted. lasted 48 hours. So apparently he did not get the message yet. And this coming from the only guy who can actually talk sense to him directly. We know intermediaries and with no fear. One, not that I want to end a short, not that we're ending short. We'd talk about. I just, one of the one of the things that, you know, how do North Americans get their, their news these days? or interact. It's all social media. I'm not saying there isn't other ways, but by and large, North Americans are on X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. I'm probably missing a couple more. And one of the things that's been shared around is the Lego music videos. I assume, Pepe,

you've seen them. Man, in terms of PR op, this is absolutely outside. Can you imagine, Sean, that the Iranians out of the blue are beating the Americas at their own game. Well, this is why I bring it up. I go, does that stem right from the Iranians? Like, not that maybe you know, maybe you don't know. The Legos. Of course. It's a bunch of young Iranians, 20 to 25 year olds, who know the West well, who speak very good English.

And obviously they are Iranians. they know where they live. So it's the perfect mix. It's absolute perfect mix. You need to understand the West to do this the way they're doing because it's perfect. It's for Western audiences. In Asia as well, these Lego videos in China, they are a mega craze. They are watched by hundreds of millions of people in the Chinese internet.

Well, it's never been easier to get something to an audience. Exactly. But to get it to stick and be popular or to be shared around, that's a challenge. Because there's tons of noise, right? It's a lot of noise out there trying to distill what's, you know, I don't know, what do I think? But they're clever. They're actually ridiculously clever.

And if they're coming from Iranians, that shows another level of sophistication of understanding their opponent. There you go. Young Iranians. They are as global as young Californians. It's the same thing. They see the same videos. They use the same apps and all that.

They are subjected to the same barrage of propaganda. But, of course, they are paying attention to what is being done to their land. It's absolutely brilliant. In terms of soft power op, this is going to the analysts of the future. Absolutely. And nobody would expect them to do something like this. Well, I would expect from reading history they would use propaganda. Full stop. I don't think that's shocking. It's the clever. It's the ability to like capture the minds of people like, wow, this is really well done.

They don't need to use propaganda, Sean, because they are ridiculing the empire via their own actions, imperial actions. It's so simple, but obviously you need to conceptualize that and find the right medium. And using Lego is great because it's playful. You know, it's a 60 year old or a five year old. Everybody is hit the same way. It's very democratic as a medium. Pepe, I appreciate you hopping on. Before I let you hop off, where can people?

people find you, where can they follow your work? Yes, this is a usual mess. I need to start a sub stack to put all my stuff in one place. But I, well, anyway, the easiest way is my X account, where I usually link to what I'm writing and to some of the podcasts as well. And my Telegram channel. Telegram channel is at Rock and Roll Geopolitics. It's my geopolitical channel on Telegram.

Same thing. I make recommendations of stuff people should read, good analysis from different parts of the world. I link to podcasts, the columns as well. Where I publish is very complicated now. After I left Asia Times, Everybody knew that I was at Asia Times. It was very easy to find me.

Now I write for Sputnik Moscow and strategic culture, also based in Russia. The problem is they are censored everywhere across the West. But a lot of people read it because they are republished in several different nations, including they are republished in the US as well. And they are translated in several. translated in several languages. And I'm also a columnist for the cradle based in Beirut. The cradle has not been censored yet.

So that's much easier to find. It's a relatively new website, started four years ago, independent, and they are probably the best critical website studying and reporting and analyzing West Asia. Very good stuff about Iran and the Persian Gulf. Pepe, I appreciate you hopping on and doing this.

Very nice meeting you. Yes, it was a pleasure. It was great. Thank you.