The Duran Podcast - 2024 US Elections And Project Ukraine w/ Jim Jatras

Episode Date: January 4, 2024

2024 US Elections And Project Ukraine w/ Jim Jatras

Okay, we are live, our first live for 2024. Happy New Year to everybody that is watching us on Odyssey, Rockfin, Rumble, YouTube, and the duran. Dotlocals.com. That was everyone doing in our locals community. Great to have everyone with us on this new year. Hello to all our moderators. Zarael is in the... The House. Who else is with us, Zareel? It's just me and you. Zareel. All right.

Okay, me and Zareel are moderating. I'm sure more moderators will jump in as the live stream progresses. Alexander Mercuris in London. How are you doing, Alexander? I'm very well. Very delighted to be here with Jim Jatras, a person I've known of and have briefly known. Not, not, we've never met directly, but we've had our exchanges for years, and I've always been a tremendous admiring great respect for him. We're very honored and happy to have Jim Jatra join us. Jim, I have your Twitter profile as a link where people can find you. Is there anywhere else people can follow you? No, that's it. At this point, I'm just a retired Virginia country gentleman and my only presence on the outside world is the X or Twitter feed at Jim Jatras.

That's right. X, X. I always say Twitter. It's X. Yes, I recommend everyone follow Mr. Jim Jatras and Alexander. I say now that we have Jim with us, and he is an expert on the topics we are going to talk about. And 2024, the presidential election campaign, I guess, officially starts. And we have, yeah, we have Project Ukraine. And me and Jim, we're talking before we went live. And Congress is going to be back in session, Alexander, and I imagine four to five days. And they're going to be talking about money to Project Ukraine and money to border. And we need to Israel.

So Alexander, let's discuss all these things with Jim. Indeed, let's do so because, of course, Jim has been an insider. You've worked in Washington. You've worked in the State Department. You've worked in all of these places. So you know a little bit about the atmosphere and the kind of people we're talking about. We've had all kinds of programs with others who have been grizzled veterans. But Jim, you have always had your particular insight and your understanding of these people.

And that's really what makes your observations so interesting and so important and so valuable. Now, I'm going to suggest that never, at least in my lifetime, not at any point in my lifetime, can I remember a year starting in the way the 2024 has done? We have a war in Europe, which is going badly wrong from an American point of view. We have a crisis in the Middle East, and I increasingly getting the sense that there's huge amount of dissonance and uncertainty in Washington as to exactly what to do about it. I get the sense that there's argument, this bitter ill feelings. And I think, Jim, you and I both remember previous American elections.

I just remember as a child, the American election of 1968, for example, which is a very very, very fraught one. In middle of the Vietnam War, the president had to pull out in the middle of the election, presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was assassinated over the course of it. I want fears that this election cycle that we are in getting into in the United States is starting to look almost as problematic and as fraught as that one in 1968 was. And every bit as uncertain. The political system was a lot more in control of things in 1968 than they are today. And to be straightforward about it, the people who were in charge at that time were much more solid people than the people we have now.

I mean, you know, Lyndon Johnson, who was the president, was whatever you may think of him today, whatever criticisms people make of him, he was a serious man and a major figure in US politics for many, many years whom people took very seriously. So very difficult, complex situation. And I think at the centre of it, and I think this is where I'd like to start, we have Ukraine, this extraordinary, completely unnecessary war, result of years of misunderstandings in the West. antagonism towards the Russians, which has been growing year by year and getting worse. The war is going badly wrong. There's talk about starting negotiations with the Russians, but it doesn't seem as if that's

very convincing. And you've just written a piece, which has appeared, by the way, it is Vestia, Russian newspaper, a storied Russian newspaper. Anyway, telling the Russians be very, very careful if you do get any invitations to start negotiations. A lot of us have had this sense of foreboding over the last few years that things are moving towards some sort of crescendo. And it's hard to escape the view that somehow this year is going to be a pivotal year. because all of these things we're talking about, whether it's Ukraine or whether it's the potential of an attack on Iran that Alexander, you and Alex discussed yesterday. All these things are coming to a head.

And, of course, the country that is central to all this isn't Ukraine. It's not Iran. It's the United States. And the drive that took place at the end of the first Cold War with the Soviet Union for American global hegemony. And that project of which we might say Ukraine, Iran, the Taiwan Strait, all the rest of that are subsets, is those chickens are all coming home to roost, it seems, and they're going to be encapsulated in what almost certainly will be some kind of crisis over the presidential election in November of this year. It's hard to see how that can go up without a hitch any way you look at it, whether they manage to disqualify Trump from the ballot, whether they resolutely. sort to the kind of tactics they used successfully in 2020. I was in Belgrade a year ago right after the congressional elections. And the first question the media asked me was, so, Mr. Jatris,

were these elections also stolen? So people outside the United States get it, an awful lot of the American people get it. But let's not forget how divided this country is. I think there are a lot of people, especially here in rural Virginia, where I live, and other, let's say, red areas and flyover country that just assume that Trump is so popular and he's going to win and the blast old Joe out of office and then all goodness and niceness will break out. I don't think it's going to be quite that simple from any number of angles. So as you point out, I think you've set the stage very well. You know, Ukraine remains central if as appears some people like John Bolton get their way and we have an attack on Iran, that's going to create a disaster that has made Ukraine look

like a cakewalk. And all these things are happening at once, and they're all going to become focused, I think, by November of this year. Yeah. I should say that one of the points that you made in that article was that at the present time, the United States is incapable of conducting a negotiation over Ukraine. And I think you're absolutely right. And that any negotiation that the Russians that the Americans proposed to the Russians is going to be in effect a trap. Now, I have been watching and reading Vladimir Putin's various statements over the last few weeks. We've seen the change in the tide of the war that has happened since the failed offensive in the summer.

and Putin has been becoming increasingly outspoken. And I think what is greatly underestimated in the West is how very angry and bitter and mistrustful towards the West, Vladimir Putin feels. He is not going to take any proposal for negotiations at face value. and I think that the general sentiment in Moscow now is becoming very hard line indeed. I mean, they have been through Minsk, you discussed the Minsk Agreement. They've seen endless numbers of negotiations with the West going all the way back to the end of the Cold War and beyond.

And they're saying, you know, these people, we just cannot sit down and talk. with them. I mean, is that your own sense, Jim? That's my growing sense, but I wish, Alexander, I were 100% convinced that that was the case. I mean, let's remember for all of the demonization of Vladimir Putin as Adolf Hitler, he has been the pivotal guy in the, in the Kremlin, who has wanted to have good relations with the West. I think there have been other people in the Russian establishment that saw through this, it seems a lot sooner than he did, And I can understand now that he feels a sense of betrayal that he's kicking himself and doing it in public, by the way, public Malacolpa about being tricked by these people. At the same time, I think there are still a lot of people in the Russian establishment who are, how do I say this, you know, closet pro-Westerners and maybe not even not so closet, who have interest in the West still, despite all the sanctions, and would like to see somehow if there's a way to go back to the status quo ante.

Even people who pointed to that fiasco in, I think, April of last year when they had initial agreement in Istanbul, except Borges Johnson, went there and torpedoed at the behest of the Americans to say, oh, gosh, what a shame. You know, the war could have ended back then. Well, I think people think it could have ended back then, and there would have been any kind of agreement that the West would have held to. I think they're being even naive to this day when they point back at that event. So I think you're probably right, but I don't know for sure. I think there's also a lot of concern that if Russia is too forthright in its victory in Ukraine, that that could somehow trigger a panic reaction on the part of people in the West in Washington and NATO, and they would do something really stupid.

I mean, maybe that's the flip side of assessing the kind of human materials they're facing on the other side. So I don't know if they would fall for it again. I think I'm increasingly of the opinion that they will not do so, but I am not sure. And I'll say, and all said, Alexander, there's only about five men in the Kremlin who really know what they want to do,

then what knows don't talk, and then what talks don't know. And at the end of the day, there's one man who will decide. Absolutely. I would just say that we've spoken to two people, Larry Johnson, and Alistair Crook, who were recently in Moscow,

and they talked with some very senior people there. I mean, we know which one of those people. We know one of those people in Wales. And they appeared to be taking a pretty hard line. And we also spoke on the records recently. We had an interview with Dmitri Polianzky, who is the deputy ambassador of Russia. And he seemed to be taking a clear hard line

and was talking straightforwardly about achieving victory. And I can't quite believe that even though it is only a small group of people, and you're quite right, I mean, you know, the decision-making call in Moscow is a small one. But I would be very surprised if these people are not getting steers from the Kremlin, which are leading to, leading them to take, you know, to express, articulate this very hard line that we're hearing. And when Putin says that he was played, which he has actually said that, I mean, that is a pretty remarkable thing for a leader to say.

I don't ever remember a leader saying that about himself. This is a very good point. And another thing that he said that it was very significant is indicating clearly which areas of Ukraine are not of interest to Russia, especially the far west, the areas that were part of the Austrian Empire before World War I, that as far as Russia's concern, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia. And I think it's pretty clear to most people that the Russian-speaking areas of the south and east, everything from Kharkov to Odessa, inclusive, and pretty much everything east of the Denepeira River,

naturally should be, without question going to Russia. I think what people tend to forget about in that discussion is, And what about everything in between? What about all of the areas from Kiev to the far west, you know, or Jietomere in places like this, that are Ukrainian speaking, not necessarily as pro-Russian as the East and South are, but on the other hand are not like Vov or Ivano-Frankevsk. And whether it be a rump state there of some sort, whether it would be safer for Russia to take those areas as well, which were part of the Russian Empire before 1914.

you know, there's a lot of gray area in between that even if Russia does secure military victory. And by the way, look, you know, as much as anybody else, I want this war to stop. I want people to stop dying. I want Kiev to stop, and frankly, Washington to stop throwing bodies in there to be slaughtered like lambs. But at the same time, you don't want to have a solution to this that ends up being not a solution, just sets the stage for a more destructive war in the future. Yeah. I agree. Now, what do people in the US understand about this? Do they understand that the Russians increasingly are in this kind of mood? Because I'm not sure that they do. I've been reading these articles that have been appearing. I mean, there was, apparently Lavrov has said that he was contacted by somebody. the Russians have been

contacted by somebody and they've been told you know we need to have a discussion with someone in Europe that Glavroff utterly dismissive of all of this do people in Washington understand this and are they prepared

for the fact that however this war ends it is going to end in straightforwardly a debacle I mean it is impossible now to see any outcome I cannot see any out come, which will not be a debacle for the United States.

I forget who said it. It's hard to make somebody understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. When you talk about people in Washington, you're talking about people overwhelmingly who are in some sinecure where their perks and their privileges depend on the global American empire enterprise. And by the way, with respect to Russia, I think a lot of people misunderstand. this as some sort of Cold War hangover.

Oh, the communes are still there. We have to oppose them. Look, you know, I was at the Soviet desk at the State Department. I was back in the Reagan administration. I was one of the few people who was actually known as an anti-communist in those days. I mean, the sense in those days was that communism among the bureaucracy, among the establishment, was really sort of the good thing about Russia in those days. At least it was a progressive, secular ideology.

and people we can sort of get along with, although they're Russians, that still makes them bad. When communism ended, you'll notice that that made Washington far more anti-Russian than they had been during the Cold War. I mean, Brezhnev, Khrushchev, not even Stalin, wherever it demonized, the way Vladimir Putin was demonized. Here we gave them this wonderful Western ideology and they messed it all up and then threw it away. I mean, what do you do with such people? So this almost zoological and Russophobia that you see coming out of Washington is still unfortunately the go-to frame of mind in the Washington political class on both sides of the aisle. And by the way, I think Alex and Alexander, you did a great job yesterday discussing some of the distinctions among that class that they're not all neo-conservatives. You know, some are liberal interventionists, some are what they call the Vulcans who are watered care.

for the military industry, somebody like John Bolton is not really a neocon. He's more of a, you know, more of Cecil John Rhodes than he is Leon Trotsky. Yeah. What do you look at his ideological roots? So I don't, I think they understand it's coming, but they can't admit it to themselves. And more importantly, they don't have the freedom within the matrix in which they operate to actually change course. They're like a big, dumb dinosaur that even if they realize something, there's simply no way

to turn it. So they will come up with this chaff. They'll throw into the into the air to try to deflect things. Or maybe we could talk. Maybe we're, maybe we could redefine what victory is, but that's all they can really do. Yeah. Because what are they going to do that? I mean, Congresses, you've both been discussing, Alex and you have been discussing, is about to meet fairly soon. There is this huge appropriation for Ukraine, $61 billion for Ukraine. This is a failing enterprise. There is now a shortage of ammunition shells. There's a shortage of missiles. The tanks are not working. The Germans are admitting that the tanks that have been supplied to Ukraine are not working. The French guns, they're not working either, apparently.

Are we going to send more good money after bad money? I mean, there's so many other problems in the United States. I was reading a representative from the House of Representatives has just been to the border. He says the situation there is completely out of control. Are they nonetheless going to throw more money to Ukraine? The Russians, by the way, assumed that they will. But what are they going to do?

A short answer, of course, is yes. You know, the speaker, Mike Johnson was down at the border recently, and you've been seeing more and more things, even liberal media, like the New York Times, saying that there's a real crisis in our cities with all these migrants coming in. It's even now permissible for people on the left to say that this is a problem. And I don't take this as accidental. I mean, nothing appears in these media. Call me cynical, but nothing appears in these media without there being a reason. So I think they're preparing themselves to come up with some kind of deal on funding, for the border that will then allow the House to provide money for Ukraine.

Maybe it won't be $60 billion. Maybe it will be. I mean, after all, it's just money. It's just, they put it on my tab. It's $34 trillion already. What difference is it made? So they will come up with the money. We also have to remember that Israel has a preemptive claim on anything to do with the military

or federal spending. And the fact is that no matter how much money they give to Ukraine, it's not going to make much difference at this point. the men are not there the weapons are not there the ammunition is not there sure they can pay salaries in ukraine for a while longer but that's not going to save the regime in kiev what about this idea of seizing the russian assets now this is all over the place here in the media in britain has been another piece about this opposing it by the way in the financial times today there's clearly a debate going on are they going to do that i mean if they can't get this money from congress will

they do that instead because increasingly that's what's being spoken about. And if they do get the money from Congress, will they do it anyway? The article, by the way, just to say in the Financial Times says, if you do this, you are engaging in an act of war and you are eroding the boundary between war and peace. Because this is such a clear act of war that how do you justify it and say that you're not at war? I think the question of being at war is of less concern to these people. That is the question of does this hasten the run on the confidence of the United States as the center of the world financial system? I mean, that's why, at least last time I heard maybe that's changed.

Even the Treasury Department here was skeptical of the whole concept. Because, you know, what does that say to the rest of the world? To the Middle East, to the Far East and Latin America, everybody, that you can't trust these people with your money. And I think that just will accelerate the erosion of the United States and of the U.S. dollar as the centerpiece of the global financial system. I think that's much more concern than whether that signals that were really at war with Russia, because after all, as everybody knows, we are. And so I think it could happen. If I had to guess, it probably won't happen because it's much easier to just come up with, you know, however many billion dollars of funding money from funding in Congress. Because those numbers are all fictional anyway.

Yeah. Let's move it to the Middle East because, you know, a couple of days ago, Alex and I was saying, I was saying, perhaps more than Alex was saying, Alex I think was more skeptical than me. I said, look, actually we're starting to see things looking like they're starting to get karma. The Israelis are pulling out of Gaza. The Gerald Ford is being brought back to the United States. Alex then came back and said, well, what will the meocons think of that? And I said, that we'll push back. And my goodness, what have we seen since? We've had an assassination in Beirut. We've had a bomb attack, a major bomb attack in Tehran. We've now had today, at least I was reading it today, this joint statement about the Red Sea, warning the hooses. And, you know, that statement, which, you know, the United States has signed off on. And some of its Alex's, and it's a lot. allies have signed off on it. It actually contains the word warning. Warning the Houthis, this is a

warning to the Houthis. So are we going to see military action by the Western powers in the Middle East over the next couple of days? What do you think of the chances of that? I don't know if it'll be over the next couple of days, but I think things are certainly trending in that direction. And I think they all point toward Iran. You know, we also have the Israelis giving the having given Hezbollah an ultimatum about withdrawing their forces north of the Litani River, you know, back 20 miles or whatever it is, you'd think the Israelis, with their handsful in Gaza, would want to keep the north as calm as possible, and said they seem to be provoking, a heating up of that front as well.

And I think as you all had discussed earlier, I think there's some people in Washington who feel that it's now or never to go, have at it with the Iranians. And maybe the Houthis, Hezbollah, Syria, Iraq, other places where things are also heating up. They all have one nexus from the point of view of people of this mind, and that is Iran. Let's go after the Iranians.

And I think that very well could be in the cards. If it will happen in the next few days, I'm not so sure. I think some other pieces need to fall in place first. I mean, we've had, Lots of wars in the Middle East since, well, 1991, I suppose, when the first U.S. Iraq war happened. And the outcome of these wars in aggregate has not been good. And why do people think that starting another one in the Middle East is going to make the position of the United States better? surely the situation now is more dangerous and precarious than it's ever been.

I mean, is this not something that people talk about in Washington? I mean, are there likely to be any voices of restraint here? There will be some voices of restraint, but I, let me put it this way. As you know, nobody has ever been held accountable for any of those fiascos. And as I say, the big, dumb dinosaur can only move it. in the direction that his inertia takes them, even if their voices or restraint or even misgivings about it, I don't know that it will necessarily cause a change in course.

And there are some of the matter of the opinion, by the way, and I'm not sure this is true, but have the view that these things are not ever meant to succeed. It's the empire of chaos. They're just meant to disrupt and destroy. And if they have it, well, they're doing what they're intended to do. I don't know that that's the case, but there is that point of view. I mean, that was certainly not the case in the 1980s when you were at the Soviet desk in Ronald Reagan's time. I mean, whatever you think about Reagan, he knew when to stop.

He pulled the troops out of Lebanon, as I remember, after the bomb attacks on the Marines there. He knew he had control of his diplomacy, or at least the administration did at that time. I mean, do you get the sense that the administration today is in control of its own diploma? because I don't. And we say the administration today, who are we talking about, the cardboard cut out in the White House? Are we talking about mental and moral midgets like Blinken? I mean, you know, it's Sullivan.

It's, you know, again, you've discussed on your program the kind of talent, if you want to call it that, that are running our policy. But given that the policy itself is so bad, even if you had Taleran and Metternich as our top diplomats, it still could not be a success because it's a policy that simply does not make any sense. And so, again, I just don't see any way out of that. And unfortunately, as, you know, as where I'm sure what we're going to get to the election, I don't see that changing. In other words, I think we're on a kind of a flight path to disaster that simply cannot be avoided because of the human materials involved.

Yeah, I mean, and that brings us indeed exactly back to the election, because I mentioned the 1968 election. The in 1968 election was as fraught as it was because of the war that was being fought at that time in Vietnam. I mean, there were many other things going on. There was the civil rights movement, but the civil rights movement itself got involved at some level with the war in Vietnam, because people like Dr. King came out in opposition to the war. For example, and we saw the huge tensions there. But the tensions this time are of an entirely different order of magnitude. Now, I read the British media every day, and the British media is an outlier of the American liberal media. What I tend to read in the British media is what people in the

Washington Post and the New York Times are thinking, and eventually will take to writing. And I am becoming very, very concerned, because the way they are talking about, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination is becoming completely irrational. It's taken as read that if Trump is elected president of the United States in November, then what they call American democracy ends. And when you talk in that kind of way, when you start explaining things to yourself in that kind of way, When are you going to, I mean, the urgency of preventing that event in your own mind must become overriding. If the stakes are so high, where do you stop?

And we see all of these court cases. We see all of these legal actions on the way. And, I mean, we're going to have protests. We're going to have all kinds of things. And of course, if the wars are going wrong and the crisis, deepens, the sense of crisis deepens, then the urgency will increase. I mean, is that also your sense? You know, I'm just old enough to vaguely remember the 1960 election, but the election that comes

to mind, for me, is not 1960, it's 1860. In terms of how divide this country is and how much of a crunch we can expect in the November approaches. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, the people who really call the shots simply, cannot allow Trump to be reelected under any circumstances. And the simplest way to do that is to keep him off the ballot in some of the key states. I mean, so far we've seen Colorado and Maine do that. I think that there are unfairly weak legal and constitutional grounds. As you've mentioned, I think the chances that the Supreme Court will overturn that are quite good. But let's remember,

he hasn't been convicted of anything yet. And that there's multiple cases against him. I think it's virtually certain he will be convicted of something and probably in more than one case. That will change the lay of the land. Remember, we don't have a single national election. It's very hard for the Supreme Court to give a kind of a blanket decision that would cover all of the possible ways in which he could be disqualified in any number of states. And just to take an example, my native state of Pennsylvania. If he's kept off the ballot in Pennsylvania, the election is over right there, right there, because numerically it's virtually impossible. for him to win. So I think that's still plan A to keep him off the ballot. If that fails,

there's always plan B, which is to go back to what they did in 2020. None of those things about ballot harvesting and mail-in ballots and all the rest of that chicanery have been remedied since then. And let's remember, you know, as much as I say, people in flyover country may think of Trump as the orange savior, there's another part of the country that's almost as large, if not. larger, that considers him the orange Hitler. And so I don't see any way we get through November that we have a nice calm illusion that the losing side concedes. And what that looks like, I don't know.

I think the chances of disorder are much greater, actually, if Trump were to win by some miracle, because I think it'll make 2020 and Antifa and BLM riots look like child's play. if Trump loses, I don't expect his followers to take to the streets. They know the people who support him tend to be very, very law of buying citizens, not the insurrectionists that they're made out to be by the media. But one never knows. I think we're getting close to that 1860 kind of atmosphere in this country, you know, cold civil war.

Just Google it. United States cold civil war. And we've been in that mode for some time. I don't know what could trigger that cold going hot. I mean, this is the thing, because of course, America in elections, elections have generally been a stabilizing force in America. I mean, it's enabled conflicts to play out in a legal and constitutional way, and that has been one of the great secrets of American political stability,

which is something that everywhere in the world, outside the United States, people have envy. They've looked up to this. Now, as you rightly say, there have been situations. There was one specific situation in the 1860s, when on the contrary, an election led to a civil war. And the kind of things that we're hearing, we're talking about now,

preventing a candidate supported by half the population of America from Lundy, running in an election. I'm not going to say it's going to end in a civil war. But this is a republic living very dangerously. So it seems to me, I mean, you know, what is the problem with letting the election play out? And if Donald Trump wins, where he was president before, and what were the disasters?

I mean, what did he do? Which was so dangerous, which justifies all. of these things that have been said about it. You know, just as the Gaza war has become existential for both sides, I would say this election is becoming existential for both sides as well. I mean, look, in 1861, Americans both north and south, they pray to the same God, they read the same Bible, they honor the same founding fathers, they claim fidelity to the same principles of government.

Today, Americans don't even agree on what our pronouns are or what a woman is. I mean, this is essentially identity politics on steroids for both sides. And so you're looking at both sides, viewing the other, essentially not as misguided fellow countrymen who have different opinions, but as evil incarnate. And I don't see how you reconcile that simply through ballots, which will be contested anyway. And then you take this back to the international situation, just as the future of the Soviet Union was tied to the whole global communist movement that the stability of,

and I'll call it this, the regime in Washington is tied to the global American empire, the global American enterprise. And as that comes crashing down, and I think it is crashing down, that's going to have shockwaves that reverberate back into a country that's already becoming increasingly unstable. It is about to hit a point where that instability

cannot be hidden. So that's why I'm in the opinion that for better or worse, that I think it's going to be worse, we're going to go through something similar to what the Soviet Union went through in the 1990s. And it's not going to be a pretty picture. It's going to affect the entire globe and also obviously people here in the United States. Who was it? I think it was Elder Ignatios of Harbin who said back in the 1930s, what began in Russia will end in America, that the drama of the 20th century, now into the 21st century, that started with the collapse of the Russian Empire is going to have similar effects here in the United States

because, you know, if you look at the window of history, this has been a very short period of time that we're talking about, that somehow the disorders that began in 1914 may come to their culmination now here with the United States as the epithet. I mean, I find that an absolutely terrifying prospect. I mean, for me, the United States,

has been one of the major single stable factors all my life, a situation of crisis such as you describe in the United States. I mean, it's almost unimaginable to me. And yet every day, as I said, I go to the British media. I look at the American media as well. And I see these things being said, which once upon a time I would have considered unimaginable. I mean, the things that are being written about Donald Trump,

I would once have considered unimaginable in the United States. And I am very, very worried indeed that you are correct. Now, we are both people of Greek origin. You're presumably, I suspect, like I am familiar with classical history. You know about stasis that can happen in states. We are probably both familiar with the events that led to the collapse of the Roman Republic, political system every bit is stable and one which had existed for much longer than the American Republic has done. And we know that these things can happen to a country. I don't know if the

world is ready for this this trifecta of Hellenic brilliance here. But it's the United States as a stabilizing force, unfortunately, I think, ended with the Cold War in 1991, that what it did was with the absence of a powerful opposing entity to keep it in check, that unbeknownst to most Americans, the levers of power in Washington had devolved into the hands of some very unstable people who were then empowered to do whatever they wanted to do with no restraint after 1991 in the Balkans and the Middle East and so forth. And that restraining force,

turned into kind of a serial arsonist instead. And now we're getting to the culmination of that. And it's sad. You know, look, we're talking about my country here. I hate to see it in this condition, but it is what it is. I most feel like somebody who was a patriot in the Soviet Union, a Russian or Georgian, whatever he might have been, watching what his country had turned into. And then luckily, at the end of the day, seeing it reemerge. And rather surprisingly, I hope some kind of a normal America can reemerge out of this, but I don't see it happening through normal electoral or constitutional means, given that the crisis we're in. Sometimes, sometimes, and this is a tragic thing to say, you have to go through the crisis

in order to come out the other end. Well, Jim Jatras, this is where I'm going to stop. I'm going to hand over to Alex now. And Alex, over to you. Jim, you have time for a couple of questions that people have to do. All right. From Brother Brovette, please ask Jim about how Patriarch Bartholomew was blackmailed over embezzled the 9-11 shrine funds into creating the biggest schism in the church in a thousand years. Well, I think if people Google my name and those words, they will find what I've written on that topic. I think that's just one piece of a much bigger puzzle. that goes back, again, about a century to sort of the events after World War I and the collapse of the Russian Empire, the failure of the Greek expedition in Asia Minor.

I mean, the church politics are very complex in the Orthodox Church. We can't explain them all now. But unfortunately, especially since 1948, the Fonar has been essentially a puppet of the American government. And that comes with all of the disabilities that that entails. Alex Shiraziz asks, good day, gentlemen, would Putin help Iran directly or indirectly in the war scenario against the United States and how? I think indirectly. In the same way, let's be honest, that Iran and China are indirectly helping Russia in their war in Ukraine. They're not going to get directly involved.

It's not a formal military alliance of the sort that NATO is. but I think they will want to make sure that Russians will want to make sure that Iran does not lose. Right. Soapy Ork asks question for Jim, are there any real diplomats left in the U.S. State Department? What is the solution to reform this seemingly broken organization? The short answer is probably not, but if they are, it wouldn't make any difference. As I mentioned earlier, we're beyond whether the talent, of an individual diplomat can make much difference. I mean, there were people, even my day,

when I was at the State Department, I was in the office of the Undersecretary for Political Affairs. That was Lawrence Eagleberger, who was a very competent diplomat. A lot of people didn't like him because, well, diplomats sometimes do things that other people don't approve of, but nonetheless, there were competent people. I think there probably still are competent people, but the problem isn't so much the competent of the people,

although most of them are in fact incompetent. It's the direction of policy that has been normalized over several decades now, and now we're like a hamster on a treadwheel who can't jump off. Tish M. question. So who benefits from the U.S. imploding in on itself? You know, in a way nobody does. even the countries like China and Russia that want, understand that we are a threat to their interests, don't necessarily, I think, want to see America collapse.

I think they'd like to see us stop doing the stuff we've been doing. But imploding America is not in anybody's interest. And certainly it's not in the interest of the American people. But, you know, sometimes when events get underway, and nobody is really in control of them anymore. And one more for Jim Jatra. Thank you for having Jatras on. I hope you consider having J. Dyer and Mark Hackerd on as well.

Fantastic. All right. We will certainly have Jim Jotras again. Yeah, yeah. Definitely have Jim Jeter. Jay would be a good choice as well. Well, thank you. Thank you, John.

I appreciate it. Jay Dyer would be a great choice. Jim Jatras, we have all your information in the description box down below, your Twitter account to follow. It would be great Jim Jatras. Thank you very much for joining. us. Thank you. Take care, Jim. Oh, let's go right, Alexander. Yes. We have a few more questions that we'll answer.

Yeah, yeah. All right. Yeah. We're still live, Alexander. We're still live. Yeah. It's just a nice, just as a bit. Anyway, let's let's do, let's do the questions. Anyway, all right, just a few more questions and we'll wrap up our first live stream for the year. O.G. Wals. Can I just say, happy new year to everybody, by the way, who is on this live stream? Happy New Year to everyone, of course. And O.G. Wall says, good day and happy New Year, 24thall. Thank you for that, OG, Wall.

Sanjava, thank you for that super sticker. Thank you, Sanjeva. Let's see. Jimmy Neutron asks, do all of these people in government with ancestors from the pale of settlement la Kagan family in Blinken explain this blood hostility towards Russians? There is historical enmity there. Oh, there is undoubtedly. But I mean, I think we must understand that the problems are not limited to just these people.

I mean, if it was just one group of people, you could isolate them and you could explain and come to an explanation for it. Well, unfortunately, I mean, if you talk about Britain, I mean, Britain, deeply russophobic political establishment, the kind of people who are amongst the most russophobic people in Britain are people who are people who can, come from the old English landed families, the aristocracy, the bureaucracy, people who are in the middle class, they're not confined to one particular ethnicity. And the same is true in Germany. I mean, you know, it's a misconception to see it just in those terms. Ronald B. asks question, does the pervasiveness of the spook state, NIA, CIA, FBI, etc., invalidate the democratic nature of the country and put real power totally out of the hands of the people?

You know, I think this is a very good question, and I think that it touches on actually a serious point, because the American system was never intended to coexist with a permanent national security state. I mean, you can argue. In fact, I am absolutely sure that people like Alexander Hamilton and certainly Madison, James Madison, and George Washington probably too, would have said that this is incompatible with an American republic. That this is not how a republic is supposed to be.

And I think the one has led to the other. We've seen the national security state, the deep state, eventually subvert. the entire system, the entire political system, and reshape it around itself. Sangeva says Russophobia is not limited to the USA. It's there even in Iranians. Russia's failure in soft power and inability to control narrative is equally to blame for Russophobia.

This is profoundly true. I mean, I've just talked about Britain. I mean, I've never understood, by the way, why so many in Britain is so hostile to Russia. But you're absolutely correct. And one of the odd things is because Russia is a country which, in theory, should have a huge amount of soft power. I mean, if you ask people in Britain, if you do polls in Britain, you find who is the most popular classical music composer. And people always talk about Chikovsky. Chikovsky nearly always tops the poll.

If you ask people, you know, if you go to West End theatres in London, who is the most popular playwright? it's Chekhov, apart from Shakespeare, it's Chekhov. And yet somehow there is this ability in Britain to somehow separate this Russian cultural achievement from Russia itself and to be incredibly hostile to the country as well. And the Russians themselves have never managed to break that And they've never really tried to. But you'll find Russophobia in many places. And in Iran, certainly it existed. And it had a historical basis there.

I mean, and I would suggest that you watch a program, if you haven't seen it already, that we did Glendison and I on the Duran with Professor Saeed Marandi of Tehran University, in which he talks about that very thing. And he says that, that historic suspicion of Russia, which did exist in Iran, has now largely abated away. Jeff Bickford says, thanks for the honest discussion, getting easier to see through the propaganda.

I was once told that one time that economic war precedes actual war. Yeah, well, this article in the Financial Times that I was talking about, which is written by somebody who is a sanctions specialist, by the way, from Cornell University. He actually says, seizing Russian assets is an act of war. If you do this, you are erasing the boundary

between war and peace because it is so well established as an act of war to do a thing like this. Zareel says, to be honest, USA needs God back in their nation again. I personally, they would agree with that, yes.

Thank you for that, Zareel. Sparky says, Gives Zelensky the EM50 urban assault vehicle from Stripes, starring Bill Murray. Undoubtedly, it would result in Putin's immediate and unconditional surrender. Absolutely, yeah. Great movie. How did you think of that one, Sparky Stripes?

Katia Andrews, thank you for that super sticker. Tom says, St. Grand Duchess Elizabeth Ferrerovna, we need you today. Right. Okay, this is, I think, somebody, a member of the imperial family who was martyred or murdered, murdered and martyred during the revolution. But I must admit, I don't remember the details precisely. Yeah. Brother Brow Vett says, Jim is a wise elder to Orthodox Christians living close to the land in rural America. Thank you, Jim. Yeah, absolutely. I agree with that. We should have Jim a lot more. Jim's amazing.

He is amazing. I've actually had the honor of meeting him in Athens. He's an amazing person and just a great, a great guy to sit down with and have a good. He's amazing. So we will definitely have Jim on again. Raul Pinto says, if Jim Chathras is right about the analogy of the U.S.

collapse to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990s, then imagine Israel's plight. True. No. And one of the most extraordinary things, that I've heard in the last couple of weeks, which was explained, said to us, by a guest of the Duran, Alistair Crook.

He said that way back, I think it was the early 1980s. He met an aid of the then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. I think it was in the early 1990s. And this person was saying, you know, what we need to do is we need to wait for America to weaken. And then we will go ahead and we will do what we want to do on the Temple Mountain and all of those things.

And I mean, I've no doubt, by the way, that Alistair Crook was actually told that by an Israeli official. And how catastrophically misguided is that? Because ultimately, which country provides the backstop for Israel itself? It is Israel. It is the United States. So from an Israeli point of view, the very last thing they should be looking for or wanted,

is a weakened America. Yeah. Angry Warhock, there's greetings and happy New Year. Happy New Year, Angry Warhawk. Great to have you with us. Tish M. says, so then to Jim's answer, then this dispels conspiracy theorist that China is behind Biden's backdoor deals to trash the U.S. So then this is really bad management, or has this been planned by whom? I don't think it's been planned by China. I don't think Chinese have that ability to control things in the United States to be straightforward about this. I mean, Biden is deeply compromised by his dealings with China. We all know it.

But I think the idea that the Chinese are able to micromanage him in that kind of way, I think that is impossible. Salvatore says, please invite Abby Martin to your show. I am sure you would like what she has to say. You're an interesting person, actually. I haven't heard from her for a long time. But yes, why not? We'd love to have Abby Martin on the show.

Yeah, absolutely. Sure, come on the show. That would be great. Yeah. Russell Hall says the West's shift in focus from a way seeking objective truth to manipulating public opinion has coincided with his decline across all fronts. Absolutely. You know, one of the most extraordinary things again, which I, you know, Alex and I have been exchanging articles about this. But as things have started to go wrong in Ukraine, you've seen. started to see articles appearing, which are not, you know, about, you know, we must change

the situation, we must rethink our policies, we must do this, we must do that. They actually straightforwardly say, the important thing now is to flip the narrative. Flip the narrative. That is more important than dealing with the reality of the crisis in Ukraine or any of the other crisis as well. It's all become about narrative manipulation. It is post-modernism what started in the 1960s, and it is completely run out of control. Yeah, Sparky says, Javier Malay may be a globalist plant, austerity. He preaches, doesn't work, and if he sells off aspects of Argentina to global mega corporations, ostensibly to pay off debt, Argentina won't get them back.

I've come to exactly the same conclusion as you. I've been in quite that same way, but I've increasingly come to the view. that Millet is not what he pretended to be. He's certainly no kind of libertarian as far as I can say. I mean, what he is doing is he is reproducing the policies of

the previous government, the one not the government that he's defeated, but the one before that with a President Macri, all the same people having brought back into the government, the policies appear to be essentially the same ones. And they are

taking Argentina back into the sort of old-style globalization that we saw before. Sparky says if Malay isn't a globalist plant, he should hire economist Mark Blythe, whom the U.S. Pilford from the UK, I believe he has a handle on nation-state recovery economics. Oh, I know, I'm sure he'd, I mean, there's lots of things that Macri could do.

You know, I mean, I've been somewhat skeptical of, Sorry, Millet, not Macri. I've been somewhat skeptical of Millet, but, you know, I mean, some of his ideas might even work, except he's not pursuing them. It's completely different things. Yeah. Candice State Lennox says, hi, thank you for all your work. As a person living in Britain, I am genuinely worried about British place in the New World Order.

What do you see Britain standing in near and long-term future? You know, this is a very painful and very difficult subject. I mean, I'm afraid you may very well be right. There's apparently been a report which talks about Britain facing a gloomy stagnation going forward. And I think, you know, that is actually a complacent view because countries don't just stagnate. If they are stagnating, then things start to break down. And you're beginning to sense some of that happening in Britain today. I get to give an example, a very obvious example,

anybody who lives in Britain can see this, which is the corruption, which when I first came to Britain in the 60s was public corruption, was hardly existed. It is now very visible here. And I can't help but feel very gloomy about it. Now, in theory, we have a lot of things that ought to be, make it possible for us to transform our situation. We're still a big country.

We've got a lot of entrepreneurial drive. We've got good universities still. They're not as good as they were, but they're still there. We've got lots of things. But not only are we not using them, but our political class seems to be, one, united. and to determine it to stamp on anything that could shake the system as it has developed today. And it's very difficult to be optimistic, again, at least for the short term.

Sam Whiskey says, has the fall of the Ottoman Empire still haunting the Middle East? Well, I'm not going to get into the history of all of that. the Ottoman Empire's collapse has never been, I mean, the system that the Ottomans created, whenever one think of them, in the Middle East, in the Arab world, functions stably for around 500 years, 400 years. And then it collapsed after the first 12 rule. And the outsiders, the British and the French came in. and they rearranged everything. And I think they created a mess,

and we're dealing with that mess today. Now, where the Ottomans, what the Ottomans, you know, what role the Ottomans had in all of that? I'm not sure. And certainly you're not going to find any solution to the problems of the Middle East today in Erdogan's Turkey. But we are still playing out with problems of Ottoman collapse in the Middle East.

there is no doubt. Russell Hall says perhaps Russia's lack of concern for exercising soft power is not a mistake on their part, but the reason for their success in real terms. You know, there is a lot of truth to all of this in the sense that what the Russians tend to do. I mean, they're very practical and they do tend to focus on objective realities. And I think that there's a lot of truth of that. I mean, soft power, we rely on it so much. in the West that we've neglected hard power. But hard power used intelligently. The Russians have focused very much on hard power and use it intelligently.

So I think there's a lot of truth in what you just said. Let's see here. I think we have a couple of more. Alexander, you know, our last live stream in 2003, there was one question from Tabernak that came in right when I ended the stream. So we didn't get to answer that. So let me just. I'll give you that question right now.

And then we have one more question from Sparky. Tabernak asked in 2023, what will the rest of the world do while the elections are ongoing? Can the fair world order make it? Yes, I think that this is the thing that's happening now, and we're increasingly seeing it. Countries around the world, Russia, obviously, China to a great extent, India even. I mean, the Indians, we haven't been talking much about them, but the Indian foreign Minister, Jaisanka, who is one of the most intelligent and able people and global diplomacy. He's just had a five-day, five-day visit in Moscow.

And so you see more and more countries coming together and they say, look, the situation in the US is very, very volatile, very dangerous, just as Jim was saying. And what we've got to do is we've got to start working towards establishing systems, which mean that as things go more and more wrong there, we can contain the damage. We can get by and protect ourselves from these problems that not just in the United States, but in the collective West,

are being created. And I think we're going to see that accelerating trend right through 2024. Already the Saudis have bolted. They've gone to the other side. They've seen the mess that we're causing. And there will be other countries that will follow. This is the biggest news story.

I mean, right there, you just said it. This is the biggest news story. I mean, like the long term, big change that's happening is BRICS. Yeah. 2024. Saudi in BRICs, Iran and BRICS, UAE, Ethiopia, Egypt. And I mean, I think it's very simple what they're going to do. They have the energy.

They have the commodities. They're going to create the payment system. That's it. Yeah. I mean, that is the big story right there. Yeah. All right. Let's see. Ralph says most excellent discussion. Thank you, gentlemen. And Sparky says Trump endorse Malay, but sadly for his good, Trump has a poor track record on whom he hires and whom he endorses. I agree with that, actually. I mean, to be honest, I mean, I didn't know very much about Malay before he appeared. And I had thought for a time that this was, that he was what he appeared to be. But I'm increasingly coming around to the view. that he is north. Mustafa Solomon says, I like your content, but I need to balance it out with pro-West content.

Who from neocon circles, you would recommend me to keep in vision? Oh, I wouldn't recommend any particular person. It's an impossible thing. But if you want to get a, you know, the pure unadulterated view of the neocons, you can go to one of two places, you can go to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian. Foreign affairs, foreign policy, the national interest, MSNBC, all of those. I mean, there is no shortage of them. You can go to them.

They're all over the place. They are much more widely emotional times. Sunday times. One day times, Tuesday times. Le Mons-Paiseiseiseiseit Cite. They're all over to do. You have if I could say so. a embarrassment of choice.

But, you know, our content, just to end the live stream, Alexander, to get this question, our content is, actually what we talk about is saving the West. Yeah, I know. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, completely true. Yeah. Don't deal the 300 billion.

No, I don't. Don't remove Russia from Swift. The war in Ukraine. Yeah. Don't go to war with Iran. Yeah. I mean, all our content, at the end of the day, when you go through our content, if there were people in the think tanks or in D.C. that were actually listening to our content,

I think, you know, the Biden White House or whatever administration would be in much better shape. Absolutely. That is completely true. Mom, Alaska says, thank you, gentlemen, for all you do and happy New Year. Absolutely. And happy new year to you. Some more questions. Build a better world with Bricks from Spark.

Nick says, love your work. Thank you. Non-political question. What is the title of the big black book on the top shelf close to your door? It has been on my mind every time I see it. The big black book close to your door. Alexander. I don't know which one you mean.

If you mean the books at the end, the very, very last one, that is Parcenaeus' description of the most. monuments of ancient Greece, just saying. Pavsanias, in the second century AD, in the time of the Emperor Hadrian, wrote what you might call a tourist book, which for Roman travellers that were visiting Greece. And he describes all the various locations in incredible detail.

And one of the most moving things I have ever done, by the way, just to say, is if you go to Olympia, you will find there. the statue of Hermes, Hermes, the god, by Praxitelis, one of the great sculptors. This is perhaps, in my opinion, at least, the single greatest piece of sculpture in the world. And it was found in exactly the location where Pafsania said it would be. K1FH says a tour of Alexander's bookshelf would be great content. Oh, absolutely, well, it would be interesting anyway. Maybe one day.

Maybe we'll do it on a video, yeah. And one more. And this Thessalonux says, would you agree that Russia's political system is not sustainable in long term

due to much power concentrated into the president himself? What will happen to Russia if someone like Yeltsin came into power again? This is actually,

you're discussing something which a lot of Russians talk about. I mean, Russia, ever since the time of, you know, the 15th century,

has been working towards trying to perfect its political system. And there's been lots of things that have been tried and there have been breakdowns and mistakes made. It has depended an awful lot on personalities. I'm going to actually make a optimistic point. The thing about Putin is not only has he engaged in state construction, he's obviously an exceptional individual, but he's engaged in state construction,

But he's done this in a very legal, institutional way. He has always avoided using force and coercion and violence. And I think we are closer now to achieving strong political institutions and stability in Russia than we have ever been in its modern history. And G. Gypsy says peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none. That's exact. There wasn't that George Washington. Or it sounds like George Washington. But I mean, that is exactly the spirit of the founders of the United States and of the early policies of the American Republic.

And it's a tragedy that it has been drawn away from that. Yeah. All right. That is everything. Thank you once again to Jim Jadres for joining us. His Twitter profile is in the description box, and I will also have it as a pin comment down below. Thank you to everyone that joined us on Rumble, Rock Finn, Odyssey Cut Out. So I'm, I can't get back on to Odyssey. So I don't know if the stream was still playing on Odyssey or not. I can't access Odyssey at the moment. But thank you if everyone is watching on Odyssey, thank you for joining us. And of course, v.doran.locals.com and everyone on YouTube, thank you for joining us. Ralph, thank you for that super sticker.

Thank you, reckless abandon, Peter, thank you, Tish M, thank you, Zaryel. Thank you. And I think reckless abandon, reckless abandoned. Reckless abandoned and T. Jordan, thank you very much to our. moderators for everything that you do. You are the absolute best in the business. Alexander, any final thoughts before we sign up? No, it's a great, great live stream. First live stream for 2024, 2024, exactly as Jim said, it's going to be an extraordinary year and we're going to be covering it. And I predict that

in the end, things will come out well. This is my own view. And we have one more question from Tabernak. Tabernac, I answered your question last live stream during this live stream, right when we cut off, I got your question. But now we have got your question that we can answer during this live stream. So this is from Tabernak, and this is going to close out the show. Can Russia and North Korea deter the Asian proxies? Yes. China, Russia, North Korea.

Yeah, I think they can. I think that we're going to see an awful lot of tension. But I still believe that the ultimate disaster is going to be avoided. Ivan, thank you for that super sticker. All right, Alexander, that is the show. Take care, everybody.