The Duran Podcast - Biden neocon war drums beat louder

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

Biden neocon war drums beat louder

All right, Alexander, let's do an update on what is going on in the Middle East. And it looks like we're going to war, the world, the United States, who they're going to war with, Iran, Syria. But I hope I'm wrong. I hope we're wrong. I hope this video is completely wrong, but the buildup that is taking place in the Mediterranean is massive. And it's in line with the tricks that the Biden White House likes to play.

They think they're very clever. They did this with Russia over and over again. We've talked about how they would give dates of weapons going to arrive in Russia at certain dates and the weapons were already there or then they would give statements about attack of missiles not being delivered to to Ukraine. The attack of missiles were being used. So they like to play these tricks, these delay tactics and these tricks and these distractions when it comes to the delivery of weapons or when it comes to delivery to military buildup or crossing red lines and all these things when behind the curtain there they're planning whatever weapons delivery

or military buildups or attacks or whatever they're planning in the background. And that seems to be the case of what they're doing right now in the Middle East. Weather delay, no ground invasion until hostages are released. But this is just all a delay tactic so they can build up the presence in the Mediterranean to attack someone. I don't think this is a deterrent force anyway. I agree with absolutely everything that you have just said. It is becoming more and more critical all the time.

Now, a couple of days ago, we did a program in which we said that the most likely reason, so it seemed to us, for the delay in launching the ground operation in Gaza, was that the United States needed more time to complete its troop deployments. Now, yesterday, actually, it people, I think, missed it, but we actually got confirmation of that. There was reports circulating, and these were not, you know, from people like us who don't have access to the highest levels of the US government. These were appearing in the mainstream media in the United States and were clearly sourced

from the US government that the US is asking Israel to delay the ground operation in Gaza in order for the United States to be able to deploy air defense missile systems, in other words, patriots and Thads, to the Middle East. So we have it. We have the confirmation that the United States is pressing the Israelis to delay the ground operation in order that it can complete its military deployments in the Middle East. Obviously, they were talking specifically here about air defense missiles, but we're now getting more reports of still further naval deployments and this morning we got reports the two more carrier groups are apparently going to be steaming from the United States we're not told where they're supposed to go but it is likely in fact I think it is very likely that they're steaming towards the Middle East now two carrier groups are

are already either there or approaching positions there, one in the Eastern Mediterranean, one in the Red Sea. If another two join them, that will mean four carrier groups out of 11 that the United States has. That is an enormous buildup. Now, bear in mind that at any one particular time, warships, including carriers, are going through periods of repair and refurbishment, and maintenance, it's not that the United States has 11 carrier groups that can be deployed immediately. I'm not able to say how many it has, but let's assume that it has between

seven and eight carrier groups that he could deploy. And deploying a carrier group, by the way, is a massive, enormously complex, extremely expensive, logistical operation. So if they're deploying, say four out of, let's say, eight carrier groups that are available for immediate deployment, then that is half the operational force of the US surface fleet. And we're also hearing that nuclear submarines are also being deployed to all kinds of places. Again, we're not being told where, but it seems likely that it is connected with the Middle East in some ways. And now we've also heard these reports about surface-to-air missiles being deployed in the region as well, Patriots and Thad missiles. This is a huge military deployment. It is on an enormous scale. So what is,

what is its purpose? Clearly, its purpose is not to attack Hamas, which is a militia, massively outmatched by Israel, so it's almost certainly not going to be committed to doing that. The US, of course, says that it's intended to deter someone. It is incredibly vague about who that someone is, but the talk is, the chatter, is that it's going to be Hezbollah, and behind, of course, Hezbollah. It is Iran, but this is a force that is being deployed, which is much, multiple times greater than you would need for a mere deterrent operation. It seems to me against a militia like Hezbollah.

It seems to me overwhelmingly more likely that what we're seeing is an assembly of an enormous force which is intended at some point to be used for some kind of a strike against Iran. And I'm glad also you brought up the fact that the administration, plays all kinds of games because not perhaps in the detail but in the general nature this reminds me very much of the lead-up to the crisis last year the February 2020 crisis you remember last year at the end of 2021 the beginning of 2022 we had all the talk about tension in europe about Russian invasions of Ukraine we had lots of talk about sanctions. The sanctions we were misled about, we were given the impression that the sanctions were going to be on a much smaller scale than it turned out to be the case.

People in the American government were not informed about the extent of what the sanctions were going to be or what the purpose of the sanctions was going to be. The Federal Reserve Board was kept out of the loop. For example, so it turns out was the European Union. central bank. And eventually we had attacks on the Dombas, shelling of the Dombas from Ukrainian military positions, and we had that in turn triggered the Russian military response, which everybody knew was going to come. And then we had a wave of

sanctions on a far greater scale than anybody had been led to expect. And it seems to me we are looking at something very similar on this occasion. Warnings, like the kind of warnings we were getting, you know, at the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, directed against Russia, talk about sanctions, but of course the actual sanctions were on a far bigger scale. We're seeing warnings again,

but the warnings are out of proportion to the scale of the buildup. The scale of the buildup, vastly exceeds what would be necessary for those warnings. And I can't help but think that just as the sanctions were that was launched against Russia in February 2020 and March 2020 was on a far bigger scale than anybody expected and was clearly pre-prepared and had clearly been intended to be launched.

So it seems to me that this buildup similarly is not simply to warn or deter. It is preparatory to some kind of military action and the logical target is Iran. For aircraft carriers to deter Hezbollah? I mean, come on, that's ridiculous.

Nuclear submarines as well. I mean, what are nuclear submarines intended to do against a militia, which is ultimately, you know, I mean, it's more than just a militia. It's an army. but I mean not an army that is going to be deterred by nuclear carriers. This is completely out of proportion. In the Mediterranean. In the Mediterranean.

It is completely out of proportion to anything like anything of that nature. So either the Biden White House is bluffing and they're moving all of these massive military resources into the Mediterranean deflex. Okay. I seriously highly doubt that, but who knows? Maybe that's the case. Or as you say, they're going to attack Iran, Iran and maybe Syria as well. I mean, we can't forget Syria. The Diocons still want regime change in Syria. Or what else? I mean, what I've just tried to think. What else could this possibly? be? Could these resources be there to provide support to Israel to be some sort of a contingency backup force for Israel as it prepares this ground operation? I mean, again, it's... I can't see anything else that these forces are there for outside of starting a war. Yes, I mean, I agree with that. But I mean, if you want to do.

to position forces that would deter Kesbullah or provide cover for Israel, you would not need forces on this scale. I mean, two carrier groups already looks excessive, four carrier groups,

doesn't look excessive. It looks absolutely out of proportion to any deterrence or cover operation. Remember, I mean, if we're talking about a war between Hamas and Israel, then the forces that Israel has are vastly greater in number and material than Hamas. I mean, Hamas is its rockets, which it is, by the way, still launching. It's got its bunkers,

it's got its fighters, and we have uncertainty as to exactly how many of those there are. There's uncertainty about what the training is, but against them, we have Israel, it's got a modern air force, it's got its Iron Dome, head defense system, it's got. It's got it's a iron dome head defense system. It's got hundreds of thousands of troops, it's got thousands of tanks, thousands of infantry fighting vehicles, and of course, it's got nuclear weapons, as everybody knows. There is no conceivable sense in which the United States needs forces on this scale to assist Israel in an operation, whatever operation it is, that Israel intends to launch in Gaza. and if you're talking about, you know, breaking through bunkers and achieving that kind of thing, what do carrier groups and submarines have to do with that kind of operation? You know, if you need infantry to go through bunkers or you're going to swamp the bunkers

like, you know, presumably with water or whatever it is, tear gas or whatever it is, which is what Seymour Hersh is talking about. Again, aircraft carriers aren't what you need. need for that kind of operation. So this isn't that sort of operation. And if you're talking, as I said, about deterring Hezbollah in the north, Hezbollah doesn't have an air force. I mean, again, Israel probably has a big enough air force.

It's got about 350 advanced fighter jets, by the way, to both bomb Gaza and operate against Hezbollah. in the north. But you know, you could perhaps supplement that with a single carrier task group. You don't need four. You don't need two. I mean, that is wildly excessive. Okay, so the question is, how are they going to trigger this? You explained how they triggered the conflict in Ukraine, how they provoked the conflict in Ukraine. We do know from extensive reports. that there were discussions between the United States and EU officials in the run-up to the February SMO meetings that were taking place way back in October, November, 2021, where the Biden White

House was coordinating with their EU counterparts to plan out the sanctions, the economic war that was waged against Russia. They were planning out all the sanctions that they were going to place on Russia. So, I mean, we know that. These are reports from collective West media that these talks are taking place months in advance of the February special military operation. So, I mean, that was their plan for Russia. Get the conflict going and then just throw all the sanctions at Russia, collapse the Putin government, get regime change. We've talked about this. Yeah, many times. Hundreds of times. The plan failed. Ukraine is failing. Project Ukraine is failing. Now we're going to have a war in

in the Middle East. That's how it looks. Once again, I hope we're wrong. Yes. I hope we are 100% wrong on this. But how are they going to trigger this one? Well, you know, Biden getting in front of the TV from the Oval Office and saying, America, we're going to go to war with Iran. We're going to bomb maybe what Lindsay Graham said. We're going to bomb the fuel oil depots of Iran because Iran did X, Y, I and Z or we had a false flag or they attacked one of our bases. I mean, I don't know. What do you think? This is a tough prediction to make. It's not, well, there are three obvious possibilities. So I did actually think it is that doubt. Firstly, we get the ground operation going. Hezbollah is then goaded into launching its own strikes into against Israel. That escalates, that fighting escalates. The United States says that behind Hezbollah is They give warnings to Iran telling Iran to stop or restrain Hezbollah.

Iran is unable to do that, so then we get an overwhelming attack on Iran. That's one possibility. Possibility, two. Attacks on American soldiers in the Middle East. Now, there have been lots of reports. They're very difficult to get a complete handle on, but there have been lots of reports that there have been attacks on American bases across the Middle East, especially in Iraq where there are Hezbollah fighters there.

Remember, these air defence missiles are being deployed to the Middle East purportedly in order to protect those bases. Now, one attack on the Al-Assad base in Iraq, which by the way has absolutely nothing to do with President Assad in Syria. It's just coincidence. It's just Assad means lion in Arabic, apparently. So it's, you know, the lion base in Iraq. Anyway, there is satellite evidence that there was a drone attack on that base and a hangar there was destroyed. It seems to have been a relatively small attack, no evidence that anybody was killed. There is some reports that a few American soldiers in some of these bases which have been attacked at Altamf in the eastern Syria, those sort of places, that some of them were wounded.

I have to say, and this has about it something of the quality of a Gulf of Tonkin incident in the making. You have all of these American troops across the Middle East. The United States talks up a possible actual attack on them. Of course, in the Gulf of Tonkin incident, there's still great uncertainty as to what exactly did happen. But there's now a view that is beginning to gain traction that there was no Vietnamese attack on the Americans at all. I mean, you know, that's one view of it. But, you know, you can easily spin something. You can easily say that attacks are taking place against American bases in the Middle East.

Iran is clearly orchestrating all of this and is behind it. And Iran is not heeding the warnings that have been given. so the United States goes all in and launches these massive strikes against Iran. That is possibility two. Possibility three is that today, following on from what Lindsay Graham was saying, there is talk in the United States

of taking action to tighten enforce oil sanctions against Iran. So we can start to see more Iranian tank has been seized, more ships. it's being seized, more attacks on Iranian facilities, the enforcement leads to actual physical military kinetic responses. The Iranians obviously are goaded into responding themselves. That escalates and it evolves into an all-out attack on Iran.

So you could see that they have a whole set of a menu of options that they can follow. And of course, there's nothing provoked. prevents them doing more than one of these things at the same time if they choose to do them. And there might be other ones that I don't know about. But it is not difficult at all actually to see how they could orchestrate a war between themselves and Iran if they chose to. I wonder if the Middle East understands what's going on, the various countries around the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Lebanon, Jordan. know, all of Egypt, all of the countries that are in the region. I wonder what China and Russia know or don't know about what's taking place.

I mean, you know, obviously, just real quick, obviously they understand all the movement that's taking place. I mean, nothing is hidden in today's world, that's for sure. So, I mean, they obviously see all of the movement that is taking place towards the Mediterranean. So I wonder what China and Russia, with their advanced surveillance, I wonder what they know and what they're going to do. Right. Well, I mean, the Russians, I think, have figured it out. I mean, after all, they themselves, as you absolutely rightly said at the start of the program, have been the target of this kind of manipulated, orchestrated event. and they can read the signs. And it is surely not a coincidence that Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister,

having just visited North Korea, then went on and visited Tehran. He's been in Tehran. He's had all kinds of discussions and consultations with the Iranian officials there. And I have no doubt at all that they're discussing this whole situation, and they're discussing the movements,

the American military movements. I think what the Russians and the Chinese will be doing is they will be telling the Iranians, keep calm, keep disciplined. Don't let yourself be goaded by the neocons in Washington into doing something that they can turn round and use to attack you. If they do attack you, which is quite likely,

make sure that you can present to your own people and to the world, that you are entirely on the defecive. offensive and it is they who are on the offensive. And I think that is partly what the Russians are saying. So I think they're trying to persuade the Iranians to maintain discipline in this crisis. Difficult to do, but the Chinese and the Russians do not want to see, obviously, an uncontrolled escalation of the situation in the Middle East. And of course the Russians and the Chinese, as we know, are very active diplomatically

in talking and discussing things with the other Arab states. So the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the Chinese seem to be talking extensively. The Saudis, the Russians are talking to the UAE, the Russians have a very close relationship with Egypt. I think across the entire region, going back to your question,

I think across the entire region, everybody suspects what almost, certainly is going on. I mean, these are not naive people. Oh, see, King Abdullah, the kingdoms in the Persian Gulf, none of these places are naive places. They all know what is going on. They've all worked it out and they're all busy taking precautions and preparing for what happens. Okay, so the economic side of things, if this does take place oil,

of oil, the delivery and the transportation of oil. Well, it's good. You know, I, there may be an election play at this that the Biden White House thinks they're going to benefit from, but have they thought about what, what happens with, uh, with an energy crisis that, that we're already in the middle of? I mean, this is not going to, not going to help in the, in the slightest, that's for sure. It's going to be a catastrophe. I'm going to say what I actually think is happening. I think that the Biden administration, or at least, I mean, I stress the administration,

I don't mean Biden himself. I don't know what Biden thinks. I don't know whether Biden thinks anything, to be honest, about anything anymore. But, you know, the others around him, the team around him, the neocons around him, I think that they are starting to sense that they're running out of time and running out of road, that it's going to be increasingly difficult to get Biden elected across the line next year, whatever they do, that the economic situation is becoming increasingly difficult in the United States. Bond yields fell a bit.

Likelihood is they're going to go up. Inflation seems to be rising again. Certainly in Britain, my sense is that inflation is rising again. So I think that they are starting to despair of the election next year. and of the prospect of keeping Biden in the White House next year. And bear in mind, even if they get a Democrat, it's likely to be someone who is less pliable and easy to control than Biden himself is,

and who is perhaps not as committed to neocon projects as Biden himself is. So I think that they sense that they're running out of road, and I think that what they're saying to themselves is, look, this is our last chance in the Middle East. We've failed in Ukraine. Let's at least sort out all our problems in the Middle East. Let's deal with Hezbollah. Let's deal with Iran.

Let's perhaps deal with Syria as well. Let's clear out everything. Knock over all the adversary pieces. And at least get that under our belt before the administration's changed next. in 2025. I think that is the project, actually. And if the price of oil goes up, well, that's bad news, obviously.

But in the meantime, if we've knocked over all our adversaries, I mean, this is their thinking. We've knocked over our adversaries. We will have achieved what we want, at least in the Middle East, having previously failed in Russia and Ukraine. Now, I think that this is a desire, I mean, if this is the thinking, I think this is a disastrous approach to take, because I'm not convinced that they will be able to knock over the pieces,

that they will be able to knock out the Israelis and Hezbollah and all of those. I can see how, on the contrary, just as Project Ukraine backfired catastrophically, this could also backfire catastrophically and could end up leaving, the United States and by the way Israel in a weaker position as much weaker position than it was than they were in before but come back to what I always say about neocons they have no reverse gear their response always is not to slow down or even put on the brakes it is to escalate and this is a crisis they're going to try and use it as I said to sort out the problems in the Middle East go after all their problems at once

now we did a programme on spaces we were both invited and if you remember there was various contributions from various commentators there one of them was talking about the July crisis that was in the lead up to the First World War one of the causes of the First World War was that one country Germany

decided that it was was going to try to resolve all his problems at once. So it ended up in a war with France, Britain and Russia all at the same time. And there is something of that, so it seems to me, about the situation that we're looking at now, that go for broke, sort out your problems all at once. If you don't succeed, well, the chances are that your project anyway is not going to succeed anyway. You don't have an indefinite amount of time. So go for broke now. and hope of the best. And that seems to me probably the dominant thinking amongst the neocons at this moment. I don't think it's going to be that easy as the neocons think it's going to be.

Well, that's the other thing. I mean, you've just made an important point. Let's just track on that because that's exactly how it always turns out with all neocon projects. They always start strong. You know, we see the missiles fly, the aircraft fly, the bombs fall. Usually there's enormous excitement and exhilaration in parts of the media over this. And then it all goes wrong. We've seen that story with Iraq twice. We've seen that story with Afghanistan. We've seen that story with Ukraine, Russia.

We're going to see this story all over again. This isn't how politics works. Geopolitics doesn't work like this. What invariably happens is, that whenever you launch this kind of strike, what it always does is it provokes the opposite side to react, and you get in time the pendulum swing. Yeah.

I still wonder if Syria is going to be part of this strike. Of course it is. Contain it to Iran. Well, of course it is. I mean, can I just say we're talking, I mean, bear in mind, there are already attacks on Syria Israel is carrying out air strikes on Syria.

I mean, they launched air strikes on Aleppo airport, for example. I mean, all of this looks like, I mean, you know, all of this looks like a part of this build-up to me, this big operation. If I'm going to say this,

I think for the administration, for the neocons in Washington, the wild card for them is not Syria or Iran or anything like that. The person that, the person they're finding difficult to control is Netanyahu. Netanyahu is under enormous pressure in Israel.

He's constantly having to delay the launch of this ground operation in Gaza because the Americans are telling him to, and we've discussed why, to allow time. But of course, that is fraying nerves and undermining support for him in Israel itself. So he's making all these very, very belligerent statements. He's talking about a ground operation being launched. basically immediately. He said all of this before, but I think they're finding him difficult to control.

And he's already launching air strikes against Syria. And again, that might be happening sooner than the neocons in Washington won. Okay. I would say we could talk about what, maybe we can get into more depth of the possible responses from Iran and China. Russia, but probably it's best to not get it to that.

Well, we could do. I mean, for one thing, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is very speculative at the moment. It's very, yeah. But, but, I mean, one thing, one thing that is happening is, of course, diplomatic action continues to intensify. I mean, we've had a very, very interesting face off yesterday at the Security Council. So both the US and Russia each proposed their respective resolutions. Now, the US resolution had to be amended in order to incorporate a provision,

which said that every side must respect international law, international humanitarian law. I understand the US did not particularly want that at the beginning, but it is there. Even some of US's allies said that they would not support the resolution, the American draft resolution, unless it did that. Now, the United States, because of the way in which the Security Council is constructed, which goes back to the time of the Second World War, has an inbuilt pro-American majority. So the American resolution got 10 votes. Now, I have to say that shows that the United States is losing ground.

I mean, you would normally expect a resolution of this kind to get 13 votes or even more votes. But, you know, China, Russia perhaps opposing it. But this time, it got 10 votes. So some countries are already beginning to peel away, even despite the fact that this resolution made concessions, which the Americans didn't want. But perhaps more alarming for the Russians is what happened, for the Americans rather, is what happened when the Russian resolution was proposed.

Now, the Russian resolution got four votes in favour, which was Russia, China, Gabon and the UAE. Gabon, by the way, voted for both resolutions. I mean, they're sitting on the fence, but they went with the Russian one. But only two countries voted against the Russian draft. They were the United States and Britain. All the other countries abstain. So when the Russians proposed their resolution, their draft resolution, about a week ago,

there were more countries voting against, they're gradually peeling away. The abstention votes are now rising. And it's not difficult to see how eventually you're going to get some of those countries that are currently abstaining, countries like Brazil, of course, Ecuador, others, Muslims, Zambique, that one day eventually they're going to start voting for the Russian resolution. So you can see that the US is losing ground in the Security Council. So one thing that is we're working steadily towards, it's weeks, months away, is that big combined consolidated resolution backed by the Arab League, the African Union.

the ASEAN states, all of them, put to the Security Council if the US vetoes had taken to the General Assembly. And this is something that cannot be underestimated, as I've said before. It may not have the drama of massive fleet deployments, but the US consistently underestimates the effect of these kind of diplomatic moves. Yeah, but as we work towards that big resolution, the buildup continues as well. Yes, yes. I mean, this is, of course, the thing to understand these moves in the UN are not going to prevent whatever it is that the ineocons are planning. I mean, if they want a war, they will get one.

The problem will be when the war goes wrong, then at that stage, they will find that world opinion, which is already framed, world support, which is already beginning to consolidate against them in the UN, is going to suddenly come together and we could get this big resolution coming out in the General Assembly, which it will be very, very difficult indeed at that point politically for the US to oppose. If the US presses on with a war against unanimous, overwhelming votes in the General Assembly,

then you'll start to see support in Europe begin to fray, first on the streets, then perhaps at the level of governments, and then ultimately and eventually you risk running the absolute final diplomatic catastrophe of a vote on the basis of the Uniting for Peace formula, which I think even the United States might find it difficult to defy. So you can start to see one part of the moves that are, that is beginning to take shape. What other things, the Russians, the Chinese,

the Iranians and the others are going to do, I think we should wait and see until events begin to take their course. I mean, jumping too far ahead in a situation like this is unwise because there are just too many unknowns. No, the one thing that I can assure everyone that's watching this video is that if this does take place,

I'll say it again, I hope it doesn't, and I hope we're wrong. But if this is where we're heading towards, it's going to go very wrong for the United States. Yes, yes. That I can guarantee. It's going to go very, very wrong for the United States. You have President Joe Biden and his team. These people are now going to start a huge war in the Middle East while they're bogged down in a proxy war with Russia.

in Ukraine. Yes. And they still continue to talk about Taiwan as well. It's just unbelievable. But this is, this administration is not the administration to, to open up multiple fronts in, in a conflict. I mean, this is the last administration you want in charge to do these types of things. So it's just going to go horribly, catastrophically wrong to the United States. It is going to go horribly and catastrophic.

wrong for the United States. Bear in mind that even at the height of its power in the, you know, the 1950s and 60s, the US was working to divide its adversaries, not to bring them all together, not to start conflicts altogether in one place. The United States should not be trying to do that anyway. But you can already see how dangerous and misguided the rhetoric is, because they are talking all the time now that you must escalate the war in Ukraine and we must keep escalate the crisis in the Middle East because if we don't then the Chinese are more likely to attack us I mean it's the opposite of what the reality is what what they're but in their own mind they think that by starting a war in the Middle East that will make

it easier for them to face down China, whereas of course what it's really going to do is lead the United States massively exposed and massively overcommitted in multiple places. A famous observation attributed to Frederick the Great, he who defends everything, defends nothing. And what the United States is actually doing is it's attacking everyone, what is the administration looks like it's doing, attack everywhere. and of course in the end you will be left with nothing. All right, well leave it there. The durand.orgs.com.

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