The Duran Podcast - Biden sinks as war in Middle East escalates

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Biden sinks as war in Middle East escalates

All right, Alexander, let's do a video on Blinken's trip. I think that's what we should focus on. This was an important trip. The diplomacy, just the general diplomacy that has taken place in the Middle East. Lincoln, I guess he's floating out there, a peacekeeper plan, I guess. Maybe this is a plan B. I guess Plan A was people in Gaza, the residents of Gaza, to move south or to go into Egypt.

I guess that was plan A. I mean, the New York Times is reporting on this saying that that was indeed what they were thinking of doing at the beginning of this war. And now we're talking about a peacekeeping force. But after the war is concluded, and he's traveling around the Middle East, pitching this idea. Do I have it right? Is that what's going on?

Well, I think you basically got it right. When I use the word basically, I say, that because what's coming out of the administration are these ideas which are clearly not thought through at all they're coming up also with ideas about humanitarian pauses as well this is not noticed supposed to be a ceasefire it's a pause there are a couple of days and the fighting in Gaza to enable humanitarian relief supplies to go in there's also this talk about peacekeeping forces the trouble is nobody in the Middle East is interested in any of these ideas. And the reason it is they're not interested in these ideas

is because people in the Middle East understand that they're completely detached from reality. They don't reflect the concerns that people in the Middle East have. And to say it straightforwardly, they are essentially shaped. These plans, if they can even call them plans, are principally shaped.

in order to fulfill the domestic political needs of the Biden administration, its own electoral problems, which we're going to come to, I think, later in this program. But briefly, let's start with what Blinken did. So first he went to Israel. He met with Netanyahu, in Tel Aviv, as I understand it. The meeting did not go well. Blinken was bringing with him this idea of a humanitarian, pause and he's been talking about the the the Biden administration has been talking about

humanitarian pauses be clear this is not a ceasefire as I said it's only intended for a couple of days maybe a week to allow supplies to enter in it's clearly intended to get the pressure of Biden from the Arab leaders and also from the Democratic Party people within the the activist base of the Democratic Party. So blinking thumbs along, floats this idea to Netanyahu of a humanitarian pause. Netanyahu entirely predictably, immediately shoots it down. He says, no way, this is not what I'm going to do. I'm not interested in this idea at all.

And not only, am I not going to, interested in this idea? if you're talking even about any kind of ceasefire or cessation of hostilities, its only purpose will be for Hamas to release all of its hostages without any conditions. We need to sort of stop the fighting for a short time to get those hostages safely released. And then, of course, once the hostages are released, then the fighting can resume. And that was what Netanyahu said. So he absolutely trashed Blinken's ideas. But he also trashed Blinken

because then they were going to have a press conference together and Netanyahu refused to turn up. So you can already see that Netanyahu has absolutely no time for Blinken at all. So then Blinken heads off to Amman and there is a big meeting with Arab foreign ministers. The foreign ministers, Jordan, Egypt, the Yashire. UAE, Qatar, I believe, all of these countries, they're there to meet him, the acting Prime Minister of Lebanon.

He's also there. And again, he's talking not so much now about humanitarian pauses, but he wants to impress the Arab leaders. He says, look, we've got to try and find some kind of solution for what happens in Gaza once Hamas has been defeated. so why don't we all get together and agree to send a peacekeeping force to Gaza made up from, you know, your countries? And the Arab leaders collectively said to him,

you must be kidding. What are you talking about? We have a battle going on in Gaza. The priority for us is to stop that. So we want a ceasefire. We want it now. Why aren't you working to get a ceasefire from the Israelis? And yes, this time, there was a press conference.

The Arab foreign ministers did attend it. And Lincoln gets publicly trashed all over again. Now he's flown off to Turkey. Again, not clear why he's going exactly to Turkey at this time. Personally, given the kind of rhetoric that's coming from Erdogan, I personally would have given Turkey at this moment a wide berth. There's been, as you know, protesters in Shirlik where there's the US base. Crowds have tried to enter in Shilik.

Anyway, he's come to Turkey. He arrives in Istanbul. Only one official shows up. And he's the deputy governor of Istanbul province. The foreign minister, he's not there. The president, he's not there. The prime minister is not there. Again, he is being shown.

colossal disrespect from the Turkish authorities and from Erdogan himself. So he is being humiliated and all right, you know, Blinken perhaps not somebody one should take especially seriously. But of course he is the US Secretary of State. Through the humiliation of Lincoln, the United States itself is being humiliated in completely different ways. The Israelis, the Arabs and now the Turks. are all telling him we have no respect for you at all. And these ideas that you're coming up with, they don't interest us. The Israelis are not interested in the humanitarian pools.

The Arabs are not interested in talking about a peacekeeping force. The Americans are just talking, the administration is just talking to itself. It is not addressing the serious problems that exist in the Middle East. And it is completely losing respect. Yeah, there's no plan. In other words, there is no plan. There's no plan. I mean, there is a simulation of a plan.

You talk about humanitarian force. Nobody is interested in that. The Israelis aren't interested in it. The Arabs aren't interested in it. You're talking about a peacekeeping force. The Arabs are not interested in it. I doubt the Israelis seriously are. Nobody is interested in talking about these things.

The Arabs want a ceasefire, the Israelis want to destroy Hamas. Those are the things that people in the Middle East are concerned with. The administration wants to have it both ways. They don't want to call for a ceasefire, so they talk about a humanitarian pause, and instead of talking about a ceasefire with the Arabs, they try to pull the wall over the eyes of the Arabs, and by the way, of the activist wing of the Democratic Party. in the United States by talking about a peacekeeping force.

But these aren't real plans. These aren't real ideas. And what they do is they project weakness. Well, they can't say the word ceasefire. No. They did it to themselves. They prohibited any leaders in the collective West from using the word ceasefire. I mean, they said, don't use the word ceasefire.

So now Blinken's running around saying pause, humanitarian pause, and no one's buying it. And Netanyahu is saying, no ceasefire. I mean, he's saying the word, no ceasefire. Blinken is running around saying humanitarian pause. Yes. Yes. It's nonsense. It's his absolute nonsense.

And Biden's polling numbers are plummeting. I mean, he's losing to Trump in all of the, I think, five out of six, not all five out of six of the major swing states, according to a New York Times poll, Biden is losing by big margins. Yes. Yes. And the longer this goes on for, the worst it becomes. Because what has happened is that the activist base of the Democratic Party, you know, the same people who are protesting, remember all those protests back in 2020, the summer and autumn of 2020, they're now becoming engaged in all of this thing. It's not difficult to understand why. If you think about their sort of political, ideological, positions. I don't want to go into the details of all of this. But they're beginning, they're starting to conflate all of that with the Palestinian issue. And so we now have big, big protests outside the White House, all of these people coming out, coming together, speaking out against what the administration is doing, starting to blame Biden himself for.

for the violence in Gaza, the Israeli attacks on Gaza. And I'm going to say something now, which goes back to history. This is exactly what happened in the 1960s. In the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson's administration, eventually, when it went into Vietnam, found that the activist base of the Democratic, party, the people who were supporting at that time, the civil rights movement and all those things, they began to conflate their issues in the United States with the war in Vietnam. And of course,

it proved fatal to him. And eventually he had to stop his campaign for the presidency and the Democratic Party convention in Chicago in 68 was absolutely trashed. And of course, the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, who was, by the way, as unpopular amongst the people who today disliked Donald Trump, the same type of people in the 60s, hated Nixon. Again, not entirely obvious or clear why in hindsight, even more strange why. But anyway, those, despite all of that, despite all the animus, eventually, of course, Nixon won. And it's going to look increasingly. It's including increasingly as if Donald Trump is going to win as well. Netanyahu probably doesn't care about Biden's position,

which is why Netanyahu is not all concerned about accommodating Blinken either. I mean, you know, Netanyahu doesn't like Biden. He hates Biden. I don't know what his relationship is with Trump anymore, but I imagine that outside of the leaders in the Middle East, Netanyahu's also going to to be a big problem for the Biden White House in the election cycle as far as resolving the war in Israel. You're completely correct.

The fact is, I mean, Netanyahu got on well with Trump, and I expect that if Trump is elected. They had a bit of a falling out towards, I mean, recently, I think. Yeah, absolutely. During his term, he was okay. Yeah.

It was that they got, on well with each other. And I suspect that despite this, you know, some sort of tensions and spats that have happened between them, they are, they, you know, Netanyahu says to himself, well, if Trump wins. I mean, I can't stand Joe Biden. This is, by the way, the general story right across the Middle East. No one likes Joe Biden. The Arabs and the Israelis are all agreed about one thing. None of them likes Joe Biden. None of them likes this administration. So from that point of view, from the perspective of all of these leaders, but especially perhaps of Netanyahu, you know, Donald Trump, president of the United States, bring it on. The Saudis got on well with Donald Trump. The Israelis got on well with Donald Trump. NBS and Donald Trump were friends. Netanyahu and Trump, when Trump was president, were friends. So, you know, from that Netanyahu's point of view, you're absolutely correct.

The Biden administration, right at the start of this thing, effectively gave him a blank check. They can't really walk that back. If they do, they become exposed to a completely different set of political problems. So Netanyahu is simply cashing the check he's been given, and if that's causing problems for Biden in the meantime, Well, why does he care? Politically speaking,

it is only going to replace a president he dislikes and despises and disrespects with the president that he liked and got on with. So you can entirely see why Netanyahu, despite what people say about him, is a clever man why Netanyahu is taking the position that he is. Yeah, but the problem with Trump is the Iran problem. And one of the big mistakes, that the Biden White House made is that they, they bundled into this war, this conflict, Iran.

And they started to move all of the military assets into the Mediterranean. And they started with, and Blinking, when he was in Iraq, he also once again warned Iran. So, I mean, they mixed in this whole Iran-Hamas thing, probably. probably because the neocons saw their opening to get a conflict with Iran, which is something they still want and they're still pushing for. Trump would, my guess would be that Trump would be okay with something, some sort of strike. Maybe not a conflict with Iran, but I would imagine that Trump could be convinced to do something to Iran.

I don't know what that is, but I would say that Trump is probably averse to war. fallout war, but some sort of strike into Iran, I think he could be convinced to do that. So, you know, I think even with Trump, but Netanyahu would be okay with a conflict with Iran. I think that Netanyahu has no problem with that. But, you know, even with the Trump presidency, you know, you have the Iran issue. Yes. And a conflict or an escalation with Iran, which is a problem, a huge problem. Of course it is. Of course it is. It's a huge problem, and it is the danger that is looming all right. behind this whole crisis because at the moment it's clear that the Iranians are doing everything

they possibly can up to the point that they can to stay out of this affair. Now that was what, you know, we both said, what happened. We both said, we said it in many places. We said it on when we did that program with Elon Musk and David Sachs, that Iran does, is not looking for a war. the United States. And I think this is an important thing people need to understand. And Hassan Azraala, who did this, who was the leader of Hezbollah, he gave a speech over the weekend, I think it was the weekend, in which many people had been expecting, that it was going to be a fire, breathing, war, preparing speech, setting out all kinds of red lines, you know, preparing, in other words, Hezbollah, to join the battle on Hamas's behalf. And to many people surprised,

but not, I think, to ours. He did the opposite. He basically said, you know, we're with Hamas, we're all of that, but we weren't involved, we weren't consulted by Hamas about their attack on the 7th of October. We're absolutely nothing to do with that. Iran had nothing to do with that, and we're not looking for a wider war.

I mean, that's essentially the message of what he gave. But, of course, the Iranians are one thing. I think Netanyahu at the moment he's probably got his plate full with Gaza. I'm not actually sure that he personally wants a fight with Iran. The Hawks, the neocons within the administration, almost certainly do. And notice, Blinken says all of these things. Now the Eisenhower, the second American aircraft carrier, has arrived in the eastern Mediterranean.

We have this enormous build-up. I believe there's 11, 11 Ali-Birk-class destroyers in the Middle East as well. This is a colossal force that is being gathered there. And what gets the sense again, Blinken warns Iran, but there's no real plan about warning, about getting into a war with Iran, because the administration, if he did think about that, a few days ago. They have perhaps drawn back from it to a certain extent. At the moment, they are talking peace and humanitarian pauses, that they are not talking with the Iranians.

They have no control over the situation. The situation has every potential to spiral out of control at any time. Nasrallah's speech was intended, I think, also to try to exert discipline over his own fighters, but it's clear that many of them are becoming increasingly restive. So the administration could find itself in a war with Iran that some people in the administration want, but others don't and which they haven't properly planned for. Now, we With Donald Trump, again it was different. He didn't like Iran. He obviously made it quite clear that he wanted to see regime change in Iran.

He imposed enormous sanctions on Iran. He pulled out of the JCPOA. And yet, in spite of doing all of these things, he talked to the Iranians. And this is the thing people often overlook. So when he had Soleimani assassinated and the Iranians launched missiles in retaliation at American basis, Trump was on the phone and he didn't speak directly to the Iranians

but he was able to convey to them that, look, provided you calibrate your response at this level, I will make sure that it doesn't go beyond that. So Trump had that ability. This administration does not. They have all of these different things going, pulling in different directions but there is no overall plan,

no overall control and the situation becomes more dangerous and in the meantime within the United States itself. People are perceiving the vacuum, the policy vacuum at the centre

and they're becoming angry and that's why we see these protests outside the White House why even Bernie Saunders apparently is now speaking out and why the president's polling numbers are collapsing. Yeah, Bernie Sanchez kind of like, he still can't say the words ceasefire. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. It's pretty ridiculous, yeah.

I know, I know. Democrat Party is cracking. Yeah, there's no doubt it's cracking and it's dividing. And yeah, through the Swiss embassy, Trump spoke with the Iranians. I remember the Soleimani affair and no doubt the assassination of Solomon. was coordinated, I believe. I think we analyzed it really well that incident. That, you know, it was the neocons and the Mike Pompeo's, the Bolton's. These were the guys that, that seemed to have been orchestrating the entire Soleimani thing. But yeah, I'm trying to think if there's

anything else that we need, that we need to cover with diplomacy that's taking place. Well, I'm going to say so. I don't, I mean, just a real quick comment, a quick question for you. I don't think the Biden White House can overcome this, this, this, like, as you could call it, an election collapse that is taking place. I mean, I don't see how they're going to win back the Arab or the Muslim American vote or the Generation Z vote for that matter. I don't think they can fix this. No. I worry that they might actually go for the Iran option because they've got no other cards to play.

This is exactly what I think is the real danger. Now, can I just if you're talking about diplomacy? I mean, we've had more terrifying statements coming from Israeli officials, including a minister from the Israeli government talking about using nuclear weapons. Now, that is completely unacceptable language. Why isn't the administration saying that? I mean, again, that again tells us about the fact that there is a policy gap, that they really don't know what to do at the moment. And Europe, in the meantime, let's be also clear about this,

bad as things are in terms of what the administration is doing, well, Europe has just gone absent without leave. I mean, you know, they provide funding to the Palestinians, They provide funding to the Israelis. We have Schultz saying one thing. We have Borel, something saying something completely different. We have Ossula making visits trips to the Middle East, which don't help. But the Europeans are nowhere in this matter.

And I think that just bears repeating. But coming back to the administration, I completely agree with you. I think there is no turning for this round now. I think also probably we're going to see more problems in the US economy anyway over the next couple of months. But the spectacle of disorganisation and chaos that we've seen from the administration is, I think, starting to hear home. And of course, what it is doing is it is antagonising everybody. Nobody in the Middle East has any respect. In the United States, supporters of Israel are becoming frustrated,

supporters of Palestine are becoming also frustrated. We have protests outside the White House, the polling numbers indeed are collapsing, exactly as you say. And I'm afraid you're absolutely correct. I mean, we've discussed this previously, and we've discussed this, I think, on our respective channels. As things begin to get worse, the neocon, especially if they're starting to worry that Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States.

And of course we know what they feel about Donald Trump. They're going to say to themselves, going after Iran, this is our last chance. Donald Trump isn't going to let us do it. He's going to be in a stronger position than he was when he was elected in 2016. So this time we have to launch that strike. Let's do it. attack Iran that's trying to engineer some kind of regime change there a regime change war and who knows if it works that will perhaps be the one thing that enables us to turn the electoral

dynamics round and get Joe or Kamala or whoever the Democrats come up with it across the finishing line into the White House so this This collapse in support for the President actually might open up the risks of escalation. And by the way, at a more controlled level, something like that was also happening in the 1960s, in the sense that as the pressure on the President began to increase in the 1960s on Lyndon Johnson, his instinct and that if he's a advisers was to actually escalate in Vietnam. You increase the bombing to send in more troops in the hope that they could turn things around fast and of course they weren't able to and instead

his political position collapsed. So the danger of escalation this time is very, very real at multiple levels. We see that the Iranians are having difficulties controlling their own proxies. There's probably divisions anywhere in Tehran between those who want to see an escalation. There are people in Tehran, some people in Tehran who might actually welcome an escalation, and we should not ignore that. So there's problems on that side, but there are very evidently bigger problems on the other in terms of what's going on in Washington. Yeah, absolutely.

You know, the thinking could very well be maybe we strike. in Iran and we could deliver a quick victory on some level or or a quick regime change in which Biden, you become the wartime hero, perhaps. That's what they could be whispering to the Biden White House. Or they could also make the argument, you know, the American people are going to be a bit more hesitant about voting you out of office during a war. Yeah. I mean, they can make that argument as well. So, I mean, there's no other cards that he can play anyway. So, you know, they could easily be whispering in his ear, you know, this is, this is your only chance to get through this at this point in time because nothing else is going to change the sentiment to the trajectory

that has taken over now with Biden and the Biden White House. Yeah. Yes. Now, can I just also say something else? I mean, we've been saying before, we said it's some weeks and months ago. I remember you specifically saying that the Democratic Party, this was back in the early summer, and needed to decide quickly what to do with the Joe Biden issue. And you pointed out that time the clock was running and if they were going to persuade him to go and get someone else to run in his place, then they needed to act and act then.

Well, they didn't do it. They've left it too late now. And the clock is now run out. We're into the primary season in a few weeks. It's too late. And they left it too late in the 60s with Lyndon Johnson. And as I said, there was a disastrous campaign in 1968 and a disastrous convention in 1968.

And this at a time when the Democratic Party was far stronger politically than it is today. This time, I don't really see any coming back for that. They botched it, they dropped the ball with Joe Biden, and this is the problem they have. They've got a crisis in the Middle East that he and his administration are completely unsuited to handling, and they're getting a collapse coming in Ukraine.

We'll discuss that in another program. And, of course, they have a president who's all at sea and doesn't really know what to do about any one of these problems. And with the national security team, which is the most incompetent I can ever remember in post-war American history. Yeah, Bill Crystal over the weekend, Chief Neocom, Bill Crystal, said that Biden needs to leave now. And I think Axelrod as well, David Axelrod also said that Biden needs to leave now, no second term. So, I mean, there are voices that are saying right away, because we've run out of time, but right away, Biden needs to step aside.

I mean, yeah, absolutely. It's too late. I mean, two or three. I mean, I don't know, maybe. Well, but the damage is done. If you, if you get him to step down now without an agreed successor, and Kamala Harris is not an agreed successor, then what you're going to do is you're going to throw open the entire primary season.

And there's no clear idea, there's no clear picture of who's going to come out of that. And whoever does eventually come out of that is probably not going to be a convincing alternative to Donald Trump, who is so far ahead of all other Republican challenges in the primaries, the Republican primaries, that there is simply no challenge. So they've left it too late. This is my view. Yeah. Which worries me because I think they might actually take the war option.

Exactly. That is the problem. What happens in the United States now? Oh, it's a big issue. It always is, because it is, after all, still, the United States. But what happens in the Middle East is the urgent priority. And with what is increasingly looking like a collapse in the President's diplomacy, I mean, there is no diplomacy.

What Lincoln is doing in the Middle East isn't diplomacy in any meaningful sense. what Henry Kisinger did in the early 70s, when everybody wanted to meet with him. There was no question then of the Prime Minister of Israel, not wanting to turn up at a press conference with Henry Kishencher. There was no question of the President of Turkey not condescending to meet or send one of his ministers to the airport to receive the, you know, Henry Kisinger.

Anyway, and the same was true, by the way, of every other. single US Secretary of State since that time. Well, what we're seeing now isn't diplomacy. It's just a simulation of it. Just as a humanitarian pause isn't a ceasefire. It's a pretend ceasefire. And the Gaza Peacekeeping Force is a fantasy as well. It's not an agreed plan.

It's not one that's been properly discussed with the Arab governments. It's just something that, you know, has come, I suspect, from Jake Sullivan's ever fertile brain. But it's just, as I said, him and the people around him talking to themselves. Their big plan was a peacekeeping force. I think that tells you everything. Okay. We'll end it there. The durand.

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