The Duran Podcast - Biden White House diplomacy backfire. Tracking the USS Eisenhower

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

Biden White House diplomacy backfire. Tracking the USS Eisenhower

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the war in Israel and Gaza, and I guess we could talk about the Eisenhower entering the Gulf. What's going on there? And of course, we have a whole lot of diplomacy happening in the Middle East. Blinken was in Israel. And my general sense of of this is pretty much what we've been saying for the past two, three weeks. We've been pretty consistent in saying this, which is that the Biden White House, they've made a mess of the policy in Israel. Medellin Yaku has made a mess of things. And it seems like the Biden White House is trying to figure out a way to exit this, but there are other forces involved, which perhaps are not so keen on exiting. And maybe one of those forces is Netanyahu himself, the man.

But the more this war continues, the worse it gets for Israel in the United States. After me, I mean, for Gaza, it's a horrific tragedy. But this is not going the way the U.S. and Israel probably thought it would go. No. And can I just say, I mean, you know, we've, it's not been an easy conflict to cover. But I think the results, that we see at the moment, where we are at this moment, this particular point in time, if you go back and look at all our programs, right from the start of this affair,

this particular twist in the fighting, you can see that we were saying that it would probably arrive at this point, provided there wasn't that greater escalation across the Middle East, which is a real potential possibility, that if it was just confirmed, find to Gaza, we would find ourselves in this particular situation where there is this kind of ceasefire. It's a very odd and complicated ceasefire. You can sense that some people in Israel

want to end it and to resume the fighting. The Biden administration has suffered enormous political damage both within the United States. There was even a meeting in which Biden apparently apologised to Muslims, to American Muslims, for appearing to question the figures of the numbers of people killed in Palestine, in Gaza, which is an astonishing thing to happen, by the way. But you can see that they are suffering political damage in the United States, and they have seen their whole political position in the Middle East, massively damaged as well.

I mean, they flirted. Well, they didn't flirt. They spied back at the beginning, these ideas of people being relocated from Gaza into Sinai. The Arab states at absolutely north. They've now had to accept that. We've had a whole series of conversations between Biden and Arab leaders, Al-Sisi, especially, the Egyptian leader, accepting that that's not going to happen. we see the ceasefire and you get every sense that the administration basically wants to see the ceasefire continue because it's getting them, it's at least limiting the political damage. And there are reports that Egypt and Saudi Arabia are now working very hard together. And they're obviously both now going to be brick states before long. And they're working very hard to get this ceasefire confirmed by Security Council resolution.

So all of that is now playing out very much as we sort of expect it. But in some ways, an even more interesting development. And I don't want to downplay the significance of what's going on in Gaza because it is the epicenter of this. But for me personally, perhaps I should say a more interesting development is tracking the movements of the USS Eisenhower. It's a very powerful carrier. The United States has deployed two carrier task forces to the Middle East.

It's deployed missiles in the Middle East. It's provided for a deployed aircraft in the Middle East. Those decisions all were taken at the start of October. They are all consistent. And we said this before, and I want to repeat this again, they are all consistent with plans for a massive strike on Iran. and that was clearly where events were going in early October or would have gone had the demands of the neocons within the administration being heeded. And it's clear that those people in the first weeks were very, very much in the ascendancy.

And the Eisenhower is now in the Persian Gulf and it's locating precisely in the area. where it would be, we would expect to see it if there was a plan to launch big air strikes against Iran. Now, as I said, I think this is probably the product of decisions made in October. But the fact that it is there at all, the fact that it is backed by this enormously powerful nuclear submarine with its 150 Tomahawk cruise missiles, gives you a sense of what was originally planned and of how dangerous the situation in October actually was. It's a combination of extremely skillful diplomacy by the Muslim states, the Arab states in particular, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan,

they played perhaps the key role. And of course the BRIC states, the Chinese and the Russian, Russians, together with protests in the United States, but more especially, I think, the diplomacy, which has brought us from that ring, brought us back from that ring. Yeah, what risk do you think there is that this is not a result of decisions made in October where the Eisenhower is located, and perhaps there still is that impulse to launch a strike towards Iran. I'm confident that the decisions were made in October, but bear in mind something.

The fact that the Eisenhower is now in the Persian Gulf shows that no one up to this point has countermanded those orders. I mean, it's been positioned in the Persian Gulf. It's ready for a strike against Iran. The reason the strike against Iran isn't happening is because nobody's yet given the order that it should happen. The danger always is in this kind of situation that somebody will at some point push and demand that the order be given. And that tells us that the situation still, despite the fact that there's all these signs that some people are trying to dampen the situation to bring it back under control, to bring the Gaza situation back under control,

to accept that the objectives that Netanyahu, with Biden's backing, set out right at the start, you know, going into Gaza, obliterating Hamas entirely, changing things, the entire situation they're completely. Even though those plans

for the moment have been abandoned, there's still not been a political decision, a full political decision to call off the idea of a strike against different. Iran. So the Eisenhower has been allowed to steam all the way to the Persian Gulf and it is there. And nobody so far, nobody yet has made the order to pull it back. And that's incredibly dangerous. It tells you that that argument in the White House, in the administration, is still ongoing. There are still tensions and that there are still people.

within the administration who are still hanker for that strike on Iran. So, you know, this is, this crisis is far from over. And I think, you know, at the moment the trajectory is towards some kind of stabilisation, but people should not, should not, you know, assume that it is over yet. I just wanted to say yesterday, we did on the Duran a program. It's not yet, I think, been published. Colonel Lawrence Wilkison. It's been published. It's been published, okay. But anyway, if people see it, I mean,

he talks about the neocons that he had to deal with within the US government. And he said that at one point they were planning seven wars. But actually, planning seven wars, and he was in the Pentagon, and he was listening to people, you know, in all seriousness, planning seven wars, one after the other.

he also described what it was actually like dealing with these people, you know, the visivorous, angry way that they behave, the rudeness and the arrogance that they behave. And those people are still there. I mean, he had to deal with them before, but, you know, they're still there. He had comments to make about Victoria Newland, who he clearly knows. So he knows President Biden himself, by the way. He mentioned him. So you could see that this group is still there.

You see how militant and dangerous they are. And all their weapons are in place. And they are still uncomfortably close to the trigger. So this crisis is far from over. Yeah, it's a very, very dangerous situation. And you know, the neocons, they're not going to let it go. easily because this is as close as they've gotten, at least from what I can remember, to getting one of the most coveted wars they've been trying for, which is a war with Iran. I mean, the neocons,

they have been wanting a war with Iran forever, it seems, and they're so close to getting it. So I don't think they're going to let this go too easily. I imagine there's a lot of debate and discussion in the White House to try and get something. going towards, towards Iran. But what kind of, what kind of a role do you think the, the media, the optics, the information war played in, in Israel and getting to the Biden White House to effectively say, you know, we're, we got to find an off-ramp to this. Because it seems like the images, the videos, the, the, the horrors that the entire world is, is seeing in Gaza, it seems like this is, this is in one of the driving forces to get the Biden White House to,

to, to seek some sort of prolonged ceasefire and eventually some sort of stabilization. A Biden White House that is consumed with its, with, with, with, with, with, with, optics and with the media's perception of the administration. I mean, this is a top priority for them and all of these horrific images and even the labeling of Biden, genocide Joe that they call him. I mean, this is this has been a driving factor in getting to some sort of de-escalation. Absolutely. It's very like, you know, what happened to LBJ, Lyndon Johnson in the last, you know, just before he had to pull out. You know, there were the protesters. used to go and chant all kinds of things about Lyndon Johnson, you know.

And if you compare the chance of that time with the chance that have been made about Biden now, you can see the similarities. The language and the accusations are very, very similar. And what happened, what's happened is the Justice, LBJ in the 60s lost control of the media, lost control of the narrative. Remember, these people are obsessed with narratives. He lost it in the 60s, and Biden and his team lost it this time, because the fundamental problem, the thing they didn't take into account,

was firstly that a lot more of the world cares about what goes on in Gaza and the Palestinian territories, the Muslim world cares. You can't control it in the way that you can control so many other things. And I think they also badly misjudged some of the sentiments amongst some of the grassroots in the Democratic Party. And that eventually had an effect on the media in the United States as well. And that had a snowball effect. And it got out of control. And it put the entire administration on the defensive.

And it's played a decisive role. because for this administration, more than any other in the history of the United States, well, perhaps the Obama administration was similar, but media control is everything. That is what they're obsessed with. Obama, to a certain extent, what a great extent was, this lot are obsessed with it even more. You know, they're entirely post-modernists.

I mean, they believe that, you know, the narrative, if you can get the narrative accepted, it becomes the truth. And so then the fact that the narrative was going in the wrong direction and basically hold them. I mean, they were shot under the waterline. They couldn't really survive this. And that is why they changed. But of course, if we go back to the neocons,

first of all, they're less bothered about that kind of narrative. than the Biden team are. Because the neocons aren't into the business so much of winning elections because they have a presence in both parties. They've got Nikki Haley now, you know, rising and all that. So that's not what their concern is. And besides, they're worried

that the administration is going to lose the election next year and that a new president, say Donald Trump is going to come in and bring, you know, the whole thing to a stop. Well, given that they're so close to getting their war, that is going to make them even more determined to try to get their war now, rather than have it taken from them possibly forever.

So, you know, you've got to always remember that there are these people there, and they are extremely difficult to control and content. Colonel Wilkinson said how difficult to control they actually. are and how impossible to argue with they actually are and they will be running amok at the moment there will be furious rounds going on in the you know in the executive in in the west wing in the national security council in the pentagon in the state department you can imagine the anger and the fury and stamping of feet and banging on desks that's probably happening

and the bad language that has been used also. Yeah. Media control is baked in the cake with the Biden White House. It's baked into the man himself. You know what I mean, it starts with him, the obsession with controlling the media and the narrative. So it's no surprise that they're so obsessed with the media narrative when it comes to this war as well.

And it's backfired in a big, big way. They misjudged everything with regards to, to this way. They probably thought that it was going to go along the lines of of Project Ukraine, where in the beginning, and even to a certain extent, even today, the Biden White House does have a pretty good handle on the media narrative. It's starting to crumble now, but we're two years into the conflict in Ukraine. So they probably thought that what they did in Ukraine, all the all the fake news, siege of Kiev, ghost of Kiev, all that stuff, that they could probably do the same thing in, uh, in Gaza, but it didn't work out.

I wonder why. I wonder what was different about, about Gaza that's, well, that wasn't there in the, in the first year, say, of, of project Ukraine. Two things. Two things. The first is, um, as I said, the fact that an awful lot more people care about this war. Then I, I have to say this care about Ukraine. I mean, the, the last is.

There's not an easy thing to acknowledge because it is a war. And many, many, many more people have died in Ukraine than in Gaza. And, you know, just saying that. But nonetheless. Military. Military people. Not civilian. Not civilian.

It's a reverse. We'll come to that. Civilians, it's the robot. Just to clarify. You're talking about the totality of the number of people. It is a much bigger conflict, but people aren't personally and emotionally invested in it to the same degree. That's one. that the other thing, and this has come straight to the point you've just made,

is the way in which this operation was conducted, the enormous amount of bombing. And, you know, I've read pieces, and I think it was the Financial Times, which talked about indiscriminate bombing, the hundreds of buildings destroyed, the pictures of people being killed, the people, pictures of children, and all of that.

There was just far too much of that. coming over far too shorter time for the Biden White House to be able to control that. And I think what ultimately was decisive in them losing control of the media on this was that the humanitarian agencies and the US secretariat ultimately rebelled. Some of their people, of course, have also been killed in all of this. and faced with this overwhelming problem in Gaza, they came out and started to speak straightforwardly and openly about what was happening.

And that was what caused the whole media control thing to collapse. It was entirely predictable, by the way. I mean, I remember if you go back and watch our early programmes, they predicted that something very like this would actually happen. Yeah, the UN Secretary, yeah. Absolutely. The UN secretary. Yeah, you said something in your, yeah, you said something in your locals,

just to wrap up the video in your locals exclusive, where you said that if only, I'm trying to remember what you said, if only they saw how Putin, or what's happened in Gaza and in Israel, has really shown, has really put the spotlight. on how Russia conducted its war in Ukraine. I mean, you can really see the differences, and it really shows the way that Russia conducted the war, as opposed to the way Netanyahu and Israel has conducted this war.

Absolutely. It highlighted the contrasts, and it, I mean, it showed the incredible intelligence and discipline with which the Russians conducted the war, which meant that the whole world, the whole world, ultimately, apart from the collective West, is quietly backing them.

And the contrast with the unintelligent and ruthless way, indiscriminate way with which the Israel, and it must be said, the United States, got involved in this affair in Gaza. I mean, you know, Putin and his team, We must not just Putin, but the general staff, the foreign ministry, all of these people, they sat down and they thought it out. They thought it out very carefully.

They've been relentlessly criticised by all kinds of people for keeping their gloves on, not taking their gloves off, not attacking in all directions and destroying everything and smashing up everything. Well, we could see how that has played politically. to their advantage and how it is increasingly doing so. And we see the contrast with the way in which the US and Israel are now very, very much on the back foot. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. All right, the duran. Dot locals.com.

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