The Duran Podcast - Biden White House prepares another forever war

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Biden White House prepares another forever war

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in the Middle East. It looks like we are drifting towards war. And we had the ballistic missile, apparently, allegedly ballistic missile attack on the U.S. airbase in Iraq. And I imagine the neocons are pushing for retaliation from the United States against Iran, who they claim is behind. these missiles hitting this U.S. airbase in Iraq. And we still have the situation with the Houthis where we have gotten reports, I believe from the New York Times as well as the Washington Post, claiming that the Biden White House, they are working on plans to deal with the issue of Yemen from a long-term perspective. They're building long-term plans in dealing with Yemen. So we're heading

towards what could be a very wide, very long in the catastrophic war in the Middle East. Absolutely. Absolutely. Can I just before we begin on the really serious issue, which is the attack on the American base, which is extremely, extremely worrying. I just mentioned how the whole policy in Yemen is illogical to the point of absurdity. The Americans now routinely launching missile and bomb strikes. against the Houthis. The Houthis continue to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea, unless that commercial shipping is Chinese or Russian, which they let go through. And as I understand it, there are now fewer civilian ships passing through the Red Sea than the were when the Americans first started launching their missile strikes on Yemen. It's actually scared ship owners away.

If it was intended to facilitate trade through the Red Sea, it has done the diametric opposite. Then we get Joe Biden asked the question, you know, is this going to stop the Houthis from doing what they're doing, these missile strikes? And he says, no, it's not. But then he goes on to say that, you know, they're going to go on hitting the Houthis anyway. No explanation of that. I mean, the logic of this has baffled everyone. And then Joe Biden, he who supposedly said that he was against forever wars and that he opposed forever wars,

he's now coming, we're now getting reports, that he's planning another forever war this time against the hoothies. Because that's exactly what we're hearing. You know, New York Times, Washington Post, long-term plans for dealing with the problem of the Houthis? What is that, if not another declaration of a forever war? Are American troops going to be sent into Yemen? That would be an incredibly reckless thing to do.

What would the American people think if something like that happens? But why think that launching more missile and bomb strikes on the Houthis in Yemen is going to change anything when already it hasn't and the president himself admits it can't so you know what is american policy in yemen well apparently unending indefinite confrontation in other words as i said another forever war but as a forever war that is happening against the backdrop of what is now clearly a very deteriorating military picture in the middle least. So we got the attack on the Houthis. Then we got this exchange of missile and bomb strikes between Iran and Pakistan. The Iranians undoubtedly see Pakistan as allied with the United States. At least the present government in Pakistan, they perceive it in that way. And then we had first

that Iranian missile strike on those bases, not American bases, but. bases in Erbil near Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. And now we've had this further big strike on this American base, this big American Air Force base in Iraq. Now, if it was carried out with ballistic missiles, and most reports suggest that it was, if it was carried out with ballistic missiles, it is all but inconceivable that Iran itself was not directly involved,

even if those ballistic missiles were launched from within Iraqi territory. Remember, the Iraqi government does not have complete control of Iraq's territory. This has been true ever since the fall of Saddam Hussein. So parts of Iraq controlled by militias, allied to Iran, I can't believe that these militias have the technology or the industrial infrastructure to build precision-guided ballistic missiles that can strike at American bases. So the Iranians must have played a role, because who else would have done, must have played a role in organizing this attack.

The Iranians are still acting, however, in a restrained way. They're not making it clear that it was they who launched this attack. That was why it was carried out from within Iraqi territory. It was apparently again calibrated so as not to kill many Americans. so it was still a measured attack. It is another very, very serious warning to the Americans. Look, we have the missiles. We're able to hit your bases.

We can get through your air defences. Your Patriot missile systems, which are located around this base, weren't able to intercept our missiles. So our missiles can get through. If you are reckless enough and you are really planning an attack on Iraq, which all the information suggests that you are, then we are in a position not only to defend ourselves, but to retaliate and to retaliate directly against your bases.

And we're showing that. We showed that before where we attacked those bases in near Erbil, but those weren't American bases. They weren't protected by your air defense missiles. your Patriot Air Defense Missiles. Now we've shown that we can attack an American air base defended by Patriot Air Defense missiles, and we have that capability.

But unfortunately, as you correctly say, Ignacons will not treat this as a warning. They will see this as a provocation, and they will almost certainly, and they almost certainly are now demanding, counteraction. Well, if we go by the stories, the media reports coming from the collective West, I mean, there obviously is some sort of planning for some sort of strike towards Iran and, as you said, some sort of planning for a forever war. What do you think could be the next

moves from the Biden White House? I mean, will they be able to resist the neocon push, given that they're neocons as well? I mean, you know, they never have. have been able to resist a Neil Kahn push in the past. So I imagine we're heading towards a smash. Indeed, we are. I've no doubt of it. I mean, at the moment, there is a military campaign underway to try to decapitate. This is all the use.

I hate using it, but that's their language, to try and to decapitate the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its operatives in the Middle East. So we've seen attacks on bases belonging to the Islamic, the IRGS, sorry, IRGC in Syria. There was a strike on, in Damascus. Several high-ranking officers of the IRGC have been killed. Of course, the Iranians are certain to take counteraction. It's not going to deter the Iranians. This kind of thing never does.

And so this is, for the moment, you know, the first step. The next one, I suspect, and again, all the indications are that this is coming, is a clash and armed clash with Hezbollah, the militia in Lebanon, major, major battles going on between Israel, the Israeli military and Hezbollah. in Lebanon. And that's likely to become a very intense battle. Again, most people who've been following this think it is unlikely that Israel will be able to gain any quick victory against Hezbollah, probably not any sort of victory at all. But eventually, step by step, we are moving towards that inevitable clash with the Iranians themselves. The economist,

you know, fervid neocon magazine is now saying that, that we are moving step by step closer to an armed clash with Iran. And there was a very disturbing article. I think it was by Robert Clark in the Daily Telegraph, which you remember I've said in the past that the neocons will be saying, you know, don't go after the tentacles of the octopus, because they treat all of these militias, the Houthis, the Esbalah, the militias in Iraq as Iranian proxies. Don't go after the tentacles of the octopus, go after the head, attack Iran itself.

And this article in the Daily Telegraph used almost exactly those words. Only instead of talking about an octopus, he talked about a snake. don't go after the tail of the snake, go after the head, attack Iraq. So you can see that the build-up, the rhetorical build-up is there. The planning is under there. The military strikes are under there.

This is for the moment, the opening moves. But the trajectory is very clear. We're heading towards. a clash with Iran. How does the war in Israel and Gaza fit into all of this? Last week, we did a show on the Saudi peace plan. The Saudis preparing some sort of peace plan in order to de-escalate everything,

because that is the key to de-escalation, right, is a ceasefire and stopping the war in Gaza. You do that and everything de-escalates, you know, overnight immediately. How does all of that factor into? into what's happening now. Well, what we see is the war in Gaza continues exactly as it has been. I mean, maybe there's less bombing going on and that kind of thing, but fighting in Gaza continues. There's been a report.

I think it was in the Wall Street Journal, which says that, you know, Hamas has not been damaged as much as the Israelis have been claiming. Who knows? But anyway, the fighting in Gaza continues. and there is no sign of it ending, and it's going to continue for the Israelis say at least a year. The Biden administration seems incapable of ending the fighting in Gaza. There's seen the diplomatic position of the United States collapse in the Middle East,

and the neocons are saying, you know, our ally Israel is now in peril. So, inevitable, inevitably, given, the weakening of the US diplomatic position and the alarm over this Saudi peace plan and we discuss in that program how Netanyahu's various statements are clearly intended to sabotage this Saudi police plan before it even gets going. But given the risk that this peace plan is going to gain traction,

given the risk of a, unfavorable decision from the International Court of Justice, we could see that the tempo of military operations is growing. And I suspect it will continue to grow. The crisis in Gaza is the origin point of everything else. It was the fuse. It was the lighting, the attack, the fighting in Gaza, the original attack by Hamas upon Israel lit the fuse, which we are now seeing gradually step by step, taking us closer to the big explosion, which is the war, the uncontrolled war between the United States and its allies and Iran. I'm just trying to figure out how does this, if this does,

happen. How does this war play out? I mean, is it the United States and Israel, the U.S., the UK, Israel against the entire region? I mean, yes, you're not looking at a situation anymore where Saudi Arabia is against Iran either. I mean, that's also not. No, no, it's not going to work. That's basically what we have, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, bear something in mind. Whatever the governments might feel in the Middle East, the Arab, governments, Arab public opinion in the event of such a conflict will overwhelmingly support Iran. I mean, that is the one thing you can say absolutely. Now, Arab governments up to now have been willing to, you know, they are wary of their people. I mean, not, you know, there,

there is always that concern, and they've been prepared to set their face in the past against public pressure from the streets. But the situation is very fragile, and a government like Saudi Arabia might have the internal situation fully under control. A government like Egypt might not, and a government like Saudi Arabia might be worried about a crime. in Egypt, which might have further implications and which might spread across the entire Middle East. So given that that is so, it is a certainty that Arab governments will look with horror upon a spread of the wall and spread of the crisis across the Middle East and will come out in strong opposition to any such move. So that inevitably complicates the situation because,

yes, there may be an awful lot of American troops in the Middle East, but they're scattered across many different bases. A lot of them are vulnerable to counterattacks. There are armed militias right across the Middle East. There are armed men right across the Middle East. They're not obviously trained soldiers in the way that the American military are. But when the entire environment is so hostile to you, can you really risk pressing on in this way? Well, if you are the neocon, if you're a neocon, you think you can actually. But those of us who perhaps take a more objection,

view of things, think that this is an incredibly dangerous and reckless policy that is all but guaranteed to end in disaster. But, you know, arguing it like that with the neocons is always a hopeless task. They are always over-optimistic at the start, wildly over-optimistic at the start. They always act as if the other side is bluffing. And when it turns out otherwise, what they always argue for is more escalation because they continue to insist that even if the other side hasn't been bluffing to the extent that they said, it is still in some way bluffing and you can somehow go on calling its bluff. We see this in Ukraine when, you know, neocon after neocon goes off and says, you know, Ignore Russian red lines. Putin's red lines are all the bluff. We can just go on escalating.

They'll be saying the same about Iran before very long. Yeah, a final question. I wonder if the Biden White House sees this as a way of helping him in the election, in the 2024 election. And I wonder if the neocons see this as a way to trap a potential Trump presidency in this conflict. In other words, let's get the war started. Let's get bogged down in this conflict. This is a neocon thinking. And yes, Trump may be able to extract the United States out of the conflict in Ukraine. Maybe he can do that. But if we get this big conflict started in the Middle East by the time November rolls around, not even a Trump presidency. I can see the neocons saying, God help us, but not even a Trump presidency, if he were to be president, we'll be able to

get out of this conflict. I think that's exactly right. I'm sure there are a lot of people who are, in fact, thinking precisely that, because though a conflict in the Middle East would be a disaster for the United States, at least this is my own view, and would be to put it mildly a problem for the Biden campaign given that much of the, especially the younger people who form the Democratic Party coalition, you know, would undoubtedly oppose an all-out conflict in the Middle East. This has the potential, not just to trap Trump if he becomes president, but also to divide his base also, because one thing Republicans of the United States are is that they are very hostile to Iran. They're more hostile to Iran, for example, than they are to Russia.

At least many of them are. So what does Trump do? He finds himself, he finds the United States in a situation of conflict with Iran. If he somehow tries to de-escalate and tries to find a way back, that could split his base and that might be exactly what his adversaries are looking for. It's a very dangerous situation when domestic policy, when foreign policy is used by various factions in a country in order to shape domestic policy and domestic politics.

But that appears to be what is increasingly happening in the United States. All right. dangerous situation. We will leave it there. The durand. Dot locals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, bitch shoot, telegram, Rockfin, and Twitter X. And go to the Duran shop, 15% of all t-shirts. No coupon needed. Take care.