The Duran Podcast - Diplomacy can solve Red Sea blockade

Episode Date: December 23, 2023

Diplomacy can solve Red Sea blockade

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening in the Red Sea with the Yemen, the Houthis. I understand that they don't like that name, but we'll use the term Houthis for this video. That they're, well, they're blocking, essentially their blockade of the Red Sea. and the response from the Pentagon and from Austin putting together a 10 country coalition. And it looks like there's going to be some military response. That's the way it looks. There's a huge military buildup. And of course, you're starting to hear much of the collective West media.

I was watching a Sky News interview the other day in the UK. and they're starting to float out the possibility of extending this further to Iran. Basically, the commentator on Sky News said that, well, Yemen is not really the problem. The real problem is who backs Yemen and the Houthis and that's Iran. So we have to go to the source. So I think that's the fear. That's one of the big fears in all of this is the winding out of the conflict. And you also have reports, by the way, that Russian ships are allowed to cross through

the Red Sea, which I think is an interesting side note development. Anyway, what are your thoughts? Yes, absolutely. I mean, this is exactly right. I mean, the Red Sea crossing. The Houthis. And the economic and the economic implications. If you can talk about that. I mean, the Houthis, and we will stick to the name Houthis. I mean, I believe they call themselves An Sala. But if you start calling them that, nobody will know whom we're talking about, because as far as the world is concerned, they're called the Houthis. And that I say, we say that with apologies. We understand why they don't like being called that. But as I said, we have to be clear to people who we are talking about. So the Houthis have no beef with the Russians. The Russians have never supported the various

wars against Yemen. And of course, on the Gaza crisis, they have been central to trying to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza. And the Houthis appreciate that. So they're not interfering with Russian shipping in the Red Sea. But they are imposing a blockade on others. and they are linking it directly to the events in Gaza. And as you absolutely rightly say, we see this huge naval armada. Now, assembling, and of course the British are there, and I believe the French are there, and some of the other NATO countries are there, and of course the US is going to do all the heavy lifting,

because there may be 40 nations involved, but be under no mistake. It will be the Americans who have to really do the hard work, because nobody else can. I was reading in the Daily Telegraph a couple of days ago that the one big British warship there, HMS Diamond, suffers from periodic total electrical failures. It suffers all sorts of complete loss of power. And that is the warship that the British have sent to this war zone. So, you know, it's not realistically going to do very much. And the same article in the Daily Telegraph also pointed out how limited in some ways its military equipment was.

So huge force is being assembled. And we've discussed this in so many programs, all the way back to the start of the Gaza crisis in October. This enormous buildup of military forces in the military forces in the military. Middle East, two carrier groups, air defense missiles across the Middle East, military marines being deployed to the Middle East. And we've always said in every program that this was a, whatever the push and pull, whatever the arguments that have been going on in Washington, having this enormous number of forces in the Middle East, acts. as a standing opportunity for those who want to escalate the crisis.

It acts obviously as an opportunity for those who want to push the crisis towards a regional war and an attack on Iran potentially in the region itself. It also acts as an invitation to those in the region who want to attack the United States, and that's happening. And of course, and above all and beyond everything else, it acts as a standing invitation and opportunity to the neocons in Washington who want a strike on Iran. And this huge force is now being assembled. It's all been done to protect shipping in the Red Sea. And already we see that there's talk now.

And there is talk now. I've heard it myself about launching a strike on Iraq, because that is supposedly the head of the octopus. Now, you could do things differently. You could work at the Security Council as efforts are being made to do at the moment to try to get a ceasefire in Gaza. You could try it through various third parties to talk to the Iranians and say to them, well, look, We're working to get a ceasefire in Gaza. Can you find some way to calm down the booths? What they're doing is extremely unhelpful.

And can you find a way so that we can de-escalate the situation? It's exactly, by the way, what Donald Trump did after the Soleimani assassination. He opened a back channel to the Iranians. He got the Iranians to get some of their militias in Iraq to back off. and he de-escalated a crisis that seemed to be about to explode them. There's no sign that that is happening this time. We see that the presence of these huge American forces is now increasingly translating into the actual potential use

of these huge American forces, and though it is all supposed to be about commercial shipping in the Red Sea, which is an important issue, by the way, in practice already they're talking about an attack on Iran. So there we go. Okay, so what happens if they attack Yemen? What happens if they attack Iran? I don't think this is going to be as simple or as easy as Lloyd Austin is making it out to be.

Well, of course not. When you listen to Lloyd Austin, he makes it seem like this is going to be a very straightforward operation. Yeah. I don't think that's what's going to happen. No, I don't think so either. I mean, one of the other things that is the consistent pattern of neocon wars is that the neocons, of which, by the way, Lloyd Austin is one, always underestimate the problems. You know, they thought Afghanistan was going to be a, you know, walk in the park. I remember them talking in that way.

Iraq as well, a cakewalk and all that, because it turned out otherwise. And with the Houthis who have been fighting, who are, you know, very tough militia group, I mean, you know, you don't, they're not people you should want to take on. And you're taking on not just the Houthis, but a very, very large population in Yemen that has become very battle-hardened. It's already, I mean, the people there are like the Afghans in some respects. They're mountain people. They're accustomed to using weapons. they're in some ways already, they have a kind of warrior ethos, and they're well organized.

And they also have industrial facilities, which they've been able to protect against, you know, Saudi missiles. So why should they not be able to protect these industrial facilities, to some extent, at least against American missiles? Now, there would be significant economic implications of this. The Red Sea is the access and exit points to the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal remains a major transport artery. Shipping from East Asia with goods for Europe transits through the Red Sea. To some extent, even shipping from Asia that wants to go to other places goes through the Red Sea. The Red Sea is also used to transport oil from places like Russia to East Asia. It goes from the Black Sea through the Straits, Dardanelles, through the Eastern Mediterranean,

through the Red Sea to East Asia. And of course, grain, a lot of the world's grain and food travels through the Red Sea. Remember Russia and Ukraine and the two great big. grain export is especially Russia by the way and a lot of that trade passes through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea so if there is a prolonged blockade of the Red Sea and of the Suez Canal and all of this trade stops it will have serious serious economic implications now it won't mean that all trade will stop there has been previous times there was a period of time between 1967 and

I think it was 1974 that the Suez Canal was completely blocked and world trade continued ships could pass circumnavigate Africa they can do all that kind of thing

but it will add to the cost and it will add to the time and it will increase prices and we are already seen that under the impact of all of this, oil prices have again started to rise. So it will have an economic impact if there is a prolonged conflict in the Red Sea. If you extend this to strikes against Iran, presumably the Iranians will retaliate. You turn both the Persian Gulf, which is a major sea route for oil,

from the Gulf, you turn both the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea into battle zones. What that will do to the oil price, I can't really even begin to contemplate. Sensibly, logically, the Americans should not go here. I don't dispute in any way the Houthis agencies. I don't dispute in any way that the Houthis are indeed launching these attacks. attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. But this was predictable. It was fully predictable that as long as the Gaza crisis continued in the way that it has,

this would happen. The correct way to deal with it is through diplomacy. I've discussed some of the diplomatic mechanisms that could be used, using these huge Western and American task forces in the Middle East to try to resolve to resolve this problem in the way that Lloyd Austin is saying, he's not going to resolve the problem. It could make it worse. Yeah, just put put a ceasefire in place. Put a ceasefire in place. Tell Netanyahu, tell Israel, it's over. It's over. This whole Gaza thing is done and it's time to get to diplomacy. Instead,

They're compounding the problems. Absolutely. Instead of going from one war to zero, they're now making it from one war to two and possibly three wars. Exactly. And, you know, I accept, you know, that there are going to be some people who will say, well, what you do then with Hamas, what you do then with the Houthis. You deal with it after the ceasefire is in place. You go to the Iranians and you say, look, look at what these people did. Hamas launched this attack on Israel without consulting you.

That's what you say. We believe you. That they, they created this crisis in the Middle East. They devastated Gaza. Do you really want to be involved with Hamas? Don't you want to work with us instead to try to bring this organization under control? Can't we work together to have investigations to go after the people who were behind all of this? That's with Hamas and with the Houthis as well. You go along to the Iranians and you say, look, is it really in your interests to have people like that, launch. these attacks on commerce shipping in the red in the red sea we understand that there's these problems in gaza but look we're taking steps to resolve them let's work together to see whether we can find some solution to yemen the long-standing problems in yemen so that we can resolve them once and for all and de-escalate this crisis there and bring this huthy movement also perhaps integrated into the global system and bring it under some kind of control. I mean, it is representative of people

in Yemen. But that's what you do. You don't go around and start launching missiles when the only likely effect of that is going to be that more missiles are going to be launched back at you. Obviously, you have a lot more missiles than the other side does, but do you really want a shooting more in the Middle East? All right. We will leave it there. The durand.com. We are on Odyssey, Rumble, Bitshutle, Telegram, Rockfin, and Twitter X,

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