The Duran Podcast - Iran show of force, calibrated warning

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

Iran show of force, calibrated warning

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the Iran missile strikes that they launched the other day into Iraq, into airbill. And they hit, according to sources in Iran, they hit the targets that they were aiming for. I believe we're talking about a Mossad airbase. We're talking about some Kurdish targets, as well as the residents of a very prominent. prominent Kurdish businessman who was running a company, a group of companies known as the Empire and Falcon group of companies, which was tied into the military industrial complex and a lot of the military activity in Iraq, I guess, is what was going on here. Anyway, the retaliation was in response to the missile strike was a retaliation in response

to the terrorist attack in Iran a couple of weeks ago during the Soleimani. Soleimani anniversary event. But what do you make of these missile strikes into Iraq? Do you think there'll be some sort of retaliation from the United States? There's some question marks about whether U.S. diplomatic missions or consulates or even air bases were hit or targeted. I don't know. There are some question marks in and around that as well. So what do you make of Iran's retaliation?

I think this was a show of force, and I think this was also intended as a warning. Now, we've had, obviously, the event of Soleimani's, in the cemetery in Soleimani's, near, you know, when all those hundreds of people were killed by, you know, bombs, suicide bombs, apparently. We've also had the missile strikes on the Houthis, which were carried out openly by the United States.

United States and Britain. We've also had accompanying threats. I mean, I can only call them threats, coming especially from the British government, speaking quite straightforwardly now about, you know, possible attacks on Iran. I mean, we've had comments from the British Foreign Secretary, David Cameron. We've had comments from the British Defence Secretary, Grand Shaps, and we know always that within the United States there are people who want to strike on Iran. And we see a pattern of escalation now taking hold in the Middle East. As we've had the strike on the Houthis. The Houthis themselves have now countered.

They've launched a missile strike on an American warship. The missile was intercepted, but the point is that the attack took place. there's been further hooty attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. So they're ignoring the American warnings. They're not impressed by these American missile strikes. And we've discussed in many programs how the logical endpoint of all this escalation is an American attack on Iran, which, as I said, some people, Grant Shaps, David Cameron are sort of hinting at,

and which other people, John Bolton, for example, example, are openly advocating. So what the Iranians have done in response is that they've launched missile strikes of their own. They have been very, very careful to select their targets. So they have not attacked American targets. They have not sought to kill Americans or wound Americans. They don't want an attack of that nature to happen which people like Bolton and Lindsay Graham and the British government would seize on and say, right, you know, this shows how aggressive and dangerous Iran is and we need to counter these strikes. The Iranians are killing our people. So let's launch attacks on the Iranians and prevent them from killing our people in the

that kind of a way. So it's a very calculated and measured strike, but it demonstrates again Iran's capabilities. It shows that Iran has long-range missiles, that these missiles are very precise, that they're able to attack specific targets, that if there's an all-out war in the Middle East, Iran has the ability to launch strikes of its own against potentially American positions right across the Middle East and also potentially, now presumably American warships. So it's a warning and it's a show of force. Yeah, and missiles and drones were used in these strikes.

So, yeah. What do you make of the targets that they chose? Well, again, they were very... What we know of, what we know of the targets that they chose. I mean, they are interesting and no doubt important. targets. I mean, there has clearly been a very long history of the United States Western powers conducting operations against Iran. And it looks to me as if the Iranians were attacking a Western American-backed network that has been involved in conducting these kind of operations against

Iran and the Iranians of course are leaking it to the attack near Soleimani's grave and you know for all I know that's true I mean we mustn't assume that it is not but as I said they they're striking at this organisation they clearly know a lot about it they're signaling that they know an awful lot about it but at one and the same time they're making it absolutely they're being absolutely careful. To keep this within the bounds of a warning and a show of force, they're not retaliating yet against Americans directly. And I think they're doing that because obviously they do not want a regional war in the Middle East. At least, if there is going to be a regional war, they say we're ready for it. We don't want it. We are acting.

in a restrained way, but don't push us. Because if you do, we have the means to defend ourselves, and not just to defend ourselves, but to hit directly at you. So I think it's a very, very carefully calibrated response to what we have been seeing happen in the Middle East. A different administration would see it as that, a US administration, would look at this attack and say,

okay, Iran has retaliated against this terror attack in Iran. They were very careful in their retaliation. They can go back to their citizens and say, we retaliated. You see, we retaliated against the people that hit us, and we'll leave it there. But we're not dealing with a White House that is rational in any sense of the word. So what are you, what are the risks that the, the Biden White House and its neo-con influence will decide to escalate off of this. Instead of just leaving it where it is, they're going to push to escalate even further. I think there are enormous. If you take your mind back to the time when Donald Trump was president and after the assassination

of Soleimani, the Iranians retaliated to the attack on Soleimani by launching missile strikes, very precise missile strikes against U.S. basis. But again, they chose their targets very carefully to minimize any possibility of Americans being killed. And Trubb understood that, and he established a back channel with the Iranians. And he said to the Iranians, look, I understand what you're doing. I don't want a regional war. You don't want a regional war. You've calibrated your response at that level, which shows that you don't want a regional war. So we stop. And that actually, diffused the entire crisis. This lot, the bunch that are in charge today, are completely different.

First of all, the neocons are not only much more powerful within this administration than they were in Trumps, but they have a president who is himself a neocon. You know, he may not be, you know, hands-on in charge all the time. But viscerally, he is on their side. So, I mean, that already alters the dynamic of this. But beyond that, this group that is in power in Washington now have already lost control of the situation in the Middle East. They've not been able to control the situation in Gaza. We've got another article, I think it was in the New York Times, saying how frustrated Biden is because the Israelis aren't listening to what he's telling them. Well, you know, and his patience is running thin. We've seen these articles appear every couple of days,

weeks now. The point is they can't control the Israelis. The situation in Gaza is out of their control. The situation in Yemen is out of their control as well. They've launched missile strikes at the Houthis. The Houthis are undeterred by those missile strikes. They're continuing to attack shipping in the Red Sea. They're now launching strikes at American warships in the Red Sea. The Houthis are not deterred. They don't have the same kind of calculus also that the Iranians do. The Houthis probably at some level wouldn't be so averse to a wider war in the Middle East. to say. So again, missile strikes at the Houthis, not achieving their intended purpose, not perhaps even inflicting significant damage on the Houthis, a situation that is escalating.

And now on top of that, the Iranians, who the neocons always say are the people who are in ultimate control of the Houthis and Hesbullah and all of the others. the Iranians launching their own missile strikes. So you can see that at how the situation is being set up, however calibrated the Iranian responses, however careful the Iranians are to try to limit escalation as far as possible, you will see that whatever the Iranians do, there will be people in Washington who will come, forward and say look the Israelis this are

the Iranians are launching these attacks that dismantling our networks shows how aggressive the Iranians are it shows how strong and dangerous the Iranians have become they're only a couple of months away from in having enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb they always say that this is one trope they always bring out so we're time to do it we've got to attack now we can't leave it longer because if we do it looks as if the Iranians are hitting us and calling our bluff and we can't afford that to happen and that that's that's the problem um that's the trap that the administration has maneuvered the United States into yeah exactly right

and the the problem that I see with this escalation is that the Biden White House and the neocons, they've created this linkage between the Houthis and Iran. And so what they're going to sell to the public, if they decide to escalate further, they're going to sell it as this is just one conflict bundled together, the Houthis and Iran. So we're really just opening up a conflict against one common enemy. But that's not the case. What the U.S. and the U.K. is being maneuvered into is a war on two different. fronts against two different enemies, two distinctly different enemies, different conflicts altogether.

And this is going to be very problematic for the Biden White House, for the U.S. military, and the U.K., because the U.K. is being dragged along into this, or willingly going along into this, actually. Well, this is absolutely correct. I mean, one of the fundamental problems is that, again, the United States, the neocons, bring a kind of sort of James Bond, Ian Fleming understanding to their adversaries. I mean, they clearly the Iranians and the Houthis and the Iranians in Hezbollah and the Iranians and the various militias in Iraq have many contacts.

They've been allies. They've worked together many times. The Iranians do have influence on them. But just suppose that all of these very tough, hardened militias commanded by some pretty ruthless and tough and hard and experienced military leaders are simply proxies of Iran. It's politically wrong and psychologically improbable. I mean, you know, how are the Iranians supposed to manipulate these people?

How do they control them? people like this are all but impossible to control. A sophisticated government in the United States would understand this. But what the United States is doing is that instead of trying to calibrate its own policies to understand that these are different groups and different factions and to try to find means to deal with ones, not, you know, have taking them all on at the same time. Because it's following this, you know, Bondian view of the Middle East, they're doing precisely that. They're aiming to take them all on at the

same time. So we're going to have fighting in Iraq, fighting in Syria, fighting in Yemen, fighting in Lebanon, all on top of a big war with Iran and quite possibly a war that will involve Syria and Iraq as well. It is a way of multiplying your enemies instead of trying to reduce your enemies. But this is the kind of thinking that it leads to. And by the way, on that subject, I mean, some of the comments that have been coming out of London have been astonishing. The British Defense Secretary, Grant Shaps, gave a, I thought, one of the most shocking interviews I've ever heard from a British minister. He said, he actually came out and said, you know, addressing Iran, you know, we can see you, we know what you're about, we can see through you, don't think you can

get away with this. It sounded like, you know, what one boy says to another, boy on a school playground. I mean, it's so far removed from statesmanship. I mean, the ghosts of British Defence Secretary's past. One of them, by the way, was Winston Churchill. Must be spinning in their graves, listening to this kind of language being used by a senior British minister. And again, it tells you so much about the, you.

the caliber and the lack of understanding that the British leadership has to do. Yeah, and they're going to do all of this in the Middle East. They're going to take on all these enemies in the Middle East while they have a war in Gaza and they have a conflict with Russia. Indeed, absolutely. And of course, at the same time, they're sending off delegations to Taiwan and stirring up things there as well. And I mean, there's also tensions now growing in the Korean Peninsula. I think it, the level of belligerence and the sort of schoolboy thinking is astonishing.

And I've never known anything like this. You remember people used to talk in Donald Trump's day about, you know, needing adults in the room. These are not adults. These are delinquent teenagers who are in charge. If you don't believe, me. Just read that interview. The Grown Shop's game. All right. We will leave it there. The durand.locals.com. We are in Rumble Odyssey, Bitschute,

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