The Duran Podcast - On a knife-edge, frustrated Biden fails to stop Middle East escalation

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

On a knife-edge, frustrated Biden fails to stop Middle East escalation

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in the Middle East. We had Iran's retaliation a couple of days ago. We are now waiting to see what's going to happen with Israel's response, a possible response, what the United States is going to do. An interesting article that came out from Politico, which talks about Biden's frustration with Netanyahu, but also talks about how Biden is going to continue to escalate. At least, that's the impression that I got after reading this political article. And if we are heading for a big wider war, or if this is something that can be avoided,

it does look like Iran's retaliation the other day, 180 plus missiles into, Israel was meant to be another warning, I guess, to Israel and to the United States, but also as a way to signal that Iran doesn't want a wider conflict. At least that's the way it looks. The targets that were picked out were military facilities, I believe one casualty. At least that's those are the reports. But a lot of damage was done to these facilities, to these facilities. At least that's That's how things look, even though there is a lot of fog of war going on. But we are now waiting to see what is going to happen with a possible response from Israel. They have promised a response, and they are coordinating with the United States to formulate that response.

The political article, by the way, Alexander, before you give us your thoughts. The political article stated that Biden is press. not to go after nuclear facilities and that the United States is is trying to to persuade to to advise Israel as to the targets that they are going to to hit in their response they're talking about proxies Iranian proxies Yemen Syria and stuff like that so anyway your thoughts on what is going on I think we're on the absolute knife edge now because What we have had over the last two, three weeks is a series of, I think, strongly escalatory moves by the Israelis.

I mean, one can't, I don't think it's possible to dispute that the Israelis have been in the driving seat here, or at least Netanyahu who has. He's been pushing for a wider conflict. We've had a succession of attacks on Hezbollah. We've had the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut. The Lebanese foreign minister is now saying, of course, we don't know to what extent this is true, but he's saying that Nasrallah had agreed to a ceasefire just before he was killed, which might be intended to put pressure on the Americans and the Israelis and to put them in a difficult position.

But anyway, we've had a whole succession. That's what he said to CNN, though. That's what he said to see. That's documented as we said to see it. Exactly. Exactly. So all of this signals something that we have been seeing for a significant amount of time, which is that on the Iranian side, on the Hezbollah side,

they have not wanted to widen the war. Now, this is not because these are peace-loving people who want to avoid war at all costs. This is not because Iran is a pacific. country or anything of that kind. It's because they understand that a wider war at this time is not in their interests. They do not want to be involved in a big war at a time when Iran's economy has been going through a period of economic upsearch, when trading links with the brick states have been established, when Iran is receiving significant investments from China and possibly eventually from Russia,

when the Iranians are in the process of building up their armed forces with imported weapon systems that they're buying from the Russians. They haven't wanted to disrupt all of this. This is not the right time for them. And besides, they've never really, up to this time, showed any desire to tangle directly with the Israelis. This has not been the pattern of what the Iranians have sought to do. They've been involved with the Israelis for many years now in a kind of shadow war, a battle for

influence in Syria. They've been involved against the US in a battle for influence in Iraq. But I've never got the impression myself that they are seeking a wider war. Now, however, they have been pushed as a result of a series of escalatory moves. what they see as escalatory moves, moves which are intended to go them into a wider confrontation, into doing that thing which I think they always wanted to avoid, which is to launch a missile strike on Israel, which, as you absolutely correctly say, was perhaps not as aggressive as it might have been. It doesn't seem to have aimed, for example, at decapitation strikes of the Israeli leadership or anything of that sort.

It seems to have gone out of its way to avoid causing mass civilian casualties. The Iranians understand that if they were to start doing things like that, quite apart from any moral issues, it would certainly provoke a massive response from Israel and from the United States as well. But anyway, they have launched a missile strike and this has been a serious missile strike, much more serious than the one they launched in April. Now, there is huge amount of fog of war. It's very difficult to assess exactly how much damage this particular missile strike has done. there is strict censorship about this in Israel.

The satellite pictures that we are getting are clearly edited. They show only small areas of the places where the missiles impacted. The Israelis are not giving away any information. So far, as at the time of making it this programme, I've seen no clear claims from the Israelis or from the Americans as to the number of Iranian missiles. that they say were shot down. That all suggests to me

that quite a few missiles did get through. These were ballistic and in some cases apparently hypersonic missiles. So the warning periods were much shorter. They are the kind of missiles that fighter jets cannot shoot down unlike drones or cruise missiles. They're much more difficult.

to intercept. Some of the missiles got through. Some damage was done. Some reports are suggesting that quite a lot of damage was done. There are claims that F-35 fighter jets were destroyed rather, on a particular runway somewhere in Israel. I've seen no photos that show that. There's been no admissions about this from the Israelis. This has to be treated at the moment. purely as rumour. But anyway, some missiles got through, some damage was done. This was clearly a much stronger warning than the one that was given in April. But it is a warning nonetheless. What the Iranians are trying to say is, look, we don't want a war. We don't want to get onto this ladder of permanent escalation, this escalatorily, escalatory escalator that you're trying to push us onto.

But ultimately, if you go on hitting us, we do have the means and the resources to hit back. And we could hit back hard. We showed back in April that there is no part of Israel that our missiles can't reach. and this time we've shown that when we launch missiles at you, we can actually do damage. We can actually do real damage, not just token damage, as we did in April. Now, the problem is the uncertainty in all of this is whether the Israeli leadership, and I don't mean everybody in Israel, if you read newspapers like Haaret's, for example, they're complaining about the fact that the Israeli government is leading.

Israel into a situation of forever war. But is the Israeli leadership, is Prime Minister Netanyahu and his cabinet, are they listening? Are they listening to these warnings from Iran? Do they take these warnings seriously? Because Israel has been on a role over the last few weeks. They've knocked out, they've decapitated the entire Hezbollah leadership. They've humiliated Iran. They've made, as they would see it, significant progress. Are they going to be thrown off? Are they going to be deterred by a missile strike like this?

And what are the Americans going to do? Because whether they like it or not, the Americans are themselves involved. Because if this thing does escalate into an all-out war, which I have absolutely no doubt is something. that Netanyahu himself and key members of his cabinet unquestionably want, if there is going to be an all-out war between Israel and Iran, then realistically Israel can only hope to prevail in that war if the United States is itself involved.

And I think that is understood by some people in Washington, But you mentioned that article in Politico, which spoke about how Biden is unhappy, how Biden is telling the Israelis don't go after the Iranian nuclear sites, try and recalibrate your response, go more for Iranian proxies, rather than perhaps for targets inside Iran itself. But even as Biden says this, we learned from an earlier article in Politico that even as the United States was trying to broker a ceasefire, at least officially trying to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Iran,

White House aides were meeting with Israeli officials and telling them push on attack Hezbollah. We are all, we're going to be fully there. We're going to be fully behind you. So the Americans are hardly united in this issue. and as for Biden himself, on repeated occasions throughout this crisis, ever since it started with Hamas attack back in October, he has said one thing that he wants restraint from Israel,

that he wants moderation, but he's gone ahead, and whenever the Israelis do take an escalatory move, he ends up backing it. So we are on an eye fetch. we've seen the Iranians. They've been pushed to taking a response which up to now they've sought to avoid. We don't know how effective, militarily speaking, this response has been, how strong a warning it has been. There are some claims that this attack has been ineffective. There are the claims that it has been effective. We just don't know exactly. But the question now is, what are the Israelis, is going to do. We know what Netanyahu and his cabinet wants, but what the Israelis do

now depends very much on what the Americans agree that they should do, because if it comes to an all-out war with Iran, Israel cannot conduct it unless the Americans are there. So the The American's the spotlight now, the key decisions from this moment on are made in Washington. If Netanyahu is confident that he'll be able to bring in the United States into the conflict, then he's going to escalate. I mean, that that's without a doubt. And going by the political article, Alexander, it actually says in this article that Biden's, no matter how much Biden is frustrated, no matter how much he complains about Netanyahu. It actually says that when Biden speaks with the Netanyahu, they're yelling at each other.

That's how much Biden and Netanyahu hate each other and how much they do not get along. They're actually yelling at each other on the phone. But it says that Biden's reflexive instinct, this is what Politico says. Their exact words, reflexive instinct has been to, this is, to support Israel, despite the frustration, despite the animosity between the two. Biden, the Biden White House, whenever they say Biden, I imagine they're speaking of his team as well, has been to just go along with what Netanyahu tells them to do or tells them what he's going to do.

If he actually shares what he's going to do, who knows what's going on. And the political article, they call Biden a lame duck. They say he's a lame duck. So no matter, their exact words, these are not my words. These are the words that Politico uses. They're saying that when it comes to Israel, when it comes to foreign policy, when it comes to dealing with Netanyahu, Netanyahu in the Middle East and the ceasefire deals and everything like that. They say that Biden is a lame duck. So I have to believe that Netanyahu is probably getting his advice, he's consulting with, with the neocons, with the hardliners.

I mean, that seems to be where he's getting his direction or where he's giving information and direction as to his next moves. And it seems like Biden has been marginalized. And that's probably why Biden is so frustrated and so upset. Well, indeed. I mean, he's only the president of the United States, after all. He can only sit there in the Oval Office

and shout at Netanyahu and have everybody else pay no attention to him. I mean, it is extraordinary. It is so pathetic. I mean, it just makes you utterly bewildered. When one reads articles like that, one really does ask what is going on in Washington. So we have White House aides. These are White House aides going and speaking to the Israelis.

So pay no attention to what Biden is saying. Pay no attention to all of this talk of the CISWAR. Just go ahead and attack Hezbollah. And we guarantee the United States. States will be with you. Now, a strong president, or not even a strong president, a real president when he read that article in Politico, what would he have done? He's got White House aides contradicting and undermining his own policy. He would have sack them. But apparently, the president, the man in the Oval Office, he's not even able to run his own team. I mean,

It is quite incredible to me. Now, people will read all of this around the world. People will read all of this in Israel. And they're going to come to one of two conclusions. Either the president himself has completely lost control of the US government. That's one possibility that nobody pays any attention to him. He gives orders, makes instructions, but no one pays any attention. They just ignore what he says.

you know he's the old man in the old oval office he sits in the chair he's there behind the resolute desk but he's just an ornament basically so that's one view people will take the lame dark view or they will take a completely different view which is even worse which is that he's lying that he's spreading all these stories to politico giving the impression that he's not involved and in fact that in you know deep down despite all the shouts and yells and performances. He's not really as opposed to what the Israelis are actually doing as he makes out. Now, in a kind of a sense, and I don't want to try and guess, because I'm not in the Oval Office, in the White House, I don't know what it's really going on. It hardly matters. We have been

discussing on this program for weeks the fact that there is a vacuum in Washington that Netanyahu has seen it and is now taking advantage of it. And what does the Politico article tell us? But that very thing. So the result is that we have incredible moves being taken in the Middle East, moves which could very easily involve the United States in a wider war in the Middle East against Iran, a much more powerful country,

a country of 88 million people, a country with armed forces and regional, very powerful regional allies. The Russian Prime Minister is currently in Tehran, where he's negotiating deals with the Iranians. All of that is happening. And the United States, the government of the United States, appears paralyzed and unable to take control. Now, we have been saying this for weeks. Politico has now in effect confirmed it. No, we've been saying this for a year.

Yeah. We've been saying this for a year. A year. And we caught a lot of criticism and a lot of flack. You guys don't know what's going on in the Middle East. You're not reporting correctly in the Middle East. When I'm 20 minutes away from everything that's happening and everyone's saying, we don't understand the region.

I'm in the region. I live in the region every day. But we said this for a year now that there's a vacuum in D.C. And Netanyahu is going to exploit it. And he has exploited it. This was obvious. This was clear that he was going to do this. And the political article, I think it's a little of both, Alexander, of what you said.

I think on the one hand, Biden really doesn't care about the Middle East. we've been saying this for a while as well. Biden's pet project, what he is really passionate about, if that's the right word to use, is Ukraine. Yeah. Project Ukraine is his. That is what he really cares about. It's Project Ukraine and sticking it to Putin.

That's what Biden cares about. He does not care about the Middle East. He has no interest in the Middle East. That's obvious. When you listen to him speak, it's obvious that he doesn't care about the region. So there's that. And I believe that Netanyahu and the Biden's AIDS, the aides that are that are consulting with the Netanyahu and pushing him towards escalation, understands that the president really doesn't care that much about the region. So let us, let us deal with everything that's going on.

And I also think it's a little bit of why should we consult with the president when he himself has admitted that he's not, he's not cognitively healthy enough to, to, to run. for re-election, so why should we trust this man about what's happening in the Middle East? Why should we take advice from this guy? I mean, when you think about it, it makes sense in a way, doesn't it? Yes. You know, we're on the knife's edge, she said. We're about to get into a big, wider war. Why should anyone listen to Biden when he has said he has admitted that he can't run

for re-election because he just doesn't have the brain power to do it. So what's he going to consult us about? What's he going to tell us? Why should we even take anything he says seriously? I mean, this is how, my opinion, this is how I believe they're viewing it, the people that are now making the decisions and pushing us into this conflict. I completely agree. I completely agree with every point that you made.

But of course, think of the implications of this. the United States is drifting into a war, a potential war in the Middle East with a very powerful country, at least we have been led to believe a very powerful country, but a big country, a country with big armed forces, and as I said, strong and very powerful regional allies in a region, the Middle East, where previous military adventures have, let's say, not gone so well. it's drifting into that war when because the president has basically lost control and by the way there's been an article by Edward Luce in the Financial Times which also says the very same thing that the president simply isn't there anymore

he's not really in charge because the president has lost control the United States is drifting into a war without making a decision the decision is being made for it by others, by people in Jerusalem, by Prime Minister Netanyahu and his cabinet, despite the fact that they are encountering opposition, real opposition in Israel itself, where there is an actual debate about this, but there isn't in Washington, because how can there be when the American government basically isn't functioning? So people in Israel are making decisions for the United States. And of course the Iranians are making their own decisions because the Iranians, they may not want to wall, but they're now responding.

And they've come to the conclusion. And they are saying this. Peir Zishkan is saying it. Other Iranian officials are saying it. We cannot have any further confidence in what the Americans are telling us. because whatever they say, they don't deliver. So whether they want a war or whether they don't want a war, we have to assume that a war is coming.

So this is a terrible situation for a country like the United States to be in and for the American people to find themselves in, whereas the whole country is drifting into a confrontation with what looks to be, still looks to be. It's while all the batterings, it's, experienced over the last couple of weeks, the most powerful country in the Middle East, without anybody sitting down and deciding whether, well, without there being any proper debate about whether this should really happen and whether this is what the United States really wants

to be doing at this time. This war can be totally avoided. Yeah. Especially if you had a strong executive. A strong executive, especially now, given where we are right now, if you had a strong executive, they would sit down with Netanyahu, and they would say, look, we cannot afford a wider war. We have an election coming up. We're the Democratic Party. This is going to hurt us in the election. We cannot have a wider war. It's going to affect the economy in a very bad way. You've talked about possible closure of the Straits of Hormus, it's a possibility and a very real possibility if a wider war breaks out, especially if the United States jumps in. So a strong executive would sit down with Netanyahu and they would discuss a retaliation, but they would make it in a way that

the retaliation was signaling a de-escalation in a way. Yes. That's how they would, that they would structure the retaliation, and that way we would be able to avoid a war. But I think we're going to get the reverse, unfortunately, even though the political article drops hints at a retaliation, which would be de-escalatory. Yeah. I mean, political article outlines it to go after some proxies, sanctions,

and that way we could start to move towards an offering. but because we don't have a strong executive, that's what the political article is saying, because we don't have a strong executive, we're going to probably go in the reverse. So my question to you then becomes, has Iran bought enough time so as to get us to the November election

where we could get a change in administration and perhaps start getting some, some authority back into into the White House or have we run out of time? Because the first, I remember the first strike was in April and now we're in October. So have, has it, has Iran perhaps bought some time? This is the, or are we, are we going to get a quick response from Israel? I mean, Israel has pledged a quick response. Yeah. This is, this is, this is the, this is the, this is the big question and the answer is I don't know. And I don't think anybody really knows at the moment.

We're up against a situation where, as I said, one side. And I want to stress, we're not talking about everybody in Israel, not by any means, but the government's prime minister Netanyahu and key members of his cabinet, they made it absolutely clear. They're not concealing the fact. If you read their statements, if you look at the comments that are appearing in the Israeli media, they want to war with Iran. They sense that Iran is in disarray at the moment, which to a certain extent it is. As I said, it doesn't want a war.

There are divisions within Tehran. Pezishkan has wanted some kind of rapprochement with the West. Other more hardline figures are opposed to it. There are divisions and arguments in Tehran itself. So the Israelis see all of this. Some people in Jerusalem, in the Israeli cabinet, say this is the moment for us to strike. The Iranians are on the back foot.

We've hit them hard already. We've shown that they don't respond. When we assassinated Hania, they said they would respond and they didn't respond. We have the initiative. This is the moment to hit and hit hard. And let's pay no attention to what the Americans are telling us. After all, we haven't paid much attention to them up to now. And it's worked.

We've decapitated the leadership of Hezbollah. We've got our troops fighting already in Lebanon. Apparently the Pentagon advised against it, but the Israeli army has now crossed into Lebanon. By the way, talk about fog of war. There's massive fog of war about that operation as well. We were told that eight Israeli soldiers were killed. That, by the way, is a high casualty rate in the initial fighting.

But we don't really know how it's going. We don't know what is taking place there. Maybe the Israelis are bogged down. Maybe they are reinforcing and are going to break through. Who knows? At the moment, as I said, it's too early. It's too early to say. But those voices in Israel will be saying that.

They'll say the Israelis. Iranians are in disarray and the Americans are too weak to stop us. We've got a time window until November. Let's use it. And let's pay no attention to what the Americans say. Let's strike a target in Iran. We do have the capability to strike a targets in Iran. We can do that ourselves. We don't need the Americans.

We can use our warships to launch their missiles. We can use our stealth fighter jets to cross the Arab states and launch attacks on Iran. We can do anything like that. And even if these are relatively limited attacks, because we don't have the enormous striking power that the US has, well, we have seen that doing that will force the Iranians into more responses, and then we will get at the war that we want, the big war that we want, before November.

And I think those voices in Israel are going to be very strong. There are other, they're counter voices, the Israeli military, parts of the Israeli military are not keen. If more missiles got through, Iranian missiles got through, and more damage was done than we know, if the fighting in southern Lebanon isn't going terribly well for the Israelis, maybe those military voices are going to be stronger again than we know. I mean, we can't assess. But my own senses that the decision on whether to escalate now

is not going to be made in Washington. It's going to be made in Jerusalem because Washington is unable to make decisions. Okay, final question. Does a big, wider war hurt? Harris or does the Harris campaign or does a big wider war help the Harris campaign? I think we're in the final month before the election. I think the short answer is that it is bad for the Harris campaign. I mean, again, I'm not an expert on, you know, American currents and politics and things

of this guy. But we would have a wider war in which the United States would be dragged in. I don't think that's going to be popular with the American people at all. If we start to see all prices rise and prices, you know, at the gas stations increase, I don't see how that helps the campaign. We're going to see Arab Americans in places like Michigan becoming more unhappy again. I don't see how that helps the Harris campaign. But beyond that, we have the fundamental and underlying issue because Harris is in this very difficult position of trying to campaign as a member of the administration when she's not at the same time the incumbent.

So she's saddled with the decisions or absence of decisions that the administration is taking. She can't go out and say, well, I think the president here is really. wrong that I would do something completely different from what the president is doing. She has to support policies or in this case the lack of policies. She has to support decisions or in this case the lack of decisions which might not be a good look if that won't be a good look given the political vacuum that we are talking about in advance of an election. My own senses that in a crisis, people will turn to the person who they think is most likely to get a grip and to take charge.

And it's difficult to see how that can be Harris. That's my view. Yeah. I think we know who most people will think that is, obviously. All right. We will end the video there. The durand. Dot,locals.com.

we are on Rumble, Odyssey, Bitch, Shoot, Telegram, Rockfin, and TwitterX, and go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch like the t-shirt and the hoodie that you see in this video. Link is in the description box down below. Take care.