The Duran Podcast - On the Path to War with Iran - Alastair Crooke, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Episode Date: April 12, 2025

On the Path to War with Iran - Alastair Crooke, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Hi everyone, I'm joined today by Alexander Mercuris and Alastair Crook, a former British diplomat and our favorite expert on the Middle East. And I thought we could start by talking about Iran as, well, Trump was elected to some extent as a peace candidate, but now he appears to be taking the U.S. on a path towards war with Iran. at least it doesn't seem that he wants a war but he has set demands on Iran which has to be met otherwise he seems to paint himself in a corner in which there would be war so I thought a good approach to this

is well I guess to outline a bit what his demands are to what extent to what extent Iran can actually meet this demand and if he fails if they fail to meet them or does Trump have any room to maneuver to scale back?

Is this simply a very aggressive opening position, a maximalist as he always does? Or are we effectively seeing a path to war here? I thought, well, I guess we can start by outlining what the demands are because they did have an agreement in the past, JCPOA, which Trump himself pulled out during his first administration. So what is it exactly that the United States demand from Iran to not the attack it. Well, it's very interesting.

And you, if you go back to that period, when he exited the JCPOA, in which at that time it was, to any extent you can say, was pretty much working. I mean, it wasn't entirely satisfactory. However, what is complaints were essentially two-fold.

Of course, the main complaint was, and he said, you know, we continue in this path and they'll end up with a nuclear weapon. But his main complaints were about Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc. There were proxy forces, which in his subsequent document issued by... Polonis that time was very clear there were 12 demands

and they started off with a complete sort of if you like undressing of the whole nuclear weapons program from 2002 and three period which wasn't a formal

program at all. There were just odds and ends going on in different different a different paths. And then he withdrew from that and also the missiles. Those were the two big things that he introduced. And Pompeo then produced this

12-point plan, which was the kitchen sink. Everything really was required into it. And this was very much at the prompting. So, I mean, it goes, I mean, you know, just as people say, Trump hasn't changed a bit on tariffs over 40 years. You can say he hasn't changed an iota on his demands on the Iranians and his pursuit of the Iranians. And in the present, what he said in the present document were seven demands. And he did these in something which is called a national presidential memorandum.

And it is a binding directive, which is legally binding on government agencies to implement specific actions precisely. And these were one that Iran should be denied a nuclear weapon, the standard thing, denied also intercontinental missiles, denied to other asymmetric and conventional weapon capabilities. And to this end, the memorandum directs maximum economic pressure being imposed. That the Treasury Act to drive Iran's oil exports to zero, and that the US worked to trigger JCPOA snapback of sanctions. And finally, that Iran's malign influence abroad, its proxies be neutralized. This was just on the 4th of February. I about just over a month ago, this is

what he signed into sort of, you know, the presidential directive. And some of it is based on the Pompeo version. But that's what it was. I mean, they were really sort of very binding and maximalist terms. And it did look as if he was moving Iran down a path to where there is war as its only outcome. Then he sent a letter, just via the Emirates, to Iran. And I mean, I can't guarantee that this is accurate because I only get it secondhand. But I understand that it had about five points in it.

First one was dismantling Iran's nuclear infrastructure, halting uranium enrichment, halting it. ceasing arms transfers to the Houthis, ending financial support for Hezbollah and disbanding the popular mobilization forces in Iraq. As I say, this comes from, as you probably know, the letter was delivered by the Emirates and the answer came back from Oman in that way, which I think was signaling. So the question is, you know, what do we ultimately comes to judgment about Trump, I think, about where he's going and what he's doing. But there is a couple of signals that are quite important now. And I'm just, these are not conclusive signals. But they, I think, you know, are things that one should pay attention to. I've always believed in that idea of not the sort of mechanistic view of, if you like,

international relations looking at, heavily in a rational way. But when something's come out of the blue and they don't quite fit in the pattern, you look at them and you say, well, I mean, this is quite interesting. Well, one of them that came out of the blue is that the E3, that is the European states who are still members of the GCPOA, Germany, France, and the UK, have told Iran that they are going to trigger snapback by the end of June this year. And so I think this is an interesting, I mean, clearly concerted, the Europeans doing the work. A US cannot do it because it's no longer a member of the process.

But the snapback system anyway expires in October. But for various reasons, there are processes within it where it takes a little time to take effect, because there's a reconciliation point where Iran can make their points, and then it goes into effect a little after that. So there isn't that much time. Maybe this is why he said it had to be done by spring. This was the deadline that everyone is talking. The other interesting thing, again, because I sort of pick out these things and think,

you know, these are interesting. They don't fit the sort of formal AI patterning of events, but they're interesting. The US government has, and I get this from very good reporting, in Lebanon, has warned the Lebanese government that they have banned any financial assistance to Lebanon until Hamas is disarmed. The Hezbollah is disarmed, excuse me.

And secondly, in other words, Lebanon starts to move towards normalization with Israel. It's couched in terms of removes all the obstacles to the relationship with Israel. And there is a similar ban on any financial support, and this is more striking, any more, any financial support except for various minor exception to Syria with the same demands on them and these were made fairly plain to Erdogan in terms of his relationship with Sharra and Sharra has expected it saying we are ready to open relations with Israel. So what we're seeing a little bit it seems to me is in fact that whole Whitkoff's vision

that he outlined some times ago in his podcast with Tucker Carlson. And he said look, you know, think about it. He said, look, Lebanon, Hezbollah has been badly damaged in this period and

you know, it could normalize. It's possible. I think it's possible that they can normalize. And Syria even, he said. You can look to listen to the podcast. He says, And he effectively then said, look, Sharara, you know, is an SOB. Of course, I know it, but he's our SOB, he effectively said, because he's kicked the

Iranians out. And then he talked about normalization. Well, it could then, if Gaza, we can manage that. Saudi Arabia will normalize it. And then that leaves the problem, which is Iran and its terrorist organizations. they call them that terrorist organizations, the proxies of Iran, they must be made inextentially, existentially neutralized towards. He didn't use exactly those words, but that was basically the gist of it towards Israel.

And then he added, imagine with that, that would be epic. It would be epic. it would be the normalization of the whole Middle East. He couched it in those terms, but I'm also putting it in today's terms and saying, look, when Trump seems to be hurrying this process along with Iran, what's happening with China? What's happening with Russia? Trump is wanting leverage, particularly on China.

and particularly on Russia at this point, because he's threatening sanctions on Russia. But, I mean, they're going to be meaningless. I don't think, I think you've talked about this, Alexander enough. I don't think, you know, they're going to, they're certainly not going to change the course of, you know, Russian policy.

And so why do I say this? Well, of course, for China, it is very vulnerable on energy. And most of its energy, a lot of its energy, comes from Iran. So not only would you get the Middle East neutralized and sort of normalized with Israel overall, but look, the energy there is our energy, ours. That's going to be ours, the gas. and we can control it, and we can control China, and we can make it difficult even for Russia by our control of the Middle East and the Middle East resources, Iraq, Iran, all of these resources.

Now, you see a lot of people saying, ah, but the oil price is going to go sky high and it's going to go up. We'd be paying $10 a gallon in the United States for our gasoline. but the message and the principles that they seem to be working on and it's certainly the message that is being sent from Israel to the United States is look this is how we do we don't mess up the we don't mess up the if you like the energy paradigm at all

what we do is the first wave we go in we take out all of Iranian air defenses. And the second wave, we go in and we take out the religious, the Ayatollahs, the IRGC leadership. This is why you see that

very clear message in what I think it was Rubio said about no, it was Wals. Wals in a statement about the attack on the Yemenis, on

the Houthis. And he said, look, there's a different policy here. It's going to be different our policy from what it was under Biden. The different policy is essentially, one, we are going for decapitation. We are killing the leadership. And two, this is directed at Iran. And so if they take out that, the view, I'm not endorsing it. I have to. I don't share it. But the view is that Iran will be like Syria. It will just be like an open shop. Someone forgot to lock it up and it will be all open.

You can just walk in and you take over. Just as happened within a few days in Syria. And, you know, these people are talking, you know, of course we'll have the Baloch rising up and the Azeris rise. up and everyone is going to be rising up, getting rid of the hated regime and will substitute it with a pro-Western regime. And the Middle East will be solved. Great victory.

Now, it's fantastical. But does Trump really believe it. Does Trump, you know, really believe it? Like, you know, for 40 years he's believed in this. And I'm saying really two things. And I don't know. But I'm saying really two things about this. I mean, this would be a wonderful victory for him in this sense.

He's surrounded by Israeli firsters and others, who are all telling him Iran is on the ropes, it's, you know, it's staggeringly vulnerable, it lies naked, it hasn't got any air defences, all of this nonsense. I mean, it's PR. I mean, so on the one hand, it's that. And then another thing that struck me was really interesting. It's in my last, in this piece that I'm sending you from the substact, but in that piece, I can't give you the exact quote

because it's quite earthy from a White House insider. He says, you have to understand look, Trump's in his last, you know, this is probably his last term, okay? He just doesn't give an F for anything.

He doesn't give an F because he's just going to do it. He will do what he said he would do, before the election, and you bring bad news to him, like, say, China or not playing ball, he doesn't give an F about this. And those are the sort of languages. He said, you've just got to understand.

He just doesn't give a damn now. He'll do what he wants and what he said he'll do from the outset. Now, that may be, you know, a personal miscalculable. But, you know, there is a sort of sense of ruthlessness, of complete lack of sort of sensibility. I mean, when you look at things like Gaza, when you look at things like, I mean, really quite, I mean, ugly language used about the Houthis. I mean, you know, we're doing the world of favor to kill them. Look, look, we had this great circle of Houthis celebrating. and we dropped a bomb.

Oops, there they go, and they're gone. They won't be attacking any American ships for the future. So I can't tell you that that is the critical question. But all I would do would ask you one question about this in that sort of framework. What Iran seems to be proposing, and again, I'm not saying, that this is actually their position, but it would make a lot of sense, is that they're going to say that they are going to reduce the level of enrichment.

Currently, at 60%, reduce it down. They need 20% for the research reactor in Tehran, but they don't need more than that. Reduce the level. Maybe ship some of the 60% to Russia or whatever you like, and then say, you know, This is a goodwill gesture and I'll lift some sanctions and now let's talk about how we can take that forward. My question is, you know, that's actually just the deal that Trump left, you know, eight years ago. It's no different. That's exactly what it was then.

The extra enrichment came, not because Tehran was moving towards a bomb. because the Europeans resiled on their undertakings. I'm sure you remember this, Alexander. You know, they were supposed to be able to do business and to trade. That was, you know, in the JCPOA.

And the trouble was the banks wouldn't touch them in Europe. There was a word went wrong. You don't do business with Iran. It wasn't in any agreement. But I remember going around the city of London, at that time and everyone said, look, you know, the US Treasury people have been all around the banks and they said, don't you start trading with Iran. And so because of that, Iran started putting extra leverage by increasing the level of enrichment.

No, no, not at all. I have to say, listening to all of this, not only is it fantastical and extraordinarily dangerous, but dare I say it, not only do I not feel that it is new, I would say I have a sense of deja vu. It's 2002 all over again. It's exactly the same thing about Iraq, you know, get rid of Saddam Hussein, change the system there, all the problems in the Middle East are going to be solved, go back to overthrowing the axis of evil, march on Tehran after you finish with Baghdad, and somehow everything in the Middle East will come and be sorted out and everything will be back to where it was, where we

would want it to be, a peace and stability would reign. Of course, we wouldn't have to worry about the Palestinians anymore because we don't really worry too much about them, and nobody else would either if all of these things were done. It seems exactly the same. It's the sort of near-convision, if I could put it like that, of that period, only amplified by 10. I mean, it's just doing the same thing all over again. But on a far more grandiose scale than we saw then. Now, of course. And amplified, and amplified, if I may just jut in for a second,

amplified by the fact that throughout this, it has been run by Israel, by Netanyahu largely. this has been his project, he's managed it, he's still managing it, even though in a recent comment about someone saying, well, Israel is going to take the lead on this. And he said, he may think he's taking the lead, but I'm actually leading. And that was Trump's comment to it. And I think, you know, it puts this particular exercise in its own silo. It's sort of the repercussions affect China and Russia, yes, but it is in its own silo because the support amongst both the APAC and evangelicals for a removal of the threat from Iran is a different order from more or less any other.

issue that we're facing. So that actually is the sort of what I see it as a sort of the amplifier. I mean, more than even Iraq, I mean, even though that was being pushed by Netanyahu too. But of course, the inconsistency

if there is a glaring one, is that Trump himself says Iraq was a mistake. He was elected to end the forever wars. He is going to commit the United States to the greatest war in the Middle East that it has ever fought and one which it is going to lose because the forces that he is conjuring here are on a scale that he simply doesn't seem to understand. And if I could say that is a feature, a dangerous feature of Trump and his administration, he consistently overestimates his ability. and America's ability to bend people to his and its will. He thinks he can do that with China by imposing these enormous tariffs, and he seems surprised that the Chinese are calling him and asking to do a deal with him.

He's complaining about that, apparently, to everybody that he can. He's surprised that the Russians haven't rushed to embrace his idea of a ceasefire in Ukraine, and I don't seem to be intimidated by the sanctions. And these threats he is making against Iran are not going to be accepted by Iran and they're not going to be accepted by many other people. And taking this approach to Iran, I would have thought,

is going to solidify support for Iran, probably in the region, but globally as well. I mean, when they see and understand that this is indeed the, agenda, the Chinese, the Russians, everyone else are going to say to themselves, we have to make sure that Iran can withstand this blow, because if it doesn't, then they'll be coming for us. I mean, it seems to be, as I said, this is, this is fantasy that only someone who simply

doesn't understand or have grasp of the realities can ever lend themselves to. And I'm afraid Trump does sometimes come across to me as that sort of person. I mean, to say that it will end his presidency, that's almost the least of it, actually. It will end the United States as a great power. No, I think, you know, what we're seeing clearly in the markets at the moment is a shift of investments and, you know, money out of the United States, for the first time, people, you know, are not regarding the 10-year treasury as a safe investment. I mean, this is what the basis trade, that actually, it was nothing to do with China putting the things on that, was the cherry on the cake. Why he changed his tack was the blowing up of the basis trade.

which is a highly complex sort of system of, you know, of the hedge funds, really arbitraging tiny changes between, if you like, the interest rates on 10-year treasuries and on future 10-year treasuries, and borrowing money to do that and borrowing money to buy the treasuries to do both, so that if there's any shift in the balance between the two, it can take the whole system down. And the basis trade is well over a trillion dollars. I mean, it is huge.

These hedge funds are just borrowing this, putting it in, making maybe quarter of a percent. But if you're dealing in half a billion, you know, a quarter percent is a lot of money. So they've been doing this. This is what brought down, you know, the Prime Minister in Britain, in effect. It was pension funds doing over-leverage that brought down Liz Trou. trust in as much as anything. But I think that we are seeing something of a paradigm shift, an economic paradigm shift, which is what I was trying to sort of look at in redress because there's so much noise

going on. But it does look as if we're seeing the decentering of the dollar. It's not over, of course, decentering of the dollar and the move. And this is a fantastic opportunity. I mean, which is what Putin expressed when he said, look, we've moved to the new paradigm. We're going back, if you like, we're going to the closed economy paradigm that was set out by List and Vitti in the 19th century. And this gives us protection against sanctions. We become resistance to these things.

But it also does something more because it can be. a move away from the neoliberalism sort of selfish gene type, the Anne Rand type of selfishness is great. And so let's deliberately attack the Anglo model, Adam Smith, in this way, who said that, you know, the utilitarian advantage of one individual, in the whole is a utilitarian advantage of the whole country, of the whole state. It's just nonsense. Just because, you know, 10 billionaires in these last two days have made $135 billion on the volatility in the markets and in the bond market, I mean the stock market and the bond market. in the Volta Eutnik.

These people made a hundred and said, how does that help your community, your country? And, you know, in the 19th century, they made this point. And Karl Poliani said this. And I think this is a real opportunity to go back. He said, you know, in the past, always throughout history,

there was economic activity, organic economics, but it was within, and subordinated to a policy, to the society, to the community as a hell. And neoliberalism came and turned all of that on its head, and it has made, if you like, the markets, the dominant. And we are subordinate to markets. Human beings are just subordinated.

So there's no morality left because all of the parts, if you like, that you get from, from mythology and the narratives of your society, the moral narratives of a civilization, just become tossed aside when it is the markets dictate. And we've heard this all this week. Markets dictated the Trump could do this. Markets, the bond market gave him a slap in the face. There's no issue about ordinary humans in this. And so I think it is a real opportunity if it's seized.

And I think Russia is already there and China has also been there. This was the subject of a conversation between Xi and Putin many years ago about what happened. Why did the Soviet Union collapse, which you put down eventually to sort of nihilism of the, you know, of the Russian Communist Party. Very interesting conversation. But I think, sorry, we've gone off your track a little bit down sort of a rabbit hole. But I mean, I think we are seeing. And my point I'm saying is for some time, I get to the real point. For some time, I've known both China, I'm sure you know, China and Russia have been planning.

know, the end to the dollar hegemony in the world. The exorbitant privilege, as Putin calls it. They've been planning that, but have been reluctant to do that because they didn't want to, if you like, take down the world economic structures. Well, now America's taking it down. And this really gives an opportunity for China to move ahead and to Russia with the new trading and clearing and financial systems, which are sort of more based on financial tech, on digitalization.

China has been quietly rolling out enormous amount of structures for the digital RIMBY. It's now actually operating in ASEAN and, I believe, in parts of the Middle East, using the M-bridge structures of clearing funds, not through Western banks, but digitally central bank to central bank. So now I would say, I'm not saying I know that that's going to happen, even that I've been told, but it just seems so obvious, you know, with what's going on. This is a moment really to take, you know, bricks pay, bricks car, bricks clearing forward if they want to do it these are the sort of conditions in which to do it

when no one will point their finger and say you see it's the bricks that messed up the financial system no because they can see quite clearly that it isn't that the dollar is sort of falling because of the financial crisis it's inherent in the system what do you think Alex well i do think you should apologize for talking in an epochal way when the Americans are thinking of this, or saying that they are thinking in this epochal way, that's the first thing to say. And I absolutely agree, and I was reading

this morning, there's a pissing task that the Russians are saying that the BRICs systems, the payment systems, are going to be opened to people who are outside bricks. In other words, they want

to expand it, which fits exactly into the point that you've made that they are indeed seen seizing the chance and that they're looking at this. Incidentally, I should also say that I've also had someone who has contacts in Russia, particularly in the Duma. And he says that the talk there is that all of these movements that we're seeing, the tariffs, the whole way in which this is being done, also has, the Russians see this as having very much a look about it of preparations for actual war. I mean, kinetic, actual, real war.

And apparently there's a lot of discussion in Moscow as to whether this is, in fact, exactly where we are heading. And it looks as if touching from the earlier things that you were saying, that that is exactly what it is. War against Iran, clearly, war against possibly China too, because that seems to be increasingly the drift also. again the people who are doing these things in the United States don't understand properly what they're doing

they don't see this through and they are misjudging the strength and the willpower of their adversaries anyway Glenn I'm sorry well well just Glenn before because I want to hear what your reaction is to because you are an economist in this. But I saw reports coming out from Washington just now, that as you know, Whitkoff is in Moscow now. Today, he landed there today. And he carries a message. Maybe this is totally untrue. I'm bit suspicious of its origin because it comes from Axius, but it comes from Axi, which says he carries a message to Trump. He isn't going to be there very long because he's supposed to be in Amman.

Saturday. Message from Trump to Putin, do the ceasefire now. You've got a matter of weeks to do it, or else we're going to come down on you heavily with sanctions. Well, that's not going to go down well as Alexander has just indicated in Moscow. What's your thoughts, Clem? Well, first, just a quick comment on the economic issue. because I think that both the Chinese and the Russians, you mentioned Karl Polani, his main concern was that society becomes an appendage to the economy, so it just goes where the economy takes it, which is usually when social responsibilities are thrown away. But the main problem for the Russians and Chinese is that as long as the economy was American-driven, their society is to some extent were very much influenced. Yeah, so, but otherwise, it's worth noting that these economic ideas, which the Russians are playing with now, a lot of this had a huge origin from the United States, because if you go back to Alexander Hamilton's time, their main concern was that, yeah, the British economic dominance, that this was a form of free trade imperialism, which would prevent the development of their societies and, well, many other problems. So the whole foundation of this for Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay to develop this American.

system where they would have greater industrial autonomy, their own financial system that is with their own national bank, control their own transportation corridors. A lot of this, you know, this spread around the world, even, you know, Japan. But for Friedrich Listas, you mentioned, he was effectively copy-pasting the American system and, you know, wanted to bring it to Germany with, you know, the railroads, national. And always the same. But then you had Sergei Witte from Russia who then finance minister

who then translated the list side into pamphlets and handed them out in Russia and now you know this was quite

it was a key importance for Russia they always look to Sergei Litte when they also pivoted to Asia a lot of the same

ideas were applied with the transportation corridors the industrial autonomy the financial autonomy So a lot of this was, yeah, came back to Alexander Hamilton's, you know, liberating America from the British, effectively. But after, you know, the Soviet experience, they flirted against, again, with liberalism under Yeltsin, but now they really come back into lists.

So if you want to understand a bit of direction, both the Russians and the Chinese are going, it actually has a very strong American origin. Yeah, only it is, you know, that it goes back to that sort of period of, of, The Republic, not the empire, and Buchanan and all those ideas. So it's very interesting this interplay going on. I mean, Trump, as we know, is a fully paid up member of the neoliberal economic system. And that really was only entrenched in the 80s, I think, when all the regulatory elements. were just removed en masse, and of course, after 2008. But anyway, I just think, you know, this is something that, you know, we're just chatting about it,

but I'm sure that there are people in China and Russia who are seized of this, and, you know, Putin gave that speech in the 18th of March, and he said, the old order is over. We're still going to have sanctions and we're going to have competition and rivalry. And all of this will be designed to oppress Russia and to put pressures on us. Isn't that exactly what you're saying? Alexander was talking about with the British in a way. So, you know, Russians being good historians probably will find, you know, that this is thinking,

that this is the way they might talk to someone like Vance. I'm not sure if it would be, you know, if Wittkoff is open to it in that way, he's more of a sort of finance person, I guess, than thinking about, you know, the community. Whereas Vance has always wondered, how do you, you know, get the community back at the center of your politics? And because without that, you're stuck with us,

an ami, this sort of listnesses, this boredom, this sort of, people just, you know, ghost out of jobs, don't bother to turn up because it doesn't seem to them to be worthwhile. And that's in Europe and in America. How do you get, you know, that sort of engagement back? Well, they've just given up on sort of, you know, just being, if you like, the vassals of industrial and financial systems that, you know, take every screw every penny they can out of you. And they just decide it's not worth the candle because you never get anywhere anyway. The prevailing sentiment, I think, from so many in America and Europe is, the system, the economic system, is rigged against us.

This is the moment if they can do it when Russia and China can start giving a lead to another view and actually bring back some sort of ethics into the economic. Incidentally, it's not just Germany and school. I remember reading some time ago, Mohamed Bacca Sada's book called Our Economy. he was in Iraq at that time. And that was very much the same. How do you provide the incentives for, you know, enterprise, yet keep it within, if you like, an ethical framework at the same time?

How do you manage that? And his book is really his answer to that. So, you know, it was in the east and, you know, in many places. and then got completely pushed out by that expression that Mrs. Satcher loved. Tina, there is no alternative. There's no other system. We can't even think about it. Not that she'd have a red list or Vitter, I'm sure, but, you know, no, Tina, there's no alternative.

We have to have, if you like, full freedom, end of regulations, must scrap all that, allow completely free range to financial institutions to do what they choose. And now America has suddenly found that this is biting them back, biting them back badly.

They've gone so far down that road as precisely as List predicted that actually now is coming back to undermine them. And he said, you know, at the end of the day, following that Adam Smith model, would end up by destroying your system because you wouldn't be able to provide employment

for people or consumption because you would have skewed the whole thing towards the financialized world and there wouldn't be any real economy left and that's exactly what's happened to the United States it seems to me in the spirit why we've got the dollar for it at the moment and the bond market

punching Trump in the face as you know the as those very sort of Wall Street people like to say well quiet things talk us tell us a bit about the situation as you can see it in Iran because

going back to the original part of our program I mean Iran is clearly the linchpin at least in the theory of the minds of the people who are going to follow this plan I mean I've never been to Iran but my own sense is that

There are many divisions there. This is a complex society. But I don't think it's going to fall apart under the kind of pressure that people in the West assume. I think that we don't understand the political system very well. It looks very disorganized and chaotic. But it does seem to have a kind of inner coherence about it. What would happen if there was an American attack on Iran? Would they go nuclear?

for example. No, I don't think they would go nuclear. I don't actually think they have a nuclear weapon at this point. They could do it. I mean, they have the technical capacity. But you know, all during the Iran-Iraq war, when Iraq was using chemical weapons and injuring people in their chemical weapons attack,

Iran refused to go down the route of copying this. and reciprocating. So I don't think they would go down nuclear. I'm fairly sure they would not do that. I think that yes, what we're seeing

is really it is divided but not as divided as people think. There is quite a sort of vocal and quite a prominent faction.

which is really the Zarif faction, which is the reformists, who are fully in favor of sort of cooperating and having relations with the United States. The foreign minister who's going to lead this, who was a nuclear negotiator, I can't remember when, but about 10 years ago, he's very competent and etc., but he's always been, you know, pro a discussion. with the United States and a negotiation that would bring an agreement and the end of sanctions on Iran. And then there is quite a forceful section, including most of the IRGC, who have a big constituency with them and with the militias around it. I don't mean a forced one. I don't want to make it sound artificial.

But it is one that makes a very valid point, and they say, you know, all the time you have to match, if you like, willingness to negotiate. But that has to be balanced by integrity and by the willingness to, you know, be firm on things. You can't just simply say, oh, well, we're ready to negotiate until, you know, say to America, yes, you know, I'm so and so, and I'm happy to negotiate with you, because that smells of weakness to the United States. And you won't get a good agreement that way. then on the other hand and I think the person who who advocated this was abdallahatchian the foreign minister who was who was killed in that helicopter crash and he was always i remember listening to him at great length saying you know the the question is you know there's no good just advertising you're ready to do an agreement because that won't work with the America it's not ever worked so how do we do this? How do we express, you know, our defensive capacity, our military capacity, in such a way that they hear and they listen and they understand that if we're pushed to it, yes, we can use us. And it will be devastating for you, America, and for Israel as the consequences.

And so what's been playing out has been that sort of balance, plus another one, I think, which is being playing out in the sense that the, I think, the Supreme Leader and really the political elites as a whole, see quite clearly, rather as others do, that the future is in the East, in the Central Asia. And that Iran is going to play a key role.

It sits on the north-south corridor, east-west corridor. It is the pivot of the whole economic structure of Central Asia. And that's where it should be focused. But there is an element of Iran. Just in Lebanon, you have this part of Lebanon, which is called Ashrafia. which is people by people who still speak French there rather than Arabic or that they know Arabic, and sort of pretend that somehow the helicopter dropped these people

by mistake in Lebanon instead of in a suburb of Paris, as they should have been. And there is a little bit of something similar in North Tehran that these people look to the west. You could compare it if you like to the sort of Peter the Great aspect in Russia, although that's now a sort of past. But just to say that that's much smaller

than it used to be much, much smaller and Zarif doesn't have power that he did during that period when the negotiations were taking place and he was talking to Kerry all the time, chatting

to him sort of daily. That's no longer very far removed from that. So I suspect that what we're going to see is that what the Supreme Leader is trying to do and the political elite they want

they don't want to just shut down the reformists but they want to bring them in the tent they don't want them put outside the big Iranian tent and to sort of aggravate from outside inside this more colourful expression about that. But it's, they want them in because they also want them to begin to start understanding

that Iran has to look east and look to a different, its relationship with Russia, which is difficult for many Iranians, but to look at that and China, where they do have a very close relationship with China and away from the Europeans and the Americans. So I think they don't want to just sort of bash them down and push them out or anything. They want to bring them in. And so we'll see. Arachi will make his case. I don't know whether it will be direct or indirect.

But I mean, the message I think will be some sort of form. I haven't got the right. I haven't got any of the details of it. But I suspect that's largely right. Yes, we can do some things. But we can't solve all of this in two months. So we need more time, but we'll do this, and we will expect relief of sanctions

as a confidence-building exercise from the United States. And I don't think that will be accepted by Trump, and I know it won't be accepted by Netanyahu or the Israelis, or by most of the advisors around Trump, because I think there's so many of them who are hardline Israeli firsters. I mean, really tough. I mean, really, you know,

lacking all sort of empathy beyond that for Israel. I guess my final question is, yeah, more of a concluding remark. Do you then conclude more or less that there will be an effort to reach an agreement, it will fail, and there will be a war? And if so, when would this come, do you think, before the summer? Well, you know, all I can say is I think we are on a path to conflict, because I just think, you know, it's so unlikely that the president, configuration in Israel or the United States with the overwhelming support that APAC enjoys within Congress and elsewhere.

I mean, can tolerate the idea just simply going back to the failed formula of the past and saying, well, that's fine, because from the point of view of Israelis, it was a failure, most Israelis, and most of the Americans that surround Trump regard it as a failure, and it needs to be readdressed. So I think that principally we're on a war, on a path to war. However, what I would say is that I don't want to give it odds. I refuse to give it odds because I think we are in such a period of volatility and turmoil that it's events that are leading politics,

not political ideologies and bluepint that are determining our future now. I mean, events are going to do it. What happens in America, what happens financially and economic, they do determine the politics, and the politics is determined by, you know, the financial system, you know, the victors after the second world.

put in place. I mean, this is what we're living through and it's now come to a crisis. I think that ultimately, probably, this long, long struggle in which Iran has, Israel has wanted to impose a sort of, if you like, a greater Israel, hegemony across the entire region is going to end in a trial of strength of one sort. I can't see. You know, in this way, Alexander comes from a family of diplomats in an area. I am of a slightly different background, whereas I think that occasionally you can't move politics.

Politics becomes fossilized and stuck. And you have to have, the two parties have to go head to head. And out of that, then it's possible to move politically in the wake of that. But I wouldn't be surprised if we have to go. Israeli is incidentally saying that blatantly in the Hebrew side. They say, look, negotiations, we're all in favor of negotiations, but we have to have the war first. That's a sort of expression of it. So events, dear boy, are going to, I think,

in this next period have a commanding effect both in Iran and what happens with as a relationship between Russia and America. I have to say, I agree and I should say very quickly that absolutely diplomacy absolutely does have its limits. History, world history confirms that. I mean, you can only, diplomacy can only work, if there is a mutual will for it to work. If it's not there, then you're going to have conflict. And sometimes conflict is unavoidable. And then the job of the diplomats is when it's over,

is to put it all to pick up the pieces and try to put something together again. And then not just the diplomats, by the way. The diplomats play a role, but so do many others. The economists, the technologists, all of those sort of people too. Well, Alison, I have no further questions. I've given much, much fruitful thought

from what you have to say. Just to say thanks again. I don't know whether Glenn has anything further. Perhaps I understand you have something more. Yeah, thank you for your insights. I thought is very interesting. My pleasure. Thank you very much for inviting me.

Thank you. Our pleasure.