The Duran Podcast - Trump's Iran war debacle. Long war fear and hope strategy for regime change

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

Trump's Iran war debacle. Long war fear and hope strategy for regime change

All right, Alexander, let's discuss the situation that is unfolding in the Middle East, the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran. I think it is safe to say this is without a doubt a war. And my impression of things, Alexander, is that this is an escalating war and an expanding war, for which it appears Trump believed that this would be a short, operation, a short war, a three to four day operation, at least that's how it looks. And now the situation appears to be that things are escalating, things are expanding. And as we said on many programs that we did here on this channel, as well as on our individual channels, the longer this

drags out, the more things favor Iran and the worst it looks for the United States and Israel. that still hold? What are your thoughts on everything that is happening? It still holds, and I'm going to go further. I would argue that that analysis, which has always been on, an analysis, is now becoming increasingly vindicated. We have seen Trump making the first steps to try to get the Iranians to agree to a ceasefire. He said that he was ready to talk. He spoke about how the Iranians are ready to talk. There was a story that was planted, I think it was in the Wall Street Journal, saying that there'd been some approach to the Iranians via Italy, via Georgia Maloney, that negotiations were underway. And clearly the initiative for all of that has come from the US. Exactly as the

Iranians were saying, before the war began, they've rejected it. Ali Larijani, who since the killing of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Hamanae, Ali Larijani has come out and said that they're not interested in negotiations with the United States at this time. So Iran is doing exactly what it said it would do. It is doing exactly what we said the United States need to be aware that it might do. It is doing what various officials in the US, the vice president, J.D. Vance, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, General Kane of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and John Radcliffe of the Central Intelligence Agency. Apparently all warned it might do. It is going for a long duration war. And we can see that exactly the problems that we anticipate, are starting to kick in. We see that there are growing reports now about depletions of American stockpiles of weapons, that the United States went into this war, short of air defense missile

interceptors. And that problem is increasing. Just before we did this program, I saw a report that the UAE is now almost out of air defense missile interceptors. and we're going to see this expand, because bear in mind, what the Iranians are doing by attacking in all directions, going after American bases, going after British bases in Cyprus, which you could tell us about later, going after bases in Jordan and in Israel itself, of course, all of these bases have to be protected somehow. The Americans are now talking up a laser system that they allegedly have in Israel. Maybe they do. but it seems to be experimental. They don't have enough missile interceptors to protect all of these bases. And the Americans are also relatively short, it seems to me, of offensive missiles. They've been conducting strikes against Iran. From what I have been able to understand, American aircraft and Israeli aircraft, have not actually overflown Iran itself, despite some claims to the contrary.

But anyway, the point is that the Americans are very short of air defense missile interceptors. They are going before long to be short of offensive missiles also. And of course, the other thing they have to worry about is that some of these Iranian missile and drone strikes are going to get through and that they're going to start causing more and more damage. We've had the first reports of American casualties. So far not many, three soldiers. There's confirmation that an American aircraft, an F-15, has been shot down. We're told that was the result of friendly fire,

rather than Iranian air defence interception. Probably true. There are, however, always risks that more aircraft, after will be shot down. It looks as if the Iranians are succeeding and shooting down American drones that have been operating over Iran. And they're also hunting. That is a very, very difficult thing to do. American warships in the Arabian Sea. It might be, this would be a lucky hit. But, you know, the longer a war goes on, provided, of course, the Iranians themselves don't run out of missiles and drones, the more of what longer a war goes on, the more of war, longer a war goes

on, the more the risks, the greater the risks of something being hit as well. Now, it seems to me that this entire strategy, this entire operation was based on the assumption that if the Supreme Leader himself was killed, Ayatollah Hamanae was killed, and some of his top officials were killed, and we will come to that in a moment because this is an extraordinary episode, that would in itself, create a political crisis and a power vacuum inside Iran, and it might lead to mass protests and the overthrow of the government. And probably that was where the assumption that this would all be over within a couple of days came from. For the moment, and we're still in the early days, for the moment that isn't happening. And you can see through all of these overtures to the

Iranians to get a ceasefire, you could see that the worries and the stresses are beginning to grow. And last but not least, on the contrary, in fact, very important, we start to get reports about a pile up of ships close to the Gulf of Hormuz, of oil tankers being destroyed, of insurers, pulling insurance from ships that are trying to cross through the Straits of Cornwall moves. And we're starting to get today information about sharp increases in oil and even more critical for Europe, natural gas prices. So it is playing out exactly as we predicted, exactly as we predicted, exactly by the way, as the Iranians said. So the predictions here were not difficult to make. The only question again, and it's the question that to this moment in time, we still can't

give the answer, is how stable the situation in Iran ultimately is. But when we did our last program, we said that the first night would be critical. Iran came through the first night. It comes through a second night. The longer this continues, and we don't see. a political crisis in Iran. We don't get military units defecting in Iran, the more complicated and difficult and dangerous for Trump and for the United States and for the Israelis and for the whole coalition that is now chaotically assembling. This becomes.

Well, on that issue, Alexander, I listened to Trump's speech yesterday. I also listened to a couple of interviews of Lindsay Graham and some other U.S. lawmakers. And I got the impression that they were all but begging Iranians to rise up. Yeah. I mean, they were begging Iranians rise up and take back your country. And then Trump has this quote attributed to Trump. I don't see why he didn't say this, but okay, where Trump is talking about how Haminae went after him or tried to take him out two, three times. But I got him in one go. An astonishing, childish, ridiculous statement from Trump about Hamide, which is complete nonsense. I know what Trump is referencing.

He's referencing the bogus fake news that it was Iran that tried to take him out in Butler, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, something that has been proven categorically, absolutely false. But anyway, Trump went with that statement as well. The strategy now appears to me to be the hope strategy, the hope that Iranians will rise up and remove this government that's now been formed because of the assassination of Hamene. Here's the problem that I see with this. We're not seeing protests. We're not seeing Iranians rise up. They've tried to run with a couple of videos in Iran of people tearing down Hamide statues or something like that.

I looked at those protests very carefully, maybe 50 people at most 100, at most. While we've seen other protests, not protests, rallies happening throughout Iran in support of the government, in support of Hamene and what is the, the assassination, the martyrdom of Haminae. Now that is what this is. Yes. That's what this is unfolding to be. Hundreds of thousands of people.

Yes. In support of the government. The problem that I see, my point in all of this is the problem that I see now that the Trump administration faces is, actually, this is a couple. They don't have a plan. No. That was their plan. Take out the leader, as you said, and hope that the people rise up to fill some sort of

imaginary vacuum that they thought was going to exist with Hamene being assassinated, and all of the officials, a lot of top officials assassinated. Now they're relying on the hope strategy. Please, please people of Iran rise up. Lindsay Graham was, was his voice was quivering and shaking as he was as he was begging Iranians to do the work for us, he said. It's not for us. It's for you, Iran, to take this action for your country. That was his statement. That was Lindsay Graham's statement. And the problem in all of this, to get to my point, the problem in all of this is that they removed a moderate. And now it looks like we have this council and an interim, an interim supreme leader who are freaking hardliners.

Yes. Big time hardliners. And what do you think the hardliners are going to do? I'll tell you what they're going to do. If there is any pockets of resistance, any pockets in Iran, that appear to be even thinking about protesting against the government, they are going to crack down on them big time. Yes.

Kaminet was a moderate. He would allow these people every now and then to assemble and to protest. This council is not going to allow any space for anyone, if this even exists, for anyone in the country to rise up against the government, which is what the United States is wishing for. Your thoughts. Exactly. I would agree with every single point you've made. I'm going to say something else. And I think this is where we are. And it perhaps demonstrates the absurdity and the negligence of all of this. This all started, if you remember, back in January, as an operation to save the protests, to help the protesters. Now,

there is a call to the Iranian people to protest ultimately in order to save Donald Trump, Lindsay Graham, Netanyahu, and all the rest. I mean, it's all reversed itself. So now the Iranian people are being asked to save the people who are attacking them, whereas the people who were previously attacking them were supposed to be attacking them in order to save the Iranian people. I mean, it is ridiculous. Asahamana, you're completely correct.

Iranian terms, strictly Iranian terms, he was a moderate, maybe not a moderate on everything, maybe not a moderate on many social issues. He was, after all, a cleric, but he never sought confrontation with the United States. He never sought confrontation with Israel either, by the way. Iran, under his leadership, repeatedly pulled its punches. Internally, he had a policy of trying to balance out various groups and factions within Iranian society. He allowed protests to take place. If things went too far, he cracked down on them.

But then never quite as far and quite as ruthlessly as some people within the Iranian system probably would have wanted. And of course, and going beyond all of this, he was somebody who was adamantly opposed to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. And there is no guarantee that this much more hardline group that is now taking control, people like Ali Lajjani, who by the way, Khomey had problems with. He was not somebody who up to now, Chalmane himself, always work with easily. He always found Larijani,

perhaps a more hard-line figure than he particularly liked. But anyway, this particular group that is now emerging, and which is taking control of Iran, they might not be so inhibited in acquiring nuclear weapons in the few, once this crisis is over and if they are still in control, as Khomey was. This thing has the potential to turn into a terrible debacle. And of course there's another factor which we haven't talked about, which we must,

which is that all of the Gulf states, the island of stability and prosperity in the Middle East, East, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, all of these glittering cities, all of the businesses that were concentrated there. All of that is now in chaos. They are becoming increasingly frightened. And you can see this. There's even a Saudi commentator. He's not an official, as I understand it, but a commentator who's talking about how Saudi Arabia, how some people in Saudi Arabia are starting to feel betrayed because the air defense systems are being concentrated on protecting Israel. Of course, if this continues longer, much longer, then there is a real risk that instability in this part of the Middle East might expand. And of course, for the United

States, for Europe, by the way, this could turn out to be an even greater disaster. We have a debacle playing out, and I agree, I think you're absolutely correct. This group that is now in control of Iran are going to crack down on protests to the extent that there are protests and they might form a much more coherent government than the one that we've seen up to now. Why would Europe be in any problem, Alexander? Why should Europe be concerned about gas prices? I thought that they diversified away from Russian gas.

Yeah. Right. I thought that everything was great, according to Ursula, when you ditch reliable, cheap, dependable Russian pipeline gas and are 100% dependent on U.S. and Qatar, LNG. I thought that that meant energy stability. Absolutely. What happened? What happened?

What could have possibly gone wrong with that policy, EU Ursula and all of the geniuses in the European Union? Now you're seeing spikes of 25% in EU gas. Exactly. And we haven't even started yet. We haven't even started yet. Trump is now talking about a four-week war. Why would the Iranians agree to a four-week war? if it continues for four weeks, American arsenals are going to be even more critically reduced.

And of course, the risks for the US grow. But what happens at the end of four weeks? If the Iranian government is still there, it is still in control. And of course, bear something else. They haven't yet proposed their own demands. We don't know what their demands. are going to be if they start to sense that this situation is turning to their advantage. What are the U.S. demands now?

I mean, they took out Khomeini. Yeah. They expected a regime change. It didn't happen. Yeah. So what's the plan exactly? We're just going to, what, we're going to bomb them from the air for four weeks? Yes.

In order to achieve what? Yeah. Unless you put boots on the ground. Yes. And I'm going to talk about 5,000 or 10,000 or 50,000. We're probably talking about a million. Yeah. Maybe more.

Which would take about six months to a year to put together. And there would be protests. There would be all kinds of things. So my question to you on a geopolitical level, on a strategy level, if you're the Trump administration, for the moment, and we're still very early in this. Yes. So we have to stress that. Yes.

But for the moment, you haven't seen any signs of unrest and unrest. of a regime change forming. Yes. So you're saying four weeks of bombing, what is the goal? Well, I don't think anybody can see one, and that's the trouble. Even the mainstream media in Britain are saying that there is no strategy here. Now it is possible, and we have to accept that this remains a possibility, that there are military units in Iran that might start the defect.

We might eventually see military units move towards Tehran. We might see something like that. But in the absence of this, in case if Iran remains united and stable as it is at the moment, then, as I said, we're in a long-drawn-out war with no plan, no plan either to win and no plan to end. I mean, perhaps what the US could do is announce a unilateral ceasefire and start pulling its forces out of the Middle East that might cause the fighting to end or at least die down, but it would be seen as a complete defeat. How could Trump do that?

Well, I'm not sure he can. I'm not sure he can. I'm not sure he can. This has become existential. This is existential for Iran, no doubt about it. So people need to remember that. This is existential now for Iran. Yes.

In much the same way that for Russia, it's existential. For Iran now, this is existential. Yes. For Trump, the person, the president and the person, this is now existential. Yes. Because I'm seeing signs of some of the neocons who are his buddies, his golfing buddies. I'm seeing signs that they're ready to throw him under the bus and turn on him if this thing goes bad. Well, that's exactly what they're going to do.

And they, as you're quite right, They are making the first moves to do this. I mean, they will say that this wasn't properly prepared, that help should have been given to the protesters earlier. They'll come up with the usual cascade and catalogue of excuses that this wasn't properly prepared and it was Trump's fault. That's what they're going to say, because that's what the neocons always do.

And in a week's time, in two weeks' time, what are the first murmurs of criticism, which you're quite right, they are there. The first murmurs of criticism are going to turn into a cascade and then a flood. And it's a flood that could sweep him away. I mean, if gas prices rise in the United States as well, in the run-up to the mid-terms, the mid-terms were already looking bad, the war was always unpopular. it's going to be an absolute wipeout. So how does Trump get out of this?

What you're saying is maybe Trump finds a way to say, I'm trying to think from what you said, maybe Trump says we achieved our goals in removing Haminae. Yes. He could move the goalposts and say, okay, not about regime change, not about protesters, not about uranium enrichment. My goal was to remove the Supreme Leader. I got him. Now I'm out.

I mean, I'm saying something that's kind of simple. in a way, because, I mean, it's not going to happen. But maybe that's his off ramp, maybe. I mean, how could he pull this off? Well, indeed. Is Iran going to let him pull this off? Well, exactly. I mean, that is always been the problem in all of the various strategies that we have heard

from the administration, which is that whatever they do requires a degree of cooperation or partnership from the other side. If he's going to pull all the troops from the Middle East, he's going to stop all the ships from the Middle East. And, you know, the aircraft carriers can't stay there indefinitely. The destroyers can't stay there indefinitely. They're also going to start running out of missiles. They can't use Bahrain, which is the layer of space,

because Bahrain is itself under attack and can't be defended, as it's not becoming absolutely clear. And besides, they'd have to get through the Straits of Hormuz, and that is becoming difficult. So they'd have to sell all the way to, I believe, Diego, to restop their Stama, as, by the way, I predicted is letting them do that. But before long, that's going to start to become more controversial in Britain. There's already the first criticisms in Britain about this, just to say.

But they can't keep the forces there indefinitely. So maybe a unilateral end to hostilities, a pullback of forces, it would be an absolute disaster for Trump. And of course, the Iranians, they might say, well, it's not enough. We will still continue to attack Israel. We will still continue to attack the Gulf states. What if the Iranians turn around and say that they're not going to stop until all American bases are removed from the Middle East? I mean, it's something that they have floated in the past,

that they want to complete American withdrawal from the Middle East. There are some people in the US, quite a lot of people actually, who would not be sorry to do that, just to say. But if that does become an Iranian demand and the Iranians have not yet set out their demands, well, what does the United States do if attacks continue and the United States is out of missiles and out of political support in the United States to continue this war? So there's a few things to say about the war itself. The first point is it was completely pointless. It was unnecessary, despite all of the claims about a preemptive Iranian attack, I don't think anybody takes those seriously.

There was no sign that Iran was going to launch a preemptive attack. Pentagon has admitted as much. They're preemptic and has admitted as much. Which, by the way, is already interesting that some people in the Pentagon are now coming out and are contradicting. Exactly. Exactly. So, I mean, so anyway, so that story is absolute nonsense.

There was, again, a negotiation underway. Oman, which is probably the only Gulf State, by the way, that has not been attacked by Iran. Oman was saying that the negotiations were going well. The Iranians were putting forward what in any rational world looked like reasonable proposals. Trump himself, let's never forget, walked away. from the JCPOA, which was working a point you have absolutely rightly made again and again in program after program that you have done on your channel, here on the Duran and on other places, on other platforms. And, well, let's also talk now about what they did with Hamé, which is they killed

exactly as you pointed out many times, a man who was not just a political, leader and, by the way, a relative moderate, but also a religious leader as well in the middle of Ramadan. There are, by the way, hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims at this moment in time in Saudi Arabia. The air flights are becoming disrupted. I believe there are still air links to Saudi Arabia itself, but there's every risk that that might be thrown into confusion as well. for the Saudis, this is also a catastrophe. Well, let's focus on Harmoni. They went out to kill him.

Now, there's a number of theories circulating about this. Theory one is that he chose martyrdom himself. He knew that the attack was going to come. He stayed in his residence. He was expecting the Americans and the Israelis to come for him. He sacrificed his life in order to consolidate the government and the system in which he believed. And I think there's some quite high possibility that that might be so,

because I read an article, which I has now, as far as I can see, disappeared, in which I think it was in the Financial Times, in which Iranian officials were telling the British media that that was exactly what Khamene was intending to do. It appeared about a week ago. So that's a possibility. But there is an even more disturbing possibility, which is that Khamene and members of his family were attacked and killed in his residence because yet again the Iranians were tricked. I find that incredible, by the way, if this is true, but yet again they were tricked. They'd got reports that the US was making some kind of proposal. Hamene called together all the top military leaders, the defense minister, of the chief of staff, the head of the IRGC and various other people. They were all meeting in his residence.

They were all discussing the next negotiation, and they were killed cynically and ruthlessly. And Putin has spoken about a cynical and a moral, immoral attack violating international law. and the expression cynical makes me think that it is this second claim that is the true one. So given that this is so, how do the Iranians, how does this new, much more hard-nosed, far more hard-lying Iranian government that is now appearing in Tehran, how do they trust? Why should they trust Donald Trump, the U.S. government, in any negotiations in the future? Why should anyone trust the Trump administration at this point?

Including Russia. Including China. Why should Xi Jinping meet with Trump in when is it April? Exactly. At the end of March, at the end of this month. How in God's name is that meaning going to take place? Well, indeed. I wouldn't be surprised if Xi Jinping actually decides to meet with Trump. Well, indeed. But I imagine that G is going to absolutely pummel Trump. Well, indeed he can, but he might even do something else. He might say, we are not going to export dual-use technology to the United States, specifically rare earths.

They've done this before, and I say this because one part of the agenda in all of this, and I've been reading about this. There's a long article today in the Daily Telegraph, which is, by the way, just interviewed Donald Trump. So they're very close to him. One of the purposes of this was to stop Iranian exports of oil to China. So it's all about cutting off China from oil. So given that this is so,

why would China now not consider taking countermeasures? Why might they not stop rare earths? RERUS needed by the U.S. military industrial complex to keep its own production of weapons go. And you called it last week. And I don't think anyone noticed it, Alexander, when all of those ships were heading to China and everyone was saying, oh, you see, India has finally betrayed Russia. Look at all the oil ships now.

They're heading to China because India is finally betrayed Russia. Now they're siding with Trump, MAGA, Trump, victory. Trump is the emperor king, 10 D. Chess and all of that nonsense. You were the only one that pointed out, hello, China is stockpiling on oil because they know what's about to happen. This has nothing to do with India betraying Russia, which India will not betray Russia. No. There's no chance that India is going to betray Russia or bricks.

No. It's not going to happen. No. But China was stockpiling on oil. All of this that's happening now trying to cut off Iran from China. You want to know what the effect is going to be? You said it a thousand times. We've said on this channel a thousand times. China and Russia are just going to get closer. China is going to be even more dependent on Russian energy. That's going to be

the end result to all of this. Exactly. What a freaking, what a debacle. I mean, the only chance that Trump has in all of this is to get this regime change, it's uprising inside Iran. Yes. The other thing that I fear is that Trump is going to be so cornered in all of this that he may go to an extreme. I don't want to talk about what extreme he might go. He might go to. But I don't know.

I can't see any other options than that. He has to get this regime change. Yes. Yes. Or get Netanyahu to go to those extremes for him, which is always a possibility. Same thing, yeah. It's the same thing. Same thing.

They assassinate Hamene, his family, his little girl, which no one wants to talk about. You saw 150 Iranian schoolchildren girls killed as well. CNN has debunked, by the way. I didn't want to talk about this before until all of the information came out. But even CNN has debunk the claim that this was an Iranian rocket. Not me. CNN debunked that. Yes.

And CNN basically, they didn't want to go all the way and admit it and say it. A drop site news has said it. But they were basically hinting that this was a strike that not only hit an airbase close to the school, but also that children's school girls school as well. And this was not some sort of Iranian missile. This was CNN's own reporting and their own investigation. Iranians are not going to forget this. You kidnap Maduro.

Yeah. Illegal. Yes. You try to assassinate Putin, allegedly. Yes. You blockade Cuba. Yes. What the fuck is going on here?

Yes, I know. I mean, no country is going to want to deal with the United States. You assassinate negotiators in Qatar as they're negotiating. I mean, this is... You attack... You attack and nuclear sites protected by the IAEA. Yeah. What is happening here?

You don't go to Congress. You don't get authorization for Congress. You don't go to the UN Security Council. You pay no attention to America for. You don't even, it seems like Trump doesn't even talk about the United States anymore. No. No. You rarely hear him talking about the United States or talking about anything that pertains to the U.S., to America.

to American citizens' lives to anything. It's all, we're the hottest country in the world, and I'm going to kidnap that guy and kidnap that guy and take out that guy. And look, he tried to take me out two times. So I took him out in one time. Or we're negotiating, and as we're negotiating, I'm going to attack you. This hasn't happened once. This happened like four times now.

Yes, I know. I mean, it has, it's, I've said this before. It's the Alka poem. style of diplomacy, if you can call it diplomacy. I mean, it's, it's running the United States as if it was the mob who was in charge. Except that the mob, let's be straight about this, we're a lot more careful and selective about what they do. Yeah. Yeah. In negotiations, you send your son-in-law and then, and would cough, fine, but not a diplomat, not a negotiator. No. You send them to, to all of these negotiations. Yes.

Where's your Secretary of State? Yes. Where's your diplomatic team? Yes. What kind of a White House is this? Well, I know, yes. We're very early into this. Yes.

But going on to the Iranian side of things, Hezbollah may be entering this conflict. It looks like they are entering this conflict. Yes. The Houthis have not entered this conflict yet. No. What happens when they start to enter this conflict? Well, indeed. Yes. And everybody else, I mean, the Europeans are talking about doing so that will be hugely unpopular. I mean, that might be the thing that tips us over towards a return to some kind of peace movements in Britain, by the way. I'll just, I'll mention it. I had to go out yesterday. And my taxi driver, taxi drivers as everybody knows can often be the people who articulate views. They're saying, what a

And earth is our government doing. We should absolutely stay out of this. It's not as if Donald Trump is even popular here in Britain. So why should we go and fight his wars for him? So, I mean, you know, absolutely. I mean, everything is at the moment exactly, as you said, it's expanding, it's spiraling completely out of Donald Trump's control. He doesn't seem to have a plan.

He is without a plan. And he's conducted diplomacy, foreign policy, in ways that I simply would never have imagined any government in the world doing. Even the worst government, even the most predatory and aggressive government, has never behaved quite like this. Okay, so let me ask you a final question because a lot of people always bring it up on X, especially on X, especially amongst the Trump, 10D, chess, MAGA crowd. I don't even know if MAGA's alive anymore.

I'm going to have another word for it. Let's just say the hardcore Trump supporters, the hardcore Collectum West supporters, the Project Ukraine supporters. Where is Russia and China coming to Iran's assistance? You see, being friends with Russia and China is deadly for a country because they don't come to the aid of their allies. What do you make of statements like that? Well, let's start with coming to the end.

of your allies. I mean, it's the Saudis at the moment, or at least people in Saudi Arabia who are complaining about betrayal. They were peaceful, orderly countries, and they are now under attack, and they're under attack for being friends of the United States. Maybe being friends of the United States is not such a good idea. The Russians and the Chinese are there. We have had a significant amount of information that they have been providing help to Iran over the last few weeks. It could be that these attacks, one of the reasons that these attacks that we have seen across the Middle East are more effective because of the help that the Russians and the Chinese are providing. But thank heaven, Russia and China are run by more organized and rational governments than the one that we are seeing in Washington. So they are providing their help in a structured and rational way and one which will position them to take advantage of the situation in their own interests if it plays out long and one which will also position them to contain the damage if it goes wrong.

So I think that this argument that is incessantly made is, I mean, it's just not just wrong. It's juvenile. I'm going to make another point, by the way, the United States, it's not we who are saying this anymore. It is Bloomberg. It is the Financial Times. It's the Washington Post. The United States can only wage short wars. Short wars. Somebody put it very well, actually. It was Willie O.M. That they plan for the battle. They cannot plan for a war. The fact that the Russians can conduct a war for four years, which is something that the United States cannot do,

is a sign of Russia's strength, not its weakness. The fact that the United States has to do things. fast. There's a Bloomberg article, which is saying that there's now a race to get it all done before the weapons run out. The Wall Street Journal article too. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. That is a sign of weakness. It is not a sign of strength. One final question, and then we'll wrap up this log video, but I have a question for you. If the E3, France, Germany and the UK, if they enter this conflict, what does Russia do? How are they looking at this, given that they have been so escalatory, provocative?

They've been so involved in the conflict in Ukraine. What happens when they start to get involved in this conflict in the Middle East, if they get involved in this conflict in the Middle East? because I think they're being pushed into this conflict. Yes. But I also think you're right. They have an understanding that, oh, my God, if we really do get stuck in this conflict of the Middle East, we may have some problems at home as well.

Well, indeed, absolutely, from a Russian point of view. I mean, this is, I think this is nothing to say. I mean, I don't mean to suggest that the Russians want this conflict. They don't. I mean, they never have done. They've done everything they can diplomat, could diplomatically to prevent it. Putin offered his services to the United States as a mediator last year.

There was discussions about it. Trump even confirmed it in an interview on Air Force One. The Russians brokered a deal between Iran and Israel at the end of last year, whereby Israel would not attack Iran if Iran did not attack Israel. And the Russians have already issued statements about how Israel, Israel violated, broke that agreement and violated that promise. So you can't say that the Russians wanted this, but if it continues in the way that everybody says,

and some people fear, and by the way, a few people wish, well, then from the Russian point of view, it puts them in a consistently stronger position. More missiles to the Middle East, because we are so short of missiles, means fewer missiles from Vladimir Zelensky. More costs and financial pressure in Europe because of energy and gas prices. Rising means more budget strains, more difficulties. It means ultimately less money available, even to give to Vladimir Zelensky.

Forget about talk of rearmament in Europe. It wasn't going anywhere anyway. But the Europeans already running short of weapons because they've been giving so many to Vladimir Zelensky are going to have to now commit whatever they still have to the situation in the Middle East. And sooner or later, if this continues in the way that it is, the Middle East crisis, whether Mertz wants it or Ussula want it or any of them want it, is going to become the all-consuming, all-dominating crisis, far more so than Ukraine, which has been going on for four years and many people are becoming tired of, which, of course,

suits the Russians perfectly because they can do in Ukraine what they want to do, and the Europeans aren't going to be able to do anything about it, and nor will the United States. Yeah. You have a saying where you talk about neocon wars. They always start out very, very fast, very big. It always looks like the United States is on top of it. But then things always go badly. This one, I would say it started out big and fast for maybe a day at most. Yes. Yes. Other wars, you could say that the other neocon wars were very big and successful, at least for maybe a one. weak and then they started to really go south. Exactly. What do you think of that? That's exactly.

That is exactly right. And it is a weakness. It is not a strength. The United States relies far too much on a small number of assets. It's outstandingly capable, special forces, which probably are the best in the world. Some of its intelligence assets, it's a skill in covert operations. and some of its technology and its infrastructure and its information. But it is not configured to fight a long war.

Russia is. Iran? Well, we'll see. I mean, that is the big unanswered question. Iran fought a very long war in the 1980s. And this is where, by the way, again, Russia and China become important. because if Iran finds itself in a war that drags on, it's going to need economic and financial, and by the way, military support.

And bear in mind, the Russians and the Chinese gave military, economic and financial support to North Vietnam in the 1960s. I've made the point already, if this turns into that kind of conflict, a long-duration conflict, very difficult for the United States, very difficult for its allies. There's every incentive for the Russians and the Chinese, who are in a far stronger position economically, by the way, than they were in the 1960s to do the same with Iran again. And what happened in the 1960s was that by giving that economic,

military and financial aid to North Vietnam, they gained leverage over the United States, itself. In the end, the United States, in order to extricate itself from the Vietnam War, had to improve relations, established relations with China and engage in detentee diplomacy with the Soviets in order to get their help to disentangle itself from what they were calling a quagmire. I remember all of this rhetoric. I'm old enough to remember it. To get to escape the quagmire of Vietnam. In Moscow and Beijing, memories are long. And they will be talking all about this with themselves and of course with each other. Yeah. In the United States, they don't have any

diplomats or politicians capable of this type of thinking. No, absolutely. Absolutely. To try and get out of the quagmire. I don't think there's anyone in D.C. No. At this moment, that's or at least that has Trump's ear at this moment that we'll be able to disentangle the United States from all this. Well, the trouble with Trump is that he's listened to Lindsay Graham. He's listened to probably Mike Walsh. He's listened far too much to Benjamin Netanyahu. Susie Wiles. And Susie Wiles and all of those people. He's spent all his time listening to these people. And of course, he doesn't do history. He doesn't. And across the West now, we don't do history anymore. I am quite sure that in both, Moscow and Beijing, there are still people around who remember that time and who were there.

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