Western escalation reaches a DANGEROUS tipping point! Geopolitical heavyweights Alastair Crooke, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen warn: The US & Israel are pushing IRAN toward all-out war—with catastrophic global consequences. 🌍
🔴 WHY THIS IS EXPLOSIVE:
✅ US/Israel Provocations – Targeted assassinations, covert ops & sanctions pushing Tehran to the brink.
✅ Iran’s Red Line – Will Supreme Leader Khamenei strike back HARD?
✅ Oil Shock Coming? – A Middle East war could CRASH global markets overnight. ⛽📉
✅ Russia & China’s Role – Will they back Iran… or try to stop WW3? 🇷🇺🇨🇳
⚠️ Is this the WEST’S BIGGEST BLUNDER yet? Or is war already inevitable? 💬 Sound off below! 👇 #IranWarWarning
#Iran #WW3 #WarWarning #MiddleEast #AlastairCrooke #Mercouris #GlennDiesen #USIran #Israel #OilWar #Geopolitics #RedLine #Khamenei #AxisOfResistance #NuclearShowdown #GlobalCrisis #SanctionsKill #ProxyWar #EndTimes #AvoidWar
🔴 WHY THIS IS EXPLOSIVE:
✅ US/Israel Provocations – Targeted assassinations, covert ops & sanctions pushing Tehran to the brink.
✅ Iran’s Red Line – Will Supreme Leader Khamenei strike back HARD?
✅ Oil Shock Coming? – A Middle East war could CRASH global markets overnight. ⛽📉
✅ Russia & China’s Role – Will they back Iran… or try to stop WW3? 🇷🇺🇨🇳
⚠️ Is this the WEST’S BIGGEST BLUNDER yet? Or is war already inevitable? 💬 Sound off below! 👇 #IranWarWarning
#Iran #WW3 #WarWarning #MiddleEast #AlastairCrooke #Mercouris #GlennDiesen #USIran #Israel #OilWar #Geopolitics #RedLine #Khamenei #AxisOfResistance #NuclearShowdown #GlobalCrisis #SanctionsKill #ProxyWar #EndTimes #AvoidWar
Category
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NewsTranscript
00:00Everyone, I'm joined today by Alexander Mercurius and Alastair Crook, former British diplomat and
00:08our favorite expert on the Middle East. And I thought we could start by talking about Iran
00:16as, well, Trump was elected to some extent as a peace candidate, but now he appears to be
00:24taking the U.S. on a path towards war with Iran. At least it doesn't seem that he wants a war,
00:31but he has set demands on Iran, which has to be met. Otherwise, he seems to paint himself in a
00:38corner in which there would be war. So I thought a good approach to this is, well, I guess to outline
00:44a bit what his demands are, to what extent Iran can actually meet this demand. And if they fail to
00:53meet them, does Trump have any room to maneuver, to scale back? Is this simply a very aggressive
01:01opening position, a maximalist as he always does, or are we effectively seeing a path to war here?
01:09I thought, well, I guess we can start by outlining what the demands are, because they did have an
01:16agreement in the past, JCPOA, which Trump himself pulled out during his first administration. So,
01:23well, what is it exactly that the United States demands from Iran to not attack it?
01:31Well, it's very interesting. If you go back to that period, when he exited the JCPOA,
01:42in which at that time it was, to any extent you can say, was pretty much working. I mean,
01:52it wasn't entirely satisfactory. However, what his complaints were, were essentially twofold.
02:02of course, the main complaint was, and he said, you know, we continue on this path and they'll end
02:08up with a nuclear weapon. But his main complaints were about Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc.
02:16There were proxy forces, which, in his subsequent document issued by
02:24Poloni at that time, was very clear. There were 12 demands. And they started off with a complete sort of,
02:39if you like, undressing of the whole nuclear weapons program from 2003 period. I mean,
02:50which wasn't a formal program at all. There were just odds and ends going on in different parts.
02:59And then he withdrew from that and also the missiles. Those were the two big things that
03:08that he introduced. And Pompeo then produced this 12 point plan, which was, you know, the kitchen sink.
03:18Everything really was required into it. And this was very much at the prompting. So, I mean, it goes,
03:24I mean, you know, just as people say, Trump hasn't changed a bit on tariffs over 40 years.
03:32You can say he hasn't changed an iota on his demands on the Iranians and his pursuit of the Iranians.
03:42And in the present, what he said in the present document were seven demands.
03:50And he did these in something which is called a national presidential memorandum.
03:58And it is a binding directive, which is legally binding on government agencies to implement specific
04:08actions precisely. And these were one that Iran should be denied a nuclear weapon, the standard thing.
04:15Denied also intercontinental missiles, denied to other asymmetric and conventional weapon capabilities.
04:24And to this end, the memorandum directs maximum economic pressure being imposed,
04:30that the Treasury Act to drive Iran's oil exports to zero, and that the US worked to trigger
04:38JCPOA snapback of sanctions. And finally, that Iran's malign influence abroad, its proxies being neutralized.
04:48This was just on the 4th of February, just over a month ago. This is what he signed into sort of
04:55the presidential directive. And some of it is based on the Pompeo version. But that's what it was.
05:10I mean, they were really sort of very binding and maximalist terms. And it did look as if he was
05:17moving Iran down a path to where there is war as its only outcome. Then he sent a letter, just via the Emiratis,
05:28to Iran. And I mean, I can't guarantee that this is accurate because I only get it secondhand.
05:36But I understand that it had about five points in it. The first one was dismantling Iran's nuclear infrastructure,
05:47halting uranium enrichment, halting it, ceasing arms transfers to the Houthis, ending financial support for Hezbollah,
05:58and disbanding the popular mobilization forces in Iraq. As I say, this is comes from, as you probably
06:07know, the letter was delivered by the Emiratis. And the answer came back from from Oman in that way,
06:15which I think was signaling. So the question is, you know, what do we ultimately comes to judgment about
06:26Trump? I think about where he's going and what he's he's doing. But there is a couple of signals
06:35that are quite important now. And I'm just, these are not conclusive signals. But they, I think,
06:42you know, are things that one should pay attention to. I've always believed in in in that idea of not
06:48the sort of mechanistic view of, if you like, international relations looking at purely in a rational way.
06:56But when some things come out of the blue, and they don't quite fit in the pattern, you look at
07:00them and you say, well, I mean, this is quite interesting. Well, one of them that came out of
07:06the blue is that the E3, that is the European states who are still members of the GCPOA, Germany,
07:17France and the UK, have told Iran that they are going to trigger snapback by the end of June this year.
07:26And so I think this is an interesting, I mean, clearly concerted, the Europeans doing the work,
07:33the US cannot do it, because it's no longer a member of the process. But the snapback system,
07:42anyway, expires in October. But for various reasons, there are processes within it,
07:49where it takes a little time to take effect, because there's this reconciliation point where
07:54Iran can make their points. And then it goes into effect a little after that. So there isn't that
08:00much time. Maybe this is why he said it had to be done by spring. This was the deadline that everyone is
08:06talking. The other interesting thing, again, you know, because I sort of pick out these things and
08:13think, you know, these are interesting. They don't fit the sort of formal AI patterning
08:19of events, but they're interesting. The US government has, and I get this from very good reporting in
08:31Lebanon, has warned the Lebanese government that they have banned any financial assistance
08:40to Lebanon until Hamas is disarmed, Hezbollah is disarmed, excuse me. And secondly,
08:50in other words, Lebanon starts to move towards normalization with Israel. It's couched in terms
08:57of removes all the obstacles to the relationship with Israel. And there is a similar ban on any
09:05financial support, and this is more striking, any more, any financial support, except for various minor
09:13exceptions, to Syria, with the same demands on them. And these were made fairly plain to Erdogan in terms
09:24of his relationship with Shara, and Shara has affected it, saying, we are ready to open relations with
09:32Israel. So what we're seeing a little bit, it seems to me, is in fact that whole Whitcoft vision that he
09:40outlined some times ago in his podcast with Tucker Carlson. And he said, look, you know, think about it. He said,
09:50look, Lebanon, Hezbollah has been badly damaged in this period, and you know, it could normalize. It's
09:58possible. I think it's possible that they can normalize. And Syria, even, he said, you can look
10:06to listen to the podcast. He says, and Syrian. And he effectively then said, look, Shara, you know,
10:13is an SOB. Of course, I know it. But he's our SOB, he effectively said, because he's kicked the Iranians
10:20out. And then he talked about normalization. Well, it could then, if Gaza, we can manage that.
10:27Saudi Arabia will normalize it. And then that leaves the problem, which is Iran and its terrorist
10:35organizations, we call them that terrorist organizations, the proxies of Iran, they must be
10:43made inextentially, existentially neutralized towards, he didn't use exactly those words, but that was
10:52basically the gist of it towards Israel. And then he added, imagine with that, that would be epic.
11:03It would be epic. It would be the normalization of the whole Middle East.
11:10He couched it in those terms. But I'm also putting it in today's terms and saying, look,
11:17when Trump seems to be hurrying this process along with Iran, what's happening with China?
11:26What's happening with Russia? Trump is wanting leverage, particularly on China, and particularly
11:35on Russia at this point, because he's threatening sanctions on Russia. But I mean, they're going to be
11:43meaningless. I don't think, I think you've talked about this, Alexander, enough. I don't think,
11:49you know, they're going to, they're certainly not going to change the course of, you know, Russian
11:57policy. And so why do I say this? Well, of course, for China, it is very vulnerable on energy.
12:07And most of its energy, a lot of its energy comes from Iran. So not only would you get the Middle East
12:16neutralized and sort of normalized with Israel overall, but look, the energy there is our energy,
12:26ours, that's going to be ours, the gas, and we can control it, and we can control China,
12:33and we can make it difficult even for Russia, by our control of the Middle East and the Middle East
12:40resources, Iraq, Iran, all of these resources. Now, you see a lot of people saying, ah, but the oil
12:48price is going to go sky high, and it's going to go up, you know, we'd be paying $10 a gallon in the
12:54United States for our gasoline. But the message and the principles that they seem to be working on,
13:02and it's certainly the message that is being sent from Israel to the United States is, look, this is
13:12how we do it. We don't mess up the, if you like, the energy paradigm at all. What we do is, the first
13:24wave we go in, we take out all of Iranian air defenses. And the second wave, we go in and we take out
13:34the religious, the Ayatollahs, the IRGC leadership. This is why you see that very clear message in, in, in,
13:44in what, um, I think it was Rubio said about, no, it was Walsh, Walsh in a statement about the attack,
13:53um, on, um, the Yemenis, on the Houthis. And he said, look, there's a different policy here.
14:01It's going to be different, our policy from what it was under Biden. The different policy, um,
14:08is essentially, one, we are going for decapitation. We are killing the leadership.
14:16And two, this is directed at Iran. And so if they take out that, the view, I'm not endorsing it. I
14:26have to underline. I don't share it. But the view is that Iran will be like Syria. It will just be
14:34like an open shop. Someone forgot to lock it up and it will be all open. You can just walk in and you
14:42take over just as happened within a few days in Syria. And, you know, the, the, the, these people
14:51are talking, you know, of course, we'll have the Baluch rising up and the Azeris rising up and
14:58everyone is going to be rising up, getting rid of the hated regime and we'll substitute it with a
15:06pro-Western regime. And the Middle East will be solved. Great victory. Now, I, it's fantastical.
15:17Fantastical. But does, does, does, does Trump, you know, really believe it? Like, you know,
15:23for 40 years, he's believed in, in this. And I'm, and I'm saying really two things. And I don't know,
15:31I just got some proof. But I'm saying really two things about this. I mean, this would be a wonderful
15:42victory for, for him in this sense. He's surrounded by Israeli firsts and others who are all telling him
15:51Iran is on the ropes. It's, you know, it's staggeringly vulnerable. It lies naked. It hasn't got any air
16:00defenses. All of this nonsense. I mean, it's PR. I mean, so on the one hand, it's that. And then
16:10another thing that struck me was really interesting. It's in my last, in this piece that I'm sending you
16:17from the Substack. But in that piece, I can't give you the exact quote, because it's quite earthy from
16:25a White House insider. He says, you have to understand, look, Trump's in his last, you know,
16:33this is probably his last term. Okay. He just doesn't give an F for anything. He doesn't give an F
16:44because he's just going to do it. He will do what he said he would do before the election. And you bring
16:53bad news to him, like, say, China not playing ball. He doesn't give an F about this. And those are the
17:02sort of languages. He said, you've just got to understand, he just doesn't give a damn now. He'll
17:09do what he wants and what he said he'll do from the outset. Now, that may be, you know, a personal
17:19miscalculation. But, you know, there is a sort of sense of ruthlessness, of complete lack of sort of
17:30sensibility. I mean, when you look at things like Gaza, when you look at things like, I mean, really
17:38quite, I mean, ugly language used about the Houthis. I mean, you know, we're doing the world a favor to
17:45kill them. Look, look, we had this great circle of Houthis celebrating Eid, and we dropped a bomb.
17:52Oops, there they go. And they're gone. They won't be attacking any American ships for the future. So,
18:01I can't tell you that that is the critical question. But all I would do is ask you one question about this
18:10in that sort of framework. What Iran seems to be proposing, and again, I'm not saying that this is
18:21actually their position, but it would make a lot of sense, is that they're going to say that they are
18:27going to reduce the level of enrichment, currently at 60%, reduce it down. They need 20% for the research
18:37reactor in Tehran, but they don't need more than that. Reduce the level, maybe ship some of the 60% to
18:46Russia or whatever you like, and then say, you know, this is a goodwill gesture, now lift some sanctions,
18:53and now let's talk about how we can take that forward. My question is, you know, that's actually just
19:03the deal that Trump left, you know, eight years ago. It's no different. That's exactly what it was then.
19:11The extra enrichment came, not because Tehran was moving towards a bomb, because the Europeans
19:22resiled on their undertakings. I'm sure you remember this, Alexander, you know, they were supposed to be
19:30able to do business and to trade. That was, you know, in the JCPOA. And the trouble was,
19:37the banks wouldn't touch them in Europe. There was a word went wrong, you don't do business with Iran.
19:43It wasn't in any agreement. But I remember going around the city of London at that time, and everyone
19:49said, look, you know, the US Treasury people have been all around, all around the banks. And they said,
19:55mm-mm-mm, don't you start trading with Iran. And so, because of that, Iran started putting extra leverage
20:05by increasing the level of enrichment.
20:13No, no, not at all. I have to say, listening to all of this, not only is it fantastical
20:19and extraordinarily dangerous, but dare I say it, not only do I not feel that it is new,
20:29I would say I have a sense of deja vu. It's 2002 all over again. It's exactly the same thing about
20:36Iraq. You know, get rid of Saddam Hussein, change the system there. All the problems in the Middle East
20:41are going to be solved. Go back to overthrowing the axis of evil. March on Tehran after you finish
20:48with Baghdad. And somehow everything in the Middle East will come and be sorted out, and everything
20:54will be back to where it was, where we would want it to be. A peace and stability would reign. Of course,
21:01we wouldn't have to worry about the Palestinians anymore, because we don't really worry too much
21:07about them, and nobody else would either, if all of these things were done. It seems exactly the
21:12same. It's the sort of near con vision, if I could put it like that, of that period, only amplified by
21:1910. I mean, it's just doing the same thing all over again, but on a far more grandiose scale than we saw
21:28then. And amplified, if I may just jut in for a second, amplified by the fact that throughout this,
21:41it has been run by Israel, by Netanyahu, largely. This has been his project, he's managed it,
21:48he's still managing it, even though in a recent comment about someone saying, well, Israel is going
21:55to take the lead on this. And he said, he may think he's taking the lead, but I'm actually leading.
22:01And that was Trump's comment to it. And I think, you know, it puts this particular exercise in its own
22:13silo. It's sort of the repercussions affect China and Russia, yes, but it is in its own silo.
22:25Because the support amongst both the AIPAC and evangelicals for a removal of the threat from Iran
22:38is a different order from more or less any other issue that we're facing. So that actually is the sort of
22:50what I see it as a sort of the amplifier. I mean, more than even Iraq, I mean, even though that was
22:59being pushed by Netanyahu too.
23:04Well, of course, the inconsistency, and there is a glaring one, is that Trump himself says Iraq was a
23:10mistake. He was elected to end the forever wars. He is going to commit the United States to the greatest
23:16war in the Middle East that it has ever fought and one which it is going to lose because the forces that
23:24he is conjuring here are on a scale that he simply doesn't seem to understand. And if I could say that
23:32that is a feature, a dangerous feature of Trump and of his administration, he consistently overestimates
23:42his ability and America's ability to bend people to his and its will. He thinks he can do that with
23:53China by imposing these enormous tariffs. And he seems surprised that the Chinese are calling him
23:59and asking to do a deal with him. He's complaining about that, apparently, to everybody that he can.
24:06He's surprised that the Russians haven't rushed to embrace his idea of a ceasefire in Ukraine.
24:12And I don't seem to be intimidated by the sanctions. And these threats he is making against Iran
24:19are not going to be accepted by Iran. And they're not going to be accepted by many other people.
24:25And taking this approach to Iran, I would have thought, is going to solidify support for Iran,
24:33probably in the region, but globally as well. I mean, when they see and understand that this is
24:41indeed the agenda, the Chinese, the Russians, everyone else are going to say to themselves,
24:48we have to make sure that Iran can withstand this blow. Because if it doesn't, then they'll be coming
24:57for us. I mean, it seems to me, as I said, this is fantasy that only someone who simply doesn't
25:08understand or have grasp of the realities can ever lend themselves to. And I'm afraid Trump is,
25:15does sometimes come across to me as that sort of person. I mean, to say that it will end his presidency,
25:22that's almost the least of it, actually. It will end the United States as a great power?
25:30No, I think, you know, what we're seeing clearly in the markets at the moment,
25:37is a big shift of investments and, you know, money out of the United States. For the first time,
25:48people, you know, are not regarding the 10-year treasury as a safe investment. I mean,
25:55this is what the basis trade, that actually, it was nothing to do with China putting the things on,
26:02that was the cherry on the cake. Why he changed his tack was the blowing up of the basis trade,
26:08which is a highly complex sort of system of, you know, of the hedge funds, really arbitraging
26:17tiny changes between, if you like, the interest rates on 10-year treasuries and on future 10-year
26:26treasuries. And borrowing money to do that and borrowing money to buy the treasuries to do both,
26:32so that if there's any shift in the balance between the two, it can take the whole system down.
26:38And the basis trade is well over a trillion dollars. I mean, it is huge. These hedge funds
26:46are just borrowing this, putting it in, making maybe a quarter of a percent. But if you're dealing
26:51in half a billion, you know, a quarter percent is a lot of money. So they've been doing this.
26:57This is what brought down, you know, the Prime Minister in Britain, in effect. It was pension
27:02funds being over-leveraged that brought down Liz Trust in as much as anything. But I think that
27:14we are seeing something of a paradigm shift, an economic paradigm shift, which is what I was trying
27:21to sort of look at and address because there's so much noise going on. But it does look as if we're
27:27seeing the de-centering of the dollar. It's not over, of course, de-centering of the dollar.
27:32And this is a fantastic opportunity. I mean, which is what Putin expressed when he said, look,
27:42we've moved to the new paradigm. We're going back, if you like, we're going to the closed
27:48economy paradigm that was set out by Liszt and Vitti in the 19th century. And this gives us protection
27:57against sanctions. We become resistance to these things. But it also does something more,
28:04because it can be a move away from the neoliberalism sort of selfish gene type, the Ayn Rand type of
28:17selfishness is great, you know. And so Liszt deliberately attacked the Anglo model, Adam Smith,
28:26in this way, who said that the utilitarian advantage of one individual in the whole is a utilitarian
28:41advantage of the whole country, of the whole state. It's just nonsense. Just because 10 billionaires in
28:49these last two days have made $135 billion on the volatility in the markets and in the bond market.
29:04I mean, the stock market and the bond market in the volatility between these people made $135 billion.
29:10How does that help your community, your country? And, you know, in the 19th century, they made this point.
29:18And Karl Polianni said this. And I think this is a real opportunity to go back. He said, you know,
29:26in the past, always throughout history, there was economic activity, organic economics, but it was
29:36within and subordinating to our polity, to the society, to the community as a whole. And neoliberalism came
29:46and turned all of that on its head 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.
30:00So there's no morality left, because all of the parts, if you like, that you get from mythology and the narratives of your society,
30:10the 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 that Trump could do this.
30:27Markets, the bond market gave him a slap in the face. There's no issue about, you know, ordinary humans in this.
30:36And 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.
30:52Why did the Soviet Union collapse, which he put down eventually to sort of nihilism of the Russian Communist Party.
31:06Very interesting conversation. But I think, sorry, we've gone off your track a little bit, down sort of a rabbit hole.
31:16But I mean, I think we are seeing, and we do will, my point I'm saying is for some time, I'll get to the real point. For some time, I've known both China, I'm sure you know, China and Russia have been planning, you know, the end to the dollar hegemony in the world.
31:40The 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.
31:53Well, now America is 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.
32:17China has been quietly rolling out enormous amount of structures for the digital RIMBY.
32:25It'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.
32:44So 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.
32:54This is the moment really to take, you know, bricks pay, bricks car, bricks clearing forward.
33:01If they want to do it, these are the sort of conditions in which to do it, where no one will point their finger and say, you see, it's the bricks that messed up the financial system.
33:11No, because they can see quite clearly that it isn't, that the dollar is sort of falling because of the financial crisis that's inherent in the system.
33:23What do you think, Alex?
33:24Well, 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.
33:33That's the first thing to say. And I absolutely agree. And I was reading this morning.
33:38There's a piece in TASS that the Russians are saying that the bricks systems, the payment systems are going to be opened to people who are outside bricks.
33:51In other words, they want to expand it, which fits exactly into the point that you've just made, that they are indeed seen seizing the chance and that they're looking at this.
34:02Incidentally, I should also say that I've also had someone who has contacts in Russia, particularly in the Duma.
34:09And 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.
34:27I mean, kinetic, actual, real war. And that apparently there's a lot of discussion in Moscow as to whether this is, in fact, exactly where we are heading.
34:40And it looks as if, touching upon the earlier things that you were saying, that that is exactly what it is.
34:46War against Iran, clearly. War against possibly China, too, because that seems to be increasingly the drift also.
34:56Again, the people who are doing these things in the United States don't understand properly what they're doing.
35:05They don't see this through and they are misjudging the strength and the willpower of their adversaries.
35:14Anyway, Glenn, I'm sorry.
35:17Well, just Glenn, before, because I want to hear what your reaction is, too, because you are an economist in this.
35:26But I saw reports coming out from Washington just now that, as you know, Witkoff is in Moscow now.
35:35Today, he landed there today.
35:38And he carries a message.
35:41Maybe this is totally untrue.
35:44I'm a bit suspicious of its origin because it comes from Axios.
35:48But it comes from Axios, which says he carries a message to Trump.
35:52He isn't going to be there very long because he's supposed to be in Amman on Saturday.
35:56A message from Trump to Putin.
36:01Do the ceasefire now.
36:03You've got a matter of weeks to do it or else we're going to come down on you heavily with sanctions.
36:10Well, that's not going to go down well, as Alexander has just indicated in Moscow.
36:18What's your thoughts, Glenn?
36:21Well, first, just a quick comment on the economic issues, because I think that both the Chinese and the Russians, you mentioned Karl Polanyi.
36:31His main concern was that society becomes an appendage to the economy.
36:37So it just goes where the economy takes it, which is usually when social responsibilities are thrown away.
36:43But the main problem for the Russians and Chinese is that as long as the economy was American-driven,
36:48their societies, to some extent, were very much influenced.
36:52But otherwise, it's worth noting that these economic ideas, which the Russians are playing with now,
36:59a lot of this had a huge origin from the United States.
37:02Because if you go back to Alexander Hamilton's time, their main concern was that the British economic dominance,
37:08that this was a form of free trade imperialism, which would prevent the development of their societies and many other problems.
37:16So the whole foundation of this for Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay to develop this American system,
37:22where they would have greater industrial autonomy, their own financial system that is with their own national bank,
37:28control their own transportation corridors.
37:31A lot of this, you know, this spread around the world, even, you know, Japan.
37:35But for Friedrich List, as you mentioned, he was effectively copy-pasting the American system and, you know,
37:43brought it, wanted to bring it to Germany with, you know, the Railroad National Bank.
37:47Yeah, sure.
37:48Anyway, it's the same.
37:49But, and then you had Sergei Vitte from Russia, who then, yeah, the finance minister,
37:56who then translated the list side into pamphlets and handed them out in Russia.
38:01And now, you know, and this was quite, yeah, this was a key importance for Russia.
38:08They always looked to Sergei Vitte, sorry, when they also pivoted to Asia.
38:13A lot of the same ideas were applied with the transportation corridors, the industrial autonomy, the financial autonomy.
38:21So, so a lot of this was, yeah, came back to Alexander Hamilton's, you know, liberating America from the British effectively.
38:29But after, you know, the Soviet experience, they flirted against, again, with liberalism under Yeltsin,
38:36but now they really come back into lists.
38:39So if you want to understand a bit the direction both the Russians and the Chinese are going,
38:43it actually has a very strong American origin.
38:46Yeah.
38:47Only it is, you know, that it goes back to that sort of period of the Republic, not the Empire.
38:54The, you know, and Buchanan and all those ideas.
38:59So it's very interesting, this interplay going on.
39:02I mean, Trump, as we know, is, you know, a fully paid up member of the neoliberal economic system.
39:10So, and that really was only entrenched in the 80s, I think, when, you know, all the regulatory elements were just removed en masse.
39:25And, of course, after 2008.
39:28But anyway, I just think, you know, this is something that, you know, we're just chatting about it.
39:37But I'm sure that there are people in China and Russia who are seized of this because, and, you know, Putin gave that speech in the 18th of March.
39:47And he said, the old order is over.
39:49We're still going to have sanctions and we're going to have competition and rivalry.
39:56And all of this will be designed to oppress Russia and to put pressures on us.
40:06That is not exactly what you're saying Alexander was talking about with the British in a way.
40:12So, 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.
40:22I'm not sure if it would be, you know, if Witkoff is open to it in that way.
40:29He's more of a sort of finance person, I guess, than thinking about, you know, the community.
40:36Whereas Vance has always wondered, how do you, you know, get the community back at the center of your politics?
40:44And because without that, you're stuck with this anomie, this, you know, this sort of listeners, this boredom, this sort of people just, you know, ghost out of jobs.
40:58Don't bother to turn up because it doesn't seem to them to be worthwhile.
41:04And that's in Europe and in America.
41:06How do you get, you know, that sort of engagement back?
41:10Well, 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.
41:25And they just decide it's not worth the candle because you never get anywhere anyway.
41:30The prevailing sentiment, I think, from so many in America and in Europe is the system, the economic system is rigged against us.
41:39This 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.
41:57Incidentally, it's not just Germany and school.
42:01So I remember reading some time ago, Mohammed Bakr Sadat's book called Our Economy.
42:10He was in Iraq at that time.
42:13And that was very much the same.
42:15How do you provide the incentives for, you know, enterprise, yet keep it within, if you like, an ethical framework at the same time?
42:27How do you manage that?
42:28And his book is really his answer to that.
42:31So, you know, it was in the East and, you know, and in many places, and then got completely pushed out by that expression that Mrs. Thatcher loved.
42:45Tina, there is no alternative.
42:46Tina, there is no alternative.
42:48There's no other system.
42:50We can't even think about it.
42:52Not that she'd have a red list or Vita, I'm sure.
42:55But, you know, no, Tina, there's no alternative.
42:59We 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.
43:14And now America has suddenly found that this is biting them back, biting them back badly.
43:21They've gone so far down that road, as precisely as Liszt predicted, that actually now it's coming back to undermine them.
43:30And 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.
43:47And there wouldn't be any real economy left.
43:50And that's exactly what's happened to to the United States.
43:54It seems to me in the spirit why we've got why we've got the dollar falling at the moment.
44:00And, you know, the bond market punching Trump in the face.
44:05That is, you know, the is those very sort of Wall Street people like to say.
44:11Mm hmm.
44:15Well, quite a thing.
44:17Talk 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 really the linchpin, at least in theory of the minds of the people who are going to follow this plan.
44:32I mean, I've never been to Iran, but my own sense is that there are many divisions there.
44:39This is a complex society, but I don't think it's going to fall apart in under the kind of pressure that people in the West assume.
44:51I think that we don't understand the political system very well.
44:54It looks very disorganized and chaotic, but it does seem to have a kind of inner coherence about it.
45:01What would happen if there was an American attack on Iran?
45:05Would they go nuclear, for example?
45:10No, I don't think they would go nuclear.
45:13Yeah.
45:14I don't actually think they have a nuclear weapon at this point.
45:18They could do it.
45:19I mean, they have the technical capacity.
45:22But, 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.
45:43So I don't think they would go down nuclear.
45:46I'm fairly sure they would not do that.
45:50I think that, yes, what we're seeing is really it is divided, but not as divided as people think.
46:04There is quite a sort of vocal and quite a prominent faction, which is really the Zarif faction, which is the reformers, who are fully in favor of sort of cooperating and having relations with the United States.
46:22The 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 et cetera.
46:33But 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.
46:50And 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.
47:03I don't mean a forced one.
47:05I don't want to make it sound artificial, but it is one that makes a very valid point.
47:16And 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.
47:34You can't just simply say, oh, well, we're ready to negotiate and tell, 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.
47:50And you won't get a good agreement that way.
47:55Then, on the other hand, and I think the person who advocated this was Abdel Akhiyan, the foreign minister who was killed in that helicopter crash.
48:08And he was always, I remember listening to him at great length saying, you know, the question is, you know, there's no good just advertising you're ready to do an agreement because that won't work with America.
48:22It's not ever worked.
48:24So how do we do this?
48:25How 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 this and it will be devastating for you, America, and for Israel as the consequences.
48:50And so what's been playing out has been that sort of balance, plus another one, I think, which has been 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.
49:16In the Central Asia, and that Iran is going to play a key role.
49:23It sits on the North-South Corridor, East-West Corridor.
49:27It is the pivot of the whole economic structure of Central Asia, and that's where it should be focused.
49:38But there is an element of Iran.
49:40Just 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, although 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.
50:02And there is a little bit of something similar in North Tehran, that these people look to the West.
50:12You could compare it, if you like, to the sort of Peter the Great aspect in Russia, although that's now sort of past.
50:19But just to say that that's much smaller than it used to be, much, much smaller.
50:24And 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.
50:39That's no longer very far removed from that.
50:43So I suspect that what we're going to see is that what the Supreme Leader is trying to do and the political elite, they don't want to just shut down the reformers, but they want to bring them in the tent.
51:04They don't want to put outside the big Iranian tent and to sort of aggravate from outside, inside.
51:14There's more colorful expressions about that.
51:17But 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 relationship with Russia, which is difficult for many Iranians.
51:33But to look at that and China, where they do have a very close relationship with China and away from the Europeans and the Americans.
51:46So I think they don't want to just sort of bash them down and push them out or anything.
51:52They want to bring them in.
51:54And so we'll see.
51:58Arachi will make his case if he, I don't know whether it will be direct or indirect.
52:04But, I mean, the message, I think, will be some sort of form.
52:08I haven't got the right.
52:09I haven't got any of the details of it.
52:12But I suspect that's largely right.
52:13Yes, we can do some things, you know, but we can't solve all of this in two months.
52:19So 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.
52:32And 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,
52:44because I think there's so many of them who are hardline Israeli firsters.
52:52I mean, really tough.
52:53I mean, not, I mean, really, you know, lacking all sort of empathy beyond that for Israel.
53:06I guess my final question is, yeah, more of a concluding remark.
53:11Like, how do you then conclude, more or less, that there will be an effort to reach an agreement, it will fail, and there will be war?
53:21And if so, when would this come, do you think, before the summer?
53:25Well, 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 present configuration in Israel or the United States,
53:44with the overwhelming support that AIPAC enjoys within Congress and elsewhere, I mean, can tolerate the idea just simply going back to the failed formula of the past
54:00and saying, well, that's fine, because from the point of view of Israelis, it was a failure.
54:08Most Israelis and most of the Americans that surround Trump regard it as a failure, and it needs to be re-addressed.
54:17So I think that principally, we're on a war, on a path to war.
54:23However, what I would say is that I don't want to give it odds.
54:30I 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,
54:43not political ideologies and blueprints that are determining our future now.
54:49I mean, events are going to do it.
54:51What happens in America, what happens financially and economic, you know, they do determine the politics,
54:58and the politics is determined by, you know, the financial system, you know, the victors after the Second World War put in place.
55:09I mean, this is what we're living through, and it's now come to a crisis.
55:12I think that ultimately, probably, this long, long struggle in which Iran has, Israel has wanted to impose a sort of,
55:26if you like, a greater Israel hegemony across the entire region, is going to end in a trial of strength of one sort.
55:38I can't see, you know, in this way, Alexander comes from a family of diplomats in the area.
55:45I am of a slightly different background, whereas I think that occasionally you can't move politics.
55:54Politics becomes fossilized and stuck, and you have to have the two parties have to go head to head.
56:03And out of that, then it's possible to move politically in the wake of that.
56:09But I wouldn't be surprised if we have to go.
56:13Israelis, incidentally, are saying that blatantly in the Hebrew side.
56:17They say, look, negotiations, we're all in favor of negotiations, but we have to have the war first.
56:24That's a sort of expression of it.
56:28So events, events, dear boy, are going to, I think, in this next period have a commanding effect, both in Iran and what happens with the relationship between Russia and America.
56:46I have to say I agree, and I should say very quickly that absolutely diplomacy absolutely does have its limits.
56:55History, world history confirms that.
56:59I mean, you can only, diplomacy can only work if there is a mutual will for it to work.
57:06If it's not there, then you're going to have conflict.
57:09And sometimes conflict is unavoidable, and then the job of the diplomats is, when it's over, is to put it all, pick up the pieces and try to put something together again.
57:20And then not just the diplomats, by the way.
57:22The diplomats play a role, but so do many others, the economists, the technologists, all of those sort of people, too.
57:31Well, Alison, I have no further questions.
57:33I've given much, much food from thought from what you have to say, just to say thanks again.
57:38I don't know whether, Glenn, has anything further.
57:41Perhaps, Alistair, you have something more to add.
57:43No, just, yeah, thank you for your insights.
57:46I thought this was very interesting.
57:49My pleasure.
57:50Thank you very much for inviting me.
57:54Our pleasure.
57:54Our pleasure.