TRUMP’S IRAN ULTIMATUM LOOMS | Vali Nasr

Welcome back everyone to The Global Gambit. This is a podcast that looks at the intersection of geopolitics, economics, international relations, and right now the war in Iran. Now we're going to be joined momentarily by a great guest, someone we've had on the program before, someone who is from Iran and was actually— I should probably disclose— my former University professor or dean, uh, Johns Hopkins SAIS Professor Vali Nasr. And I'm very excited to hear what he has to say, albeit I would prefer it to be about how Iran is rebuilding or something more constructive. But right now, um, we are facing, I think, seriously, um, scary times. I'm not a scaremonger on this program, but if you haven't been aware of what Trump has been saying in the past few hours, it's getting more and more irrational in my opinion. He's basically said, um, or implicitly stated the idea of genocide. Um, some people are speculating nuclear weapons, but this is all obviously very speculative, as I say. But we're here with Professor Nasr, who I'm very excited, uh, is going to hopefully bring some clarity and composure. But, um, Very much welcome to the program, Professor. Thank you. How are you?

Good, good, good to be with you.

Yeah, this is, uh, we, we were, I think, arranging this about a week ago, and at that time there was continued, uh, concerns around, um, uh, Cargill Island and the extent to which Trump might utilize ground forces. Um, but right now I, I think there's more speculation about what happens tonight at 8 PM EST Um, Trump's making all sorts of statements on, on Truth Social, uh, the, the sort of the destruction of the civilization and just some pretty, uh, terrifying tweets. I think a lot of people are freaking out. Now, you're someone who has, well, knows much more about this and then I think a lot of people. So can you try to explain to us what is happening right now?

I mean, we know that at least two things are happening right now. One is that the, the US military has started operations on Harg Island. I would say these are more right now shaping operations, in other words, attacking military positions and military hardware on the island, perhaps as a prelude to a ground invasion on the island. That is definitely happening. We know that. And then we also know that at some level, some exchange of positions at least is happening through Pakistanis between US and Iran, which could potentially give a, provide a breakthrough, but as of yet, I don't think that's the case. And if you listen to the president's rhetoric, if you, at best, he's trying to intimidate the Iranians to the table. In other words, to get them to soften their position and be more amenable to accepting what President Trump is offering. At worst is that he's actually planning something much worse. Which is either an attack on Iran's entire energy and electricity infrastructure and doing huge damage to the country's civilian infrastructure. And at worst, as you mentioned, is people are also worrying about something more heinous. In other words, use of weapons going all the way to tactical nuclear weapons. Because when you talk about civilizational erasure, it goes beyond just, uh, attack on a regime or attack on, on infrastructure, military, etc. We're hoping that that's hyperbole, but even it's a very dangerous hyperbole, to say the least.

Yeah, it's— as I say, this is all within the past 4 hours. That's why I've shifted to doing more streams, uh, as well as just pre-recorded videos, because I just don't think there's an ability to really rationalize what's going on in one's head before, uh, things have changed yet again. Um, Trump's— I did want to take a step back and look at the tweets over the, over the past few days as well, because I, I personally think Trump is, is, is kind of losing it, um, largely because he's not getting what he wants. And because he's not getting what he wants, he's, uh, he's, he's resorting to more and more, as you say, maybe hyperbole, but, uh, these threats are, to me, getting out of hand. Do you think that that is true, or it's all part of some deeper negotiation strategy, which people still seem to claim?

I mean, some people think that it's madman theory. In other words, he's trying to sort of tell the Iranians that, you know, he's completely out of control and they better not assume a sort of a rational negotiation strategy with him, and it's better for them to just surrender and give in and stop the fighting right now. But at the same time, it's also very clear that the president is outside of his comfort level. First of all, he has not encountered a country like Iran so far in his presidency, which is saying no to him every step of the way at the negotiations table, in a war, refuses to bend the knee, refuses to play the game that even many other adversaries of the US have played to placate him, to give him something to back off. They're just not doing that. And the president is running out of options about how to handle Iran. His theories about the war proved wrong. Killing Iran's supreme leader did not lead to either immediate regime collapse or to a Venezuela scenario where a more pliable face of the regime would step forward and sign deals with him. And he has ended up entangled in a war that has gone far longer than he anticipated, is putting pressure on the U.S. military. And he's putting serious pressure on the global economy, not just energy markets that are part of Africa that are running out of food. There is worry about agriculture next year. There is worry about recession across a vast swath of the world. And he doesn't have a strategy how to end this other than to either escalate into a far more dangerous arena or to negotiate in earnest in a way that would get a deal with Iran. And so I think he's in a no-man's land. He may calculate that aggressive rhetoric and maybe one round of trying to capture Kharg Island or a massive bombing of Iran would pave the way for diplomacy. But that's a very dangerous gamble because until now the Iranians have not bowed to this kind of pressure. And I think given how much the country has actually suffered already, that they're not willing to surrender at this moment and come out of this war with nothing to show for, largely because they also think they have cards to play, including the Strait of Hormuz. So they don't see their back to the wall in a way that President Trump would like to happen.

So I want to come back to Madman Theory or escalation ladder. In just a second, but obviously I want to dig a little bit further into the Iranian perspective on this. They've effectively told Reuters about an hour and a half ago, if I remember correctly, that, quote, the entire region will fall into darkness if the Trump administration follows through with some, I don't know, all-out bombing campaign or some large-scale offensive or some significant boots on the ground in Kharg Island or something. And that would obviously mean energy infrastructure across the Middle East, particularly the Gulf, but also he mentioned specifically, they've referenced the Houthis and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. So from Tehran's perspective, what is the calculus here, that they can out-escalate the Trump administration? And because he's subject to the checks and balances of the US system, he'll be forced to capitulate? Or they're just like, well, you're doing it all out, we're going to go all out?

Well, I mean, at one level is they're saying that, you know, madman theory runs both ways. In other words, you know, it's not like you can threaten us with kinds of attacks that go beyond international law, attacking civilians, civilian infrastructure, trying to set back the country decades, if not more. or as the president said, send them back to the Stone Age, and you expect us to sort of respect international norms with neighbors and the rest of the international community. So if Iran truly— its existence, its territorial integrity, its fundamental structure are at risk, then we're going to do anything possible in order to deter you, and that means that Yes, we cannot reach the United States itself, but we can reach the region. And you have equities here, and those are your allies, and perhaps they can get scared of Iran and they will put pressure on you. Or that, you know, that kind of a damage to the Gulf will do much more serious damage to the global economy, which then President Trump will have to deal with, and the Europeans who have also been, you know, viewed by Tehran as enemies would have to deal with. I mean, one of the problems with cutting out a country completely out of the global economy, as U.S. sanctions has done with Iran, is that they have very little to lose if everybody else sinks. In other words, if they can't sell oil and their infrastructure is gone, exactly what it is that they're going to lose? And, you know, yes, people tell them, well, your neighbors would be angry with you and you will not have good relations with them going forward. Or they may join the war or they may attack you. But Iranians are already basically fighting for their survival. What happens later on, I think, is not in the mind of the regime. And I also have to say, Peter, that part of the consequence of the decapitations that the United States and Israel in particular has carried out is to replace all the people in Iran in the decision-making positions who might have been a little bit more prudent and might have thought twice before escalating like this, they eliminated them all. And people who have come to the fore are people who believe that the only way in which you deter the United States is to be even more aggressive than the United States, that prudence does not pay.

But that's just escalation through— or de-escalation through escalation, right? That's the classic Russian strategy to keep trying to out- threaten your enemy, or, uh, when Putin threatened the use of nukes back in 2022, and then he did the general mobilization as an actual response. You know, since then he's referenced the idea of tactical nuclear weaponry quite often but never follows through. So who can we really believe is, is going to take a, uh, a step back? Or neither can, because Iran is— this is about the survival for the government, and it's about Trump's ego for Trump? So—

Well, I mean, the first step back might have— if we'll watch before 8 PM tonight, if either side or both sides decide to change the positions at the negotiating table, so that would mean there might be a mutual stepping back from the edge. If the president finds a way to postpone his deadline from 8 PM and to another day and pretend like Iranians have asked for it, that would be also a step back. It may very well be that both sides decide that they need to actually escalate to the next level, maybe not the entire region going dark, but some places going dark and the Americans hitting some set of power plants so that the other side understands that this is not a bluff. And that's also dangerous because basically each side assumes that it's negotiating position at the diplomatic table is conditioned by, you know, how aggressive it is in the battlefield. So we are in an environment right now that there is, that the two sides are at some level talking and bombing at the same time. And they're trying to use the battlefield as a way of shaping the diplomatic table. And there always is a danger that it may get out of control. You know, the talks may collapse altogether, and we might be in for a much longer period of war before there is some kind of a new pathway forward to end it.

But in that case, I mean, we've seen this before, actually. The Trump administration often tried to negotiate whilst continuing military action. So in this case, though, I'd like you to explain a little bit more about why, why this is different. Iran is not the same as Venezuela. It's not the same as any entity that Trump has taken on before or attempted to assume that he can take on. Um, so can you explain a little bit more about the psyche of the IRGC and those who are really driving the, uh, the response, the actions on the Iranian side?

I mean, first of all, Iran as a state and IRGC as a military force has proven to be incredibly resilient. To everybody's surprise. They haven't collapsed under either the bombing pressure or the decapitation. And in fact, going after infrastructure by both Israel and the US is an admission that they cannot break up the Islamic Republic. They cannot break up the regime. So they're going after the country itself. They're going after the state. So in a way, if you can't break the Islamic Republic you may as well create a situation where it doesn't have a country to rule over when the war is done. So now the Islamic Republic and the IRGC, you know, this has been a war they've been at for 47 years. And they also understand that the United States and Israel have come into this war with the agenda of destroying them and then perhaps even downsizing or degrading the Islamic Republic as a whole. And they don't want to end up— I mean, having gone through this war, there's no point for them to stop and then end up being like Iraq was in 1991, a broken state with no power grid, no refineries, no steelworks, no petrochemicals, no pharmaceutical manufacturing, poorer, still under maximum pressure sanctions, still contained under a cordon. And then every 6 months, Israel and the United States bomb it again. That they might as well die now, or they might as well— or they— or fight their way out of this corner. And they decided to fight their way out of this corner. So what they really are asking at the table is not a ceasefire, but an end to war. Now they put it in a very grandiose way, like end of war on all fronts, including Lebanon and Yemen. They're not going to get that. But what they want is some kind of a guarantee that war does not resume in 6 months. And in fact, holding to the Strait of Hormuz is partly to assure that, because if they are in a position to close it at any time, the US now— now all options will not be on the table at all times, and the US will think twice about attacking Iran again. But also, they are now looking for serious economic relief to rebuild the damage of the war, but also to get out of maximum pressure sanctions. And that's partly also what they want to hold on to the Strait of Hormuz because they can— they think they can toll ships going through and create a revenue stream in addition to what they sell in terms of oil on the market. And they think that getting tolls from ships that pass through cannot be sanctioned the way the United States can sanction Iran's oil. So they actually are really looking for material gains out of this war that fundamentally changes their situation and they don't end up like Iraq in 1991. And so the question is whether President Trump is willing to entertain, if not the exact terms, but something like that. That you give up your nuclear program, you hand over your 400% enriched uranium, 'We at least, you know, guarantee we won't attack you. We turn a blind eye to your control of the straits, provided you open it up and let traffic go through.' And maybe there would be certain waivers in exchange for their enriched uranium, certain sanctions relief that would actually allow Iran to function. That's what the Guards are looking for. That's what the regime is looking for.

So I want to ask a little bit more on that in just a second. But one thing that I think is worth considering, and I'd like your opinion on, is the negotiators. Now, you've mentioned Pakistan, but obviously Qatar has been critical as a broker with Israel and Palestine. Oman has been always a central figure, central part player in the US-Iranian talks. I mean, before this all broke out, they were trying their best in Geneva. When Iran is communicating with these third parties, how's that working, especially in the case of Qatar? Because they are targeting Qatar. Qatar's discontinued its production and distribution of, and of gas because of the conflict. So how does this work with backdoor diplomacy when they're striking them but also they're negotiating with them, talking with them as intermediaries to the Americans?

So, I mean, first of all, none of these countries are mediators. These countries are conveyors of messages. I mean, mediation is something else. It means that you give some authority to somebody in the room to talk to you and talk to the other side and try to bridge the gap. You know, just carrying messages is basically they're postmen. And no, that's actually what they are, even Omanis. And of all the countries around, Iran only trusts one country. And that is Oman. It doesn't trust any of the other ones to mediate. It may trust them to carry messages to a point. And ultimately, yes, you're right, Qatar was a conduit of messages before it was attacked, and Iran is not going through them at all now. So they're going through the Pakistanis, Turks, and Egyptians. And these countries have more heft than the Gulf countries. And the only thing they bring to the table, particularly in the case of Pakistan, is a direct line to the White House and the Oval Office, which is also important, which the Omanis don't have. As the Omanis don't have a personal relationship with President Trump, their Sultan has not had lunch with the president like Pakistan Army Chief has had. So basically the Pakistanis, the reason the Iranians don't trust them is because Pakistan is very close to Saudi Arabia. Iran is also, Iran doesn't trust the Gulf countries. The Gulf countries don't trust Iran. They didn't trust each other before the war. They trust each other even less now. The Iranians read in the newspaper that Mohammed bin Salman has told the president of the United States to finish off the job, finish the job, finish off Iran. The Saudis deny it, which is true. Yes? No? So I think right now what the Pakistanis are doing is carrying messages and perhaps making suggestions to both sides. Like, you know, the Americans are more likely to accept if you do this, and to the Americans, you know, you may be more likely if you did that. But the Pakistanis are not able to really sort of arbitrate or mediate in that manner. This is still a back and forth between the US. If the message carrying is successful, at some point the Iranians and the Americans have to meet, or meet at a physical location where, you know, somebody actually carries their discussions between rooms. That's what the Omanis have been doing in Muscat and Geneva. And that may happen again in Muscat or in Islamabad. And then, you know, the Pakistanis could host them. So at some level, I think, uh, we should not overplay the role that these intermediaries have. I think they are channels that are important. Those countries that can and are willing to play this role and are able to actually talk to the highest level in both countries.

Interesting. So you see them primarily as couriers, not as communicators or as negotiators? Sorry.

No, they're not negotiating. I mean, it's not like the Pakistanis are actually changing Iran's position, right? The Pakistanis are actually changing America's position. They're basically carrying the American proposal to Iran and the Iranian proposal to the US. They try to do that in a faithful way. They may be carrying oral messages from both sides as well, but they are not essentially part of the negotiation themselves.

So on that then, this is the— what I wanted to ask you prior to that question, which was both sides have made, in the opinions of different people, maximalist demands or a varied set of demands. You outlay quite a few of them in, in your previous, um, explanation, but which are more realistic? Is one side grossly more absurd than the other? Are the Iranians more realistic with their ability to hold the Strait of Hormuz? Um, could they have a nuclear-powered system? Like, could they have nuclear energy, um, as long as they're not a threshold power? Um, or is it we're just so far away because of the, the, the demands of either side right now?

I mean, I, I think where, where, um, the original positions of both sides are non-workable. Right, but that doesn't mean that the individual— that there are individual items there that would have to be dropped off completely, and there are individual items on the list that can be negotiated over. Like, Iran will not give up its missiles. It's the only thing that is defense— is surviving by. And it will not give up the Strait of Hormuz, whether it tolls it or not, because that's the only thing that it has in this war that has kept it kept it going. But its nuclear program, yes, even in Geneva before the war, it was largely willing to give large parts of it away and in exchange for real sanctions relief. So I think there are items on there that they could negotiate. Like if the United States wants Iran's 400 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium out of Iran, it's doable. But they have to negotiate about where does it go, how does it go, what happens to it, in exchange for what. Uh, so, so I think, you know, like every negotiation, the starting position of both sides is not immediately acceptable to the other one because then that would be surrender. So, um, they, they have maximal positions, but it doesn't mean that they cannot compromise on certain items and get closer to each other. And agree to not negotiate on certain things. I mean, it may be possible, it is likely that Iran cannot get a ceasefire in Lebanon. It cannot force Israel's position on Lebanon. It can ask for it, but it's not going to get it. Or the United States wants Iran to assert zero enrichment, and Iran perhaps will not accept that on principle. It may— it will agree not to enrich at all, but it will not give up the right. It hasn't in the past. It's unlikely that it will now. So, so I think— and I say all of this because negotiations are going to be pretty tough, and partly they're not succeeding because they're not actually sitting in marathon sessions and going through bullet points, each of which could take 2, 3 days of negotiations. Like the way, you know, United States and North Vietnam negotiated in Paris. Secondly, the US doesn't have actually a serious negotiator. I mean, Stephen Witkoff is not a negotiator. I mean, we saw in Geneva, he didn't understand the details of what he was doing. He was not staffed with people who knew what the technicalities of the nuclear program are. He probably misrepresented what he had heard back in Washington. So at some level, I, I think the US also— its seriousness about negotiations would go with seriousness about the process and seriousness about who the negotiator is and whether that negotiator actually has the capability to negotiate.

Well, Whitcoff can, uh, can get you a great, um, a great price on your house if you're, if you're looking for that, um, but, uh, because he's a a property magnate, isn't he, or something completely unrelated to, to the magnitude of what we're facing right now, uh, Professor. But I guess, um, another question I was interested for your take on, it was simply about what this deadline could mean. What does Trump mean by 8 PM Eastern time? Does that mean he just gives up on any and all negotiations and we go whole hog with bombing campaigns? Does it mean ground offensive? What to you does that realistically mean? And therefore, what do the, uh, IRGC and, uh, government plan in anticipation?

I think the IRGC is not looking for what he says, it's looking for actions. So if they see start of a campaign against their stations, then they're going to start their retaliations, whatever targets that they have decided on, largely because the US is not going to destroy every single power station within half an hour. It's going to have to be a rolling process. Iran is a vast country with a lot of power stations all over the country, so it's not going to be done in one night or in a couple of hours. So the retaliation by Iran will start immediately in order to either impede or to dissuade the US from going further. Similarly, with land invasion, if the US starts landing troops on Kharg Island, you know, use of drones, artillery, however way the Iranians are planning to respond to a land invasion would start, as well as also targeting other locations around the Gulf in retaliation for that. So that's one scenario. The other is that it might come 8 PM and the president finds a way not to do it. So, and that is also very, very consequential because he has now built so much anticipation with such hyperbolic rhetoric that he has to have a good justification in order to postpone it. One is to say that we're very close to a deal and I'm going to give them another 24 hours or another 48 hours. The other is to outright, you know, follow through or follow through with something and claim that it was bigger than it was. And he's going to now wait and see if the Iranians would do something. So in a way, he's painted himself in a corner, and by being so firm and so over the top, you know, the anticipation would have to be satisfied in some ways at 8 PM.

But I mean, how literal should we take him? Does this mean it's just a smokescreen or vague statement encompassing the energy targets he's referenced, or is he actually going to take out religious sites and historical significance of Iran because that's what ancient civilization actually means.

Who knows? I mean, we really don't know. First of all, laws of war are not applying. So, and I don't see this US military actually saying no to anything he does.

Well, that was going to be my subsequent question because you're in Washington. Um, for the years that I spent studying at SAIS. You know, that part of that was over the Trump administration's first term, then it was over Biden's term. Um, and, uh, from what I understood in his first term, Trump was largely just being handheld. He didn't really know what he was doing. And so the second time around, he's got all the right people in place so that he can actually enact what he's always wanted to, uh, what he envisaged in his first term. So I guess my penultimate question for you is, Professor, is simply where do we go from here? What can be done on the US front to keep Trump under wraps, to keep him restrained? Or we can't because he is the man with the— well, he's commander-in-chief.

I mean, I don't know, but I don't think there's— this is, you know, the system of restraints and checks and balances is not working on any issue in Washington. And the military so far has not shown any indication that it's going to object or protest or not carry out orders, etc., regardless of what they are. So maybe that threshold would be crossed. But so far, even what the president has said is in contravention to the laws that the US military has operated on and in the practice in the past. And we haven't heard a peep from them, at least publicly, in sort of objecting to even threatening civilians, which is itself against military code of conduct. So we cannot rely on that. It's really entirely up to how President Trump is gaming this. And so we are on varieties of issues now in a decision-making situation in the United States where It is not the system that is making decisions. It's not the system that is identifying threats, debating how to deal with it, and then gradually presenting the chief executive with options of how you deal with threats. We're now in a situation in the country that you have a, you have a leader almost like a monarch who decides that this is what we're going to do, and then the system is basically going to implement it. So, uh, So in a way, it now really comes down to him. It's very difficult to read what he will be thinking at 7:58 PM tonight.

Okay, I know I said penultimate question, but if I can be cheeky and ask you two more quick questions, Professor, is simply we've just had the UN Security Council vote. So for context, for those watching, the UN Security Council was voting on a Strait of Hormuz resolution which was aiming to sort of provide a defensive coordinated effort to secure the Strait of Hormuz. But the Russians and the, um, and the Chinese have vetoed it, which means it will not work. Uh, two others, Pakistan and Colombia, abstained, and the rest voted in favor. So that's 11 in favor, 2 against, 2 abstaining. Um, so that's not going to be passed, and therefore nothing's going to happen. What's your initial take on that? Does it not— I mean, the UN is probably not really relevant in the urgency of what's happening right now, but how do you react to this sort of the way the Chinese and the Russians have behaved? Why would you think they would have done that?

Well, because this is an American resolution in their eyes. I mean, it's a problem that is caused by an American war, which did not have United Nations backing. There was no UN resolution to authorize this war. And so, and as a result, they're not in the mood to reward the United States for the consequence, for condemning the consequences of a war that the US started. Secondly, you know, the Russians have their own sets of issues now with Washington and with the Europeans, who are also two members of the Security Council. They're not going to support them easily. And nor are the Chinese. So it is also, you see that in this war, that the consequences of the president's other foreign policy conducts, the fact that he's at loggerheads with China, the fact that, and also the Europeans, that they're at loggerheads with Russia, that this war both will have consequences for those relationships, but also those relationships will have consequences for this issue as well. And also that Russia and China are generally friends with Iran. I mean, they're not coming into the war to actually fight with Iran, but I think the least they can do or they will do to support Iran is to support it in these kinds of international forums. They're not going to authorize any kind of an international action against Iran. Like happened in Libya or scenarios like that. So that's, that's the way that they— in which they are supporting Iran.

So my last question is simply, where do you think this could go? Obviously, I'd love to have you back very soon, um, but, uh, you know, operationally, let's assume that this announcement is, uh, a, a, a, an instigation of boots on the ground over Kharg Island. What does this mean from the different levels, on the tactical, the operational, strategic, for both the United States/Israel, but also particularly someone who knows the Iranian perspective most well? What does that mean for Tehran's moves?

Well, I mean, if it's just the capture of Kharg Island, it's not going to end the war anytime soon. I mean, the Iranians will dig in and will resist and will fight back and will escalate as well. So then the US is confronted with what does it do with this piece of territory it's taken? It cannot abandon it because then it's a retreat. Can it defend it, but at what cost? And does it escalate further? You know, if Kharg Island doesn't do it, you go capture something else. And then we're another 2, 3 weeks before more Marines come to the Gulf to take that over. If it's a much bigger attack, in other words, in addition or instead of attack on Kharg Island, you have massive aerial bombardment of Iran's infrastructure, and the Iranians decide to retaliate in a very big way against the varieties of targets in the region, then we might be entering a phase of a kind much more of a regional war and a regional calamity. And then the US will be having to be dealing with more than just Iran, and the consequence on the global economy will be far more profound. So that in a way, at that point, the war becomes just bigger. And when the war becomes bigger, it's more difficult to contain it and it's more difficult to end it. And, uh, and alternatively is that, you know, by 8 PM there is a way in which to avoid all of that and, and arrive at some kind of a diplomatic off-ramp that could potentially end in a deal that would stop the war. But I don't think any of this is going to be done today. My sense is that even a diplomatic off-ramp is going to be difficult to maintain. There's going to be breakdown of ceasefires if one is in place. We may have periods of fighting and talking at the same time, and it might take a little while before this war completely winds down.

Well, me, I certainly think we're going to be in it for the long haul, Professor. But Professor Vali Nasr, thank you so much for your time. It's a delight to have you on the show, as always. Um, my former dean at my university— as I say, I should be transparent about that, I think, for the audience— at Johns Hopkins. But, uh, I'm going to stay on and speak to the audience a little bit more, so I'm just going to take you offline. But thank you, Professor, it's been an absolute pleasure. Everyone, uh, stick around, we've got a little bit more. Uh, I just wanted to sort of just think about, um, what the professor said. Um, I've also got another live stream with Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis at, uh, 7 PM UK time. So it's in about an hour and a half. Um, so do be sure to ring your notification bell if you want to hear us talk about that. I think it's going to be, um, slightly different to Professor Nasr's, uh, comments, um, mainly from the US perspective. But I, I think the general, um, outlook on this increasingly is that Trump is just losing his mind. Uh, not because he's insane, I think, primarily, uh, but because he's not winning. Or more, more prudently, he's just not getting what he wants. As, uh, Vali Nasr said at the outset, um, this is a different, uh, opponent. This is a different, uh, adversary to what Trump is used to or has assumed in the past. Um, it's— I don't know, I used to think that people were being deliberately idiotic by trying to make comparisons between Iran and Venezuela. Obviously they're not the same. Iran is a much more potent military force, uh, it's a, it's a theocratic state run by a much more comprehensive system, not a semi-political party state, um, whatever, semi-presidential, presidential system like in Venezuela. But he seems to think that he can actually do what he did in Venezuela force the capitulation of the IRGC and broader system to his whim and, and get whatever he wants. Now, one question I did mean to ask, uh, the, the, uh, Vali Nasr was simply about how much does this do with the markets. There's some speculation that Trump is deliberately doing these, uh, wind-ups, uh, just before the markets open or close, um, so as to avoid, uh, rattling them too much, um, or that he's doing it all to pump and dump, you know, the insider trading, which I think is very, very apparent by a lot of observers. I mentioned it on the stream the other day, but Pete Hegseth's, I don't know, advisor counterpart, someone who works on behalf of Pete Hegseth, had invested some of Hegseth's money into a defense contractor prior to February 28th and this whole war kicking off. So there's clearly insider knowledge, insider dealing happening with this, which is obviously illegal. Um, and well, forget morally bankrupt. I don't think that really applies to this government, um, or Trump, where that ship has sailed, I think. But, um, I also wanted to come back to just simply, uh, what Trump has said today, uh, because, uh, if you're new to the channel, then you may know, uh, you won't, you won't know, but, uh, I made a, a pretty raw reactionary video to, to Trump's statements over 'Make a Deal, You Bastards' and, and his just complete emotional outburst, which a lot of people said even for him is quite uncharacteristic. But in some ways, what he said earlier today is worse, because when you say, 'I'm going to destroy an ancient civilization,' or, 'It will cease to exist tonight,' um, 'will die tonight,' sorry, paraphrasing, I mean, you could technically argue that's implicitly suggesting genocide. Um, I very carefully use that word. But if you're talking about a complete civilization, okay, yes, we can argue it's about the infrastructure. Was it the ancient civilization, as I were, asked the Vali, asked the Dean earlier? But you don't say statements like that. And that's why there was an article in The Guardian that has gone crazy around the internet earlier as well, suggesting, uh, that it, uh, you know, Trump's really considering sort of nuclear weaponry, uh, which I mean, I, I think the article actually stated it was, it was explaining how a nuclear procedure would work, but people being people on the internet deliberately misinterpreted that as, oh, they're considering using a nuke. I don't think we're quite there yet, but nonetheless, this, this message, this post by, uh, Trump is, it's not normal. And regardless of how frustrated you are with the situation even if it's under control or it's out of control, you shouldn't make public statements like that. I find it hard to believe that George Bush would have made something similar during the Iraq or Afghan wars 20 years ago. And I mean, a lot of people will agree that George Bush was not exactly the most intelligent, uh, U.S. leader, president that has been. Um, but relative to how Trump is behaving right now, um, I mean, you couldn't be further apart. I I'd love to make some sort of puns about it, but frankly, I'm out of them just because my brain is still trying to process what this guy is saying and doing. Um, and what I find insane, again, I've said it before, is, um, is that people will still try to defend this, that people will still try to explain it, rationalize it, justify it, um, as something reasonable. It's all part of some deeper lingering strategy. Which it's not. Um, and some people will say, oh, your TDS is really high. No, the only people deranged are people like you who support this guy who's clearly going deranged over the fact he's not winning or he's not getting what he wants. Um, the war in Iran is not a case of who wins, who loses, but who can ultimately claim that they outlasted the other. Um, U.S. stockpiles are— the U.S. is burning through ammunition. The cost, um, per day of this war, not just in replenishment of munitions, but also damage to equipment, aircraft, whatever assets is mounting. And while Iran is obviously in a worse condition given the amount of damage that the Israelis and Americans have done to the country, the system is holding. Um, a country like that was ravaged in a civil war for years, such as say Myanmar, Yemen, they still function, as in the system does. The country may be in disarray and, and the economy may not really exist, it may be a failed state, but if the system is still exists, the system of where the power actually is wielded, i.e., in the Houthis in Yemen or in the Tatmadaw in Myanmar, uh, you can't really say that you've won because your goal was to destroy that system, to liberate the country so that it can create a new political system. But this is not being achieved. Iran is, uh, in a terrible situation. More and more people are being killed, but the system that has governed it for the past 40 years, 50 years, is, is still there. So you can't really, next to the strategic objectives, military objectives that you set out for yourself, claim that you're succeeding. Um, and, and, and I do worry that if Trump is going to go through with a high-scale military operation tonight Um, that will, in the eyes of Tehran, justify that they just, they just blanket target everything, as we saw after the, uh, it became apparent that Khamenei had been killed, when the Iranians launched a hell of a load of rockets and projectiles, drones across the Middle East, the first real, um, flare-up of, of Gulf-wide, um, uh, violence. That was, uh, well, we will likely see that again. Now, some people will claim, well, the Iranians don't have enough to do that. I disagree. Uh, are they dwindling, dwindling their, their reserves? Yes, but so are the Americans. And clearly the Iranians are doing a minimal deterrence approach, i.e., shoot a few to continue that psychological warfare, to create enough discontent, disruption, damage, but, uh, enough that they can sustain this for weeks. You don't have to shoot all you've got to, to have enough of an impact. So, um, Iran is suffering more, but America isn't winning. And the, the fact that this UN Security Council vote has been, uh, vetoed means that any hope for, um, stabilization over the Strait of Hormuz is, is gone. Um, now, uh, Vali, uh, said that this was a, an American bill. Um, from what I understand, it was a a Gulf-drafted resolution. Uh, the UAE was the chair of the council meeting, um, and the US obviously backed it. But because it's a Gulf-US endorsed resolution, China and Russia by default will veto it, which is— if you take a step back for a minute and look at this from a multilateral lens, which is where my primary expertise is, This doesn't make sense with the— on behalf of China. Um, what it does do is expose that the Chinese and Russians probably are supporting the Iranians more than they claim, or specifically in the case of China, that, uh, they are supporting Iran more than they claim, because if they weren't, then they wouldn't care. They would want to see the war, uh, whittled down. Um, so this idea of non-interference that the Chinese adopt in their foreign policies is not being, um sustained, um, through their voting in, in the UN. So a little bit there, uh, to dig into, I think, to understand the motivations behind the Chinese. But generally speaking, uh, if you want to see the Strait of Hormuz secured and oil supplies, energy routes, um, maintained and defended, whatever, uh, then you would assume that China votes in favor of that. But, uh, regardless, China— Russia would have vetoed it anyway, so therefore it still wouldn't past. So as usual, the UN is largely powerless or irrelevant in this case, but again, not because the UN I think is itself is irrelevant, but because the countries that control how the UN functions are inhibiting it from doing anything. That is the double standards, that is the terrible construction of the UN Security Council, and that it is Yeah, it's, it's no longer fit for the international system. I did want to read a couple of updates here as well. So there's been one interpretation which, as I, I said, um, one legal advisor who worked at the State Department earlier said that this idea of a whole civilization being threatened could plausibly be interpreted as a threat of genocide. Um, now the goal is obviously that Trump would— wants to put pressure on Tehran to such an extent that they come to the table. But as I've just made clear, and as, um, Vali Nasr has made clear in the past 30 minutes, this is not how the IRGC operates and, and are not going to operate. They are not going to capitulate because of one man's bluster. And if anything, Trump's growing recklessness and enraged tweets on the internet only source to be, um, only fuel to be sources of, um, pity. Um, I'm trying to think of the right word here, but they, they only play into the hands because it reveals to your adversary just how, uh, frustrated or unfiltered your, your mental state is, that you're, you're so rattled, uh, that they have to just sit back, be calm and composed and allowed Trump to essentially self-destruct, um, mentally, not figuratively, uh, not physically, although, well, I think that'd be rather welcome to Biden in some people's opinions. Um, um, but yeah, we've now got legal, um, interpretations of this confirming that this is an implicit state of genocide, um, or threat of genocide. Um, again, some people will say it's a negotiating tactic, but just how far are you going to go to bluff, um, before it's just too far and you have to pull it back. Because if Trump doesn't follow through with anything other than a huge escalation at this point, uh, he's going to look absolutely ridiculous and only give the Iranians more confidence. But also in the optics, in the, in the perception of the international system, more belief that the Iranians have— they may be not winning militarily, but they have a a cool, calm, collected approach strategically to, to outlasting, um, or sustaining their war campaign, sustaining their deterrence, sustaining their defense. So I have always, you know, wanted the IRGC to be out of the picture for Iran to have greater choice over its, uh, future. But, um, Trump's handling of the situation right now is, is only serving to illustrate that he's, he's lost a lot— all of— all control. And that frankly any, any idea that he has some grand strategic plan is a joke. Um, but I think we'll be discussing that more with Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis in about an hour's time. Um, and I also think that even if the United States and Iran were to establish some kind of, uh, agreement, arrangement, um, that wouldn't dissuade the Israelis from continuing anyway. Um, maybe Trump would come to the sort of acceptance that he can just increase funding for Israel, um, and they can up the military operations, or the US can sort of operate through the guise of it's Israeli first and foremost, and the US has sort of agreed that they don't directly target, um, infrastructure or, or get involved with the, with the war between those two. But I I, I don't think that's going to happen. I think that we are going to see an intensification. I'm struggling really to know what best words to use because I just think it's all out of control. And these, these continual threats that Trump makes, or extensions of 6 days, 10 days, 2 days, are only undermining his, his cards, the cards that he has to play and how he chooses to play them. Uh, yes, no, we don't have a plan. Um, It's, uh, it's, uh, it's a day. But, uh, let me get through some of your comments here. Um, yeah, he was a very good guest. He's someone that I like to speak to on a, on a periodical basis. I know some people have, um, concerns, but, uh, I've always thought that, um, Professor Nasr has, has some great takes on the situation and it helps to, to cut through the noise and really make sense of what's going on. Um, I guess the last thing I'll just say on Europe briefly is, um, that the more Trump, uh, attempts to escalate, uh, the more he, he finds an unwillingness to back down, or the more he's willing to sort of just push the boundaries of what's acceptable, uh, really has to make one wonder what, what value is in it for the, uh, uh, for the UK or for European countries that continue to allow U.S. usage of their bases. Um, I have made a public, uh, call— not that it really means anything necessarily, I'm just a guy on the internet— but, uh, I personally think that if Trump is willing to escalate this even more, that the British government should extremely reconsider its willingness to allow American use of British bases, because in some ways that makes the UK more complicit. And whilst I may have understood or tacitly supported, uh, you know, uh, the removal of the IRGC. Um, the way that it's been done is completely out of kilter, and, uh, I do not think it is going to happen. And therefore, I think it's within the interests of each country within Europe to take their self-interests first. A lot of people on X will disagree with that and claim that how outrageous that the British are not allowing the Americans, who provide NATO assurances and such to be allowed to use their bases. But this is voided by the fact that Trump did not seek, um, uh, consultation with NATO allies and partners. There's no legal mandate here under NATO, under the treaty, and therefore it's completely void. It's completely redundant, uh, and people are just using that to filter, to fuel their own, uh, invested narratives, make a quick buck on the internet and, um, generally I think add to the cesspit of, um, lunacy and deliberate rage baiting that unfortunately plagues a lot of the internet in times of absolute crisis as we're seeing right now. But that's more of a personal opinion. I'll be back, everyone, in just over an hour, uh, with, with, um, Daniel Davis. So do be sure to, to click the bell, as I say, on the on the channel for that. I will post it in the, um, uh, in the, in there, in the, uh, chat below. I'm still relatively new to streaming, so I'm not a natural when I'm trying to multitask. I don't have a massive team on the back end who can do it automatically, so I'm, I'm also a man, so I can't multitask, uh, very well. But anyway, it's posted for those of you who want to, to, to sign up. And if, yeah, if you enjoyed the video, then give it a like, subscribe, and we'll see you all, uh, in an hour. But anyway, guys, let's, uh, yeah, stay safe out there.

Yeah.