- 5 days ago
In this powerful discussion with Glenn Diesen, geopolitical analyst Alex Krainer explores how Iran may become the final blow to American imperial overreach. As tensions rise and U.S. influence weakens globally 🌍, Tehran’s defiance in the face of pressure from Washington and its allies signals a major shift in the world order 📉. Could this be the moment history remembers as the fall of American dominance? Forbidden News delivers bold insights into the unraveling of U.S. power — and what comes next.
#AlexKrainer #GlennDiesen #IranVsUS #AmericanEmpire #Geopolitics #ForbiddenNews #MiddleEastCrisis #USDecline #GlobalPowerShift #BreakingNews #MilitaryTensions #IranResistance #WorldOrder #EmpireFall #TehranNews #UncensoredTruth #USHegemony #IranAnalysis #PoliticalShift #StayInformed
#AlexKrainer #GlennDiesen #IranVsUS #AmericanEmpire #Geopolitics #ForbiddenNews #MiddleEastCrisis #USDecline #GlobalPowerShift #BreakingNews #MilitaryTensions #IranResistance #WorldOrder #EmpireFall #TehranNews #UncensoredTruth #USHegemony #IranAnalysis #PoliticalShift #StayInformed
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00:00Hi, everyone, and welcome. We are joined today by Alex Cranor, a very insightful market analyst and author.
00:00:08So, yeah, welcome back to the program. I know my listeners are always very happy when I bring you back.
00:00:15Thank you very much, Glenn. Good to be with you again.
00:00:18And I'm very grateful that the listeners are receptive to the message, whatever I can share.
00:00:25Well, I guess on the topic of message, I thought we, if we perhaps can start with Iran, as this is obviously the biggest crisis on the messaging.
00:00:41How are you interpreting the messaging these days from Washington? Because it's going a bit back and forth.
00:00:51First, we had Marco Rubio reassuring everyone America had nothing to do with this.
00:00:56Then it seemed that Trump was claiming ownership. Then it's not going very well.
00:01:02And now he's arguing we had nothing to do with this. It's a bit.
00:01:07It can be a bit disorienting.
00:01:11How are you interpreting America's role and communication strategy here?
00:01:16Well, so far, I think that the messaging from the Trump administration is pretty much typical for what we've gotten used to, the messaging from the Trump administration.
00:01:28But given that the circumstances are as grave as they are, this is, you know, to say that it's appalling is to put it politely.
00:01:36There's obviously been a very elaborate deception played by the Trump administration.
00:01:41My initial impression was that Trump himself engaged in collusion with the Israeli leadership to attack Iran with the objective of regime changing Iran, taking down their leadership.
00:02:08So that that that's the way things appeared initially.
00:02:13I'm not 100 percent sure anymore that this is what happened.
00:02:17In fact, because, you know.
00:02:21The elaborate deception may have been targeted at Israel also.
00:02:25And so I think that we won't know until we know.
00:02:29And I think that the test of what really happened will come in a variety of ways.
00:02:37One is, will the United States join Iran?
00:02:41Will the United States join Israel's war against Iran now?
00:02:47If it doesn't, then maybe the trap was set for Israel, in fact.
00:02:52Another test will be, how will the Russians and the Chinese react to this?
00:03:00Will they continue to treat Trump like a strategic partner?
00:03:06Or will they shut him out?
00:03:09You know, the Russians for sure are going to remain polite and humor him.
00:03:15But if Trump actually colluded with Israel to attack Iran, then he's on the wrong side of history, 100 percent.
00:03:28So in that case, I think that the Russians and the Chinese will probably shut him out from their strategic development endeavors and projects and might only humor him and his administration to keep, let's say, to keep the relationship at some kind of a polite level.
00:03:50You know, like divorced parents, they still have to talk to each other, but they're, you know, they're not necessarily allies.
00:03:57So I think we'll see, you know, the reason why I doubt the surface appearance of things is because this would have been so awful that, you know, to deceive Iran in this manner is not only bad for U.S. relations with Iran.
00:04:25It is very bad for U.S. relations with everybody else.
00:04:32And when I say everybody else, primarily we're talking about Russia and China.
00:04:36But then, you know, everybody's looking at this, the Indians, the Iranians, the Saudis.
00:04:42Everybody sees this and, you know, their conclusion would have to be, my God, we absolutely cannot deal with this administration.
00:04:52There's nothing to negotiate.
00:04:53They will, if we negotiate with them, if we make any constructive overture, it'll be taken advantage of and against us.
00:05:03So, you know, the cost in terms of shredded reputation is so exorbitant, it's very difficult for me to even believe that any of this happened.
00:05:19Which is making me doubt that maybe it's a double game deception, you know, and maybe the trap was set against Israel and Israel's ultimate sponsors, which is the Western Empire, which is primarily the, you know, the governing system of the city of London and its satellites,
00:05:45primarily Paris, primarily Paris, Wall Street, and then others, junior partners.
00:05:52So I think that only, we will only know with time, but the response the Israelis got from Iran was so effective, so overwhelming, and so devastating,
00:06:06that the only way that the only way that Israel can now hope to even turn this around is by going nuclear.
00:06:18But if they go nuclear, you know, that's the end of Israel, there's no going back from there.
00:06:27I was going to say, in terms of escalation, because it seems less like, of course, it's possible that the Americans will contact the Iranians saying,
00:06:39listen, let's just stop this, you know, the destruction, and essentially go into a ceasefire, nothing is solved, but both sides walk away with a bloody nose.
00:06:50This is a possibility, but it seems more likely now that we're heading towards escalation.
00:06:55Now, there's many pathways, of course.
00:06:57It can be escalation that Iran would target, you know, military bases of countries which are colluding with Israel, then primarily the Americans.
00:07:10But it's also very likely, as you said, that escalation would come from the side which is losing under the current framework of the attacks,
00:07:19because Iran doesn't seem to have much of an incentive to attack an American bases now, given that in this limiting it between Israel and Iran has put Iran in the driver's seat.
00:07:34But given that Israel and the U.S. is now on the losing side, being humiliated, there seems to be two paths towards a dramatic escalation.
00:07:46One, as you suggested, is Israel reaches for the nuclear weapons, saying that this is an existential threat, you know, we have to take out the terror regime.
00:07:55Well, you know, we can see the language coming down to justify it.
00:07:58The other path is the United States joining in on the war, which they seem to have pushed back against so far.
00:08:06But, again, there's nothing consistent.
00:08:11They might change their minds in 20 minutes.
00:08:13So, what is your take on this?
00:08:17Do you see any other paths to escalation here?
00:08:22No.
00:08:23And I think that even the United States joining in Israel's war against Iran, I don't see where it goes, Glenn, because there's only so much that the Americans can do.
00:08:34You know, they cannot bring 3 million troops and land them anywhere near Iran for an invasion.
00:08:40They can bring their destroyers and aircraft carriers.
00:08:44But, you know, as we know, there's only so much fuel, so much aircraft, so many bombs, so many missiles that these vessels carry.
00:08:53Once they fire them off, that's it.
00:08:55You know, I think that every destroyer carries about 100 of these, you know, surface-to-surface missiles and a limited number of surface-to-air missiles.
00:09:11And once they fire them off, that's it.
00:09:12They have to haul back to port to, you know, replenish the supplies.
00:09:17And so, their ability to wage war on Iran is severely limited.
00:09:25While, you know, we've seen the way Iranians have been able to strike back at Israel.
00:09:32Well, they have planned this, and they have shown that they have planned it well, and they have been able to execute it well.
00:09:40Now, if I were sitting in the Pentagon and planning operations, I would think, well, they've probably also prepared plans to deal with our naval assets.
00:09:51And so, there's a good chance, if we engage in war with Iran, that they will sink our ships and aircraft carriers.
00:10:02Not only that, they're probably going to wipe out all our military bases.
00:10:07And so, what is the upside?
00:10:09There is, you know, for the United States, there is no upside in this war, which is why I'm extremely perplexed about the conduct of the Trump administration,
00:10:18which then leads me to suspect that, you know, that this was the trap for the empire, not for the Iranians.
00:10:29Because it's just so mind-bogglingly stupid from start to finish that you would have to think that there's a lunatic asylum in charge in Washington,
00:10:43or that this deception is something other than it appears at, you know, at first blush and at the surface appearances of things.
00:10:55Yeah, well, actually, a few hours before the surprise attack on Iran, well, I was on the program of Judge Napolitano,
00:11:06and he asked me what, you know, what makes sense of these movements in terms of, well, you can see something was going to happen.
00:11:15I expressed my severe doubt.
00:11:17But I said, you know, it's quite possible, but I doubted it, because it seemed, as you said, to be so crazy, so absurd,
00:11:25because, you know, the things they're saying about Iran in the media, you know, they're weak.
00:11:31If, you know, first missile hit the Tehran, the people who are so oppressed will rise up and topple the regime.
00:11:37I mean, all of these things, I thought, they can't possibly mean these things, you know,
00:11:41and they must know about the missile capabilities of the Iranians.
00:11:47And so my assumption was, you know, they couldn't be this mad.
00:11:52But I'm wondering if, you know, often one looks for other, you know, hidden motives or something.
00:12:00But it might be possible no one's behind the wheel on this one, that they're just acting on almost impulses.
00:12:07So there doesn't seem to be much reason going on.
00:12:10But if there is, what do you mean, like you mentioned, this could be that they're conspiring against the empire.
00:12:18What are you thinking?
00:12:19Okay, yes, I think, look, I think it's very important to always keep the big game context in mind.
00:12:29And, you know, this is, as, you know, as George Soros told us, it's a clash between two systems of governance, you know, the open societies versus closed societies.
00:12:40And Kurt Walker, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, said it's between democracies and autocracies.
00:12:49And so, you know, it's very important, this is very important as constant because it is actually true, you know, it's a conflict between the Western oligarchic system of governance, which for centuries now has given rise to colonialism and imperialism and foreign conquest and permanent wars for centuries now.
00:13:16And then the rest of humanity who maybe want permanent peace and prosperity and good relations between nations.
00:13:24And so, you know, this imperialistic approach to governing the world has been directed most recently from the city of London, although, you know, it's the same, if you go back in time, the French Empire, the Spanish Empire, the, you know, the Dutch Empire, the Roman Empire, they've all pretty much used the same model of governance.
00:13:52And that is, you know, you have to impose your hegemony and you have to make sure that all the regimes that control resources that you wish to control, that they are your vassals.
00:14:07And so, you know, if you approach the conflict from this logic, then you realize, first of all, the conflict in Ukraine and the conflict in Iran, it's the same conflict, basically, two different war theaters, but the same conflict.
00:14:22And then you realize that all the talk about nuclear weapons, you know, Iranian, Iran being sponsor of terror regime, whatever, the need for peace in the region, that all of those are false rationales for the war.
00:14:39And that the, you know, in order for the Western Empire to be able to control that region, they need a regime change in Iran.
00:14:49So it's not enough for the Iranians to say, okay, we'll stop our nuclear program altogether, we will commit not to have a nuclear bomb because they've already offered that.
00:15:00And then the Iranians have also said, why don't we make the whole region nuclear, nuclear free zone?
00:15:07So, you know, if peace was the objective, everybody in the West, including the United States and Israel should have said, well, that's fantastic.
00:15:15Let's work on that.
00:15:16Let's everybody get rid of nuclear weapons.
00:15:19And let's commit to not attacking one another.
00:15:21That's easy enough to accomplish.
00:15:23And then you have peace in the region.
00:15:25But the, you know, if that were the objective, this would have been taken care of a very long time ago.
00:15:32But it's not.
00:15:34The objective is regime change in Iran, because only then do you control the whole region.
00:15:42You have the hegemony, and then you control the region's resources as well.
00:15:47And so that's the objective of the game.
00:15:49And so the United States is being used as the military muscle of enforcement for the empire at its own cost.
00:15:58So we see that the United States economy has been depleted.
00:16:01Its military has been severely weakened.
00:16:04It's been shredding its reputation and credibility around the world in order to do this.
00:16:09So the downside for the United States has been massive.
00:16:12And it's been extremely costly, while the upside, you know, the benefits are accruing to, you know, the banking interest in London, Paris, and on Wall Street, primarily.
00:16:25You know, we had an example, just to make this concrete.
00:16:29When, so December 2024, Syria is taken down.
00:16:37There's a regime change in Syria.
00:16:38Almost, well, yeah, the next month, no, February 2025, the new Syrian government gives like a $250 million contract to manage ports of Syria to a French conglomerate, CMA-CGM, right?
00:17:02And the CMA-CGM immediately commits to investing $30 million into modernization of Syria's ports.
00:17:12So there you see already the colonialist interest coming in.
00:17:17But they didn't hire an American company.
00:17:19They hired a French company, which tells you that the ultimate financial interest are, you know, the Americans are going around like a dumb giant,
00:17:27winning the wars, as they say, but losing the peace.
00:17:33And then they have this frustration about nation building, because they say, we always go in there, we take the regimes down, we destroy nations, but then we don't, there's no political follow through.
00:17:44We don't build on anything.
00:17:46We just, we just end up withdrawing and leaving a mess behind.
00:17:49Well, that's almost by design, because it's always these European, British, French, and other interests that are, now, if you pay attention,
00:17:59you'll see that they are really very actively trying to reclaim their colonial interest in the full, to the full extent as it was during the 19th century.
00:18:09And so I would be very surprised if people in government in the United States were not aware of this.
00:18:19And if they are aware of this, you can only be on one side of this issue.
00:18:24You cannot, you know, you cannot be a little bit pregnant, either you're with them or you're not with them.
00:18:29And so if you're not with them, then there is absolutely no logic to support Israel, because Israel is nothing but a colonial settler project aimed at controlling and defending the hegemony of Western interests in the Middle East.
00:18:50And now, if this wasn't clear until now, now it should be very obvious.
00:18:58So for the United States to join into that and to say, okay, we'll defend this imperial project at our cost, to cost to our military, to our servicemen, to our treasury,
00:19:14in order for the French and British and other multinational corporations to have control over this region's resources and their economies.
00:19:27That's just completely insane.
00:19:30And again, you know, either somebody has to be staggeringly dumb, blind and stupid to be pursuing this,
00:19:38or it's some kind of an elaborate deception aimed against the imperial interests.
00:19:44But we, you know, we won't know that until we see how things play out.
00:19:50Again, you know, if the United States joins in Israel's war against Iran, then I'm afraid that it's the stupid side that won over.
00:20:00If they avoid that war, and if they continue to collaborate with China, with Russia, and other regional players in some kind of a constructive way,
00:20:13then I think that this was a trap set for Israel and Israel's sponsors.
00:20:19Well, I guess Israel has been, well, not shied away from making it clear they wanted or needed United States participation if they're going to attack Iran.
00:20:32And now that they attacked and things are going wrong, they're, you know, very openly pushing for the United States to join in.
00:20:39Which is why it's interesting that, well, so far the United States has not, given that it would result in a disaster.
00:20:45But again, it could change.
00:20:47But it is interesting how wars have to be sold, because the idea that, you know, they're to support and help Israel.
00:20:56Well, in his younger days, several years ago, Joe Biden, he made his speech in the Senate where he made the point that, you know,
00:21:05if there was no Israel, we would have to create one because it was, this is the America's power projection in the region.
00:21:12Now, one can argue that since then, they've become more of a burden, but I've seen some European powers still make this argument.
00:21:21I think the Germans were saying it, that, you know, in this attack on Iran, well, Israel has a right to defend itself,
00:21:29which is a very strange comment to make when you're backing a war of aggression, that is a surprise attack in the middle of negotiations.
00:21:39So it is, you know, you're kind of reaching for, reaching very far there.
00:21:44But I think you're right on the regime change as well, because Trump was also asked, what is, you know, are you going to call for reducing the tensions?
00:21:54And he said, well, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
00:21:58But this is, as you said, a very absurd argument, because Iran has already said they don't want to need a nuclear weapon.
00:22:07And if there was a negotiation, a deal to have intrusive inspections to ensure that they do not acquire nuclear weapons, this could be done.
00:22:17But the problem we often see comes at the other end, that is from the Americans.
00:22:22They always link this to other things.
00:22:25They say, yeah, we want a nuclear deal, but we also need to have then limits on Iranian ballistic missiles.
00:22:33So we have to, Iran has to sever themselves from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, you know, whoever are part of the resistance.
00:22:41And, of course, the new extreme demand is Iran is not allowed to have a civilian nuclear power program.
00:22:48So Israel can have nuclear weapons, but Iran cannot even have civilian nuclear power.
00:22:54And to pack all of this under Iran can't have a nuclear weapon, it seems very deceptive.
00:23:02But this is still what's being sold to people, though.
00:23:04So even in Europe, this has become a catchphrase.
00:23:09Iran cannot have nuclear weapons.
00:23:10But this is not really the issue of hammer.
00:23:16Yeah, exactly.
00:23:16This is not the reason for war, because, you know, if that were the reason for war, there wouldn't be any war.
00:23:23You know, it's easy enough for the Iranians to say, well, we don't need a nuclear weapon.
00:23:27We don't want a nuclear weapon.
00:23:28And if you will, you know, if you will make this, if you will help us make this zone nuclear, this region nuclear free, we're done.
00:23:35That's it.
00:23:37The objective is obviously a regime change in Iran, because that's the only way that the Western powers can preserve their hegemony in the region and secure it for the long term.
00:23:51And so this is their objective.
00:23:54And it's, you know, speaking of Germany that you mentioned, apparently a German aircraft over Syria accidentally turned on their transponder for a few minutes and then switched it off.
00:24:08But, you know, now we know that Germany has joined in the war to help.
00:24:13I think it was like a refueling aircraft.
00:24:16And so now we know that Germany is active there defending Israel.
00:24:23And I also find it quite funny that nobody ever mentions that maybe Iran also has the right to defend itself.
00:24:30It's only Israel that seems to have the right to defend itself.
00:24:33It's really strange.
00:24:35But, you know, beyond what we see happening now, you know, this will obviously have long term consequences.
00:24:41You know, Pakistan has said that if Israel or Western powers use nuclear weapons against Iran, that Pakistan will join the war and that they will launch a nuclear missile on Israel.
00:25:01Then, you know, the impact of this conflict will have long term consequences for Jordan, for Egypt, for Turkey, for Saudi Arabia.
00:25:15And it will be felt very much in Syria.
00:25:18And the situation will easily get out of hand.
00:25:23And so, you know, we're in for a crisis that will not be resolved so soon.
00:25:30And I just sincerely, I don't see how the Western powers can reverse their loss of influence and hegemony over the region.
00:25:42I think everything is now turning against them.
00:25:45And let's not forget, Iran also has full support of Russia and China in this conflict.
00:25:53Yeah, I thought I saw Chinese military flight restocking something in Iran.
00:26:01Well, they turned off the transponders when they were getting closer to Iran.
00:26:05But there is something happening there, I think.
00:26:08But that makes me also think about the wider implications of targeting Iran.
00:26:13Iran has a very key role in this new Eurasian model being or configuration taking place.
00:26:23That is, it's a very central node between, you know, this east and west on Eurasia.
00:26:30But it's also the central node in the north-south, especially in the north-south international transportation corridor,
00:26:37the Russia, Iran, going down to India.
00:26:41But also in general, in Eurasia, it's become, usually we focus on Russia and China,
00:26:48but Iran has been leaning more and more into this new Eurasian constellation.
00:26:54So I do think that this is almost, well, to some extent seen as also an attack on this multipolar Eurasian model,
00:27:04which is appearing and by, yeah, taking out a key middle part.
00:27:10But to what extent do you think, besides sending weapons,
00:27:15do you think the Russians and Chinese would get involved in a more direct way?
00:27:19I very much doubt that the Russians and the Iranians will send troops, for example.
00:27:28But they will provide probably extensive technical support, you know, air defense systems,
00:27:36probably not surface-to-surface systems because, you know, then that would make them belligerous.
00:27:41You know, if you found fragments of Russian or Chinese missiles on the grounds where U.S. military bases used to be,
00:27:53they'll be very bad.
00:27:54And I don't think probably that the Iranians need that kind of help either.
00:27:58But probably, you know, intelligence-sharing, surveillance, air cover, air defenses.
00:28:07In that sense, I think that the, you know, that the Russians already have teams on the ground
00:28:13helping man radars and air defense systems.
00:28:19And from the Chinese, I'm not sure, but, you know, the Chinese, we've seen that they've sold some weapons systems,
00:28:30including aircraft, to Egypt.
00:28:33So that might be part of the package.
00:28:35You know, they might be supplying them aircraft to counter Israeli aircraft coming over to Iranian air spaces.
00:28:46But beyond that, you know, I'm not exactly sure what the support will be.
00:28:53It is important to know that Iran, I'm sorry, China, as well as Russia,
00:29:01have now pretty much designated Iran as the anchor of the new security architecture for this region
00:29:10and for the Eurasian continent in general.
00:29:12So defending the Iranian government now is a very high priority for both Russia and China.
00:29:23And so they will, you know, we have information that last night Vladimir Putin called up Donald Trump.
00:29:33And according to Donald Trump, the, you know, the call was very friendly.
00:29:39Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump on his birthday and on 250th anniversary of U.S. Armed Forces and all this.
00:29:47It's all very nice.
00:29:49But I think that probably there was also a warning in that call, you know, not to get involved.
00:29:55And that, you know, Russia will probably provide substantial support to Iranians,
00:30:03so not to dream that they can go and try to take down Iran militarily.
00:30:08Probably, you know, a call to dissuade Trump from joining the war on the side of Israel.
00:30:19Or alternatively, I have to say this, a call to exchange notes and coordinate action,
00:30:30because I still think that there's a possibility that Trump is playing the Israelis.
00:30:40I think that's plausible.
00:30:43It's extraordinary to me, though, how the Israelis have played their cards so poorly.
00:30:52Also with the Russians, you know, the Russians and the Israelis,
00:30:56they used to have something of a special bond, not just because, you know, the Soviets, you know,
00:31:03liberating Auschwitz and, of course, so many people from the Soviet Union migrating to Israel.
00:31:09But there's always been this, even when they're on the opposite side of a conflict,
00:31:15there's always this still mutual respect and, you know, taking into account each other's interests.
00:31:20And I remember a few years ago, I was at a conference with the former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert.
00:31:29And he was also just going on, oh, yeah, we all learned some Russian phrases as kids.
00:31:34And, you know, how special, like how Russia was always a key part for the Israelis.
00:31:38But after what, how the Israelis contributed to the proxy war in Ukraine,
00:31:46this relationship is pretty much, yeah, dead in the water almost.
00:31:51Now, Russia's really, it doesn't feel any more need to constrain itself in partnering with Iran.
00:31:58It doesn't want to alienate the Saudis and the Gulf states.
00:32:02That's still a constraint.
00:32:03But the Israelis, they don't seem to care very much anymore.
00:32:06Like, I think they've had enough of how Israel began to ignore their interests.
00:32:13So it is extraordinary.
00:32:15If someone would have told me 10 years ago that the Russians would be leaning this heavily into Iran against Israel,
00:32:22it would have been difficult to believe.
00:32:24Yeah, exactly.
00:32:25I agree, Glenn.
00:32:26That's it's it seems almost it would have it would have seemed unthinkable a few years ago.
00:32:32But, you know, I have to mention another thing here because I, you know, I do have a few friends in Israel who are not part of this.
00:32:40But it does appear that Israel has now been pretty much since the since the days of the COVID pandemic in a state of mass formation psychosis that has been that has been fueled deliberately.
00:32:55I think there's this kind of madness that has gripped the country.
00:33:00And so they are it's it's hard to explain.
00:33:04But a few about a year ago, you know, I discussed this with a friend of mine who is a who is a devout Muslim and who studies Jewish, Muslim and Christian eschatology, you know.
00:33:16And he explained to me something that I was very much surprised about, you know, this seemed almost surreal.
00:33:25But then over over time, it seems that it's very much real that for part of the Israeli society, particularly the the the the religious cohort, there's a part of their action are motivated by the messianic requirement for the redemption of Israel.
00:33:49Israel. OK, so to explain, you know, the the Jews during the already during the Babylonian captivity, they were promised that there would be a messiah who would return to Israel to to to to the Jews.
00:34:07Right. And sorry, not to return to come.
00:34:11They would come. They would come. They would a messiah would come to the Jews.
00:34:14But before the messiah can come, Israel has to be the collective Jewry, have to be redeemed for their sins and their evil.
00:34:26And in order for them to be redeemed for their sins, they need to be punished.
00:34:31OK, and in order, basically, the the the punishment is supposed to come in the form of the whole world turning against Israel and the Jews.
00:34:43And in order for that to happen, they have to basically engage in such blatant evil doing that it's absolutely obvious to everybody in this world so that the whole world would turn against Israel.
00:34:59And and and then the punishment would come and it would be very obvious, you know, it kind of, you know, the picture looks like like what is happening now, like in places like Tel Aviv and Haifa.
00:35:11And I thought, well, you know, I'm sure that there's some fanatics who actually think this.
00:35:19But I mean, come on. But then it turns out that actually, you know, there's a there's a very influential rabbi.
00:35:26His name is something Schneerson, who's very close to Benjamin Netanyahu.
00:35:32And apparently Benjamin Netanyahu from time to time briefs Rabbi Schmierson as where are we at?
00:35:38You know, are we making progress towards this redemption of Israel?
00:35:42And Rabbi Schneerson actually declared that Benjamin Netanyahu would.
00:35:47And he's very influential, actually, in the religious circles in Israel.
00:35:51And he said that Benjamin Netanyahu would be the last leader of Israel before the return of the Messiah.
00:35:58And the date, the date for redemption to be completed is some specific date, something like 2 September 2027.
00:36:11I'm not sure that it's 2 September, but it's some specific date in 2027.
00:36:17So by then, the redemption of Israel has to be completed, which means that they have to receive a very severe punishment from the whole rest of the world.
00:36:27And there really is a apparently a very influential segment of religious Jews in Israel who actually believe that and who are actually kind of lobbying and pushing the government and the IDF to make sure that these things happen.
00:36:45And so to a part of them, this is real, which means that all of the rational thought that, you know, you or I or the Russians or the Trump administration or the military people have, you know, you think about upside and downside.
00:36:59You know, what do we want to achieve?
00:37:00What is the potential benefit?
00:37:02What's the potential downside?
00:37:04And then you decide, well, OK, this course of action is not reasonable.
00:37:08It's too risky.
00:37:09It's too destructive.
00:37:09Well, to this cohort, all the better, you know, because the worst the prospects from something, the more they want to do it.
00:37:21And it seems that they really do have their foot on the clutch of Israel's collective conduct.
00:37:30I spoke not that long ago to an Israeli journalist, Gideon Levy.
00:37:36So he's quite prominent there in Israel.
00:37:39But also quite critical of the Netanyahu government and also, by the way, their military actions in Gaza.
00:37:48And he, well, he explained it differently, though.
00:37:50He saw it as, well, I thought of him when you mentioned mass psychosis, because that's more or less the direction he was taking it as well.
00:37:57He was saying that the more the world criticizes them, the Israel, the more the people in Israel believes that, well, this confirms that the whole world is against them.
00:38:10And this only legitimizes more the need to take bold action and, you know, show no empathy, no mercy when they carry out their objectives.
00:38:22And so it becomes this weird cycle where the consequence of their actions will fuel even more aggressive actions.
00:38:32So I can't remember if he used the word mass psychosis, but the way he described it, it certainly sounded like this.
00:38:40So the whole, I guess my point is that reason itself has been, yeah, left a lot of the decision making.
00:38:48But on the absence of reason, though, we also assume on the United States part that they have a lot of, you know, that they're calculating what is, you know, how can they pursue this conflict or not?
00:39:02Of course, we know all about the Israeli lobby and all, but for the Trump himself, this is not an isolated case.
00:39:09As you mentioned, they have more things going on.
00:39:12They have riots and protests at home.
00:39:14They have an economic war with the Chinese.
00:39:17They have a proxy war in Ukraine against the Russians.
00:39:21He doesn't have that much room to maneuver necessarily if he does the wrong thing.
00:39:26You know, the political class, the public, a lot of people can come against him.
00:39:31And I think, I'm not sure how you see Trump's role in this.
00:39:35If, you know, if we assume that he wants to help Israel destroy Iran, how much room of maneuver does he actually have?
00:39:47Yeah, I think he has very little room for maneuver.
00:39:50You know, because the American society, I think that even though the opposition to Israel is now growing, and I think that it's quite widespread and robust by now,
00:40:04I still think that the people in the bowels of the administration, you know, all the cold warriors that have been there staffing the NSA and the CIA and the Pentagon and, you know, US Congress, importantly, they are still very much committed to Israel.
00:40:26They're still cling to this sentimental attachment to think of Israel as a good thing.
00:40:35And then, of course, this sentimental attachment is always rewarded with some contributions from donors so that the whole thing is very strongly entrenched.
00:40:44And, you know, as many observers said, Benjamin Netanyahu today has more control over the U.S. Congress than Donald Trump does.
00:40:54So, you know, what do you do?
00:40:55I think that you either have to engage in some kind of a very clever deception to run to, let's say, dissent from this in actual fact and avoid getting enmeshed in this war.
00:41:12Or, you know, let's not forget, Persia has traditionally been the graveyard of empires and everybody who tried to take down this old civilization eventually lost their empire.
00:41:28So that's the, you know, that's the downside.
00:41:30I don't see the upside so much.
00:41:32Or else, if he doesn't engage in some kind of a clever 4D deception, then he has to go along with it and then he has to own that war.
00:41:42He will absolutely, if he goes along with defending Israel, he will absolutely own that war and he will own the consequences of that war, which will be devastating for the United States.
00:41:54In the end, you know, they will be able to maybe launch nuclear missiles at Iran, which will probably have similar consequences like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, probably times 100, which means that the country will be devastated, but it will not be the end of it.
00:42:15It will be the end of the Western Empire and of the United States in that case.
00:42:19And I think that ultimately, the political price that will be paid by the Trump administration will be essentially the destruction of his presidency.
00:42:35And he will, you know, he will have no other choice but to basically be a stooge of these Western financial interests who are scheming to defend their hegemony over the Middle East.
00:42:55And I think that's such a poor choice.
00:43:01There's so little upside for the United States in that and such vast downside.
00:43:09And I think that it's obvious enough that I have a very hard time with the notion that what we see happening is what is actually happening.
00:43:19And I think we'll only know for sure with time.
00:43:22Yeah, well, I guess that's my point that the countries in decline or facing something existential, they will take great risks and act often irrationally.
00:43:37But we then look towards Israel, but the United States as a backer.
00:43:41It's also in a historical, it's a very difficult spot as well.
00:43:45Well, you know, it's not easy to manage for Trump.
00:43:49He's the president of an empire in decline.
00:43:53Managing America's decline is not an ideal job to have.
00:43:58And of course, I think he came off at a very high after this election.
00:44:02You know, he was the ultimate underdog.
00:44:05There was probably a lot of optimism there that he could actually pull off a lot of the things he wanted, that is, renegotiate or reorganize the world economy to America's favor, win over the Russians, put them against the Chinese, end all this forever wars.
00:44:22He looked like he had a plan, but again, it must be hard to manage this decline of empire.
00:44:29And so I thought he attempted to reinvent empire that is, you know, get high return on investments, make sure that allies pay.
00:44:37But again, the plans, I think, are insufficient.
00:44:43The implementation has been terrible and so many mistakes has been made.
00:44:47My concern is that almost in this American spirit, they're looking for this final showdown at the end, you know, to turn it all around like some Hollywood plot almost.
00:44:59But it looks like this is the direction they're going.
00:45:01I'm just wondering if, I guess, that's my last question, if we continue down this path, what we see happening now between Israel and Iran, where do you think this is going to go?
00:45:17I think that ultimately it's going to go the way all empires go in history.
00:45:23You know, eventually the cost of maintaining an empire crushes the empire itself.
00:45:27Because in these imperial relations, it's always a very narrow segment of any society that benefits from the empire.
00:45:38You know, what in today's version would be the global systemically important banks and the global multinational corporations.
00:45:47Well, everybody else pays the bill because, you know, all these hundreds of military bases around the world and all these carrier strike groups that are going around, they don't pay for themselves.
00:46:02It's the U.S. taxpayers and the U.S. legitimate businesses that have to support this through taxes.
00:46:09Right. And so if you continue fielding the empire, if you continue policing the world against independence and liberty and emancipation from the empire, you're going to be shredding your economic base, your military base, your diplomatic base.
00:46:32And so it's going to go badly. And I think that at this point in time, it might go badly very fast and very dramatically because, you know, let's not forget that the Western financial system and partly that's the reason why the West is behaving so aggressively.
00:46:53The Western financial system is in a catastrophic state.
00:47:23Once it, you know, once it, you know, once it, you know, once the dam bursts, is going to be of catastrophic proportions.
00:47:30And none of that, none of that happened yet.
00:47:32But after another year of warfare, after another year of supporting Project Ukraine, the wars in the Middle East and, you know, standing on ever thinner ice, I think that when the fallout does happen,
00:47:49it's going to take us by surprise, it's going to take us by surprise, and it's probably going to usher in a crisis that by magnitude will probably resemble the collapse of Weimar Republic in Germany a hundred and some years ago.
00:48:03And so I think that this is now closer to us than we realize.
00:48:10And for the United States, you know, the United States is the one country that has some maneuvering space.
00:48:20You know, they could coast through the crisis, come out on the other side, re-industrialize, change the financial basis, change the monetary system, adopt a dual circulation dollar.
00:48:37You know, one for like the Chinese, you know, they have one, the renminbi for internal circulation and trade, and then they have another type currency for external trade, which helps protect China from external shocks.
00:48:57So that's an option for the United States, to roll back the empire, to come back home, invest, allocate capital to small and medium-sized business, have constructive bilateral relations with countries like China and Russia, join the multipolar integrations process, BRICS, and let go of empire-building nonsense.
00:49:26If you go back to 2016 and before that, if you go back to 2016 and before that, and you look at Trump's position, positioning in terms of America's role in the world, you see that he's very consistently on that side.
00:49:43So what happened now?
00:49:47Has he been compromised?
00:49:49Has he lost his mind?
00:49:50Has he given up and decided, hey, I can't beat the empire, maybe I'll just join them back again?
00:50:01It's early days to say, but I think that we will find out over the coming couple of months.
00:50:11I think that the crisis is inevitable.
00:50:12And I think that the crisis will come in the form of high inflation.
00:50:18But, you know, high inflation will sink Great Britain and Europe before it will sink the United States.
00:50:24And I think that the United States will probably be able to extricate itself.
00:50:28And after a period of crisis, which is inevitable, the United States will go back to being a strong regional power politically and a very strong economic power trading with the rest of the world.
00:50:46So I think Europe is looking at a future that probably resembles the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
00:50:56I think it's going to be dark days.
00:50:58And until we throw off this European Union, NATO, European Central Bank matrix of control and go back to managing individual sovereign countries, it's going to be dark days.
00:51:15But, again, as soon as we do get rid of NATO, ECB, European Union, there's an alternative.
00:51:25You know, there's now the eastern option.
00:51:29We can make nice with the Russians, with the Chinese, join the multipolar integration, bring back, you know, Vladimir Putin back in 2007 was already talking about global integrations from Lisbon to Vladivost.
00:51:45Which means, why don't we all, you know, trade together, cooperate together to everybody's benefit.
00:51:52And that, you know, that remains an option for everyone.
00:51:56Yeah, well, in this 2007 speech by Putin in Munich, which was heavily condemned in the West, but he also made an interesting comment there saying that this unipolar world order, that is, that one center should call all the shots.
00:52:13And not only was it intolerable for Russia, but he also made a point that for the empire itself, it would be very destructive because it would begin to exhaust itself.
00:52:23It would begin to corrupt its own institutions.
00:52:25So that was, well, in my opinion, quite accurate if we see what's happened.
00:52:31But also the predictions by other, like academics since the 1990s, that if the U.S. will pursue this global empire as, yes, the format of new world order, they would exhaust the resources.
00:52:44The rest of the world would balance them.
00:52:46So it does seem as if the remedy to this, how to fix it, would be to, again, take that, as you said, take that step back.
00:52:54Don't sacrifice the republic to save the empire.
00:52:57And, you know, by pulling back, they would be able to, I guess, recover some of their economic strength.
00:53:07And at the same time, the rest of the great powers wouldn't collectively balance the U.S.
00:53:12If the U.S. goes into a severe economic crisis now, it's going to have a very difficult external environment.
00:53:20They're now, they pretty much declared the intention of trying to destroy the Chinese economy.
00:53:26They're fighting approximately against Russia, now against Iran.
00:53:30I mean, this is, this is, yeah, this could become a perfect storm for them.
00:53:37It's strange for me to see that other choices are being made.
00:53:42And I have to be honest, I was quite optimistic when Trump took over because, you know, by his language, he suggested more or less that this is what had to be done to, because the current path wasn't sustainable.
00:53:56But as you said, it seems to be being captured by those, by the status quo.
00:54:03Yeah, I think that either he is or he's not.
00:54:08It's very hard to say.
00:54:09But, you know, the silver lining in your system collapsing at home, as it is, is that you're going to be able to flush out a lot of these vested interests that now are defending the status quo.
00:54:21And it's not like there's a choice between that.
00:54:25You know, you can either have a collapse sooner and try to manage it, or you're going to get a collapse later.
00:54:31You're going to get a collapse anyway, you know, because the, you know, the seeds of destruction of this system are baked in from the very get-go.
00:54:39You know, the way the monetary system works, the crises are almost always present, either acutely or chronically.
00:54:50You know, Western financial systems, they are, you know, they usually go through a business cycle of expansion where everybody feels like things are good and the economy is doing well and everybody is feeling a little bit prosperous.
00:55:05But probably more than half the time, they are in crisis.
00:55:11And then, you know, every time you do away with one crisis, the tales, you know, the 2008 global financial crisis never resolved itself.
00:55:22You know, they kind of shoved things under the carpet and carried on with further credit expansion.
00:55:28But, you know, credit expansion is something that buys you some temporary prosperity, but at some point, the credit on the other side is debt.
00:55:41You have to pay back the debts, right, with interest, which means that a huge amount of liquidity is going to come out of the system, causing the system to seize up and grind down.
00:55:51And then the only way that the powers that be, you know, the central banks and the people who control central banks can push away the crisis is by flooding the system with liquidity.
00:56:04Well, you can do this almost indefinitely, except that eventually you're going to have high levels of inflation and you're going to destroy the currency itself.
00:56:14So the destruction of the U.S. dollar is pretty much baked in.
00:56:19It's inevitable.
00:56:22And I think that that is one thing that I'm sure about Trump and the people around him are very keenly aware of this.
00:56:32They know that the dollar is going down.
00:56:34Either it's going to be happening more gradually, farther away in time, or it's going to be happening sooner.
00:56:41And then maybe if you orchestrate an economic collapse sooner, you might want to do that if you have a plan for a succession, for what comes next.
00:56:56You know, Trump has been talking about changing the monetary base, the currency system.
00:57:03He's been talking about introducing a sovereign wealth fund for the United States.
00:57:08I think that a lot of these initiatives are actually what has prompted the other side, you know, George Soros and these types of oligarchs acting behind the scenes to even orchestrate this No Kings Day.
00:57:27You know, the whole obsession with No Kings is another thing that a book could be written about.
00:57:36But they're, you know, they're clearly trying to clip Trump's wings to disable him to affect a lot of these reforms that he has planned and that he has talked about.
00:57:53And some of them he hasn't talked about, but, you know, they were kind of insinuated in various statements by Besant, by Trump, by others in his administration.
00:58:07So, you know, we'll see the outcome of the game, but it's, you know, we are going into a severe crisis.
00:58:15And then, you know, I think that Trump's ability to prevail and to survive politically will in large part depend also on his ability to obtain support from Russia and from China.
00:58:31And right now I think that he won politically some points because this whole thing with Israel, you know, they, I listened to, I listened to Benjamin Netanyahu's statement where he's, you know, in order to encourage the United States to come to his aid, he has been profusely expressing profuse gratitude to Trump.
00:59:00For his support.
00:59:03Well, you know, now this gives Trump some, you know, credit with these pro-Israel people where they can't say that Trump hasn't been supportive of Israel, you know, because here is Benjamin Netanyahu himself saying how very supportive I have been.
00:59:22It's going to be very interesting.
00:59:23But I think that we have to, we really have to keep in mind the large context that this is a conflict between two systems of governance.
00:59:32And in that, it's potentially a break with 500 years of history of Western primacy, because this system that gave the West primacy has been the defining feature of Western civilization.
00:59:46And the United States was created as a rejection of this system, you know, as a, as a, as a, as an attempt to, to liberate humanity from it.
00:59:58In all his statements, Trump has been inclined to get the United States back to its Republican roots.
01:00:10I think that this is much, much bigger than war in Ukraine, than support for Israel, war against, against Iran.
01:00:26And so I, I think that the outcome is, is far from clear.
01:00:30And I think that even Trump's role in this is far from clear.
01:00:34And just to finish, I want to mention another aspect of this.
01:00:38Trump is the guy we see, but Trump is not necessarily who's running the show.
01:00:45Because, you know, the, the, the, the deeper you look into, you know, the, the events within the United States, within the bowels of power, and the way American foreign policy is being decided and managed, you realize that the opposition to the empire in the United States is far more broad based than just Trump.
01:01:10You know, even if you took Trump, you know, even if you took Trump, you know, even if you took Trump out of the picture, that opposition wouldn't just disappear.
01:01:18And so we will, we will find out, but I think that the, the, the, one of the most important battlefields now is the United States itself.
01:01:29And I wouldn't be surprised if very, very elaborate, you know, deception wrapped within another deception, with another layer of deception on top of it, weren't actually being played out.
01:01:43And, uh, again, we'll see, we'll see how it, how it happens and, and what ends up happening in the, in the real world.
01:01:50Yeah, no, I think you're right, but a lot of these internal competitions in the U S between, you know, neoliberals, uh, libertarians, uh, you know, some of the tech bros appears to be leaning a bit now towards the, uh, economic nationalism.
01:02:06I mean, um, there's a lot of, uh, there's a lot of different factions and, uh, I think a lot of this does play into, uh, yeah, decisions such as, uh, what to do with Israel, Iran and how the empire should, uh, uh, yeah, how it should be managed or, or dismantled.
01:02:27Because, uh, it is, I thought it's interesting what you said that, uh, many people want like Trump to go back to its more Republican days.
01:02:34And it's worth remembering the 19th century that the Americans actually had a quite a resentment for the European empires that, uh, indeed the United States, the whole, as you said, the whole purpose of the United States was not to be like Europe, but to offer a different kind of world, uh, which didn't go with this imperialism.
01:02:52And it's really in 1898 with the victory in the Spanish war and, uh, America, you know, pivoting into the Pacific, which made Mark Twain and, you know, a lot of other intellectuals in America say that, you know, this is a huge disaster.
01:03:06We're going down the route of the Europeans, uh, you know, we have to turn around, maybe they will, but, uh, yeah, at the moment, uh, this decision is being made in Iran, uh, towards Iran, uh, yeah, indicate otherwise.
01:03:19So, um, anyways, uh, Alex, uh, thank you.
01:03:22And, uh, yeah, I hope to have you back on soon because, uh, uh, uh, I'm guessing, yeah, there will be much more to speak about, uh, very shortly.
01:03:32So, yes, for sure.
01:03:32I think, you know, the events are happening at breakneck, breakneck speed.
01:03:37So we'll, we'll learn, you know, I've these, as they say, wars are great revealers.
01:03:42And, uh, what has been happening of late has been, uh, uh, uh, you know, uh, deep learning experiences.
01:03:48Trying to explain the events is very difficult, you know, and obviously about much of it, we are, we are, we're not doing more than educated guessing, but at the same time, you know, there is, there is, uh, much to learn.
01:04:03And, uh, uh, I think that, uh, uh, we will find out a lot more over the, over the coming days and weeks.
01:04:11And I, you know, I have to say, I, I remain cautiously optimistic because the stakes in the game are much, much bigger even than Trump.
01:04:21You know, his, you know, his political career is maybe, uh, um, a very small part of this whole equation.
01:04:30And anyway, you know, he has another three and a half years more or less to go.
01:04:36So, uh, I, I think that there are powerful forces in the United States gathering in, in opposition to the Western empire.
01:04:47They have allies in, in Russia, they have allies in, in China, they have allies elsewhere in the world.
01:04:54And I think that the awareness of where all these problems are coming from is also increasing.
01:05:01Uh, so, you know, I, I think that we'll, we'll stay tuned and we'll, we'll reach more conclusions over, over the coming days.
01:05:10And of course, it will be great pleasure to join you and to, to swap impressions and, uh, and information.
01:05:17I can't believe it's, uh, only two weeks since, uh, the nuclear bombers of Russia was attacked.
01:05:23And now we have a nuclear reactor.
01:05:25So Iran attacked.
01:05:26I mean, the, the world is really, yeah, as you said, uh, going at a breakneck, breakneck speed.
01:05:32So, uh, thanks again.
01:05:35Thank you, Glenn.
01:05:36Have a good rest of your Sunday and until the next time.
01:05:40Bye.
01:05:47Bye.
01:05:48Bye.
01:05:49Bye.
01:05:50Bye.
01:05:51Bye.
01:05:52Bye.
01:05:53Bye.
01:05:54Bye.
01:05:55Bye.
01:05:56Bye.
01:05:57Bye.
01:05:58Bye.
01:05:59Bye.
01:06:00Bye.
01:06:01Bye.
01:06:02Bye.
01:06:03Bye.
01:06:04Bye.
01:06:05Bye.
01:06:06Bye.
01:06:07Bye.
01:06:08Bye.
01:06:09Bye.
01:06:10Bye.
01:06:11Bye.
01:06:12Bye.
01:06:13Bye.
01:06:14Bye.
01:06:15Bye.