Russia Aids Iran Target US Bases; Oil Crisis Gulf States Call Russia US Eases Sanctions; Putin Iran

Good day! Today is Saturday 7th March 2026 and before I proceed with this program,

let me remind you again to tick the like button and to check your subscription to this channel.

If once you've watched or listened to this program or whichever part of the program you want to watch

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Anyway, with that, let me now turn to the topic under discussion, which will be of course mostly

the situation in the conflict between the United States and Iran, but also I will touch at the end

of this program with the situation in the conflict in Ukraine and some very important comments,

which have just been made by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Now, over the course of the last 24 hours, the most important information, in my opinion,

is to fold firstly the continued rise in the price of oil. The Straits of Hormuz remain closed,

there is no shipping passing through the Straits of Hormuz. The oil price in most markets

rose on Friday night above $90 a barrel. I understand that the indications this morning

are that oil prices are continuing to rise. If current trends continue, then at some point

over the course of the next few days, the price of oil will be around $100 a barrel.

And I'm going to say something here about my own experiences and these matters. I've never been

a market trader myself. I've never been involved in trading in commodities, which is

a particularly challenging form of market trading, just to say. But my own experience tells me

that if a particular threshold is reached, which is often, if I may say so, a psychological one,

like $100 per barrel for a price of oil, then that does in itself have an effect on markets.

And if markets break through that barrier, if we get $100 a barrel oil, then before the market

adjusts and finds a perhaps more rational market price, you will still see a price surge

and the price of oil will continue to rise and perhaps continue to do so for a few more weeks

until the underlying situation. The situation in the Gulf of Hormuz resolves itself.

So if we continue to see price increases next week, and all the indications at the moment

suggest that we will, then as I said, we're going to see a major surge in oil prices over the next

few weeks. I'm going to return to this topic in more detail shortly. But there has also been

another piece of news, or maybe more properly, one should call it a claim, because of course,

the source that has provided us with this news, which is the Washington Post, which ultimately means

the US intelligence community, is to say mildly a deeply tarnished and very untrustworthy source.

But anyway, yesterday, the Washington Post carried an article saying that the sophistication

of Iran's various drone and missile strikes across the Middle East, the accurate targeting

of American bases, the destruction caused thereby, that all of this was the result of intelligence

assistance being provided by Russia. And well, there's talk about how this is Moscow's revenge

for US intelligence assistance to Ukraine. There's all kinds of claims that Iran does not have the

sophisticated satellite surveillance capabilities to be able to track and observe American military

bases as closely as attacks of this kind would require, and that the Russians do possess all of

these capabilities. And it is they, most probably, who are providing this assistance to Iran,

and that this explains why the Iranian strikes have been as effective as they have up to now been.

Now, there's a number of things to say about this. First of all, this is an admission that the

Iranian strikes have indeed been effective, and that the effectiveness of the strikes has taken

the United States by surprise. Now, I think that is the single most important point to make at

this point. The one thing we can be relatively confident about, which is that the United States

obviously did not provide, did not expect such accuracy and such effectiveness from the Iranian

missile and drone strikes, because if it had, it would have taken more precautions, or perhaps

conceivably, avoided getting into the conflict, into the, in the first place, and above all,

that it would not be making the excuses about Russian involvement, which it is currently making.

I am not familiar with the full range of Iranian capabilities. Iran, as I've discussed in many

programs, is a much more sophisticated society than many people in the West imagined. It has a

significant industrial base. It has a significant technology base, though no one, least of all the

Iranians, claim that it is comparable to that of the United States. Nonetheless, the possibility

that the Iranians had more capabilities of their own, before they launched these missile and

drone strikes than the United States anticipated, I think, cannot be excluded. And it may be that

part of the reason for the accuracy of these missile and drone strikes, is because the Iranians

are better organized and more capable in this regard than the Americans expected.

After all, the Iranians have been building up their drone and missile capabilities for a long time.

They have been aware of the existence of these American bases for a long time. It would be logical

to assume that they would be taking steps to inform themselves about the whereabouts of these

bases and the facilities in these bases, and that they would have been preparing for this kind

of attack over an extended period. So I think that must be said, because it's not being said,

it might be wrong to give credit to everything that we are seeing to the Russians,

or if you take an American perspective to put the blame for all that we are seeing on the Russians.

And of course, the United States, the intelligence community, the people who have been briefing

the Washington Post, so a great deal less about China. China has actually more extensive satellite

capabilities than Russia does, and China certainly is in a position to provide satellite data

to Iran. And well, the Chinese, as I've discussed in many programs, have been busy publishing detailed

satellite photos of American bases for some time in ways that strongly suggest to me that they

have been providing intelligence assistance to Iran. Having made these points, it is nonetheless

still the case that I do believe that Iran has actually been provided with a fair amount of

intelligence assistance from the Russians, and perhaps not just intelligence assistance.

I received a report which I discussed some weeks ago on this channel, in a program on this channel,

that the Russians have been working with the Iranians to improve the accuracy of Iranian missiles

and drones. And of course, it is the Russians who mostly launch Iran's satellites,

and it is with the Russians amongst the various brick states that the Iranians have been mostly

interacting, rather than with, say, China, though the Iranians do have some contacts with the Chinese

as well. And of course, just two days ago, the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Rakhshi

gave dropped pretty obvious hints over the course of an interview that he did with the US media

that Iran has been receiving help from China and Russia, and the interviewer particularly pushed

to discuss help that Iran might be receiving from Russia, and Rakhshi, understandably,

evaded giving an answer, a clear answer, but again, he seemed to be implying that assistance from

Russia is indeed being provided. And for the record, the Kremlin's spokesman, Dimitri Peskov,

also said a few days ago that Russia is in constant contact with the Iranian authorities.

This seemed to be mostly related to diplomacy between Russia and Iran,

but constant contact might also implying military interactions after all Ali-Lari-Jani,

Hamine's national security adviser, the person who seems to be in overall charge of Iran's military

and security response to the Israeli-American attack, Lari-Jani visited Moscow about two or three

weeks ago, he met with Putin, I spoke about how it was likely that he met with other important

Russian officials as well. So if you put all this together, if you put all of these facts together,

then it is likely, or so it seems to me, that Iran is getting help from the Russians,

which points to this story in the Washington Post being at least in part true.

Now, the Washington Post, the various commentaries in the Western media, the comments from

the White House itself about this, were that assistance to Iran from Russia is no big deal.

The US military is very accustomed to operating in these sort of conditions. By the way,

that is completely not true. I know of no condition, no situation, in any recent war,

certainly not since the end of the Cold War, when the Russians have been providing to

adversaries of the United States, the kind of intelligence and guidance assistance,

that they are alleged to be providing to Iran, according to this Washington Post article.

This would indeed mark a significant stepping up of Russian actions since the end of the

Cold War. I think one would have to go back a lot further to the period of the Cold War,

to Soviet support forces Syria during the 1983 confrontation with Israel, 1982, 1983

confrontations with Israel and the United States, defined a time when the Russians were providing

the kind of help to an American adversary that, according to the Washington Post,

they are currently providing to Iran. But of course, the thing to say is that even the help

that the Russians are providing now, assuming this Washington Post article is true,

is probably only a foretaste of the sort of help that the Russians could provide or might provide

if the conflict drags on. If instead of a 30-day war, we get a 100-day war and then the 100-day

war then starts to stretch out longer still. If Iran and the United States are still trading blows

by the end of this year, or beyond that, if all Russian diplomatic efforts,

all the diplomatic efforts of other countries are failing to achieve a compromise,

then it is likely that Russian aid will gradually increase that the Russians will start to supply Iran

with, say, radar sets and surface-to-wear missiles and perhaps drone technology. The Russians have

taken Iran's Shahid drones and have significantly modernized them. Although the Iranians have done

the same, they too have modernized their Shahid drones. All the indications are that the Russians

have taken this as one would expect a great deal further and that might have significant consequences

for the conduct of the war going forward. Anyway, if this war drags on, then gradually as the Russians

sense that Iran might be gaining the advantage that it is not likely to collapse under the immediate

blows that Russia's supplying military and undoubtedly also economic support to Iran

is starting to pay off and is giving the Russians leverage over the United States. As similar aid

to North Vietnam gave the Soviet Union leverage over the United States in the 1960s,

then it is likely that Russian aid to Iran will grow, which will, of course,

further extensively complicate this operation and that will take this to a level far beyond what we

are seeing now. And of course, everything that I just said about the Russians applies

with equal and perhaps even greater force to the Chinese. And of course, if the Chinese become

involved in the war in that kind of way, well, the consequences for the United States from

extended US military campaign could become not just critical but potentially even catastrophic.

Anyway, that information in the Washington Post is important. The information about the developing

price explosion in the energy markets that is important too. I think that the story that is

doing the rounds in the media and in the television studios just before I made this program

about the apology extended by President Pezish Gyan to the Arab Gulf states. And he's

reported words about Iran ending attacks on these Gulf states if no further attacks by the United

States and Israel were extended from them. I think that story is far less important,

much less important than the two stories I have just discussed. Now, I say all of this because,

first of all, I should say that I think that there has been a very, very selective

reporting of Pezish Gyan's statement. Pezish Gyan made all of these words over the course of a

address he made to the Iranian people on state television. And he did so speaking to them

as the president of Iran and as one of the three members of the interim council,

which in theory at least is currently leading Iran. And the thing to say about this address taken

as a whole, at least as it has been reported in the Iranian media, is that it was mostly,

about overwhelmingly, a message of defiance. A few hours before President Trump had spoken about

how the only terms he would accept from the Iranians would be unconditional surrender.

He wants Iran's unconditional surrender. And Pezish Gyan went out of his way over the course

of this address to say that that's not going to happen. Iran, as he said, is never going to surrender.

The overall message was one very much of defiance of Iran holding out of it continuing its struggle,

of it eventually punishing the aggressors, the American and Israeli enemies. This was overwhelmingly

the tone of Pezish Gyan's message. Now over the course of these words, Pezish Gyan did say that he

Iran did not seek conflict with its Arab neighbours, that this is not Iran's purpose, that these Arab

neighbours were Iran's brethren, and that Iran would not attack these neighbours and that this

was the decision of the interim council, provided no attacks were carried out against Iran from their

territory. Now I don't think this was actually intended by Pezish Gyan to signal a decision by Iran

to stop attacking American bases of the territories of the Gulf States. And very soon after Pezish Gyan

made his statement when it became clear that the statement was being reported across the western media

as a statement that Iran was calling off its attacks on American bases in these countries.

Shortly after that, the Iranian military authorities, the military authorities,

published their own statement saying that Iran would continue to strike American bases

across the Middle East, wherever they were located, so long as the conflict, in other words the attack

on Iran by the United States and by Israel was still underway. Now Pezish Gyan, it's important to

remember, is within the Iranian political system at the far end of being a moderate. He was elected

President of Iran in part on a platform to try to improve relations with the United States and with

the West. This is his objective, this is what he promised the Iranian people he would try to do,

and I've no doubt also that this is what, until very recently, he believes. He is also somebody

who consistently takes a more conciliatory line than other Iranian leaders do, or then his

predecessor as President of Iran, Abraham Raezy once did. Pezish Gyan, and it is important to say

is not by Iranian standards a very experienced political operator. He is, I believe, a heart

surgeon, apparently a very good one. He's somebody who has come out from outside the political system.

His election win was seen at the time as something of an upset, and maybe by the way,

have been more related to his apparent endorsement of social changes within Iran itself as opposed

to foreign policy, just to say. But anyway, it seems to me that he has never really known exactly how

to shape his words to an ongoing crisis like the one that Iran is facing now, and he does from time

to time, slip out words which might imply that the Iranian position is softening, whereas the

indications on the country are that it is not. It is also important to remember that so far as one

can judge the Iranian official who is actually in charge of the conduct of the war itself.

The person, in other words, who gives orders to the military and to the Islamic Revolutionary

Guard Corps is not persistion. It is Ali Laryjani who was Hamanay's national security advisor

and who was appointed, apparently appointed by Hamanay after the January protests to take complete

charge of Iran's armed forces and security services, which is the position he continues to occupy.

If Laryjani had made a statement about Iran ceasing attacks on the Gulf states,

it is a statement I would have taken extremely seriously, coming from Pezishgan,

especially in a long speech, an address intended to project unity and defiance in the face of

aggression made over Iranian television. I have to say that I take it far less seriously and far

less literally than some people in the West are doing. To repeat again, the Iranian military themselves

are saying, as of the time of making of this program, that the attacks on American military

bases across the Middle East will continue. Now, in saying all of this, it is important to say also

that Pezishgan is at the forefront of Iran's diplomatic efforts. He has spoken to various

political leaders and over the course of today, early today, he appears to have had a lengthy

conversation with no less a person than President Putin of Russia. It greatly surprises me that this

conversation is not being as widely reported in the Western media, as it should be, especially in

light of the revelation or the claim, if you prefer, in the Washington Post, that Russia is currently

providing important intelligence assistance. And for all I know also, economic and other military aid

to Iran, it's important to stress that that means that as of this time, assuming all that is true

as I believe, Putin and the Russians have leveraged over Iran. Now, the Russians have provided a

readout of the school between Pezishgan and Putin. And I'm going to read it, I'm going to read it

out in full. This is what the Russian readout says, the one published by the Gremlin, during the

telephone conversation with President Pezishgan. Putin, once again, expressed his heartfelt condolences

on the assassination of Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Sayyid Ali

Hamanay. He's family members and the country's military and political leadership, as well as the

numerous civilian casualties, resulting from the United States and Israel's armed aggression against

Iran. Of course, Putin has already written to Pezishgan about all of this and has described in

that letter the murder of Hamanay as a cynical, immoral and illegal act, just say. Anyway, the

Russian readout of the call then goes on to say this, Vladimir Putin reaffirmed Russia's

principled stance in favor of an immediate cessation of hostilities. That's an interesting

choice of words, because notice that the Russians are not talking about a ceasefire, but an immediate

cessation of hostilities. This may sound like a play on words, but to me, the words cessation

of hostilities imply more than a ceasefire, but rather a permanent end to all military action.

In other words, a stop, a complete stop of the war, and of all further attempts to overthrow

the political system and government of Iran, a complete stop of all of that, not just now,

but forever in the future, just saying. It's important to remember that the Russians

are extremely well known for choosing their words very carefully at this level of discussions.

And then Putin continues, at least the readout says that he continued by saying that Russia stood

in favor of the rejection of force as a method to solve any issues surrounding Iran or arising

in the Middle East, and he swift returned to the path of diplomatic resolution. In this regard,

the President of Russia noted that he was in constant contact with the leaders of the Gulf

Cooperation Council member states, which suggests, by the way, that Putin was also conveying messages

to Pezishgan from the Saudis and the other Gulf states and was acting in effect as a kind of

honest broker between Iran and these countries. And then we continue to read from the Russian

reader, Mesut Pezishgan expressed gratitude for Russia's solidarity with Iranian people as they

defend their sovereignty and independence. Gratitude for Russia's solidarity might this be an

admission of Russian aid, possibly, maybe one should not read too much into those words.

And then we further told that Pezishgan also provided a detailed update on the developments

during the latest active phase of the conflict. In other words, he updated Putin about the military

situation, which might also imply, by the way, that the Russians are providing military aid

of some kind to Iran. And then the Russian readout finishes, it was agreed that contact will be

maintained with the Arabian side via various channels, which is interesting, and what channels might

those be. I mean, not just apparently telephone conversations between Putin and Pezishgan,

not just diplomatic contacts, could it be that there are Russian military and intelligence

officers present in Iran itself, and that these are also providing a channel of communication,

not just between the Russian and Iranian governments, but between the Russian and Iranian

militaries and security services. All speculative, completely speculative, but then those words

are there. And it seems to me that they do give rise to those sort of questions,

because for the record, they're very, very rarely there in Russian readouts,

unless some of the things that I've just been talking about, contacts between militaries,

contacts between intelligence agencies, contacts between security services might also be happening.

Anyway, there it is. So the key takeaway from this readout is that the Russians are trying to broker

what they call a cessation of hostilities, and notice that the two parties that the Russians

are engaging in in these discussions are not the Americans and the Israelis on the one hand,

and the Iranians on the other. It is a striking fact that Putin has not spoken to Trump

at any point since the start of the American operation against Iran. In fact, he has not spoken

to Trump since December, since the conversations that took place between Putin and Trump

over the phone, which were interrupted by the Ukrainian drone attack. Perhaps I should say

the CIA, Ukrainian drone attack, on Putin's residence. It's a striking fact which few people are

noting that Putin and Trump have not spoken since then. Trump has sometimes floated the idea

that they might speak, and there is speculation that there have been unannounced conversations,

though for the record, I don't believe that this is the case. In fact, and in reality, as I believe,

there have been no contacts at all, and in order to achieve this cessation of hostilities,

Putin appears to be trying to broker some kind of agreement between Iran and the Gulf States.

Now, here, perhaps, is worth pointing out that one of the Gulf states, the UAE, as well as Iran,

is a member of the BRICS, whilst Saudi Arabia, another country with very friendly relations with Russia,

has been offered membership of the BRICS, and has never given a clear answer of whether it believes

itself to be a member of the BRICS, or not, though for the record, I personally consider that

Saudi Arabia is not at the present time a member of the BRICS. So, anyway, the Russians have close

relations with the Gulf states, and obviously, they have very close relations with Iran, and they

appear to have made the decision that it is the Iranians and the Gulf states that they were

speaking to. They're not going to talk to Trump, they're not going to talk to the Americans,

they don't trust the Americans, they consider that the Americans are totally out of their senses,

they're not keen to speak to the Americans about Ukraine and the conflict in Ukraine either,

and I will come to that later in this program, and though Putin has had one conversation since the

start of the current war with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, who, by the way, according to

rumours, isn't in Israel at all, but is currently in Berlin and has been there, apparently,

for several days now, which begs many questions. Anyway, it seems that, for the moment at least,

the Russians are not particularly focused on the Israelis either, and they are disregarding the

Americans entirely, and I'm going to suggest that this is what provides the explanation for

Pezishyan's words over the course of his television address. Now, the Iranians have provided their

own readout of this call between Putin and Pezishyan, and the readout, by the way,

was interesting as well, and it seemed to me to be somewhat defensive. It was Putin speaking

to the Iranians, to Pezishyan, about the attacks by Iran on the Gulf States,

and at least in part, Pezishyan trying to justify those attacks, and I'll read out what the

Iranians are saying. In a phone call with his Russian counterpart, President Putin, Pezishyan

discussed recent regional developments, condemning aggressive actions by the United States and Israel.

The regimes in Washington and Israel started their unprovoked military assault on February 28th.

Following the aggression, the leader of Iran, Said Ali Hamenei, was assassinated. Iran began to

retaliate swiftly against the criminal aggression by launching barrages of missiles and drone

attacks on Israeli-occupied territories, as well as on U.S. bases in regional countries.

Pezishyan denounced the unlawful assassination of Ayatollah Hamenei, calling it a breach of

international law, and slammed, and this is apparently direct quote, blind ruthless powers

for trying to impose their will on nations. And then there is a further apparent direct quote

the oppressors using blind and reckless force, trying to impose their will on nations,

but the massive heroic support of the Iranian people for their system and country,

shows that these attacks only strengthen the nation's resolve to defend its homeland.

And then the Iranian readout continues. Pezishyan reminded Putin of aerial warnings,

of earlier warnings that Israeli statements denying any attention to attack Iran were

force, noting that it is evident to all that deceit and malice are their nature,

and amid talks of negotiations they have attacked us again. What Pezishyan is referring to,

and it is a big issue with the Russians, is an agreement that the Russians broke

it with the Israelis, between Iran and the Israelis, back in December that Iran and Israel would not

attack each other. Pezishyan appears to be telling Putin, look, we warned you when we made that

agreement through your good offices, and perhaps at your prompting with the Israelis,

that the Israelis would not honor it. And here you are, here we are, here you can see that our

warnings to you were true. And obviously for the Russians that is something they can't really

argue with, and must feel extremely embarrassed about. And then elsewhere in this readout,

Pezishyan discussed with Putin the attacks on the US bases across the Middle East.

Pezishyan explained that any targeting of US military bases is purely defensive,

and is aimed at protecting Iran and its people, stressing that regional security must be

insured by the countries of the region, not by foreign forces. Rejecting rumours of an attack

on Azerbaijan, he reiterated that Iran has never intended nor will it ever intend to attack

neighbouring states. And we have a direct quote, the Islamic Republic of Iran has never intended

and will never intend to invade its neighbours. Our path is a strong defence of territorial integrity

and lasting peace. So this I think provides the explanation for Pezishyan's words. He came

under pressure from Putin, Putin asked him what are all these attacks on Dubai, on Qatar, on Bahrain,

on Saudi Arabia, all about. I've got the leaders of all of these countries

seething and furious with me about all of this. And Pezishyan comes back and says to him, look we

are not in conflict with these countries but we have been attacked and we've been attacked by

the United States and these countries host American bases. So what do you expect us to do?

We're not just going to sit back and allow ourselves to be attacked and not to respond

by attacking these bases ourselves. But you can go back and tell the leaders of these countries

that we are in no way seeking to conquer or invade or defeat them. We want good relations with them.

What we feel we should work towards is a security architecture in which the peace of the region

of Iran and of the Gulf states is decided by us, Iran and the Gulf states and the other Arab states

without requiring the involvement of external actors first and foremost the United States.

And it seems to me that what happened is that coming straight out of this meeting with Putin,

Pezishyan tried to repeat the same message in his address to the Iranian people.

This message for the Gulf states, look we are not your enemies. We want to be your friends

hosting these bases. On your part was a mistake. Now we are at war. We have to defend ourselves

but we are not here to threaten you. And of course lacking experience and probably

under immense pressure, Pezishyan muddled the way in which he explained what he needed to say.

Now briefly is this diplomatic process that the Russians are currently engaged in going to work?

I have been reading multiple reports about the extreme stress that the Gulf producers,

including Saudi Arabia, are now under. And there have been more and more comments, not so much

the governments of these countries but by business people now in these countries expressing

their absolute fury at the way in which they were catapulted into this war by decisions

that they were unable to influence made in Washington and Israel. I was reading yesterday a

furious statement made by one of the wealthiest businessmen of the Gulf, furiously angry with

Donald Trump for initiating this war without properly taking into account the interests of these

countries and failing to understand or having no heed to the consequences for these countries

of the kind of war that President Trump has started. So I think that there is this feeling

amongst the Gulf states and I was reading in various places yesterday that the Gulf states

are indeed reaching out in some way to Iran and there's even reports that Saudi Arabia

is now reaching out in some way to Iran to see whether some means to broker to find a way out

of this conflict might exist. And yesterday there were reports that Egypt and Pakistan are also

putting themselves forward as mediators, though neither of these two countries obviously

has the international weight and the influence over Iran and the Gulf states that Russia does

and it's perhaps worth pointing out that if Pakistan and Egypt and by the way

or man also are acting as mediators then by definition this must be some kind of

mediation process between the Gulf states and Iran to try to find some way out of this matter.

I have to say that trying to find a way through a peace agreement

when you're only talking basically to one side to Iran and you're not really trying to find

means to negotiate with the Americans and the Israelis looks to me incredibly problematic.

I can imagine a situation where the Arab states collectively come to some kind of understanding

with Iran and agreement with Iran which they say should lead to a cessation of hostilities.

But what if Donald Trump and the Israelis reject it? What if they say that they're going to continue

the war? What if they continue strikes against Iran? What do the Arab states do?

There are some reports that some of the Arab states are now in discussions with each other

about pulling their trillions of dollars of investment out of the U.S. economy.

I wonder whether that is even possible just to say and of course the effect on the global economy

would be colossal and that effect would have to be borne upon these countries themselves

and well the United States would probably anyway take legal steps to prevent such disinvestment

just to say. That billionaire that I spoke about pointed out by the way very bitterly

that the Gulf states have invested a billion dollars each to join Trump's board of peace

and what was the point of doing all of that given that the Gulf is now consumed by war

very relevant points. The Gulf states of course could also do other things. They could make a decision

to close down all the American bases until the Americans to leave. But let's say that the

Americans agreed to do that and the might be some resistance that would then leave the Arab

Gulf states without a superpower patron and up against or potentially up against a far more

powerful and very angry Iran. Iran with perhaps some reason to believe that the Gulf states

had colluded with the United States and Israel in the original attack upon Iran on the assumption

that Iran would quickly collapse. So the Gulf states putting aside whatever they feel about the

Americans might in their own interests be unwilling to see the Americans completely leave.

So I have to say that this complex negotiation that the Russians are engaging in

doesn't seem to me very likely at the moment to lead to any immediate or short-term outcome.

It's the sort of thing that might bear fruit over time if the war goes on. But I can't imagine

that it will read to a peace agreement in a week's time or two weeks time or any proximate time

for the moment. The key, as always, remains Iran's stability. It's a capacity to keep going.

If, as I said in three, four, five, six months, Iran is still there and the United States finds

itself in what might be at that point charitably referred to as a quagmire, debacle, geopolitical

catastrophe, might be a more accurate word. Well, in that case, the, as I said, all of these

diplomatic initiatives might bear fruit. But I've got into some detail discussing this in order to

explain President Pezashkin's words and why I think that they have been overinterpreted.

They are the product of a conversation that Pezashkin came from immediately before he spoke

to the Iranian people. A conversation he had with President Putin. Now, Donald Trump, of course,

has not done this exercise which I just have. He, on the contrary, has written a true social post

in which he takes these words of Pezashkin far beyond even their most, shall we say, optimistic

from an American point of view, reading. He says that Iran has surrendered to the Gulf states.

This based on a speech by Pezashkin in which Pezashkin said that Iran would never surrender

and disregarding the message from the Iranian military that attacks on the American bases will

continue. So, Trump says that Iran has surrendered, that Iran is a loser, that Iran for the first time,

I can't remember how many thousands of years has supposedly been defeated in a war, not true,

by the way. Iran was defeated during the Second World War when it was invaded by Britain

of the Soviet Union, a rather ghastly business in many respects, though I think given the realities

of that war, also a necessary one, not one I'm going to discuss in this program. Anyway, just

say. So, Iran, according to Trump, has been defeated by him and by the United States for the first

time in 1,000, 2,000, 4,000, whatever it was years. Iran has surrendered and it's all because of him

and because the United States is hitting Iran hard and the United States is going to hit Iran

harder still. And, well, on that, we have reports that a third US Navy carrier, the

George H.W. Bush is now steaming towards the Arabian Sea to join the other two carriers, the Lincoln

and the Ford. I've seen some suggestions that the true purpose of the Bush is to take over from

the Ford, which has been at sea for far longer than is usually usual for a carrier and which is

as a result suffering from various equipment and other problems. I'm not going to discuss all of

that. And Trump, of course, repeats that now that the Iranians are down, this isn't the moment

to slacken off. There's going to be another even bigger attack on Iran over the next few hours

than any attack we have seen up to now. Now, I would point out that the Americans have talked about

this. They've said this kind of thing before. They've said in the past that they were going to,

over the course of this war, that they were going to conduct an even bigger, mightier, more powerful

attack than the attacks that they have inflicted. But I have to say this, that has not been my overall

impression. It seems to me that the Americans can do indeed conduct attacks, but they also have

perhaps reached their limit on what they can do in terms of scale. And well, I doubt that

these blows each one by itself can act as a knockout blow. If Iran is going to break, it is not

because of one big knockout blow. It is because of the cumulative effect of the many blows that Iran

is receiving. Now, of course, Iran will continue to conduct strikes of its own. They've made that

very clear. As I said over the course of the last few hours, they continue to launch missiles

at Israel. Some of their regional allies are now joining them. Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi

militia in Yemen has not yet joined the battle, but is now giving indications that it might do so.

There's conflicts all over the Middle East. There is massive uncertainty about what the

Kurds are going to do or not do. Iran continues to strike at Kurdish militia in Iraq. The member of

the Iranian community, who calls himself Iranian kiddo, has very usefully provided in a recent

livestream a description of the various Kurdish groups in Iraqi Kurdistan. He says that there's

four of them. Of them, only one appears to be closely associated with the United States and Israel.

The aggregate number of the forces, these militias, command is around 8,000. The most

the best trained militia, the one that is closest to Israel and the United States, which is made up

of dissident Kurds from Iran itself. That may be the militia that the official, the

fellow of the Royal United Services Institute was discussing in the article in the Daily Telegraph

that I discussed yesterday. That militia, perhaps, numbers around 1,500 men. I said in my previous

program that that does not seem to me to be a sufficient force to take on Iran. There are also

lots of reports that Azerbaijan might be thinking of some kind of operation against Iran.

Azerbaijan has closed its embassy in Tehran. They claimed that an Iranian drone or missile

attract facilities within Azerbaijan itself. Putin asked Pezis Khan over the course of

the telephone conversation, which I discussed earlier in the program. What that was all about.

Pezis Khan, of course, said that Iran has no plan to attack Azerbaijan. He would make no sense

for Iran to do so, by the way. The Russians will not be pleased if Iran, sorry, Azerbaijan would

to join some kind of military operation against Iran, not being pleased is an understatement.

They have considerable leverage over Azerbaijan. As Azerbaijan is dependent on oil exports,

the pipelines that export the Russian oil, sorry, the Azerbaijanian oil, pass through territory,

controlled by Russia. The Russians can turn off the pipelines, as, by the way, they briefly did

last year. And, of course, I've also received what I believe to be true reports from Russia,

that the Russians have instituted criminal cases against key as Airy, as Air-Bajanian leaders

and have prepared indictments against them for various organized crime activities on Russian

territory, and the Russians have also been concentrating troops close to Azerbaijan itself.

Anyway, I don't want to anticipate what may happen there, but anyway, all of these things remain

for the moment uncertain. The key thing is that the United States and Israel continue to hammer

Iran. Iran continues to launch strikes across the Middle East against Israel and against American

bases, but the straits of Hormuz remains closed, and oil prices continue to increase.

Now, East Smith, of naked capitalism, has provided me with a brilliant and very interesting article.

By a commentator called Shanaka Anslem Pereira on sub-stack, he talks about the invisible

siege, how insurance markets, not missiles, closed the straits of Hormuz. And I'm going to

briefly, very briefly, summarize this article. On my understanding of this article, it's

very technical in places, and as East Smith rightly says, it's clear that the person who's written it

understands knows what he's talking about. Anyway, this article says that given the mere threat,

the mere possibility of an attack on tankers trying to pass the straits of Hormuz,

all of the big insurance insurers are going to pull insurance from these tankers,

because the insurance markets, the maritime insurance markets, for this kind of naval traffic,

are massively depleted, very hollowed out already, because of the heavy insurance payouts last

year following the attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. And the loss of a single tanker if it

were authorized to pass through the straits of Hormuz would open insurers to costs of $200 million,

which they simply cannot afford, given the realities of the markets at this time, the insurance

markets and the depths of the insurance markets at this time. And this article continues by saying

that because of the risks, even if the straits of Hormuz were to reopen tomorrow,

and there were to be a cessation of hostilities, the mechanics of getting insurance working again,

and of getting the ships to move might themselves be protracted, and that on top of everything else,

the brittleness in the insurers industry also leads to wider risks for the entire global financial system.

Now, yesterday on the Duran, we did a long stream in which on two guests, Alex of Reportify

and Cyrus Janssen, discussed the very significant risks to the global financial system.

If markets from this crisis, they didn't discuss the insurance position specifically,

but well, you could see how all of these things start to tie together.

Now, I am not myself an expert in these matters, but I will say that to my knowledge, every single

instance where the price of all has got out of control, has led to a crisis in the financial

markets. The 2008 crisis was in part at least precipitated by the fact that the oil price

went above $150 a barrel, as I very well remember. So, if oil prices reach those elevated levels,

then especially at a time when there are already concerns about the state of global financial markets,

well, I would be very worried indeed. But anyway, we shall see. Now, for the moment,

the president, as I said, he gives me sometimes the impression that he really, well, I'm not the

impression, I get the sense of certainty, that he doesn't know where this whole operation is going.

One gets a sense that he and he's, I go to call him defense secretary, I found the whole war

secretary business, non-Zenzico, Pete Hegseth are making it up as they go along. The president

speaks sometimes about wanting regime change, other times he does, he talks otherwise, he talks

about unconditional surrender and of choosing Iran's leader and grandly of overthrowing the

government of Cuba as well. At other times, he says that Iran can preserve its present system

and he can continue to be a dictatorship as he describes it with a religious leader,

but this person should not, should be fair to Israel. A comment which I don't completely

anyway understand, just to say, they continue to be more and more reports that munitions,

that the key munitions, the Tomahawk missiles and the Patriot missiles, the stockpiles, are running

low. I read in the same article by Mr. Petra that I've just discussed that the Tomahawk missile

stockpile before the start of the war had already reduced, this is the usable stockpile, had already

reduced to just a thousand Tomahawk missiles, that were in tear issues, maintenance problems and

overuse of Tomahawk's in various other conflicts, especially the one with the Houthis last year,

has depleted the Tomahawk missile stockpile significantly. All of the problems, all of the pressures

that I discussed in many programs are still there, and for the record, I think the president's

latest words, seizing on these comments by President Peziskyan saying that Iran is surrendering

and that this is the time to hit them even harder, that this is symptomatic of a man who is clutching

at straws. It also appears to be the case that the president himself is increasingly retreating

into what you might describe as a bunker. Apparently, he is forbidden, he's vice president,

JD Vance from conducting any public meetings, which is extraordinary, he doesn't speak to officials

who are skeptical about this conflict, he is increasingly restricting his discussions to a

tiny group of a very, very hard line people, and he's increasingly quarreling with the US's allies

with Britain, with Spain, with France now also, with all of them as well. He's planned to the extent

that he has one, it seems to me to do the same thing again and again and again and wait for

a positive result and keep fingers crossed and hope that everything comes right and Iran collapses

before the financial markets collapse. At the oil price spirals out of control and the Democrats win

the midterms and the US military itself finds its weapons stoppiles so depleted that it cannot keep

the battle against Iran going on at the same tempo anymore. It's not a strategy, it's not a plan,

not in any sense, it's a gamble, it's winging it along, but for the moment at least Trump seems

too deeply committed to pull back. Well, there we are, that's the end of my commentary about the

Iran conflict today. On the oil issue, again demonstrating the extraordinary confusion that there

is. I've seen lots of reports that India, which is now increasingly buying oil from Russia once more,

that India asked the United States for a license to do that so that the tariffs that the US had

previously threatened against India should not apply. That's how it's been reported across

the media. What I've heard is something rather different that India just went ahead and started

to buy more Russian oil and the United States, which is now desperate to keep the oil markets open,

namely announced that it had granted India the license to do it. It's very important to keep

a level head and not to assume that every report that you see in the media is true, though I

don't pretend again to be completely well informed about this story. Meanwhile, the US Treasury

Secretary to Scott Besson, who's supposed to be going to China to prepare for President Trump's

own visit to China at the end of this month. One wonders whether that will take place.

Anyway, Scott Besson said that he's going to tell the Chinese to stop buying Russian oil

and to buy American oil instead. He cannot seriously believe that the Chinese will agree to do

anything like that, especially when they're reading all over the media in the West that part of

the purpose of this whole operation against Iran is to cut off supplies of oil to China, just to say.

But anyway, here we have the Americans saying that they're actually going to start

easing sanctions on the Russian oil trade altogether and granting license to India to buy

more Russian oil even as they come along and supposedly are going to tell the Chinese to stop

buying Russian oil as well. It's chaos and confusion. Those who pretend to find some plan or pattern

to this, well all I can say is if they think that there is a plan here, perhaps they can tell me

what it is because I can't see it. Anyway, let me now turn to what the Russians have been saying

about the conflict in Ukraine and here by the way, very briefly I should say that there were

significant Russian advances yesterday, especially close to Slavjansk and the Russians conducted a

sizable combined drone and missile strike against Ukraine yesterday, though not yet on the scale

of some of the other attacks that we have seen. But over the last two days, on the 5th of March,

to be precise, the Russian foreign minister said gay Lavrov actually gave ended into a lengthy

discussion about the situation in Ukraine and he said some very interesting things about the

ongoing negotiations. We are actively engaged in negotiations with our American counterparts

who are facilitating dialogue with Ukraine. Several trilateral rounds have recently been held

in Abu Dhabi. We are sincerely grateful to our Emirati friends and Geneva. At present, we discern

no grounds to suspect that these negotiations are a smokescreen as we remain in direct contact

with our American colleagues. However, our political scientists, analysts, public figures,

and members of parliament who by definition are not part of this closed process have begun

drawing parallels and questioning how these talks might continue. And what Lavrov is referencing

here is American duplicity in starting the attack on Iran whilst negotiations with Iran are taking

place. Some Russian political scientists, analysts, public figures, and members of parliament

are saying, how can we continue to conduct negotiations with the Americans when the way the

Americans conducted the negotiations with Iran show that the Americans cannot be trusted.

Anyway, Lavrov then continues, they, that's to say these political scientists, analysts,

public figures, and members of parliament assert that the actions of the United States

have shattered the spirit of anchorage. I have already addressed this topic. In anchorage, the spirit

was far from the most significant event. The spirit refers to the atmosphere and it was

comradly mutually respectful and constructive, but the spirit evaporates. The principle

achievement of anchorage was not the spirit. We know how adept our Western colleagues are at

creating an atmosphere, but I repeat the spirit evaporates. The crux of anchorage lay in

the concrete understanding reached on the basis of proposals put forward by President Trump

and his negotiating team. President Putin has repeatedly remarked that we accepted these

proposals, including those aspects that represented a significant compromise from us.

We proceed from what was offered to us, which we accepted, that is the current benchmark in these

negotiations with the American side. We are acutely aware that in the seven months since anchorage,

Ukraine and the Europeans have exerted and continued to exert every effort to reinterpret and rewrite

the understanding reached in anchorage. We observe how negotiators in the United States

are subject to this pressure and the temptation to yield to it, shifting the responsibility for

further steps as they phrase it on to Russia in order to meet certain symbolic dates in this

years political calendar. This too is a fact, but our conscience is clear. We remain faithful to

the understandings clearly achieved at the proposal of the United States in anchorage.

So what does all this, these very complex and strange language tell us? Well, the first point to

say is that this is an official Russian admission from a senior official of the Russian government.

Sergei Lavrov, that the entire anchorage process, the entire process of negotiations with the United

States is coming inside Russia in for sustained criticism. I've discussed as many times, I've

discussed how Putin has been out on a limb in persisting with these negotiations and Lavrov

is practically telling us as much that more and more people, maybe they're not party to the

negotiations, but they are important people. They include members of parliament, they include

political scientists, analysts, all of those people. They're coming and saying, what is the point

of these negotiations? The Americans cannot be trusted, they haven't delivered on what they promised,

they never will, they deceive the Iranians and they're deceiving us. So Lavrov has admitted that.

And he's also saying something else that the goodwill of the anchorage summit has dissipated.

He says that the spirit of anchorage has evaporated. He says that the Russians no longer have

the same feelings of goodwill towards the Americans that they had in the immediate aftermath

of that meeting. But Lavrov also says that putting aside the atmospherics, a specific agreement

between Russia and the United States was reached in anchorage. The Russians have never told us

what that agreement is and to the extent that we can work out, then the various many public

statements that the Russians have made. That agreement in essence was some form of acceptance

by the United States of Russian demands of what we on the Iran call Istanbul plus,

though with some unspecified compromise from the Russian side, a compromise which, as I've

discussed in many programs, I cannot myself work out what it was. Lavrov is saying that there is

no goodwill any further. There is little actual progress. Russia is sticking to the proposal

that the Americans made and the at anchorage and before anchorage and the agreement that was made

then that the Russians are not prepared to compromise any further. They insist on that agreement

being honored, whatever that agreement was, perhaps the agreement leading to Istanbul plus.

Now there's many ways of interpreting these words of Lavrov, but I think that this is the most

logical one. It suggests to me very strongly that the Russians have now and for some time in fact

reached the end point in the negotiating process. They've set out what their position is,

it is for the Americans to deliver on what they promised and for the Ukrainians to agree to it

until that happens, the war goes on. In a few weeks, when the Rasputitsa ends, the Russian offensive

will begin, we'll see whether by that point, depending what happens in the Middle East,

President Trump and the people in Europe have any bandwidth to think about that,

Zelensky himself is now very, very upset that all of the attention has moved from him.

It could very well be that over the course of the summer, the Russians wrap out their offensive

in Ukraine, capture the cities of Sulebiansk, Karamatorsk, and perhaps apology too,

and nobody in the West is paying much attention. Anyway, that's my understanding of Lavrov's words.

This is where I finish my program today. Let me remind you again to check all our platforms,

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