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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
or listen to, you decide that you like what you've seen and heard and wish to indicate that fact.
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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Alexander Mercouris on Odysee
Alexander Mercouris on Odysee
Alexander Mercouris on Odysee