00:00They wanted out of the war having not achieved their goals and I think if you read the memorandum
00:09of understanding that the two sides signed, what that document really says is we both want to step
00:15back from the war because it's not achieving our goals, but we still want to achieve our goals
00:24and we cannot agree on any of the demands that either side is making.
00:31Therefore, it was an inherently very, very unstable agreement and you had breaches of the ceasefire
00:38almost immediately and now the U.S. essentially has said we are going to force traffic through
00:52the Strait of Hormuz or we're going to start hitting you again.
00:56It's not quite a return to war, but it's pretty close and I think what you're going to see
01:03is a very unstable time that is as close to war.
01:08It becomes very difficult to sort of define the difference between war and not war.
01:14Yeah, I think the column that you wrote just recently about this was just fascinating that
01:20the ceasefire was kind of built to fail, that it's all really about the posturing of each
01:25side and that, you know, what they say may not bear much relation to reality in some senses.
01:34I wonder what your take is now on Iran in this kind of perma crisis state that we're in
01:41as this funeral is expected to take place of the former supreme leader.
01:46What is Iran's position in all of this and, you know, what it's trying to show and, again,
01:54the underlying reality?
01:55Yeah, so the Iranians are, you know, they're ending a six-week funeral ceremony,
02:02a six-day, sorry, funeral ceremony for the former supreme leader Ali Khamenei today in Mashhad,
02:09his hometown, and that's where he'll be laid to rest.
02:12They've made this into a massive show, and the idea was to demonstrate.
02:18They said they wanted 20 million people to show up, or they expected 20 million people
02:22to show up.
02:23Who knows how many actually showed up along the way, but it was, you know, a long process,
02:27and it was designed to show that this man had support, the revolution, the Islamic Republic
02:33still has support, a show of defiance, if you like.
02:36At the same time, you know, they were upset about how many ships were getting through in
02:42Hormuz without, you know, submitting to their control, so they started hitting ships, whether
02:47they've overplayed their hand and they're now going to have to kind of rethink, or whether,
02:53you know, they will simply be able to keep hitting back in a tit-for-tat with the U.S.
02:58until the U.S. decides again that they're more focused on the price of oil, the upcoming
03:05midterm elections, and so on.
03:06That is really the question.
03:08Well, what are the military options now available to President Trump?
03:12We've heard talk about taking Carg Island, for example.
03:16Yeah, he's been talking about taking Carg Island since the 1980s.
03:20And it's possible.
03:22It's something the U.S. could do.
03:24You know, from the best of our knowledge, what the U.S. military has said to him is,
03:30yes, we can take it.
03:32Then what?
03:33We will have a bunch of American troops sitting on a very small island right next to all this,
03:41you know, oil drums and other infrastructure for the oil industry.
03:46And what do we do then?
03:49Because we're just going to be targets.
03:51And the logic then is, obviously, that you get off the island, you go on to the mainland,
03:56and you create a buffer zone that, you know, stops you from being a target.
04:01But your, you know, troops who are targets then, you know, are fighting through mountains
04:07in order to constantly increase the buffer zone.
04:10And you end up with a ground invasion.
04:11So this is, you know, the thing that I think is simply not going to happen.
04:19In terms of your takeaway from the NATO summit that we covered live here and spoke to lots of
04:28officials, including the sort of NATO military leader yesterday, we spoke to political leaders.
04:34What is your main takeaway from that?
04:35Because there was so much anxiety about President Trump being there in person,
04:40and he was highly critical of a number of European NATO countries.
04:45And there had been this talk, again, of a coalition of the willing to try to deal with the Strait
04:51of Hormuz.
04:53And yet there's massive pressure also on increased defense spending.
04:56What do you think, if anything, changed out of the NATO summit for those NATO allies in Europe?
05:01I think they'll, you know, they'll think, okay, we survived.
05:06You know, the real fear with Donald Trump, they know, you know, Donald Trump simply does not like NATO.
05:13Again, he's been talking about this for decades.
05:16He does not like NATO.
05:17He thinks it's, the U.S. doesn't need it.
05:20The U.S. is the strongest military power in the world.
05:24And it does not need these allies who are much weaker.
05:28He despises, as he made clear again, weak people, weak countries.
05:34He also doesn't like the EU.
05:37And, you know, in a way, you know, for the same reason that President Putin doesn't like the EU,
05:42you know, when small countries agglomerate, they become stronger.
05:48They have more bargaining power, which, you know, why would you want that if you are in Washington,
05:54if you are in Putin?
05:55This is, you know, the way that Trump thinks about it.
05:58So, you know, for them, I think, you know, just going through all this sort of flattery,
06:04obsequence and so on to survive, keep the NATO, you know, structure together until Donald Trump passes.
06:13That's the goal.
06:15And they're still not certain they can do it.
06:18And, you know, every time that they have something that Trump says, you know,
06:22the problem with NATO is that you're not spending enough.
06:25And then they agree to spend enough and they want to show him how much they spent
06:28and that they think that that will be fine.
06:31He just moves on because the fundamental problem is he doesn't like NATO.
06:36And everyone gifted an engraved revolver from Erdogan as well as a go-home present.
06:42And just finally, I want to talk about the Zelensky-Trump meeting because, you know,
06:48with all of Iran dominating this summit, there's a risk we forget what Zelensky actually got out of this
06:55in terms of going forward for Ukraine.
06:58Yeah, he got, I mean, again, the main thing I think that Zelensky will have got out of this is
07:03is Trump not suddenly saying, you know, you need to end the war on Russia's terms.
07:09He didn't do that.
07:10He's done that before.
07:11And that's the real fear for Zelensky.
07:14And then, you know, the other thing that he offered was to build patriot missiles,
07:18to license the Ukrainians to build patriot missiles in Ukraine.
07:22That, if it could happen tomorrow, would be a game changer.
07:26It's not going to happen tomorrow.
07:27It's just too complicated to do.
07:29It'll take some time.
07:31So, I mean, the Ukrainians are amazing at how fast they do do things, but we'll have to see.
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