This may be the best podcast of all time, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.) on Dialogue Works, July 31. And so good that they played the whole thing again on August 2nd! Remember, these are searchable digital resources - save, don't just skim and delete!
LARRY- Let me just belabor Ukraine right now for a
minute.
The Russians have been very circumspect about the direction from
which they come at Ukraine to produce the most pain, the most
drama, the most disaster for Kiev and at the same time not take
any more civilian and other even military lives than they have
to. Now you might call that the sort of Liddell Hart indirect
approach if you want. Now waking up to the fact or having always
known it but not wanted to exploit it to the extent they are now
that Odessa, is key, absolutely key, to any future that even a
rump state of Ukraine would have. They are now blockading the
ports around and the port of Odessa. That means there is no
lifeline whatsoever for Ukraine because I have it on fairly good
authority that other countries around Ukraine are fed up with
this war. Poland, most prominent of all, Poland is shifting even
as I speak in terms of its political structure, its attitude
towards Moscow and its attitude towards Ukraine as a result of
that. And there's no conduit going to develop anywhere for
Ukraine outside of that seaborne one out of Odessa. So that means
Ukraine is not just a basket case from what Russia is doing to
its military, which is deserting now at enormously rapid rates.
If they come anywhere near a Russian unit, they throw their hands
up in the air and say, "Take me prisoner, please. It's dwindling
completely." And Zelensky has done nothing to help that. Firing
the general, firing the defense minister. I mean, getting rid of
these people at this very critical juncture in Ukraine's defense,
I think that's going to come apart. It's going to come apart much
faster than some people thought. That doesn't mean there's going
to be peace and an end to the partisan warfare and other things
like that.
But it does mean Ukraine is finished, done, and as an element to bolster NATO which was the purpose, we put Ukraine into this proxy war to give NATO more strength against Moscow - is gone, utterly disappeared and what has happened instead of that is Russia has been strengthened and strengthened in a way that Sergey Lavrov's and Putin's remarks of late have indicated they might be willing to go a little further than originally, say back in February of '22, they are willing to go a little bit further and exploit it. What that means I don't know but I do think it means that we are stuck in both theaters of war. The one in the heart of Europe and the one in southwest Asia. We are stuck with three things. A terrible defeated strategy on both fronts. Two, nuclear powers on both fronts and I don't just mean Israel and there's no idea whatsoever how to deal with this. And then I want to come back to the original purpose for our doing this really - the deep state, I'm going to call it that, the deep state, I mean Robert Mercer I mean Elon Musk I mean Peter Thiel I mean Charles Koch I mean the oligarchs behind the Trump administration who are directing Donald Trump like he was a puppet and he's a great puppet. Every now and then he does something stupid even in that regard but mostly he's a puppet. They are now realizing that this effort to get at China through these different proxy wars, to stop China's inexorable movement, inexorable gain of power to the point where they are very soon if not already, the most powerful economic entity in the world, which is what counts in this world.
Their effort has failed. It has failed categorically on both active fronts, the one in Central Europe and the one in Southwest Asia. It's failed for different reasons in both places, but it has failed. What the hell do they do now? Because they're going to become increasingly desperate. They have allied themselves in many respects with BiBi Netanyahu and his Greater Israel effort. What does it mean for that? Particularly what does it mean when for example Erdogan gets off his dead ass and finally picks a side and there's no question in my mind what that side is going to be. It's going to be the side opposed to Israel and opposed to the empire and it's going to be traumatic, and it's going to be decisive in that particular region of the world. But what does all of that mean? I think it means that we're looking very, very, straightforwardly, those of us who understand what's happening, into a global conflict. We're looking at the opening days of a global conflict. We're looking at the stupid lead-headed idiotic leaders like we looked at in 1914, or pick your occasion.
We're looking at these people having brought us into this conflict with the ultimate goal, the ulterior motive of defeating China or at least stopping her in her tracks with her incredible initiative to shift commerce basically from the maritime regime to the continental or the land regime or at least significantly enough to benefit China majorly. And her partners and allies and to the detriment of those people in the world opposing it and who have the navies to oppose it and that's Europe and the United States, mostly the United States. I don't know where that incidentally, I'm still trying to figure out where South America turns out in that and to a certain extent Canada too because they're not with us fully in this effort to do what we're doing. Maybe Argentina is, but I don't see any other South American state that's fully with us. I don't even see one whose leadership understands what I'm talking about. So, here we are on the verge of a global conflict that has every indication it could go nuclear at any moment and at many different points. We're losing. They're winning. They being principally China, but China has probably 60% of the world on its side, at least figuratively, if not actually, but I think it's increasingly becoming actually.
And the world is sitting here staring at it and not even understanding what the dimensions of this coming conflict are and how much it is going to affect their lives, how detrimental it's going to be to their lives. It's going to make the Morocco issue that you were just talking about insignificant and many of these other issues insignificant too, because this is going to be a titanic struggle and one in which I don't think we have a prayer in hell of triumphing in. So what do you do when you're licked and you have to go home with your tail between your legs and you're one of the leading nuclear powers in the world? This is what worries me. This is what concerns me, and it should concern every citizen of the world but particularly of the American empire and all the states that still are hooked to it like Japan, Korea, and so forth. I know that's a very dismal projection, but I think we're missing in many respects, we're missing the forest for the trees and the forest is ablaze.
NIMA- I think bringing the two the conflicts, how the conflict is expanding itself in the West Asia. Look at Saudi Arabia attacking Yemen, attacking Iraq. And you have Zelensky and Netanyahu going to, you know, going to Washington, talking with Donald Trump. Both of them, their survival is at risk right now. They want to stay in their position and the continuation of the war going to benefit them. Both of them. For the case of Zelensky, it seems I don't know if you saw his latest interview on Fox News. He basically says he's willing to merge the two wars. {Yeah - Larry}. You know, coming into the war with Iran. I would say Benjamin Netanyahu would be more than happy if Zelensky does that and the United States somehow accepting the plan on the part of Ukrainians because that means that Israel [is] going to stay aside and the war going to be, you know, the United States and Ukraine against Iran and Russia somehow. It seems that in their mind going to be this way because they're not gonna, they're so comfortable with what's going on. The United States...
LARRY- Yeah, you're making my point. You're making my point graphically. This is going to be the maritime powers versus the continental powers, and the continental powers are going to crush the maritime powers. I mean, that's too simplistic, but that's essentially what we're looking at. We're looking at the continental powers now encompassing not just Russia alone or China alone.
Good lord, that's enough. Russia's the biggest country in the world and China comes close. So, I'm not talking about population. I'm talking about geography. I'm talking about extent, you know. And now we've got Iran in there, which is not small potatoes either, big as Western Europe, diverse, lots of resources. If it were well taken care of, it could be a very, very powerful country. Now they're all together. All together. And Turkey is going to throw its lot in, Nima. I'm telling you, it's going to throw its lot in. And it's going to be with that group and not with the maritime group. Now, friends at Naval War College in Newport probably detest me because I'm saying that, you know, the world of Athens is going away. The world of Sparta is on the rise. It's not a very good analogy or metaphor because very different societies and such, but it is an apt analogy if you want to look at sea power versus land power. And you know people forget, you know, who was one of the greatest sea powers in the world at the time we are looking at in the Mediterranean - Persia.
You know the Persians tried - storms and winds and a really rough sea the Mediterranean Sea and Greek opposition stopped them but nonetheless they had quite a bit of sea power too. It just got thwarted in the particular circumstances in which it was used. It could have gone the other way. But this is a colossal battle between those led by the United States who've grown accustomed to this maritime environment for so long and China who've decided, and our allies who've decided to change it. And strangely, Russia's in both environments. Look at what they're doing to blockade Odessa. They're using their naval forces. And people who tell me Russia doesn't have any naval experience or sea experience or blue water experience, they say that about China, too, are just smoking something. I mean, they have plenty of experience. China has the largest deep sea fishing fleet in the world, over 6,000 vessels, huge vessels that stay at sea sometimes for two years and keep everything in refrigeration and then come back and offload it. As a matter of fact, they're disrupting the fish species and krill and shrimp and other things around the world considerably. But that said, they have lots of blue ocean experience. So it's not like they aren't with a maritime element, both Russia and China. And for that matter, Iran, though, Donald Trump keeps saying over and over again, "I've sunk their navy. I've sunk their navy. I've sunk their navy." I see a lot of ships floating around Iran right now that belong to Iran. Nonetheless, this is a battle, a historic battle between maritime power and land power, and land power is winning.
NIMA- The economy of the new data shows that the economy of Saudi Arabia has shrunk by 4.8%. You know, it's huge. Even it didn't happen during the COVID 19 and during those difficult days, but right now that's happening. And you see the attacks, the way they're expanding their conflict, two fronts right now. And they're talking about land invasion of Yemen. They want to do something, you know, Yemen to defeat them.
LARRY- They tried that before. They got rebuffed. I mean, Saudi Arabia is in a real pickle right now. I just did an interview for the BBC. Interestingly, they taught me quite a bit during that interview. They were interviewing me because I was sort of in the government at the period of time they were looking at and the period of time they were looking at was 9/11 and they were looking at Saudi complicity in 9/11. One of the statements I made in that interview was that yes, the Saudi royals were involved in 9/11. I also said Saudi Arabia is the greatest state sponsor of terrorism on the face of the earth. Not Iran, Saudi Arabia. Well, I learned a lot from that interview because the young lady who was in charge of the documentary they were making had done her research and she revealed to me some of the things about what Saudi Arabia had done during and before 9/11.
So my attitude towards Saudi Arabia was still one of some disgust if not thinking of one of the most despicable countries in the world. Are they getting their comeuppance now finally? Because it is very, very, clear to me that they have still operated on the same sheet of music they were operating on with regard to the Mujahidin and Taliban and with regard to al-Qaeda and blessing it and funding it and with regard to other terrorist groups around the world. So, it's about time Saudi Arabia got its comeuppance.
And I think I'm looking at that comeuppance being delivered right now. First of all, by the Houthis, but also by the texture and design of this U.S. campaign against Iran. It's aiding and abetting the destruction of not only the GCC states on the Gulf, but also that one that is most removed from it, that's squeezed in, if you will, between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. I don't think BiBi Netanyahu's idea that this is all going to survive and that the Abraham Accords and everything's going to be all wonderful and Israel will be the tool in the middle that engineers all that. I think that's a farce right now. I think it's all a wash in what Trump has done ostensibly for Israel, but he is expediting, speeding up, accelerating, the destruction of the Jewish state in the Levant. Now that's not the big thing that's happening. The big thing is the struggle, the struggle between the East and the West, if you will. But it's all part of the same fabric right now. And as I've said, the danger here and I think just to get back to Saudi Arabia for a minute, I think it's gone. I think just like Israel is gone, I think Saudi Arabia is gone. At least it's gone as the state that it's been for the last well, since FDR and the king met. And Israel's gone as a Jewish state. So, we're changing lots with this incredibly incompetent leader we have in Washington. But he's being forced into some of the defeat by these inexorable forces that are clashing right now on the world scene. And they're clashing on a front, Nima, that runs all the way, as I've said many times, it's almost 8,000 kilometers from the Arctic Circle all the way down to where we have our ships, a thousand nautical miles, I've told, still, our carriers, our capital ships in the Indian Ocean. And that's another indicator that this is not a maritime world anymore because these carriers are afraid to go any closer because they'll be sunk. They'll be destroyed.
That's a real comment because this is the instrument most noted in the world of the American Empire's ability to bring military power into your backyard tomorrow morning. This instrument, this instrument that was made, you know, famous around the world by these little wars we've conducted from their platforms, is gone. It is no longer a symbol of American power worth chump change. It just remains for a couple of them to be sunk to prove that dramatically and decisively.
But that is an indicator of how the American Empire has walked itself into a defeat that is not just like Afghanistan and Iraq and Somalia and Libya and a host of other little wars were. This is fundamental. This is a defeat of the empire. A massive defeat of the empire. And these symbols are going to go with that defeat.
And we're seeing it right now and we're going to see it even further. And I'm really worried as I said before that we're going to see some mushroom clouds in the process, too. Not least am I worried about that because when the empire understands and Trump never will, but there are people around Trump who will understand, that we are going down as it were, literally and figuratively.
Then we will resort to nuclear weapons use.
You know, there are people already talking about it in the group that runs around in between Trump and these oligarchs. They're already talking about why aren't we using them on Iran?
NIMA- Do you think, Larry, if do you see any possibility of Israel getting involved before the election happening in Israel?
LARRY- It'll all depend on how Netanyahu assesses his chances. I think his last ditch effort if he thinks he's going to be defeated will be to search for that decisive victory over his principal enemy and he'll do anything to bring that about including dragging the United States in, in combination for a joint attack, but it won't happen until you'll see the precursor, I think Nima, will be what he does that is violative of all the agreements but very much designed to keep Hezbollah from entering the conflict once it commences in Lebanon. Watch his actions in Lebanon.
NIMA- And I've got a feeling everyone is watching that, too. What is your assessment of Donald Trump's position? Donald Trump sort of strategy with this rate. You detect a strategy?
LARRY- [laughter] No, I don't see that. I detect back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. That's all he knows what to do. And the shame of it is the military, at least as far as I can detect. Now I understand General Kaine has made some real objections, solid objections because the other commanders and chief in the different AOS: Europe, Africa, Pacific are coming in and telling him, "What do you mean allowing all these stores to be shot? What do you mean dwindling the Patriot list down so far? The THAD list down so far? What do you mean using all these munitions that we might need because they're in our war plans in case we have to execute them?" So they're putting a lot of pressure on Kaine, but they're not getting much headway in terms of Trump's and Hegseth. So they keep doing it.
But do you feel that does that mean that they're going to continue with this tit for tat or because in my opinion with the blockade it comes to a moment that we're going to see a heavy sort of fight happening between the two sides. It's not going to continue the same way that we we've been witnessing before because two days ago we had a statement from the IRGC. They say the blockade is a declaration of war against us. It's not going to be any sort of pause or ceasefire anything of that. There is no negotiations happening. We know that and the mediators, it seems that they're trying to do their best. Pakistan, Qatar and the only real negotiations that are happening is happening between Iran and Oman with the case of the trade of almost nothing between Iran and the United States.
If Bradley Cooper, Admiral Bradley Cooper, the commander-in-chief of Central Command, if he is scared to bring his carriers inside a thousand nautical miles, then how do we bring any kind of real naval power, which is what it's going to take, to do what Trump has intimated he might do with regard to this Strait of Hormuz, is open it by force. How would you do that? I don't see any way to do that. You bring in that symbol of American power and it is at least in one instance, that's all it'll take, destroyed. Destroyed probably in less time than you and I have talked so far. How do you explain that? And how do you explain it to the American people? And how do you deal with it in terms of the war?
That would be traumatic. That would and that's the only way you're only going to fight a conflict in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz with a reasonable chance even for a moment or two. I don't say over the long term, but for a moment or two, gaining superiority, gaining superiority that you could then claim has opened the Strait of Hormuz and it is now moving traffic again and doing it safely because these two carriers, three carriers, whatever, are sitting off Chabahar, you know, and protecting everything with their air power. Um, my first question would be, how much does that air power have left? My second question would be, when are you going to do that, Bradley?
When are those carriers going to come into range where your air power could actually mean something without having to be tanked to the extent that is meaningless?
That move would indicate just how serious we are about combat power close enough to the Strait of Hormuz to even temporarily say we had control over. And I think the Iranians know that. I think they know that. And I think they're fully prepared to take out at least one if not two of those carriers.
NIMA- There are two suspicious attacks. The latest one on Saudi Arabia Yamu refinery which was attacked by drones. Nobody was taking responsibility of that attack.
LARRY- No.
NIMA- And some people said maybe Saudi Arabia is faking, you know, somehow is trying to put some false information out. That's one of the, you know, one of the rhetorics right now. The other one is someone hit them and they're going to hit back and finally they have decided to attack together with the United States, attack Iraq, part of the Iraqi army by the way, not part of the resistance that are not, you know, this was a huge step on the part of Saudi Arabia. The other point was yesterday the drone attack on American ships in Egypt.
LARRY- Egypt, yeah this was somehow New York Times came out in a new article saying Iran is behind that attack then Iran Iranian foreign minister came out said no we didn't do that, we consider them as a friendly country we don't need to go that far. Why - what is in it for us to attack Egypt, then Egypt said we are investigating the case, later on they said it wasn't Iran, it was not Iran. Egyptian government said it was not Iran.
NIMA- That's what I heard too, yeah.
LARRY- Yeah so what it is you're describing, what I'm talking about, you're talking about it at a tactical level, but nonetheless a tactical level that has the opportunity, the potential to go operational strategically off overnight. It's like, you know, this is what we used to call the CNN effect. A single soldier in Mogadishu, for example, and his death on television on CNN could be a strategic event where you're talking about the same thing right now.
This these two wars are both pregnant with the possibility of a little tactical event suddenly blooming into being a strategic event.
And this is a case in point. And here's the problem, Nima. The antagonist and the people behind the antagonist, even more so the people behind what's happening in Spain for example with Morocco, they know that. And so they do these things, their intelligence services, their street secret services I'll call them. They do these things in order to take advantage of that opportunity to make a tiny little event become a strategic event. And that's the dangers of having such a wide array of conflict going on right now. You got a lot of players. You got a lot of people that can and lot of intelligence agencies that can play in it, spoiling for something to do to impact what they think is their future budget and their future existence.
They all want to do things and these opportunities come up and you got someone like Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth and Ratcliffe and others who don't know their butt from a hole in the ground. And so every - they give these orders, do anything you can to help what we're doing and they go out and they do it. And I'm not saying that's what happened, but I'm saying that this is a possibility and it's an environment that's just pregnant with these possibilities. Look at the false flags I think that have occurred associated with Ukraine. Many of them have been discounted, but they've nonetheless have done the damage that they've done, particularly to Russia.
It's to Putin's credit and the Russian military general staff's credit that they have not acted on some of these things that they clearly believe and maybe their intelligence services confirmed for them were false flag. Who knows who struck the ship in Egypt?
That's the question. And for what purpose? And who knows what happened in the Red Sea and for what purpose. But we do know what is happening on a strategic basis in a general sense. And that is that Saudi Arabia is being isolated and it is probably going to find it very difficult to continue on its present path and in its association with the empire.
It's going to find that increasingly untenable. As have Kuwait, as has Qatar, as has the UAE, despite their claims to the contrary, as has even Oman, and certainly Bahrain, which I'm told now is pretty much a basket case of a country, if it ever was a country. So you've got this entire fabric unraveling in the Gulf. All of which consequentially is going to force us out of the Gulf, going to force us out of the southwest Asia. I think the Saudis are going to be left holding the bag and they think they're holding a bag that includes the nuclear agreement that will allow them to do whatever they want to do in the future with their nuclear program and so forth and so on. And even Trump has negated that in a sense by saying, "No, it's only if you agree to sign up to the Abraham Accords." And they're not going to do that as long as they're holding forth that a viable route to a Palestinian state is a necessity first and foremost before they do that. Do they back off that? And what happens to their street if they back off that? Who knows? This is all full of variables that all point at one, the United States being kicked out of the region. Two, the Gulf Cooperation Countries not being a shadow even of their former self. Three, Saudi Arabia having to think hard about its existence and its relationship with the empire. And four, as I've said before, global conflict, all aided and embedded by the little characters messing around in these two seminal conflicts in Central Europe and Southwest Asia. The one a war of choice, the one in Southwest Asia by a stupid ignorant idiot of a president and the other a war of choice by proxy by a stupid idiot president called Joe Biden. Lay the blame at the feet of Washington, if you will. But Europe has been very helpful, especially London, Paris, and Berlin.
NIMA- Larry, you've mentioned Bahrain and Kuwait and it seems that the ongoing war is turning them in my opinion as if they decide to continue this war, they're going to be turned into a desert in these two countries.
LARRY- Bahrain already is, I think. I mean, I've seen some pictures of the destruction there. I mean, and look at what it did to us. I mean, in Jordan it took about all, if not all, of our early warning capacity away. We no longer have any early warning capacity to say, "Oh, wow. You know, they're doing that. That missile's coming towards Jordan or that missile's coming towards Bahrain or it's gone. We don't have any early warning capacity anymore."
NIMA- Do you think the leadership in Saudi Arabia understands that they're on the path of becoming Ukraine 2.0 in my opinion? Because Ukraine, you know how Ukraine was before this war started. The war between Russia and Ukraine started. Look at Ukraine today. Nothing left. Yeah. I don't know if we can call it Ukraine anymore.
LARRY- No, I don't either. I don't. And if Odessa really, really, goes as it were and the ports around her, Odessa being the most important one, it's not just a rump state, it's a basket case. It's a basket case because it has no way of interfacing with the world. [laughter] Can't sell its products. It can't export its products. It, you know, I mean, it can do it illicitly through various sundry ways. Odessa always has been a gang of thieves, and I'm sure there are some gangs of thieves there that would continue to operate with Kiev, but it'll be on a very small scale, and it's not on a national scale that would be capable of keeping Ukraine as it is a rump state, alive. So, where does it go?
What does it do? Whom does it consult? Who does it turn to for succor? The Pols are developing, I think, a very negative attitude towards Ukraine. And that that's the most likely place. And then possibly Germany. I don't see either of those states with the political complexion that's going to change dramatically over the next 12 to 18 months being anywhere interested in Ukraine other than maybe being covetous of some of that territory.
I don't know if you saw Macgregor. Macgregor was on with Glenn Diesen and I listened to it this morning about 5:00 a.m. in the morning. It just it had just happened I think. I'm listening to it and I really respect Doug's education and knowledge of the history of Europe and especially that region in Europe. And he was going on about the history of that area and how many times these sorts of convolutions, these sorts of evolutions, these sorts of bitter rivalries and so forth had happened and marred the whole face of that region from time to time. And that you know the implication of course it's going on again. [laughter] It's happening again. And I saw this, one of the things he demonstrated with his own vignette. I saw this when an American colonel was talking to a Serbian colonel equivalent. And the Serbian colonel was showing the American colonel a monument. And the Americans said, "What is that to?" You know, and the guy explained it to him. And it was 1115. I think the event the monument commemorated was 1115 and the America was like, "Are you kidding me? You're you are paying all this respect and obeisance to an event that happened in 1115." Yeah. Now you know the difference between Europe and America, particularly Eastern Europe. Never forget. Oh, I remember when my uncle's, uncle's, uncle's, uncle's, uncle was bloodied by this Serb and I'm going to get vengeance.
NIMA- It's, do you see the same sort of, in my opinion, if something of that sort happens in the West Asia to for example Saudi Arabia it's not going to be that difficult just destroying the oil facilities, what does that mean Saudi Arabia, what does Saudi Arabia mean anymore if they destroy the oil facilities you know ARAMCO you know the pipeline the for and...
LARRY- I'm convinced I'm convinced that those last very valuable, very, very, very much valuable not just to Saudi Arabia but to world commerce and to, you know, truck traffic in the United States, if you will, is on Iran's target list if it gets to that point if they have to attack significant economic infrastructure in Saudi Arabia they will.
We don't want to go there. I hope we know that. We understand that and we will shy away from giving Iran an excuse to do that. But it doesn't look that way right now. It doesn't look that way. It looks like Donald Trump is operating on a sheet of music which he wrote and which makes no sense whatsoever. Except in the sense of Donald Trump's character, you know, a real estate guy.
Yeah. He doesn't even under, He doesn't even seem to understand who, was it this morning, was lecturing a European audience. Not lecturing as in, you know, didactic, but he was giving them the information. Uh jeez, I can't remember his name now, but he's a, he's an economist, and he was pointing out how Trump doesn't even understand what it means to have a deficit. And what it means to have been responsible yourself for creating that deficit. And so why would you put a tariff for example, on a country because it has given you the deficit? Because it did not give you the deficit. You gave yourself the deficit in your trade relations with that country. Oh, how about that? All across the globe, you created the deficit, not that country. And you know it's like Trump can't understand that because he's a real estate guy. It doesn't apply to the kind of real estate deals that he was so accustomed to bringing into grifting existence. But it does apply to world commerce. You aren't the creator of the deficit if you are China selling your product to the United States. The United States is the creator of the deficit.
NIMA- Larry, Russia yesterday attacked a factory if we can call it a Russian missile destroyed US firms, you know, in Kiev, the drone factory in Kiev, which was I don't know how many people US forces were there, but they attack and destroyed that facility right there. This is the new phase of war. We have...
LARRY- We knew they were going to do that. I mean, Lavrov and Putin both had been very direct about we're going to hit the war making potential of Ukraine no matter where it is inside Ukraine. So far inside Ukraine.
NIMA- It's some sort of warning for Europeans as well.
LARRY- Yeah, absolutely. I'm surprised that they haven't picked a small country that is a NATO member.
They know positively that this is going on in that country and that it is directly supporting the war Ukraine is waging in against Russia and struck it and dared us to implement Article 5 and dared us to come into the war as an alliance against Russia, because they know Nima, Putin knows, the Russian general staff knows, they are at war with NATO. They know that they're at war with NATO. It's covert. It ain't very covert, but it's indirect, if you will, but it's becoming less than indirect when you start saying things like, "Mr. Zelensky, we're going to give you a Patriot making capacity inside Ukraine," when Russia knows exactly whom and what that Patriot making capacity is designed to attack or take care of. Now they also know that it would be three to five years before it could ever stand up. I'm quite sure they know now what Ted Postol has made apparent to everyone that, Patriot is about as effective as, you know, I think I would give it maybe a 20 to 25% effectiveness factor for that amount of money? I'm not sure I'd want to buy a Patriot. I'm not so sure I'd want Look at what we've done.
We've sold it to all these allies, Korea, Saudi Arabia, and other people. And now this war has proven, I think substantially proven, that it doesn't work very well. So what are these allies thinking right now? We paid a fortune for these systems. and Lockheed Martin and RTX and the rest of the death merchants of the world that make these things guaranteed us that these things were reasonably successful and that they would aid in the defense of South Korea or of Japan or whatever. Now they know that we sold them a pig and a poke, which is to say we sold them something that is vastly inferior to what we said it was. Think about the F-35 for a moment. 27, 28% operational ready rate and we sold it to all our allies at enormous expense to them. What are they thinking about us now in terms of that? They can't be thinking too highly of us.
NIMA- Today, Donald Trump announced that the Board of Peace reached a historic agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza. This is a monumental step toward lasting peace and security. And later on, we've learned from Hamas pointing out that, you know, disarmament is not going to happen unless Israel withdraws totally from Gaza.
I'm just talking about the heavy weapons, not about, you know, the heavy weapons going to be. It seems to me that they're thinking Hamas understanding is that they want Israel to withdraw from Gaza.
The other point is that they want to merge into something new, a security force, the same people with this new name, a security force for Gaza. What is your understanding of that?
LARRY- Well, Haaretz this morning, the newspaper that I, as I said, I read, pretty much blew that out of the water. And they blew it out of the water on two or three different angles. One was just like what you said, Hamas has not agreed to any of that.
Two, the angle that Bibi Netanyahu is still and is not going to stop because it would hurt his political chances if he did, killing Gazans inside Gaza. And then cited the air strike that they just had. You imagine conducting an air strike on what's left of Gaza right now.
I that's utterly heinous. And yet they did that. They're still killing them. It's it even the article even cited the number they killed yesterday. I think it was 12 or something like that. So that's still going on and he's not going to stop that. And as long as he's doing that, Hamas is not going to agree to anything. Nor is the Palestinian Authority in my view going to agree to it. And then the third thing is the farce that this humanitarian organization or whatever they're calling it now that has taken over the potential eventual future of Gaza is a farce too. It's not working. The efforts being expended within it are minuscule at best and it isn't going to work because one, BiBi doesn't want it to work and he's going to do everything he can to keep it from working. You can't kill Palestinians fast enough if it works in any way, fashion or form. So, he's not going to let it work. It's a farce. It's a farce. And Haaretz almost came out and said that, didn't quite go that far, but it it's a farce.
And as long as Netanyahu is the man in charge, and I don't see any of those perspective people who might replace him being any different, it's going to continue to be a farce.
NIMA- Here are the important points, Larry, in this statement, full statement by Hamas, it says multiple points, by the way. Here is: Israel fully ends the war, withdraws from Gaza, completes the first ceasefires phase, allow reconstruction and international protection forces, dismantles Israel-backed militias in Gaza, guarantees Palestine self-determination and statehood.
LARRY- And none of that is the Trump administration allowing to get into its media. They're just saying everything's working.
NIMA- It reminds me of the so-called [MoU] between Iran and the United States.
LARRY- Yeah. Especially what was it? Paragraph five or section five that essentially was surrender.
NIMA- Yeah. Israel is not going to accept this. They're not going to withdraw. They didn't do that with Lebanon.
LARRY- No. This business of Auon (Pres. of Lebanon) and the United States having an agreement that both sides can live with and everything is totally a farce. It's totally a farce. It's a sellout by and the government of Lebanon such as it is. And they know that Israel is not going to be stopped, that Israel will keep on going, that it'll keep on killing Lebanese whenever and wherever it wants to, just as soon as it is propitious with regard to Iran to do that, they will do that. They're doing it slowly and surely. I read yesterday again in Haaratz what has happened to that swath of land that really runs from the citadel I can't remember the name of that place now I just it just left my head but the age old fort there you know what the one I'm talking about that runs from there all the way over to the extreme eastern section of where the Israeli forces are deployed. They've still killing Lebanese, not Hezbollah, Lebanese in that area. And the guy is quoted in Haaretz,
NIMA- you mean that fortress, Larry, in Lebanon? [Beaufort Castle] Qal?at al-Shaqif fortress.
LARRY- Yeah. And the other point they brought out was that the IDF commanders were bragging about it about how many people they'd killed and how many homes they'd burned, how many homes they'd bulldozed, how nothing would ever come up there again as far as they were concerned. It reminded me of the two refugee camps that had so many people massacred in them as the Israelis withdrew in 1982. I guess it was '82 or '83 when they withdrew when we forced them out of Lebanon. Only this is forward-looking. This isn't anger in retreat and killing people needlessly.
This is forward-looking. They're looking to make sure no Lebanese can ever come back into that area. Certainly not the ones they drove out of their homes, burned their homes, raised them to the ground, destroyed the foundations even with their bulldozers. I mean, it looks a lot like some of the things they've done in Gaza, but in Lebanon.
We're not putting any of that in our press. We're not talking about it. We're not alerting the American people to the fact that Netanyahu is doing that to the Lebanese. Um, no.
NIMA- Larry, do you in your opinion, I don't know if before coming to this live, we talk about it and we're going to talk about it with Professor Ted Postol later on at 4:00 pm Eastern time. And the new understanding of Professor Postol is that Iran has used one of its missiles which when it comes to the ground hitting the targets it goes with a velocity equal to 4 kilometers per second which is somehow greater than the velocity that Oreshnik had.
LARRY- Yeah. Yeah. Close to it if not beyond it. Yeah. NIMA- Yeah. He said that the Oreshnik it was 3.5 and this missile hit the target at four kilometers per second. This is what is your understanding of the way that the two sides, these escalations or these are some sort of signs sending to each other, both sides.
LARRY- Yeah, I think Iran has got surprises still. I think it has got some things it is not used yet. It is husbanding them until it is the moment of decisive action against Israel. And I do believe they're keeping them for Israel.
That doesn't mean they won't use them on Jordan or, you know, Kuwait or someplace else if they need to, but the big ones that are going to be a real surprise, they're saving for Israel.
And I can understand that. Because as the Omani foreign minister has said twice, the real problem in the Gulf is not Iran, it's Israel. And if you say that, then you're also saying, but the Omani foreign minister is not dumb enough to say this. [laughter] He's smart. He's not going to say this. You're also saying the number one problem in the region is guess who? The United States of America. Because without the United States of America, Israel would be the pipsqueak it is. So Oman is saying categorically the problem in the Gulf is not Iran. The problem is Israel, United States. And he's right. He's absolutely right.
It's taken Oman a long time to come out and say that diplomatically, but nonetheless, the second time he said it. And the best friend really that we had in the Gulf, no questions asked, not Israel, not BiBi Netanyahu, not any Israeli leader. The best friend we had in the Gulf was the Sultan of Oman and his team. And now we have screwed them.
I don't think they even trust us anymore. I'm not sure they ever trusted us completely, but they certainly now look at us probably as an enemy. Can't say that publicly, but uh that's probably the way they look at it. Would they be happy if we were forced out of the region? I think the answer to that is yes.
NIMA- The problem for Russia and Iran is that this sort of animosity is not, you know, dependent on Republicans or Democrats. All these two parties, it's bipartisan in United States. The both parties have the same policies with different sort of tactics.
LARRY- Yeah, the strategy is the same. The tactics are different. You know, the Democrats saying something, you know, not going toward pursuing some sort of other elements to go against them. And here comes what the reason that I'm mentioning this because CNN published a video of Lindsey Graham talking to Jake Solomon. Yeah. Before the attack on Iran happening. And here is what Lindsey Graham said.
Lindsay Graham- "to deliver. Oh, to be honest with you, I think about 3 to 4 weeks we should have them in a spot where they start losing control of some cities. And what we're trying to do is just get a few cities to fall in the next month, get the Arabs more openly involved tomorrow or by the end of the week and just have almost irreversible momentum."
NIMA- He basically put out the strategy what was in their mind before the war started. {Yeah.-Larry} And we're witnessing what's going on right now. LARRY- I have, as you know well, I think I have absolutely zero respect for Lindsey Graham. I think he was a Cretan. I have almost the same disdain for Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken, really. And my disdain for them grew dramatically when I realized that they had been during Obama's administration and Biden's vice presidency opposed to the JCPOA, and everything they could do to screw it, to make sure it didn't go through. To Obama's credit, he got it, he got it through barely, but he got it through. And then in their position with Biden, when Biden became president, and I have to say my despicable definition goes to Biden too in this regard, they wouldn't resurrect it. They wouldn't do anything significant to resurrect it after Trump had killed it in his first term. So Blinken and Sullivan are just a more sophisticated Jewish-oriented Zionist Lindsey Graham. They just don't speak with that southern accent like Lindsay does. [laughter]
NIMA- What he said about Arab states, Larry. Oh, it was...
LARRY- What's he saying now in hell about the destruction [laughter] of all these Arab states? I mean, ticked them off.
Kuwait is virtually gone. Bahrain, I think, is gone. The others are probably going to follow in some way or another, or they'll be a shadow of their former self, if they are even their former self. And we aren't done yet. The stupidity and idiocy of Bradley Cooper and Donald Trump are not done yet. Wait until they put land forces in there. I'm really, really scared that they might do that. Scared because I feel for those boys and girls.
And the comments like were made the other day. I forget the guy who made them, but he's a big supporter of Israel, about how these people signed up. They signed up. They're volunteers. That's, you know, we hear that at the all-volunteer force forum. We hear that all the time. Well, these people, if they get killed, they volunteered for it.
That's supposed to justify what's happening right now. And what would happen were they to conduct a land operation. That's supposed to justify it because they signed up.
They're not citizens anymore. They're mercenaries. That's what they're saying. That's essentially what they're saying. They're getting paid to die. So don't complain. Don't. That's the reason we created you all-volunteer force, was so we could say you're getting paid to die. Shut up. Oh, and your families shut up, too. When you come home in a pine box, tell your families to shut up because we paid you. Oh, we'll go to Dover and bow our heads and everything, but we paid you. You are a paid mercenary. Therefore, don't be saying anything about, you know, the wars that we conduct. We'll conduct all the wars we want to and you'll fight in them cuz you signed. That's disgusting, especially for a country with the history that we had for our first three quarters of our existence. But since World War II, we have been a freaking empire and worse and worse empire every day that went by.
NIMA- It's, it's unbelievable, Larry. Whenever I think of ground invasion, I see the bloodshed happening and people could basically, Iranians and Americans being killed because of Israel and Israeli ambitions and whatever they have in their mind and they're just sitting aside and just watching these two nations killing each other and it's unbelievable.
LARRY- Well, you know, I said to someone yesterday, you ever read Jeremiah? What do you mean Jeremiah? I said Jeremiah, the book in the in the Bible, have you ever read Jeremiah? Do you know what Jeremiah was saying over and over and over again about the Israelites?
He was saying that they were abandoning God. They were abandoning the covenant. They were becoming totally secular. They were worshiping the golden calf. They were doing all these things and so forth. You know what Nebuchadnezzar eventually did and Jeremiah had prophesized?
Nebuchadnezzar burned the temple, raised it to the ground, put the Israelites into bondage. They stayed there for quite a while, made slaves of them. I said, "That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. The Israelites and the Israelis are the same people." Yeah. I'm afraid though, you know, I'm afraid that they might take a lot of the rest of us with them, just as I'm afraid Zelensky might too. Yeah.
NIMA- Zelensky doesn't care about anybody. He destroyed a country. More than two and a half million soldiers were killed, slaughtered during the war. Yeah. He the guy.
LARRY- I go back to some of those little smuggled out tapes I've seen of him in his comedy his comedy routine in Moscow I think it was and I think about those tapes and I say man, that guy was as disgusting as some of his jokes [laughter] is as disgusting as some of his jokes and the fact that he speaks Russian and understands Russia, I think a little bit at least might even have some ultimately, some empathy for Russia, is even more unconscionable. I mean I could say that about a lot of people though. I do not understand on one plane on another plane maybe I do as an academic and a student of history the hatred we have and the hatred we developed post-George HW Bush and Collen Powell and Jim Baker and that whole crew for Russia. I just do not understand it. I don't understand the hatred that Biden had. Clearly, he did not like Russia. He hated Russians. Where did that come from? I understand what Powell was talking about in 1989. [He said:] "You let Kohl and Mitterrand and Major and Thatcher and Gorbachev and Baker and Chevroni and all these people disappear from the scene, you're going to have real problems in Europe because no one will be alive who remembers the past. No one. And you'll have chaos in Europe within a decade or two." Well, that's pretty much come true. But at the same time, I wanted to say, how does a divorce from reality happen so swiftly, you know, and I've read some people since then who've pretty much said the same thing Powell said, and they describe everything from a generation that built, became a generation that did nothing but take, and that became a generation now that doesn't understand any reality about Europe or about their lives or about how they got where they are. And so they think they take everything for granted and they elect these leaders who do the same thing. I think it's more complex than that. But certainly what Powell predicted in 1989 at Fort McPherson has come true that when those leaders were gone, he put it this way. "When the leaders who have their feet, even their baby feet in World War II are gone, Europe will convulse again." And he's right. He was right. Yeah.
NIMA- Thank you, Larry. Thank you so much for being with us today. Great pleasure as always despite what we're talking about, but it's great pleasure to talk with you and I'm sure that our audience enjoy whenever we talk about the geopolitical and dark issues that...
LARRY- I don't know. I don't know if they enjoy it, but I wish some people in my country at least, and particularly in Europe, too, because I have a lot of fondness for Europe. I wish they'd start waking up. I really do.
Maybe they are. Maybe they are. I hope it's not too late. I hope they throw Merz out and Macron out. And even this new guy in London seems to be just the same kind of person Starmer was. He just hides it a little more. [laughter]
NIMA- Exactly. Exactly. Take care. Take care,
Larry.
(one hour, 16 minutes)
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