Video Infoblog: John Mearsheimer: Iran & Hezbollah SUFFOCATES IDF In The Rubble! Mass DESTRUCTION Awaits Israel - YouTube

Transcript

0:00

I uh don't disagree with that but want to come at it from a different angle I

0:06

think it was crazy for the ukrainians to invade the kers region and I think if

0:14

anything it's going to speed up their defeat and as Glenn intimated at the

0:20

beginning of his comments probably the reason that the Russians were surprised

0:25

is that they didn't think the ukrainians would be foolish enough to try to LA that's offensive now the question is why

0:32

am I saying this this is a good oldfashioned War of Attrition you know this is Joe Frasier and Muhammad Ali

0:39

standing Toe to Toe you know trying to beat The Living Daylights out of each other uh and to put it in slightly

0:45

different terms here we have two armies that are trying to bleed each other white uh to get one uh to raise up its

0:53

hands and quit before the other does uh and in a war of attrition like this

1:00

really matters is the casualty exchange ratio and if you look at what the

1:05

ukrainians did they were in a situation where they were losing on the Eastern

1:11

Front there's just no question about that and the casualty exchange ratio on

1:16

the Eastern Front clearly favored the Russians so what the ukrainians did is

1:23

they weakened their forces on the Eastern front uh cobbled together a

1:28

strike force that then went into Ukraine and the first question that pops into my

1:34

brain when something like this happens is what happens to the casualty exchange ratio on the Eastern front and what is

1:41

the casualty exchange ratio going to look like in the kers region well if you

1:46

weaken your forces on the Eastern Front which of course the ukrainians do and

1:52

the Russians do not that means that the casualty exchange ratio is going to

1:58

shift even further towards the Russians because your forces are weakened they're

2:03

spread out more thinly and the Russians are in a better position uh to attack

2:09

Ukrainian positions and of course that is what's happening then look at what's happening

2:16

in the K region what's happening is very simple the ukrainians are taking the

2:22

offensive and when you take the offensive in Modern Warfare especially

2:27

in a war of attrition that means you get out of your holes you get out of your trenches and you start moving across

2:34

open territory that means you're exposed to the adversary now you may be able to

2:42

get away with that if you have air cover but the ukrainians do not have air cover

2:49

in fact the Russians command the skies and furthermore they have a gazillion

2:54

drones up there so you have these Ukrainian forces they're out on out in

2:59

the open on the move and are providing a rich Target set for the Russians and the

3:08

Russians of course who get caught with their pants down there's no question about that what they do is they bring in

3:14

lots of drones they bring in lots of Tac Air and they bring in lots of artillery

3:20

and they start pounding those Ukrainian forces that are out in the open and unsurprisingly there have been many

3:27

thousands of Ukrainian casual and they've lost an enormous number of

3:33

armored vehicles and uh one analyst estimates that they've been losing two

3:39

times as many armored vehicles per day in the K offensive than they were

3:44

normally losing uh on the Eastern Front this is really quite shocking at first

3:50

glance but once you think about it's not that shocking because they're now out in the open you want to remember the

3:56

ukrainians are not out in the open uh on the Eastern Front they're dug in they're

4:02

fighting from you know uh well fortified positions for the most part this is no

4:07

longer the case when you're on the offensive so the ukrainians are suffering greatly in terms of the

4:13

casualty exchange ratio but you may say well John what about the Russians aren't

4:19

they suffering well the answer is no because there were hardly any Russian forces in the area for the ukrainians to

4:27

kill why do you think the ukrainians were able to invade this territory and

4:33

capture so much land the reason's quite simple there were hardly any Russians there to contest them so the Russian

4:40

casualty levels are actually quite low I don't want to make light of the fact that probably quite a few Russian

4:46

soldiers died or were badly wounded for sure but compared to the ukrainians

4:52

small number so what's happened here if you put all these pieces together is

4:58

that the ukrainians of weaken themselves on the critically important Eastern front and if anything the casualty

5:04

exchange ratio there will shift in favor of the Russians even more than it was

5:10

before August 6 and then if you look at what's happening in uh the K offensive I

5:16

think this is just a disaster the last thing is you want to do is sort of get out of your holes and start moving out

5:22

in the open as I said before so if anything when you put these two fronts

5:28

together the Eastern front and the Cur front and you ask yourself what's the bottom line I think the ukrainians have

5:34

speeded up the rate at which they're going to lose this war and of course they are going to lose this war which

5:40

was manifestly clear even before August 6 that's my basic take on this curs well

5:48

can I just say that I also agree with all of that also I think that's entirely correct and if you follow events very

5:54

closely I think it everything that you've just said the facts buried out uh

5:59

by by the way the commentator that you mentioned who says that they're losing

6:04

uh that the ukrainians are losing armor twice the rate that they were in other places before um he is very very Pro

6:13

Ukrainian he's not someone who is at all I know um CR he's not a Critic of

6:20

Ukraine but he's not CR he's not happy with this operation I think Alexander you're

6:26

getting to the point now where it's difficult for even the most uh

6:33

supportive uh individual supportive of Ukraine those individuals to deny what's

6:39

happening on the battlefield uh the writing is on the wall but it's uh it seems that uh if if

6:49

this is again this is a war of attrition and in a war of attrition you really want to as you point out ex exhaust

6:55

adversary now it seems to me that uh Ukraine's defensive lines would be the best approach to do this because they

7:01

have this multi-layered defensive line so it costs a lot for the Russians to break through both in Manpower and in

7:08

terms of uh equipment so and every time the Russians break through the ukrainians can just hold back to the

7:14

next pre-prepared line so they had this in donbas but instead this is what's

7:20

surprising to me with this Cur invation because they go into this wide open low populated areas with hardly any Russian

7:26

soldiers and as you said they're out in the open they can be knocked out and uh

7:32

you know not to draw too strong um parallel but you know when Napoleon and Hitler went in to Russia a key problem

7:39

was protecting their supply lines now obviously this is a much smaller

7:44

Invasion but nonetheless a key problem has been to be able to supply these forces because they're inside Russian

7:51

territory and we see not only are they exposed to Russian drones and missiles but the Russians been able to knock out

7:56

the fuel supply which put grinds them to hold and they can't really Pro defend

8:02

these areas because they don't get engineering equipment into Russian territory either where they can effectively dig in and hold this

8:08

position so the so I think that the part of the calculation of the ukrainians was there they go they storm into Russia

8:15

Russia have to divert all its troops in towards KK to stop this down instead it

8:21

looks like the Russians are just uh yes taking out the different troops and stabilizing the front lines meanwhile

8:28

taking a huge advant what's happening now in donbas just as one example if you look at BOS now this

8:36

these towns would just keeps falling one after another this noo groa this within

8:41

the three days this is a very strategic area right before poov the Russians took it they didn't even have to usually they

8:47

had to destroy an entire town in order to move forward now they just sent in infantry and uh they they took the town

8:54

almost uh undamaged in in three days it's it's a it's completely absurd if

9:00

you've seen what's happened in the past so they gave up all this well def fortified defensive line in order to go

9:06

on defensive and uh I I can see what they wanted to go for but uh I'm not sure

9:12

how now that it seems this has been a failure is it possible to walk this back

9:17

because they're already in there what do they have to double down on failure or what is the likely uh pushed by the

9:25

ukrainians now joh no no go ahead go ahead no what

9:31

I was going to say was that I I I rather expected that they would pull back I

9:37

thought that you know that they they tried to go in do something quickly and then pull out again for all the reasons

9:44

that John and you Glenn have been saying and I know there were other people who thought this as well and by the way on

9:51

the point about fortifications I'm in contact with the marine officer uh former Marine officer

9:57

Jim Webb he's been writing since the summer what the ukrainians need to do is

10:02

to build up more fortified positions embed themselves in fortified

10:07

lines give up the idea of offensives um think in this very conservative way but

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he also by the way says they also need to start serious

10:17

negotiations I think that's right but the ukrainians don't do this and I think

10:24

what is probably driving this and it probably explains why the ukrainians cannot leave

10:31

kosk now that they are there is that far too much of the way they conduct their

10:36

war is about image management and you know appearing to retreat without being

10:42

pushed out is something that they can't bring themselves to do and I still think

10:49

that they find the idea of negotiations real negotiations

10:55

negotiations based on the actual realities impossible to conceed conceive of Prime

11:03

Minister Modi went to Kiev apparently he said to them you know I'm prepared to

11:09

help you if you want to negotiate zalinsky has just given an interview to the Indian media in which

11:16

he says that he wants all of Ukraine's post 1991 territory back so until that

11:22

mindset changes until they finally think in a different way I I think that I

11:28

don't think they're going to retreat from kusk I don't think they're going to pull back I'm beginning to wonder

11:35

whether we're ever going to see any kind of negotiations whilst um the present

11:41

government is in power let me make three quick points one

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is if I'm playing the Russians hand I do not want them to retreat I want them to

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stay there and I want them to take the offensive I want them to stay on the offensive I want them to have a simple

11:59

model one that the French had going into World War I attack attack attack because

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if I'm a Russian Commander that's advantageous to me second point I would

12:10

make is I think all three of us would agree that the ukrainians would have been smart not to launch the infamous

12:18

counter offensive in the summer of 2023 and back then stayed on the defensive as

12:24

well that was foolish in the extreme because again the casual exchange ratio

12:30

drastically favored the Russians and they ended up capturing hardly any territory which is what they were trying

12:37

to do third point is uh a lot of people like to uh compare the kers defensive by

12:45

the ukrainians uh with uh the Battle of the Bulge but I think it's not really the

12:52

best analogy I think the best analogy is Operation Blue which was the German

12:58

offense ensive in World War II against the Soviet Union in 1942 you remember in 1941 the Soviets go

13:06

in with operation Barbarosa and there are three big prongs one that goes toward Leningrad one that goes towards

13:13

Moscow and one that goes into Ukraine uh after that fails in December 41 come the

13:22

second year uh of The Campaign which is 1942 the Germans decide that they're

13:28

going to drive dve deep into the caucuses they're going to take that southern prong concentrate on it and

13:34

drive deep into the caucuses and they do Drive deep into the caucuses winning

13:40

stunning Victory after stunning Victory but what happens is they outrun their

13:46

logistical chain uh and they're un they're unable to supply The Cutting

13:53

Edge forces the forces that are at the shpo furthermore their flanks become

13:58

exposed and this of course is what leads to the Battle of Stalingrad which is on their

14:03

Northern flank so over the course of 1942 early 1943 what the Germans end up doing is

14:12

getting clobbered and being forced to withdraw

14:17

from this huge Salient they had created early in 1942 and the ukrainians are in a similar

14:26

situation they're having huge logistical problems supplying their forces right

14:32

and slowly but steadily the Russians are assembling forces that are going to crush them and they're going to have to

14:38

get out of there in large part because of fear that they'll be crushed by

14:44

lanking attacks so they're in a hopeless situation just like the Germans were in

14:51

1942 it looked initially like a big victory but over time and over time

14:58

really matters when you're analyzing what happens in Warfare over time uh the

15:04

Russians uh are going to deal a decisive blow to those Ukrainian forces in the KK

15:12

region this is why I also criticized what I call the Western obsession with

15:17

territory because this is they keep celebrating all of this as victories but as you said with each new territory

15:24

taken they lose a lot of men and also they get stuck there so now with this huge casualty rates what are they going

15:30

to do with all the new recruits they're able to assemble everything has to be sent in to reinforce and the deeper they

15:37

get into Russia the the worse the situation gets the the less air support they have or less air defense uh which

15:44

means yeah they can be pummeled the logistic lines become worse and worse and it feels like all the benefits uh

15:51

aren't really there of course one of the objectives was to contribute to pull in NATO indeed seninsky kept kept making

15:57

this argument that look we can invade Russia they're not doing anything uh you know all red lines are broken so you

16:03

know let us strike Moscow effectively with long range and uh but there's also this idea that they would Panic the

16:09

Russians instead it looks like the Russians are taking it with great ease instead taking advantage of

16:15

this poorly defended front lines in the poov correction also the idea I mean I

16:21

know it's become common sense in the west is humiliation of Putin but I see the opposite now for the Russians this

16:27

used to be a war inter Ving in Ukraine to prevent NATO's incursion and

16:33

protecting Russian speakers but now they defining it as a war of Liberation as

16:39

the ukrainians backed by NATO has invaded their Homeland I mean this is this is uh just it's a terrible

16:47

terrible idea but you can't really say it uh because uh well again everything

16:53

is if if you say this is bad then you're seen as not you know crushing the moral

16:59

of the ukrainians and you're boosting the morale of the Russians so everyone kind of has to nod and go along that yeah yeah of course you know celebrate

17:06

these metrics of territory being taken even though this doesn't seem to be the best way of measuring

17:12

success if I can just jump in and make a a quick point on territory and Link it

17:17

to the casualty exchange ratio one of the criticisms of people in the west who

17:23

focus on territory is that the Russians have not captured all together that much

17:30

territory and I think there's an element of Truth in that but the reason that is

17:35

true is that the Russians are remarkably careful in terms of the tactics they use

17:42

to make sure that they minimize Russian casualties so you know you hear all this

17:48

talk not as much as you used to but you still hear it occasionally where the Russians are sending wave after wave of

17:56

untrained soldiers into this meat grinder and therefore the Russians are suffering

18:01

enormous casualties especially when compared to the Ukrainian if you look at Russian casualties you look at the

18:08

various indicators that's simply not true and the reason it's not true is that the tactics they are employing are

18:15

very clever tactics that are designed not to maximize the amount of territory

18:20

they capture but are designed to minimize the number of Russian casualties so the Russian casualties

18:27

remain quite low as Wars of attrition go whereas the Ukrainian casualties are through the

18:34

roof uh I don't know what the final count is going to look like but I would

18:39

not be surprised if when all is said and done in this war that the ukrainians

18:45

have suffered three times as many casualties as the Russians have I'm not saying that's for sure because as both

18:52

of you know as well as I do it's really tough to come up with solid numbers but my guess is that the ukrainians are just

18:59

suffering much more uh than the Russians much suffering much greater casualties

19:05

and of course this has a lot to do with the imbalance and artillery and air power as well I don't want to make light

19:10

of that but I also think it has a lot to do with the fact that the Russians are not obsessed with taking territory they

19:17

understand it's a war of attrition and what they're doing is minimizing their casualties and maximizing Ukrainian

19:24

casualties I think you can see that visibly on the battlefronts now thir um

19:30

so many of the best Ukrainian troops have been attrition out of the picture I

19:35

mean they've been killed or they're wounded or whatever reason they're no

19:40

longer there and the people who are replacing them are not The Replacements

19:46

that they were and that by the way we're reading in the American the British

19:51

media there's articles about this now that Ukrainian um numbers are of of men

19:58

that they can put put in the front lines are down and that their um the quality

20:06

of their soldiers is declining and that's the product of attrition which is

20:11

not affecting the Russians at all in the same way now what has to happen before

20:20

people in the west understand this because this is what I find so strange because we have this situation repeat

20:27

itself time after time when um we can see that the ukrainians suffer this

20:33

terrible attrition and there doesn't seem to be any

20:39

capacity on the part of some people in the west quite important people Western

20:45

governments our British government we've had quite a lot of Revelations about what is being discussed in London it

20:53

seems that in London the new prime minister and his officials were related

21:00

by these events in K they don't seem to understand at all that territory is not

21:07

really the issue in the war at least in the way that they imagined they on the

21:13

contrary went out of their way to try and Associate themselves with this

21:19

Ukrainian success what has to happen before they

21:24

suddenly understand that this is an attrition warule and not war in which

21:30

you know the the advantage is um you know provided the metric of success is

21:37

territory do we have to see a total Ukrainian defeat do we have to see hundreds of thousands of people killed I

21:45

mean will when will the penny drop does the Pentagon understand that I would

21:50

have thought that they would least would just asking I think Alexander as long as it's

21:57

the Ukrainian who are doing the dying dying and not westerners uh we are we in the west are

22:05

are willing to continue this war forever I think what's going to end it is one of

22:11

two things either the Ukrainian military is collapse uh which is a serious

22:17

possibility as we've discussed before on this show it's not likely or for certain

22:23

but it's a serious possibility uh that's one possible way

22:28

of ending this war and the other is that the ukrainians come to the realization there's no way they can win this and if

22:35

they do continue it the situation is just going to deteriorate again this is an argument the three of us have been

22:41

making for a long long time and it is possible uh that the ukrainians will

22:47

realize the power of the logic behind this argument and try to work out a deal

22:53

uh and uh but I think absent those two possibilities it's just hard to see how

22:59

this one is shut down uh anytime soon I think this is a this expectation

23:08

and excitement about territor is also quite harmful because you know I made also point before that selinski is often

23:15

criticized for you know what's often well defined as PR stunts but one also

23:20

has to keep in mind that these PR stunts are necessary for him in order to put uh Ukraine back in the headlines and to

23:26

make the West excited and send more w weapons because you know we were all talking about how Ukraine was losing and

23:32

people kind of lost interest in it and suddenly now it's top of the news Ukraine is winning again we're excited

23:38

we're going to send weapons and of course all it's all nonsense it's going to end up much much worse but uh but

23:44

this is kind of the game they have to play as well because of the way we in the west are responding to this and I

23:50

think U it seems to me that uh a key problem is again how we Define this uh

23:56

as I mentioned before you said even the pro ukrainians are now getting very worried but from my perspective what has

24:02

been Pro Ukrainian uh as as you also said M for more than 10 years is uh that

24:09

they shouldn't go down this path they don't invite NATO on your territory this is not pro-ukrainian this is Will assure

24:15

the destruction of Ukraine and the same with this uh you know shutting down their media political opposition and now

24:21

Banning the church Orthodox Church is this is causing deep divisions in Ukrainian Society is making it more

24:27

difficult now to defend them themselves and maintain solidarity and same with the peace agreements this is also people

24:34

who said no we should make peace with the Russians otherwise we're going to end up with a worse deal this was seem to be Pro Russian and now the pro

24:40

ukrainians were the one who essentially said no no let's not Implement them let's choose war or the the counter

24:47

offensive this was also you know if you criticized it then you were anti-ukrainian it just seems for me that

24:53

uh it doesn't matter what the outcome is it's always just if you say um that you

24:59

that you well push for this counter fensive or now invasion of K it just

25:05

shows that you taken one side instead of the Russian side it seems like whatever might be preferred by the Russians uh is

25:12

immediately seen as being anti-ukrainian but I think over and over again we keep seeing quite opposite that all this um

25:19

so-called Pro Ukrainian positions ends up just devastating the country imagine

25:25

if you know we wouldn't have toppled the government or any of this terrible decisions but nonetheless everything

25:31

horrible to Ukraine is always positioned as being pro a pro Ukrainian policy simply because Russia might benefit the

25:38

irony is of course if you threaten Russia Ukraine will definitely not benefit and um

25:44

yeah you know just to pick up on this uh it's interesting if you look at the

25:51

Israeli case and the Ukrainian case here are two countries that are in deep

25:56

trouble I know we're going to discuss the is issue shortly but Israel is in deep trouble and what it's doing is

26:03

doubling down which is not what it should be doing it should be thinking about how to get out of the mess that

26:09

it's in but it's not just making a bad situation worse and the same thing is true with the ukrainians and in both

26:16

cases you have the west and here we're talking mainly about the United States although not exclusively because the

26:22

British and the Germans are joined at the hip with the United States in both of these instances but anyway we in the

26:30

west are backing the Israelis as they dig deeper and deeper and we are backing

26:36

the ukrainians as they dig deeper and deeper and you really sort of wonder

26:42

about the collective wisdom of the foreign policy establishment in the west especially in the United States from my

26:49

point of view what are these people thinking it just seems to me that anybody who looks at these conflicts in

26:55

a cold and calculating way which is the way that we we do it's kind of hard to avoid the conclusions that we're

27:02

reaching I don't mean to sound like I'm patting the three of us on the back but

27:07

I just sometimes scratch my head and say I listen to this Western propaganda

27:13

about both Israel and about Ukraine what are these people thinking the facts on the ground bear a little resemblance to

27:20

the story that they're telling well I think this is absolutely correct you don't need to be a genius to

27:26

see that Ukraine is losing the war it's it's obvious I what is this

27:32

operation in kusk actually achieved so far it's captured one small town of

27:37

5,000 people and a couple of villages you know a large number of very little

27:42

villages in a forested and thinly populated area and it's costing Ukraine

27:48

thousands of men and in the meantime exactly as Glenn said all they mo places like pakros a major logistical place a

27:56

big Industrial Center all of that is about to be lost this it doesn't need

28:03

you to be an analyst of any great ability to see that

28:09

but you never see it discussed in that way it it's it's always discussed in

28:15

this incredibly emotional terms at least certainly in Britain it is invocations

28:21

of Churchill talk about appeasement not appeasing the dictator it's always

28:28

discussed in terms of political will you know if we have the will to give the support to Ukraine that Ukraine needs

28:35

whatever that support is there's never any discussion I noticed ever about

28:41

actual material possibilities what number of weapons or what number of

28:47

amount of money or what it would be needed to do to turn this thing round it's never talked about in that way it's

28:53

always about Will and emotion it's never about the kind of Anis that well I think

29:01

in our own different ways each of us tries to do yeah when I uh was younger uh and

29:10

began my PhD work and then my early career as an academic uh I wrote about

29:15

conventional deterrence and I studied the conventional balance in Europe uh I studied the Israeli Wars very carefully

29:23

56 6773 uh and I study World War I and

29:29

World War II I know an enormous amount about how those Wars uh were fought and

29:35

of course I was in the American Military during the Vietnam war so I paid great attention to the question of how the

29:41

United States uh might be able to win or maybe can't win that war and so forth

29:47

and so on and the one thing I learned in all those studies is that you have to

29:52

have a theory of Victory you have to have a story that tells how you're going to win and and you have to be able to

29:59

figure out what are the things that really matter on the battlefield that determine whether side a wins or side B

30:07

winds and if you look at the analysis that's done in the west and this

30:13

includes by these generals who were on television as well as all of these

30:19

civilian military experts uh who are trotted out to tell

30:25

us what is likely to happen as a result of X Y and Z on these battlefields most of them do not have a

30:32

good understanding of how Wars are actually fought and most of them do not have a theory of Victory uh for winning

30:40

uh Wars of one sort or another and I think this this lack of depth uh uh this

30:48

inability to sort of analyze Wars in a really sort of sophisticated or semi

30:54

sophisticated way is really quite stunning and the end result is you have

30:59

these generals who are trotted out as you know great Sears of the future who

31:06

end up with egg all over their face I mean David Petraeus talking about the counter offensive and where it's going

31:12

to lead even when the counter fensive was clearly doomed he was predicting Victory and you just sort of say to

31:19

yourself what's this guy thinking where are we here but that's the story in the

31:24

west and that's why uh most people in the west think about these different

31:30

Wars so differently than we do I think it's I mention the doctor I thought

31:36

about my own PhD because I did a PhD on the post Cold War European security architecture organized around the EU and

31:43

NATO as inter Democratic security institutions and I thought it was also interesting because I I looked at it from the extent to which it either um

31:51

reduced or intensify the security Dilemma to cut effectively Russia out of the new Europe as long as it's organized

31:57

run this so Democratic institutions and and I found it interesting because if you look at security dilemma again the

32:02

security competition should really be the Point of Departure in any discussion of security that is but uh I I noticed

32:09

very quickly when I went to any conferences or anything to discuss the security dilemma everyone was quite

32:15

comfortable discussing how Russia undermines our security but as soon as you pointed out how we might undermine

32:21

their security it was almost as if it was trees like why why are you taking their side and for me it was a bit

32:27

shocking because if you can't discuss the security concern of the other guy how is it possible to find any political

32:35

Solutions and it kind of dawned on me this is effect essentially the world we're living now we're not discussing

32:40

political Solutions and I can't remember ever opening any newspaper watching a TV program where they actually discuss well

32:46

this is what the Russians are worried about this is how their security policy addresses this concern now how can we

32:52

increase our Security based on what they were never we never indeed the whole concept of recognizing Russian

32:59

legitimate security concern is some kind of an appeasement and this is interpreted as being loyal to our side

33:05

instead of taking their side but the great irony is we we can't enhance our own security if we don't recognize that

33:12

we also then can't always increase our security at the expense of theirs and that's why I thought it was interesting

33:18

you drew both you drew this link to Israel because it's the same there I mean if you care about Israel it's Al

33:24

always translated into if Pro pro-israeli means you make excuses for the war they fighting in Gaza and you

33:31

want to delegitimize the other sides or the Palestinians Hezbollah Iran but this is the opposite of what should should

33:37

have been doing because we're putting them on a path to Suicide it seems uh you know we should be looking at the

33:43

legitimate security concerns they have not everything but the legitimate ones and address it to again reduce the

33:50

security competition and but we're doing none of this instead it's always if you're Pro Ukrainian just do anything

33:56

that's anti-russian and if you're pro Israel just push hard and ignore the the

34:01

rivals for me it seems like a yeah Coalition course and uh yeah on that

34:07

topic I guess to what extent are we Alexander and John on a coalition course

34:13

now because uh many people are breathing out that you know the Israelis and Hezbollah and all has taking a step back

34:20

but uh are are they really or taking a pause where are we standing here uh I'm

34:25

just going to express my my own quick I I was listening to prime minister Netanyahu when he came to the United

34:32

States and he addressed Congress and my own view I mean I've been listening to

34:37

Netanyahu for a long time much of what he said was not new but I got the sense

34:43

that he very very much is looking to escalate and to have a wider war and I

34:49

think everything that he's done since that speech the assassination of Han in tan the uh uh sabotage ing of every

34:58

attempt to achieve a peace a ceasefire in Gaza his rhetoric against Iran his

35:05

previous attack on the embassy in Damascus um the latest events that we've

35:10

seen over the last couple of days all of that tells me that he wants a war he wants escalation and and we don't seem

35:18

to be doing anything at all to tell him stop on the contrary when we and by the

35:25

way in this I include the British we're absolutely full fully engaged in this

35:30

whenever it comes to telling people we need es we need moderation we need

35:36

restraint it's the Iranians we address it to even though recently maybe not

35:43

always but in the last couple of months ever since the events last October it's

35:49

the Iranians who've been exercising restraint so we ask for more restraint from the party that's exercising

35:56

restraint and and we never ask the same from the side that isn't that's how it

36:02

looks to me so given that this is the situation I cannot see how it can end in

36:08

any other way than in a smash now I'll be interested to hear what uh Professor

36:13

M has to say just before I uh talk specifically

36:19

about uh the Middle East uh I would note that both

36:25

zinski and net who were trying to drag the war drag the United States into

36:32

their Wars and in both cases the United States wants to stay out but yahu is not acting all that

36:42

differently from ziny and one could argue that reason zalinski invaded Ukraine one of the reasons was to uh

36:50

cause the Russians to retaliate in a way that would the Americans in so the

36:56

United States has to be very careful that it doesn't get dragged into either one of those Wars now I agree with

37:01

Alexander but just to embellish his point a bit uh and talk a bit about what

37:08

netanyahu's uh nitty-gritty incentives are uh first of all I think he wants to

37:14

drag us into a war with Ukraine with Iran so that we bash Iran Iran is

37:21

weakened and I think he's especially hopeful that we destroy its nuclear capabilities because as as you both know

37:28

the Ukraine the Iranians are not far away uh from becoming a nuclear weapon state because they've been enriching uh

37:36

Uranian up to 60% uh that's one reason another reason is he wants the war to continue he

37:42

doesn't want the war to end uh because he fears that if it ends he'll be

37:48

toppled from Power third reason and a very important reason he's bent on ethnically cleansing Gaza and he'd like

37:55

to ethnically cleanse the West Bank as well and the Israelis know that the best opportunity for cleansing comes with a

38:01

big war you want to remember that two big cleansings that have taken place so far with the Noca in

38:08

1948 uh where the Israelis in the context of that war drove probably about

38:14

three4 of a million Palestinians out of the country and then the second big expulsion was in the wake of the 1967

38:22

war when they probably drove about 250,000 Palestinians out of the West

38:28

Bank so I think their belief is that if they can get a uh a big war going that

38:35

will provide the perfect opportunity uh to ethnically cleanse Gaza and maybe even ethnically cleanse some of the West

38:43

Bank uh so for all those reasons I think uh Netanyahu really wants to get the

38:49

Americans involved the Americans of course are going to Great Lengths not to get involved we're doing everything we

38:54

can to tell the Iranians not to retaliate uh we didn't want he bot to

39:00

retaliate and uh and we're doing everything we can I shouldn't say that that's

39:06

incorrect we're trying Without Really Trying to put a a ceasefire in place in

39:14

Gaza but uh but I think Alexander may be right uh with regard to uh uh the Middle

39:22

East that uh a big conflict is coming and that despite the best efforts of the

39:27

United States uh there's nothing we can do about it I would note uh Alexander I

39:32

know you've talked about this the U uh the Iranians have not retaliated yet but

39:39

if you listen to them talk it's hard to believe they're not going to retaliate at some point and my sense there for

39:47

what it's worth is the Iranians are waiting till the Americans draw down

39:53

their forces in the region and we in effect let down air guard and the Israelis do the same thing

40:01

and then they'll strike but if the Iranian strike and again they indicate

40:08

that they are going to strike and it is a significant strike the Israelis are really going to go back at them and

40:16

furthermore when the Iranians do strike we the Americans and even the Europeans

40:21

the British and the French are committed to helping the Israeli so we were going

40:26

to get we are going to get dragged into the conflict so we may have this uh you

40:32

know big conflict that the United States is actually trying to

40:38

avoid I I I I completely agree and by the way on the question of being dragged in uh Israel is not just trying to drag

40:45

in the United States it's trying to drag in the Europeans as well there was a

40:51

it's not been widely reported but the Israeli foreign minister Mr Katz had a meeting with the British and French

40:57

Foreign ministers and he said if Iran attacks um Israel and Israel needs to

41:04

conduct a Counterattack against Iran well you know it's been told it's it's

41:11

been promised in effect by the British and the French that they'll be there with Israel now that almost certainly

41:17

was not true I'm sure that the British and the French made no such promise at

41:23

that meeting and in fact when the actual event Cal readout was provided by the

41:29

Israeli foreign Ministry it it sort of toned all that down but apparently those

41:35

words were in fact said so you can see what's happening the the Israelis are trying to get as many people they're

41:41

trying to create in effect an International Coalition around themselves to fight Iran I don't think

41:48

they're going to get it I don't think the British public for example is in any mood to get itself drawn into a war with

41:55

Iran or with Russia for that matter by the way but um I sense myself that

42:02

Netanyahu wants his war and I think he's going to get it at some point I don't know how it's going to play out but or

42:09

how the steps that are going to get this there but I think that's probably where he's taking

42:15

us and by the way just to say your suggestion of why the Iranians are waiting I think that's

42:22

a probably almost certainly right I I would I I I I never thought of it before

42:29

but I think that's exactly the kind of waiting game that they like to play and I think you probably hit the net on the

42:36

head on that yeah but you know just to take this a step further uh the question I would

42:43

ask you two guys is how does Israel win any of these

42:49

conflicts I mean if you look at what happened with Hamas in Gaza it's hard to

42:55

argue the Israelis won uh certainly given the goals that they had which were to destroy uh Hamas and

43:03

uh eliminate any sort of meaningful military threat from Gaza they didn't succeed and even if you look at the

43:10

recent exchange between Hezbollah and Israel H how is that a military victory

43:16

for Israel how does that solve their problem esbah still standing Hezbollah

43:23

by the way did not use any of its ballistic Miss missiles to attack Israel

43:29

so it has this huge inventory of ballistic missiles and still drones and

43:34

Rockets and so forth and so on the threat is still there they're still going to continue to be firing each at

43:41

each other Israel doesn't have escalation dominance all of those people who have been displaced from the

43:47

northern border of Israel into the center of the country still can't get go

43:53

back to their homes so how did what happen yesterday a uh represent how does

44:00

that represent a victory I I just don't understand and if you go to war against

44:05

Iran tell me the story as to how that leads to Victory does anybody seriously

44:11

think that the United States and Israel pounding Iran is going to produce a military victory for Israel that it's

44:18

going to put an end to the Iran Israel conflict hard for me to see uh so I mean

44:25

the Israelis are you know doubling down they're using military force uh as much as ever but what is it buying

44:33

them that's been a general problem over the past 30 years whenever we go to war

44:38

we never Define Victory the which is also implicitly the the exit strategy

44:44

but uh I I think for the Israelis the only Victory is if they if you if you

44:50

eliminate the possible diplomatic solution of a Palestinian State it's either uh a part or ethnic cleansing and

44:59

I think of of gasa primarily now it's still maybe achievable if you

45:06

have a major war but um I think if you look at what Netanyahu wants in any

45:12

ceasefire agreement not that necessarily it's not being genuine but there always uh some kind of control over Gaza so

45:19

some way of I know putting it under their control so I'm not sure how they

45:24

would realistically achieve this and escalating now with Hezbollah I don't see any possible Pathway to Victory and

45:33

but this has become a common feature the same as when we've been fighting Russia for two and a half years and no one

45:39

actually defined what it would mean to defeat the world's largest nuclear power uh you know at what point would NATO

45:46

March through Crimea without triggering a nuclear war so I think it's across the

45:52

board it's just uh yeah this is the key problem we never Define uh our victories and uh I just want to have a quick

45:58

comment on what you mentioned before this pulling in NATO and the us because I think this is a key problem with the

46:04

whole Alliance system in for about eight years ago John Herz he wrote that

46:09

Alliance systems replace the right to make war with the responsibility to do so and uh you know this is why

46:16

ukrainians have an incentive to escalate because they can pull in NATO this is why the Israelis have an incentive to escalate because they pull in the

46:23

Americans so why would you do any dipl painful diplomatic Solutions if you always have that powerful state in the

46:30

back so you're willing to take these huge compromises now compromise risks sorry and this has been a problem not

46:35

just with Ukraine look at the Baltic states they there's one reason why they never made any you know peace with

46:41

Russia they continued this beligerant policies because they have United States and nato in their back without this of

46:47

course they would have to try to at least uh overcome some of the Soviet

46:52

Legacy and find a way of living next to each other but you don't have to when you have this you know big uh powerful

46:59

Army behind you so I think this is the we're always celebrating Alliance systems for you know only protecting and

47:05

defending but it's also preventing anyone from making any compromises uh so

47:10

I think this has been the problem of Israel not just now but over the past decades why would it ever have to make any painful compromises with the

47:17

Palestinians it doesn't have to it can always have the option of getting everything I think so um yeah again I

47:24

don't think this is in their necessarily in their interest the to discourage them from making any

47:31

compromises just a quick point on that Glen is both of you know Steve Walt and I wrote this uh famous book called The

47:39

Israel Lobby and US foreign policy and the argument we made in the book was we

47:45

have this powerful Lobby in the United States the Israel Lobby uh that has a

47:50

huge influence on American policy toward the Middle East and especially towards Israel and especially towards the

47:56

Israeli Palestinian conflict and the end result is that the United States

48:02

supports Israel unconditionally and in the book and in our public presentations we have always

48:09

argued that the lobby is not good for the United States that the policies that

48:14

it's pushing are not good for American Security but we have also argued

48:20

emphatically that the policies that the lobby is pushing which is to support

48:25

Israel unconditionally are not good for Israel so when you look at American

48:31

policy towards Israel it is important to understand that there are many policy makers over time presidents in

48:38

particular who have wanted to put significant pressure on Israel not to do foolish things that were not only not

48:45

good for the United States but not good for Israel itself but those presidents

48:50

could not put any pressure on Israel of any consequence in large part because of

48:56

the law because the lobby demands that the United States support Israel

49:01

unconditionally so here's a country Israel that is really in deep trouble it

49:06

is in deep trouble and it is digging deeper and deeper and what is the lobby

49:12

doing here in the United States and by the way there's a Lobby in Britain and lobbies all across Europe as well uh

49:19

which is one of the reasons all these governments support Israel no matter what it does what all these lobbies are

49:26

doing right is they're helping Israel dig that hole at a more rapid rate and

49:33

get deeper and deeper into the ground this is not smart those lobbyist those

49:38

so-called supporters of Israel right or to think long and hard about what's

49:44

going on here and Glenn this gets back to your point about Ukraine People Like

49:49

Us are pro portrayed as being anti-ukrainian and all of these

49:55

supporters of endless war in Ukraine are supposed to be the great Defenders of Ukraine your point which I agree with

50:02

and I'm sure Alexander agrees with is that this is completely backwards and all these cheerleaders for Ukraine are

50:09

leading it down the Primrose path I'm making the same argument with regard to

50:14

Israel right if Israel's supporters were hard-headed strategists and were forced

50:21

to think clearly about the policies they're pushing they would say that is

50:27

not in Israel's interest to continue digging deeper and deeper anymore than

50:33

it's in Ukraine's interest but the problem is that people like us just don't have much voice in the existing

50:40

system I think this is absolutely correct all my lifetime I hear about how

50:45

Israel is winning except of course it never wins I mean it's it's it's always

50:51

a process of winning you win every tactical battle but at the end of the at

50:56

the end end of it the end of the day you find yourself in a far worse situation

51:01

than you would have been in if you had been prepared at some point to compromise they've had ample

51:07

opportunities to do that in 67 in the various negotiations that took place in

51:14

the 1970s at the Geneva conference I remember which has been floated for the

51:19

1970s after Camp David agreements but they never do it because they never

51:25

really feel that they have that pressure on them that need to negotiate which is what Glenn was talking about they can

51:32

always hold out for whatever maximalist objective that they have and in the end

51:38

it's where where where it's brought them to is the position in which they are now

51:43

where they've got an unwinable war in Gaza which they don't know how to end and they don't want to end where their

51:51

economy is in a very poor State it's declining their credit rating is

51:56

declining their army is exhausted there's arguments between the Prime Minister and his generals with reports

52:03

in the financial times saying that the prime minister is C calling the generals

52:09

cowards which is incredible but that's you know the financial times that's saying that and they're drifting into a

52:17

conflict with Iran a very big country potentially a very powerful one again I

52:24

can't understand what victory uh Victory there uh would be but nobody is making

52:32

these points in that in the way that you've just made them John nobody's doing that everybody looks at this

52:38

purely in very tactical terms you know can we conduct a successful air strike

52:44

on Iran on as if that ultimately achieves anything all it's going to do

52:51

is to make the situation worse and um I I don't know what

52:57

has to happen before it changes I think in Ukraine where there is a

53:04

major you know preponderance of power on the Russian side and they can at least

53:11

at some point bring the war to an end on some kind of basis that works for them I

53:17

think we can perhaps see a possible what we can look forward one day to a day

53:22

when there won't be a war there but in the Middle East I have to say I I look upon events with Dread and I think for

53:30

Israel it's now an existential situation I think that they're in a more dangerous

53:36

position now than they have ever been in their history all this winning where has it brought

53:41

them yeah just two quick points one is that the political center of gravity in

53:47

Israel Over time will move further and further to the right uh if you just look

53:53

at the demographics uh and uh you see um that the more extreme groups are having

54:00

large numbers of babies uh and furthermore I think with the passage of time more and more secular Israelis will

54:06

leave and go to Europe or the United States uh given what's happening inside Israel so I don't think there's much

54:13

hope uh that Israel will come to its senses I think the bavers and the

54:18

smotes are the way of the future U that's point one point two is I just

54:24

wanted to talk a little bit about how Israel's military situation has changed

54:29

over time as I told you uh when I was young and studying conventional Wars uh

54:36

I studied the Israeli cases I mentioned the 5667 and 73 Wars I also of course

54:41

studied the 48 War and the 82 invasion of Lebanon and in those days the

54:48

Israelis fought Wars against other countries and the wars mainly involved

54:54

engagements on the battlefield but the threat environment that Israel

55:00

faces is fundamentally different today it's not a conventional war with Egypt or a conventional war with Syria like it

55:07

was in the old days now the problem is they're facing these adversaries who are

55:13

armed to the teeth with missiles rockets and cruise missiles and they have no way

55:18

of dealing with that threat it's really quite amazing I mean Hamas is not a

55:24

regular army by any means right Hezbollah Hezbollah is not a

55:30

country Hezbollah is not Lebanon it's an important element of the political equation in Lebanon for sure but

55:37

Hezbollah you know is a political organization embedded inside of Lebanon

55:43

that has all of these missiles Rockets mortars and so forth and so on and even

55:48

some ground capability and it just creates all sorts of problems for Israel

55:54

and now they're beginning to face problems with the houthis because the houthis are getting the capability to

56:00

hit Israel with missiles and with drones and this capability will only grow with

56:06

time so if you look at what happened yesterday with Lebanon and Israel there

56:11

was no way that Israel could win the war against Lebanon they can't invade

56:17

Lebanon I mean they could invade Lebanon but it will not have a happy ending which is why they're not seriously

56:23

talking about it and they can't take all of their missiles and Rockets and that

56:29

leaves them vulnerable to these missiles and Rockets and by the way the number of missiles and Rockets that Hezbollah now

56:35

has will grow over time the accuracy of those missiles will grow the yield of

56:42

those missiles will grow the intelligence capabilities of Hezbollah to sort of pinpoint targets that could

56:49

then be programmed into these missiles and Rockets will grow and it's all the way of saying the threat from Hezbollah

56:55

will grow the threat from Hamas um which has been obviously severely hurt will

57:02

grow back and the houthis will come online the Iranians are not going

57:07

anywhere whether they bomb them or not so the Israelis are in this really

57:12

dangerous threat environment that is complete it's completely different I I think it's fair to say it's completely

57:19

different than the threat environment that they faced in the early years and

57:24

which they could quite easily handled they they did not have much trouble as

57:30

you all know winning the 56 67 and even the 73 War where they initially got

57:35

caught with their pants down right they had a formidable conventional military force that was good at winning those

57:41

Wars but that threat environment has changed and they have no way of winning

57:47

these wars I lost I guess a question for me

57:52

though is in terms of it looks like these two big Wars uh can merge to some extent because a key concern for me in

57:59

terms of uh the West joining in or coming to the aid of Israel and larger

58:05

Regional War be something that includes the huis Hezbollah or Palestinians or

58:10

against Iran uh is that uh the Russians and Chinese they look like very likely

58:18

at least the CH the Russians would to some extent come to the aid uh simply

58:23

because we kind of changed the rules of proxy wars as we're now you know

58:29

assisting with the invasion of Russian territory something that was Unthinkable before now obviously one of the ways

58:34

that Russians are seeking to retaliate without triggering uh nuclear exchange or third world war is by by yes we've

58:42

talked about supplying more weapons to anyone who opposed the West now it seems to me if the West wants to get involved

58:49

in a wider Regional war in the Middle East Russia suddenly has a lot of targets to pick in terms of supplying

58:55

intelligence weapons any War planning or any of the things we're engaged in in the war against

59:01

Russia so it it seems dangerous for us

59:06

at this time to start a huge Regional War especially after after we exhausted so much of our own Weaponry to will

59:14

fight Russia so um what do you two see as or predict in terms of

59:20

uh what what would happen if we would actually come to the aid of Israel in a

59:26

wider Regional War would the Russians and the Chinese come in to assist UTIs

59:33

or the Iranians any of the other actors I'll defer to you

59:40

Alexander well I I think I think that there is going to be a major difference from what we saw before because of

59:47

course when the West got to some extent bogged down in Iraq the Russians kept

59:54

away they wanted good relations with the West at that time they were not in a strong position to intervene they didn't

1:00:01

have many Regional friends now everything has changed they have the incentive they have the means and they

1:00:08

have the friends and um I think that from their point of view they probably

1:00:15

would want to intervene but they would want to intervene in a particular way I think they would not want an you know

1:00:21

uncontrolled escalation in the Middle East which could backfire on themselves

1:00:27

I think what the Russians would probably want and what they would try to do in

1:00:32

the Middle East is gain leverage over us and I think that's probably the way they

1:00:38

would think just as they gained leverage over the United States by supplying arms to North Vietnam in the 1960s and were

1:00:47

able to trade that to get concessions in the dayon process and I think with the

1:00:52

Chinese it's the same and strangely enough getting the Chinese and the Russians involved in the Middle East

1:00:59

might actually be a way of creating some kind of mechanism to bring this process

1:01:06

under some kind of control but that's not going to haveen happen very quickly

1:01:13

or very easily um I suspect Mr nanaku will get his war and there'll be a

1:01:19

massive Smash and it'll only be then that we'll see everybody Russians

1:01:25

Chinese Americans all the others working together to pick up the

1:01:30

pieces I agree with that uh I would just note that there's evidence that the Russians are already aiding the Iranians

1:01:38

that they've been sending them air defense systems electronic jamming capabilities and so forth and so on uh

1:01:46

to in effect help them uh Stave off an attack from the Israelis uh so the the link is there uh

1:01:55

my guess is if a conflagration broke out a shooting match broke out between

1:02:02

Iranians on one side and the Israelis and the Americans and the Europeans on the other side uh the Russians would go

1:02:08

to Great Lengths not to get directly involved in the fighting but to do

1:02:13

everything possible to help the Iranians and complicate things uh for uh the

1:02:20

United States uh I think you have a really interesting situation this comment Builds on what we were talking

1:02:26

about before where the Americans the Iranians and I think the Russians don't want a big war in the Middle East it's

1:02:33

the Israelis who really want a big war in the Middle East and uh because the

1:02:39

United States can't put any meaningful pressure on Israel to in effect cool its

1:02:44

Jets and stop this nonsense because of the Israel Lobby uh the Israelis might

1:02:51

very well take us all down this road that we don't want to go down you want

1:02:56

to you want to remember that on April 1st it was the Israelis who killed um a

1:03:02

number of people in the uh Iranian Embassy in Damascus and precipitated the

1:03:09

April 14th attack by Iran against Israel and then the Israeli attack against Iran

1:03:15

on April 19th and then it was again the Israelis who on July 31st killed han han

1:03:23

in uh in Toronto on and have precipitated uh what we think is going

1:03:30

to be uh a major Iranian attack on Israel so you can see the Israelis are

1:03:35

doing everything they can in terms of concrete actions to drag Us in drag the Iranians in and I think they wouldn't

1:03:42

mind if the Russians got involved either uh but all three of these other players

1:03:48

other than the Israelis are interested in avoiding a big war and it'll be

1:03:54

interesting to see just how successful the Israelis are at pulling us all in well that brings me back to my

1:04:01

earlier point that if we really wanted to prevent or avoid Iran striking uh

1:04:07

retaliating against Israel what we really should be doing is reach out to the Iranians and you know say okay we're

1:04:14

going to put restraints on the Israelis if you do the same but instead we see

1:04:19

we're sending letters to the Iranians where we're blaming them for everything uh we're not even condemning the Israeli

1:04:25

attack and and suggesting that everything in the region is there for their fault for supporting terrorism

1:04:31

without any of the context it just we're signaling to the Iranians you have no diplomatic partner we're not going to

1:04:37

constrain them uh so effectively leaving the use of force as the only one again I

1:04:44

see the parallel to Russia in 2021 we kept telling the Russians you're not going to we're going to continue to

1:04:49

build up in Ukraine our military force we're not going to implement Minsk we're not going to give any security

1:04:55

guarantees any you need to feel secure we're just going to continue to mount more and more weapons which could will

1:05:01

probably be used against you to take crimeia be Force if you don't like it you're going to have to use military

1:05:07

force this is effectively the message we're sending them and um yeah I see the

1:05:12

same with Iran now we're not we're not giving them anything and it's it's and

1:05:17

this is always interpreted as being you know tough on them or this is how we're deterring them but deterrence have to be

1:05:23

balanced with something else uh uh by actually accommodating some of their concerns and they do have concerns but

1:05:30

again I I I see what they want to do but they're doing exactly the opposite

1:05:36

so I think one just very quickly Glenn and Alexander one problem uh here uh is

1:05:44

that the irano phobia and the russophobia in the west is so off the

1:05:52

charts that it leads naturally to the dividing the world up into two groups

1:05:58

bad guys good guys and if you divide the world up in bad guys and good guys and

1:06:05

that's how you think about the world it's very hard to be a first class strategist right because you instead are

1:06:12

thinking about the world in terms of right and wrong good and bad and that's

1:06:17

not what you want to do you want to pay really serious attention to what your adversaries legitimate interests are and

1:06:26

take them into account when you fashion a policy but they are incapable of doing

1:06:31

it I think is actually more difficult to do with regard to the Russians because

1:06:37

the Russian russophobia and the Putin phobia is so potent it's also true with

1:06:44

regard to the Iranians uh it's just amazing the extent to which the Iranians

1:06:49

are portrayed as the devil incarnate which makes it impossible for us to have any form of meaningful relations with

1:06:56

Iran and do anything to put uh uh these problems that we have to bed I

1:07:03

completely agree I I I think was it ton once said you know the worst the worst

1:07:09

thing a diplomat can fall into is an excessive Zeal I think we have far far

1:07:14

too much Zeal uh um I think this is what we have and that's the problem it's clouding our judgment and it's making

1:07:21

real diplomacy impossible because um in this kind of app atmosphere this very very heavy atmosphere um you can't

1:07:29

negotiate with the devil incarnate that's impossible it's appeasement and that's the word that's always brought

1:07:36

out appeasement is not a specific event that took place in the 1930s in Europe

1:07:42

it's something that applies all the time everywhere in every place but especially when the Russians and the Iranians are

1:07:49

concerned I I we've discussed this before I have to say I think there has to be a major smash a major Crist

1:07:58

failure um before I think we come to our senses

1:08:04

because I can't see any other way it's going to happen anyway that's me I'm sad to say I

1:08:09

think you're right a good example I think is the incoming um EU foreign policy Chief

1:08:17

kalas she was making the point that you know Putin is a war criminal and we cannot de diplomacy with war criminals

1:08:23

as we're legitimizing it so we cannot talk to them and uh you know also suggesting that you know peace also or

1:08:30

victory has to be breaking up Russia in smaller countries because then there will be better so this is uh yeah the

1:08:37

insane path we're currently on and um yeah criticizing it of course would mean that you're picking the wrong side you

1:08:43

know you're going with evil instead of good so it's a it's a very childish way of looking at International Affairs um

1:08:50

anyways any final words before we wrap this up well I think we will I think we will

1:08:57

see it I I I'm I'm I'm sure we're going to see a big Smash in the Middle East I think the my own view about Ukraine and

1:09:05

I think this is follows what everyone else else has been saying is we've actually now passed the point of no

1:09:12

return in fact I think we could be fairly soon in an end game situation

1:09:17

here and you know that an end of the war might not actually be that far off anymore the end game of course will be

1:09:25

very complicated and very difficult and will present all kinds of other problems but I think that you know the mle East

1:09:34

it's different and that might be the war that we're talking about more than Ukraine next year just

1:09:40

saying I agree I I agree too that's sort of my final word uh just to agree with

1:09:47

Alexander

1:09:53

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