The Iran War has just begun — but already, Iran’s military prowess, and America’s and Israel’s impulsive imperial hubris, is on full display.
While the official White House X account posts video montages featuring video games and Hollywood movies spliced with real footage of their attacks on Iran, the situation on the ground could not be more different than an American propaganda blockbuster.
To pierce the fog of war and offer a concrete analysis of what is taking place across the Middle East, author and former British diplomat Alastair Crooke of the Substack Conflicts Forum joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report.
Iran’s military power has seen the depletion of Israeli defensive interceptor missiles, the destruction of billion-dollar American radar systems and the diligent preparation of the Iranian leadership — Crooke explains these losses of the hegemonic West and their ally in Tel Aviv is what’s shaping the reality of the unfolding war.
“The Iranians say they also have newer missiles, which they will show and unfold at a later stage. They haven’t reached that stage yet, but that is waiting to be used and deployed at the right moment. They’re quite comfortable that they have huge missile stocks that they can continue for a long war,” Crooke tells Hedges.
Crooke also touches on the wider implications this war will have on the region, in particular, the Gulf states that have been subservient to American and Israeli interests and subject to attacks since the war began. “The Gulf used to be known and thought of as a safe place for businessmen, for investors and others and that — AI, holidays, airliners, tourism, et cetera… That’s finished.”
Transcript
Chris Hedges
The ineptitude of Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio is turning the war against Iran into a very lethal version of “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” The excuses for the war and the goals shift by the hour. Is it to take out the nuclear program Trump insisted was obliterated last June? Or is to, as Steve Witkoff says, because Iran is a week away from producing industrial-grade, weapons-usable nuclear material, a claim the Israeli prime minister and proponents of war with Iran have been repeating for three decades. Is it about regime change? Or is it, as Rubio said, being fought because the U.S. had to join Israel, which was determined to attack, to prevent preemptive attacks on U.S. assets.
The U.S. killed the top leaders of Iran, including the Supreme leader, and then killed the second tier of Iranian leaders it said it hoped to negotiate with. “Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” Trump admitted. “And now, we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports.”
Trump demands the Iranian army surrender or “face absolutely guaranteed death.” He says he will order the U.S. Navy to escort tankers and ships through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a move that would line up U.S. ships in what will become an Iranian turkey shoot. Hegseth insists Trump will decide who will rule Iran while our ally in Kuwait shot down three U.S. fighter jets. The U.S. or Israel or both, we don’t know yet, obliterated an elementary school killing 175 schoolgirls.
Over 1,000 Iranian civilians have been killed. Tehran is being pummeled with thousands of bombs. And yet Trump, and his vile counterpart in Israel, claim this is a war of liberation. Meanwhile the CIA, which has spent decades fueling one debacle after another in the Middle East, has embraced arming Kurdish militias to bring down the Iranian regime.
If one thing is clear it is that Trump, and his coterie of misfits and buffoons, have no idea what they are doing. Joining me to discuss the war in Iran and its consequences is Alastair Crooke, a former British diplomat and member of the British negotiating teams. He served for many years in the Middle East working as a security advisor to the EU special envoy to the Middle East, as well as helping lead efforts to set up negotiations and truces between Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian resistance groups with Israel. He was instrumental in establishing the 2002 ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. He is also the author of Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution, which analyzes the ascendancy of Islamic movements in the Middle East.
Well, I don’t know where to begin. I’ll let you begin with this utter fiasco which is rapidly of course spreading throughout the region. Give us, I guess, in your view a kind of overview of where we are and what’s happening.
Alastair Crooke
Well, you listed some of the options for what the war was about just now at the start. But actually, it wasn’t really like that because and we’ve seen it very clearly because it was reported extensively in the Hebrew press, not in the English language press, but in the Hebrew press, which we monitor quite carefully.
When [Benjamin] Netanyahu went at the end of the year, 28th, 29th of December to Mar-a-Lago for his summit with Trump, at that summit, he said some things which were a little bit surprising, but are relevant to today. He said to him, “Listen, the nuclear issue isn’t the issue. I’m not going to tell you they’re a month away from a nuclear weapon. No, actually, what I’m going to tell you is you’ve got to change the priorities. The first priority is the Iranian missile system. We have to destroy that because what is happening is the system is becoming much more sophisticated. It is not just that after the June war, they replaced it. They have created a completely new defense paradigm in the interim and it has several layers to it. And I’m telling you that if you do not destroy the missile system, even if Iran got a nuclear weapon, or we knew that it was going to move to nuclear weapon, we could know nothing about it because we wouldn’t be able to penetrate that umbrella.”
And he said, “So this is what you have to do.” And Trump agreed at that point, gave the green light for an attack on Iran. This is reported in various Hebrew accounts of this meeting that took place that he agreed to do an attack. And even the date was more or less set. In fact, the date changed a little bit, but it was set for a certain week as we’ve seen at this time.
And Netanyahu also in these accounts was very clear in saying, very clear in saying to Trump, “Listen, you have to do this. And furthermore, if you try and do a nuclear agreement, if you try and come up with some nuclear way through, look, I’m the one who gives this a kosher certificate.” He used those words, “kosher certificate.”
“You’re not going to get a kosher certificate for a nuclear agreement anyway. And, you know that the right wing in America will take their lead from me. No certificate. You will be seen to fail. And what’s more, if you don’t do it still, we will do the first attack and let’s see you not join us. Of course you have no choice. You have to join us.”
So really, in some respects, you could say that Trump had no option. He was not given an option but to attack Iran. And then the actual pretext, the peg to hang it on has changed several times since that time. The nuclear issue or weapons searching around for, if you like, pretext to really hide the fact that this was compelled on him by Netanyahu.
Chris Hedges
Which is what Rubio admitted.
Alastair Crooke
Which is what Rubio admitted. I mean, the compulsion was probably somewhat greater than just that. And maybe, you know, he was told very clearly he had no choice.
Chris Hedges
Let’s talk about the missiles. What kinds of missiles are these Iranian-made missiles? Are these Chinese missiles? You talked about an upgrade. Explain what that upgrade was. Also, explain what’s happening now because they’re sending fleets of drones. My supposition is they’re not sending their most sophisticated weaponry, one would expect, so that they can deplete the interceptors.
Alastair Crooke
That’s absolutely, you’re absolutely correct. In fact, what they’re using is the missile inventory from 2012, 2013 at the moment. Very old missiles and simple drones and their purpose is to deplete or to force Israel and the Gulf States to deplete their intercept capacities, which they are doing.
And what we see now is that the Gulf ability to intercept even drones is almost zero. I think Qatar still has some intercept capabilities in the Al Udeid American base there. But otherwise, they are flying freely. Iranian drones are flying freely over Doha and Dubai and they are attacking bases right across the Gulf, particularly in Bahrain. It’s very focused on Bahrain, which houses, it hosts the 5th Fleet, the port, but it hosts an array of intelligence and other areas. So they’ve used these drones and missiles to take out the eyes of the United States.
So they have destroyed these very expensive radar capabilities. About four or five of them, sometimes they cost more than a billion dollars each, but all of these are being systematically destroyed. The only radar capability probably is in Israel at this moment, but the Gulf has lost all its radar capabilities. They weren’t Gulf, these were big radars that could see 500 miles. They were part of the most sophisticated element of the American, if you like, ability to project a battlescape digitally and through their satellites and through their radar systems in a joint approach.
So that was what they were using those drones for to begin with. And they’d said and they’d warned, although it seems to have taken the West by surprise, but Iran was very explicit and said the first focus will be on American bases in the Gulf, in the Persian Gulf. And subsequently they have started and they’ve been moving carefully, still using mainly older missiles.
These ones from made that were made 20 years ago, some of them 2012, 2013 using these older missiles. But now they’ve just moved to the later ones and the later ones are devastating. I’m talking about the Khorramshahr-4, for example, which is a hypersonic missile. It flies at Mach 14. It has multiple submunition warheads in it, which are steerable and like it’s a multiple arrival of 80 of these small, if you like, warheads.
But each of these has a warhead of about nearly 20 kilos. So they’re not huge bombs, but they’re really significant. But if you have 80 of these arriving together, they come more or less bunched, but they come bunched within, say, a radius of about 15 to 16 kilometers total, so wide area. And it’s like being shelled, artillery shelled, by 80 guns at the same time. So it’s very, it’s devastating. And the Israelis, it seems, from all the evidence we see that they cannot down missiles that are traveling at a speed above Mach 4.
So they are not being able to destroy those. They can take down some of the slower missiles, but those slower missiles were fired precisely to draw on the intervening, the ability to fire intervention missiles to try and bring down those.
It’s also very evident that Israel is now using those in prodigious quantities. You can see from some of the videos that have gotten through the censorship that as the Iranian missiles come in, Israel is firing perhaps eight, 10, 12 intercept missiles to try and bring it down. That cannot go on for very long.
Their stocks of these intercept missiles was low after the Twelve-Day War in June. It hasn’t been fully restored because America doesn’t have many of these intercept missiles. And so there will come a time when they will run out. And this is why you see now Iran using fewer missiles, because they say we don’t have to use more because we fire one missile now and it takes down what remains of the intercept capacity of Israel.
So that is why that is what the missiles are. And the Iranians say they also have newer missiles, which they will show and unfold at a later stage. They haven’t reached that stage yet, but that is waiting to be used and deployed at the right moment. They’re quite comfortable that they have huge missile stocks that they can continue for a long war.
Chris Hedges
Let me ask, what about the consequences of taking out those radar stations? What does that mean in terms of deterrence capacity on the part of Israel and the United States?
Alastair Crooke
It’s enormously important because these radars and the satellites are interconnected. This is what in the Ukrainian context is known as the ISR (Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance). This was the deciding factor of NATO’s support for Ukraine, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, which took the data from radars, the data from AEW&C (airborne early warning and control), whatever it was flying, put it together and created, if you like, a virtual battle map.
And that could be fed directly into a pilot. He didn’t even have to see the enemy plane or the missile defense on the ground. They didn’t even have to see it. They just get the data coming in securely and then they can attack. Well, now it was in the, if you like, Iran context, in the Ukraine context, this was the sort of the prize. You always hear, yes, when it comes to firing missiles into Russia, well, that comes from the American data and it’s highly classified.
So it has to be done by the Americans because this is the battlescape map that is being provided, the precise targeting and the adjustments to it being provided to the Ukrainians. Well, now what’s happened is that it seems that some states have now provided Iran with the same ISR capabilities. And that is hugely important.
Chris Hedges
And the loss of those radar stations, in essence, is that rendering Israel and the United States in essence blind to what’s coming in?
Alastair Crooke
Yes, but it’s blinding them precisely. It blinds them. And what we’re seeing, and this is what, you know, I don’t know precisely, but I think they have some advanced radars that can detect and lock on to stealth aircraft to a considerable distance, perhaps 500 kilometers distance.
And certainly the Iranians are now able to lock on that. And when I talk about lock on, I’m talking about a defense missile system whose radar is locked on to an enemy aircraft. And that is a very severe warning sign to that aircraft that they’re about to get a missile arriving on them.
Chris Hedges
So we’re seeing Israel and the United States target what they’re saying are ballistic missile depots, launch sites. Do you have any sense of how successful those attacks are?
Alastair Crooke
Yes, I have a good idea that they are not successful. And I say that because the Iranians have adopted a very decentralized command system and a decentralized, if you like, control of missile systems so that the missiles, I’m talking about the long range missiles, are buried in silos across 57 districts of Iran. And Iran is the size of Western Europe.
I mean, this is not a small area. And they are buried deeply. And the big missiles, the serious missiles, are fired off from underground through an underground silo. They come straight out. There’s not a moving launcher.
They come straight out of the ground and they are and they are fired from there and they can continue to be fired from there even if command and control is lost. They were set up with that sort of dead hand capacity. I do know by this because I did at one time try and explain this to the American Defense Secretary then and also that there were sure to ship missiles buried deeply into the cliffs around the sea.
Because this is their deterrence, is that these missiles will not be destroyed and will be able to go on firing because they are autonomously controlled by each district with a plan that is given to them in advance of what they would do if the centre and the command and control was destroyed, that they would continue to fight the war even if they had lost control. It was trialed, I remember, when I was there in 2006, in Lebanon with Hezbollah. But this is now the full aversion, which has been under preparation for many years. Their deterrence essentially is, even if you destroy us, you take out Tehran, you take out the command, the army, the IRGC, the war would still go on and Israel would be destroyed. That is what they warned.
Chris Hedges
Well, I worked in Iran as you did and one of the things that was a reality of the power structure in Iran is that power was decentralized into at least three factions. There wasn’t a central power structure that was set up because they didn’t want another Shah so I could get a visa from the Ministry of Guidance while the foreign ministry had banned me or vice versa.
There was a multi-polarity in terms of power systems and I have other questions but let’s just begin with the assassination, the killing of the Supreme Leader and the hierarchy of the Iranian government and, according to Trump, the second tier. What does that mean?
Alastair Crooke
Well, the killing of the Supreme Leader, I mean, you know the details. I mean, he was at home and his family was with him because they opted to look after him and they knew what was likely to happen. I mean, he was at his desk. I’ve been, I’ve seen, not inside his home, but I’ve seen the home, which is in North Tehran. It’s a very humble, straightforward building. And he was working there.
And he had said just before it, he said, “I’m 86, I’m semi-crippled, I have my dignity, but that’s all that I have, which it was something that you gave to me. And I’m happy to give my life for the Iranian people.”
Whether we find that strange or not, or whether we find it irrational, that is how he thinks and he thought. And it is part of the culture of Iran, the idea of sacrifice and being willing to pay that sacrifice for the interests of your people, for your civilization, for your religion. He was very popular. He had a big following in Shia Islam, as you know, they have, I suppose you call them the guides, Mujahid.
This is the senior clerics. They don’t give instructions, but you choose which one you follow and you get their teaching, moral teaching, ethical teaching, you know, teaching about marriage as well as everything else. And he had one of the biggest followings, not just in Iran, but across the whole region. The Supreme Leader had a huge following. And so his death has really fired up Shia Islam, not just in Iran, but in Iraq particularly, but across the region and in Bahrain.
Bahrain is probably closer to regime change than any other state at this point. It’s 70 to 80 percent Shia and it is ruled by a Sunni king who has an all Sunni protection force surrounding him. And there are huge protests and huge demonstrations, there’s, if you like, at this time, there is an uprising to remove him. And there’ve been support coming in, forces coming in from Saudi Arabia across the bridge — but I’m not sure if the bridge still exists to Saudi Arabia — to try and rescue him.
So it had a big effect and there have been attempts to besiege the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Huge numbers of protesters outside Baghdad. There were protesters in Pakistan besieging the consulate and two or three of these senior Shi’i leaders, religious leaders, have issued fatwas for jihad, global jihad against the United States and Israel.
And these are being followed up and it is having a marked influence on particularly the Iraqi militias, the Hashd groups who are attacking in Erbil and they are also attacking American air defense systems and American radar systems throughout Iraq, which are probably amongst the most important because it’s from Iraq that Israel has been doing its standoff, firing its standoff cruise missiles into Iran.
Chris Hedges
And we should note that at least 60 percent, maybe more, of the Iraqi population are Shia and when you talk about attacks on Erbil, that is the Kurdish area in the north controlled by the Kurds. Perhaps no ethnic group in the Middle East has been used and discarded as much as the Kurds and it looks like they’re about to be used and discarded once again so since you mentioned Erbil why don’t you talk about this idea of arming Kurdish militias to go into Iran.
Alastair Crooke
I don’t think it’ll happen at all. First of all, there was, in June, when there was an attempt… Let me just paint the background because it’s important. This is part of the Israeli, if you like, ultimate plan for the future of Iran is to fire up separatist elements — Kurdish, Baluchis, Azeris, all of these — they’ve actually written separate constitutions, prepared separate constitutions so that separate, if you like, self-sufficient states could be constructed in Iran to divide Iran into sort of ethnic divisions.
And then the aim for Israel is then to have ethnosectarian conflict between the states to leave Iran weakened in chaos and unable in any way to threaten Israel, rather, like we see in Syria. That is not the American objective, which is regime change.
Just to be clear, the American [objective] at the moment is simply to copy the Venezuela model and to, if you like, get rid of the leader and that it was assumed that there’d be a popular uprising and there would be a popular, if you like, takeover of the government and that Trump would do some sort of deal with a more amenable person and declare victory. And that’s why it was supposed to be a quick operation.
He keeps saying and talking about [it] but, I mean, [Nicolas] Maduro, it was the perfect operation. Quick, clean, short. We did that. So we just have to kill the Ayatollah and then we’ll be in the same position and we can declare a victory and we can do that before the markets open on Monday. And of course, it hasn’t worked out like that. Instead of which there have been millions coming onto the streets in Tehran. I mean, it’s Ramadan there, but after the feast which marks the end of the day of fasting, in Tehran is just packed with pro-state support, support for the Islamic State.
Chris Hedges
Would it be too much of a stretch to say that this has ignited, in the eyes of the Shia world, a war against Shiism?
Alastair Crooke
Yes, this is seen as, if you like, there is an overtone, not with all of them, but there is a tone of jihad, of holy war. And this is being, of course, this is being amplified by the fact that in the United States, some of the instructions for commanders to brief their troops saying this is a God’s war and that Trump is the instrument of God pursuing this war and that it was written in the Bible.
I believe you know more than me, but there have been many protests amongst the military at these instructions that they’ve received calling it. So in a sense, this is a sort of eschatological element within the US and of course each is feeding the others eschatological sentiments.
Chris Hedges
So there’s heavy military censorship imposed in Israel. You’ve worked there, I’ve worked there. It’s hard from a distance to get a read as to how effective the strikes have been. What are your impressions?
Alastair Crooke
What you say is absolutely correct. The censorship, I mean, it’s absolutely tight. Anyone trying to film is immediately arrested or stopped. It’s very hard to get facts. But I was listening to Colonel [Lawrence] Wilkerson just recently, who was Colin Powell’s chief of staff in that time, a military man with much experience. And he said he had witnessed some real videos coming out of Tel Aviv.
And he said, you know, this is not AI. This is the real stuff that has come through. And he watched a 15 minute video and he said it is absolutely devastating what is coming. It is relentless and it is continuous and you see at the end of it, there aren’t even any intercept missiles firing at that point. So I think we don’t know the extent. This was Tel Aviv, but we know that missiles are being fired across Israel.
But it seems that the damage is huge. What the consequences will be in Israel is not clear. We get very contradictory messages. You’ve probably heard them. Some people in these things, as in every war, you can be in one part and you say, well, nothing’s happening. Everything seems normal. And then you go 500 meters in another direction and it’s mayhem and it is a disaster.
So it’s difficult to get an overall concerted picture, but I would say the damage far exceeds that of the Twelve-Day War even to date. The Iranians intend to slowly increase the number of these Khorramshahr and these hypersonic missiles, which will be very difficult for either the United States or for Israel to shoot them down and to stop them. Big damage is happening there across the Gulf has been huge for American bases. There’s no doubt they’ve been destroyed. I think the intent of Iran in the Gulf, it’s particularly focused on the ports across it.
And I think the reason for that is because the the Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain, has created a sort of a whole area around right up to Hormuz and the Persian Gulf and even down to, if you like, off Yemen, there is a very small choke point, naval choke point, in the South in order to control the corridors of energy to control the corridors of economic business through this process.
And I think the Iranians are in the process of flipping this from [inaudible] right through to Hormuz to reestablish more of an Iranian, if you like, hegemony across these areas and to stop the American plan, which was, I think, foreshadowed in the national security statement. The NSS released not so long ago, a couple, three months ago, something [Under Secretary of War for Policy] Elbridge Colby was supposed to be the author of most of it.
But one of the things it contained in it was the idea that China had to be coerced to change its economic model away from exporting to consuming more. And you could do this by tariffs or you could do this by what we’ve seen in Venezuela, naval blockades, sanctioning of ships, attempts to create a siege. But also Russia increasingly is finding it’s been under the same sort of things. Its so-called shadow fleet being sanctioned, sometimes seized.
And so there is an impression, I think, in both Moscow and China that America is intent on trying to inflict hurt on China through these means, through taking control and establishing a sort of hegemony over the sea lanes and the choke points. The same, of course, in China with that first island continuum, which is being militarized by the United States, presumably to eventually, if needed, be a siege condition on China for vessels passing through that narrow, if you like, seaway by Indonesia into the China Sea.
And for Russia, it’s important too, because they, in the reverse way of China, but they want to export their oil, and do not want that to be under siege and curtailed and squeezed. So we’re seeing a sort of, I believe, a really major geopolitical shift taking place. And so although the focus, we all talk about what’s happening to the military and to the hotels where the military are staying.
But I think Iran’s primary interest is to change the whole situation, the whole paradigm of the Gulf and the Red Sea and the sea lanes adjacent to it and to take those out of the American dominance which they’ve been under for all this period.
Chris Hedges
Let’s talk about the Strait of Hormuz. It’s a very narrow waterway. Iran has shut it down. You know more than I do, but my understanding is not only with the flick of a switch can they mine, and these mines are kind of autonomous, you can explain how they work. They also have missile batteries. One of the most amazing comments on the part of Trump was the idea that he would send US Naval forces, which is just asking for every single ship to be blown out of the water and then also comment why in your view the United States has made such a priority of destroying the Iranian Navy
Alastair Crooke
Well, yes, I think to answer your second question first, that is absolutely what I’m talking about. The aim to America’s aim to create a dominance in the field of energy and to be able to control China’s economic evolution and its development and at the same time, reduce Russia’s economic prospects by controlling not just oil and gas — and of course Iran has both of those in abundance but not just control that — but to go back to the old system, the 19th century system of controlling the waterways and controlling the checkpoints so that they can impose blockades and sieges on China and on Russia to further as part of their economic, if you like, vision.
I mean, Iran is a pawn in the bigger vision, which is about, if you like, how to take out the BRICS and how to, if you like, they can’t, I think, militarily defeat China, but simply to weaken it by withholding technology, withholding oil and raw materials from China. And China is returning the complement to the United States. But nonetheless, this is what I think they’re trying to do. So the Navy, the Iranian Navy, it has a few sort of legacy ships, frigates and things like that.
And America has just sunk a couple that were in harbor that are very elderly. The main thing that Iran has are these fast vessels, these speedboat vessels that have shorter ship missiles. They’re equipped with shorter ship missiles and they have about, I think, 25 submarines, mini submarines, but they can fire anti-ship missiles from submerged state. And these are much more dangerous to shipping than the old classic big, big naval vessels.
But now it’s been opened up because, as you probably saw, the Iranians had sent an unarmed ship to a courtesy call in India, a naval exercise that they’d been invited by the Indian government to participate in. And that vessel was there and America sank it, the submarine torpedoed it and sank it. I think well over a hundred sailors were killed. Bodies are still washing up into Sri Lanka and some were saved, but most of them have died.
So I think it’s quite clear. I don’t think that Iran is going to be particularly lenient about American naval ships trying to guard a tank or a vessel going through Hormuz after they sank, as I say, a ship, a courtesy visit by an Iranian naval vessel at the invitation of the Indians. And then someone passed on the details and it was sunk off Sri Lanka by a torpedo, an American torpedo.
So I think that is going to be much, much, much tougher. By the way, the width of the Hormuz is 21 kilometers, so you don’t even need to mine it. That is within sufficient range for artillery. So they can just sit there and select a vessel and fire artillery and let it catch fire. And that’s, I mean, it’s that easy.
Chris Hedges
When when I heard Trump proposed that I thought of the Russian 1905 naval attack on the Japanese where it was the same kind of imperial disdain for the lesser race and the entire fleet was sunk which is what I would expect if they’re foolish enough to go into the Strait of Hormuz one has to assume that the naval commanders will talk Trump out of that folly.
I want to talk about where this is going. It’s spread very quickly throughout the region. Obviously this will impact the markets and prices of oil and gas but just what are the consequences you see of what’s happened.
Alastair Crooke
Well, I would say that the consequences are going to be felt very soon, in particular in energy markets are already being seen because a huge amount of oil and gas, of global oil and gas, passes through Hormuz, particularly for Europe. The gas that comes from Qatar passes through Hormuz and that has stopped and Putin has said, and by the way, we’re looking at it, but possibly we’ll decide we’re not going to give Europe any of our gas since you’ve turned your back on it anyway. So we will stop off.
This will be very serious economic consequences for Europe with their reserves of gas at an all time low that their big underground reserves at all time. But it’s already starting to affect the oil price. But also, I think it’s going to affect many other things. I mean, first of all, there is the change that’s taking place in the Gulf. I mean, the Gulf used to be known and thought of as a safe place for businessmen, for investors and others and that — AI, holidays, airliners, tourism, et cetera.
I think that’s, not completely, but largely that’s over. That’s finished. But already you’re seeing, and I’ve seen this, that particularly Asian investors are taking all their money out of Dubai and the UAE and other centers in Qatar and repatriating them to Asia. I think, of course, I don’t know what they will take them to, but I imagine it won’t be the US dollar. I think it’s very unlikely they will take advantage of, either it will be the yen or it will be in the Shanghai gold market for which there are subsidiary markets which are not controlled by China, China’s capital control system in Hong Kong.
They will probably, China’s introduced a system of warrants that you can buy warrants on physical gold, not paper gold, but physical gold and hold those as a form, as an alternative to US treasuries, which is much more attractive anyway. So I think we’re going to see an effect on the dollar, we’re going to certainly see an effect on energy markets. For Europe, it is going to be an incredibly dangerous period for their economies.
And the consequence of all of this is, I think that the markets, which are usually so complacent to any geopolitical event, I mean, it’ll be over. I mean, they were being briefed by the intelligence services because I know that from some of the fund managers, they were being briefed, you know, five days, it’ll be five days. It’ll be done in five days. So you don’t have to worry. Keep the markets up. We want markets high and you’ll be fine. Don’t sell. So I think then we will see the consequences of that.
What does it mean? You know, this is going to be, I mean, there was a heavy military investment in these bases in the Gulf. I mean trillions. And is America going to come back? I think probably that’s doubtful. In any case, the sort of security that the Gulf had felt which now turns out to be perhaps not the wisest judgment. That security is gone because the bases are gone.
The United States is taking care of itself. It’s not really taking much care of Saudi Arabia. And they are feeling that and they are saying that. You know, when it comes to it, they’re saying they want all the intercept missiles to go to Israel.
They’re not sending any intercept missiles to us. So I think the atmosphere is going to affect that economic paradigm, that economic situation is going to affect the energy situation and in terms of the United States. And I don’t want to trespass because you know ten times more than me about this, but I think it’s going to have consequences in the midterm elections.
We can already see it’s not a popular war. If it’s a prolonged war, it will become less popular. And Trump, I think, is getting quite desperate about it. But I think his way of dealing with it is actually going to be counterproductive. I mean, he keeps saying we’ve done great things. You know, we’ve sunk the Iranian Navy. We’ve destroyed their force. We’re destroying their missiles.
But the consequences of that is that no factual details are being fed out by the Pentagon. I mean, to put it bluntly, they’re mainly lying about what’s actually happening on the ground. I’m sure they know about it, but they lie. Ok, only six Americans have been killed in this. And all the aircraft that have fallen were all friendly fire incidents.
I mean, I think that with a little bit of time, the American public will realize that things were a little different from how they’ve been projected and will be very angry about that. But because Trump says it’s proving to be a great victory and victory is at hand, of course the Pentagon can come out and say, actually, no, we’ve been decimated in these bases.
So they have to say, no, you know, nothing really. Everything is normal. No change. But of course, time will, events will reveal themselves in due course, whether it’s sometime in the future, but it will reveal what has really happened there and in Israel. And there will be political consequences, I believe, which will probably reshape much of the American political landscape.
I mean, we’re already, I think, seeing these, you know more than I do, but we’re seeing these in the way the Democrats are shifting their position on Israel and saying, just please, I’m not saying abandoning it, but saying, listen, before elections come, we have to have a serious discussion about exactly what is the relationship between the United States and Israel. These things are quite important changes that I think are starting. They haven’t developed. They aren’t clear yet. Nothing is really sort of solidifying into something one can say this is where it’s going. I think it’s far too soon for that. But nonetheless, you have that sort of sense that under the surface, there’s a lot of shifts and changes taking place in America just as they are in Europe.
Chris Hedges
So this is part of the Greater Israel project — Gaza, of course, the de facto annexation of the West Bank, a seizure of, they already occupied the Golan Heights they pushed up almost to Damascus, southern Lebanon thousands to, really, tens of thousands of Lebanese being forced to flee the south and I’m asking whether this war, in your view, which is an Israeli-driven war without question, is overreach on the part of Israel in the U.S. and if you feel that ultimately this threatens Israel existentially.
Alastair Crooke
Yes. Going through your questions, the first one, I don’t think it was thought through by all the accounts I hear. The Americans did not expect what’s happened in the Gulf, even though Iran had warned it. It was public. Thirdly, I don’t think they’ve made any contingency plans for an energy crisis at all. I mean, the strategic reserve of America is near an all time low in terms of its energy holding, whereas China has been filling its strategic reserve assiduously during this period with Iranian oil.
So I don’t think so. And I don’t think, therefore, either Trump or the leadership have any idea of what’s happening in this war. And it’s really wishful thinking and bluster that we are seeing or where it’s going. He thinks he still has, and others in Europe, still have the idea that at a certain point Trump will say victory and will walk away from the war and that’ll be it.
It won’t because Iran is planning a long war. It’s not interested in talks now, certainly after the killing of the Supreme Leader, it’s not going to happen. They are going to pursue their, if you like, their plans, their military plans. And of course, the war as a consequence is spreading and widening. The question you asked me about, is it existential for Israel?
I think I would answer it and I think that Israel will never be what it has been until this point again. It will be fundamentally changed. The divisions in Israel are really profound. They’re little seen by the West because they only read the English language or look at the English language press. But it’s a war in Israel taking place.
I characterize it as a war between the Kingdom of Judea and the State of Israel. On the one hand, you have, if you like, the body of the right, the [Itamar] Ben-Gvirs and the [Bezalel] Smotrichs and the religious nationalists and settlers, but who are armed. I mean, they are an army in themselves.
And then on the other hand, you have the old legacy elements of Ashkenazi, which is sort of European Jewry, which is the military command, judiciary, the Supreme Court, all of those have been almost defeated by Netanyahu during this period. And there is extreme bitterness about the consequences of this. And I think it’s very hard to see it not destroying itself because of what I keep saying to people that you cannot understand Israel through a secular, if you like, a secular rationalist lens. You have to understand it through the lens of an eschatological or even a messianic sentiment, because that is what is driving the right.
I remember seeing a video of Smotrich some years ago and he was saying, well, we’re going to get, you know, we’re taking back Gaza and we’re taking back the West Bank, et cetera, et cetera. And he said, but you know what? What we need is really, we need a huge crisis or a big war and then we’ll complete our project. In other words, you can’t say, look, it’s silly. I mean, why would Netanyahu want to launch this war against Iran? Because they welcome Armageddon, many of them on the far right.
It’s not because they’ve got a strategic calculus about it. They believe that this is as foretold and this is the way it is going to be and it’s going to take us to redemption. And this is the, if you like, the Messiah will come. Everything will change. And this is why I think it was so astonishing for me to hear almost the same sort of language being laid out in the general orders that were handed out to commanders from the Hegseth side of the United States.
Not a, I think, common view, but within a certain sort of element, fragment of society, it was still powerful. So I think it’s going to be a long war. The Iranians are not about to surrender, why should they? They are in the driving seat. It’s for America to lose this war. Iran wins it by surviving and it wins it because of, if you like, symbolic position of having defeated a mythical army that was invulnerable, that couldn’t ever be attacked or defeated.
So I think it will be a long war and the consequences, we can just glimpse a few of them, but not really map it out in a sort of coherent structural way.
Chris Hedges
Let me just close by asking about the Palestinians, what this means for the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Does this give figures like Smotrich and others a cover to expel them?
Alastair Crooke
Yes, that is what they, that’s how they are thinking. But I think that as Israel or at least the military part of Israel gets closer to looking at the reserves of munitions and their dwindling reserves of the munitions, they are thinking about how can we de-escalate? And certainly, if someone asked me what would be the demands of Israel if there were to be, which I don’t see at the moment to be some sort of understanding, I would say, of course, the first thing would be the ending of all sanctions and tariffs on Iran and the return of all its frozen assets. And secondly, the removal of the Israeli troops from Gaza and from the West Bank.
Chris Hedges
These would be Iranian demands.
Alastair Crooke
Of course, Iranian demands. Iran has always supported the Palestinians. I mean, not always in the field in that way, but it has been a key element of the Iranian ethical perspective of the world. The ethical principle has been the support for Palestinians.
Chris Hedges
Yeah, I just want to close, having worked in Iran for many years, and I believe you did too, the caricature of Iranians, including the supreme leader who was extremely literate. His favorite book, I believe, was Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, is part of the problem in that they have been turned into cartoon characters and we’re talking about a rich, deep Persian culture and tradition. They’re not the people they’re painted as.
Alastair Crooke
I couldn’t agree with you more. I mean, it’s a complete… I mean, this is, you put your finger on it. This is a catastrophe of miscognition. They just don’t understand. And what is more, there is absolutely zero empathy. They review and treat the Iranians as really subhumans.
Chris Hedges
Yeah, great. Thanks. That was really, really brilliant. Thank you so much.
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