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Whatever your thing, it could be anything.
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Canva helps you make that thing a thing. Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design, with our magic AI tool, things you can social media your thing, generate images or videos of your thing, make decks or presentations to show your thing whatever needs to be done for your thing. Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing. Hello, dear listeners, welcome back to Conflicted. I'm Thomas Small, and with me, I'm so pleased to say, is my dear friend, my dear brother, Eamon Dean. Eamon, welcome back to Conflicted. Where have you been, buddy? You've been AWOL for the last few weeks.
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Well, of course, Lakina. I mean, I have assumed my new role, my new responsibility as a full time 247 single dad of two kids. And so of course I have to look after Lucky. I mean, these two, you know, rather wonderful, beautiful, cute, like, and I mean kids, you know, but nonetheless, you know, fatherhood isn't exactly like an, I mean, I walk in the park, let's put it this way. So, but, but now things stabilized, you know, thank God for that. And now, like, I mean that I have organized everything that needs to be organized for them and I more or less rearranged my timings around work and around parenting and around podcasting. I'm now able to come back and again, you know, share my pearls of wisdom, you know, with my.
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B
Well, that's what I've missed. Eamon. There it is. It's that famous Eamon Dean humility. We've all been missing it. Dear listeners, I know you're as glad as I am that Eamon's back in the chair. He is an extremely busy man. We're always grateful to you for giving us your time. Your life has been chaotic of late, Eamon. Just like the whole world, especially the region, you live in chaos, chaos, chaos. Sort of simmering, really, for the last few weeks. But then over the weekend, it burst into full boil again. We're going to talk about that in this episode. We're going to talk about what might be going on in Trump's head, what might be going on between President Trump and Bibi Netanyahu. We're going to talk about the ongoing Strait of Hormuz problem, the spillover into the Houthis and the Red Sea. Now we're going to talk about all those things and more. Dear listeners, let's get right into it. Okay, Eamonn, I think, you know, the last time you gave us a proper overview of what was going on was the 20th of May. And in that time, you know, I was going back over my notes, over the reports that you send me over the news. I was trying to make some sense of the last, what is it, 20 days, three weeks, say. And, you know, it's hard really to make sense of it because on the one hand, there's been stuff happening every day, but it kind of felt a little bit like not a roller coaster anymore, more like a carousel. Round and round we go. The news was essentially the same. A little bit of flare up here, Iran firing a missile, maybe here, the US responding a bit or not at all, pissing off the gcc. Here, huge eruptions of anger between Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Washington, which may be true, maybe not true. You know, ceasefires being declared in Lebanon, but only with the Lebanese government, not with Hezbollah. And therefore, is there a ceasefire? Isn't there a ceasefire? To what extent is the Lebanon file linked to the Iran file? You know, it's a little bit, as we said at the outset, chaotic, and it's all samey. You know, how can we make it simple for the dear listeners? I mean, in a way, this conflict has three major kind of tracks. There's the core Iran US track, which has a large strategic goal on the part of the us essentially to neutralize any possible threat of Iran becoming a nuclear power. Then there is an Israel Hezbollah track, which actually has its own dynamics, is it is structurally separate from that first track, although certainly in Iran's mind it is not, which causes difficulties. And then there is a much subtler, much harder really to understand. Gcc, Iran gcc, US Strait of Hormuz track, in which the GCC at times seems extremely divided, at times seems more united than you think. So these three tracks are all happening at once. Do you want to just go track by track? I mean, let's start with that first track, the core Iran US track. What's been going on in the last three weeks? How would you summarize that?
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A
Well, of course, it's chaotic diplomacy to say the least. Because the problem with President Trump's style of, let's say, leadership is that he is micromanager. So he is like, you know, someone who will take to Twitter or Truth Social, as you call it, and then start posting, like, in details every day, five, six tweets. Like, I mean, five, six posts about, you know, issues domestic and foreign. And, you know, you would think, like, and I mean, that the guy is just like, you know, so much detail oriented but he wouldn't delegate as much as it should be in situations like these. That's one and two. He doesn't listen to a good advice because if you notice all the appointments whether to the negotiations with Iran is entrusted to a real estate guys like Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. If you look at the new guy who's now replacing Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence responsible for collecting and seeing and Disseminating intelligence from 18 different intelligence agencies in the US is also a real estate guy. His name is Bill Polt and he's a real estate guy and a Trump friend. So I think the problem here is that the US Is more and more governed by people who are less experienced in matters of law and national security. And that is why we see the negotiations with Iran failing all the time. Because they don't seem to understand that Iran negotiate in a very different way from how the US is negotiating with other countries in the past. And even this team is very different from previous U.S. negotiators.
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Can I ask a question about this diplomacy? Because it's also confusing, I think, for ordinary people like me to understand who are all the players. We know that Pakistan has been acting as a mediator. You have been fiercely critical of that role. You think Pakistan is not trustworthy, totally implicated in Iran's strategic interests, and as always, really lying to the outside world, especially to the US which is supposed to be its ally. So you've been fiercely critical of Pakistan. And yet we know that Pakistan has been playing a mediating role. There's also Qatar involved in some way. There's also Oman involved in some way. At times, I think Turkey has been involved in some way.
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And Egypt.
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And Egypt. And then also, you know, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates are aligned, misaligned. I can see from just basic signs on Twitter signs, friends on the Emirati side, friends on the Saudi side, that the Emirati Saudi split is widening again. We're back in December and January, so help us understand. Oh, now see, immediately we've gone from track one to the track three, the GCC Strait of Hormuz track. Dear listeners, it's impossible to keep this separate because it is chaotic. I'm trying to be systematic here, but it's impossible. So because the GCC track is involved in the diplomacy question, who are the diplomatic actors?
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Well, first of all, the chaos in the diplomatic scene globally and regionally is due to the chaos in terms of the policy objectives of the White House itself. I mean, if you ask the Israelis what Are your objectives regarding Iran regime and Hezbollah? They tell you it's the destruction of the IRGC regime, it is the destruction of Hezbollah, that's it. And if we can't achieve the destruction in short term, we would like to have a long term degrading effect. So we have to keep hitting them, hitting them, hitting them and never let them stand up ever again. So. Okay, I understand. So when you talk to the Israelis, the Israelis objectives are very clear, crystal clear. However, if you go to the White House and it will be a very difficult test, like Alice in Wonderlander, you will go there and you will be asking what are your motives from going to war with Iran? And actually it started with, oh, we are supporting the protesters to no, it's going to be the nuclear issue and let's negotiate on a nuclear issue. It's a chance now, then later, no regime change, then regime decapitation. And then there was a war between those who wanted to go after the IRGC alone. And there was that narrative, and we talked about it, you and I, before even the war started, that there is a considerable body of opinion within US Policymakers that they wanted to, not to go after the, the head of the pyramid, the Ayatollah himself, but to go after the IRGC as a, you know, as an easy target to justify.
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B
We've talked about that a lot. So now in the last three weeks, again, this diplomacy, who are the players? Pakistan is still playing a role or has that role basically been eroded?
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A
But, but you see like, I mean again, the objectives keep changing. You know, so we went from nuclear to Hormuz and then we went from Hormuz to, no, we should link Hormuz and Lebanon and proxies. And it became chaotic. And that is where the Pakistanis were brought in because of the personal business partnership between Steve Witkoff and General Assam Munir in a Field Marshal Asim Munir of Pakistan, they have a crypto mining database kind of like basically somewhere in northern Pakistan. So this is the problem is the fact that, hey, this Steve Witkoff guy, he's a real estate guy, basically he got a buddy, you know, and his buddy is like, you know, basically the, like, I mean, the Field Marshal of Pakistan, you know, and so he brings him in and it's like, oh, I can like, you know, I mean, you know, bring in Iran because we have influence over Iran. And this is when the Pakistanis, who don't have, and I swear to God, they don't have any experience, you know, prior or present or in the future even of the conducting high stakes diplomacy like this ever before. I mean, they have a problem with the Taliban, they have a problems with India, they have a problems with the uae, they have a problems between now and then with, you know, other countries around the region. And so, you know, so, so it's like, hey, you know, you are, you are talking to a country which is itself unstable, which is itself was accused of harboring terrorists, you know, like Lashkar E. Taiba and others. And the Taliban in the past, Osama Bin Laden. And Osama Bin Laden, I mean. And also it's a country which relies on smuggled Iranian oil. So you cannot really, you see the art of diplomacy, not the fart of diplomacy, but the art of diplomacy is that when you bring a mediator, you bring in a mediator that has no skin in the game with either party. So you bring in Pakistan, it has a skin in the game. You bring in Turkey. Turkey buy gas from Iran, you bring in Qatar. Qatar share a whole bloody gas field, you know, the south parts, you know, basically, and the north gas field, you know, of Qatar, like, and the south parts of Iran, these are, this is one gas field and the two countries share it. You know, you bring Oman, Oman is, you know, the trading hub of Iran, you know, and so you really, you know, you cannot bring people who are so heavily invested, you know, with both parties. You can't bring in Egypt, it's very anti Israel. Like, I mean, so you have to bring in a country that everyone should have brought in in the first place to be the proper mediator. Not real estate mediation tactics of the amateur. Witkoff. No, you bring in Switzerland. Now someone will say to me, why Switzerland? And I say, because since 1980, since the storming of the American embassy in Tehran and the hostage crisis, since then, the US interests were represented in Iran by who? By the Swiss.
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Yeah, we talked about that in our episode on the embassy crisis, the hostage crisis. And yeah, we mentioned. And it was, you know, it was kind of surprising, I think to a lot of people, including me when I went back and did that research. The role that Switzerland has been playing behind the scenes for decades. You know, Eamon, you were kind of critical of that role. I mean, you said that it wasn, is conducted perfectly, but nonetheless it's there. The institutions are there and they don't have any skin in the game. They are experienced negotiators on both sides.
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Exactly. They are totally neutral. They have four and a half decades of being on the ground in Tehran conducting the affairs of the United States on behalf of the United States inside Iran. If an American citizen has a problem in Iran, they can go and seek consular help from who? From the Swiss, because they represent the US Interest. So now here is the problem I have is the fact that why go to shady characters like the Field Marshal of Pakistan or the Qataris who were bankrolling Hamas or Omanis basically, who are bank crawling the irgc. So for God's sake.
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B
Well, Eamon, I wish I could say it's a great mystery why President Donald Trump would prefer shady characters to deal with. I won't spell that out exactly, but in your view, the White House at the moment does not agree with you about, about Pakistan. And they are still actually working with Pakistan to achieve some deal with Iran. They think still that Pakistan is a good mediator.
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A
Okay, why do you think I believe that Pakistan is a disqualified mediator? One, because they have an interest in having business deals with Iran. Thus they have a skin in the game. Two, Pakistan turned a blind eye to Iran recruiting tens of thousands of Shia Pakistanis and turning them into the Zainabiyun, you know, militia in Syria and Iraq and Iran and fighting for their regime,
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B
many of those fighters who have now been abandoned by Iran. I've read recently that they, you know, they've been kind of left high and dry.
- [16:12]
A
Exactly. And then you have, on top of all of this, the fact that the IRGC has always been regarded as a hostile entity inside Pakistan for supporting subversive Shia groups there, for buying the loyalty of Shia, Shia, Pakistanis in the media and in the armed forces even, and the intelligence services, for God's sake, they have been not exactly like a good neighbor, but nonetheless, the Pakistanis are invested in having a good relationship with Iran and they don't want Iran to fall or to experience any kind of a change of the regime there. So they have a skin in the game. So when they mediate, just like the Omanis before them, when they mediate between the US And Iran, they tell the Iranians what they want to hear and they tell the Americans what they want to hear. So President Trump, he expressed this. He said, at night we finally agree on all the things that we want to agree upon. And then in the morning they say, no, we didn't. It's crazy. That's what he said. It's crazy. No, Mr. Trump, is that crazy. You are relying on dishonest mediators, whether it is the Qataris or the Egyptians or the Turks or the Pakistanis or the Omanis. I'm sorry to tell you, you can't rely on any of these characters to be your mediator. Not even any Arab country, to be honest. Not even Saudi Arabia, not even the uae? No, don't use them as mediators. Switzerland is there. Go back to it.
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B
And yet the White House does continue to rely on these un trustworthy mediators. What about the Oman situation? Since we're in the gcc, we might as well stay there. It's so confusing, Eamonn. I mean, part of me and I sort of thought at the end of this episode we would go here, but let's do it now. You know, if I stand back and look at what's going on, I think that a lot of players in the region are banking on the ultimate decline and maybe even demise of the American led world order. I think some people really believe, and maybe some of those people actually work inside the Pentagon. I had a conversation with someone whose husband is high, high up in the Pentagon and she revealed to me that a lot of them are like basically operating under the assumption that the decline is irreversible, that really the world is changing in a big way because of some very stupid decisions that America has made. Not just in the last two years, not just in the last three months, but in the last 20 years. You know, it's just on the way out. And maybe many players in the Middle east are assuming that that's the case. And not only assuming it, but maybe even possibly reveling in it. You know, Oman is a great country. It is an ancient country with a well established state that is, you know, relative to many of the states in the region, a kind of grandfather. It's been there a long time. It had its own empire. That empire then worked very closely with the British Empire. It worked closely with the British Empire to the very end. There may have been amongst some Omani strategists, military people, a sense of regret that the British Empire gave way to the American empire. I don't know what's actually going on. Maybe Oman thinks that it has a chance now to reestablish a greater regional dominance. Maybe something like it had before. I don't know the extent to which historical memory lingers on in these places and whether they've always harbored a little bit of resentment that their wings have been clipped in the American era. Maybe they're kind of happy to be a bit freer to return to older strategies of geopolitical management. Reaching out to across the Arabian Sea, reaching out to the subcontinent, reaching out to Syria in different networks without America. Is that part of what's going on. Eamon.
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A
No, sorry to have let you speak for very long about this, but I'm sorry to tell you it's absolutely, you know, not the case.
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B
So what is going on then? Why would Oman be playing the role that it's playing, etc.
- [20:34]
A
The problem with Oman is the fact that there are certain advisors, especially in the Foreign Ministry of Oman, since the days of Yusuf Bin Alawi, you know, the former grand foreign minister, the veteran foreign minister of Oman, and then now of course, his successor, Badr Al Bou Saidi, who believe, and I know this for a fact, based on speaking to people who believe that America is declining and that there will be a new Iranian renaissance that will happen. But under the current regime, therefore, Oman has always bet the entire house silver on Iran being the regional hegemon. Because they have the numbers, they have the Shia minorities, like in. Across the region. And also because, let's be honest about it, I'm gonna bring it out to the open because of the religious divide, you know, Oman is experiencing. As you know, the ruling classes are Ibadis, they are not Sunnis, they are not Shia. They are the anti Shia, actually. But because of the idea of a minority can align with the minority since the Shia are minority within the region, within the wider region. But they believe that Iran has proven to be significantly strong. They controlled half of Yemen, more than half of Iraq, Syria in the past, and Lebanon, of course, and now the
- [22:12]
B
whole Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz.
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A
Yeah, well, Arabian Gulf. Excuse me. But anyway, sorry. Yeah, yeah, it's okay. So what happened is. So the Omanis are betting that just. And this change happened in the mind of His Majesty Sultan Haytham around the time that the US left Afghanistan in 2021. That chaotic withdrawal in August and September of 2021 is the reason why he believed. Aha. This is a decline because as you know, I am, after all, a finance investigator. I investigate instances of terrorism finance and especially irgc, Hezbollah finance. And this is the time when you start to see Oman opening more actually towards the Iranians. I mean, remember it was the Omanis who enabled Obama's administration to have the JCOPA signed and they facilitated all of the meetings, mediation, all of that. But really the year in which the Omanis went really berserk, they went bananas when it comes to opening the country entirely to Iranian merchant classes. And as well the Iranian irgc, I might add, to do business in Oman, it was around 2021. So yes, they understand the decline, but they believe rather Mistakenly, to be honest, that it's Iran that is going to be the regional hegemon.
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B
Well then, isn't that what I said, though? I'm confused now, Eamon. You said no, but that's what I said. That the Omanis believe in American decline.
- [24:06]
A
American decline. But you see other countries also, like Saudi, uae, Israel, Egypt, they all believe in American decline. The difference is they are not running towards Tehran. That's what I mean. It's like why the Omanis are behaving specifically, because the Omanis, very specifically, very specific to Oman. Two things they have. One, their ibadism. You know, they are Ibadis and therefore, like, you know, basically they are a minority. So it's a minority syndrome, inferiority syndrome. Like, you know, stick with another minority for the sake of like, you know, you know, sticking it up to the majority. But also, also, to be honest, is because they genuinely believe that Iran is going to be the future hegemon of the region. I disagree and many other people disagree. There will be no hegemon. The region is so balanced, really. I mean, if you look, we have Turkey, technology, huge economy and population, all of that tourism, aviation, hub, and it's a big economy, it's about $1.3 trillion GDP. You have Egypt, big military, big population, 120 million people. And then you have Israel as a nuclear power and with technology and with $600 billion of a GDP, it's massive and technologically advanced, way more than any other country in the region. You have Saudi Arabia, $1.2 trillion GDP, and it is with a $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund and ambitions and all of that. And then of course, the second largest oil reserves in the world, the fifth largest gas reserves in the world, and
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B
with its coast on the Red Sea possibly able to benefit from a diminishment in the Arabian Gulf's salience.
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A
Exactly.
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B
Saudi has that advantage.
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A
And then you have the uae.
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B
Wait, wait, wait, wait. But, but before you do that, Eamon, before you get to the uae, we've got to take a commercial break. We're going to quickly go on a break, dear listeners, and when we get back, Eamon is going to continue explaining to me, although I don't think he's quite right about this, that I was wrong. We'll be right back.
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C
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- [27:52]
B
We're back. Dear listeners, Eamon was telling me that I was wrong in my suggestion that maybe across the region people are beginning to assume that the American world order is in permanent decline and may even be reverting then to older forms of regional geopolitical management. That's what I was arguing, Eamon, and I have to say it does seem to be that you are agreeing with that because yes, you say there will be no hegemon because there's a kind of balance going on. But that is exactly how the region has always been. From God knows how long ago there were always essentially three centers of geopolitical power. Egypt, Anatolia and the Iranian plateau that crossed over. They pushed up against each other and there were some satellite powers, maritime mainly, that balanced against that, that tripartite structure. So we're returning to that?
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A
Not necessarily.
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B
We might be returning to that. And maybe the leaderships in some of these countries are okay with that fact because they're like, well, that's what it always was. That gives us a chance to return to what we were, powerful regional players that knew how to do geopolitics on those terms.
- [29:12]
A
Exactly. And Oman felt that it would be in this scenario a pygmy, unless if it aligns itself with the power that it thinks it would be. The hegemon of the region, which is Iran.
- [29:24]
B
Right. And you disagree with that. You disagree with that.
- [29:26]
A
Exactly. Iran cannot even stand against, militarily against, you know, Turkey or Pakistan or A united front for the gcc. They cannot. And so let's be honest and let's be clear about it. And the Egyptians will lend a helping hand immediately in this case. So. So there will be no hegemon. But this is where I disagree with people who say that the American decline is going to lead to a full retreat from the globe. And I will tell you why now, why I believe this is premature thinking. Even if militarily the US started to withdraw, it still is the most advanced nation on God damn earth when it comes to science, technology and finance. No one even can come close.
- [30:25]
B
I know, and you have told us this many times. We know the financial power, the dollar power, the energy power, the military power. We know this.
- [30:34]
A
Exactly.
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B
But you also sometimes invoke the real threat of some kind of tremendous financial crisis that will happen in America to all of those dominating poles of its power, given its enormous national debt. Oh yes, and given the shakiness of the globe's trust in its continued strength.
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A
Exactly.
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B
So you know, it's kind of on a knife's edge now, isn't it? All of those pillars of its power could topple like dominoes, one after the other. Because. Because ultimately America is based on a sense of its power, of its inevitability, of its trustworthiness.
- [31:19]
A
There is a very beautiful scene from the HBO TV series Chernobyl. I love that TV series. So in episode two you have Gorbachev coming in into the. I think no, in episode three, I must add. So in episode three he comes into the meeting room with the scientists and with the politburo and all of that and sit down with them and he says, I was just on the phone apologizing to our friends and because of the incident, apologizing to our enemies. Have you no idea what happened? Our power come from the perception of our power. That's what he said. I love that line so much. Really, half of the power projection is about power perception. Half of power projection is power perception.
- [32:16]
B
Okay, I agree. I think that's really profound. So where is America's power perception at the moment?
- [32:23]
A
At the moment is at the mercy of a clown real estate development guy from New York. You know, really, this is where the perception of power. You see, never in the history of modern warfare we saw someone who came so close to total victory and total vanquishing of his adversary that he panics so quickly because he doesn't have any experience in any military or national security or intelligence or law or anything. And then he panics and then declare a Unilateral ceasefire and then goes after his enemy to beg for a deal. And his enemy is a spent mid sized power. And this is where his own base is turning against him because he keep begging. Now, some people say this is theatrics, but no, I disagree. If his theatrics has been taken far beyond, you know, what it should have been. This is no longer just a question of theatrics. He is truly looking for now, Trump, he is begging the Ayatollah. I mean, basically he is talking about the Ayatollah as, oh, there is a new brain power in Iran. They have a brain capital. They are sophisticated people. I mean, excuse me, just three, four months ago, you were calling them animals who are butchering their own people. And now suddenly they become these amazing, wonderful people that you can do a deal with, obsessed with the word deal that he repeated 4,000 times. China is watching, Russia is watching, Brazil is watching, India is watching. And everyone is thinking, how could have we been so afraid of this pathetic clown? That's the problem.
- [34:16]
B
So you understand what I'm saying? Like America's in decline and everyone knows it. I'm confused.
- [34:22]
A
No, no, but, but you see, here is the difference between me and you. Trump got only two and a half more years and that's it. And then that decline could, by the grace of God, could be reversed. And that would be in the form of Marco Rubio. He is the only hope that America got at the moment of reversing this decline.
- [34:47]
B
Okay, that's an interesting political opinion. You know, I've considered that myself, that Marco Rubio seems to be, seems to have many of the qualities that Donald Trump lacks, let's put it that way. But that means that the whole American world order is kind of balanced on the instability of the American electoral process at the moment.
- [35:09]
A
I mean, exactly.
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B
The idea that Marco Rubio is some kind of shoe in to take over from Donald Trump in two and a half years, I would say is remarkably naive. I mean, I do not see that to be the case at all, given that. No, it's not the way America, American domestic politics is sort of falling apart.
- [35:29]
A
Yes. But you see, at the end of the day, when you look at American domestic politics and you look at the alternatives really in the entire field, you don't see so many alternatives to Trump that are really solid when it comes to reversing the current decline that are now tested in office. And so far, Marco Rubio took the State Department and turned it into something that is far more powerful. And it is powerful not because of Trump, but despite of Trump. You see, this is why Marco Rubio is the most qualified for the presidency. However, it's not guaranteed at all, if anything, actually it is. It is 1 to 5. Like in the chances that he might become the president.
- [36:23]
B
Eamon, I find the fact that we're talking about the next president and all of the doubt that circles that question very illuminating. That that's, I imagine, where the region is at now when it is pondering the future. It's a region. Maybe they're wrong, but we often talk about geopolitics from the perspective of the region. So in their minds now, increasingly, it's like we just have to wait this out and we are hoping beyond hope that the next president is more capable of managing the situation.
- [36:55]
A
Exactly.
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B
But that, that's already super telling, Eamon, because that's not where the region was sitting four months ago. They had trust in the sitting president.
- [37:05]
A
Yes. They are no longer having this trust. No one. Now, for example, if you ask artificial intelligence whether it is, you know, ChatGPT, Gemini, Manos, whatever, like, and if you ask them how many times, look at Truth Social posts for the past 120 days and tell me how many lies, downright lies the president told and the number will be in the low three digits so it means more than one lie per day. So when he said, oh, deal is around the corner, oh, we have obliterated their nuclear thing, oh, oh, you know, we are coming like, you know, to help you, whatever. It's like, it's always one lie after another. And that undermined so much the trust. Everyone said market manipulation. I understand why you have to manipulate the market, but you know, if you, you spent now 120 days manipulating the market just to make sure it doesn't collapse, when in fact you could have collapsed the whole regime in 60 days and now you will have a far better market. Unfortunately, he decided, you know, basically to have half a war and then he is crying that it is half a failure.
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B
Well, you know, I imagine that they must be ruining the day that they put their faith in him, you know, again. And they must wonder maybe it would have been better if Kamala Harris had won the presidential election.
- [38:35]
A
Many people are saying this right now. In fact, there is one particular, you know, senior minister in the GCC who said it in a private gathering that we would rather have had Kamala, you know, at least, you know, we could have had a rational conversation with her that's very telling. And she wouldn't dare, you know, Basically, like, I mean, micromanage the whole thing.
- [39:02]
B
That's very telling, Eamon. Okay, what does that mean for the three really closest allies of America in the region, will hold off Israel, the third of these three close allies, until the end, when we want to talk about that whole second track, the Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah track of this conflict. So, yeah, first, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the rift between the two is not healing at the moment. It is not healing. I can tell, yeah, I can tell from social media. I can tell from the narratives. They are diverg, but they both remain super close, super connected to America's security architecture, economic architecture. They are allies, but they're not converging at all. So what's going on there?
- [39:48]
A
Well, Thomas, the problem is the Emiratis are, you know, how can I say? Like, I mean, the Emiratis are more hawkish on Iran. They adopt, you know, the belief. Okay, so Anwar Gargac, the former Minister of Foreign affairs in the UAE and now currently the Presidential Advisor on Foreign affairs in the uae, he said this publicly. He said for many decades, we were the uae. We were the commercial lungs of the Islamic Republic. He said that himself. He admitted it. And, you know, come on. You know, I was an investigator. I investigated IRGC money and everything. And many times, like, basically it was parked here, you know, in the uae. So. And they don't shy away from it. They say it. The difference here is that. And we talked about it before, why suddenly the UAE, you know, was a target of Iran from day one, is because for the three years prior to. For the three years from 2021 until 2025, for the three, four years prior, the UAE waged a significant war on the IRGC in terms of money. So they chased their money and everything. So the trade relationship, which was $30 billion a year in 2019, sank to only $3 billion in 2025. So you can see how the UAE reduced very quickly and aggressively, but secretly. And they went, you know, and they were deporting them, you know, they were arresting them, they were confiscating their assets way before, I mean, His Excellency Hamid Zaabi, who I met before, he is the head of the Counterterrorism, Finance and anti money laundering office here in Abu Dhabi, he waged a war. Since that office was created specifically to go after their money and to clean up the entire UAE banking system, which meant that 2021, it happened. And also at the same time, Oman opened up because of the withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan, and Oman opened up. So whatever money that was parked there in the uae migrated to Oman. So money and you know, money and trade and money and companies also went to Kuwait. So to Oman and Kuwait was a destination. And so this is the issue is the fact that the uae, many people are accusing it of hypocrisy, saying that it was always the lungs. And he said it himself, Anwar Gargash, he said, His Excellency said that we were the lungs that Iran breathed commercially through. However, because we thought that commercial and trade containment was the wise policy. But all of this shattered on the first day. The missiles and the drones were falling on us. And this is where they felt that they started diverging from the Saudis on that because the Saudis are saying no containment can work. And the Saudis started blaming Israel for this work, when in fact the Saudis and His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed Salman himself said in 2017 that it would be the biggest disaster ever if Iran becomes nuclear, we will become nuclear ourselves. That's what he said. And he said that it is better that we take the war to Tehran's streets than for the war to come to our streets. What changed then? That's like the divergence now.
- [43:36]
B
Let me ask you then, you've been very clear about the Emirati position. I mean, you live in the Emirates. I think on balance you think the Emirati position is the right position. I think we can say that. But you're a Saudi, you have very close connections with Saudi, you support Saudi as a country, you're not against it. So try to make sense of its shifting position. A lot of analysts in the Emirati Israeli camp, the Abrahamic Accords camp of geopolitics in the region say that for various reasons the Saudis are just returning to a previous framing of the region, as you say, in which Israel is the bad guy. A more anti Zionist pro Palestinian framing of the past, which we associate with the 80s, 90s and naughties is returning and that that is for the the worse. But it is also revealing that the Vision 2030 era of reform that that MBS inaugurated in 2015, 2016 was just a mask. And below the surface there was no change from that old school Arabian Wahhabist stroke, religious, Arab nationalist mix that that characterized Saudi foreign policy for the region. So is that the case? Is it just like the mask is off, it's back to the status quo ante?
- [44:56]
A
No. And this is why I wish sometimes, I wish sometimes that I could be the mediator between the Emirati and Saudi intelligentsia classes so I could bridge the gap between them.
- [45:10]
B
Good. Okay, so you've admitted that I'm getting this from Emirati voices a lot. Eamonn, Emiratis are telling me this.
- [45:17]
A
Yeah, exactly. They tell me this too. But I also tell them that, look, I am fully 100% behind you and I am fully dedicated to the destruction of the regime in Tehran and come what may, you know, even if we have to pay hundreds of billions of dollars and even if thousands of lives like basically are lost, at least for the future, we will have a peaceful region, hopefully. However, now for the Saudis, the situation is different. You know, for the Emiratis, they are facing an enemy to the north of them, which is, you know, the Iranians. Geographically, Iran sits, you know, to the north, northeast of uae. For the Saudis, they face three threats. To the east is Iran, to the north is Iraqi militias, and to the south is the Houthis. So either you have to forgive them for first reason is that they are surrounded by three enemies, not one second. The deep sense of betrayal. And that betrayal came from the Biden administration in 2021, 2022, when they pressured the Saudis so much to prematurely end the war in Yemen.
- [46:43]
B
Yeah, so you've talked about that a lot. We don't want to go into those details because we're running out of time, dear listeners. You know what he's talking about. Okay, so that deep betrayal, that deep
- [46:51]
A
betrayal and the fact that during the crises, like, you know, I mean, of the post, because, you know, before the Gaza crisis and October 7, 2023, the Saudis and the Israelis were getting closer and they were about to sign, you know, a deal between them and which the India, Middle east, you know, European corridor was about to be inaugurated. It was sabotaged by the Iranians. And this is when the Saudis already armed with their sense of betrayal, especially when the Houthis started also bombarding Israel and the Red Sea and closing the Red Sea and all of that, they said that how come that Israel is given so much freedom, so much freedom to crush in groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and others. And we were never given that same, you know, God given freedom to people to defend themselves against, you know, terrorist non state actors like the Houthis and others. Why is it that our hands are always restrained when we defend ourselves? You know, we were begging for months and months for ammunitions to come, and it takes years for them to be delivered. But the Israelis, all they need is just to put on the request and, you know, immediately, within three weeks, the shipments will be arriving. You know, Basically by sea. You know, it's like there is no delay as far, you know, for as much ammunitions as the Israelis wanted, they are given. And we were fighting a war that proven to be right because the Houthis actually did, you know, in fact, threatening, you know, the global established maritime order.
- [48:34]
B
So there's a kind of bruised. Bruised ego there. I mean, a bruised sense of honor.
- [48:39]
A
Ego, but a bruised sense of honor, yes, exactly. You stole the word from my mouth. It's a bruised sense of honor. It's the fact that. And the Trump administration offended the Saudis more by being even more transactional about it. It's like, okay, now can we go back to you being friends with Israel? In return, we will give you this, this and that. And the Saudis, well, they were answering, no, we don't want just to purchase things. It's not Trump's toy store. And we are purchasing F35s and MQ9 reapers and nuclear reactors. No, what we are looking for is a regional security guarantee. We want a defense alliance between Saudi Arabia and America, which will give it a non NATO preferred ally status. We want complete full nuclear umbrella protection by the US Against a future nuclear Iran. And the Trump administration may know, said, well, what if we don't offer that? Okay, do you have plans to remove the Iranian regime from power? Do you have solid plans for that? Oh, no, we don't want chaos in the region. Okay, thank you. Then we better deal with our Iranian neighbors, because better the devil you know, and it's next door, than the devil that keeps changing every four years. And he is. Is, you know, 20,000 miles away.
- [50:18]
B
So that is the problem, Eamon, that was so clear. This is why we come to you. Thank you, Eamon. You've been able to give the Emirati perspective, the Saudi perspective, their due weight. You've balanced the interests. You've shown how those interests clash, how from their own points of view, those interests are reasonable. You've shown America's blunders, frankly.
- [50:40]
A
Exactly.
- [50:40]
B
Over many years, not just Trump, but before. So that's really clarifying now. I think all of this kind of dramatically came to a head, was revealed in that phone call we all heard about when on a kind of group call that the president, that President Trump had with many leaders across the region, he basically said that he expects them to join up to the Abraham Accords right away. And there was silence on the other end of the line, so much silence for so long, that apparently Trump joked, are you there? Because they were so flabbergasted. I imagine the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, mbs, particularly flabbergasted. But lots of those countries were flabbergasted in the sense of, as you say, transactional, tone deaf diplomacy by the President. He's not really understanding all the interests involved, the history involved, the sense of honor, whatever. And so Israel is part of the whole calculus. And so quickly, because I know you got to go, but we cannot leave the dear listeners hanging without any discussion of that second track, the Israel, Lebanon, Israel, Hezbollah track. Because since the ceasefire, quote unquote, at the beginning of April and since the last time you and I spoke on the 20th of May, certainly it's the Hezbollah, the Lebanon, Israel front that has been the hottest. It's been very active. I mean, ceasefire my ass. There's no ceasefire. Why even talk about it? There never really was one. Israel has, you know, sharply expanded its operations despite the US claiming to have brokered a ceasefire. And they eventually crossed the Latani river in late May, I think just after we last spoke. Hezbollah also attacking, I mean, with much less ferocity, obviously, than Israel. But Israel will claim in its defense that it's, it's simply responding to unstopped aggression from the Hezbollah side. All the while, the State Department, I think, if I'm not mistaken, in Washington, has been facilitating talks between the Lebanese state and Israel. The Lebanese state, not Hezbollah and Israel, trying to cajole the Lebanese state into undertaking its obligations to participate in the disarming of Hezbollah. But for reasons that you've explained many times, not least corruption on the part of the Lebanese state, those talks don't seem to be going anywhere. And then in the last weekend, over the last few days, this really all heated up when Israel, it says in response to provocations, bombed southern Beirut in a big way in a targeted strike. Of course, innocent civilians die, as they always do. This encouraged Iran to fire ballistic missiles at Israel. Israel responded in turn. President Donald Trump was screaming on truth social, calling up people left, right and center, and even before seemingly had like this is last week, a very sharp exchange of words with Netanyahu saying stuff like, everyone hates you. You're fucking crazy. You're only in power because I've put you there. You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. So we hear some really strong language from the president to Netanyahu. And then over the last few days, Trump basically trying to get Israel not to respond to the aggression from Iran. Israel did anyway, as you say, Iran wove the white flag. So that's my Best sort of summary of what's kind of gone on. What can you add to it? Eamonna?
- [54:21]
A
It's a good summary.
- [54:22]
B
Oh, thank God I got something right.
- [54:26]
A
In addition to that summary, the reality is that I believe that the rift between Netanyahu and Trump exaggerated, that's for sure. And it is basically to persuade Iran that, look, if you don't behave and come back to the negotiating table, I'm going to release my attack dog on you.
- [54:51]
B
Ah, so you think that there's some premeditated political theatrics going on here.
- [54:55]
A
Because there was a precedent for it, you see, because there was a lot of precedent for it. First in June of, you know, in June of 2025 during the 12 Days War and also during, you know, or prior even to the February this year, you know, the start of the 40 days war. So actually we do have a precedent of the two pretending to be falling out and then they are fighting together in the trenches. A good cop, bad cop dynamics. So whatever you hear, it's always exaggerated and you take it with a pinch of salt, especially anything that comes out of that, you know, from the mouth of that very famous DC liar. Now, but Barak Ravid. So that's the first thing we have, which is Axios, which I call it Faxios. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. My understanding now is the fact that the whole fight is that Israel is helping Trump, correcting a mistake that he made. And that mistake was made because the Pakistanis made him, you know, make that mistake.
- [56:10]
B
This was the mistake of, of encouraging the Iranians to believe that Lebanon and Hezbollah were included in the ceasefire and in the peace negotiations.
- [56:21]
A
Exactly. You know, Field Marshal Asan Munir and his foreign minister and Interior Minister Mohsen Nagvi, who is by the way, like, you know, basically who ironically Mahsen Naqavi, the, the foreign. The Interior Minister of Pakistan and he is now the one being sent frequent the Iranian leaders. He is a Shia Twelvers. And who is he? Who is his allegiance? The religious allegiance. Who is his religious allegiance to? Ayatollah Khamenei before the senior and now the junior and talk about double loyalties and double crossing here. So basically they told the U.S. look they will not come unless if you say it's included. So just mention it, just say it's included. But then, then the pressure because why the Pakistanis built up the Islamabad talks as the grandest of all deals and that just include Lebanon and then you will get the grandest of all deals and Then Lebanon will fall to the sideway. And of course there was no grand deal, there was no grand spiel, there was nothing. And so the Pakistanis misled him. And so now the Israelis are saving Trump from the mistake that he made, which is linking, you know, the Lebanon track to and Lebanon Hezbollah truck to the Iranian track. He want to separate them because that's complicated. And so otherwise the, you know, the Iranians can always retain Hezbollah as a front against Israel. And every time Israel misbehave, they move Hezbollah and every time Israel want to defend itself, you are breaking the truth and then they blame America for it. No, no, no, no, please separate us from Hezbollah and Israel problem, you know, you know, so, so this is what happened now. So when, you know, the Israelis attacked Beirut deliberately after the Iranians set up the expectations that they will come to the aid of Hezbollah. So Iran took the bait and perfect. The Israelis attacked Iran mercilessly for 12 hours to the point where the Iranians realized that, that Trump is not going to stop them. So we will stop. So they, you know, of course, after Trump put out that truth social, oh, Israel and Iran are looking for ways to achieve ceasefire. So he's hinting to the Iranians, you want to stop? Yeah, I'll stop. But it means that after that Israel have established now that don't attack us for the sake of Lebanon, because we will attack you. And America is not going to come to help you because this isn't about your territory being attacked. This is an attack against a terrorist, non state actor that is illegitimate. That has nothing to do with you. It's Lebanese, it's not Iranian. So it's all about like in a legalistic, diplomatic, regional politics, like in a kind of shaking of the cage, rattling of the cage in order to delink and decouple the two issues. And it's been achieved successfully today thanks to Netanyahu.
- [59:23]
B
Yes, today, that is Monday, the 8th of June.
- [59:26]
A
Indeed.
- [59:27]
B
So, Eamon, and you know, so that that's clear, I think based on your conversations with some intelligence officials in the region, I think maybe especially Saudi ones, your best guess is that this has to some extent at least been coordinated between Netanyahu and Trump. That there is some coordination going on.
- [59:48]
A
Absolutely.
- [59:48]
B
Okay. But that is, I think we need to be fair. Right, That's a guess. Nobody really knows because it may be that it seems to be so, but that actually the chaos is real and that there's a kind of ducking and diving waltz going on between even Israel and America.
- [60:08]
A
Yeah, but even this Madness. But even this madness has a method, as they say.
- [60:13]
B
Okay, well, I think we have to wrap this up because you've got to go back to your new full time job as a single dad. Thank you for giving us your time, Eamon. You've given us more than you said you could, so I'm really grateful to you. I hope, dear listeners, that you have enjoyed this, you know, kind of bringing you up to date about what's going on in the region. My goodness, it's. It's complicated part of the story, Eamon, and I do think that I wasn't as wrong there as you said that I was. But part of the story is maybe that we are living in this new 21st century world of social media.
- [60:50]
A
Yes.
- [60:51]
B
And we have a president who is using social media in a way utterly unprecedented, really, in the history of the world.
- [60:58]
A
And unprecedential. Unprecedential.
- [61:00]
B
Also unprecedented and unprecedentially using a tool of communication, really, to tell everyone, to reveal to everyone how the sausage is made. Yes, it may be, dear listeners, that the world has always been something like as chaotic as this behind the scenes, but we have never been privy to the sausage factory, to the inner workings of that chaotic meat grinder as we are today. Now we realize just how much depends on interpersonal relations between very few people, some of whom are not very intelligent or not very informed or very much in the grip of radical ideologies or nationalist ideologies or religious ideologies. They don't have the whole picture. They're not trustworthy. They often lie. They often cheat. We now see how the sausage is made and that can be very dispiriting, dear Eamon. Very dispiriting indeed.
- [62:02]
A
Exactly. And none of it is either halal or kosher.
- [62:06]
B
Oh, more's the pity, my dear friend. Thank you so much. So lovely to see your smiling face.
- [62:11]
A
Lovely to see you too.
- [62:13]
B
I don't know how you've managed to keep. Keep your brains from scrambling completely. Mine are totally scrambled. Dear listeners, we love you. We thank you for your patience with us. Thank you for coming back to get your weekly dose of conflicted where usually we try on Tuesdays. We try to tell you what's going on in the Middle East. We used to tell you what used to happen in the Middle East. We used to be a history podcast, Eamon. What the hell happened? I think we need to get back to being a history podcast because my heart heart will not be able to sustain for much longer the stress of being a Middle East. Current affairs podcast. It's driving me crazy.
- [62:51]
A
Indeed. Indeed. It's driving me crazy too, man. But you know what? What I feel we are going through is that history is being written and we are witness it. Just like you said, the sausage factory got a large glass window and we are peering into it now.
- [63:10]
B
Ugh. It's gross. Especially when you look at the sausage factory, the whole sausage factory, which. Of which the Middle east is just one department. You know, there's also, you know, China, India, there's the. The AI bubble, which is definitely a bubble, probably going to pop anytime soon, and all of that stuff. Oh, the sausage.
- [63:29]
A
Yeah. You know, AI stands for absolute insanity.
- [63:33]
B
But, you know, Eamon is only at the very least, if the sausage tasted good at the end. No. This is really disgusting.
- [63:41]
A
Yeah, there are so many solids, you know, bones inside that break your teeth when you are biting on them. Oh, my God. Forget it.
- [63:50]
B
All right, that's it. Thanks, dear listeners. Until next time, stay well and stay safe, everyone. Conflicted is a message heard. Production. Our executive producers are Jake Warren and Max Warren. This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.