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A
Sam it. Sa. Foreign.
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B
And welcome to the Tuesday morning drop site news live stream. I'm Ryan Grimm. Later in the program, we'll be joined by journalist Alexis Delumis, who is in the Kurdish region of Iraq and has been for the last several weeks working on a dispatch that will be published either later today or tomorrow for drop site. We'll get his perspective on what he's saying seeing there. Before we do that, we'll be joined by Dr. Trita Parsi, who's an Iran analyst at the Quincy institute for responsible statecraft, to talk about potential end games for the con. The. For the ongoing U. S. Israel war on Iran. But first, joined here by my colleagues, uh, Jeremy Scahill and, uh, Maz Hussein. Jeremy has to go in about, uh, 20 minutes to a thingy thing he's doing. So, Jeremy, I'll start with you. It. It's just been confirmed drop sites. Wakas Ahmed had. Had scooped that Steve Witkoff had. Trav has traveled to Islamabad to, we assume, attempt to partake in talks, you know, with Iranian officials. There had been some reporting that the Pakistanis had been trying to broker such talks. Maybe he's just got some other business in Islamabad. I know his son Zach has actually been doing all sorts of shady crypto deals with. With Pakistan. So maybe he's checking in on, you know, the. The bitcoin mining that Zach is up to. Uh, but so far there's no. No indication that the Iranians are willing to actually sit down with him. Uh, so I guess he's, you know, for now just twiddling his thumbs up in Islamabad. So what. What. What are your sources telling you at. At this moment? With the caveat that of course, things could change rapidly about what the Iranian position is on whether or not they're going to sit down again with any Americans and if they are, you know, which Americans they might find acceptable. And is Steve Witkoff among them?
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C
Well, you know, I guess. I guess to start, you know, we reported last week that Steve Witkoff had been sending a series of messages to Iranian officials, including the foreign minister Abbas Arachi, trying to restart talks, and that the Iranians had essentially left his messages on, you know, on two checks without light and blue and didn't respond to him. And, you know, when we. When we then reported that and we went to the White House for comment saying that the Iranians say that Wyckoff's been reaching out and that they haven't responded, the White House went nuts and attacked drop site and called us abhorrent and said were engaged in America last behavior. And then they tried to front run the story and they went to Axios and Barack Ravid and they spun an alternate reality where they said, actually the Iranians have been begging Steve Witkoff and the US Isn't ready to talk yet. And you know, Trump has been saying consistently, oh, the Iranians are begging us to talk. And every time I talk to Iranian officials, they say like this, this is fantasy land, you know, that, that not only has Witkoff been texting us, but third party intermediaries keep getting in touch saying that the Americans want to talk about how to wind up the, you know, wind down the war. And then what we saw happen as Trump sort of, you know, was, was embracing his identity as kind of the mad king, like a scene from King Lear or something where he sort of vacillates between, you know, we're going to wrap this up soon to like, we're going to bomb their entire electrical grid and power supply. And then he, he, you know, he's, he's fretting over the Strait of Hormuz. There's discussions of, you know, is the US Going to try to seize Carg Island? Are they going to try to do some kind of a land incursion? And then Trump over the weekend issues this threat, saying that if they don't reopen the Strait of Hormuz Within 48 hours, I'm going to bomb the electrical and power grids and supplies all throughout Iran. The Iranians then respond to that and issue statements and in fact, maps showing exactly which sites they're going to hit in the Persian Gulf and in Israel targeting energy infrastructure. And GCC states went absolutely nuts about this because Iran has shown a remarkable ability to just continue bombing, even though Pete Hegseth and Trump keep saying that their missile program is basically decimated and on life support. And so the story that emerged yesterday from the White House just before markets open is Donald Trump coming out and saying, oh, there's been a breakthrough and we've had a series of really productive talks with the Iranians and I'm putting a five day moratorium on any strikes against their energy supply. And we're going to see how these talks go. And we then spoke to the Iranians and they say there's been no negotiations whatsoever. And what the Iranians are saying is that we've been doing exactly what we've been doing throughout this entire war that was started on February 28th by the US and Israel, just reiterating our position of our terms to end the War. And those terms are quite sweeping. They want a ceasefire to apply to Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. They want long term guarantees that the US And Israel are not going to just use a ceasefire to prepare for another round of bombing. They want reparations for all the damage that's been done. They want a lifting of sanctions. And what they told me is that now, given everything that's happened, any discussion about their ballistic missile program is completely off the table. And if there is a ceasefire, that Iran is going to continue and in fact increase its production operations on ballistic missiles, recognizing that it's been very clearly understood by the world now that that is Iran's deterrent. So then Trump is confronted with the fact that the Iranians are saying that they weren't engaged in any direct negotiations. And he says, oh, well, there's a secret Iranian official that we've been talking to and I don't want to name him because he might get killed. And it was unclear. Does he think the Israelis are going to kill this secret Iranian official that he as concocted, or is it going to be that the Iranians would kill him for the crime of having spoken to Trump? And then the Hebrew press starts to leak the idea that the person that Trump and the Americans have been talking to is the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Khaliba, and sort of implying that he's been engaged in these backdoor negotiations and that he comes out with a tweet and says this is totally fake news. Trump is just trying to manipulate financial markets. There's been no negotiations whatsoever with the Americans. Now, having put all of that on the table, Ryan, I think a couple of things are going on. We do know that the Pakistanis, and this is from our sources as well, the Pakistanis, the Egyptians and the Turks, and I think to an extent there's some other countries involved with this, but those are the three primary ones have indeed been passing messages to the Iranians asking or appealing to them to start talks with the United States. And, and what I'm told is that the Iranians have not responded to create a kind of back and forth informal negotiation. They very clearly do not want to do that. So they keep reiterating their position. And one thing that I think may have happened is that the Iranians said we won't strike any energy infrastructure if America doesn't strike first. That then gets relayed to Trump, perhaps then interpreted by Trump as a way of kind of claiming a mini off ramp from his threat to bomb the energy infrastructure in 48 hours. And he says okay, well, the Iranians have said they won't do it if we don't do it. And I think that there's a degree to which they're just trying to will this thing into existence. So whether or not Steve Wyckoff is in Pakistan right now, you know, I don't know. But I do think that part of what the US Is doing is try to will a process into existence. But as of last night, Iranian time, my sources in Tehran were saying that the Iranians had not responded to to the US Appeals to start direct talks. And in fact, they said that the Pakistanis are indeed pushing for these talks to take place in Islamabad. But they pointed out that all of the mediator countries that have been communicating with Iran have been vying for those talks to take place in their countries as well. So I wouldn't rule out that we will see some type of discussions take place. Or we could wake up tomorrow or we could hear later today. There has been some date set. But as of right now, the Iranians are saying we haven't responded. We don't feel the need to respond. We think Trump has painted himself into a corner. We are showing that we have an ability to keep hitting Israel and certain Gulf countries where they have US Military bases with our ballistic missiles, and they view Trump as being in a quagmire. And I think that, objectively speaking, where Trump is right now is caught between trying to fabricate some victory and say, oh, yeah, see, we got them to agree to this. And maybe that victory would look in their eyes like what the Iranians were offering before this war even started, which gives lie to the whole pretext of it, or let's just keep bombing and bombing and bombing, and they think somehow it's going to cause the state to implode and there's going to be, you know, an uprising. And then there's a third thing I think we need to consider, which is that this entire thing is in a way a setup, and that the US And Israel have some other plan that they want to unleash on Iran, because the past two times when they said they were in negotiations, they used that as cover to then go scorched earth and start heavily bombing Iran.
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D
You know, Jeremy, we're almost at the one month mark of the war starting, and the war started initially with this idea, and it was expressed by US Officials that they would force the Iranians to capitulate very quickly. They would launch these very devastating attacks. But now, what you're describing now and trying to force this process on the US side, it seems like the, the US is the side that's actually looking for talks much more forcefully than the Iranians and for different reasons. The Iranians are reticent or not even really eager to engage in talks. Can you explain a bit of the dynamic from the Iranian side? How they see, you know, these events having played out and why they're not really rushing these talks? Besides the fact that it could be another instance of perfidy on the US
- [11:23]
C
part, I think that there really is an institutional psyche that permeates all of the echelons of the power structure in Iran, that this is a 47 year war that they've been fighting and that they knew it was going to come. And I think that a real breaking point in this happened last June when the US and Israel engaged in the 12 day war that ended in a ceasefire requested by the United States and Israel. What I'm told is that during that bombing last June and in the aftermath of it, when the US And Israel came asking Tehran for a ceasefire, that all institutions of Iran's national security state decided that it was a mistake to have believed that there was any good faith negotiation with the United States and that the strategy of limited proportional response was a failed strategy. What do I mean? I mean that when the US And Israel, during the course of the Gaza genocide, have launched missiles or done bombings of Iran, the Iranians choreographed their response in an effort not to spark a wider regional war. They didn't want to hit US Military bases and inflict large scale casualties on American troops. So they would send messages and coordinate where they were going to strike and when they were going to strike to ensure that Iran was able to be seen as responding, but not to cross a line that would spark a wider regional war. What we were told leading up to this February 28th bombing was that Iran was no longer going to play by those rules of engagement. And indeed, within hours of the assassination strikes on the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, the IRGC Aerospace division began launching very rapidly ballistic missile strikes all across the Persian Gulf and at Israel. And I think that what's happened is that some of the more, as Iranians would describe them, flexible political leaders like Dr. Ali Larajani, who is a highly educated PhD in Kant, and some others who would have been flexible or people that you could have negotiated with, they've been killed. And now I think the message has been interpreted in Iran that the only language that the United States and Israel understand is the language of force. And so where they are at right now is absorbing the damage, the pain, the missiles that they anticipated and feeling like they understood what was coming, and that their pain tolerance is much higher than the Gulf countries, than Israel or the United States, and then politically than Trump. And so I don't get any sense that there's panic among the Iranian power structure right now. They view this as an existential war. They view it as a long war, but I don't think that they have any sense that they're like, you know, on their deathbed or pushed up against the ropes. I think that they see Trump as not having the appetite to continue this.
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B
And, Jeremy, I know you got to go in one minute or two minutes, just real quickly. I know that these, like, comparisons between US And Israel behavior and their adversaries are, you know, can, can be trite. But it was just occurring to me that as, as Witkoff is in Islamabad, you know, hoping that somebody will come and meet with him. If out of nowhere, Witkoff was assassinated, let's say, by the Iranians in Islamabad, I think the world would almost collapse with rage. Like, how could you possibly do something like that to a guy who's a negotiator? You know, this is not a combatant. It's somebody who's just going to these talks or hoping to have talks. Not even having talks yet. Yet. The Trump administration has said publicly through this Politico article, and I want to get your reaction to this political article, that their, their game plan, effectively, for Iran is to assassinate as many political figures as they possibly can until one emerges that they like and don't feel like assassinating. Like, how does Iran even conceptualize engaging with a country that operates that way?
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C
I mean, there, the, the, that article indicates that, you know, some very important people in Washington are drunk on the, on the Kool Aid that Israel has been pushing for decades. This very closely mirrors what the Israeli strategy has been regarding the Palestinians. You can go through decades, and they are always, you know, one or two assassinations away from winning, and it never works. Whether it's Hamas or Islamic Jihad or it was the early stages of the PLO or it's, you know, Black September or it's any Palestinian groups, there's always another one that rises up. But in the case of Iran, there's a core difference. This is a modern nation state. The United States has not engaged in a war against a sophisticated modern nation state since World War II or, you know, to an extent, the Korean War. And I think that, that the, the US Is, Is, is getting a real slap in the face here of reality. And so, you know, we, we've said this many times, and Iranian scholars talk about this, even people that are incredibly critical opponents of the government recognize that they built over 47 years horizontal institutions that they prepared for this day, that they have chains of succession. I think there is truth to the idea that some of the people that are replacing the number one or number two that get assassinated are quote, unquote, hardline. But if you think of it from a common sense perspective, Ryan, if you're in that political national security bureaucracy in Iran and the people that have been killed were people that were preaching a gospel of sort of flexibility or let's not push across the line. It's not that you're a hardliner. It's that you've understood these tactics get us killed. And so if they're going to continue to target us in this way, then the only option we have available is to try to inflict so much pain that they think twice about continuing down this line. So I haven't seen materialization in Iran in response to these assassinations that would indicate that that is anything other than a total pipe dream sold by the Israelis to the White House. I mean, it's, you know, it's wild. Let's never, though the final thing I'll say is this, Ryan. Let's never buy into the idea that there's actually some division between, you know, Netanyahu and Trump, Israel and the United States, they negotiate with each other and then they come out and they do what they're going to do. All of what we've seen the past 24 hours reeks of some kind of plot. You know, not to sound like I have a tinfoil hat on, but we've seen this so many times because Netanyahu comes out and he goes, oh, well, Trump thinks he's going to be able to get through diplomacy, you know, a way to kind of lock in all of our gains of this military campaign. He verbatim, has said that at multiple times about the Gaza genocide. And then they turn around, they do some heinous, unspeakable series of escalations and war crimes. So, again, I wouldn't rule out that there will be talks. I haven't heard any indication that's going to happen from the Iranian side. But I also wouldn't rule out that this entire thing is being constructed because they have some alternative plan that we're not aware of yet. And it could come in the form of a massive escalation you know, when
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B
Netanyahu is speaking openly about the virtues of negotiations, that usually is a blaring siren that something's about to go down. Jeremy, thanks so much for taking some time this morning. Really appreciate it.
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C
Thank you guys.
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B
All right, so we're gonna, we're gonna bring in next Alexis Delumis who we're gonna play our Treata Parsi interview. We'll, we'll hold Trita for, for next because Alexis is, is here. He's got good, he's got good Internet. I want to take it, take advantage of that. Alexis is. Were you the director of Bill Quesibe or the, this documentary that people may remember, we played it here on drop side. I know you were heavily, heavily involved with that back in 2024, which is about Kurdish fighters in the Syrian Civil War. Some wild coincidental or I'm sorry, foreign fighters working, you know, teaming up with the Kurds in the Syrian Civil War. While kind of interesting coincidence this weekend while I was doing reporting in Cuba, I saw Brace Belden who also fought there and he told me that you guys were actually in the same unit and you know, became. Yeah, so he, he sends along, he sends along his, his regards.
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E
Same here.
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A
It's been a while, but yeah, same.
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B
Been a long time. Been a long time. You're no longer in that world now. You're on the, you know, you've swapped the, the gun for the pen and the camera. And the camera. Yes. And so you're in Suleimaniya, Iraq, which is the, you know, northeastern kind of Kurdish region, fairly close to the Iranian border. What, you know, what have you seen over the past couple, what have you seen over the past couple of weeks? And, and you know that you, you had helped us debunk some of the reporting that was coming from Western media by leak, through leaks from Israeli and American sources saying that the Kurt Kurdish Iranian Kurdish forces from Iraq were invading back into Iran. That turned out not to be true. What is the current status of US and Israeli efforts to spark a kind of Kurdish led uprising in that region?
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A
Well, I, I was actually thinking that it is worth to, to go back to that.
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B
Yes, I think, I think so.
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A
Starting that because it's quite telling what happened that night, let's say, or throughout the day really. But starting from right now, like I can say that first of all the general vibe here is not one that seems to project a big appetite for war and especially a particular appetite for invading Iran. I think it's probably worth to make like a very brief explainer Here, like the Kurdistan region of Iraq, is divided in two parts and the two parts are respectively controlled by two different parties that are also in turn controlled by two different clans, for lack of a better word. So the western part, which includes Erbil, the capital of the KRI and the base of the krg, the Kurds regional government is controlled by the KDP and the Barzani family, while where I am here now in Suleimaniyeh is the capital of the eastern part, which is controlled by the PUK and the Talabani family. Now, this is worth to remember because, for example, Bafel Talabani, the leader of the puk, gave quite important interview at Fox News a while ago where he more or less expressed like a quite intense, like, not, not a very big willingness, let's say, to partake in such a plan. There is information, I can say like there is, let me first say, like this is an environment of intense human hearsay and rumors going back and forth from here, especially between journalists. And I can say that there is, I have come across information that suggests that there are preparations being made with some amount of involvement of the American factor and that some kind of attack, some kind of ground operation is indeed being prepared. I want to emphasize that I think that anything is like, I think that all scenarios are potentially on the table, but I am personally not convinced, I am not convinced at all that this will be indeed the case. And this is where I want to, I wanted to like go back to what happened at the 4th of March, because what we've seen is that there is a lot of, there's a lot of psyop going on, like within all this process. And so what we saw then is that there was a kind of a domino of, let's be generous and say like inaccurate reports that suggested that the invasion of Iraq, like of Iran had already started. And I guess this is an instance where you all can kind of a little bit boast about because correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Drop side was one of the first American media to I think this narrative.
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B
Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. And we owe a debt to you for, for help with that. Jeremy. Hearing from sources, I was hearing from sources. I think you were too inaccurate is they were, they were saying the invasion was underway, which is different than what often some of the fake reporting you get that says there will be an invasion tomorrow and then it doesn't happen. And then you say, well, the plans changed. My reporting wasn't wrong with the plans. They were saying it's happening. There are thousands of people up, rising up right now, and it just wasn't true.
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A
And in fact, the original source of that reporting, which was an Israeli source in Israeli media, was suggesting that this already happened two days ago. Thousands of people had crossed the border and somehow nobody knew anything about, like, nobody like took, you know, in this day and age, which is, if you think about it, it's like something remarkably implausible to suggest.
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D
Right.
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A
But yeah, so, so base. So. So I guess what I'm saying is that that's why I think it's important to keep that in mind when assessing this kind of information. Because even if there are, let's say, leaks coming from direct sources, coming even hypothetically coming from could this. Iranian parties, this could be part of, this could be part of a strategy like, or this could, or of a tactic, if you like, where it is like, about creating a sense of pressure, a sense of an imminent threat, you know, or whatever. Well, however, at the same time, other information suggests that even like that by now there is indeed a reluctance from the American side to, to endeavor to, to embark in such an endeavor, like for a number of reasons, because also because now they want to focus on the Hormuz or whatever. But like, there is like, so there is quite a lot of conflicting information. And it's not, I, I would suggest a lot of caution in terms of what we can, what we can thoroughly believe of all that. Yeah.
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B
Rumors that also go.
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D
Ryan.
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B
Oh, no, go ahead, Mars. Yeah.
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D
You know, very quickly, can you give us some context about, you know, the state of play in Iraqi Kurdistan at the moment? Obviously why the US Or Israel even saw this idea as plausible? Are there groups in Iraqi Kurdistan who have irredentist territorial views towards Iran? Would they see this opportunity or, or was it completely a concoction that was some sort of, that was sort of thought up as an idea of distracting the Iranians or just causing chaos in the region more broadly. What is actually the context wherein this idea was even brought up, in your view?
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A
I mean, here there is a deep historical context, obviously, which is probably worth to have a quick look at that the Kurdish people are the largest ethnic group without a state. And they are. Their historical region is divided in four parts. And the thing is that in all of those four parts there has been like, traditionally, in every case there is an antagonism. There is some kind of struggle with, whether it is with Ankara or with Damascus or with Tehran or with Baghdad. There is always like a struggle for some kind of Autonomy for some kind of rights and a long, long history of, of oppression. But also which is very relevant here, a long history of utilization, weaponization and then betrayal. So the idea here was that, and I can, I can say that there is indeed information coming that from all sides of the Iranian, there are several Iranian, Kurdish parties that are definitely thoroughly against the regime. And there is information that says that all of them see this as a unique opportunity. But well, let me tell you a Greek proverb. In Greek we say right now I would say the Kurds, they can see the cheese but they can also see the mousetrap. So yes, there is an opportunity but at the same time as for example most of them, but for example Buffalo was saying in that interview in, in Fox News, we haven't seen any of the hypothetical components of the plan. Yeah. Of the, of the conceived plan about this. Like we haven't seen any potential for a mass uprising or and most importantly we haven't seen like a, any kind of thorough weakening of the regime. Now my initial information already like from like at least a couple of weeks ago was saying that especially in regards to Pejac that they will not move, they will not make a move unless they would be thoroughly convinced that the regime is totally weakened and is about to collapse. Which suggests that it's. They, they were not planning to be the catalyst of that but rather to move in, in a situation that would breed chaos to protect their own people. And this is what I've had reiterated from that side, let's say from the broader peak side, the ke let's say that like what, what the peak is projecting and it is important to look at, to, to focus at the Pejac because the peak is I would say by very far the one the Iranian put his party with the most military capacity. And what they are projecting is something like a strategy of non alignment, something that they call the third road and so on. So they want to project like a. Neither with us and Israel nor with the, with the regime. And the way they're describing this is that we can see, we can see what's happening. We can see the potential of enormous chaos and violence erupting. And we, we are mostly preparing, we are taking a defensive position and preparing to protect our people and our communities. So this is, you know, which, which is a different scenario than the one being floated so far. So given that and I think, and this kind of logic, although there are differences within the parties and other part, like for example, I think anyone can see that parties like the PAC for example, have consistently been more eager, more openly eager to seek an alliance with Israel. And yet this logic that we don't see, the conditions for such a plan to go forward are really here seems to by now be reflected by all the parties. So there is this con, there is this contradiction. Like, despite that, despite the, the distinct presence of information that suggests that no, this is going to happen, you know, And I, I'm not convinced. I don't believe it very much, you
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B
know, so even the most militant and the, and the most willing to side with Israel, Kurdish factions are saying we'll get, we'll get more of the mousetrap than we'll get the cheese if we go right now.
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A
It seems so, yes, yes, it seems so that no one, it seems that no one really thinks. And again, there's contradictory statements being made here, but that's part of a general environment of ambiguity, I would say. But yes, it seems that nobody really thinks that this is like, that the, the ground is ready for, for this. And of course, this is part of a negotiation as well, where people are, you know, saying that, well, we're gonna need more guarantees from the United States and so on, which is also, I guess what is also quite relevant here is the very recent history. Like I said, there's a long line of like, betrayal of the Kurds, if you like. Well, the most recent one is like only like a few months ago in January in, in northeast Syria that we've also reported about. Yeah. And people can check that. But so this is very recent and people are referencing that. People even specifically from Peja have been referencing that. But, you know, well, we've seen, we've seen this kind of thing playing out. Like, we, we don't necessarily trust the process, say.
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B
Yeah, how. Last question for me. Sula Mania was getting hit pretty heavily a little while ago. What has that faded as. As the kind of possibility of this incursion has seemed to politically recede, even, even as, you know, rumors circulate that it might still happen. Like what, like, how are you doing? What's the, and what's the, what's the situation been when it comes to bombing of the city that you're in?
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A
Here's another thing worth explaining a little bit in terms of the differences between those two parties I mentioned before, the KDP and the puk. Now the PUK has a long standing tradition of having fairly good relations with Tehran and also, and also fairly good, like, like a focus on Baghdad politics and, and also lately, like the Bafel Talibani to. To a large extent like consolidated and expanded his power by siding with the Shia political elements in the. In Baghdad and. And so on. So, so basically, so the, the PUK is in a. Is in a rather difficult position, you might say, being caught up between Washington and Tehran and in this kind of situation. And that's. But. And that also reflects the reluctance of both the, both the official political leadership, but also the people here. Like there's a different kind of, you know, relationship with Iran. Like the, the deputy chief of the police, when I had discussion was even mentioning that ah, in like when the. He was referring to the ANFA campaign massacre in 1980. Back then, like when we were being massacred, only Iran helped us. You know, so there is this, there is a little bit of this vibe as well going on. So given all that, but also perhaps more importantly given that in and around their bill is where most of the American presence here is, right. There is not as much American assets around here. Hence this area has been targeted much less than airbuild. Airbill was heavily targeted by the way, just now and six Peshmerga died just last night, which is quite an escalation by the way. Six Pashmerga died and Pashmerga is the Kurdish military and another 30 were injured. So. Yeah, so. So here there is less American presence, but also there is less air defenses. Like there's not much. There's no. Apparently there's no serum. Although, and I say this with some. How can I. I haven't been able to like independently verify this, but what I'm hearing is that in. In. In airbill as well as previously in Baghdad where now they're collapsing the bases, you know, and all that. Like it. There is a rumor, let's say that the, the Americans are running out of cram because the FPVs are a bit of a game changer. The FPV. The FPV drones, that is.
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B
Got it. Got it. Maz, if you don't have anything else, I think that does it. Does it for me, for Alexis, this is. This has been really helpful. I know you're staying a lot longer than you had planned to as this war broke out. Hopefully there's kind of no way out
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A
for me right now.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Given my. Well, let's say my past.
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B
Right.
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A
The road to Turkey is a bit blocked for me.
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B
So yes, every.
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A
Every other. And every other way is deemed too dangerous to. To risk.
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B
Right.
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A
I guess it's getting a bit increasingly frustrating, but. Well, we'll see.
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B
Well, glad we could Keep you company while you're stuck there for a little while.
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A
Yes, yes.
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B
Thanks.
- [37:25]
A
Great to be with you guys. Yeah, thank you very much.
- [37:29]
B
Don't, don't, don't close out when you log off so that we can, you know, so that your file uploads. But thank you so much for, for joining us and Maz, next we'll, we can play the, the pre taped interview that we did with Preda Parsi. But curious if you have anything kind of to add about the, the, the, the dynamics that we're seeing unfold here. The U.S. it's, it's kind of, it kind of raises this question of how often the US can utterly betray its either allies or its adversaries. Adversaries. When it invites them into negotiations and then kills them. Like, you know, at some point you do enough red Weddings, people stop coming to your, stop accepting your wedding invites. And when it comes to the allies, as, as he points out, the, the Kurds were, everybody warned the Kurds, the US Is going to betray you. And then they did it. You know, they did it. Trump has now done it twice, done it twice or three times, depending on how you count it. And counting both of his terms, the US it's, it's a long US Has a very long tradition of, as he said, kind of instrumentalizing, weaponizing the Kurds and their separatist ambitions and then betraying them once the, once the U.S. you know, useful, once the usefulness either for the U.S. or for Turkey or for anybody else has, has expired. Yeah. Any, any thoughts on these, these dynamics? It, it does suggest that the Kurds, who, as he said, many of them have absolutely no love for the Iranian government and would love to see it topple and, and which would then allow them to develop more autonomy in the Kurdish region of Iran. They don't see it happening. They're on the ground and they, they're like, well, it looks like US And Israel aren't pulling this off.
- [39:18]
D
Well, you know, Ryan, what you mentioned at the beginning, this policy of killing negotiators and, you know, attacking negotiations in the midst of them. And this is such an unprecedented behavior. This was not even done in World War II between belligerents that was seen such extremely damaging thing to do because at some point, even with your worst enemy, you do want to find a way of ending it for your own interests, if not for theirs. So for that reason, they would never do that. And the U.S. is now doing it as a regular component of policy, such that predictably, forthcoming negotiations are viewed with suspicion and lack of credibility and so forth. And, and likewise, vis a vis this Kurdish situation, the way that this attempted uprising or this attempt to instigate an uprising took place, as Alexis discussed it, it was very haphazard. It was almost. It was really quite insulting. And many Kurds were insulted, actually, by the way that it came about. There was a statement from the first lady of Iraq, who was also a Kurdish, longtime Kurdish political figure. She said that we're not your hired guns. Literally, they were trying to treat them as, you know, force them into a conflict that they had not prepared for, that they would not deem as ripe and so forth. And that, again, is very damaging to any sort of relationship with them in the future, one way or another, because nobody, they're not stupid and they're not mercenaries. They don't want to be employed in this way. They have their own national aspirations. So all these things suggest to me sort of an institutional decay in the United States which is manifesting this increasingly erratic and reckless foreign policy. You see a lack of commitment to norms which are beneficial to the US as well, too, and a lack of ideological cohesion, because this is all happening in the context where the US Government issued a national security strategy like a year ago, saying that they're done with the Middle east. Now we're fighting war with Iran. We're trying to instigate a Kurdish uprising. We're talking about ground invasions in Iran now less than a year, the inability to stick, have ideological cohesion to your own ideology that you believe is also a sign of breakdown. So I think we're seeing a situation where there's no real plan. There's a lot of improvisation. Tremendous harm is being done to people in the region, to the global economy, to many Americans as well. This is something which is, I think, is all manifesting in that context. And I do think that, you know, if they were trying to have a Kurdish uprising in Iran, this would be planned for years. You get the buy in beforehand, you'd have all the steps in place to do that. When the time came about, they're just trying to kind of like wing it and build a plane while it's flying. I think at some point you have a limited traction to be able to do that. And, you know, it's not surprising to me that they're reticent of getting involved in this, because, of course, if the US Is not a plan to support you, there's no plan to support what happens the day after the war begins or the day after it ends.
- [42:08]
B
And there's a real collapse in credibility that you can see on display here. Trump, according to the reporting, called Barzani, who's the, you know, the guy who runs the, the western side, you know, the western side of the Kurdish region, which, which by itself is, you know, curious from a strategic perspective. What you need is the puk. Like, it's, it's good to have, you know, the KDP and you know, it's good to have the Barzani clan. He's very powerful, supportive of whatever you're going to do in Iran. But you can just look at a map like you'd have to go, you have to go three through the PUK territory. So anyway, in any event, he's on the phone with Barzani and he, according to the reporting and Lindsey Graham also kind of said this out loud. It gave, gave him a real like, you're with us or against us speech, like, you either do this for us or we're going or we're gonna destroy you or allow you to be destroyed. You know, the very kind of Mafia esque kind of ultimatums that the, that Trump is, is fond of delivering but without, but now without the mafia level follow through like the Mafia, you know, it's a deal you can't refuse from the mob because you know, the mob is actually, they're, they're going to put a horse head next to you, you know, they're going to kill your family, they're going to firebomb your, your grocery store. Barzani and Talibani, as far as we can tell at this point, have said, you know, thanks, but no thanks. And so you have the Trump administration delivering these extraordinary existential level threats to relatively extremely minor, you know, powers and who are very dependent on the United States, particularly, you know, the Kurds in Erbil, as he said, like this entire economy is organized around a lot of, you know, foreign presence and US military presence. And they told him no. And so far at least he has not destroyed them. Like, so he keeps making these massive threats. We're going to bomb all of Iran's, you know, civilian infrastructure and plunge it into darkness. And then he doesn't. I'm not at all suggesting that the world would be a better place if he followed through with all of his insane threats. But there, there is a world in which the US's ability to kind of make threats is substantially diminished by, by Trump just, you know, popping off constantly and then not with, with, no, not, not just not following through, but really no plan to even, to even follow through.
- [44:37]
D
You Know that that level of improvisation does also give me the fear that they may end up doing it, even though it's not in the US interest to bomb Iran's energy facilities and so forth because of what Iran will do when the global economy.
- [44:49]
B
You said you'd do it.
- [44:50]
D
Yeah, they may still do it just because there seems to be like a professional decision making apparatus in place for these sort of very consequential decisions. So, you know, I think we're also entering a period where the US and this state by US politicians, the messaging from the Trump administration, is that they're in a position where they're freely admitting that the only thing that matters is strength and power. And that's the idea of politics, period, is woke. And it's not something that we do anymore. We just have lethality and so forth. But, you know, the US not omnipotent, it's not a limitlessly powerful country. It's extremely powerful. It can and has done tremendous amount of damage in Iran, in other parts of the Middle east, and it can do so for many years. But you don't have the ability to coerce everyone to do everything you want in the short term without any consideration of their interest indefinitely. I don't think that they are that powerful and they're not even able to really subdue the Iranians or compel them to accede to American terms even after unleashing this tremendous destruction on them as well. So if you're in a position where you've said that the only thing matters is might, and then you discover that you're not actually as mighty as you thought you were, then what? You have to go back to the tools of persuasion and ideological attractiveness and incentivization of people's own interests to get them to work with you. That said, I don't even know what the US really wants in the situation. What is the US goal in Iran? What was the goal of the war per se? Say, these questions need to be answered before you answer the question of what is the goal of the Kurdish insurgency? Is the goal of the Kurdish insurgency to topple the government in Tehran? Kurds are a very small minority in Iran and geographically it doesn't really make a lot of sense either. Is it just to cause an independent Kurdistan to be created in Iran and to cause the breakup of these countries to create a new Kurdish state? Well, countries which are very close with the US like Turkey, are very against that. And many countries, pretty much all US countries are status quo powers vis a vis the borders of The Middle East. So what's the plan for getting around that? It seems like the Turks objected to this and that's kind of why they part of the reason they backed off on it as well too. So again, there's not really, you know, it's hard to even answer the question because no one knows what the macro context is taking place in is I think that for that reason it's even more dangerous because there could be the potential that yes, the US will take very extreme steps. They'll foment civil war and chaos, destruction of global economy, destruction of regional countries simply because they don't really have a plan and they don't know what they're doing per se and they're responding to short term events or even trying to manipulate the stock market and global oil prices in the short term to profit. That's the very dangerous situation we're in. And again, I do think it's reflective of a collapse of a very intricate and in many ways sophisticated imperial architecture that have been built globally by predecessors to Trump and which is now, you know, has no, they show no signs of being able to maintain.
- [47:45]
B
Yeah. And so on that front let's, let's, let's play a little bit of, let's play the treat of Parsi interview that we pre taped and when we come back from it we could, I could talk a little bit about what I saw in Cuba and what the, what the kind of US sanctions, terror designation embargo, oil, oil blockade are, are doing there and what the nature of the trip was because I've seen it, it, when I, when I got back I saw it, it made kind of major national tabloid news. Even the New York Times wrote a piece about how Hassan Piker went to Cuba which is just an incredible kind of headline. I thought, I thought it was a made up screenshot at one point I'm like it's not possible that we are blockading oil from 9 million plus people for three straight months, driving them into, you know, hunger and misery. And the New York Times headline is about Hatan Hasan Fiker. No offense to Hassan but like come on like that. I don't, hard to see how that is how that is. And, and, and the free press wrote about how like Hassan Piker, Jeremy Corbin and and content creator Ryan Grimmer like over preaching revolution in Cuba. So we can talk about some of that idiocy. But first let's roll our interview with Trita Parsi now is Trita Parsi, he's an analyst at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. And he's also the author of his new substack, which I suggest everybody sign up for just search Treata Parsi in substack so you can get his analysis right in your inbox there. So let's, let's welcome Trina Parsey also of course, here still with my colleague Murtaza Hussain. Trita, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.
- [49:34]
F
My pleasure.
- [49:34]
E
Thank you so much for having me.
- [49:36]
B
So I wanted to talk about some of the analysis that you were offering related to the energy industry and the way that Trump has almost de facto lifted sanctions temporarily on Iran. But before we get into that, I was in, in Cuba doing some reporting over the last three to four days. And so and the Internet there is, you know, very difficult, particularly for foreigners to access. Your, your VPN is in and out. The diff, you know, the different cellular data is, is tricky. So I was only able to follow things kind of intermittently. I got the sense that I could have missed the entire thing. Also, I gather that there was a 48 hour deadline that was, that was announced by President Trump and then that deadline went to nothing. So for somebody like me who was kind of gone for the last three to four days, like what, what did I, what did I miss from your perspective?
- [50:37]
E
Nothing.
- [50:38]
F
Right.
- [50:39]
B
So we're back to, we're back to where we were when I left, basically.
- [50:42]
E
Well, look, he issues these threats right before the markets close. I think he's doing it kind of in a rage. I don't think necessarily. There's a lot of thinking through. I mean, for instance, there was this threat against Hog island as well. And then he ended up bombing, but he only bombed the military facilities on the island, not the oil pipelines. To me it seems like a pattern in which we're seeing how he's like trying to find some sort of an escalary option that will turn the tables and turn the favor of the war back in the US Direction. And he throws something out there and then folks around him essentially have to talk him down because reality is he does not have any escalatory options that do not carry tremendous amount of risks and in which the risk benefits ratio is just not a positive one for the US if he had taken out the oil installations on Kharag island, the Iranians would have blown up everything in the Persian Gulf related to oil. And this was terrifying for all of the other states in the region, of course. And we saw that when the Israelis hit Parse gas field, the Iranians went really, really hard against several different facilities in the region, which has a tremendously negative impact on the energy markets. And what does that do to Trump? It pushes up gas prices, oil prices, food prices in the US and that reduces the time Trump has to try to find some sort of a move that turns the tables on the Iranians. That turns the tables on the Iranians. The lower he keeps these energy prices, the more time he has, because once the oil prices go up and food prices go up in the U.S. that's when the pressure from his own base starts to actually get real. Right now it is not that particularly intense. So he needs to keep oil prices down. And as a result, almost all of his escalatory options actually reduces the time that he has to turn the tables.
- [52:44]
B
And last week I was talking to Jeremy and Maaz about how on a military level, there's some serious kind of asymmetric warfare going on that works to the advantage of Iran. And we can talk about that later if, if we have time. But it also feels like that's the case economically as well. So let me put up this post of yours from, from yesterday, you said, an energy, energy industry insider in Iran tells me the following, and it is stunning. Before the war, Iran produced just shy of 1.1 million barrels of oil per day and sold it at 65 per barrel minus an 18 discount. What is that? What is the $18 discount, by the way, for people?
- [53:26]
E
This is discount the Iranians have to pay because they're sanctioned. So in order to sell the oil, they have to offer these discounts. And you know, most of that is going to the Chinese. And the Chinese are making money off of the sanctions because they get the same oil, but at a discount.
- [53:40]
B
And so the 65 is the market price. Then the knock, you know, the knockoff, 18 bucks because they're sanctioned. So then, then you say Today it produces 1.5 million barrels a day and sells it at the market price of 110 with only a two to four dollar discount, you say. And this does not include petrochemical sales that not only have increased, but are now being sold to a larger set of customers compared to before the war. Moreover, Iran is receiving payments through new mechanisms that bypass the uae, which were set up after the June war. In essence, and this is really important to understand, Trump in Israel's war has ended up delivering Iran de facto sanctions relief. This, this means that Iran is all the less incentivized to end the war unless the agreement provides Iran with formal sanctions relief. So who, who saw this coming?
- [54:31]
E
Anyone who was paying attention, although this part, I have to say I did not see this because I, I don't follow the, the energy markets closely enough. Obviously, I have no insights into what type of mechanisms the Iranians have put in place quietly in order to be able to, to circumvent not only sanctions, but now also the uae, mindful of the fact that the UAE is just such an open ally of Israel at this point. By the way, I got one thing wrong in those tweets, although the context makes it clear, of course, I'm talking about exports, not production. The production is much higher. It's the exports. And just as a point of comparison,
- [55:02]
B
exports is what matters, because that's what
- [55:04]
E
you can do is what matters. Exactly. And one point of comparison is that the Trump administration during the first term was hoping to cut, push down their sales or their exports to about 700 to 800,000, hoping that at that point that would cause the Iranian economy to completely crash. They are now at twice that, essentially as a result of this war. So essentially, the war has become a de facto sanctions relief for the Iranians in a way that really, I think, has caught the administration off guard, because the administration really had no preparations even for the fact that they would close the straits, but that they would close the straits in such a way that they don't close it for everyone. They actually control the straits. They export more themselves. They allow other countries, India, Pakistan, China, Russia, to be able to get through while they're stopping everyone else, unless they negotiate with Tehran and come to some sort of an agreement.
- [55:59]
D
Trit, I want to ask you about that a bit, because the other night James Mattis, the former Defense Secretary in the first Trump administration administration, gave an address and he actually mentions this issue of ending the war from a US Perspective with Iran in control of the straits. He said that this would basically mean that Iran won the war. And he also said that there's not really good options in his view of what the US can do at this point. Obviously, what's on the table or people discuss at the moment is either some sort of negotiation with Iran where Iran would at this point extract significant concessions if the war ended this way, or some sort of amphibious landing on southern Iran or capture of Kharg island or other these ideas that have been floated, and there's some troop deployments which ostensibly could be used for that. What would be the implications of Iran ending the war in control of the Strait of Hormuz in the manner you describe, both for its relationship with the broader world, but also the other Gulf countries. And do you think that that's a realistic possible outcome at this stage?
- [57:00]
A
I don't.
- [57:01]
E
I think the more realistic outcome is that the United States would end up negotiating with Iran, and the negotiations would put an end to the war, but it would also open up the straits. It would be very difficult for the United States to just leave this in the manner that it is, because, again, if the Trump administration just declares victory right now, the Iranians are not going to open up the straits and they're going to continue to shoot at Israel. They're not done with this war because they need this war to end in such a manner so that it doesn't restart. That means two things. One, they want the cost to be as high as possible for the United States and for Israel, as well as for a lot of other countries, to make sure that everyone concludes this war was a mistake, it should never have been started, and as a result, it should never be restarted. And that the end of the war does not end up becoming a ceasefire that the US And Israel uses just to regroup, rearm, and then relaunch the war. That is completely unacceptable to the Iranians because, frankly, they can't survive if there's going to be a mowing of the lawn every six or eight months. They can't handle that. The other thing that it means, though, is that they're not going to agree to ending the war unless they get some form of sanctions relief. And this is not just because they have leverage. They do have leverage now, and they're not going to give it up easily. But it's also because of the first point. If they end up back in the previous status quo, not only are they degraded, even though they've managed to establish some deterrence, nevertheless, the military, the country as a whole, has taken a huge beating in this war, there should be no doubt about that. But they're also then in a position in which the likelihood of getting some sanctions relief is even less. And as a result, Iran will be in a state of continuous weakening from their standpoint. And I think they're correct in this. If they get weaker, all that does, it ensures that the US And Israel will strike again. Because it's precisely the perception of Iranian weakness that led to this idea that there's a window of opportunity to attack Iran. So they absolutely need that sanctions relief as part of their deterrence against future attacks. So I think there's going to have to end up being some form of a negotiation. I find it interesting that the Administration already even officially has lifted sanctions by lifting the sanctions on the oil that is on the water, because, again, the US Is in greater need than anyone else of pushing down these oil prices. So I think we're already kind of open up the door, entering the territory of sanctions relief as part of ending this war. Will it be difficult? Absolutely. It will not be easy. But the comparison that we have to keep in mind is that either you lift some sanctions, you end this war, or you continue this war. And if this war continues much further and we get to a point in which Trump no longer can credibly declare victory to his own audience, all that means is that he no longer has the incentive to end the war because he can't declare victory. So he's just going to continue, go along with this, and this will end up some sort of a lower intensity forever war, which will be the exact thing that will destroy his presidency and define his presidency.
- [60:08]
B
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that point because maybe it's my. Maybe it's a lack of imagination that I have from living here in the United States, but it's very hard for me to envision a scenario in which Trump exits this war, declaring victory in such a way where the humiliation is just obvious. And on the surface, which would be, for instance, if, you know, Iran retains control of the Strait of Hormuz with sanctions lifted. Like, even Trump's gift for propaganda and public relations can't make that look like a victory. So what. What is a world in which Trump clearly loses it because it looks like he's either going into a forever war that destroys his presidency and maybe the United States empire, or he exits this in a humiliating fashion. What is the way to that? You could see that to exit this in a humiliating fashion, that is, on the surface, less obviously humiliating.
- [61:12]
E
So I, I think I may differ with you a little bit, Ryan. I. I have greater faith in that talent that you mentioned, in his way of.
- [61:20]
B
Maybe he can do it.
- [61:21]
E
Yeah, yeah. Let me put it. I mean, we did a poll last week with the American Conservative, and it showed that 79% of his voters, and we only polled his own voters, would support him just ending the war and declaring victory. I think there's still another week, two weeks, perhaps three weeks in which he has the ability of being able to declare victory and his base will believe in which is what matters to him more than anything else. Right, right. And he can point to things. They definitely degraded the Iranian military. They definitely have destroyed a tremendous amount of things inside of Iran. He can point to whatever number of people within the regime that they have killed. He can point to the fact that as part of the deal, the Iranians will reopen the straits and he will make a big deal out of that, even though, of course, the strait was open before the war started. It only got closed because he started the war. And they will probably get something on the nuclear front as well. It's probably not going to be as good as the offer they had in Geneva, but Trump rejected it. But he'll probably get something on that front. So I still think he has that ability to be able to point to a couple of things. This goes on a couple of more weeks. I fear that he will lose that ability. And once he's lost that ability, then his incentive structures are completely different. This is part of the reason I worry that the Iranians are going to overplay their hands, that they're going to take this too far to a point in which Trump actually is not incentivized to end the war any longer because he can't declare victory, not even to his own base. I think that would be a huge missed opportunity because then this very well may end up becoming a lose, lose forever type of a military engagement.
- [63:01]
D
Trito over the weekend, there were some statements by Emirati officials which are very kind of pointed towards Iran, I think, referring to Iran as a terrorist state and implying that the end goal of the war should be regime change. And there was also a Wall Street Journal story yesterday, anonymously sourced, but suggesting that some of the Gulf Arab states may be on the verge of actually engaging in direct military confrontation with Iran in retaliation for Iranian strikes on US Military bases on their territory and so forth. It's not clear if that's actually going to come to pass. But something which there's been increasing discussion of how do you see this war changing the relationship between Iran and the Gulf Arab states? Because especially with the Emirati statement coming in public and sort of being so aggressive, it seems like it's almost crossed the precipice that, you know, inevitably there will be a hostile relationship in the future will be very challenging given how close they are and the size disparity. But what do you make of these developments vis a vis the GCC states in Iran?
- [64:02]
E
So, look, a lot of the GCC states are very, very angry at Iran. And frankly, understandably so the Iranians struck them very hard at the very opening phase of this war. I think most people expected that the Iranians would strike US Bases in perhaps Abu Dhabi, perhaps in Bahrain, not in all of them, and certainly not Oman, although Oman has not received that much of an attack from the Iranians, but still has had some. So I think there's an understandable anger on that side. There's more and more evidence that US Bases actually have been used to a certain extent in those territories against U.S. iran. Now, whether that came after the Iranians attacked or if it came from the outset is not clear to me. If it ended up coming more and more after the Iranians attacked, then the Iranians have actually caused a self fulfilling prophecy and actually pushing these countries in that direction. I think the Iranians, you know, they did this because this was all existential for them from the outset. And as a result, all type of constraints were more or less lifted. It doesn't mean that there are not some constraints left. So for instance, if the Saudis enter the war, I can see a scenario in which the Houthis will then enter the war as well. And that the reason why the Houthis have been kept out is as a leverage against the Saudis going back in. It will be a very, very difficult position for the Saudis at that point. If these Israelis or the American side strike at other infrastructure critical infrastructure, desalination, for instance, or these power grids, there's a likelihood that the Iranians will strike it in those GCC countries and they're far, far more sensitive to this than the Iranians are. Both the power grids as well as the desalination is more vulnerable in those states. Even in Israel itself is actually the power infrastructure is more sensitive. So there's still a lot of extremely dangerous escalatory moves that both sides can make. And this is one part of the reason I said, going back to what I said at the outset, Trump doesn't have any great escalatory options because whatever he does, the Iranians can do something that in many ways will be even more devastating. But at the end of it, where will the GCC and Iran be? I think it will be very, very tough for them. You know, there had been a warm up in the relations that's probably going to be largely wiped out. There's going to be a split within the gcc. Some of the states are going to be of the view that at the end of the day, geography is permanent. The US Is going to leave the region. We have to find a way to make some sort of a functioning relationship with Iran. And we need to do one that has far more interdependence than the previous one did. Because at the end of the day the vast majority of the investment by the GCC was actually in the containment of Iran through the United States rather than an engagement. Just look at the trade for instance, or the fact that there was no investments coming from, from the GCC states into Iran despite the Saudi Iranian normalization for instance. But there will be others who at this point will just go and invest even further in the American security basket and hope that they can just balance Iran. They're talking about turning themselves into the next Taiwan or the next South Korea. So I think at the end of the day, the Iranians also have to be very careful. They have to look for some sort of stable order after this that is acceptable to them, acceptable to the GCC and acceptable to the United States. Otherwise, yes, they may score some significant points in this war, but the post war situation is going to be disastrous for them in many different ways.
- [67:37]
B
And treat a last question because I know you've got to run, but what are you hearing from people inside Iran about the nature of the attack from Israel and the United States on Iranian, both military and civilian infrastructure? You know, what is what, what is taking the most punishment and how much do we know and what can we know about, you know, how hard they're getting hit there?
- [68:03]
E
Look, they're getting hit very, very hard. At the same time, Tehran is a massive city. So you can be in a part of Tehran and not see any signs of that war, except the sounds of course, whereas you can also be in other parts. And you know, a friend of mine just told me that there was an assassination against a scientist in the building next to where his father lives. So, you know, it's also very personal for a lot of people because it's really striking them very hard. One person I spoke to yesterday said that people are starting to come to terms with the idea that this is going to be a long war. Earlier on there seemed to have been a bit of an hope, at least an expectation that this could come to an end in a relatively quick fashion. But now, you know, there tends to be a tendency in which people are expecting this to actually go on for quite some time. This is part of the reason why a lot of people have gone back to Tehran. A lot of people left despite the continuation of the war. They're going back in because they expect this to be a long war and they're not going to be able to just be outside of their city, you know, do not be able to work, etc for a long period of time.
- [69:12]
B
Well, treat a Parsi analyst with the Responsible Institute for Statecraft and also has his own substack. Now everybody sign up. Trita Parsi. Thank you so much for, thank you
- [69:23]
E
so much for having me. Really appreciate it.
- [69:24]
B
Thanks, Trina. All right, that was Dr. Treat a Parsi again. Check him out on substack. He's, he often gets out there on Twitter but you know, who knows if, how long that's gonna last and whether, whether you're going to be able to catch him there. So if you wanted his stuff directly in your inbox, I highly, highly recommend going finding that substack and signing up for it in, in a little bit. After we talk about Cuba, Sharif Abdel Cadous is gonna join us to talk about the legendary reporter Hosam Shabbat who was, you know, assassinated one, one year ago today. And so I hope people will stick around for, for that, that remembrance and, and that, that honoring of him. But yeah, once, once uh, Trump is done with Iran, or maybe he won't even wait until he's done with Iran. He's already talking about regime change over in Cuba. You know, he, he said recently that, he said, you know, I'm really on a roll. Venezuela, Iran, Cuba. He's going to have the honor of doing Cuba. I was there from Friday through Monday morning taking a look at what the conditions are like on the ground there. I was able to get access to two, two separate hospitals and we can, we can talk about that in a moment. But the, the conditions everywhere have, are just deteriorating quite rapidly. People who had been there as recently as December and January said that the, that it was noticeable, you know, how, how rapidly things are, things are collapsing there. And people who'd been going there for many years had said, you know, there are, you know, obviously there's always been a struggle, there's always been poverty. But the, the depth of the hunger and despair and seeing homeless people on the street was, was something new kind of to the Cuban system since the US has gone now nearly three months and blocking the government from importing oil. Meanwhile, and I'll, I'll throw this, I'll throw this up. It was amazing to come back and see what the American coverage of the trip had been. I see this here's from Barry Weiss is the Free Press Cuba's useless idiots. Viral content creators like Hassan Piker and Ryan Grimm were invited for a weekend in a blacked out Cuba so they could preach the glories of la revolucion. Content creator. I suppose that's accurate. We're making content right here, right Maz I mean, never really thought of myself as a viral content creator, but yeah,
- [72:24]
D
you know, the, the coverage that we've seen, it's kind of incredible in a way. You know, there's this horrifying blockade happening. People are dying. Yeah. And it's being reduced to this sort of media culture war issue, settling scores with no actual or very limited curiosity or interest. What's actually happening in Cuba as a result of US policy specifically aimed at inflicting harm on the civilian population of Cuba to engender a collapse of the government and potentially leading, as a similar sanctions policy did in Iran, to a military confrontation with Cuba should they not accede to US demands? So you actually went there and saw what is happening in the actual country that people are using as this sort of symbol for, you know, something very trivial. Can you talk a bit about what you actually saw there? Because there's these blackouts. We've heard reports of food shortages, medical shortages. What was actually taking place in Cuba
- [73:23]
B
from what you saw? And so it's been since roughly the Venezuelan invasion that the US has blocked all oil from getting into Cuba, except it has in February. It allowed private businesses to start importing some oil. The health system, of course, famously is government run, so that means that the health system is unable to import oil. We blocked Russian tankers from getting there. We've put pressure on Mexico to stop them from sending oil to the island. And of course we effectively took over Venezuela and made sure that none of that oil was getting in either. The Cuba is up now to, because of the Chinese have been helping with the development of solar energy. And I interviewed one of the professors who kind of has. Is overseeing the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. She said, you know, they're up to, you know, significantly over 20% of electricity coming from solar power at this point and growing rapidly. One of the, you know, they were stalled for a long time, but they've had a kind of a breakout over the last couple of years and just in time because if they did not have this solar to fall back on, I think the dystopian situation that we saw would be, you know, even that much worse. But so on. On Friday night, about a week ago, there had been a complete nationwide blackout and people would say, well, country, you know, 11 million plunged into darkness. It's actually people are saying closer to 9 million now because of the immense amount of kind of economic pressure being put on the island. And the Cuban government allows people to leave now where for a very long time you had to kind of Sneak out. Now if people want to expatriate, they can, you know, they can do so. And they're going to Paraguay and Uruguay and Brazil and Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica and to, to the United States. And so that it took them about 36 hours and they had the, about a week ago and they brought power back. Then on Friday night there was partial blackouts where, you know, most of Havana lost power. And I was walking around the city with Liz Oliva Fernandez, a reporter for US News organization Belly of the Beast. She's Cuban, based in Cuba. And, and we walked past several hospitals which maintained their power as well as the homes that were surrounding the hospital compounds. And in Cuba because they're so serious about their health care system. It's oftentimes it's not just a hospital, it's a hospital plus a compound around it because they have the more of a holistic kind of approach to healthcare. And she was saying that the people who live right next to hospitals now have found themselves in this quite privileged position because they're protected in the event of blackouts. People didn't know when they were moving next to a hospital that things would get so bad that this would actually end up being a privileged position. But if you have a family member or you, or you yourself live right next to a hospital, you keep power. So people will then go to their homes if they need to charge their phones or charge their, you know, if they need access to energy. That's in the event of a partial blackout. In the event of a complete total grid collapse, then, then nothing can, nothing can be protected by the grid. The grid is designed to, to protect hospitals and hotels, but hospitals first and then hotels second as the last resort. So, but, but if the entire grid goes down, then generators kick in. And so, and I'll play this video in a moment. We at the, we went to on Sunday. So on, so Saturday night there's a complete and total Blackout at around 7:30 at night the entire country of Cuba, all, all power goes out. It, it started kicking back in. It's, I just saw a news alert that it's now back like for the whole island, which is impressive like that. It, you know, this is, you know, a complete and total collapse. Takes a while to, to get back. But first they turn it back on for the hospitals. So went out at 7:30. I went with a couple of other journalists to William Soler Pediatric Hospital in Havana on Sunday morning. And at around 5:30am Power Power kicked back on for them. In between that they had their, they had their generator running. And so they were out for almost. They, they said it was around 10 hours. And they knew they had at least eight hours of generator capacity, but they weren't sure how much beyond that. And as they get lower, then they reach out to the, the ministry, you know, energy and minds to say, look, we're, we're getting desperately low, you know, and, and the government prioritizes refilling the, the hospital generators. But crucially, the nurses and doctors there told us there's a, there's a time between when the power goes down from the grid and the generator kicks in. That can be anywhere from a couple of minutes to four, five, six, seven minutes. There. You, you never, you never exactly know how long it's going to take to completely power back up that moment. One doctor, Alioth Fernandez, who will be in the video that I showed, he said that moment causes, he's going to be the one that needs treatment because of the heart attack that he keeps getting. When that happens, because you have people in various states of, you know, critical need of medical attention, some of them on ventilators. And that if, if it's four or five minutes between the grid going down and the generator kicking in, that can be the difference between life and death for somebody who's on a ventilator. And so the, and he and the nurses were describing this, like, foot race. Like, you see the power go out. You, you know, you instantly turn on your, your cell phone light and then you, and then, and you sprint to the ventilators, open up the side compartment and let me put this up. And then you start hand pumping until, until the power comes on. It's, it's, it's tricky because, you know, the, the measure, the measurement, the measurements have also gone down. And so, you know, you're talking about a baby that's just a few pounds. And you're, and you have to try to calibrate while you're, you know, under this enormous amount of stress. You know, how much, how much to pump. You don't want to pump too much. You don't want to pump too little. So here's, here's one of the babies. This is a, this is a little boy named Eric who's only a few months old. And this is, this is Dr. Fernandez and he's describing, he's showing us. So you kind of lift up the side of the, the ventilator there, and he's pointing there to the, to the hand pump, which, which you can see, but you'd have to have, you Know your phone out in one hand so that you or, or your colleague has the phone out, shining the light on it so you can make sure you find the hand pump. You also, of course, want to keep, keep a light that's, let's Lizzo, leave it right there. You also, of course, want to keep a light on the, on the baby as well to make sure, make sure that they're doing okay. We also met a nine year old who has brain hemorrhaging and his mother was there with him all night. She described, she described the situation as less stressful because she had seen the nurses do it the week before and she knew how competent they were. And also that boy's ventilator luckily has a battery. Now the, the monitor that was connected to it did not have a battery. So that went down, but the ventilators kept going because the, the battery worked. Eric's ventilator there does not have a working battery. Most of these ventilators are more than 20 years old. Because of the embargo and because of the inability of the Cuban government to be able to import kind of new medical devices. Most of what they have is, you know, donated stuff that was going to get trashed by a hospital somewhere else in the world or is a remnant of when there were, you know, moments of liberalization between the US And Cuba where they would allow some, some devices to get through. I see that, I see Sharif is in the waiting room. We can, we can invite him in. Don't want to make him just hang out in, in the back there. But so, yeah, I'm as you, as you're, you know, as you were watching, you're thinking about that and what, what do you think people are still curious about from, from like what I saw
- [82:31]
D
there, you know, and I want to be quick, so let Sharif get to the very important next topic. But very quickly, you know, from what you saw in Cuba and your discussions you had and so forth, they're under this tremendous pressure. What is what the prospect for what, what is this developing towards? Is there a prospect of an agreement that would end the block and result in some sort of normalization of ties with the US And Cuba as the Cuban government planning to resist? Is there a prospect of resisting and so forth? How do you foresee this playing out? Because several months into this absolutely crushing blockade, what, how might this end?
- [83:09]
B
You know, I frankly don't know how they would resist if they sent in Delta Force and helicopters and, you know, the, the full might of the American military. They have said that they will resist. They've said that, you know, we have a history of now. I think over time I think it would be very difficult for the U.S. to, you know, occupy in an old school kind of fashion Cuba. But I think that, you know, in the initial stages, I don't know, I don't know how they could put up, you know, a significant fight against such completely mismatched military. Also people there are, are very, very frustrated at, at the government as well. And also if you like, if, if you're there like and, and Cube and Cubans across the board seem to like very much intellectually understand that the US blocking oil from getting in is the, you know, playing the lead role in the complete deterioration over the past several months. And the US blockade over decades plays a role. But like anybody, you know, the government is the one that is closest to them and you're going to take out a lot of your anger at the, at the government itself. And so I can't imagine like it'd be very difficult for them to marshal, I think, you know, massive resistance to a US invasion. But what that would look like over time, I think, you know, is hard to say. I don't see how the U.S. you know, does a long term occupation. But where this goes is anybody's guess. Because if you, what we saw was dystopian but not stable either. I deteriorate, deteriorating. Like, I think we're, what we saw is on the downward slope. Like, and it can get, it can get significantly worse. You know, if, if people are, you know, are accurately describing how things had gotten so much worse from just from December, January to now, March, if they continue to stop allowing oil in and there's no energy around the island, there's no telling, you know, how, how, how, how, how much worse things can get. It's just, no, it's just no way to live. Like, they can't, they don't have the, they don't have the fuel to pick up the trash. They can't keep, they can't keep the lights on. They can barely keep the hospitals powered like that. It's, it's difficult to like and what can you do out, you know, what can you even do in that, in that case now that would, that'll take the, what remains of the tourism industry which the US has, has punished, you know, in a, in a, in a big way basically make it made it very difficult for Americans to go over and do tourism. But what they did is they, they implemented a rule that says if Europeans go to Cuba, they lose the visa free travel that they have from Europe to the United States. So putting this really high cost because if you're a European who would be vacationing in Cuba, you're probably also the kind of European that likes to vacation in the United States as well. And so they made it not impossible, but like, if you're a European in that situation, you're like, well, I guess I'll just go to Aruba or some, you know, somewhere else where. Because it's a real pain for a European to lose their visa free travel status to the United States. So they've, you know, they, they've cut out, cut the legs out from under the, the key sources of, of currency which are, you know, tourism, oil, Oil was coming in and they would sell some, you use a lot of that, sell a lot of that abroad to enhance foreign currency. And also the doctor, doctor's programs around the world, the US has put a lot of pressure on countries to kick Cuban doctors out and send, and send them back. That was also a source of some currency as well. So there's basically nothing there. And so there's no, there's no obvious like opposition, there's no opposition party, there's no opposition movement. All the opponents are in Miami. So it's not as if there's going to be kind of some organized, you know, Cuban led regime change on the island. But does the government just collapse?
- [87:37]
D
What?
- [87:38]
B
Like that doesn't make sense either. Like somebody has to be the one who's going to make the call of like, oh, this hospital needs gas for their generator or we're going to send engineers to this part to try to get the grid up. Like what, it's unclear what the incentive would be to like topple that for regular Cubans at this point. So it's really a total mystery what, you know, where this, where this goes. This is unsustainable. Like this is going to lead to death and, and, and despair on, you know, on a mass scale if it's allowed to continue even, even for a few more weeks, let alone kind of months and God knows years. Like the Cubans I was talking to were saying this, your guy has three years left. We can't make three years. Like we don't have, we don't have three years of this.
- [88:34]
D
Yeah, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.
- [88:36]
E
Yeah.
- [88:36]
F
Should we bring Sharif on?
- [88:38]
B
Yeah. So Sharif. Yeah, let's, let's bring Sharif back in. Thank you. You know, so much for taking some time to do this. You know, we wanted to take a moment to honor the, the life and work of, of Hassam Shabbat is is there and you and I would encourage everybody to, you know, go to dropsite and read read the piece that we have up up there today. How, how would you like to start?
- [89:08]
F
Yeah, I just want to remember him. You know, he was, was assassinated one year ago today in Bit Lahia. As he was driving in his car, a drone strike targeted him. His legs were, were blown off his body and he was killed. And he was repeatedly targeted and repeatedly threatened by the Israeli military. They basically said that they were going to kill him and they did. And the day, the next day after his assassination they posted online bragging about his killing and saying don't let the press vest fool you. Hossam was a terrorist. And so this was the level of impunity that Israel enjoyed in murdering journalists in Gaza because they paid absolutely no price for, you know, now it's over 260 journalists killed. And so they're able to not only preemptively basically say that they're going to kill this journalist, but kill him and then brag about it. But Hussam was, you know, a very well known face in Gaza. He was a correspondent for Al Jazeera Mobesher and starting In November of 2024 he was a contributor for Dropsite News contacted him and he was very excited to begin writing for, for Dropsite. He said I have so many ideas and stories. He was a one of a handful of journalists in Gaza that never left the north throughout the entire genocide. If you remember, one week after the genocide began in October 7, 2023, there was a decree by Israel for all of the 1.1 million people in the north to flee to the south. And many, many people did and many journalists did. But people like Hossam Shabet Anasa Sharif, Abdul Qadr Sabbah, who still is a contributor for Dropsite News, never left the north. And this was where there was a really a scorched earth killing campaign by Israel. And along with that, journalists were being increasingly targeted. And there was something called the General's Plan in the fall of 2024, which was a very brutal ethnic cleansing campaign in the very north of Gaza and Beit Lahia and Bethun and Jebelia. And there was only a few journalists there covering it, Hussam one of them. And it was at this time that Israel for the first time put six journalists, all of them with Al Jazeera essentially on a hit list, saying that they were terrorists, that they were not journalists, that they were militants and basically saying that they were going to kill them. So this was the first time we saw. I mean, there was kind of a progression of the way the Israeli military would kill journalists. I mean, we're watching video now. That's with Anastas Sharif, his good friend and a Sharif, very prominent Al Jazeera correspondent who was killed on August 10 along with five other journalists in a strike on Gaza City as they were in a media tent. But, you know, in the beginning, we saw kind of Israel, they would kill a journalist. They would either say it wasn't them or they would say it was a mistake, that this was part of collateral damage, that it wasn't deliberate. Increasingly, as we saw that there was no accountability and the US and other Western backers were allowing this to happen, and pretty bad coverage by legacy media of the killing of their colleagues in Palestine. We saw them then, for example, say that after the journalist was killed, they would say that this wasn't a journalist, this was a militant. We saw this in the case of Ismail, who was killed in August of 2024 in an airstrike that decapitated him. Afterwards, the Israeli military said he had received a military ranking from Hamas, I believe, in 2008, something like that. Ismail rule was 10 years old at the time.
- [93:26]
B
Right.
- [93:26]
F
I mean, that's. Those are the kinds of statements that they're giving. Then they. Then they kind of progressed to this, you know, basically creating a hit list. And so they put these six journalists on the hit list. Hossam was one of them. And at the time, Hussam said he felt like he was being hunted, you know, And Hussam, of course, like all the other journalists, was suffering all the things of the people he was covering. He was displaced. He told me he was displaced 20 times.
- [93:52]
C
He was exhausted.
- [93:54]
F
He was very hungry. He didn't have enough food. Food. He hadn't seen his family. He's the only one of a member of his family who stayed in the north, hadn't seen his family for over 460 days before the. The January ceasefire in 2025, the first or the second ceasefire. And he was injured in an Israeli airstrike. And he was repeatedly called on his phone by Israeli military officials, threatening him, telling him to go south and he would not go south. He kept telling them, I'm going to continue reporting. And he did so. And then. Yeah, on the. On March 23rd, well, it was 24th for him. It was. It was nighttime, New York time. He was messaging with me. We had agreed he would File a story about the bombing campaign that had hit Bit Hanun a week earlier after Israel abandoned the ceasefire and resumed its kind of scorched earth genocidal campaign. And so he was writing to me, he said, habibi, I miss you. We hadn't messaged in a while and he sent his, his article, you know, I looked it over very quickly and he said, when's it going up? He was always very eager to get things published. And I said, I need to translate it, I need to edit it, you know, please just give me some time. I need to go to sleep. And he's joking, he's like, I'm going to post it online on Twitter. I said, come on, just leave some for job site. And he said, I'm just kidding with you, I'll put it up. And he was always kind of maintaining this warm and funny attitude despite all of the deaths around him. And I sent him a couple of questions that evening. He entered one and then I went to bed and I woke up and messaged him again. And I didn't know that he had been killed, you know, and just, yeah, it was very, you know, obviously shocking and thinking that, you know, the phone is going off on in on his phone and you know, maybe the pocket of his legs that aren't attached to his body anymore. But then, you know, hours later, I get a message from the same number on my WhatsApp. And it was very shocking to see that alert come up. But it said, you know, Allah, may God have mercy on him or mercy on his soul. And I said, allah, who is this? And it was his brother Wissam who had taken his phone and seen that we had just explained exchange messages. Wassam is also a journalist and I just want to read what he posted today on online in a social media post. He said, today marks the anniversary of the martyrdom of my brother, the journalist Hossam Shabet. He always stood in the face of the enemy with his camera and his free voice, fearing none but God, bearing witness to the truth until his very last moment. My brother, I lost you before my eyes and I was helpless. I unable to do anything. That moment still lives with me every single day. You were martyred for the sake of truth, because you spoke what had to be said and revealed what they tried to hide. The occupation does not accept the voice of truth, but it can never silence it. Your words will remain alive and your voice will stay with us. It will never die. May God have mercy on you, my brother, and grant you the highest place in Paradise. You are a hero, and you always will be. Those are the words of his brother. And, yeah, we, you know, Hossam, like many journalists in Gaza, which is almost, you know, kind of very difficult to comprehend, kind of knew that he was going to be killed, almost. I mean, he's being openly threatened. And this is not an enemy that you can see. This is just going to be an airstrike. And so can you imagine there's airstrikes falling all around. You don't know which one is coming for you. And to somehow maintain the strength and the ability to continue to report every day is really incomprehensible. But like other journalists, he wrote a letter to be published in the event of his death. Anastasia Sharif did this as well. And, you know, it's a very moving letter, and I encourage everyone to read it at the end. His last words of the letter, well, he begins by saying, if you're reading this, it means I've been killed, most likely targeted by the Israeli occupation forces. And then he ends with these words, I ask you now, do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away, keep fighting, keep telling our stories until Palestine is free. And so I think it's up to all of us to not let the world look away and not let the world forget Hoss
- [98:52]
B
Sharif. Can you talk a little bit about his. His dreams for the. For the rest of his life? He. This is a very young man. Despite his. His prominence, the. The talent and the grace, you know, he. He may have kind of given off the impression of somebody older and more and, you know, longer into his career than. Than he truly was. Can you talk a little bit about what he saw for himself if he had managed to escape these Israeli assassination attempts?
- [99:32]
F
You know, we. We didn't speak that much about life after genocide because it was so overwhelming. And we're just trying to, I think, cope with what's happening. He was very young. So was Anas Sharif. You know, Anas Sharif, who had not been a correspondent before, he would. He was a producer and he did a couple of, like, kind of live shots. But I'm like Abu Bakr Abed, another dropside contributor. He was a sports journalist. Other journalists were like wedding photographers, like Maltese. So, you know, Mo. Sorry. So a lot of these journalists were forced to become these war correspondents. Hassan had some experience, but not much, but he very quickly emerged as a very clear. He had a gift. He had a gift of reporting online, reporting on camera. He was just so incredibly brave to just kind of every single Day report, be on the front line, speak with people and to be able to continue doing this in the face of such violence and such death and to bury so many of your colleagues along the way. I knew he loved journalism. He was very excited about it. He was excited about the difference between print and, you know, and TV journalism. And I would often, you know, there's always a seesaw back and forth between an editor and a reporter on the ground. And so I'm asking him questions and I'm following up and he's asking me why am I asking these questions? And I'm explaining things and double sourcing and he was kind of very eager to learn and always very eager to publish too. But you know, at some point there was an airstrike in December of 2024 that killed five journalists I think in northern Gaza. And I messaged him just to check in on him and you know, he, he messaged back, he said I've come to hate this job. The world doesn't care about us. I forgot the exact quote but he basically said, you know, we all now just call each other martyrs and saying who's going to be next and it doesn't seem like anyone cares. So I think he rightly felt that they had been abandoned by the world because this kept happening and it was being bragged about and openly talked about by Israel and it just wasn't stopping. And he's ultimately assassinated himself. And I think it's shameful the way that, you know, a lot of legacy media covered these, these killings. The New York Times in the coverage of Hussam, it was buried in a larger article and you know, some sub paragraph just to mention but you know, this is a, an established journalist who is openly assassinated. It's pretty, it's pretty big, should be a pretty big story. And we saw this also with the killing of Anas E Sharif who was probably the most well known face at
- [102:57]
B
that point and won a Pulitzer even
- [103:00]
F
he was part of a Pulitzer willing team for Reuters because he took a photograph of this massive double airstrike in Jabalya and part of the submission was his photo and the way Reuters covered his assassination. Also an assassination where Israel admitted it the next day and said, you know, I think they may have used exactly the same term. Don't let the press vest fool you. They front loaded the Israeli claims of him being some Hamas commander in the headline and in the lead. Really, really disappointing, really disappointing and
- [103:39]
C
just
- [103:39]
F
abandoning really I think these journalists, this is not the way they, we know that, you know These legacy media outlets can, can be outraged. And we've, we saw it in their outrage over the unjust jailing of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich by Russia. And you know, a lot of journalists and a lot of the headlines, if you go back and read them, will say unequivocally, you know, these trumped up charges of spying that he's imprisoned on. There's no equivocation whatsoever. And it's good journalism actually covering their colleague. But when it comes to these Palestinian journalists in Gaza. No, the Israeli military's claims, which are not substantiated by any press watchdog group or by the UN or by incredible or even if you look at the claims, they're ridiculous. They're given that kind of weight. They're like, well, the Israeli military says this and Al Jazeera, you know, their employer says this and it kind of gives does that he said, she said thing. So that also I would say enabled this killing to continue because there's no cost paid by your Western backers. But there's also no. And part of that reason is because the coverage is allowing for that to continue as well. There's no cost paid either in kind of like reputation. Right. So, so yes, I, you know, and I can't believe it's already been a year and journalists continue to be killed. I think the last. There was journalist killed just last week in, in Gaza or maybe two weeks ago. And so this continues to happen. Yeah, I would just, yeah. Finally say just we've compiled Hassan's articles on job sites just on a page today and people can go check them out and read his, his reports and I encourage everyone to do that.
- [105:41]
B
Yeah, thanks. Thanks so much, Sharif. You know, we really appreciate this.
- [105:47]
F
Thank you.
- [105:49]
A
All right.
- [105:50]
B
All right. That was Sharif Abdel Kadus, my colleague Murtaza Hussein. I'm, I'm Ryan Grimm. On behalf of all of my colleagues here, thank you so much for joining us today on our Tuesday morning live stream.
- [106:24]
A
It. Sa.