← The Chris Hedges Report
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- [00:00]
Alastair Crook
Foreign.
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Host
The Trump administration and Iran have agreed to a ceasefire and two weeks of negotiations which began today in Islamabad following six weeks of warfare. The basis of the negotiations will be a 10 point proposal put forward by
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Chris Hedges
Iran, not Trump's vaunted 15 point plan
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Host
that includes a call for a cessation of all hostilities in the region, including in Lebanon, where Israel has been carrying out punishing airstrikes, reparations paid to Iran, the release of billions of dollars of frozen Iranian assets, a withdrawal of US Military bases in the region, the lifting of all sanctions on Iran, and a permanent and formalized end to hostilities. The agreement calls for the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world's daily oil and gas shipments are transited. Iran, however, has so far refused to open the strait, insisting that Israel's attacks on Lebanon must first end and the billions in frozen assets must be released to Iran. While Iran has clearly suffered devastating blows to its infrastructure, manufacturing and military assets, including naval and air assets, while it has seen senior leaders including the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei assassinated, none of the objectives set out by Israel and the US have been met. The Iranian regime remains in power. It controls the strait, it retains significant missile and drone stockpiles, and it still possesses enriched uranium. Iran is the clear winner of Operation Epic Fury. The US is indisputably in a weaker position than when the war began. Trump has at the same time caused incalculable damage to America's moral standing by taking part in an unprovoked attack on Iran and openly advocating war crimes, including a call to obliterate Iranian civilization and take out civilian infrastructure, including power plants. He squandered an estimated 30, 39 billion dollars on the war costs that will be felt at home, especially with rising prices. The global economy remains in crisis and even if hostilities do not resume, will take months to recover. Iran, most importantly, is now the indisputable master of the strait, charging tankers $2 million to transit through the strait. It has a stranglehold on the global economy. The new Iranian leadership, centered around the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is more defiant and intransigent than the old leadership killed in Israeli and US targeted assassinations. This is bad news for the US and especially for Israel. US and Israeli strikes killed more than 1700 Iranian civilians, including 254 children. Three million Iranians have been displaced from their homes, along with 1 million Lebanese. Add to these numbers the 2 million Palestinians displaced by the genocide in Gaza, 6 million people rendered homeless. Joining me to discuss The War on Iran is Alastair Crook, a former British diplomat who served for many years in the Middle east, working as a security advisor to the EU special envoy to the Middle east, as well as helping lead efforts to set up negotiations and truces between Hamas and Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian resistant groups with Israel. He was instrumental in establishing the 2002 ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. He is also the author of the Essence of the Islamist Revolution, which analyzes the ascendancy of Islamic movements in the Middle East. I'll just begin, Alistair, with a very broad question. Where are we at this moment?
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Alastair Crook
It's a very bold question. It's a very good question because this is not really clear at the moment. First of all, although we call it a ceasefire, it is not really a ceasefire in the sense that a ceasefire normally has some understandings, prior understandings that underpin a ceasefire. We do have a halt of, if you like, military activities across or supposed to be across all fronts. Although in the introduction you pointed out that Israel was attacking Lebanon, causing many deaths and casualties in the process, in a deliberate act to exclude Lebanon from the whole process. What's happening at the moment is that there are two delegations in Islamabad. They are not meeting directly, they are meeting indirectly. They are quite big delegations because there are delegations of experts that are involved in this process. It is hinged on the ten point plan or framework that Iran insisted there should be. The precondition for the meeting to take place was that the United States should agree that this was an acceptable basis for discussion. The Americans agreed to that. Now, where we are in this at the moment is, as I understand it from Islam about is that nothing really very much is happening. There are the general discussions, but the Iranians believe that the United States have not fulfilled some of the undertakings they gave to Pakistan particularly. There seems to be hitches on the release of the frozen assets. And there are other elements that are taking place that are not very clear at the moment. I think it would be better to describe this, particularly from an Iranian point of view. This was an effort, if you like, to have at least a halt in the military side of the war to explore whether there was any room for maneuver politically. I mean, we call that in the Middle East a hudna rather than a sisfire. It's a temporary truce, if you like, really to explore if there is political will to move forward. And as I understand at this moment, that is not clear. So it's not clear whether the negotiations will continue past today or whether they will end Today, I don't think there is any great expectation of an agreement, certainly from the Iranian side. And I think that we may find that we finish the day with nothing really solid emerging from this and the continual prospect that there will be military action initiated by Israel either, again in Lebanon, where Israel is insistent that it should not be included in this process and that this is quite separate and that they're in discussion with the Lebanese government in order to have the demilitarization, the disarmament of Hezbollah, and that's a separate issue and can't be included. The Iranian position is very simple. It's going to be either a ceasefire for all or a ceasefire for nobody. If the Israelis insist that Lebanon is outside of these agreements and outside of these discussions, then in that case Israel can be outside of these discussions and Iran will continue the war on Israel. So I think it's unclear how far we are going to get. But the expectations, as I hear or judge from there, are not very optimistic that something will emerge. And it's not surprising. I mean, I don't think it's surprising. I'm sure it isn't surprising to you because there are enormous contradictions in this whole process. They are the differences in the interests of the United States and of Iran and what Iran's objectives are, which are very poorly understood, I believe, in the United States and poorly understood more generally in the west, how serious they are. The objectives for this war. I mean, in a nutshell, the objectives of Iran are to blow up the existing paradigm, that is a revolutionary objective, to blow it up completely in order that they can escape, if you like, from the cage in which they've been held for 48 years, surrounded by US military forces, besieged by tariffs, by restrictions, UN resolutions, political isolation, economic, cultural, if you like, boycott. So this is what they are trying to break out. Break out. It's not the same cage that the Hamas and the Palestinians are in, Gaza, which has got a literal fence and drones and monitoring of it. But Iran is intent on breaking the paradigm. And the key to breaking that paradigm, of course, is the Hormuz and their control over the Hormuz, which is the centerpiece of their strategic objectives.
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Chris Hedges
Do they have the capacity, in your view, to break that paradigm?
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Alastair Crook
Yes, I think they have moved in that direction. I noticed what you said in the introduction about the devastation that had been visited on Iran, and I know this will seem counterintuitive to many of your listeners, but in fact, Iran has emerged from this one month war or so in a much stronger position than it did from the 12 Day War in June, it is in much stronger position. There is a lot of propaganda on all sides in this war, but there are some things that one can say very clearly that Iran has affected enormous damage on American bases in the Gulf area. It has destroyed all the radar abilities. I think altogether something like seven radars have been destroyed in the first phase of the war. They have not only destroyed that, they have complete control over the Hormuz. And they have still at this time, of course, Iran doesn't have an air force and therefore cannot have air dominance. But instead of which, they have created missile dominance over the airspace of the whole region, including Israel. The damage to their missile capabilities has been grossly overstated by the old tactic of just counting. This goes back to Vietnam, counting airstrikes. And one of the things that has been most notable in this period is before the war, Iran bought from China a huge number of decoys, decoy planes, decoy missiles. And one of the things, not only are they very effective in their appearance, but I didn't know until recently is they have a heat source in them. So they are hot. And so of course, that shows up on the American census and the Israeli sensors as a real target, a real plane, a real missile, when it's really only a decoy. The missile systems are buried deep in mountains. The main one, a main missile, is 800 meters under a granite mountain. It has a whole railway system in the mountain and that carries the missiles from the city, from the magazine along a railway track to an entrance, a door opens, the missile is fired from the railway line, and then the door shuts. And although it's been bombed innumerable times, part of that, you know, 16,000 strikes we have made on Iran, it still functions. Half an hour after the airstrike, the missile comes out and continues. The mountain is getting slightly damaged and black, but nothing is affecting the missile cities. Their command system is functioning thanks to the mosaic. Decentralization of command, disbursement of command. It's created almost a sort of mechanical structure that snaps into action as soon as Iran is attacked or as soon as there is an attempted decapitation strike. I mean, they started instituting this after what they saw in 2003 with the attack, American attack on Baghdad, that they had to find a way of countering this and countering the air attacks that took place in Baghdad. So, I mean, it's impossible to give precise figures, but I believe that the amount of deaths in Tehran are probably less than in the 12 day war. They did this simply by a very simple they Learned from the 12 Day War. Empty every public building completely. So universities, everything are completely empty, all the government offices empty. And so Israel has been destroying those, counting those up as a huge damage caused to Iran. And the most significant thing I would say is the financial aspect of it. In the first month of this war, Iran has earned double from the sale of its oil, from its oil sales and tankers, double what it has earned in any month for several years past. It's earned double if you take just one case about a week ago last Sunday, there were five tankers loading in Kharg with 7.7 million barrels of oil that on one day earned Iran $850 million from just the sales. Then of course they are earning from 2 million from every tanker and vessel that passes through Hormuz is part of the toll that they are insisting that ships have to pay. So the economic situation is they calculate, one can calculate from these figures, not just me, but others have done that, that, you know, on this basis the Iran could earn a little short of a trillion dollars a year through the control of the hormones. But it doesn't stop there. And I will explain why, because it's also about supply lines. It controls supply lines. Helium, sulfuric acid, all of these essential elements to our supply lines, manufacturing technical items and also for manufacturing channels, chips and things. The chip factory in Taiwan is almost at a standstill now because they need helium and they need liquefied gas in order to make chips. So supply lines, food, fertilizer, this is it. It's like if you like compare it to what happened with China when Trump imposed a huge tariff on China 55 I think percent at one point it was. And President Xi said, well okay, but I'm putting some restrictions actually on rare earths and other commodities. And so that's going to be what you're going to have to do without. And of course it changed. And so really that the Chinese tactic is also part of, of the Hormux structure. It's not just the sale of oil, not just the tolls, but it is about supply lines. And it is also something much more complicated, which is the insistence that the cargoes be paid in Juan and this is a part of, if you like deculturizing, the attempt to deculture the whole of the GCC area, which is part, it has always been the central hub of, if you like, the dollar hegemony. This is the center of the petrodollar. And it was encouraged from 73 when it started to keep the oil price up because all of the proceeds go to Wall Street. Wall street then leverage it in the financial world. And so you have in, in, in the Gulf states, a highly financialized type of economy with all of the data centers and others there in Iran is telling the Gulf states, if you want to enjoy a relationship with Iran, you have to get rid of Micro, Microsoft, Amazon, you have to get rid of these. What do you need? This huge 30 billion data center in the UAE. You have to get rid of this. This is, if you like, part of, I wouldn't call it a cultural revolution because it's a financial cultural revolution that the Iranians are seeking to establish. That's what I mean by breaking the paradigm. I'm sorry, it's a complicated explanation, but it's bigger than just, you know, can ships go up or down Hormuz. It is a much bigger, more ambitious plan than is properly appreciated.
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Chris Hedges
Some people have described this as the equivalent of our Suez crisis. That was 1956, when the British and the French Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. They tried to take it back. It was a fiasco. They had to retreat well along with the Israelis. Would you agree?
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Alastair Crook
Yes, I would say it's the same because there's really, if anyone knows the geography of Hormuz, I mean the literal, what it looks like, the landscape of Hormuz, it's very evident that there is no way that the Americans, as things stand, this has been planned for a long time by the Iranians. The whole of that Hormuz sea line is bordered by caves, its cliffs, and in those cliffs are anti ship missiles. Under Hormuz they have submerged submersible drones. We haven't seen them used yet. But these submersible drones have tunnels under the Hormuz waterway so that the drones can come out under sea, not visible, not can't be seen by anyone. They have lithium batteries that can last for four days. They have the ability to loiter and they have AI capacity to then choose and select targets. Then they have surface drones, high speed, very high speed drones with explosives. And what is unnoticed but is crucial to the is they have these mini submarines, two man submarines, small submarines, but they can operate in the shallow waters of the Hormuz Straits and the Hormuz Waterway. And they are equipped with anti ship missiles and also with these drones too. It would be a suicide to try and put a landing craft down the straits. The straits themselves are under fire control because on the other side of Hormuz, that is a sort of bend around the peninsula and that behind that are mountains and they are riddled with caves and emplacements of artillery. So the whole of the Hormuz Straits, you don't need to have, you know, drones or missiles. They control it by artillery fire. It's within range. And that exists right up to Cog Island. So any ship trying to go up this waterway will be sunk or damaged and told to leave. And if you land forces on the Iranian side, there will be. How do you, how do you get them there, how do you sustain them, how do you resupply them, how do you exfiltrate them? You're going to land them on Iran. It's desolate, that part of Iran. There are no, it's, There are no forests. There are in other parts of Iran, but this is just desolate. And Cog island is a very small place. It is. Even if you land at the Mong Kok Island, I've been to Khalg Island. It is just a small flat area where the terminal for the pipelines from inside Iran come and load tankers. If you take it, what is that going to do? And anyway, even if you stop the Iranian oil from flowing to Khark, then all Iran has to do is to close Hormuz for three, four weeks. And the pain in terms of oil price, inflation, markets, valuations will be felt very quickly. So it's going to be very hard to see. This is one of the aspects of these negotiations is the United States has very few cards to play and has one huge disadvantage, which is that ultimately, as we saw in terms of Lebanon, you know, the key player in this is not in Islamabad and that is Israel. And Israel overall has been very clear. You know, we follow the Israeli press very closely, the Hebrew press, and their aim in the attack on Lebanon was, first of all to enforce more time from Trump in order to continue the attack on Hezbollah. Just to be clear, if a few Hezbollah have been killed in this, there have been hundreds and altogether many more hundreds of casualties of ordinary Lebanese civilians. Got nothing to do with Hezbollah. They're trying to keep it apart by coming to an arrangement with the Prime Minister of Lebanon that this is a separate issue. We're going to negotiate the disarmament of Hezbollah with them. Therefore, it's not part of the issue. And as I say, the Iranian position is very. The equation is very clear. The equation is it's a ceasefire on all fronts or it's a ceasefire on none. And that's what they will be saying to the delegation The American delegation in Islamabad.
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Host
Doesn't Israel seek through Lebanon?
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Chris Hedges
I mean, Trump initially agreed that ceasefire
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Host
in Lebanon was part of the deal.
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Chris Hedges
Then he had a phone call with Netanyahu and immediately backtracked. I also want to note that when Israel carried out this massive attack, I think over 10 minutes, there was no warning. I think the numbers of civilian dead are up to 2,000. It was, I mean, to describe it as a terror attack is probably not
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Host
far, but it seems that this is Israel's.
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Chris Hedges
And you're right, Israel is not an Islamabad, but it was also not a party to the ceasefire agreement brokered by Pakistan. Is this Israel's tool to essentially sabotage any kind of agreement?
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Alastair Crook
Yes, it's very clear that. And in the Hebrew press, it's expressed, for example, Ben David said, well, of course, you know, the attempt now to insist on the disarmament of Hezbollah is likely to provoke a civil war in Lebanon. But then adds afterwards, but that's been the aim all along. And similarly, we notice that. I noticed that, I think it was yesterday, the deadline for, for the disarmament of Hamas has ended. So if Lebanon, if Israel decides to leave Lebanon quiet for the moment, it's just as likely that we're going to see a massive military operation in Gaza and in the West Bank. Again, the objective is quite clear when you read the Hebrew perspective. I mean, and these are the, you know, these are serious political correspondence. We've been following them for years. We know the ones who are close to the leadership and the ones who are in the opposition and the ones that are close to the leadership are very clear. We want the war to continue. And in public opinion, that is also the case. 93% of the Jewish residents of Israel want the war to continue. So this is what is being pursued, how to put the pressure on Trump to continue the war. Because they want Iran destroyed, not just into some sort of agreement on nuclear issues or something. They want it destroyed. They want to set up a whole series of ethno sectarian mini states on Belluchi State, Kurdish state, Zeri State, whatever, set them at odds with one another and have a completely weakened Iran. So Iran is not going to go back into that paradigm. Why should it, under any circumstances, is they can see that. And now they are in the process of trying to make a strategic push, a shift to change that paradigm and to get out of this and to have sanctions lifted. One of the points of the hormones exercise is because people are paying tolls. And those tolls are, if you like, breaking the sanctions siege on Iran, and that's the only way you get your tankers out. And increasingly, states are coming and agreeing and trying to make arrangements with Iran, I mean, including Asian states, particularly Asian states, of course Iran, I mean India and Pakistan, but also South Korea, Korea, Japan, they're all making arrangements to pay the toll and to be able to access energy through Hormuz. So, I mean, it is breaking in a small way, but breaking the sanctions. But they want sanctions lifted completely and they are using the One, the imposition of the One, and also the attempt to tell all of the Gulf states that they have now to abandon their close economic ties with the United States if they want to have a relationship with Rwan. And it's not just the American bases, but it's also the Microsoft, the Amazon, that part of the, if you like, the structure that has created an environment, an economic culture of the whole Gulf which is inimical to Iran.
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Host
I know this is a difficult question, but how do you read the Trump administration? Do you think that they are aware of how cornered they are?
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Alastair Crook
No, I don't think so. I mean, I think this has been a complete misreading, first of all, of the nature of Iran. I think they thought that there was going to, that Iran was a house of cards and was going to collapse. We saw that very clearly from the New York times account of the 11 February meeting, which incidentally is only half the story, because we were following in the Hebrew press on 29 December, when Netanyahu came and had the summit at Mar a Lago with Trump. It was there that he laid down very clearly to Trump first and he said, you know, forget the nuclear issue. You're not to pursue that. You have to go concentrate on the one issue. We have to end the missiles, end them, because the Iranians are not just replacing them, they're creating an entirely new umbrella, a new paradigm. And if it isn't done, they will be inviable. We won't be able to attack them again in the future. So you have to put that as your first priority and not the nuclear shoot. And if you try to get out of this by doing the nuclear issue, Netanyahu told him, quote from many sources in the Hebrew press, we won't give you a kosher certificate for that. We're not going to accept another sort of JCPOA type solution. And if you don't have that, you won't have the support of the right in the United States. So you have to do this. And there has to be this attack on Iran. And according to all of the newspapers, that was agreed in principle on 29 January, well before the 11 February meeting that the New York Times has described. And again during that, it is clear Trump was convinced this was going to be a very short war. Days at mosque, you know, one weekend started on Saturday, and by the time markets open on Monday, the Supreme Leader would be dead and the whole thing would be moving towards a regime change in Iran. And it very clearly hasn't happened that in fact something quite different is happening. It's very hard to describe this correctly, and I'm not trying to. You know, this isn't wishful thinking, my part, but it's quite clear to me that there is a spirit of the Iranian revolution in its new form has come back, particularly amongst the young. You can see it. When Trump threatened, when Trump threatened to end the civilization, the Iranian civilization, everyone streamed out onto the bridges, onto the nuclear power station and said, okay, here we are. If you go to kill us, you kill us. I mean, this reflects a deep xi readiness to accept sacrifice, personal sacrifice, in the interests of your community, in the interests of Iran as Iran as a civilization, a symbol of civilization. So there is a powerful, particularly amongst the young people now. They are much more, if you like, fired up after the killing of the Supreme Leader and much more fire young women, boys, men. It is something that is quite important and in my belief, is having an effect not just in the region which it is the success of Iran in this period, but in Russia, and I'm told in China too, the Chinese been quite. They didn't expect Iran, they thought Iran would manage, but they've been quite surprised at the success that Iran has had at its, its planning, its thinking and the, if you like, asymmetric war that they've been planning for two decades. So it's having an effect in China and in Russia, too.
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Chris Hedges
Just as a footnote, we should add that the Persian civilization is 7,000 years old. It's lasted a lot longer than the American experiment.
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Host
But does the Trump administration, at this
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Chris Hedges
point in Islamabad realize that they don't have many options left, that Iran is
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Host
basically holding all the cards?
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Chris Hedges
Or do you think that they are foolish enough to get sucked back into resumption of the war?
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Alastair Crook
I think, first of all, the most important element in this, of course, is Israel, because it is quite likely that Israel will pursue the war. Whether it'll do it, first of all via Lebanon, or whether it'll do it in Gaza, or whether it will do it directly. But as far as they're concerned, the war is unfinished business. Now this is a paradox, a real paradox, because at the same time that I'm saying 93% pursue and support war on Iran and the destruction of Iran in the polls, it's even higher on the right. And this is an average, the 93%. The same time I'm saying that there's signs of great distress inside Israel too. The chief of staff of the army has said, you know, IDF is on the point of collapsing. He went to the last security cabinet meeting and he said, I've got 10 red lights for you gentlemen, because we cannot survive with this. We are losing heavily, many men in Lebanon. They had nearly. In that very short period they were there. Nearly 100 Merkurva were destroyed.
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Chris Hedges
This is the Israeli battle tank you're referring to?
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Alastair Crook
Yes, sorry, the main battle tank. And many of them with their crew, some crew got up, many did not. They're losing troops. When they tried to invade and form a buffer line in Lebanon, they were routed. There is a new Hezbollah. It has gone dark. You don't see it. The Israelis complain, you know, they're like ghosts. They appear and they vanish and you don't see them again. It's. They've evolved, they've changed it. And they fire their missiles straight across to Tel Aviv. So there's a big fight in Israel because the defense minister wants a buffer line. They want to level all the houses for 7, 8 km in the south of Lebanon, just destroy them like Gaza, and have that as a buffer line. And the defense staff say to him, but you know, this is stupid. What are you doing this for? Because Hezbollah has most of its missile capacity north of the litany. The litany is the river that divides Lebanon about just less than halfway to the north. And they have north of it. The south has always been seen as more of a SHI preserve. And so they have. And this is where the crisis is. On the one hand, the population wants the war to go on. On the other hand, the military side in Israel are saying very clearly, we have achieved none of our objectives in Iran. We haven't had seen the state collapse. It wasn't a house of cards. We don't believe there can be a color revolution in Iran. We haven't ended the nuclear process. We haven't got the enriched uranium back. We haven't caused any rail damage. They still are able to fire missiles at us regularly and with very damaging effects. So we have failed in Iran and we have failed. Clearly. We all thought that Hezbollah had been completely decapacitated by the killing of its leadership and Hassan Nasrallah. And now we find that actually they've emerged even more effectively than they were very effective new leaders and new structures. And in Gaza, who's running Gaza? Inshama is still running Gaza. And they are re equipping and they are re preparing for another conflict with Iran. So all of this has failed and there's going to be no grand victory. So there is this great confrontation. And, you know, it could be that it is Israel that calls for a ceasefire first, even before, just as they did in the seven day, seven 12 day war, after four days started asking for it. So it's possible because the strains and the strains on ordinary people, yes, they support the destruction of Iran wholeheartedly, yet they are not ready to go on going down to the shelters and spending every night for, you know, eight or 10 hours in a shelter day after day after day. And the strains on the civil population are great. So I can't give you a very simple answer as what's going to happen from all of this. But don't forget, there are elections coming up. Netanyahu still has a court case which is about to resume, I think, tomorrow. And he has to win these elections to vote the outcome of the court case, which might mean imprisonment. And so he's desperate to keep the war in Iran going because this is, you know, to keep the fantasy, if you like, now, or the imaginary victory of a war in Iran. And partly that was what he was doing in Lebanon. It's saying, look, okay, we haven't won against Hezbollah, but look, we can really hit them and we hit them. And so it's very complicated, the situation in Israel as a consequence, and very complicated in the United States. I mean, I'm speaking to you from Europe and you're in the United States, but you will well understand, I mean, the problem is that Trump needs to clear the decks, if he can, before the summer, because the midterm elections are coming. The economic situation could turn very nasty. As I say, within even three weeks, the supply line shortages may show up. The price of oil is still high, price of gasoline is high. And so an economic crisis in the debt market or elsewhere, because we know very clearly that there's been a huge move out of the dollar, people seeking other forms of secure assets at this uncertain time. Certainly we see that in the Gulf. I mean, much of the money has been moving out of the Gulf, but not back into the dollar. It's been moving into Juan and going to China and Russia. Has been pursuing this and telling the Europeans if you want any Russian oil or gas, you have to pay in one. And you know, American European banks are now giving panda loans. Deutsche bank, major bank is now saying, well, we're not giving dollar loans now. We are raising, we issue bonds, Panda bonds in one, either a digital one or classical one. And things are changing and the process geopolitically is shifting and Iran is, is gradually in its small way emphasizing and working on these rifts in the geopolitical structures to gain leverage for their main demand, which is we want the paradigm over. We've had 48 years of being in a cage and we're breaking out.
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Chris Hedges
If the ceasefire talks break down, how likely do you think it is that the United States resume its aerial campaign against Iran?
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Alastair Crook
Sort of. From what I understand, the Iranians don't think that America is about to resume the war. America, they think Israel is a different case, but they don't think America is likely to resume the war because they don't really have any cards to play. Already the Iranians have pushed the naval assets a thousand kilometers from the coastline by firing drones as warning and pushing. So the carriers have been pushed beyond the range of their deck strike aircraft to be able to overfly around without refueling and you can't refuel over your target. It's not advisable thing to do. They pushed that out. They destroyed most of the bases in the Gulf states. Heavy damage, the radar system have been destroyed, some of the AWACS have been disabled. So apart from the ability to just simply blindly bombard, basically civil infrastructure, houses, residences, hospitals and things like that in Tehran and elsewhere, all by the way, not necessarily by aircraft flying over it because they largely don't. These are standoff weapons, cruise missiles and others that are used to do these attacks. So what's really left to the United States militarily to do that would be a game changer. I mean, what bomb? Again, Nat has. The only thing that is particularly worrying is in this period Nantas, the nuclear facilities that was bombed in June by President Trump has been bombed again by Israel. But Israel is also put into a missile very close to Busheh. And just for viewers, a clear Bushehr is a working power plant, nuclear powered power plant which is a joint venture with Russia. So it's half staffed with Russians about, I think 135 of them has now been withdrawn. But then there was another missile which actually hit Bushehr. Not much damage, a little damage. But what's the signal coming from Israel from that on the nuclear target. And I think the signal is not so much to Iran, but to the United States.
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Chris Hedges
And what are they saying to the
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Alastair Crook
U.S. keep the war up or else we might decide that we are going to resort to practical nuclear weapons. Great.
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Chris Hedges
Thank you Alistair. And I want to thank Milena, Sophia and Max who produced the show. You can find me at chrishedges.substack.com.