Loading summary
Transcript80 lines
- [00:00]
Alistair Campbell
Thanks for listening to the rest is Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts and get early access to episodes and live show tickets, go to therestispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com what we're seeing now is some very significant protests and very, very significant crackdown.
- [00:18]
Rory Stewart
You had 200 separate protests taking place in almost all the provinces of Iran and the regime then has responded with blackouts. People have started to be killed in large numbers.
- [00:28]
Alistair Campbell
I think it's gone in a pretty grim direction.
- [00:30]
Rory Stewart
These regimes are completely secure, totally in place, until in an instant they suddenly aren't.
- [00:37]
Alistair Campbell
This will only lead to regime change and the collapse of the regime. If it goes on for months and months and months.
- [00:42]
Rory Stewart
Boy, is it something that could literally collapse in the next hour. Or they could still be in place in a year's time.
- [00:49]
Alistair Campbell
This episode is powered by Fuse Energy. Now, a lot of politicians like to talk about the future of renewables, but Fuse is on the ground building clean energy for the here and now, and.
- [00:58]
Rory Stewart
They'Re making it happen, thanks to you. Fuse Energy in is putting the power in your hands by inviting you to refer land to Fuse that can then be used for renewable projects.
- [01:07]
Alistair Campbell
So we already know Clean energy has cut at least 104 billion pounds from the UK's energy costs since 2010. But Fuse wants you to benefit directly from the green revolution. That's why you can win £2,000 for a successful land referral, be it your land or somebody else's land that is.
- [01:23]
Rory Stewart
20 acres or over could be transformed into the renewable backbone of this nation, but benefiting all of us for generations to come.
- [01:30]
Alistair Campbell
I'd love to know how many of our listeners have 20 acres of land. We should maybe find out. You can watch the energy revolution from the sidelines, or you can join it today.
- [01:38]
Rory Stewart
Turn idle land into forward progress with Fuse. Contact fuse@landusenergy.com to start a referral and have the chance to win £2,000. A better help Ad the New year doesn't need a new you in 2026. Maybe it's not about doing more, but carrying less. Before we rush into resolutions, the real move is to clear some space. Therapy can help you do that. BetterHelp makes it easy to get matched online with a qualified therapist who can help you see what's been heavy and what you're ready to release. It's a small act that can lead to big relief and real perspective for the year ahead. You can't step into a lighter version of yourself without leaving behind what's been weighing you down. Sign up and get 10% off@betterhelp.com RestPolitics that's betterhelp.com RestPolitics this podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Car shopping shouldn't feel like preparing for a marathon of paperwork. That's why Carvana makes buying and financing your car easy from start to finish. Search thousands of vehicles with great prices, all online, all on your time. And when you're ready, your new car shows up right at your door. It doesn't get better than that. Buy your car the easy way on delivery fees may apply. Welcome to the Rest is Politics with me, Rory Stewart.
- [03:10]
Alistair Campbell
And with me, Alistair Campbell. And we're going to have a bit of a Middle Eastern day, I think, today, Rory. We're going to talk about Iran and we're going to talk about Yemen. I feel bad, actually, we haven't talked about Iran more in before this because he sort of sensed something really big was happening. But it's so hard actually to find out the truth about what's happening inside Iran. But I think what we're seeing now is some very significant protests, and especially today, I think, and yesterday, very, very significant crackdown.
- [03:37]
Rory Stewart
Absolutely. For people who have not been concentrating minute by minute on what's happening in Iran. Essentially on 28 December, a series of protests began in the bazaars of Tehran, essentially around the fact that the gas prices had gone up and the currency had collapsed, bank governor resigned. And then from the 2nd of January onwards, it began to really spread. So BY about the sixth, you had 200 separate protests taking place in almost all the provinces of Iran. And the regime then has responded with blackouts. People have started to be killed in large numbers. Trump has now said repeatedly that if the regime continues to kill, he will be intervening with military strikes. And a lot of this is now associated with the figurehead of the son of the previous shah of Iran, the crown prince from the United States, who, to many people's astonishment, particularly mine, is now appearing on more and more signs of young Iranians, particularly protesting against the regime. And the question, I guess, that we're going to be getting into is what does this mean? What's going to happen? I'm speaking to this slightly anonymous hotel room that I'm in. In fact, I'm in Damascus in Syria, where you and I were last year.
- [04:44]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, so.
- [04:45]
Rory Stewart
So I'm in a way thinking a lot about this because the reason we were here last year is that the Bashar al Assad regime he and his father had been in place since the 1970s collapsed. And the question I guess in Iran is, is the same going to happen there? So to remind people, the Shah of Iran, who was a pretty autocratic, human rights abusing ruler, but who was on the American side, was toppled by an Iranian Revolution in 1979. Ayatollah Khomeini came in. Big Iran, Iraq war. Khomeini goes, Khomeini takes over as the new Grand Ayatollah. And almost for as long as I can remember, people have been expecting the regime to fall because it's an unbelievably unpopular with so many parts of Iranian society. And in many ways this extremely conservative theocracy is at odds with a culture where particularly in urban areas has a very, very kind of quite liberal, educated middle class, more nationalist and religious. However, if you go back to the different uprisings, so there was one in 99, there was a big one in 2005 that I remember. There was another one that people remember, 2009, which was the Green Revolution. And we of course covered 2022-23, which was Mahsa Amini, which was the huge demonstration after the killing of a woman who refused to wear a headscarf. All of those times, Iranians outside the country have assumed this was the end of the regime. And on none of those occasions was it. However, this time it may be, I.
- [06:13]
Alistair Campbell
Suspect that even on the last, at least two of those previous, almost half a dozen now, sort of waves of protest, I think people have said this probably is going to be the end. And lots of people are saying it now. I think it's probably wise to be fairly cautious about that because the regime still does have phenomenal powers of repression. And I think we're seeing this. I've got a friend who's Iranian who just sent me a video that's circulating on Instagram of families looking in a morgue. Just all these zipped bodies where they've unzipped the face and people just going around trying to see if it's their relative. And it's pretty horrible. So there's some very, very horrible stuff going on, I think what makes this different maybe to the previous one. So we are seeing the protests and the protest essentially was sparked by a rise in inflation, collapse in the currency that saw prices going up. It saw products suddenly not being available in, in shops and supermarkets. And the other thing I think is really interesting about Iran, say compared to Russia, is when we talk about sanctions, the sanctions actually do affect ordinary People, because they can't get access to any money that's held inside, often inside foreign banks. That's a lot of their. A lot of people have money inside foreign banks. Whereas Russia, when we talk about sanctions, it's really the rich guys that get hit. And of course, they get around it. And the other thing that's interesting about this, so the. It was started really by the bizaries, the people who, you know, run the kind of the bazaars and they're the traders. And if you go back to when the Shah was overthrown in 1979, the bizarre played a big role in that. And in tune with the. In line with the clergy. They were funding quite a lot of what was. What was going on. But I think there's one thing I think is really worth thinking about. We see the protests and we've seen the protest before and they've been crushed this time. There are other things going on alongside it. So the first thing to point out is that the Americans and the Israelis have weakened them militarily. They are weaker than they were. They're still very strong. They're stronger than most other forces in the region, but they're weaker. The second thing is the economic sanctions are hurting them. But the other thing that I think is really interesting, you mentioned the Shah and of course his son, the Crown prince is based in America. He's putting out these videos. He seems to be sort of getting the protest going. But they've also been running this really interesting defections strategy. They're advertising for defectors on independent television. And you go on, I think you should try Roy, right up your street. You go on, you get a QR code and you feed in a few details. You get taken to this supposedly secure platform. It's obviously been flooded by spies. All of these things are sort of coming together. And that's what made me think maybe 24 hours ago, maybe this thing will be different. I hate to kind of be so pessimistic. I've kind of moved backwards in the last 24 hours because I think the forces of repression, which are very, very power, I think they've now decided we're going for it. I think what held them back a little bit in the first phase of this protest was the fact that Donald Trump said, you know, we're locked and loaded, we're ready to go, and all that. So I think it's very, very tense. I think this will. This will only lead to regime change and the collapse of the regime if it goes on for months and months. And months.
- [09:24]
Rory Stewart
One of the amazing things we're talking about here, I guess, which almost, we almost might want to get our colleagues and the rest is history involved, is this question of revolutions and when a regime falls and when it doesn't. And basically the story often is these regimes are completely secure, totally in place, until in an instant they suddenly aren't.
- [09:44]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, Bashar Al Assad is a good example.
- [09:46]
Rory Stewart
Absolutely. See, a lot of people were on the record in back just over a year ago saying he's never going to be toppled. They'd be ridiculous. There's no way a small group of Al Qaeda fighters from the northwest are going to be able to take the whole country. And of course, regimes, when they want to really oppress people, they can do it. We saw it in Czechoslovakia, in Hungary, during the Cold War. And then we saw the opposite, of course, of 1989, where regimes that seemed like the East German regime with millions of people in the stars suddenly fold. So what are the only ways of trying to work out what the likelihood is here? I think the first thing is to look at ideology. So one of the things that's different about this regime compared to the communist regimes in Poland or Hungary in 1989 is that the ideology is still very strong amongst the true believers. There still is a hard core of clergymen, revolutionary guards people, the Basich militia, which is more of a kind of village level extremist militia. 13 million of them voted for the more hardline candidate in the last elections. And certainly the guy at the top, Ayatollah Khomeini, is somebody who was badly wounded in the revolution and gives every impression of being a true believer who's not about to flit off to Moscow on a plane. So it's a bit different, I guess, to an exhausted communist regime or Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein or even Bashar Al Assad towards the end, which had become sort of personalist regimes. That doesn't mean though, that you mightn't, for example, find the army which is much less ideologically motivated traditionally than the revolutionary garden of Asij beginning to defect and split.
- [11:29]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah.
- [11:30]
Rory Stewart
Any other thoughts on how you can tell whether regime's about to fall or not?
- [11:32]
Alistair Campbell
Look, I think you're absolutely right that sometimes it just takes a tipping point and it's never obvious what it is. So one of the reasons why we were so keen to go to Syria last year and to interview Al Shaara was because the whole thing was so fast moving. It literally had, you know, a week earlier people were saying, well, in fact, people Weren't even talking about it. It just sort of suddenly happened. You mentioned how regimes get tired. I mean, Khamenei has been there now since 1989. I mean, this is a guy who's. He's been around for a very, very long time.
- [12:04]
Rory Stewart
Older than Donald Trump.
- [12:05]
Alistair Campbell
Older than Donald Trump. Almost as insulting to his opponents as Donald Trump as well. And it's very interesting. One of the things they've done progressively through these various stages of protest is they've. They're pretty good. They've got very, very good, I think, at shutting down the Internet insofar as it helps the protesters, but keeping the Internet open insofar as it helps them. So I see he still manages to tweet. Somebody's designing cartoons for him of Trump collapsing. Trump's sort of whole body coming apart inside a coffin. And meanwhile, he's out there sort of saying the things he has to say. But I think the other thing that I think is worth thinking about is what you see. I think, sometimes with Iran, like, I'm on the left of politics. I'm a progressive. I think that because Israel and Trump are so voluble about Iran, I think sometimes my side of the political fence finds it hard to come out and actually say, this is a truly awful regime and we should be standing up for the people of Iran. There are people on the left that kind of. I'm not saying Corbyn himself, and I can't remember the things he said about Iran, but certainly the Corbynista wings, you know, basically you sometimes feel they're standing up for the regime in Iran rather than the people. I think the one thing that might turn this into a different place is if the Trump, Netanyahu approach is matched alongside it by more progressive political voices saying, these guys have got their days numbered. But I think the only thing they probably are worried about is whether there will be another military attack. I think they feel they've got the capacity to quell the protest, is whether and what would happen if Trump and or Netanyahu decided to have another pot.
- [13:51]
Rory Stewart
I was looking at the mini revolution, do you remember, against Gorbachev, so 1991, where suddenly the tanks rolled out and there was a coup d' etat and the head of the KGB and everybody toppled him. And then Yeltsin appeared on tanks and women marched along the bridge in Moscow. And it turned out that in the end, the soldiers were not prepared to fire. And this is what I saw in Indonesia. I was in Indonesia in 98 when Suharto, the dictator general fell after 32 years. And I remember being with the crowd moving forward towards the soldiers. And initially they were firing live ammunition, plastic bullets, but you were getting a sense of a swell, bigger and bigger and bigger. The police that abandoned the streets. And again, I remember this is May 98 people saying, Suharto will fight to the last bullet. He'll retire into the hills like a banana republic dictator with his own revolver. And actually, he didn't. He just quit. He just announced that he was, he was stepping down.
- [14:47]
Alistair Campbell
Let me just jump in there because the, the thing you mentioned about Gorbachev and Yeltsin, one of the books I read over Christmas, this amazing book written, written by a Russian critic of Putin called Mikhail Zigar. It's called Dark side of the Earth. Honestly, from Steven Steelberg down, the filmmakers of the world should get the story of Gorbachev to Yeltsin and all the things that could have gone in a different direction. You just mentioned one of them, that Yeltsin bravado could have gone anywhere, could have gone absolutely anywhere. But it didn't. It went exactly where his instinct said it was going to go. So I think the big difference with this, and this is why I think the crown prince in Washington is getting so much attention, is because it's so hard to oppose from within. There are presumably a lot of opposition people in prison. There are a lot of opposition people who've been wiped out. And it's very, very hard to organize any kind of opposition. So until, you know, from our perspective, until, you know, well, where might this go if the regime does collapse and who are the people that you imagine being in charge? It's very hard to see where it goes.
- [15:51]
Rory Stewart
I remember feeling. So I walked across Iran, I guess, in 2000, and my strong sense then, so that's about sort of halfway between the revolution and now, is that you had this massive class split. So you had many people saying to me, oh, if you go to Isfahan or Tehran, it's very liberal and everybody's drinking alcohol and nobody's wearing headscarves and these amazing parties and everybody's very decadent. But in the rural villages where I was staying, people were very, very conservative. It was a sort of village, working class environment. They were all the kind of people who would eventually vote for Ahmadinejad. I was being stopped by the Basij militia all the time. There were huge images of the martyrs of the Iran Iraq war. Big, big focus on Shia MA Sadom, on the regime. And the regime had delivered. They felt for these villages, these people who'd felt marginalized under the Shah, who felt under the Shah, it had all been about money and oil and glamour in the cities. Electrification had come, roads had come, there'd been a big push on rural development. And so I guess if you were trying to explain why these revolutions didn't work, say in 99 or even three years ago with Mahsa Amini, you probably would have said, look, this is still a society where people are divided, where either you have a rebellion of the working class or you have a rebellion of more progressive women about headscarves, but the two things don't come together. And you also would have said that Iranians are very proud nationalists. So that it was noticeable when Israel and the US bombed Iran and the Shah's son and Netanyahu called for everybody to rise up, they didn't rise up. So you would have said, actually, you know, Iranians, when push comes to shove, are quite nationalistic. What's changing here? Christopher Blake, who has written really well about this and Unherd, he was saying to me that he thinks it's young people, it's a completely new generation, which in a very sort of way that would sort of shock older Iranians, don't really have a beef with Trump, can't remember what the Shah was like, perfectly happy to endorse Pahlavi without necessarily the Crown Prince, not knowing so much about him, and much more violent, much more prepared to. It seems as though police officers have been killed, places being stalled, and some of that driven by social media. That's another strange thing about Iran. I mean, despite the fact it's autocratic, everybody's got VPNs, everybody's watching videos from Elon Musk, everybody's enjoying memes about Trump. So there is a sort of young men mobilizing who are completely rebelling against all the assumptions of both their progressive and conservative parents.
- [18:29]
Alistair Campbell
Somebody else I spoke to, who's Iranian but not in Iran, said that what they were picking up was that this relates to the point you just made about who goes to these protests. So the, you know, Mas Amini was. Was seen very much as an issue to do with women and women's rights and the hijab and all that. Whereas what's happening now, you've got the become liberal intellectuals, you've got young people, you've got working class people and quite a lot of the older generation as well, who maybe care less about being sort of put upon. So it does feel that there is a broader demographic on this one. But when you were sort of asking yourself there, why none of these revolutions, previous revolutions have worked, I think in the end, I'm afraid it is about the means that they have to oppress them. When you see some of the pictures I've been looking at this morning of what's. People looking for, bodies, people, when you hear the words of the politicians and the leadership and that they're putting out, you know you're going to think twice. You're going to think twice. And the other thing may be worth just reflecting on, Roy, that you. You said when you came on, has anything happened today? And. And the only thing I saw that was kind of, you know, woof, really, I felt quite surprisingly newsworthy or newsworthy and surprising was this incident that's happened in Los Angeles where there was a protest or. Of Iranians and Iranian supporters for the overthrow of the regime. And somebody who turned out to be from the. From, you know, the kind of Mujahideen supporter hired a lorry and drove it through the crowd. Now, a bit like at the Liverpool. Remember the Liverpool Football Club celebrations. And the guy's just been sentenced for a very long time for that. But this is amazing. Nobody was killed because he was. This guy was really just charging through. And I wonder whether that will. Because, of course, the one thing that we know about Trump is he follows American television very, very, very closely. And this is all over the American TV news now this thing has happened. I guess the question now that we're all waiting for is whether the Americans will have some kind of fresh military intervention. Trump is, you know, he's pumped up about Venezuela. He keeps saying that he's managed to sort of, you know, obliterate the Iranian nuclear program, which he hasn't. Everybody else says he hasn't. And whether he fancies another one, or whether Israel likewise thinks, you know, that Israel's entire security doctrine is based on the idea that they cannot be challenged within the region. They will be, whilst they want a regime they can work with, but they'll be sort of looking at this as well. So I think that's the next big moment we have to wait for, to see what one of those two does.
- [21:01]
Rory Stewart
And what if Trump were to intervene? What would be his vision for the future of Iran? Because in Venezuela, it seems as though after an initial suggestion that he was going to embrace democracy and liberty and freedom, it turned out all he really wanted to do was get rid of Maduro and basically leave the whole regime in place. So would the idea be here that he'd try to take out Khamenei and then try to just negotiate with what remains of the regime or maybe bring in a slightly more liberal cleric. I mean, it'd be interesting to see. I certainly, if I was the Crown Prince, I wouldn't be betting on the fact that a Trump who still hasn't met the Crown Prince is going to get behind him. Although, boy, you want to talk about the age of social media, the social media PR campaign that has transformed the Crown Prince in the last three years, from somebody who most of us thought as a pretty marginal, slightly joke figure, who hadn't been back to Iran for, I think, 46 years, who, with an unwelcome reminder of this slightly strange moment in the 1970s of all the extravagance and autocracy of the last shah, has now, somehow, despite allying with Trump or Israel, perhaps because he's allied with Trump and Israel has been rebranded now. And, you know, even me as a, you know, in our duo, Alistair the great monarchist, even, I find it quite difficult to believe that the, that the candidate that they're running is this rather elderly Crown Prince of a discredited regime. And yet, boy, does social media make that possible.
- [22:24]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I think he took a big risk because as you say, if you're fighting from outside or making a case from outside, even in a country as difficult as Iran, it's. You put yourself at a disadvantage, okay? But what he did, where he took the risk was with this call that he made for people to. It was a bit like during COVID when we were all sort of, you know, clapping. He basically get out at 8 o', clock, 8pm Thursday and Friday, get out there and protest, okay? And in there, hundreds of thousands people did. And so that, I think, is what's then lent itself to this credibility that he has. He's put out a new message today where he's standing in front of the old monarchical flag. The one thing he's been careful to say, I think, though, is that he does not see himself as a future leader of the country. He sees himself as this, quote, bridge to democracy, rather than as the leader. You're looking a bit skeptical about that, Roy. You look like he might just be, might just be playing a game.
- [23:21]
Rory Stewart
I wonder whether he'd quite spend the massive fortune he's spent and put quite so much energy into this incredible PR and social media campaign. If he didn't actually want to take.
- [23:29]
Alistair Campbell
Power in Iran, might he just love his country? I think it's pretty clear that he does see himself as the future ruler.
- [23:35]
Rory Stewart
I think I'm right in saying that we've been approached actually a number of times over the last few months to interview him. And you know, again, this is. And the many marks against Rory Stewart's judgment, I'm afraid I probably was in the camp of thinking. I'm not quite sure I'm taking this guy this seriously.
- [23:52]
Alistair Campbell
You were, Rory. We had a bit of an argument about it. And would you now accept my judgment that maybe he'd be quite an interesting interviewee for the podcast?
- [24:00]
Rory Stewart
We should certainly, certainly get him on. Thank you for bringing Run Up. And boy, is it something to watch. And boy, is it something that could literally collapse in the next hour before we put out the podcast or the things will be in place in a year's time.
- [24:13]
Alistair Campbell
Oh, okay, right.
- [24:14]
Rory Stewart
This is the thing about these regimes. Exactly, exactly the thing about regimes. I mean, literally all that happens is. And this is why it can happen so quickly. They can last apparently forever or suddenly at a key moment, as you were describing from that moment with Yeltsin, the soldiers refuse to pull the triggers and everything collapses. Who knows? But at the moment, I'm not betting on the hour.
- [24:35]
Alistair Campbell
No, no. The other thing I think, which is interesting from his sort of messaging and it has been very effective, is I don't think they're going to go down the debarthification route either. I think the part of this defection strategy is to say, look, if you make the right choice now, wherever you may be at this moment working with the regime, then you have a future within Iran.
- [24:58]
Rory Stewart
Also, just to warn listeners that because of the media blackout, it is unbelievably difficult to know what's actually going on on the ground.
- [25:05]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, exactly.
- [25:06]
Rory Stewart
There is a real danger that there is an echo chamber, particularly of people outside the country, particularly people who are on the anti regime side spinning stories. It's very difficult to verify. We know for sure a lot of people are being killed. We know for sure the regime is evil. But when it comes to the questions like these defections, I'm very doubtful that we have any real information on that at all that's reliable.
- [25:30]
Alistair Campbell
I agree with that and I think we should be very wary. But the other thing to say is, as I said earlier, they have kept the Internet insofar as it is useful to the regime. But the other thing they are, for obvious reasons given how very, very, very well penetrated by Mossad they have been, and they now know that from what happened in the, in the recent attacks, is that there is media Manipulation and disinformation going on from every which way. So it is very, very hard to work out what's going on. But what is absolutely clear is these protests are real. They are right across the country. That's maybe another difference with some of the ones that we've had before. And they are finding it very, very hard to shut them down until the last 24 hours, where I think it's gone in a pretty grim direction. Right, should we take a break and then come back and talk about Yemen?
- [26:17]
Rory Stewart
Very good.
- [26:24]
Alistair Campbell
Welcome back to the Rest of Politics.
- [26:25]
Rory Stewart
With me, Alistair Campbell and with me, Rory Stewart. The other thing going on in the Middle east is Yemen, and that's an unbelievable story. So let me just summarize that for listeners. In fact, we got rather a nice email from a Trip plus member who'd been stranded on a small Yemeni island asking for an explanation of what's going on. So Yemen, people remember, is a big chunk of territory below Saudi Arabia on the edge of the Red Sea. And it was two countries through to 1991. There was a southern country which was traditionally a British colony around Aden. Older listeners will remember Aden, a place that people used to stop on their way to India.
- [27:05]
Alistair Campbell
Did you ever learn the barren rocks of Aden when you were learning the baobabs?
- [27:08]
Rory Stewart
Oh, the barren rocks of Aden. I definitely. I did learn the barren rocks of Hayden.
- [27:14]
Alistair Campbell
Remember that one? Yeah.
- [27:15]
Rory Stewart
Very, very. It's a lovely tune. It's a really lovely tune. And actually it took me a long time to work out what Aden was. It was only when I finally got to Yemen, I could put the pipe tune together with the place. Anyway, these two countries came together, that. And in the north, a very different type of place up in the northern highlands, which was connected to a branch of Islam, Zaydi Islam, which is a complete exception, maybe a little bit more Shia than Sunni or has become a little bit more Shia than Sunni under Iranian influence recently. But really quite an exception with its own charismatic religious leadership. Anyway, two things come together in 1991. On we go. And then in the Arab Spring 2011, the Houthis who are up in the north, who are these Zaydi Houthis who are Iranian connected, begin to advance south. And I remember visiting the British ambassador in Yemen. We were just north of Sana', a, and suddenly the body, you know, the way the security team comes running to you. And the story was, the Houthis are coming. So we all had to jump in our car and head south. The Houthis then took Sanaa in 2014. And then people will remember Saudi Arabia and UAE together. So Mohammed Bin Salman and Mohammed bin Said intervened in a very, very brutal campaign where Saudi Arabia and UAE combined, tried to drive the Houthis back, tried to seize the port of Hodeidah. Our friend Andrew Mitchell was to be found frequently traveling out to Yemen and raising it in the House of Commons. There were huge demands to cut arms supplies to Saudi Arab to stop them from bombing Yemenis. Yemen became this humanitarian catastrophe. 70% of people in receipt of aid, nearly 2 million people starving, millions displaced. And then finally, about three years ago, it settled down a bit and it settled down into a de facto division between the Houthi, who still control Sana', A, most of the population of the country, the north of the country, they're the people who've been raining rockets on Israel and attacking people in the Red Sea and being attacked in turn by the UK and the us and then in the south, this government, which was an alliance between factions with the UAE and factions with Saudi. And so everything seemed to be stable until to everybody's absolute astonishment at the beginning of December, the UAE backed factions started attacking the Saudi backed factions. There's nothing to do with. The Houthis in the southern bit began to split apart. The UAE massively advanced over a month, it looked like they had seized the oil fields in the centre of the country. And then the Saudis turned around and said, we're not having any of this. Bombed an Emirati vessel coming in with arms into the port. The UAE withdrew its troops and the Saudi government has now pushed all the way down south to Aden again. Over to you.
- [29:59]
Alistair Campbell
That was very good, Rory. I hope that our trip plus members stranded. Tracey and Dom feel that that was the kind of explainer that they wanted. Of course, the other thing we should bear in mind, we'll come on back to Yemen in a minute. But of course, this is not the only area where the Saudis and the Emiratis appear to be pursuing strategies that running against each other. Because in Sudan you've got the Saudis supporting the Sudanese armed forces, the saf, and you've got the Emiratis supporting the rsf, the rapid support forces in what is a absolutely brutal kind of fight. And on this one, as you say, when the Saudis and the Emiratis came together with a pretty shared agenda against the kind of, you know, extreme Islamism and all the rest of looked like they were on the same side for the whole time. And now you've got the government, the Yemeni government is led by something called the plc, the Presidential Leadership Council. And one of the big factions is this Southern Transitional Council, because they want an independent. Just as South Sudan became independent on independent Saudi Yemen, they've started this fight. And I wonder if a bigger thing going on. Isn't the Saudis feeling that the Emiratis are just pushing their own power too far? The scale of the retaliation for this attack on the shipment that was coming in is partly to say, okay, we respect you, you're a big player. You're economically much more important than used to be, but please do not get too far ahead of yourself.
- [31:33]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, the story is. Seems to have been that when Mohammed bin Salman was first established as the crown prince and pushed aside his cousins and there was this famous, essentially kind of internal palace coup, he looked to Mohammed bin Zayed.
- [31:49]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, he's a mentor, the great figure.
- [31:50]
Rory Stewart
In UAE as his mentor. Yeah, he's an older man. And the two of them were sort of lockstep. Then some of the problems maybe began to emerge about the fact that the Saudi plan for Development, which was to develop a tourism sector, get hold of quantum computing and AI, bring over finance and banks, began to seem suspiciously similar to the sort of UAE Dubai development model. So there was a bit of a kind of economic competition. Then you say they went into Yemen together. And of course, in Yemen, this is the beginning of the relationship between UAE and the Sudanese, because it was Hermeti and the RSF that were being paid as mercenaries by UAE to fight in Yemen. That's where that kind of relationship comes from. UAE then led under the last Trump administration, the Abraham Accords, getting Morocco, Bahrain and UAE to sign a deal with Israel, which Saudi didn't join. And again, the final moments of their really strong relationship were probably when they both turned against Qatar. They were both on a sort of blockade and exclusion of Qatar. But more recently, it feels as though Mohammed bin Salman is really presenting himself as oddly, he's presenting himself as a force for stability. They're trying to say the Emiratis are reckless, dangerous, they're provoking civil wars in Africa, they're doing strange things in Chad, they're causing chaos in Yemen. And MBS is, in fact, this may be the reason for the conflict. The rumor is that MBS was beginning to look at negotiating for a settlement with the Houthis and that this is what actually triggered the UAE assault.
- [33:30]
Alistair Campbell
Could it also be that in this world where we have these kind of two undisputed superpowers, the United States and China, Russia Being granted something closer to superpower status, by the way that China and America treat them, that MBS is seeing himself as the equivalent leader in that particular part of the world. So if the world is going to get sort of carved up into big powers, having the real say within a particular part of the world, he's the main man there. I wonder whether there's a little bit of that going on at the moment.
- [34:06]
Rory Stewart
As well, and maybe also to develop my Trump derangement syndrome, whether the general tenor of the way that Trump conducts himself, his complete lack of interest in international law, his sense of sense that might is right, his sense that he can do whatever he wants, doesn't begin to normalize. UAE popping out of bed in the morning and thinking, well, why don't we send in some armaments to South Yemen and see if we can take over the oil fields from Saudi, and maybe America will just step back and let us do it. And remember, these are all the countries that have been promising untold hundreds of billions of dollars to the US and giving amazing contracts to Trump's family. But if this really went further south, I mean, that was a pretty provocative thing that UAE did, and then a pretty aggressive response from Saudi that would be very, very interesting for the region if the UAE Saudi split deepened.
- [34:58]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, maybe. On the kind of geopolitical stuff, let me just close off this briefly with talking about the Arctic, because I think what's going on there is just absolutely fascinating. And I've just read this, but we were both sent a book by a guy called Kenneth R. Rosenberg, Polar War, Submarine Spies, and the Struggle for Power in a Melting Arctic. And I read it from start to finish in a single city the other night, staying up late because it's this guy. I mean, he's a proper piece of journalism. He spent years looking at this. He's embedded himself with scientists, with military, gone to Alaska, gone to Greenland. He's just been everywhere on this story. And to kind of sum it up, he's clearly not a fan of Trump. And I've seen some of the interviews he's done where he thinks what Trump is doing in a very, very wrong way. But reading the book, we have sort of been left behind because climate change has changed the whole sort of shape of the landscape. These roots have opened up. Minerals and rare earths have become more accessible, and Russia has been all over it for quite a while. He goes through all the stats on who's got what, how many icebreakers, and even Russia is just so far ahead. And so you've got China and Russia now seeing themselves as major legitimate Arctic players. Trump feeling threatened by that.
- [36:19]
Rory Stewart
Does he talk a lot about China?
- [36:21]
Alistair Campbell
Well, it's about America, China and Russia, and it's about all the espionage that's going on. It's about the breakdown in scientific research. And also Norway comes into it because they've got this archipelago not far from Greenland, Svalbard. And actually the New York Times today has got a huge piece about that. Basically, the people are getting worried that Norway is trying to become too powerful within that, because that's been a place where scientists from all over the world have been able to go without a visa. And there's been a similar sort of regime in, in Greenland. That's all changed. It's a fascinating book. And, and the, the, there's actually people in there saying this is where the next war will be.
- [37:00]
Rory Stewart
The subplot. I remember just skimming the beginning of the book before I got on the plane was him saying that. But the point is not American ownership of Greenland. The point is that America has just completely failed to do anything like enough to think about the Arctic and in particular hasn't thought enough about what to do with Alaska before it starts thinking about taking over Greenland.
- [37:20]
Alistair Campbell
Absolutely. Well, so when you get later on in the book, there's some fascinating stuff about what's going on in Alaska, not least, I have to say, the suicide rate amongst troops that are stationed there. He has some fantastic descriptions of just how hard it is to live in these places and how these soldiers and scientists of the sort of life that they have to lead. But basically, one of the things I think you have to, we've often said about Putin, he's always had this, as do the Chinese long term strategy. And they have been on this harder, more detail, more investment than we have. Because the real nonsense about Trump's position on Greenland at the moment is that they have actually been pulling out of Greenland. You know, they had, I think it was up. They had over a dozen bases. They've now got one left because they didn't think it mattered that much and nobody would bother with it.
- [38:10]
Rory Stewart
It drives me absolutely mad because Trump and Vance and Hecseth are somehow making a lot of the international media solemnly stroke their chins and say, well, of course Trump does have a point about the fact that Russia poses threat in the Arctic. Well, yes, it does. But the two key points are this. The first point is, as you say, that the US if it wants to put more troops in Greenland, can put more troops in Greenland. In fact, It'd be removing troops from Greenland, right?
- [38:36]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah.
- [38:36]
Rory Stewart
Secondly, if Trump was really worried about Putin being a threat, he'd be doing it differently in Ukraine. If he's actually worried about Russian encroachment, he should be supporting Ukraine.
- [38:45]
Alistair Campbell
Exactly.
- [38:47]
Rory Stewart
Greenland is purely about Trump's ego and adding a huge chunk of the map to the United States. But he's found this convenient thing, which is pretending that he cares about Russia, which he doesn't, and that America really wants to do some defence in the Arctic, which it patently hasn't done any of in the last 15 years.
- [39:05]
Alistair Campbell
Although, of course, he does care about China. I think he sees China much more as a threat than Russia. And what's really interesting reading this book is the extent to which China is playing the same long game in the Arctic as the Russians have been. But it's just this one paragraph here, Roy. Russia is leading the charge with more military bases in the Arctic, greater competency in cold weather operations, and a fleet of icebreakers that dwarfs the maritime Arctic fleets of every other nation. America and its allies have meanwhile, played catch up for the United States, whose military was slow to recover an enemy craft because of inexperience in the dark days of the high north and the accompanying frigid blast during a recent exercise. This involves learning to fortify and base its military units and project its critical infrastructures, like oil pipelines in a climate where it has little modern experience and capability. I mean, you really get the sense. And this isn't just Trump's fault. This like the American. But Trump bangs on about in his first term. He talked about Greenland the whole time. Well, yeah, he did, but not in this context. He talked about in the context that you've been saying. He just wants to have a big, showy, performative thing to do. Anyway, I strongly agree. We should get the guy on and maybe do a little kind of either extended interview with him or something, because it's very rare that I've read a book and. And there's been so many, so much stuff in it and thought, you know, why are we not talking about this? And then you turn on the radio in Britain this morning and they're talking about, you know, the Marines are going to be doing a big joint training exercise with Norway and fine, you've got to do that. That's good. Okay. But it is dwarfed by the sort of stuff that you're reading about in here that the Russians are up to and the Chinese are up to.
- [40:43]
Rory Stewart
Well, thank you for that, Alistair. So, just to sum up we did a deep dive in Iran, we did deep dive in Yemen, and then we had the. The Arctic. So I hope our listeners are getting a sense of just how complicated the world is becoming and look forward to speaking to you again soon.
- [40:58]
Alistair Campbell
See you soon.
- [41:03]
Rory Stewart
Hi, it's Rory Stewart here. I've just recorded a very exciting series on artificial intelligence. This is the single most important opportunity challenge in our lifetimes. I'm afraid it's bigger, more transformative than climate change, the Trump administration, what Russia is doing in Ukraine, you might be underselling it.
- [41:24]
Alistair Campbell
Far from being in a bubble, AI is underhyped.
- [41:28]
Rory Stewart
These companies aren't trying to build toys. They're trying to build something that can do everything that a human can do.
- [41:33]
Alistair Campbell
Whether it's in coding, whether it's in radiology, whether it's legal work. We're already seeing AI models being able to outperform humans in certain domains, and.
- [41:40]
Rory Stewart
Yet the basic debate is, is it going to be able to write my essay for school for me? Most of these companies are relatively new, and the people at the top of them are unbelievably personally wealthy. People have made AI videos and it's pretty coherent.
- [41:56]
Alistair Campbell
It looks good.
- [41:57]
Rory Stewart
The problem, these large language models exist only at the moment in China and the US AI, which is taking over the world.
- [42:04]
Alistair Campbell
My worry is that we say, say let's be cautious, let's not adopt, let's try and preserve things as they are. But our competitors internationally don't do that. We need a solution to stagnation, and it's very possible that AI is our way out of the mess or our.
- [42:19]
Rory Stewart
Route into mass unemployment, increased inequality, and massive threats to the future of humanity.
- [42:25]
Alistair Campbell
I suppose the thing that is most urgent is that no one knows, and anyone who tells you otherwise is life.
- [42:33]
Rory Stewart
To listen to our full series on AI, sign up at thereestispolitics. Com.