← The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
'Not a Palestinian in sight': Inside Gaza after the ceasefire
00:38:04
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- [00:03]
Yalda Hakim
Sky News, the full story first.
- [00:15]
Richard Engel
Hello, it's me, Richard, in Jerusalem.
- [00:17]
Yalda Hakim
And me, Yalda, in London. And welcome to the World podcast.
- [00:22]
Field Reporter
We're heading into Gaza now accompanied by the Israeli military. Very unlikely we're going to see any Palestinians at all. It is very limiting, it is not ideal. But for now, it is the only way that we can get at least a glimpse of what the situation is like in Gaza.
- [00:47]
Yalda Hakim
So, Richard, bring us up to speed because this is typical you in the sense that you were supposed to go to Ukraine and somehow you've ended up in Israel.
- [00:57]
Richard Engel
Yes, this happens a lot to me. You can imagine how Mary feels after years and years of being married to me. But I going to Ukraine, I was ready. I had the ticket, we had a whole itinerary set up. And then suddenly in the last minute, change of plans, I came to Jerusalem, maybe going over to Tel Aviv because of this extraordinary military buildup, the biggest US military buildup in decades in the Middle East. Potential strikes that could come really at any moment. And everyone is asking why? What's going to happen? What's going to be Iran's response? What, if anything, will this achieve if it happens? So, change of plans, here I am. But also while I was here, I had an opportunity to get inside of Gaza, an embed with the Israeli military. And that was extraordinary. Even if you go in with the Israeli military, which is limiting, it's not independent access, it's not ideal, it's not how journalists want to cover the story. But the Israelis have rejected all of our requests, every journalist requests to go in independently. So it is the only option that we have. And I would say it's still better than nothing because you get to see what the place looks like, you get a feel for it, which you can't get any other way, unfortunately, at this time.
- [02:20]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah, Richard, I really want to get a sense from you. Obviously we've seen those haunting images where the whole place looks apocalyptic. I mean, you know, there's debris for as far as the eye can see. You've been a few times. But it'd be just good to get your assessment of what's happening there now. And you know, the reason you were going to Ukraine was because of the four year anniversary. We've entered the fifth year since this war began. Unbelievable, really. I guess no one could really think that it would go on for as long as it has. And we'll talk about the scale of the war and what's been going on as well on the podcast today.
- [03:04]
Richard Engel
So we'll talk Iran. We'll talk about this milestone in Ukraine. And I'll tell you more about Gaza. I saw damage everywhere. No reconstruction is happening. This, this ceasefire, this, that, that was so celebrated. And President Trump, you know, claimed that he, he wanted to have the Nobel Peace Prize for it. Well, there is no reconstruction. Piles of debris everywhere. Still Israeli troops in Gaza and no peace. So there are a lot to talk about on this episode. And as always, please follow us on Spotify and Apple, watch our YouTube channel if you can, and write to us@theworldatsky.uk you know, Yalda, I've noticed not enough people are writing in with real questions. You know, we get a lot of we love you, we love the show, or we hate you, and you both stink. Interesting. Nice. Unpleasant, but not very helpful. Write in with some questions. We will answer them. We will get to them. Constructive questions, hard questions, anything is welcome. Just we love you or we hate you doesn't really do very much. Shall we get going?
- [04:13]
Yalda Hakim
Let's get going. So, Richard, as we were saying, you've spent some time on an embed in Gaza. As you say, journalists can't go independently into the Gaza Strip, certainly not since this war began on October 7. But just give us a sense of what it was like. What did you see? What are people doing? What's the situation like now on the ground?
- [04:43]
Richard Engel
Okay. It's very important to understand that Gaza is now divided. There is this thing called the yellow line that divides Gaza roughly in half. And if it's in half, or some say that the Israelis are taking more and they keep moving the yellow line, it's in dispute. But if you think about it, that it's roughly split in half. So the part beyond the yellow line, inside the yellow line is run by Palestinians, and that's where the Palestinians live. So the roughly 2 million Palestinians are living in half the amount of territory where they, that they, that they used to have, that they used to consider their home before the October 7th attacks. So you have the Palestinians crammed into half of Gaza and the part where they're living is, is devastated, is, is huge infrastructure damage. I didn't go to that part. The Israelis don't regularly go into those parts of Gaza. We were on the other side. We were in the area that is still controlled by the Israeli military. It's an active military zone. We didn't see any Palestinians, not one. We saw mountains and mountains of debris as far as the eye could see. I could just see nothing, but I didn't see a single building standing. The Entire time I was in Gaza, I didn't see one building intact or standing. Everything was flattened. And when I mean flattened, it was hard to even tell that there were buildings there before. It's just like if you took a tree and put it into a wood chipper and that's like what happened to these buildings. They were just totally, totally mangled.
- [06:23]
Yalda Hakim
I do find it striking that what you're talking about is, again, you know, an area where there wasn't a Palestinian in sight. What was the overall atmosphere like? Did it feel very much like you were, you know, sort of in some kind of makeshift military base and you were being taken out to some of these sites?
- [06:48]
Richard Engel
It's one of the strangest experiences that you could ever have. You leave Israel, and we were in Israel, and if, you know southern Israel, the roads are beautiful and there's lots of farmland and smooth paved roads, and there were a lot of. There still are kibbutzes and communities down in southern Israel that live in, you know, I guess you could call them farming communities, collective communities where they take care of each other, they eat, eat together, they all know each other. And it's quite, in many cases, quite beautiful. They have elaborate gardens. So you leave a lush area with beautiful roads and small, well kept houses in tightly clustered communities where everyone kind of knows each other. Then you go through a military gate and you enter into Gaza and immediately, dirt roads, destroyed roads, rubble everywhere. Military vehicles. Military vehicles or military bulldozers. Israeli troops. No, Palestinians. And rubble as far as the eye can see. It felt like I went through some, like, wormhole from one dimension to another. Then when I left, you leave the. The rubble and the debris behind and the smell of sort of rotting garbage, and then you cross back into Israel and you're back onto the smooth roads and you see the gardens and you see the houses with the red roofs and you're in another dimension. It is very, very strange. One of the sharpest juxtapositions and one of the starkest contrasts that you'll find perhaps anywhere on earth.
- [08:39]
Yalda Hakim
It's interesting also what you're saying about the fact that the reconstruction, all you can see are bulldoz that are fortifying the position of the Israeli military rather than any kind of reconstruction of Gaza itself.
- [08:54]
Richard Engel
Not even clearing debris. Nothing. Nothing. Remember, we talked about it, the pictures that Jared Kushner put out of this futuristic city with kind of golf course like communities and cul de sacs and little houses. Not only is that not there, there's no progress to make that happening. There wasn't any kind of construction at all. The reason that they took us in was because they wanted to show us a new tunnel, a new Hamas tunnel that they found. And the Israelis were saying, look, look at this tunnel. This is why we can't leave Gaza. This is why Israeli troops, they were saying, can't pull out of Gaza entirely. Why they need to keep that part of. Of the Gaza Strip, roughly half of it, because they say there are still tunnels there. And if they pulled out, Hamas could move back into those areas, reclaim those tunnels and turn them into fighting positions once again. Places where they could hide, launch attacks, potentially hold hostages. Whatever I went down into the tunnel, it was still very, very much intact, despite all the damage above ground. The tunnel, say about 6ft tall, maybe a little bit taller than that, but not very tall, very narrow. If you're standing sort of with your shoulders back, you almost touched both sides of it. If you turned your back flat and pushed up against the wall, two people could brush past each other, but probably touching, touching stomachs. So quite, quite small. And it went for hundreds of yards. The Israelis say they haven't even explored all of it. They haven't mapped and documented the entire thing.
- [10:47]
Field Reporter
And this tunnel was recently found by Israeli troops. We're going to go into it now. And here is the entrance itself. Gonna have to crawl at this stage. Okay. Wow, they really are small here. So you can barely, barely stand up in here. If you're tall, you wouldn't be able to do it. Luckily, in this case, luckily I'm not very tall. And according to the Israeli military, this tunnel, which hasn't been fully explored yet, went from Gaza City almost all the way to the Israeli border. So concrete ceiling, concrete reinforced walls, electrical cables, for a pretty sophisticated power network. I mean, this tunnel is quite robust, very well built and deep.
- [12:03]
Richard Engel
And off the side of this main tunnel, this main shaft, were other side rooms. So there was a bathroom with a flush toilet and a sink and a vanity mirror. There was a bedroom that I went into that had mattresses that were still on the floor and some personal effect, some boxes and other things that the Hamas fighters had been using. I saw a pair of women's underwear hanging that had been put to dry on an electric line because there's electricity down in this tunnel. And according to an Israeli official, we were accompanied by Israeli military personnel. He said that this tunnel wasn't used to hold hostages. They found no evidence that hostages had ever been kept there, but that it was used by Hamas to launch attacks. It goes more or less from, or went more or less from Gaza City to the Israeli border. And that in some cases they believe, because they found this pair of underwear, women's underwear and some other personal effects, they believe that Hamas fighters, certain high level Hamas fighters, were allowing their own families to go into this tunnel and take shelter. Their reasoning for why there was a pair of women's underwear still left on this electrical line put there to dry. The only construction of any kind I saw were Israeli heavy equipment, bulldozers fortifying their own military positions. So according to the ceasefire, Hamas is supposed to disarm, Israel is supposed to pull out of Gaza and reconstruction is supposed to begin. Hamas is not disarmed, Israel has not pulled out of Gaza and reconstruction is not happening. So none of the objectives of the ceasefire at this stage are being met. And I think that's why the Israelis were taking us there, to say, listen, it's not our fault. We're still finding these tunnels. Until all these tunnels are gone and until Hamas lays down its weapons, there won't be any progress, which is, as
- [14:15]
Yalda Hakim
you say, a major feature of the 20 point plan that Donald Trump put together, that Hamas would have to disarm. It's one of the big sort of points of this peace plan. And Hamas in theory says when I've interviewed them, that, sure, should we find ourselves in a position where we've got a strong Palestinian representation in Gaza, a governing body that the Palestinians want, then there is no need for us and we would happily lay down our arms and embed ourselves within the wider Palestinian Authority or government that rules over Gaza. But it's nowhere near that at the moment. It just seems like the situation remains incredibly hopeless and helpless still.
- [15:06]
Richard Engel
Not only does it remain like that, it seems like it's not even heading in that direction. You got the strong sense, or I got the strong sense anyway, that this yellow line is going to be a new border for Gaza, that they're going to stay or be confined to areas beyond the yellow line into a much smaller, still destroyed Gaza Strip. And the Israelis are going to keep that part because the part that they've kept from the yellow line to Israel is the part that is closest to the Israeli borders. So I spoke to soldiers inside Gaza and they told me the reason we need to be here is to prevent Hamas from coming in and carrying out another October 7th. And I didn't get the impression from any of them that they thought if they left and pulled out that Israel would be safer and that this was a temporary solution and that they're on their way to a better future. Like I said, the only building I saw, I think it's telling, is the fact that they were reinforcing their military positions. That also doesn't give an indication of temporary status. The only building was to reinforce military positions, which suggests they're going to stay there for a while.
- [16:26]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah, Richard. You know, in the last few days, I interviewed an Israeli filmmaker who was following a group of Israeli activists trying to highlight the death toll of the number of Palestinian children killed in Gaza. They were holding up banners, pictures, photo toes, trying to identify some of these children. And the film sort of follows these activists and they conduct a series of silent protests and the sort of backlash that they face by the beach, by. In the center of Tel Aviv. This is a nation deeply divided, where there is a small minority that wants to highlight what they believe is happening in Gaza. But the majority of people in, even though they're a few kilometers away, frankly, don't want to know about what has happened there. The death toll, you know, October 7th has deeply traumatized the entire nation. It's a small country. We've talked about that in the past. The fact that most people have been impacted in some way or they know someone who was either taken or a relative of someone, and therefore the idea that tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and now live in this situation where there's debris all over the place and there's no attempt to fix it, even though we are hearing that from the Board of Peace, the likes of Donald Trump, various other global leaders coming out and trying to commit either troops or reconstruction, frankly, nothing has changed on the ground. And actually the death toll does continue because bombardment does continue in certain parts of Gaza.
- [18:15]
Richard Engel
There are still military strikes. The. The yellow line is still patrolled by Israeli troops. We heard gunfire while we were there, but there is still combat going on. So even though there is this ceasefire, no reconstruction, didn't seem like there was any plan for reconstruction, and there is still this ongoing fight. Hamas says we're not going to lay down our guns as long as the Israeli troops are still here and carrying out attacks. And the Israelis say we, well, we're not going to leave as long as Hamas has its guns. So I don't see how this deadlock breaks at the moment unless there's a major, major change.
- [19:00]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah. And in the meantime, you know, a potential war with Iran, between the United States and Iran, you know, could be imminent. There's been this military buildup in the Middle east, and frankly, Donald Trump continues to threaten the Iranian regime. There are pot talks that are going to take place this week. But everything that I'm hearing from my sources, whether it's within Israel or from the Gulf states, the Omanis, you know, whether it's diplomats in the region, they're all saying that even if the Iranians put everything on the table, and that's what we continue to hear, potential strike on Iran, whether that's targeting the leadership or it's going to be quite expansive versus what we saw during the 12 day war is likely to be imminent. And so there is the threat of that that also looms in the region for Israelis to deal with, whilst the situation in Gaza is unbearable for the Palestinians. And this power vacuum remains in Gaza, where Hamas is not disarming, but in fact filling that power vacuum that exists.
- [20:16]
Richard Engel
Let's not totally take Hamas off the hook here. If the Israelis pulled out, it is very possible that Hamas would retake over those tunnels and try and reconstitute their militia and rearm themselves. There is a lot of anger there. There's a lot of hate. There's a lot of deep, deep seated resentment. 70,000 people killed, at least according to Gaza health estimates, which the Israelis themselves now are saying, yeah, that's probably about right. That's a lot of dead people. And in a small place, that means you have families, you have relatives who are angry and aggrieved and still in a confined, destroyed place. But let's talk about Iran right now. I was just in Iran, which is also strange. I feel quite lucky that I've been able to go between these two countries. Not very many people have been able to do that. I tell people, yeah, it was just in Iran.
- [21:15]
Yalda Hakim
You're giving us a front row seat to what's been going on in Burma.
- [21:20]
Richard Engel
I've had quite a few trips to Iran recently and was in Iran right before the 12 Day War, and I got the same impression that you just had, that many Iranians, both civilians and government officials, feel that no matter what they put on the table, the strikes are going to come. That even if they rolled over completely and said, no nuclear program of any kind will limit our missiles to a, you know, tiny range, open up to inspections, we'll give you everything that is asked for, that they're still going to get attacked, because old grievances, because Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to attack Iran, sees this as an opportunity and as this has been a life goal of his, it's something he's been talking about for the past two decades that he's been in power.
- [22:14]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah. And then we're hearing that that Donald Trump just doesn't get it. His special envoy, Steve Witkoff, told Fox News a few days ago that the president's baffled why, despite the huge military buildup, are the Iranians not sort of capitulating. And I think he's sort of baffled about that, even though, you know, frankly, this regime is now saying that everything is on the table. We're happy to make all sorts of concessions, but as you say, it's unclear exactly what is being negotiated. And Donald Trump has taken the maximum pressure approach here, thinking that if I threaten them with a military buildup and I keep it vague and make them believe that a strike is imminent, it's almost like a situation of his own making. Because if he doesn't act, you know, you've got a situation where have the Iranians called his bluff and not done anything and not come to the table? If he does act, how long can he sustain it for? And frankly, he doesn't want to see endless wars. His MAGA base doesn't support ground invasion and putting American boots on the ground. That's why, you know, we've seen unpopular wars like Afghanistan and Iraq come to a close the way that they did, and they were described as the forever wars. Now we find our situation where the president thinks he's applied maximum pressure when in fact, it's almost a creation, something that he has created, frankly.
- [23:52]
Richard Engel
Well, you mentioned. Yeah, that interview, that struck me as well when Witkoff said, yeah, President Trump just doesn't get it, why they just haven't rolled over. But that's war and peace. That's power politics. When you threaten a country and you build up forces on their border, generally people fight. They don't just roll over. The general concept that when threatened and when military force is threatened and when troops are brought to your border countries fight back. I mean, that's as old as ancient history. Read anything and you'll tell. You'll realize that that is a pattern that has been repeated since. In all of recorded history.
- [24:33]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah, Richard, as you say, we've been monitoring this now for a few weeks, and we'll have to wait and see what happens over the course of the next few weeks. And should we take a break and then come back and discuss four years since the bloody and brutal war in Ukraine?
- [24:51]
Richard Engel
Absolutely, let's do it.
- [25:12]
Yalda Hakim
Welcome back to the world podcast. So, as we've been saying, it's the fourth anniversary of the war in Ukraine. We've now entered the fifth year of this bloody, brutal conflict, and it has felt like, frankly, on the Russian side, a complete meat grinder. I was, Richard, reading a piece and the Economist about it. Obviously, the Russians don't release the official numbers, but this is based on data collected by various different outfits, intelligence agencies, Western intelligence agencies that have been monitoring the death toll, and they have described it as a complete meat grinder. And the number of people that the Ukrainians have lost hasn't been an insignificant or small amount. We're talking over 6 million displaced people and tens of thousands of others left injured. But I want to go the beginning of this conflict, Richard. And where were you when you heard the news?
- [26:11]
Richard Engel
I was in Mariupol. So I was right on the Russian border. I remember it like it was yesterday, four years ago. It's still hard to imagine four years have been passing. I was in Mariupol and I went there on purpose. So Mariupol is a city that has now been taken over by Russian forces. And I went there because it's on the Sea of Azov. It's strategic. It's close to Crimea and Russia. It was quite clear that Vladimir Putin wanted to take, if not all of Ukraine, he certainly wanted to take a piece of Ukraine big enough to connect Mother Russia to Crimea. And Mariupol sat right in the way. So I thought, okay, let's position ourselves in Mariupol. No matter what happens, Mariupol is going to be at the center of it and it's going to see action quickly. And I remember getting a phone call. I can't remember what exactly time it was in the middle of the morning. I think it was 5 in the morning or 4:30 in the morning. It was right in the early hours. I was sleeping a little bit and I got a phone call. It's happened, it's begun. Got up, went immediately on air, and then didn't need any phone calls after that because we could hear the incoming fire. We could see the war happening all around us. And we went to the edge of the city and we could see the Russian troops, and you could see the Russians were coming in trying to attack the city and ultimately did. And it was a very tense time. We had some Ukrainian units pull guns on us because they didn't know who we were. People were just coming out of their houses with their hunting rifles and their shotguns and just setting up checkpoints on the streets. And they were taking. I still remember this. They were taking down the street signs because they didn't want the Russians to know where they were. So if there was a sign that said 500km to Kyiv, they would either take it down or they would put it in the wrong direction. A little tiny thing. But they were trying to play games because they knew the Russians were on their way and they were heading toward Kyiv. An incredibly dense time. Where were you when it all began?
- [28:27]
Yalda Hakim
I was basically. There was all this intelligence about whether it was going to happen, whether it was not going to happen. I was interviewing Russian officials, Ukrainian officials, from my studio in London. And then, of course, it happened, and we immediately moved, and I came. I crossed over the Polish border into Ukraine. And, you know, I was in Lviv at the time, and I'd spent some time years earlier in Lviv. But I do remember the bombardment of Mariupol and how devastating the entire thing was. And I think one thing that stood out the entire time was this idea that Ukrainians are incredibly resilient. You'll remember, Richard, that Vladimir Putin basically thought that he was going to take over the country within three days. And Joe Biden said to Volodymyr Zelensky, this comedian turned politician turned president of the country, who wasn't very popular at the time of the war when the war started. But suddenly he was thrust onto the world stage. And Joe Biden said to him, we can get you out. We can evacuate you out of the country. And he said, I don't need a ride. I need support. And then we saw the Western powers, the United States, the Europeans, rally around the Ukrainians. And here we are today. Something that Vladimir Putin thought was going to take three or four days, has taken four years, and this war continues to rage on with no end in sight, even though Donald Trump said that he was going to end this conflict within 24 hours. We've seen him in power now for a year, and he's talked about how difficult it's been. The Ukrainians and the Europeans have said they're ready to negotiate, and it's been the Russians, frankly, and led by Vladimir Putin, who refuses to sort of take any of these talks seriously. And I think that is going to continue to be the case for as long as Vladimir Putin wants this war to drag on. No matter what Donald Trump does, what the Europeans do, what the Ukrainians want, it is going to continue.
- [30:44]
Richard Engel
As you said, it's amazing to watch how Zelensky has evolved. I was in Kiev, so after I left Mariupol, crisscrossed through the country, navigated through these very nervous checkpoints with Ukrainians holding shotguns and pointing Them at me and saying, no, no, no, we're not. We're not invading Russian soldiers. We're just journalists here. Don't shoot us. When we finally did get to Kyiv, it was sort of Zelenskyy's moment to step onto the world stage. He'd been doing a couple of videos, but he gave his first press conference down in the bunker of his. Below his presidential palace. And I went to that press conference and he rose to the moment he came in. He carried his own chair up to the stadium. It was just a metal folding chair. He unfolded it, he sat down on the chair. There were a few of us sitting on the ground or on the few chairs that were there. And he gave what was his first kind of wartime presidential address to the world through the press that were gathered in the room. There weren't that many of us. And then he's changed, he's evolved. And now he says that if there is peace, he's ready to step aside and hold elections which could see him lose power. We will see. See if that happens. But if there is a ceasefire and there are new elections, it is very possible that he's not a president for life, which would be a wonderful sign for democracy. You're not supposed to have presidents for life, even if they are war heroes. And we've also seen Vladimir Putin change initially. This war also began, if you remember, in the dying days of COVID you had Vladimir Putin sitting in those long spaceship like tables, meeting foreign leaders way at the end of them, totally isolated leader. Then he started to run out of men and he started to rely on militia groups, like Yevgeny Prigozhin, remember him, the head of the Wagner group? We did a documentary on him. He threatened to kill me. He said, come and say these things to me and I'll put my hands around your throat. He's gone through many different. Both of these leaders have changed tremendously.
- [32:57]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah. And the Ukrainians say that another round of talks could take place this week. So, Richard, we're keeping an eye on the talks between the Trump administration and Iranian officials, and of course, the Trump administration and the Russian Ukrainian officials as well. We'll have to see how that all evolves over the course of the week.
- [33:19]
Richard Engel
So before we go, before we go, what do you think? What do you think? Do you think five years now that we're entering the fifth year, four years on, do you think they're going to have peace? Do you think peace is in the offing in Ukraine?
- [33:33]
Yalda Hakim
Only if Vladimir Putin wants it. And I Think you can see how this can continue to turn into a war of attrition where there is fatigue. And at the end of the day, the Ukrainians and the Russian forces continue to fight each other. The Russian public remain confused about what the point of this conflict actually is. And for the Ukrainians, they're going to have to continue to rely on this idea that they are resilient. They're fighting for the survival of their nation and therefore the survival of themselves as a people.
- [34:13]
Richard Engel
Yeah, they have no choice. It's often been said Vladimir Putin can stop the war. Today, he just has to stop fighting. The Ukrainians can't stop fighting. If they stop fighting, they lose. They lose their lives, they lose their country, they lose their children. They're gone. So they have no choice. One, you have a war for survival. On the other side, you have a war of choice. Totally, totally different dynamic. And before we wrap up today, we often like to do predictions here. Everyone keeps asking me, do I think there's going to be an attack on Iran? Do you think Trump is bluffing? Where do you think this is going? So, so I'll start with you. What do you think? Do you think it's going to happen? Do you think there's going to be a US Strike or US and or Israeli strike against Iran? Or do you think they're going to try and find some sort of deal and step back from the brink knowing that we could be proven right or wrong very quickly?
- [35:09]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah. I've been speaking, working my sources in the field and on the ground, and one American I spoke to said I think 80% chance he bombs Iran, 70%, it goes longer than a week, and 20% he targets the Supreme Leader. So that's someone else who also has their ear to the ground, and that's their prediction.
- [35:33]
Richard Engel
So 80% that he attacks, 70% that it's prolonged, and 20% that the Supreme Leader personally is targeted. And you feel, you feel good about that? You're sticking with that as well?
- [35:51]
Yalda Hakim
I mean, well, for everything I'm hearing, it feels, you know, quite imminent.
- [35:57]
Richard Engel
It does feel imminent, and it does feel like it's hard to back away from this. So I don't want to say it feels inevitable, but it certainly feels more likely than not. But no one is telling me where it's supposed to go. No one yet has given me a clear answer of what the end game is supposed to be. And I think that that's what frightens me the most, because I watched Iraq. I lived Iraq. I was in Iraq for five years. That was there during the invasion, five years straight afterwards. And I watched that escalate and escalate and evolve and change and metastasize into something truly horrible. And Iran is bigger. It's more mountainous. It has more borders. It could be a. If you have regime collapse leading to state collapse, it could be a total catastrophe.
- [36:46]
Yalda Hakim
Well, Richard, you're in the region monitoring things closely. If your prediction is correct, we'll be seeing each other in the near future. On the ground there.
- [36:57]
Richard Engel
I hope. I'm not. I'd like to see you, but I don't want to. Why are we always covering wars? People see me, they're like, oh, Richard, you must love the war. I hate wars. I hate them.
- [37:05]
Yalda Hakim
As soon as you check into a hotel, people run the opposite direction.
- [37:09]
Richard Engel
It's true. It's true. I don't know if I've said it on this podcast, but I think I've told you that's happened to me. I've checked into hotels. People have seen me, and they've checked out. Who wants that reputation? Not me.
- [37:23]
Yalda Hakim
You got it.
- [37:24]
Richard Engel
Oh, gosh. Until we speak again. And I heard you did this amazing interview with Ken Burds, one of the.
- [37:31]
Yalda Hakim
Yes, one of my favorite filmmakers. Filmmakers.
- [37:34]
Richard Engel
An American Treasure.
- [37:35]
Yalda Hakim
Absolutely. I spoke to him a few days ago. It went really well. He's great. And we've got that extra episode for our listener business as well.
- [37:43]
Richard Engel
Okay, well, I can't wait to see that. And again, before we leave, please send us more questions. Don't just tell us you love us, you hate us. Send us some questions and we'll get to them.