# C Raja Mohan and Pratap Bhanu Mehta on the Iran war and the new global order

An episode of [3 Things](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1406730235), 27 Oct 2026, 1 h 19 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/76004633/3_things_2026_october_27_v2_yt_version.mp3

In this special episode of 3 Things, The Indian Express Group’s Executive Director Anant Goenka speaks with foreign-policy expert C. Raja Mohan and political theorist Pratap Bhanu Mehta about the Iran war, US-China competition, political upheaval across South Asia and the forces reshaping the global order and India’s place within it. Produced by Shashank Bhargava and Ichha Sharma Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar Watch the episode here: https://youtu.be/00hFaC00Dj0?si=rTgU89ij8ybZAxoC

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Itchha Sharma and you're listening to Three Things,
[0:05] Speaker 1: the Indian Express news show. Since the US and Israel
[0:14] Speaker 1: launched strikes on Iran on the 28th of February, the
[0:18] Speaker 1: war in Central Asia has dragged on for eight months,
[0:22] Speaker 1: disrupting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, threatening global energy
[0:25] Speaker 1: supplies and raising fears of a wider regional conflict. And
[0:30] Speaker 1: despite attempts to secure a lasting ceasefire, tensions remain high,
[0:35] Speaker 1: with the conflict continuing to affect oil prices, trade and
[0:39] Speaker 1: relations between major powers. But what does this conflict tell
[0:43] Speaker 1: us about the world taking shape around us? And how
[0:46] Speaker 1: are wars, competition between the US and China and political
[0:50] Speaker 1: upheaval across South Asia changing the global order and India's
[0:55] Speaker 1: place in it? In this special episode of 3 Things...
[0:58] Speaker 1: Anand Goenka, the executive director of the Indian Express, is
[1:02] Speaker 1: joined by foreign policy expert C. Raja Mohan and political
[1:06] Speaker 1: theorist Pratap Bhanumaita for a wide-ranging discussion on the forces
[1:11] Speaker 1: driving this moment of global uncertainty and how they connect
[1:15] Speaker 1: conflicts abroad with political change closer to home. To watch
[1:19] Speaker 1: the video version of this conversation, click the link in
[1:22] Speaker 1: today's show notes. Now here's Anand Goenka.
[1:26] Speaker 2: Blessed to have these two gentlemen with me here. Thank
[1:28] Speaker 2: you both for being here. Really, so nice of you
[1:30] Speaker 2: to start with you. Like I did the last time
[1:32] Speaker 2: we spoke, BRICS summit happened. It was a decent resolution
[1:36] Speaker 2: from what I hear, from what I understand. India's had
[1:40] Speaker 2: some interesting role to play in that resolution and it
[1:42] Speaker 2: was a good, something came out of it.
[1:44] Speaker 3: The wars, two wars are both not stopping. Iran-US, who's
[1:49] Speaker 3: winning today?
[1:50] Speaker 4: I think the best way to describe it is a
[1:52] Speaker 4: strategic stalemate. I think India See, I think, but we've
[1:58] Speaker 4: got to distinguish between the two. The war is being
[2:00] Speaker 4: fought on Iranian soil. America is a distant power. They've
[2:04] Speaker 4: lost some of the bases, or they've lost some soldiers,
[2:07] Speaker 4: a few, maybe counting in tens. What Iran has endured
[2:11] Speaker 4: in the last two years, I think, is far more. So,
[2:15] Speaker 4: it's not two equals fighting in from similar circumstances. Of course,
[2:19] Speaker 4: the U.S. is the number one economy. Iran has been
[2:22] Speaker 4: battered by economic sanctions. And what has happened in this
[2:25] Speaker 4: so-called Operation Economic Outcast actually makes it a lot worse. Now,
[2:30] Speaker 4: second point is both countries are also internally divided. But
[2:33] Speaker 4: there again, the comparison would be inapt. In America, look, OK,
[2:38] Speaker 4: Trump might lose the election. Democrats might come back. But
[2:43] Speaker 4: what Iran we saw in January this year, massive protests
[2:47] Speaker 4: about the legitimacy of the regime. the need for change
[2:50] Speaker 4: and the violence, the state violence against the protesters. People
[2:54] Speaker 4: are still being executed. So I think we are in, again,
[2:56] Speaker 4: apples and oranges. But a strong nation went into an adventure,
[3:01] Speaker 4: you can say.
[3:03] Speaker 3: But it can always pull back.
[3:04] Speaker 4: That is the advantage America has always had, right? You
[3:07] Speaker 4: fight a war in a distant land, walk back as
[3:08] Speaker 4: if nothing has happened. We saw it in Iraq. They've
[3:10] Speaker 4: just vacated from Iraq after 20 odd years. They left
[3:14] Speaker 4: Afghanistan two years ago without... So they can come and go.
[3:18] Speaker 4: But I think it's what's happening here and what happens
[3:21] Speaker 4: inside Iran. And I think we don't pay enough attention
[3:23] Speaker 4: to that. There is an internal struggle in Iran, I think.
[3:26] Speaker 4: What comes out of it at the end of the
[3:28] Speaker 4: use of force and the internal contestation. I think that
[3:31] Speaker 4: will be far more interesting because the regime and the revolution,
[3:34] Speaker 4: 47 years after the revolution, it doesn't have the same credibility.
[3:39] Speaker 2: But do you think that the old guard, that hardcore
[3:43] Speaker 2: conservative regime, has that gotten strengthened after the attack?
[3:46] Speaker 3: Absolutely.
[3:47] Speaker 4: I think the IRGC has become stronger. I think you
[3:50] Speaker 4: had knocked off the supreme leader, Khamenei. The president is
[3:56] Speaker 4: largely a figurehead. You removed people like Larijani who had
[4:00] Speaker 4: the experience to negotiate, mediate. So it is IRGC now.
[4:04] Speaker 4: It is IRGC that writes a letter to the American people,
[4:07] Speaker 4: not Pejaskia, who was in the US for the UN meetings.
[4:10] Speaker 3: So it tells you who is in charge.
[4:13] Speaker 4: And I think if you go back to the attempted
[4:14] Speaker 4: peace deal, the so-called moderate sections negotiated a deal. But
[4:20] Speaker 4: it was IRGC that trumped it by shooting at the ship.
[4:22] Speaker 4: So I think there we are.
[4:24] Speaker 3: But, and Dr. Mehta can obviously step in whenever, but...
[4:29] Speaker 3: America can pull back.
[4:31] Speaker 2: That's what he kind of said whenever he was... But
[4:34] Speaker 2: they're not. And obviously it's because of Israel. I feel
[4:39] Speaker 2: like America wants to pull back, but somehow Israel's got
[4:43] Speaker 2: a hold on them, which for the first time is
[4:45] Speaker 2: making the relationship between America and Israel very complicated for
[4:49] Speaker 2: the first time, in a long time at least.
[4:52] Speaker 5: See, I think it's... You're right, Israel is a big factor,
[4:55] Speaker 5: but I think it's more complicated than that.
[4:59] Speaker 3: One... It's not easy for America to pull back.
[5:02] Speaker 5: Every time it's pulled back, there has been a future
[5:05] Speaker 5: cost America has paid.
[5:07] Speaker 3: The Iraq adventure, misadventure, right?
[5:11] Speaker 5: In a sense, it, I mean, apart from the internal
[5:14] Speaker 5: divisions it created within the United States, right? in some senses,
[5:19] Speaker 5: it left the region and increased Iran's power much more, right? Now,
[5:24] Speaker 5: think of the consequences of pulling back right now.
[5:26] Speaker 3: It left Iraq and made Iran more powerful.
[5:28] Speaker 5: It made Iran more powerful, right? The natural counterweight to,
[5:31] Speaker 5: in a sense, Iran, right? It cleared the way for
[5:33] Speaker 5: ISIS to gain strength. American withdrawal has always been accompanied
[5:40] Speaker 5: also by a trail of devastation.
[5:41] Speaker 3: It's not costless, right? Interesting.
[5:44] Speaker 5: Now, in this case, who is going to bear the
[5:46] Speaker 5: cost if America tomorrow pulls out, right? It's going to
[5:50] Speaker 5: be America's allies, the Saudis, who are already bearing some cost.
[5:55] Speaker 5: Their bluff has been called out about how much they
[5:58] Speaker 5: can defend themselves, right? Are they actually a fully sovereign
[6:03] Speaker 5: power in control of their own security? That's already been
[6:05] Speaker 5: called out. I think the reliability of America as a
[6:11] Speaker 5: negotiating partner has already been countered. It's true that the
[6:14] Speaker 5: IRGC scuttled the deal, but it's also true that America
[6:18] Speaker 5: has been bombing in the middle of peace talks. If
[6:20] Speaker 5: you're in Iran, just from a purely rational actor point
[6:24] Speaker 5: of view, I mean, the Iranian regime is despicable, but
[6:27] Speaker 5: just from the point of view of a rational actor,
[6:33] Speaker 5: what guarantees do you have after the sequence of events
[6:36] Speaker 5: over the last two years that you're not going to
[6:38] Speaker 5: be bombed again, that this peace deal is not just
[6:41] Speaker 5: America buying for time, right? So it has a credibility,
[6:45] Speaker 5: in a sense, deficit. None of its regional allies are
[6:49] Speaker 5: going to trust it, right? If your allies can't trust
[6:54] Speaker 5: you on your own security, there is a loss there. Now,
[6:57] Speaker 5: it's true that America is a superpower. It's the world's
[7:02] Speaker 5: largest economy. So it will absorb those costs. But I
[7:04] Speaker 5: don't think it's costless in terms of reputation, in prestige,
[7:08] Speaker 5: in terms of America's ability, and moreover, in this case particularly.
[7:12] Speaker 5: What has America lost most powerfully in the last two years?
[7:17] Speaker 5: All international orders are hypocritical. All great powers are hypocritical.
[7:21] Speaker 3: We know that.
[7:23] Speaker 5: But this is the first time you have an American
[7:25] Speaker 5: regime that is utterly nihilistic about international law. It says
[7:29] Speaker 5: we don't care a damn. Absolutely don't care a damn.
[7:34] Speaker 5: You have taken that bet. You have made the world
[7:37] Speaker 5: a much, much more riskier place.
[7:40] Speaker 4: Right?
[7:40] Speaker 5: The incentive for Iran to produce nuclear weapons increases, the
[7:44] Speaker 5: incentive for every country in the region, particularly Iran, to
[7:47] Speaker 5: continue to use proxies and accelerate the anti-Ontario increases. Now,
[7:54] Speaker 5: if under those circumstances you just turn around and say, sorry, bye-bye,
[7:58] Speaker 5: we've broken the China shop and we are just leaving,
[8:02] Speaker 5: I don't think it's going to be costless for the
[8:04] Speaker 5: United States. And I think it's one reason why. Yes,
[8:07] Speaker 5: there is political division in America. But the fact of
[8:11] Speaker 5: the matter is nobody has been able to stop Trump
[8:14] Speaker 5: effectively from actually, in a sense, prosecuting or carrying out
[8:18] Speaker 5: the war. The military-industrial complex still goes full force.
[8:24] Speaker 3: So I actually don't think it's just Israel.
[8:27] Speaker 5: I actually do think America has locked itself in a
[8:30] Speaker 5: position where the consequences.
[8:33] Speaker 5: Of leaving without some kind of victory are going to
[8:38] Speaker 5: be great. Now, the risk in the situation, and that's
[8:40] Speaker 5: my big worry, is that I don't see an equilibrium
[8:44] Speaker 5: where we can simply say both sides will withdraw.
[8:47] Speaker 3: I think both have an incentive to accelerate.
[8:50] Speaker 5: Iran has not been able to completely control the state
[8:53] Speaker 5: of Hormuz as it declared it wanted, right? I mean,
[8:58] Speaker 5: depending on the counts, 50% to 60% of ships are
[9:00] Speaker 5: going through. America has not been able to meet its
[9:04] Speaker 5: strategic objectives of regime change. And I actually don't see
[9:09] Speaker 5: an equilibrium where one or the other side will not
[9:13] Speaker 5: escalate at some point.
[9:16] Speaker 3: I think we are being very complacent.
[9:19] Speaker 5: I think we are just assuming Trump's getting tired, Trump's
[9:22] Speaker 5: getting bored, he wants a way out. The Iranian people
[9:25] Speaker 5: have taken a battering. Iran's supplies will start running low
[9:29] Speaker 5: at some point, 60 percent inflation. In fact, those are
[9:33] Speaker 5: exactly the moments. where for the Iranian regime also, normal
[9:38] Speaker 5: politics will return to Iran if this war ends.
[9:40] Speaker 3: And Raja is right. It is an internally divided society.
[9:44] Speaker 5: In fact, I actually think internal political change in Iran
[9:47] Speaker 5: has been slowed down by this intervention, not accelerated by it.
[9:53] Speaker 5: So if you are the IRGC, you have not fully
[9:56] Speaker 5: established control over the states of hormones, which is your
[9:59] Speaker 5: declared objective. you are then also vulnerable to a domestic challenge.
[10:05] Speaker 5: So I actually think the incentives on both sides to
[10:06] Speaker 5: escalate are actually still there. I think there's a lot
[10:11] Speaker 5: of tactical circling of the wagons going on. And I
[10:14] Speaker 5: think the world would be, I think, would sleep better.
[10:18] Speaker 5: Or at least we would sleep better if the world
[10:19] Speaker 5: were not so complacent about it.
[10:21] Speaker 2: So, okay, so first you're saying that there has to
[10:22] Speaker 2: be a binary winner here.
[10:23] Speaker 3: There has to be a winner and a loser, a
[10:26] Speaker 3: clear winner and a loser.
[10:26] Speaker 5: Or at least a narrative where each side can present
[10:29] Speaker 5: a victory.
[10:30] Speaker 3: That's how all wars end, right? Yeah, exactly. In this case,
[10:33] Speaker 3: you're saying that it's tough to get that.
[10:35] Speaker 5: It's tough to get that. I think given the position
[10:37] Speaker 5: the Americans have locked themselves in.
[10:38] Speaker 3: And so what's better for the world, if America wins
[10:41] Speaker 3: or if Iran wins? No, no.
[10:42] Speaker 5: What's better for the world is if the war stops,
[10:45] Speaker 5: if neither of them looks in the framework.
[10:47] Speaker 3: Of winning or losing, right?
[10:49] Speaker 5: Which is to say they look at it in the
[10:51] Speaker 5: framework of long-term peace and development and the creation of
[10:56] Speaker 5: a stable world order. I think winning and losing, the
[11:00] Speaker 5: framing of winning and losing in this situation does not have.
[11:04] Speaker 3: A good equilibrium outcome.
[11:07] Speaker 5: I think it will take an immense act of statesmanship
[11:10] Speaker 5: to say, look, whatever has happened has happened, but what
[11:14] Speaker 5: we need to look at is the long-term well-being of
[11:18] Speaker 5: our people.
[11:19] Speaker 3: Trump hasn't been able.
[11:20] Speaker 5: To get oil prices down below $ 100, right? Talk of
[11:24] Speaker 5: strategic objectives. Yesterday, he said, it doesn't matter. We can
[11:27] Speaker 5: sacrifice San Diego and Los Angeles. I mean, yes, he
[11:31] Speaker 5: says a lot of things.
[11:33] Speaker 3: I missed this. Sacrifice and how?
[11:36] Speaker 5: Los Angeles and San Diego. This is some more of
[11:38] Speaker 5: the collateral damage of the war.
[11:40] Speaker 4: Some election rally?
[11:41] Speaker 3: Right, in the election rally, right?
[11:43] Speaker 5: So, in some sense, I don't see how we can
[11:46] Speaker 5: frame this as a win in any way. I think
[11:49] Speaker 5: it's going to be difficult for him to. And remember,
[11:51] Speaker 5: I mean, he also has even more hawkish people in
[11:54] Speaker 5: the Republican Party.
[11:55] Speaker 2: So two questions, right? I think win, lose. What is
[11:59] Speaker 2: a win? What is a loss?
[12:00] Speaker 3: We figured out.
[12:01] Speaker 2: But I think one thing is evident that Iran nuclear
[12:05] Speaker 2: weapons now is like, is very tough to keep them
[12:08] Speaker 2: from not having their own nuclear weapons, right? I mean,
[12:10] Speaker 2: is that something that we are all... It's not assured
[12:12] Speaker 2: at this point. No, but I mean, it's very likely that...
[12:15] Speaker 2: It's not assured. It's possible that they will not end
[12:17] Speaker 2: up with nuclear weapons now because now they seem to
[12:19] Speaker 2: have the domestic push for it.
[12:22] Speaker 4: No, the IRGC would say, look, if you give up
[12:24] Speaker 4: nuclear weapons, you're finished. And current tactical situations, if you
[12:28] Speaker 4: don't make concessions on the nuclear issue, the pressure will
[12:30] Speaker 4: continue on.
[12:32] Speaker 3: So, I think that's where it is.
[12:33] Speaker 2: So, it's not very clear that they will end up.
[12:35] Speaker 3: So, it depends on, look, what.
[12:36] Speaker 4: Is the final outcome... on this war? What does it
[12:40] Speaker 4: do to internal change in Iran? Can Iran then accept
[12:44] Speaker 4: some kind of a concession for other guarantees? I mean,
[12:46] Speaker 4: it's not going to be just, I'm going to give
[12:48] Speaker 4: up nuclear weapons. What is the regional security order? How
[12:51] Speaker 4: will it relate to the Arab countries next door? So,
[12:54] Speaker 4: those will be part of it. If there is a,
[12:55] Speaker 4: you know, an anomaly after a great war like this,
[12:58] Speaker 4: there will be peace settlement, the main parties will sit together.
[13:01] Speaker 4: We're nowhere near that. So, we are still in the
[13:03] Speaker 4: middle of the war. So, a lot would depend... So,
[13:05] Speaker 4: you see this going on for at least six, eight
[13:06] Speaker 4: months more?
[13:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean... The way it's looking, yeah.
[13:09] Speaker 4: But if there is a revolt tomorrow in Iran, it'll go.
[13:11] Speaker 4: Or tomorrow, like the Democrats, if they come to power,
[13:15] Speaker 4: assuming Democrats come to power, they pass a resolution in
[13:17] Speaker 4: the House. No more excuses. Three months, we are leaving. Yeah. See,
[13:21] Speaker 4: until now, the Senate has passed so-called war powers resolution
[13:24] Speaker 4: without binding the president's hand.
[13:26] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[13:26] Speaker 4: Or leaving it, you know, up to his discretion. But
[13:29] Speaker 4: a forcible action by the U.S. Congress could contain Trump's
[13:33] Speaker 4: own room for maneuver. So we don't know. Then the
[13:35] Speaker 4: Democratic Party... Pratap can talk about it now. There are
[13:38] Speaker 4: more leftists in the party, just as in the UK,
[13:41] Speaker 4: the opposition to Gaza, the whole Middle East involvement. Here,
[13:45] Speaker 4: there is the new left-wing so-called DSA, which is challenging
[13:51] Speaker 4: many of the conventional notions, just as on the Republican Party.
[13:55] Speaker 4: The right-wing extremists challenging many of the old assumptions about
[13:58] Speaker 4: American leadership, America needs to take care of the world. Similarly,
[14:01] Speaker 4: here they're saying, look, retrench, why we in this?
[14:05] Speaker 3: Let's move away.
[14:06] Speaker 4: So I think it depends on how that sentiment plays
[14:09] Speaker 4: out in the US. But for now, I think the
[14:11] Speaker 4: establishment is still strong enough to control the outcomes. But
[14:14] Speaker 4: I think there's going to be new voices in the
[14:18] Speaker 4: Democratic Party. And that's why anybody associated with the Biden
[14:21] Speaker 4: administration who is associated with the Gaza issue, is absolutely
[14:25] Speaker 4: unacceptable to the democratic left.
[14:27] Speaker 3: So, I think there are a lot of interesting things.
[14:29] Speaker 2: Biden administration also was, in a sense, supporting Israel's aggression
[14:33] Speaker 2: to Iran.
[14:34] Speaker 4: So, the argument is, see, Gaza is the main issue, say,
[14:36] Speaker 4: the popular issue in the left and the US. They're
[14:39] Speaker 4: saying the Biden people were complicit. They didn't punish enough
[14:43] Speaker 4: in Iran. But they were, right?
[14:44] Speaker 3: I mean, they formed... Yeah, I mean, of course. You see, U.S.
[14:48] Speaker 4: Under Biden was taking the traditional view that, look, Israel
[14:51] Speaker 4: is our partner. We got to... They're saying we're trying
[14:53] Speaker 4: to make them more reasonable, but they never put the
[14:56] Speaker 4: pressure on them. They kept giving them weapons. People say, look,
[14:59] Speaker 4: Biden was muttering under his breath and they had horrible
[15:01] Speaker 4: phone calls with Netanyahu. But the fact is, in the end,
[15:04] Speaker 4: they didn't do anything to stop. To some extent, actually,
[15:07] Speaker 4: it is Trump who is putting some constraints.
[15:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, Trump seems more upset with Netanyahu than Biden did.
[15:14] Speaker 3: At least publicly, that's what comes out. Can I just
[15:17] Speaker 3: footnote on that? So I think Raja is absolutely right.
[15:21] Speaker 5: And obviously the most important critical variable is domestic politics.
[15:25] Speaker 3: In Iran and in the US.
[15:27] Speaker 5: But I think it's a bit of a mistake to
[15:29] Speaker 5: think that Trump has been softer on Netanyahu or there's
[15:32] Speaker 5: more difference.
[15:33] Speaker 3: Look, the harder on Netanyahu, right?
[15:41] Speaker 5: What's the new issue in Israeli politics, right? Settlers in
[15:45] Speaker 5: the West Bank. The fact is, even as we speak,
[15:50] Speaker 5: it's not just that, you know, peace in Gaza is
[15:53] Speaker 5: not fully returned or whatever. It's that Israel is actually
[15:57] Speaker 5: expanding settlements in the West Bank. Now, if you're going
[16:02] Speaker 5: to have any hope for some kind of regional settlement, right,
[16:06] Speaker 5: even the Saudis have made clear, right, even if you
[16:09] Speaker 5: don't believe in a fully Palestinian state, even if, you know,
[16:13] Speaker 5: as people showed, you want kind of Hamas removed, all
[16:16] Speaker 5: of that, It is just very difficult to imagine a
[16:20] Speaker 5: solution where Israel keeps continuing to.
[16:25] Speaker 3: Expand the settlements.
[16:26] Speaker 5: Britain has sanctioned or a kind of a sort of
[16:29] Speaker 5: sanction on trade from, you know, things with the West Bank.
[16:32] Speaker 5: Americans haven't really, really clamped down on it.
[16:35] Speaker 3: Right.
[16:35] Speaker 5: I mean, that's one very simple test to put to Netanyahu. OK,
[16:39] Speaker 5: at least maintain status quo. don't expand the ambit.
[16:43] Speaker 3: Of territory as we speak. So, I don't think, I
[16:46] Speaker 3: don't think the underlying.
[16:47] Speaker 4: No, no, I was only referring to the Iran policy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[16:49] Speaker 5: No, no, I agree.
[16:50] Speaker 3: I agree with you. I mean, it's a.
[16:51] Speaker 4: Netanyahu wanted, you know, revolt, support armed, you know, Kurdish rebels,
[16:55] Speaker 4: start the internal... Yeah. Which he rescinded and said, no,
[16:58] Speaker 4: I'm going to negotiate.
[16:58] Speaker 3: I think that's what... Yeah. I mean, Israel is a
[17:01] Speaker 3: guy who's broken the ceasefire, right? Not Iran. Yeah.
[17:03] Speaker 4: Right.
[17:04] Speaker 3: That's a separate issue.
[17:05] Speaker 4: In the Iran policy, Israel had a super hard line saying, look,
[17:09] Speaker 4: regime change is the immediate objective. But Trump's saying, I'll negotiate,
[17:12] Speaker 4: I'll get a deal. So he's kind of been wavering
[17:14] Speaker 4: on that. People say, look, Erdogan is another friend of
[17:17] Speaker 4: Trump who's prevailed on him from doing certain things in Iran,
[17:21] Speaker 4: that is supporting the Kurdish rebels. Because if you do that,
[17:24] Speaker 4: Turkey has its own concerns. So not in the internal
[17:27] Speaker 4: what's happening in the Palestinian issue.
[17:29] Speaker 5: Agreed.
[17:30] Speaker 2: Isn't it true that Trump has been, has tried to
[17:34] Speaker 2: make deals both with, I mean, I think with Iran,
[17:36] Speaker 2: I'm not talking about Iran, and Israel has always come and,
[17:40] Speaker 2: you know, violated the deal that Trump, I'm not talking
[17:42] Speaker 2: about America's word.
[17:43] Speaker 3: No, there have been no deals with Iran.
[17:45] Speaker 4: I mean, it's really, I think Iran, see, what Pratap
[17:48] Speaker 4: is saying is that whether Biden or Trump or any
[17:51] Speaker 4: American administration has not been able to put pressure on
[17:55] Speaker 4: Israel in general, Netanyahu in particular, of doing the kind
[17:58] Speaker 4: of things he's doing internally. And that every settlement, even the,
[18:02] Speaker 4: for example, the Gaza Peace Accord, which it's really favors
[18:08] Speaker 4: Israel in some sense.
[18:09] Speaker 3: Even that, of course, Israel doesn't accept. But I think
[18:12] Speaker 3: that is.
[18:12] Speaker 4: The I think the point that that is being made.
[18:15] Speaker 4: But there also, I would say. Trump and Biden have
[18:19] Speaker 4: gotten away with it because the contradictions within the Middle
[18:22] Speaker 4: East itself, the Arabs are not. The only protests are
[18:28] Speaker 4: in the Western capitals, in Western universities. There's no opposition
[18:32] Speaker 4: to what Netanyahu is doing.
[18:34] Speaker 3: That's a great thing.
[18:35] Speaker 2: I want to understand what's happening in the Middle East
[18:37] Speaker 2: and the whole region.
[18:38] Speaker 3: So the Arabs are saying, not our fight?
[18:41] Speaker 4: They're acquiescing. You can say, look, it's not that formally
[18:44] Speaker 4: they're still committed to two-state and all that stuff. But
[18:46] Speaker 4: they've actually authorized Trump. to, you know, the UNSC resolution
[18:51] Speaker 4: where he's one man who's in charge of the Gaza
[18:53] Speaker 4: peace and he sets up the Gaza peace board, his
[18:55] Speaker 4: son-in-law is in charge.
[18:56] Speaker 3: So, I think, you know, it's unimaginable that this would
[18:59] Speaker 3: have gone on.
[19:00] Speaker 2: But the fact is down for us, all the Middle Eastern,
[19:02] Speaker 2: I mean, the large, Saudi, UAE, all the Middle Eastern,
[19:06] Speaker 2: the large Middle Eastern countries, they have always, I mean,
[19:09] Speaker 2: they have in the recent past given full support to America, right,
[19:13] Speaker 2: over Iran.
[19:14] Speaker 3: They've always supported Iran.
[19:15] Speaker 2: American alliance, they've said they're all friends of America, they've
[19:19] Speaker 2: allowed bases in their country.
[19:20] Speaker 3: So, they have said, we're on Team America, right?
[19:24] Speaker 4: No, two things we're talking about. One is how you
[19:26] Speaker 4: deal with the Israel-Palestinian question.
[19:28] Speaker 3: Which is an old question.
[19:29] Speaker 4: Yeah. But it's still there. I mean, I think when
[19:31] Speaker 4: we talk about the Gaza issue. Other is the how
[19:33] Speaker 4: to deal with Iran. I think on the Gaza question,
[19:35] Speaker 4: I was saying, eight Arab and Muslim countries, including Pakistan
[19:39] Speaker 4: and Indonesia. Yeah. supported giving Trump the full authorization of
[19:44] Speaker 4: running Gaza for.
[19:45] Speaker 3: Two years at least.
[19:47] Speaker 4: So there, I think the rhetoric of saying we are
[19:49] Speaker 4: for Palestine and their actual politics of willingness to you
[19:54] Speaker 4: know wink and nod at what Israel doing or wink
[19:56] Speaker 4: and nod at what so that is one part Iran
[19:58] Speaker 4: has actually has had very few friends in the broader
[20:02] Speaker 4: Arab world some of the friends have been ousted like
[20:05] Speaker 4: in Syria and Lebanon these are under pressure So, these
[20:09] Speaker 4: two are two different theatres in that sense.
[20:11] Speaker 3: But they are both supporting America, no?
[20:13] Speaker 2: In both instances, you've got these eight Muslim countries. Both
[20:19] Speaker 2: these issues, you've got eight Muslim countries supporting American strategy,
[20:23] Speaker 2: American policy, right?
[20:24] Speaker 4: No, but the two, I mean, on the Iran issue,
[20:27] Speaker 4: I think the main Arab neighbours of Iran fear Iran's domination.
[20:33] Speaker 4: 90 million people, I mean, it's not just now, when
[20:35] Speaker 4: Shah of Iran going back to pre-revolution, I mean, Iran
[20:38] Speaker 4: was bigger than all its neighbors, has a sense of
[20:41] Speaker 4: great story. And that natural temptation to dominate the Gulf
[20:47] Speaker 4: is there. And I think that has continued under the
[20:50] Speaker 4: Islamic regime. And there, the Arabs always say they're feared, afraid,
[20:54] Speaker 4: or you have to accommodate. But now what's happened is
[20:57] Speaker 4: Iran's capabilities have grown so much that if they support
[21:01] Speaker 4: America too much, he's saying, I can bomb your oil infrastructure.
[21:04] Speaker 4: I can bomb the American bases. So he's saying, Uncle
[21:07] Speaker 4: Sam is far away. I'm here. You better deal with me.
[21:11] Speaker 4: And the Americans are still not letting that logic go further.
[21:14] Speaker 4: So that is what is open for contestation, I think.
[21:17] Speaker 3: Absolutely.
[21:18] Speaker 5: And just to add to that, I mean, you know,
[21:19] Speaker 5: I think Raja's kind of spot on that. I think
[21:21] Speaker 5: there are two other, I think, issues in this, right? One,
[21:25] Speaker 5: I think, post-Arab Spring, right? There's the question of the
[21:29] Speaker 5: kind of the legitimacy of the different Arab states. Iran,
[21:34] Speaker 5: of course, had proxies, but almost all of those states
[21:38] Speaker 5: were also funding transnational actors, right? The UAE and Sudan,
[21:43] Speaker 5: Muslim Brotherhood as a kind of patronage of various actors
[21:46] Speaker 5: in the region, right? Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia. I mean,
[21:50] Speaker 5: everybody was engaging in this kind of massive sort of
[21:53] Speaker 5: transnational proxy stuff.
[21:55] Speaker 3: Saudis in Yemen against Iranian Houthis, right?
[22:00] Speaker 5: And I think one of the recognitions that dawned on
[22:02] Speaker 5: them is a lot of that transnational stuff might actually
[22:06] Speaker 5: come to devour them at some point in the future.
[22:09] Speaker 5: I mean, it's one-on-one logic, right? You flood a region
[22:13] Speaker 5: with armed proxies. At some point, they're going to be
[22:16] Speaker 5: hard to control. So I think the one thing you
[22:19] Speaker 5: began to see over the last 10, 15 years is
[22:22] Speaker 5: a kind of slow weaning back away from that kind
[22:26] Speaker 5: of support, not completely giving it up, but at least
[22:28] Speaker 5: in ideological terms. And I think the Palestine-Gaza thing was
[22:31] Speaker 5: part of that, because the one thing they feared is
[22:33] Speaker 5: a kind of transnational support for Gaza or Palestine.
[22:38] Speaker 3: In the region.
[22:40] Speaker 5: The second thing was the big bet the Saudis were making,
[22:43] Speaker 5: which is what's the post-oil future.
[22:46] Speaker 3: Of the region, right? It's finance and tech.
[22:49] Speaker 5: Finance and tech would require more integration into the American-Israeli ecosystem.
[22:56] Speaker 5: Those were the kind of two mega bets in some senses. Now,
[23:00] Speaker 5: one of the things I think Iran is managing to
[23:02] Speaker 5: do a little bit is to say that, look, you
[23:06] Speaker 5: can't make those two bets anymore. completely riding roughshod over us. A,
[23:13] Speaker 5: we are actually in a position to do damage to you.
[23:16] Speaker 5: So one of the odd things about UAE is supporting
[23:19] Speaker 5: the U.S., but it's also doing side payments to Iran
[23:23] Speaker 5: to say, don't bomb Dubai. Don't bomb Dubai, right? I mean, it's,
[23:28] Speaker 5: you know, this is like stuff, movies like Dr. Strangelove
[23:31] Speaker 5: are made of, right? And partly because there are these
[23:34] Speaker 5: kind of compelling contradictory.
[23:36] Speaker 3: Dynamics that they are caught in, right?
[23:37] Speaker 5: Which is there's a long-term one and then there's the
[23:40] Speaker 5: immediate one. And the second one is this whole kind
[23:43] Speaker 5: of big technology energy play, right? where, again, Iran sending
[23:47] Speaker 5: the signal, look, we can actually make that play vulnerable, right?
[23:51] Speaker 5: We can even make the finance play vulnerable.
[23:55] Speaker 3: So I think you are going to get.
[23:57] Speaker 5: And that's the context in which if America just walks away,
[24:01] Speaker 5: you're actually going to get a pretty radical reset of
[24:05] Speaker 5: each of these countries saying, who do.
[24:07] Speaker 3: We ally with?
[24:08] Speaker 5: And if your allies are then Pakistan and Turkey, right?
[24:13] Speaker 3: It changes... the credibility of the American posture in the region.
[24:17] Speaker 4: See, Middle East is not for the weak-hearted, nor simplistic categories.
[24:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's quite complicated, but they, I, okay, so from
[24:24] Speaker 2: a very simplistic perspective, I understood that most of the
[24:27] Speaker 2: Middle East has chosen Team America. Traditionally, the last, the
[24:31] Speaker 2: modern 10, last 20 years, whatever.
[24:33] Speaker 3: And this war, I get a sense of making them
[24:35] Speaker 3: take a.
[24:35] Speaker 2: Nuanced view to Iran, which they probably didn't have to
[24:39] Speaker 2: do earlier, to both Iran and Turkey.
[24:41] Speaker 4: Because Iran's power has grown.
[24:43] Speaker 2: In spite of this war, Iran's power has grown because
[24:45] Speaker 2: they've shown that they can do.
[24:47] Speaker 4: No, just see, having long-range missiles... in large numbers.
[24:50] Speaker 3: They always had, no?
[24:51] Speaker 4: No, no, not always. This is what they built up
[24:53] Speaker 4: in the last 15-20 years.
[24:55] Speaker 3: Before the war, they had it.
[24:56] Speaker 4: So, they've been pulling them out bit by bit. That is,
[24:59] Speaker 4: once you have long-range weapons that can't be defended against,
[25:02] Speaker 4: I mean, that's the beauty or horrible nature of missiles,
[25:05] Speaker 4: that there are no answers even with missile defense, etc.
[25:08] Speaker 4: Some stuff will get through. So, deterrence has become impossible
[25:12] Speaker 4: that Iran can today drop, you know, bombs on anyone. So, therefore,
[25:17] Speaker 4: within its neighborhood, So, I think that is what has
[25:20] Speaker 4: created the complications.
[25:21] Speaker 3: And now, that is a new reality. So, what, in fact,
[25:24] Speaker 3: one of the arguments.
[25:25] Speaker 4: Arabs have is, look, if you do a deal, you've
[25:26] Speaker 4: got to do something about the missiles as well. It's
[25:28] Speaker 4: not just about nuclear weapons because his ability to disrupt,
[25:31] Speaker 4: not through proxies, through military capabilities. I think this way,
[25:36] Speaker 4: in a sense, if there is ever peace, the whole
[25:38] Speaker 4: question of military capabilities, the regime to regulate it, all
[25:42] Speaker 4: those issues will come. Proxies is the other issue.
[25:46] Speaker 3: So, I think Iran, the world.
[25:49] Speaker 2: is sort of waiting for that war to end because
[25:52] Speaker 2: the repercussions are just tremendous because of oil prices primarily.
[25:55] Speaker 3: Is that the same with Russia, Ukraine?
[25:58] Speaker 2: Because I feel like Russia, Ukraine, in a way, it
[26:00] Speaker 2: sounds terrible to say it, but in a way, the
[26:02] Speaker 2: world had kind of taken it in its stride now.
[26:06] Speaker 3: Even Europe with all the energy prices and all.
[26:08] Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like there was a certain normalcy
[26:10] Speaker 2: that kind of set in to that conflict.
[26:14] Speaker 3: And So I want you to respond to that. Other
[26:17] Speaker 3: piece I wanted to ask.
[26:18] Speaker 2: Is, I don't know whether the American voter thought that
[26:24] Speaker 2: America was worse off because of Russia-Ukraine. I mean, there
[26:28] Speaker 2: was a view that America actually, you know, of course,
[26:33] Speaker 2: technically has to defend Ukraine, but they're also friends with Putin. So,
[26:38] Speaker 2: you know, American view on Russia American voters' view on
[26:43] Speaker 2: the repercussions to America because of.
[26:45] Speaker 3: Russia and Ukraine also was, I think, a little bit nuanced.
[26:49] Speaker 4: I'll be brief. I mean, basically, I think the world
[26:52] Speaker 4: is getting used to it. Human capacity to absorb pain
[26:56] Speaker 4: and deal with the consequence of unexpected action. We saw
[26:59] Speaker 4: it in the COVID as well. So for all the
[27:01] Speaker 4: talk about oil hitting 200, it's still only 800. that
[27:05] Speaker 4: there are issues in terms of what is doing to
[27:08] Speaker 4: pump prices in the U.S., for us in particular, because
[27:10] Speaker 4: we are a big importer. What is the forex, food, fertilizer,
[27:14] Speaker 4: finance and all this stuff? It has been affected, but
[27:17] Speaker 4: not by the expectation that the assumption of Iran that
[27:20] Speaker 4: by simply making Hormuz unsafe, you can bring the world
[27:25] Speaker 4: economy down or you can bring the global oil industry down.
[27:29] Speaker 3: That has not happened.
[27:30] Speaker 4: And in fact, Americans have also shown, like just as
[27:33] Speaker 4: Iran's power, single-handedly, their navy alone, there are no Europeans
[27:37] Speaker 4: this time, cleared the mines, they opened a route in
[27:41] Speaker 4: the south, some oil is flowing out. But that's not
[27:44] Speaker 4: good enough, I mean, for the prices. And second, the
[27:47] Speaker 4: Russia factor, you know, is not as important of the
[27:50] Speaker 4: oil scenario, but it is becoming one. Trump is openly
[27:53] Speaker 4: telling Zelensky, why are you hitting diesel in Russia as
[27:56] Speaker 4: a major producer of diesel? Because finally what you pick
[27:59] Speaker 4: up at the pump is a diesel, like for all
[28:00] Speaker 4: the trucking industry in the U.S. So in a way,
[28:04] Speaker 4: you know, Russia is another major producer of oil and
[28:06] Speaker 4: oil products. But it's not in terms of the immediate impact,
[28:10] Speaker 4: but now what's happening, what Ukraine is doing to Russia's
[28:13] Speaker 4: production of oil products, that's beginning to have an effect
[28:17] Speaker 4: on the pump, on the directly. In fact, the European
[28:20] Speaker 4: decision to release 100 million tons is under Trump's pressure.
[28:23] Speaker 4: He's saying, look, release the reserves.
[28:24] Speaker 5: I think, I mean, I can completely agree with Raja.
[28:28] Speaker 3: I think, I think, two things, right?
[28:31] Speaker 5: One, on the absorptive, because I disagree. I think the
[28:33] Speaker 5: Ukraine-Russia war had been normalized in a way. It's part
[28:37] Speaker 5: of the fabric of the universe. The stalemate will continue. Honestly,
[28:42] Speaker 5: I have no way of knowing. A, none of us,
[28:45] Speaker 5: I think, know how Putin thinks, what the kind of
[28:48] Speaker 5: threshold of sustaining this war is. But I do think
[28:53] Speaker 5: there is a kind of nervousness still, I think, which
[28:55] Speaker 5: also applies to Iran, which is you can actually be
[28:58] Speaker 5: just one accident away from an escalation. So imagine a
[29:04] Speaker 5: civilian strike on Moscow, and even accidentally perhaps, that Putin
[29:10] Speaker 5: has to respond to, or vice versa. I think the
[29:13] Speaker 5: Baltic states, in a sense, are, in a sense, nervous.
[29:17] Speaker 5: If Putin cannot declare victory, I mean, one of the
[29:20] Speaker 5: other things that's happening both in Iran and Russia is,
[29:23] Speaker 5: so this curious paradox that it's turning out that Russia's
[29:27] Speaker 5: nuclear threat is kind of being seen as empty at
[29:30] Speaker 5: the moment. But it also makes everything else more dangerous,
[29:37] Speaker 5: which is does he then resort to other kinds of
[29:40] Speaker 5: proxies to create instability? That's the European paranoia. It's not
[29:46] Speaker 5: that the Russian armies will come marching. But in a sense,
[29:49] Speaker 5: Russia starts behaving even more aggressively as a kind of
[29:54] Speaker 5: using proxies of all kinds, disinformation, cyber, whatever. So I
[29:58] Speaker 5: think the risk levels are still high, and I think
[30:00] Speaker 5: that's the issue in both countries. The other thing about Russia, right,
[30:04] Speaker 5: which is just as a little aside, that the one
[30:08] Speaker 5: consistency in Trump, you have to give him that, absolutely consistency.
[30:12] Speaker 3: He absolutely loves oil, right?
[30:15] Speaker 5: I mean, this is like we want the oil economy,
[30:18] Speaker 5: fossil fuel economy to thrive, right, against climate change. Interestingly,
[30:23] Speaker 5: what's the play he's making with Russia, right? I will
[30:26] Speaker 5: pick up your overseas oil assets. Right.
[30:29] Speaker 3: So I picked up Venezuela.
[30:31] Speaker 5: Now having Russian kind of state owned oil firms in
[30:34] Speaker 5: a sense.
[30:35] Speaker 3: Right.
[30:35] Speaker 5: Now, underlying that is a kind of big premise. And
[30:39] Speaker 5: this is going to be a big question for America. Right.
[30:41] Speaker 3: Which is.
[30:44] Speaker 5: Is Trump's being vetted to the oil economy? And it's
[30:49] Speaker 5: kind of going back to almost the 1950s, that what
[30:52] Speaker 5: America is primarily interested in is controlling basically oil production
[30:56] Speaker 5: as much as it can around the world, not just domestically.
[30:58] Speaker 5: So we've got Venezuela locked up, you know, potentially the architecture. Now,
[31:02] Speaker 5: if we can get Russian overseas assets.
[31:05] Speaker 4: Even with Iran. He's selling the Iranians. He's selling the
[31:07] Speaker 4: Iranians also.
[31:07] Speaker 3: Because they need.
[31:13] Speaker 5: That's a big shift, because one of the things we
[31:16] Speaker 5: did think, right, 10 years ago, was that, objectively speaking.
[31:20] Speaker 3: There's no reason to have wars for oil.
[31:22] Speaker 5: Right. I mean, America was self-sufficient. It really does not
[31:25] Speaker 5: need imports. We thought that's one reason why the U.S.
[31:29] Speaker 5: would actually, in a sense, withdraw from the classic mercantilist
[31:34] Speaker 5: race for oil. Suddenly you have opened that race up
[31:37] Speaker 5: big time. And I think that's going to have repercussions.
[31:40] Speaker 5: And it's not clear to me that the Democrats have
[31:42] Speaker 5: any plan to roll that back easily.
[31:44] Speaker 2: Because he also got voted, the drill baby drill was
[31:47] Speaker 2: very popular in this round, right?
[31:49] Speaker 4: Some sections.
[31:50] Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think what matters is, in a sense,
[31:53] Speaker 5: the price of energy, right? I don't think the issue
[31:55] Speaker 5: is people want oil.
[31:57] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[31:58] Speaker 5: And I think the gap in the kind of Biden's
[32:02] Speaker 5: green energy transition... Which in any case was going to
[32:05] Speaker 5: be long term.
[32:06] Speaker 3: It takes a while to actually kind of get there.
[32:09] Speaker 3: But also the execution flaws in that.
[32:11] Speaker 5: So that left this kind of interim gap where people
[32:15] Speaker 5: began to say, okay, the price of energy is being
[32:18] Speaker 5: hit by all these climate change types and woke energy types.
[32:25] Speaker 2: But China, on the other hand, made it a commercial opportunity.
[32:28] Speaker 2: They doubled down on everything sustainable energy as a commercial opportunity.
[32:32] Speaker 5: Yeah, so China is doing both, right? I mean, it's
[32:34] Speaker 5: not that kind of China scaling back on coal.
[32:37] Speaker 3: At least as of right, right?
[32:41] Speaker 5: But I think what China is promising to the world.
[32:44] Speaker 5: So in the Biden administration, there were two poles to
[32:47] Speaker 5: the technology competition. There was the AI pole.
[32:50] Speaker 3: The other was the green energy transition pole.
[32:53] Speaker 5: And the assumption in the Biden administration was, that it's
[32:57] Speaker 5: not an international agreement, Paris Accord, UNFCC, that's called carbon taxes,
[33:01] Speaker 5: that's going to get you to green energy transition.
[33:04] Speaker 3: You can actually use the mechanism of competition to get there.
[33:08] Speaker 5: So the best thing that can happen to the world
[33:10] Speaker 5: is China and the US get into the race for
[33:13] Speaker 5: technology innovation and green technology, which then lowers the cost
[33:16] Speaker 5: of green technology for everybody, right? That was the Biden
[33:20] Speaker 5: administration's thinking. So it wasn't as valid to the UNFCCC process. Now,
[33:26] Speaker 5: in a way, Trump has kind of put that assumption aside.
[33:29] Speaker 5: He wants to do it in AI because AI is
[33:32] Speaker 5: a tool of dominance. But he doesn't want to do
[33:35] Speaker 5: it in green energy where he says, I want to
[33:39] Speaker 5: position the U.S. as the technological leader and supplier of
[33:43] Speaker 5: low-cost green energy technology.
[33:47] Speaker 3: That doesn't mean that there isn't innovation happening in the US.
[33:50] Speaker 5: I mean, it's a more complicated system. There are states,
[33:52] Speaker 5: there are cities. So I don't think the climate change
[33:54] Speaker 5: agenda has gone. But that is one very monumental shift
[33:59] Speaker 5: that Trump has actually brought about.
[34:01] Speaker 3: And that's where the Chinese saw the opportunity, right? Which
[34:03] Speaker 3: is that... If you.
[34:05] Speaker 5: Think green technology is a technology of the future, double
[34:08] Speaker 5: down on that so you can have a lead on that.
[34:10] Speaker 2: Doesn't America feel insecure about losing the green battle to China?
[34:14] Speaker 2: I mean, why aren't they feeling more competitive about that? Because,
[34:17] Speaker 2: as we get to the AI piece, on AI piece, right,
[34:21] Speaker 2: we're seeing very interesting. On the AI piece, for the
[34:24] Speaker 2: first time, you're seeing an industry of people who don't
[34:28] Speaker 2: like each other coming together and saying, please regulate, this.
[34:31] Speaker 3: Is going to blow up and we can't control it.
[34:34] Speaker 2: And you have the regulator, Trump, saying, I'm not going
[34:37] Speaker 2: to regulate it because I don't want to lose to China,
[34:39] Speaker 2: or paying attention to you know, AI safety, the way
[34:42] Speaker 2: that the industry is saying, please, like, you know, please
[34:45] Speaker 2: be careful. And the reason they're not is, I guess,
[34:47] Speaker 2: a fear of China dominating. So, they're feeling that insecurity
[34:51] Speaker 2: with AI and they're feeling as, they're feeling competitive with
[34:54] Speaker 2: China with regards AI, but with regards to sustainable energy
[34:56] Speaker 2: and with regards to anything sustainability, they don't feel China's competition.
[35:00] Speaker 3: So, how does that.
[35:01] Speaker 4: I think on AI, they seem to have found it
[35:03] Speaker 4: via media, right? I mean, when the second Trump administration
[35:07] Speaker 4: came into power, you know, the Paris summit of the
[35:09] Speaker 4: AI conference, J.D. Wan said, look, regulation is nonsense. You know,
[35:12] Speaker 4: we're not going to do any regulation. We're just going
[35:15] Speaker 4: to give complete freedom to our tech capital to do
[35:17] Speaker 4: what it wants. And Biden people constrained them. We're going
[35:20] Speaker 4: to let loose. What's happened in the White House summit?
[35:22] Speaker 4: I mean, we saw the pictures of the Tech Bros summit.
[35:26] Speaker 4: I think, as you said, the technology companies are saying, look,
[35:29] Speaker 4: we want some regulation. So what happened at the White
[35:32] Speaker 4: House summit was the so-called White House declaration. that there
[35:36] Speaker 4: will be some attempt at self-regulation. The companies themselves will
[35:39] Speaker 4: draw it. It's not mandatory, but it is a broad
[35:43] Speaker 4: set of guidelines for self-regulation. And he's also announced AI,
[35:48] Speaker 4: so not AI anymore. It's super intelligence force to monitor it.
[35:54] Speaker 4: So I think they've taken one step in a way
[35:57] Speaker 4: different from the traditional demands that complete regulation or complete freedom.
[36:01] Speaker 4: And then he says, as you said, these guys hate
[36:04] Speaker 4: each other, so therefore they're going to police each other.
[36:06] Speaker 4: So there will be constraints on them. But I think
[36:09] Speaker 4: it's a step towards more regulation. And how they do it,
[36:12] Speaker 4: I think the debate will evolve as the dangers evolve.
[36:14] Speaker 3: You don't think they're being as slow on regulation?
[36:17] Speaker 4: No, because by sheer circumstance, as you said, look, he
[36:20] Speaker 4: said China argument erases. Look, we are in competition with China.
[36:22] Speaker 4: We're not going to. But at the same time, the companies,
[36:25] Speaker 4: he's telling the companies, come together, let's find some way
[36:28] Speaker 4: of at least you draft some rules.
[36:30] Speaker 3: I'll have someone monitoring it and regulating it.
[36:32] Speaker 2: I mean, the Pope is writing in an American newspaper that,
[36:37] Speaker 2: you know, we want AI, but not at the cost of.
[36:39] Speaker 3: I mean, the Pope is... I mean, when has that happened?
[36:41] Speaker 3: When has the Pope gotten involved in anything like this?
[36:43] Speaker 4: Popes have become liberal in on climate change, on genocide
[36:46] Speaker 4: in Gaza or in... So, I think popes have become
[36:50] Speaker 4: more reflective and generally in a sense towards a more
[36:53] Speaker 4: liberal side, I would say all the successive popes of
[36:56] Speaker 4: the last many years.
[36:59] Speaker 3: Do you think that he's being at the right pace
[37:01] Speaker 3: with regulation over here?
[37:02] Speaker 5: So, I think a political economy hat on this would
[37:08] Speaker 5: be a little bit more sceptical of what's going on
[37:11] Speaker 5: in the US. It's a bit more sceptical in the sense,
[37:13] Speaker 5: in the following sense. First of all, how serious are
[37:20] Speaker 5: these companies about regulation? I mean, as critics have pointed out,
[37:24] Speaker 5: you keep saying regulators and self-regulators, do it yourself. Right.
[37:28] Speaker 3: There's no teeth in this White House declaration. Right.
[37:33] Speaker 5: So that's one source of cynicism, which is how much
[37:35] Speaker 5: of this is kind of performative.
[37:37] Speaker 3: And I don't even know how to start. Well, well,
[37:40] Speaker 3: so so so so there are different things. Right. One is.
[37:45] Speaker 3: Are we even clear on what the objective of regulation is? Right.
[37:50] Speaker 3: So there's a bunch of garden.
[37:52] Speaker 5: Variety threats that you can fix with court law, liability law.
[37:56] Speaker 5: you run an AI program, it does something to your company,
[37:59] Speaker 5: you can claim damages, right? Then there are the more
[38:03] Speaker 5: sort of disruptive things like cyber attacks, bioweapons, AI safety, right?
[38:09] Speaker 3: And then at the kind of upper end of it is,
[38:12] Speaker 3: in a sense, the extinction risks, the AI going rogue,
[38:15] Speaker 3: super intelligence stuff, right?
[38:17] Speaker 5: Now, first of all, you need some consensus on where
[38:20] Speaker 5: you are, in a sense, on the spectrum. The people
[38:23] Speaker 5: who are resigning from open AI are at the third
[38:26] Speaker 5: level of the risk, right? They actually think there is
[38:29] Speaker 5: potentially serious existential risk. Bill Gates thinks there is serious
[38:33] Speaker 5: existential risk. Now, if that's the universe you're talking about,
[38:37] Speaker 5: then you actually need very many different solutions. Then none
[38:40] Speaker 5: of this stuff is going to work. I mean, I
[38:42] Speaker 5: think Bill Gates was right in his interview, right?
[38:44] Speaker 3: Which is... You're talking about the interview? Yeah, the interview
[38:47] Speaker 3: with Ezra Klein. Ezra Klein, okay.
[38:48] Speaker 5: A long interview with, you know, there's a long discussion
[38:50] Speaker 5: in AI that he says, look, you don't rely on
[38:53] Speaker 5: normal thought stuff Right. That works for small liabilities, manageable damages.
[38:59] Speaker 5: It doesn't work when you, in a sense, have existential risk. Oh,
[39:03] Speaker 5: figure it out. If you do damage, we will sue you.
[39:06] Speaker 4: Right.
[39:06] Speaker 3: That's not going to work for AI.
[39:08] Speaker 5: So that's, I think, one story, which is the discrepancy
[39:12] Speaker 5: between the accounts that people who are resigning from these
[39:15] Speaker 5: companies are giving about the potential risks. And frankly, the
[39:19] Speaker 5: potential of what has already happened. How many agents have
[39:22] Speaker 5: gone rogue? What have they been able to hack? Even
[39:26] Speaker 5: that information is coming out in triplets. There's no transparency there, right?
[39:30] Speaker 5: So that's one reason why I think people are kind
[39:33] Speaker 5: of confused. What are we meant to be regulating for?
[39:35] Speaker 5: Are we just meant to be regulating for ordinary agentic mishaps,
[39:39] Speaker 5: misleading information, or existential risk?
[39:43] Speaker 3: The second reason to, in a sense, be cynical here,
[39:45] Speaker 3: which is....
[39:49] Speaker 5: One simple way of slowing down AI is everybody is
[39:52] Speaker 5: talking about regulating the.
[39:57] Speaker 3: Models, as it were.
[39:59] Speaker 5: But many scientists are arguing the way you slow it
[40:01] Speaker 5: down is actually regulate the hardware, which is easier to regulate.
[40:05] Speaker 5: Just say the number of chips and amount of energy
[40:08] Speaker 5: you have available to innovate is actually going to slow
[40:12] Speaker 5: it down. That's actually easier to regulate, because that's literally
[40:17] Speaker 5: nowhere on the agenda. Third, and I think this is
[40:20] Speaker 5: the point I think Adam Tooze, Bradley Long, I think
[40:24] Speaker 5: serious thinkers about the American economy have made, which is
[40:28] Speaker 5: now given the scale of investments in the sector, the financial.
[40:32] Speaker 3: Risks are massive.
[40:35] Speaker 5: The American headline growth number looks good. The stock market
[40:40] Speaker 5: looks good.
[40:40] Speaker 3: Right. Very good. You take AI out of the picture.
[40:44] Speaker 3: It actually doesn't look that good. In fact, wage rate
[40:47] Speaker 3: is negative, right? Yeah.
[40:50] Speaker 5: So you have incredible amounts of debt built up, in
[40:53] Speaker 5: a sense, or whatever these complicated financial arrangements are, right?
[40:59] Speaker 5: And I think there's a lot of skepticism about... can
[41:04] Speaker 5: you actually do this regulatory stuff? How do you square
[41:08] Speaker 5: that with this bet people are making in the financial
[41:12] Speaker 5: world on masses and masses of quick innovation?
[41:16] Speaker 3: There's a real tension between them.
[41:18] Speaker 5: And the cynics are saying, in part, these companies are
[41:21] Speaker 5: actually putting out there, partly it's just kind of window dressing,
[41:24] Speaker 5: partly it's to kind of cover themselves. Oh, we told
[41:26] Speaker 5: you so, but we actually... Now, what's interesting in the
[41:29] Speaker 5: American public is... The American public's reaction to AI is
[41:34] Speaker 5: being rooted through one channel right now, which is there
[41:37] Speaker 5: seems to be a much more growing momentum against data centers.
[41:42] Speaker 3: These are energy guzzlers. Some of it is don't build it.
[41:45] Speaker 5: In my backyard kind of story like you have against
[41:47] Speaker 5: nuclear power. But it's interesting that that's actually the kind
[41:51] Speaker 5: of the hardware channel through which a lot of that
[41:55] Speaker 5: angst is, in a sense, being.
[41:57] Speaker 3: But that's a tree hugger kind of... Well, it's green.
[42:00] Speaker 5: It's partly, if you're cynical, you say energy cost, right?
[42:03] Speaker 5: They're just raising the price of energy.
[42:04] Speaker 4: That's exactly one of the themes in the Tech Growth Summit,
[42:07] Speaker 4: where he's telling them, guys, go and do something. Take
[42:10] Speaker 4: care of your communities, where you're building a data center.
[42:13] Speaker 4: Do something, social work. Like CSR type of work you do.
[42:16] Speaker 4: And I think some of them saying they're already doing it.
[42:19] Speaker 4: I think Pratap's larger point about cynicism and opposition, they
[42:23] Speaker 4: will be in power if Democrats come.
[42:24] Speaker 3: To the White House.
[42:25] Speaker 4: If you take the Biden guidelines and Trump guidelines, they're
[42:29] Speaker 4: two different ends. I think tech growths have moved it
[42:31] Speaker 4: a little bit. So tomorrow they come to power. They
[42:34] Speaker 4: have every one of these options to regulate more. I
[42:37] Speaker 4: think this is a very classic American right. I mean,
[42:39] Speaker 4: I think eventually it will come to somewhere in between
[42:42] Speaker 4: and they still could make mistakes. But I think the
[42:45] Speaker 4: Biden people are for much more regulation. You see, if
[42:47] Speaker 4: the Democrats win, the entire, not just the left, but
[42:51] Speaker 4: everyone in the Democratic side say, look, we've got to
[42:53] Speaker 4: control this technology, not just in terms of hardware or
[42:55] Speaker 4: software values. It must support the workers. It should have
[42:58] Speaker 4: the right political values. All that was included in the
[43:02] Speaker 4: Biden thing. So I would say it's up for debate.
[43:05] Speaker 4: How it will actually fall depends again on the political
[43:07] Speaker 4: outcome within the U.S.
[43:09] Speaker 3: Itself.
[43:10] Speaker 2: So China is not being viewed as competitively with regards
[43:16] Speaker 2: sustainability as it is with regards AI.
[43:18] Speaker 3: Is that still an accurate statement I've made?
[43:22] Speaker 4: On AI.
[43:22] Speaker 3: On AI.
[43:23] Speaker 2: But the insecurity of China winning AI is much more
[43:28] Speaker 2: than the insecurity of China winning sustainability.
[43:30] Speaker 4: I think on sustainability, see, they control all the supply chains.
[43:34] Speaker 4: The American effort, whether it is on rare earths, whether
[43:38] Speaker 4: it is on the other areas where the Chinese are,
[43:40] Speaker 4: they're trying to plug that gap or to put in
[43:44] Speaker 4: the effort, industrial effort, to be able to break total
[43:48] Speaker 4: Chinese control. It'll take some time. But at this point,
[43:50] Speaker 4: there's no way. On the sustainability, Chinese are sitting on top.
[43:55] Speaker 4: On the AI issue, they keep saying six months, we
[43:57] Speaker 4: got a six months lead. I mean, I don't know
[43:59] Speaker 4: if this is an accurate way of saying it.
[44:01] Speaker 3: Chinese are doing very.
[44:01] Speaker 4: Well on AI. They're going to keep putting it. I
[44:04] Speaker 4: think the American advantage is really in the kind of
[44:07] Speaker 4: innovation they have. But what the Chinese are focused is
[44:10] Speaker 4: on diffusion, that you take it to the industry level,
[44:13] Speaker 4: focus on robotics. Yeah. change the industrial production. So, they're
[44:17] Speaker 4: also partly going in different ways in terms of how
[44:20] Speaker 4: actually they'll use AI.
[44:21] Speaker 3: Actually, they can coexist.
[44:22] Speaker 2: We can imagine a world where Chinese AI and American
[44:24] Speaker 2: AI coexist. So, you were saying something earlier which I
[44:26] Speaker 2: wanted to talk about was, you know, we had an
[44:30] Speaker 2: adab with Ruchir Sharma a few months ago where she said,
[44:33] Speaker 2: and he said it many times in the past that,
[44:35] Speaker 2: you know, there are some people who believe AI is
[44:37] Speaker 2: a bubble and some people believe AI is not a
[44:39] Speaker 2: bubble from an economic perspective.
[44:41] Speaker 3: But the people who believe that.
[44:44] Speaker 2: Whichever side of the spectrum you are on, the truth,
[44:46] Speaker 2: as Richard said, will come when the interest rates rise.
[44:49] Speaker 2: When interest rates go up, all bubbles burst. It's happened
[44:51] Speaker 2: all the time. Interest rates have gone up as if
[44:54] Speaker 2: yesterday was the next round. And the markets in America
[44:58] Speaker 2: got hit, but not by all that much.
[45:01] Speaker 5: No, no, no. A, I'm not competent to talk on
[45:03] Speaker 5: the economics and finance of AI, and certainly not after Richard,
[45:06] Speaker 5: but I think everyone kind of looks at the politics
[45:08] Speaker 5: of finance.
[45:09] Speaker 3: So one, I actually don't think... even people.
[45:13] Speaker 5: Who worry about the financial bubble necessarily think it's going
[45:16] Speaker 5: to be a spectacular implosion, right? A kind of single
[45:20] Speaker 5: event in some ways, right? I mean, there's, you know,
[45:25] Speaker 5: there's still, and a lot of the U.S. 's problems
[45:30] Speaker 5: are in part the kind of the public debt story
[45:32] Speaker 5: in some ways. That's the real kind of issue on
[45:36] Speaker 5: the credibility of America, right? Which the bond yield is
[45:40] Speaker 5: going up on American treasuries. I think the worry is
[45:47] Speaker 5: not that, you know, with half a percent or one
[45:50] Speaker 5: percent interest rate hikes, you will just see this bubble burst.
[45:53] Speaker 5: It's just that given the kind of capital that's going
[45:57] Speaker 5: into it, do you in five, seven, ten years expect
[46:01] Speaker 5: the productivity gains to actually justify those investments?
[46:07] Speaker 3: Right.
[46:08] Speaker 5: And I think the story, the skeptical story is just
[46:12] Speaker 5: much more of kind of accumulated problems that at some
[46:16] Speaker 5: point manifest itself differently. So it may not be that
[46:20] Speaker 5: the whole thing explodes. It's just that, you know, first
[46:22] Speaker 5: a couple of companies go down, you can kind of
[46:24] Speaker 5: backstop them. I don't think, at least of now, there's
[46:30] Speaker 5: any reason to think you're just going to get a
[46:32] Speaker 5: kind of spectacular financial blowout. in the next year and
[46:35] Speaker 5: a half. I mean, we've known, as Raj has rightly said,
[46:38] Speaker 5: the world has turned out to be a lot more
[46:40] Speaker 5: resilient on that score. I think there's a lot of
[46:43] Speaker 5: kind of headroom in some senses on taxation. You can
[46:46] Speaker 5: do all kinds of things to backstop that. But I
[46:50] Speaker 5: think the mega story here, which is the U.S.
[46:54] Speaker 3: And China are both.
[46:55] Speaker 5: Taking the bet that what can get them out of
[47:00] Speaker 5: their current relative economic stagnation?
[47:02] Speaker 3: China also has a problem, right? I mean, it's not
[47:04] Speaker 3: like the Chinese economy is, right?
[47:07] Speaker 5: Is this bet on the diffusion of AI and the
[47:11] Speaker 5: productivity gains it brings? And somehow those productivity gains translating
[47:17] Speaker 5: into a form of.
[47:18] Speaker 3: Distribution, which keeps people happy.
[47:22] Speaker 5: And I think the skeptics are worried that that story
[47:24] Speaker 5: may not actually pan out. I think that's the time
[47:27] Speaker 5: scale on which to see it rather than.
[47:29] Speaker 3: Because the amount of money being put in.
[47:31] Speaker 4: I think, you know, just a small parallel. I mean,
[47:34] Speaker 4: parallels are never fully accurate. But we had a dot-com bust, right?
[47:38] Speaker 4: That didn't stop the internet revolution or the digital revolution
[47:41] Speaker 4: taking place. Similarly, I think the technological revolution, what it
[47:44] Speaker 4: is doing... as one of the more fundamental transformative technologies.
[47:49] Speaker 4: I don't think anyone is doubting that.
[47:50] Speaker 3: Correct.
[47:51] Speaker 4: The finance of it, how that will play out, and
[47:53] Speaker 4: then how does the system adapt? That's where it is.
[47:57] Speaker 4: But I think the logic of the technological change, I
[48:00] Speaker 4: think that will continue.
[48:01] Speaker 2: I thought we should just spend a few minutes on
[48:03] Speaker 2: one thing that we got on the... Again, going back
[48:06] Speaker 2: a little bit to the Middle East part, the whole
[48:09] Speaker 2: fly Dubai incident, let's just talk about that a bit.
[48:13] Speaker 2: How do you read that in terms of dynamic between India, Israel,
[48:18] Speaker 2: and in a sense, Middle East?
[48:20] Speaker 4: No, I mean, I don't like conspiracy theories. There are
[48:23] Speaker 4: too many of them floating around. But I think I
[48:25] Speaker 4: would say the core issue that has come up is
[48:28] Speaker 4: at what point do you draw the line for airline safety?
[48:33] Speaker 4: That is, initially you trusted the pilots. You kept the
[48:37] Speaker 4: doors locked.
[48:38] Speaker 3: There were airlines that said, no, he's looking too radical.
[48:41] Speaker 4: So, that's what, you know, the mental health. I mean,
[48:43] Speaker 4: how do you monitor mental health? I believe the airlines
[48:46] Speaker 4: do have fairly severe tests. So, in the end, I
[48:49] Speaker 4: think you're not going to have absolute safety. But in
[48:52] Speaker 4: this context, look, Israel is in the middle of elections. So,
[48:54] Speaker 4: Netanyahu can claim things. But it also tells you that
[48:58] Speaker 4: this flight is going from Abu Dhabi to Dubai to Israel.
[49:02] Speaker 4: It tells you the new relationship that exists. But beyond that,
[49:05] Speaker 4: I wouldn't draw some dramatic conspiracy here or this is about,
[49:10] Speaker 4: you know, some way of project. I mean, we also
[49:13] Speaker 4: were getting into the anniversary of October 7th. I mean,
[49:16] Speaker 4: uh today is the anniversary but the the sole idea
[49:18] Speaker 4: that look something big would do would happen so i
[49:21] Speaker 4: would say all that provides the context but the actual
[49:24] Speaker 4: incident as you know you know it's very difficult to
[49:26] Speaker 4: actually figure.
[49:27] Speaker 5: Out from outside yeah the only thing i'd say is
[49:29] Speaker 5: like i agree with raja i think there's too much
[49:32] Speaker 5: kind of conspiracism around it and anyway but It actually
[49:36] Speaker 5: just highlights to you how much the world is hanging.
[49:40] Speaker 3: By a thread. Yes. Imagine if the attack had succeeded. Yes.
[49:44] Speaker 4: Right?
[49:45] Speaker 3: What would Israel's response and the U.S. response have been? Yes.
[49:49] Speaker 5: No matter who they are, I mean, that's a kind
[49:50] Speaker 5: of second order question, right? And I think this is
[49:53] Speaker 5: the part about the Russia-Iran, Russia-Ukraine-Iran story that we are.
[49:57] Speaker 5: It is literally hanging by that, you know, that one
[50:00] Speaker 5: slender thread, literally that one cockpit door that got open, right?
[50:04] Speaker 3: Or, you know, because of this pilot, right, from the inside.
[50:08] Speaker 5: In this world of technology, not just airlines, but you
[50:11] Speaker 5: can also think of accidents through drones, right? And particularly
[50:16] Speaker 5: in a context where you actually don't have global cooperation
[50:20] Speaker 5: for any kind of risk mitigation and management. Now the
[50:24] Speaker 5: US and China are talking a bit, but again, very rudimentary.
[50:28] Speaker 5: That talk, those talks are not going to happen unless
[50:30] Speaker 5: you're willing to actually share information, which neither of the
[50:36] Speaker 5: countries that's the frontier of technology is going to do
[50:38] Speaker 5: it in a sense, right?
[50:41] Speaker 3: But increasingly with drones, right?
[50:43] Speaker 5: Drones are being used in third party conflicts by proxies.
[50:47] Speaker 5: Will countries have protocols saying if you actually get attacked
[50:50] Speaker 5: by a drone, there's an international mechanism to arbitrate where
[50:53] Speaker 5: the drone comes from? Or does somebody just jump to
[50:55] Speaker 5: a conclusion that for my security, I need to.
[50:58] Speaker 3: Wipe out this, right?
[51:00] Speaker 5: So I think it's just, I mean, that's the worrying
[51:02] Speaker 5: part of this incident, that we actually came close to
[51:06] Speaker 5: an escalation that maybe nobody would have wanted.
[51:08] Speaker 3: Maybe none of the states actually wanted it. But you
[51:11] Speaker 3: are there.
[51:12] Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about Saudi's... you know, inability
[51:16] Speaker 2: to fight on its own and its dependence on Pakistan.
[51:19] Speaker 2: And what is, how does that actually, how dependent are
[51:22] Speaker 2: they on, how vulnerable are they independently?
[51:26] Speaker 4: I don't think they're still dependent on Pakistan or Turkey.
[51:28] Speaker 4: They've just, I believe now they're moving in. Historically, they've
[51:31] Speaker 4: just depended on the Americans, the kind of capabilities Americans
[51:35] Speaker 4: gave them. But they never had a kind of fighting
[51:38] Speaker 4: force that can actually do things on the ground. I mean,
[51:41] Speaker 4: I think that was a well-known fact. But I think
[51:43] Speaker 4: what's happened is we moved from an interstate conflict and
[51:48] Speaker 4: the larger geopolitics that will give you some way of deterring.
[51:52] Speaker 4: I mean, you have the now proxies. You have the Houthis.
[51:56] Speaker 4: You know, there was always a problem between Yemen and
[51:58] Speaker 4: Saudi Arabia and the border was never been much of
[52:01] Speaker 4: a regulated zone. So you have a force, the internal
[52:04] Speaker 4: conflict in Yemen, once it spills over, How do you
[52:07] Speaker 4: control them? And given that, you know, in the beginning,
[52:11] Speaker 4: we talked about the transnational, supranational connections of these groups.
[52:14] Speaker 4: I think the vulnerabilities have increased. The pressure from Iran.
[52:18] Speaker 4: You have the pressure in the Yemen side. And you
[52:22] Speaker 4: have the Americans becoming unreliable as well. So, every time
[52:26] Speaker 4: Trump comes, he collects money. The question is now, he's
[52:29] Speaker 4: putting pressure on Saudis to normalize with Israel. So, I
[52:33] Speaker 4: would say, but last two days, I mean, I mean,
[52:35] Speaker 4: There is actually now, Saudis have stepped up. Iranians have, sorry,
[52:40] Speaker 4: the Turks and the Pakistanis seem to have sent in
[52:43] Speaker 4: some support. And American advisors are still there, helping. Almost
[52:48] Speaker 4: there's one report which said 200 American military advisors are
[52:50] Speaker 4: sitting there to help the campaign against the Houthis.
[52:54] Speaker 2: Any like proper profound change in the Middle East's place
[52:58] Speaker 2: in the world after all of this?
[52:59] Speaker 4: I would say, I mean, a couple of things. I mean,
[53:01] Speaker 4: I think one, it was really the UAE that offered
[53:04] Speaker 4: this alternative first, starting with Dubai. Today, if you look
[53:08] Speaker 4: at UAE, I mean, I think, what, 180 nationalities, relatively
[53:13] Speaker 4: more openness in terms of, you know, compared to the
[53:16] Speaker 4: other societies. They have a ministry of tolerance. I mean,
[53:20] Speaker 4: a lot of other countries could do with it. That
[53:23] Speaker 4: they invited Pope. to their country. Probably the first time
[53:28] Speaker 4: that Pope had visited in the Arabian Peninsula. So, in
[53:31] Speaker 4: a way, the UAE was saying, look, there is an
[53:34] Speaker 4: alternative model to the Islamic radicalism or this anti-imperialist, left-wing,
[53:40] Speaker 4: Baathist notion of, look, fighting imperialism was the primary objective.
[53:45] Speaker 4: To one of saying, look, we can make money, we
[53:48] Speaker 4: can live well, and the fact that they accumulated oil
[53:52] Speaker 4: revenues since the 1970s gave them a chance to do
[53:56] Speaker 4: things which nobody thought was possible. You have American universities,
[54:00] Speaker 4: New York University in Abu Dhabi, you have the French,
[54:03] Speaker 4: you know, museum sitting there, you have design institutes, you
[54:08] Speaker 4: have AI centers. So, anyway, they've showed with money and
[54:12] Speaker 4: then getting talent. You know, when I was in Singapore,
[54:15] Speaker 4: many people were moving from Singapore to Dubai because they
[54:17] Speaker 4: were giving even better terms for They've changed the rules
[54:21] Speaker 4: to give citizenship even a little bit. But otherwise, Saudi
[54:24] Speaker 4: Arabia are doing something similar. Saudi Arabia is a late entrant.
[54:27] Speaker 2: But they're all looking at Dubai as a model, right? Yeah,
[54:29] Speaker 2: that's a model. And then Qatar, you saw holding the
[54:32] Speaker 2: World Football Games or becoming a convention center for the world.
[54:37] Speaker 3: So I think they found a model.
[54:39] Speaker 4: But I think what this war has shown is that
[54:41] Speaker 4: the shakiness of it, that is the pessimistic view. But
[54:44] Speaker 4: I would also take the optimistic side, which means that, look,
[54:46] Speaker 4: they survived. that Abu Dhabi is still standing. Dubai is
[54:52] Speaker 4: still standing after receiving 300 or 3000 or more incoming
[54:57] Speaker 4: projectiles from Iran.
[54:58] Speaker 3: So they're still there.
[55:00] Speaker 4: So I think it is, whoever it is, for India
[55:03] Speaker 4: at least, 10 million workers there, we want the damn
[55:06] Speaker 4: thing to succeed. And it's also, don't forget, it's a
[55:09] Speaker 4: model that South Asia can learn from, of religious tolerance,
[55:13] Speaker 4: of positive view of science and technology, of greater liberalism,
[55:18] Speaker 4: Which actually, can you believe that it is Arabian Peninsula
[55:21] Speaker 4: showing parts of it while South Asia is going the
[55:23] Speaker 4: other way?
[55:24] Speaker 2: I mean, that's a, that's, that's, I mean, which, I mean,
[55:29] Speaker 2: you know, like Malaysia and stuff, maybe, but the rest
[55:32] Speaker 2: of South Asia is, the DNA of it is so
[55:35] Speaker 2: liberal compared to.
[55:37] Speaker 4: I mean, I was talking about our own subcontinent. I'm
[55:39] Speaker 4: not talking about South Asia, Southeast Asia.
[55:42] Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah. I mean, so I agree with one part
[55:45] Speaker 3: of it. Raj has said which is I think the
[55:47] Speaker 3: jury is.
[55:48] Speaker 5: Out I think they very may well may come out
[55:51] Speaker 5: of this well and and certainly a lot will depend
[55:53] Speaker 5: on what are the alternatives what are the cap you
[55:56] Speaker 5: know uh uh uh how much capital they have how
[55:59] Speaker 5: much they can continue to invest uh I wouldn't go
[56:04] Speaker 5: as far as to say it's a model of liberalism
[56:06] Speaker 5: or tending towards a model. It's a very controlled, in fact, ironically,
[56:10] Speaker 5: going back to this, the one country which is the
[56:12] Speaker 5: hardest to write about Palestine is actually that region. So,
[56:16] Speaker 5: you know, let's be clear. There are still very few
[56:18] Speaker 5: political rights. There are still very few freedom of expression rights.
[56:22] Speaker 5: This is a benevolent, it's a millet system model of
[56:26] Speaker 5: a kind of religious toleration.
[56:27] Speaker 3: Okay, we'll let you build one temple. We'll let you
[56:30] Speaker 3: build one church.
[56:32] Speaker 5: It's a small showmanship. And it's not a small achievement.
[56:35] Speaker 5: I don't want to belittle it in some ways. I
[56:37] Speaker 5: actually think it is the stepping stone to something.
[56:40] Speaker 4: It's a direction of travel, which is different.
[56:41] Speaker 3: In a sense, direction of travel.
[56:43] Speaker 5: But in a sense, the question is how much of
[56:48] Speaker 5: that direction of travel will be sustained. It requires regime stability.
[56:54] Speaker 5: And I think one of the things, I think, whatever
[56:57] Speaker 5: the settlement of the Iran story is going to open up,
[56:59] Speaker 5: It's always been the core issue of that region, which
[57:01] Speaker 5: is that whole state building.
[57:03] Speaker 3: Story, right? Which is, can you build a state.
[57:08] Speaker 5: With a kind of thin layer of an elite and
[57:11] Speaker 5: lots and lots of capital, right?
[57:14] Speaker 3: How resilient is a state like that? I think the.
[57:17] Speaker 5: Novelty of these states is precisely that they say, look,
[57:20] Speaker 5: this is a very different kind of model. You can
[57:21] Speaker 5: actually have 10 million expatriates who are not kind of
[57:24] Speaker 5: citizens in the conventional sense, and yet it can be
[57:26] Speaker 5: an effective.
[57:27] Speaker 3: Functioning state, right?
[57:28] Speaker 5: I think one of the things the war is going
[57:30] Speaker 5: to do is kind of test some of that stuff
[57:33] Speaker 5: in the long run.
[57:34] Speaker 3: Right.
[57:35] Speaker 5: I think particularly in the case of Saudi Arabia, the
[57:38] Speaker 5: stress test of what actually happens when serious reforms kicks in.
[57:43] Speaker 5: We know historically countries are most vulnerable when reforms begin
[57:46] Speaker 5: to succeed.
[57:47] Speaker 3: What the intra-elite bargain is.
[57:50] Speaker 4: Right.
[57:50] Speaker 3: I think I think that. Test is yet to come.
[57:52] Speaker 3: I'll just add one.
[57:54] Speaker 4: I mean, I think when we were, you know, at
[57:56] Speaker 4: least 20 years back, 30 years back, when India was engaged,
[57:58] Speaker 4: beginning to engage in the post-independence period, our preference was
[58:02] Speaker 4: for the republics, that guys in suits, guys who would
[58:07] Speaker 4: talk the language of nationalism, progress, socialism, anti-imperialism. The Baathists,
[58:13] Speaker 4: whether it's the Nasser or whether it is, you know,
[58:16] Speaker 4: Saddam Hussein or whether it is the Assad family. So
[58:20] Speaker 4: that's your... People who thought these were the guys who
[58:23] Speaker 4: were going to bring progress to the Middle East. But
[58:25] Speaker 4: every one of them ended up in far worse dictatorships
[58:29] Speaker 4: than what the guys in robes or the sultans where
[58:33] Speaker 4: we said, look, these guys are a bunch of pro-American,
[58:36] Speaker 4: you know, little tin pot, you know, sultans with, you know, countries,
[58:41] Speaker 4: tribes with flags. But what they've achieved in the last
[58:43] Speaker 4: 40 years, I think that is something that today takes
[58:46] Speaker 4: out Asia, subcontinentally. We have 10 million people. Pakistan has 5.
[58:50] Speaker 3: Bangladesh has 3. So, where is the employment?
[58:53] Speaker 4: I mean, I think for South Asia that you have
[58:55] Speaker 4: not been able to generate the employment.
[58:56] Speaker 3: All of us together, South Asia. It's all money, no? No, no,
[58:59] Speaker 3: whatever it is.
[59:00] Speaker 4: No, no. People, you can squander that money.
[59:02] Speaker 3: That you... So much money. But the fact that, look, today...
[59:06] Speaker 3: How many Lamborghinis can you buy?
[59:07] Speaker 4: No, no, that's okay. But where are your young people
[59:10] Speaker 4: going to the Gulf, right? Where are your business people?
[59:13] Speaker 4: Where are your exports today? One of the biggest destination
[59:17] Speaker 4: of exports is the UAE. So, I think we got
[59:20] Speaker 4: to give them credit for within the constraints of that
[59:24] Speaker 4: they've been more open than the so-called republics. And they've
[59:29] Speaker 4: created opportunities certainly for us.
[59:32] Speaker 3: Republics? Do you define republics? No, republics means, you know.
[59:34] Speaker 4: They're not defining in terms of religion. That they're actually so-called,
[59:38] Speaker 4: you know, there's no, you know, citizens selecting their own,
[59:43] Speaker 4: constituting a government nation of their own.
[59:45] Speaker 3: So, who you combine them to?
[59:46] Speaker 4: Monarchies. The so-called monarchies. The monarchies and the republics. That
[59:49] Speaker 4: was seen as a divide in the Middle East. the
[59:51] Speaker 4: monarchies have done much better in some sense if you
[59:53] Speaker 4: look at the Gulf monarchies.
[59:54] Speaker 2: One small story because I always think about it. Election
[59:58] Speaker 2: time I was in Bengal for this election. I met
[1:00:01] Speaker 2: a guy who went to the government school there and
[1:00:04] Speaker 2: he was at a shop with his neighbor same age
[1:00:09] Speaker 2: who didn't go to who didn't finish college. He finished
[1:00:12] Speaker 2: the government college this guy didn't go to college. The
[1:00:16] Speaker 2: guy who finished college is in Dubai working as a
[1:00:20] Speaker 2: delivery boy for whatever Dubai's version of Swiggy is.
[1:00:25] Speaker 3: He gets paid 6 lakhs a year. Okay.
[1:00:28] Speaker 2: Free food, free housing, and he gets a bike to
[1:00:34] Speaker 2: do the delivery with.
[1:00:36] Speaker 3: And free fuel for the bike.
[1:00:38] Speaker 4: I'll just give you an example. In Pakistan, I'll just...
[1:00:40] Speaker 4: How do you compete with... Just take Pakistan case. Pakistan
[1:00:44] Speaker 4: exports 30 billion dollars annually. The remittances are 50 billion. See,
[1:00:51] Speaker 4: it shows how backward we have fallen and that this
[1:00:56] Speaker 4: is actually one of the few sources of optimism for
[1:01:00] Speaker 4: the subcontinent's people.
[1:01:02] Speaker 3: I completely agree with Raja.
[1:01:03] Speaker 5: One, I actually think historically constitutional monarchies are underrated. Actually,
[1:01:08] Speaker 5: even in Europe, the ones that did well, where if.
[1:01:11] Speaker 3: These regimes can actually... Nobody would have thought you would
[1:01:14] Speaker 3: say that. No, no.
[1:01:15] Speaker 5: Actually, arguments for constitutional monarchy have always been more sophisticated,
[1:01:19] Speaker 5: where if you can actually have a regime that can
[1:01:23] Speaker 5: engineer a transition to something like a constitutional monarchy, it'll
[1:01:28] Speaker 5: be a huge achievement in political terms. But I agree
[1:01:30] Speaker 5: with Raj on the economic terms, that you can have
[1:01:32] Speaker 5: oil revenues and squander them.
[1:01:34] Speaker 3: Look, so many states... have had this natural resource curse, right?
[1:01:38] Speaker 5: Where in a sense, the natural resources have been cause
[1:01:43] Speaker 5: of civil wars, complete misappropriation, all kinds of things, right?
[1:01:48] Speaker 3: So at least to take that and actually build something.
[1:01:51] Speaker 5: And I think that the interesting pivot at this moment
[1:01:54] Speaker 5: was there was thinking about what comes after oil, right?
[1:01:58] Speaker 5: That you actually have to think of science, you have
[1:02:00] Speaker 5: to think of technology, you have to think of finance.
[1:02:03] Speaker 5: But I actually do think, I mean, I think Raja
[1:02:05] Speaker 5: is right. We just underestimate how much we depend on them.
[1:02:09] Speaker 5: I mean, our Kerala model, our shining Kerala model is
[1:02:13] Speaker 5: so dependent.
[1:02:16] Speaker 3: Even now. But we achieved literacy well before.
[1:02:18] Speaker 5: No, no, but sustaining that model, sustaining that model has
[1:02:23] Speaker 5: been so dependent on actually remittances from the Gulf, right? So, one,
[1:02:30] Speaker 5: I actually do think in technology and economics, if nothing else,
[1:02:34] Speaker 5: a certain kind of pragmatism and focus.
[1:02:37] Speaker 3: Saying, look, if there is an opportunity, let's say.
[1:02:40] Speaker 5: I mean, I was in Abu Dhabi once and there
[1:02:43] Speaker 5: was a senior minister who at dinner jokingly said, he said,
[1:02:48] Speaker 5: I thank Jawaharlal Nehru every day because Jawaharlal Nehru made
[1:02:53] Speaker 5: us So I was thinking of, you know, old British
[1:02:56] Speaker 5: Empire connections. They were officially governed by India. I said, no, no,
[1:03:00] Speaker 5: Bombay could have been us. By putting all of these restrictions,
[1:03:08] Speaker 5: you made sure that we got the advantage of finance, trade, everything.
[1:03:13] Speaker 3: Partly said as a joke, but I think that part
[1:03:17] Speaker 3: I think is important to focus on. Guys, last piece.
[1:03:21] Speaker 2: Similarities and differences between all the youth activism in our subcontinent.
[1:03:27] Speaker 2: You started, I think Sri Lanka was the first place
[1:03:29] Speaker 2: we saw, then Bangladesh, then Nepal.
[1:03:32] Speaker 3: And then I find it.
[1:03:34] Speaker 2: A little hard to believe that the Indian, what we saw,
[1:03:39] Speaker 2: the CJP thing was... sort of have anything to do
[1:03:42] Speaker 2: with other ones, but it's kind of freakishly happening almost
[1:03:45] Speaker 2: like by the clock every year in some part of subcontinent.
[1:03:50] Speaker 3: Is it a coincidence? Is there anything connected? Is there anything?
[1:03:52] Speaker 4: We see something in Pakistan as well. I think poor
[1:03:55] Speaker 4: Imran Khan has been waiting for it to happen. But
[1:03:59] Speaker 4: I don't know, this is Pratap's domain, but I would say,
[1:04:01] Speaker 4: I think, we've seen this actually most, you know, where
[1:04:05] Speaker 4: stagnation in society, where the traditional channels of communications are
[1:04:10] Speaker 4: blocked the traditional forms of mobility are constrained. At some point,
[1:04:14] Speaker 4: the street comes into play. And I think what we've
[1:04:16] Speaker 4: seen happen is really the old elites, comfortable. They think
[1:04:23] Speaker 4: they've got everything taped. And suddenly, you have like Hasina.
[1:04:26] Speaker 4: I mean, she believed that, look, she had the ideology.
[1:04:29] Speaker 4: She thought she had the hegemony. She had the dominance.
[1:04:31] Speaker 3: But it just disappears.
[1:04:33] Speaker 4: Same thing happened in Colombo, where a newly elected government,
[1:04:38] Speaker 4: which massive majority... Because it's again, the elites have not
[1:04:42] Speaker 4: adapted to the change and they're not willing to, you know,
[1:04:47] Speaker 4: recognize the problems below.
[1:04:48] Speaker 3: I think that I would see that as a source.
[1:04:50] Speaker 3: There's a couple of things. One, we know historically.
[1:04:56] Speaker 5: These movements actually come in global waves, whether it was
[1:04:58] Speaker 5: the 1960s student movements. And you can now add France
[1:05:00] Speaker 5: to the mix, which is actually the French student movement
[1:05:04] Speaker 5: is more massive, more violent, more assertive than anything going
[1:05:09] Speaker 5: on in India right absolutely extraordinary what's happening in France, right?
[1:05:12] Speaker 5: 400 schools burnt. I mean, it's literally, and there it's
[1:05:16] Speaker 5: like high school students. It's not even like college students.
[1:05:19] Speaker 3: No, I didn't know it was high school. Yeah, yeah, no, no.
[1:05:21] Speaker 3: And they're all demanding better schools.
[1:05:24] Speaker 5: They're protesting against the fact that France's PISA scores have dropped.
[1:05:27] Speaker 3: So the French education system is no longer competitive. I mean,
[1:05:31] Speaker 3: it's really quite extraordinary. Now the teachers are joining.
[1:05:34] Speaker 5: So at one level, I think Raja is right that,
[1:05:38] Speaker 5: you know, historically, whether it was the late 60s.
[1:05:41] Speaker 3: 70s, you actually do see global waves.
[1:05:43] Speaker 5: In a sense of these happening where there are kind
[1:05:47] Speaker 5: of underlying accumulated problems in the global economy that kind
[1:05:51] Speaker 5: of convert. So we do know anxieties about employment, even
[1:05:56] Speaker 5: though the headline numbers are looking decent, 7.8% growth, are
[1:06:00] Speaker 5: absolutely serious across the board. And I think particularly in
[1:06:05] Speaker 5: this case, the new middle class, the anxiety that they
[1:06:09] Speaker 5: might actually fall back again in some ways, right? Because
[1:06:11] Speaker 5: that whole liberalization euphoria in terms of job creation has disappeared. And,
[1:06:16] Speaker 5: you know, there's also, I think at this moment, a
[1:06:18] Speaker 5: point of which is, so in 2014, we changed political parties, right?
[1:06:24] Speaker 5: We switched from Congress to BJP and a lot of
[1:06:27] Speaker 5: people thought, okay, this is radical change.
[1:06:30] Speaker 3: You also thought the same? I did not think the same.
[1:06:34] Speaker 5: I actually, I mean, just to kind of clarify, I
[1:06:39] Speaker 5: did think that the accumulated problems in the old regime
[1:06:42] Speaker 5: had reached a point where it was going to implode
[1:06:45] Speaker 5: and collapse.
[1:06:45] Speaker 3: And the only question.
[1:06:46] Speaker 5: Was whether this one can actually, in a sense, address
[1:06:50] Speaker 5: them or exacerbate them, right? I think right now, one
[1:06:54] Speaker 5: of the reasons you have this wave is, one, Rajasthan's
[1:06:58] Speaker 5: conventional political channels are not working. You've, in a sense,
[1:07:01] Speaker 5: clamped down on civil society. You've clamped down on political competition.
[1:07:07] Speaker 5: The old elite is too comfortable. But I think one
[1:07:10] Speaker 5: of the other reasons is there is a kind of
[1:07:13] Speaker 5: deep underlying note of pessimism around these movements.
[1:07:17] Speaker 3: Now we've seen every political party, right?
[1:07:20] Speaker 5: If this is the best Vixit Bharat is going to
[1:07:22] Speaker 5: give us, you know, I think historical memories are short,
[1:07:28] Speaker 5: but think of the euphoria.
[1:07:30] Speaker 3: In the mid-2000s. There was a kind of growth narrative
[1:07:34] Speaker 3: about India.
[1:07:36] Speaker 5: Now the numbers are not looking half bad, but the
[1:07:39] Speaker 5: underlying sense of confidence about trajectory.
[1:07:42] Speaker 3: We've now seen every political party.
[1:07:44] Speaker 5: We've even given absolute majority to a political party. We've
[1:07:48] Speaker 5: given them every damn power they wanted. And still this
[1:07:51] Speaker 5: is what you get. So I think underlying this movement
[1:07:54] Speaker 5: is a certain kind of darkness. I think it's a
[1:07:58] Speaker 5: kind of breakdown of hope, and it is a breakdown
[1:08:02] Speaker 5: of normal politics. I think the second thing to say,
[1:08:05] Speaker 5: which is, I think, interesting in the Sri Lanka-India case,
[1:08:09] Speaker 5: and I think maybe a difference with France in a way,
[1:08:14] Speaker 5: which is, in India, what you're now beginning to get
[1:08:17] Speaker 5: is you're conjoining two particular strands which so far were
[1:08:22] Speaker 5: operating separately. So one was the democracy bachao strand, which
[1:08:28] Speaker 5: was not getting electoral traction.
[1:08:30] Speaker 3: Up till this point.
[1:08:31] Speaker 5: Last election also, constitution in danger, democracy in danger, maybe
[1:08:35] Speaker 5: had marginal effect at the side, but it didn't. And
[1:08:39] Speaker 5: then there's the education unemployment strand. What you've seen happen
[1:08:44] Speaker 5: in the last few days, and what you've seen happen
[1:08:47] Speaker 5: in Sri Lanka in some senses as well, was those
[1:08:50] Speaker 5: two strands are now beginning to come together, which is
[1:08:52] Speaker 5: people are beginning to see that the anti-authoritarian story, it's
[1:08:57] Speaker 5: not sufficient to get you a good education.
[1:09:00] Speaker 3: System. Who knows, the other parties may do as badly, right?
[1:09:05] Speaker 5: But one of the necessary conditions is of even have
[1:09:10] Speaker 5: a fighting chance against that is to actually put up
[1:09:13] Speaker 5: a fight against authoritarianism. And I think this is the,
[1:09:17] Speaker 5: in that sense, this is what makes it a more
[1:09:19] Speaker 5: kind of interesting movement where both the students are kind
[1:09:24] Speaker 5: of now walking both lines, right? Which is we want
[1:09:26] Speaker 5: accountability over education, meet exams, all of that, but actually
[1:09:30] Speaker 5: it has become SIR. And the political parties are actually,
[1:09:34] Speaker 5: in a sense, beginning to join those strands. So this
[1:09:38] Speaker 5: has more the characteristics of a kind of 70s kind
[1:09:42] Speaker 5: of social movement. Again, it's still very limited yet. The
[1:09:46] Speaker 5: political fallout is uncertain. I mean, elections have a logic
[1:09:50] Speaker 5: of their own. Who knows kind of how much the
[1:09:52] Speaker 5: opposition remains united and all of that. But I think
[1:09:56] Speaker 5: it's very clear that this current regime cannot continue to
[1:10:01] Speaker 5: govern in the style and manner that it has been.
[1:10:06] Speaker 5: Without alienating Gen Z. Without alienating Gen Z. And I
[1:10:11] Speaker 5: think allowing people who are on the democratic side of
[1:10:13] Speaker 5: the fence to actually pile on to that social discontent.
[1:10:17] Speaker 2: I'll end on one last thing. Actually, what I wanted
[1:10:19] Speaker 2: to get at, and maybe you can say this, Raja,
[1:10:21] Speaker 2: was foreign hand involved in Bangladesh seeming to be quite
[1:10:27] Speaker 2: well accepted.
[1:10:28] Speaker 3: That America was involved in what happened with Hasina and Bangladesh.
[1:10:30] Speaker 3: How do you know that?
[1:10:31] Speaker 4: I don't know. No, no. I think, look.
[1:10:33] Speaker 3: No, is it a conspiracy theory? It's again a conspiracy theory.
[1:10:38] Speaker 3: Where would you put it.
[1:10:39] Speaker 2: On the spectrum of conspiracy theory to maybe.
[1:10:40] Speaker 4: No, no, I would say that, look, all countries, as
[1:10:43] Speaker 4: we said earlier, everyone tries to take advantage of a situation.
[1:10:47] Speaker 4: But to say the regime changed or the revolution that's
[1:10:50] Speaker 4: happened in Bangladesh is because of the foreign hand.
[1:10:53] Speaker 3: I think it's fundamentally unfair.
[1:10:56] Speaker 4: To the people who believed that the regime was getting oppressive,
[1:11:00] Speaker 4: that it was not listening to them, elections were rigged.
[1:11:04] Speaker 4: Then after, on top of all this, you say, no, no,
[1:11:06] Speaker 4: the Americans did it. I mean, look, it's easy way out. No,
[1:11:08] Speaker 4: in India, we didn't ask the right questions. What was
[1:11:11] Speaker 4: our assessment? Could we not see what was going on? So,
[1:11:15] Speaker 4: I think this is, you know, now the Americans are
[1:11:17] Speaker 4: also taking the same thing. Look, Republicans say Iran is
[1:11:19] Speaker 4: interfering in American elections. But I would say that, look,
[1:11:23] Speaker 4: we intervene in other countries.
[1:11:26] Speaker 3: So, it's not that. I mean, I think... And I'm
[1:11:27] Speaker 3: not saying good or bad, but I'm saying is it
[1:11:29] Speaker 3: there or not there? No, I think that's marginal, assuming
[1:11:32] Speaker 3: there it was.
[1:11:33] Speaker 4: The centrality was, look, in Nepal, in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka,
[1:11:36] Speaker 4: the regimes became unpopular, unacceptable.
[1:11:40] Speaker 3: That is the principal cause.
[1:11:41] Speaker 4: Now, the moment you try to run away from that
[1:11:44] Speaker 4: and frame it, or Americans did it, or US Embassy
[1:11:47] Speaker 4: was training some people, or CIA was helping them.
[1:11:50] Speaker 3: And I think we've been through this, right, in the past.
[1:11:52] Speaker 2: No, actually, I want to understand this better. Because how
[1:11:55] Speaker 2: much of foreign hand is actually there? How much of
[1:11:57] Speaker 2: it is just like us watching too many CIA movies?
[1:11:59] Speaker 4: No, I mean, I think, look, all countries would want
[1:12:02] Speaker 4: to get levels of interference from manipulating television, news, to
[1:12:07] Speaker 4: actually supporting political parties. I mean, our history... I mean,
[1:12:10] Speaker 4: the support for Indian political parties from outside. Now you're saying, look,
[1:12:14] Speaker 4: you're collecting money from NRIs. Is it interference or not?
[1:12:17] Speaker 4: So I would say, look, there are levels of this way.
[1:12:20] Speaker 4: But I think that should not let us lose sight
[1:12:23] Speaker 4: of the principal question of why these three Gen Z
[1:12:26] Speaker 4: movements exist. Why established political parties were overthrown? I think
[1:12:30] Speaker 4: there were enough local causes, you know.
[1:12:32] Speaker 2: But obviously, America did have some, or you're saying that
[1:12:35] Speaker 2: they might have been a fringe supporter.
[1:12:38] Speaker 4: No, but I say this, you and I won't know
[1:12:40] Speaker 4: that kind of a thing, right? I mean, a level
[1:12:42] Speaker 4: of support or, but what is.
[1:12:43] Speaker 3: You're saying our history, what's our history of America? No, no,
[1:12:46] Speaker 3: I think look on the.
[1:12:48] Speaker 4: The CIA's involvement, you know, in Congress party. They say, no, no,
[1:12:52] Speaker 4: Indira Gandhi in Kerala elections or the Soviet influence in India.
[1:12:55] Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's well documented. They had huge
[1:12:58] Speaker 4: influence in this country. But in the end, is Indian
[1:13:02] Speaker 4: politics a history of foreign intervention? No. They can at
[1:13:05] Speaker 4: best play a marginal role. But the real story is,
[1:13:09] Speaker 4: like all great powers interfere. Look, we know the history
[1:13:11] Speaker 4: of Europe. In France, Italy, without the CIA intervention, the
[1:13:15] Speaker 4: communists would have won.
[1:13:16] Speaker 3: Maybe same thing they did in Japan.
[1:13:18] Speaker 4: But let's not make a fetish out of American intervention
[1:13:21] Speaker 4: when actually the root causes are inside.
[1:13:23] Speaker 3: That's all I'm saying. Sir, I agree with Raj.
[1:13:26] Speaker 5: And historical perspective, right? If you look at the historiography
[1:13:28] Speaker 5: of the 70s, the same thing was said about India, right?
[1:13:31] Speaker 3: So, now... What was that about India?
[1:13:35] Speaker 5: Which is, you know, in fact, Jay Prakash Narayan was
[1:13:38] Speaker 5: a CIA stooge. By implication, Indian Express was as well.
[1:13:42] Speaker 5: I mean, look, these stories have been part of, in
[1:13:45] Speaker 5: a sense, this... But I think Raja's core point is right,
[1:13:50] Speaker 5: which is, I think you have to distinguish between two
[1:13:52] Speaker 5: or three kinds of cases, right? So, there's a history
[1:13:54] Speaker 5: of foreign intervention... the kind the US has had in Nicaragua,
[1:13:58] Speaker 5: Chile in 1973, Iran deposing the Shah in 1953. But actually,
[1:14:04] Speaker 5: they're literally almost engineering regime change. Short of that, everything
[1:14:10] Speaker 5: else is in kind of the realm of ideas and dissemination.
[1:14:14] Speaker 5: And as adult mature societies, you kind of live with it.
[1:14:21] Speaker 5: I feel about foreign intervention the way about I feel
[1:14:23] Speaker 5: about the political science literature on vote clientelism, right? There's
[1:14:27] Speaker 5: this enormous literature on how particular politicians can deliver votes. Honestly,
[1:14:33] Speaker 5: no evidence for that. You don't know what happens in
[1:14:35] Speaker 5: the voting booths, right? So the underlying causes were palpable.
[1:14:41] Speaker 5: It's political science 101. If the opposition has not been
[1:14:45] Speaker 5: participating in election for 10 years, all civil society channels
[1:14:48] Speaker 5: are closed. At some point, that regime is going... And
[1:14:51] Speaker 5: economic stagnation is looming. At some point, that regime will explode.
[1:14:55] Speaker 5: Political science explanation 101 in Nepal, which is they were
[1:14:59] Speaker 5: willing to tolerate a lot of corruption. Remember what was
[1:15:02] Speaker 5: the trigger? The immediate trigger was kids of ministers tweeting
[1:15:08] Speaker 5: about their foreign vacations.
[1:15:10] Speaker 3: And at some point, these young kids said... You know,
[1:15:15] Speaker 3: this is rubbing it in our face, right? So the underlying.
[1:15:19] Speaker 5: Structural conditions were so palpable, so palpable, everybody who knew
[1:15:24] Speaker 5: Bangladesh was saying six months before it happened.
[1:15:27] Speaker 3: That it's a matter of time, right? Now, yes, at
[1:15:31] Speaker 3: the margins, are they.
[1:15:32] Speaker 5: Helping disseminate some information or some groups involved?
[1:15:35] Speaker 3: But I think it's an insult to the agency of people.
[1:15:39] Speaker 5: And frankly, actually quite dangerous for democracies to start believing this.
[1:15:44] Speaker 5: Because fundamentally what you are saying, it's the worst version
[1:15:47] Speaker 5: of the British argument that people are incapable of deciding
[1:15:50] Speaker 5: for themselves.
[1:15:51] Speaker 3: No, but is there money?
[1:15:53] Speaker 2: Are governments giving money to the opposition?
[1:15:56] Speaker 5: Lots of people might be taking money. I think even
[1:16:01] Speaker 5: if they are taking money, you can't infer from that
[1:16:03] Speaker 5: that actually affects the outcome.
[1:16:06] Speaker 2: It might compromise decision-making for the country after the change happens.
[1:16:12] Speaker 3: But that is always publicly observable, right?
[1:16:16] Speaker 5: The point about Raja is that first let's concentrate on
[1:16:21] Speaker 5: the publicly observable evidence.
[1:16:24] Speaker 3: And publicly,. Nothing of that.
[1:16:28] Speaker 5: I mean, it's acting like a normal Bangladesh transition regime
[1:16:33] Speaker 5: has acted for the last 25, 30 years. Similarly, with
[1:16:38] Speaker 5: the government, I mean, the literature on the.. And we
[1:16:41] Speaker 5: also know in the dissemination of money, there are lots
[1:16:43] Speaker 5: of interests. The first rule of how you read intelligence reports.
[1:16:50] Speaker 5: Somebody who worked for intelligence once said, look, it's in
[1:16:51] Speaker 5: the incentive of every intelligence officer to claim that they're
[1:16:56] Speaker 5: having more influence. I'm a CIA guy, posted here. And
[1:17:01] Speaker 5: there used to be this classic story, right, where the
[1:17:03] Speaker 5: KGB guy would report Pranab Mukherjee has given a speech
[1:17:06] Speaker 5: denouncing the CIA.
[1:17:07] Speaker 3: It's because we gave money, right? Second, there's a political
[1:17:13] Speaker 3: economy interest.
[1:17:14] Speaker 5: In fact, often business interests are far more influential than
[1:17:18] Speaker 5: actually geostrategic government.
[1:17:20] Speaker 3: The reason the KGB and.
[1:17:21] Speaker 5: CIA were so active in India was in part because
[1:17:24] Speaker 5: of the political economy of the rupee-ruble trade and.
[1:17:26] Speaker 3: The control of the tobacco flows.
[1:17:28] Speaker 5: It wasn't these grand regime change ideas. So I think,
[1:17:35] Speaker 5: you know, the easiest option, and frankly, I think it
[1:17:38] Speaker 5: is actually dangerous for democracy. to just prematurely get into
[1:17:42] Speaker 5: this mindset of this is all foreign influence.
[1:17:47] Speaker 3: The problems are so glaringly obvious.
[1:17:49] Speaker 5: The miracle is that it's taken so long for these
[1:17:52] Speaker 5: protests to happen.
[1:17:53] Speaker 3: It's not that they've actually happened.
[1:17:55] Speaker 4: Thanks, guys.
[1:17:56] Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Long, as always, interesting conversation. So
[1:18:01] Speaker 2: much to learn from. And I look forward to doing
[1:18:03] Speaker 2: it again soon.
[1:18:05] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[1:18:09] Speaker 1: You were listening to Three Things by The Indian Express.
[1:18:11] Speaker 1: Today's show was edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar and
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