# 2 Weeks Of Epic Fury: Who Is Winning The US-Iran War? |S3| 43

An episode of [In Our Defence](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1617244439), 12 Mar 2026, 1 h 04 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/70607718/12_mar_26_defence_12_march_128.mp3

Nearly two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the war in West Asia has spilled over from the streets of Tehran to the depths of the Indian Ocean. In this episode of In Our Defence, host Dev Goswami and national security expert Sandeep Unnithan break down the most chaotic week in modern strategic history. The two also dive into the sinking of the IRIS Dena, an Iranian frigate that was literally a guest at the Indian Navy’s MILAN 2026 exercise before being torpedoed by a US submarine off the coast of Sri Lanka. What message was the US trying to send by sinking a warship far away from the theatre of conflict? Also on the episode: How for Iran, winning is equal to just suriving and how global players such as France and China will be looking at this conflict. Tune in! Produced by Taniya Dutta Sound mixed by Rohan Bharti

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This is India Today Podcasts.
[0:05] Speaker 2: Welcome to season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
[0:09] Speaker 2: takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
[0:12] Speaker 2: Dave Goswami, and every week I sit down with experts
[0:16] Speaker 2: and retired officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force
[0:20] Speaker 2: to decode all things to do with India security and
[0:23] Speaker 2: explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
[0:27] Speaker 2: stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength.
[0:32] Speaker 1: This is in Our Defense.
[0:34] Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to an e Defense. I'm back after
[0:37] Speaker 2: a break. If you were wondering where the show was,
[0:39] Speaker 2: what the episode was last Friday, we had to take
[0:43] Speaker 2: a break. Unfortunately, Unfortunately, because we are in the middle
[0:46] Speaker 2: of another for things. I never thought i'd say. What
[0:51] Speaker 2: happened last week was my guest literally spoke so much
[0:56] Speaker 2: last week about the Ran war that his throat for
[1:00] Speaker 2: a toss and he could. He pleaded with me that
[1:02] Speaker 2: you know they can, I just not talk anymore. So
[1:04] Speaker 2: I said, okay, it's.
[1:06] Speaker 1: Hey, good, good day.
[1:08] Speaker 3: Good to be back to talking about war things.
[1:10] Speaker 2: Did you even imagine that there will be time in
[1:12] Speaker 2: your career towards the end that you know.
[1:15] Speaker 3: You would be talking about I don't know this.
[1:17] Speaker 2: On this podcast we've discussed too mini wars India, Pakistan, Israel, Israel,
[1:22] Speaker 2: Iran that happened last year. You have an ongoing war
[1:25] Speaker 2: in Russia Ukraine. Now you have the current war with
[1:29] Speaker 2: US Israel and and and of course you have that
[1:32] Speaker 2: on and off war in Africa with Azerbaijan and stuff
[1:35] Speaker 2: like that.
[1:35] Speaker 1: So if someone in my school told me, what, how
[1:41] Speaker 1: I see the year twenty twenty five and twenty twenty six,
[1:44] Speaker 1: I would think that we would be wearing silver spacesuits, flying,
[1:49] Speaker 1: you know, driving flying Jackson's the Jetsons. Yeah, and it'll
[1:53] Speaker 1: be an you know, a zone of peace. The whole
[1:56] Speaker 1: world would be a peaceful one world, no war, all
[2:00] Speaker 1: of that. But here we are in some of the
[2:04] Speaker 1: most turbulent times in global politics, and possibly what since
[2:08] Speaker 1: the Second World War? I would think, yeah, actually, actually
[2:11] Speaker 1: the rules based order is it's the law of the jungle.
[2:14] Speaker 1: In fact, I mean, if this is actually a year
[2:17] Speaker 1: or a few years of literal world wars happening, I
[2:20] Speaker 1: mean you may not have world war of the kind
[2:21] Speaker 1: you saw, not.
[2:22] Speaker 3: A world war, but in the world is that war
[2:24] Speaker 3: that's what the world is?
[2:26] Speaker 2: Warrior, that's probably a better way to way to put it.
[2:28] Speaker 2: So we are recording this on a Wednesday. This episode
[2:31] Speaker 2: will probably be out on a Friday to our producible,
[2:34] Speaker 2: try to have it up to before that, because you know,
[2:37] Speaker 2: things are moving at a quig level in the real world. Yeah,
[2:40] Speaker 2: events happening. So we're recording this on Evenesday, which is
[2:43] Speaker 2: the twelfth day of the Iran War that started on
[2:47] Speaker 2: fab twenty eighth, after the US and Israel, or I
[2:51] Speaker 2: should say it in the US. I'll come to that
[2:53] Speaker 2: question in a bit. And I think you know what
[2:55] Speaker 2: I mean with this mine on your face attack attacked,
[3:00] Speaker 2: Uh and kill killed Kamini in the first first solt
[3:05] Speaker 2: of salvo of attacks. Very interestingly, Uh, And this is
[3:08] Speaker 2: going to be topic discussion as well.
[3:10] Speaker 3: Very interesting.
[3:11] Speaker 2: No one seems to care much about what seems to
[3:13] Speaker 2: be happening with Iran's leadership because right now it seems
[3:15] Speaker 2: as that it does not even matter whether Ian has
[3:17] Speaker 2: an active leadership because it's fighting the battle on its
[3:20] Speaker 2: own very very well.
[3:21] Speaker 1: Iran has a stockpile of years, yeah, addition to missiles.
[3:26] Speaker 2: Yeah, his son has recently been appointed as the next
[3:29] Speaker 2: Supreme leader of Iran.
[3:30] Speaker 1: We don't know what will happen with that going forward?
[3:34] Speaker 2: Very I've read some very good consperracy theories about that
[3:36] Speaker 2: as well, by the way, but I don't know if
[3:38] Speaker 2: you get that on this this episode. But we'll see
[3:40] Speaker 2: where with this conversation goes and flows. Uh So, let's
[3:44] Speaker 2: sort of, you know, take a look at the highlights
[3:46] Speaker 2: of what's happened in the last ten days. You've had
[3:48] Speaker 2: a course the first day of the attacks where you
[3:51] Speaker 2: had the killing of Kaminia and several other top leaders
[3:53] Speaker 2: of Iran. Uh yeah, US and Israel have claimed that
[3:58] Speaker 2: in the next few days they've managed to hit the
[4:01] Speaker 2: majority of the IRGC, which is area's primary armed force
[4:05] Speaker 2: leadership and its some mission centers and stuff like that. However,
[4:08] Speaker 2: that's not stopped Iran from widening the conflict all across
[4:12] Speaker 2: the Gulf. It's like Iran is in like you know,
[4:14] Speaker 2: my Subcomarunga ward right now, it's launching drones, missiles, ballistic
[4:18] Speaker 2: missiles at Uei, at katar At, orain At, even Saudi Arabia,
[4:24] Speaker 2: all the countries in the Middle East. It's holding the
[4:26] Speaker 2: Strait of Horror moves hostage right now as you speak. Recently,
[4:31] Speaker 2: one IRGC statement even said that they will not let
[4:33] Speaker 2: a leader of oil pass through the state of Hormos
[4:36] Speaker 2: until the conflict abated, which is you know, in turn
[4:39] Speaker 2: affecting the world economy. In fact, just before I entered,
[4:41] Speaker 2: Japan has become the first G seven country in the
[4:44] Speaker 2: world to release its strategic oil reserves, which by the name,
[4:49] Speaker 2: as the name implies, are reserves nations keep for severe emergencies. Uh,
[4:54] Speaker 2: you've had some headline grabbing events. You've had a US
[4:58] Speaker 2: three US F fifteen fighter jets being shot down by KUWAITI.
[5:03] Speaker 1: Eighteen if I'm not wrong.
[5:06] Speaker 2: Kuwait, by the way, is an ally of the US,
[5:07] Speaker 2: which is what makes it interesting. It was basically a
[5:10] Speaker 2: blue on blue sort of attack where an ally ended
[5:13] Speaker 2: up hitting a US jets, possibly to misidentification on something
[5:18] Speaker 2: like that. The biggest headline, especially for somebody in India,
[5:21] Speaker 2: was the torpedoing of Iris Iris Nana, the Iranian warship,
[5:27] Speaker 2: which was in Shaka Putnam for an exercise that was
[5:31] Speaker 2: organized by the Indian Navy, of which by the way,
[5:34] Speaker 2: the US was also a part. It was on its
[5:36] Speaker 2: way home, I think, when it was torpedoed by a
[5:40] Speaker 2: U S submarine just south of Sri Lanka. That made
[5:44] Speaker 2: quite some headlines across the world because this was the
[5:46] Speaker 2: first torpedoing by a US submarine since the World War II,
[5:50] Speaker 2: the second such in Indian Ocean, the first of cos
[5:53] Speaker 2: the seven nineteen seventy one war, and I think only
[5:56] Speaker 2: the fourth such instance post World War.
[5:58] Speaker 3: Two across across across the world.
[6:02] Speaker 2: So that's I think some of the some of the
[6:04] Speaker 2: top headlines that have happened.
[6:06] Speaker 3: I've recapped what's happened for our listeners in US and THEE.
[6:08] Speaker 2: Now I want you to tell me as you see
[6:10] Speaker 2: the last ten days, as you see the situation right now.
[6:13] Speaker 2: It may be too early for that, but who do
[6:16] Speaker 2: you think has the advantage as we talk right.
[6:18] Speaker 1: Right so very I mean, you've summed up the last
[6:22] Speaker 1: two weeks almost there. But I'll just tell you the
[6:26] Speaker 1: the aims and objectives of what the US and is
[6:28] Speaker 1: I went into this conflict with. Their idea was to
[6:32] Speaker 1: go into achieve four things. One is, of course, to
[6:35] Speaker 1: ensure that Iran dismantled its access of resistance, so called
[6:39] Speaker 1: access of resistance, which is whotis Hamas has Bola, the
[6:43] Speaker 1: overseas shields that they've built up over the last two decades.
[6:46] Speaker 1: The second is of course to the nuclear program. That
[6:49] Speaker 1: was a big thing that Iran was to cap its
[6:51] Speaker 1: nuclear program. The third is of course to hand over
[6:55] Speaker 1: all the enriched uranium that they had you know, enrich
[6:58] Speaker 1: over the last few years. That's believed to be about
[7:02] Speaker 1: four hundred cages or so of that. And finally to
[7:05] Speaker 1: give up all its ballistic missiles, you know, completely dismantle
[7:09] Speaker 1: its missile program. Yeah, it's a big ask because that's
[7:12] Speaker 1: all that Iran really has to protect justice, Yeah, it has.
[7:16] Speaker 1: The external protection is the access of resistance, the protection
[7:20] Speaker 1: within the borders, other missiless So this is where we
[7:25] Speaker 1: were at roughly about twenty sixth in Switzerland when they
[7:28] Speaker 1: were talking, and twenty seven the Omani foreign minister came
[7:32] Speaker 1: out and said they were very close to an UC
[7:34] Speaker 1: settlement and Iran had literally agreed to cap its nuclear
[7:40] Speaker 1: program and stuff. That twenty eighth war breaks out. I
[7:44] Speaker 1: think the US and Israel went into this war with
[7:49] Speaker 1: regime change in mind. They wanted to effect a very quick,
[7:52] Speaker 1: swift regime change with a decapitation strike. Now bear in mind,
[7:55] Speaker 1: this is the first time that one country has assassinated
[8:00] Speaker 1: the head of another country you know, in warfare, that
[8:03] Speaker 1: kind of thing. We've seen that happening with terror groups,
[8:06] Speaker 1: but never with you know, state on state wars. Israel
[8:10] Speaker 1: has done that before, but I think two years back
[8:12] Speaker 1: they assassinated the Huthi Prime Minister in retaliation for the
[8:16] Speaker 1: Huthi attacks. But this is the first time that you know,
[8:18] Speaker 1: the Supreme leader was assassinated. Forty other leaders believed to
[8:21] Speaker 1: have been killed with him. The US and Israel thought
[8:25] Speaker 1: that the regime would collapse because of that, yes, but
[8:29] Speaker 1: what I think they underestimated was that Iran had already
[8:33] Speaker 1: planned for this contingency and they're calling it the Mosaics strategy,
[8:37] Speaker 1: which is basically thirty one command centers all across the
[8:41] Speaker 1: country takeover and they've all got missiles, they've got sealed orders, instructions,
[8:46] Speaker 1: targets and stuff like that, and they know what to
[8:49] Speaker 1: do in an emergency, and they obviously wargamed this, right
[8:53] Speaker 1: they know that this will likely this. You know, I
[8:57] Speaker 1: think the most sensitive information right now in Iran is
[9:02] Speaker 1: the stockpile of weapons, yes, and launchers. So they have
[9:06] Speaker 1: believed to have some five thousand ballistic missiles fifty or
[9:11] Speaker 1: sixty thousand. Shah won three six drones and a couple
[9:16] Speaker 1: of hundred launchers. Now, launchers are of course key to
[9:19] Speaker 1: this because if you don't, you can have one hundred
[9:22] Speaker 1: thousand missiles, but if you have just a few hundred launchers,
[9:26] Speaker 1: means that if you lose start losing your launchers, you
[9:29] Speaker 1: won't be able to launch. You can't you know, you
[9:32] Speaker 1: can't throw missiles up in the air. You know they
[9:34] Speaker 1: don't launch by themselves. You need a launcher for that, right.
[9:38] Speaker 1: So Iran meant about the strategy, and this is something
[9:43] Speaker 1: that already gained I think, based on their experience in
[9:45] Speaker 1: the Twelve Day War last year, and they went about
[9:49] Speaker 1: striking number of targets. And I think what the US
[9:55] Speaker 1: and Israel did not game was the fact that they
[9:59] Speaker 1: would span the theater of conflicts.
[10:01] Speaker 2: So quickly, so quickly, Yes, within hours of the first
[10:04] Speaker 2: first response was that yes, the last but I know it.
[10:09] Speaker 1: They lash out at all the GCC countries. And now
[10:11] Speaker 1: what we're seeing for almost two weeks now is that
[10:14] Speaker 1: you know, Iran is slowly chipping away at the interceptors.
[10:18] Speaker 1: It knows where the radars are. Radars are massive, you
[10:21] Speaker 1: can't move them around, and they've fixed the third radars
[10:24] Speaker 1: are fixed, they're vulnerable, right, and we saw that during
[10:27] Speaker 1: Absendur when the Indian Air Force hit a number of
[10:30] Speaker 1: Pakistani air defense radars, including American supplied ones. At least
[10:34] Speaker 1: two of them are knocked out. They haven't been replaced
[10:36] Speaker 1: Raythean radars. Similarly, Iran, using its accurate missiles, has been
[10:42] Speaker 1: able to target radars. It is hit basis, it's hit
[10:48] Speaker 1: command posts, it's hit the headquarters of the US fifth Fleet.
[10:52] Speaker 1: What it's done is it's converted its entire arc of
[10:55] Speaker 1: some twenty five hundred kilometers into a free fire zone,
[10:58] Speaker 1: which means that this tire belt from the Mediterranean to
[11:02] Speaker 1: the Arabian Sea is under the range of Iranian missiles
[11:06] Speaker 1: and drones. Now that kind of a sworth of territory.
[11:10] Speaker 1: It means instantly that those bases can be used. The
[11:14] Speaker 1: US cannot use those air bases to refuel, resupply its aircraft,
[11:19] Speaker 1: It cannot use those sea bases to rearm its ships
[11:23] Speaker 1: and submarines, so all of this becomes vulnerable. They pushed
[11:26] Speaker 1: it back a two AD strategy anti area access, anti
[11:32] Speaker 1: access denial strategy a to AD, which is what the
[11:36] Speaker 1: Chinese are believed to have perfected. Now this is where
[11:41] Speaker 1: we are after nearly two weeks, and the Iranians have
[11:45] Speaker 1: initially they opened this conflict with a mass barrage of
[11:49] Speaker 1: hundreds of projectiles, something like six or seven hundred projectiles
[11:53] Speaker 1: went out in the first forty eight hours. Now that
[11:56] Speaker 1: salvo numbers have come down considerably from the hundreds to
[12:02] Speaker 1: the tens, like it's now fifty to sixty eighty. But
[12:05] Speaker 1: then last night there was a massive barrage again at
[12:07] Speaker 1: Israel four hours almost so they're not running out of missiles,
[12:12] Speaker 1: and they're using these low cost shahid three six times
[12:17] Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars is what they think it is, but
[12:19] Speaker 1: it could be cheaper between twenty and thirty thousand dollars
[12:24] Speaker 1: of shahid versus an interceptive missile that costs upwards of
[12:27] Speaker 1: a million dollars. The Patriot interceptive missile costs over a
[12:31] Speaker 1: million dollars, and you're expending two and three to hit
[12:35] Speaker 1: one low cost shahid, which is why they've had to
[12:38] Speaker 1: dial for Zeleniski from Ukraine because he has expertise in
[12:43] Speaker 1: knocking down these low cost shahids. They've been doing it.
[12:46] Speaker 1: The Ukrainians have been doing it for three four years now.
[12:49] Speaker 1: So what we're seeing is Iran using very low cost
[12:56] Speaker 1: missile drone technology to hold off the US and Israel
[13:00] Speaker 1: which are using which as as we speak, they have
[13:04] Speaker 1: a free run over Iranian skies because Iran has no
[13:07] Speaker 1: air force. Its navy has been shattered, It's air force
[13:09] Speaker 1: is practically non existent. All it has is its aerospace force,
[13:14] Speaker 1: the aerospace and rocket force, which is the drones, the
[13:17] Speaker 1: cruise missiles and the bellistic missiles. So it's using this
[13:21] Speaker 1: what I call a tactical triad of weapons cruise, ballistic
[13:24] Speaker 1: and drones to expand the theater of conflict and to
[13:28] Speaker 1: raise the cost for all the countries of the region,
[13:33] Speaker 1: all the GCC countries, Gulf Cooperation Council countries, six of them,
[13:38] Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, Bahare and yue Kata, all of them. Kuwait
[13:43] Speaker 1: telling them that look, if you shelter the US, you
[13:46] Speaker 1: have sent comm basis, you have like a little scent
[13:48] Speaker 1: Coom Empire. It's half a dozen bases, you know, Al Dhafra,
[13:54] Speaker 1: then Prince Sultan, all of these massive bases which have
[13:58] Speaker 1: been there since the Cold War. The US has been
[14:00] Speaker 1: there for a very long time. All of these bases
[14:03] Speaker 1: are protected by patriots and thads and all that, but clearly,
[14:08] Speaker 1: if you have an intercept rate of about ninety percent
[14:11] Speaker 1: ninety five percent, there's a five percent that's going through, right,
[14:16] Speaker 1: And that's what the Iranians have mastered, overwhelming missile defense
[14:20] Speaker 1: shields with literal barrages of pets, and we've seen cluster
[14:27] Speaker 1: minitions also being used, which is a first. Possibly there's
[14:32] Speaker 1: a missile called the Kronshower four, which is an IRBM
[14:35] Speaker 1: intermediate range ballistic missile which breaks into eighty projectiles at
[14:39] Speaker 1: two thousand kilometers. Eighty projectiles breaking up confounds the interceptors, right,
[14:45] Speaker 1: you have to fire up with a lot of interceptors
[14:48] Speaker 1: and it's literally like an artillery barrage at extended range.
[14:51] Speaker 1: You know, each one is like an one five five
[14:53] Speaker 1: m michell for so imagine the thing. So Iran seems
[14:56] Speaker 1: to have gamed this thing completely. They've wargamed it, they've
[14:59] Speaker 1: prepared for this thing. But the US and israel I
[15:03] Speaker 1: think they were caught in the back foot. So if
[15:05] Speaker 1: you ask me who's winning right now at the moment,
[15:09] Speaker 1: Iran by sheer dint of not being defeated. See the
[15:14] Speaker 1: weaker side the weaker adversary has only to stay in
[15:19] Speaker 1: the game to absorb the punches, throw a few punches,
[15:23] Speaker 1: and not be defeated, whereas the US and Israel have
[15:27] Speaker 1: to comprehensively defeat Iran, which is what Trump has been
[15:32] Speaker 1: constantly saying. I want him to surrender, and I want
[15:34] Speaker 1: to do this and that, and you know he has
[15:37] Speaker 1: to cry uncle and stuff like. But you know, with
[15:41] Speaker 1: one exception, I'll come to that later. There has been
[15:44] Speaker 1: no instance in the warfare nearly a century of aerial
[15:50] Speaker 1: combat and bombing and strategic bombing where a country has
[15:54] Speaker 1: surrendered because of an air offensive. The only exception to
[15:58] Speaker 1: that is of course, Japan, which surrendered because of strategic warming.
[16:02] Speaker 1: You drop nuclear weapons on them and they had to surrender.
[16:05] Speaker 1: They knew the game was up, and six days later
[16:07] Speaker 1: they surrendered. So we are at that particular moment right
[16:11] Speaker 1: now in the Iran war where Iran refuses to surrender.
[16:16] Speaker 1: Bao bend the US and Israel. They're saying that they could,
[16:22] Speaker 1: you know, fight this for a very long time. But
[16:26] Speaker 1: I think that this war is going to be decided
[16:28] Speaker 1: by two things. Markets and munitions. Yes, markets, which you
[16:33] Speaker 1: have all going through the roof one hundred and twenty
[16:36] Speaker 1: dollars a barretle markets have tanked. We have a problem
[16:41] Speaker 1: in India now with you know, gas price and we
[16:44] Speaker 1: supply LPG supply and all of that, so everyone's going
[16:47] Speaker 1: to feel the pinch. So this is exactly what the
[16:50] Speaker 1: Iranians wanted. They wanted to make sure that this conflict.
[16:53] Speaker 1: See Iran, Israel, and the US went into this conflict,
[16:57] Speaker 1: they wanted to localize it. They wanted to keep it
[16:59] Speaker 1: UNDI to Iran right bomb them into submission, destroy the leadership,
[17:03] Speaker 1: and then get them to surrender. What Iran has done
[17:06] Speaker 1: is exactly the opposite. They've expanded the conflict. They've made
[17:09] Speaker 1: it into a global conflict. Now everybody in the world
[17:12] Speaker 1: is affected by it, and so there's now pressure building up.
[17:15] Speaker 1: And I think the most important thing is that where
[17:19] Speaker 1: the US and Israel are losing out is in the
[17:22] Speaker 1: narrative war. Yes, very true, where people don't understand why
[17:27] Speaker 1: did the US and Israel attack Iran? Exactly exactly, so
[17:32] Speaker 1: you know, what is the big deal? What is the
[17:34] Speaker 1: big picture? There was no build up to this. It
[17:38] Speaker 1: was a surprise attack, and most attacks like this our
[17:40] Speaker 1: surprise attacks. But if you saw the previous war, which
[17:43] Speaker 1: is again I mean that's a completely unlawful war that
[17:47] Speaker 1: was launched in two thousand and three against Iraq. But
[17:50] Speaker 1: there was a certain build up to that war, right,
[17:52] Speaker 1: You had people talking about the fact that Saddam has
[17:54] Speaker 1: done and it was just two years after nine to eleven,
[17:58] Speaker 1: and a lot of people kind of believed that because
[18:01] Speaker 1: it said that, Look, Osama bin Ladan attacked the US
[18:04] Speaker 1: in two thousand and one, so the US is heard,
[18:07] Speaker 1: it's angry, and it has the right to retaliate against
[18:10] Speaker 1: other you know, such non state actors who could behave
[18:14] Speaker 1: like non state actors. So that's one of the reasons
[18:16] Speaker 1: to go into Iraq. Iran was also there on the
[18:21] Speaker 1: agenda back then, but because the US got stuck in Iraq,
[18:25] Speaker 1: Iran escaped. But here you are today, in twenty twenty
[18:28] Speaker 1: six to twenty almost a quarter of a century later,
[18:32] Speaker 1: where the US is going to have a tough time
[18:35] Speaker 1: justifying this war and the cost of climbing. Yes, the
[18:38] Speaker 1: casualties are there, it's right now. It's in the single
[18:43] Speaker 1: digits the U S servicemen killed. But if this war continues,
[18:47] Speaker 1: those numbers could climb and it could become a domestic
[18:49] Speaker 1: issue for Donald Trump, and the regime change that he's
[18:53] Speaker 1: talking about might actually be the regime back home and
[18:57] Speaker 1: not in.
[19:00] Speaker 2: If he hears this last, I mean, he's going to
[19:02] Speaker 2: throw a fit, right, very good sort of an explanation
[19:07] Speaker 2: of you know what's happened in the last andy s
[19:09] Speaker 2: And yeah, I think Iran's strategy to sort of expand
[19:13] Speaker 2: the conflict to all the Gulf countries is also something
[19:16] Speaker 2: that we've is to also provoke the question that we've
[19:19] Speaker 2: asked on this on this podcast several times.
[19:21] Speaker 1: This is the question of the U s security umbrella, because.
[19:25] Speaker 2: Even though no one in the Gulf is regretting aligning
[19:28] Speaker 2: with the US, I'm pretty sure the head at the
[19:31] Speaker 2: heads of government level there is this one nagging feeling
[19:38] Speaker 2: because when you cannot have a president in the US
[19:41] Speaker 2: who's not who's not who's not predictable, things like this
[19:45] Speaker 2: can happen.
[19:46] Speaker 1: And this is something I want to discuss.
[19:49] Speaker 2: As we as we take this episode forward. Is the
[19:52] Speaker 2: reason for this, for this, for this attack? And you know,
[19:56] Speaker 2: if our listener ers want sort of a recap of
[20:00] Speaker 2: the history of the tensions between Iran and Israel and
[20:03] Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia of the region. We have an episode that
[20:05] Speaker 2: we did an entire entire episode on that. We'll have
[20:07] Speaker 2: a link to that in the show description, because you know,
[20:10] Speaker 2: spending time discussing that on this episode would be you
[20:13] Speaker 2: know we've discussed in the past. And also, I mean,
[20:16] Speaker 2: this is something I've watched over the weekend. Just a
[20:18] Speaker 2: recommendation of people should watch this documentary b PBS called
[20:21] Speaker 2: Bitter Rivals. It's a fantastic documentary that's mostly talks about
[20:25] Speaker 2: the rivalry between Saudi Area Bay and Ran and how
[20:28] Speaker 2: it sort of took shape. It's a fantastic watch and
[20:30] Speaker 2: in the current backdrop, it gives you a lot of
[20:31] Speaker 2: a lot of context.
[20:33] Speaker 3: So why the attack?
[20:34] Speaker 2: There is this theory UH widely spoken about that this
[20:39] Speaker 2: wasn't as much US launching an attack on Iran, rather
[20:44] Speaker 2: Israel launching an attack on Iran and pulling the US
[20:46] Speaker 2: into it.
[20:47] Speaker 3: Questions have been asked to Benjamin Now about this.
[20:50] Speaker 1: Who's laughed it off?
[20:51] Speaker 2: Uh? Mark Rubio interestingly gave a statement very recently where
[20:55] Speaker 2: he did admit that the immediate trigger, he said this.
[20:58] Speaker 1: War was long time coming.
[20:59] Speaker 2: Yes, Thaigh like ask me to call next month the
[21:03] Speaker 2: month after that something in the next one year we
[21:05] Speaker 2: had to do. But the immediate trigger, and it is
[21:08] Speaker 2: very funny, by the way, the immediate trigger was intelligence
[21:10] Speaker 2: the US had that Israel was about to bomb Iran,
[21:14] Speaker 2: which would lead to Iran bombing US. So US thought,
[21:16] Speaker 2: let's bomb Iran instead of you.
[21:17] Speaker 1: Know, I mean, I've just lost track of how many
[21:21] Speaker 1: times the goalposts on this operation have been changed, you
[21:25] Speaker 1: know they've But you know, the fact is that, yes,
[21:27] Speaker 1: I think Iran, Israel faced a more bigger threat from
[21:32] Speaker 1: Iran than the United States ever did, right, And one
[21:35] Speaker 1: of the reasons, see Iran may say death to the
[21:38] Speaker 1: United States, death to Israel. They've been saying that for
[21:40] Speaker 1: the last forty seven years. But they've not built long
[21:43] Speaker 1: range missiles long enough to target the United States. They've
[21:47] Speaker 1: kept their missiles keep around two thousand kilometers or so.
[21:50] Speaker 1: And that's deliberate because, like we've discussed in the past,
[21:53] Speaker 1: you make long range missiles intercontinental ballistic missiles, the US
[21:56] Speaker 1: will come after you, right, And that there's one reason
[22:00] Speaker 1: we're very careful with our missile program as well. We've
[22:02] Speaker 1: capped it to a certain five thousand, five hundred kilometers.
[22:05] Speaker 1: We have no enemies beyond earn that right, So iran
[22:10] Speaker 1: principal adversary in the region is in West Asia is Israel,
[22:13] Speaker 1: and Israel has had this problem with Iran for the
[22:16] Speaker 1: longest time. And my sense is that Natan Yahu and
[22:20] Speaker 1: his war cabinet kind of calculated that this was the
[22:23] Speaker 1: time to go for Iran when it was at its weakest.
[22:26] Speaker 1: And we've discussed the past as well, the fact that
[22:28] Speaker 1: after the Twelve Day War, Iran was really weak, it
[22:30] Speaker 1: was increasingly isolated, and these smelled an opportunity there that
[22:36] Speaker 1: they needed to launch an attack. And they bragg the
[22:40] Speaker 1: United States into this as well, because I see where
[22:43] Speaker 1: Israel is coming from if you're under bombing of the
[22:46] Speaker 1: kind that they've been subjected to by Iran. This is
[22:49] Speaker 1: actually the longest undeclared war, possibly of the twentieth and
[22:55] Speaker 1: twenty first century. These two countries have been at war
[22:58] Speaker 1: literally for almost half a century since nineteen seventy nine,
[23:02] Speaker 1: and the only difference is that from seventy nine to
[23:05] Speaker 1: twenty twenty five these were all proxy wars, and the
[23:08] Speaker 1: battleground was either it was Mozart coming and assassinating scientists
[23:12] Speaker 1: in Iran, or it was Iran going and killing people
[23:16] Speaker 1: in Leon. Lebanon was the proxy battleground because of Hesbola.
[23:19] Speaker 1: But in twenty twenty five you saw for the first
[23:22] Speaker 1: time these two states throwing missiles and fighter jets at
[23:28] Speaker 1: each other. It's the most bizarre conflict. Two countries separated
[23:32] Speaker 1: by two thousand kilometers. They have that Iraq in the middle.
[23:37] Speaker 1: It's like, you know, these two guys, imagine this thing.
[23:39] Speaker 1: It's a car where there's three passengers. There's a guy
[23:42] Speaker 1: sitting in the middle. There's a guy on the window
[23:45] Speaker 1: seat here and the guy on the window seat there,
[23:47] Speaker 1: and they're fighting, and the Iraqi guys in the middle
[23:50] Speaker 1: of it. You know. So I have friends in Bagbad
[23:54] Speaker 1: who say that, look, we're getting hammered in the middle
[23:57] Speaker 1: of all this. Their missiles, projectiles falling on Ias, on
[24:01] Speaker 1: Iraqi soil, right, and that's a very uncomfortable place for
[24:05] Speaker 1: them to be. And now so this bizarre conflict exploded
[24:09] Speaker 1: into conflict, full scale warfare, this covert war, this proxy war,
[24:15] Speaker 1: full scale conflict in twenty five, and Israel thought that
[24:18] Speaker 1: twenty six is a time when we should do it,
[24:20] Speaker 1: you know, settle it for once and for all. Our
[24:23] Speaker 1: regime collapse in Iran. I've been in Israel. I did
[24:27] Speaker 1: ask researchers that we spoke to. I said, what's the
[24:32] Speaker 1: solution for all your troubles? So this is the regime
[24:34] Speaker 1: change in Iran. Can you do it yourself? We can't.
[24:38] Speaker 1: We need the United States. It was as clear as that.
[24:40] Speaker 1: And this is mind you not when Trump was there.
[24:43] Speaker 1: This is about three years back or two years two
[24:45] Speaker 1: and a half years back. It was a Biden presidency,
[24:49] Speaker 1: and Israel was very clear that they could not do
[24:52] Speaker 1: it on their own. They needed the United States because,
[24:54] Speaker 1: I mean, let's face it, Israel is a small country.
[24:56] Speaker 1: They do not have the critical mass to effect this
[24:59] Speaker 1: kind of JUPI critical change. You need the mass of
[25:02] Speaker 1: the United States to do that. And that's what the
[25:04] Speaker 1: US is deployed in this conflict. So while Israel brings
[25:08] Speaker 1: in the intel and the you know, the precise location
[25:11] Speaker 1: of leadership, and they have infiltrated their spies, they need
[25:15] Speaker 1: the US to do the heavy bombing and the B
[25:18] Speaker 1: fifty twos and the B twos and the carriers trying
[25:21] Speaker 1: toroops and all that. So in that sense, they are
[25:24] Speaker 1: they are one in this operation. You know, it's a
[25:28] Speaker 1: unique operation of the kind I don't think we've seen,
[25:30] Speaker 1: at least in the twenty first century. Well, in two
[25:32] Speaker 1: thousand and three you did see a lot of coalition
[25:34] Speaker 1: forces in another flying But here it to two countries,
[25:36] Speaker 1: the US and Israel, carrying out this operation, and they've
[25:40] Speaker 1: not been able to achieve their objectives even two weeks
[25:43] Speaker 1: into the conflict.
[25:44] Speaker 2: True, Which is the point I wanted to understand, is
[25:48] Speaker 2: Iran's strategy and how has it developed this capability to
[25:54] Speaker 2: survive this war. I remember you saying on one of
[25:56] Speaker 2: our episodes that for Iran winning mint survived. It does
[26:00] Speaker 2: not actually winning the traditional sense. You just need to survive,
[26:03] Speaker 2: and that's for it. That's that's winning.
[26:05] Speaker 1: So I think the Iranian leadership has kind of figured
[26:08] Speaker 1: that it will be almost impossible to invade Iran. Right.
[26:12] Speaker 1: Iran is a massive country. It's it's the size of
[26:16] Speaker 1: Iraq and Afghanistan put together. It's what the fourteenth or
[26:19] Speaker 1: the fifteenth largest country in the world. It's a natural fortress.
[26:24] Speaker 1: It's got mountains all around us, it's got the sea
[26:26] Speaker 1: on one side, it's got deserts in the center. No army,
[26:30] Speaker 1: no sane army, would be would try and invade a
[26:33] Speaker 1: country like that, right, So they're a natural fortress. And
[26:36] Speaker 1: in this natural fortress they have armed themselves with these
[26:40] Speaker 1: low cost weapons. They've produced it on scale to an
[26:44] Speaker 1: extent that the Chinese and Russians are learning from them.
[26:47] Speaker 1: You know, they've set up entire production lines for the
[26:50] Speaker 1: Russians in Tatarstan. Iranians have the shaia Is. It's the
[26:56] Speaker 1: signature weapon of the twenty first century. Every country in
[26:59] Speaker 1: the world world, including the United States, is copying the tech.
[27:03] Speaker 1: And incidentally, you know where that came from, right, the Shai. Yes,
[27:07] Speaker 1: we spoke about this one. Yeah, we mentioned it in
[27:09] Speaker 1: one of our pott It's a German design. It's a
[27:11] Speaker 1: West German Donier anti radar platform designed by Donnier Company
[27:16] Speaker 1: in the late eighties early nineties, just when the Cold
[27:19] Speaker 1: War was getting over. So that design has been picked
[27:23] Speaker 1: up frugal engineering, mass production, and they have found chings
[27:27] Speaker 1: in the armor of the Patriot and very quickly, you
[27:30] Speaker 1: know this, I think the Iranians have adopted Adolf Hitler's
[27:36] Speaker 1: campaign towards the end of the Second World War. If
[27:38] Speaker 1: you remember the nineteen forty four to forty five when
[27:41] Speaker 1: Hitler launched waves of missiles at London and the UK.
[27:46] Speaker 1: In fact, the V one and the V two that
[27:49] Speaker 1: is the dawn of missile warfel literally that is you're
[27:53] Speaker 1: talking of the V one, which is a cruise you know,
[27:57] Speaker 1: WE one was the ballistic side and the V two
[28:01] Speaker 1: was the cruise missile, and they launched tens of thousands
[28:05] Speaker 1: of them, twenty thirty thousand, you know, missiles skilled all
[28:09] Speaker 1: thousands of you know, Britishers, but ultimately they lost the war.
[28:14] Speaker 1: So I think Iran has picked up that strategy and
[28:17] Speaker 1: it has made those weapons more accurate. So instead of
[28:22] Speaker 1: the doodlebug, which is the V one, you have the shithe.
[28:28] Speaker 1: Instead of the V two, which is your ballistic missile,
[28:31] Speaker 1: you have your Koram Shaha, and you know the other
[28:33] Speaker 1: very accurate ballistic missiles IRBM. So these missiles had ranges
[28:37] Speaker 1: of three hundred and three fifty kilometers, but these new
[28:40] Speaker 1: ones have two thousand and three thousand kilometers. So it's
[28:44] Speaker 1: it's a copy paste version of that war, but on
[28:47] Speaker 1: a much bigger scale, longer range weapons, and it's something
[28:50] Speaker 1: that the US, Israel, GCC countries are still finding solutions for.
[28:56] Speaker 2: That's the perhaps the tactical and the operational strategy. What
[28:59] Speaker 2: I wanted to understand from you was, see, I'll put
[29:04] Speaker 2: it this way. When you kill a country's top leader
[29:07] Speaker 2: and you claim to have killed it, stop leadership, including
[29:10] Speaker 2: military leadership. You claim to have bombed several centers of
[29:14] Speaker 2: importance when it comes to the IRGC, Iran's primary armed force, uh,
[29:19] Speaker 2: their headquarters of operations and stuff like that. My question
[29:22] Speaker 2: to you some deep is in the last twelve days
[29:24] Speaker 2: and as we talk right now, who is coordinating all this?
[29:27] Speaker 2: Like where where is that coming from? Because Trump in
[29:30] Speaker 2: the opening days of the of the war said that
[29:33] Speaker 2: we've cut off the snake's head, like you know, we've decapitated,
[29:36] Speaker 2: We've made them, we made them opportionally useless.
[29:39] Speaker 3: But that's not really happening.
[29:41] Speaker 2: Every day you have one swarm of drones attacking some
[29:44] Speaker 2: country or the other. Just right now, you had a
[29:46] Speaker 2: couple of rones for following in the Dubai airport. Yeah,
[29:49] Speaker 2: one drone or some projectile has hittern has hit a
[29:53] Speaker 2: cargo ship that was sailing towards India by they're just
[29:55] Speaker 2: a couple of hours ago.
[29:56] Speaker 3: So that's happening. How is this going on?
[29:59] Speaker 1: Then, as possible that it's a good question, and possibly
[30:04] Speaker 1: the IRGC has taken over the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Council,
[30:09] Speaker 1: which is the army of the revolution. It's not the
[30:12] Speaker 1: Iranian army. The Iranian army forces are separate. Diergy C
[30:15] Speaker 1: is the best resourced arm of the state. It has
[30:18] Speaker 1: its own army, its own navy, its own air force,
[30:21] Speaker 1: and most importantly, the IRGC controls the cruise missiles, the
[30:25] Speaker 1: ballistic missiles and all that. So the Islamic Revolution, the
[30:30] Speaker 1: Supreme leader does not trust them armed forces. He trusts
[30:34] Speaker 1: the IERGC. So there is a sense that you're looking
[30:39] Speaker 1: at direg C running the military side of things, and
[30:43] Speaker 1: they have now they are the most powerful arm of
[30:45] Speaker 1: the state in the absence of a supreme leader. You're
[30:49] Speaker 1: looking at Mastaba Khameni, who's who's the second generation. He's
[30:55] Speaker 1: the son of Idolakmeni, but who doesn't have any great
[30:59] Speaker 1: leadership things not seen. I mean he's been seen in
[31:02] Speaker 1: public in the last couple of years, but not recently.
[31:05] Speaker 1: It doesn't command that authority. So my sense is that
[31:08] Speaker 1: they appointed him because for that legitimacy, that he is
[31:12] Speaker 1: the son of Athologue Comeini, and the fact that the
[31:15] Speaker 1: IERGC now runs the show. It's become a hard line
[31:19] Speaker 1: Iran To an extent, this I would compare it to
[31:25] Speaker 1: the Sea Empire after Runjitzing's death, when you had a
[31:29] Speaker 1: military council that was, you know, the council of the
[31:32] Speaker 1: generals who were running the show. Because they knew that
[31:35] Speaker 1: the leaders the kings were dying, they were weak. The
[31:39] Speaker 1: successors to Runjit Sing were not as powerful. So the
[31:43] Speaker 1: Kalsa Army then came together and they started running it
[31:46] Speaker 1: all the way up to eighteen four, so almost a
[31:49] Speaker 1: decade they ran the affairs of the state. Then they
[31:52] Speaker 1: started breaking up, and then finally they were defeated, one piecemeal,
[31:55] Speaker 1: all of them. So possibly this is one kind of
[31:59] Speaker 1: scenario that's up inside Iran that when the leadership is gone,
[32:04] Speaker 1: the leadership has now devolved in a wartime kind of
[32:07] Speaker 1: contingency to all these regional commands. Each one is doing
[32:12] Speaker 1: what they've been directed to do. And the most important
[32:16] Speaker 1: thing is that if there is indeed a central command
[32:19] Speaker 1: structure which is operating this and firing all these missiles
[32:23] Speaker 1: that you mentioned, then the US and Israel have failed
[32:27] Speaker 1: to break that Chaine command chain right, which is what
[32:31] Speaker 1: they wanted to do from the beginning. Now I think
[32:34] Speaker 1: what they're now planning to do is to a make
[32:40] Speaker 1: sure that Iran runs out of missiles altogether, you know,
[32:42] Speaker 1: exhaust their magazines. How many missiles can they fire, how
[32:47] Speaker 1: many launchers do they have? We'll destroy everything, We'll destroy
[32:49] Speaker 1: their missile cities and all that. If that doesn't work,
[32:54] Speaker 1: they're going to bring in the heavy bombers, the b Ones,
[32:56] Speaker 1: B fifty twos. Each one carries thirty tons of weapons.
[33:01] Speaker 1: And now because Iran's doesn't have an air force, its
[33:04] Speaker 1: air defenses have been severely degraded. You can operate these bombers,
[33:08] Speaker 1: you can operate the b Ones, the beef to twos
[33:11] Speaker 1: which are not stealth, which are which are anti stealth.
[33:13] Speaker 1: Actually they're very large targets, so they can operate. And
[33:17] Speaker 1: my sense is that they will try and inflict massive
[33:20] Speaker 1: infrastructure damage on Iran to degrade their military. They've already
[33:24] Speaker 1: knocked off most of their navy and their air force,
[33:27] Speaker 1: so Iran is now left with very little military capability
[33:31] Speaker 1: other than its core missile you know, launchers, it's missiles,
[33:37] Speaker 1: it's Shahads and all that. So this is what they
[33:40] Speaker 1: will try to do in the next couple of days.
[33:42] Speaker 1: And I hope, I really hope that Trump declares victory
[33:46] Speaker 1: in whatever since and takes their off ram, as Anthony
[33:50] Speaker 1: blinkoln has been saying, take the off ram, declare victory,
[33:53] Speaker 1: and leave because they're getting into the quicksand you know,
[33:58] Speaker 1: and this is like what this scholar Robert Pepe, I
[34:02] Speaker 1: don't know how he pronounces his surname Pap. He calls
[34:06] Speaker 1: it the smart bomb trap, where he says, because of
[34:09] Speaker 1: the accuracy of smart munitions, you think that you're winning
[34:12] Speaker 1: the war. You see Petex Sitt standing up and saying
[34:15] Speaker 1: we had five thousand targets, and you know, it's everything
[34:18] Speaker 1: has been destroyed, and you're pegging victory to the accuracy
[34:24] Speaker 1: of your munitions, smart munitions, and you get caught into
[34:27] Speaker 1: that trap. This is exactly what happened to the United
[34:31] Speaker 1: States in Vietnam when they believe they were winning the
[34:35] Speaker 1: war because they were killing a lot of Vietnamese, Vietcong
[34:39] Speaker 1: and Vietnamese army. So you're getting sucked into this trap
[34:43] Speaker 1: again of smart munitions, and then you know, God forbid,
[34:48] Speaker 1: it goes into the tactical nuclear weapons.
[34:51] Speaker 2: This is a thing going to be a war of attrition, actually,
[34:55] Speaker 2: like who runs out first? Yeah, do the US and
[34:58] Speaker 2: it's allies run out of air defense system or my
[35:00] Speaker 2: defense projectiles?
[35:01] Speaker 1: Or does it run around magazine depth. I've been saying
[35:04] Speaker 1: from day one, this is all about magazine depth. Who's
[35:07] Speaker 1: going to run out of interceptors first? Built the US
[35:09] Speaker 1: and Israel run out of interceptors? Or will Iran run
[35:13] Speaker 1: out of missiles and you know roads?
[35:16] Speaker 2: But I think the smart thing that Iran did over here,
[35:18] Speaker 2: I mean, though I don't know if you should use
[35:20] Speaker 2: the word smart and it comes to warfare, but is
[35:23] Speaker 2: that is to sort of expand the conflict because what
[35:25] Speaker 2: you now also have is sort of several countries not
[35:28] Speaker 2: really happy with the situation.
[35:30] Speaker 1: Yeah, they have full on economic welfare.
[35:33] Speaker 2: You know, if I am I am the head of
[35:37] Speaker 2: the government in UA, I'd be a bit pissed right now,
[35:40] Speaker 2: care boss, what the hell? Why am I being drawn
[35:42] Speaker 2: into somebody else's war? Look, I mean, it's a gunfight
[35:46] Speaker 2: in a gas station. I can't think of any other
[35:48] Speaker 2: expression for this kind.
[35:50] Speaker 1: I mean literally, actually a gas station. It's like fifty
[35:52] Speaker 1: it is a gas station of the world. It's like
[35:54] Speaker 1: fifty percent of the world's oil and gas flowing out
[35:57] Speaker 1: of this region, and you have the most intent bombardment,
[36:01] Speaker 1: aerial bombardment, cruise and ballistic missile bombardment. And that's been
[36:05] Speaker 1: on for two weeks on a scale that we've not
[36:09] Speaker 1: even seen during the Iran Iraq war or the tanker
[36:12] Speaker 1: wars of the eighties when you know, I was in
[36:15] Speaker 1: school and you're probably on your way, but yeah, we
[36:21] Speaker 1: kept hearing about that in school. You know, the tanker war.
[36:23] Speaker 1: They've hit, you know, so many tankers and Iranian carg
[36:28] Speaker 1: Island is under attack and all of that. And now
[36:30] Speaker 1: we're heading into very dangerous territory because then now you
[36:33] Speaker 1: start looking at you know, tactical news. You start looking
[36:36] Speaker 1: at boots on the ground, maybe not in large numbers,
[36:39] Speaker 1: but smaller numbers, which you can you know, grab territories,
[36:43] Speaker 1: maybe grab carg Island or you know, grab some other
[36:46] Speaker 1: city or something like that.
[36:48] Speaker 3: Right, we'll talk more about this, but after a quick.
[36:50] Speaker 4: Break, US planned this, Israel planned this, and it's for
[36:54] Speaker 4: edgemony in West Asia. Because President Trump has indicated that
[36:59] Speaker 4: the US has virtually unlimited supply of weapons to fight
[37:03] Speaker 4: wars forever and successfully. Does this indicate that this conflict
[37:10] Speaker 4: is not as is being said, perhaps to last for
[37:13] Speaker 4: another four weeks of five weeks and could be a
[37:16] Speaker 4: prolonged regional war.
[37:20] Speaker 5: This is a very dangerous situation that could become World
[37:24] Speaker 5: War III. Yesterday, net Nyahu, who is another psychopath in
[37:30] Speaker 5: my view, I have to say it very clearly because
[37:33] Speaker 5: people need to understand what is happening, said that this
[37:37] Speaker 5: is the culmination of forty years dream of his That's
[37:42] Speaker 5: what I've been saying for years, that Israel is prodding
[37:46] Speaker 5: the United States into open war because Israel wants hegemony
[37:51] Speaker 5: in the Middle East. The United States wants global hegemony.
[37:59] Speaker 2: Welcome back Santipa talk about what I would think is
[38:02] Speaker 2: the second most controversial UH happening of this war, the
[38:08] Speaker 2: Torpie doing of an Irani warship DTA. The first most
[38:13] Speaker 2: controversial is the is the bombing of an Iranian school
[38:17] Speaker 2: where one seventy five people, most of them young girls, died.
[38:21] Speaker 3: The US has not admitted to its mistake.
[38:24] Speaker 2: However, there is increasing evidence in the form of what
[38:27] Speaker 2: Reuters and CNN claimed to have seen, interim probe reports
[38:31] Speaker 2: published by the US itself UH and video evidence analyzed
[38:36] Speaker 2: with The New York Times to say that it was
[38:38] Speaker 2: US missile that at least, if not the school, hit
[38:41] Speaker 2: an area near the school that may have led to
[38:43] Speaker 2: the deaths of those those unfortunates of those girls.
[38:47] Speaker 1: Uh.
[38:48] Speaker 2: I don't know if the US will ever come out
[38:50] Speaker 2: and accept it. UH maybe now or ever in the future.
[38:53] Speaker 2: But let's talk about the Torpie doing of of the
[38:58] Speaker 2: Iranian warship data, a topic that I think sort of
[39:02] Speaker 2: is close to your heart because it involved submarines, UH,
[39:06] Speaker 2: which you've maintained are the ultimate weapons of war.
[39:10] Speaker 1: They don't come close to any other weapons. Yeah.
[39:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, of course I'm talking as long as you keep
[39:17] Speaker 2: out nuclear weapons. So what happened was Iris Dana was
[39:21] Speaker 2: in Wizac for Milan exercise organized by the Indian Navy,
[39:26] Speaker 2: which saw participation mostly across the world. You also had
[39:30] Speaker 2: the US interestingly being part of this. However, the US
[39:33] Speaker 2: was not there in terms of a warship. I think
[39:35] Speaker 2: they had sent a plane.
[39:36] Speaker 1: And something and something deployed warships.
[39:39] Speaker 2: But the point being, you definitely had US Navy officers
[39:43] Speaker 2: and sailors uh at the at the exercise and as
[39:47] Speaker 2: Dana Iris Dana sorry, was sailing back from Wizac some
[39:50] Speaker 2: state was going to Iran. Some state was actually going
[39:53] Speaker 2: to Coaching for a stop, and it was supposed to
[39:55] Speaker 2: go to Gujarat or Mumbai for a stop and then.
[39:57] Speaker 1: Go to Iran, which I think makes sense for refueling propositions.
[40:00] Speaker 2: Perhaps it was south of Sri Lanka, some west around
[40:03] Speaker 2: eighteen hundred article miles south of Sri Lanka where when
[40:07] Speaker 2: a US submarine.
[40:10] Speaker 1: Torpedio did, visuals.
[40:12] Speaker 2: Went viral, the headlines went viral because like we just said,
[40:15] Speaker 2: that of the episode, this was the fourth such instance
[40:17] Speaker 2: post the World War, was second such instance in the
[40:20] Speaker 2: Indian Ocean, the first such instance involving a US submarine.
[40:27] Speaker 2: There are lots of questions about this sun, the primary
[40:29] Speaker 2: one being why this was not a theater of operation
[40:33] Speaker 2: Indian oversion.
[40:34] Speaker 3: Right, this warship was not involved in the war.
[40:38] Speaker 2: What defense journalists have said on social media that because
[40:42] Speaker 2: it was part of this naval exercise, it probably did
[40:44] Speaker 2: not even have its most of its weaponry because apparently
[40:47] Speaker 2: this protocol that you cannot be heavily armed during these
[40:51] Speaker 2: excais I'm not sure if that's true.
[40:52] Speaker 3: You can obviously correct me if I'm wrong, And.
[40:56] Speaker 2: That the fact that the submarine did not stay back
[40:58] Speaker 2: to sort of rescue those sailors against international law. There's
[41:01] Speaker 2: also questions about you know, ki oh, because it was
[41:04] Speaker 2: taking part in Indian exercise. India has some obligation to
[41:07] Speaker 2: sort of you know, at play over here. Your thoughts
[41:10] Speaker 2: on this entire chapters in deep and and.
[41:14] Speaker 3: The core question why was this done?
[41:17] Speaker 2: Was this just an opportunity, like you know, the sailors
[41:19] Speaker 2: on board hockey run worship, maybe we can get some
[41:22] Speaker 2: action they called up there, and.
[41:23] Speaker 1: I don't think it was that. I'm sure it was
[41:28] Speaker 1: the submarine, the Los Angeles Lass Unit. We believe it
[41:32] Speaker 1: as an LA class. Their name is out. That's not
[41:35] Speaker 1: been confirmed yet, but this submarine would have been shadowing
[41:38] Speaker 1: this ship for sure the minute she left Vishaka Putnam right,
[41:42] Speaker 1: And I think the US was trying to send a
[41:44] Speaker 1: message through the sinking of this Iranian warship, the fact
[41:48] Speaker 1: that no Iranian warship is safe anywhere in the Indian
[41:51] Speaker 1: Ocean region. And that is why this was Yeah, topy door,
[41:56] Speaker 1: it was sunk. Horrific, you know, loss of life, only
[41:59] Speaker 1: thirty thirty five survivors from the ship. It's really tragic,
[42:03] Speaker 1: but that's the nature of submarine warfare and warfare itself.
[42:08] Speaker 1: It is. It is pitiless and that's exactly what happened here.
[42:11] Speaker 1: And if you look at it, you know, as I
[42:14] Speaker 1: was saying on air when we just got the first
[42:17] Speaker 1: reports of this thing, and it's one of the most
[42:20] Speaker 1: terrifying things in naval warfare. It's like imagine the ocean's
[42:26] Speaker 1: I've spoken to survivors of this and they've told me
[42:30] Speaker 1: how terrifying it is. It's like completely black and then
[42:33] Speaker 1: suddenly there's a flash and you know, you have no
[42:36] Speaker 1: idea what's going on. The ship starts turning and you
[42:39] Speaker 1: just have a few minutes and that's what happened to
[42:41] Speaker 1: Dinis Kukri, by the way, And you're thrown thrown into
[42:45] Speaker 1: the sea and it's pitch black everywhere. You have no
[42:48] Speaker 1: idea what's going on, right, And that's what seems to
[42:51] Speaker 1: have happened in the case of the Iris Dana as well.
[42:54] Speaker 1: That yeah, this is possibly the first time since the
[42:58] Speaker 1: Second World it's only the thinking since the Second World War,
[43:02] Speaker 1: but it is the first one where you actually seen
[43:05] Speaker 1: footage from the attacked periscope, but you can actually see
[43:07] Speaker 1: the torpedo running and well not really running in the
[43:12] Speaker 1: You see the column of water and the destruction of
[43:15] Speaker 1: the ship. Now that would have taken about two or
[43:18] Speaker 1: three minutes to go down into the seabed. But my
[43:22] Speaker 1: sense is that the US is justified in taking that
[43:25] Speaker 1: shot because he has launched a war against Iran and
[43:30] Speaker 1: all naval combatants, according to the United States, a fair game.
[43:34] Speaker 1: It doesn't matter where they are. They could be in
[43:37] Speaker 1: our so called backyard. They could be off the coast
[43:41] Speaker 1: of Oman, off the coast of Africa. They will all
[43:44] Speaker 1: be targeted wherever they are. So the idea is to
[43:47] Speaker 1: ensure that Iran lacks the capability, the capacity to expand operations,
[43:52] Speaker 1: or blockade the horror moves, or do all of that,
[43:55] Speaker 1: because this has always been Iran's strategy, which is that
[43:59] Speaker 1: you at and we will throttle the straits of Hormoos.
[44:03] Speaker 1: We will ensure that no ships passed through the Persian
[44:06] Speaker 1: Gulf and very quickly, you know, take you back to
[44:09] Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight. There was a US warship was that
[44:14] Speaker 1: hit a mine in the Persian Gulf and what they
[44:18] Speaker 1: discovered was Iran was laying mines there they would obstruct.
[44:21] Speaker 1: This was at the height of the Iran Iraq War.
[44:24] Speaker 1: The US caught a couple of Iranian ships laying mines
[44:28] Speaker 1: and one US warship was hit a mine. Nothing no casualties,
[44:33] Speaker 1: of course, But then the US Navy came in and
[44:37] Speaker 1: launched a massive attack against the Iranian navy. They sang
[44:40] Speaker 1: two frigates, three or four gun boats, and just called
[44:43] Speaker 1: Operation Praying Mantis. In a couple of hours, they sank
[44:46] Speaker 1: a very large number of Iranian ships. So they obviously
[44:49] Speaker 1: know what the Iranians are capable of. And here they
[44:52] Speaker 1: were trying to ensure that all their ships, you know,
[44:55] Speaker 1: whatever shape, form, size, all of them are to be destroyed.
[45:00] Speaker 1: And if you've seen the latest numbers, there's some thirty
[45:02] Speaker 1: thirty odd ships, yeah, that are being targeted. And I
[45:05] Speaker 1: think in this case it's just pure in luck that
[45:09] Speaker 1: the captain possibly wanted to pull into Coachin and you know,
[45:13] Speaker 1: internship there or you know, get ashore save his men.
[45:18] Speaker 1: And I think he delayed. We don't know exactly what,
[45:22] Speaker 1: but to think that he could go all the way
[45:25] Speaker 1: back home in an area where you have a carrier
[45:27] Speaker 1: strike group expanded all across the Arabian Sea actively hunting
[45:33] Speaker 1: for Iranian I think it was poor judgment on his part.
[45:37] Speaker 1: I mean, he's not around. I believe he's gone down
[45:39] Speaker 1: with his ship. But he should have known this is
[45:43] Speaker 1: what had been declared. He should have pulled into the
[45:45] Speaker 1: first neutral port available and taken his people out of
[45:49] Speaker 1: the count because you are the weaker side in this conflict.
[45:54] Speaker 1: It's lightly armed. I mean, to answer your question, are
[45:57] Speaker 1: their protocols to not carry ammunition. That's not true. All
[46:01] Speaker 1: warships carry ammunition. He had a couple of guns and
[46:04] Speaker 1: I think two missiles or something. I'm not sure if
[46:07] Speaker 1: they had missiles on board. But the fact is that
[46:09] Speaker 1: it was a warship and in that sense it was
[46:11] Speaker 1: a legitimate target.
[46:13] Speaker 2: Yeah right, I mean, let's forget that a couple of
[46:15] Speaker 2: washers actually have doctored Coachi, something that the Indian Navy
[46:19] Speaker 2: has later.
[46:19] Speaker 1: Confirmed, one in Cochin and one in Lanka.
[46:22] Speaker 3: Right, sorry, yeah, right, Uh.
[46:24] Speaker 2: The foreign industry has confirmed this that there was a
[46:27] Speaker 2: request made by these ships for shelter and it was granted. Uh.
[46:31] Speaker 2: And yeah, I think also, to sort of extend your point,
[46:34] Speaker 2: it's also the fact that perhaps it was for judgment
[46:37] Speaker 2: on the on the captain's part. Also, he his his
[46:40] Speaker 2: bosses were probably busy, are not going war, so.
[46:44] Speaker 1: He possibly couldn't raise them. Yeah, you haven't know, and
[46:46] Speaker 1: it's just that you know thing that it's one of
[46:49] Speaker 1: those things of war, and you know, in this fog
[46:51] Speaker 1: of war, possibly he took that call that maybe it's
[46:54] Speaker 1: best to you know, call into Coachin And it just
[46:58] Speaker 1: so happens that a few hours before that the American
[47:00] Speaker 1: submarine caught up with him. Who knows the American submarine
[47:03] Speaker 1: might have known that they were headed towards Cochin. And
[47:06] Speaker 1: once you get into Indian waters, is then charged. Can't
[47:08] Speaker 1: target the suicide Indian test waters. But the fact is
[47:12] Speaker 1: that it's more and it's terrible what happened, right right.
[47:16] Speaker 2: A couple of last questions in the pub talking about
[47:20] Speaker 2: the geopolitics of this is the French question. So you've
[47:25] Speaker 2: had France which making what I think are some pretty
[47:29] Speaker 2: interesting moves and comments.
[47:31] Speaker 3: Uh.
[47:32] Speaker 2: One, I think very recently it said it's gonna send
[47:34] Speaker 2: an aircraft graft carrier into into the region. Previously, I
[47:39] Speaker 2: think last week it said it would be deploying its
[47:41] Speaker 2: air defense systems to protect French and Allied infrastructure in
[47:46] Speaker 2: the region. Uh, it's almost as though France is quietly
[47:50] Speaker 2: signaling to the Gulf and to the rest of the
[47:52] Speaker 2: world that hey, if the US is not reliable nuclear
[47:55] Speaker 2: power to protect you, we.
[47:57] Speaker 1: Also have nuclear weapons. By the way, you think that's
[47:59] Speaker 1: happening absolutely, whether where where's doubt, it's you know, there's
[48:05] Speaker 1: France is actually getting back to the United States. I mean,
[48:07] Speaker 1: they've been at the wrong end of Trump for the
[48:09] Speaker 1: Laskar Macron has been at the receiving end for a
[48:12] Speaker 1: couple of months now, and this is his chance to
[48:14] Speaker 1: show that, Look, France is an independent country. We are
[48:18] Speaker 1: the only independent country with an independent nuclear weapons thing
[48:21] Speaker 1: in Europe and like the UK, unlike the UK which
[48:24] Speaker 1: is completely you know, tied to the United States right now, yeah, completely,
[48:30] Speaker 1: Who would have thought that, you know, you would have
[48:32] Speaker 1: seen what we saw in twenty twenty five and twenty
[48:34] Speaker 1: seis Starma being called out by Trump, my god, I
[48:37] Speaker 1: mean the sheer humiliation of that. But it is the
[48:41] Speaker 1: French positioning themselves as an independent tactor over here and
[48:45] Speaker 1: saying that telling the Gulf States that look, we're here
[48:48] Speaker 1: to protect you. And who knows that a possibly sell
[48:53] Speaker 1: a whole lot of weapons to the Gulf States of that,
[48:55] Speaker 1: because what is going to happen now, is I think
[48:57] Speaker 1: this is what we're seeing now, is a is a
[49:00] Speaker 1: watershed year in the Gulf like I would put it in.
[49:05] Speaker 1: I mean, because see, the Gulf is a very weak
[49:07] Speaker 1: it's a gas station, all right, but it's built on
[49:10] Speaker 1: very shallow foundations. So you will see periodic upheavals. You
[49:14] Speaker 1: will see a seventeen nine, you will see a eighty two,
[49:18] Speaker 1: you will see a twenty twenty three October seven every
[49:24] Speaker 1: couple of years then, of course, not to forget ninety
[49:26] Speaker 1: one Iraq Kuwait, two thousand and three US Allied forces Iraq.
[49:32] Speaker 1: So periodically you'll see these upheavals. But that's one of
[49:35] Speaker 1: these moments that we are looking at in twenty twenty six.
[49:38] Speaker 1: The Gulf is never going to be the same again.
[49:41] Speaker 1: It'll be one of two things. Either the US presence
[49:45] Speaker 1: is going to expand massively in the Gulf GCC countries,
[49:50] Speaker 1: or the US decides to thin out and move to
[49:53] Speaker 1: other areas which are further away from Iranian missile range.
[49:57] Speaker 1: Or who knows, the Iranian regime would eventually collapse or
[50:01] Speaker 1: lose control. Anything could happen. It is a fragile part
[50:06] Speaker 1: of the world. But so far the Iranians are holding out,
[50:10] Speaker 1: but who knows for how long? Right?
[50:13] Speaker 2: Another question about the geopolitics, How do you think we
[50:18] Speaker 2: know how India is looking at it? Yes, again, with
[50:20] Speaker 2: the Russia Ukraine war a very safe we didn't watch
[50:24] Speaker 2: strategy just seeing how things pan out, very somber statements,
[50:28] Speaker 2: boiler praid statements from the Ministry of External Affairs. There's
[50:32] Speaker 2: been some controversy politically right now as we speak, it's
[50:34] Speaker 2: happening in parliament.
[50:36] Speaker 3: Congress is not very happy with the government stand.
[50:38] Speaker 2: But I think that's not something for this episode, perhaps
[50:40] Speaker 2: maybe another one later because I think sort of understanding
[50:44] Speaker 2: the nuances of India's relations with Iran it's quite sort
[50:48] Speaker 2: of an extensive topic, especially because the statement that came
[50:51] Speaker 2: out yesterday from the Iranian side after Station spoke to
[50:55] Speaker 2: his counterpart in it Ran was very interesting. It was
[50:57] Speaker 2: quite longer statement. So we'll skip the India question on
[51:00] Speaker 2: this episode. But China, how do you think China is
[51:03] Speaker 2: looking at this? There have been some reports that China
[51:06] Speaker 2: apparently has stockpiled a lot of iran and oil before
[51:09] Speaker 2: the war. And right now this morning I was tracking
[51:12] Speaker 2: the marine tracker.
[51:14] Speaker 3: Whatever where you can see ships.
[51:15] Speaker 2: I saw a couple of ships moving through the State
[51:17] Speaker 2: of Foremost going towards Chena. So Iran is supplying oil
[51:20] Speaker 2: only to one country in the world right now, China.
[51:22] Speaker 1: It is China.
[51:23] Speaker 3: So how is chinnel looking at this and.
[51:25] Speaker 2: Does it see some space for itself in Southeast Asia?
[51:29] Speaker 2: Because very interestingly, the US is set to have already
[51:32] Speaker 2: or is considering moving some of its systems from let's
[51:37] Speaker 2: say South Korea and Southeast Asia to the region of
[51:41] Speaker 2: conflict because again they're running out, so they're thinking of
[51:43] Speaker 2: moving some hard systems from there and bringing them here
[51:45] Speaker 2: because they need them away. Yes, so does that create
[51:48] Speaker 2: space for China to sort of exec itself.
[51:51] Speaker 1: Absolutely, China would be looking at this thing, you know,
[51:55] Speaker 1: very very intensely, because after all, there's so many things
[51:59] Speaker 1: that lay away. Is of course the new way of
[52:01] Speaker 1: war fighting, the rocket force that they have where the
[52:04] Speaker 1: Iranian rocket force is something that Chinese are rebulicating as well.
[52:07] Speaker 1: And if there was a future war over Taiwan, this
[52:10] Speaker 1: is how it would play out, and this is how
[52:12] Speaker 1: quickly the US would run out of interceptors, so that
[52:14] Speaker 1: China would obviously be looking at a window of opportunity
[52:17] Speaker 1: to capture Taiwan militarily, that would of course be shrinking
[52:20] Speaker 1: because then the US will now start bringing in munitions
[52:24] Speaker 1: over the next two three years. They've learned their lessons
[52:26] Speaker 1: very quickly through the US has a very adaptable military
[52:29] Speaker 1: industrial complex, so they will start looking at those lessons.
[52:32] Speaker 1: But China's the thing is that the larger game here
[52:35] Speaker 1: is to target China sources of cheap oil. China, as
[52:38] Speaker 1: we know, is one of the world's largest is the
[52:41] Speaker 1: largest importer of oil in the world. Ten million barrels
[52:44] Speaker 1: is what they need for their daily fix every day.
[52:47] Speaker 1: They were getting it from Venezuela, Iran, and Russia. Now
[52:53] Speaker 1: two of these areas are in trouble, and Russia is
[52:57] Speaker 1: also under a lot of pressure, but still supplying oil
[53:00] Speaker 1: to China, discounted oil. So these were the three sources
[53:04] Speaker 1: of discounted oil to China. And what the US has
[53:08] Speaker 1: done by first getting hold of Venezuela and now putting
[53:11] Speaker 1: a China Iran n a lot of pressure is to
[53:16] Speaker 1: put pressure on China sources of cheap oil, and of
[53:19] Speaker 1: course to build up leverage for that great big meeting
[53:23] Speaker 1: between Trump and Hijien Ping, which is next month April, right,
[53:27] Speaker 1: So there is going to be some big play over there,
[53:30] Speaker 1: global play, so they are trying to build up leverage. Otherwise,
[53:34] Speaker 1: what do you negotiate with? What do you bargain with?
[53:37] Speaker 1: So the Chinese will say, listen, you ease off on this,
[53:39] Speaker 1: give us this. So the US will say, okay, I
[53:41] Speaker 1: need my critical rare earths. So there is going to
[53:45] Speaker 1: be a lane then, as we say, so, this is
[53:47] Speaker 1: what the stage is being said for it. Of course,
[53:49] Speaker 1: Chijen Ping is looking at it very closely. Energy geopolitics
[53:53] Speaker 1: alignments Iran. There's talk of uh, you know, Iran getting
[53:58] Speaker 1: intel from Chinese ships in the Arabian Sea and that's
[54:02] Speaker 1: how they're targeting you know, vessels and you know stuff
[54:05] Speaker 1: like that. But China, definitely, China and Russia both will
[54:08] Speaker 1: be looking at this very closely because this kind of
[54:11] Speaker 1: it's also at the tactical level. It's the validation of
[54:14] Speaker 1: all their strategies, right, low cost Shahid's ballistic missiles overwhelming
[54:20] Speaker 1: this Western military industrial complex with gold plated interceptors and
[54:25] Speaker 1: stuff like that, and this is they will be calibrating
[54:29] Speaker 1: their own war fighting strategies right right.
[54:33] Speaker 2: Last question about what happens next. So I don't know
[54:35] Speaker 2: if we should talk about one more country in North
[54:37] Speaker 2: Korea and Kim Jong un, I mean, he's being left out.
[54:41] Speaker 3: Heah, it is very worried about him.
[54:43] Speaker 2: You know, he keeps like, you know, I have all
[54:44] Speaker 2: the toys, I have all the weapons, I have nuclear weapons.
[54:46] Speaker 2: One's playing with me. Everyone's going to war, but no
[54:48] Speaker 2: one's warding with me. In fact, think this, this morning
[54:51] Speaker 2: he launched a tested anotherstic missile or some of them,
[54:54] Speaker 2: some messiges.
[54:55] Speaker 1: They fired missiles off a five thousand tons destroyer and
[54:58] Speaker 1: destroyer with his daughter, Yeah, with his daughters apparent. It's interesting.
[55:04] Speaker 1: The king dynasty is moving.
[55:05] Speaker 2: To a lady, but nothing he knows want to you know,
[55:10] Speaker 2: war with him. Feel quite left or yeah, yeah, that's
[55:14] Speaker 2: a that's a resources the curse of not having resources.
[55:18] Speaker 1: Nobody who's interested.
[55:19] Speaker 2: On a serious note, I think North Korea perhaps proves
[55:24] Speaker 2: that why in this world you need nuclear weapons, something
[55:28] Speaker 2: we discussed previously as possibly. I mean, look at him,
[55:30] Speaker 2: we got attacked. Iran is getting attacked. Yeah, North Korea
[55:33] Speaker 2: has never been attacked. Look what happened to Libya surrendered?
[55:36] Speaker 1: Is whatever little this thing he had and he was killed,
[55:39] Speaker 1: Asad's nuclear program was vanished, and what's going to happen
[55:47] Speaker 1: to Iran? You know right? Great?
[55:50] Speaker 2: Last question, the quick one on what may happen next,
[55:54] Speaker 2: in the form of who needs what to declare themselves?
[55:57] Speaker 1: Now? Yea, what does us? What do US and Israel.
[56:02] Speaker 3: Need to do or have to do to say that?
[56:05] Speaker 1: Ok?
[56:05] Speaker 2: One, remember that Israel can perhaps keep fighting, but Trump
[56:09] Speaker 2: has to worry about the upcoming mid terms.
[56:12] Speaker 1: Polls in the US.
[56:13] Speaker 2: Apart from his core constituency of the market Republicans, polls
[56:17] Speaker 2: in the US show that the people aren't really happy
[56:19] Speaker 2: with or aren't even buying the government's explanation of why this.
[56:24] Speaker 2: Like you said that at of this episode, the biggest
[56:26] Speaker 2: question in everyone's mind, even in the American voters bisy
[56:28] Speaker 2: what was the need for this? The more this drags on,
[56:31] Speaker 2: the more that specter of having to place boots on
[56:35] Speaker 2: the ground, which I think Trump will not do because
[56:37] Speaker 2: that is just.
[56:38] Speaker 3: That's something he's been opposing for all his.
[56:41] Speaker 1: I would see boots on ground strategy as something that
[56:46] Speaker 1: Trump would launch towards car Island, for instance, and that
[56:50] Speaker 1: is a juicy target. If you look at the United
[56:52] Speaker 1: States Battle proceeds where over eighty percent of Iran's oil
[56:57] Speaker 1: output flows out of that one island, which is twenty
[57:00] Speaker 1: five kilometers Look at the numbers, one island. Eighty percent
[57:04] Speaker 1: of Iran's you know oil, crude oil is pumped out
[57:09] Speaker 1: of that one island. The island is twenty five kilometers
[57:13] Speaker 1: away from the coastlines. It is heavily defended, but in
[57:17] Speaker 1: location only. Iran does not have a navy that can
[57:20] Speaker 1: replenish the defenders there. So what are the odds that
[57:24] Speaker 1: the US will not launch a boots on ground thing
[57:27] Speaker 1: and capture carg Island and then hold it against Iran?
[57:30] Speaker 1: Saying that, look, I you know, I got Venezuela and oil.
[57:33] Speaker 1: Now I have the largest source of Iran's crude oil.
[57:37] Speaker 1: That's with US. Trump needs a win. That may be
[57:41] Speaker 1: a good strategy, so he just say he'll, you know,
[57:44] Speaker 1: launch military forces capture Cargan. He says, I've got all
[57:47] Speaker 1: the Iranian oil. I have this thing. I have thirty
[57:49] Speaker 1: percent of the world's oil. He desperately needs a win
[57:53] Speaker 1: at this stage, so how would he define that? So
[57:56] Speaker 1: George Bush's mission accomplished was pensa dam Mussin was be
[58:00] Speaker 1: thrown and US captured all of Iraq in two thousand
[58:05] Speaker 1: and three, when you had those that mission accomplished banner
[58:09] Speaker 1: on that aircraft carried I think it was the Lincoln,
[58:11] Speaker 1: and I'm not sure which one, and Bush flew down
[58:14] Speaker 1: in a fighter jet and pronounced mission accomplished. Trump wants
[58:18] Speaker 1: something similar. He wants a ticket tape parade or something
[58:21] Speaker 1: of that sort where he can stand and say that,
[58:23] Speaker 1: you know, Iran threatened US, I taught them a lesson,
[58:26] Speaker 1: I you know, changed the regime. I grabbed their oil
[58:30] Speaker 1: and so, and I have one. Therefore, he wants a win.
[58:34] Speaker 1: He knows he can't capture Iran. He knows the by
[58:37] Speaker 1: now that the regime is not likely to surrender.
[58:40] Speaker 3: So he's looking for this revolution happening. Unfortunately for him.
[58:43] Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the Iranian regime obviously curtailed that revolution.
[58:47] Speaker 1: They came down very high. From what we hear in
[58:50] Speaker 1: January is really sad. And it's sad because Iran is
[58:54] Speaker 1: the civilizational country, you know, it's it's been around for
[58:57] Speaker 1: thousands of years, and you see this kind of thing.
[59:01] Speaker 1: It's a country with enormous potential, right and because it's
[59:06] Speaker 1: under this kind of pressure sanctions and all that. It
[59:09] Speaker 1: is a country that's not able to rise up to
[59:11] Speaker 1: its potential precisely because of that, and who knows things
[59:16] Speaker 1: might change in the future. The regime could go, maybe
[59:18] Speaker 1: something else could come. But it's definitely a country that
[59:22] Speaker 1: We've had a well blowhout, blow cold relationship with Iran,
[59:26] Speaker 1: but generally we've been good friends with them in the
[59:29] Speaker 1: last couple of years. And of course we need Iran
[59:32] Speaker 1: for access into Central Asia and Afghanistan. Pakistan and China
[59:36] Speaker 1: are not going to let us get into Afghanistan and
[59:39] Speaker 1: the only route that we have into Afghanistan is through Iran.
[59:43] Speaker 3: Right, So that's what the US needs. What does Iran need?
[59:48] Speaker 2: Because like we discussed, for Iran, winning is surviving, right,
[59:53] Speaker 2: Like we discussed for Iran winning, it means surviving. But
[59:56] Speaker 2: for that to happen, it needs to have some sort
[59:59] Speaker 2: of global pressure on the US. Asking where country sort
[1:00:02] Speaker 2: of you know, pressure us to sort of backup.
[1:00:03] Speaker 3: That's the only thing that's already happening, that's happening the market.
[1:00:06] Speaker 2: But when does anyone get to pressure the US, especially
[1:00:10] Speaker 2: I like Trump.
[1:00:11] Speaker 1: So you can't you know, overtly pressure Trump. Trump is
[1:00:15] Speaker 1: going to kind of say that look, okay, the markets
[1:00:17] Speaker 1: are tanking. We've spent a couple of one hundred billion dollars.
[1:00:20] Speaker 1: Our interceptor missiles are coming down. It doesn't look good
[1:00:23] Speaker 1: for me. I think I need to call you know,
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: so trumps win, Iran needs to survive. That's it. It's
[1:00:31] Speaker 1: the win versus survival. And it's like a you know,
[1:00:34] Speaker 1: a porcupine walking across and a tiger or a leopard
[1:00:38] Speaker 1: tries to grab the porcupine and the porcupine hits back,
[1:00:43] Speaker 1: tiger is wounded, and then you know, the tiger backs
[1:00:46] Speaker 1: off and says, look I've won. The porcupine fled, and
[1:00:50] Speaker 1: porcupine has survived, and the tiger has already declared himself
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: the lot of the jungle. That's the kind of thing
[1:00:57] Speaker 1: that you will see if there is no major regime change,
[1:01:00] Speaker 1: nothing like that. This is how I end the stalemate.
[1:01:04] Speaker 1: And that's terrible because what's going to happen is a
[1:01:07] Speaker 1: couple of years later this will again. Yeah, you know,
[1:01:11] Speaker 1: there will be an upsurge again. There will be a
[1:01:13] Speaker 1: re eruption, another eruption of thing, because you know, both
[1:01:18] Speaker 1: sides will then start building up capabilities. Oh he's got shy.
[1:01:22] Speaker 1: It is now I'm going to countershy then let me
[1:01:24] Speaker 1: see how many of his I can knock down. So
[1:01:26] Speaker 1: this is going to continue to endless cycle of violence.
[1:01:29] Speaker 1: Yeah right. I think it's a good point on which
[1:01:32] Speaker 1: to end this episode.
[1:01:33] Speaker 2: And I think this is something that it's been a
[1:01:34] Speaker 2: recurring theme on during our discussions, that what we are
[1:01:38] Speaker 2: kind of seeing is the reversal of what we saw
[1:01:41] Speaker 2: post World War Two, where you had this world sort
[1:01:44] Speaker 2: of moving towards global peace disarmament and you know, like
[1:01:49] Speaker 2: staying pally and.
[1:01:50] Speaker 1: Liver space foods and flying cars.
[1:01:53] Speaker 2: That's not the thatsons are not happening, right, Yeah, So great,
[1:01:57] Speaker 2: great chats on the great discuss and analysis.
[1:02:01] Speaker 1: As always, we'll keep a watch on.
[1:02:02] Speaker 2: This conflict, of course, and we'll discuss more as we
[1:02:07] Speaker 2: know more. And like I said, yes, a full episode
[1:02:10] Speaker 2: on India Iran will definitely come very very soon. And
[1:02:14] Speaker 2: also actually I think I want to talk with you
[1:02:16] Speaker 2: at some point about nineteen seventy nine and why that
[1:02:20] Speaker 2: is so pivotal to several of the countries that come
[1:02:22] Speaker 2: up very often on a discussions Pakistan, Iran.
[1:02:25] Speaker 3: Saudi doesn't come up as often, but linked to.
[1:02:30] Speaker 1: Iran.
[1:02:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, Pakistan Afghanist because it comes out of something that
[1:02:34] Speaker 2: you mentioned once. I think I'd pained you for an
[1:02:36] Speaker 2: article or something and you had said that this is
[1:02:38] Speaker 2: what you be writing about.
[1:02:39] Speaker 3: But this was before they run contract.
[1:02:40] Speaker 2: Happened, I think the day before day before Yeah, yeah,
[1:02:44] Speaker 2: is you for an article for the website for Afghanisa
[1:02:47] Speaker 2: Pakistan and said write about that.
[1:02:49] Speaker 1: But it's equally relevant to Yeah.
[1:02:51] Speaker 2: That's something I realized when I was at PBA's documentary,
[1:02:53] Speaker 2: which is why I'm saying that highly recommended Bitter Rivals,
[1:02:55] Speaker 2: the PBAs documentary that actually talks about what happened nineteen
[1:02:59] Speaker 2: seventy nine and what happens out there, and.
[1:03:03] Speaker 1: A book recommendation if anyone wants to know more about
[1:03:06] Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine and where we are today. There's a book,
[1:03:10] Speaker 1: an excellent book called Black Wave Okay by Kim Gatas.
[1:03:13] Speaker 1: Kim Guatas is a BBC journalist who covers West Asia.
[1:03:16] Speaker 1: She's been there for decades. It's a very fine book.
[1:03:19] Speaker 1: In fact, that's the first book I read after the
[1:03:22] Speaker 1: seventh of October twenty twenty three to understand where we're
[1:03:24] Speaker 1: gone and that kind of you know, put everything in perspective.
[1:03:28] Speaker 1: So that's a great book. All of you out there
[1:03:30] Speaker 1: for the reading black Wave.
[1:03:32] Speaker 2: That's going to be my weekend read this week, Creates
[1:03:34] Speaker 2: and deep thanks as always, thanks for having me there.
[1:03:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, and thanks as always to ours as the viewers.
[1:03:39] Speaker 3: That's it for this week's deepenstors.
[1:03:41] Speaker 1: For more, tune in next week. Then stay safe and
[1:03:43] Speaker 1: don't toss any boundaries without past

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