5/26/26: Trump Bombs Iran, Prof Marandi On Negotiations, Trump Pauses Taiwan Arms Sales

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Good morning everybody, happy Tuesday. I have an amazing show for everybody today. We'll be at Crystal. Indeed we do. Potential Iran deal, not looking so hot as the US resumed airstrikes in southern Iran yesterday and Israel is saying they are escalating in Lebanon. So some pretty dire signs there. Professor Mohamed Morandi is also gonna join us to talk about the view from the Iranian perspective on these developments and what he thinks is going to happen next. We're also gonna take a look at the fallout globally from the US' strategic defeat in Iran. Right now the Trump administration has paused. Weapons sales to Taiwan, of course this comes on the heels of that big trip to China. So very interesting indications there. Minnesota has become the first state in the nation to ban perdition markets like Polymarket and Kalshi, but they are facing a backlash from the federal government which is suing them now. So we will dig into that. And also supposedly, Hassan Piker and Medea Benjamin have been subpoenaed over that trip that they took to Cuba. Of course, Ryan Grimm, our own Ryan Grimm was on that same trip. So he is going to join us to talk about what we know about that and the potential fallout. So a lot to get to this morning. I never knew I would know so much about Cuban hotels. 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And that's where our plans are, the newsletter and everything else, the new team over here at Breaking Point. So seriously, thank you. All right, with all of that, let's go ahead and get started here with Iran. Let's start actually with A2. The biggest news that came out of the weekend. Just yesterday, Iranian sailors and fishermen were reportedly killed by US forces after they struck vessels near Bandar Abbas. The IRGC linked FAR's news reported explosions and similar sounds. The CENTCOM spokespersons confirmed to Fox News that the United States forces conducted strikes in southern Iran, quote, "'To protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces, targets,' he said, included missile launch sites and Iranian boats that were attempting to place mines. Two senior US officials told Fox News that the strikes were, quote, "'defensive and do not indicate that the ceasefire is over. Iranian air defenses separately shot down a MQ-9 Reaper drone in the past day, two down by the IRGC and one by the Army's air defense.'" So all of this is from IRGC and CENTCOM. So obviously, the details are a little bit unclear, but what we do know- These people have very interesting definitions of ceasefire, I won't say. Ceasing fire, self-defense also, by the way. Look, we have no idea what happened. What we do know is that on the heels of some alleged agreement, there's a couple of signs where things are falling apart. First is let's take the US at its word, even on its face, which is that these boats were laying mines in the Straits of Hormuz. Well, that's not really something that you would be doing if you were on the verge of some sort of imminent ceasefire and a reopening of the Straits of Hormuz. Second is that US air fighter jets not only went after these boats, but they also targeted missile launch sites that are on the coast that were responding to some of these US forces. It shows like the heavy level of US military involvement that remains in the strait as a deal is supposedly closed. Now the second part of this, which I think is very important, let's put A3B please up here on the screen, but Israel has now struck a number of strikes. It has now struck a number of targets in Lebanon as of yesterday. This came on the heels of an announcement from the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they were going to facilitate their quote, defensive strikes against Hezbollah. The reason why all of this matters together is that the ceasefire on its face is supposed to apply to Lebanon as it was previously, Israel obviously, and Hezbollah did not abide by that after the initial ceasefire happened. They're continued to be firing all along the line. Now it's happening again with the backing of the United States, but most significantly too, as we led with US forces striking Iranian forces directly in the straits of Hormuz, all on the verge of this alleged ceasefire extension which we're potentially being negotiated right now. I am old enough to remember when Trump put on a true social saying demanding that Israel stop the bombing in Lebanon. And now here we are with Israel announcing again with the ascent of President Trump saying, yes, we are going to continue to bomb. We are going to escalate what we are doing in Lebanon and we have no intention of stopping. So that tells you everything you need to know about how close we are actually to a deal. And we saw some ridiculous statements coming out from Trump-aligned media figures. Scott Jennings and others will actually ask Professor Morandi about some of this with, oh, the deal's 95% done. All we need to figure out is this whole straight-of-hormuz situation and also the whole nuclear situation. So it's like, okay, well, if that's remaining on the table then you are not at 95% of the deal. You actually haven't tackled any of these significant issues with your barriers to the end of this war. I was listening to Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson this morning in an interview with Glenn Deeson and he made what I thought was a really important point. And he's like, look, the heart of diplomacy is meeting face-to-face and working things out. That becomes even more important when you have two parties that have negative trust. Why? Because we've used diplomacy as a fain as a ruse to bomb and attack this country now on multiple occasions. The fact of the matter is that since those initial talks in Pakistan, there have not been any, any face-to-face meetings between anyone in Iran and anyone in the US. So do you really think we're close to ironing out a deal when no one from our side has even spoken directly to anyone from their side and now we've gone back to bombing and the Israelis who do not want any sort of a deal have been given the green light to escalate in Lebanon. And now, and we can put this element up on the screen as well, this is a Trump-Truth social-emissure saga, which element this is, but in any case, Trump is now saying that we have to, he wants the Gulf countries to join the Abraham Accords as part of this comprehensive deal. So now you're trying to add another complicating factor into this, and of course, these Gulf countries are rightly saying, well, hey, part of the whole idea of normalizing relations with Israel is that you would have some sort of Palestinian state or at least a credible path to that Palestinian state. And of course, we are so far from that, that it is an absolute joke. It's preposterous to imagine that we're heading in that direction. Let me really sit on this, because it's really important. And so actually, I'll come back to this guys, I apologize for all the jumping around. Go back to A-1. So on the one hand, we actually do have a massive concession here from Donald Trump. This happened late yesterday. Here's what he said. The enriched uranium nuclear, will either immediately be turned over to the United States to be brought home, or preferably in conjunction and coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran, destroyed in place or at yet another acceptable location with the Atomic Energy Commission. By the way, he means the IAEA, because the Atomic Energy Commission doesn't exist anymore, or it's equivalent being witnessed to this process and event. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Why is this such a massive concession? Because for the entire time now so far, Trump has said all of the quote nuclear dust, nuclear dust, aka nuclear material, enriched uranium up to 60% must be turned over to the United States. Iran has said, well, not so fast. We have two options. We can either down blend it here under the supervision of the IAEA, or we will ship it to Russia or China, a friendly third party nation under which IAEA inspectors can verify that it has been down blended and it will be held there in potential free-to-use, for Iran. That has been the longstanding position of the Islamic Republic. Now, here what we have is Trump saying, actually that would be acceptable. That's a huge deal whenever it comes to some sort of a understanding. However, let's go back to A3. This is what Crystal's point is, is that at the very same time, this very, very long true social post, where Trump says negotiations with the Islamic Republic are proceeding nicely. Now, when we fast forward to the bottom line, those countries, it may be possible, one or two reasons for not doing so, they will be accepted, but most should be ready and willing and even able to make this settlement with Iran a far more historic event than it should be otherwise. And what he says at the beginning there is they must sign on to the Abraham Accords. Now, what are the Abraham Accords? The Abraham Accords, frankly, are one of the main reasons that we're in this mess in the first place, not just Iran, but October 7th, and also the entire attack by Hamas. What it was is a normalization of relations between the Gulf countries, select the signatories, and Israel. And so what Trump is saying here is that in conjunction for a ceasefire between Iran and the United States, that they, these Gulf countries, all of these regional countries, must normalize relations with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state. And so what he's trying to do is a grand bargain. And actually, if you zoom out, it all makes a ton of sense. The deal on its face, if Trump backs down on nuclear dust, if you will, saying not only will they not turn it over to us, but they're basically gonna fulfill some JCPOA-style agreement with IAEA inspectors and shipping uranium to Russia, that's literally what they did under the JCPOA. If he does, oh, and they've reopened the streets of Hamas, which were open already the day before the war, what is the entire international community gonna say? He lost, dude. You obviously lost. So what does he need? He needs a bigger grand bargain. And that's what the Abraham Accords also enables him to do. The second thing that it does is it unilaterally disarms the entire Gulf away from the establishment of a Palestinian state. Now, let's be real. Like, they never actually cared that much about a Palestinian state, but to their people, it matters a lot, not to the governments, but to the actual citizens of these countries. Now, whether they can vote or not doesn't matter. Remember, there's still some popular agency in many of these Gulf monarchies. So in this case, what he's trying to do is to get them to unilaterally disarm on the issue of Palestine and deliver Israel this massive diplomatic victory. Because we're not just here about the UAE, which is the closest ally of Israel, but all of these other regional countries which do not have good relations with Israel, or they don't like Israel all that much, and they have their own domestic populations that they have to worry about. So basically, the entire ceasefire now hinges actually on normalization of relations with Israel and these Gulf countries who are supposed to give this up even though it has nothing to do with Iran. It's actually another reason why this ceasefire will fail if this is going to remain some top priority from the White House. And this is the second time that he's said it so far. So maybe we should take him out of his work. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it also fits with just him being an old man and wanting his legacy and to be a world-changing leader, blah, blah, blah. I mean, that really is a big part of why we're in this whole mess to begin with is his own ego and desire to leave his mark on the world, like a dog pissing on his territory. We can put this Axios report up on the screen as well that has some interesting details reportedly from this call. This was a Barack Reveed report here. Trump asked Muslim leaders to join the Abraham Accords after the Iran war ends. Those leaders, especially those of Saudi, Qatar, and Pakistan who do not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel were surprised by Trump's request, quote, there was silence on the line and Trump joked and asked if they are still there, one of the US officials said. So that gives you a sense of how shocking this was to at least some of the leaders of you've gotta be kidding me right now while all of this is going on and you're trying to secure some sort of a deal. And we're in this war that is going to be devastating to all of our economies and this really created quite a mess for us. You're also asking us to do something that will be politically toxic to our own populations and normalize relations with Israel. That is, you know, that was the, what you could read in to that silence on the line there from these leaders. And Sagar, I was just seeing yesterday too that Kushner is also apparently pushing a plan to change the status quo at the Al-Aqsa mosque. I saw that, yeah. And you were like, I mean, listen, what are you setting up here for? Because October 7th, and this is not justifying, this is analysis, by Hamas' own words, they said a big part of this was the Abraham Accords, which was basically, hey, forget about Palestine, we're all just moving forward. They said, we cannot allow the world to forget our cause. So we need to do something dramatic. It was their name for October 7th is the Al-Aqsa flood. That gives you a sense of how important that mosque is in their own view of the world, in their own ideology. So not only are you saying, oh, we're gonna have the whole region normalize relations with Israel without giving a shit about any Palestinian state or rights for Palestinians, et cetera. We're also going to try to change the status quo at the Al-Aqsa mosque. I mean, this seems like a recipe for disaster. It also seems like something that just isn't going to happen. I mean, it's far-fetched at this point that again, that Trump is this close to a deal and we're all just waiting, counting down the minutes before he announces some grand bargain that's gonna rescue us from this complete quagmire and disaster that he's gotten us into. Yeah, I mean, the fact that the strikes are happening, look, it's not impossible. And there has been a major, there has been a major give from Trump on the nuclear enrichment issue. But when you're going to demand this Israel normalization of relations through the Abraham Accords, that is going to, that just dramatically changes the entire process. And again, it's so that he does not have to tell the world how he got humiliated. Let's put A4 up here on the screen, just again to show you all how beholden to Israel this administration is acting. Because now you have basically a background statement, a senior US official, we can do some tea leaves, I'm gonna guess from the State Department, who says the Trump administration would support an escalation in Israeli military action in retaliation to Hezbollah violations of the ceasefire. The US official says, Hezbollah has ignored repeated requests to stop firing at Israel, including a recent ultimatum. Israel will never be expected to passively absorb attacks on its forces and civilians. This is not the Biden administration. The official said that since April 17, Hezbollah has fired blah, blah, blah. The US official stresses Hezbollah is entirely responsible for the current situation. It broke the ceasefire on March 2nd and is now intent on denying the Lebanese people a path to peace and reconstruction. According to the official, Hezbollah is concerned about the direct negotiations with the Lebanese government in Israel with the support of the US and sees it as an existential threat. A successful ceasefire led by the government of Lebanon would strap Hezbollah of their power and their narrative. And remember, those are two warring factions. You also have here the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, on the ground in India, backing up Israel's strikes on Hezbollah. Let's take a listen. What about Lebanon? Is Lebanon gonna be part of a deal? Well, Lebanon we're working on separately. With Lebanon, we are engaged now. We have a 45 day ceasefire. We've had weekly meetings now and ongoing daily engagements between the government of Lebanon and Israel. The problem is not Lebanon and Israel, the problem is Hezbollah. Just last night, Hezbollah put out a statement calling for the overthrow of the Lebanese government. And it just reminds you of who you are dealing with here. By the way, an Iranian proxy, 100% Iranian proxy. So he says they're basically backing them up. And then A6, immediately after the US gives a green light, here's what we see. The prime minister of Israel says Israel will intense a fire strikes on Lebanon's Hezbollah with the backing here of the United States. So we have major strikes in Lebanon. We also have, of course, the US strikes on Iran. Not all of this happening under the guise of an alleged ceasefire. We do not know yet what this is all going to hold. We did have some indications. Let's not forget the Iranian negotiators, Ghalabov and the foreign minister were in Doha as of yesterday, meeting with the Qataris. That's very important because the Qataris have come to them previously. The Iranian negotiators, allegedly, what they're talking with Qatar about is that Qatar is like the guarantor of some several billion dollars that are frozen Iranian funds by the United States. So they would need some guarantee for some sort of a release. But as of right now, things are not nearly as optimistic as let's say when we were talking 72 hours, 48 hours ago, when we did our Sunday update, treat to Parsi, his analysis always worth kind of checking in on what he said is it's possible that Iran would sign this agreement even with these ceasefire violations with Lebanon, but because Lebanon is being struck by Israel, that Iran would just ruthlessly pound the UAE because it is Israel's greatest ally in the Gulf. And so every time that they would break the ceasefire on Hezbollah, they would break the ceasefire on the UAE and basically dare the United States, you guys want to go full back to full blown war over Israel and Hezbollah? Okay, that's fine. We're going to keep pounding the UAE. They get to keep pounding Hezbollah. And if you want us to stop both of those things, then they need to end. So that's one possible way that this all may go about, but this is the mess that Trump has gotten us into. And gas still remains at what, let's see. It's about $100 a barrel. I think it's $449 a gallon here nationally. $450, how was your Memorial Day weekend? I was looking at the prices too that have gone up significantly and certainly part of that is the Iran War. No, and not for nothing, Israel is also, they've never abided by the ceasefire in Gaza, they've continued to go on murderous rampages this whole time, but that has also been escalated in recent days, as you pointed out in our breaking news segment with Tree to Parsey. So you have Israel continuing to escalate Lebanon in Gaza. You have now US strikes in Southern Iran, not looking good for a potential deal. And of course, neither the US and Iran, they are not meeting face to face. So how are you going to establish some sort of deal with parties that have negative trust without any sort of face to face conversations? Seems pretty unlikely, but to get the Iranian perspective on this, we can now bring in Professor Mohammed Morandi for his view on these recent events. Joining us now to discuss that Iranian perspective is Professor Mohammed Morandi of the University of Tehran. Great to see you again, sir. Good to see you. Thank you very much for having me. Yeah, of course. So let's go ahead and put B1 up on the screen here, guys. So we've got a report, this one from the Financial Times, that some of Iran's top negotiators have traveled to Qatar amid intensified efforts to secure a deal. What is your sense of how real these negotiations are and how close we are to a potential end of this war? It's very difficult to say. The negotiations in Qatar seem to be going well. That is for the potential transfer of Iranian assets that were confiscated by the Americans or blocked by the Americans. They want to make sure that the Iranians received assets if an agreement is signed. But the night before last, the United States, they bombed two boats killing four Iranian soldiers. And they were in Iranian waters and there was no reason for them to carry out that assault. And that is raising a lot of questions in Tehran. And then we see Netanyahu, who is about to escalate and he wants to carpet bomb cities in Lebanon again, which reminds us of the previous ceasefire after the 39 days of fighting when there was a ceasefire between Iran and the United States, which included Lebanon. Back then he started to carpet bomb cities and he killed hundreds of people within a few minutes in order to wreck the ceasefire. So the belief here is that there is an effort to undermine any potential deal between the two sides. Professor, I do want to ask you about the reception in Tehran to this more recent Trump concession saying yesterday that the preferable solution for enriched uranium is to have it either be downblended, destroyed on Iranian soil, or transported to a third party, presumably Russia or China. This previously was not something that President Trump was willing to accept, at least publicly. How was the reception to that in Tehran? Is it viewed as a positive concession on the way to a deal or otherwise? Well, the Iranians are saying that we're not yet there. We haven't reached that stage. First, we have to have an agreement and then after the 60 days, if all goes well and the Americans abide by their commitments, then we can move on and discuss the nuclear program as well as sanctions and other issues that exist between the two sides. But ultimately, the Iranians have said very clearly and repeatedly that they're not going to hand over any enriched uranium to the United States, nor do they plan to send it abroad. So this is, I would say, as an Iranian who's looking at events here. I think that this is a positive step. This is a step in the right direction. But again, we have different things happening simultaneously and the murder of the four soldiers, the intensified assaults on civilian targets in Lebanon, and this, it's difficult to figure out where things are ultimately going. So if I was a betting man, which I'm not, I don't think I could bet either way or whether there will be an agreement or there will be a continuation of what we have or war. As you indicated, the concept is that the nuclear file negotiations will be pushed off into the future, but in this initial negotiation, there are a lot of details that remain to be worked out and be to up on the screen, which pertains to the status of the Strait of Formu. So this is from an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson. We are not seeking tolls from the Strait of Formu. So be careful in choosing words. These are charged for the services that Iran and Oman provide in the Strait of Formu, as well as for the implementation of nature and ecosystem protection program. So not a toll, but a fee for services. What is your sense though of what some of the red lines in this initial phase of negotiations are for Iran? Well, maybe they're trying to appeal to leftists in Europe and the left wing of the Democratic Party in the United States with regards to environmentalism. But I think the Iranians have said many times, and I think they're very serious about it, that the status of the Strait of Formu is not going to go back to what it was before for two reasons. One is that the Iranians feel that they have the right to receive fees rather than tolls, just like Turkey does. And but second, the Iranians don't want the Americans to be able to rebuild those military bases in the Persian Gulf. And they don't want an Israeli presence or European presence either. And right now the Americans, as we all know, they're forced to use planes to bring in troops and equipment to the region, which is much more expensive and causes more damage to the equipment. And they want to continue to make it more difficult for them to maintain their presence. So I think the Iranians are going to remain in charge of the Strait, no doubt, I believe. But I don't think they're going to do it in a way in which impedes traffic, because the Iranians do want business as usual to carry on through the Strait of Homoes. That's obviously how Iran makes a lot of money and the country is friendly to Iran, like Iraq or Oman. They also make a lot of money as a result of trade and business in the Persian Gulf. Well, Professor, how does the Iran view this more recent addition by the Trump administration to insist that all of the regional countries must recognize Israel via the Abraham Accords as part of some sort of comprehensive ceasefire between the United States and Iran? I think the United States really doesn't, or Trump at least, doesn't really understand that this sort of language, especially what we saw in his Truth Social Post, which he was effectively ordering them to join. Now, I don't know what language he used on the phone, but the Truth Social Post was insulting to these countries. And for these family regimes in the Persian Gulf, in particular, it undermines their position among the public, especially since they've already been weakened due to war. If they are perceived to be moving towards the Israeli regime, it makes them more unpopular. And when the United States or Trump is ordering them to take a particular stand, and they don't respond, that also doesn't look good for them. I don't think though that any of these countries under the current circumstances are going to take any further steps towards building relations with the Israeli regime. We know all of them do have relations, Qatar, Saudis, may all of them have relations, but Turkey, but I don't think that right now any of them want to improve those relations because there's an ongoing genocide. It's been going on now for almost three years, and now the slaughter has begun in Lebanon too. So I don't see that happening. And of course, Iran is never going to join such an accord because Iran doesn't consider the Israeli regime in its current form as an ethno-supremacist entity to be legitimate. How much of a problem is the fact that Israel is insisting on that we're going to continue to bomb in Lebanon, celebrating ethnic cleansing there? Trump seems to have effectively greenlit this at this point. And of course Netanyahu is not interested in an end to this war coming to some sort of a deal or accord that would make sense for the region. So how much of this is an obstacle that will completely block any progress towards a deal? It will completely block progress because you recall that after the fighting, 39 days of hot war, when there was a ceasefire, one of the conditions was a ceasefire across the region. And then Netanyahu began the carpet bombing. Iran said, until there's a ceasefire, we're not going to allow those extra ships from countries that are linked to those who were hostile to Iran during the war to pass through the strait. So Netanyahu, by violating the ceasefire agreement, he has been preventing the world from obtaining the energy and the other resources that they get from the Persian Gulf. And I know that the Iranians continue to take the same position now. The war in the genocidal attacks in Lebanon have to stop. Otherwise, this agreement will simply not work at all. And the strait of Hormuz will not go back to normal, especially for Iran. Lebanon has a particularly high status and a moral status, because when the genocide began in Gaza, no one but Hezbollah and the resistance went to the aid of Gaza when they began fighting in southern Lebanon in order to draw away some of the Israeli troops from Gaza to ease the pressure on the Gaza population, even though they knew that they would be bombed and slaughtered and their families would be taken out as a result of this policy. But for Iran, this was a heroic stance that Hezbollah took over the past two and a half years, more than two and a half years. And that's why Iran, so for that reason too, is simply not going to accept the war to continue. And if it does, Iran will not allow those ships to pass through. I wanted to ask you a little bit of just, what is life like in Iran right now? Have things pretty much resumed to normal daily pace? You can put before up on the screen, this is a report from Reuters, that the Iranian president has ordered the reopening of international internet access within Iran. So, is there a sense of sort of normalcy day to day or things still feel very unsettled? Is there a lot of economic pressure? What is day to day life like in Tehran right now? It is normal, although there are a couple of policies that I think were very bad. And that is that after the fighting stopped, they continued to have schools and universities, university courses online. And I think we all know what happened during Corona. And from next week, schools and university classes will be on campus and at schools. So from next week, I'll be on campus teaching my students. But during the past few weeks, even though there was no fighting, my classes were online. And during the war, of course, they were online too. So we're almost back to normal. I think we could have been back to normal earlier, but in internet, as you pointed out, it's going to go back to normal. Schools and universities are going to go back to normal. But we have a lot of inflation. And obviously, because of the airstrikes on factories, on pharmaceutical factories, on hospitals, schools and other infrastructure, the economy is hurting. And also the siege itself is having an economic impact because Iran can't import medicine or food from the Persian Gulf easily. It's very difficult. So there is inflation, but the Iranians believe that they will be able to wait out the United States. Because this siege on Iranian ports is a double-edged sword. And it's basically a siege on the whole global economy. So Iran says we'll wait until the United States is forced to change. And I think that that policy is working because over the past couple of weeks, the American negotiators had a much greater sense of urgency to get this deal done than the Iranians. The Iranians are very careful. They're slow because they want to make sure that there are no loopholes because they know what happened in the JCPOA. They were, the Obama administration took advantage of those loopholes against Iran. And they never fulfilled their obligations. And then of course, Trump later on, of course, left the deal. But the Iranians want to make sure this time round, we don't have a situation where Iran carries out obligations and then the Americans refrain from carrying out their own. And that's the main reason why the Speaker of Parliament is in Doha right now, to make sure that money comes to Iran as soon as if an agreement is signed. Professor, give us some signs that we can look for here in the West to actually see that a deal may be happening. You pointed out the speaker there in Doha. However, we've seen numerous trips. We've seen the Pakistani Army Chief visit Tehran. Then we saw strikes that just happened yesterday. So how can we assess the willingness in your country to actually want to sign a deal? And same for us, what concessions can we look for from the American side that still remain outstanding? Well, first I should also add that another reason why the Speaker of Parliament and the Chief Negotiator is in Doha is also to try to encourage countries in the Persian Gulf that assisted the United States in the war to tilt away from Trump and to establish better ties with Iran. So that is another reason why it's going. We were pretty close actually. And there was a widespread belief that by now we would have had a deal. But it seems in Tehran that the neocons and the Zionist lobby in the United States pushed back hard on Trump. And we saw him make some statements that ran against the agreements that they had reached over during the negotiations. So during these 60 days, the Americans were supposed to release a substantial segment of Iranian assets that were confiscated. The sanctions on the energy sector would be waived. There would be a regional ceasefire. And the Americans would be our responsibility because in the deal it says the United States and its allies and then Iran and its allies. Also, the status of Iran's control over the Strait of Homo is not questioned. The United States gets a commitment by Iran not to develop nuclear weapons, which is fine for Iran because Iran has been saying it for decades that they have no intention of developing nuclear weapons. So the Iranians feel that they have a strong hand because of the Strait of Homo's more than anything else. But everything depends on Trump. It could be resolved very quickly within a day or two. But I think that there are lots of pressures in the United States right now that may prevent it from ever happening. Again, if we go, the reason why the ceasefire was wrecked a couple of months ago, almost a month and a half ago, roughly, was because of Netanyahu. He refused to abide by the ceasefire. And if he hadn't done that, right, we would have had the last month and a half, we would have had ships going through the Strait of Homo's and the global economy would have been in a much better situation now. So it depends on what Netanyahu does in Lebanon with regards to Lebanon. And it depends on whether Trump is serious and he is willing to stand up to design a slavvy. Professor Marandi, always so useful to have your analysis. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much for having me. Turning now to Taiwan on the heels of the Trump Sheets Summit, it appears now the United States will pause weapon sales to Taiwan, blaming the situation on the war with Iran and the need to conserve ammunition. Let's take a listen to the acting Navy Secretary Hong Cao under questioning from the Senator Mitch McConnell or what's left of him. Let's take a listen. Dubai arms from us. And all of a sudden there's a pause. What are you hearing from the Taiwanese on age about the pause? Chairman, I have not heard, I have not spoken to the Taiwanese. However, we are, we have done some military, foreign military sales to them. And it's just right now we're doing a pause in order to make sure we have the munitions we need for Epic Fury, which we have plenty, but we're just making, making sure we have everything. But then the military, foreign military sales will continue when the administration deems necessary, sir. I'm just gonna put McConnell's health to the side and we'll focus on the, yeah. Political class just rotting and decomposing before our eyes. So first and foremost, that's important. So when we're talking about declining empire, that's a significant part of it. But let's focus on the substance, shall we? Let's put the next one up here on the screen. The Iran war and China thought complicate US support for Taiwan. A $14 billion Taiwan arms sale is now on hold amid the strain of the Middle East conflict and Trump's reconciliation with Beijing. So this was confirmed by Hong Cao, the acting Navy secretary, before the Senate committee on Thursday. It has now been confirmed officially by the Pentagon of this quote, pause, fueling concern among lawmakers and Taiwanese officials for President Trump's support of the island nation as he juggles the Middle East war and the desire for detente with Beijing. And the reason why that we are sitting with this, it is the single most important part of this entire strategic defeat that we have now suffered with Iran. No matter which way the ceasefire goes, this was the inevitable consequence. And I think it was inevitable from day one, but especially some two to three weeks into the conflict when we started to see the munitions begin to dwindle. It just became mathematically impossible to seek a different solution. And then second, Trump, by getting into this disastrous situation by removing almost unilaterally himself, some sort of military option on the table, reducing deterrence, you now have a situation where you have no choice but to seek detente with Beijing. You genuinely don't. You need Beijing to bail you out of this global crisis. One of the reasons, and this is fascinating to me, the one of the reasons why oil is only $100 a barrel, China is importing less oil today than it ever has in modern history. And it is doing so as a favor to the global economy, saying, hey, we have a huge strategic patrol and reserve. What we're gonna do is we're gonna import less, so we're gonna keep the oil price down. If they were importing at normal levels, it'd be $150 a barrel, something like that, based upon the analysis that I've seen, which means it would be $6 a gallon here in the United States. You think that there's not some back and forth give and take between the United States? Like, it's obviously not just gift to Trump. It's a gift really to all of the other nations in Asia who are very reliant here on the US. And what we're seeing here is that Taiwan is the tip of the spear, because Taiwan, if you were to compare Taiwan and Israel, let's say one country, now as of this morning, just surpassed the entire GDP of India, Taiwan. India, all of Taiwan, just tied in the Laila nation based on semiconductors for all the electronics. It's been a reasonable ally over the years with the United States. Israel, causing problem after problem after problem after problem with the GDP of, or bilateral trade between the US of like 50-something billion, which ranks along like Chile. All right, Taiwan is in the top 10. Which would you choose to defend? You could ask me or anybody else. I think it's a pretty obvious answer. We have chosen instead to throw the full force of the empire behind Israel, and by doing so, have sacrificed even the ability, if you wanted to, to do so with Taiwan, and possibly even with South Korea and Japan, which I'll get to here in a moment. But I mean, this is it, this is it. And I mean, I thought it probably always was, but there was at least 10% deterrent, I would say. I don't even know, it's gone. And Trump has evaporated it as a result of this war. Yeah, I mean, $14 billion weapon sale or not. It's over. It's over. We can't defeat this middle income at best regional power of Iran, and we're gonna go up against China for Taiwan. No, we're not gonna do that. I mean, we can say whatever we want, maintain ambiguity, blah, blah, blah. The reality is clear to everyone. It's certainly clear to the Chinese. And this decision to pause the weapon sale is also, this is a direct result of this meeting of this trip to China that Trump just went on. Just to recall how this all went down. The public statements from Trump were completely sycophantic towards Xi, very praiseful, worshipful. Xi was much of sort of more hard line and clear cut about, hey, we are going to try to avoid the Thucydides trap, which means we don't want, as you are a declining empire, we don't want to go to war with you. And they expressed upset over this weapon sale. And lo and behold, we said, okay, like we'll do what you want, because we are not in a position to do otherwise at this point. That's the reality. And this has been made manifest by the Iran war. Now it is undeniable, as Sagar is pointing out, whatever sort of imaginary deterrent there was previously is now wiped clean. So when China says, hey, I don't really like the fact that you're doing this $14 billion weapon sale right now. Guess what? Our best course of action is to say, okay, we won't do it then, because we need to have good relations with you so that you do not cut us off from not only, you know, what we need in terms of semiconductors in Taiwan, but other various rare earth minerals and other supply lines that we are completely dependent on China for. So that is just an acknowledgement of the reality of the world that we live in now. It is a different day, regardless of how the Iran war concludes and what the contours of a DLR, blah, blah, blah, and when that comes, whether it's this week or two months from now or a year from now, the world has changed and everybody's opened their eyes to the fact that we are no longer in any position to throw our weight around in the world in the same way. Right, and this is a disaster really for the United States because the entire basis of the American empire, especially in Asia, was built upon the security guarantee, not just for Taiwan, but for Japan, for South Korea, and in exchange, what that means is that there's open and navigable trade waters for cheap shit to flow to the US. I'm not saying this is a good thing. I'm saying this just as the basis for the US. I personally would like to change some of that. However, if we were gonna say who are the best allies, I would say Japan and South Korea, especially when you compare them to a lot of these European nations. Well, what's gonna happen now? C3, please, let's put it up here on the screen. Just yesterday, the US has now warned Japan of a severe delay in tomahawk deliveries due to the Iran war. The missiles will come two years late as the Pentagon now has to replenish its own stocks depleted in the Middle East military campaign. So remember, we went to Japan and we said, hey, you guys have to buy tomahawk missiles. They were like, okay, let's do it. So then we took their money. And now we're like, just so you know, we're gonna have to wait a few years to give it to you because we blew it all with Iran war. This was the interruption is the big bloater, Japan, ordered tomahawks again for the first time in 2024 at the insistence of the US to enhance its deterrence against China. The missiles would have given Japan a quote, counter strike capability to hit coastal China. And it was a 2.3, 0.5 billion dollar deal after Washington urged Japan to increase his defense spending. So Japan does it and they give us the money. They're like, all right, so give us the missiles. Nope, we can't even turn those missiles over right now. This comes on the heels of this, increasingly all of these reports that are coming out, which you don't need a report necessarily for the obvious, but let's put this Washington post piece that I sent in post-production. US allies in Asia are now trying to shield themselves from Trump's unpredictability. And what they say is that Trump's seeming ambivalence about the value of allies has created a sense of urgency among nations with close US ties. As China now shows greater willingness to strong arm its neighbors and Trump injects waves of unpredictability, Japan and South Korea are banding together as smaller nations redraw the regiostrategic bounds in Asia, despite their complicated history. So to get Japan and South Korea to work together, that takes a titanic feat from the United States to countries which hate each other, for good reason. Yeah, I don't blame it. But not my place to judge about who is comforting, women who, but just saying, I don't blame the South Koreans for still being upset. Trump is uniting the globe and we never could have been as in saga. Anyways, we never could have imagined, but what they're pointing out is this quote, growing urgency was felt from the big powers, from the South Korean president, hosting the Japanese prime minister for a two day summit, including a banquet and traditional firework show, something that, you know, it's rare generally. And what they're doing is they're pushing them together to say, okay, we have these two great nations, you know, the giant economies. However, both have total security guarantees. Previously thought ironclad from the United States, not so ironclad anymore. You take those thads out, take those tomahawks away, you have Trump, you know, saying, oh, we're gonna pause weapon sales to Taiwan. They're like, well, remember, for Japan and South Korea, they have two twin problems. They don't just have China. They've got North Korea, which can fire, which literally fires missiles over Japan and, you know, near South Korea all the time, who is just one enemy. So for them, what they need to do is they need some sort of guarantee. And look, some of this is healthy, like in the long run, because it gives them strategic independence, but it will come as health for the globe and detriment to the US dollar and to our own security guarantee, our ability to buy cheap goods, our ability to have good relations with these nations. And again, like just be very clear, like who is more important to the United States of America? Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, or Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Like it's a joke compared to their actual economic importance, especially in the future, when we transition generally from fossil fuel. How many Trump, Kushner and Whitball properties though, exist if the Gulf region is a, I guess the more important question asked here in terms of the type of decision making that is being made. And look, also, you know, the same logic that we apply for the US bases in the Middle East, where now many of them have been destroyed, countries are realizing, hey, we thought having these bases on our soil would help protect us instead it made us a target. That logic applies to a certain extent in places like South Korea too, in places like Japan as well, where they're saying, you know, this whole idea that this was really going to protect us as you're pulling weapon systems from our soil and sending them to the Middle East, not sure that this fully adds up for us anymore. So I'm not saying that that change will happen overnight, but again, the logic and the calculus has completely, completely changed. You know, Trump threatened to pull our, you know, our military out of Germany. And there was a significant part, a number of Germans on sort of like the far right and the far left, but we're like, okay, good, do it. That actually would be a great thing. I would support that. Please, go ahead and do it. I mean, that sentiment exists in South Korea, especially among young South Koreans as well. That sentiment exists around the world and the logic of it has also changed since the demonstration of our weakness in the Middle East and in the Iran War. You know, I know you guys covered this, but C4, I cannot emphasize enough how fast backwards this whole thing is from John Hudson. The US bore the brunt of Israel's missile defense, which means that while Iran was shooting at Israel, the United States military expended far more of its own interceptors to protect Israel than Israeli forces did. Let me sink that in as deep as we possibly can. We have a very limited amount of these advanced interceptors as I've emphasized over and over and over and over again on the show. They take years to rebuild, they're highly, you know, high precision, they're ridiculously, multi-million dollars expensive. One of the reasons we give money to Israel is so that they can have the weapons to defend themselves. This is the logic. Then when it came time to defend themselves, the United States stepped in and we defended them. We expended many of the stocks that we have so that Israel could conserve theirs. Why? Oh, because, oh, but Israel might need them in the future. Then why did we do it in the first place? And so we are now dramatically less safe because we protected Israel from Iranian missiles in a war, by the way, which they got us into and which they started. Remember, day one of the war, the United States Secretary of State, one of the most historic statements ever uttered by a chief diplomat. We had to do it because Israel was gonna attack them and that we knew Iran would attack back and that's why the United States had to get involved. That was his reasoning, the US Secretary of State. He said it, not me. And so here we are. So several months later, the United States has expended the vast, vast array of its advanced interceptors, costing some hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of this tiny little nation, while Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, they go dry. How does that make any sense? I'm losing, like it genuinely, this demonstrates to me the level of which there has been a complete strategic inversion in the Trump administration. This will go down as one of the greatest follies in US history. I really, like, it's not even hyperbolic now at this point. This is it. This is the big one in terms of the turning point. Yes, I know everyone. Oh, you're just saying that, listen, like I don't just say these things willy nilly because when you stack up the balance sheet and you look here at Japan, a G7 nation, South Korea, same thing, top trading partner of the United States, Taiwan, I just described three nations, which are in the top 10 trading partners of the United States who are like, I don't know, I don't know about this. And, Sakura, I don't even, I don't see anyone really disagree, even the neocons now, the ones who are like, oh, we gotta do more war. You know, Lindsey Graham in that tweet that we talked about with Rita Parsi on whatever day that was on Sunday. Sunday. He said, if this concludes with the deal right now, I don't know why we went into this war to start with because even them or the Robert Kagan piece that we talked about in the Atlantic where he says, it's checkmate, like we lost in Iran. I don't think that there's really anyone who can disagree with that at this point. Now, some of those people use that as a justification as that. That's why we need a ground invasion. That's why we need to nuke them or whatever insane plans they have. But it's pretty undeniable at this point unless you are the just most blinded, maga, sycophant, loyalist you could possibly imagine who just hears Trump go, we won in LA, I guess we won. Outside of those people, it's pretty undeniable. It's really undeniable. And that's actually one of the obstacles to being able to secure some sort of a deal at this point because even Trump knows he's not gonna be able to sell this as a win. Even he knows with all of his powers of persuasion and reality distortion and all, you know, something that he's very talented as, the probably greatest bullshit artist in American history. Even he knows people are going to see this as a loss, as nothing more than a devastating strategic loss and one of the greatest blunders in history. So, you know, I think it's fairly undeniable and this latest, you know, okay, well, we're not gonna do the weapon sales to Taiwan at China's request. By the way, we're just gotta go along with what they want at this point because we're in such a position of weakness. It's just a sign of a new reality. Iran is an excuse, but it's also the truth. Like it just is. And is there something we do about it? Yeah, we would have to basically Manhattan Project, our defense industrial base. Here's the problem. It's not a horrible idea, but it would be a horrible idea under the current political regime because, and I'm not just talking about Trump, I'm talking about both of them, because under the current political regime, what we know is that, let's say some neoliberal Democrat or Trump, the neo-con-Republican, if you give them more weapons, they're gonna use it for more shit like Iran and Israel. The whole point would be to have a sensible strategic defense and say, we're gonna use this to protect us and to protect Japan and to protect South Korea and maybe Taiwan, maybe, right? Which even then, this is like a law, it's basically a dream, but we wanna make sure that it doesn't get invaded or at least we maintain some strategic connection to make sure we can get all these chips which are deeply valuable. All those democracies, it's bullshit and everybody knows it. But even that, under the current regime, we know that if we put $1.5 billion into our Pentagon budget, the vast majority of it will be squandered into the mansions of Northern Virginia. And for more high-tech weapons systems which either don't work or are easily defeated or penetrated by a $20,000 drone, we have no creativity, we have no wartime mindset, then the people at the top who talk the way that I do are like the CEO of Palantir, right? Who have a shit ton to gain from some more defense spending at some very dubious and problematic expense. I don't even see a political constituency which is capable of solving this question, like period without a dramatic rewriting of the entire global foreign policy elite. And it's terrifying, honestly, because it's theoretical, we're just talking about it, but the realities of what this means in the future are going to be serious humiliations abroad, being at the genuine, really being at the mercy of other great powers. Nobody alive in the United States today has ever lived under a regime like that. It has not, we have not lived that way in almost 100 years. And it's, I mean, look, you can read books, it usually leads to clashes and fires and genocides and death and destruction, it's not good. Well, and this is why I continue to be concerned about nuclear weapons, because we haven't experienced a hegemonic decline in the nuclear age. No, we haven't. And Trump's psychotic, like you don't have any idea what this guy will do. It's impossible to predict, you know, what insane maneuvers he will take next. And so, you know, is it possible that he breaks the nuclear taboo in order to protect his fragile ego and avoid, you know, in his mind, avoid holding the L that he has to hold because of this Iran war? Like, I don't think that that's preposterous. That's why that's so, and Israel obviously nuclear armed as well and completely psychotic. So it's a very dangerous world that we live in and multi polarity was coming regardless of whether it was gonna be Trump or Kamala or whoever else comes after them. But there could have been a transition that did not result. Circumstances matter, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, what we're risking is a complete collapse. I had someone say to me, you know, we're flirting with a potential like Soviet Union collapse level of degradation. You know, is that guaranteed? No, but that's sort of level of catastrophe and decline in obvious decline in living standards that we could be facing here in the US because of the way that we are crashing into multi polarity versus having some sort of negotiated transition that would result in a lot less chaos and pain. And when I say this is the big one, you won't see it right now. What you're gonna see is the ground for when the next big one happens and people are like, holy shit, it's like the Suez moment, right? That's why what happened with Suez, it happened after nearly a decade of the post World War II era where the UK was generally declining in power and the Empire was collapsing and then everybody, including the UK, was like, oh my God, we have no power anymore. But the signs were all there. I mean, what we're saying is that it's all right here. Like it has been laid out. And then either a Taiwan crisis, which crisis, I mean, what would it look like? We don't really know. Vote for reunification or some sort of pressuring sanctions regime, who knows? Some sort of crisis between Japan and South Korea could be North Korea. I've always started North Korea as like the sleeping giant in this one. And some sort of global rewriting event just because of the nuclear problem. And now these problems with the United States of security guarantee in China as some sort of a guarantor. But that's when everybody will wake up to that one. As of right now, most people are just going to the store 450, 450 gallon, oh, that sucks. It's like, you know, if you open your eyes to how it is, it's really, really, really bad. ["The World's Greatest Man"]