 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today, we are joined by Professor Eja Zahemud and we will be discussing the situation in West Asia. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Professor Ahmed, since the last time we discussed the situation in Iran and West Asia as a whole, there have been a lot of developments, some of which have been quite scary to say the least. So there was the attacks on the tankers, then there were further sanctions imposed recently by the U.S. and Iran and most importantly, the drone that was shot down and according to U.S. media reports, we were just 10 minutes away from a strike by Donald Trump on certain facilities in Iran, radar and military facilities. So do you see the stepping back of the United States from that strike as just a momentary or a sudden gesture or is it a more thought out step in the sense that they understand that there is only so far they can go? So is this likely to be repeated again or what do you think about that? My sense is that it's very difficult to say. The story seems to me rather bogus and I'll come to that. I think there is an institutional chaos on top of everything else in the U.S. The U.S. at the moment does not have a defense secretary. Now you can't go to war without a defense secretary. So the result is that Bolton is actually functioning not only as a national security adviser but as a proxy president. So he's making decisions. Now I think this whole story of they were all very ready to take off and strike and ten minutes before it so on. This seems to be one of those stories that get cooked up to or something else. My there is quite possible that Bolton and Pompeo Bolton in particular in his capacity as the national security adviser ordered all that and then some very high officials of the Pentagon quite possibly the general chiefs of staff came up to Trump and said this is disastrous. This will lead to a good scale. So that seems to me to be much more of a possibility than this little drama that cooked up. So what is that is concerned? Even that may be an exaggeration. It may not have gone nearly as far as they're saying it meant. But this is certainly true that there are officials like Bolton and Pompeo a very large section of the U.S. Senate and Congress which work very closely with Israel and so on who want that fight. Whereas military experts over the world are saying this is just not on because this we know we don't know what repercussions will be having said that I think basically Iran has won this round. First they have made quite clear from the beginning that this is a this is a defense that is going to be you know going to be played out in the American part of the court. So and then they went on and shot the drone by which they also showed their technical capacity to shoot down America's primary drone which was not even supposed to have been in that region in fact it may be you know how it even arrived there is very unclear and they shoot this down flying at 60,000 feet or some such thing with a weapon that is probably made in manufactured by the by the Iranis themselves. It is not a Soviet weapon I mean Russian weapon. So there is that and so on the one hand a technical display that we can do this and if we can do this then many other things follow but also saying that if you're going to to give us military threats it though that confrontation will take place on our terms because they sit on top of the Gulf so I think they have won this round but they're at a very dangerous moment you know in everything and I actually blame the the Europeans for all of this. So we'll come to that but before that also to slightly step back and just to wanted to know what exactly the US strategy here is because on the one hand this is not Iraq which has been weakened by a decade of sanctions and this is not even Venezuela where the US has propped up a coup leader a domestic leader so you have Iran which is which also has allies in the region has one of the most powerful militaries in the region too and the US has committed forces both naval and land forces to the extent that there is almost no turning back without a substantial loss of face as far as the US is concerned. So if even for Bolton and the sections allied in the Congress and Senate what exactly is the possibility they might be aiming for? I think there is a real policy chaos. You mentioned Venezuela now what happened with great fanfare they recognize this new government and Europeans idiotic just followed in the US footsteps and recognize that fake government and it collapsed like a house of cards it's ridiculous that the way in which it collapsed likewise what happened in North Korea there was a lot of sabre rattling you know Aramada is on the way etc this that and the other and the next thing to know he has made a peace initiative nothing came out of that peace initiative either and but he has made a fool of himself now he goes there and he crosses the you know demilitaries that line and so on etc for theater it has absolutely no substance whatsoever so two major these were the three great wars he was going to fought or whatever three aggressions of various kind Venezuela and North Korea they've already become absurd and my sense is that that is where it's going in Iran so far as the policy vacuum in the US is actually concerned the problem is that there you have you're dealing with Israel and Saudi Arabia who are extremely irresponsible but Trump seems to be very very beholden to the Israeli lobby in a way that previous presidents were not and there's of course Kushner who is virtually in Israel and so on so that is where I think the danger is with the kind of allies that they have and the extent to which they have gone forward and they think that that they could somehow just carry this on and what the what the Iranians are saying is that no there's going to be a settlement fast we are not going to allow our economy to collapse the ways you know right yeah so you mentioned the Iranians not willing to let their economy collapse and one of the angles they're pursued in this is engagement with the Europeans and the other signatories in a larger sense so recently on to 28th I think there was a conference in Vienna where the European officials inaugurated in stechs officially but even now there doesn't seem to be too much momentum in that and even Iran has indicated that it is it's a positive step but not really enough so is there any possibility that this direction might actually help them salvage their economy to a bit you know stechs is covers only trade which is allowed by your sanctions which is the which is food and medicine they are not the Europeans have explicitly said that they are not going to use it to break the US sanctions so then what are we dealing with um it is at the moment it's financed at 1 billion which is not terribly much so this is an empty gesture that they have made they are not they are not they will they will use this to carry on the trade which is already exempted from the sanctions so why bother you know so that is why uh they actually gave them 7th of July as the deadline and they either have to deliver or get out of the game but in that view was actually a failure even though the Europeans tried to present it as a great step forward that they had taken the Iranis are very strong diplomats that probably the world's most sophisticated diplomats at the moment they sort of said yes thank you very much it's a sort of a nice positive thing but they continued with saying July 7th is the deadline by which you have to come through but we have already increased our stockpile we are enriching it etc all within the parameters of the actually the letter of the deal so they are not in violation of the deal although that is what the Americans are saying and that's what the Europeans would say you know so the betrayal is actually from the Europeans in mind and would China for instance be able to uh would you think there's a possibility of say China stepping in and continuing or they've already continued to accept Iranian oil so does that offer some sort of a lifeline as far as economy is concerned or would they also at some point have to withdraw my sense is that the Chinese will be extremely careful and they will devise some other mechanism because I mean that is what is very important to watch uh you see there can be a direct line to Turkey to um they can also be a lot of trade with Russia Russia will actually probably take a much more openly aggressive stance on carrying on trade etc um my sense is that openly that's where it will come from the Chinese will do what they can they are setting up so far as I know some mechanisms with their banks some of their biggest banks uh to be able to trade with Iran not in the name of the government but through its bank and almost daring the Americans to sanction the bank uh you know because that that gets into another kind of game but definitely I think taking very cautious steps I don't expect them to do anything very dramatic Russians are the ones that I expect to do things dramatic including if the war you know begin if the military confrontation goes forward I won't be surprised if the Russians supply weapons okay right and in this context India's position is also interesting because recently especially with the G20 summit Pompeo's visit there was a perception that the Indian government is actually not maybe standing up to the United States but at least raising its point and the G20 summit the RIC meeting also between G and Putin and Modi was also quite prominent but is there any possibility that India might on the issue of Iran take a much stronger stand because until now it's been quite weak it's just completely banned all imports as well if Germany wants wants won't you expect you to do right you can make polite noises and that's what the Iranians are saying that we have had a year of polite noises now we are going to go you go forward according to our own judgment and if your behavior changes we step back I don't expect Indians to do anything so they never have they never win so there's also of course the largest state of the US alliance in the region the US Israel Saudi Arabia axis and the countries around it and one of the key moments in recent times regarding that was the Manama conference although ostensibly it was about the so-called deal of the century but it is also an attempted building larger consensus of countries on all these issues so do you think that in the event of say an armed conflict that this alliance of larger countries in West Asia the larger alliance of countries in West Asia will actually hold or will there be further divisions between them I think these are two different dynamics actually the real thing that is going on in Palestine is Israel's decision to actually annex large parts of the West Bank that dynamic got scuttled by the election results and then the fall of the government Netanyahu's government and the prospects that now are of greater chaos political chaos in Israel so I think that is what the real dynamic is there is no power in the world to prevent them they have decided that the Trump administration is the great chance that they have to fully implement their total plan and they are not going to wait to see if Trump is going to get reelected that is the real dynamic which has been scuttled for a while because of this political chaos in Israel the so-called peace plan is to offer a certain amount of money to make this palatable to a certain very large class of Palestinian businessmen and so on who have been in cooperation with Israel for a very long time so on in very many of the you know Palestine Authority officials and so on so that's what the game is but I think what the great success of the Manema Conference is that the main gulf powers and not all of them mind you UAE and Saudi Arabia in particular have now come out as being Israeli allies as being people who are responsive to this again rhetorically Saudi Arabia says but in order to do all this you have to get a peace plan and so on and so on but those are gestures the fact of the matter is that this was a big public relations exercise in which this alliance between Israel and the UAE and Saudi Arabia is getting cemented step by step but what also became very clear is even the majority of the sticks don't find it it's possible to really go as far as that and then there are powerful countries you know like Iraq or you know major countries you know who are opposed to us so in that sense it was it was a bigger exercise rather than making some sort of tentative the last thing I would say about is that you know who was the previous president of the United States recently given an interview to the Washington Post in which he talks about how Kushner was going behind his back all the time with Mexico when this happened here again what you have is remarkable absence of diplomats it is Kushner my peace so it is a very strange kind of fear my Trump family is highly corrupt right thank you so much Rosemarie