 Hello and welcome to mapping fault lines a show by news click where we look at major geopolitical developments from around the world. Today we're going to be looking once again at the situation in West Asia, which has seen a lot of dramatic developments over the past few weeks. First of all, of course, we had the US strikes in Syria. Now there are claims, of course, that the US strike to place in Iraq and not in Syria, but it is definitely at the border, that's for sure. And it was targeted at the popular mobilization front units, which have been an integral part of the Iraqi fight back against ISIS in the previous years. And this is the first strike of the Joe Biden administration. And initially they, of course, claimed that this was also targeting Iranian-backed militias, although they've gone back a bit from that. They've been recent attacks by the Houthis against Saudi Arabia also. So we're going to be talking about all this. We have with us, Prabir Prakas. Prabir, thank you so much for joining us. And first of all, I wanted to ask you about the US strike. Like we said, this comes after, I made a very convoluted phase in US-Iran relations. The Iran stand has been very clear that they want the US to get back into the JCPOA or the nuclear deal. The US has been making all kinds of noises and suddenly we have the strike where they say this is against, initially they said this is against the Iranian militia as well. So how do we see these strikes considering the relationship between Iran, Iraq and Syria? Well, it's an interesting question because the complexity of all of this hinges upon really the US-Iran-Israel triangle. With Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates playing some role in the mix. But primarily it is really Iran, the United States and of course the key ally of the United States, Israel. So this is the key issue over here. And while Trump had pulled out of the JCPOA, which was condemned at the time by Biden, but when he has won the presidency, he's still trying to say that he wants to get back to the agreement. But at the same time, we're really taking positions which are not very significantly different from what Trump himself was saying. That, you know, JCPOA is not going to cut it. We need to put missiles on the table. We need a much longer timeframe for your not being able to break out of the kind of deal that we have made, which you can't have, missile material and so on and so forth. So it was a JCPOA plus, which is what Biden seemed to be saying and not walking back to the JCPOA, which was Iran's expectation. Now the European nations were trying to play a role by saying, okay, let's just meet and start talking. Iran's position was that we have stuck to the deal. We are now taking steps away from the deal, but it is still measured steps and we will come back to the deal and we'll go back to what the JCPOA originally was if the United States joins it again and our sanctions are lifted. The real issue is not the JCPOA. JCPOA was limiting Iran's nuclear missile material. I will not call it missile really enrichment program. And they had brought it down to 3.67%. And the question is how much of it now they are walking back that got rid of, I think 96 to 98% of their enriched uranium. At the time it was sent over to Russia and also they dismantle a lot of their infrastructure for producing enriched uranium. So all of that is still there on the table, provided the United States agrees to come back to the table, A agrees to the original understanding of JCPOA, which as the IAE has repeatedly said, Iran always stuck to. And then of course, the other things can be discussed provided the sanctions are lifted. The real issue is without lifting the sanctions to ask Iran to start negotiations afresh seems to be what the United States is demanding. And that Iran is not going to agree if it had agreed long back. So I think that's a stalemate. China has tried to see whether you can put all the people together at least in a room and start the talking. But as Iran has made clear that this is not going to work because all it means is whatever agreement that Iran reaches it can always be thrown away and a new agreement asking for more can be started while they have made the concessions. All those concessions have not led to the final reversal of the sanctions which is what their intent of the JCPOA agreement for the Iranian side was. So I think that's where the things become complicated because Biden administration also believes that bombing allies of Iran as they call it and will come to the Iraqi militia issue in a minute. But bombing them seems to be a signal to Iran that we can escalate further if you don't agree. So we'll bomb you back to the table. Now, bombing back to the table is something Trump had tried and Iran was not good to give and it's a dangerous track to follow because it is an uncertain unknown path which can lead at any point escalation of a war which neither side seems to want. So this is really not a track which I think makes any sense. So why is Biden doing it? It's not clear to me. It's not clear to the strategic community either because if the return to JCPOA was objective bombing Iraqi forces which are allied which are a really a part of the Iraqi government forces today and who did save along with Iranian forces at that point the battle against ISIS which was there was a threat of actually Baghdad falling. So these are the forces that what you call the PMF, PMU, whatever the various avatars are these are the forces who really stopped ISIS and at that time you remember General Suleimani was the one who led that struggle against ISIS precisely in the sector to stop the ISIS from advancing to Baghdad. So given that history to take those forces who are today an integral part of the Iraqi armed forces doesn't really make any diplomatic sense and to call them Iran backed militias also doesn't make sense because Iraq is still supposedly their ally. They have actually forces in Iran they have bases in Iraq. Therefore to bomb Iraqi troops on Iraqi territory even if it is in the Syrian border doesn't seem to make any legal strategic sense at least to me and probably to as I said to most of the strategic experts around the world were not committed to be anti-Iran and whatever you are United States does is to be detoured or clapped if that is not the question we are talking about this doesn't seem to make really any sense whatsoever. So the real issue is is this going to lead to hardening of positions in Iran? A, B, will it also lead to United States and its allies getting even more isolated Iraq to remember after General Mohandas who was again general of the PMF itself and as well as of course Suleimani who's regarded as a hero in the fight of the Iraqi and Iranian forces against ISIS when actually the United States did not offer them the support they expected and United States troops were there in Iraq at that point of time. So given that it's actually isolating United States even more within Iraq. So I don't see this as a good line of attack against Iran. It in fact it isolates the US much more. So this is interesting that Biden should be towing this track, we're towing this line because it doesn't square in with whatever it earlier he had been talking about unless we take it to be essentially an Israeli pressure or Israeli influence of the United States strategic theory. Now, you know, there is one issue here the number of Israeli security experts have actually started talking about the JCPOF is a good deal and let's not put the talk about missiles on the table because that's not going to go anywhere. So given that this part of it doesn't seem to again make sense. And that's a very interesting development within Israel itself that there are security basically those who have retired from the security forces there who started talking about how good the JCPOF was. This is something within Israel, nobody talked about earlier. It's a recognition that JCPOF is still something in the get. It's better than what the way Iran seems to be heading. And if the persist further, that's the way it will go. And also the recognition, putting the missile back in under the ground as it is being thought of is an unrealistic issue. There is enough missiles in the Hezbollah today has in Lebanon to really make it very difficult for Israel to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon itself. And therefore they can have an economic war they can wage on Lebanon. There is a lot of other things they can do, but military dominance of the kind they expected or what as we can see the Israeli current prime minister is trying to talk about. This is completely not on the table. And that's a recognition even the Israeli security establishment seems to be coming to. Now whether this will play out that this will be a step, one step back, two steps forward is Biden sort of thinking that just the show of force before he goes into negotiations will be better. We don't know. But there are parallel tracks operating with the Europeans and the Chinese to try and see whether they can bring the two parties together and hopefully have some kind of a walking back to JCPOA and some kind of a new reality in which sanctions are lifted on Iran in lieu of the JCPOA being again brought back to its original shape. If that doesn't happen, then we are looking for again the same Trump line of uncertainty escalation and we don't know where it will reach. And if it does reach a flash point then I think we are looking at a disaster in West Asia which will affect large parts of the world because it is the place where a lot of oil comes for instance for India, for Europe, for China. So it is something which is critical for all of us and not so much for the United States today but certainly for all of us. And we know if there is a war there that this is going to be a disaster for the oil facilities in that region. Absolutely. And it's interesting you mentioned Iraq because of course we do know that even after the US strike was of course supposedly retaliation to an earlier strike when some rockets struck a base in Erbil and even after the US strike there were further rocket attacks. And in Iraq there's a very strong mood right now against US forces. There was a parliamentary resolution some months ago demanding the withdrawal of US forces after Soleimani was assassinated. And these kind of attacks actually in some senses further strengthen that sentiment as well calling for the removal of US troops. You're quite right that any attempts to hit Iraqi armed forces units which is what the PMF today is for what certain irregular forces in Iraq are doing attacking American bases and which I think some of the contractors have got killed. So all of this is not panning out the way they think it should that if you attack them the Iraqi armed forces units which is what the PMF as I said is then it doesn't stop the those who are irregular because the writ of the Iraqi government has been partially destroyed by the United States itself. And having done that, having destroyed Iraq to expect therefore that Iran will pull back everybody is really not something which is realistic. And of course Iran can assert itself to pull back some of this provided they have something in the game but at the moment they have none. So why would they reduce their goodwill in Iraq by trying to pull something back when there is nothing in it for them? So the whole argument about threatening on every occasion anybody and calling it Iranian forces is not going to help the US in its diplomatic maneuvers. What it does is it helps it domestically. And I think more than the message to West Asia this is a message to the domestic population that we are actually acting tough. And even if I go into negotiations I'm going after having attacked Iran and being therefore in a position of strength. So maybe it's more for its domestic audience and to see how tough, show how tough he is rather than what the West Asian situation demands. So I think that's the danger in this that the domestic scenario imposes itself on the strategic calculations of the United States. We are going to see a much more difficult engagement with Iran. And if that happens it's not going to be good for anybody in the world. And that's the unfortunate truth that in this case they can unmake West Asia in a way that's going to damage everybody. And just not the United States just not Iran but everybody else as well. And I think that's the kind of threat that I see this kind of escalations can cause. Absolutely. And Praveen moving on from there to the other sector which is Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Again, a lot of ups and downs in the past few months we saw the Biden administration removing the terrorist tag on Ansar Allah which is known as the Houthis. And this was also followed by some step, they prop suspended arms sales to the UAE also which is involved in the Saudi-led alliance against Yemen. But they followed it up with the US followed it up with sanctions on Houthi officials. And recently the Houthis have claimed that they have hit a Saudi Aramco facility again and this strikes supposedly happened on Thursday. So what we see again is situation that's very much in flux over here because the war on Yemen has been going on for six years. The United Nations, right? It groups all over the world have talked about the huge humanitarian costs. Biden was involved in starting the war of course against Yemen. But even now it doesn't look like there's a very clear end in sight especially since Saudi Arabia is involved. Well, the one thing that we can see in this is that while they have made various noises they have taken at least some step regarding the lifting of the terrorist tag on Houthis but it doesn't mean sanctions against supplying medicine, food, et cetera, et cetera. That has been taken off. So effectively though the terrorist tag is not there the consequences of the terrorist tags didn't stay. So the humanitarian disaster in Yemen still continues because of U.S. actions. So substantive relief on that count has not been given to the Yemenis. And we're not talking about the Houthis here. We're really talking of the Yemenis and the enormous humanitarian disaster that's taking place in Yemen. No schools, no electricity, no hospitals, no medicine and of course large scale near famine conditions over there which has hit the young children much harder. Of course it hits everybody but the young children much harder because if they suffer from malnutrition at this stage it's a lifelong burden that they have to carry. So I think that part of the humanitarian disaster still doesn't come out in the Western media. We still talk about Khashoggi. Yes, that's important that after Khashoggi's assassination, murder if you will that everybody accepts now even the United States government that MBS was involved but it doesn't mean any action is taken because Saudi Arabia still is a lynchpin for their financial system and of course buying arms. So they might stop it for some time but we know that this is only a cosmetic exercise. So that still remains. But the key issue in Yemen is to stop the war and also stop the humanitarian, humanitarian crisis that is there. There is no at least no perceptible pressure we can see that the Western powers are willing to make because Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates are still the largest buyer of arms and pumping up the financial system of the West and given that they're really lot to touch these powers. So I think that part of the West Asian the other part of the West Asian geostrategic calculation is that the monarchies are still our best bet in the region. And even though monarchies were already outmoded in the 20th century, if they're the best bet for the West in the 21st century I think they're going to have a rude awakening one day or the other. And while the other United Arab Emirates this kind of Qatar or all this for this powers they are actually very thin small countries Kuwait the small countries there's not much of a local population which can make a difference but Saudi Arabia has a large population and therefore it is not something which can be taken for granted for too long that you can run it like a medieval monarchy forever. And I think that's at some point going to tell as well though there's nothing that is immediately visible but to think that Saudi Arabia is something that it can be treated like any other monarchy may not be true. And there is a certain pressure cooker atmosphere in Saudi Arabia which at some point can really causes crisis in Saudi Arabia itself. And the 400 princes over there who formed the shall we say the ruling class of Saudi Arabia they will that they will splinter or not under such conditions we don't know. So Saudi Arabia internally may not be as stable as people think it to be. So I think the West again the United States other Western powers mistake the concurrent configuration as something which can sustain them for a very long time and that may not hold for too long. What you also said about the Houthis you know this is with the Houthi issue always that they have the ability to hit the Saudis and whether that will tilt the also the balance in Saudi Arabia internally also we have to see it hasn't till now but do the Houthis have greater capability to cause more damage to Saudi Arabia is a question that we have to still watch they haven't done so till now they have earlier had created some damage to Aramco facilities after that they haven't done so again. So is it restrained on their side or is it something that they did have only once in a while capability and that having exhausted itself to find it difficult to repeat it we really don't know that's the other uncertainty in the question that we have to watch. Absolutely. Thank you so much for being for talking to us. That's all your time for today keep watching Newsweek.