00:00On Iran, you called it an excursion. You said it would be over soon. Are you thinking this week it
00:05will be over?
00:06No, but soon. I think so. Okay, and with respect to...
00:09Very soon. Look, everything they have is gone, including their leadership.
00:14In fact, there are two levels of leadership, and even actually, as it turns out, more than that.
00:19But two levels of leadership are gone.
00:23All right, let's discuss. Joining me now is Stuart Livingstone-Wallace, Bloomberg's executive editor for Middle East, North Africa and
00:29Russia,
00:29and Sam Dahl, Bloomberg's senior Middle East reporter. Stuart, let's start with you.
00:34How should we be reading Trump's comments overnight?
00:37As always, we're sort of trying to read the tea leaves a little bit, and I think the way to
00:40think about this is
00:41what we've always known is that he responds to markets, and as you said in your introduction,
00:46oil today looks very cheap relative to what it was 24 hours ago.
00:50It looks very, very expensive relative to what it was two months ago, and certainly far higher than it would
00:54be under normal circumstances.
00:55We knew there was a supply coming this year. It's purely about this disruption, and that disruption is being caused
01:01by this war.
01:02And he knows he's got the midterms coming up, and he knows that the U.S. consumer responds to retail
01:08gasoline prices and retail diesel prices.
01:10And, yes, they haven't spiked up in quite the same way as the oil price, but it's going to come
01:14if it continues along these lines.
01:16So I think what you read into it is he is becoming increasingly aware this is going to have an
01:21impact domestically,
01:22and he needs to make some very difficult decisions about his war aims and how much of those he's achieved
01:28versus his domestic aims and how much of those he's losing.
01:31Yeah, and at what point he can actually declare victory.
01:35Sam, let me put the question to you now, because actually, I mean, the messaging that we're getting from the
01:41Iranians is pretty defiant,
01:42and actually I want to point viewers to a post that the foreign minister actually put up yesterday
01:47saying nobody should complain if our powerful missiles destroy these U.S. systems wherever they are in retribution.
01:57Talk to us about the messaging that's coming through from Iran here.
02:00Just to clarify, the post was actually seven hours ago, so like earlier today.
02:04Overnight, yeah.
02:04Overnight.
02:04So basically, I mean, we're really getting a clear message of defiance and confrontation from the Islamic Republic regime,
02:12particularly with the selection of Mushtaba Khamenei, the 56-year-old son of the Ayatollah Khamenei,
02:19who was killed on the first day of this war.
02:21He's a favorite of the hardliners in the regime.
02:25His selection was immediately praised by people inside Iran and outside as well in the region.
02:33He was hailed as the new leader by the IRGC and Hezbollah and the Iraqi proxies and the Houthi leader
02:41in Yemen as well.
02:43So Ali Larijani, who is also the very powerful figure now in the regime, said, you know,
02:51by selecting Khamenei so swiftly, it was a message to the U.S. and America and the rest of, you
02:59know,
02:59the countries that were, in his words, conspiring against Iran, that they failed because they tried to, quote,
03:06bring Iran to a dead end, end of quote, by killing Khamenei.
03:11And from Larijani, we're seeing some very hard messaging.
03:15I mean, earlier on the weekend, he said Americans must know, this is a quote from him,
03:18Americans must know that they will not, that we will not let them go.
03:24And obviously, he and other hardliners in the regime, like Aragshi, are walking back some of the conciliatory messages
03:30that we heard from Pazekshi.
03:32Pazekshi can't over the weekends.
03:32Yeah, exactly.
03:33So they're still looking to target U.S. assets in the region.
03:36And I think that is the takeaway, Stuart, because if you look at, say, the intensity, frequency of attacks,
03:43yes, we spoke about yesterday about how they're diminishing,
03:45but that doesn't mean that they're not still causing a significant amount of economic damage
03:50and also physical damage to countries around the Gulf states.
03:54Yeah.
03:54And the question here is, how do you interpret that?
03:56Do you interpret it, for instance, as they're running low on stockpiles, certainly missile launchers?
04:00Do you interpret it as the defense has been so effective, and it has, you know,
04:05it's kind of up there with Iron Dome in terms of how much they're knocking out the sky,
04:09that they've sort of realized it's a rather futile effort?
04:11Or are they working on the assumption that they need to preserve their stockpiles,
04:15and actually just by sending a few missiles and drones every day,
04:18they can maintain that same level of damage and instability in the region?
04:23So it's on your favorite interpretation of that, and any of those are possible.
04:27Yeah.
04:27Sam, let me come back to you.
04:29I also want to ask you about the Lebanon front as well.
04:31The death toll continues to climb there.
04:34Some interesting comments that many people have jumped on coming out of the president's yesterday,
04:38proposing a four-point initiative, calling for direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel,
04:44also accusing Hezbollah of deliberately attempting to drag Lebanon into the Iran war.
04:50Absolutely.
04:51I mean, the situation, as you know, in Lebanon is pretty dire.
04:53I mean, at least 500 people have been killed so far.
04:56We're talking about at least 700,000 people displaced after Israel issued those orders for evacuation of the southern suburbs
05:03of Beirut
05:04and, you know, large sections of the south and the Beka Valley.
05:08So, I mean, the country is on the brink.
05:11And obviously, this is an urgent message by Aoun.
05:15And he appears to be leaning on European leaders to do something, to intervene here.
05:19I mean, obviously, he met with European officials yesterday.
05:21And we're sensing also the same here in the Gulf.
05:24They're leaning on not just – I mean, they're leaning on the Europeans.
05:27They're meeting with the Europeans, particularly the French, the British, the Germans and others.
05:34There's also – there appears to be – maybe they're also counting on the Chinese and the Russians
05:38to talk some sense, I mean, from their perspective, into the Iranians to at least stop the attacks on the
05:44Gulf.
05:44I mean, this morning we heard from the Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran, Qasem Garibaba.
05:49He said Russia and China actually reached out to us to announce a ceasefire.
05:58And we told them we won't announce a ceasefire unless there's no more aggression against us by the U.S.
06:05and Israel.
06:07And obviously, we reported earlier that there were some back-channel talks, maybe not at a very high level,
06:13between the Saudis and the Iranians at the level of diplomats and security officials, to end these attacks on the
06:20Gulf,
06:20which, as we noted earlier, that maybe the tempo has lessened in the UAE,
06:27but it's picked up significantly in Bahrain, where the Ministry of Interior just announced the death of a civilian
06:32in an attack on a residential neighborhood. And also there was the desalination plant over the weekend.
06:38There was a drone attack on Sitra and also the attacks that were happening in Saudi Arabia.
06:42And we had a very strong message from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday,
06:47the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, saying all of this aggression has to stop now.
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