00:00I want to go back to that post that President Trump put up a couple of hours ago.
00:04We were just speaking to our reporter, and she views it through the frame of perhaps President Trump is looking
00:10for de-escalation.
00:12In your mind, was this the escalation that was necessary in order for the situation to de-escalate,
00:18or do you see things getting even worse from here?
00:24Well, here, Jumana, we could question, was the whole war on Iran necessary or not?
00:30Not only this particular escalation.
00:32Indeed, it could be an instrument to escalate in order to de-escalate, but it doesn't seem to serve the
00:38purpose.
00:38And if to believe Donald Trump and his post and true social, he didn't know about the strike that Israel
00:46was planning to do.
00:48That does not characterize him very well, I think, because it would mean that he doesn't have leverage on Benjamin
00:56Netanyahu,
00:56on this case or any other operational decisions.
01:01It does not seem to set the GCC countries against Iran just enough,
01:08because we saw, again, quite a conciliatory rhetoric coming out of Qatar,
01:14who called all the parties to stop, because it's a shared gas field,
01:19the south parts and north field for both countries, Qatar and Iran.
01:24So Qatar is deeply concerned about that.
01:26And it seems in Qatar there is an understanding that there was an Israeli strike.
01:33So I don't see how this is going to de-escalate,
01:37because Iran is probably going to respond again with the strikes at the energy facilities,
01:42in the Gulf countries as well, and at Israel.
01:49Okay, so that's your prognosis.
01:51President Trump also, you know, to your point,
01:53saying that he was not aware that Israel were going to go after those gas fields in Iran.
02:00Has the U.S. lost control of this war?
02:07It's hard to predict or to guess what's on Donald Trump's mind right now,
02:12but it looks more like he would love to have that occasion
02:17over which he could declare a victory and pull out of the war.
02:21And this could have been arranged, like to occupy an island or a port for a while
02:28and to declare that there was some ground operation and declare victory and pull out,
02:32because it wasn't possible to declare victory over assassination of the Iranian key officials.
02:38But the problem remains if Iran will continue to attack Israel and Gulf countries,
02:44even at low intensity.
02:45And it's got enough ammunitions.
02:47It's got enough support.
02:49I would even argue that China and Russia would not leave Iran alone if it were to run out.
02:55The United States will have to stay in order to protect Israel.
03:00So it's a kind of a trap that the American administration that went into this war willingly find itself in.
03:08And sometimes when you look at it, it looks like it's such a strike at the American prestige,
03:14because the American president found himself trapped and criticized within his own administration.
03:20And now it proves to be almost impossible to pull out.
03:27Can I ask you, you know, thinking about this from a markets perspective,
03:32I think it was Anthony Blinken, our colleague David Gura,
03:35I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago, and he said this war is going to be determined,
03:39or the end of the war is going to be determined by two factors, markets and munitions.
03:43Do you think from President Trump's perspective,
03:46the only way that he's going to perhaps look to end this war would be if we start to see
03:53significant disruption
03:55in global equity markets, which so far has not happened, and even higher oil prices.
04:01Is that really going to be the restraining influence here?
04:05Maybe, as you said, munitions would be the first factor here,
04:09and according to the estimates of the military analysts,
04:14it is supposed to run out, and it's probably running out faster than expected.
04:19And also part of the U.S. military equipment was very well targeted by Iran,
04:24probably not without the help of the U.S., of China and Russia,
04:28for targeting some sophisticated equipment.
04:31And also the anti-missile defense.
04:34That also proves to be quite a problem, because that's running out,
04:38and that's why the United States had to pull out some of those munitions
04:43from the countries like Japan and Korea.
04:46On the other hand, I'm not sure about equities, but maybe oil prices.
04:50The further we go, the more calamity it inflicts into the markets,
04:55and the more difficult it will be to recover.
04:58It already has proven to be more damaging than the so-called 12-day war of the last year,
05:05from which there is pretty much, even among investors and financial analysts,
05:10there's pretty much no prediction on what's going to happen with the price of oil,
05:15and accordingly the increase in prices for multiple commodities globally.
Comments