00:00Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been fairly hesitant, I think it's fair to say, to sign up and join forces.
00:07And I'm wondering whether you think perhaps he was right to be hesitant, not least given the fact that we
00:13get these contradictory, sometimes quite difficult to follow messages out of Washington.
00:18Well, I think he was right for the simple reason that after the 2003 Iraq war, the long seven-year
00:25inquiry that came out of it led to a thing called the Chilcot Report,
00:29which was a kind of 10-part checklist on questions you need answering before you go campaigning again.
00:37And one of those is what's the end state? And one of the other ones is what are the second
00:41and third order consequences?
00:43It's some of those second and third order consequences that we seem to be seeing now, which seem to surprise
00:48President Trump.
00:49For example, he didn't expect the Strait of Hormuz to be closed and he didn't expect retaliation.
00:55Both of those actually were in the playbook of CENTCON, so I'm not sure why.
00:59I think he probably relied on the fact that because of Venezuela, he could do a decapitation on the Supreme
01:06Leader and that would be it.
01:07And that's not the type of society and regime that Iran is, particularly with the clerical theocracy and with the
01:16IRGC in control.
01:17Well, let's see how much money does it win out.
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