00:00Well, let's bring all of this together.
00:01Kanwal Subhal is former foreign secretary of India
00:05and the former Indian ambassador to Turkey, Egypt, France and Russia.
00:10It is a terrible situation that the world is in.
00:14India has been very badly hit
00:16because we have about 10 million people in this area.
00:22We get about 40 percent, 50 percent of our oil and gas from this region.
00:27And we get about 40 billion remittances from this region.
00:32Now, if the region gets disturbed because the conflict continues,
00:38then we will have a huge problem on our hands,
00:41even a bigger problem on our hands than we have at present.
00:45The shutting down or disruption of the Strait of Hamish is affecting us,
00:50although our ships are being able to go through.
00:53But on a case-by-case basis, on a ship-by-ship basis,
00:57so the flow of oil and gas from this region has become problematic.
01:02Worse for us, the gas facility, the LNG facility in Qatar has been shut down.
01:09They have been forced measures with the result
01:12that we have now to look for supplies from elsewhere.
01:16But I think the larger effect of this is on the global economy
01:22because it affects large parts of the global economy in terms of tourism,
01:30in terms of aviation, in terms of fertilizers, in terms of export, import, in terms of logistics.
01:36So, frankly, this is a very bad situation.
01:38You're an enormously experienced diplomat of so many years standing.
01:45Let's talk about the diplomacy.
01:47President Trump has alternated between threats and claims of productive talks.
01:54I mean, does this reflect coercive diplomacy or strategic inconsistency?
02:02Well, he's not made any bones about the fact that he relishes doing coercive diplomacy.
02:10He has actually exercised that diplomacy towards us also by imposing earlier 50% tariffs on us,
02:19making us the most tariff country in the world,
02:22although India and the United States have otherwise a very good relationship and a strategic partnership.
02:29He has forced us in the past to stop buying Iranian oil and then Russian oil.
02:35And he's exercised this coercive diplomacy vis-Ã -vis Europe, as you well know,
02:40vis-Ã -vis Great Britain currently is very annoyed with you.
02:43But there's strategic inconsistency, too, because he changes his narrative.
02:49Sometimes he demands one thing, at other times he demands another thing.
02:53Another thing, look at, for example, Iran.
02:56Earlier, he said that he's not looking for a regime change, but then he said, yes,
03:01he has decapitated the leadership and, in effect, he has established a regime change.
03:08Then he said, in fact, he chided Israel for having attacked the South Park's oil gas field,
03:15and then he himself then threatened that he would attack the energy infrastructure of Iran.
03:22Then he said that, well, the United States doesn't need the Gulf of Hormuz.
03:26Other countries do.
03:27Therefore, they should send in their warships and open the channel.
03:31And now he says that this must be opened, and he's willing to do X, Y, and Z to force
03:39it open.
03:39And, in fact, he's threatening to send 4,000 or 5,000 Marines from the 81st Airborne Brigade to achieve
03:46that target.
03:47So there's a lot of strategic inconsistency.
03:50And finally, he said, I don't recognize the new Ayatollah.
03:53But then he says, he and the Ayatollah are going to manage in future the state of Hormuz.
03:58So one really does not know.
04:00But this is part of his art of the deal, escalate to de-escalate, keep other parties on tenterhooks about
04:07what he may do,
04:08create chaos, and then say, I'm a peacemaker.
04:11Frankly, it's very, very difficult to understand the thinking and strategy of the U.S. president.
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