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The geopolitical landscape in West Asia faces renewed instability as tensions between the United States and Iran escalate. Following the US naval blockade and an indefinite ceasefire announcement by the US President, Iran has retaliated by seizing two vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, including one bound for India.
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00:00So there's a lot of uncertainty once again in West Asia.
00:04It leaves me to raise the big questions.
00:06Are we returning to war in West Asia?
00:08And some are suggesting a seizure of ships by Iran.
00:12Is this simply tit for tat?
00:13Is the IRGC now calling the shots in Tehran?
00:17Will Donald Trump lift the blockade?
00:19Is this simply now a war without an end game?
00:22Joining me now, special guest Patrick Hennigson,
00:27geopolitical analyst, founder of the news website 21perCenturyWire.com.
00:32He joins me from Phoenix, Arizona.
00:34Colonel Jeffrey Fisher of the Fisher Aerospace CEO.
00:38He's been a combat veteran.
00:40And joining me now is Zohreh Karazmi.
00:44He's associate professor at the University of Tehran in Iran.
00:48I appreciate all of you joining me on the show today.
00:52I want to come to Zohreh first there because Iran is making the headlines once again today.
00:57They've targeted two ships, seized two ships.
01:00One of them was bound for India.
01:02And Iran says this is tit for tat to the action the U.S. has taken.
01:07What message is Iran trying to send?
01:09Do you want a ceasefire or you don't want a ceasefire?
01:15Iran has, as a coastal state, has the right to actually guarantee the innocent passage that international law also is
01:25guaranteeing for a coastal state in the Strait of Hormuz.
01:29Because the Strait of Hormuz and across it actually becomes a platform of act of aggression against Iran.
01:383,300 people were murdered by Americans and Israelis.
01:43So just guaranteeing the order and this innocent passage of the vessels in the Strait of Hormuz is the very
01:52sovereign right Iran has.
01:55And now the blockade the United States made is the act of war.
02:01And also from actually 11,000 kilometers away, Americans came to bullying over Iran.
02:08And it's actually something that Iran would not give up and accept.
02:13So I think Iran has already just given the rules and regulations, the route, and tweeted friends and foes differently.
02:24So you're not going to allow...
02:28So you're determined...
02:30No, no, let's be clear, ma'am.
02:33Zohreh, let's be clear.
02:34You're telling me that so long...
02:36Is this now conditional on the United States blockade?
02:39So long as the United States continues with its blockade,
02:42you're telling me Iran will not allow vessels to move through the Strait of Hormuz,
02:46including vessels potentially with an Indian flag.
02:51Certainly, Iran would actually guarantee its control.
02:54And if the United States keeping on is bullying over the region,
02:58Iran not only keeping on to close the Strait of Hormuz,
03:03but even the bubble mandat in the Red Sea can be added to the closure.
03:09And you can imagine that 10 percent of energy and 40 percent of container shipment
03:13also is crossing the Red Sea to the Suez Canal.
03:20So what actually the Trump is getting is the way to disaster
03:24and getting the whole global economy down.
03:28Right.
03:30Okay, you know, let me at this moment also turn to my other guests,
03:35because you're hearing these voices coming in from Iran,
03:38very, very strong voices coming in.
03:40I want to turn to you, Colonel Jeffrey Fisher.
03:43How do you see this?
03:44Is the United States now caught between a rock and a hard place
03:49that you've got an Iran which is even more belligerent
03:53than it was five or six weeks ago and has weaponized the Strait of Hormuz?
03:57And at the same time, the United States cannot afford, it appears,
04:02to allow the blockade to be lifted so easily.
04:05Will that be seen as a sign of defeat in some ways?
04:08Yes.
04:10Yeah, I think it's a great question.
04:12To be fair, you know, I don't think Donald Trump's helping himself at all.
04:17Right.
04:18I don't I don't think this, you know, where he makes an ultimatum and then he changes it
04:22and then he extends the ceasefire.
04:25But I think this this speaks to kind of who Donald Trump, though, is.
04:28Right.
04:28I think that that that is very scary.
04:30My biggest concern is, look, when I was in the U.S. military,
04:33I've actually sailed through the Straits of Hormuz on an aircraft carrier sitting on a on a catapult ready for
04:39launch.
04:39And and we were in that posture because the straight is very narrow and things in the straight can escalate
04:46extremely fast.
04:48Right.
04:48There's the time of flight for missiles from either coast or from a ship are very, very short.
04:53So you're you're in a situation where you're at a heightened tension, narrow ship, narrow shipping lanes.
05:01What I'm seeing from both countries at this point is really trying to find ways to leverage the the blockades
05:09to gain an advantage in negotiations.
05:13Right. That this is, as you said earlier, I think your words are right.
05:17There's this kind of tit for tat action between the two nations.
05:21It's it's a good explanation.
05:22And it truly is really just trying to find innovative and creative ways to gain leverage in in negotiations.
05:32You know, I want to at this point also bring in because if this is tit for tat,
05:38are we heading back to the situation that existed before the ceasefire was announced?
05:43Patrick Hennigson, is this simply now becoming a war without a clear endgame?
05:48The Iranians are sticking to their tough stand on the negotiating table,
05:52refusing to come to negotiations until the U.S. blockade is lifted.
05:57President Trump is sending out mixed messages.
06:00Does this make the situation even more worrying, even more uncertain?
06:06Yeah, absolutely so.
06:07Look, you just have to look at the pattern of behavior from the U.S.
06:11in terms of how it's conducting its negotiations and has previously on multiple occasions used high level negotiations as cover
06:18for a sneak attack against Iran.
06:21So now we're into sort of round three here or the third iteration of this.
06:26And what does the U.S. do?
06:27Immediately puts a military blockade on Iran.
06:31That is an act of war by anyone's definition.
06:33And then ratchets up the sanctions as well simultaneously.
06:38So that's how the Trump administration is doing negotiations, is trying to front load with all kinds of leverage.
06:45And, of course, as we know, in the history of negotiations and international relations and game theory,
06:50you're not going to get very much cooperation from the counterparty if that's how you are,
06:56if you're threatening them with military obliteration, which Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury Secretary,
07:01and other cabinet members are basically doing, trying to destroy Iran either militarily, economically or whatever.
07:09And they know that they're going to be good on those threats because they've already done that to Iran to
07:15begin with.
07:16So it seems to me like the U.S. and Israel are buying time.
07:21And this ceasefire – and by the way, just remember who requested the ceasefire.
07:25It wasn't Iran.
07:26It was the United States.
07:28So by any logic, it's usually the party that is either losing or in desperate straits is the one who
07:34is going to request a ceasefire.
07:36And they're going to buy time.
07:37They need to reload.
07:39They need to rearm.
07:40Israel is in a very precarious situation in terms of its shortage of interceptor missiles, its radar stations,
07:48ground radar for air defense that has been destroyed in part or at least in part by the previous Iranian
07:55missile attacks.
07:56So they need time to recalibrate.
07:59So I think they're preparing for a war, and we have to go by previous behavior patterns from the U
08:06.S. and Israel.
08:07I would bet that they are buying time to resume this war.
08:11And the other thing is negotiations are not going to succeed.
08:16The U.S. cannot manage to put a framework together.
08:18They showed up in Islamabad last time with nothing and basically front-loaded all of these new maximalist demands on
08:26the Iranians
08:27that they knew were going to be deal-breakers and then turn around and blame Iran for not wanting to
08:32do a negotiation in good faith, believe it or not,
08:35or not wanting to do a peace deal.
08:37So this is a negotiations tactic that's been perfected by the Israelis over the years,
08:42and now the White House is pretty much using the exact same negotiations tactics.
08:49Let me bring in Zohreh, from what you're saying, what you just heard from my guest in America,
08:55we're now in a situation where both sides are buying time but preparing once again for war.
09:00Is that the feeling in Tehran?
09:02We are told that the IRGC has virtually taken over your country,
09:06that it is now the Revolutionary Guards who are calling the shots.
09:10The so-called moderates have been marginalized, and the Revolutionary Guards want war.
09:15That they want this conflict now to carry on.
09:17They're ready to take this conflict to the next level.
09:20Is that true?
09:22It's not actually the IRGC that wants war,
09:25but I think that the majority of the Iranians have already got this message
09:30that Americans are bringing a lot of, you know, a compilation of different ammunitions, aircraft carriers,
09:37you know, that the assault vessels are also dismissed to the region,
09:43and 2,500 Marines, the Airborne Forces, the Delta Forces,
09:51and this is the news that the Russia Security Council also publicly revealed.
09:56So those who want the war is the United States and Israel,
10:00and Iran only is doing the retaliation.
10:04It's a very legitimate, actually, act of defense.
10:07So when you're talking about even negotiations,
10:10there is no seriousness among the Americans, as in Islamabad.
10:14Netanyahu mentioned that once is just reporting him constantly what's running in Islamabad.
10:21So I think that what the Iranians are getting from the scene is that,
10:24yes, they are preparing for the retaliation against the sort of American military buildup
10:31and the Israeli military buildup.
10:33And the negotiations are only perceived as the cloaks to cover conspiring an act of aggression they are going to
10:42do.
10:44You know, it's interesting the way the Iranians are now claiming that they are only retaliating to what the Americans
10:51are doing.
10:51But Jeffrey Fisher, it's interesting because also that the president of Donald Trump had said 24 hours ago that if
11:00Iran does not return to the negotiating table within 48 hours,
11:05I will bomb Iran.
11:06Now he's gone ahead and just put an unconditional ceasefire, sorry, a ceasefire without a timeline.
11:16What sense does that, what sense does one make of this?
11:20One moment the U.S. president is talking tough, next moment he's extending the ceasefire indefinitely.
11:28How does one respond to such kind of unpredictability?
11:37Very cautiously would be my answer in responding to that.
11:40You know, at the beginning of this war, Donald Trump was very, very clear that his expectation in the end
11:47game of the war would be an unconditional surrender from Iran.
11:51And that these were his words, right?
11:54An unconditional surrender means that Iran has no say, right?
11:58That's what it means.
11:59And we're clearly in a situation where Iran has, at the negotiation table, not accepted the United States demands.
12:08As a matter of fact, it was pushed back with their own set of demands to end the war.
12:12So it's somewhat, you know, we've seen a lot of vacillation from where President Trump wants to be on this.
12:19I think if Donald Trump truly wants to get to a place where he's going to achieve unconditional surrender, it
12:28means this war will continue.
12:31There's nothing in the blockade that would suggest that this would put enough pressure on Iran or the leaders of
12:38Iran to say, OK, yes, we will.
12:40We'll come to the table and let you dictate the terms of this of this piece.
12:46You know, because Patrick Hennigson, Donald Trump is claiming Iran is on its knees.
12:51It's losing five hundred million dollars a day.
12:54Here you've got my guess from Tehran saying we are actually becoming even our resolve is even stronger.
13:01Has Donald Trump right through this war underestimated Iran's resilience?
13:07That's where he's got it badly wrong.
13:09He perhaps didn't realize that they could weaponize the Strait of Hormuz in the way they have.
13:14They brought the global economy into a difficult situation and now they're getting even tougher.
13:20You heard my Iranian guess.
13:21They're sounding tougher by the day.
13:24Well, I think at every turn, the United States has underestimated Iran's resilience, both politically.
13:30They said that, oh, the regime was going to collapse in days when they were backing these so-called democratic
13:37protests in Tehran back in the latter part of December and January.
13:42Donald Trump said, rise up and take over your institutions.
13:45Trump admitted he was trafficking weapons to these so-called peaceful protesters just a few weeks ago.
13:51No idea why he said that publicly, but he did.
13:54And they assassinated the supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and they thought that the government would collapse, that society
14:03would collapse.
14:04So at every turn, there's this kind of false assumptions in America about the nature of Iranian society, about the
14:11nature of the political structure in that country.
14:14And I think they've hugely underestimated it.
14:17In fact, there's more solidarity than ever.
14:19When you speak to Iranians and look at reports, they've galvanized society in ways that you couldn't possibly have imagined
14:26prior to this, all these hostilities breaking out.
14:30So on the military front, Iran is dug in for a war of attrition.
14:34That is clear.
14:36And they're on their home turf.
14:37They are fully prepared as a society.
14:40They're fully mobilized as a society.
14:42The United States is not fully mobilized for a long war.
14:46And so this isn't like World War II or that type of a historical situation for the U.S.
14:52So the U.S. was hoping for a short war.
14:55This is what was promised to them by Benjamin Netanyahu when he came to sell the war to the United
15:00States in February, as we learned via the New York Times reporting recently.
15:05And then economically, they've underestimated Iran.
15:09And the reason is because because of 47 years of sanction, Iran has developed an incredible amount of resilience economically
15:16with import substitutions.
15:18They have homegrown industries.
15:20They're not reliant on imports like other countries are.
15:24So they're not going to need American reconstruction teams like the Gulf Arab states require to come and rebuild things
15:31that have been destroyed during these conflicts.
15:33So I do think the U.S. is at a disadvantage politically in a war of attrition because Donald Trump
15:39doesn't have an unlimited timeline to bring closure to the situation, whereas Iran could easily bleed out the United States
15:46over the course of months, even years.
15:50So a final word from you, Ms. Karazmi.
15:55The fact, though, is all this said, significant casualties, more than 3,375 people reported dead.
16:04There are vulnerabilities that have been exposed in your country in terms of a large part of your military arsenal
16:10has also suffered huge losses.
16:13Is Iran willing to go in for a long war?
16:17Is that what really Iran wants?
16:20Why not come to the negotiating table and try and meet the Americans of the Western world halfway?
16:27You know, the negotiation table can be efficient when there is mutual trust and respect.
16:34And this is something that the Americans are not showing up.
16:36As I mentioned, when you're talking about the first round in Islamabad, we don't know really who is in charge
16:44of the negotiations because, you know, the vice president of the United States is repeatedly just reporting to Netanyahu.
16:53And also when you're talking about Kushner, when you're talking about which cop, they are Israeli firsters rather than really
17:01liking to make America great again.
17:04So I think that there is no seriousness there.
17:07And you see that even the blockade was done immediately after the Islamabad talks.
17:13And just before the second round of talks, they seized the Iranian sheep of Tuska, that was actually a cargo
17:22sheep.
17:23So they again sent the message of animosity.
17:26And there is no sense of action.
17:29And, you know, yesterday again, Trump just started to add some Iranian companies to the list of the sanctions.
17:38So there is no realities on the ground to indicate that the United States is serious about the negotiations.
17:46Right.
17:48OK, I'm going to leave it there.
17:49Clearly, as we've seen, even in this discussion, it's Iran hardening its stance.
17:55America looking for options, but not sure what those options are.
17:59And as I said at the outset, we are therefore in a very, very difficult situation of a war without
18:04an endgame or seemingly a clear strategy.
18:07And the world is watching and the world is also suffering the blowback.
18:12I appreciate my guests joining me on our top developments there on West Asia.
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