00:00Has this war, do you think, shown limitations of American power?
00:04And do you think we're passing the peak of America as a great power in the world right now?
00:10Well, I think the limits on American power were demonstrated in Iraq and Afghanistan 20 years ago.
00:17I mean, we invaded Afghanistan to get rid of the Taliban, spent 20 years on the ground,
00:23spent $2 trillion, $2,000 billion, and then handed the country back to the Taliban again.
00:28So the limits of American military power have been obvious for a very, very long time.
00:35What's changed is America's willingness to torch its allies,
00:40its willingness to humiliate the United Kingdom, insult Germany, destroy the economies of the Gulf,
00:46and pay no attention to anyone saying to them,
00:50you are destroying the economy of Dubai, you're destroying the economy of Doha,
00:54you are affecting the economies of South Korea, Japan,
00:58you're leading to shortage of fertilizer and ultimately food shortages in Africa,
01:04and America just paying no attention.
01:06So what's changed is that the United States now believes it can just go it alone,
01:10that it doesn't need any allies, and it can humiliate and abuse anyone it wants,
01:14because it's behaving, I think I sometimes think a little bit like an abusive husband
01:20saying to their partner, I can do what I like to you,
01:23because you're never going to be able to make it on your own,
01:25you're never going to be able to afford to leave, you depend on us for AI,
01:28you depend on us for cloud computing, you depend on us for patriot missiles,
01:32you need the dollar, you need the payment system, we can do what we want.
01:34So do you think Europe and the UK can go it alone?
01:38Maybe not right now, but are they on the right path to?
01:40Well, they must, but not just the US and UK.
01:43But even though they must, are they making the right steps?
01:46No, no, no, people are being much too slow, because it's very painful,
01:51and it's very difficult, and it's very risky.
01:53So the tendency from every country is going to be to hope that this is a temporary phase,
01:58and that a new president will come and it'll all be okay.
02:01But the writing is on the wall.
02:03I mean, this Iran intervention was the big revelation,
02:07the big moment where the United States really revealed to the world
02:10that it genuinely didn't care about what happened to the rest of us or our economies,
02:15that it was prepared to unleash this reckless thing without consultation.
02:19And so, yes, working backwards from that,
02:22it doesn't matter whether you are the United Kingdom or Europe or Canada or Japan or South Korea or India,
02:30or, to be honest, one of the Gulf countries.
02:32The logic is the same.
02:34Over the next five to seven years, we need to become much more independent of the United States.
02:42We need to become more independent of the United States.
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