Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 6/9/26: US Helicopter Downed In Strait Of Hormuz, Prof Pape On Axis Of Resistance, North Korea Economy Surges

Transcript

6/9/26: US Helicopter Downed In Strait Of Hormuz, Prof Pape On Axis Of Resistance, North Korea Economy Surges · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
0:01
Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
0:05
Speaker 2: and we are so excited about what that means for
0:07
Speaker 2: the future of this show.
0:08
Speaker 3: This is the only place where you can find honest
0:10
Speaker 3: perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
0:13
Speaker 3: not exist anywhere else.
0:14
Speaker 2: So if that is something that's important to you, please
0:17
Speaker 2: go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
0:19
Speaker 2: you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free,
0:22
Speaker 2: and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
0:25
Speaker 3: We need your help to build the future of independent
0:27
Speaker 3: news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
0:29
Speaker 3: dot com.
0:33
Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. Have an amazing show up
0:35
Speaker 1: for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
0:37
Speaker 2: Indeed we do so a lot of Iran updates for you.
0:40
Speaker 2: A US Apache helicopter went down under mysterious circumstances near
0:44
Speaker 2: the Strait of Horror Moves, so we'll try to figure
0:46
Speaker 2: out what's going on there and all. Now also appears
0:49
Speaker 2: that Trump did give Israel kind of a green light
0:52
Speaker 2: to strike Iran. We're going to have Robert Pape on
0:55
Speaker 2: to help us sort through all of that. A couple
0:57
Speaker 2: of articles that are pretty fascinating about how North Korea
1:01
Speaker 2: economically is thriving. This comes as a presidentiee of China
1:06
Speaker 2: is making an important state visit there, so we will
1:08
Speaker 2: do a bit of a deep dive into what's going
1:10
Speaker 2: on in North Korea. Trump showed up at the next
1:13
Speaker 2: game last night, the NBA Finals game, and apparently cursed him.
1:17
Speaker 2: Fans had a very difficult time getting in a lot
1:19
Speaker 2: of chaos, a lot of booze, although he is an
1:21
Speaker 2: apparent denial over that, so we'll update you there. We
1:24
Speaker 2: also have another sports story for you. Texas Tech quarterback
1:27
Speaker 2: Brennan Sowersby has had his suspension for gambling overturn. Very
1:31
Speaker 2: significant development in NCAA that Sager has been following closely.
1:36
Speaker 2: And Chris rab who is now the Democratic nominee and
1:39
Speaker 2: presumed next representative for Pennsylvania's third congressional district it's one
1:43
Speaker 2: of the most democratic in the country, is going to
1:45
Speaker 2: join me to talk to all of us about the
1:48
Speaker 2: future of the Democratic Party. I'll probably get him to
1:50
Speaker 2: weigh in on this whole Grand Platner situation, especially since
1:54
Speaker 2: John Fetterman is soon to be colleague there from Pennsylvania.
1:58
Speaker 2: Has been exchanging words with Graham, so that'll be interesting
2:02
Speaker 2: as well.
2:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
2:04
Speaker 3: Thank you to everybody he's been subscribing to the show
2:05
Speaker 3: Breakingpoints dot com helping support our journalism, our work over here,
2:09
Speaker 3: and we do still have some big announcements that are
2:11
Speaker 3: coming later on for our premium subscription get in on
2:14
Speaker 3: the ground floor Breakingpoints dot com. If you're watching this
2:16
Speaker 3: on YouTube, please hit subscribe to our YouTube channel. If
2:19
Speaker 3: you're listening to the podcast, please share an episode with
2:21
Speaker 3: a friend. But, as Chrystal said, let's go ahead and
2:23
Speaker 3: start with the conflicts with Iran. Trump making some very
2:27
Speaker 3: revealing comments around midnight last night on his way back
2:30
Speaker 3: from Madison Square Garden, claiming actual first of all, revealing
2:35
Speaker 3: that there was a soft green light of Israeli attacks,
2:37
Speaker 3: trying to save face after he told Israel and Iran
2:39
Speaker 3: to quote stop shooting, and both of them did. Anyways,
2:42
Speaker 3: let's take a listen, what do you.
2:47
Speaker 4: We had a very good conversation and he was hit
2:50
Speaker 4: and he hit back, and I can't blame him for that,
2:54
Speaker 4: but he was hit, he hit back, and now they've
2:57
Speaker 4: called it quit, so they're gonna leave each other alone
3:01
Speaker 4: for another Wait, or something. It's it's been going on
3:07
Speaker 4: for a long time. You could say about three thousand
3:10
Speaker 4: years if you really will, but certainly it's been going
3:13
Speaker 4: on for forty seven years. But no, he hit back.
3:18
Speaker 4: They were going back and forth, and now they both
3:20
Speaker 4: agreed threw me to stop. And we're in the final
3:24
Speaker 4: throes of what will be a very very good deal
3:27
Speaker 4: that will not allow in any way, shape or form,
3:29
Speaker 4: nuclear weapons, etc. And that straight will open up right away.
3:34
Speaker 4: It'll open up immediately upon signing, which could be in
3:37
Speaker 4: two or three days.
3:38
Speaker 1: Two or three days. Heard that one before.
3:40
Speaker 3: Apparently there's been thirty seven times since the conflict began
3:44
Speaker 3: that Trump said that a deal was imminent.
3:46
Speaker 1: So you can take that with what you will.
3:48
Speaker 3: But the more significant comment there, Crystal, is him trying
3:51
Speaker 3: to downplay the obvious fact that he said that Israel
3:55
Speaker 3: shouldn't strike, and they did anyways. Now, look as now
3:59
Speaker 3: being revealed, I think through a lot of the reporting
4:02
Speaker 3: that pretty much wasn't true. In fact, we could put
4:04
Speaker 3: a one up here on the screen where it reports
4:08
Speaker 3: a phone call that happened between Donald Trump and bb
4:11
Speaker 3: Netanyahoo and even their headline. Trump struggled to rein in Netanna,
4:16
Speaker 3: Who's net and Yaho strikes on Iran climbed down in
4:20
Speaker 3: phone call with Israeli leader shows president's diminishing control over fighting.
4:24
Speaker 3: And what they make clear is that Trump had immediately
4:27
Speaker 3: come out and said Israel should not retaliate. He said
4:30
Speaker 3: that to Barakravide, to multiple other reporters. However, when it
4:34
Speaker 3: came time to actually talk to BB on the phone,
4:37
Speaker 3: Bib was like, well, I have to do something, and
4:39
Speaker 3: Trump was like.
4:40
Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead and do it.
4:41
Speaker 3: So a lot of this that was in public about
4:43
Speaker 3: how he shouldn't respond or any of that.
4:45
Speaker 1: It was basically kfab.
4:46
Speaker 3: It's completely fake for the cameras and maybe for the
4:49
Speaker 3: Iranians to try to say, oh, I actually am trying
4:51
Speaker 3: to rain them in, when in reality, all he actually
4:54
Speaker 3: did was rein in their retaliation to the retaliation where allegedly,
5:00
Speaker 3: according to some of the inside reports, you know, the
5:03
Speaker 3: pilots were in the pilots were in the cockpits, they
5:06
Speaker 3: were ready to go for a massive attack on Iran,
5:08
Speaker 3: which absolutely would have restarted the war. But he did
5:11
Speaker 3: allow in greenlight some of this tit for tat, which,
5:13
Speaker 3: as I laid out, I think pretty extensively yesterday, really
5:17
Speaker 3: undermines any faith in a potential deal which is predicated
5:20
Speaker 3: on Trump being able to restrain Israeli action. And as
5:24
Speaker 3: even the journal, these neo khn publications and all of
5:26
Speaker 3: them are using these headlines Trump struggles to rein in.
5:30
Speaker 3: It's either struggles, it's incompetence, or it's tacit agreement. None
5:35
Speaker 3: of those get you closer to a deal in two
5:37
Speaker 3: to three days.
5:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Netnahu was under his own domestic political pressure
5:43
Speaker 2: because the supposed moderates in Israel are also attacking him
5:48
Speaker 2: for not being tough enough and hawkish enough vis a
5:50
Speaker 2: vis Iran, and of course the right wing Zelots fascist
5:54
Speaker 2: in his own party, terrorists in his own party are
5:57
Speaker 2: pushing for and even more across response. So he is
6:02
Speaker 2: under domestic political pressure. He also is self interested in
6:05
Speaker 2: continuing this war for his own political and ideological purposes,
6:10
Speaker 2: So it all sort of dovetails together. You know, I
6:12
Speaker 2: think it's possible that Trump did want him to not
6:15
Speaker 2: respond at all, but he probably persuaded him that number one,
6:19
Speaker 2: I got to do something for my own domestic political concerns,
6:21
Speaker 2: and number two, he may have tried to persuade him that, oh,
6:25
Speaker 2: you'll soften them up if we respond. If we just
6:28
Speaker 2: allow them to attack and we don't do anything in response,
6:30
Speaker 2: then that's going to make it more difficult for a
6:32
Speaker 2: negotiated deal. Because Trump has fallen prey to this idiotic
6:36
Speaker 2: logic previously that somehow, if we attack Iran, or if
6:39
Speaker 2: we let Israel attack Iran, that is going to make
6:42
Speaker 2: them more inclined to strike a deal.
6:44
Speaker 5: It has not worked so far.
6:46
Speaker 2: They've been pretty resolute in what their demands are and
6:50
Speaker 2: relatively concrete and clear cut. However, he may have once
6:53
Speaker 2: again been persuaded by that type of logic. I just
6:56
Speaker 2: a small digress digression because it drives me crazy. He
7:00
Speaker 2: always makes these comments about how this conflict has been
7:02
Speaker 2: going on three thousand years, and I hate it so
7:05
Speaker 2: much because it's a lie, and I think it's so
7:09
Speaker 2: counterproductive to frame this in terms of some intractable millennia
7:14
Speaker 2: old blood feud, which is not at all. But he
7:18
Speaker 2: always goes back to this, and I think is persuaded
7:20
Speaker 2: by that idea as partly probably it fuels his interest
7:25
Speaker 2: in being involved in this conflict because then he can
7:28
Speaker 2: imagine himself as this great man that did something that
7:30
Speaker 2: no one's been able to do in three thousand years.
7:33
Speaker 5: Blah blah blah. We've seen where that's gotten us.
7:35
Speaker 2: But in any case, it really drives me insane when
7:37
Speaker 2: he does that, because it does fuel this notion of
7:40
Speaker 2: this being some religious blood feud, which is very common
7:44
Speaker 2: view in Israel, very common view with some of the
7:47
Speaker 2: you know, leadership here in America as well, including with
7:50
Speaker 2: the President of the United States.
7:51
Speaker 5: But you know, to your point.
7:52
Speaker 2: Sober about the ability of Iran and the US to
7:57
Speaker 2: come to some sort of deal and how damaging this
8:00
Speaker 2: ultimately is. I'm looking at a headline right now on
8:03
Speaker 2: Haretz that says Israeli strikes kill fourteen in South Lebanon, right.
8:06
Speaker 2: I mean, this is one of the things that Aaran
8:08
Speaker 2: has had as a major question mark in their minds.
8:11
Speaker 2: Is the US willing and capable of restraining Israel? And
8:16
Speaker 2: the answer that comes from this whole exchange is no,
8:20
Speaker 2: We're either unwilling or unable. And now Israel is going
8:24
Speaker 2: right back to striking in South Lebanon and demanding the
8:27
Speaker 2: evacuation of an entire city.
8:29
Speaker 1: Very very important flag there.
8:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's like every time we do the show it's
8:33
Speaker 3: breaking news. Israel is striking Lebanon. We also do have
8:37
Speaker 3: to report a very significant event happening this morning. Let's
8:41
Speaker 3: put a eight up here on the screen. We do
8:43
Speaker 3: not know a lot of details. A crew has been
8:46
Speaker 3: rescued after a US attack helicopter went down near the
8:51
Speaker 3: strait of Horne Moves Now. According to sent Kam, a
8:54
Speaker 3: US Army Apache helicopter gunship went down off the coast
8:58
Speaker 3: of Oman while patrolling regional waters on Monday. It is
9:02
Speaker 3: quote not immediately clear whether the Apache was shot down
9:05
Speaker 3: by Iranian fire, experienced mechanical failure, or encountered some other problem.
9:11
Speaker 3: What we do know is that both of the crew
9:14
Speaker 3: have been rescued, apparently by a US Navy surface water drone,
9:18
Speaker 3: which I did not even know was a thing that
9:20
Speaker 3: a drone could actually rescue. Too downed two downed airmen
9:26
Speaker 3: or air women who were as part of the crew.
9:29
Speaker 1: So that's pretty crazy.
9:30
Speaker 3: But what's crazier on top of it is we have
9:33
Speaker 3: had numerous instances of aircraft just mysteriously.
9:37
Speaker 1: Going down throughout this conflict.
9:38
Speaker 3: And when I say mysterious, you can read between the
9:40
Speaker 3: lines in terms of what the official line has been
9:43
Speaker 3: and what actually happened. The fact that Sencom is not
9:46
Speaker 3: immediately offering some explanation, potentially we can look into that.
9:51
Speaker 3: We also compare it with a seven some military escalation
9:55
Speaker 3: that happened yesterday. The US Forces actually fired quote on
9:59
Speaker 3: an non compliant oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman
10:04
Speaker 3: quote disabled a Palau flagged MARAVX as a transited international
10:09
Speaker 3: waters toward Iran. An FAA teen super Hornet from the
10:13
Speaker 3: USS Abraham Lincoln fired a precision munition into the ship's
10:17
Speaker 3: engineering and steering spaces after the crew failed to comply
10:21
Speaker 3: with directions from US Forces. This is actually pretty significant
10:25
Speaker 3: because while it was a Palau flagged vessel, it appears
10:28
Speaker 3: that all of the crew were actually Indian nationals, and
10:31
Speaker 3: so obviously, you know, their lives were in danger. Could
10:34
Speaker 3: have significantly you know, could have really kicked off a
10:37
Speaker 3: major international crisis if you were going to kill a
10:40
Speaker 3: significant number of Indian crewmen while they're aboard this tanker,
10:44
Speaker 3: which according to Sencom, was trying to circumvent the blockade.
10:48
Speaker 3: Bringing it back, as you said to BB and to
10:52
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, I know it sounds like a broken record,
10:55
Speaker 3: but the internal TikTok of all of this as the
10:57
Speaker 3: events catch up, really do matter. Let's do a two
11:01
Speaker 3: please up here on the screen. Barackravid the official behind
11:04
Speaker 3: the scenes how Israel and Iran nearly pulled Trump back
11:07
Speaker 3: to war. What he writes is that a quote underscores
11:11
Speaker 3: the risk of the US once once again becoming ensnared
11:15
Speaker 3: in major combat operations, despite President Trump clearly wanting out.
11:19
Speaker 3: Trump told Axios in a phone interview he had warned
11:22
Speaker 3: the Israeli Prime Minister if he went back to war
11:24
Speaker 3: with Iran, he might find himself fighting alone. The escalation
11:28
Speaker 3: had started on Sunday morning, but from that point, he says,
11:31
Speaker 3: things escalated quickly. Trump had called him and asked him
11:34
Speaker 3: not to retaliate. Trump argued that he would either get
11:37
Speaker 3: a deal with Iran in a few days that would
11:39
Speaker 3: make the strikes unnecessary, or he wouldn't, in which case
11:42
Speaker 3: he might lead the strikes on Iran. Two US officials
11:46
Speaker 3: and a third Israeli source said that the call was
11:48
Speaker 3: much calmer than the one a few days earlier where
11:51
Speaker 3: Trump allegedly called Netanyahu fucking crazy, and one even described
11:55
Speaker 3: the call as polite, So it doesn't actually seem to
11:58
Speaker 3: have been some Majors screaming match where he tells him
12:02
Speaker 3: don't go, and he did go. It's pretty obvious that
12:05
Speaker 3: he soft greenlit these strikes and then tried to stop
12:08
Speaker 3: some sort of spiral. But there's only one so many
12:11
Speaker 3: times that that's going to work. You know, you can
12:14
Speaker 3: only do it if you're actually willing to withhold military aid.
12:18
Speaker 3: And let's put a four up here on the screen,
12:21
Speaker 3: just to also bel this new recent White House narrative. Initially,
12:26
Speaker 3: the Pentagon came out and said Israel's claimed that the
12:30
Speaker 3: US intercepted its missiles were not true. This was despite
12:34
Speaker 3: Israeli sources immediately as I mentioned on our show yesterday,
12:39
Speaker 3: saying yeah, the US shot it down.
12:40
Speaker 1: Well, here we have update. The US did.
12:43
Speaker 3: Fire interceptors in response to recent Iranian missile attacks, though
12:47
Speaker 3: it was not immediately clear if the attempt at intercepts
12:50
Speaker 3: were successful. The US officials are still working to assess
12:54
Speaker 3: who hit what In the afterna. The only thing worse
12:57
Speaker 3: than US depleting our stockpiles to Israel is depleting the
13:01
Speaker 3: stockpile and then not actually shooting the missile down, further showing,
13:06
Speaker 3: you know, the incompetence of the math behind this entire nightmare.
13:10
Speaker 1: But you can see that immediately the White.
13:13
Speaker 3: House was trying to spin a narrative, I think for
13:16
Speaker 3: the Iranians sake, to say, hey, we really didn't have
13:18
Speaker 3: any part of this. Put a five up here on
13:20
Speaker 3: the screen. This was from CBS News. This was immediately
13:24
Speaker 3: in the morning yesterday. They said the US military didn't
13:27
Speaker 3: take part in the Israeli attacks on Iran the first
13:30
Speaker 3: instance's fire and Trump admin didn't order any US defensive
13:34
Speaker 3: action from incoming Iranian missiles. We now know that is
13:38
Speaker 3: unequivocally not true because Sentcom helped with the interceptions. We
13:43
Speaker 3: also know that there are multiple US air refueling aircraft
13:46
Speaker 3: that were in the air. We know that the Israeli
13:48
Speaker 3: military many of their strike packages and others are.
13:51
Speaker 1: Developed from the Pentagon pre cleared.
13:53
Speaker 3: We're currently going through this whole NDAA, you know, craziness,
13:58
Speaker 3: where we're trying to fuse the two of our militaries
14:00
Speaker 3: intelligence gathering. Despite the fact that the Pentagon, as we
14:03
Speaker 3: updated everyone just yesterday, has updated Israel spying on the
14:07
Speaker 3: US to a quote critical threat level. All of this
14:10
Speaker 3: demonstrates that Trump has not pulled the plug in any
14:13
Speaker 3: way whatsoever. We're still shooting down their missiles for them.
14:17
Speaker 3: In many cases, remember we shot our missiles even when
14:20
Speaker 3: they had some to protect their stockpiles. We're still providing
14:23
Speaker 3: them with intelligence. We still have all these military assets
14:26
Speaker 3: that are on the ground at Ben Gurion International Airport
14:30
Speaker 3: inside of Israel. None of this indicates whatsoever that Trump's
14:34
Speaker 3: threat of you may be on your own is in
14:37
Speaker 3: any way substantive. And that's the only way any of
14:40
Speaker 3: this is going to stop, because otherwise, every single time
14:43
Speaker 3: we start our show, because I guess it's right around
14:45
Speaker 3: afternoon time, we can report to everyone as we can.
14:48
Speaker 3: Right now, Israeli forces are striking in southern Lebanon, ordering evacuations,
14:53
Speaker 3: and of course we can also see Hezbola FPV drones
14:56
Speaker 3: which have been pounding northern Israel and continue to do so.
14:59
Speaker 1: No signs of any of its stopping.
15:01
Speaker 3: I guess maybe one sign would be that they would
15:03
Speaker 3: draw from Lebanon, but so far the Trump administration won't
15:07
Speaker 3: even make a demand that they do so.
15:09
Speaker 5: Yep, yep, that's exactly right.
15:11
Speaker 2: And you know, I think there's a pretty clear dynamic
15:14
Speaker 2: at play here in my opinion, which is Trump genuinely
15:18
Speaker 2: thought this war would be over in like two days.
15:20
Speaker 5: I know that they would.
15:21
Speaker 2: Take out the Ayatola and the whole thing would come
15:23
Speaker 2: crashing down. He ignored the advice of whoever it was
15:27
Speaker 2: that was saying, this isn't going to work the way
15:29
Speaker 2: that you think it is decided that he believed, after
15:33
Speaker 2: you know, being high on his own supply from Venezuela
15:35
Speaker 2: and hearing from the Israelis, et cetera, that it was
15:37
Speaker 2: going to genuinely be that quick. And ever since it
15:41
Speaker 2: did not go according to plan, he has been lost.
15:44
Speaker 2: He has been lost. He doesn't know what to do.
15:47
Speaker 2: He doesn't want to go back to a hot war
15:50
Speaker 2: because he knows that is not going to help anything,
15:53
Speaker 2: and putting troops on the ground would be an utter disaster.
15:56
Speaker 5: He does not.
15:57
Speaker 2: Want to come to the deal that is on the
15:59
Speaker 2: table because that would be humiliating. So he is just
16:02
Speaker 2: being buffeted by forces that are he is allowed to
16:07
Speaker 2: be out of his control. When you have no plan
16:10
Speaker 2: and no real ideology, you are going to be defeated
16:14
Speaker 2: by the people in your coalition who do have a
16:16
Speaker 2: plan and do have an ideology, and that is the neocons,
16:19
Speaker 2: and that is the Israelis. So that's why every time
16:22
Speaker 2: you get into one of these situations where Trump is really, well,
16:26
Speaker 2: let's try to do a deal and let's figure something out.
16:28
Speaker 2: I know it's not going to be ideal, but we're
16:30
Speaker 2: coming towards something, and some positive tweet goes out and
16:33
Speaker 2: leaks something to Barack Reviede. Then you get the Israelis
16:36
Speaker 2: attacking Lebanon or in this instance, you know, retaliating against Iran,
16:40
Speaker 2: even though Trump didn't want them to, et cetera.
16:42
Speaker 5: Because since they have a.
16:45
Speaker 2: Very clear cut, hardened position that they are committed to,
16:49
Speaker 2: they're going to be able to persuade him and push
16:52
Speaker 2: him in this direction. And that's why this continues to happen.
16:56
Speaker 2: From the Iranian perspective, we can put a six up
16:58
Speaker 2: on the screen about how they're thinking about all of this.
17:02
Speaker 2: You know, they say, look, the US is not seeking
17:04
Speaker 2: a ceasefire, where they're not seeking dialogue, Iran should respond
17:08
Speaker 2: decisively to defend the rights of the Iranian people. This
17:11
Speaker 2: is according to Gollibaff, Iran's parliamentary speaker, who of course
17:14
Speaker 2: has been leading the negotiations. He says, we do not
17:17
Speaker 2: want to move forward with commitment or sloganeering, but rather
17:20
Speaker 2: we must seek an engineered victory with Iranian authority and rationality.
17:23
Speaker 2: The military field, the diplomatic field, the field of public presence,
17:26
Speaker 2: and the field of serving the people are the threads
17:28
Speaker 2: and fibers of a single fabric. If we consider diplomacy
17:31
Speaker 2: to be merely dialogue in close rooms and diplomatic smiles,
17:35
Speaker 2: we will fail from the very beginning. So, you know,
17:39
Speaker 2: they do not think that Trump is serious about doing
17:42
Speaker 2: what would be required to come to some sort of
17:46
Speaker 2: a deal or even really officially a memo of understanding
17:50
Speaker 2: that would enable the next steps towards achieving a deal.
17:54
Speaker 2: They don't think he's serious, and why should they, because
17:58
Speaker 2: when it comes down to it and push comes to shove,
18:00
Speaker 2: the number one way he could demonstrate some sort of
18:04
Speaker 2: commitment towards ending this conflict would be to fully restrain Israel,
18:08
Speaker 2: and he has never been willing or able to do it.
18:12
Speaker 2: So they just can look at reality, ignore his words,
18:16
Speaker 2: ignore his tweets, ignore the propaganda from Barack Revied and
18:19
Speaker 2: everybody else, and see the reality that greets them that
18:23
Speaker 2: clearly Trump is not yet serious about doing what it
18:26
Speaker 2: takes to actually come to some sort of a deal.
18:28
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I do think we should really remind everyone
18:31
Speaker 3: remember Iran's message yesterday. The IRGC message did not say
18:35
Speaker 3: that if Israel strikes Bay Route that they would flare
18:37
Speaker 3: up again. They said southern Lebanon. And literally right now
18:41
Speaker 3: they are bombing southern Lebanon, struck towns and villages across
18:45
Speaker 3: southern Lebanon. At least eight people have been killed, entire
18:49
Speaker 3: dozens more wounded. The latest attacks show Lebanon major wedge
18:53
Speaker 3: issue in this entire thing. Hezbola has rejected any cease
18:57
Speaker 3: fire as of right now, with Israel continue us to
19:00
Speaker 3: fire from his positions inside of southern Lebanon. Israel has
19:04
Speaker 3: now occupied basically all of it in terms of southern Lebanon,
19:08
Speaker 3: and they are just refusing to stop tire. Apparently it's
19:11
Speaker 3: one of the largest cities in the entire region, and
19:14
Speaker 3: they are calling for the full scale evacuation, including as
19:18
Speaker 3: of this morning for the first time, the Christian quarter
19:21
Speaker 3: of the ancient port city, which I'm sure will go
19:24
Speaker 3: over well with the Christian population there in Lebanon.
19:27
Speaker 1: And you know, every once in a while.
19:29
Speaker 3: When IDF soldiers attack a Christian village, it goes viral
19:33
Speaker 3: here in the United States, just to show really that
19:35
Speaker 3: they don't really care about any of that, they care
19:37
Speaker 3: about their own ambition, especially with that recent conquest of
19:41
Speaker 3: the castle. I wish we could spend our show kicking
19:43
Speaker 3: off with literally anything else, but this is deciding the
19:46
Speaker 3: fate of all of us.
19:48
Speaker 1: And you know, even still looking at the.
19:50
Speaker 3: Gas price still above four dollars a gallon nationally, I
19:54
Speaker 3: think yesterday marked one hundred days since the war has begun.
19:58
Speaker 3: Over three months now of the conflict, and nobody can
20:03
Speaker 3: say with confidence that we're not going to have at
20:05
Speaker 3: least three more months of something like this back and forth.
20:09
Speaker 3: Even if they did sign some memorandum of understanding, that
20:13
Speaker 3: would be sixty days in which they would have to
20:16
Speaker 3: actually get it full jcpoa style deal which took two
20:21
Speaker 3: and a half years to negotiate the last time around.
20:24
Speaker 2: I just it had much more competent and knowledgeable people
20:28
Speaker 2: involved with it who you know, I'm not going to
20:30
Speaker 2: say they had like the trust of the Iranians, but
20:32
Speaker 2: there was such certainly much better working relationship at that
20:36
Speaker 2: point because we hadn't used negotiations as a pretext to
20:39
Speaker 2: like murder their leaders at that point, and.
20:41
Speaker 3: We hadn't bombed them and killed them and killed their
20:43
Speaker 3: leader and killed all their military echelon. In fact, many
20:46
Speaker 3: of the people behind that deal are no dead inside
20:49
Speaker 3: of Iran. So what message would that send you if
20:51
Speaker 3: you went to a negotiation is successfully concluded and then
20:54
Speaker 3: somebody killed you, would you go into your next negotiation thinking, yeah,
20:57
Speaker 3: this one it's definitely going to work out, and this time.
21:00
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
21:00
Speaker 5: These people are committed to peace.
21:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, all right, makes a lot of sense. All right,
21:05
Speaker 3: let's get to Professor Robert Pape standing by, very excited
21:11
Speaker 3: now to be joined by our a great friend of
21:12
Speaker 3: the show, Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago.
21:15
Speaker 1: It's good to see you, Sarah, Thanks for coming back.
21:17
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for having me.
21:18
Speaker 3: Absolutely, let's go ahead and start with B one. This
21:21
Speaker 3: really caught our interest, Professor, curious for your reaction. The
21:25
Speaker 3: commander of the IRGC Coods Force issued a very interesting
21:29
Speaker 3: statement yesterday. He said that they would establish a new
21:31
Speaker 3: security belt of resistance that from the Strait of her
21:35
Speaker 3: moves to the Bob al Mendeb straight off of Yemen,
21:37
Speaker 3: and then to the Gulf to the Red Sea. According
21:40
Speaker 3: to these new comments by state media, they are now
21:43
Speaker 3: using the term resistance or axis of resistance to refer
21:46
Speaker 3: to Iranian allies in the region, from Hesbola to Yemen's
21:50
Speaker 3: hoo Thees. What do you make of this new term
21:53
Speaker 3: of the axis of resistance, this security belt comment, in
21:57
Speaker 3: the context of everything that's been happening here in this war.
22:01
Speaker 7: This is more evidence for the new stage of the
22:03
Speaker 7: war that we've entered into. We just passed day one
22:09
Speaker 7: hundred of the Iran War. There is no end in sight.
22:15
Speaker 7: We are not at the end. We are in the
22:18
Speaker 7: middle game. And in the middle game. The most distinctive
22:24
Speaker 7: feature which has happened for weeks, and this what you
22:27
Speaker 7: just showed is strong evidence of it, is that Iran
22:31
Speaker 7: has moved from survival to ambition. Let me say that again.
22:38
Speaker 7: Iran is no longer just considering how does it survive.
22:43
Speaker 7: Iran is moving from survival to ambition. You see that
22:49
Speaker 7: in its behavior. You see that a week ago it
22:54
Speaker 7: responds to relatively minor strikes here by the US by
22:59
Speaker 7: upping the end to put pressure on Kuwait and Bahrain.
23:03
Speaker 6: They are not just doing tit for tat.
23:06
Speaker 7: They are using a version of their own escalation dominance
23:09
Speaker 7: to put pressure on those Gulf states to withdraw American
23:14
Speaker 7: forces from their territory. Almost at the same time they
23:18
Speaker 7: threaten Israel, you attack Hesbola's strongholds in Beyrout. That's Iran's
23:24
Speaker 7: key ally and Iran is going to punish, going to retaliate.
23:29
Speaker 7: This is a part of that new redline that you
23:32
Speaker 7: just showed. They are extending an umbrella. They are not
23:36
Speaker 7: just worrying about survival in Tehran. They're extending an umbrella
23:41
Speaker 7: a new architecture, that is a new ambition. And then
23:46
Speaker 7: last week, right at the end of last week, the
23:48
Speaker 7: senior advisor to the Supreme Leader made a statement almost
23:52
Speaker 7: identical to what you just showed, except did not define
23:57
Speaker 7: the umbrella area. So clearly use the same geographic space,
24:03
Speaker 7: by the way, but not that clear set of redline.
24:07
Speaker 7: So what you are seeing is that Iran is gaining
24:11
Speaker 7: has gained power in the opening stage. That's like the
24:15
Speaker 7: opening and chess, it has gained power. And in the
24:19
Speaker 7: middle game it's not just happy going for a draw.
24:24
Speaker 7: It's going to extend that power in a more ambitious way.
24:30
Speaker 7: And that middle game with this new security architecture, and
24:35
Speaker 7: I'm glad to say a bit more about that. But
24:37
Speaker 7: this this middle game, this is going to go on, folks,
24:42
Speaker 7: through the summer. We are almost surely now going to
24:46
Speaker 7: have the new crisis in the world economy based on
24:50
Speaker 7: Iran's behavior and rhetoric. This is this is almost locked
24:55
Speaker 7: in the world. May not fully expect it, but this
24:58
Speaker 7: is what you would expect. This is what the direction
25:02
Speaker 7: of the modeling for the twenty years would expect. And
25:06
Speaker 7: then I'm sorry to also say this is not just
25:08
Speaker 7: going to end on Labor Day. Donald Trump extended the
25:11
Speaker 7: naval bockade to Labor Day as if this is going
25:14
Speaker 7: to be over by Labor Day, which of course very
25:17
Speaker 7: convenient for him with the midterms, however, that's not where
25:21
Speaker 7: Iran's thinking is. If Iran can hurt its opponents through
25:25
Speaker 7: the midterms, as the United States and also Israel net
25:29
Speaker 7: Yahoo has elections coming, it's going to take advantage of that.
25:33
Speaker 7: So we need to expect that this middle game is
25:36
Speaker 7: going to go on through the summer, through the new
25:40
Speaker 7: economic crisis, into the fall and midterms and probably into January.
25:46
Speaker 7: That's the true middle game we are facing.
25:49
Speaker 2: So if that's where Iran is They've moved from survival
25:53
Speaker 2: to ambition. What is Trump's perspective? What are his thoughts?
25:58
Speaker 2: Because we've been tracking on the show, how you had
26:01
Speaker 2: the situation where Israel was struck by Iran. Trump tells
26:06
Speaker 2: a bunch of reporters, I don't want Israel to retaliate.
26:09
Speaker 5: Then Israel retaliates.
26:10
Speaker 2: Anyway, he's now saying, oh, well, I understand that they
26:14
Speaker 2: had to do that limited strike, but now they're done.
26:17
Speaker 2: But of course this morning we see headlines that they
26:19
Speaker 2: continue to strike inside of Lebanon. So in any case,
26:22
Speaker 2: what do you think is going on in terms of
26:24
Speaker 2: Trump's calculus and how all of that unfolded?
26:28
Speaker 7: Yeah, so what Trump is doing? First, let's just explain.
26:32
Speaker 7: As Iran has gained power, America has lost strategic position.
26:37
Speaker 7: These are a direct trade off of each other. Trump's
26:41
Speaker 7: rhetoric and phone calls and statements are as if he
26:46
Speaker 7: was still the dominant power. He is acting as if
26:50
Speaker 7: he is still in control. In fact, he has been
26:53
Speaker 7: saying I am in control. Well, the fact is Trump
26:58
Speaker 7: is losing control as his strategic position has declined, and
27:04
Speaker 7: control is not defined by what the actor. President Trump says,
27:08
Speaker 7: I have control. It's defined by how others are reacting.
27:13
Speaker 7: So point number one, the Iranians have said, and this
27:18
Speaker 7: is what the advisor to the Supreme Leaders said late
27:21
Speaker 7: last week, that they're just going to ignore what Trump
27:24
Speaker 7: says about negotiations. It's not they're going to respond to it.
27:28
Speaker 7: Tip for Tad, They're just ignoring him. They don't think
27:31
Speaker 7: it has any reality. And they've laid out their their
27:34
Speaker 7: demands in public, which means they're digging their heels in
27:38
Speaker 7: and they don't really care what President Trump says anymore.
27:41
Speaker 7: At least that's what they've said, and their behavior would
27:44
Speaker 7: reflect that. Israel Also, they're still taking Netna, who is
27:49
Speaker 7: still taking President Trump's calls. Okay, so I'm not saying
27:52
Speaker 7: that they've gone that far and not taking the call,
27:54
Speaker 7: and they're taking the call. But Netnell did not follow
27:58
Speaker 7: Trump's orders. Trump tried to order net Nyahuo not to retaliate,
28:03
Speaker 7: and what happened. Net Yahoo launched air strikes on Iran
28:07
Speaker 7: in western and central Iran against some key targets.
28:11
Speaker 6: So this is the.
28:12
Speaker 7: Opposite of listening to President Trump. President Trump is losing
28:17
Speaker 7: control because his behavior and Redorick has been as if
28:22
Speaker 7: he had not lost that strategic position. Well, in war,
28:27
Speaker 7: the realities dictate everything. You can try to have your
28:31
Speaker 7: happy talk, and that's what President Trump is doing. But
28:35
Speaker 7: this is being ignored because the happy talk is here relevant.
28:41
Speaker 7: We all see the realities, and that's true in much
28:45
Speaker 7: of the American public. That's true in the leadership. And
28:50
Speaker 7: that is what why President Trump's words seem to have
28:53
Speaker 7: no reality to them. It's because there is no reality
28:57
Speaker 7: to his words. And we know how long has it been?
29:01
Speaker 7: Let me just ask you how, and the listeners should
29:04
Speaker 7: ask how long has it been that they have heard
29:06
Speaker 7: President Trump say that their negotiations with Iran are just
29:10
Speaker 7: about to be settled. Well, I went back before we
29:13
Speaker 7: came on. I just thought I would just check for
29:15
Speaker 7: myself and this could be, you know, a game the
29:17
Speaker 7: listeners could do on Google. I found it goes back
29:20
Speaker 7: to March twenty ninth. Okay, so that's seventy two days
29:25
Speaker 7: of this. Now, if your listeners can, it's like beat
29:29
Speaker 7: the professor. Maybe I missed one before March twenty ninth,
29:33
Speaker 7: So just let me know if they found one going
29:36
Speaker 7: back earlier than March twenty ninth. But that's seventy two
29:40
Speaker 7: days of almost every day or every other day, hearing
29:45
Speaker 7: we're only days away from the deal with Iran, So
29:50
Speaker 7: you could see as Iran's ambitions grow. As it stands,
29:53
Speaker 7: it's unbre it's spreading its wings. Why he would be
29:57
Speaker 7: losing control?
30:01
Speaker 3: Professor, you had a prediction here, just a statement on
30:05
Speaker 3: our show many months ago, you said Iran has become
30:07
Speaker 3: a new regional world power. I put that clip out.
30:10
Speaker 3: I got quite a lot of criticism, mostly from the
30:13
Speaker 3: Israeli lobby. And what I found fascinating actually is watching
30:18
Speaker 3: some of this proof out. And so yesterday when we
30:21
Speaker 3: saw Iran enforce its redline of strikes on Lebanon for
30:25
Speaker 3: the first time in its modern history, to actually use
30:28
Speaker 3: that as a pretext explicitly to enforce regional action, how
30:32
Speaker 3: did that prove out that original statement that you made,
30:35
Speaker 3: to watch such a change in their own strategic behavior.
30:38
Speaker 7: Yeah, So, to be clear, I made that public statement
30:41
Speaker 7: in a New York Times bace on April fourth, where
30:45
Speaker 7: I said Iran is emerging as the fourth center of
30:49
Speaker 7: world power. And also to be clear, I didn't say
30:53
Speaker 7: that that would happen in a day. I said it
30:55
Speaker 7: would take about eighteen months. They were on a trajectory
30:58
Speaker 7: to do that. And I didn't say they would become
31:01
Speaker 7: stronger than the United States. So some people, you know,
31:04
Speaker 7: when you get in these debates, they kind of straw
31:06
Speaker 7: man it a little bit to say over but Iran
31:10
Speaker 7: would be the fourth center of world power.
31:11
Speaker 6: Now what did I mean by that?
31:13
Speaker 7: The United States is the strongest state in the world,
31:16
Speaker 7: and it's a hedgemon in its region of the world,
31:18
Speaker 7: the Western Hemisphere. China is the second strongest, and it
31:22
Speaker 7: wants to be and almost is a hedgemon in Asia.
31:26
Speaker 7: Russia is the third strongest and it is buying to
31:31
Speaker 7: become the hegemon in Eastern Europe. That's what's happening with
31:34
Speaker 7: the battle with Ukraine. And who else is a hedgemon?
31:39
Speaker 7: There's no other regional hegemons. Iran would be the fourth
31:43
Speaker 7: regional hegemon in the Gulf, that is the dominant state
31:46
Speaker 7: in the Gulf. And what does that look like. That
31:49
Speaker 7: looks like a state which has a sphere of influence,
31:53
Speaker 7: not just worrying about its own narrow protection. And that's
31:58
Speaker 7: what's true of those all those other three states. And
32:01
Speaker 7: also I believe this will also mean that it will
32:06
Speaker 7: protect its allies, and that's exactly what you are seeing here.
32:11
Speaker 7: So this is we're used to thinking of Hesbola as
32:15
Speaker 7: like the puppet or the pawn that is expendable to
32:18
Speaker 7: support Iran. This is the other way around. This is
32:22
Speaker 7: Iran establishing a sphere of influence and it's also extending
32:27
Speaker 7: to the Huthi. So if there's a whole sphere here
32:31
Speaker 7: that is being defined, and that's a sphere of influence
32:36
Speaker 7: and it is acting to do and by the way,
32:39
Speaker 7: it's gaining success because its threats, it's stronger power compel
32:44
Speaker 7: President Trump to make those phone calls to put pressure
32:48
Speaker 7: on Israel to pull back. And the fact is, without
32:53
Speaker 7: Iran gaining power, Donald Trump would never have made those
32:57
Speaker 7: phone calls on the behavior just because as Iran was
33:01
Speaker 7: making a threat. So you are seeing reality to that
33:05
Speaker 7: prediction I made two months ago. And this will go
33:08
Speaker 7: on over time. I think I believe Iran's position as
33:13
Speaker 7: the fourth center of world power will emerge drip by
33:16
Speaker 7: drip by drip over the summer. This will get even
33:19
Speaker 7: stronger because as the crisis hits the world's economy, you know,
33:24
Speaker 7: basically end of June to July, we don't know the
33:27
Speaker 7: exact date, but we know that it's coming. This will
33:31
Speaker 7: strengthen Iran's position in the region and also in the world.
33:37
Speaker 7: So you are seeing the emergence of a fourth center
33:40
Speaker 7: of world power right in front of our eyes. We've
33:43
Speaker 7: never I don't I'm not surprised people were skeptical of
33:47
Speaker 7: this argument because.
33:48
Speaker 6: We haven't seen that in our lifetime.
33:51
Speaker 7: When was the last time you saw the emergence of
33:54
Speaker 7: a fourth of a center of world power? Not in
33:57
Speaker 7: our lifetime that China has. It happens very very slow,
34:01
Speaker 7: and was already a pretty powerful state. You have to
34:04
Speaker 7: go to back history. This is like Prussia in the
34:06
Speaker 7: nineteenth century to really kind of put this in some
34:10
Speaker 7: historical perspective. So it's not truly unique, and it's a
34:14
Speaker 7: function of not just the economy of Iran. That's how
34:18
Speaker 7: we often measure power just raw economy. It's the geography.
34:25
Speaker 7: It is the geography plus the technology. That's what helped Prussia.
34:30
Speaker 7: So this is a little bit different calculus. We have
34:33
Speaker 7: seen bits of this before, but I am not surprised
34:37
Speaker 7: there was some pushback, and I believe this is going
34:40
Speaker 7: to be one of the gigantic outcomes. It's going to
34:43
Speaker 7: reshape the world coming out of this war. This war
34:46
Speaker 7: is not like the Greenland issue. It's not like Venezuela.
34:50
Speaker 7: This is a different animal. It was always going to
34:54
Speaker 7: be a different animal. And I really appreciate the fact
34:57
Speaker 7: that I've been able to talk about this on your
35:00
Speaker 7: on your show. I also appreciate the New York Times
35:02
Speaker 7: taking the risks because they got enormously everybody, so, what
35:06
Speaker 7: are you talking about that? But now you're seeing the reality.
35:12
Speaker 7: And by the way, that's just another prediction that's coming
35:15
Speaker 7: out of all this modeling. Thinking about the bombing of Iran.
35:20
Speaker 7: This would not be happening had President Trump not bombed Iran.
35:26
Speaker 2: Well, it's fascinating because it's really a tributable to this
35:29
Speaker 2: combination of modern military tech with the drones, et cetera,
35:33
Speaker 2: and also sort of old school just geographic position in
35:37
Speaker 2: the world. So it really is this very unique.
35:40
Speaker 7: You know, you just make a suggestion for your listeners,
35:43
Speaker 7: because a lot of your listeners love they should go
35:46
Speaker 7: and look at a piece by Halfred Mackinder called the
35:49
Speaker 7: Geographic Pivot of History nineteen oh four, British geographer, and
35:58
Speaker 7: they will see that, yes, it's not always been true
36:02
Speaker 7: We've measured great power simply by raw GDP, because that's
36:09
Speaker 7: how explained what was happening to Britain as Prussia was consolidating,
36:15
Speaker 7: and why that geography mattered so much.
36:19
Speaker 2: Well, one thing I wanted to ask you about is
36:21
Speaker 2: how this changed the game for Israel. You know, they
36:23
Speaker 2: have obviously they have our support. They've bombed something like
36:26
Speaker 2: seven countries over the past several years of de facto
36:29
Speaker 2: annexed parts of Syria have de facto annexed, you know,
36:33
Speaker 2: most of Gaza, taken complete control over the West Bank,
36:37
Speaker 2: have now invaded and taken control over parts of Lebanon,
36:42
Speaker 2: and have been able to do all of this basically
36:44
Speaker 2: with impunity. You'd have to think that this new reality
36:47
Speaker 2: would you know, constrain them quite significantly in ways that
36:51
Speaker 2: they aren't used to in recent years.
36:54
Speaker 7: It's going to and it's going to constrain them more
36:57
Speaker 7: over time. And I'll be writing p about this on
37:01
Speaker 7: the sub stack, by the way, because it is it's
37:04
Speaker 7: part of the new emerging reality. But don't think that
37:08
Speaker 7: it's going to stop all at once. But you're seeing
37:10
Speaker 7: the beginning of this change now. So what you can
37:15
Speaker 7: expect over time is as that new security architecture becomes solidified,
37:22
Speaker 7: and it's only in its early stages. As it becomes solidified,
37:27
Speaker 7: Israel's position is going to get weaker and weaker and weaker. Now,
37:32
Speaker 7: that's going to happen for two reasons, not just one reason.
37:35
Speaker 7: Reason Number one is is reel strategic position is a
37:40
Speaker 7: function very heavily of America's strategic position. So as America's
37:45
Speaker 7: strategic position weakens in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf,
37:50
Speaker 7: and it is weakening at now, this inherently weakens Israel's position.
37:56
Speaker 7: But number two, what's going to happen very as time
38:00
Speaker 7: goes on is you will see evolutions with the drone
38:06
Speaker 7: and missile capability of Iran's proxy. So it's we already
38:12
Speaker 7: know that Hesbla and the Hoothi's have missile and drone capability.
38:17
Speaker 6: That's not the change.
38:19
Speaker 7: The change, and you're starting to see it just in
38:22
Speaker 7: the last twenty four hours is much more sophisticated, concerted
38:26
Speaker 7: effort with those missiles and drones to think in a
38:31
Speaker 7: calibrated way how to weaken Israel. And so what you
38:36
Speaker 7: see is that we had the issue, of course with
38:40
Speaker 7: Israel Lebanon everybody's focused on that. But I have been
38:44
Speaker 7: watching the Red Sea and the Houthis and what and
38:48
Speaker 7: I haven't been surprised by what I found what we
38:51
Speaker 7: saw in the last twenty four hours, which is that
38:54
Speaker 7: the Houthis have stepped into this part this issue, and
38:59
Speaker 7: what they have done is they are threatening any Israeli
39:02
Speaker 7: related traffic around the Red Sea that choke point. Well,
39:08
Speaker 7: that is now an expansion to that new theater. Think
39:13
Speaker 7: of it as a new part of the of the
39:16
Speaker 7: theater here, a new area that is now expanding in
39:21
Speaker 7: a coherent way, just as your opening quote suggests it.
39:26
Speaker 7: And that is going to weaken Israel over time because
39:30
Speaker 7: those drones, those missiles can be used in a much
39:33
Speaker 7: more concerted way. And this is just the beginning for Israel.
39:38
Speaker 7: And notice that if America and Israel together couldn't root
39:43
Speaker 7: out all the drones and missiles here, as America gets
39:47
Speaker 7: weaker and its position gets weaker in the Middle East,
39:50
Speaker 7: Israel on its own is not gonna build to that either.
39:53
Speaker 7: So so this is this is a picture of a
39:57
Speaker 7: grand strategic not quite collapse, but kind of reduction here
40:05
Speaker 7: decline for Israel over time. But you're just seeing the
40:09
Speaker 7: early stages of this, and this trajectory is likely to
40:13
Speaker 7: go on as far as the I can.
40:15
Speaker 3: See as always thought provoking and usually correct on a
40:20
Speaker 3: long timeline.
40:20
Speaker 1: So thank you very much, sir. We appreciate your time.
40:23
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for having me.
40:27
Speaker 2: So we wanted to take a bit of a look
40:29
Speaker 2: at what is going on in North Korea, and there
40:31
Speaker 2: are a number of reasons to do this. So first
40:33
Speaker 2: of all, let's pit C three up on the screen.
40:36
Speaker 2: Xijinping actually visited North Korea on Monday. This was a
40:41
Speaker 2: very significant visit. It's been quite a while since the
40:44
Speaker 2: Chinese leader has traveled to North Korea and comes at
40:48
Speaker 2: a pivotal moment for obviously both China, but also for
40:52
Speaker 2: North Korea. Led to several articles in major newspapers about
40:56
Speaker 2: what exactly is going on in that country and surprisingly
41:01
Speaker 2: to a lot of American or Western viewers, they are
41:04
Speaker 2: economically doing quite well at the moment. So we can
41:07
Speaker 2: put C one up on the screen. This was an
41:10
Speaker 2: article from the Wall Street Journal about the world's most
41:14
Speaker 2: surprising economic success story in North Korea. Effectively, what they
41:19
Speaker 2: lay out here is how the country was really struggling
41:22
Speaker 2: under the dueling challenges of COVID and also US sanctions
41:28
Speaker 2: of course, which are fairly devastating to the economy. And
41:32
Speaker 2: during COVID they instituted a severe lockdown, you know, really
41:37
Speaker 2: closed the borders. There were limited ability to get media
41:41
Speaker 2: in and know what's going on. There were some dissidents
41:44
Speaker 2: who left and worry able to sort of tell the
41:48
Speaker 2: world about what was going on there. But by all accounts,
41:50
Speaker 2: a pretty severe crackdown. That also entailed a crackdown on
41:54
Speaker 2: the black market sale of smuggled in goods as they
41:58
Speaker 2: look to transition the country to really focusing on and
42:01
Speaker 2: requiring that all goods that were sold internally would be
42:06
Speaker 2: through state sanctioned channels. Of course, in the immediate term
42:10
Speaker 2: that caused a lot of hardship. But now what North
42:13
Speaker 2: Korea has done is they have partnered up with They've
42:17
Speaker 2: long you know, had this partnership with China, and China
42:19
Speaker 2: continues to be sort of their most important ally and
42:22
Speaker 2: you know, providing them with a lot of trade goods
42:25
Speaker 2: and also aid. But they have now this very important
42:28
Speaker 2: partnership with Russia. They saw that there was a huge
42:32
Speaker 2: opportunity with Russia's war in Ukraine and they not only
42:36
Speaker 2: sent troops as mercenaries to go and fight for Russia,
42:40
Speaker 2: many of whom died. But you know, the state received
42:43
Speaker 2: payment for the fact that they sent these troops over
42:46
Speaker 2: on behalf of Russia. But they also have spun up
42:49
Speaker 2: factories and production to supply Russia with billions of dollars
42:53
Speaker 2: in munitions and have become very important to that war effort.
42:56
Speaker 2: They've taken that money that they've made through their partnership
43:01
Speaker 2: with Russia and they have plowed that back into their
43:04
Speaker 2: own economy through major construction projects, through building out factories
43:09
Speaker 2: not just in Pyongyang but throughout the countryside that was
43:13
Speaker 2: much less developed. And apparently this whole direction Sager is
43:17
Speaker 2: really bearing a lot of fruits. And over the past
43:20
Speaker 2: several years GDP growth has been quite strong. You know,
43:23
Speaker 2: it's still a country that suffers with a lot of
43:26
Speaker 2: poverty and also inequality between the leadership and between everybody else,
43:31
Speaker 2: but there are much much more wealth going around, much
43:36
Speaker 2: more economic prosperity, and the ability to build out these
43:39
Speaker 2: resorts and other projects that bring equality of life improvement
43:43
Speaker 2: to the population as well.
43:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the most fascinating part of the whole
43:47
Speaker 3: story bitch belies everything is the inability of the United
43:52
Speaker 3: States to continue to enforce serious global sanctions, because the
43:57
Speaker 3: story of North Korea, which affects actively economically, was crushed
44:02
Speaker 3: both by the United States and the rest of the
44:04
Speaker 3: world all up until they're obtaining a nuclear weapon. Even then,
44:09
Speaker 3: after they obtained a full blown ICBM nuclear weapon capable
44:12
Speaker 3: of hitting the United States, they still were not prosperous
44:15
Speaker 3: or even relatively prosperous or in some sort of an
44:18
Speaker 3: upward trajectory. Russia enters the war in Ukraine, the United
44:22
Speaker 3: States and the West throws everything we have at the
44:24
Speaker 3: Russian economy. The Russian economy continues to thrive, the Chinese
44:28
Speaker 3: banking system, the Russian banking system, all of these circumventing
44:31
Speaker 3: actions and infrastructure is created. Then North Korea, because as
44:35
Speaker 3: one of the largest standing armies in the world and
44:38
Speaker 3: weapons production because that's what their entire focus was on,
44:40
Speaker 3: is able to both use its people and send weapons manufacturing,
44:44
Speaker 3: all these other things over to Russia, which then they're
44:47
Speaker 3: obviously paid for. So now they go from being a
44:50
Speaker 3: Chinese Fascil state to actually having something that another country wants. Russia,
44:54
Speaker 3: of who it has some reasonable relations, and in the meantime,
44:58
Speaker 3: China is also a to not only backstop their economy,
45:02
Speaker 3: but they're also able to bring in some goods and
45:04
Speaker 3: actually purchase some other types of goods and bootstrap some
45:07
Speaker 3: other industry inside of the country. The single most interesting
45:11
Speaker 3: part of the Wall Street Journal story is about housing,
45:15
Speaker 3: about how Pyongyang and North Korea has been able to
45:18
Speaker 3: build more new housing in a few year period than
45:22
Speaker 3: Los Angeles and Chicago, just to demonstrate, by the way,
45:27
Speaker 3: what you can do if you want to do it,
45:29
Speaker 3: if you have the will to build, as they say,
45:33
Speaker 3: and so.
45:34
Speaker 2: Their abundance pilled over there gets your heart out decline.
45:37
Speaker 3: Right, And this is the country which you know, for
45:40
Speaker 3: years they said even had declining population because of mount
45:43
Speaker 3: nutrition and pet famine and poverty. And when they have
45:46
Speaker 3: a little bit of money, they build. They're also they're saying,
45:49
Speaker 3: on the streets of North Korea, you're seeing BMW's byd
45:53
Speaker 3: Chinese vehicles. But I think that the dual story of
45:56
Speaker 3: both Russia and China able to prop up their economy
45:59
Speaker 3: and actually make it not entirely miserable and fake in
46:02
Speaker 3: terms of the way that the you know, everybody remembers
46:04
Speaker 3: what the Vice Guide to North Korea that.
46:06
Speaker 1: Came out in two thousand and six, two thousand and seven.
46:09
Speaker 3: I remember watching it when I was you know, that
46:11
Speaker 3: was genuinely creepy. This is under Kim Jong ill, this
46:14
Speaker 3: is you know, fake hotels, no gas. That's just not
46:17
Speaker 3: the case anymore. I mean, we have some of these
46:19
Speaker 3: images that are coming out of Pyongyang, and I mean, look,
46:24
Speaker 3: not the Pyongyang that we remember from the propaganda reels
46:27
Speaker 3: and others. Even with the tightly controlled propaganda that they
46:30
Speaker 3: had on North Korea, it is pretty obvious that there
46:33
Speaker 3: has been a major increase in the you know, in
46:36
Speaker 3: the quality of life on the street, and that is
46:38
Speaker 3: in no way diminishing the malnutrition to starvation and all
46:43
Speaker 3: of the other insanity that goes on inside of North Korea.
46:46
Speaker 3: But I just think it's actually a major story of
46:48
Speaker 3: US sanctions, And something I emphasize here on the show
46:51
Speaker 3: all the time is if you have guns, and you
46:53
Speaker 3: if you if you have bullets, and if you have
46:56
Speaker 3: oil or in this case, you can sell bullets for
46:59
Speaker 3: oil or some sort of energy, you can survive a
47:02
Speaker 3: lot actually, and nuclear weapons obviously on top of that.
47:05
Speaker 3: If you have those three or two out of those three,
47:07
Speaker 3: you're going to be at least somebody to be reckoned with.
47:10
Speaker 3: And Kim Jong un, the only way he's going out,
47:14
Speaker 3: the only way he's going out is if he dies
47:16
Speaker 3: of obesity related in obesity related disease. No US aircraft
47:23
Speaker 3: carrier Delta Force team is going into North Korea to
47:26
Speaker 3: go and kidnap him. He's going to die in his
47:28
Speaker 3: own bed whenever he wants to. And that is the
47:31
Speaker 3: singular look. It shows the singular vision of obtaining a
47:34
Speaker 3: nuclear weapon, of being willing to starve your own people,
47:37
Speaker 3: to destroy your own economy if you must. But in
47:40
Speaker 3: the long run, it will be the most important decision
47:42
Speaker 3: that they ever made, which is which is sending a
47:44
Speaker 3: very strong strategic signal to the rest of the world.
47:47
Speaker 3: That's why I think the Iran situation in Venezuela combined
47:50
Speaker 3: are actually going to prove the North Korean model out
47:52
Speaker 3: as well as the Ukraine situation in terms of throwing
47:55
Speaker 3: all those sanctions and it's just not working.
47:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the partnership with Russia, obviously, I mean it's
48:01
Speaker 2: provided them with a lot of money so that they
48:03
Speaker 2: can invest in housing and infrastructure, in factories, in even
48:08
Speaker 2: you know, like spat like resorts and you know, leisure
48:11
Speaker 2: activities for their people. But it also has provided them
48:14
Speaker 2: with the ability to build out their military and you know,
48:17
Speaker 2: for Russian technology to help them shore up some of
48:20
Speaker 2: the places where they were more vulnerable and less developed.
48:24
Speaker 2: I want to read a little bit of this Wall
48:25
Speaker 2: Street Journal piece to people because I think just for
48:28
Speaker 2: a lot of Americans, this is kind of mind blowing stuff.
48:31
Speaker 2: So they talk about this Australian tour operator who visits
48:36
Speaker 2: North Korea regularly, and it says after more than one
48:38
Speaker 2: hundred visits to North Korea, Roan Beard had come to
48:41
Speaker 2: expect long waits for a taxi under the Kim Jong
48:43
Speaker 2: n regime, but on a recent visit to Pyongyang, his
48:46
Speaker 2: first in years, a vehicle arrived in minutes. His North
48:49
Speaker 2: Korean interpreter had whipped down a smartphone, opened an act
48:53
Speaker 2: called sam Hung, and hailed a ride with the service
48:55
Speaker 2: akin to Uber to track the taxis movements in real time.
48:59
Speaker 2: This was all totally new, said Beard, and Australian tour operator,
49:02
Speaker 2: my mind was blown. It goes on to say that
49:06
Speaker 2: in Pyongyang, restaurants serve up brick oven pizza and Chicken wings.
49:09
Speaker 2: Diners can place pay through a mobile QR code system.
49:13
Speaker 2: Chinese electric vehicles whizz through the streets. Kyongyang has new
49:16
Speaker 2: pet stores and internet gaming cafe and car dealership selling.
49:19
Speaker 2: BMW's Kim has initiated a nationwide construction boom last year,
49:24
Speaker 2: and this is what you're referring to.
49:25
Speaker 5: Sager.
49:26
Speaker 2: North Korea built ten thousand new homes in Pyongyang, more
49:30
Speaker 2: than either La or Chicago. As I mentioned before, he's
49:34
Speaker 2: also had a focus outside of Pyongyang building out as well,
49:39
Speaker 2: trying to alleviate some of the disparity between the city
49:42
Speaker 2: and the countryside. And we can put up you know,
49:44
Speaker 2: you can see by satellite. This is one of the
49:47
Speaker 2: ways since it's such a reclusive government and very difficult
49:50
Speaker 2: for foreigners to gain access, for Westerners to gain access,
49:54
Speaker 2: So we can put see one be up on the screen.
49:56
Speaker 2: You can see the differences in the light map from
49:59
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen to twenty twenty five, so you can see
50:03
Speaker 2: that there's been you know, massive development also just you know,
50:07
Speaker 2: more reliable electricity in order for lights to be lit
50:11
Speaker 2: and you know, to be able to get these satellite images.
50:14
Speaker 2: So this is one of the key markers that has
50:16
Speaker 2: been long that has long been used to track like
50:19
Speaker 2: how things are going and sort of side of North Korea,
50:21
Speaker 2: and according to this they are going much better than
50:24
Speaker 2: they were in the past. New York Times had a
50:26
Speaker 2: similar rapport. I can put see two up on the
50:29
Speaker 2: screen tracking the country's development over the past number of years.
50:34
Speaker 2: You know, they spend a lot of time in this piece,
50:36
Speaker 2: which is important as well, talking about the extreme crackdown
50:39
Speaker 2: during COVID, both you know, locking the borders and also
50:44
Speaker 2: really cracking down on any sort of descent, any sort
50:47
Speaker 2: of distribution of for media, including like K pop or
50:51
Speaker 2: any sort of like South Korean dramas, any of that
50:53
Speaker 2: was met with execution, so heavy, heavy crackdown on that
50:57
Speaker 2: and on the economic on the black Mars markets there
51:00
Speaker 2: that a lot of people were reliant on just to
51:03
Speaker 2: be able to live. So it was by all reports
51:06
Speaker 2: a very difficult time, you know, and the policies were
51:09
Speaker 2: extremely authoritarian. But now here and not to say the
51:13
Speaker 2: policies aren't still authoritarian, but in terms of the economic
51:17
Speaker 2: life of the country seem things seem to have dramatically improved.
51:21
Speaker 2: And so now as Ji visits North Korea, you know,
51:25
Speaker 2: they're a little bit worried about North Korea becoming too
51:28
Speaker 2: close to Russia and sort of forgetting about their benefactors
51:31
Speaker 2: over in China, because North Korea is important for China
51:33
Speaker 2: in terms of their geo strategic interest of balancing on
51:37
Speaker 2: the Korean peninsula. So you know, this is probably the
51:41
Speaker 2: first time that the Chinese leader, you know, and a
51:45
Speaker 2: North Korean leader visit in this manner for many years
51:48
Speaker 2: where the North Korean leader really has some leverage here
51:51
Speaker 2: in terms of the type of deals that they could strike.
51:54
Speaker 2: By all reports to Sager, Trump has wanted to do
51:57
Speaker 2: another meeting with Kim Jong un and try to, you know,
52:00
Speaker 2: revisit the nuclear issue, and they're like.
52:02
Speaker 5: No, we're good. They don't care exactly, We're not interested.
52:05
Speaker 3: It really does show the power of what a nuclear
52:08
Speaker 3: weapon can give you. I do think I think the
52:11
Speaker 3: story is faster. Look, it's sad too, because you know
52:13
Speaker 3: a lot of people died, and it's like, we're not
52:15
Speaker 3: trying to wash it. We're talking about a country where
52:17
Speaker 3: they execute you for listening to the K pop right,
52:19
Speaker 3: and they have all kinds of insane internal repression whenever
52:25
Speaker 3: they want to and have now for decades. Basically an
52:29
Speaker 3: entire systematized like Goolag type system. But it does, really,
52:33
Speaker 3: i think, just show the diminishing power of US sanctions
52:37
Speaker 3: and of US power. And it also with China and
52:39
Speaker 3: Russia they're able or now not feuding, but both trying
52:43
Speaker 3: to bolster their status there with North Create it's turned
52:46
Speaker 3: itself into a real power with the ability to exchange
52:49
Speaker 3: not just goods with China it's original kind of client state,
52:52
Speaker 3: but actually have some leverage. And of course it poses
52:54
Speaker 3: a huge threat to our own ally South Korea, so
52:57
Speaker 3: it is remains a very very important political part of
53:01
Speaker 3: the globe. And to watch this happen over five years
53:03
Speaker 3: just shows how quickly the world has changed. The unimaginable
53:05
Speaker 3: story even ten years ago, absolutely unimaginable to talk about
53:08
Speaker 3: the streets of Kyoanyang in this way and now here
53:11
Speaker 3: we are.
53:12
Speaker 1: It's crazy.