Latest / The Nation Podcasts / News - Iran Assassinations Escalate, Israel Invades Southern Lebanon, U.S. Pressures Zambia Over Aid for Minerals | American Prestige

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News - Iran Assassinations Escalate, Israel Invades Southern Lebanon, U.S. Pressures Zambia Over Aid for Minerals | American Prestige · The Nation Podcasts

• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hello, Prestige Heads and welcome to American Prestige.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Danny Bessner here as always with my friend in Comrade Derek Davison, and we are excited to bring you the news, but before we do a couple of quick things, thank you everyone to listening.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: We really do appreciate it.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you everyone for listening that too, listening.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to subscribe to this show, please go to americanprecedespod.com.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: you could subscribe annually save a few bucks at fifty dollars is click join now and if you subscribe at the level of sixty dollars you also get a digital subscription to the nation magazine and before we we dive in I also wanted to let everyone know that we have our
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: course going to be talking about the war and Iran, but it is really still a fast-moving situation.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we're also going to be releasing a special for subscribers on the war, that will get into more details and analysis.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So just letting everyone know about that.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Derek, let's jump into the war.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about the assassination, particularly against Lauren Johnny, who was he and why is this a big deal.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, these really have really gone back to heavily featuring decapitation strikes again, which was a feature of the first few days of the war.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: They seem to get away from that to some degree, but they're back to it in a big way, in the last.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Three days, they've carried out at least three assassination strikes.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: They killed the commander of the besiege, which is the paramilitary arm of the Islamic Revolution in a guard corps, and in a holam Resa Soleimani.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: They've killed the Iranian, rather,
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: in an air strike overnight I think Tuesday and to Wednesday but the the most prominent name here they killed I believe on Tuesday although I haven't seen the confirmation of the strike actually took place on Tuesday they killed Alaylor Johnny who was the secretary of Iran supreme
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: National Security Council to some degree, Hatib was an Edmund sort of an insider in the Supreme Leaders Circle at least prior to the killing of Ali Khamani.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know the the Iranian intelligence ministry is very powerful institution in the intelligence minister is a powerful position, but I think he can be replaced certainly the commander of the besieged can be replaced by the you know the next guy up.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Larajani occupied somewhat of a special position.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's been replaced as secretary of the the SNSC by
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Saeed Jelili, who's a former nuclear negotiator, considered much more of a hard liner than Laira Johnny was.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Laira Johnny was conservative, but regarded generally as more of a pragmatist.
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: He had really emerged as probably the preeminent.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: civilian political figure left in Iran after the killing of of how many certainly had superseded the the Iranian President of Mesut Pasechke on who's been, you know, kind of relegated to the background here.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And was one of a very small number of people, Muhammad Ali Bough, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament who's a former IRGC commander is now
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think taken up a lot of this responsibility, but Lara Johnny was really the pre-prim primary figure.
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think interfacing between the IRGC, which is effectively running around at this point, at least, you know, on the military side of what else is there at the current time, but was the figure interfacing between the IRGC and the civilian political elite governing elite.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was also a figure who was, as I said, regarded as something of a pragmatist when it comes to dealing with the West and other matters, who would have been inevitably a key figure in any sort of ceasefire negotiations or advancing some kind of negotiated settlement.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: question whether that's partly why the Israelis targeted him certainly there are other reasons if you're just trying to take the Iranian state apart from the head down there are other reasons why you would attack somebody of large on a stature but it could also be argued that these Israelis are trying and I've seen that argued and even suggested in anonymous anonymously sourced reporting that these Israelis are definitely trying to remove anybody who might
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: negotiations because they want to close off the possibility of negotiations and keep this war going until the Iranian state is smashed into a million pieces and ceases to function.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think that is a very likely one of the reasons why he was killed.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Of the three of them, I think he's the one who was
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: most difficult for the Iranians to replace.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can put somebody else in his position, but in terms of who he was and his importance to the system and kind of his status as an insider.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not easy to replicate that.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Derek.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: The other biggest news of the week was Trump wanting to open this rate of her moves.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And particularly, he asked American allies to help.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: What has the response been?
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: But no, we're not going to do that.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: This fender response.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we left off on Sunday.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think was when we did our last war special, left off with Trump essentially begging demanding on social media that the rest of the world bail him out on the straight of our moves and fix the problem.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: that he's created, you know, he was demanding NATO and China and Japan, South Korea countries that depend on the straight for, or, you know, flows of energy products through the straight, the liquified natural gas, oil,
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: to a greater degree, a much greater degree than the U.S. does.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was demanding that those countries step in and just basically said their naval vessels in to be obliterated by Iranian weapons in the name of reopening the state of our moves.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And unsurprisingly, all of the leaders of the various countries that might get involved have said, no, no, we're not going to do that.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: There have been suggestions from European officials, Friedrich Merritts, Emmanuel Macron, etc.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: That they would be willing to involve themselves in some kind of security operation to escort tankers and other cargo ships through the Strait of Hormos.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: after the war is over when there's less danger that they're going to be targeted by an Iranian drone or anti-ship missile, but there really isn't any indication that anybody despite Trump's initial claim that there was this like unknown mysterious
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: group of nations that weren't coming forward publicly, but had already told him that they would absolutely get involved in this.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's been funny to watch his posting on this issue over the past week.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Go from demanding that other countries get involved to insisting that other countries will get involved to then saying, nobody's getting involved.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know what?
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't need your help screw you guys.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going home.
• 7:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then just
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And increasingly angry, you know, kind of screens, especially about NATO Trump, I think said he's always known that NATO was a one way street, you know, just making some very unflattering comments because he was expecting the European members of NATO to to bail him out here.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, hinting at the U.S. didn't need to get involved in Ukraine, but it did, and that was some kind of favor to the Europeans, and now that Europeans are hanging about to drive, just been funny to watch him do hauling over the past few days on this, but the upshot is, yeah, there's not going to be any international force coming to the rescue here to re-open the straight.
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Darn it, Derek.
• 8:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I thought, NATO was going to finally do something.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's move on.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is really a wild one.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I guess not wild, given where we are.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Pentagon has asked for roughly 200 billion more dollars for the war, and is also considering new deployments, Derek.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why can't they use this on student loans?
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just want my student loans paid off.
• 8:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was thinking if they're super high inflation, you know, maybe maybe we'll look at rid of our our loans and our debts.
• 8:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, tomato tomato, maybe that would be the cost of building like a high speed rail network all the way across the country.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just like, you know,
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: in this war, $200 billion.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the Washington Post broke this story Wednesday, evening, friend of the show, Jeff Stein was among the people who broke this.
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So shout out to him that the Pentagon has asked the White House to go to Congress and get a $200 billion supplemental funding package to pay for the war.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is more money actually to the point of like what's the opportunity cost here.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's more money than the US had spent supporting Ukraine, which we're supposed to, you know, according to the Trump administration, it's been as huge waste of money through the end of 2025.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's from the start of the invasion in 2022, through the end of 2025, I think the figure was $188 billion and this is more than that after two and a half weeks.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: of war with Iran.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is an incredible budget request.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: It dwarfs the $50 billion that I've seen most outlets speculate the administration was going to ask for in a supplemental funding package.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: That said, that may still be the amount that the administration goes to Congress to ask for.
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: This isn't like
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: the administration's request for supplemental funding, it's the Pentagon's request to the administration to make that request to Congress.
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's wish casting of the part of the Pentagon.
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think it's a pretty sober assessment or based on a pretty sober assessment of how much this thing is costing.
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: The Pentagon reportedly went through at least $11 billion just the first week.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what the defense department officials have talked about in briefings with Congress.
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's probably higher than that.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: and there's no end to the conflict in sight.
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't still really even know what Donald Trump would consider an end.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the Iranians certainly aren't giving up.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's been back and forth about whether or not they're even in contact with the Trump administration.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: We can talk about it at that tomorrow's special.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: But with no end in sight, like at that rate,
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: it's not going to take very long to go through 200 billion dollars in war funding.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when you consider that the US is probably running out of munitions, we don't know.
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the Pentagon insisted it's got plenty of munitions to fight this war, but
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: That that seems unlikely and there's been you know more anonymously source reporting suggests it's not the case They've convened meetings of defense contractors and you know munitions of manufacturers to try and get them to speed up the process of of Replacing or re-stocking a lot of things like air defense interceptors and other other weapons that the depending on is using in this conflict
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, that's going to cost money just replenishing those stockpiles will cost money doing it at an escalated pace.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll cost money.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's still new deployments that are being considered, you know, aside from the marine expeditionary unit and the amphibious assault unit, the de-administration.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: is sending to the region from Japan.
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Reuters had its own breaking report on Wednesday evening that the Pentagon is considering adding thousands of additional U.S. forces to the Middle East another sign that they weren't prepared for this conflict to go even this long, let alone longer.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that would possibly be used either to
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: enable some sort of ground operation in Iran, which could raise costs both in terms of lives, lost, and money exponentially, or at least to just have them in the region to give the Iranians something to think about or get open the possibility of ground operations inside Iran.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Even if that's all they do, if they just go there and kind of look menacing, that still costs a lot of money to make that deployment and maintain those forces in the region.
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: as this goes on, it just feels like $200 billion, just properly on the optimistic side of things, depending obviously on how long it goes.
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it's a figure that the White House understandably expects a lot of people in Congress to blanch at, and so who knows if it will actually follow through on that and make that budget request.
• 13:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I don't think it's an unrealistic figure as ridiculous as it sounds.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what about these new deployments?
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I don't know much about that.
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, as I said, Rhoiter's reported that there are thousands of truths potentially, that the Pentagon is considering deploying.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: But we'll see if they go ahead with it.
• 13:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I, you know, we're we're at a stage in this where I don't think there's much plays anywhere else or there aren't many other options for the administration or the Pentagon to escalate or to chase the escalation that, you know, the Iranians and Israelis keep keep doing without.
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: some kind of grab operation whether it's cargo island or you know a special forces operation which we talked about with Harris and man on Tuesday you know any of these things would potentially be disasters you know some kind of operation to get the in-rit highly rich uranium out of Iran or you know get to seize cargo island or even to occupy the coastline of the state of armus any of these things could be disasters but they would require substantially more
• 14:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: ground forces that are already in the region, so that's presumably why they're considering this, but I don't have any more than that.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Got it, Derek.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's move over to the Israel Lebanon War.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Big news of the week is that the IDF has begun its ground invasion of southern Lebanon and is also destroying bridges.
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tell us about it.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the the IDF announced on Monday that it begun what it's calling limited and targeted ground operations in southern Lebanon.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is maybe you could say the precursor to a larger invasion or it's just the invasion, you know, the first stages of the invasion.
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: kind of forward defense positions as they called it to create a beach head in southern Lebanon and they can then fill in with large numbers of soldiers.
• 15:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: They deployed.
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think they doubled the number of Israeli soldiers in along the border.
• 15:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: in northern Israel since this conflict began a couple of weeks ago, so they are definitely ready to do some kind of major ground incursion.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: They've already displaced over a million according to Lebanese officials over a million Lebanese people in this conflict and killed
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think at this point upwards of 1,000, the last figure, I was 986, that was from the Lebanese Health Ministry, 986 people killed, that's got to be, that was yesterday, I think so, that's got to be over 1,000 at this point, or you would assume it's at least approaching 1,000.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: The, in terms of the bridges, this is, this is related to the, the occupation, invasion occupation of Southern Lebanon.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: These railways have been ordering people in southern Lebanon on, you know, they started around the border.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: It towns and villages are close to the border, but they've, they've moved consistently north with this.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: They've been ordering evacuations of civilians from the region and telling people not just to go like, you know, to the next.
• 16:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: town over or, you know, a little bit north, they've been telling them to go across the Latani river, which is the kind of geographic boundary, northern geographic boundary of what is typically considered to be the border region.
• 16:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the area that these are areas are most likely to try and occupy.
• 16:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they've been ordering people to cross that river, but at the same time, they are destroying the bridges across the Latani river.
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, there is a,
• 16:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: tactical reason for doing that because there has a lot could could move assets and fighters south into this region to to harass the idea of over those bridges.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's tactical reason to destroy them, but you are also effectively cutting off the only means of egress for Lebanese civilians in the south, who again are being ordered by the idea of
• 17:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: they're not going to have any place to flee to if these bridges are destroyed.
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: So something to I think keep an eye on.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's turn to Gaza and let's turn to the Israeli military's actions in Gaza.
• 17:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: What has been going on, Derrick?
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, similar to last week, I think it's just important to keep some attention as everything else is focused on Iran and Lebanon, to keep some attention on the fact that the low level genocide that we're still calling a ceasefire is continuing.
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: These rallies killed at least.
• 17:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: 13, now 18 sorry people in Gaza over the weekend.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: They killed at least three people in an air strike in communists on Tuesday.
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: A number of these seem to be civilians although most of the killing.
• 18:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: over the weekend involved police forces, police officers in Gaza, I suspect they're now being targeted intentionally because the current Gaza police force is of course connected to Hamas and there's been some talk of folding that
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: police force into the new Palestinian police force that's supposed to be created, that's being trained allegedly by the Egyptian and Jordanian government, that's supposed to function under the administration set up by Donald Trump so called Board of Peace.
• 18:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's been talk of kind of folding the existing police
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: construct which of course these are at least what opposed because the current police force again is linked to hummus so i suspect that they're trying to take out as many police officers as they can uh to make that a a non-starter for the border piece or you know basically not not an issue uh that they have to be uh have to concern themselves with moving forward uh and what about rafa
• 19:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: uh... this is a new development that they just re-opened i think the rafa checkpoint on thursday it had been closed along with every other checkpoint going into gaza at the start of the aron war essentially for security reasons these are at least have since re-opened kerem shalom which it connects gaza to uh... israel in the south
• 19:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: uh... for partial resumption of age upman split as we've talked about uh... previously uh... they're coming aid is coming in at a much substantially reduced level from from what is supposed to be out of the ceasefire there already concerns about uh... you know hunger about food prices et cetera
• 20:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: They finally reopen the Rafa checkpoint, which is a connects Gaza to Egypt, and has not been used.
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's not being used for age shipments, but it has been used for medical evacuations out of Gaza.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Finally, reopen that on Thursday.
• 20:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: This was after an apparent meeting between representatives of Hamas and on-voys from the so-called Board of Peace that rotors reported earlier this week had taken place.
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was right after very shortly after this meeting that apparently took place that the Israelis announced that they would reopen the Rafa checkpoint.
• 20:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it sounds like the Hamas delegation made some headway in its discussion with the Board of Peace.
• 20:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: What Reuters said was they had indicated that Hamas could withdraw from the ceasefire altogether.
• 20:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: If these restrictions on checkpoints that these really imposed at the start of the war remain in place.
• 21:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, we may see other, you know, some more loosening of those restrictions in the coming days.
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: There were further meetings that were supposed to take place between Hamas and the board this week.
• 21:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't heard anything about those meetings, but I think it's interesting that
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: just even the one took place and appears to have gotten some progress in terms of alleviating some of the pressure on Gaza.
• 21:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's move over to Afghanistan and Pakistan and let's talk about the ceasefire that has been agreed to.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right, the Pakistani and Afghan government agreed on Wednesday to a five day ceasefire that will coincide with the Eid of Fittor Holiday, I should say Eid will barricade anybody who is about to break the fastest starts sundown on Thursday, we're recording this up Thursday.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the first full day will be Friday.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the ceasefire is supposed to coincide with that holiday.
• 22:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was to have started.
• 22:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't seen any indication that it didn't begin.
• 22:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was to have started midnight on Thursday.
• 22:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So as we're recording this, it should be a place.
• 22:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's scheduled to end at midnight on Tuesday.
• 22:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: This was followed actually by the Pakistani Taliban, which is kind of central to this war, because it's, you know, the Pakistani government claims that the Afghan government is harboring and enabling the Pakistani Taliban to carry out attacks in Pakistan.
• 22:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the Pakistani Taliban announced
• 22:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: things are calming down a little bit.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: This comes after as I think we'll get to the worst, single worst casualty incident of the war so far and there's a lot of questions we're only about that.
• 22:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Derek.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what about this air strike in Kabul?
• 23:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right, exactly.
• 23:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the Pakistani military carried out an era strike in Kabul on Monday evening that struck what the Afghan government claims is a drug treatment facility in the capital and they said killed at least 400 people, which would be as I said, the single worst casualty incident in this war so far.
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: There is some question, there are a couple of questions kind of surrounding this incident.
• 23:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of them is the casualty figure.
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: The United Nations has only cataloged 143 deaths in this strike.
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't mean that the Afghan tally is wrong.
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: It just means those are the deaths that the EU admission in Afghanistan has been able to confirm.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's still very high and I think still would be by far the largest casualty incident
• 23:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: But far less far fewer deaths than the Afghan government has alleged there was a statement issued by the Norwegian refugee council on behalf of a kind of a number of humanitarian NGOs on Wednesday deploying the Pakistani attack.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: and referring to hundreds of deaths, but I think that statement was just based on what the Afghan government has claimed these 400 people killed and wasn't based on any sort of independent verification by the refugee council.
• 24:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that for a fact, but I don't know how much stock to put into it.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Meanwhile, while there are questions about the number of casualties, the Pakistani government is insisting that it didn't bomb a drug treatment facility at all, but in fact, bombed some kind of structure that was used to store munitions and also for the training of suicide bombers.
• 24:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, some wildly different claims being made here, but still a very
• 25:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: major incident in the context of this war, even if it was only 140 killed in one strike, that's a high figure for how this conflict has gone so far.
• 25:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about Trump postponing his trip to China.
• 25:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: This may be somewhat related to his outrage over the Chinese government or, you know, the rest of the world not bailing him out on hormones.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: But Trump is postponing his plan because it's to China.
• 25:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was hosting the Prime Minister of Ireland, Michele Martin,
• 25:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: at the White House on Tuesday and announced that the visit which was tentatively scheduled for the end of this month is now going to be postponed by he said five or six weeks in his initial ranting about the hormones when he was demanding that everybody else help him out.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: He did suggest.
• 26:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: that he might delay his trip to China as punishment, I guess, for China, if China didn't pitch in and help to reopen the straight, I don't know how it's punishment to tell somebody the Donald Trump's not going to come and visit them.
• 26:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: That seems like a reward for something not a punishment, but whatever.
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: So he threatened, I guess, to delay his trip.
• 26:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: But on Tuesday, when
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: this was, it was cast just as a sort of concession to the fact that he can't be away from Washington in the middle of a war and this is, you know, it would be too much for him to to make any major foreign trips.
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: So he didn't emphasize the harm moves issue, but simply said it was a logistical problem.
• 26:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And said that he was looking forward to seeing President Xi and the President Xi, I'm quoting here that looks forward to seeing me, I think we need a fact check on that last part, but who knows, they are trying or they were hoping I think with this summit to negotiate a more stable
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: trade accord, there's sort of a ceasefire in place, if you will, in the U.S. Chinese trade war at the moment, but they were hoping to negotiate something a bit more substantial than that.
• 27:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's going to be put off and, you know, subsumed by the war, I guess.
• 27:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Derek.
• 27:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's move on to Sudan.
• 27:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And let's talk about the RSF, which has recently made some
• 27:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the big one, and we reported, I think, in one of our last couple of news updates, that the Sudanese military had captured the town of Bara, which is located in Sudan's North Cordofe, on state, and is strategically significant because it sits along the main highway, connecting Amderman, the sort of second city of Sudan, in the capital region, to Ello Bay, which is the capital of North Cordofe on state.
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: is presumably aiming at some point to undertake a large offensive to try and push the RSF, and its partners out of the court of on region with an eye toward then moving into Darfur next door.
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And
• 28:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if it's planning to do that, the road from Umdermonto, Elabate is a vital artery for the Sudanese military to move an offensive force from the Capitol region into North Cortifon.
• 28:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the town, the fact that it took the town was was extremely significant.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: The fact that the RSF has taken it back, apparently, according to the Sudan Tribune and other
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: outlets is equally strategically significant because it once again cuts that highway, puts the the RFF in better position to pressure L.O.B.
• 29:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: and you know, gives them all sorts of options in terms of of, you know, maintaining control over that province and eventually maybe threatening on their model though they don't seem to be in a position.
• 29:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: to attempt that anytime soon.
• 29:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you have pretty significant development.
• 29:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll see if it sticks.
• 29:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, obviously, the military, you know, capture only lasted about 10 days.
• 29:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, we'll see if the RSF is able to hold on to it.
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: But, yeah, something that could could change the tenor of the war a bit.
• 29:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: uh... let's move on to zambia but before we do direct because the story involves cuts to pep far which is the presidential program regarding aids prevention could you explain what has been going on with pep far because it wasn't a cut by doge early on but then it was uncut it's been kind of exciting story but like is the full pep far still going or is it no longer still going because you read a lot of different things and i've
• 30:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: looked into it and it's quite confusing that, you know, there are estimated death counts, but they're wildly different, but then it was cut and uncut.
• 30:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what's going on with PEPFAR before we get into the story with Zambia?
• 30:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't think it's been fully restored.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is part of actually the New York Times report on Zambia, but I don't think it's been fully restored.
• 30:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: What they've been doing is going to African governments and countries that have been receiving PEPFAR and other
• 30:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: other aid programs, health care aid programs, and they've been making demands of those governments in return for having partial pep farm funding restored malaria as well to
• 30:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they've been a pep far and other health care aid having that partially restored and they've been demanding Mostly things related to health care, which is why Zambia thinks stands out.
• 30:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll talk about it in a minute But they've been demanding mostly things related to health care the big chief one seems to be that they've demanded that these governments increase their own health care spending.
• 31:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, still a little
• 31:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: despicable to dangle life-saving aid in this way to force concessions out of these governments.
• 31:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: But at least somewhat coherent in that, you know, the demand was, you know, these countries spend more on their own health care and the U.S. will contribute something to.
• 31:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: There are other, there have been other demands made and a couple of countries, like I think
• 31:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: backed away from the program because of some other demand that the administration has been making also related to health care but a little more, you know, curious or concerning like, you know, they're demanding that these countries share health data with the United States that they share biological samples with the United States and that could be used in research.
• 31:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's no guarantee that anything that came out of that research would then be, you know, kind of read down to the benefit of the countries that supplied the
• 32:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: uh, exploitative but still within the bounds of like health care, uh, or, you know, health research.
• 32:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's happening in Zambia is that the, the State Department is considering this is a New York Times report based on a memo, uh, that was leaked to it from an internal State Department memo.
• 32:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: basically threatening to zero out pep far and other health care aid again like tuberculosis and malaria, unless the zombie and government gives the U.S. favorable concessions on mineral rights.
• 32:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: The US has objected to Zambi's relationship with China in the mining and mineral fields for a long time.
• 32:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: It has never before to my knowledge threatened to cut off people who need HIV treatment from the medicine that they need because it wants to get some concessions for American mining companies.
• 33:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that seems to be what's under consideration here in the State Department.
• 33:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what to say about this.
• 33:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's jaw-droppingly obscene to do this.
• 33:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not, I guess, surprising for this particular administration that it is trying something like this.
• 33:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it is revolting to consider the implications here for people who depend on these medicines and these treatments, this funding, to survive.
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: that we're trying to, we're basically threatening their lives because we want some coltan from Zambia and we're not getting it, but you know, again, I suppose par for the course for the Trump administration.
• 33:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about around again, but in the context of Russia, which has up to support for the country, what does this actually mean?
• 33:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the Wall Street Journal, and this has been, you know, been a few reports about this over the last couple of weeks that Russia has been boosting its support for Iran.
• 34:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: The Wall Street Journal had another report on Wednesday about this.
• 34:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Basically, I mean, mostly it sounds like the Russians are offering lessons to the Iranians based on their use of Iran's shahed drones, their one-way kind of munitions that in our used and crash into a thing they carry a warhead, they're one-way drones.
• 34:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: The Russians, as we know, have purchased or acquired a large number of shahids from Iran.
• 34:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: They've been manufacturing their own versions of the shahid with Iranian assistance for use in Ukraine and the Ukrainians have developed various countermeasures, the Russia's have developed countermeasures to the
• 34:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: countermeasures and certain tactical information on how these things can best be used and it sounds like that's mostly what they've been providing.
• 34:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's another claim they've been providing intelligence to Iran that's helped the Iranians develop targeting information for U.S. military facilities in the Gulf region but beyond that it mostly has to do with their use of drones and there are indications that the Iranians have changed how they employ the drones, you know,
• 35:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: compared to how they used them in the so-called 12-day war last year that they seemed to have adopted some Russian tactics.
• 35:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: There may be some technology that the Russians are sharing that they've used to kind of soup up the drones in terms of their capabilities targeting capabilities navigation.
• 35:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: capabilities.
• 35:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: That sort of thing, so there are indications that the Iranians may be sharing that type of thing with the Iranians.
• 35:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is led to a host of like hair-on-fire commentary from the usual suspects in DC.
• 35:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would note it's not much different from what the US and Western countries have been doing for Ukraine since 2022.
• 35:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Whether you find that
• 36:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, to be a good use of resources or not, it's basically the Russians repaying the US and the West for what they've been doing in the Ukraine war.
• 36:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: The Russian government has denied that it's providing support to Iran.
• 36:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that there's much reason to trust those denials.
• 36:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: But, yeah, it's, you know, it's one of these things that's a big deal to certain elements of the blob, the Trump administration doesn't need to be making a big deal out of it.
• 36:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, make it that way you will, you know, Trump has this weird relationship with Vladimir Putin and Steve Wittkov is on voice to, you know, everybody who really is just,
• 36:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: exceedingly credulous I guess when it comes to Russia as said that you know the Russians have told him They're not you know helping me around me and so on and fall to this and he believes them I don't know why he believes them But yeah, that's that's basically where things stand But this is continuing to be a story That gets a fair amount of attention Let's move on to the story that everyone has forgotten about which is Venezuela where the United States has reopened its embassy
• 37:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I believe on Saturday, this was a social media post by Laura Dogo, who is the Charge de Fair for the State Department in Venezuela, said that the embassy has been reopened.
• 37:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is a foreground conclusion after the U.S. and Venezuela reopened diplomatic relations earlier this month.
• 37:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dogo, I would think, is in line to become Ambassador, U.S.
• 37:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ambassador to Venezuela.
• 37:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was appointed, Sharje DeFaire was working out of Colombia for a while, but now we'll presumably have an office in Caracas where she can go and do her job.
• 37:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's, again, I don't think this is a big surprise.
• 38:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just another step toward normalization.
• 38:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: The next thing will be everybody employing ambassadors.
• 38:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: uh... if you want to call what's happening here normal we've been as well as you know i uh... a subsidiary of the trump organization at this point uh... if you want to call that normal relations then that's uh... that's where things are heading and what about friend of the pod del c rard regas yeah she fired uh... venezuel and defense minister of latimia pedrino on Wednesday uh... it's not entirely clear why uh... she did say that she's going to assign him some unspecified new
• 38:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't know what those might be.
• 38:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: She appointed the head of Venezuela's military counter intelligence unit, Gustavo Gonzalez Lopez as Padrino's replacement.
• 38:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Padrino had been defense minister since 2014.
• 38:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was regarded as a staunch, Maduro, Nicholas Maduro, loyalist.
• 38:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Somebody who was definitely on Washington's naughty list, if you will.
• 39:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I suspect that there was pressure on Rodriguez from the Trump administration to remove him as defense ministry's powerful figure, you know, reportedly has had a lot of a great deal of control over the Venezuelan military had been in there in office long enough to appoint
• 39:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: a number of senior officers within the military, so you know, their their loyalty to him was presumably fairly high.
• 39:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think this is a risky move for Rodriguez even if it is being done under the rest of the United States.
• 39:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: and may have some independent power base within the Venezuelan security establishment independent of her and she's in a somewhat tenuous position as a person who agreed to kind of knuckle under to the U.S. after the majority of kidnapping.
• 40:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, you know, and then is in this interim kind of nebulous interim role.
• 40:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, uh, it is a potential risk for her to start going after these people and removing them from their posts.
• 40:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, maybe she's modified him with whatever this new responsibility is that she's going to offer him.
• 40:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, uh, but it does seem like, you know, she may be taking a bit of a chance here we'll see.
• 40:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And let's end with Cuba.
• 40:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess the first big question is, is it's going to try to invade or top, pop of it.
• 40:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, Iran's going so poorly that mitigates against it, but maybe he, this one will be easier or so he thinks so that mitigates in favor of it.
• 40:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's difficult to, it's really yeah.
• 40:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of it depends on how Iran goes.
• 40:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Spencer talked about this when he was on with us.
• 40:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, if Iran ends in a way that Trump feels embarrassed or humiliated, I think he will send military forces in a cube, because he's going to want to get that taste out of his mouth and get everybody patting him on the head and calling him a good boy again.
• 41:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that doesn't mean it's a foregone conclusion, and right now it sounds like the administration is trying to negotiate the Nicholas Majoro scenario in Cuba as opposed to achieving it through special forces or whatever.
• 41:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a couple of things to say here.
• 41:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: One is that the Cuban power grid collapsed completely on Monday.
• 41:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: another indication that the U.S. pressure in the fuel blockade is wearing the island down kind of structurally infrastructure in terms of infrastructure.
• 41:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why the grid completely collapsed.
• 41:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Cuba does produce some relatively poor quality fuel oil that is enough to operate its its own power plants and keep at least partial power
• 41:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: maintain at least partial power under normal circumstances.
• 41:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know what caused the total collapse of the grid on Monday Power had been restored to I think 55% of the island was the figure I saw by Tuesday afternoon I don't know how much more progress they've made since then
• 42:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: But this was the same day on Monday when the thing collapsed, the Trump started talking to reporters in the oval office about, he said he can do anything he wants with Cuba and talked about having the honor of taking Cuba a lot of really unsavory kinds of comments coming out of him that day.
• 42:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it is clear that Cuba is the target here in the New York Times reported also on Monday that the administration is demanding that Miguel Diaz can now the president of Cuba be ousted in any sort of political settlement to this burgeoning conflict, whatever that might look like it would it would be without.
• 42:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: DS Canal, it views him as an obstacle to basically the capitalization of Cuba, the views him as a, you know, die hard from the communist, a communist party.
• 43:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Even though it's unclear to me how much actual authority he has canal has, he's sort of a functionary.
• 43:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's not a Castro, he's not an ideological, doesn't seem like a particularly ideologically compelling figure.
• 43:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nevertheless, he's viewed as the guy who has to go to kind of open the island up as it were.
• 43:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's also been reported that U.S. officials
• 43:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: within the Cuban political superstructure about, you know, basically a change of leadership, some kind of U.S. friendly government taking power, you know, not a wholesale regime change.
• 43:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: It would be more like Venezuela in that.
• 43:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: these would still be, you know, kind of political insiders who would take power, political functionaries in the current system who would take power.
• 44:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: The one figure who keeps getting talked about is Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, he's the grandson of Raul Castro, who's still alive still in an informal way.
• 44:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: has a great deal of authority and influence in Cuba.
• 44:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: His grandson is seen as somebody apparently that the U.S. feels he can talk to and he's, you know, sort of business friendly, kind of guy and could, you know, has some credibility within the system because he is a Castro, has the credibility to manage, you know, the adoption of a more
• 44:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: uh... shall we say pro business u s friendly uh... system of government uh... he probably would not uh... this is my understanding from uh... again i think that the times report would probably not take uh... any formal office but would work behind the scenes and then you'd have other people kind of
• 44:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: fronting this new system or new administration in the over political roles, but that seems to be what they're aiming for is to do the Maduro thing, but in a negotiated way, I think that again, I think that goes out the window if Iran ends badly and Trump is just looking for somebody to smash because he needs to feel tough again.
• 45:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Cuba is the prime candidate to take the brunt of that.
• 45:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he really seems to be in the mood of settling his historical American scores.
• 45:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: So something is happening.
• 45:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm certain of that.
• 45:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: The question is what effect the midterms might have on it?
• 45:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Difficult to know.
• 45:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, Derek, thank you very much.
• 45:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everyone, if you haven't yet, we released a special with the Nelshelene of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
• 45:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: On the Gulf countries, please check that out.
• 45:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's available to subscribers.
• 45:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, if you haven't subscribed, the American Proceeds pod.com.
• 45:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And actually, if you can take a moment to rate and review the show, particularly on Apple, we would very much appreciate it.
• 45:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It actually does put the show on people's algorithms.
• 46:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: So thank you all for listening.
• 46:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as always, keep on rocking in the free world.
• 46:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
• 46:24
  [UNKNOWN]: You