Is the Ceasefire Dead? (w/ Alastair Crooke)

As a new phase of the US-Israeli war on Iran begins, both Netanyahu and Trump face political crises at home and the likelihood of a global economic crisis.

Chris Hedges and Conflicts Forum

The US-Israeli war has heated up again as Iran launched “Operation Victory” in response to Israel’s continued attacks on Southern Lebanon and attacks on Iranian infrastructure, and the United States bombing islands in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend. In this episode, Chris Hedges speaks with former British Diplomat Alastair Crooke of the Conflicts Forum Substack, who explains that given the failure of diplomatic negotiations, Iran has entered a new phase of the war utilizing the methodology of ‘escalatory deterrence’ in which every attack on Iran will be met with an increasingly greater response.

A change in Israel’s military strategy has occurred following the events of the 7^th of October 2023. Crookes describe this as a shift away from primarily using military force to expand settlements to a focus on ‘permanent security’ — aimed at eliminating any potential threats in the region. Israel is on a mission to establish a Greater Israel by force, but this is taking a toll on the Israeli military, which is at a “point of implosion.”

Both Netanyahu and Trump have boxed themselves in with the wars on Palestine, Lebanon and Iran, generating heavy losses and little possibility of victory but no clear politically acceptable path to a resolution. Both face declining support in the polls and are likely to fare poorly in the next elections. The Likud party is fragmenting, and Crooke explains that “it’s quite possible that the machine that [Netanyahu’s] put into place over 20 and more years could implode.”

For President Trump, the outcome will be decided by what happens to the global economy as shortages of critical resources — fuel, fertilizer and industrial inputs — cause a growing crisis. “Pain is a great transformer,” states Crooke, which may lead Western allies to accept greater concessions to Iran. In the big picture, Hedges and Crooke concur that the West, with its failing institutions, is in a process of catharsis, a period of decline, which is necessary, they say, for there to be any possibility of its renewal and restoration. “This is the process we’ve got to start slowly addressing.”

Chris Hedges

Executive Producer:

Max Jones

Intro:

Margaret Flowers

Transcript:

Margaret Flowers

Crew:

Nawelle Mouihi

Chris Hedges: The escalation of the war between Iran and Israel, which included Iranian strikes on Israel on Sunday followed by Israeli strikes against Iran, are a stark illustration that the conflict remains volatile and unpredictable. Iran attacked after Israel carried out bombings in Southern Beirut, which Iran condemned as a breach of the ceasefire agreement. Donald Trump, desperate to avoid a looming global depression caused by Iran’s prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz, demanded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cease further attacks on Tehran and other Iranian cities.

This request, however, has provoked a furious backlash within Israel and further isolated Netanyahu politically. Israel faces a dilemma: does it ignore Washington to continue provoking Iran with its attacks in Lebanon, openly sabotaging any ceasefire agreement, or does it accept its defeat in Iran and Lebanon, where its troops are suffering significant casualties from Hezbollah’s fiber-optic drones? The far right in Israel is calling for open revolt in defiance of Washington. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has demanded Israel level dozens of buildings in Southern Beirut’s suburbs for every Iranian missile fired at Israel. Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir announced, “Tehran must burn.”

Where will Israel go from here? Will a cessation of hostilities with Iran even be possible? Or have we entered a kind of long war with periodic strikes and counterstrikes as the world economy crashes? Joining me to discuss these questions is Alastair Crooke, a former British Diplomat who served for many years in the Middle East working as a security adviser to the EU Special Envoy to the Middle East as well as helping lead efforts to set up negotiations and truces between Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian resistance groups. He was instrumental in establishing the 2002 ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. He is also the author of “Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution,” which analyzes the ascendancy of Islamic movements in the Middle East.

So, Alistair, let’s begin with where we are. Iran has made it very clear from the inception of the ceasefire that Israeli attacks had to stop in Lebanon. Israel called for the evacuation of parts of Beirut. Iran responded by firing missiles into Israel, which apparently didn’t cause much damage, although who knows? Israel fired back. Where are we?

Alastair Crooke: Well, we’re essentially in a new phase of the war, which reflects, and we can go back to that, but it reflects the sense in Iran that no deal is likely to be forthcoming. And therefore, what they are moving towards is what I call ‘escalatory deterrence’, which is that every time there is an attack on them, whether it is by the US Navy in Hormuz, or if it’s by Israel in Lebanon, they will not only respond, but they will move a step up the escalatory ladder. They will move up one step. And so, then, if there’s another attack, then they move up further. So, they’ve been deploying this in Hormuz against the American naval vessels. Just a couple of days ago, the US Navy attacked a vessel belonging to Iran, fired a Hellfire missile into its engine room and incapacitated it. So, that is one part.

And then Iran reacted by attacks in Bahrain, the effects of which you’ve probably seen, and I’m told, in fact, the effects of which were far more damaging than have been explained to us, that there was some special equipment there in the naval base, which was very expensive and which was destroyed, and they wonder how Iran knew of its location. The CENTCOM are assuming, I’m told, that it must have been provided to them by Russia or China. But I doubt it. I would think that the Iranian intelligence is good in a place like Bahrain, which is 80 % Shi’a anyway. So, that’s one element of it. So, that’s a straightforward equation. Be attacked and respond fire for fire, effectively.

Then the more problematic one is Lebanon. And, if I can, I need to explain why Lebanon is so problematic. And it is because of the 180-degree shift in military doctrine and also political doctrine in alliance with us that took place after the 7th of October. Before that, Israel was largely guided by the Ben-Gurion doctrine, which was that Israel was a small country, small population, small economy, and therefore it couldn’t afford a big military. It was beyond its reach, and therefore, Israel needed to stay within its borders and rely on reservists for its main, small professional force plus reservists.

And it was also Clausewitzian in Ben-Gurion’s concept in the sense that use of force was a means to political settlements and not an end in itself, not just simple destruction. But after the 7th of October, the idea was implanted and it’s been reported extensively in the Hebrew parts of the Israeli press, which we follow regularly, in that the idea was that what happened on the 7th October was a Holocaust. It wasn’t. But they are calling it and thinking it a Holocaust. And they are thinking that the Holocaust that we all know is a Holocaust was actually not simply an event in the past, but something that is present now, that is a threshold, a threshold which can be breached any time. And so, they shifted from that Ben Gurion doctrine 180 degrees and adopted what they call ‘permanent security’. And permanent security means that you do not allow any threat to arise that might now or in the future attack you.

And that idea came from Germany, not surprising, originally, and has been adopted. And why that is so important is because it suggests, and this is the word they use, that it is ‘security to the root’. To the root translated means even children and women because they could bring up another generation that could be a threat to us.

I’m saying this because what I’m trying to explain in the Israeli view, which is the current doctrine of the government, but also magnified particularly by the Messianic element, who also want to see, if you like, a Greater Israel and that a Greater Israel should come about by force of arms. It should just simply forcefully take the territory and by that means establish redemption and a Messiah’s return. So, these two have come together in a strange alliance. I mean, the Israeli army keeps saying, “We don’t quite know how we’re in alliance with the Messianic element, but that’s the reality of what it is.” And in this way, of course, therefore, Hezbollah is a threat that they see must be eliminated at root and not allowed to exist in near proximity to the northern towns or those towns that lie south of the border and extend down into the Galilee.

And so, when Iran produced this first equation, a sort of loose equation, ceasefire for all or no ceasefire, which was supposed to include Lebanon and supposed to include the Palestinians as well. And that had been agreed. That was in, when was it, the 6th, 8th of April ceasefire agreement and was established and the mediators all said, “Yes, this is part of the agreement.” But now the Israelis are saying, “We can’t allow this to stand. We cannot have the idea that if we take action in Lebanon to secure our northern towns (which are half empty, the inhabitants have largely fled)… If we can’t secure our towns, then we must break the link that Iran….” Unfortunately, this is the Israeli perspective. Iran has linked events in Lebanon to the main, if you like, relationship between Iran and the United States and the prospect of a deal or not. And they don’t want that linkage to take place.

So, when Netanyahu was told by Trump, “Look, you can’t bomb Beirut.” He didn’t say you can’t bomb Lebanon, but he said you can’t, stop it, turn back, send them back. When that happened, Netanyahu was met with a tsunami of protests across the board from Israelis. I mean, from the secular Israelis, from the opposition leaders as well, who said, “We cannot let this linkage exist. Israel must have the ability to operate anywhere it chooses under this new security doctrine.” Even though in Lebanon, as the security officials openly admit, they don’t have a strategy for how to deal with Lebanon, and it is going badly wrong for them. The buffer zone didn’t work 20 years ago, and it’s certainly not working now. And instead of which, they’re suffering heavy casualties as they are still in South Lebanon, still destroying towns, clearing towns. They are suffering heavy casualties from Hezbollah, which are using new drones with a cyber optic connection, which are exhausting large casualties. There’s no figures for the casualties, but I estimate roughly about 8 to 10 casualties on the Israeli side per day. I was trying to explain why Lebanon has become neuralgic in this equation because it goes to the very crux of this new doctrine that Israel has adopted, the doctrine of permanent security, security to the root, whether it is Iran, whether it is in Syria, whether it is in West Bank, in Gaza. This is the new doctrine. And this is now being challenged, it seems, first of all, by Iran having succeeded in linking it in the ceasefire arrangements and Trump having to admit it, and Trump having to take action with Netanyahu.

And so now the big pushback is coming back and people are telling Netanyahu in Israel, “Listen, you’ve got to go on attacking Lebanon. You can’t stop. You’ve got to keep going. We will not accept this direct linkage.” And what is Netanyahu’s choice? He can object. But I’m trying to say that it’s presented in the press a lot as if there’s a sort of rivalry between Netanyahu and Trump and it’s all about who’s in charge of whom and who’s subordinate to whom. It’s not that. It goes to the heart of Israeli thinking, and it goes also to, if you like, the very essence of this new thinking. And this new thinking is increasingly under criticism. And Netanyahu is in something of a crisis because the present polls show he’s not likely to win elections as things stand. He still hasn’t got a pardon arranged by Trump. The Likud is sort of fragmenting.

But the most important thing is that the army is disintegrating. The head of the chief of staff went to the cabinet and said, “I want to put up 10 red lights to you. The IDF is in the point of implosion. It just won’t go on. It cannot go on. We are fighting these forever wars across the Middle East, and we haven’t the people, and we haven’t the resources. And the army is also falling apart because of poor discipline and a lack of morality.” And so, there’s a real structural problem. And people are saying there are some voices. I won’t say they are a large number, but some people are saying, “Look, there’s no alternative. We need to go back to the Ben-Gurion original doctrine. We can’t go on pretending we’re a sort of great power able to wield military force across the whole Middle East and across Iran as well.”

Chris Hedges: But there is a divergence between Trump and Netanyahu in that Trump really does not want to pay the dire economic consequences that come with a prolonged closure of the Strait, which is why he wants some kind of a ceasefire agreement. And Netanyahu’s policy is to resume a bombing campaign of Iran, to do to Iran what it has done to southern Lebanon or Gaza or Syria or you could go back to Iraq. Isn’t that correct?

Alastair Crooke: I would actually put it more specifically that I’m not sure that Netanyahu will be able to remain in power if he does not continue to attack Lebanon. And this is the real problem facing Trump. I think probably Trump is looking for a way out, although he doesn’t seem to be able to find it. I mean, my understanding from Iran is there’s no deal in prospect at the moment anyway. The gaps are too great. And also, from their perspective, this whole political diplomatic approach has really disintegrated. Because even yesterday, Trump was saying, “Of course, a deal is near. But Iranians are not going to get any resources. They’re not going to get their money back until it’s all finished and we’re going to keep the blockade on Hormuz until the end of this very long process which occurs well after a long ceasefire and then the sides would supposedly talk,” and Bessent says, “Well anyway, whatever frozen assets Iran owns, we’re going to give them to the Gulf States in reparations.” So, the Iranians really see there’s no political coherence or structure. And so, yes, they keep sending messages by mediators, but sometimes the mediators are in themselves somewhat problematic. They put a very Panglossian approach, a touch on messages going to the Iranian side in the hope of helping to get a solution, no doubt. But nonetheless, it has created quite a lot of confusion within Iran and problems as consequence.

So, what is Trump going to do and what is he going to do about Israel? I mean, people talk about the Reagan example and that Reagan told Netanyahu, “Stop. You’ve got to back off.” But it’s not clear to Iran whether that’s possible because as I say, the whole thinking has changed and suddenly as much as Iran is a problem, Lebanon is even greater problem because these Hezbollah drones are hitting the northern townships every day and the people there are complaining bitterly at the government and saying, “We’re Israeli. Where’s our protection? Where are we being supported?” So, I’m sure, we know from the past first of all, I mean, from going right back, Netanyahu was very quick off the mark to support Biden. And that really galled Trump from long, long way back. I’m not suggesting there’s any love there, but what was quite interesting I saw is that Smotrich, Minister of Netanyahu, was saying, “Look, actually all this limited exchange of missiles, (that’s another equation, by the way) this limited exchange of missiles, you know, maybe it was more theater than open conflict, because maybe Netanyahu persuaded Trump that attacking Iran with missiles and pushing back hard on Lebanon would help push Iran towards negotiations and make them more open to that.” I personally believe that would be an extraordinary conclusion to draw and totally wrong.

But nonetheless, that’s what the minister was suggesting quietly on the side that it was maybe just a ruse, mostly theatricals. I mean, theatricals and a real dislike of each other probably too. But I think for the time being, Trump probably needs Netanyahu. That’s why he’s working so hard to get him pardoned, because actually, I mean, the situation in Israel, seems to me, is getting very, very, very divided. And what happens? Netanyahu’s not well. He looks not well, but he isn’t well, I think, and his party is coming apart and it’s quite possible that the machine that he’s put into place over 20 and more years could implode. Who then would be in charge? Who would be, if you like, able to address Washington and the CIA and Congress from Israel? Many of the main officials at the moment speak no English. And I don’t think there are any sort of people with a sort of weight in their standing or the knowledge of how America functions to easily fill the gap. So, he has a certain leverage there. And of course, Iran has leverage too because they have sitting on their doorstep a huge amount of energy infrastructure and other infrastructure. And they promised, if they’re attacked, escalatory steps up the ladder against that infrastructure. So, Trump, I think, in many ways has put himself in a box. He’s not going to get Hormuz opened in the way he defines it. He’s not going to get the 340 kilos of 60 % enriched uranium back from Iran. So, where’s the victory? How is he going to present this? Yet if he doesn’t do that, I mean, his poll ratings are deteriorating very, very fast and almost entering a sort of crisis point.

I was listening to Robert Barnes who was saying that the polling by Baris, and other pollsters, was given to the White House, which showed that even with massive funding from the Jewish billionaire class, it would still not be sufficient to rescue the Republicans and Trump at the midterms. Of course, that’s speculation. But I’m just saying there is a sort of, I think, panic in the air from what I understand in Washington about, “What’s the way out of this?” Because just a ceasefire, but how long will that last? And that’s all that I can see that people – mediators and so on – are talking about is a very, very elementary, basic freezing of the situation as it is and kicking everything that is substantive months away down the line of negotiations.

Chris Hedges: But time is running out in the sense that countries like Japan, even the United States, are drawing down their strategic reserves even with that drawdown you’ve seen, especially with the price of diesel has risen, I think, by over fifty percent, gasoline has risen. I mean time is not on the side of the US.

Alastair Crooke: You’re absolutely right, and it’s, I mean, a catastrophic situation at the moment, which is barely under the surface. It’s all under the surface because you don’t see much about it in the mainstream press about how close we are. Inventories have never been as low. The strategic reserve is sort of at sludge level, as I understand it. So, I think this is the point.

What is going to be the way out? I think finally this thing will come to some sort of conclusion when Europe falls over the economic cliff. And that’s the point where things, I’ve always found, unfortunately, it’s not a great thing to say, but in politics pain is a great transformer. And then suddenly people start changing their view and saying, “Well, maybe we could live with Hormuz as, you know, under Iranian… I mean, we could find a relation…” I don’t know, but it seems to me that is the thing that can shift it. But waiting for Iran to give up on the Hormuz and to deliver to Trump the Uranium, I mean, they’re just waiting for Godot. It’s not going to happen. So, I think that’s going to be when the thing becomes crystallized, when we fall off, unfortunately, the economic cliff, which I think may be even this month.

Chris Hedges: Yeah, I’ve read economists, pretty sober economists, were saying by June, which is of course where we are, that we’re headed for really catastrophic, not just a recession but a global depression.

Alastair Crooke: Yes, it seems so because people keep forgetting it’s the supply lines. It’s the Helium. It’s the fertilizers, all of these things that have been suspended during this period in Hormuz. But they are impacting the tech industry and they are impacting many parts of life. Aluminum, for example. But food prices are certainly going to go up because this is the main food-producing season. And I think, you’re in America, but I understand that American farmers are in dire trouble with price of diesel for their tractors and also fertilizer. And it’s the same of course for Europe, no difference. So, inflation is going to go up and therefore interest rates are going to go up.

And so, this is going to be quite painful. Mortgages will be adjusted up whenever they’re allowed to be adjusted up. So, you know, we are on the edge of the cusp, and I think that may be unfortunately the only thing that is going to sort of loosen it up because one way or another Trump has put himself into a box. He has to have a deal that is better than Obama’s, that is clearly a win for him, shows he was being tough and got a victory from it. But, it was always hoped that there could be something like Venezuela, that there could be a sort of military thing that could be done – in boom out – and he would be back before the markets opened on Monday to announce a great success and markets would be soaring away. But it has proved impossible to find.

The Pentagon has been trying to think of how they can do a quick operation. And the last attempt at Isfahan, when there was an attempt to try and take some enriched Uranium, which America believes is in one of the Isfahan tunnels. I don’t know how secure their intelligence is on that because I remember seeing what I thought was the removal of most of that enriched Uranium from Fordow just before the bombings by Trump on the nuclear infrastructure. I don’t know where it’s gone. I mean, it may be in Pickaxe Mountain or something, which is even deeper and less accessible. But I mean, an operation like that and they tried that in Isfahan. We haven’t been told the full details but I understand because they are always two to tango in a military operation, shall we say. I mean, there were a lot of – 250, 300 special forces, many aircraft. We have heard from the Pentagon the number of aircraft involved and that were downed. The Iranians had spotted this coming. They knew about the airport being used there. And so, the whole thing was ambushed. And I think Trump is very frightened by what Joe Green has been saying to him very publicly, and he said, “Listen, if you go into Iran, if you go boots on the ground in Iran, they will take prisoners. You’ll have hostages. You’ll be just like Clinton, and you’ll never live it down.” And I’m told that this has really seeped into Trump’s consciousness about the dangers of, first of all, exposing air assets too readily because it’s clear that the Iranians have more sophisticated air defenses than they had in the 12-Day War because the Pentagon itself is saying, we are having radar lock-ons of a sort we haven’t seen before. And even in this last exercise where it’s promoted widely that Israel went in and bombed all these targets in Iran, my settled conviction is – I even know the sort of the missile they were using – but it was fired from Iraq. It was a standoff operation of cruise missiles fired from Iraqi airspace. They didn’t go into Iranian airspace in this last over this weekend skirmish.

Chris Hedges: So, you have a looming global economic meltdown. You have an Israeli government that refuses to halt its attacks on Lebanon. We should be clear they are obliterating Southern Lebanon. They’re doing to southern Lebanon what they have done to Gaza. You have an expansion by Israel into Gaza. Netanyahu, of course, as you mentioned, said that he would seize seventy percent, but he also conceded that that was just the start. How is it going to play out in terms of regional security and how is Iran going to respond? Because from the inception of the ceasefire, they’ve made it very clear if you don’t want us to attack your Gulf allies, you have to stop attacking our allies in the region, and in particular, in Lebanon.

Alastair Crooke: That’s exactly right. I think, as I say, there are these two great unknowns, because you can never predict economic crisis for when they’re going to start exactly. Otherwise, you’d be a very rich person. But one is the economic crisis, and maybe it started last Friday when there was a sudden blip on the markets where we saw sea of red taking over when people saw the labour statistics. The other thing that I think is clear is the growing crisis inside Israel. And the questioning because when people are saying, just to underline it, when senior defense and security officials in Israel are saying, “Israel is in a trap. We are getting involved in these forever wars. We’re getting bogged down in Lebanon, Gaza and Syria and we’d like to get bogged down in Iran. And we don’t have the means to get out of it. We are in a trap of our own making. And the only thing we can do is to go back to the wisdom of Ben-Gurion who said, ‘Israel should stay within its own borders because it wasn’t big enough to take on the whole of the Middle East.’” And these people are beginning to say, and this is what is really important, they’re saying, “Maybe we have to have a root and branch consideration of what is Zionism and what we mean by that today. We cannot just go on simply expanding and increasing and taking territory by force, which then we’re obliged to hold by force and hold by force of arms of our military. We can’t just go on in this. We are overextended.” The Chief of Defense staff told the cabinet, reportedly in the Hebrew press, that to do what we’re doing now would take us to have six or seven IDFs besides the one we already have. We’d need that many more men to make our present commitments even feasible.

Now, I’m not trying to suggest this is imminent, something is happening, but I’m just saying that is another possibility of unexpected affairs taking place because the Israelis have been very disappointed that the whole grand plan for Iran has completely failed. It’s a strategic failure. I mean, they won’t say that in public in an English language program, but they’re saying that in the Hebrew press, that this has been a complete strategic failure, which is correct. It has been a failure. None of their aims have been achieved. In fact, what it has shown, and again, hugely reluctant to sort of really address this, is the complete intelligence failure upon which it was all based. Possibly with one mitigating alternative idea, but the idea was that Iran was a house of cards and that Trump could just go in, decapitate, attack a few buildings, then the whole thing would collapse and fall down and that the Kurds would surge in and establish a mini-state. And that would be the beginning of the breakup of Iran into a series of ethno-sectarian mini-states instead of Iran as a state.

And the Kurds didn’t cooperate. And there was no real uprising. There was a temporary thing which went back, you know, because everyone sort of dates all this to that meeting that the New York Times reported that, I think, what was it, in February or something. But actually, the real meeting that had decided on this plan had taken place, according to the Hebrew-speaking reporters that were with Trump, took place on the 29th of December at Mar-a-Lago when there was a private summit between Trump and Netanyahu. And Netanyahu then said, “Listen, you’ve got to do it. Forget the nuclear thing.” It was quite surprising. He said, “It’s not the nuclear thing, it’s the missiles. The priority has to be the missiles. These new missiles are not just a replacement by Iran. It is an entirely new concept. It is a new paradigm that we’re dealing with. And once they have that umbrella in place, we can’t do anything in the future. So, this is what you must do.” And the date was fixed according to the press. It was changed later, but that was what you can find reported by several senior commentators that were in the party going to Mar-a-Lago with the Prime Minister.

So, this was the main exercise. And it’s completely failed. I mean, Iran has nearly all of its missiles intact and they’re replacing many of them. But mostly the missile cities, the entrances were blocked up by attacks by America and Tomahawk missiles or what have you. But they’ve all been cleared. There are some, like I think it’s called the Taba Mountain, anyway, which is about 400 meters deep, which has got a railway tracks and missiles come along to the entrance and then are fired straight out from their railway carriage towards Israel. Some of those have been attacked 25 times and they’re still firing missiles, undisturbed. Half an hour after the Israeli attack, missiles are fired out of silos deep inside the mountain coming straight up through vertical areas. And I mean, it’s not me just saying this from the Israelis, this what the Americans are admitting has been the case. So, it has been a strategic failure. And so, one way or another, Israel is going to have to think of a post this period strategy. After this war with Iran, what is going to be the strategy of Israel? And is it viable for us to go on destroying Syria and Lebanon and Yemen and wherever else we feel the need? Or are we going to have to think very carefully about where we go?

I can’t tell you if and when that’s going to stop, but it’s already there. It’s in sort of the roots of it. The shoots are present, but it hasn’t reached culmination. But as I say, Netanyahu at any time, he may actually leave the party because he’s still concerned about the court case against him. He hasn’t got the pardon. He hasn’t been able to have the case removed. It’s too late now to go to the Knesset and pass a law that will remove all the charges against him. And so, he’s concerned that he might need to leave while he’s still Prime Minister and is not expected to therefore admit guilt in the court. Otherwise, he could end up going to prison. So, the whole thing is very febrile, I would say, the political fabric at the moment, quite febrile.

Chris Hedges: And just to just to interject, these are the corruption charges that have been leveled against Netanyahu that he’s been fighting for some time and that Trump has called on the President of Israel to issue a pardon for Netanyahu, which has not been done. I want to ask if you think the degrading of the military leadership under Hegseth, the degrading of the intelligence services in the United States, in the Trump administration, and the degrading of the diplomatic services in the State Department, are compounding this crisis and how much that worries you.

Alastair Crooke: Well, it’s been visible for some time that America as a whole, not just the military or the intelligence services, but institutions like Congress and everything, have been in severe decline. They’re still there. They’re still spending a lot of money, but this has been seen. I know the Russians have seen it and the Chinese see it. And does it worry me? Yes and no. Why it doesn’t worry me so much is because I think we in the West, including America but including Europe, are going to go through a period of catharsis. We have to go through a period which might be quite tumultuous, but the old has gone past its sell-by date – the old structures, the old systems – and we need an element of creative destruction possibly because there are too many contradictions in the economic structure, the binary economic system, massive easy wealth for a small elite, the ordinary Americans and Europeans struggle to survive. Those are contradictory structures. No party can come in tomorrow and say, “No, this is going to be the solution, and we can resolve all that.” And the parties, certainly in Europe, we’re all tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee. So, ordinary Europeans just don’t have any real trust in that.

So, if this is what we might be facing, I think this will be partly destructive. As it goes into a process of catharsis, I think dangerous emanations will take plot. It’s like a sort of exploding star and you have particles and energy sort of being thrown off by it, which worry Russia and China considerably. So, I think in one respect, the decline is overdue because unless we can move on from our very sort of nihilistic, absolutely materialist and sort of increasingly corrupt world to find something that a 20-year-old can understand or see the way ahead, then it can be quite dangerous. It’ll be unpredictable, which is why I think Russia and China are really being extremely cautious about it. But on the good thing, I think it’s very, very, very necessary for us to go through this process. The question is, is it going to be more painful than it needs to be or less painful than it needs to be? And I think so, people often comment about Chinese caution, Russian caution, Putin’s caution. They do understand the delicacy of the Western psyche, that it is quite delicate and can easily say, “Oh my God, this is 9-11. This is terrible. We’ll have to go all out,” or something like this. And why they’re so concerned about Europe with its endless narrative of “War, war, war, we’re all preparing for war against Russia.” This is what was coming. Even the British King came to Congress and said, “Yes, America must join with us in preparing for war against Russia.” Why? What would he want to say that for? Is that a European interest that we should prepare for a war against Russia? Anyway, so I think, yes, it’s visible. Yes, it’s dangerous. But also, it’s possibly something that we have to go through for a process of renewal. We’ve got to go through this. I mean, all our institutions are tired. Our civilizations lack energy, lack anima. How do we restore all that? Well, no one’s got a simple answer to that, but this is the process we’ve got to start, I think, slowly addressing.

Sorry, a longish answer to your question.

Chris Hedges: No, great. Thank you. Thank you, Alistair. And I want to thank Max and Thomas and Noelle, who produced the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.substack dot com.

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