This evening’s ‘Dialogue Works’ with Nima Alkhorshid

My 53-minute interview on Dialogue Works today covered a broad range of the recent developments in the Ukrainian war and Middle East crisis.

 We opened with discussion of the still ongoing Ukrainian incursion in the Kursk oblast of Russia, which like the Belgorod oblast to the south just across from Kharkov that was attacked some months ago is a part of the Russian Federation having a common border with Ukraine.

This assault was intended to grab the attention of Kiev’s Western backers to prove that they are still in the fight and capable of bold attacks. In this regard, they have had some success. For example, this evening’s online edition of The Financial Times, gives the story front page mention: “Ukraine presses on with surprise military incursion into Russia.”

However, as I explain in the interview this is one more case of the Zelensky regime placing Public Relations above military strategy: the mission is doomed and is only a momentary distraction from the total destruction Ukraine is experiencing on the battlefield as we learn from the daily reports of the advances on the front lines per Russian news, all of which is confirmed with slight delay in the FT and other western media. The flash in the pan achievements at Kursk must be put up against the 120,000 Ukrainian soldiers and officers who were killed or maimed in just the past two months, per Sergei Shoigu.

We also discussed at length what lines of communication remain between Russia and the United States and likely scenarios for evolution of the conflict between Israel and its neighbors, including possible use of nuclear weaons. The conversation ended with my estimation of the reasons why the European Union under its existing leadership is utterly incapable of exerting any influence on international relations, reasons which are to be found within its supranational structure and  home-grown neo-Conservative elites, not just due to servility before Washington.

A full transcript will likely be posted within the coming 24 hours.

Transcription below by a reader

Nima R. Alkhorshid: 00:02
Yeah, let’s get started with what’s going on, on the battlefield in Ukraine. It seems that in the Kursk region, there are a lot of tensions going on. What are we hearing from Russians right now?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Well, this evening’s news, the “Viesti” [“News”] program at 8 PM, opened with about 10 minutes of coverage of precisely this, showing the meeting that Vladimir Putin had with his closest colleagues in the defense area, that is the Minister of Defense, Belousov, Shoigu from the Security Council, and Gerasimov from a remote position, all reporting directly to– oh, of course, the head of the FSB, Portnikov. These three in his presence and one remote, were reporting to him on what is happening in the Kursk region. We have to remember, looking at the map, what are we talking about? Kursk is a rather big province, but it’s like Belgorod: it is a border that Russia has with Ukraine. And we haven’t heard much about it, although I can tell you that this year, there has been– in the last few months, there has been considerable action in Kursk, as drones and other attack equipment have been used by Ukraine against the residential areas close to the border, but not only. Missiles have come further into the Kursk Oblast.

01:46
Now, what is this all about, or the scale of it? To put it– the numbers that I heard this evening, according to Gerasimov, there were 1,000 Ukrainian forces who came at 5.30 in the morning. They attempted to cross the border and they attacked and damaged to the best of their ability residential homes and and civilian infrastructure, just on the Russian side of the border. They were driven back by Russia’s security personnel on the border, guards, and also by military detachments who were sent in for firefighting to push them back. The Russian reports say that out of the original 1000, 350 Ukrainians were taken out of action. Of those, one-third were killed outright and two-thirds were severely wounded. They showed on television some of the captured Ukrainian fighters, who were explaining what they were sent to do.

02:58
But in the bigger order of things, this incursion, very much like the incursion months ago in Belgorod, has a specific purpose, which is not a military purpose, but a terror purpose: to frighten the Russian population. And I’d say, considering the overall situation of Ukraine on the ground, which is dire on the front lines, the intention is to distract attention away from the battleground losses and to show that Ukraine still has available reserves and available strategies to impose losses and to humiliate Russia. That was what Belgorod was all about, and that’s what this is all about.

The– that’s said, this comes virtually on top of the latest public relations stunt, which was a day ago when Zelensky pointed to the two F-16s flying overhead and was saying how wonderful it is that Ukraine has just received 10 such planes and how this would give them the ability to defend themselves against the Russians. These are distractions, 10 planes with a total of six Ukrainian trained pilots, even if the planes are filled by NATO personnel dressing up as Ukrainians. This against several hundred, 600 or more advanced fighter jets on the Russian side, tells you that the chance of changing the balance of power in this war is nil. It is a public relations stunt to raise the morale of the otherwise very depressed Ukrainian armed forces.

04:59
What do we mean by depressed, and why would they be depressed? Again, figures that came out two days ago. This is from Shoigu, who was in Baku. He had just arrived in Baku for a big meeting with the Azerbaijani leadership, having just been in Iran, in Tehran, where he was conducting some very important discussions with the Minister of Defense, with the newly inaugurated president of Iran, to assure them of Russia’s ability and intention to fulfill all obligations arising from the agreement on common defense that Russia and Iran have reached. So, Mr. Shoigu was saying to the press, while in Baku, that the figures of Ukrainian losses over just the last two months are 120,000 men lost. That’s to say 60,000 Ukrainians killed or severely injured so they’re no longer combat worthy, per month.

06:23
Let’s compare that with the replacements that Ukraine is talking about, and after using the most extreme methods to compel unwilling males between age 18 and 59 to go to the front. They have recruited 30,000 per month, and as I just said, they have lost 60,000 per month. And that’s not the whole story, because those 30,000 who are coming on are, according to Russian information, only receiving one week’s training before they’re sent to the front. According to military doctrine, in a war like this, they should receive 60 days of training, not one week of training. In other words, they’re being put in uniforms, they’re being given weapons of one sort or another, and they’re being sent to their death. That is the situation in the Ukrainian armed forces, which is not to say that there are no capable and well-trained and well-equipped troops. There are some, but very few. And they are becoming rarer still, as Ukraine has made these public relations stunts to try to impress its Western backers, that they are still capable and motivated to fight on against Russia. They are stunts, they are not militarily justified. And they’re very costly in terms of the lives and combat worthiness of the few brigades that are of higher quality in Ukraine.

Alkhorshid: 08:11
Don’t you think that part of what they’re doing right now is because the United States is totally concerned about what’s going on in the Middle East? That’s why it seems in the eyes of the Zelensky administration, they’re just not the priority of the United States any more.

Doctorow:
Well, I wouldn’t read it quite as you have done. You are suggesting that the United States is pulling out or has lost interest. I don’t think it’s lost interest. There are enough neocons at the helms of power in Washington for them not to be totally distracted by events in the Middle East and to maintain Washington’s flow of arms to Ukraine, even if some arms are being diverted to Israel indeed. Nonetheless, when you hear about the daily kill ratio that the Russians are practicing, not just on personnel but on Western equipment, the equipment is vast. And for $60 billion, you get a bit of hardware, even if it’s all not perfect, even if it’s all, some of it’s coming out of warehouses, and having been declared in the past below standard.

09:42
Nonetheless, the Ukrainians have a lot of gear, and a lot of gear is being blown up every day. How many tanks, how many Bradleys, how many armored personnel carriers of one manufacturer or another. We hear about it, and it’s a never-ending list. So, there’s a lot for Russia to destroy. And among my peers, commentators on your program and on other major news portals, alternative news, there is very often the tendency to speak as if Ukraine is at the end of its rope, or as you were just suggesting, that Washington is no longer interested. I’m sure there are people in Washington who are interested. And the flow is not stopping, even if it is reduce somewhat.

10:37
That’s not the problem. The problem is Ukrainian manpower. Nobody can replace that. Certainly nobody in Western Europe wants to replace that with themselves. The United States, of course, also has no intention of putting boots on the ground. So in terms of live personnel, it’s only what Ukraine can put up. And as I indicated, on the basis of information that’s being disseminated by Russian news, the replacement of wounded or killed officers and troops in the Ukrainian army is substandard. It is people who have been dragooned and who at the first opportunity will raise their hands and surrender to the Russians.

So, the Ukrainian position on the field of battle is a losing hand. That doesn’t mean that they’re going to capitulate tomorrow, but over the course of several months, before the end of this year, there’s a consensus, they will have to give up. But it’s not the end of the year, it’s not tomorrow. And let’s be aware of that. Even in this Kursk, I just quote the latest Russian report to Putin, that there is fierce fighting going on there. The cleanup operation is not all that easy, so they do have some motivated soldiers on the Ukrainian side and obviously they were well equipped. These were not the ones who were dragooned off the streets of Kiev and who were given wooden rifles. No, no. It is easy, all too easy to be overenthusiastic and to propose our wishes as if they are realities. I’m not offering that tonight.

Alkhorshid: 12:33
Do we know how does Russia perceive these F-16s right now in Ukraine, and what does it mean politically and militarily for Russia?

Doctorow:
I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch the start of your sentence. What is it that you’re asking?

Alkhorshid:
The question is, how does Russia perceive F-16s right now in Ukraine, politically and militarily? How do they find it?

Doctorow:
Well, what I said at the opening, that 10 F-16s are nothing at the present moment, because of the– they’re up against several hundred, if not 600 or more, very modern Russian jets piloted by people who have extensive experience in the air and in dogfights and so forth. But that’s not the whole story.

13:27
The Ukrainian side has almost nowhere to hold those planes securely on its own territory, because the Russian missiles, based on reconnaissance, which the Russians have, are prepared to destroy anything on the ground. Therefore, these planes are viewed by Russia as a possible spark for a conflict with NATO, rather than by themselves as posing a threat to Russia. Russia has to assume, I mean, the Wolfowitz doctrine that goes back to the 1990s, the United States saying that they would not accept, that they would not tolerate any country having a capability to withstand them, not an intention to withstand them, but just a capability to withstand them.

14:27
The Russians are using exactly the same logic that some of these F-16s are nuclear-capable, and the Russians are saying they are compelled to deal with those planes or with all of the F-16s as if they were nuclear capable and as if they were being sent against their own country armed to strike and deliver nuclear strikes. This is the Russian position, but there is a great deal of confidence in their own ability to destroy those planes on the ground or in the air if necessary.

Alkhorshid:15:06
Yeah. Do you think that, because with this conflict, with these tensions right now in the Middle East, Russia is saying that if you’re going to continue arming Ukrainians, we’re going to help these groups in the Middle East to fight you back. Do you think that would bring something, some sort of sanity in the mind of the Washington people, decision-makers in the Biden administration, that somehow they may not be willing to send more weapons, more aids to Ukraine?

Doctorow:
Well, there’s the American expression “seeing is believing”, and I think that applies to this case. It is fair to say that the Russians have allowed the United States and its allies, UK in particular, to cross their red lines repeatedly over the last two years without suffering the consequences that one would expect. For that reason, there is the, I think, widely-held assumption that much of what the Russians say is bluff. Now, that is not true. But, and the reasons why the Russians haven’t responded very strongly to red lines being crossed is the cautiousness and the prudence of Mr. Putin, and not because they couldn’t do it. So, how you would read the Russians? Are they incapable, or do they lack the will to defend themselves properly?

16:41
It’s understandable that warmongers in the States will choose to believe that the Russians are bluffing and that we can do anything we want with them without fearing a proper response, a strong response. That is where we are. And the situation has parallels now with what is going on in Tehran. How is Tehran going to respond to the very provocative acts of Israel, which are intended precisely to elicit a very devastating counter-attack by Iran that would justify Israel bringing the United States into a war with Iran at its side? The Russians have tried very hard to avoid similar knee-jerk response to American and Western provocations, at the risk of being misunderstood.

Alkhorshid: 17:47
In your opinion, are we going to have any sort of security agreement between Iran and Russia? Are they going in that direction?

Doctorow:
There are those who say that it’s just a matter of weeks before this agreement that has been long negotiated is concluded. The Israeli provocations, I think, hasten the willingness of the Iranians to enter into such an agreement. Let us be honest about it. A full alliance with Russia was never an unquestioned or uncontested policy within Iran. Within Iran, there was long the hope that they could find some accommodation with the United States and with the West. And is with great reluctance that they have thrown in their lot with Russia and China.

18:47
Will they conclude this? Of course they will. Russia received substantial military assistance from Iran from the early days of the special military operation. It’s no secret to anyone that when this war started in February 2022, Russia had very little experience in building and in using drones. Iran had much more experience and had viable products in mass production. So Russia benefited from Iran’s military assistance, particularly in the area of drones. And it is understandable that Iran would have looked for, and probably have received already, very sophisticated electronic warfare equipment from Russia, and I would not be surprised if they received air defense techniques, technology, such as the S-400, to defend themselves against Israeli and Israeli-cum-United States air attacks.

Alkhorshid: 20:04
In your opinion, is– just talking about the conflict in the Middle East, do you think, is Israel seeking for any sort of strategic objective when it comes to these assassinations, military and political assassinations of Hamas leaders?

Doctorow:
I think there’s a consensus in the alternative media, [of] which I and you are a part, that Israel has staged these assassinations, and most especially the assassination of the Hamas leader in Tehran, precisely to provoke Iran into countermeasures that will lead directly to a hot war, a hot war in which Israel will find the United States finally reluctantly at its side as an enabler for attacks, including possibly nuclear bomb attacks on Iran.

21:14
This is not something that you require a great deal of expertise to arrive at. It’s patently obvious. The murder of the moderate Hamas leader who was conducting, was actively participating in the hostage negotiations and the ceasefire negotiations, that could not be a stronger statement that Israel is looking for a war. Now, I use the word Israel as if the whole country is behind that. Regrettably, a large part of Israeli population is behind that, probably a majority of the population. But the real mover here is one man and a couple of his accomplices. The one man is Netanyahu, his own personal ambition and personal need for a wider war, to stay in power, to hold on to power, to avoid leaving power and finding himself in the courts within Israel and outside Israel for his domestic crimes and for his war crimes as regards the courts in Hague.

22:36
This is a compelling reason for him to do what he’s doing now against his own national interest. It is hardly in the national interest of Israel to find itself at war with all of its neighbors. That is not viable. Israel was humiliated just by Hezbollah in their last war. Now, here we’re speaking about combined forces of Hezbollah, Iran, and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as these militias that are in Syria and Iraq. That is risking the survival of the Israeli state, and for what purpose, other than, I said, to save the skin of one Mr. Netanyahu.

Alkhorshid: 23:33
The other thing would be, you talk about Wolfowitz doctrine and these neocons who are behind this type of ideology when it comes to Russia. And, in your opinion, is the Israeli lobby in the United States part of these neocons who are deciding about these conflicts, or they’re separate from these neocons? Because at the same time you’re having two conflicts going on, in Ukraine and in the Middle East, and maybe a third one with China. Is that logical in your opinion?

Doctorow: 24:08
Logical? No. for the well-being of the United States, of course it isn’t illogical. The neocons are, by definition, ideological people. They are not practical people. They are not people with military expertise more than I have. There are, of course, among them some military folks, but the ones we hear about most, the ones, the biggest loudmouths, are themselves not military men. They’re armchair generals. They’re people who are preoccupied by ideological concerns. And what are these concerns all about? They’re about maintaining American global dominance, otherwise called hegemony. And they are indifferent to most risks that pursuing such a policy brings to the United States, just as Mr. Netanyahu is indifferent to the existential threat to his own country that his daily actions are provoking.

Alkhorshid: 25:21
In your opinion, right now, who’s running the show in the Middle East? Is the Biden administration and Netanyahu supporting them? Or Netanyahu is running the show and the Biden administration has no choice but supporting them?

Doctorow:
Well, I think that, again, there’s a consensus within the community of oppositionists to the Washington imperial policy, and that consensus is that Mr. Netanyahu is– I think it was Jacques Baud who said– a wild card or an uncontrollable cannon on the deck. I think he is his own director, he is not taking orders and he is not looking for agreement with the United States. I think he feels confident that the United States is in his pocket and will go wherever it has to go, because he is creating the new reality. Is he correct in that? Regrettably, I think he is largely correct.

26:36
I think under no circumstances can we imagine that Biden or Blinken or Sullivan are controlling Netanyahu. By giving out false information for decades, he has instigated an American policy vis-à-vis Iran that has been wrongheaded and has served only the possible interests of Israel and certainly not American interests. So, regrettably, American foreign policy is being manipulated by one Mr. Netanyahu and very successfully, I have to add.

Alkhorshid: 27:22
Yeah, and the other thing would be: right now in the United States, how [can they] talk with Russia and China? [The] last time we heard that there is some sort of communication between Putin administration and Washington was this attempt to assassinate Putin, and they tried to talk with Austin, Lloyd Austin. How do you see the line of communication right now between Russia and the United States? And maybe you can provide something on this attempt, that they tried to assassinate Putin.

Doctorow:
Well, a lot of hopeful commentary arose after the prisoner exchange, which is unparalleled since the Cold War days, and indicated that even in these times of very great tensions and zero trust between the United States and Russia, it was possible to accomplish something of a big scale and rather intricate, difficult technically to achieve.

28:36
So the communication was effective. And people have asked, is that the only line of communication, the only topic of communication, which has, which remains today? The question is tied, maybe tied, to what you just mentioned. That is the unexpected phone call, going back to the 13th of July, I believe, when the Russian Minister of Defense, Belosov, phoned to his counterpart, Lloyd Austin, and told him that there’s something, a plot going on, which, if it proceeds, could lead to an uncontrollable escalation in our conflict with disastrous consequences.

29:31
Now, at the time, nobody was told what plot or what risk Mr. Belosov had in mind when they discussed this. It has only a day ago, it came out on the Russian side that the risks, the danger that Belosov mentioned to Austin was a Ukrainian plot to assassinate Vladimir Putin and Belosov himself during the Navy Day Parade on the 28th of July. That is a rare case where the communication was established at the highest level and apparently succeeded, because there was no assassination attempt finally. And Austin is said to have expressed surprise but to have taken on board the information from Belusov as something he would investigate. Presumably he did.

30:45
I would not read any particular hopeful signs of a broader communication line between these two countries from these two events, that is: a prisoner exchange and the assuming the the American reprimand to Ukraine not to even think of carrying out such a plot. Does this mean that there are secret negotiations going on today between Russia and the United States over the end to the Ukraine war? I think again, the consensus is no. There is no broader line of communication that would bear on the risks that we all are facing coming out of the Ukraine war.

31:43
Are there other lines of communication between the two countries? Yes, there are. For example, both the United States and Russia have forces in Syria. And going back to the period just after the Russian intervention in Syria in 2015, American and Russian forces on the spot established lines of communication to avoid conflict that could escalate into a war. We assume that those lines of communications, which are local level, not highest level, remain in place. The lines of communication are extremely important.

32:27
And one of the biggest losses when the intermediate- and medium-range missile treaty was abandoned by the United States, subsequently suspended by Russia, it was the whole process of exchange of personnel and of information at various levels to maintain arms control. That was of very great importance in stabilizing the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union and its successor state, the Russian Federation. That regrettably, I think it was more important than the widely advertised merits of these treaties in terms of equipment staying in place, that there be no arms war, no development of further arms. That is almost, my estimation, a secondary consequence of these treaties. The primary consequence being trust building from the broad exchange of personnel and the verification processes that were embedded in these arms treaties.

Alkhorshid: 33:55
And the other thing would be how does the United States perceive the protest in Hiroshima against Israel in your opinion? How are they trying to manage what’s going on there, or they’re not capable of doing it?

Doctorow:
Well I think the United States is managing the relationship with Japan very effectively. They have kept Japan down. They have a prime minister in Japan who is doing the bidding of the United States. The speech which he delivered yesterday on the anniversary, 79th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, could not have been better written … if it had been prepared in Washington. He said what the Americans would love to hear. He did not say a word about who dropped the bomb, the Americans that is. And instead, he used the opportunity to make false accusations against Russia for sabre rattling and threatening the world with nuclear weapons.

35:03
So that is precisely the Washington line. And we heard it from the mouth of the Japanese Prime Minister. The protests against the proceedings where 109 countries were present, except Russia, except Belarus, who were not invited, in line with the American-imposed isolation policy on Russia and Belarus. And this was all, again, part of the American scenario. “The world isolates these rogue countries that are engaging in aggressive action against the freedom-loving democratic country of Ukraine.” So the Japanese were doing their best. They invited the Israelis, which sparked a protest the day before on the 5th of August. It did not take place or occur on the 6th because it was banned by the Japanese government. On the 5th, there were demonstrators against the proceedings that would come the next day, and signs were read, “No to participation of genocide states in this commemoration”. The genocide state, of course, is Israel. Genocide state, the perpetrators of genocide in Gaza.

36:35
The United States could sleep calmly; this was not reported by the major media in the West. We didn’t hear a peep about it. As I’ve commented, of course, the fact that Israel was invited is not as objectionable as the protesters would have it. I think it is appropriate for Israel to be there, given that it’s precisely Israel that is the primary candidate to be the second country in the world to use nuclear weapons in wartime. What I have in mind is the very loose talk among the leaders of Netanyahu’s cabinet that it would be appropriate to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza and solve the problem with the Palestinians, or the talk that I see mostly on social media that Israel is considering using nuclear weapons against the Hezbollah in southern Lebanon to wipe them out.

37:56
That last scenario is not official, but it is thinkable, given that Israel does not have the capability of putting boots on the ground to pursue a war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. They got their asses kicked in the last war with Hezbollah. They do not have fresh troops available to send there. We hear about very big resistance within the Israeli army to the continued waging of war in Gaza. These are mostly reservists. They’ve given up their private lives, their private businesses and employment on what should have been a temporary assignment that has gone on vastly longer than any of them assumed when they put on their uniforms and went off to fight Hamas. So, the notion that these troops, only some of whom you could call professional soldiers, would be sent against the hardened Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon is unreasonable, which leaves you to ask, what can Israelis possibly do to conduct a war in Lebanon, if not using nuclear weapons?

Alkhorshid: 39:35
Yeah. In your opinion, when it comes to the Middle East, it seems that it’s much more complicated than what’s going on in Ukraine, because in Ukraine we know that two superpowers are fighting each other. Right now in the Middle East, it seems that the United States is trying to see what’s going on there, how they can manage the situation, considering Arab states, Turkey. But in your opinion, when it comes to the future of the conflict, is the United States winning politically? Because it doesn’t seem that even Arab states who are right now trying to be in line with the United States in the future, they would be the same.

Doctorow: 40:21
Well, winning is a problematic term. Israel has not won against Hamas in Gaza. Gaza is destroyed. There are, let’s say, 200,000 have died, so it’s 1,800,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are now living in dire poverty, unimaginable suffering from famine and from disease, without any assistance, substantial assistance from medical facilities, because Israel has systematically destroyed them as well and killed doctors. So how could this be called a win? Someone is going to have to take charge of this, whether it’s Israel or neighboring states, that remains to be seen. But this is an open sore created by Israel. It is not a solution. It is a problem.

41:26
Not to mention the aggravated situation in the West Bank, not to mention the 60,000 Israelis who have been forced to evacuate in the northernmost part of the country bordering on Lebanon. I don’t see a win there for Israel and certainly not a win for the United States. The United States’ whole project of the last years of the Trump administration with the Abraham Accords, that’s all been undone. The notion of normalizing relations between the neighbors and Israel under present circumstances is surreal.

So, the United States has suffered greatly in the region for enabling the genocide, for providing Israel with all the weapons it needed to destroy civilian life in Gaza. Everybody sees that. Now, why is there less action? Because people in the neighborhood does not want to become itself another Gaza. The Saudis were humbled, they were brought to their knees by the Houthis just a year and a half ago. The peace between– or the accommodation between– Iran and Saudi Arabia was the consequence of the military threat to the industry, the petroleum industry, refinery industry in Saudi Arabia, which the country itself could not realize, they could not defend themselves properly.

43:10
And so if this small outlying and impoverished part of the neighborhood in Yemen was able to force the Saudis to reconsider their policies and ultimately to agree to brokered peace with Iran. then the larger participants in the neighborhood are– pose still greater risks to themselves if they should follow the street and seek revenge on Israel. None of them want it, Jordan doesn’t want it. They all have a lot to lose and they all are aware of the military might of Israel, which Israel, as we’ve seen for the last half a year, has no hesitation [in] unleashing, regardless of the suffering for civilians and for the broad population of the neighborhood countries.

Alkhorshid: 44:20
In your opinion, this behavior of Israel, just– everybody knows that the upper hand that Israel has right now is their nuclear bombs. And would that convince these Arab states, Iran, Turkey, [to] go after nuclear bombs? Because at the end of the day, they’re thinking of Israel and how to deal with Israel.

Doctorow:
Well, this is not a new problem. It’s a problem that goes back perhaps 30 years. So I don’t see what is happening today that would cause the neighbors to change their minds about the advisability of acquiring nuclear weapons themselves. That will not solve the problem for a country that is behaving in an almost suicidal way like Israel is today. I don’t believe that their neighbors acquiring nuclear weapons would change their conduct. The Saudis are showing very, very prudence. The Jordanians, the same thing, I don’t think any of them has a warm word for Israel. They’re not acting out of common feeling. They’re acting out of simple fear, fear of devastating losses, which they cannot prevent with their own military resources. How all this will end, I don’t know.

45:48
But when you look at Iran, you’re coming to a different situation. Iran is not Saudi Arabia or Qatar or these other countries. Iran is a very substantial, very mighty country. And it, too, will only enter into war as a last resort, not as a first choice, not even as a second choice. They will not be humiliated. The assassination in Tehran was humiliating, and Iran is obliged to respond. But they will do so in a calibrated way, precisely not to give Israel the possibility of declaring war and forcing the United States to stand by it in attacking Iran jointly.

46:41
So, these are the realities. As for Mr. Erdogan, he is, of course, an interested party. Of course, his own religious beliefs and his political religious beliefs are aligned completely with Hamas. And yet, despite all of his denunciations of Israel, it is largely hot air. He also is not looking to burn all his bridges. Any war that he would engage in with Israel would immediately take him out of NATO, take him out of whatever American assistance Turkey has used, has needed, in its neighborhood, and to play a bigger role in the world. After all, Turkey is the second-largest army in NATO after the United States. And I don’t think he wants to throw that away, if he doesn’t have to. So, all of the neighbors have a lot to lose in a general war. The only country which seems to be willing to take that risk is Israel. And is that wise or is that irrational? I tend to think it’s the second.

Alkhorshid: 48:18
Just to wrap up this session, whenever we talk about the conflict in Ukraine and right now in the Middle East, the role of Europe is just missing. Nobody knows what Europe is doing right now. And while they’re not playing an important role in all of these discussions, all of these conflicts, do you think, what do they want Europe to be in the future, with the current policies that they’re having?

Doctorow:
Well, Europe is lost. And unfortunately, in the midst of all these crises we’ve been talking about there are Olympics games going on. The Olympics are, have been, regrettably, they have been a proof, a demonstration of everything that the Russians, the Chinese are saying about Europe, that it’s a civilization that’s lost. It’s a civilization that’s committing suicide. The notion of Europe’s place in the world has been a matter of conjecture, a matter of discussion [by] some very smart people on television programs and discussion groups for decades now. And without any result, if there are sterile discussions, because the elites that are conducting them are disconnected from their own nations.

49:49
The idea of Europe as a supranational body is a departure from the peace of Westphalia, from the sovereign nations that were deemed in 1648 to be the best protection of the rights of their citizens, the rights to live and to enjoy religious freedom and other freedoms. That was what was achieved in 1648. The 1992 agreements on the European Union have been a negation of that. They are an affirmation of globalism. They are an affirmation that national identity is a source of war, nationalism is a source of war, which is another very closely related concept to the American guiding principle that democratic countries are not warlike and authoritarian countries are warlike because they’re fragile, they do not have popular support, and they need to engage in foreign adventures to maintain their rule over the country.

51:11
These are wonderful ideas for intellectuals to play with. They’re totally false ideas, and the European Union today is based on a collection of false ideas. So, to speak about, it’s exerting a place in the world until it reviews the academic and unrealistic concepts that it holds dear today, makes no sense. Europe has no future until it starts looking in the mirror and until the elites that we have today are replaced by people with some common sense who are not ideologues.

52:01
It is not just subservience to the United States that explains the insane policies being pursued by Europe today. Europe has its own homegrown neocons, Europe has its own homegrown ideologues, and Europe has its own homegrown idiots, and now exerting positions of power which were unthinkable 20 or 30 years ago. There’s such a degradation in the quality of Europe’s leaders that a fool like Baerbock could– in a country as serious, we like to think of Germany as serious– remain in power as a member of the cabinet, is the greatest demonstration that Europe is doomed until there’s a turnover in the elites, and the ideologues, and the ignoramuses are removed from power.

Alikhorshid: 53:08
Yeah. Thank you so much for being with us today. Great pleasure as always.

Doctorow:
Yeah. Thank you for the invitation.