Transcript of interview with Press TV, 6 November

Transcript submitted by a reader

[Note: Press TV have extracted from the 40 minutes on air with several panelists my answers to their questions directed to me for a total of approximately 8 minutes. Where possible I add here in brackets what question I was responding to]

Comment:
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 0:00

These are early times. As I said, Mr. Trump is a showman. He is guided by the necessities of getting himself elected. Once you’re elected, then you have nobody really in the public, in the general public, controlling what you do or that you live up to your pre-election rhetoric. I do not for a minute believe that he will continue the policies of Biden-Harris with respect to Israel and with respect to Ukraine. With Ukraine it’s more obvious. Here he has said fairly openly that he’s going to cut, that he’s going to find a solution in a matter of days.

0:41
That’s very simple. He just has to stop the financing and the shipment of arms, and in two weeks the Ukraine war is over. So that is an easy one to solve. Of course, the Israeli, Gaza-Israeli, Iranian-Israeli confrontation with Lebanon, all of these things are more complicated, more complicated in terms of domestic politics in the States. Nonetheless, I would call attention to the Elon Musk factor and to the– by that I mean, Trump’s possible election today would be impossible without the backing he received from the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. That is not just financial, but media backing.

1:22
Mr. Musk on X had a great effect on the general electorate. Mr. Musk is not a warrior; on the contrary. I don’t believe that the US policies in Gaza with respect to Israel will continue without a change under a Trump administration, because of people like Musk who are now bookending, who are at the side of Trump.

His ability to appoint competent and reasonable advisors and implementers for his foreign policy will be considerably eased by the likely Republican victory in the Senate. So it is a different day in 2024 from the 2016 Trump. I think he will be a more reasonable man. As to the question of genocide and the role of the war in US, the US elections, I agree that for people in the West Asia, the American elections were extremely disappointing, because the genocide was nowhere on their radar screen. But that is to be put into the broader context that foreign affairs generally are very low in the concerns of the American public.

2:48
The big issue, according to the polls, was the future of democracy in the United States. After that, you have economic issues. Who can manage the economy best? and so forth. Foreign policy was a negligible factor in this election.

PressTV: 3:03
Gilbert Doctorow, that was our correspondent, Rami Mazuri, just responding to some of your comments. Would you like to add anything to that?

Doctorow: 3:14
… I agree partially with what your correspondent in Iran was saying. The, I understand-

PressTV:
Well, he’s actually in Washington.

Doctorow:
Ever since 1979 and the taking of hostages in the US Embassy in Tehran, the United States has been on a very hostile course with respect to Iran. The history has not been good. Presidents come, presidents go, but the vengeful behavior of the US with respect to Iran has been unchanged. Therefore, I can understand very well the skepticism regarding any positive results from Mr. Trump’s victory and from his presidency that will come.

3:57
However, what has changed is the global context. Since the advent of BRICS, since the start of this year when Iran became a full member of BRICS, since the restoration of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia brokered by the Chinese, it is evident that West Asia today is not the West Asia of 2016 or of 1979. The American absolute domination of the region has been ended once and for all. The major powers, Russia and China, are deeply engaged and deeply interested and deeply participating in affairs of West Asia. To be sure, this has not put an end to the genocide in Gaza or to Israeli atrocities in Lebanon, but that will come. That certainly will come.

4:53
And the potential support or the interest of Mr. Trump in the Israeli cause is almost irrelevant to the evolution of the situation throughout West Asia, given as I say, the change in geopolitics, the rise of the Global South in these last few years, and the very important intervention of both Russia and China in affairs in West Asia. So the United States no longer dominates the situation and can do as it will. And this will necessarily impact on any future diplomacy of Mr. Trump in the region.
[Question: why does the USA not do away with the archaic Electoral College?]
5:40
In The United States, everyone understands, as you just said, that this is a rather peculiar method of selecting the president indirectly, but it is only a manifestation of the fundamental principle of representative democracy. Representative democracy is not direct democracy, for a number of very good reasons that were understood perfectly in the 18th century Age of Enlightenment when the United States was created. That will not change. Both parties may talk about the injustice of it, but nobody is ready to take the steps touching this fundamental feature of the American political system. I don’t think that it is a great obstacle.

6:34
In the given instance, it is even possible that Mr. Trump will win not just because he has the electoral votes needed from this archaic system, but because he wins the popular vote. The latest projections show him at a 51 percent tally of the popular vote. So it is always possible that the two will come together in any given election. I wouldn’t worry about that.

7:03
I think that the bigger issues facing American democracy lie elsewhere. And they were mentioned in part by earlier panelists here on your program, namely the frivolous nature of the campaign, that marginal issues, almost irrelevant issues– this is identity politics, whether it’s a black or a white, whether it’s a woman or a man, whether it’s someone who favors LGBT or is against it, whether somebody is for abortion or against it– these [are] almost frivolous issues in a world that is standing at the edge of a precipice because of the conflict in West Asia, because of the conflict in Russia and Ukraine, and because of the pending conflict over China and Taiwan. These risks that are enormous facing the future of humanity, they played no role in the American elections. And so I can sympathize with observers in Iran.

8:04
And I can say, I’m sitting now, as you said, in St. Petersburg, and the Russian perspective on the American election is precisely the same: that everything is being discussed by the candidates, except what really counts, the future of the world. Foreign affairs have almost no place in it. And that is very sad. That is a greater threat to the viability of the American democracy than whether we have this archaic system of choosing the president.