Transcript submitted by a reader
Redacted: 0:00
Well, what can Russia realistically do about this war between Iran and Israel and the United States on the Israeli side? Well, according to our next guest, Gilbert Doctorow, the answer is nothing. No rescue is coming from Moscow or Beijing, and a US-Israeli victory is not just likely, it is strategically disastrous. Far from restoring order, he says it will shatter what little regional stability remains and corner Russia geopolitically. The only unpredictable factor left on the chessboard is Pakistan, which is a bleak forecast, but one we’d be foolish to ignore.
It also allows North Korea to strongly align with Russia, which has already happened and most of us have missed it.
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Redacted: 2:04
Gilbert Doctorow is a foreign policy author and expert on the Russian-US relations. We’ve been speaking to him since the war in Ukraine and he’s been pretty much right about all of it. He has a new book out called _War Diaries_ about the war in Russia between the first two years.
So he joins us today. Thank you for joining us today. It’s a pleasure to see you again.
Good to see you, doctor.
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Well, very good to be back with you.
Redacted:
Okay. So you argue that Russia will not intervene to support Iran militarily. What do you believe? Why would the Kremlin sit this one out? And is that a strategic decision or a sign of restraint?
Doctorow:
I think it is a clear understanding [that] the situation is not as dire as many of the hyperventilating commentators, particularly on a variety of Indian stations like The Times of India, that take up space on the international section of YouTube. If you listen to them, the end of the world’s coming next week. The reality is that the Israelis are running out of supplies for their dome, out of supplies for their air defense. They have maybe seven to 10 days more of these missiles that they’re using to protect themselves. So it’s hard to see that this war will go on beyond that date. For that reason alone, I think there are people in the Kremlin who understand that there is no reason to rush to Iran’s assistance.
3:40
The positioning, the posturing, I should say, of Mr. Trump is typical of him. He speaks very loudly, he catches attention. He did in his first term send those aircraft carriers to just off the North Korean coast. And what came out of that, what followed? Nothing, whatever.
So it is today, The idea that the United States is providing substantial assistance to Israel in capturing and shooting down the various missiles and drones that Iran is sending to Israel is only partly true. The United States doesn’t have the capacity, as no one has the capacity, to stop hypersonic missiles, for example, which is precisely what Iran started using in the last couple of days. So I would calm down. The length, the duration of this war is certainly limited by Israel’s ability to keep on shooting down incoming projectiles. And that is like a week to 10 days. So I don’t think we have the end of the world in front of us.
Redacted: 4:58
What if the United States involves itself with aircraft carriers and additional fad systems being able to shoot down and aid in this process if Israel’s Iron Dome runs out? They’re already not able to stop hypersonic missiles as it is with the Iron Dome technology. Will the United States really step in here to aid this, and then will we see a protracted war as a result of this?
Doctorow:
Again, let’s step back for a moment to what the mission of Israel has been with American support. The primary mission has been to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. So far they have done damage, but they certainly haven’t destroyed it. And there are these impenetrable underground or mountainside nuclear units that Iran has, which only American munitions would have a chance to destroy.
Now, the United States has not yet committed itself to sending in B2 bombers to deliver those wonderful bombs, and I rather suspect they won’t. Mr. Trump likes to stir the water, likes to get a lot of attention and hopes to threaten people and force them to do deals on his terms. That does not seem to succeed too often, and I’m very doubtful it will succeed in this case. But the Iranian forces are not just their own. They’re also their allied militias in places like Iraq, which can threaten, which can destroy, in fact, American bases in the region.
And for that reason, Mr. Trump will tread very carefully– again, he’s making a lot of noise– but to actually place those 40,000 American soldiers and officers in the region in harm’s way, I think would be very, very risky. And certainly there are people in Congress who are telling him that right now.
Redacted: 7:21
Now you say that the one wild card here is Pakistan, that Russia won’t get involved, but Pakistan very well could. And if they did, it would be to defend Iran. Can you tell us what the global consequences of that would be, and if you see that as a deterrent or an accelerant?
Doctorow:
Well, I don’t think it’s an abstract consideration. If you know Mr. Trump’s schedule today, he received an envoy from Pakistan. And while BBC and other major media were talking about this as having some relation to the recent armed conflict between India and Pakistan, I think it is more reasonable to assume that Mr. Trump and his assistants were interested in talking to the Pakistanis following their very noisy and angry statements in the United Nations about the war of the aggression of Israel and how Pakistan wanted to do something about it. So it’s not just my conjecture that Pakistan stands ready to virtually destroy Israel with nuclear missiles, which it has, but I think that was a subject of Mr. Trump’s discussions with the Pakistani envoy today.
Redacted; 8:39
Gosh, I think people missed that. That’s quite possible. You studied this deeply. You heard, I’m sorry, you heard President Putin today saying that the United States should not interject itself in this, that that would be a really a huge mistake. So what will Russia do– I mean, one of the wild cards here is you know, what will China what will Russia do if the United States fully involves itself in attacking Iran? If the United States decides to hit the Fordow nuclear power plant, President Trump says, “We’re the only ones that can do it. We’re the only ones that can have this attack.” What will Russia do in response, do you think?
Doctorow:
Again, let’s take a step back. Destroying the Iranian nuclear program is not the same as destroying Iran. They have said since 2003 that they have no intention of building a bomb. The American intelligence agencies all have been in agreement with that. As recently as under, I think it was March, appearance before Congress, Tulsi Gabbard said the same thing. So the most horrible thing that American intervention could do, if we read the script that Mr. Trump has been reading from, is to impair, damage, or destroy major assets in the civil nuclear program of Iran.
10:15
None of that is the same as regime change or destroying the Iranian nation. So this is not an existential crisis here. That being said, the American intervention would probably bring, would almost certainly bring, a dramatic response from the militias that are associated with Iran in the region, and attacks on American bases that would kill American soldiers. It’s clear as day.
All of that would come back and hit Mr. Trump, because the actions he’s considering have not been sanctioned by Congress. And he’s not even looking for congressional approval. So it’s all his own … standing that will be impaired or seriously damaged if he proceeds.
Redacted:
What would Russia do though? If we do, I get the civil side of it. It’s just a civil, you know, we’re taking out their civil nuclear infrastructure. Like if America, if you’re sitting, you know, you live near like Three Mile Island or you’re in Pennsylvania near these nuclear power plants and suddenly, you know, Iran just bombed those and they just said, it’s just a civil, you know, we just want to make sure you don’t have civil nuclear capacity. I mean, would Iran respond largely? Or is it just the militias? And then what would Russia do in response? Are they going to allow the United States to do that?
Doctorow: 11:48
Well, this is not a question of a Chernobyl-like catastrophe. They’re not speaking about destroying electric generating plants. They’re speaking about destroying facilities that process uranium, store uranium, and not in vast quantities. So the environmental impact, the global impact of any of the strikes that Israel has been performing, or the United States could add to, is not of a nature to alarm us all.
Nonetheless, what is at issue is Iranian sovereignty. To come back to your question of where the Russians are, the Russians are profiting from this right now. They’re doing very well, thank you, because the United States has pulled back a lot of its air defense assets from Ukraine to safeguard, to put in place in the Middle East, to protect its bases there. The United States has also very quietly, under pretext of the need to rearm Israel, they have stopped supplying military materiel to Ukraine. All of this has facilitated the ongoing Russian campaign.
13:09
So the Russians are involved indirectly. The Russian-Ukraine war is definitely affected by the crisis now in the Middle East. In so far as the United States has pulled in its horns in Ukraine, is busy rushing to the aid of Israel, and the Russians can profit from that, as they’ve done in the last two days, with the most dramatic strikes on Kiev during the whole duration of the war. Now, the real interested party in this is not Russia. The real interested party is China.
And there we have– I don’t see anybody talking much about it, because the harm, the economic harm of damage to Iran’s export infrastructure directly affects the energy balance in China, since Iran has become a major supplier to China. This is not to mention the bigger issue of Iran, if pressed hard by the United States and Israel, Iran’s readiness to close the Straits of Hormuz, which would really have a tremendous impact on the global economy. But if you have to look at countries individually, the first ones to suffer would be China, since it is so dependent on energy from the Middle East that would no longer be flowing.
14:43
Will China remain quiet? Well, we know that China has flown in several airplanes with military equipment for Iran. Exactly what nobody knows. But presumably they are ready to do a lot of equipment support for air defense of Iran to prevent the United States and Israel from doing some catastrophic damage and causing many civilian deaths.
Redacted:
Now something you had written about is that North Korea is in fact aligning itself with Russia. Now, Zelensky had been saying this months ago, and I kind of ignored him because he’s an idiot. But this seems to be true. You said that North Korea has sent troops to Russian- controlled Ukrainian territory for demining and reconstruction. That seems like more than a gesture. It’s a deepening military and political alliance with Russia. So what does that tell us about emerging global blocks? What do you think Western media is going to do with that other than ignore it for now?
Doctorow: 15:48
They are ignoring it indeed. The numbers, let’s look at the numbers, the demining groups, sappers as they call them, that is 1,000 soldiers from North Korea. And the construction teams, since a large part of the Korean, North Korean army actually is working at construction during its military service, that is 5,000 soldiers. This is considerable. It frees up the Russian soldiers and officers to do something more valuable for Russia’s defense and fighting on the front lines, rather than this restoration work in the Kursk oblast.
Yes, of course, it is very important that Russia has established excellent relations with North Korea. They are adding logistical solutions, new bridges across the river that separates them, since they are neighbors, direct neighbors. And the economic cooperation is substantial. And it also shows that the Russia has finally freed itself from the constraints of the Western- imposed sanctions, which they at an earlier time agreed to and signed up for, but now understand to have been a mistake and to be quite ridiculous when Russia itself is under the greatest number of sanctions ever invented by the United States.
Redacted:
Thank you very much. Well, if you want more of this analysis, you can follow Gilbert Doctorow’s substack. We put the link online. He also again has a new book out and has been one of the most reasonable voices during the war between Russia and Ukraine.
17:41
So thank you so much. I know you’re in Europe. You stayed up late for “Redacted” and we really appreciate it. I hope to see you again soon.
Gilbert Doctorow 