"India’s discounted Russian crude buy is on the right track" Col. Douglas Macgregor (Retd.)

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]One thing I I I want to pay tribute to this, because I'm watching what your government is doing, and when governments get things right, they deserve some attention.

[00:00:08]Right now, the Indian government is securing discounted Russian crude to combat the Hormuz squeeze, and that's a very good thing to do. They're also building a $36 billion domestic fertilizer shield through coal gasification and biomass, that's crop residue.

[00:00:28]Now, why do I bring that up? Because it's a pragmatic economic strategy. It's a strategy for resource sovereignty. And that's the real lesson for you, for us, for everyone.

[00:00:41]That we must tend to our resource sovereignty from now on and into the future. That doesn't mean we isolate ourselves from the world, but we recognize our vulnerabilities, and we find ways to compensate for them.

[00:00:56]People today don't understand that in the 1970s, when we went through this oil shortage, we had the first major oil crisis, that's when we created the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We didn't have one until then.

[00:01:11]Well, now we know that we're going to need a similar program, and I I just think I just think that the current Indian government is on the right track, and they're doing the right thing, and they should get some credit for it. It's not going to fix everything, as you point out quickly.

[00:01:25]This is not something we can rectify quickly, and we are only now beginning to feel the effects.

[00:01:30]And in another month or two, the effects felt here are going to be profound. If we bomb again, it's going to be hell to pay inside the United States. We will face civil unrest, because Americans have lived with 80 years 80 years of almost perfect stability in terms of economics and prosperity and so forth.

[00:01:52]And that's not going to be taken lightly in this country.

[00:01:55]So, I hope I'm wrong. I hope he backs off and he says, "I can't do this anymore. It's not in the interest of my country or in the interest of the world and our friends."

[00:02:06]If the Israelis care to pursue this on their own, they'll have to do it without us. But, I don't see that happening.

[00:02:11]>> This new MOU that's being discussed, it seems like an MOU, not a deal, uh for sort of 60-day pause, uh an extension of a ceasefire, so to say, to open up the Hormuz Strait. Um and then the nuclear question is being It appears to be being kicked down further down the road. Now, President Trump is mulling this. He hasn't signed on the dotted line. Uh what do you what do you make of all of this?

[00:02:35]>> I think that uh >> [clears throat and cough] >> Iran knows uh that President Trump very much wants to find a way out of this particular war that he started and now regrets.

[00:02:47]I don't think there's any question about that.

[00:02:50]Uh and Iran, I think, has gone as far as it can go at this point to provide him with a way to quietly ease ease out of the of the trap that he's in.

[00:03:03]Uh the problem for President Trump is not really Tehran.

[00:03:08]Uh he can talk with Tehran if he wants to.

[00:03:11]He can cooperate with Tehran if he wants to. Right now, it's all through the Pakistani intermediaries, but this MOU demonstrates clearly that the Iranians are willing to do business with him. The problem is President Trump thus far has been unable to demonstrate that he can deliver Israel on any of these issues.

[00:03:31]That's the problem.

[00:03:33]And Iran is not going to uh effectively betray the people in Lebanon or increasingly the people in Gaza or anywhere else in the region who are under threat of extermination by Israel. I mean, that's what it boils down to.

[00:03:49]You're just bombing people and killing people that have no means of protecting themselves.

[00:03:54]So, I don't know what happens because I just don't know that President Trump is a free agent in the traditional sense.

[00:04:03]Uh he has apparently obligations to the Israelis and he cannot simply walk away from those.

[00:04:12]So, I That's That's the best that I can do for you. I wish I could provide a a better outlook, but that's the the principal problem.

[00:04:22]>> Colonel, every time these new contours of a deal they come out, uh it just appears to have a appears to be nicer and nicer. The deals appear to be better for Tehran, not so much for the United States.

[00:04:34]And what How does President Trump go back to his base and talk about the fact that the nuclear weapon question is being pushed further?

[00:04:43]They're talking There There's There's no talks about the new Iran's new missile program. That was one of the core objectives of the uh campaign. Now, in fact, we're talking about a $300 slush fund and investment program uh that's being talked about. This is according to the reportage by New York Times. Uh How do you go back? This This appears way worse than Obama's JCPOA.

[00:05:07]>> Well, of course, you're right. But, keep in mind that to the vast majority of Americans, and we have to understand that President Trump's so-called base is shrinking quickly.

[00:05:18]Uh it's not very it's not very large anymore. It's not It's not more than a third of the popular vote that it once was. It's much lower than that. It's probably down around 20% if that.

[00:05:30]>> Mhm.

[00:05:30]>> And so, given that, keep in mind that the vast majority of Americans really are not interested in what's happening in the Persian Gulf.

[00:05:37]Now, they're going to become very interested in the near future as the consequences of our actions begin to have an impact here in the United States.

[00:05:45]Uh Uh, we can talk a little bit about that because we've had very prominent people on the in the oil and gas sector tell us flat out, depending upon who you want to listen to, the executive vice president of Exxon or any number of oil and financial analysts say that somewhere's between 3 weeks and 8 weeks from now, the strategic petroleum reserve is exhausted and we're in serious trouble here in the United States.

[00:06:14]Nobody bothered to point out to President Trump, for instance, that California is very dependent on imports of oil from the Persian Gulf. So, now we've discovered all these things.

[00:06:25]So, for for President Trump, it's not really as big of a problem as you may think. I'm sure his political advisers have told him, "Look, you know, the average American doesn't care. He wants this to be over with." He he you know, if you if President Trump went public tomorrow morning and said, "You know, I've had a conversation with everyone.

[00:06:42]It it makes no sense to continue this.

[00:06:45]Uh, all of our friends in Asia, all of our friends in the Middle East, all of our friends in Africa and Europe have all said the same thing.

[00:06:52]So, I'm suspending these military operations immediately. The most important thing is to resume traffic through the Persian Gulf."

[00:07:00]Everybody would say, "Fine. Not a problem. Thanks very much." and go on with their lives.

[00:07:05]Israel won't.

[00:07:07]And Israel's agents in the United States who are billionaires and who represent enormous quantities of money are in a position to tell the president, "Look, if you do this, we will no longer support you.

[00:07:19]If you don't have us as your protection, as your insurance policy, you're it's open season on you, Donald Trump, on the hill. Uh, your enemies are going to come out and they're going to go after you and the only thing that stands between them and you right now is us. We support you and we control the media.

[00:07:39]We control finance and those are the best things to control if you're interested in political power.

[00:07:45]So, what are you going to do, Mr. President? And I think right now Mr. President is going back to Mr. Netanyahu and telling him, "Look, this is what I think we can do." And he's trying to make the argument to Netanyahu that he should come along.

[00:08:00]But Mr. Netanyahu's calculus is completely unrelated to Trump's.

[00:08:05]Uh he sees himself in a unique position.

[00:08:08]He has absolute power right now over the United States armed forces and the policy-making machinery in Washington.

[00:08:16]Why would he give that up? No, what he wants is a resumption of the war. He wants to press this war with the goal of destroying Iran.

[00:08:24]He wants to make Iran an object lesson for everyone in the region.

[00:08:29]If you oppose Israel, this is what happens to you.

[00:08:32]And of course, we've had people in in the open, members of the government, you know, this Gvir and Smotrich and others, they're talking about a future war with the Turkey with the Turks, who are next on the menu because they're obviously hostile to Israel. This has become a sort of perpetual war for the protection of Israel in an environment that Israel created for itself.

[00:08:58]So, >> Yep.

[00:08:59]>> that's that's President Trump's real dilemma. Can he divorce himself and simply say, "That's it. I've gone as far as I can. This must stop." Thus far, we've seen no evidence that he can do that.

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