Iran HITS US Warships & Drones, Trump’s 'Deal' Sets WW3 Trap | Brian Berletic

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Brian, let's begin with the situation regarding Iran and the US war on Iran.

[00:00:07]So, uh, we have it's despite all the talks about a memorandum of understanding signed and not signed. We have, uh, the Ayatollah Mushtaba Hami not approving it. Then Trump not hasn't approved it. There's all this, of course, like we've had in so many of these wars, talks about talks. But as this is happening, the US has been striking Iran. It's done so multiple times in the last week. And according to reports, there were talks that an MQ9 Reaper drone was hovering in Iranian airspace. Iran says they shot it down uh as close to the Busher um uh nuclear site. Uh while Sentcom is saying no such thing ever occurred, Iran is also saying they continue to witness both US warships and commercial vessels attempt to cross the straight of Hormuz without Iran's permission, turning off transponders, forcing them to fire in warning that they must turn around. This war seems very much on. What's your understanding of why the war is currently where the war is right now? So we look at just the pattern of US geopolitical uh objectives and the way they approach trying to achieve those those objectives. We look at say the ongoing US proxy war with Russia. I mean this is a war where the US is wa it's waging war on Russia in some ways very directly but through Ukraine and we can see the so-called peace process. how all all that really is is a facade that the US hides behind to escalate to shift burden sharing on more onto Europe to prepare Europe itself to go into the the war in Ukraine against Russia and that's exactly what they're doing in in the Middle East right now uh visa v Iran they tried their big uh all all or nothing push to try to hurt Iran as bad as possible from late February all through March. Uh it was high intensity, but we know the United States cannot sustain high-intensity uh warfare like that.

[00:02:24]I don't know why people would just assume that well because that failed, they're just going to give up. The United States has been trying to overthrow the Iranian government and whole political system for decades and it has gone through many phases where it has become very focused and intense and then fails has has failed every single time up until now. But they don't actually ever give up. They just stop that phase of the operation and they prepare the next phase. And so that's what they're doing right now uh visav Iran in terms of trying to topple the government. They they've not given up on that. They know it's going to take time and pressure. They don't exactly know when when it will topple, if it will topple. And if you look at how the United States has attempted to remove other governments that it has targeted in the past, Libya, Syria, decades, like these are things that started all the way back in the 70s and 80s and only have just unfolded now. So So in that sense, uh that's what the United States is doing. It's they're just they're they're still waging war against Iran just right under the threshold of triggering another highintensity uh phase of operations which they would probably like to avoid until they've stockpiled more weapons. People talk about the the low military-industrial production of the United States. It's low but it isn't zero. So every single month that goes by that is that many more weapons even if it's just a handful that they have stockpiled for another large scale even if it's just one big major attack. So so this is something we have to keep in mind and then there's also bigger bigger picture uh objectives the US is trying to achieve and is achieving by just keeping the the threat of constant war hanging over the entire region. What have you made about how Iran is handling this? Uh Iran has stayed very firm. They continue to consolidate control over the straight of Hormuz and they seem very much aware of the US's lack of capacity or lack of interest in actually coming to a settlement to the conflict. one that actually meets the requirements not just of Iran but really of the situation where the United States as you said they don't know actually and they think this is a bad sign for them that they don't know exactly how things are going to go or at least they have no idea but they are willing uh the Trump administration and uh the rest of the war bongers are willing to continue on the path anyway >> I think Iran is doing everything that it can do hopefully the people in tan understand that There is there is no possibility for peace with the United States. The United States will not stop what it has been doing for decades. And regardless of who has been president or who has controlled Congress, it has not stopped its pursuit of global primacy at all ever throughout its entire history of being a nation. It's not going to stop now because uh this this one major uh push to try to topple the Iranian government has failed. And in in other ways, again, we'll talk about the big picture uh objectives a little later, maybe they're actually succeeding in those pursuing those objectives. So hopefully in Thran, they understand that that that's not a possibility. They're buying time just as the US is replenishing its arms and and ammunition and reorganizing its military forces.

[00:05:53]Surely Iran is using this time to do likewise and preparing for whatever it is that the United States throws at Iran next. Controlling this the straight of hormus. I mean this sets a precedent. It takes away from the United States this this illusion of being all powerful that it can do anything it wants anywhere it wants. Iran is demonstrating to the entire world that it has closed the straight of hormos. not really close it, but it's controlling what can go through and what cannot. And there's nothing the United States can really do about it because if the United States brings ships in to try to to open it or escort ships through it, they they will almost certainly be hit by anti-shipping missiles and drones. And what the United States has done instead is impose their own blockade. But again, that's part of the the bigger picture objectives that the US is pursuing. And in a way that is kind of uh fulfilling US objectives in that sense but there still is this this factor that they they are not in control of the straighter moves in terms of what is going through and what cannot so so that's I think it's an important step maybe more symbolic than strategic as maybe other people might suggest but I think it's still a a big development >> might get bigger if Iran uh is able to move more ships through the straight of Hormuz and collect the environmental fee that they are charging. Uh that's that's likely to bring in a lot of revenue. But also there is an interesting dynamic with the straight of horror moves though because throughout this period uh one of the reasons why the US and I know you want to definitely want to get into this Brian the US has this blockade strategy all over the world is because it's made very clear that it wants to choke off China but one of the interesting things about what's happening in the straight of Hormuz is that Chinese tankers have been uh supplying oil to Iran this whole time and uh even during the harshest of hostilities and yet uh this blockade I think the United States has been a bit fearful of uh confronting Chinese vessels for example. So there's a contradiction here. They definitely want to cut off the choke. They want to really make this a choke point and maybe even take advantage of what Iran is doing. But there's also this problem that uh if you confront China uh regarding trading with Iran oil for example getting oil from Iran then you you are also bringing China into the war and we saw what happened with the Trump visit to uh Beijing. China was not really interested in talking Iran with Trump. So what do you make of these dynamics? Because you know of course the US wants to topple Iran but there's a global picture here that the US is trying to assert. uh they're pursuing it. They're definitely pursuing it. It but there's a lot of uh I think interesting factors that go into how it all happens. What's your thoughts?

[00:08:57]>> Yes, absolutely. I think uh the strategic implications of Iran regulating traffic through the Shredder Hormuse will become much more significant depending on how this conflict ultimately ends. And I don't mean temporarily in between fake peace talks that the US is pretending to have with Iran. Uh I mean if this conflict concludes and the United States is displaced from the region and that's probably not going to happen anytime soon not as soon as I think a lot of people hope but that would be a major development and move forward uh against US primacy around the globe. But right now as things stand okay yes Iran can regulate traffic through the straight of hormuse and this is a card that they're holding but now the United States has placed its blocking. As you point out, the US is not targeting Chinese tankers, and that that's something that they're probably not going to want to do in the in the immediate future, but maybe intermediate future. That is something they will eventually do. We just have to look back and think of how the the US war on Russia has progressed from 2014 when they first overthrew the Ukrainian government to where it is right now where the New York Times admits it is the CIA and the US military carrying out these maritime drone strikes on ships carrying Russian energy all around the world in the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, off the coast of West Africa, in the Mediterranean Sea, if I didn't say that one already. Uh so that that had escalated from not even not even imaginable to becoming a reality. This is eventually the direction they're going to go in terms of targeting Chinese shipping. The this is the the absolute ultimate objective of all of this. But what have they achieved so far by attacking Iran and Iran retaliating against uh energy production infrastructure among the Persian Gulf Arab uh US proxies in the region. The overall amount of energy being exported from the region in total has been reduced. The amount of energy from Iran, even though ships are coming through the the US imposed blockade on Iranian ports, that has been cut, you could say between maybe 50% up to uh to maybe 20 30 40%. But it is still a reduction. If you look over time, you can see how is is this was the amount of oil and and energy China was getting before and it just keeps steadily steadily dropping. It isn't zero, but it continues steadily dropping. Now, the the whole point is China knew the United States was going to do this for decades. This is one of the main reasons they worked on their belt and road initiative where they have land routes stretching all across Eurasia. This is the reason why they invested so much in the the power Siberia pipeline bringing Russian energy into China. This is the reason why uh they are expanding capacity and expanding imports from Russia to China, Kazakhstan.

[00:11:56]And they they have built alternate pipelines elsewhere to bringing additional energy. Plus, they have the largest uh strategic petroleum reserve on planet Earth in all of human history.

[00:12:06]They have uh I mean you you've been to China, you know how big China is.

[00:12:10]Imagine uh how big a reserve has to be for a country that size to last say like a 100 days or plus. So this is this is what they've done. Oh, not even mentioning uh electric vehicles, the electrification of transportation uh and all the other alternative energy sources they have been working on again for decades. And again, this is why the US rushed into this. People interpret my warnings and and caution regarding the US as somehow depicting the US as unstoppable. But I would say the US has been pushed uh ahead of time, ahead of schedule into all of this because there is like a five to 10 year window max, 10 years max, where China will be energy independent and the US won't be able to do this anymore. So that they're rushing through it. it is succeeding. They've managed to throttle the amount of energy from the Middle East going to China and they're forcing China to to go back on its emergency contingencies. Now, the the one thing I I think I want to warn people about that I don't think people are really noticing is they've also reduced the amount of energy critically that has gone from the Middle East to the rest of Asia. This is exactly what they did to Europe visav cheap energy from Russia and they're they're now doing it to Asia vavv energy coming in from the Middle East. They're reducing that and at the same time they spent years building up LNG and oil export projects in the United States that made no business sense at all for years and years. You could just last year they were doing proposals and they were begging the public to see why it made sense and they kept talking about contested waterways and people were like what what contested waterways and I guess you could almost see them wink and say well just wait just wait a year or two you'll see what what we mean by contested waterways. So now they've cut Asia off from reliable uh energy from the Middle East and now they're forcing them to sign contracts and countries are signing contracts. Yes, they're signing with Russia. They're trying to balance it out. But this is additional leverage the US will have over all of these Asian countries to try to flip them and turn them into battering rams against China in the same way they flipped all of Europe into a battering ram against Russia, which is something that we we can now see escalating out of control in in Europe used to be Russia.

[00:14:33]>> We get a little taste of that with Indonesia too. Of course, Indonesia has made headway. bricks uh it's its deep interest in bricks and dd dollararization but also in recent terms you would think nationalizing resources would be a huge uh boon for uh Indonesia but many are citing a huge reason why they are nationalizing resources right now is because they want to lessen their dependence on China many seeing it as a move uh that was pressured by the United States uh given that the Indonesian president has made comments about wanting to be closer to Trump and Trump's son and all of this. So, uh I think your point is well taken as well as the fact that it could be as you said, it's not that the US is unvincible, but that it has to go to certain lengths at periods of time maybe that it maybe didn't want to engage in at this moment. Uh and it seems like a lot of this rather than like choking China directly or the rest of the multipolar especially these countries that have obviously shown that they're very difficult if not impossible to defeat at this moment China, Russia, Iran the everything that happens around them that is also critically important because uh just because those countries are difficult to overthrow and destroy it doesn't mean that there is not an impact to uh trying to destroy the rest of the world around them as a way to try to isolate them. It doesn't always work.

[00:16:02]China is very difficult to isolate economically, but it does have consequences for the world and we're seeing it with the world economy. I mean, look at what's going on. So, your comments on this, the world economy is in dire straits in large part because of this uh so-called strategy by the US empire.

[00:16:18]>> AB: Absolutely. This is a very crucial point you just made. uh in ideally the United States would want to maintain primacy over the globe, maintain its corporate financeier monopolies over the globe and and maintain it at the high levels that it has for so long. but because they've been forced uh into this position and are rushing to try to desperately contain China before its irreversible uh surpassing of not just the United States but the US and all of its proxies combined. They have switched to a strategy where they're they're basically saying if we cannot control the world, we're just going to it's just like a sore loser at a board game.

[00:16:57]They're just going to flip the whole board over uh throw the pieces everywhere. uh maybe knock over the table and trash the the whole house and hope that uh somehow they they can walk away the the winner or at least not not be defeated at at that particular game. And and and in reality, what they're trying to do is maybe a sort of repeat of World War II where all of these countries all across Eurasia were waging war against one another. Their their whole countries were were being destroyed, ravaged by the the war. The United States was on the other side of the planet, separated by two oceans from all of the fighting.

[00:17:37]And they emerged uh indisputably the most powerful country on the planet. And that is one of the reasons they had this huge head start and enjoyed primacy for so long throughout the 20th and 21st century, early 21st century. And so they're trying to do that. Again, the problem is, and as other people have pointed out, back then they had a massive industrial base. They had uh an education system producing a skilled workforce. They don't have any of that now. China has all of that. And there is literally no possible way the United States can catch up to China, match China in any in any conceivable way compete compete with and stay at at the same level as China. So their goal is just as you say just destroy everything and if you can't hurt China within China's borders, destroy everything all around China. And you could see that this is something that they've been doing to to Russia. There's a whole paper, the Rand Corporation 2019, extending Russia. Many of the options are about destabilizing and destroying countries all along Russia's borders or countries that are important to Russia. They have an exact same plan for China. And they've been I I mean, this is the reason I got into geopolitics in the first place was to expose US meddling here in Southeast Asia, which is one of the most major peripheries of of China. US interference in Thailand. They covered the US backed protest in in Thailand. There is a war taking place in Myammar. The US is backing militants and terrorists fighting the central government there who regularly attack Chinese investments and specific Belt and Road Initiative projects. The the Myammar China pipeline and there are US policy papers that literally say we could blow up the pipeline. This is one of the ways we can stop China from circumventing any sort of blockade we place uh in the South China Sea or the straight of Malaka which brings Indonesia into the picture.

[00:19:39]Last year there were US backed protests, violent protests in Indonesia. A lot of pressure was put on Indonesia to you know lean a little bit closer toward the US than than to China. And that's what we see as a result. I was just uh myself and several others were just attacked by these NED uh Soros funded uh media outlets in Indonesia because we exposed it last year. Why are they talking about it this year? And it's almost certainly they're trying to get ahead and smear attack and silence the people that are going to expose USbacked uh unrest in Indonesia this year or in the near future. And so this is a constant process that's taking place uh in Afghanistan. China is working with the government there to to develop their economy. They're uh exporting raw materials to China. China would like to put the processing there in Afghanistan, but they can't. You know why they can't? Because the US is backing terrorists there, attacking the government there, attacking Chinese diplomatic missions, Chinese citizens there. So, it's a it's basically a dirty war the US is waging against China in a very similar way that that's now openly waging against Russia. And obviously the war of aggression they're waging against Iran, they have launched basically a full-scale war against multipolarism because they know they can they cannot compete with or stop it in any other way except to just destroy it all. And then what does that mean? That means the the battle lines that we're looking at now is can the multipolar world build and organize faster than the United States can destroy. That's what we're looking at right now. That's the reality we all have to face and and try to expose and uh try to oppose this this policy of just destroying everything in the hopes US can cling to its primacy.

[00:21:27]>> We've talked a lot about US military limitations that's playing out right now in the in the Iran war. uh we're seeing that this transition to a ceasefire a limited engagement kind of limited strikes arrangement is in large part because doing anything bigger would have huge consequences for the economy and may deplete US stockpiles even more that taking away from all these other fronts and then though I think part of this long war is that uh for uh China, Russia and Iran like these countries have proven themselves now to be uh very strong and capable of defending themselves and building up their capacities. I mean, we saw with Iranian uh missile, drone, and military technology. All of this we're seeing with Iran, Russia, we just saw Russia launch another archnick this time at Kiev. We know that they are fortified for a long war of defense. China. It's very difficult to attack China directly militarily and their economy as you noted is incredibly advanced in these areas that is forcing the US to maybe overplay their hand. But a lot of multi multiple world is connecting these countries to the rest of the world and ensuring that every time I go to China, people talk to me all the time. You know, it's a economy that grows as fast as China wants to be able to produce, trade, and build with other countries so that people are more capable of developing them developing themselves so they can then help offset some of the burdens on the Chinese economy as a win-win, right? Win-win. China's producing all this stuff. They need people to buy it, especially when the US is sanctioning itself and the West sanctioning itself from these opportunities. So, it's a it, you know, that's what it kind of looks like. It looks like a long war, but that this long war Iran show has shown it.

[00:23:20]Ukraine, uh, there's lots of hot moments in this, uh, long war and, uh, I don't I don't think any of these are over quite yet. I think actually all of these fronts are likely to escalate. What's your thoughts about that? Because they're all interconnected.

[00:23:34]>> Yes. The the more the US talks about peace, almost certainly the more certain it is that they're just going to escalate. that that this is in policy papers. They literally have entire chapters about diplomacy. This is what we can hide behind while we prepare our forces and we put our target the targeted nation into the the optimum position to attack and and topple them.

[00:23:57]This is all they talk. There's no actual interest in diplomacy. And I don't know why at this point anyone even believes this, right? People are talking about peace deals between the US and Iran after the US used fake diplomacy, fake peace deals twice to to attack and wipe out the top leadership of Iran twice.

[00:24:16]They've done it twice. So why do people think, "Oh, the third time is the charm." No, this is this is a process.

[00:24:22]This is a pattern. Please recognize the the pattern. You're absolutely right. I think it's only going to escalate. you you mentioned uh China is is growing and wants other nations to grow with it so that they can do more and more business together. I I live in Thailand.

[00:24:38]Thailand's largest most important trade partner is China and I've watched the transition over the 20 plus years that I've lived here almost my entire adult life when it used to be dominated by the US. the entire region dominated by the US and the poverty and the stagnation of development and then as China began to rise the rapid rise of Thailand the the advancement for everyone in Thai society from the from the top obviously that they're always enjoying luxury but even at the lowest levels of society which is where I I'm much more clo uh closely aligned I've seen the benefits I I enjoy the benefits of Thailand doing business with China But what does destroying the the energy flow from the Middle East to Asia do? It it causes an economic crisis. No one is doubting that. Yes. One reason is to create energy dependence on the US in these countries. Thailand had to sign a deal with the they have to. They have no choice. If you have no energy coming in, whatever the reason is, you need energy for your people or you you can't say well we we don't want to do business with the US. the only they have signed deals with Russia, too, by the way. We're not going to buy American energy. We'll just let our people go with no energy. That's not really an option. But the other reason is it creates an economic crisis. People have less money to spend and they're not doing as much business with China. So, it goes back to that whole deal where the US is sitting across from China.

[00:26:08]They're losing the game badly and they just flip the board over and say, "Now, what are you going to do? Now you have nobody to do business with." This is the way America does business. Now, if you look at the the front against Russia, Iran, and China, ignore what the US is saying. Look at their actions. I've warned endlessly probably a thousand times now. I've talked about Secretary of Defense Pete Hegath February 2025, his directive to Europe. You're getting ready to go in and and fight our war against Russia and Ukraine. You get ready. Double down.

[00:26:43]expand military-industrial production, cancel all social programs, dump all of the money into military spending, and get yourself ready. Now, we're watching it all play out. These headlines where they're saying Russia's thinking about starting a war with Europe. No, the US is feeding Europe into the proxy war with Russia. That is what's actually going on. And that's why Russia is using a rushnik to to create the a very bold obvious red line knowing the consequences of where this war is going to go and how it's going to affect and damage and destroy Europe will also cause immense pain for Russia. The war in Iran is almost certainly going to start. It will start whenever the US is ready and before it's ready it is doing this low threshold constant uh uh war essentially a low inensity war against Iran even during peace talks and of course I'm in Asia and I'm watching the United States continuously build up its military power here it's networking the Philippines South Korea and Japan into a de facto NATO where they're all uh sharing information uh using the same weapons and they're all integrating their their forces under US military command. I'm I'm watching it happen right now. And so they are preparing to escalate on all fronts. They are at war with multipolarism because they understand that as things are now multipolarism will win. And if people see this and they understand this and they face the reality of this, they will be prepared to invest in in this real fight that is actually happening, not the fantasy of America just going away all on its own. and multipolarism will have a chance to prevail no matter what the United States does. That's that's my message. It isn't that the US is unstoppable is that it it is going for all or nothing strategy and if we understand that and we invest in multipolaris and a a fair balance of power among nations uh in the future we can stop a future where the US holds dominion over all nations after destroys absolutely everything. I think that's we can all agree that's that's not the future that we want. You know, just as you said, you know, there's the phrase, you know, China builds US bombs. It's the US wants to bomb. It can't bomb everybody. But what it wants to do is it wants to weaken and slow down this process. And it's going to, no matter how weak it gets, again, you an empire in decline does not mean less aggressive. Empire does not mean tap out, give up. No. The only time an empire taps out and gives up is when it's gone. And the only time empires actually go is not because they're rulers and you know whatnot to say, "Well, we're done here. We're going to go retire." No, it usually happens because there are people who want to supplant it, replace it, and and hopefully, not always, but hopefully build something better. US policy, foreign and domestic, is not driven by Donald J. Trump. It's not is not being run by the people in Washington. It's not being controlled by Israel, a country smaller than New Jersey with a population smaller than New York City, completely dependent on the United States. It is controlled and driven by US corporate interests, the largest, most powerful corporations in the United States, have been driving US foreign domestic policy for decades and decades.

[00:30:04]That they're the ones who fund the policy think tanks that put out these papers that are literal blueprints. If you read them, they're just going down the checklist doing one after the other.

[00:30:12]If you look at the lower level uh staff in any presidential administration, Republican, Democratic, doesn't matter, it's full of people from these think tanks created, directed, chaired by these corporations. So if you want to oppose something in the United States that is driving this that will actually matter and not just be a distraction, start focusing on the corporation. Stop giving them your money. Create alternatives.

[00:30:40]uh send you instead of spending on these giant corporations based in the US, find alternatives or create them and insist on and it's it's not oh big companies are bad. No, big companies are just big companies. It's who's running them and how they're using them. There's big companies in China that do tremendous good. It's about putting purpose over the blind pursuit of profit. That's all it is. It's that simple. And if Americans start insisting on a society that puts people and and and purpose first over just profit and power, it will make a difference because it does make a difference in other countries that do this. Even to the smallest degree, it improves everybody's lives from the top to the bottom of society tremendously. So I that's just my my final message. That's what people can actively do about this if nothing else.