This could be a ’serious & seismic strategic defeat’ for the US | Tim Marshall

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]In the event that Iran is clearly seen to have won this and then the whole world knows who controls the straight of Hormuz not the Americans it's not the Gulf states it's not shared it's Iran that is a serious seismic global strategic defeat for the United States Hi Fergus McY and welcome to the Trump support. You can watch us every day, Monday to Friday, on our YouTube channel, and you can also listen and follow the show wherever you get your podcasts. Joining me today, I'm delighted to say, is Tim Marshall, foreign affairs analyst and author of Prisoners of Geography. Tim, welcome to the Trump Report.

[00:00:44]>> Greetings. Thanks for the invite.

[00:00:46]>> Hi, it's our pleasure to have you. Now, as I say, this is your first time on the show. So, perhaps our American international viewers uh might not be aware, but I think for people in the UK and media, you've been a kind of a man in quite high demand over the last few weeks and months with everything going on in Iran and of course the straight of Hormuz. Um you appeared on our friends at Times Radio yesterday and you said that after the kind of talks of the possible 14point peace plan, there are reasons to be hopeful. Are you feeling hopeful this morning?

[00:01:18]>> I try to always feel hopeful. Um, and yes, I am. But, you know, that's very much tempered with the realization of the the the hurdles that both sides and others have to get over. Just to reach the stage where we would then enter the 30-day period of negotiations is hard enough.

[00:01:42]Even if they get that far, it's then even more difficult to cross the hurdles uh to actually get a a proper agreement uh between the two main antagonists.

[00:01:53]>> And those hurdles, I mean, the main one would you say is around the enriched uranium.

[00:02:01]>> Yes. uh for the 30 days. I I think it's the sort of thing that they can fudge now because as you probably know originally the Americans were demanding it is said 20-year moratorum not just that you agreed to only enrich to 3.7% but you don't enrich at all and the Iranians counted with five years it now appears that they're meeting somewhere in the middle 12 maybe even 15 and if they can agree that in principle now they can get to the 30 days. Uh so that that that's why you know it is there are reasons to be hopeful in in the short term.

[00:02:46]>> Is that because that 12 to 15 days yeah that's the number that's been mooted. I don't think that's been an official number obviously that we've seen from either side. Is is that kind of all you think the US would accept? Yeah, they I mean they're they're not known for um patience this this um Trump administration uh and the JCPOA, the joint comprehensive plan of action which was the original Iran deal. Uh I which Mr. Trump pulled out of in his first term that took years, literally years to negotiate. I remember the amount of times they had to go to Vienna when they thought they're on the brink and then it all collapsed and you went back a few months later and they want to pretty much do something like that in 30 days.

[00:03:32]Uh so that would be ambitious. Uh but again reasons to be hopeful is that it's clear both sides desperately want and need this to be over and there are some new factors that have come in. The the various clocks have been ticking ever since this began.

[00:03:50]One of them is um gas prices particularly at the US pump and inflation which is is hitting and Mr. Trump's uh approval ratings have dropped to I think it's plus 36 out of 100 which is of course negative territory but there's a couple of other things as well. one and it's well it's under reportported and perhaps we can talk about it later and that is the fact that food inflation is going to go up this autumn because the fertilizers and precursors for fertilizers 30% of them came out of the straight of Hormuz to go around the world for for planting and then harvesting that's dried up there's another one which is that the Iranian oil industry only has so much capacity to store its oil because it can't get it out anymore. And once those reservoirs are full, you have to stop pumping. You have to close the industry down. And that could be catastrophic for the Iranian oil industry because it's exceptionally hard to restart it. And then the last one, the last one is the quiet role that China has been playing the whole time, but it's starting to focus now. It's starting to surface. And I I do not think it is a coincidence that this movement, this positive movement we've seen this week accelerated on Wednesday. And Wednesday was the day that the Iranian foreign minister Minister Arachi showed up in Beijing for the first time during this crisis.

[00:05:23]>> And I mentioned this to a contributor yesterday. Is it also not a coincidence that next Friday, perhaps next Thursday, Trump himself will be in Beijing meeting Xi? I mean he wants to go there and say look this is all sorted.

[00:05:35]>> They are they are connected and um both sides would like this to be out of the way before the summit on May the 14th it is.

[00:05:45]>> Yeah. Yeah. So, let's talk about the fertilizers that you mentioned because that is another we saw obviously project freedom being canned after kind of a day and now all these talks of this 14point plan happening so quickly in the space of 24 hours is one of the reasons to do with sort of the food price inflation that the US kind of seeing that coming down the track and thinking we just need to pack it in. I >> I think it's secondary to energy prices because they're more they're immediate.

[00:06:12]But yes, it's it's a serious factor and it has been underplayed. I mean, forgive me, I've said some of the stats already, but like I said, 30%. It's either ammonia or ura or just helium or all the byproducts that you because you need oil and gas often to make fertilizers, artificial nitrogen-based fertilizers.

[00:06:34]Now, the northern hemisphere where we are, our planting season has finished and we got them in, but the fertilizer prices for the farmers right across Europe are going up significantly and they're going to have to start buying for in the summer for the autumn.

[00:06:48]Meanwhile, you got countries like India, well, all countries all over the world, but notably in Africa where fertilizers are subsidized by governments. I'm not sure some of those governments can afford it. Now, America is slightly isolated from from these these food shocks, but it will have an effect there as well. And so, it is another reason to get this situation sorted out and get these uh ships going because I I'm pretty confident we will be seeing food prices going up in the supermarkets in the autumn.

[00:07:24]Are you surprised if we go back kind of towards the start of the war and the US's war aims, are you surprised that so far in the discussions of the last 24 hours, we've not really heard much or anything at all about Iran's um long-range ballistic missiles and proxies.

[00:07:42]>> Yeah. You see that that that's going to be one of the sticking points. I mean, you know, you've got these there's apparently one sheet of paper, but let's face it, there's two. There's a list of what I Iran wants and there's a list of what the Americans want and then not written down anywhere is the list of things that they will compromise and the list of things that they will compromise on. So the United States cannot compromise on uh enrichment because that was Mr. Trump's stated aim of why they have gone to war.

[00:08:14]If you end up at the end of this that Iran still can uh have its nuclear industry and is still spinning its centrifuges and making enriched uranium to whatever level. Uh it's a clear victory for Iran. So that's one thing they can't give. There's other things I think the Americans can give. They used to say you must end all support for your militias around the the the Middle East, Hezbollah, Mammas, Houthis, etc. I think that's a sort of thing they can sort of park. They used to say, "We're not giving you any money. I think sanctions could be uh one of the compromises." But a much bigger one is the ballistic missiles. Now, the Iranians used to say, "We will it is a sovereign issue. We we must have the right to enrich uranium."

[00:09:03]They're in such a world of pain now economically that it threatens the regime. That appears to be something that they could compromise on. All right. you know, we'll have an X-year moratorum.

[00:09:14]But longrange ballistic missiles, that's that's actually a tougher one for them.

[00:09:19]And that's because part of their power base, what how they've been able to project power right across the Middle East all the way across to the Mediterranean was a by using their proxy forces and the missiles that they give their proxy forces. And they very successfully created a corridor that linked from Tehran, Iran, a majority Shia country, into Iraq, which now is mostly dominated by Shia militant parties, into Syria, which under Assad was pro- Iranian because he was from a sect which is a distant offshoot of Shia, and then into Lebanon because of Hezbollah, a Shia. So you have this corridor which was subsequently broken when Syrian president fell.

[00:10:06]If they cannot have their longrange missiles um then their their ability to rebuild that power structure which is exactly what they will try and do. It took them 15 years to build it then they are severely weakened. So that that's going to be another one of the sticking points. I mean other things that they they they can give some things they could even open the straight relatively quickly once negotiations start but long range missiles that's going to be a tough one >> I guess with the longrange missiles is it too sort of callous to say that that for the US probably is not a priority in the way that it might be for Israel and the Gulf states >> well it would be a priority if they thought they could reach the United States but they they can't and if they can't enrich uranium and build a nuclear bomb then a they haven't got a bomb and even if they did they can't reach America. So yes, but we do know of course who this is a priority for and that's the country that Iran Iran's missiles were hitting last year which is well and again this year Israel for them it's I wouldn't say it's an existential matter but you know it is a massive massive security threat for them that Iran can reach them and so also given that the taboo has been broken it was broken last year and then again this year because the Iranians and the Israelis have been having a shadow shadow war and a proxy war for decades, but then last year the the line was broken when they actually directly fired on each other. And given that it's been broken, that now can may happen over and over again. So yeah, but you know, this this nonsense that it's Israel that controls America, it's just lazy thinking. uh you know, it doesn't matter how much Israel shrieks into into Trump's ear. I if if that's part of the deal, then uh he will force them to sign up for it. I mean, yeah, Israel is powerful. Israel has influence. Israel is its own actor, but the idea that it controls American foreign policy is just uh odd.

[00:12:25]Well, that's obviously the Israel are kind of the elephant in the room over the last couple of days. If you believe if you believe the reports, they've kind of been absent so far from those talks and obviously yesterday they struck Beirut for the first time since >> Again, no coincidence, I'd say. Fergus um now, yeah, we we don't know if they've killed the Radwan commander.

[00:12:44]Radwan is there. the Hezbollah special forces or elite units operated a lot in uh in Lebanon uh to try and keep Assad in power and then had to go home in a hurry. Uh when Hezbollah came under after this is all always worth rewinding after Hezbollah attacked Israel and pushed it to a certain level and the Israeli this was October 8th after the October 7th attacks they started firing rockets the next day. Eventually, Israel really responded with force and then came then the Grim Beeper attack um the the Beeper and Pager attack which had such a devastating effect that the Radwan force had to leave Syria to go and shore up uh the home front at which point suddenly Assad's looking a bit naked and then the Russians were going home as well because of Ukraine and the only people left to protect him with the revolutionary guard and when the rebels advanced they went home as well and he fell. Point being that the Israelis are nervous about the Radwan force and so if they see that there is this potential now for a deal which and they know they would be forced uh to stop for however long a period >> and they and they'd be forced by by the US >> the Americans. Yeah. So why not take this opportunity before it happens to if they or here's a target we know where he is. target of opportunity and it looks like they probably got this commander.

[00:14:13]They weren't going to miss that that chance because, you know, it's possible in a few days time they won't be allowed to have that chance.

[00:14:21]>> The US um has put this kind of movement down to what Trump called himself as the highly effective blockade. Of course, of course Trump is going to say that. I mean genuinely genuinely your your view has the blockade moved the dial at all?

[00:14:38]>> Yes. Um it it's taken a while. Um I mean China for China's really again it goes back to where we opened the discussion.

[00:14:50]90% of Iranian oil went to China and it a large percentage of that still managed to get through in the first few weeks. By the way, it's only 10% of Iran's oil, excuse me, of China's needs.

[00:15:04]You know, it's 90% of of Iran's exports, but it's only 10% of China's imports.

[00:15:10]So, they can find other ways around it.

[00:15:12]But they are still really hurting and their economy is not in good shape to be able to, you know, absorb this uh energy prices. But then came the blockade and at that point it started to get really serious for the Iranians because very little has been getting out and so they're not getting the income and as we said before their reservoirs are filling up just about full and so their minds are being concentrated as well because if they don't get all that revenue how are they going to pay the forces of repression you know the people that slaughtered what 30,000 civilians earlier this year uh in the in the Iranian in cities, they need paying, especially if they're going to do it again, which you can't rule out. And if you don't get paid, you don't do that sort of work. So, um, they desperately need money for, well, for all sorts of things, including reconstruction because so much of their industry has been smashed, but they also need it to pay the people with the guns.

[00:16:11]>> You spoke about the regime there. you um near towards the start of the conflict, I think it was the 7th of March, you penned a piece uh in the Times kind of an explainer on Iran and in the first line of the piece reads, "The regime in Tyran doesn't need to win this war, it just needs to survive." Um I mean, in all this talk of deal making, the regime has survived in one way or another. What does the future then look like for Iran emerging from this?

[00:16:38]>> It does depend on of course what happens over the next few few weeks. um you know because if if if it goes back to full scale missile and air air strikes you know I don't none of us really know well none of us know the future but let's say they come out of this and still have survived um if there's a deal then part of the deal probably is that about 100 billion dollars in Iranian assets that the Americans hold may be unlocked and that's you know it's quite a lot of money, 100 billion.

[00:17:13]>> Some of the sanctions on the banking industry, airlines industry, shipping, you name it. Some of those sanctions could also be lifted. Uh, and of course, they can start selling their oil again, and they have a lot of it. So, at that point, they could um start to try and get themselves back together. So, in that scenario, they carry on. They carry on for a year, two years, for some time.

[00:17:36]But I I've always argued I've argued it in in a couple of the books I've written as well that um well it's pretty obvious the regime will end because all regimes end at some point. You know whether it's 40 years from now or next week. But that said I'm not sure they could even get through the next five years. And that's because of the demographics. you know, the the the it looks like the overwhelming majority of Iranians have just just had enough because the the Islamic revolution has not fundamentally improved their lives. And you can blame sanctions if you want, but it's also a gross mismanagement by the the Islamic regime, including allowing, for example, the revolutionary guard are also big businessmen. You know, they own construction companies. They built the Terran Metro. It's a bit like the the the US Marine Corps uh building a highway between Washington and Philadelphia or something, you know, and making profits out of it. So, people have just just had enough. But when you've got when you're willing to go that far, willing to kill that many people, it's going to be a while again before people actually rise up. There's other factors. The the ongoing drought is a serious issue for for Iranians. the low-level insurgencies there are against the regime, the Balukis in the Balukistan province, uh, are unhappy.

[00:19:05]The Iranian Arabs, which is where the oil is, uh, most of it, and they've always been quite bitter, that their region is where all the oil is, that makes Iran powerful, but it's also one of the poorest regions. So there's, you know, there's a whole bunch of factors that I just don't see how they can survive um far into the next decade at the most.

[00:19:28]>> But that would be the way the only way you think the regime would fall through people power and rising up.

[00:19:35]>> The revolutioners will not give up their revolution. I mean tell me tell me who has um and there was a saying I remember when I when I used to go to tean that they had a saying which in private um that they'd swapped the crown for the turban meaning they'd got rid of the sha and they'd got a turban instead the religious but what they feared was that they would exchange the turban for the boots meaning the army boots and that is what has happened you know the IRGC is clearly running the show Now, the Ayatollah uh is a useful figure head, and it's useful to have a nexus with him and the clerics, but it's the IRGC that's running the show. So, how do you how do you get rid of them? Some of them are genuine revolutionaries and believe in in, you know, God's plan is for the Shia version of Islam, which they then represent, you know, so God wants them to do this. The other ones know that their bank managers want them to do this because they're all very very rich and if they're they're removed they go. And there's another thing as well and this is what I've seen in many revolutions and many dictatorships.

[00:20:47]The highest echelons know once you've killed so many people you can't really leave with a peaceful transition of power. There are exceptions. You could argue that the South African story of Mandela's wisdom uh in not really going after everybody after apartheid was one of the reasons it partially works. But normally if you've killed tens and tens of thousands of people, possibly hundreds of thousands over the last 40 years, the rate of torture, all the rest of it, the population are not just going to say, "Well, oh, never mind. Um off you go and enjoy your retirement." they're going to go after them and try and kill them. And so it genuinely is a matter of life and death when you lead a regime like that. You know, ask a daffy and ask Saddam. You can't because they both got killed.

[00:21:41]>> You've been very generous with the time.

[00:21:42]So um >> that's because I speak in very long sentences. You must forgive me for it.

[00:21:47]>> Absolutely. Absolutely not. Um on YouTube on YouTube, as we always say, longer longer is better. We are we we absolutely love having these in-depth chats. Um, I was just going to ask that obviously Trump as he does has sort of said since you know if you don't agree to a deal we'll restart our air campaign. It's something we've heard kind of again and again and again. To me at least it it feels a little bit at this point like a slightly empty threat.

[00:22:12]I wanted to ask going forward after what we've seen with the closure of the straight of Hormuz being so powerful as a tool uh both against the US and the kind of global energy supply do you think we'll will we ever see anyone try and attack Iran again?

[00:22:29]>> Yes.

[00:22:31]Um possibly the Israelis, possibly the Gulf States, but it's pretty unlikely, especially the latter.

[00:22:40]I agree with you that it seems unlikely that the three aircraft carrier strike groups that are there in the theater at the moment can stay there forever and restart.

[00:22:51]And they don't and and the administration doesn't want to restart.

[00:22:54]I mean, they've already burnt through so many high-tech missiles which need replenishing, you know, because who knows what's around the corner.

[00:23:03]So, there's that. But the fly in the ointment is personality. You know, as you know, I I tend to look at geopolitics through the through the lens of geography. I'm not a determinist.

[00:23:14]There's many, many factors, but it's geography. And I think straight to foremost proves the point. You know, 20 mile gap pretty much brings to a standstill the world's greatest military machine that's ever been built, the US military. You know, they can't deal with that gap at the moment. But >> I imagine a vast majority of people watching this and listening probably never thought or even knew about the straight of horses until uh eight eight nine weeks ago.

[00:23:42]>> Straight of malaca is another one actually. Very interesting. I mean slightly off topic but on topic but if you look at the the deal that's recently been done between the Indonesians and the Americans um which is related to the straight because the straight of Malaka is a similar thing. um oil into China flows through it from that direction and all half of Chinese goods flow the other way out back out to the world. You know, close that they are in a world of pain.

[00:24:11]Um sorry, let me go back to the US military and restarting the the flying the ointment is personality and ego and something bigger as well. But on the personality and ego, if it's blindingly obvious that Trump has got this, this is I'm not saying this is what case is now.

[00:24:30]But if the Iranians clearly have got the better of him, I mean, you look at the Trump's reaction to Chancellor Mertz of Germany who criticized uh the Americans over this and two days later he announced 5,000 American troops are leaving Germany.

[00:24:47]So he's prickly. And if he's so prickly that the whole world is saying you've lost um will his personality and his ego allow him to essentially slink home this tail between his legs but even bigger than that and this is not ego and personality this is grand strategy in the event that Iran is clearly seen to have won this and then the whole world knows who controls the straight of moves not the Americans it's not the self states it's not shared it's Iran and who supports Iran the Chinese are up to a point the Russians up to a point so if you do go away with Iran clearly having uh lofted them out and triumphed and everybody knows now and they they are going to try if they got away with it they will continue to try to charge everybody for coming in and out as a revenue stream and that they they say who can and who cannot and they can then use that power to pressure countries to say you're not sending that tanker through because that tanker is related to Israel or whichever other country they're against. That is a serious seismic global strategic defeat for the United States. And then the whole world realizes that their friend China uh has come out better on this. And at that point, all the Gulf States start to well, they already lean one way or another, but they mostly lean towards the Americans.

[00:26:23]people would start to consider do we do we need to lean the other way.

[00:26:27]>> Am I right? You've written they kind of rely on the Americans on the security side in China economically. I mean that that's one thing that argues against what I just said in that it's clear the only people that could protect them the Gulf States in the past few couple of months has been the Americans and to a less extent the Israelis you know and their umbrella which really has done a fantastic job in stopping could have been so much worse the Iranian damage to the Gulf states and the Chinese simply do not have the facilities in place uh to protect them but if you're talking about are long-term strategies and that the Americans have been the Iranians have seen to won this this this this terrible situation, then you have to start thinking which way do I lean and um it's not in America's long-term geopolitical strategic interests for people to start leaning away from them.

[00:27:25]I know we're weaning ourselves off oil and gas. It's going to take decades and for decades the straight off Hormuz and the Persian Gulf is going to be important.

[00:27:37]>> What a thought to end on and perhaps one to uh pick apart on another day.

[00:27:40]>> I am still hopeful though.

[00:27:44]>> Thank you. Now that is a thought to end on. Tim Marshall, thank you so much for joining us on the Trump Report.

[00:27:48]>> Thank you very much.