Prof John Mearsheimer: IRAN CEASEFIRE HANGS by a THREAD

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]According to Axios and a number of other sources, apparently a deal is at hand in the Persian Gulf. Again, may have a 60-day ceasefire period during which time everything's going to get negotiated and allegedly according to the terms, and we'll get to that in a second. All the gates are opened up. All the two dueling blockades are open. Uh Persian Gulf oil can start getting out again. Uh and I don't know, peace in our time is going to break out. Or at least that's what a lot of people are saying. We'll we'll see how much truth there actually is to that and what are some of the implications if it doesn't quite work out this way. And we're also going to take a look at how close are we to potential war in Russia and Europe. Uh that is more of a that's a bigger concern even than what's happening in the Persian Gulf. But we're going to cover all that today. And there's literally nobody better to talk about all this than John Mirshimer, international relations theorist and expert, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and big friend of our show. John, welcome back.

[00:00:58]as always.

[00:00:59]>> Thank you, Danny. Thank you for your kind words.

[00:01:01]>> Well, look, let's uh let's let's stop start in the first issue there because for I don't even know what the number this is, the fifth or sixth time Trump has said, you know, a deal is at hand.

[00:01:12]It's been largely worked out and then it never worked out in that case. And then now here this morning, uh again, it said when I was on my previous show, again, an announcement comes out from Axios and what a shock there, right? the S&P 500 surgence to its highest level on record uh on reports that the US and Iran have reached a deal uh pending President Trump's approval. Apparently, he's the guy that gets to make all these calls.

[00:01:35]What do you make about this one? Do you think this one is going to hold when the other ones didn't?

[00:01:41]>> Who knows for sure, Danny? It's almost impossible to predict with President Trump. Uh but I'd make a couple points.

[00:01:49]One is that the deal will only come at the end of the second stage. And what we're talking about here is the first stage, which is apparently a 60-day stage. And in this opening stage, a number of things happen. Number one is that you have a ceasefire.

[00:02:11]Uh no more shooting and that includes in Lebanon as well. So it's very important to understand and this is a point that the Iranians insist on that the ceasefire has to include Lebanon. So number one is we get a ceasefire. Number two is that we open the straits and that means that both blockades the Iranian blockade of the straight and the US block of the straight come to an end.

[00:02:42]Then I think there are two other dimensions as best I can tell.

[00:02:47]One is that uh the sanctions on the selling of Iranian oil have to be taken off so that Iran can take advantage of the open straight to sell its oil on the world market. So there'll be a limited lifting of the sanctions on Iran. And then the fourth element is the Iranians insist that they get it appears to be $24 billion worth of the frozen assets that the West holds. Those are frozen Iranian assets and they want $24 billion worth of those assets now in the first phase. So if you get a ceasefire, you open the straight, you have limited sanctions relief, especially as it applies to oil and gas coming through the straight from Iran, and you get this $24 billion in frozen assets released.

[00:03:46]If that all happens, then you move into the second phase. And the second phase is where you deal with the nuclear issue. You deal with the question of who controls the strait moving forward. I assume you also deal with issues like reparations, Iranian missiles, and more extensive sanctions relief. But all that comes in the second phase. So the $64,000 question now is whether we can reach an agreement on the first phase.

[00:04:22]and Axios reports that we're close to doing that, but as you pointed out, we've heard this story before and we never did even get to the first phase.

[00:04:38]>> Got to bring yourself in, Dan.

[00:04:42]>> I hate missing that button. Uh you talked about something uh just a second ago I think is important even to get right off the bat here and that is uh that the Iranians have been adamant that when they talk about a ceasefire they don't just mean in the Persian Gulf they mean across the board which means Lebanon and Hezbollah. Uh and and here's here is the current this is an active look at the headlines. You see 41 seconds ago uh this is in the uh the times of Israel and they say diplomat downplays report claiming Iran US have reached anou and then the headline right underneath it you see the IDF strikes Beirut for the first time in three weeks as offensive in Lebanon intensifies. So that doesn't exactly sound like that we're on track to get things done. In fact, one may ask and uh I'll just go ahead and ask you this. uh to what extent do you think that it's possible that uh that Israel is trying to sabotage this to make sure that there's not an agreement knowing how important that is to Iran.

[00:05:43]>> Well, there's no question that Israel is interested in sabotaging the deal. Uh the Israelis are beside themselves uh at the thought that Trump is going to cut a deal with the Iranians which is going to reflect the fact that the Iranians have won the war. We could talk more about this later, but uh the fact is that this deal is very favorable uh to the Iranians uh certainly when you take into account the second phase. U now what is h what is happening here uh is that the uh uh the Israelis are trying to uh sabotage the deal by preventing a ceasefire in Lebanon. You want to remember that on May 15th, May 15th was 13 days ago, uh, the US announced that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to a 45day extension of the ceasefire.

[00:06:45]That means what's going on in Lebanon today with the Israelis relentlessly attacking Lebanon is a violation of the ceasefire. Very clear. Uh, and furthermore, if you look at what's happened in Gaza, we were supposed to have a ceasefire there. By my account, the Israelis have killed about 900 Palestinians since the Gaza ceasefire was announced.

[00:07:13]This is a way of saying there was no ceasefire in Gaza. And of course, given what's going on in Lebanon today, there's no ceasefire in Lebanon as well.

[00:07:23]So the question you have to ask yourself is once the United States and the Iranians agree to the first phase of this negotiation process, uh do you think that the Israelis will be able to keep from attacking Lebanon?

[00:07:43]Do you think they'll agree to a permanent ceasefire, which is what the Iranians uh insist on? And the answer is almost certainly no. They may agree initially we may enter into the first phase of the negotiations uh and then the Israelis will start bombing Lebanon again. And the question is what happens then? And this is why the Iranians are actually paying a lot of attention to the question of how they're going to respond when Israel, as almost everybody recognizes, violates the ceasefire.

[00:08:19]>> And let's take a look at some of these points here. um because this is what Axios is reporting of these 60 uh these these points. Uh the ceasefire will be extended v via a memorandum of understanding. So there's we keep calling it a deal but it's just anou.

[00:08:33]This established a 60-day window to launch negotiations on Iran's nuclear program. As you say that's part basically phase two. During the 60-day shipping and the straight of Hormuz will be unrestricted that we'll get to that in a point in a minute because that's really important. Now this is from Axios. This is from the US side. US Navy will lift its blockade in proportion to the uh restoration of commercial shipping. Iran will commit not to pursue nuclear weapons. No new there. They've always said that. They continue to say it. The memorandum of understanding will also state that the nuclear issue will be discussed first during the 60-day window, which really doesn't mean anything either. The US will commit to discussing sanction discussing sanction.

[00:09:12]Now, this is where we're going to start to get into some problems on the Iranian side. They'll commit to discussing sanctions relief and the release of Iranian frozen funds. Uh theou will also include a mechanism to help Iran begin receiving goods and humanitarian aid and us well you see saw that there. But that that's a big issue there because this says that the US will commit to discussing sanction relief and the relief of Iranian funds. But the Iranian side has said and I uh was communicating back and forth with professor Morandi who's uh very closely associated with the Iranian government and their negotiating team said that's not our understanding. Our understanding is that the money will be released first because we don't trust anything that the US says. So we need some confidence building measures and that means cash gets released first and our energy system sanctions will have to be released upfront. And he said if they don't get those two things then there's no there's no basis to even talk about the rest of them. What do you make of that?

[00:10:09]>> Well, that was my understanding of the deal over the past week or so. When you read treats and other people who were describing the deal based on conversations with people inside the US and inside Iran, uh that was the understanding that there would be some substantial chunk of those frozen Iranian assets released uh right now.

[00:10:33]and furthermore that the sanctions on Iranian oil and gas would be lifted. By the way, uh that was the case uh when we were bombing uh Iran. You want to remember that until we closed the straight, Iranian oil and gas was coming out of the straight and into world oil markets. We wanted that oil and gas from Iran into oil and gas markets. So we had lifted the sanctions on Iran, those particular sanctions at the start of this war. So this would be nothing new.

[00:11:09]Uh but I would imagine that the Iranians are going to insist on this. I find it hard to believe that they would not uh that they would allow the United States not to lift those sanctions and agree uh to enter this uh ceasefire. Now, there's one other thing that Professor Morandi talked to me about uh and told me what his what the Iranian view was on control of the strait. But before I tell you what he said, let me show you what President Trump said yesterday on the same topic.

[00:11:40]>> Would you accept a short-term deal that allows Iran and Oman to control the strait? And would they have to open it immediately, or would you be open to that happening over a period of time?

[00:11:49]>> No. The strait's going to be open to everybody. It's uh >> And who would control it?

[00:11:52]>> It's international waters. Nobody's going to control it. We're going to watch over it. We'll watch over it, but nobody's going to control it. That's part of the negotiation that we have.

[00:12:01]They would like to control it. Nobody's going to control it. It's international waters and Oman will behave just like everybody else. So, we'll have to blow them up. They understand that. They'll be fine.

[00:12:12]>> They'll be fine. I mean, we'll just blow them. If it's not, so it's no big deal.

[00:12:16]But but listen, I Professor Morandi has been categorical on this show and so has other Iranian officials publicly. They say they will never never give up control of the straight of Hormuz. They say they'll allow traffic to go through unimpeded as long as fees are paid, etc. But they say they are going to remain control. But you see, President Trump is setting up something that would seem to potentially sabotage this in the cradle of saying nobody can control it. What do you make of those two things?

[00:12:43]Well, first of all, this is going to be settled uh in a second phase along with the nuclear issue and as I said before, a handful of other issues as well. And it's going to be part of the negotiating process. And the truth is, you're not going to get any concessions uh from the Iranians uh that they're willing to sign off on regarding the nuclear issue unless you get agreement on the strait. And uh so this will be settled later. And the end result is that Iran will end up controlling the strait. This leads to my second point.

[00:13:22]What is President Trump gonna do to prevent Iran from controlling the strait? Uh, this war has been going on since February 28th. And as you and I both know, Danny, if we had the capability to take back control of the straight or take control of the strait is more accurate, we would have done it by now. We can't do it. We don't not do not have the military wherewithal and the last thing we want to do is continue the war. uh against Iran, it would be catastrophic from our point of view. So, we're not going to launch a military operation to take back the strait. All that tells you they're going to end up controlling the straight as Professor Mandi makes clear.

[00:14:07]Now, let me ask you something on that because that that's one thing that kind of puzzles me. I mean just just looking at this even at a surface level with no military experience with no foreign policy experience if you can see we tried for about 40 days to defeat Iran militarily to we tried to assassinate their leaders to decapitate them all that kind of stuff and nothing we did was able to rest control of the straight from them for all these different reasons because there's so many different ways that they could control civilian traffic coming out of the straight then why do we have people like John Bolton like um um Pompeo, who you just uh debated here recently, so maybe you can give us some better uh even closer information here. Why do they still keep saying no, let's go back and quote, "Finish the job. Let's solve this militarily."

[00:14:54]How can they make that argument when we've already tried and failed?

[00:14:58]>> Well, you can make any argument you want in the United States of America today and get away with it. uh uh especially inside the mainstream media, especially uh you know on platforms like Fox. So you have all of these warhawks who make these statements uh that make no sense when you look carefully at what our capabilities are. Uh the idea that we have to go in and finish the job, that sounds good. You know, rah rah America, let's go in there. Let's finish the job.

[00:15:33]We're the most powerful state in the world. Don't tell us we can't have our way. We're going just need the willpower. That's what's lacking here.

[00:15:40]President Trump is getting weak. We got to stiffen his backbone and then send the American military in there and they'll do the job. You know, this sounds good to a lot of people. You know, sounds like a a prescription for success. But if you look carefully at what we can actually do uh and what we tried to do and didn't do in the first 40 days of the conflict, it becomes manifestly apparent that these people are speaking nonsense. We have no military option here. We couldn't get control of the straight. We couldn't bring Iran to their knees, the Iranians to their knees in the first 40 days of the war uh with massive air power. what makes them think we can do it now and oh by the way when we stopped bombing um in midappril we then went to the blockade and everybody was saying the blockade would work well the blockade hasn't worked uh and nobody really believes on the inside or anybody who has an analytical mind uh that you can use the blockade plus a renewed bombing campaign to bring the Iranians to surrender. It just can't be done. Uh and if it can be done, it would be nice if those people could tell us what the causal story is.

[00:17:00]In other words, what targets do we hit?

[00:17:02]What effects do those >> uh those attacks have on the Iranian leadership? Uh you know, h how do we cause them to surrender? Uh and and and what about the historical record when we look at past cases where you know, you bombed a country like Iran? uh after uh one big campaign, you launched the second campaign. What's what's the historical record say about why we should be confident it will work this time when it didn't work the first time?

[00:17:34]And of course, they have no such stories. They just make these empty statements that we have to go finish the job. Uh which >> well if I could ask you to summarize you you were in a debate recently that included Mike Pompeo uh which we've highlighted here a few times but what what is if you can summarize what is their argument that why we should do it you know to try this this compulsion situation. Well, the thing is that Mike Pompeo said remarkably little about what we should do to win the war because Mike Pompeo is smart enough to know that there is no magic formula and the last thing that he wants to do is get into a debate with me and Steve Hall what we should do to win the war.

[00:18:20]>> He concentrates on making the argument that the Iranians are basically the second coming of the Third Reich. uh they're the most evil regime.

[00:18:30]>> Amazing. Iranian regime is the most evil regime on the planet and we have to finish it off and therefore it was good that President Trump went to war against Iran and he's fully aware that it's a tough fight but it's a fight worth uh waging but he has no solution as to how we can win this war and he doesn't go to that issue because he fully understands that there is no magic formula there.

[00:19:00]Well, then let me ask because I I mean he's he's not an island unto himself. He certainly has a lot of supporters and backings. He's another is is can can we draw from that that there are those who just say I I know we can't I'm not stupid. I I know the military balance and all the causal issues you just mentioned, but that they're okay with just perpetual conflict and they're like as long as we're just fighting that in itself is a success. Is that a fair statement? Well, I don't know if that's Mike Pompeo's view, but uh I think there are a lot of people who believe that if we keep throwing mud at the wall, at some point it will stick. Uh it's not sticking now, but we just have to hang in there. Uh we're incredibly powerful and we can do this for a long time. And sooner or later, uh the mud's going to stick and we're going to have an effective outcome. uh the Iranians are going to throw up their hands. Uh and you want to remember this is I think their worldview that we live in an uncertain world. You can never be perfectly sure what's going to happen uh when you employ military force against an adversary. And they believe there's a good chance uh that this will work out.

[00:20:12]And you want to remember that if this doesn't work out, if we don't go back to fighting uh the war, uh we don't renew the air campaign and we effectively surrender to Iran, which is what we're going to end up doing. Iran is going to clearly win this war. These people are going to have egg on their face. It's going to be a huge embarrassment for them for the rest of their life. They're going to have to explain uh how they thought we could win this war and therefore acted as cheerleaders getting us into the war uh and therefore they have a vested interest in trying to continue to war uh in hope that they'll gain resurrection.

[00:20:58]>> Yeah. You know, it's it's interesting.

[00:20:59]Uh I'm going to show you here three of the biggest cheerleaders that have been going throughout this whole thing here and where they are right now. We're going to start with Jack Keane here.

[00:21:08]Now, he has been adamant from before the war started, especially back in the January time frame. He was he was saying no negotiations. Do not have a deal with these people because it would empower them and whatever. If they stay in power, it's a bad thing. After we got into this ceasefire, he again repeated that. Well, yesterday on Fox News, he had a little bit of an odd twist, I think. And I don't know if he's opening up because you're going to see in the second half of this soundbite here, he seems to go back to the original part, but now it sounds like he's saying, "Well, maybe there can be a deal.

[00:21:42]There's an opportunity for maybe we can get where we need to be and we don't have to go back to military operations and we can avoid the horror that we're going to inflict and also the potential risks to casualties, our own people."

[00:21:54]Yeah, he wants the nuclear deal as he has laid it out. No reason to go into the details here. He wants the ballistic missile program completely restricted.

[00:22:03]He wants no support to the proxies and obviously job one, open up the straits of the moon with no restrictions, no implication that somehow someway Iran has some control over what is now legally recognized as international waterway and freedom of navigation has preceded. and he's insisting on getting them there and he's giving fair warning to the Iranians. If we're not going to get there, then it's likely we're going to return to military operations.

[00:22:34]>> So, he still wants to land back, but we still should go back to operations. But what do you make of the first part to where as far as I can see, that's the first time he's ever said, "Well, maybe we can have a negotiated settlement."

[00:22:44]>> I agree with you. It sounds like he's woken up and smelled the coffee. It really does. I mean, uh, he he was not talking about going back and bombing Iran again. Uh, he, of course, at the end said that's a possibility. But, uh, he was, I think, extolling the virtues in, uh, his own way of the deal that Trump is trying to work out.

[00:23:11]I find it hard to believe that a former fourstar general hasn't figured out by now that we don't have a military option.

[00:23:22]I mean, it's so obvious. All you have to do is look at what we've done to the inventories. We've used about a third of our Tomahawk missiles. We've just told the Japanese that these 400 Tomahawk missiles that they bought from us, uh, we can't deliver them for maybe three more years. Can you believe that? We've taken THAADS, we've taken Patriots, we've taken a marine unit out of East Asia and moved them to the Middle East.

[00:23:50]And despite all of this, we've not won in any meaningful military way. Uh and surely General Keane understands that if we go back uh to lambbasting Iran with air power, they have a second strike capability and they can do enormous damage uh in the Gulf region to include shutting down the Red Sea, tearing up cables underneath the straight of Hormuz uh uh turning uh or sending the UAE back to the stone age. I mean, we just have no military option here.

[00:24:28]You just have to face up to that. And I think that that's what he's done. I mean, he did not say anything there that I found uh to be foolish.

[00:24:38]You know, Jack Keane, uh, General Kellogg, who's who's going to be coming up next year, and then Lindsey Graham.

[00:24:45]All three of these guys have telephone uh rights to President Trump and he has by Trump's own accounting he listens to these guys a lot. So you talked about maybe Jack Keane's woken up and smelled the coffee. Uh General Kellogg is still apparently asleep.

[00:25:05]>> He's dealing with a theocratic leadership. There's really four people he's dealing with. You look at Kmani who is basically the supreme leader but we haven't seen him because he was injured on an air strike. But you also have Arachi who's their foreign minister. He wrote the book on negotiations. You you look at Fahiti who's their revolutionary guards and he's a theocratic nut. And then you've got the probably the only guy that's reasonable is Peskian who's the president but he's got no control over they're actually following their game plan pretty well. They the Iranians and what they call mosaic. And what they did is they decentralized all of the revolutionary guards through each ones of in command of their own areas. That's the reason you're seeing them do dumb things like sending boats out into the Gulf. I don't think control at the senior level at all. I think the president's in their head. They're on a losing side right now. And I'm one of those who keeps pushing for the only way you can get it is is changing for a theocratic leadership. There are people out there who can do that. You know, when you look at Raja Palavi, who's the son of the former Sha. So, they're losing and we should still go back to regime change, which is what he said he uh continues to advocate for. Um, what do you make of that?

[00:26:16]>> Well, you and I listened to him on Ukraine and a lot of what he said made no sense on Ukraine. Uh, and President Trump would have been a lot better off if he was truly interested in settling the Ukraine war uh if he had kept uh General Kellogg far away. but instead he listened to General Kellogg and we are where we are under >> great point >> Ukraine and you have basically the same uh phenomenon at play here. Uh I mean the fact is that Iran is winning the war. Iran is going to win the war. We have achieved none of our objectives.

[00:26:58]Furthermore, you Ukraine Iran now controls the Strait of Hormuz, which it didn't control on February 27th.

[00:27:07]Furthermore, there's all sorts of evidence that once a deal is worked out, uh, Iran is going to get a huge amount of economic relief compared to where it was at.

[00:27:18]>> So, Iran's going to come out of this a winner. uh you know, they're going to have to make some concessions on the nuclear program, but they weren't interested in acquiring a nuclear weapon anyway. Uh so I think >> on the 26th of February, the day before you're talking about there, they had actually put all that on the table and said, "We'll we'll negotiate all this stuff away uh to one degree or another."

[00:27:41]So that's not anything that they haven't already put there. So they literally lose nothing even on that point.

[00:27:46]>> Yeah. So so so they're the winners in this war. Uh, and it's not to say they haven't suffered as a result of the war.

[00:27:54]They're the winners. And Kellogg refuses to admit that. And he still is under the illusion that we can use the hammer to bring them to their knees, to get them to surrender. And as I said before, uh, and as you know better than I do, there's just no military strategy that's available to us, to the United States or to the United States and Israel, uh, to rescue the situation. Uh, if there was, we would have tried it already. Uh, we tried bombing for 40 days, it didn't work. Then we went to the blockade. It hasn't worked. Uh, and what are you going to do next? And the answer is you're going to try and negotiate your way out of this. Uh, and what you're going to have to do is you're going to have to sound like General Keane. To go back to General Keane, what he was trying to do was put lipstick on a pig, right? He was trying to make it uh clear that we have to cut a deal, but President Trump will ultimately get the best deal possible and we'll come out smelling like a rose. That kind of argument. Uh, and President Trump's going to have to make that case at some point. His biggest problem there will be convincing the Israelis who fully understand that from their point of view what's happened here is catastrophic.

[00:29:11]>> And if if General Kellogg didn't wake up and smell the coffee, uh Lindsey Graham doesn't even want lipstick on this pig.

[00:29:23]Obama and Biden screwed Iran up and Donald Trump is fixing it. Obama gave Iran tens of billions of dollars and they took the money and they started building nuclear uh uranium with it, you know, weapons grade material. Biden reversed all of Trump's policies when he took over and Donald Trump stopped Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. They're the weakest they've been since 1979.

[00:29:50]They're on the verge of a peace deal because they're weak. And what Donald Trump said, President Trump said about Saudi Arabia and Israel, if you get nothing out of this interview other than Trump endorsed me, if he can pull this off, if he can get Saudi Arabia, the center of Islam, for the entire world, to recognize the Jewish state, Israel, he will have ended the Arab-Israeli conflict that's been going on for thousands of years.

[00:30:18]>> So, there's so many things to unpack there. Uh but he keeps repeating a lot of the things that are just categorically untrue. Uh the getting out of the JCP away did not was not didn't have them on a path for a bomb. That's the one thing that kept him off the path that then Trump put them back on here and Biden didn't reverse everything. A lot of people thought he would get back into the JCPOA and he basically did nothing. So he didn't help out here. But that just love to dominate those states.

[00:30:46]He's like, "You know what? But we're going to get the Abraham Accords at Kasich, King of Saudi Arabia. He's going to join back in there and man is it going to be great." What do you say to that?

[00:30:58]>> I just want to reemphasize the point you made because it's so important and it illustrates the extent to which Lindsey Graham was talking nonsense. It was Donald Trump in 2018. And by the way, Mike Pompeo had just become Secretary of State at the time. Uh it was Pompeo and Trump who worked walked away from the JCPOA.

[00:31:24]Right? And that of course is what led uh uh Iran a year later to start enriching uranium eventually up to 60%.

[00:31:34]Uh, and as you pointed out, Danny, and we cannot emphasize this enough, Biden, although he didn't go back into the JCPOA, uh, basically followed the same path that Obama, not Obama, excuse me, Trump had pursued in his first term. Then we go to President Trump's second term, the one that we're now in. President Trump has participated in two wars against Iran. And in both of those cases, the Iranians were negotiating in good faith with the United States and Israel and the United States attacked Iran out of the blue. Uh so the idea that the Iranians are the ultimate bad guys and they're responsible for all of these troubles on the nuclear front and on other fronts as well is not a serious argument. Uh this is not to make the argument that the Iranians are saints, but if you look at who has really screwed up uh the nuclear situation with regard to Iran, it's the United States and it's mainly Donald Trump. It's not Joe Biden. Uh so these arguments that Lindsey Graham uh is making no sense at all. Now, with regard to the Abraham Accords, I don't know what in God's name President Trump is even raising this issue for at this point in time. The idea that Saudi Arabia or uh Qatar or Kuwait are going to enter into the Abraham Accords at this point in time is just unthinkable, especially given the genocide in Gaza. Uh you want to remember that the countries that did enter into the Abraham Accords and this includes countries like the United Arab Emirates did so I think in 2020 but it was well before the genocide. At this point in time given what the Israelis have done and continue to do to the Palestinians inside greater Israel there's no way these countries are going to enter into the Abraham Accords. And uh you just wonder what is President Trump thinking when he even brings this issue up. Uh so I I think there's no chance of that happening.

[00:33:59]Let's let's go back to something you mentioned there about Israel again because that's we've talked about how Iran has said uh we're going to maintain control of the straits. We're going to get some money up front and we're going to get sanctions relief o upfront on the energy or there's not going to be even a 60-day ceasefire. So, that's one thing.

[00:34:17]But then you you brought up Israel a couple of times. This is on Al Jazzer right now. Uh and they're saying, "Listen, Israel intensifies its attacks on southern Lebanon." So, they they they again are doing whatever they can uh to to just, you know, ruin this thing even more it seems like. So, the question is going to be, will President Trump, can President Trump reign in Israel, or is this even aside from the other stuff I just said, will this alone doom any kind of a deal?

[00:34:47]>> Well, I think this is just my guess. I think that he will be able to re Israel in for a few days so that we can enter that 60-day period. In other words, we can get the ceasefire.

[00:35:03]The question you have to ask yourself is will the Israelis uh stick to the ceasefire uh after uh it's agreed to? And I find it hard to imagine that they'll stick to the ceasefire. I think they'll do everything they can to undermine the ceasefire uh and make sure we don't get to phase two. uh and they will make the argument that what we should do uh is we should restart the bombing campaign. That's what they want to do. I mean the question people want to ask themselves, Danny, is uh if the Israelis are interested in uh undermining the ceasefire and never reaching a final agreement. Okay. But what do they propose as an alternative?

[00:35:51]And of course, what they propose as an alternative is that we go back to bombing Iran. They're in the Keith Kellogg Lindsey Graham School of International Politics. Uh and uh for those of us who are rational legal actors, we all know this is a non-starter. It just not going to work.

[00:36:13]Uh and uh so the Israelis can talk about doing that, but it's not a viable option. Uh so that raises the question, where are we? Uh because the Iranians are not going to be happy about Israel bombing Lebanon again and that will invariably happen and the Iranians will want to respond. And then the question is how do they respond? And when they respond, people in the United States will say the Iranians broke the ceasefire. They will not say Israel broke the ceasefire. They say we'll say Iran did. and then we'll run the danger of, you know, escalating uh by attacking uh Iran.

[00:36:56]>> You know, we had uh oil energy expert Art Burman on the show yesterday, who's a 50-year uh expert uh uh veteran in in the uh oil industry. And he said, "Listen, we're we're already in a situation right now to where once the a deal, let's say that magic happens in today, both sides of the the blockades are opened up." He said it it's going to be into next year before a lot of this stuff gets unwound and we're already going to have severe shortages uh in in gasoline, in diesel especially. And he talked about all the ramifications for that jet fuel uh etc. But that's not the only problem. It might not even be the biggest problem. If you pay more for gasoline or whatever, that's an annoyance. But there's a bigger issue here and that is uh in the food crisis.

[00:37:41]These this according to this uh this site here, three global crises are hitting American food supply. War has disrupted sulfur producers. China is hoarding exports. Farmers face the highest fertilizer cost in decades. Less fertilizer this spring equals lower yields this fall. Less food this winter.

[00:37:59]And that's if it gets over with pretty quick. Uh what do you make of the pressure that that could put on the administration, maybe even in Iran as well, but we're talking about the US right now to say, "Hey, look, you can play around with the markets and you can get the S&P 500 up to a great place and yay, that's good for you." Uh but look, we're going to have some food problems here that this stuff because people don't talk as much about the fertilizers, getting out the sulfur, the aluminum, all kinds of helium, other stuff that's necessary for economic production across the board. Surely the president is push informed by that kind of pressure.

[00:38:36]>> Oh, absolutely. By the way, just on the fertilizers, there was not sufficient fertilizer for the spring planting and that doesn't manifest itself in most places until the fall. So, the food crisis is going to get very, very bad by late in the year. Um, and there are other dimensions to this we could talk about that will make it even worse, but leave that aside. I believe, Danny, that there's enormous pressure on President Trump to shut this one down now for economic reasons. I believe that his principal adviserss all understand what you were just saying uh which is that even if we shut the war down tomorrow we open the straight uh we are going to face significant problems over the next year year and a half if not longer uh dealing with the uh fallout from this war. It's a it's a huge problem. And if you hypothesize a situation where we don't shut it down and the war goes into August, uh the consequences are far worse. Uh this one has to be shut down. President Trump, I believe, fully understands that and he wants to shut it down. But he faces a number of problems, Danny. First of all, he faces the Israel problem.

[00:40:01]Israel is a huge obstacle to settling this war. As we've talked about, they don't want a settlement. Furthermore, you have the lobby in this country, the Zionist or Israel lobby. Plus, you have all these war hawks like Lindsey Graham.

[00:40:17]Yeah. who have absolutely no interest uh in shutting this war down and have a lot of influence because the media gloms on to people like that and gives them lots of attention so lots of Americans hear what they're saying and that all puts pressure on Trump. He he has to take into account Lindsey Graham. Uh he has to take into account Miriam Adlesen and the lobby. uh he has to take into account Benjamin Netanyahu and on top of all that the fact is that he's one of the most incompetent dealmakers that the world has ever seen.

[00:40:56]>> Yeah.

[00:40:57]>> You know, he he prides himself as this great dealmaker. Are we serious here?

[00:41:04]We've watched him, you and I, deal with the Ukraine war. Talk about dealing with a important issue in a hamfisted way. I mean, his his behavior here has been terrible. And then, you know, when you look at the lieutenants that he turns to to help him negotiate these deals, uh, instead of dealing with real professionals and staffing the issue, he turns to people like Jared Kushner and Steve Whit. Uh, I mean, these are babes in the woods. These are not the kind of people that you want dealing with important issues. And then he goes out and he tells those two uh Kushner and Witoff that not only do they have to deal with Ukraine, they have to deal with Iran and they have to deal with the Palestinian issue as well. And they don't need any staff. So you have Trump and these kinds of advisors to deal with these really difficult issues. I mean, if they put you and me in charge, Danny, to deal with Ukraine or to deal with Palestine or to deal with Iran, we would be up to our eyeballs and alligators, and we'd have one heck of a difficult time trying to foster a deal just because these are such complicated issues. But instead of having two or three or four competent people on the job with a sophisticated staff dealing with these issues, we have Trump, Jared Kushner, and Steve Whitaff.

[00:42:34]>> So, you know, are we g and you know, then he makes these statements like he's going to blow Oman to smitherreens and you just sort of say to yourself, this is not the way to negotiate, right?

[00:42:47]the Omanis are our allies. They've been trying to help us to shut down the conflict in the Gulf. Uh why would you say things like that? Don't you want them uh to view us in a positive way?

[00:42:59]Don't you want to work with them? Uh but that's not President Trump's style. And my point is that President Trump's style is not what the doctor called for in this situation.

[00:43:09]>> And that I I didn't even see that headline. Gary just popped up right there that he seems to be adding to what Trump said yesterday. And yeah, boss, how about this? Let's throw some sanctions on them. Uh listen, in the amount of time we got left here, I want to shift to another subject which is maybe even more important to global security, not even just the energy stuff, but the global security in Western Europe and that is what's going on in Russia. Um so just in this is this is today's Russian news here in the last uh last number of hours here. First of all, uh Sergey Narushkin, who's the director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Services, uh said that according to him, there is the drums of war are now sounding especially loudly on the European continent and thus a collision with Russia is actively incited by Britain. We have um subsequent to that uh again today we have Alexander Pansky, I'm sorry, uh Ambassador Polansky who was on our show about a week or so ago saying some of these things. He has now escalated some of those and he's saying that the department ministry of defense of the Russian Federation published a list of European enterprises that are associated with the production of drones in Ukraine. After that, Polygons said that Russia has the right to consider such objects as legitimate military targets.

[00:44:23]And then uh foreign minister Sergey Lavrov added his name to the list and said uh according to him the west has actually declared an open war on Russia.

[00:44:33]This is on top of uh Caraganov who I think you and I have talked about before saying hey maybe we should use conventional strikes in Europe and if that doesn't work we can try nuclear been others there seems to be an increasing rhetoric uh and now then there's this warning that everybody all the diplomats foreigners need to get out of Kiev because they're going to bring some fire on top of that. What do you make of this situation?

[00:44:55]>> Well I think uh what's going on here has very little to do with the battlefield.

[00:45:00]Just important to emphasize that and uh what's going on here is that the Ukrainians with assistance from the west are increasing the number and the sophistication of attacks on the Russian homeland.

[00:45:18]And furthermore, you have all this warlike rhetoric in the west to go along with these western aided attacks on the Russian homeland. And the Russians have come to the conclusion uh that they have no sufficient deterrent against the west anymore or against Ukraine in terms of attacking the Russian homeland and that something has to be done to rectify this situation.

[00:45:52]uh they in another they in another words have to reestablish deterrence and the Russians basically have concluded that the only way that this can be done is to attack targets in Europe and in effect you're saying attacking targets in NATO member states uh it's the only way to send a clear message and reestablish deterrence And as Karaganov argues, and it's very important to emphasize that Karaganov's views are shared by many, including in the upper echelons of the Russian elite, you start with conventional weapons. And if that doesn't work, if attacking a European state with conventional weapons doesn't cause deterrence, doesn't cause the Europeans to back off and doesn't cause the Europeans to tell the Ukrainians to back off, then you use a limited number of nuclear weapons. And you do that not to win the war in any military sense, but you use that to send a powerful signal to the Europeans that you mean business, that you are so serious that you're willing to use nuclear weapons and throw all states out on the slippery slope to oblivion. And you're telling the West that the last chance to avoid going down the slippery slope is for them to cease attacking uh Russia, to cease helping Ukraine to attack Russia. So that's what's going on here. And the problem is that in the West, most people don't take Russian threats seriously.

[00:47:47]Uh, and they think, people in the West think, and the Ukrainians think that you can continue to poke the Russians in the eye, and when they complain or say that they're going to take drastic action against you, you can just brush it off.

[00:48:01]They won't do that. They haven't done it in the past, they won't do it now. So, let's just keep poking them in the eye.

[00:48:08]Uh, and Caragonov says, "This is what's going on." And what is really going on when you strip away all the layers of the onion is they don't respect the fact that we're a nuclear power. They don't respect the fact that we live in the nuclear age. They don't think we would use nuclear weapons. And we have reached a point where it is probably the case that we have to use nuclear weapons against them on a very limited basis again just to send a very clear signal that number one we live in a nuclear world and number two that we are deadly serious about putting an end to Ukrainian attacks on the Russian homeland that are aided and embedded by European states like Britain. and even the United States.

[00:48:58]>> You know, you you take a look at that.

[00:49:00]Here's just a compilation of a number of headlines over the last several months.

[00:49:03]Uh Germany prepares their country for war against Russia. Uh you have NATO saying, "Yep, we could be at war with Russia within 3 to 5 years. Uh UK is urging Britain to get ready for a Russian threat. The French generals got upset because he yep, we're going to lose children in a fight against Russia." I mean, it's all over the place here. So, on the one hand, it seems like they do believe there could be war with Russia. They seem to be prepared for it, but as everything does it, nothing is in a vacuum. And so that does have an impact on the likes of Caragano, the likes of Vladimir Putin, and the the Russian people. Well, they hear those things and they don't, it seems like that the Russians do believe what they're saying here, and they appear to be act on it. The question is, and let me take this in three phases here. Uh, if Russia has now publicly said we're going to strike Kiev in a way we never have before. So if potentially the next day or two or three days something like that they have some massive strike on command and control on information and leadership uh inside of Kiev which they have not done at any point. Would that be enough to get the attention of the Western Europeans or do you think that'll just make them matter?

[00:50:12]>> I I don't think it'll work. I I think that if the Russians are serious about reestablishing deterrence, and here we're talking about deterring the Europeans from helping Ukraine attack mother Russia. Uh they're going to have to attack uh targets in places uh inside of Europe. Uh probably the Baltic states. I think they're going to have to do that. The the Russians are going to have to play hard ball with the Europeans. uh playing hard ball with the Ukrainians doesn't matter. Uh the Ukrainians have suffered enormously up to this point and they managed to hang in the fight and the Europeans continue to assist them. So I think you know even a massive bombing campaign against Kiev won't do the job.

[00:51:01]So did I mean that's a that's a pretty sobering statement. Uh so you're you're arguing or you your assessment is that the current batch of European leaders whether we're talking about uh Starmer Matt Macron Ursand Delay and Mark Ruch etc that they can't be deterred they they are going to continue helping Ukraine even if you have a big bombing campaign here even with this threat that they could strike European capitals or or European targets here. Um, does that imply that you think that these Europeans they just don't believe that Russia would do outside of Ukraine? How do you how do you assess that?

[00:51:41]>> Well, I I actually think just listening to the European elites and and many in the United States as well speak that uh they don't fully grasp that we're dealing with a nuclear armed adversary here and that this is an extremely dangerous situation. My sense is Danny uh that during the Cold War, we were much more cautious in talking about uh a war with Russia or then the Soviet Union and we were much more cautious in our behavior during the cold war uh than we are now. It's quite remarkable to me the extent to which we are willing to help Ukraine use military force against the Russian homeland. I mean, we're talking here today about the drone campaign uh that targets infrastructure and civilian sites uh like this dormatory uh in uh Russia.

[00:52:55]And uh but that's only part of it. You want to remember, as I've emphasized on the show before, in August of 2024, Ukraine invaded Russia with assistance from the United States and Britain. Just think about that. Ukraine invaded Russia. Unthinkable in the Cold War that we would have aided any ally in an attack on the Soviet Union. And then remember that the Ukrainians attacked the bomber leg of Russia's nuclear triad. Uh unthinkable during the cold war. Uh but we felt we meaning the United States and Britain mainly but the West more generally that it was okay for Ukraine to go after one leg of the Russian strategic nuclear triad. I actually found that quite shocking at the time. I still find it quite shocking. And this gets back to Caraganov's point and the point of others in the Russian elite that the West doesn't believe that Russia has meaningful red lines. The West doesn't respect the fact that we're a nuclear power.

[00:54:11]They don't understand that they can't or they shouldn't be able to send Ukrainian forces into Kursk in 2024. This is supposed to be unthinkable. And the Russians believe, I think quite correctly, that they didn't make it clear at the time back in 2024 that what the West and the Ukrainians did was unacceptable. In other words, a lot of people inside of Russia feel that Putin has not put his foot down early enough. Uh, and it's about time we put our foot down. And then the question becomes, what does putting your foot down mean? And as you pointed out, uh, it seems that what they're talking about now is bombing Kev in ways that they haven't bombed Kev in the past. and what they did this past Sunday night is the first step in that direction. My response to you on that issue is I'm not sure that's enough, Danny. I don't think that will have that much of an effect uh on how people in the West think. And in fact, you may be right that this is probably going to cause the West to double down in its support for Ukraine, have the opposite effect. Well, if that's the case, the Russians will escalate and that means they'll attack with conventional weapons a target inside of Europe. And if that doesn't work, they'll escalate again. This is where we're at. We're going up the escalation ladder.

[00:55:44]>> So, so let's look at phase two of that.

[00:55:46]Let's let's just let's presume that yes, that Russia hits. Uh lot of video, a lot of you Zalinsky coming out and saying, "Oh my god, please come and help us."

[00:55:57]And then the Europeans are angry and whatever. So they they they don't back down, they double down and they send more stuff. And then Russia says, "Okay, we're now going to execute phase two, which they have published this list of enterprises and drone factories, missile factories, etc." All throughout from Great Britain all the way across and they actually make good on that. So now then, and then in concurrence with that, they say if that doesn't work, the next one is tactical nuclear weapons. Will that finally get the attention of the Western Europe?

[00:56:27]>> I think it will. I mean the question you have to ask yourself if Russia uses nuclear weapons uh what will uh what will the west do? What are you going to do at that point? Uh because if you retaliate with nuclear weapons of your own, then the Russians are likely to counter retaliate and you're going up the nuclear escalation ladder. Right? One could argue that if the Russians attack with conventional weapons in uh in a European country and say at the same time that if this is not sufficient and you don't understand our red lines, we want you to fully appreciate we want you to fully appreciate that we will turn to nuclear weapons next. The idea that you're going to threaten their survival via Ukraine, that you're going to give Ukraine weapons to hit Mother Russia and kill large numbers of Russian civilians is categorically unacceptable. And we are willing to play hard ball uh up to the point where we will use nuclear weapons to cause you uh to change your behavior. Uh if they do that, then you might not have to use nuclear weapons.

[00:57:51]But you do not want to underestimate uh how dangerous this situation is. And by the way, one of the reasons it's so dangerous is that the rhetoric in the West is rhetoric that I think is foolish. I don't think that Russia is a great threat to Europe. Period. End of story. But what I think doesn't really matter here. What matters is what the European leaders think. And I believe that you can make a case that the European leaders have convinced themselves that the uh Soviet excuse me that Russia is the second coming of the Soviet Union or the second coming of the Third Reich and that we in the West have to do everything possible to deter uh this monster and then if deterrence fails to defeat this monster in a war.

[00:58:39]That's really the way the European elites are talking. And again, I think there's a good case that could be made that they actually believe their rhetoric. And if they do, and if you listen to what you and I are saying about the Russian position, and then you marry those two things together, it is really getting to be a very scary situation.

[00:59:04]>> And and and there's one other aspect I want to I know we're about at the end of the time. Do you have a few more minutes for another Okay.

[00:59:12]Europe can think that. They can say, "No, and if they if if the Russians represented this threat, so we're going to go on. I mean, they're already on this. We're going to rebuild Europe and we're going to go up to 5% GDP, etc." But that's like a decade away. Doug McGregor on the show has has chronicled how long it would take to actually rebuild the forces. And when you look at what they have right now, they have a poultry of any troops. They we have given away so much of our stuff to Ukraine over the years and then to Israel and now we've expended our own in in Iran. Our key weapon systems which you mentioned a minute ago whether it's the JASMs, the Tomahawks, uh the THAAD interceptors, the PAC 3 interceptors, we're on fumes on those right now whereas Russia has been with their defense industrial capacity on the conventional level have been stockpiling all kinds of stuff. Surely we would recognize that we can't do it right now.

[01:00:06]And even if we wanted to, we know that we can't conventionally compete with Russia right now. Can that get through to our heads to where we make a rational, if ugly, choice?

[01:00:17]>> Well, I think that people understand what you're saying. And by the way, you want to emphasize that the manufacturing base is uh in the United States and in these European countries is in such pathetic shape that we can't produce quickly the weaponry that you would need to build a formidable military in countries like Germany uh and France and so forth and so on. So, it's not going to happen. But what's going on here, Danny, is that the Europeans are using the Ukrainians to wage the fight for them. Uh it's a very cheap way of doing business. It's a form of buck passing.

[01:00:55]In other words, uh you want to bleed the Russians white if you're the Europeans.

[01:01:00]Uh if you believe this story that they've come up with that the Russians are the second coming of the Soviet Union, they're poised to head for Berlin again. uh and you can't stop them yourself, then you use the Ukrainians to do it. And that's what they're doing.

[01:01:17]They're using the Ukrainians. And they're giving the Ukrainians the weapons to attack Russia. Right? It wasn't the Europeans themselves that invaded Kursk in August of 2024. It was the Ukrainians with assistance from the West. And the same is true with the attack on the bomber forces. Uh, and in terms of the war that's now taking place, the ramped up drone war against mother Russia, the Ukrainians are doing the fighting. They're they're launching uh the weapons, but they're in good part western weapons and they're heavily dependent on Western intelligence. So, we're working with the Ukrainians, but the Ukrainians are doing the dirty work.

[01:02:05]So, the Europeans uh are sitting back and concentrating instead on building up their military forces for World War III uh and letting the Ukrainians uh deal with the Russians in the meantime. But, but we can't get there. I mean, there's too many years that would be necessary if they fullon went on this wartime mobilization industrially. We can't get there in a long time. But this is something that could be coming literally in days and some of it potentially in Kiev hits. So let me ask you a final question here. If you were called to Brussels tomorrow afternoon and they said, "Listen, we're going to listen to whatever you say, what would you recommend to do right now in this environment that we just described to avoid an escalation in the conventional realm, much less in the nuclear realm, that could bring some kind of stability to the situation? What is a rational policy we could adopt right now?" Well, I think that very clearly uh what should be done is uh that uh we should stop uh aiding Ukraine in the drone war uh against Russia and if anything we should push the Ukrainians to end the drone war and to reach some sort of peace settlement with uh with Russia. I mean, what's going on here, just getting back to a point I made a minute ago, is that the Europeans are using the Ukrainians uh to bludgeon Russia. The Ukrainian, it's it's quite clear that the Europeans are deeply European elites are deeply interested in defeating Russia, knocking Russia out of the ranks of the great powers, inflicting massive harm on Russia. And they don't want to do it themselves. They want the Ukrainians to do it. And if the Ukrainians bleed themselves white in the process, so be it. So this war is not in Ukraine's interest. You and I have talked about this adnauseium. It's in Ukraine's interest to get a peace agreement now.

[01:04:01]Get the best deal possible. The Ukrainians are never going to get back that 20% of Ukrainian territory that they lost. They're not going to get back Crimea. They're not going to get back those areas of the Donbass and Zaparisia. Uh and here that they've lost. they're gone and cut the deal now.

[01:04:20]Uh, and we should be putting pressure on the Ukrainians to cut a deal. And we should certainly be putting pressure on the Ukrainians to stop attacking the Russian homeland with drones because this, if we're not careful, is going to lead to catastrophe. I think what has to be done here, Danny, is quite obvious.

[01:04:42]It's been obvious for quite a while now.

[01:04:45]But you and I, you know, are whistling in the wind when we make this argument because hardly anybody in power seems to think that the solution to this conflict that is in Europe's interest and is in Ukraine's interest is to shut this war down. It is not in Ukraine's interest to continue this war.

[01:05:08]uh all this rhetoric that you hear about, you know, Ukraine uh fighting on for democracy and how we should continue to support it and how Ukraine should fight to the bitter end because it probably won't be a bitter end. They'll defeat the Russians in the end is nonsense. They're not going to defeat the Russians in the end. And in fact, as the Russians are now now making clear, the better Ukraine does against Russia, and this is what's happening with the drone attacks, the Ukrainian drone attacks are becoming more effective. And what is the Russian response? To escalate. This means that anything that Ukraine does now or in the future to improve its situation will cause the Russians to escalate. And of course, the Europeans and the Ukrainians will counter escalate. The Russians will counter escalate. And up the escalation ladder we go. And where this ends, who knows? But one can tell stories that do not have a happy ending. Therefore, the best thing that we can do, what I would tell people in Brussels to do is shut this war down. But again, this is an argument you and I have been making for a long time. And for some reason, people don't seem to get it. It it it feels to me John that we're in a condition right now where a lot of these people I just mentioned was Rut or or Starmer Mac Mron etc. They're not stupid people and I would imagine that they may have even assessed the same thing that you and I are talking about. They can certainly see this and especially if Russian missiles start just crushing Ukraine, Kiev in a way that it hasn't before that they could recognize the second, third, and fourth levels of what could probably come next and would maybe want to get it off the table to the extent that you just described there. But it seems like that they're caught in this mental trap that well we've made our entire careers based on saying this stuff and if we walked it back now we would lose our positions of power or something and then they will just mindlessly go into the at least up to potentially a nuclear escalation even though they know it's the wrong thing to do. Have you ever seen that in in history where they know the right thing to do but still feel powerless and just walk into the walk off the cliff anyway?

[01:07:28]I think you see this kind of behavior all the time. Uh I often say to people that this from reminds me of the Vietnam War. Uh you know I took away a handful of lessons from the Vietnam War. As you know I was in the American military from 1965 to 1975 which was co-erminous with that war. Uh one lesson I learned is don't go into places like Vietnam ever.

[01:07:52]Uh but another lesson I learned in those years is that it's very easy to get into these wars, but it's almost impossible to get out. It's just quite remarkable.

[01:08:04]And you saw that in Vietnam. Uh and by the way, you saw that in Afghanistan. It was quite clear early on in that war after four or five, six years that uh we were in a quagmire. We had no warinning strategy. It took us 20 years to get out. 20 years to get out. Let's talk about the Iran war. You know, uh, we'll probably still be talking about this a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, right? When President Trump went to war on February 28th, he thought he was going to win a quick and decisive victory. He's going to knock off the regime. That was going to be the end of it. We're all going to live happily ever after. When that doesn't happen, right, when that doesn't happen, you end up in a protracted war and getting yourself out of that protracted war is extremely difficult. And Ukraine is a perfect case and point u you know just to just to go back to the Ukraine war and the origins of that war. Uh you know a lot of people say that what Putin did was he invaded uh he invaded Ukraine for the purpose of conquering the entire country. And that if you look at what he did in the first days of the war, he was bent on conquering Keev. Uh and then once Keefe fell, all of Ukraine would fall and it would be like the fall of France in 1940. Okay, that's not what was going on here. What Putin was doing was he was launching a limited attack into Ukraine.

[01:09:46]Uh General Searski says he only went in with a 100,000 troops. 100,000 combat troops. I used the number 190,000.

[01:09:56]That's the high-end number. Sirki says 100,000. Small force. Did not try to conquer Keev. He couldn't have conquered Keefe with a 100,000 troops. And of course, those 100,000 troops were spread out all over five different axes. Right.

[01:10:13]>> Exactly. So, what was he doing? Putin was interested in going in starting a limited war to show how serious he was and then starting negotiations with the Ukrainians. And two or three days after the war started, Putin sent a message to Zalinski and said, "Let's start negotiating." And this is what led almost immediately thereafter to the negotiations that started in Bellarus and then went to Istanbul.

[01:10:48]These are the famous Istanbul negotiations, March, early April of 2022, right? And it looked like Putin's strategy was going to work. In other words, what I'm saying to you, Danny, it was a limited aim strategy. Putin was not interested in conquering all of Ukraine. He was interested in invading and then using that invasion as a means of getting Ukraine to negotiate a settlement through the Istanbul process.

[01:11:22]and he actually came very close to succeeding.

[01:11:26]>> Right?

[01:11:27]>> If Boris Johnson and the Americans had not told the Ukrainians to walk away, we might have had a deal and shut this war down then. But the problem is the problem for Putin is when you launch a limited aim strategy, you don't defeat the other side decisively, right? and you're in a war, that war is almost impossible to get out of. And here's Putin into the fifth year of the war.

[01:11:58]>> Great point. That's a great point.

[01:11:59]>> You see what happened here?

[01:12:00]>> Yeah.

[01:12:01]>> In a very important way, Putin is in the same dilemma that we were in in Vietnam and we're in in Afghanistan, that we I think are in in Iran. I hope I'm wrong on that one. and that he is in in Ukraine, right? If you if you go in to a war thinking you can win a quick and decisive victory, right? And you don't achieve that goal, right? Uh and you're in a protracted war. This is Iran, right? We thought, you know, shock and all decapitation decisive victory. You know the whole story. That doesn't happen. Here we are, right?

[01:12:44]And uh and and Putin, it's a slightly different case in the sense that he wasn't expecting to win a quick and decisive victory, right? He was just wanting to use force to show how serious he was and to get negotiations going, which he did, and he came close, but close is not good enough when it comes to war. And here he is in a protracted war that let's be frank, he's having a devil of time getting himself out of, right? Uh this is the point that about you and me. You and me, you and I, we argue that it's obvious what should be done here, that we should cut a deal now, but nobody listens. That's just another way of saying it's amazing how difficult it is to get out of a war once you're into it.

[01:13:36]Well, unfortunately, we're going to find out uh one way or the other. I think uh just just this second here got a note from somebody who has some uh insight into what the Russians are thinking.

[01:13:47]They say that uh it's now just a matter of time until the first blows strike in Kiev and they're expecting it to fail and they're ready to go to part two.

[01:13:56]We'll see if that happens and I pray to God it's not. Yeah. But as you have just really laid out here in pretty solid logic, uh that probably is going to happen. So I I I'm very concerned about where these things may go and how we may react, but we are where we are and we appreciate you shining a light on that.

[01:14:13]Thank you very much.

[01:14:14]>> My pleasure, Danny. Thanks for having me on the show.

[01:14:18]>> Always a pleasure. Just remind people that uh especially as things come up here, go to mirshimer.substackag.com substag.com because I'm sure he's going to have a lot of stuff to say about what may be coming out here. Uh, as well as we will cover this too when or if anything breaks. Thank you very much and we'll see you all on the next episode of Daniel Davis Deep Dive.

[01:14:36]Don't forget to tell your friends, the ones that love to listen to podcasts.

[01:14:39]Get them to add Daniel Davis Deep Dive to their podcast list. They need to know what you know. They can get it to where they already get their podcast. You just got to tell them.