Pepe Escobar discusses the escalating Middle East conflict involving Yemen, Iran, and the United States
Glenn Diesen interviews journalist and political analyst Pepe Escobar on his YouTube channel.
Summary
Glenn Diesen interviews journalist and political analyst Pepe Escobar about the rapidly escalating conflict across the Middle East, encompassing US-Iran hostilities, Yemen's entry into the war, attacks on Gulf states, and the breakdown of diplomatic efforts. Escobar argues that the memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran is effectively dead, that Iran's leadership has reached a national consensus that no agreement with the United States is possible, and that the Iranian leadership is actively considering exiting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if US attacks continue. He contends that the US has already suffered a strategic defeat — losing control of the Strait of Hormuz — and that this constitutes a defeat not only militarily and geopolitically, but for the petrodollar system itself. Escobar also discusses the mysterious bombing of Sana'a airport, which he suggests may have been carried out by the Aden-based puppet government rather than Saudi Arabia directly, or possibly a false flag by outside actors, and outlines a possible new regional security architecture involving Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt as an alternative to US-led arrangements.
A significant focus of the discussion is the emergence of Mojtaba Khamenei as the new de facto supreme leader of Iran. Escobar reports that Mojtaba operates invisibly — communicating only face to face and through trusted intermediaries — and that he opposed the MOU from the beginning, deferring only to a supermajority decision by the Supreme National Security Council. Escobar argues that with the burial of Ayatollah Khamenei now complete, the Mojtaba era has formally begun, and that he commands consensus across both the diplomatic-political and IRGC military vectors of Iranian leadership.
Escobar also describes the funeral ceremonies for Ayatollah Khamenei — drawing over 40 million people across Iran and Iraq — as a vivid demonstration of the deep cross-border Shia solidarity that has underpinned coordination between Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Hezbollah, and Iraqi militias, and argues that US attempts to divide the axis of resistance have had the opposite effect.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening: The State of the Middle East
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back to the program. Today we are joined by Pepe Escobar, a journalist and political analyst, to discuss what appears to be the entire Middle East being thrown into massive conflict. Thank you for coming back on. We see now the US and Iran appear at least to be moving back towards all-out war. The Iranians are considering pulling out of the memorandum of understanding completely. Yemen is striking Saudi Arabia. Iran apparently striking Saudi Arabia. Yemen might also shut down the Red Sea. Essentially the whole region appears possibly to be plunged into one big fire. And even now we see some attacks from Iraqi uprisings against Kuwaitis on the other side of the border. This really doesn't look good. What do you make of all of this? I'm sorry, that's a lot of things at once, but how are you assessing the situation? We can go into the specifics.
Pepe Escobar: Glenn, I love your diplomatic shorthand — "it does not look good." We could expand this to the whole planet. It's the best definition of what lies ahead. Yes, it's extremely distressing, predictable, but we knew this was going to happen because essentially the American strategy, at the moment they were trying to play divide and rule with the axis of resistance, obviously had the opposite effect. The axis of resistance is more and more well-coordinated, including Iraq. We could see that in terms of last week's most extraordinary funeral rites in living memory anywhere — they were uniting Shiites in Iran and in Iraq. The level of understanding, grief, respect, and national solidarity that we saw in Najaf and Karbala — two places where, when you step in, you feel how powerful it is spiritually — was totally coordinated with what we saw in Tehran, in Qom, and in Mashhad. Over 40 million people altogether.
This is something I confirmed with Iranian friends, and they all say the same: there is now a national consensus, and it revolves around the notion — not necessarily in pedestrian terms — of revenge. There is no possible accommodation with the Americans. Period. And that's why if you talk to the average Iranian about the memorandum of understanding, they all say no, they were trying to fool us. This consensus has arrived at the top, according to our best information — the national security council, not only the political figures including President Pezeshkian, Araghchi, Ghalibaf, all these figures now well known all over the world, but the top IRGC commanders.
So what are they going to do about it? They're playing Trump. And don't mess with the Persians — they know how to play anybody, considering their dynastic history, all the empires, all the invasions. How do they control invasions and attacks? How does this national solidarity coalesce into something very, very strong and they get even more powerful?
The most distressing aspect of it all for those of us following it is that the escalation ladder is back. This is something you and I and many others were predicting would happen. But how far will this go? Extra elements added one day after another make the whole thing even more volatile.
The Sana'a Airport Bombing and Yemen's Role
For instance, we cannot say with 100% certainty that Saudi Arabia attacked Yemen's Sana'a airport. This could have been a false flag. This could have been a rogue organization. The Saudis have been extremely circumspect about it. But what's immensely interesting is that the Yemenis were waiting for it. A few days before, when the Mahan Air plane was approaching Sana'a International Airport — which, by the way, is practically destroyed by the Israelis last year, where I landed when I went to Yemen last year when the airport was still functioning, and Yemen Airways still had three planes, which were later bombed by the Israelis, leaving them with zero planes now — this was Iran breaking the siege imposed on Yemen by Saudi Arabia for eleven years. This was a huge thing.
The first Mahan Air flight went there to collect a Yemeni delegation to take them to Tehran for the funeral ceremonies related to the burial of Ayatollah Khamenei. Then there was a flight back from Tehran to Sana'a taking a lot of Yemenis plus some others who had been in Tehran — about 250 people, an Airbus filled to the brim. When the Mahan Air flight was approaching Sana'a, there was a bombing of the runway. The pilot, under extreme circumstances — the guy was amazing — did a 90-degree turn before landing and landed in Hodeidah, which is not an airport anymore because Hodeidah was also bombed by the Americans last year. By some intervention from above, the runway at Hodeidah was finalized only a few days ago, which allowed the Mahan Air flight to land there.
So it's not established whether this was really a Saudi attack. The most probable explanation is an attack from the puppet government in Aden, the port in the south which is supported by Saudi Arabia. The problem is they don't have an air force and they don't have missiles. So where do the planes and the missiles come from? The Yemenis identified a military base in Saudi Arabia, saying the jets took off from that base. So they bombed a civilian airport and a military airport — two for one. And that's extraordinary. You remember the Iranians took almost two months to do two-for-one against American attacks. The Yemenis took one day, and everybody understood the message: if you mess with them, it's going to be two-for-one everywhere.
Obviously the Saudis are now terrified. They don't know how to control that. If this was really a Saudi initiative, they boxed themselves in — beyond stupid geopolitically and geoeconomically for them. If it was not, who did it and what for? Well, of course we know who might have done it — the usual suspects, once again dividing and ruling all across the Arab world, which is what they do everywhere.
So this is just one detail among many, and one day after another we have these developments, with always this lingering impression in the background that the Iranians are looking at all of it and saying: yes, we can go for it, because we have all the time in the world. The Americans don't.
Yemen, the Red Sea, and Trump's Incoherence on the Strait of Hormuz
Glenn Diesen: I remember the first time around, when we were all in this war and it was essentially all-out war, there were still some steps up that escalation ladder. People were questioning whether or not Yemen would join in on the fight, because that would be quite detrimental — closing off the Red Sea, the problem in the Red Sea. But now of course this is what's happening, and it appears we might see an escalation far beyond what we saw last time. I was wondering how you see the significance of this. And also, what is the American thinking here? Because now the Red Sea is blocked off and the Americans are reimposing their blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. Trump is a bit all over the place — he said all ships should pay a 20% fee to the United States to transit through the Strait of Hormuz. This is important for Trump because he wants to assert that Iran doesn't control it, that America is the guardian of the Strait of Hormuz. But now he's coming back and saying we're not going to put the 20% fee on anyway. How does this go from one day to another? Where's the consistency? This can't be on purpose — why would you say this on day one if you're not going to follow through on day two? How do you see this shutting down of all these key waterways? These are the arteries of international trade. This is what keeps the global economy alive. What are they doing here?
Pepe Escobar: When it comes to the president of the United States, Glenn, he cannot follow what goes on in his brain from one second to another. He has no strategy. He has no tactics. He doesn't read. He doesn't listen to anybody. He has no clue what he got himself into. So it's obvious that from one day to another you have these completely absurd vibrations on Truth Social. That's a problem because he controls the news cycle — people read this in the middle of the Sahara Desert, literally everybody — and then the talk is about what he said today. He manipulates the news cycle everywhere, but nobody is basically pointing to the heart of the matter: no tactics, no strategy, he's cornered, he's desperate, he knows it, and there's no way out.
The only off-ramp that he had, which was offered by the mediators working 24/7 for weeks, was the memorandum of understanding — which, by the way, he signed officially. His signature is there. He signed it in Versailles, not very far from where I am. That was obviously, and is now being identified for what it is by the Iranian leadership, civilian and military — he was just playing for time.
The problem is he cannot play for time any longer, because all those numbers about the strategic petroleum reserve — there are all sorts of projections. I received one report about ten days ago, and I wrote a column about it. This report was basically saying that the ultra-ultra limit date for mega red lines appearing is mid-August. We are already mid-July, and some others are saying this could be between the end of July and the beginning of August. So he's fighting against himself, against the American economy, and against the global economy at the same time, because he simply cannot think strategically.
And of course there's the ego element, which is the overarching imperative for Trump. He hates to be humiliated, and he's being humiliated by the strategic defeat which is the result of the war that he ordered. Can you imagine, in the mind of a basically grown-up four-year-old, how that feels? You can see it in his inconsistencies, in the childish fits of rage — no consistency whatsoever. He has threatened to exterminate Iranian civilization at least four or five times in the past few weeks. Seriously — exterminate everything, literally. And where is this leading?
Everybody — literally everybody, not only the Pakistani mediators but the Qataris, the Turks, the Egyptians, the Omanis, everybody — has been trying to say: we cannot allow the MOU to be derailed. This is the last chance saloon. If this thing is derailed, it's all-out war. And here we are again in another escalation ladder, provoked by him, discarding the only possible mechanism that could give him a relatively dignified exit if he follows at least the basic points of the fourteen-point framework. No — they broke almost everything.
So the Iranians are looking at it and saying: what's the point? The commitments are now bilateral. If they break it, we also break it. This is not unilateral anymore. That's why there is practically a consensus among the top leadership that the ceasefire has already been broken, the MOU is dead, and they should exit and do their own thing. But this is not a final decision, and we are expecting some extra information between today and tomorrow about exactly how much longer the Iranians will tolerate American attacks.
This is an absolutely key point, because publicly they have already said — via members of the Majlis and some members of the security council — that if there is another American attack, they exit the NPT. And we all know what that means if that happens. So this is already being discussed, and there is already a Plan B for the Iranian leadership: exit the NPT. And there's nothing the Americans can do about that.
This is something that Larry Johnson and I were trying to get sure-fire confirmation of — maximum by tomorrow or by the end of the week. It's very complicated. The person who passed this information to us is someone in the inner circle of Leader Khamenei — Mojtaba Khamenei. That's why this is so important. But he told us via his intermediaries: you should not publish this as a fact. This is being considered. But it's already in itself a bombshell. And of course this may have leaked to Mar-a-Lago and Washington.
Can you imagine if that happens, Glenn? The entire fiction that the Americans have been trying to sell domestically and to the whole world — about the Iranian nuclear program — collapses completely. We all know the real reason for the war, especially since the war went downhill from the beginning: control of oil checkpoints, which they have already lost. The US will never control the Strait of Hormuz again. This is really Iran's nuclear bomb. They don't even need a nuclear program. They already have a nuclear bomb, which is the control of Hormuz. And that's what makes the four-year-old president of the United States even more desperate. He brought this on himself.
Diplomacy, Trust, and the Broader Pattern of Western Agreements
Glenn Diesen: I know that this began as a war to topple the Iranian government — to destroy Iran or just put in a puppet government, something along the lines of a Libya or Syria. But it's changed fundamentally, as you said. Now it's about who can control this key waterway, the Strait of Hormuz. And it just seems like there could be win-win situations if there were some diplomatic efforts to establish some kind of administrative body. But the impression I get from Iran these days is that they don't think diplomacy is possible anymore, because essentially they're dealing with savages. I don't use that word lightly, but what I mean is their opponent is doing mass murder of civilians, backing what is essentially an evil genocide in Gaza. As you said, they regularly threaten to exterminate a nation of 93 million people. This is quite extreme behavior, and at the same time there's no possibility of actually talking and having diplomacy.
They've made diplomatic deals. They had the JCPOA. The Americans didn't implement their side and then walked away. Then they had two wars within about six months in which they were supposed to be close to a deal, which was essentially used to trick the Iranians into lowering their guard so the US could do surprise attacks. Now you have the MOU — even as it was signed, Trump suggested it wasn't about any reparations, and he was threatening to attack them again, all things which were violated while he was signing it.
If you put this in the wider context of what's happening around the world — what you see with the war on Russia, in 2014 the Europeans agreed to a unity government and then walked away from that hours later when they toppled the government, they signed the Minsk agreements which were just an effort to buy time, and now they're talking about a ceasefire to end the war while already openly speaking among themselves about replenishing Ukraine with missiles, building up the military again, moving NATO troops into Ukraine. No one is looking for peace. Diplomacy is just a game.
You have this savagery on a whole new level. Diplomacy is dead. Surely the Chinese must be observing this as well, reaching the conclusion that from now on might is right. There is no international law, no rules, no diplomatic deals we can sign which actually lay the rules for how nations can interact. This is extremely dangerous, and it's just hard to see how the world will look after this war.
But on that — do we see any pathway here? Not with the Americans, because no one will trust what they're signing anyway. Can after this war, Oman and Iran, for example, come to an agreement? Or would they have to wrestle themselves out of the control of the United States first?
Pepe Escobar: There are, let's say, not an overall overarching agreement — that's impossible, because that would involve the United States, and we both agree, according to our good friend Sergey Lavrov, that the United States is non-agreement-capable, and they have proven it over and over again. But in West Asia, yes — because in West Asia the main players want some sort of new accommodation.
The problem is how they're going to deal with the Americans. For instance, the Pakistanis are involved in the mediation for several reasons, but one of them is their own security from South Asia to West Asia and the possibility that they can be the providers of a new security umbrella to West Asia, because of the military pact they already have with Saudi Arabia. A few weeks ago, General Munir went to Riyadh to basically re-solidify their military pact, basically telling MBS in person: look, if you're looking for a new security architecture in West Asia, we are your guys, and you know it.
How are they going to pull that off? Of course, to tell that to MBS they had to tell the Iranians first — first of all because they were intermediating between the Iranians and the Americans, and second because there are very good relations between the top leadership in Islamabad and Tehran. When Munir goes to Tehran, he talks to Leader Mojtaba face to face. There are very few people anywhere, including from inside Iran, who can do that.
The Pakistanis, in the whole Switzerland Kabuki, offered security for the Iranians. Larry and I reported about that in detail. The information we have from the mediators on the table is that everybody wants some sort of deal, whatever that is. The problem is of course how you can convince Trump that a deal is good for him, because of his megalomaniac narcissism.
So if there is no deal with the Americans, there is quite possibly going to be a deal in terms of a new security architecture which would involve Pakistan as the coordinator, Saudi Arabia, Qatar jumping in eventually, later some other GCC members. The UAE is a basket case — the mediators told us it's going to happen but it's going to take at least a few months to convince them that this is the way history is going. Turkey supports that, very importantly, and Egypt could be part of that security umbrella as well.
This is a possibility, and all these players involved in these negotiations know what that would entail — renewed American fury. But what would the Americans do? Bomb Riyadh? Well, nothing is outside the realm of the possible when you're thinking about Trump and CENTCOM at the moment. But depending on how Saudi Arabia will maneuver — and now we come back to the beginning of our conversation — we have this Saudi-Yemen immense problem resurfacing in the middle of all that, which is the last thing the Saudis need at the moment.
That's why some of us were thinking this has to have been a false flag, because it goes against Saudi interests to go against Yemen now, knowing that Yemen has the missiles that count. They can block the Bab al-Mandab. They can attack the Yambu pipeline. They can block the Red Sea. Why do it now? It makes absolutely no sense.
Obviously the American spin — which you see in those IDF-Mossad things in the US posing as journalism — is that MBS was under pressure from Trump, or vice versa, that MBS called Trump and said look there is a problem with Yemen, do you allow me to bomb their airport? Which is completely absurd. So we still don't know the origin of this bombing of Sana'a airport, because this turns the whole thing upside down all over again, to the detriment of Saudi interests. It makes no sense whatsoever.
And considering that the Saudis from the beginning were part of this GCC block that wanted some sort of accommodation with Iran — you remember, Glenn, that the first Islamabad meeting, way before the actual Islamabad meeting where Vance came from the US and Araghchi came from Tehran, was Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt. This was the beginning of it all. Then of course Pakistan went to China, talked to Wang Yi, who said look, you guys have to do better than that, and that culminated in the Islamabad 1.0 meeting, face to face or almost face to face, because they never actually talked to each other. Saudi Arabia has been involved from the beginning in what we can call the peace process and the MOU. Why would they blow it up by attacking Yemen out of the blue like this?
Yemen's Strategic Weight and the Saudi Dilemma
Glenn Diesen: Yeah, it is strange. Do you have a theory about that, or how would you interpret it? I don't know. It is hard to see why it would make sense. When people look at the map of the Middle East, they see this huge Saudi Arabia and this tiny Yemen below. But that doesn't mean anything. Saudi Arabia has about 38 million people, Yemen has more than 40. Yemen is actually a larger population. And in Saudi Arabia, about 40% of those are foreign nationals.
Pepe Escobar: Yes.
Glenn Diesen: So they're the ones who can leave if things become too unstable. Really, the Saudis have like 23 million. Yemen has almost twice the population, and they also have a very young population. They've been massacred since 2015, so they're battle-hardened and ready. And furthermore, as you said, it doesn't make any sense for Saudi Arabia because all of their energy facilities — or many of them — are within reach of Yemen's drones. And they can shut down the Red Sea. If you're Saudi Arabia, you can transit through the Strait of Hormuz or the Red Sea. If you're going to make an enemy out of both sides, shut down both of these maritime corridors, you can have your energy fields destroyed, you can have the arteries you need to sell your oil shut down. None of this makes much sense.
So I don't know why they would go all in on this war. But the conflict is also taking a much wider scope — not just the conflict between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. As I said, the whole region is being set on fire. Only within the last 24 hours we see Kuwait being hit, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan — missile systems being destroyed, radars, drone command and control. It's quite extensive what the Iranians are hitting now. How are you seeing this development on the battlefield? Because if the US decides okay, this is too much, let's go back to diplomacy — I can't imagine why the Iranians would accept this. They know what diplomacy means: the Americans string them along, build up missiles again, prepare for another strike. It just seems that the hawks in Iran were proven right. There won't be any peace. Any diplomacy is just a fraud — something to trick the Iranians so America can regroup and strike again from a more favorable vantage point.
How do you see this war possibly spreading? You see Saudi Arabia, you see Yemen, you see fighting of Iraqi militia on the border of Kuwait. I've heard people say that at the end of this war, Kuwait might not be an independent country anymore. A lot of things it will bring to Iraq in fact. I'm just wondering — we don't have a crystal ball, there are too many variables to make any clear predictions — but we do see some movements and possible directions that the region could shape up by now.
Iranian Leadership Consensus and the Strategic Calculus
Pepe Escobar: What's striking, Glenn, is how realist the Iranian top brass have been. There is a lot of spin in American media that there's division at the top. This is something we can reconfirm with our Iranian friends and sources: no. There are two vectors — one is the diplomatic-negotiations vector, where we find Pezeshkian, Araghchi, Araghchi etc., and of course the IRGC vector including old hardcore IRGC commanders and the new generation. The consensus between them is around the figure of Mojtaba Khamenei, and that makes it even more intriguing because he's the invisible leader. That's extraordinary — he's commanding attention and respect all across Iran by remaining invisible. Only some statements, communications internally and with the few he talks to — everything is analog, face to face. When something reaches him concerning, for instance, the MOU, then only a few days or weeks later we actually know what happened.
I have a very good example. We only learned a few days ago that when it comes to the MOU, from the beginning he said: no, I don't agree with it, but I will defer to a decision by the Supreme National Security Council. There are thirteen members — two or three are reformist or more liberal, most of them are hardline. Mojtaba basically told them: if you reach a solid majority — maybe thinking 10 to 2, 11 to 3 — okay, I'll give you the green light to go with the MOU. But this was not his decision from the beginning. From the beginning, he thought, like his father by the way, that it's impossible to have any sort of agreement with America. And he has been proven correct once again.
Nobody knew about this in the beginning. We only learned this a few days ago. He is in full control, and the people we have access to who pass information to us — Larry and I — some of them have access to the inner circle of Mojtaba, and they say he's in total control of everything. He is the decider.
Very importantly, the Mojtaba era started on Friday. Thursday was the burial of Ayatollah Khamenei, so let's say his mandate — fully, totally, without even the ghost of his father behind him — started only this past Friday. He is going to imprint his mark immediately, and he has consensus: on the diplomatic-political side and on the military IRGC side.
What we are getting from people who have access to his inner circle is that it's as if the leadership in Iran is betting that Trump is so cornered that sooner or later he's going to have to come back to the negotiating table. But Iran wants to set the conditions for this return. America is going to have to pay a price. We still don't know what kind of price that is. Total destruction of all American bases in West Asia — maybe that could be the price. Even more economic pain, because this could be organized closely with the Ansarallah leadership in Sana'a: block the Bab al-Mandab and block Saudi Arabia. That's it.
In terms of oil reaching markets — in fact, one of the leaders of Ansarallah publicly said two days ago: what could happen if we did that? Oil will be $150, $200 — the sky is the limit, literally. And then that's the collapse of the global economy, no question about that. So they don't want to play this card yet, but they can.
The American plan, which was to divide and rule with the axis of resistance, is unifying the axis of resistance even more. Meanwhile, Hezbollah continues to kick the IDF's asses in Lebanon. The Iraqi militias are on the next level already. The Americans are isolated. What are they going to blockade? Let's see how Blockade 2.0 is going to work — and of course it's an even greater disaster for the global economy, because Iran has said nobody transits through Hormuz except through their Persian Gulf authority, with the IRGC navy in their territorial waters, and everywhere else is off limits.
Conditions for Any Return to Negotiations
Glenn Diesen: I would think that if the Americans are forced back to the negotiating table, the Iranians would insist on some buy-in — for example, releasing all Iranian assets — as the cost of simply sitting down and talking. Because otherwise you can't just go back and forth like this. And they're so open about it as well. JD Vance made a comment that the MOU was good — we opened up the Strait, we got some oil flowing again to markets which were starved. They're quite open that it wasn't meant to be peace. We're buying time here.
Again, my impression from Iran is they're not going to let the US have this escalation control — deciding when the war starts, when we take a pause, when we go back in, at what intensity the war should be fought. The Americans can't fight the war on all conditions. It's very strange to allow the Americans the luxury of choosing how the war should be fought according to how it best suits them.
But this must be frustrating for the Americans, because a key strategy for maritime hegemons — be it Britain or the US thereafter — is always to control the main waterways. When you contain Russia, you go after the Baltic Sea, which they did by expanding NATO. You control the Black Sea — that's NATO, why they instigated the Ukraine war to get the Russians out of Crimea. The Arctic, of course, to cut off Russia there. This is why after World War II the US set up the dual island chains to blockade the Chinese. And suddenly to have this water corridor, the Strait of Hormuz, under the control of the Iranians — whom America thinks very little of, seeing them as backwards almost — the idea that the Iranians would defeat America is very humiliating for them. For them, they are the civilized ones, they are the superpower. Yeah, this is quite fascinating to see happening. I know that from Russia to China, even in Iran, they're quite surprised how this has played out. It's quite amazing.
Pepe Escobar: It is. Glenn, can you imagine that a mid-ranking power under sanctions for 47 years managed to inflict a strategic defeat on the greatest armada in the history of warfare in a little over two months? Who could possibly have imagined this only a few months ago? And that's exactly where we are now. No wonder psychologically they simply cannot understand what happened and how it could happen. And now it's practically irreversible, because the Strait of Hormuz from now on is an Iranian choke point. Period.
And even worse — this is a defeat of the petrodollar. This was also a war for controlling a key oil checkpoint and imposing the petrodollar, because regime change in Iran would immediately bring back the petrodollar. So they lost on all fronts — geopolitically, militarily, and geoeconomically. It's too much for them to bear. It's off the charts in terms of the trauma. They cannot possibly deal with it. And I'm not even talking about Trump — Trump is a lowly emissary, a grifter, a big-pocket operator. I'm talking about the American elites. No wonder they are catatonic.
The Threat Against Trump and the Culture of Political Assassination
Glenn Diesen: Yeah, that's what I meant. It's a hard situation because they're in a position where they can't win militarily, but also the peace which is forced upon them is something they can't live with. It's the death warrant for the American empire. So it's quite interesting times.
But let me just ask a last question about this new obsession in Washington that the Iranians will kill Trump. I'm not sure if this is paranoia or if it's real. One thing you can say for sure is that if this is real, it's certainly something that the Americans have helped to normalize themselves — the way they go and assassinate foreign leaders, kidnap foreign leaders. For them now to suggest that their own leaders are somehow untouchable — you can't harm them — I think it's a horrible development when political leaders are being targeted and killed. But this is how the Americans measured success in Iran: look, we're murdering all their leaders. This is a very dangerous development. Of course it could turn around — now the Iranians see the same: we need vengeance, we'll kill your political leaders. But again, I'm not sure if this is even real. How are you reading this situation?
Pepe Escobar: Well, there's a metaphysical, spiritual, religious reading, and there is a pedestrian, everyday-life reading. The Americans and the Israelis normalized political assassinations. As you correctly said, it's dangerous and frightening. It's part of the no-rules international system — international disorder. Let's put it this way: the previous was the rules-based international order that we can change anytime we want. Now it's absolute disorder, chaos, and it involves political assassinations, completely normalized across the spectrum and sold by Western mainstream media as absolutely normal.
The Iranian mindset, conditioned by Shia spiritual understanding and theology, revolves around the notion of revenge. I was talking about this with people in Iran these past few days, and they say there is a universal consensus among Iranian society that we need revenge. But this is a very large philosophical discussion — this could take years, this could take centuries. But it's there: one day we will have our revenge on the people who wronged us. And this particular character, whether he's going to live a few more years or not, killed our leaders and killed our supreme leader. So obviously there's got to be payback.
Once again, this could take forever, or — if we go on the Hollywood-Netflix road — an infiltrated commando somewhere. No, the Iranians don't do that kind of thing. But this is going to be in the back of his mind: he knows there is a death sentence against him. This will turn — if he's already discombobulated, Glenn, can you imagine from now on? Which brings us to accidents. Maybe there's going to be a sudden illness, a missile one day hitting him. Who knows? Just like the one that landed in Kyiv and a certain warmonger from one day to another simply disappeared. So anything is possible. But the Iranians see this as a long-term battle for justice. For justice to prevail, there's got to be revenge. We were wronged, and we will exercise our revenge according to when we decide to do it.
Conclusion: The Folly of Going to War with Iran
Glenn Diesen: Yeah, I was going to say — for all countries, for the US to go to war with Iran is probably the worst one. For many reasons, as you said: not only is it a country of 93 million people who has prepared itself for this war, you also have a country with a massive coastline and a mountain range, built like a fortress. And also, as you just suggested, the whole Shia martyrdom culture, where they celebrate those who sacrifice themselves in the fight. All of this should be accounted for. And also, as we often ignored — at least in the Western media — the fact that the Iranians see this as an existential threat. If they lose this, they will end up like Syria, like Libya — they will be destroyed. So they have everything to lose. But if they can win, they will put Iran on top in the region, shake off the sanctions, the countries of the region would have to readjust and accommodate Iran, it can assert its own security and its own economic development. Everything to lose or everything to win — a massive incentive to absorb any pain in order to push back the Americans. And they have the capabilities.
It's just so beyond absurd that the US even went into this war. The fact that now the main objective for the Americans is to open the Strait of Hormuz — which was open before the war — shows what a disaster this has been. Yet there can't be an admission of this, especially for Trump. He's the strong man. Yeah, it's a real mess they got themselves into.
I just keep thinking back to when they started bombing Iran initially — how the media narrative was all focused on, oh well, they're liberating Iranians, yes there might be some killing, but at least now the regime is gone and the women will take to the streets and be free, the public will just rush out and topple their government, cheering and waving American flags. How ridiculous this was. And yet how every single news outlet was pushing the same stupid narratives. We do this every time. How many forever wars are we going to start? And now we're going to go against the Iranians, the Russians, the Chinese. This is so suicidal. It's very depressing.
Pepe Escobar: It's very depressing. I agree with you completely. And once again, if you don't study history, you repeat historical mistakes over and over again. We have an administration of low-life grifters, illiterate people who never studied the history of the Persian Empire among other examples. They should have known that the Persians repelled anything that was thrown against them and emerged richer, stronger, and even more solidified. This is a characteristic of top civilization-states. Same thing with Russia — Europe still has not learned the lessons over the past 300 years of trying to subjugate Russia. They're going to have to learn it again in the 21st century. It's a story that we have been following closely for years.
And once again, it is Western civilization that still refuses to understand the lessons of history, and they're going to pay a heavy price for it. They are already paying a heavy price for it. It's going to be much worse.
Glenn Diesen: Well, Pepe, thank you so much for taking the time on this hot summer day to speak with us.
Pepe Escobar: Thank you. It was always a pleasure to talk to you. Absolutely. Cheers. And let's hope for — as our Chinese friends say — more auspicious times. But it seems they are not around the corner.