To have dignity, to have respect, to have our human rights.
The occupation is not just the soldiers, it's not just the settlements, it's everything.
What will separate the condition of humanity from the barbarism of the past,
which we like to think we have since changed and progressed from?
That might have been the work of American imperialism and international Zionism.
We come here to investigate what this means for the people living here.
It's a violation of international law, it's a war crime.
These are the real journalists achieving liberation to unite the people in a way that we've never seen before.
Welcome back to another edition of Foreign Policy with me, Robert and LeCache,
for the last American vagabond.
And today we're going to be talking about Donald Trump and his threats that he seems to have made,
at least six or seven times now, to destroy Iran's civilian infrastructure
and why he keeps backing down from this.
Well, the short answer is it's very simple.
He has two options here.
And these two options that he is presented with are either escalate
and attack Iran's civilian infrastructure,
and open up a wider war across the region,
or simply do a deal with Iran and finish this war.
Now, Trump has signed on to a memorandum of understanding,
which he quickly acted to break.
And there were a number of these ceasefires which appeared.
They even got the Lebanese government to sign on to an agreement
that recognized Israel in order to forward this process,
or at least that's what we were told.
But now we're back in this cycle where Iran has explicitly said that there is no ceasefire.
Trump is claiming there is negotiations yet again.
There are still missiles flying.
Now Yemen has broken into the conflict properly,
imposed a blockade on Saudi Arabia.
So the Strait of Hormuz is of course closed.
There's Iran's blockade.
Then there is the US blockade on top of the blockade,
an expert move that apparently Alan Dershowitz came up with.
So, aside from that, there is now Baben Mende that is closed,
which of course is the waterway that Yemen has the power to control,
and it is blockading it for Saudi shipping.
Now, this is very important because this means there is a stranglehold on the global economy.
Around 25% of global oil just isn't happening at the moment.
There's that lack of the supply there.
And we're seeing that there is obviously market manipulation that keeps going on
in order to bring down the price of what is called Brent crude futures.
This is the projected price of oil.
But that's not the real price of oil as many will have come to understand right now.
And so the clock is now ticking for the Trump administration.
Either they can go ahead and they can actually commit themselves to an agreement
and it's going to take some convincing of the Iranians to actually get to this agreement
because the memorandum of understanding that the United States decided to just break
and start bombing Iran after they went into the Strait of Hormuz
and tried to carve out an alternative route,
which was something that the Iranians made very clear they were not allowing to happen
and weren't going to allow it to happen.
So the Iranians, of course, acted.
They struck a number of vessels.
But this is the United States still with its military there
still not having lifted the sanctions, not abided to its side of the agreement.
And it appears as if the United States believes that this conflict is like other conflicts
that you don't have to actually abide by your agreements,
that your words written down on paper don't mean anything at all.
Well, with Iran it sort of does because Iran can fight back
and that's the key difference here between this conflict and other conflicts.
So a lot of people might ask,
why doesn't the United States just go ahead and bomb Iran and try and take them out?
Well, we saw during the 40-day war that the United States tried that
and they got nothing from it.
In fact, the Strait of Hormuz is still closed.
There is another Qamana'i, the son of Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Qamana'i
who was killed by the Americans, his son took his place
and the system is still exactly the same in Iran.
They didn't change anything at all.
If anything, they made Iran stronger and their position in the region stronger.
So now the only way to actually weaken Iran
is to go after that civilian infrastructure,
which is what Trump keeps on threatening.
So why doesn't he just do it?
Well, at this point around 80% were to believe the reports
which are coming out now of the U.S.'s interceptor missiles have been depleted already.
This means there's a dangerously low number that are still in existence of U.S. interceptors.
And these interceptor missiles,
because we're not talking about Iranian military production here,
we're not talking about the way that the Iranians do things
and it's very quickly they can mass produce munitions.
The U.S. doesn't do that.
The U.S. likes to spend billions, hundreds of billions, trillions on projects
which take decades and just producing some munitions.
It's not quite as quick as many people would think
even though of course the Patriot missile system,
it's still in existence.
This is the backbone of the U.S. air defense
and then you have the THAAD systems
which are the best systems in the world
or at least that's what they're marketed as
at catching and taking down ballistic missiles
and of course that is crucial to defending the Israelis.
Of course we have to talk about Israel here
because Israel is the reason why this war is even happening
and of course taking on Iranian civilian infrastructure
is not really going to do anything for the United States.
In fact, there are many things that Iran can do to retaliate
but just looking at these interceptor missiles, dangerously low.
Also, the majority of the U.S.'s long-range precision missiles
have also already been used.
Those munitions have been used to target in a lot of cases
these same exact sites time and time again like missile bases
because the United States wasn't able to penetrate Iran's missile cities.
It wasn't able to penetrate its nuclear facilities in many cases.
When they went after them and what they did instead
is they decided to bomb the entrances and exits
that's what they've done at least for the missile cities.
So they would bomb them time and time again
to try and suppress the rates of Iranian fire
because if those missile cities are of course closed
the exits and entrances
then the Iranians have to dig them out
in order to pull the missiles out and to fire them.
But the real question is here
you've wasted all of these long-range precision missiles
which you would need for other conflicts
if you're dealing with the likes of China.
Well, China has a rather sophisticated air defense system
you're going to need those munitions
you won't stand off munitions
you don't want to be flying your fighter jets over Chinese airspace
just the sake of argument here
because the United States likes to larp on
about fighting all of these wars
and being the number one military superpower
so if it is going to go ahead with any aggression against China
if China was to take Taiwan, something like that
the US would be in a pretty bad position
in fact to defend itself
the United States is wasting all of its munitions
and again not gaining anything
so why not just go after that civilian infrastructure
well that is very simple
the answer to that question is perfectly clear
if you go after Iran's civilian infrastructure
like power plants
then Iran is going to go after all of the power plants
in the Persian Gulf
and that means all of those Gulf allies
which Trump has pledged that are you know
or said that they've pledged trillions
to invest in the US
they're no longer going to be inhabitable
if you want to take out Iranian desalination facilities
well the majority of Iranians
don't get their water supply
from water desalination plants
when we're talking about power plants
Iran has about 500 of them
across the country
they're going to have to go after substations
they're going to have to hit these power plants
a lot of them time and time again
because a lot of them are built with war in mind
we're talking about in the Persian Gulf
you know it's a handful in comparison
that Iran has to take out with its ballistic missiles
and now remember again
that a lot of those interceptors
the Patriot missile system
and the Thad missile system
is not going to be as effective
and what Iran has been doing
over the past weeks
until the United States halted
its missile strikes against the Iranians
they were focusing very heavily
on taking out radars in the region
and the reason that is important is because
if you can't see those missiles coming
well it makes them a lot harder
for you to be able to shoot down
but also you have limited interceptors
so now Iran is more easily able to target
all of those facilities in the region
and it will come with a vengeance
if its own civilian infrastructure is targeted
so all those Gulf allies are going to be
severely punished
and then the Israelis are also open
to massive ballistic missile attacks as well
and we are not even
opening the conversation about the allies of Iran
and what they could possibly do
because the United States
has a number of rather desperate strategies
that it can try and open
for example they have started actually
using the Saudis
to do a joint bombing campaign against Iraq
well there are
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi fighters
who are aligned with Iran
as part of what is known as the
Islamic resistance in Iraq
and they have not yet
shown their full power
these fighters can attack Saudi Arabia
if they wanted to
they could attack Kuwait if they wanted to
they could of course
cross the border into Syria
because another one of the schemes
of the United States
and Trump has said this very openly
and very proudly
that the former leader of Syria's
wing of Al Qaeda
who now occupies the position
of president of Syria in Damascus
Ahmed Al-Shara
or Abu Muhammad Al-Shulani
as he used to be known
Trump wants him to go and invade Lebanon
which is going to mean
a bloodbath
but if he does that the Iraqis
have pledged to come over
into Syrian territory
so now we have the Iraqi front
opened
we have those fighters
perhaps flooding into Syria
we have Syria's militia
groups
and what constitutes now
the Syrian army
which are a collection
of majority of these fighters
formerly Al Qaeda
aligned militants
who will cross into Lebanon
and attack
what they consider to be
non-Muslims from the Shia population
there
they will go after Christians
and Alawi
and other different groups in the region
it will be quite bloody
but then they will get fought back by the group
there called Hezbollah
which is resisting Israel
of course again
the strategy that Trump wants to enact
against Lebanon
which would plunge that country
into chaos
will plunge Syria into chaos
will plunge Iraq into chaos
all of this
is for Israel
because the ground force really
of Iran in this conflict
against the Israelis
is Hezbollah
that can actually fight them on the ground
but it gets even worse
than that
because Yemen is right there
if the Yemeni armed forces
actually are to commit
to an all-out offensive
and Saudi is getting hit very hard
there is a good chance
that Yemen will come under the full control
of the Ansara law government
based in Sena
the capital city of Yemen
Yemen could also fire ballistic missiles
most likely it will
against the Israelis
but then there is a wild card
in all of this
which nobody
is talking about
and most people have written off
and it's important
because recently there was a step taken
which will perhaps escalate this front
even further
and that is the Gaza Strip
where of course there has been a genocide
that has been committed
since October 7, 2023
now the Palestinian armed factions there
Israel has long been talking about
they need to disarm
and Hamas needs to give control up
of the Gaza Strip
well Hamas committed some time ago now
to give up control of the Gaza Strip
to a technocratic
administration
in Gaza to rule Gaza
it agreed to that
Israel didn't react
Israel didn't want to go to the phase 2
of the ceasefire
and instead they upped the killing
of civilians inside of the territory
they started seizing even more land
in the Gaza Strip
after Hamas said it would have
relinquished power
of the civil administration of Gaza
now something interesting has happened recently
Hamas and all of the Palestinian
resistance factions in Gaza
all agreed to a disarmament plan
with the Board of Peace
controlled by Donald Trump
the Board of Peace
was supposed to be set up for Gaza
but its own official charter
doesn't mention Gaza or Palestine once
I wonder why
because of course it's a scheme
which is seeking to replace
the United Nations
the UN system
collapse what we had
in the post-World War II order
and bring in this new world order
of absolute chaos
and all to please the Israelis
but the Palestinian factions agreed
okay we'll disarm
but there's going to be a process
Israel has to withdraw from the Gaza Strip entirely
Israel has to disarm the
five different ISIS linked militias
which it has created to fight
against Hamas and the other Palestinian groups
something they won't tell you about
that Israel literally created
five ISIS linked militias to fight
against Hamas
but they were telling you the whole time
that Hamas is ISIS
and they're literally there creating
these ISIS linked militant groups
to fight them
but that aside
they agreed
but Israel then came back and said
no absolutely not
we're not agreeing to the
the deal that was struck
with the Palestinian groups
to disarm
now the reason why they didn't agree to it
is because in that agreement
that was signed by these Palestinian factions
with the so-called Board of Peace
inside of that agreement
was that this would be a phased approach
and that the weapons
would be eventually
that would be stored
originally
and decommissioned
and then they would be handed over
to a future Palestinian state
that's the only people that would get hold of those weapons
instead the Israelis want Hamas
and all of the Palestinian factions
to completely disarm
before Israel even withdraws
and whilst Israel is pledging publicly
that it will never withdraw from the Gaza Strip
and it will continue to conquer more land
in the territory
and it will not abandon
its so-called defense strategy
Israel doesn't want to do reconstruction
in the Gaza Strip
Israel wants to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip
so if you take all of the weapons
of all of the groups
all at once
well now no one is there to resist
against a complete
ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip
but putting them in this position now
this so-called ceasefire
which was supposed to go into Phase 2
of this agreement in Gaza
you know we're now over 1200
people killed in Gaza later
with no retaliation
from the Palestinian groups against the Israelis
and the Israelis going deeper
into the Gaza Strip
and continuing to destroy
civilian infrastructure
and the remaining agricultural land
that still exists in Gaza
on a daily basis
and months and months and months go by
the only ones
giving concessions to the Palestinians
and the Israelis are not
and the Israelis keep bombarding
civilian sites
and killing innocent people
including since the ceasefire
almost 500 children
in Gaza have been killed by Israel
so what do you think is going to happen
with that
well because Israel has refused
to actually agree to
Hamas
removing itself
from ruling Gaza and disarming
because it's refused that
then that front
becomes a lot more likely to open up
and that front by the way
if it does open up
in the midst of a regional war
will perhaps be one of the most
bloody offensives
that we will possibly see
because it will be a last ditched attempt
in order to put down the Israelis
to force them back
and to defeat them
and that's something to consider
because they have literally no options
at that point other than to do this
so
if we're being serious here
if we're looking at what the Trump administration is doing
well there's no wonder
it's hesitating
to go and attack Iranian civilian infrastructure
or it has
hesitated to do it
time and time again
because as soon as that
regional war opens
you're opening Pandora's box
when you start going after Iranian civilian infrastructure
well the gloves completely come off
it's hard to strike a deal with them after that
and so
there will be immense pain
immense suffering
entire nations
the way that they look are going to change
and then we have to add in the other element here
the Trump administration knows this
people like Pete Hegzeff don't know this
because Pete Hegzeff just the other day
was talking about how Yemen is not involved
in this regional war
and literally complimenting Trump
for bobbing them into submission back in 2025
bridge to bomb the Houthis and say
we will maintain freedom of navigation
I wonder why they're not involved in this conflict
the Houthis
even though they're a proxy Iran
because they've felt the weight of American power
for 45 days
and you had the courage to do that
but apparently you are the
secretary of war
and you don't know
that Yemen is involved in this regional war
and that they've imposed a counter blockade
on Saudi Arabia
at this point
it's very clear who is in control
and it's not Pete Hegzeff and it's not Donald Trump
they don't know anything about what's going on
they're just puppets that are there
so Trump
if he wants to go ahead
he mentioned recently
that they were about to go ahead
with the largest bombing campaign
since World War II
and what does that mean
well
we can interpret a number of different ways
but really
if you're talking in that way
you're getting at that perhaps you were considering
using nuclear weapons
which then brings us to another
point that is
beyond even the
conversation of the regional war
because if the United States
decides to try
and use a nuclear weapon against Iran
this situation dramatically changes
and it could draw in other actors
and this could be a much broader war
in situation
let alone the immense civilian suffering
and mass death
that this will cause
but this is a ridiculous decision
to make
an absolutely ridiculous decision
that will only
spell more chaos
will not end this war
you see
the United States in the past was
comfortable with
its wars
like in Afghanistan
it spent trillions
it wasted a lot of money
and a lot of resources
but ultimately
what was the Taliban going to do
about their presence there
if they decided to stay
they could have stayed even longer
and there was really
not much
in the way of repercussions
this time
the Strait of Hormuz is still closed
and those
strategic
petroleum reserves
of the United States are already
at such lows that they're
at the levels they were
in the early 1980s
and it's going to get worse
and that means that
when it comes to your oil prices
well don't be too surprised
if they suddenly shoot up overnight
at one point and things get very difficult
and inflation gets much, much worse
and again, remember
this is all for Israel
and here we are
Trump can't get out of this
because the Israel lobby is going to
strangle hold over him
he can't force the Israelis
to do an agreement in Gaza
to respect an agreement in Gaza
to end the Gaza genocide
which will completely avert
any further warfare there
if he was to do it
the Palestinian factions all are ready
to agree
to even hand over their weapons
to stop the fighting altogether
in Lebanon
the easy answer
was to force Israel to withdraw
from Lebanese territory
but of course Trump couldn't do that
because his boss is
Benjamin Netanyahu
there's no other way to put it
at this point
he couldn't force them to do anything in Gaza
and the board of peace
the second Israel said we're not agreeing to this
went back and just changed its whole
entire language
everything it was saying about the disarmament
of Hamas and the other factions
instantly and reassured Israel
basically apologized to their masters
that
we didn't actually mean
what we said and what we put on paper
and what we publicly announced
and what even the US president announced
we didn't actually mean that
so Trump can't do anything in the way of
Gaza restraining Israel there
he can't do anything in the way of restraining
the Israelis in south Lebanon
and instead he's pushing for all these conspiracies
and even when it comes to
using Kurdish militia groups in northern Iraq
well
Iran has been doing
these cross-border operations
with its special forces units
and smashing these
Iranian Kurdish opposition groups
with ballistic missiles and drones
taking out many of their
ammo depots
and their headquarters
assassinating key figures
within these organizations
and so Iran has been actively on top
of that too and the question is
where do you go
do you do what Israel wants you to do
or do you do
what's in the best
interests of the United States and we know
at the end of the day that
it's
Trump is caught in between a
rock and a hard place because he doesn't
control his government
he does what he's told
and so
even if he announces 5
6 more agreements the Strait of Hormuz
is not going to fully open
and things are not going to return to normal
until he grows
a backbone and decides that he won't
end up just violating the agreement
and Iran is waiting
there with its finger on the trigger
and is capable of responding
and it's not Iran that is running
low on its munitions
it's the United States
so Trump is in a very difficult position
objectively so
I wouldn't envy that position
and you had to ask yourself
why is he so weak in front of the Israel lobby
why can't he
make decisions in favor
of the US public
well I think we can all
come to those answers
ourselves
but at the end of the day
it's important to understand
what his position is in all of this
this is not a president
this is a puppet
this is a weakling
this is somebody that puts Israel first
and now
perhaps countless American
more American service members
have to be killed in this war for Israel
and God knows the extent
of the suffering that has to happen
because the United States
has been acting on behalf
of the Israelis
this is bad on every single level
this is a strategic
defeat
that is just pending
at the moment we're just waiting for the outcome
is it going to be more catastrophic
or is the United States going to
see the reality
wake up and smell the hot coffee
and realize that it has to come to a deal
and really from what we've seen
in the track record it's hard
to say that the United States
can't even come to any sort of deal
at this point
but until that time until the
escalation or de-escalation
that's what everybody
hopes for at least
that there can be
suddenly
something that happens which forces
the
US administration to
realize the position it's in
to force the Israelis to withdraw
from Gaza to withdraw from Lebanon
and to close this conflict
everyone hopes that that is the case
but the reality here is
that the United States doesn't have a very good
track record with ending conflicts
in the region when Israel wants it to do something
and in fact
Donald Trump has the worst record in the region
so we can expect to see
that the pressure is going to
mount
and we're
now
in uncharted waters
and that is quite concerning
but everyone should know
what position
Donald Trump has got the United States
into
the global economic implications
are going to be enormous
the implications on US security
are going to be enormous
there will be more US casualties
if this escalates
the US's allies are all going to be put
through the meat grinder
more innocent people are going to be killed
entire countries
may look different
at the end of this
and again
nobody is gaining here
except for the Israelis
so until next time
this has been another
addition of foreign policy
here for the last American
vagabond