hello and welcome to crossfire for all things considered i'm peter lavelle to force machine change in iran the trumpeting ministration risks of ending global oil markets also if you want to russian passport being a citizen of ukraine could help. cross talking some real news i'm joined by my guest here in moscow dmitri baba he's a political analyst of international and in london we crossed alexander make yours he is a writer on legal affairs as well as the editor in chief of the duran dot com and when cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate let me go to alexander in london well the gambit is about to begin the waivers are being dropped may second to the gambit goes into play it

seems to me a number of things are in play here it's the americanization of the global trade system specifically and in the of the petroleum markets here and it is very there's a lot of consequences here and essentially united states is saying we're going to suspend with free trade and you will trade whom with whom we wish or who we do not wish it is a gambit is very very dangerous and what happens if it doesn't work go ahead alexander well let me a lot of good points peter because i agree i mean first of all the united states is basically saying to all the countries of the world this is who you can buy oil from the you cannot buy oil from when you were in for views upon you which may not be your views by using the position that the dominant position we have. through the reserve currency status of the dollar you will risk

fines for your companies if you don't obey what we say and in effect the united states is trying to impose an economic blockade on the run by stopping its oil exports and it is in forcing it on all other countries as well and it is doing stir outside the provisions of the un charter and outside the powers of the un security council which under chapter seven of the united nations charter is the body which is also rights to impose sanctions and economic exam is it let's say actually a declaration of war is this a sign of easing i see it comes very close to being that are i don't think we're in a situation of armed conflict but of course we can easily see how it could develop into this because we're since the united states is imposing on iran what is

essentially an economic blockade if these economic instruments these financial instruments it is using don't succeed one can easily see how it can start to do what the british used to do in the nineteenth century which is actually use military force to try to enforce that block made on third countries and on iran itself and that could very easily into armed conflict so i think we're not quite there yet but i come back to what i said chapter seven of the united nations charter provides the security council with the power to enforce blockades it is part of the power of the u.n. security council has which includes the power to wage aren't action so this sort of thing comes very close to the kind of armed action that is invasion in the u.n. chief. so i did they were quite there yet but the distance is very small let me go

to you. obviously countries like china are most likely going to ignore this a great deal of iranian oil is purchased by the chinese this is a huge i mean smaller countries you know if we really are getting back to the nineteenth century of you're a small country you're going to have to do what the the hedge amman's of the world demand but china is a peer of the united states and this type of policy would certainly undermine the chinese economy and we have we don't we shouldn't forget global oil prices are almost likely go up it's a fool's errand to believe the saudis in this is what the trump administration believes that they will be able to pick up the slack that's unlikely well it's not only the big country of. the european union who are against these pressure about also a country like turkey turkey you know. this is

a leader in turkish newspaper we had an article just two days ago which basically said since we are forced to have basically forced to. trade with iran let's remember that not only turkey about also some of the very important u.s. allies such as taiwan such as south korea such as japan they're also forced don't forget iraq exactly and the newspaper says that at some moment this may malfunction because this is what you do to your allies instead of making them richer and guaranteeing your they are security you are making them poor and you have basically making them less secure and the response from the wrong spot from here on is that they signaled that they will not come back to the nuclear deal even if another democratic administration comes to power and they like the expression by a foreign minister mr zarif he said that i'm quoting we have b. team and. to protect and against us benjamin netanyahu or saudi crown prince

mohamed bin solomon and the united arab emirates crown prince mohammed bin zayed well bin solomon so i think it's a b. team or b. s. characters made in a b. movie without a plan b. that's my descriptor that was but i think that's perfect that we have that i'm going to go right at that to put that in my refrigerator and i'll let me go back to london here it seems to me when truly going to happen alexander isn't there you're just going to have a huge black market of oil and the prices are going to be very high in the rain ians or will have been experiencing these type of sanctions for a long time they have survived it and people will actually rally around their leaders and this is going to be a big flop what i worry about is that when it is a big flop what the us will do then because they are determined determined to have force regime change in around and they don't have the tools to do it and what they're going to do is probably blow up the oil markets in the process and you know

what it's a lose lose lose lose lose for everybody go ahead alexander well i agree i mean where there is demand as the research raining or it will there will be supply because of coos as you correctly say all prices will rise and that he's going to incentivize all sorts of people to find ways of selling that all you want because they're going to be big profits and there are all sorts of people around the world it's be quite clear about this who are prepared to accept those little sort of risks and as you correctly say smuggling is going to grow and of course if you are committing yourself to a policy or regime change and publicly and. even in eat publicly and as determinately as the united states is. doing how do you back off example losing face the risk is that if

one strategy doesn't escalate you're going to escalate to succeed you're going to escalate on another and that is the slippery slope that the united states is now on it's made a massive commitment to regime change in iran it's as you correctly say destabilizing the oil markets if that policy doesn't succeed even starts creating heavy economic costs for the united states it is very easy to see how the united states could start expanding this strategy by doing all sorts of things like perhaps attacking iranian oil installations or doing other dangerous things well you know it is crimes but alexander. also has a tools in its tool kit. the straits of power movies i think you know what i'm getting at here if it if iran is going to suffer so tremendously and it might

around can turn around and others will suffer too i don't think that's it once a do that it's the last resort but it's certainly possible absolutely this is why we originally had the j.c. p.l.m. because there was an assessment not just by the united states and the barman instruction but by the world powers that there was a balance of force if you like in this in this area and in that situation you needed to pursue a compromise and that compromise was the j.c. a if you throw out that compromise and disregard the balance of force you release all thoughts of dangers that flow from the inevitable escalation already we're seeing consequences of this on the oil market and if this policy is persisted with and escalated. further greater and greater

dangers will rise you know you are talking we just heard from alexander escalation here how our lives are being held hostage here and their companies are being held hostage as well. what does this do to global trade in general mean the united states and i think donald trump is right to want new trade deals i think a lot of them were bad but they were done for geo political reasons and now they're there's more financial reasons here but you know the united states and china are in the midst of very important trade talks in now there's a possibility that during these trade talks the united states are going to start sanctioning chinese company and i mean that's kind of toxic mix i would say that the patience of the cheney is the leadership is awesome because they keep suggesting solutions they just uncompromised us facing almost direct pressure from the united states like mr trump almost made it at them to isolate cherry in the

wrong from the international economy why we're talking about huge figures here because iran right now is exporting two point three million barrels a day and if the sanctions are introduced and they're respected by the countries that we've mentioned this will go down to a violent million. barrels a day that's a huge discraft and we don't think we should remember also the shenanigans being played by the united states again spend as wayland examine his way when oil industry i mean if you were to do the simultaneously really at what point is there what does the united states want from from iran they say orpen the regime change but also abandoning iran three gentle allies what does it mean it means that iran would allow. to operate freely in syria on its border no way iran is going to allow that they paid i want to be your be analysis about this because the by.

intended consequences is definitely in play here are you gentlemen i want to say goodbye to alexander me curious in london thank you alex for joining us we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on some real new stage with our to. join me every thursday on the alex i'm unsure when i'll be speaking to a guest of the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see if that . seemed wrong. roles just don't call. me. yet to stamp out this day become active. and engaged equals betrayal.

when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. the people that are now doing those manufacturing jobs also start to innovate because that's where the innovation happens on the factory floor so the factory floor is been moved to china as you point out that the cio let china in we've moved all our jobs manufacturing over china now all the innovations in china so we are it's not it's not been created in california built in china going to be created in china built in china. my son doing drugs my nephews was still in drugs my sister just with doing drugs it was like an epidemic of drug abuse america's public enemy number one in the united states is drug abuse he started going after the users in the prison population sewer. started treating sick people people who are addicted to these drugs like

criminals while i was on the hill. drugs. with numbers. in prison for. four. offenders in the drug trade it's a lot watching your children grow up and miss you in waves and say by day as you're walking out of this it's just it doesn't get easy. welcome back to crossfire where all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing some real news.

ok now we're joined by john laughlin in france he is a lecturer in political philosophy at isis the catholic university and john welcome and welcome to our program today. we do speaking to my producers you said you wanted to paint a broad canvas of what's going on in the country known as ukraine we this had presidential elections where we have a comedian a political unknown about to be inaugurated and since then. we get a mixed signals from this c.n.n. ski character during the campaign he used russian and ukrainian which was obviously . a move towards some kind of reconciliation and then now after being elected he seems to echo more of what puerto shanker was saying and then i hear he wants to meet with putin but merkel and mccrone have to be there i guess as some kind of chaperon i don't know john give us a broad picture of what's going on in ukraine. well you know peter i think that this is an occasion not for political commentary but instead for literary criticism

that. there is a strong tradition in the twentieth century and incidentally a tradition that's in many ways linked to ukraine of surrealism and satire in literature some of the greatest writers in russia like mccardell dark of nikolai gogol have described fantastical scenarios in which reality and fiction blend into one another and in which you don't know which is which and very often this satire is used in a political context it's particular case of course with goggle who knows famous stories the inspector all the knows are about satirizing political authority and this is a an old russian tradition this mingling of fiction and reality and politics it goes back if you like to the famous potemkin villages built in crimea to deceive catherine the great and it goes all the way through to soviet jokes doesn't it you

know the satires that satirical jokes that people used to tell in the later soviet period to make fun of their power this ukrainian election is an example of that you know people say we live in a post-modern area era when there's no difference between truth and reality. and it's certainly true that lots of people are brought up on reality t.v. where real life situations are presented for entertainment on that television what we have here is satire becoming reality and the victory of a comedian who rose to fame presenting a political satire in which an ordinary man becomes president almost by accident a bit like chancy gardner pigs and going beyond their. dates actually shows in my view amazing maturity on behalf of the ukrainian electorate because what they are saying is. politics or at least ukrainian politics is

a joke and we're now in the position in ukraine rather like the scene in actual or in king in shakespeare's king lear where the full speaks truth while political power has gone mad ok so that i mean i have nothing else to say to you apart from these rather philosophical reflections because. this goes beyond the you know you know if you're going to judge michael you described as an artist so you can put that motif i appreciate that diem and let me go to you one of the things that i think is very interesting is that when we were flecked upon the failures of the petition current regime is that the political elites and i think is a mask for deep deep corruption because i think that's what zones if he had any kind of political messages and you know it's really about corruption i would argue is that he's not much different from portugal he just wants less stealing ok however the paradigm that they're in reflecting on my what john just said is that

they're pursuing a. binary that does not exist i mean they are pursuing nationalism but they have no nation and it's one of the reasons why it doesn't work go ahead well first i agree with the draw and by the way war and war where russia does but they were born in ukraine so if we are for the current western border just like there is nothing in common between russia and ukraine they wouldn't be able to leave in russia because they would be created in citizens and you would have to rewrite all the western history of russian literature because then they would be considered a ukrainian right this which of course they weren't they were russian writers but your exactly right out. of the situation and the western reaction was absurd there was a moment of panic before the second round of action when suddenly all of the western newspapers started writing. that is it in skis inexperienced that may i

would do we teach him and suddenly there were full of praise for poroshenko let me just called the new york times rolled in a detroit credit i had a television character for president crazy and that's what they wrote about he crashed his shelf ball issue for us yes thirty thousand people killed and they call and we're going down fifteen percent in two years he's trails pollution favorites but he can take radiate for some great people reforms since he became president in two thousand and fourteen yes five hundred russians right this pretty big that von thousand russian just not able to enter ukraine great reforms huge difference you know ukraine and russia are very much of a candidate in the united states so imagine that you are leaving kind of that and you cannot listen to frank sinatra because he's pretty but that drone of course was on in russia was the same as frank sinatra in the united states they were often compared to you live in canada and you're conned you can't listen to the songs that

you i mean you can listen to them on the internet but you can't watch it on television you can't mention it in an article these people are pretty limited but to the election was a complete rebuke of all of that let me go back to joe said no because they voted seventy five percent against twenty five for poroshenko and now it's very important now if suddenly all of the western newspapers say that you should not need to involve on ok and we hear from the guardian the western diplomats you know want to again storch into the separatist little say well that wasn't just i want to go to john here john i mean this was a complete failure five year plan failure of regime change in ukraine because it's gotten them nowhere whatsoever and it was quite remarkable we're with victoria nuland when poroshenko needed her in her cookies here i mean this is an abject failure of western policy and they can't even admit it but they never do go ahead john. yeah i mentioned to make sure i mentioned bill got off and go precisely

because of course i know that they are both from ukraine i've been to the uk of sousing here. but to continue with the literary. or the literary way of answering your question about failure peter. what i think is that again if we look to the theater of the absurd and to surrealistic. we can find we can begin to wait make our way to the to find an answer one of the most famous examples of surrealist literature is the italian author appear in delos play six characters in search of an author when the soviet union collapsed in one thousand nine hundred one you had fifteen republics in search of a history fifteen republics who had historically been part of russia when i say historically i mean going back many many centuries even in the case of the baltic states and suddenly they found themselves obliged to invent a story for themselves no history yet the word story and history is the same in

every other language apart from english the story in russian in german east while in french they had to invent a story for themselves and you know one way and the out one way or the other all of them managed to do it you may not have agreed with the story you may not have agreed with the baltic states national narrative you may not have agreed with the. invocation of central asian medieval warriors in the central asian republics you may have disagreed with them but all of them managed to come up. with a national narrative which gave their states some kind of reason to exist ukraine failed in the ok john you've got a mini jam i want to talk about one more i want to talk about one marine issue here and then over here let's talk about the lack of justice for a marine we can in the unit in the united states eighteen months prison nine months already served well as just be. global because she agreed to cooperate with the

investigate us and the west and used. for example bloomberg immediately admitted that she could not be a spy because if you agreed to cooperate with the investigation in you're a spy that means you're a traitor and you are no longer welcome in russia but russia said fine you know let's put it that let's get out of there because let me remind our listeners that mario abortion is a twenty nine years old young woman who can paint in the united states i mean she she just means order with people from the national rifle association she is in a party in russia that advocates are the right to bear arms and she was arrested in july last year she was kept in solitary confinement for several months she was promised that she would be deported if she cooperated with their investigation and now she gets nine months more the maximum and the judge. who gave her this sentence is saying your

a young woman the hard work and telent that you have everything in front of you and then you give her nine months you can actually interested in the league last minute i have to turn to john in front of me this seems to be a verdict of spite because the thing that i find so brands of brands of all that not only is this was. not guilty of anything other than what so many other people do in washington is is to lobby for foreign governments if this is a spiteful outcome your john are your thoughts it absolutely is but to get me to once again using a history illusion we are dealing here with a fantasy that's trying to see that she was a spy trying to see that the trumpet ministration was somehow. couldn't stop it and an example of collective hallucination in which people can no longer distinguish between reality and there. while. imaginings and this poor woman is the victim yes

that spite but also of collective hallucination and of a narrative that ran out of control and began to take control of reality itself it's theme of the last twenty seconds when the judge was given for that sentence the judge said it was not just some misunderstanding by a foreign student it was an attack against the united states well we have heard. that there was no could lose it and it still continues you know what's going on you know what are the biggest mistake was demon you don't have because mistake was loving america and loving guns had nothing to do with politics whatsoever and she's put into this meat grinder as what john laughlin said this great nation and that's all the time we have here many thanks to my guest here in moscow london and in france and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time remember cross titles.

you know world big partisan group mob and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smart we need to stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the troops the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. they can come and blow our brains out at any given time if we can't really do anything actually. because the only country in the world where you can kill people

outside of war and legally get away with. all of the fire crawls stillbirth you all the trouble here's briefly all the points it's hollow point to k.k.k. exists because america wants it to exist they have the biggest terrorist group to ever operate in this country and they're dared to media war saul's in the people who destroyed the world trade centers of the scroll why. is this is a period of sort of the same as if it's just bush but if. you do what you will well the minute you did it was my goal to. lose them is that if you listen up all of the good enough that all you won't listen to good would put me on the

enemy that is that liberal still is that mean that you all know paul. enough well it was pretty good way to lose a. lot of what you stand to which because you hoped i wouldn't be done long ago but i come. here to you. with your money you know you do you still lead you sort of my look from mood should measure just in the clue that your coconspirators are going to. let me. let.

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