hello and welcome to crossfire all things considered i'm peter lavelle to force machine change in iran the trumpeting ministration risks up 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 bob he's a political analyst and international and in london we crossed alexander me curious 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 in 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 these you tube you can buy oil from the you cannot buy oil from when you were in for years upon years 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 so outside the provisions of the un charter and outside the powers of the u.n. security council which under chapter seven of the united nations charter is the body which is also rights to impose sanctions and economic is on its let's say actually a declaration of war is this a sign of easing i'd say 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 used force to try to enforce that blockade 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 group vines 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 these two

think comes very close to the kind of armed action that he's in be each in the u.n. charter there are good they were quite there yet but the distance is very small let me go to you obviously countries like china or 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 and 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 this pressure bob also

a country like turkey turkey you know. this is a lead 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 by wine 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 are basically making them less secure and the response from the wrong response from there on is that they signal 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 actively acting against us benjamin netanyahu or saudi crown prince muhammad 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 make in a b. movie without 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 and the rain ians have been experiencing these type of sanctions for a long time they've 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 they raised demand as the research were raining or it will there will be supply because of coos as you correctly say all crises will ronnie's and that he's going to incentivize all sorts to create will to find ways of selling that all you want because they're going to be profits and there are all sorts of people around the world it's be quite clear about this who are prepared to accept those lives or to 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. 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 our 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 could 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 destruction 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. pleo 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 concert. on the oil market and in this policy

is system and escalate further greater and greater dangers with a 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 is more financial reasons here but you know that 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. saying 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 enough wrong from the international economy but 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 van 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 iraq the say or believe regime change but also abandoning iran three general elyse what does it mean it means that iran will get a lot. to operate freely in syria on its border no. iran is going to allow

their pay though i want to be your be analysis of all this because the law of unintended consequences is definitely in play here all right 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 r.t. . international memorial awards twenty nine c. the now open for entries. media professionals are eligible whether you are a freelance journalist work for alternative media or part of a global news to participate in published works and video. go to award dot altie dot com i mentioned that.

the people that are now doing those manufacturing jobs also start to innovate because that's where the innovation happens on the factory floor. been moved to china as you point out china we moved all of our jobs manufacturing china. and china so we don't it's not it's not created in california built in china is going to be created in china built in china. my son in this doing drugs my nephew 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. we started treating sick people people who are addicted to these. drugs

like criminals while i was on the. 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 have presidential elections where we have a comedian a political unknown about to be inaugurated and since then. we get a mixed signals from this zone and 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 . 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 prevent presenting a political satire in which an ordinary man becomes president almost like by accident a bit like chancy gardner yes exactly being there. 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 x. for in king in shakespeare's king lear where the full speaks truth yes while political

power has gone mad ok so. i have nothing else to say to you apart from these rather philosophical reflections because. this this goes beyond the usual. just like when you described it as an artist so you kept with the 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 push and co regime is that the political elites and i think is a mask for deep deep corruption because i think that would zone 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 puerto shango 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. i agree with your no by the way war borgata one wall. what russia does but they were born in ukraine so if we are for the current western polish just like there is nothing in common between russia and ukraine they wouldn't be able to to live in russia because they would be korean citizens and you would have to rewrite all the western history of russian literature because then they would be considered ukrainian writers which of course they weren't they were russian writers but you're exactly right about. the situation and the western reaction was absurd there was a moment of panic before the second round of action when suddenly all the western newspapers started writing they didn't sneeze inexperienced and that putin may out to eat him and suddenly they were full of praise for poroshenko let me just call to the new york times rolled in a detroit credit i had a television character for president crazy and that's what they wrote about bush in

court he crashed his shelf board issue for us yes thirty thousand people killed and they call and we're going down fifteen percent in two years he's trail full issue for he was but he can take radiate for some credible reforms since he became president in two thousand and fourteen yes five hundred russian writers pretty bit at one thousand russian actors 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 live in canada and you can not 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 you live in canada and you can't 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 if the election was a complete rebuke of all of that let me go back to the journal they said no because

they voted seventy five percent against twenty. five. and no it's very important no suddenly all of the western newspapers say that you should not meet which involve on ok and we hear from the guardian that western diplomats you know want to against talking to the separatist leaders came with that goes on because 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 him nowhere whatsoever and it was quite remarkable where was victoria nuland when poroshenko needed her and 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. how 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 net 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 the reception of you by a slightly bigger national narrative which gave their states some kind of reason to exist ukraine failed in the ok john you know rainy jan 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 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 board broke immediately admitted that she could not be a spy because if you agreed to cooperate with the investigation in your

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 marty abortion is a twenty nine years old young woman who can paint in the united states i mean 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't really enjoy. the last minute and a half sen 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 mystery illusion we are dealing here with a fantasy that's trying to see that she was a spy of 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 yes theme of the last twenty seconds when the judge was given that sentence the judge

said it was not just a misunderstanding by a foreign student it was and that back against the united states well we have heard that there was no could lose it and it still continues you don't you don't think it's a mistake once demon you know to because mistake was loving america and was loving guns had nothing to do with politics whatsoever and she's put into this meat grinder is what john laughlin said this great loose a 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 and remember. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of

the world of politics or business i'm showbusiness i'll see that. the politicians to do something to. put themselves on the line they did accept it or reject it. so when you want to be present. for something i want to. let you go right to the press that's what the three of them will be good. i'm interested in the waters of the. question. they can come and blow our brains out at any given time and we can't really do anything actually america is the only country in the world where you can kill

people outside of war and legally get away with. all the fire crawls still birria all the trouble here's three failed to point 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 dead to media worse also than the people who destroyed the world trade centers of the scroll why. is it a period of sort of the smell of fish flesh blood if. you will well the minute you did it was my job to. look. losing is its appeal to all of the good enough at him yet that all laong solicit the good it would put me on the management of that it's

a little bit silly was that you know you'll know paul. enough well it was pretty good way to lose a. kind of what used to which can be overdone with done well but i come. here to you. your money you know you do you store the lead you see them i looked up a mood should measure during the clue which are called. america. reported

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