brent: joining me at the big table is from the german institute for international and security affairsit's good to see you again. >> good to see you. brent: we have been observing growing tensions here in the gulf for weeks now. is the situation between iran and the u.k., is that what is escalating or iran and the west that we're seeing escalate now? >> i would say the west and iran are the major players here. it's escalating or it continues escalation for the last couple of weeks. it's a strategy of warfare pursued by the iranians under the threshold of deniability. they deny to be involved another time. they have denied to plant the bombs two weeks ago. so they intend to spread instability and insecurity here and try to target u.s. interests or western interests in general. brent: yeah, they claim that the reports by the royal navy are an example of fake news, for example. we heard today from the foreign secretary in the u.k., mr. hunt, calling for de-escalation, but the u.k.'s potential new prime minister boris johnson, i'm sure you have heard of him, he chose a slightly more aggres