in iraq so to get a bit more complex now we can cross live to former pentagon security analyst michael maloof michael thank you for joining us on this let's talk about the most recent developments because the u.s. and iran now seem to be backing away from further confrontation with both saying that we're trained from further strikes and less the other side attacks so it's kind of the reverse of tit for tat the both thing waiting to see what happens next and some seeing this as maybe sort of a slightly positive step in the right direction in regards to avoiding conflict do you agree with that analysis. well the potential if you're a real optimist but i know that the. iranian iranian government. is already anathema to negotiating anything with the trumpet ministration but they are there is there is dialogue going on and as long as. the trump administration says while we can meet out conditions that's important but now we got to hear that from the iranian side they were they said that they would be willing to sit down if all the sanctions were lifted 1st and that started from. the u.s. perspecti

are boots on the ground there for me let's ask a long time pentagon official an r t contributor michael maloof michael iran's caretaker prime minister says yankee go on but united states secretary of state mike pompei o says we're going to stay in iraq to continue the fight against terrorism and the president has ad libbed that we're there protecting be oil from what well that's. protecting u.s. interests because what we're seeing because because of what the near near conservative thrust today is a new type of diplomacy is to is to. contain all the oil wells as much as we can where and places that we've kind of like in syria we said we're going to take over the oil in eastern syria and we're not leaving and we're proud to pump it and spend the money why we weren't we weren't even invited there so what we're seeing is that . the whole idea of that is to and to maintain our interests in that region is to basically dollar eyes the global economy where where they're trying to. base our activities diplomatically on foreign central banks savings on loans to the u.s. treasury because why. it's we all

from allotted to welcome onto the program today former pentagon official michael maloof michael good to see you michael just perhaps firstly on the mechanics of iraq's parliamentary vote it's a non-binding resolution what do you think the significance of it is because the government now has to actually carry out what the government has said and has been tasked with removing the troops will they actually do it. well that's going to be the challenge i do know that prior to the assassination of general saw the money there was dissension within the ranks and that's why you had no decision because for months there has been discussion of doing just this possibly mean removing foreign troops namely the u.s. particularly to avoid the very problem we're having now i think that the. i think it was assessed that the popular mobilization forces along with the iraqi security forces were sufficient to be able to deal with any future isis threat or even al qaeda threat because they are so. disk i'm boggled now they don't have a caliphate any longer and so that then raised the question well why do w

and now for more on this we're joined by former pentagon official michael maloof welcome thank you so michael there is a ton to unpack here as we go over this and talk but before we get into the economic implications and market moving what was this an act of war it could lead to it and. just 2 weeks ago for example you had. the secretary of state from pale and netanyahu talking actively about regime change in. iran and. the iranians and. the israelis rather and and the united states for years have monitored the monies actions activities in fact he was openly invited into baghdad and arrived at a jet very openly and but yet the united states chose now too. take action against it whereas in 2 administrations prior even the israelis they could have done something years ago but they never did why because there were fearful that it would lead to the conditions that we're seeing today absolutely now i want to talk about the economic impact here because obviously a business and finance show and now we've seen oil markets move pretty substantially today and things are going up what are we see

now is former senior security policy analyst in the office of the secretary depends great title michael maloof we love and he always love having you know michael i so 1st and foremost i want to ask everybody else star was steve because he's far away in new york but 1st and foremost let's start the most important question should we take serious and do we believe the accusations that the former employee in henderson has come forward with and told to the u.n. security council should we take that seriously as the a whistleblower should we take him seriously steve. i don't believe we should you know he says things like the canisters of nerve gas may have been dropped by syrian helicopters and may have been placed at the site and that the symptoms of of the victims were not consistent with chlorine gas but never addresses what it was that killed them and what caused these symptoms and then you know then you have a robert fisk writing a piece talking about a he gave a speech and then a guy in a nato military uniform came up to him and said the report has been edited and it's compromised and it's corr

taken approximately at the time ukrainian plane was on its flights let's get some reaction to michael maloof and an analyst and these are with us now good evening to you michael what do you make of all this speculation is fair enough to call it speculation because nobody's actually presented any hard evidence yet including nato even though it secretary general says in his opinion there's no doubt that iran is to blame. well it clearly requires investigation and if in fact it was downed by a missile. least i think iranian authorities iranian authorities would regard that as a as a very tragic accident was not intended the other thing you got you cannot rule out is the possibility of somebody like the m e k using manpads. surface to air missiles like a stinger that could have been used in order to cast blame on the iranian government can't rule that out either i think we really need to have an investigation of the of the crash site and the pieces of the of the aircraft unfortunately they've moved a lot of the evidence they've contaminated the crash site unfortunately and one of the other thing

military forces former pentagon security analyst michael maloof believes that private contractors need to be held accountable for their behavior. defense department contracts with major defense firms it's what these in turn what these defense firms like lucky and what have you then sub contract and then the subcontractors may sub sub contracts and that's where this problem arises at that lower level i think they were aware of it i think it is what they needed was a study like this to galvanize attention to it and thereby initiate action up until now they've just taken the word of the car the contractors the major contractors that the products are sound and what have you but those those defense contractors those major was like the lockheed so what have you really have an obligation to do their own quality assurance controls and they're not doing it that also they're also going to be helped to have to be held accountable. turkish soldiers are no way to libya that's according to the announcement by turkey's president that it won the turkish parliament voted on thursday to back the u.n. re

china and russia have a have a lot at stake here is well absolutely former pentagon official michael maloof thank you so much for being at leisure. and we need to catch you up on the latest happenings in the u.s. china trade war president donald trump earlier this week said he plans to sign phase one of a trade deal with china at the white house on the 15th of january it is unclear which high level representatives from the chinese government will be present for the signing however recent reports say chinese vice premier league. could be in washington to make the deal the news marks an easing of trade tensions between the 2 nations but in a tweet announcing the player signing of phase one president trump said he will be traveling to beijing in the near future to begin phase 2 talks which could reinvigorate the contentious relationship between the 2 sides. it's been a turbulent start to 2020 with markets so on the 1st trading day of the new decade only to tumble and crush risk appetite let's see how we ended up over in moscow the most success up as oil surged over 4 percent giving a boost to