Stuck in the Cycle: Ukraine, Iran, US Politics #149

[MUSIC] My name is Dario Hazenstab, I'm here with Balder Hagrads and we are back with the Western Bible podcast and that is a surprise to me, Balder. I did not think that I was going to be back this week because of the heat that I'm currently experiencing and luckily, very grateful to you, we're able to record this in the morning because usually we record in the afternoon but that would not have been possible. Yeah, I think we should all have a moment of silence for those poor Germans with their heat, especially from a country like Spain where it's never hot at all. So, I sympathize with you, Dario. I wish you well, stay strong, hang in there and let us know if we need to sense aid or something like that in order to help you survive. Yes, please, no one has it as bad as I do and I think that's a great transition into the episode because there are of course plenty of topics in the world of actual concern. Well, not that climate change isn't a concern but my situation here in the recording is not relevant to that. Balder, today we're talking about three different topics because a lot has happened, a lot is happening but nothing really stands out. I don't know if you have the similar feeling that there's a lot of different things that are simmering but nothing stands out in the last few weeks. Yeah, and it is a real shift. We mentioned this before a couple of weeks ago, I think, there's a real shift if you compare this to for example six months ago or a year ago when really big news and big decisions were made and that led to big moments of crisis. And now there are these lingering stories that are seen unresolved, seen vague and it seems as if the world is waiting for the next big thing to happen, right? So the conversations continue, the problems continue. In some cases, the violence continues but it is all a little bit waterless. I wouldn't be surprised if it is a matter of leadership taking a break from the enormous deluge of mistake after mistake after mistake of the past year and they are now trying to basically get their act together a little bit again. It reminds me a little bit of a German concept in the German media that's called the Summer Hole and we've actually talked about this two years ago, remember when I was sitting here again recording and I was fearing for my life because someone mistook a wild boar for a lioness roaming around in Berlin, right? So those are the type of stories that in the summer when it's just too hot and nothing is really happening, those are the type of stories that become big. One of them I think is the Trump pool, right? In front of the Lincoln Memorial, we'll get into that topic later in the episode. But I agree, right? So today we're talking about Ukraine, we're talking about the MOU between the United States and Iran to end the conflict there, we're talking about US politics but always from a perspective of things just simmering, nothing really standing out. I think that's the right word simmering, that's exactly what's happening. I'm pretty sure in that episode when we spoke about this I mentioned that in the Netherlands we call this cucumber news, like I don't know why I should look this up but it's that summer period but I would argue that the simmering that you're mentioning is more than just it's being the summer. There's also a sense of fatigue, a sense of, yeah, there's only so many destructive things you can do before you need to take a break, recuperate, recover and get a new plan together and that seems to be what is happening when I'm on top of that, we also have of course in the White House a president who's getting older and you start seeing people trying to manage that more and starting to look towards the future. So there's really this transitional period at the moment but the important news items keep on having an impact on the world of course. And for most of these topics, we'll actually know for all three of them, for Ukraine, for Iran, for US politics, there is this reoccurring cycle. So it's not the same cycle for all three of them, but I have the feeling that most of them have been stuck in their own little cycle for a while. So with Russia and Ukraine and it's start with that topic, I mean that is a war that has been going on for four years now, for four years and three months. Which also I'm just noticing is our anniversary boulder. It's exactly four years ago that we at the end of June 2022 is where we record the first episodes on Russia and Russia and Ukraine war, yeah, you know, it's that. This, this, the, the, now everyone has to go to Spotify and watch us because we just made cute hearts with our hands, you know, because we're very in line with this generation. I feel bad. I didn't buy you anything. I'm so sorry, but, but I still love you. I do, I love you too. I feel bad that I just remembered our anniversary now and we would have both forgotten about it. But going, going to that cycle, I was talking about with regards to Russia and Ukraine. For the last four years, every few months, it felt like the tide was shifting. That, oh, Russia just advanced 100 meters on this world war one like front that goes through Ukraine. And then a few months later, Ukraine is now on the upper side or has the upper hand and is pushing the Russian back 100 meters. That has been going on for four years now. I mean, we've expressed how most analysts, all including ourselves, have been a little bit surprised at the resilience and the success of Ukraine in pushing back the Russians in keeping them out. And now you again have news items coming up that Ukraine is currently gaining the upper hand, but this time it feels different to me. Do you, does it also feel different to you or is it just something that I personally perceive? Well, I don't know, I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know if it does or it doesn't. What I do know is that you're absolutely right, when the war started, it was, well, two things were surprising. First of all, the incompetence of the Russians, just it was a terribly planned war, right? And since then they've recovered, but the beginning was all fine. That was a surprise. You know, there was still this idea that the Russian armed forces knew what they were doing and that there was and also that Putin was relatively competent. I think his reputation as a very competent international geopolitical planner has taken an enormous hit because of the blunders of the invasion. And so that was one surprise and the other surprise was exactly what you said that Ukraine actually put up a very, very, very impressive fight. And I don't typically admire warfare, I'm warfare, it's not, you know, there are people get really excited by this. But it is, it is impressive how Ukraine with stood that that that Russian might and so those two things were at the beginning, very surprising. But since that settled, it was always going to be and it still is a matter of attrition, right? The moment it became clear that Russia wasn't going to just drive into Kiev and the moment it became clear that of course Ukraine can't just push the Russians back because Russia has too powerful for that. It was going to be a matter of slowly chiseling away at the infrastructure and trying to create as many casualties on the other side and hoping that at some point that would force the other side to the table in a, you know, in a positive way for you. That was always going to be the thing. And so this going up and down is kind of what you would expect in that sense. One thing that I do think is different is that Ukraine is becoming much more aggressively successful in hitting place, for example, like Moscow with the refinery of Moscow that was blown up and then that enormous black smoke that hanging over the city. And that is different because all of a sudden, if you're in Moscow, you can't ignore it anymore. You have to at least ask yourself why is there black smoke in the air? Why is my city being polluted like this? And so it is no longer just about the front, but it is that Ukraine is making it clearer and more painful for the average Russian citizen. And that is probably a new development. Because you just said that this is a war of attrition and I completely agree and I want to take it to another level that this is also a war of attrition of the spirits. Because I think we can rightfully criticize the Russian Armed Forces in their models of Iran, the Indian Ukraine, I mean, very specifically targeting civilian buildings. There's always these news of hospitals being targeted of schools, of really just crushing that Ukraine in spirit, same with the energy infrastructure as you just mentioned, particularly in the winter. I mean, it gets cold in Ukraine and then not having any energy or electricity to heat up your house, right? So with this just crushing the Ukrainian spirit and now it seems like Ukraine is gaining a little bit of a hand when it comes to the spirit, right? So you mentioned there becoming more self-confident, striking deeper into Russian territory. And particularly, so that video or those images of that big black cloud, I mean, I think to Jury is still out, but so the analysts have already pointed at actually a defensive missile. I try to hit a drone causing one of the bigger explosions, also digging a little bit at that image of Putin, not only being this competent strategic mind, who has always been the protector of the Russian Motherland, which he now longer is, because Russia is being attacked with a Russian territory in Moscow, so that image of him is also at least being scratched at a little bit. Yes. And if you look at both sides of this war and the treason, then it seems to me clear that the question is about Russia rather than Ukraine, for the simple reason that Ukraine is fighting for survival. And if after four years they haven't collapsed yet, then it's less likely that it will collapse in five or six years, right? In the sense that it is either we survive or we're in deep trouble, we're going to be dominated by Russia and we cannot let that happen. So even though I can only imagine that every year that goes by is more damaging and destructive for Ukraine itself, it is unlikely that Ukraine will all of a sudden start waving the white flag. They would have done that in the first year. And if they didn't do that, then it's not going to happen. But for Russia, it's a slightly different thing because on the first, firstly, the Russians have a choice. Ukraine doesn't have that choice because they're fighting for survival. The Russians have a choice as a nation. Do we want to continue this? Do we want to lose hundreds of thousands of our men in this war or do we want to end it? If we end it, it might be humiliating. It might be embarrassing. We might have to answer to ourselves why we pay this enormous price in terms of economics, in terms of human lives and all of that. But we can continue our existence, right? Which is something that luxury, it's a luxury that Ukraine doesn't have. And that's a major difference. It always goes back to what we've been saying for four years. Now, as to, there also needs to be a bursting the Russian bubble podcast answering the questions of how could this happen? Why was it allowed to go on for so long? Because the economy, well, first of all, the humanitarian damage, hundreds of thousands of young Russian men dying, then the economic damage, and yeah, war is just not good. And that relates to the other thing you said about Putin, right? So Putin took a huge blow in his reputation. There have been, this year, a lot of news stories coming out about him becoming genuinely concerned. He's always had this paranoid streak. We know this. He's a paranoid man. It's probably one of the reasons why he's still there, you know, being paranoid sometimes allows you to stay in power. But there seems to be a real concern in the Kremlin that there is something afoot in Russia because his air of invincibility seems to be disappearing, right? He is no longer seen as competent as he used to be in 2014 with Crimea or even 2016 or 18. There was always this sense of you don't want to do anything to anger Putin because he will get it. He will get back to it. He will strike. He has the competence. He has the ability to control society. And it seems that in 2026, that is no longer as clear. Yes, there is a lot of fear. There's kind of a police state in Russia. But Putin himself is no longer seen as this all-powerful almighty figure. And that could actually lead not just to his downfall, but also towards the end of the war. Well, and that leads me to the other two aspects I wanted to mention with with the tide shifting right now is Crimea. So also a very intensive Ukrainian attacks on Crimea and energy infrastructure and the fuel shortages as a result and people trying to leave Crimea, which is of course one of Putin's most prized positions. I think that's when he was at the height of his power in 2014. He had just captured Crimea without well annexed, invaded Crimea without firing a single shot. And that suddenly being taken away is a problem. And the next thing is Belarus, almost like, well, basically a Russian satellite said if you want to call it that with with their president Lukashenko, who always needs to ask Putin for permission if you want, I don't know, wants to use the bathroom. Him giving in to Zelensky, demanding that Russia can no longer use Belarusian territory for these relay stations for drones, which for my understanding of drones, which is very limited, allows your drones to have a further distance because your communication reaches further into the into Ukraine and territory through Belarus. And Zelensky threatened Lukashenko with attacks on on Belarus and he basically stopped the use of the use of these relay stations for Putin, which can also be seen as a bit of a, you know, Crimea falling away, Lukashenko no longer being as scared and afraid of him that he, this is what I mean with this time it feels a little bit different from what the media has been telling us for the last four years where every few months it seemed like Ukraine was definitely winning the war and Zelensky almost taking the throne in Moscow. Yeah, I will point out that the primary source for this news about Belarus is Zelensky, right? So he said he threatened and he argues that Ukrainian intelligence agencies are now saying that it's no longer active in Belarus. So my point here is that it might absolutely be true, but of course you could also see a situation which you create just wants to create friction between Belarus or Russia or wants to create this issue of always Belarus still on Russia's side. No, I'm always a little bit skeptical of anything coming out of Zelensky office, you know, he's doing what he needs to do. He's surviving for his country, he's, he's, but of course they do have a very specific agenda. They're not voters to call it like, and but voters also has an agenda, by the way, but that's for a different episode. But it is absolutely true that that's slowly in that war of attrition. The position of Ukraine seems to become much more stable and solid than the position of Putin specifically, and it is really about Putin and the Kremlin. Russia in itself is going to survive no matter what, but it is very much about how much longer can this go on without at some points there being a reaction against Putin. There was always the question even in 2022, but that certainly in 2026 a relevant issue to race, and it is not clear at all if Putin has an exit plan or not, right? It is not not clear because what is he going to do? The only thing that would probably make it or write for him to walk away from this war is if at a very minimum he can claim significant territorial gains in Donbas and and and some kind of acceptance that Crimea belongs to Russia, I think, and it's not very clear whether Kiev is ready for that at this moment. Particularly because again, if you have the upper hand, I mean the and conflict resolution, they say that you really only go to the negotiation table if both sides feel like they can no longer win anything by continuing the conflict, and I'm not sure whether Ukraine is at that position because having the upper hand right now also leads to more confidence. And this is something with Zelensky, we've already analyzed two, three years ago, that the more confidence he has, and this is that Western bubble aspect right as Western bubble mechanism is that if you're winning and you have confidence, where remember that three and a half years ago he started wagging his finger at all of his allies and really angering European capitals. Now he's doing similar things and I don't understand why because it's not necessary and it's such such a quick strategic loss and that is his disagreement with Poland, with particularly with Polish president Tynapodorki, where Zelensky has awarded a big honor to a faction of Ukrainian soldiers that was fighting in World War II and they were Ukrainian nationalist fighters and they were fighting against the Soviet Union but they also were responsible for killing tens of thousands of Polish civilians. The question is do you really want to give that type of battalion, do you really want to give them a price? I mean I assume he does it for nationalistic purposes right now at home to kind of you know because they are quite popular in Ukraine because they were already seen as resisting against the Almighty Russians, the USSR at that point back then but you're angering one of your most important supporters in Europe and that is Poland. Yeah and Zelensky's point is it seems like a complete on goal. It's not really even a matter of whose writer who's wrong about this history is complex and all of that but keep your eye on the price, you are fighting Russia and that means that if you've got a country called Poland next to you you should do whatever it takes to keep Poland as close to you as possible right Poland with its own trauma towards Russia and the This kind of symbolism is exactly the wrong thing. And Zelensky has this tendency. So he did this against European capitals in general when it seemed that Ukraine was kind of winning. When it turned out that Russian invasion was just terribly planned. And Ukraine was on this high. And he all of a sudden got this ego boost apparently. And he started lecturing Europeans about their behavior, which was, of course, a ridiculously bad thing to do. If you're a Ukrainian president, that's the last thing you need to do in that situation. But also with respect to military offensive, for example, there were twice in the past two years situations that a lot of his own generals said, this is a war of attrition. Let's not take any risks. And he became emboldened, and he actually greenlit a very aggressive stance, trying to recover territory, at enormous cost to the Ukrainian military, lots of lives lost, without any long-term political gain. He has this tendency to, when he sees an opportunity, when he feels strong about his position to overplay his hands. And that is bad from a Ukrainian perspective. There is the additional issue that, if you look at the long term, Zelensky wants to either win this war and walk out a victor so that he's politically kind of invulnerable, like he has won the war for Ukraine, or he wants the war to continue until that happens. It would be bad for him to sign a peace agreement or even a ceasefire that makes Ukraine look weak, have to concede a lot of territory and all of that, because he has domestic issues at home, corruption scandals. It's a little bit like Netting Yow, right? Either you win or you continue to conflict, and that's kind of what Zelensky seems to be playing with. - Yeah, thank you for mentioning Netting Yow, because it allows me to transition towards another conflict that's currently going on on the world, and that is the one between the United States, Israel and Iran. And if you listen to the Iranians, it's very important that I also mention Lebanon here, and because Lebanon was almost a country named the most in the memorandum of understanding that the United States and Islamic Republic of Iran agreed upon last week. Paul, there's the war now over, can we go home? - No, in the sense it depends how you define war. A war technically-- - It's the absence of peace. - Exactly, and so I was going to say, it's technically over, only when a peace treaty is signed, and memorandum of understanding is not a peace treaty whatsoever, and even after peace treaty is signed, the following day it can restart again. So no, the problems have not been resolved, and the problems, of course, are issues that were exacerbated by the violence, right? So there were significant problems before the attacks, then the fact that these violence has taken place has made it even more difficult to actually come to some kind of long-term resolution between the different parties. And the biggest problem is completely obvious, and we've seen this now over and over again. It is these are negotiations between the United States and Iran, because both clearly want this to end. Both do not want this to continue for Iran, because they need to get back to some kind of normalcy, they need to get their economy back in order, they need to get some political structures back in order, and they can't continuously refocus on the volatility of the White House, and the White House, because they've got absolutely nothing to gain. They never had anything to gain from this conflict. They only had things to lose, and they can't continue paying the political price for all of this. So the United States and Iran want this to end, but every time the day comes close, like a memorandum of understanding, there's one other player who doesn't want this to end, and that is Israel. So then Israel starts messing around more with Lebanon, people dying in Lebanon, destruction takes place, and Iran simply cannot sign any kind of serious peace agreement as long as that happens, and that's exactly why Israel does this, of course. - Yeah, that's, again, we're going back to the word cycle of Trump announcing, "Hey, we've got a peace deal." Iran saying, "Well, we're not so sure." The Israelis conducting some form of military operation against Iran or Lebanon, and then, right, kind of violence, violence playing up again, and then we go back to the beginning of Trump claiming that, "Hey, we found an agreement," and then between sprinkle in some posts by him, where he threatens to completely annihilate Iran, if they don't do what he says. I mean, this has been the last three months. - Exactly, that's, and it is fascinating in a way, right? That on the one hand, Israel is a powerful country. I mean, it's not a large country, 9 million people, but it is a powerful country. It has an enormous disfuscated military. It's got a lot of diplomatic influence in a lot of countries, but they are completely sidelined in this agreement, even though they were one of the two attacking parties. It was Israel and the United States. And as we've argued before, it was Israel who really initiated the violence and the United States seemed to follow against Iran this year. And so it is very odd to observe how Israel seems to be completely isolated in all of this. So they have to decide what Netanyahu has to do all the time is to decide whether he wants to follow Trump's orders or not. He basically needs to assess whether he can do what the United States wants him to do. And that is a place that Israel is not comfortable in, right? That's usually not how the relationship between the United States and Israel works. There's this famous phrase, the tail waxed dog, right? That typically Israel is the one who sets the tone for US foreign policy in the Middle East, in a lot of ways, but now it seems to be that the White House is completely fed up with the Netanyahu government. They are negotiating with Iran, telling Israel, stop it now, and then Israel either stops it or doesn't. And when they don't, then that creates a new problem for the United States. And that is also reflected by statements from the US Vice President, J.D. Vance, who is so fed up that he even said. And I, I mean, the reason why I'm chuckling is because we have complete clowns in the White House, right, this type of statement you could have never got on 10 years ago. Well, once I get careful here, 12 years ago at this point, because Trump entered the world stage in 2015. - Yeah, but crucially, as we've discussed in Trump, there were much fewer clowns, right, because there were still serious people that came from the usual departments into the White House as advisors. - Yeah, and so Vance kind of responding to criticisms from Israel about, this is a terrible deal, this is not what we were included kind of responding and I quote, what is your exact proposal? Your country of nine million people, you can just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have in quote. And I honestly, I must say I agree. It's something we've been saying for a while. - And we've discussed this a number of times in other episodes, but I mean, this is a true statement. It's unfortunate that comes from Vance because it's always a little bit painful to have to give Vance credit, right? Because these people are responsible for a lot of really bad policy and a lot of really bad analysis, but in this case, it's one of the mysteries, I mean, there are sociologically, psychologically, you can explain it. But from a purely realist perspective, it's a mystery why Israel thinks that it's actually helping itself with this violence, right? And that's what Vance is pointing out. I mean, what are you gonna do? Just kill every enemy, every time you kill an enemy, you create 10 new enemies. When does it stop? When does the violent stop so that you can relax? And you can say, we as a country are now gonna be relatively safe because we are now, once again, in harmony with our surroundings. - And from that realist perspective, you also understand that the most important factor in this conflict that you keep on reigniting are your allies. And that you're scaring them away. This is also something that Vance said, and I quote, if I was the, if I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have left in the entire world. Basically stating that Israel, we're the last real ally. I mean, yes, of course, the Germans and the Dutch, they have a difficult time ending that relationship. But in, let's just say that in this world, German silence on the topic of Israel is already a big statement in itself. - Very, very clearly so. And this goes a little bit back to what we just said about Zelenski, you don't want to annoy Poland, you don't want to annoy European capitals. But that is even more the case for Israel because Israel's existence has. from the very beginning being questioned by significant segments of the world's population. So from the very beginning, obviously, famously or infamously, Israel has been under threat from its surroundings and other parts of the world. And then it is absolutely essential to keep your allies on board and its maximalist approach. This believing that you can just get and get and get what you want without ever having to compromise is it may have worked in the 20th century for a while because those allies were always there. So if Israel made a mistake, then any rivals or enemies couldn't do much because there would always be the Europeans and the United States backing Israel up. But in 2026, that doesn't work anymore. So just always going for that that maximalist result always trying to get everything you want is actually now being deeply damaging harmful dangerous to Israeli survival in the long run. And if I was an Israeli citizen, I would be, you know, even if I didn't care about the rest of humanity because sometimes Israel does give that sense, right? Unfortunately, that the rest of the world is completely irrelevant to the only thing that matters is the Israeli States. But even if that is the way that you view the world and the only thing you care about is the survival of your States, you should be panicking right now because your government is not doing you any favors whatsoever. You're completely excluded from this memorandum of understanding. And let's let's take a few moments just to look into that because it is very important to me but also to you to remind everyone that we're not like in this MOU first of all, it doesn't mean anything, right? It's completely meaningless. It's to quote Donald Trump from his campaign, it's a concept of a plan if anything at all. But anything that we're achieving here is something is actually much less than we've had before. So if you turn time back to February 27th of 2026, the Strait of Augustus opened and Iran does not have any control over it and also no legitimacy over it, that has been changed. The oil and gas prices are lowered and they are right now, despite the fact that the Strait of Augustus is semi-opened now, all right? So I checked it out yesterday, the traffic within the strait is back to like 90% of pre-war levels, but that doesn't take into account that you've now have all the tankers that were stuck in there, you have them missing from four months of supply chains globally. So that's a big problem that we still have to talk about. And before the right before the American attack on Iran, we talked about this, there was actually that kind of indication or that agreement by the Iranians to have to resume kind of controls by the IAA on nuclear stockpiles. And the declaration, hey, we do not want to have anything to do with nuclear weapons. And so that we're not going back to peace times where the fighting has stopped and we're worse off than we were before. And that's exactly the problem from the very beginning. It was never clear what success looked like in all of this. What was it that they actually wanted to accomplish? And now, months later, we can see that they didn't know. And the fact that now they're hammering, by the way, which is also only for the past month or so a consistent message, because before that, it was all over the place. But now it's a consistent message. We need to keep Iran from having nuclear weapons. Yeah, this was not the way to get that. You've made it much more likely that Iran will develop nuclear weapons in the future. And there's very little that you can do in the long term to stop it now. Again, Iran, if Iran doesn't develop nuclear weapons, it's only because of some principled position, because from a geopolitical perspective, North Korea has paved the way. So it's not just that it is trying to get back to the situation in February. It's always going to be worse than February, which is, of course, something that the White House should be held accountable for, but they probably won't, because the American people don't seem to fully understand this. You know, there are lots of people in the United States who do it, but the large mass as of the population don't seem to really fully grasp how bad this whole thing has been for their own country. Exactly, because I mean, so the only public opinion poll I could find of this on this said that it is 24% of the Americans who think that the Iran war was worth the costs. And it tells you that 75% think it wasn't, but it doesn't mean that they know exactly how bad it was, because the latest estimates that I found is that, well, is that the US administration requested an additional 80 billion US dollars from the Pentagon to cover the costs of the war. And that is, I mean, a conservative estimate, given the amount of, given the amount of, right, missiles fired and the numbers that we've heard, the numbers of the costs of the what they've heard in the first few weeks. There is a really weird thing. First of all, I want to understand who those 24% are of people who still think that it was worth the cost. What was worth it? What did you get out of it? What was good about this from your perspective? I would really like to know. But beyond that, the United States has a real problem, because all of these wars that the United States engages in are in some way voluntary, because the United States is safe in the sense that it is not going to be invaded by anyone any time soon. The average US citizen does not have to be worried about being bombed by foreign countries, maybe a terrorist attack, which by the way becomes more likely because of this kind of behavior, but not by a, a, a other state. And this continuous choice to go to war or not in the United States, also because of the size of the economy that it doesn't really seem to matter that much for it's too hard to actually properly understand what the impact is. Means that decade after decade, after decades, the United States has now gotten involved in wars that they typically actually lose. With the exception of maybe pushing Salam Hussein out of Kuwait, Operation Desert Storm, and Desert Shield, and then Desert Storm, the United States has engaged over and over again in losing wars. And yet they still continue with it because they don't really feel the consequences. And that is an enormous foreign policy problem for the United States, because it means that the politicians are reckless leadership in the White House is reckless. And the long-term consequences are that the United States becomes more and more vulnerable and, you know, losing prestige, losing diplomatic power and all of that. And it also exposes the complete lack of checks, of working checks and balances in the United States. I mean, theoretically, one of the more beautiful systems of government that has been designed in the world's history. But I mean, we've seen it just a few days ago. So Tuesday, so what, three days ago for us now, as the audience knows, it's Friday for us, it's 26 June. The Senate approved a, honestly, it's a symbolic war power resolution to block Trump from restarting the war. And it only lasted for 24 hours, and only took one shouting match between Trump and the senator and two of them switched. And then basically, no cancel at all out. So you have, you basically have the legislative be fine with this. Yeah, technically, one of the two senators, Rand Paul, didn't switch, but just called a present, right? So you can say, did you four again? So you can say, "I'm here, but I don't have an opinion on it." And that's one of those, you know, cowardly positions, like I don't want to create any enemies anywhere. What's a cowardly for a senator? I think a position that many more people should follow in their daily lives. Hi, I'm present, I'm here, glad to be here, but I don't have an opinion on this matter because I don't know. Absolutely, but as a senator, it's your job to make a choice. Which one of the two is better? So you're absolutely right. In daily life, please don't know and feel free not to take an opinion on it, but the senators do need to take a position, especially when it is about war, right? Especially when it is about something that is directly affecting human lives like this. But again, even if this hadn't happened yesterday, then still the actual impacts on what White House could do would have been minimal. I mean, the White House is essentially free to do whatever it likes at this stage because both the Republicans, as well as the Democrats, are rudderless. They are not sufficiently holding the White House to account and keep in mind that even though the president is seen as the leader of his party, so in this case, Trump is seen as the leader of his Republic of the Republican Party, it is still up to Congress. It's still up to the House and the Senate to actually create checks and balances. And they've completely, completely forgotten about that. And the Democrats just don't know how to do it. The Democrats are torn in their identity. They don't know what side they're on with respect to Israel. They don't know what side they're on with respect to Iran. And as a result, there is no significant opposition to the White House, which means that United States is essentially at a moment an authoritarian country. Which very nicely leads into the last part of this episode. Is that continued cycle within US politics? However, before that, I do want to quickly point of the point of the point out a cycle that I feel like is within this MOU because in the MOU between Iran and the United States in point number three it reads that and I quote the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America committed to negotiating and achieving the final deal in maximum 60 days extendable with mutual consent. And I think that is the next cycle we're ending up in that they're going to continuously meet because it takes years to negotiate an agreement like this they will continuously meet they will always extend maybe the first two times they extend the deadline it would still be national news and afterwards it will just fizzle out and that's the end of the war. Yeah and in that sense I mean before you said something like it's completely meaningless now it's not completely meaningless it just doesn't have an awful lot of meaning it has a little bit of meaning because it's one little step on that path that in two or three years time leads to everything going back to some kind of normalcy that's that's basically and for that all those steps are good even though you never know with this current White House right they're completely volatile and unpredictable and it could be that's two weeks from now all sudden Trump changes his mind and starts bombing again it's unclear. Yeah that could be so tying this back to the beginning of the episode where we said everything is kind of simmering and talking about the that continuous cycle within U.S. politics there's not a lot happening within the Republican Party and within the Democratic Party so I mean in the Democratic Party we know their cycle you know there's this continuous cycle between oh there's someone who is creating excitement with more social democratic policies but the establishment is a little bit uncomfortable with that so they ignore it away and then nothing changes and within the Republican Party it is that constant battle over the last 10 years of old Trump is losing steam is he losing steam what do we do how do we position ourselves for a post Trump period yeah I believe that underneath the surface there's actually quite a lot of a lot of things happening but policy wise not much is happening because of what you just described so there are a number of factors that influence the Republican Party at this moment first of all the fact that they are coming to the realization that Trump will not lay forever and that in two years time he will be replaced by another candidate who then from a Republican perspective hopefully wins the elections and that means that they are starting to realign who is going to be that person who is going to lead the party the next four eight years on the other hand there's still the midterms that are really complicated for Republicans because Trump is simply not popular even in Republican states Trump is not popular and so that creates a real dilemma and that means that the Republicans in Washington really don't want to be associated to any new policy initiatives that are put forward by the White House and there is a little bit of an ideological philosophical problem in the Republican Party who do we want to be? MAGA was so focused on Trump so focused on a project that is now showing its cracks that is showing that it's just not sustainable in the long term because it's based on incompetent leadership it's based on incompetent policymaking that the Republicans now are thinking okay do we go back to what the Republican Party was 20 years ago or do we have a new vision and do we go to the extreme right or do we go more evangelical what is it that we want to be and that is completely unclear and then on the Democratic side I think you're underplaying it a little bit when you say oh they're trying to ignore them money they're so very sustained campaign against what they believe are evil socialist right within the Democratic Party you've got these spokespeople going on CNN and MSNOW and all of that talking about Mamdani and the candidates that he's been endorsing as if they are the devil themselves as if they are calling them non-democrats so basically arguing that they are not part of the Democratic Party whereas I would argue that the only way to decide whether someone is part of the Democratic Party or not is whether they get elected by Democratic voters right that's it and in this case Mamdani got voted in by Democratic voters there's an enormous campaign against those progressive left-wing new politicians but having a campaign against something is not enough you also need to know what you're for and that establishment Democratic Party doesn't really know who they want to be for a little bit they had that Ezra Klein abundance theory dynamic going on but that is also a lot of hot smoke without much substance and so they just don't know how they have to sell themselves to the voters I mean the Republicans the Democrats all of the United States are in a complete identity crisis I mean if you follow the kind of bits and bites about the World Cup it appears that the only identity the United States has at the moment is ranch dressing so that is the one thing everyone can get behind and everyone kind of thinks is cool and it is a real issue right it is a country that started off incredibly fresh and new 250 years ago that started off with a real project a real vision but corruptive processes have set in for the past arguably for the past hundred years or so and they have slowly undermined the fabric of what makes United States great from a US perspective and so it is still riding on the co-tales of history it is still doing okay-ish because historically United States did very very well but that whole energy is gone and ask your average American citizen what what does your country stand for what is it supposed to be and there is no real answer anymore people just don't know they they go to work they live their lives they do the things they've always done but it's not obvious what the United States has to achieve in the future what it is that it has to do to be successful there is no clear plan and there's no underlying dynamic pushing for something positive and that is an enormous problem not just for the American population but also for its leadership well that seems like a great moment to end today's conversation if you have any questions comments or you've heard a statement we've made throughout the episode please make sure to send us an email to [email protected] and we will try to incorporate them in our following episodes thank you very much to the listeners and the viewers for joining us today make sure to join us again next week when we press the western bubble that is the Thomasite Boulder which closes quote did you pick for us today well aptly I would say I took another quote from John Adams as founding father of the United States and the quote goes the longer I live the more I read the more patiently I think and the more anxiously I inquire the less I seem to know do justly love mercy walk humbly this is enough