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Speaker 1: Let's switch attention to the Middle East. After the political

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Speaker 1: assassination of Hamasa's leader, and this comes a day after

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Speaker 1: atop hez Bala commander was killed in Beirut. What does

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Speaker 1: that mean for the region and fears the conflict could

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Speaker 1: escalate further and involve more countries. Iran promising retribution because

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Speaker 1: the assassination of the political leader of Hamas happened in Iran.

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Speaker 1: Dr John Brunei is founder and CEO Sage International and

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Speaker 1: joins me. Now, John, good morning, Good morning, Matthew. What

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Speaker 1: does this mean for the region. Could things get worse?

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Speaker 2: No, Actually, the region is as bad as it possibly

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Speaker 2: can be under current circumstances. It will get worse in

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Speaker 2: local areas like Gaza. It will get worse in Lebanon,

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Speaker 2: but not by any external means. Lebanon's a basketcase by itself.

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Speaker 2: Anything that the Israelis do in Lebanon will probably be

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Speaker 2: narrowed to the southern area of the country where his

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Speaker 2: bowler is located. But I'm not expecting any escalation, any

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Speaker 2: military escalation beyond what we are currently seeing, and that

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Speaker 2: is very controlled. Tit for tap either terrorist attacks and

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Speaker 2: or ballistic missile strikes. There won't be a Third World

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Speaker 2: War breaking up in the Middle East.

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Speaker 1: All right, So Iran's belligerents, I suppose.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well that can be as belligerent as they like

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Speaker 2: the country's bankrupt, and as we saw recently when they

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Speaker 2: didn't attempt to fire off a salvo of missiles as

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Speaker 2: a demonstration attack on Israel, most of them were shot down.

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Speaker 2: So really, you know, you don't want to go around,

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Speaker 2: if you're a poor country, you don't want to go

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Speaker 2: around expending ammunition for the sheer hell of it, because ultimately,

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Speaker 2: where are you going to start replacing all your lost

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Speaker 2: munitions from the Iranians don't have. You know, they're not

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Speaker 2: They're not a first rate industrial power. What they have

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Speaker 2: had come to them and their defense industries by dint

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Speaker 2: of hard work, theft, graft, corruption and everything else. And

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Speaker 2: they took many, many decades for them to build up

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Speaker 2: their military wherewithal. Where they are strong obviously is through

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Speaker 2: their Revolutionary Guard Corps. But the Revolutionary Guard Corps is

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Speaker 2: very much tied down in Syria and helping keep upright

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Speaker 2: the Syrian dictator Basha lah Sad. They have no capacity

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Speaker 2: nor any interest in expanding their war with Israel in

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Speaker 2: spite of the rhetoric, because they simply don't have the

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Speaker 2: capacity to sustain a war with Israel. And the other

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Speaker 2: thing that your listeners might be curious about, and that

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Speaker 2: is that Israel has so thoroughly penetrated Iran. I mean,

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Speaker 2: you know, Massad and all their other intelligence agencies, they're

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Speaker 2: all over the place in Iran. That's why the Israelis

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Speaker 2: have managed to take out a number of senior Iranian

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Speaker 2: nuclear scientists. That's how they've managed to take out the

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Speaker 2: Hamas leader who was in Iran. You know, when a

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Speaker 2: country is so thoroughly penetrated by a foreign intelligence agency agent,

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Speaker 2: a foreign asset intelligence ascids, so I should say sorry,

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Speaker 2: not enough coffee in the morning. But you know, when

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Speaker 2: you've got a country that is so vulnerable like Iran

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Speaker 2: is to Israel, what can they do. They can only

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Speaker 2: do these tip to tap raids where perhaps they do

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Speaker 2: another kidnapping, maybe they blow up a bus of you know,

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Speaker 2: Israeli tourists in Egypt or something. I mean, and as

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Speaker 2: tragic as those incidents are, that is not war. Those

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Speaker 2: are isolated incidents. And I think that the media has

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Speaker 2: to be very careful when they're analyzing the Middle East,

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Speaker 2: not to overplay their hand. Yes, it sounds terrifying, it

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Speaker 2: sounds excellent as a front you know, a front page story.

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Speaker 2: And yes, it's about time that Hanaya found has come up,

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Speaker 2: and so got no problem with that. As a matter

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Speaker 2: of fact, I do have a problem with one thing

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Speaker 2: that the Israelis are doing, and that is that they

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Speaker 2: should have gone after Hanaya and of the all of

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Speaker 2: the Hammas leadership in exile in their safe havens, over

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Speaker 2: and above what they're currently doing in Gaza, which is

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Speaker 2: literally just you know, doing a rerun of World War

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Speaker 2: Two in a very small built up area. So rather

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Speaker 2: than that, they could have gone after the leadership, cut

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Speaker 2: off the head of the snake and destroyed Hamas. That

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Speaker 2: way that they're starting to do it now ten months

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Speaker 2: into a brutal, brutal war and they have completely alienated

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Speaker 2: the entire population of Gaza, without which there will not

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Speaker 2: be any peace is a problem.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's that's exactly right now. That you and Security

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Speaker 1: Council met overnight, I understand, did they resolve anything.

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Speaker 2: No, they never resolve. Well, I mean again, it's good

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Speaker 2: for televisuals. You have some retired diplomat saying some nice

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Speaker 2: words somewhere, and that's nice. It gives the idea that

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Speaker 2: there is progress. There is no progress. I suppose one

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Speaker 2: thing that you can say about this whole situation is

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Speaker 2: that any sort of secret negotiations being taken place between

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Speaker 2: is whatever is left of Hummaus and the Israeli government

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Speaker 2: over the Israeli hostages, you know, the likely Iranian retaliation

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Speaker 2: will be that they will force Hummas to walk away

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Speaker 2: from the Israelis. So again, the fate of those Israeli

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Speaker 2: hostages will remain completely uncertain for the foreseeable future. So

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Speaker 2: I think that the more that Israel tries the sort

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Speaker 2: of attacks, it may net them something quite significant. But

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Speaker 2: at the end of the day, the sorts of localized

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Speaker 2: discipline retaliation that Iran is really only capable of doing.

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Speaker 2: They're not capable of going to a full scale shooting

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Speaker 2: war with Israel. You know, Yeah, we got so really,

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Speaker 2: As I said, I think we're going to be seeing

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Speaker 2: more of that sort of thing and less of anything major.

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Speaker 1: All right, that's good to know. Now, Well, I have

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Speaker 1: you and I haven't spoken to you in a while.

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Speaker 1: The replacement of Joe Biden at the head of the

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Speaker 1: US Democrat ticket, with Kamala Harris likely to be anyway,

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Speaker 1: and I'm sure she'll be endorsed, as all the pundits

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Speaker 1: seemed to be saying over there, when the Congress, their party,

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Speaker 1: their convention gets underway in a couple of weeks, what

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Speaker 1: does this mean for the election, Donald Trump or Kamala Harris?

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Speaker 1: How do you see it shaping up?

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Speaker 2: Well, Look, you know, the advantage in the momentum seems

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Speaker 2: to have shifted slightly in Kamala Harris's favor. I think

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Speaker 2: that it was a very good move, albeit a very

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Speaker 2: late move of the Democrats to move on the leadership.

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Speaker 2: Joe Biden was just so well passed as used by date.

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Speaker 2: They should have replaced him a year ago, maybe even

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Speaker 2: further back, so we wouldn't have been able to see

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Speaker 2: his very public decline, because I think that that was

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Speaker 2: actually humiliating for Biden and his family. But anyway, look,

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Speaker 2: the Democrats did what they've done, and I think that

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Speaker 2: the you know, the Harris honeymoon will go on for

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Speaker 2: a little while longer. Team Trump does look rattled the

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Speaker 2: fact that jd Vance, the you know, Trump's vice presidents

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Speaker 2: had said they tried to go on the attack against Harris.

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Speaker 2: It didn't. He didn't land any real punches on Harris.

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Speaker 2: So Harris looks pretty strong at this stage. And she'll

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Speaker 2: be announcing her vice presidential pick I think sometime before

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Speaker 2: or on next Tuesday. So we'll have to wait and

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Speaker 2: see how it goes. But like with all honeymoons, the

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Speaker 2: honeymoon could be over sooner for Harris than we'd like

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Speaker 2: to think. You know, Trump will have to lick his

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Speaker 2: wounds because he was expecting he was going to go

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Speaker 2: up against the doddering old man. Now he's going up

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Speaker 2: against well, you know, a prosecutor. So she knows how

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Speaker 2: to deal with people like Donald Trump. I gan it.

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Speaker 2: So it'll be interesting to see what sort of battle

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Speaker 2: Royale is going to take place as a consequence.

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Speaker 1: Still a bit of a way out from the election

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Speaker 1: in early November. Appreciate your insights, John, Thank.

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Speaker 2: You, no worries. Thanks Matt.

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Speaker 1: John Bruney there who is the founder and CEO Sage

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Speaker 1: International