Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news talks it B.
Speaker 1: Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all
Speaker 1: the information, all the debates of the now the Leighton
Speaker 1: Smith Podcast powered by news talks it B.
Speaker 2: Welcome to podcast two hundred and ninety for June twenty five,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. Ramesh the Kur has contributed to a
Speaker 2: number of podcasts, and with very good reason. A quick
Speaker 2: survey of his career tells you that and I have
Speaker 2: a great respect for his opinions. Now, we left recording
Speaker 2: the interview until the very last minute in order to
Speaker 2: be as up to date as possible. But first, there
Speaker 2: is one aspect that we can cover now. That is
Speaker 2: that the accusations that the military action taken by President
Speaker 2: Trump is illegal constitutionally so based on the need for
Speaker 2: a president to see congressional approval first. Now, while there's
Speaker 2: a little more to it than that, we don't need
Speaker 2: to dive into the minutia. Now, there are two articles
Speaker 2: I'll referred to, and each of them is independent of
Speaker 2: the other, but there is a bit of crossover as well.
Speaker 2: George Treatment published War and the Constitution on June twenty three,
Speaker 2: which would be June twenty four. Here, the US attack
Speaker 2: on Iran's nuclear facilities has raised an important constitutional issue.
Speaker 2: The US Constitution gives Congress the authority to declare war.
Speaker 2: It was a wise and appropriate principle. Wars that perhaps
Speaker 2: the most consequential actions a nation can take. They can
Speaker 2: put a nation's very survival at risk and endangered military
Speaker 2: and civilian lives. Wars also reshape the economy and must
Speaker 2: bind nature place some limits on citizens constitutional right to
Speaker 2: control government actions. Congress is designed to be the representative
Speaker 2: and guaranteur of the right of citizens to govern themselves. Therefore,
Speaker 2: the idea was that the US could not wage war
Speaker 2: without the consent of Congress, nor avoid war if Congress
Speaker 2: deemed it necessary. As commander in chief of the military,
Speaker 2: the President could decide how a war would be waged,
Speaker 2: but not whether there would be a war. The last
Speaker 2: time the United States followed the Constitution in going to
Speaker 2: war was in December nineteen forty one, after the Pearl
Speaker 2: Harbor attack. Now again then goes into quite a bit
Speaker 2: of history of how things have gone basically since then,
Speaker 2: but in referring to time the time factor, he says,
Speaker 2: But the nature of time and war has changed dramatically,
Speaker 2: especially over the last twenty years. A modern Pearl Harbor
Speaker 2: might defeat the US military in a few hours. Another
Speaker 2: critical change is in communication and transparency. A congressional debate
Speaker 2: over going to war in the eighteenth century could unfold
Speaker 2: without the knowledge of the would be adversary. Even if
Speaker 2: a spy were present, it would take substantial time to
Speaker 2: relay the information. Today, by contrast, congressional debates are by
Speaker 2: nature public. Even if a secret session were called, spies
Speaker 2: in Washington could immediately alert the target nation, introducing a
Speaker 2: danger of a preemptive strike on US forces. When you're
Speaker 2: getting the picture, but he gets more specific. A congressional
Speaker 2: debate over the strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would have
Speaker 2: eliminated a fundamental necessity of war, that is, surprise. It
Speaker 2: would also undermine a fundamental element in diplomacy. This reality has,
Speaker 2: since the end of World War II, shifted the power
Speaker 2: to initiate war from Congress to the commander in chief.
Speaker 2: If war is imposed on the US, it must respond,
Speaker 2: long before Congress is convened to debate and vote on
Speaker 2: its response. If the US initiates war. Surprise is essential
Speaker 2: for success. Further on, former declarations of war have become
Speaker 2: globally obst elite. It talks about the last eighty years
Speaker 2: Congress has been sidelined not by conspiracy, but by the
Speaker 2: speed and complexity of modern warfare.
Speaker 3: And there's there's quite a.
Speaker 2: Bit more detail, including the nine to eleven attacks and examples.
Speaker 2: The critical argument here is that at this point in history,
Speaker 2: technology has rendered declarations of war obsolete. Checks and balances
Speaker 2: are the foundation of the Constitution's architecture, and war is
Speaker 2: the most serious of matters. This is not a matter
Speaker 2: of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals. Perhaps a new
Speaker 2: constitutional convention can solve this problem, but it is hard
Speaker 2: to imagine a solution. Let's not forget that George Friedman
Speaker 2: was a professor of war at the War College in
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania for a number of years.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: There is a second opinion, and it's from somebody who
Speaker 2: I who I have great respect for also, and that
Speaker 2: is Jonathan Turley, who who is the Shapiro Professor of
Speaker 2: Public Interest Law at George Washington University.
Speaker 3: And the interesting thing.
Speaker 2: About Turley, he gives a great deal. He's called on
Speaker 2: by Congress to give opinions on a constant basis legal opinions,
Speaker 2: and he appears on Fox under similar terms. But the
Speaker 2: interesting thing is he is a registered Democrat, but he's
Speaker 2: not one of your left wing nutters, and there's more
Speaker 2: and more of those. So he wrote the Claude Reign's
Speaker 2: School of Constitutional Law. Democrats denounce s reigning and attackers unconstitutional,
Speaker 2: so said a minority leader, Chuck Schumer is particularly shocked.
Speaker 2: That's where the Claude Reigned School of Constitutional Law comes from,
Speaker 2: the movie where the word shocked was thrown about. Just
Speaker 2: in case you didn't know, Chuck Schumer is particularly shocked.
Speaker 2: Schumer insisted that no president should be allowed to unilaterally
Speaker 2: march this nation into something as consequential as war, with
Speaker 2: erratic threats and no strategy. Schumer is the same politician
Speaker 2: who was silent or supportive in earlier unilateral attacks by
Speaker 2: democratic presidents. In twenty eleven, Obama approved a massive military
Speaker 2: campaign against Libya. He says, I represented a bipartisan group
Speaker 2: of members of Congress challenging that action. We were unsuccessful,
Speaker 2: as were such prior challenges I have long criticized. He
Speaker 2: goes on the abandonment of the clear language of the
Speaker 2: Constitution on the declaration of wars. Only eleven such declarations
Speaker 2: have been made in our history. This has not happened
Speaker 2: since World War II in nineteen forty two. Over one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five military campaigns have spanned from Korea
Speaker 2: to Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. It is not a rule
Speaker 2: honored solely in the breach. By the way, Hillary clipp
Speaker 2: was also involved in one such action. The War Powers
Speaker 2: Act has always been controversial and largely ineffectual. Presidents have
Speaker 2: long asserted the inherent power to conduct such attacks under
Speaker 2: their Article I authority as the designated Commander in Chief
Speaker 2: of the Armed Forces. The WPA, which is the War
Speaker 2: Powers Act, bars the use of armed forces in such
Speaker 2: a conflict for more than sixty days without congressional authorization
Speaker 2: for use of military force or a declaration of war
Speaker 2: by the United States. There is a further thirty day
Speaker 2: withdrawal period, and it gets very complicated with different days
Speaker 2: for different things from what have you. Obama also defied
Speaker 2: the War Powers Resolution on Syria. He actually did ask
Speaker 2: for congressional authorization to take military action in that country
Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen. Let me just repeat that for emphasis.
Speaker 2: He actually did ask for congressional authorization to take military
Speaker 2: action in that country in twenty thirteen, but Congress refused
Speaker 2: to approve it.
Speaker 3: So what happened?
Speaker 2: He did it anyway, despite Congress especially denying authorization. Despite
Speaker 2: Congress expressly denying authorization for the introduction of US armed forces.
Speaker 2: Both Obama and Trump did precisely that. Trump was wise
Speaker 2: though to notify Congress. However, what occurs after that is
Speaker 2: anyone's guess. What remains has been little more than political
Speaker 2: theater and one more paragraph toward the end. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: the calls for impeachment are absurd given the prior actions
Speaker 2: of presidents in using this very authority. Once again, some
Speaker 2: Democrats appear intent on applying a different set of rules
Speaker 2: for impeaching Trump than any of his predecessors. Trump can
Speaker 2: cite both history and case law in allowing presidents to
Speaker 2: take such actions. At most, the line over war powers
Speaker 2: is tury. The Framers wanted impeachments to be based on
Speaker 2: brightline rules in establishing high crimes and misdemeanors. This is
Speaker 2: all part of the claud Rain's School of constitutional law.
Speaker 2: Members will once again express their shock and disgust in
Speaker 2: the use of the same authority that they once accepted
Speaker 2: in prior Presidents Trump has a great number of risks
Speaker 2: in this action from global military and economic consequences. The
Speaker 2: War Powers Act is not one of them, if history
Speaker 2: is any measure. So that's where we'll leave it, and
Speaker 2: after a short break, Ramesh. Thekur Buckerlan is a natural
Speaker 2: oral vaccine in a tabletorm called bacterial i sate. It'll
Speaker 2: boost your natural protection against bacterial infections in your chest
Speaker 2: and throat. A three day course of van Buckeland tablets
Speaker 2: will help your body build up to three months of
Speaker 2: immunity against bugs which cause bacterial cold symptoms. So who
Speaker 2: can take bucolan well, the whole family from two years
Speaker 2: of age and upwards. A course of Buckelan tablets offers
Speaker 2: cost effective and safe protection from colds and chills. Protection
Speaker 2: becomes effective a few days after you take buccolan and
Speaker 2: lasts for up to three months following the three day course.
Speaker 2: Buccolan can be taken throughout the cold season, over winter
Speaker 2: or all year round. And remember Buckelan is not intended
Speaker 2: as an alternative to influenza vaccination, but may be used
Speaker 2: along with the flu vaccination for added protection. And keep
Speaker 2: in mind that millions of doses have been taken by
Speaker 2: Kiwis for over fifty years. Only available from your pharmacist.
Speaker 2: Always read the label and users directed, and see your
Speaker 2: doctor if systems persist. Farmer Broker Auckland.
Speaker 3: LATM.
Speaker 2: Smith rames the Kur it's great to have you back
Speaker 2: on the podcast, albeit that the subject matter is a
Speaker 2: little disturbing.
Speaker 3: I trust you well, well, thank you. I hope you're
Speaker 3: will too.
Speaker 2: Indeed, I want to start in a different sort of
Speaker 2: way on this occasion. I received this email this morning,
Speaker 2: which is why it's not in our mail room later on,
Speaker 2: and I thought it wasn't a bad way to start,
Speaker 2: this author inquires. He says, on the subject of Iran,
Speaker 2: I have a couple of questions I haven't heard being asked,
Speaker 2: why does an oil rich country need nuclear power? And
Speaker 2: if he ran second question, if I Run has enriched
Speaker 2: uranium to sixty percent, have they even started building the
Speaker 2: nuclear power plant yet or are they just focusing on
Speaker 2: an enrichment program. Now, with your background and experience with
Speaker 2: nuclear matters, I'm guessing that you're in a position to
Speaker 2: comment on that, we'll get onto your background shortly.
Speaker 3: Sure, on the first question, why does it need nuclear
Speaker 3: power for energy if it has such vast oil reserves,
Speaker 3: I think the answer would be two fuld to that. Firstly,
Speaker 3: it's always a sensible policy for any country to aim
Speaker 3: for energy security by a mix of different sources of energy,
Speaker 3: and nuclear if you can afford it and have the
Speaker 3: technical means, plays an important part for pretty much every country,
Speaker 3: except for self destructive limitations by Australia, where we have
Speaker 3: one third of the world's known uranium reserves, are happy
Speaker 3: to export it to mind it and export it to
Speaker 3: other countries for economic reasons, but by law prohibited for ourselves.
Speaker 3: So that's the first part. The second part, of course,
Speaker 3: is nuclear is indeed the most green emission friendly sort
Speaker 3: of energy we have in terms of its contributions which
Speaker 3: are minimal, and it's it's essentially very safe, it's reliable,
Speaker 3: it doesn't involve additional transmission lines and all that can
Speaker 3: be tailored to existing grid and provides based load power,
Speaker 3: so I think there are good reasons for that. However,
Speaker 3: this is where you get into the second question. I'm
Speaker 3: not sure that Iran has actually and I know it
Speaker 3: as research reactors, research reactors. I don't know if it
Speaker 3: has nuclear power plants or not. But that's in a
Speaker 3: sense irrelevant because to get nuclear energy as a source
Speaker 3: of power, you do not need to get beyond a
Speaker 3: five percent enrichment at the most. The Iranians have been
Speaker 3: enriching up to sixty percent. Now that's slightly misleading, because
Speaker 3: what you have is if you take the benchmark of
Speaker 3: the now abandoned twenty fifteen nuclear deal with their arm
Speaker 3: they were limited to three point six seven percent enrichment,
Speaker 3: which has no militarily sensitive implications whatsoever for weapons production.
Speaker 3: To get to weapons grade, you need to enrich to
Speaker 3: ninety percent. Now. The reason that is completely misleading is
Speaker 3: it's not a linear progression in terms of the technical
Speaker 3: challenges to go from five percent to ninety percent. Once
Speaker 3: you cross five percent, and once you've got to twenty percent,
Speaker 3: you have effectively overcome all the technical challenges, and then
Speaker 3: it becomes a matter just of keeping on spinning the
Speaker 3: centrifugures to purify the uranium. More and more so as
Speaker 3: you separate what's called you two thirty eight and collect
Speaker 3: you two thirty five, which is what you need to
Speaker 3: make bombs, and so that's a matter of time rather
Speaker 3: than any technical challenges remaining. So at sixty percent enrichment,
Speaker 3: let me put it this way, you are effectively at
Speaker 3: ninety nine percent weapon grade achievement already with your purification.
Speaker 3: And that's why that is a concern. And no other
Speaker 3: country has even tried or is engaged in this level
Speaker 3: of purification for the purposes of getting energy. It doesn't
Speaker 3: make any sense. So clearly the intent was to achieve
Speaker 3: the capability. Having said that, we have to be very
Speaker 3: clear and careful. Then in the last few days with
Speaker 3: the strikes, there's been a lot of and you'll have
Speaker 3: seen the reports on how Trump said that his Director
Speaker 3: of National Intelligence, toul Sie Gabbard, essentially didn't know what
Speaker 3: she was talking about, and she's wrong when she says
Speaker 3: they are not weaponizing. I went back and checked on
Speaker 3: her actual statement, and the intelligence community assessment on which
Speaker 3: there is consensus across the fifteen or sixteen different agencies,
Speaker 3: is quite clear cut. One Iran has not in fact
Speaker 3: authorized the making of weapons. Two that said, they have
Speaker 3: since the deal collapsed in twenty eighteen, broken free of
Speaker 3: the constraints to the deal, and been engaged in expanding
Speaker 3: the number of centrifugears, in increasing the purity of enrichment
Speaker 3: all the way to sixty percent, in acquiring stockpile, in
Speaker 3: upgrading the quality of centrifugures from the first generation to
Speaker 3: which they limited to my advanced centrifugures. And none of
Speaker 3: this makes any sense than as an an intent to
Speaker 3: acquire the technical capability to proceed to rapid warm making
Speaker 3: if and when the political authorities in charge direct them
Speaker 3: to do so. So it's the two part thing there.
Speaker 3: They were rapidly advancing to acquire the capability the materials,
Speaker 3: building infrastructure, but there's no indication to suggest that they
Speaker 3: had actually decided to cross that threshold, and not the
Speaker 3: least because I suspect they wanted to avoid provoking precisely
Speaker 3: this sort of military strikes. Okay, it's slightly complex, but
Speaker 3: that's where it stood, all right.
Speaker 2: So that gives rise to another question, how long would
Speaker 2: it take to get the sixty percent to weapons grade
Speaker 2: proper and utilize it.
Speaker 3: That's a very interesting question. You get different answers to that,
Speaker 3: but I think there is consensus that that becomes a
Speaker 3: matter of weeks rather than months. It might be a
Speaker 3: good point to go back to the twenty fifteen nuclear deal.
Speaker 3: What had happened was, I think it is a good
Speaker 3: starting point. Let's put this way between two thousand and three,
Speaker 3: so that's the Iraq War and twenty thirteen when you
Speaker 3: had the interim deal with Iran. In that period, the
Speaker 3: number of centrifugures that Iran had multiplied from one hundred
Speaker 3: and sixty three to nineteen thousand. Okay, this is under sanctions.
Speaker 3: Before the deal of the nineteen thousand, around eleven thousand
Speaker 3: were installed but not in operation, and around six seven
Speaker 3: thousand whatever eleven and a half to seven and a
Speaker 3: half were actually being operated. The deal got the numbers
Speaker 3: of installed centrifugures by two thirds from nineteen thousand to
Speaker 3: six thousand something, and the number of centrifugures in operation
Speaker 3: cut it down to half to five four thousand, five
Speaker 3: thousand something like that. From memory. More importantly, the stockpile
Speaker 3: of envesed uranium at five percent purity or between five
Speaker 3: and twenty percent from memory was cut by ninety eight percent,
Speaker 3: from ten thousand prologram to three hundred kilograms. The Iraq
Speaker 3: heavy reactive plant that was making usonium, which is the
Speaker 3: second part of way to the bomb, that was closed
Speaker 3: down entirely, the dismantled and separated fuel. The instructure touched
Speaker 3: in infrastructure in other words, was put under international IAEA inspection.
Speaker 3: IAEA inspectors were given unprecedented access for inspection, which could
Speaker 3: be delayed via a small amount, but not indefinitely postponed
Speaker 3: because there was but appeal procedures in place for that
Speaker 3: as well. And the IAEA also put on electronic oxy
Speaker 3: to monitor that the facilities that were under safe storage
Speaker 3: were not in fact being breached. So there was an
Speaker 3: effective dismantlement control inspection region put in place, and the
Speaker 3: goal was essentially to widen to lend in the timeline
Speaker 3: from detection to the capacity to acquire weapons if a
Speaker 3: decision was made to cross, and that changed from a
Speaker 3: matter of weeks or months to at least one year
Speaker 3: during which you could do things in response. Since then
Speaker 3: they have acquired more enriched material uranium. They have installed
Speaker 3: more advanced centrifuges distributed between four THOUGH and the Tance,
Speaker 3: mostly in four THO, but some also in the TANS,
Speaker 3: and they built up the nuclear Science Center in Isfahan,
Speaker 3: particularly with Chani's help. So we believe that the capacity
Speaker 3: has reduced to the timeline to a matter of weeks,
Speaker 3: maybe three weeks, maybe just over a month, but not
Speaker 3: much longer than that. And after the strikes this has
Speaker 3: lended again possibly two one to two years, but had
Speaker 3: not been eliminated, and that was the concern that they
Speaker 3: wanted to degrade its capability, so that we the outside
Speaker 3: of the international community, and particularly Israel because it's the
Speaker 3: most exposed to this, had time to react to that,
Speaker 3: and that's again where we think things stand at the moment.
Speaker 3: To be clear, for the have been attacked by the
Speaker 3: so called MOP, the massive ordnance penetrator, the GBU fifty
Speaker 3: seven is a technical name, which is a thirteen thousand
Speaker 3: or thirteen and a half thousand kilogram bomb with the
Speaker 3: biggest ordinance we have in the world. It's been used
Speaker 3: by the way previously they used in Afghanistan a smaller
Speaker 3: version of that. I forget what it's called GVU forty
Speaker 3: three or something. So this is the first time it's
Speaker 3: been used and it's been successful, but it will take
Speaker 3: time to assess the damage with any reliability, and they
Speaker 3: had sufficient advance warning that we have good reason to
Speaker 3: believe that most of the material in which uranium and
Speaker 3: the tooling require the infrastructure was in fact moved out
Speaker 3: Furdo and taken somewhere else. They're called that. I think
Speaker 3: they're talking about another mountain fortress called Pickaxe or something
Speaker 3: which people have suspected but not known about before this.
Speaker 3: So the capability has been, as I said, severely degraded,
Speaker 3: but Iran has retained the capacity to reconstitute the program.
Speaker 3: The regime is still intact, it's not been toppled. And Iran,
Speaker 3: I think, was so badly weakened that his response to
Speaker 3: the US strikes was symbolic more than substantives. And they
Speaker 3: gave advance war in the Americans that they were willing
Speaker 3: to hit their base in Qatar. So all the signs
Speaker 3: are that Iran was desperate to take a face saving
Speaker 3: off ramp, which they have taken. We know that this
Speaker 3: strike on Iran using American military capability and technical capability
Speaker 3: has been the goal and ambition of a Prime Minister
Speaker 3: nad and Yahoo for over a decade to before the
Speaker 3: Iran dealing in twenty fifteen. Left alone. The Hamas attack
Speaker 3: in Clover twenty twenty three. And in a sense you
Speaker 3: could argue that they have succeeded in maneuvering on manipulating
Speaker 3: Trump into doing their job for them, Hence the F
Speaker 3: bomb word by Trump, but his frustration when the ceasefire
Speaker 3: began to be violated Toby both sides, and he just
Speaker 3: blew up in exasperation. So surprisingly, Trump has been more
Speaker 3: effective than any predecessor, both hitting, hitting hard, restoring the
Speaker 3: credibility of American deterrence if you like, and yet at
Speaker 3: the same time, so far at least limiting his involvement
Speaker 3: to what he wanted to do in time and in targets.
Speaker 3: They didn't hit all the targets that they could have.
Speaker 3: They haven't destroyed Iran's capacity to export oil, and they've
Speaker 3: given them ways out provided they don't actually start weaponizing
Speaker 3: and reconstituting it Israel wanted. More So, Trump has been
Speaker 3: just as exasperated at Israel. So there's some signs that
Speaker 3: Trump doesn't deserve more credit than perhaps he's been given.
Speaker 3: He's made it difficult for the Democrats domestically to really
Speaker 3: criticize him on this. Nonetheless, I think you know, if
Speaker 3: you're dealing with the Middle East, the ghosts of history
Speaker 3: are very prominent, and we need to be a bit
Speaker 3: careful of the sohol law of unintended and particularly perverse consequences.
Speaker 2: Let's get onto that shortly. Was Trump overreaching when he
Speaker 2: made the announcement of the the bombings initially overreaching in
Speaker 2: what sense in that had had completely wiped out?
Speaker 3: Yes, I don't think there's evidence to back that up.
Speaker 3: But I mean, Trump is Trump. We know he's moombastic.
Speaker 3: He you know, any deal he's done is never been
Speaker 3: a deal like that in history et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, and certainly in the American system.
Speaker 3: I think people discount the element of Nonetheless, the substance
Speaker 3: of his claim is correct. He acted decisively, he gave
Speaker 3: them time to So, you know, one of the good
Speaker 3: things about what Trump has done we haven't seen any
Speaker 3: evidence of significant, if any, civilian casualties. So what he
Speaker 3: did was a mix of strikes using deception, a misdirection
Speaker 3: in terms of timing and calendar decoy is being sent
Speaker 3: over Hawaii when in fact the direction of the travelers
Speaker 3: the other way around, A mix of the what I
Speaker 3: think there was seven B two planes involved the two
Speaker 3: bombs eats, so fourteen of these mops, the GBU fifty
Speaker 3: seven plus Tomahawk missiles fired from c essentially at Isfahan facilities,
Speaker 3: the scientific infrastructure, and then saying we're not going to
Speaker 3: do anymore unless you choose to escalate. The fear of
Speaker 3: attritional escalation for the moment has abated. It's controlled and
Speaker 3: managed escalation where they have demonstrated both the intent and
Speaker 3: the capability. Helped im miserably by the fact that the
Speaker 3: air differences and the missile launches were totally destroyed and
Speaker 3: degraded by Israel in the two weeks leading up to
Speaker 3: the US attack, and the fact that, as I said,
Speaker 3: Iran's retaliation was limited and signaled in advanced The underlying,
Speaker 3: more important and more crucial strategic signaling is we don't
Speaker 3: wish to escalate. We accept what you have done, and okay,
Speaker 3: it's a defeat for us, it's a meliation for us,
Speaker 3: but we retain the capability, and that gives a sufficient
Speaker 3: face that we can accept it. That seems to me
Speaker 3: to be the condition at the moment. One other thing,
Speaker 3: I think the most important recent example of this law
Speaker 3: unintended purpose consequence ironically enough is the Hamas attack on
Speaker 3: seventh October twenty twenty three. That was barbaric, that was savage,
Speaker 3: And on the military front, I think they achieved more
Speaker 3: success than they would have dared to dream of. On
Speaker 3: the political side and strategic site, it has been a
Speaker 3: tremendous setback for the entire cause. Hamas has not quite finished,
Speaker 3: but close to it has. Vola is nearly finished in Iran,
Speaker 3: Asad is no longer even in serior, let alone in power.
Speaker 3: He is hiding somewhere in Russia. Buthis are still around,
Speaker 3: but badly affected. Israel has demonstrated unbelievable capability in terms
Speaker 3: of intel, in penetration and precision attacks using pages and
Speaker 3: talkies and the airplanes and extraordinarily extraordinary attack So it's
Speaker 3: so it's king of all the surveys in that sense,
Speaker 3: and they have been able to attack Iran directly and
Speaker 3: shown that Iran is, in fact, compared to Israel, still
Speaker 3: a paper tiger, but you know, you can get paper
Speaker 3: cups as well, which are not very pleasant always. So
Speaker 3: all that helped Israel achieved complete air dominance and the
Speaker 3: Americans were able to come in and attack without fearing
Speaker 3: any damage. To themselves. So it's a good one two
Speaker 3: combination in team. But do not under estimate the extent
Speaker 3: to which Israel is still dependent upon American goodwill as
Speaker 3: well as the American supply chain.
Speaker 2: That's that is unquestionable. Look let me let me just
Speaker 2: let me put it this way. Let me ask you this.
Speaker 2: With the history that's that's what now forty six years
Speaker 2: old of Iran Tehran, Yeah, and the developments that have
Speaker 2: taken place on the nuclear front and the way they've
Speaker 2: played their game. Out of one hundred, how much would
Speaker 2: you trust the present administration.
Speaker 3: Of the US now in Iran? I wouldn't you? See?
Speaker 3: This is a problem. There is no reason to trust
Speaker 3: either the United States or Iran in terms of promises
Speaker 3: made and formal agreement signed. And this is where we
Speaker 3: get back to the twenty fifteen deed. It was a
Speaker 3: multilaterally negotiated deed which the Americans led on their site,
Speaker 3: involved all the five permanent members of Security Council plus
Speaker 3: Germany and the EU. The deal was then unanimously endorsed
Speaker 3: by the Security Council in twenty fifteen. It involved dismantlement
Speaker 3: and suspension of Iran's program in return for sanctions lifting
Speaker 3: and assistance with nuclear weapons with the sorry lifting of
Speaker 3: sanctions and development of the economic development. And there was
Speaker 3: a ten to fifteen year period in which there was
Speaker 3: an opportunity to pursue diplomatic pathway to the things. This
Speaker 3: was unilaterally abandoned by the United States under Trump one
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen, the IAE had repeatedly certified that Iran
Speaker 3: was in compliance with the deal. So in twenty eighteen
Speaker 3: is the US that puts herself into a position of
Speaker 3: non compliance. And I've seen states from Ayado La Kameni
Speaker 3: after that, as well as from the North Koreans saying
Speaker 3: this means you cannot trust the Americans to honor a
Speaker 3: deal that has been signed and other other parties and
Speaker 3: compliance with it. You take the example of Kadafi in
Speaker 3: Libya who agreed to internationally supervised nuclear disarmament and then
Speaker 3: was attacked, taken out, and killed in twenty eleven. At
Speaker 3: the time that Trump pulls out, he was engaged in
Speaker 3: discussions with the North Koreans, and essentially the North Koreans
Speaker 3: and the Iranians and the Russians and Chinese said, what
Speaker 3: is the point of even entering into negotiations with the
Speaker 3: US when a successor administration can just pull out and
Speaker 3: there's no consequences for them. So this effort at abandoning
Speaker 3: agreements solemnly made after years of negotiation, that is a
Speaker 3: problem on both sides. And the longer term consequence of
Speaker 3: this is going to be whichever regime is in power
Speaker 3: in Iran, and we have to be careful on that
Speaker 3: that it's not personalized or individualized to one leader or regime.
Speaker 3: Whoever is in power in Iran and other countries are
Speaker 3: going to conclude one the regional bully in the Middle
Speaker 3: East has been defanked good. The overpowering bully in the
Speaker 3: global neighborhood is out of control. We better look after
Speaker 3: ourselves and should we then look at acquiring by Hoko
Speaker 3: by Krok nuclear weapons for ourselves. So it's that two
Speaker 3: stages thing that varies me as well. That the message
Speaker 3: sent out is we don't care about international law. We
Speaker 3: don't care about international rules, We don't care about agreements
Speaker 3: that we have negotiated and led on. We have the bomb,
Speaker 3: we have the military power. You don't like it tough
Speaker 3: That not necessarily a good message to send. So I
Speaker 3: feel very conflicted in this sense. And in that sense also,
Speaker 3: I think actually going directly after Iran and targeting nuclear
Speaker 3: scientists and the political leadership is a mixed message being
Speaker 3: sent in terms of however, you're into the necessity of
Speaker 3: some sort of a rules based order that is governed
Speaker 3: by norms.
Speaker 2: So taking all that into account, do you congratulate Donald
Speaker 2: Trump for what he's achieved or otherwise?
Speaker 3: No? I do, And I hope he he has the
Speaker 3: self belief and he doesn't care for criticisms and whatever
Speaker 3: other people say, so he may just go by his
Speaker 3: gut instinct and say, you know, I've taken the position
Speaker 3: just midpoint between the military adventurism of the New York
Speaker 3: on Hawks and the pacifism and passivity of people racked
Speaker 3: by indecisiveness and unable to respond challenges. And he said,
Speaker 3: you know, not only my threats credible, my deadlines are credible.
Speaker 3: You don't respond by the deadline have saidn to you
Speaker 3: I have set for you. Then we will react, and
Speaker 3: we will react with the means and at a place
Speaker 3: of our choosing, with targets of our choosing. So he's
Speaker 3: restored that credibility, and that is good. I think restoring
Speaker 3: the timeline between having the capability and weaponization that is good.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's no question but that Iran has been
Speaker 3: a destabilizing force in the least and the number of
Speaker 3: statement statements it has made about destroying Israel. You can't
Speaker 3: blame Israel, given its particular history and what happened in
Speaker 3: October twenty three from being genuinely concerned about that. But
Speaker 3: having said that, the danger for Israel has been it
Speaker 3: has relied almost entirely on military means, and I think
Speaker 3: there has to be a much more sustained effort, with
Speaker 3: pressure on all sides to resolve the underlying political problem,
Speaker 3: which is, how do you reconcile the existence of Israel
Speaker 3: and it's right to exist as a legitimate state with
Speaker 3: diplomatic relations with its neighbors, with some sort of recognition
Speaker 3: of the decades of suffering of the Palestinians, Because you
Speaker 3: cannot have a regional solution that depends primarily upon humiliating
Speaker 3: the Palestinians and leaving them weak and disenfranchised and marcialized,
Speaker 3: and you cannot have a solution that ignores Israel's legitimate
Speaker 3: rights to existence within scure borders in peaceful relations. Now
Speaker 3: there's no evidence that Israel is privately accept that, provided
Speaker 3: the other side is as well. But I don't think
Speaker 3: that undermines my claim about the one country that has
Speaker 3: over the decades kept expanding its effective borders defacto borders
Speaker 3: is in fact Israel. It hasn't drunk. So I think
Speaker 3: we need to somehow try and square that circle. It's
Speaker 3: not easy, and I've said to you before, you know,
Speaker 3: if you think you understand the Middle East, you've been misinformed.
Speaker 3: It's the one thing that has eluded everyone. But because
Speaker 3: of his peculiar individual traits, Trump potentially has a better
Speaker 3: opportunity to achieve some lasting legacy there than most precedents
Speaker 3: I can think of in my time, which goes back
Speaker 3: a long way. So yes, I do congratulate him, including
Speaker 3: for his restraint and not expanding it and the fact
Speaker 3: that he has expressed his exasperation publicly with regard to
Speaker 3: Israel as well. That may give some hope to the
Speaker 3: other side that, okay, maybe we should look for a deal.
Speaker 3: And this is a rare opportunity because he's only got
Speaker 3: another tween and a half years or so to go,
Speaker 3: So it depends on how it works out. From now
Speaker 3: but essentially short term unqualified congratulations, medium to long term
Speaker 3: wait and see, but still unbalanced on the positive rather
Speaker 3: negative side, would be my assessment, and.
Speaker 2: It's a very good assessment. Just going back to Israel
Speaker 2: for for momentarily anyway, the the what do they call it,
Speaker 2: the twin two nation state states, its two.
Speaker 3: State solution, two state solution. It's it's out. I don't
Speaker 3: understand why people are obsessed on it and on it. Well,
Speaker 3: neither it still wants it, nor do the other side.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm very pleased to hear you say that, because
Speaker 2: it's been pushed time and time again, and it will
Speaker 2: it will still be pushed. It is, it is being
Speaker 2: promoted actually.
Speaker 3: Yeah, including by my governments here. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's a it's it's an ignorant approach, is mys
Speaker 2: my terminology?
Speaker 3: How can how can you just it's a fact denying approach.
Speaker 3: There you go, that'll do.
Speaker 2: But if you wanted to put it into into the
Speaker 2: sort of local vernacular of anyway.
Speaker 3: Why why would you expect a country or a.
Speaker 2: Or a an attitude and a policy and a belief
Speaker 2: that one country needs to be swept off the face
Speaker 2: of the earth and expect them to live side by side.
Speaker 3: Now, okay, let me exp I mean, I give you
Speaker 3: a very short and blunt answer, but let me just
Speaker 3: go back into my professor ordify, I got diplomatic one.
Speaker 3: I think there are two factors in response to what
Speaker 3: he said. Firstly, we have to go back to October
Speaker 3: twenty change its feet, because until then we'd have repeated
Speaker 3: cycles of attacks and retaliations, and each time Israel has
Speaker 3: had to re establish its escalation dominance, re established deterrence,
Speaker 3: but also deterrence based on escalation dominance, the capacity, the
Speaker 3: demonstrated and known capacity to control every run of the
Speaker 3: escalation ladder that the other side wanted to go to.
Speaker 3: So Israel was military dominant, and given the population dynamics,
Speaker 3: even if you look at Israel and Iran, what you've
Speaker 3: got nine million or so in Israel and ninety million
Speaker 3: in Iran, so it's only one tenth year in in population.
Speaker 3: And then you had all the others that did the
Speaker 3: asymmetry is very powerful. And then narrow geographics, all that exists. Okay,
Speaker 3: so they'd gone through it started repeatedly, but what they
Speaker 3: experienced in October twenty three, and I don't think most
Speaker 3: Western publics have really registered the fact that that actually
Speaker 3: was a mini holocaust. And the way to grasp it
Speaker 3: is take the entire American casualty tour in Vietnam War
Speaker 3: from start to finish, from the early sixties, mid sixties
Speaker 3: through to whenever it was until they came out of Vietnam.
Speaker 3: The entire casualty was around fifty to fifty four thousand
Speaker 3: American troops killed soldier skilled in that war. If you
Speaker 3: scale up israel population to the US, then what happened
Speaker 3: on seventh October was not an Israeli version of nine
Speaker 3: to eleven. It was as if all the American casualties
Speaker 3: in Vietnam was suffered in one day. That's the scale
Speaker 3: we're talking about. Plus the fact that these were not
Speaker 3: primarily military, they were primarily civilian casualties, and the grotesqueness
Speaker 3: of the attacks and the sexualized violence and then the
Speaker 3: hostage taken. So you have to get trying grasp that
Speaker 3: and internalize that to understand the trauma of that on
Speaker 3: Israel and what it did was, I think it tripped
Speaker 3: their internal taculus that deterrence. Restoring deterrence is no longer enough.
Speaker 3: We have to go all out and defeat the enemy.
Speaker 3: And they've defeated the enemy piecemeal, compartmentalized the threats, went
Speaker 3: after them one by one, first Hamas, then Hesbela, then Iran.
Speaker 3: So from that point of view, that is a change
Speaker 3: in the fundamental underlying strategy on which the secrecy arrests,
Speaker 3: and you can't blame them for that second factor. That
Speaker 3: is important, and that is important for our Western publics
Speaker 3: to come to terms with. I think the widespread anti
Speaker 3: Israel descending into anti Semitic demonstrations on our streets and
Speaker 3: within our political system now has had the effect of
Speaker 3: bringing home to israelis that element of strategic and loneliness.
Speaker 3: They paid a very heavy price for that in the Holocaust,
Speaker 3: and it meant we are on our own and we
Speaker 3: had better take care of this potential, not just existing
Speaker 3: but potential threats and possible threats in the future as
Speaker 3: much as we can now. And if you're going to
Speaker 3: be criticized like this anywhere, we might as well make
Speaker 3: sure that the criticism is worth it in terms of
Speaker 3: the security achievements we can implement today. So I think
Speaker 3: are the demonstrations and the widespread nature of the demonstrations
Speaker 3: has been counterproductive in freeing Israel of trying to worry
Speaker 3: about Western public opinion. It made them more determined to
Speaker 3: do what they want to do on their own, regardless
Speaker 3: of the cost in pr if you like in the West.
Speaker 3: So that if we don't understand that, I don't think
Speaker 3: we understand that dynamics of the Israeli decision making, and
Speaker 3: therefore you're not going to be able to.
Speaker 2: Moderate that if you want to work all right, So
Speaker 2: just just side stepping here, momentarily explain to me, and
Speaker 2: I have a feeling it won't take it long. But
Speaker 2: explain to me how the imbecile who won the recent
Speaker 2: Australian election, why did even look hasn't even looked apparently
Speaker 2: at the at the at the videos, the pictures that
Speaker 2: were taken of that day on October seven, might even
Speaker 2: might even go near them.
Speaker 3: They haven't done that, neither he nor the Foreign minister.
Speaker 3: They haven't. They haven't been to this southern Israel that
Speaker 3: was unforgivable. I think they should have gone. I think
Speaker 3: you know there are ways of dealing with allies. The
Speaker 3: look that I mean not to use the words you
Speaker 3: used with regard to Albin easy, but I don't have
Speaker 3: a very high opinion of him. I think he is amiable,
Speaker 3: but he's totally out of his depth with the foreign
Speaker 3: minister of any wrong. I think she's confident, but this
Speaker 3: was never her portfolio in opposition, and I think on
Speaker 3: this she has been learning on the job and is
Speaker 3: still out of her debt as well. I think, yes,
Speaker 3: they should have gone there, should have watched the video.
Speaker 3: I think they they have fallen into the track of
Speaker 3: some sort of a moral equivalence between victim and perpetrator,
Speaker 3: which is about to what happened in October twenty three
Speaker 3: and not seeing the video. But you know, Greater Thurnberg
Speaker 3: and company they refuse to see that video as well,
Speaker 3: if you remember.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but sheated a category of her own and not
Speaker 2: a decision maker.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I think all that is true, But unfortunately
Speaker 3: I don't see any alternative person, even in the opposition benches,
Speaker 3: whom I would have great faith in on this. Well,
Speaker 3: but that, you know, the mismanaged, not Israel, and now
Speaker 3: he's missed the mismanaged their alliance with the United States
Speaker 3: as well. Well.
Speaker 2: That that leads to yet another question. That's a step
Speaker 2: further away than where we want to be. But nevertheless,
Speaker 2: you mentioned voters, and it's voters who put people like
Speaker 2: Albanesi into office the only way you can get there.
Speaker 2: So what does it say about the about the intelligence
Speaker 2: or the education or the media influence that the population
Speaker 2: of Australia and New Zealand and other countries have that
Speaker 2: they just don't grasp the reality of the situation.
Speaker 3: I'll disagree with you on that. The reality is the
Speaker 3: Labor Party this year got what just around one third
Speaker 3: of the VOTs. So Albanesi is Prime Minister and Labor
Speaker 3: is in government not because of the people's vote, but
Speaker 3: because of the peculiar and uniquely self destructive system of
Speaker 3: preferential voting we have here. I can vote for person one,
Speaker 3: and person who's number fourteen one of my list can
Speaker 3: end up being my representative. Well because of the preference vestiers. Look,
Speaker 3: the system is much more to blame for that and
Speaker 3: what you see. And this is a general problem. I
Speaker 3: think we have talked about this across the West, that
Speaker 3: there is a disenchantment and disillusionment from the existing political
Speaker 3: systems and the so called uniparties or the so called blob.
Speaker 3: No matter who you vote for, you get the same
Speaker 3: policies regardless of what their promise in the campaign. So
Speaker 3: two thirds of Australians did not vote for it, voted
Speaker 3: for parties other than Labor and other than Albanesi as
Speaker 3: my minister, and what I've actually referred to this in
Speaker 3: writing this. Australia is the second example in recent times,
Speaker 3: following the UK of loveless landslides. But they make the
Speaker 3: mistake of misinterpreting two thirds of the people putting against
Speaker 3: them as a powerful mandate because of the number of
Speaker 3: seats they have in parliament. Albanesi has more seats in
Speaker 3: Parliament for Labor and more parliamentary control despite having significantly
Speaker 3: lower vot share than Kevin Rudd had for example. So
Speaker 3: I think we need to be careful that. You know,
Speaker 3: it's the system where let me put it away, voters
Speaker 3: propose the preference system disposes.
Speaker 2: Well, I grew up with the preference system, not in
Speaker 2: thew in Australia, you know. Okay, Well, I don't forget
Speaker 2: that I am Australian. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 3: Conversely, don't forget I am in New Zealand and I
Speaker 3: was in New Zealand and we went from first past
Speaker 3: the post to m and P which has many attractions.
Speaker 3: But if you go to this last election, but the
Speaker 3: one before when Justin the Atan became PM under the
Speaker 3: old first part of the post, John Cuda on a landslide. Well,
Speaker 3: I think we keep seeing all of us democratic countries,
Speaker 3: but if you do that exercise of putting different systems
Speaker 3: in each of the major Western democracies, you'd get a
Speaker 3: completely different government formation. Well, it can't be the case
Speaker 3: that it is people's choices being reflected in government. It's
Speaker 3: the system. Ramesh.
Speaker 2: When when I came to New Zealand, which is a
Speaker 2: long time ago, and we were up for the for
Speaker 2: the for the vote and m MP became became it,
Speaker 2: I argued as hard as I could and gave as
Speaker 2: much as I was able to to not having m
Speaker 2: MP and for going for the for the preferential approach yep.
Speaker 2: And I because I thought it was the best, and
Speaker 2: I still think it was the best at the time.
Speaker 2: But in all countries there's been we've seen the births
Speaker 2: of all these clip on parties that achieve what you
Speaker 2: what you've just described. So then taking all that into account,
Speaker 2: my question for you is, in your opinion, what is
Speaker 2: the best system we could have.
Speaker 3: That's a very good question, But in a sense I don't.
Speaker 3: I haven't looked into that in any detail, because before
Speaker 3: I would invest time in that, I need to see
Speaker 3: how much is possible in Australia, how much is constitution
Speaker 3: and how much can be changed. But certainly and there
Speaker 3: let me put it this way. I was a photograph
Speaker 3: then I had two senior colleagues, one of whom was
Speaker 3: a member of the commission that recommended MMP, the later
Speaker 3: Richard Mulgan. Another, Anthony Wood, was a resident expert in
Speaker 3: New Zealian politics, and they disagreed fundamentally on this. Anthony
Speaker 3: was very much in favor of retaining the first but
Speaker 3: the post not the least, because he said it's the
Speaker 3: most effective system for being able to throw the buses out.
Speaker 3: If you don't like that, you've seen that validated in
Speaker 3: many countries by now. But I know that I don't
Speaker 3: like the Australian system. I don't think it's one the other.
Speaker 3: I think in the zeally at the time my sense
Speaker 3: was I would have struck a compromise between the two.
Speaker 3: I would have had fifty percent of the seats elected
Speaker 3: on first past the post and the remaining fifty percent
Speaker 3: on some sort of proportional so that you can't try
Speaker 3: to combine the two to get the benefit support.
Speaker 2: If you've got proportional, you've got basically what you've got now.
Speaker 3: Lists, Yes, but only half the seats.
Speaker 2: But for only half the seats, you're you're paying people
Speaker 2: who are not elected. So you still haven't got you
Speaker 2: still haven't gotten an appropriate.
Speaker 3: No, but essentially most people, now, I mean you've got
Speaker 3: overwhelming evidence for that, most people for the party rather
Speaker 3: than than individual members. Yes, So so the party is
Speaker 3: to recognize that.
Speaker 2: How about how about this, how about we elect we
Speaker 2: we elect our own members, our own politicians for the
Speaker 2: seat that we live in. We elect them individually, like
Speaker 2: the Americans.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, there are also the multi member constituencies where
Speaker 3: you can have that also, so that there are different
Speaker 3: ways of looking at it.
Speaker 2: But sorry, so just just to say that the party
Speaker 2: doesn't come first, the local electric comes first, and then
Speaker 2: and therefore yes, but.
Speaker 3: That if you have only that, then it becomes unworkable
Speaker 3: and the whole system fall example, because you have no party,
Speaker 3: you don't contvote for a platform, you don't know who's
Speaker 3: going to be the leader. Then et cetera. So it did.
Speaker 3: If you actually work it through, it becomes unworked will
Speaker 3: very quickly. An alternative to that is to have some
Speaker 3: sort of a recall system or too far out of line,
Speaker 3: you know, you have five percent of the voters in
Speaker 3: any constituency demanded recall or re election. That will keep
Speaker 3: them in line much better too. Well, what about the
Speaker 3: Swiss system. I like the Swiss system, but I'm not
Speaker 3: sure that you can replicate that with I guess because
Speaker 3: in Australia and New Zealand, but I also look at
Speaker 3: the bigger countries. So yeah, But the basic point is
Speaker 3: there's two things we need to address. One is other
Speaker 3: existing systems in the different countries delivering the best outcomes,
Speaker 3: and there's no reason to believe that something that worked
Speaker 3: sixty years ago is still good for contemporary conditions. The
Speaker 3: second one is how do you ensure integrity of promises
Speaker 3: made in campaigns with policies enacted as government. And that's
Speaker 3: where a lot of the problem comes in as well.
Speaker 2: Let me climb back on track, yeah, and put some
Speaker 2: questions to you. There's a lot said about the population
Speaker 2: of Iran rebelling and throwing out somehow getting getting themselves
Speaker 2: rid of the current regime. Yep, what chance of that?
Speaker 3: Do you think? This is where we need to be
Speaker 3: very careful of what we wish for and go back
Speaker 3: to my unintended perverse consequences. You know, in general around
Speaker 3: the world, but particularly in the Middle East, history doesn't
Speaker 3: move forwards in a linear fashion. It typically skips sideways
Speaker 3: and no one knows where exactly it's going to land.
Speaker 3: And that is a risk. If we get a change
Speaker 3: of regime, the chances are bigger rather than smaller, that
Speaker 3: we'll get a more hawkish regime. We are familiar with
Speaker 3: the distaste in the US, well, unhappiness in the US
Speaker 3: and distaste in Israel with the twenty fifteen utility. But
Speaker 3: that was a controversial decision in Iran as well. The
Speaker 3: strongly nationalists within Iran. We're not happy with that that.
Speaker 3: They said, you know, we don't trust Americans. This is
Speaker 3: sipping from the poison chalice yet again, and they felt
Speaker 3: vindicated when Trump pulled out in twenty eighteen. So I
Speaker 3: think the chances are that if the regime was displaced,
Speaker 3: the regime of the Atholas was displaced, it would be
Speaker 3: some version of the IRGC. The revolutionary regards who take
Speaker 3: over power, and the reports indicate that some powers were
Speaker 3: transferred to them by Athola, how many fearing assassination, the
Speaker 3: chances of a genuinely democratic outcome would be smaller rather
Speaker 3: than greater, from Afghanistan, through Iran, through Libya's Syria even
Speaker 3: already today. Interventions and even out of a Spring revolutions
Speaker 3: created euphoria in the short term, but have left the
Speaker 3: legacy of dysfunctionality, societal breakdown, economic breakdown, po little breakdown, chaos,
Speaker 3: and anarchy. And you're really going to have to be
Speaker 3: an very strong optimist to believe that we'd get a
Speaker 3: different outcome in Iran, and the consequences given this population
Speaker 3: would be even worse in terms of the refugee max
Speaker 3: mass refugee outflows and the internal civil wars. So i'm
Speaker 3: very You know, we didn't like Saddam Hussin, but he
Speaker 3: kept the lid on. We didn't like Asad, but he
Speaker 3: kept the lid on. We didn't like Adafi, but again
Speaker 3: he kept the lid on. It's hard to argue that
Speaker 3: has followed in each of these has been better than
Speaker 3: the things the regimes are replaced. So I'm a bit
Speaker 3: variable going down the path. Yet again we've been down that,
Speaker 3: we've seen that movie. It's never got well before. So
Speaker 3: if now I think we should also to be fair,
Speaker 3: remember that the West has a very bad history in
Speaker 3: interfering in Iran, going back to the overthrow of their
Speaker 3: democratic government and installing the Shah in power. I think
Speaker 3: there were many people outside of the West who who
Speaker 3: for decades argue that preservation or democracy in the West
Speaker 3: seems to require oppression of people's aspirations in the rest,
Speaker 3: and there is an element of truth to that as
Speaker 3: well as having said that, I mean I've been to Iran.
Speaker 3: There's no question but that there's very little love for
Speaker 3: the regime, for the regime of the Atolas amongst the population,
Speaker 3: and they very much wanted to have the same sources
Speaker 3: of not just lifestyles but core freedoms that we take
Speaker 3: for granted in the West, and not to tay for
Speaker 3: granted but deride and and and mock in the West. Now,
Speaker 3: so that part is there. You know, we've never been
Speaker 3: fully happy with the extent of democracy in Singapore, but
Speaker 3: if you think about it, for Singapore, it has produced
Speaker 3: a lot of good results with a few of the
Speaker 3: disfunctionalities of full fledged liberal democracies in the West or
Speaker 3: non democracies elsewhere. Did you spend time in Singapore, Well,
Speaker 3: I've I've been visiting on an offense state for a
Speaker 3: short period. Sim it's Jim Allen I'm thinking of. Actually
Speaker 3: he taught it for a bit. He was in Hong Kong.
Speaker 3: Not not not to Singapore. He was in Hong Kong.
Speaker 3: I know he's in Hong Kong, all right. Well, somebody
Speaker 3: was in Singapore. He spent some years in Hong Kong
Speaker 3: before he came was in New Zealand. All right.
Speaker 2: I'll double check it from from myself, but I accept
Speaker 2: for the present I could be wrong.
Speaker 3: But my memory is that I don't think he spent
Speaker 3: time on Singapore in Hong Kong.
Speaker 2: Isn't it interesting actually that the number of people who
Speaker 2: went through, if I may put it that way, who
Speaker 2: taught at a targo and have dispersed into other parts
Speaker 2: of the world simply because New Zealand couldn't hold them.
Speaker 2: Your one, Jim Allen's another. There's somebody else I'm trying
Speaker 2: to think of who was at the University of Tasmania.
Speaker 3: Yes, of course, a fine fellow yep.
Speaker 2: That anyway, My point was that we can't hold on
Speaker 2: to people because for whatever reason New Zealand doesn't have
Speaker 2: enough to enough to offer to retain. So the situation
Speaker 2: with Russia and China, their parts in such as they
Speaker 2: are or were in the Middle East we're currently talking
Speaker 2: about and beyond, and also your opinion on how on
Speaker 2: earth this current European war is going to sort itself out.
Speaker 3: I think one of the consequences of the last couple
Speaker 3: of weeks we to go to Iran is the break
Speaker 3: in the Sobal Crink alliance or group China, Russia, Iran,
Speaker 3: North Korea. It's going to make the others China and
Speaker 3: North Korea, Russia more determined to modernize their nuclear arsenal.
Speaker 3: It has shown up the emptiness of aligning with this
Speaker 3: group for others in that Russia has been displaced from
Speaker 3: a releast China and Russia will limit it to expressing
Speaker 3: plastitudes Iran as a source of supply of drones for Russia.
Speaker 3: We'll see how that plays out. I suspect it will
Speaker 3: strengthen the relationship between China and Russia. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: it has any lasting significance for shaping Chinese behavior visa
Speaker 3: VI Taiwan. People are saying it will show the American credibility,
Speaker 3: but I don't think that lessons translate across the regions. Conversely,
Speaker 3: I think it doesn't necessarily work to advantage to have
Speaker 3: America distracted yet again by a major crisis in the
Speaker 3: Middle East, as opposed to focusing on the Indo Pacific.
Speaker 3: Russia has clearly kept at its war in Ukraine. President
Speaker 3: Zelenski has kept making odd statements, you know, don't forget us,
Speaker 3: don't forget us, we need help still, et cetera. But
Speaker 3: I think the American the trumpetministration is less receptive to
Speaker 3: his pleas than has been the case for the past things.
Speaker 3: The other important factor is it shows the strategic irrelevance
Speaker 3: of the Europeans as well when it comes to major decisions.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how many of them are even consulted
Speaker 3: some or maybe given information in advance, but they've essentially
Speaker 3: been shown to be hangers on rather than shared decision
Speaker 3: making at the table. So we'll see as we speak
Speaker 3: how this plays out with the Native summit in the Netherlands.
Speaker 3: Now I don't know they're meeting at the Hague or
Speaker 3: in Amsterdam, whichever it is, it's I think it confirms
Speaker 3: that there's the United States and then there's the rest.
Speaker 3: It's not going to diminish Trump's transactional approach to diplomacy.
Speaker 3: He's most susceptible to flattery, but I think that's not
Speaker 3: a lasting benefit. He's prepared to change his mind. He
Speaker 3: has shown the ability to keep a secret, and after
Speaker 3: all the telegram gate and stuff like that, that was
Speaker 3: a question mark. But in this they managed to retain
Speaker 3: the details secret until the operation was actually implemented. So
Speaker 3: that's something for the good as well. It's an opportunity
Speaker 3: if you think of the tremendous upheavals, it is an
Speaker 3: opportunity for significant long term geopolitical game changing decisions for
Speaker 3: the Middle least for Europe, less so I think for
Speaker 3: the Indo Pacific, and that's probably a good place on
Speaker 3: which to land with is that it has broken the
Speaker 3: existing mold. What will be the new contrast of the
Speaker 3: Middle East and Europe and the North Atlantic. Let's fait
Speaker 3: and see. I think we are in a better position
Speaker 3: now than we were at the start of the year.
Speaker 3: I think the Trump administration deserves considerable credit for that
Speaker 3: for all the criticisms directed at them. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: that it has any major implications long term for what
Speaker 3: happens in Russia and China, but if it does, it's
Speaker 3: going to make them more careful with regard to challenging
Speaker 3: or provoking Trump. I think they will be not necessarily
Speaker 3: on the best behavior, but on less verse of a
Speaker 3: behavior than they have been or were under the Biden administration.
Speaker 3: Very interesting.
Speaker 2: So then I think my final question to you is
Speaker 2: how do you see the Middle East coming out of
Speaker 2: this as we have discussed it and as we know
Speaker 2: it's happening. In other words, how will Iran sort this out?
Speaker 3: I think they will pause, recover, recuperate. I think there
Speaker 3: will be more determined efforts to invest in nuclear weapon capability.
Speaker 3: I should have added, by the way, that personally, I
Speaker 3: do believe that the Aya tolders and the Islamic clerics
Speaker 3: actually were a defense against overt weaponization. I have no
Speaker 3: reason to doubt that their statements that possessing little and
Speaker 3: using nuclear weapons is contrary to core Islamic doctrine, paralleling
Speaker 3: the arguments that the Catholic bishops have been in the past,
Speaker 3: for example, about nuclear weapons and that they were under pressure.
Speaker 3: When I was in Iran, I went to Isfahan and
Speaker 3: I was taken to the points where they were subjected
Speaker 3: to a chemical weapons attacks by So I'm saying, if
Speaker 3: you remember, and the point made to me was beyonder
Speaker 3: great pressure as victims of weapons of mass destruction, which
Speaker 3: the West tried to minimize or deny initially, beyond under
Speaker 3: great pressure to go down the nuclear path. But if
Speaker 3: we don't want to do that, but as a compromise,
Speaker 3: we sort of investing in the capability if we ever
Speaker 3: do decide to go down that part. That was the message,
Speaker 3: not as explicitly as that, but that was the message
Speaker 3: I got from that. So I think there is reason
Speaker 3: to believe that as well. I think they're going to
Speaker 3: have to work out a more intet I think to
Speaker 3: the Iranians, the Palestinians, Serians obviously a different category. In Lebanon,
Speaker 3: our message has to be you're defeated for the foreseable future.
Speaker 3: You're not going to be able to challenge Isuel militarily,
Speaker 3: accept that reality and move on. I think to Israel
Speaker 3: the message has to be you can't have a permanent
Speaker 3: future based on military superiority. The demographics work against you.
Speaker 3: It goes against everything we know about history to believe
Speaker 3: that one country can keep nuclear weapons forever and no
Speaker 3: other country in the region can get it again or
Speaker 3: can't get it. Ever, that's not going to happen. There's
Speaker 3: been no web, no category of arms in history that
Speaker 3: has remained restricted to a few if it's proven to
Speaker 3: be effective, either in deterrent or in its operational functions,
Speaker 3: So that also the periferation thing is going to be
Speaker 3: have to looked at. I think one of the biggest
Speaker 3: casualties of this is in fact, the lantice work of
Speaker 3: international institutions and the norms and rules of laws centered
Speaker 3: around them. So I don't think the UN comes out
Speaker 3: of this looking very in very good health. That's going
Speaker 3: to have to be looked at as well. So, yes,
Speaker 3: the old system is gone, possibly forever. What's going to
Speaker 3: be the new one? At this stage we don't know.
Speaker 3: Do we have faith in our leaders to reshape a
Speaker 3: new order? I wish I could answer yes on that,
Speaker 3: but I don't see the equivalent of the leaders at
Speaker 3: the end of the Second World War who put in
Speaker 3: place a system that did deliver for everyone. And I
Speaker 3: mean everyone, and produced a lot of good outcomes across
Speaker 3: the board economically, socially, health wise, politically for most of
Speaker 3: the world. I don't see that category of leadership anywhere
Speaker 3: in the world. At the moment, I thought you might
Speaker 3: have been toward Trump a little. I do that he's
Speaker 3: better than the alternatives, and I think it's a volatility
Speaker 3: and unpredictability that varies me. But he seems to be
Speaker 3: behaving much better, behaving in the sense of foreign policy
Speaker 3: decisions as well, much better in the second term, perhaps
Speaker 3: having learned from being so bar and being moderated by
Speaker 3: its first the experience of the first administration. Right, I
Speaker 3: think we have to acknowledge the great geopolitical weight, the
Speaker 3: gravitational pull, the normative weight to the United States and
Speaker 3: pin a hope in its ability to lead the rest
Speaker 3: of the world towards a less dangerous and less unstable
Speaker 3: and less unpredictable future. And there are you know, they're
Speaker 3: all saying every challenge, in every every challengeing crisis is
Speaker 3: also an opportunity. So maybe he will lead the way
Speaker 3: to reconfiguring.
Speaker 2: That that.
Speaker 3: Well, that's all we can hope for.
Speaker 2: At the moment, I was going to do this much
Speaker 2: earlier in the in the discussion. So I will ask
Speaker 2: you finally this it's not a question, it's a it's
Speaker 2: a request you're I mean, for instance, you write a
Speaker 2: book in published a book in twenty fifteen nuclear weapons
Speaker 2: and International Security, just for the sake of people's information.
Speaker 2: Your association with matters nuclear was quite broad for some time.
Speaker 2: You have the authority to comment as you have and
Speaker 2: the way that you have. So where did you get that?
Speaker 2: Where did you cover off and get that knowledge?
Speaker 3: Well, it's a lifetime of professional work on it. I
Speaker 3: mean from what I said earlier, it's very clear that
Speaker 3: I don't have very anybodries about nuclear power for energy,
Speaker 3: provide it. All modern safeguards in design and operation are
Speaker 3: meant I met, and I think the apport that's on that.
Speaker 3: In terms of nuclear arms, I still think they're essentially unusable.
Speaker 3: That one of the big reasons they haven't been used
Speaker 3: since nineteen forty five is that in fact they are
Speaker 3: not usable, and there's all sorts of arguments about that
Speaker 3: their only purpose can be deterrence. Even then, there are
Speaker 3: major question marks about them. But having said all that,
Speaker 3: it's a foods gold of an ambition to believe that
Speaker 3: you can disarm those who already have the weapons one
Speaker 3: by one. I think it has to be a global
Speaker 3: effort and a global treaty with a robust inspection and
Speaker 3: verification system in which all parties have confidence.
Speaker 4: If we had that, the biggest losers actually would be
Speaker 4: actors like Russia and China, because, as has been demonstrated,
Speaker 4: the United States and the West generally still have unique
Speaker 4: technological superiority and capabilities that gives them overwhelming conventional superiority,
Speaker 4: and they otherwise actors that are less likely to be
Speaker 4: interested in wars of aggression than the other side, if
Speaker 4: you like. And I also think it's true, but for
Speaker 4: his reasons, but I won't go into detail with India
Speaker 4: vias of Pakistan. So I think the risks of nuclear
Speaker 4: weapons used by bad actors or by accident or by
Speaker 4: misinformation and missignaling the risks out for any potential benefit.
Speaker 3: And I like to see that addressed. But it's not
Speaker 3: going to happen suddenly. It's not going to be happened
Speaker 3: by ignoring the security concerns that people countries have, and
Speaker 3: so it has to be addressed. I think the problem
Speaker 3: has been having signed the MPT. The five countries that
Speaker 3: were accepted as nuclear weapons then took that as a
Speaker 3: permanent dispensation to retain nuclear weapons and stop anyone else
Speaker 3: from getting it. Well, that didn't work. We may not
Speaker 3: have the twenty countries you think the weapons that people
Speaker 3: are President Kennedy feared in the sixties, but we do
Speaker 3: have more than five. We have nine at the moment.
Speaker 3: You'd have to be someone completely ahistorical to believe that
Speaker 3: it can be restricted to nine if you don't actually
Speaker 3: address getting rid of it. One final point on that.
Speaker 3: Up until twenty seventeen, I didn't accept it, but I
Speaker 3: could see that there's a basis for arguing that the
Speaker 3: five countries that had them under the NPT, that's the
Speaker 3: United States, United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia, that their
Speaker 3: possession was at least legal, even if you're not legitimate
Speaker 3: in terms of the NPT, because there was no deadline
Speaker 3: set under the NPT for them to dismantle. But after
Speaker 3: six of the NPT does require them to dismantle disarm,
Speaker 3: And to argue that the treaty that came into if
Speaker 3: what was it nineteen seventy I think in negotiated and
Speaker 3: signed in sixty eight in operation since nineteen seventy, so
Speaker 3: fifty five years later, that they haven't violated ALTOST six.
Speaker 3: It's a very difficult argument to make. But regardless of that,
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen we have TPNW, the Treaty for the
Speaker 3: Prohibsion of Nuclear Weapons, which does make it very clear
Speaker 3: that as far as the rest of the world is concerned,
Speaker 3: in other words, as far as the international community concerned,
Speaker 3: possession of nuclear weapons by any state is contrary to
Speaker 3: existing international law and certainly international maniteer in law, and
Speaker 3: we want it dismantled. It doesn't mean you can get
Speaker 3: it immediately. It's an aspirational treaty because no country that
Speaker 3: has them, and no country that shelters under them, including Australia,
Speaker 3: as signed it. But I think you know, and much
Speaker 3: like what I was saying about Israel, if you want
Speaker 3: to have a vision for a path forward, it has
Speaker 3: to be a world free of nuclear weapons and the
Speaker 3: threat of use of nuclear weapons because and I prefer
Speaker 3: to make the argument starting from the point that they
Speaker 3: haven't been use because they're not usable and the impact
Speaker 3: is negative rather than positive. And if you start from that,
Speaker 3: you then say, well, how can we make it into
Speaker 3: a credible system that reassures everyone, and then we can
Speaker 3: more correctly dismantling it.
Speaker 2: I could keep talking or listening, because you're doing most
Speaker 2: of the talking, for at least another hour, but we
Speaker 2: shan't keep it another day. Keep it for another day. Well,
Speaker 2: as I was going to say, until we talk again.
Speaker 2: But I want to thank you because it's been most informative.
Speaker 2: I've learned plenty, and I think that most people who
Speaker 2: have been listening would have learned plenty. And there have
Speaker 2: been so many side roads that I could have taken
Speaker 2: that I didn't because I didn't want to keep going
Speaker 2: off in all sorts of different directions. It would have
Speaker 2: been like a stew But nevertheless, like you say, save
Speaker 2: it for another day. So Ramish, you're a good man
Speaker 2: and I appreciate it. Thank You's been a pleasure.
Speaker 5: Thanks Daisy, missus producer.
Speaker 2: We're into the mail room for podcast two hundred and ninety.
Speaker 6: Amazing Latent two hundred and ninety.
Speaker 3: I've got to go back and count up the number
Speaker 3: of times we've said that or some.
Speaker 6: It is pretty amazing.
Speaker 3: It is amazing.
Speaker 2: Now let's see what we have may I lead from Olivia.
Speaker 2: This is something that Olivia Pearson, who I had on
Speaker 2: the podcast a number of times in the earlier days,
Speaker 2: has set out to people who she likes, and I
Speaker 2: appear to be one of them. Since twenty sixteen, President
Speaker 2: Trump has conducted somewhere in the vicinity of nine hundred
Speaker 2: political rallies, an astronomical number befitting the man's colossal energy
Speaker 2: and courage. At nearly all of them, he has consistently
Speaker 2: maintained that he will never let the Islamic Republic of
Speaker 2: Iran acquire nuclear weapons. This is simply because he knows
Speaker 2: that the regime will use them on Israel and the
Speaker 2: United States. At these same rallies, Trump has also consistently
Speaker 2: stated that he will not involve the US in New
Speaker 2: Forever Wars, the force of his focus being America first.
Speaker 2: And then she has Then she's sent an address which
Speaker 2: is Olivia Pearson p I E. R. S O N
Speaker 2: dot org slash blog slash Trump acted to fulfill a
Speaker 2: long term promise, and I think it's probably worth worth
Speaker 2: listening to later.
Speaker 6: This is from Bronwyn and her subject is Owen Jennings's letter.
Speaker 6: She says, great letter by Owen Jennings sadly becoming increasingly
Speaker 6: obvious that Luxon does not work for the New Zealand
Speaker 6: people but for some global interest and they will have
Speaker 6: some reason for the hasty Gomod regulation which will benefit them,
Speaker 6: not us. I'm sure he was installed on purpose, as
Speaker 6: the media started talking him up as the next National
Speaker 6: Party leader as soon as he left her in New Zealand.
Speaker 6: As for you asking him whether he wants to be
Speaker 6: remembered as badly as Jabsinder and be forced to live overseas,
Speaker 6: I doubt he cares. She had her Harvard position lined up,
Speaker 6: and I'm sure lux Flakes has a globalist position lined
Speaker 6: up too, now that he has Prime Minister of New
Speaker 6: Zealand on his CV. And that's from bromwan.
Speaker 2: Ron, Well, that's some very savage actually, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to argue with you. You're entitled to your opinion. I
Speaker 2: might share quite a large portion of it. So from
Speaker 2: Brett London came up recently. It is subsiding while the
Speaker 2: other ind of the island is rising, as also are
Speaker 2: regions further north. This situation is the result of settling,
Speaker 2: for example, continuing to settle since the previous glacier period
Speaker 2: melt in Braggetts, No humans needed the weight of the ice,
Speaker 2: as many will know, deforms the Earth's crust. Claims of
Speaker 2: sea level rise in these and other places, as pointed
Speaker 2: out in your article, is very ill advised and misleading
Speaker 2: to the public perception, while all the while we are
Speaker 2: all getting blamed for what are natural processes. Nature will
Speaker 2: have the last word whether humans are here or not.
Speaker 2: We just aren't that important in the greater scheme of things,
Speaker 2: as you know reclimate matters. I can't blame people for
Speaker 2: absorbing the constant messaging hammering us every day. There is
Speaker 2: just so much of it and is pervasive. The credibility
Speaker 2: behind the messaging is very shaky given how many it
Speaker 2: can be proven to be wrong and over such a
Speaker 2: length of time. Our New Zealand government is one of
Speaker 2: the worst for what it is doing to the place
Speaker 2: in the name of a false god. I have a
Speaker 2: great week from bread. This government's really no different to
Speaker 2: the previous government, is it?
Speaker 3: On?
Speaker 2: This maybe a slight improvement, but still lacking integrity.
Speaker 6: Laden George says. Solar panels and windmills produce direct current.
Speaker 6: The grid operates on alternating current. With the fifty cycles
Speaker 6: per second frequency. To connect the DC to the grid
Speaker 6: requires it to be converted to AC. This requires very
Speaker 6: expensive inverters. Once converted, the AC produced must be synchronized
Speaker 6: with the fifty hertz To do this synchronization, and it
Speaker 6: requires an existing AC grid. This lack of synchronization is
Speaker 6: what caused the problems of Portugal these so called renewables.
Speaker 6: These so called renewables are heavily subsidized. I would suggest
Speaker 6: you contact an electrical engineer who can explain this better
Speaker 6: than a retired electrician. And that's from George.
Speaker 3: George.
Speaker 6: And if you understand that you're a better man than I, yes,
Speaker 6: well I'm a better man than you anyway, Jung.
Speaker 2: At any level, I have my advisor and that's mister Leyland. Um,
Speaker 2: so if I'm going to ask anybody, that'll be him.
Speaker 2: Dear Layton and Carolyn. When George Friedman said that the
Speaker 2: potus doesn't create a crisis, but instead they respond to
Speaker 2: the reality that they're trapped in, he really got me
Speaker 2: pondering do we write history or does history write us?
Speaker 2: Given the impossible odds of Donald Trump surviving a fully
Speaker 2: weaponized lawfare, a hostile mainstream media two assassination attempts, and
Speaker 2: still manage to return for a second presidential term. I'm
Speaker 2: beginning to believe that indeed history writes us. People who
Speaker 2: unjustifiably hate Trump call him a fool. But what they
Speaker 2: don't realize is that ultimately God will have the last laugh,
Speaker 2: because in a world that has turned completely upside down,
Speaker 2: he often chooses the foolish in order to shame the wise.
Speaker 2: You don't have to love Trump to accept the fact
Speaker 2: that he has done a lot of good in the
Speaker 2: world in just a short time since becoming Potus two.
Speaker 2: And here is a recent development that should get those
Speaker 2: self righteously wise people's nickers. In a twist, the government
Speaker 2: of Pakistan has formally recommended Donald Trump for the twenty
Speaker 2: six Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his decisive diplomatic
Speaker 2: interventions during the recent India Pakistan crisis. As George Friedman mentioned,
Speaker 2: Trump is literally redefining cultural norms, taxes, foreign policy, policy, allies,
Speaker 2: and so on. Trump is a purported fool who is
Speaker 2: unpredictably effective. If being a fool would make the world
Speaker 2: a better place than long live the fools of this world.
Speaker 2: To quote the indomitable Thomas soul. Thomas sol once said
Speaker 2: that a fool can put on his coat better than
Speaker 2: a wise man can put it on for him. The
Speaker 2: implications of that undermine most of the agenda of the
Speaker 2: political left. Thank you, Jim as always very good. As
Speaker 2: to the answer of your question, there's no answer this
Speaker 2: question at the bottom. It doesn't matter. Wants to know
Speaker 2: if you managed to take me to the beach last week.
Speaker 3: That's funny.
Speaker 6: I believe we did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I compounded. I do have another letter regarding George Treatment.
Speaker 2: Where do I put it, missus producer. It's over here somewhere.
Speaker 6: I don't know you've read them all anyway.
Speaker 2: Well, anyway, it's from It's from Allison Allison. I'm going
Speaker 2: to give it proper consideration and maybe next week pretty
Speaker 2: hard hitter.
Speaker 3: Thank you. We'll see you.
Speaker 6: Next week late and you will thank you so much.
Speaker 3: It's welcome.
Speaker 2: Finally, in podcast two ninety, there is a subject that
Speaker 2: is getting a lot of attention in well places where
Speaker 2: it's happening. Where what's happening what I'm about to talk
Speaker 2: about very briefly in Europe, in England in particular, and
Speaker 2: the subject is multiculturalism. The cult of multiculturalism is regarded
Speaker 2: by its debtees as the pinnacle of Western achievement and
Speaker 2: the end of European history. After the thesis an antithesis
Speaker 2: of domination and enslavement, the warring clans and machine gunning
Speaker 2: of millions, the populations of Europe will transcend their inglorious
Speaker 2: arrogance and be at one with the enlightened nations.
Speaker 3: Of the world.
Speaker 2: The despotic superstructures of Europe or shelby subsumed by the
Speaker 2: unblemished global majority, the black, brown, and indigenous populations of
Speaker 2: the world, and there shall be no oppression, no hatred,
Speaker 2: and no poverty. In short, we multiculturalism, and then we die.
Speaker 2: But devotion to diversity in multiculturalism is a luxury belief
Speaker 2: championed by those who are able to isolate themselves from
Speaker 2: the consequences of their own liberal attitudes. It is a
Speaker 2: theology of sorts, whether it's saints and devils. Despite the
Speaker 2: bloodshead and the bankruptcy the torture of the tears, the
Speaker 2: disciples continue to believe that diversity is strength. Their faith
Speaker 2: endures and has only grown deeper in the face of
Speaker 2: adversity because of this core conviction it is better to
Speaker 2: be dead than racist, as the most recent example, and
Speaker 2: really what triggered this commentary. I want to quote you
Speaker 2: something that was published on the twenty first of June.
Speaker 2: Broadcaster Selina Scott was viciously attacked and robbed by a
Speaker 2: gang in broad daylight last week. She revealed the EXITV
Speaker 2: News at ten Anchor seventy four. Bravely fought back, but
Speaker 2: said the ordeal left her chatter and traumatized. She said
Speaker 2: she was leaving a Waterstones in Piccadilly, Central London. I
Speaker 2: know that shop, I go there when she was struck
Speaker 2: on the back of her right knee and thought that
Speaker 2: she'd been stabbed. A gang of around seven or eight
Speaker 2: men and women in expensive sportswear and seemingly of East
Speaker 2: Asian origin who were in front of her, then turned
Speaker 2: in head derrin. They tried to grab her designer backpack,
Speaker 2: which she tightly held onto. Another group then barged into her,
Speaker 2: and she realized she was being attacked from both sides
Speaker 2: at the same time. Selina managed to keep hold of
Speaker 2: the bag when she fought back, and the gang walked
Speaker 2: off laughing. She later realized they'd managed to unzip the
Speaker 2: bag and take a purse which had her driving license,
Speaker 2: cards and cash. Miss Scott, a TV icon since the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties who famously at a viewed Donald Trump, slammed
Speaker 2: the lack of police presence to deter or catch the
Speaker 2: criminal thugs. She said she walked up and down some
Speaker 2: of London's busiest central areas and did not see a
Speaker 2: single officer. The journalist wrote in The Mail on Sunday
Speaker 2: that the events were so swift and practiced that it
Speaker 2: was clear it was a coordinated assault. She added, I
Speaker 2: was right by a busy bus stop, although no one
Speaker 2: would have known what was going on. It was slick,
Speaker 2: brief and clearly engineered to have in the middle of
Speaker 2: the crowd. I still feel shattered after what had happened.
Speaker 2: I can't believe it happened to me. I am mentally
Speaker 2: resilient and physically fit, but if they attacked me in
Speaker 2: such a brazen way, they can attack anyone. You're left
Speaker 2: feeling not just traumatized, but stupid that you have somehow
Speaker 2: let it happen. I'm also furious about the lack of
Speaker 2: police on our streets. No wonder the gang who set
Speaker 2: about me have a sense of impunity. They can do
Speaker 2: anything they want because they know that no one will
Speaker 2: stop them. So we know that this has been going
Speaker 2: on all over England. Actually plenty of it in London,
Speaker 2: plenty of it up north. There are many articles that
Speaker 2: I could quote from. It's just that that one. I
Speaker 2: read it and I thought I would to respond to it.
Speaker 2: And the article before that, by the way, was written
Speaker 2: by Charles Bentley Aster and what I read was only
Speaker 2: the first two paragraphs of about five pages. But I
Speaker 2: suppose you could say that what the real trigger was.
Speaker 2: The real trigger was a book that I have mentioned
Speaker 2: more than once over the years, published in twenty eleven,
Speaker 2: Delectable Lie. A liberal repudiation of Multiculturalism. Now, before you
Speaker 2: get exercised about some sort of reference to multiculturalism and
Speaker 2: here we go again or whatever, let me point out
Speaker 2: something to you. It's written by a Muslim in Canada,
Speaker 2: a Muslim in Canada. I quote you from the back
Speaker 2: of the book. My point is that although multiculturalism once
Speaker 2: seemed a very good idea, at least to politicians and
Speaker 2: others smitten with the ambition for unity, it is increasingly
Speaker 2: shown to be a lie, a delectable lie perhaps. Yet
Speaker 2: a lie. Nevertheless, that is destructive of the West's liberal,
Speaker 2: democratic heritage, tradition and values based on individual rights and freedoms.
Speaker 2: This could have been foretold as Indeed, those philosophers and
Speaker 2: historians of ideas who viewed freedom as in measures more
Speaker 2: important than equality in the development of the West did foretell.
Speaker 2: They admonished people against the temptation to abridge freedom in
Speaker 2: pursuit of equality. Do we do that in this country?
Speaker 2: Do you think now? The author Salem Mansur is alm
Speaker 2: m An su R is a professor of political science
Speaker 2: at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. He
Speaker 2: is the author of a number of other books, Islam's Predicament,
Speaker 2: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim, and co editor of Indira
Speaker 2: Rajiv Years the Indian Economy and Polity nineteen sixty six
Speaker 2: to nineteen ninety one. It's also nationally syndicated columnists for
Speaker 2: the Sun chain of newspapers in Canada and the recipient
Speaker 2: of the Stephen S. Wise Humanitarian Award, Profiles Encourage in
Speaker 2: two thousand six. You know, it's not a matter of race,
Speaker 2: It's a matter of and I've decided this a long
Speaker 2: time ago. It's a matter of culture. Basically, people can
Speaker 2: change their cultures, but they can't change their race, and
Speaker 2: the two should be considered separately. Speaking of race not
Speaker 2: being being able to be changed. A very fine example
Speaker 2: of that, while belief and culture can is ion hersey
Speaker 2: Eli and I've been reading quite a bit of her commentaries, Blake.
Speaker 2: They are worthy of your time. More power to her.
Speaker 2: And I know you'll say that we should get her
Speaker 2: on the podcast, and I don't disagree. So that will
Speaker 2: take us out for podcasts number two hundred and ninety.
Speaker 2: We love you, mail, please keep it rolling. Latent at
Speaker 2: NEWSTALKZNB dot co dot z, Caravin at newstalksb dot co
Speaker 2: dot zid nice things to me, complaints to her. We
Speaker 2: shall return for podcasts two hundred and ninety one very soon.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, as always, thank you for listening and
Speaker 2: we shall talk soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you for more from news Talks at b Listen
Speaker 1: live on air or online, and keep our shows with
Speaker 1: you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio.