[00:03] This is why you see, getting back to your points about the Gulf states and and as we talk about the Europeans and other nations, a lack of trust, a lack of confidence in the United States. This is why nations are making the decision to leave the American order, right? To embrace this multipolar world. I mean, essentially, we're looking at this reality starkly there of the Persian Gulf, the Straits of Hormuz being closed, not even being able to put our ships into the Gulf of Oman uh because we are trying to fight this
[00:34] war in a 20th century manner and we're up against a 21st century adversary. So, again, you're seeing this this the end of one age and the beginning of another year. Hi, I'm John Kiriakou and welcome back to Deep Focus. President Trump addressed the nation on uh on Wednesday in which he made a couple of very specific comments related to the Iran war. He said that we're winning and it'll be over in the next two or
[01:05] three weeks. But, he expressed great anger at NATO for not participating. Why? Well, because we're not winning and he's upset that NATO hasn't jumped in to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which the Iranians have closed. The president also said that Europe had two choices. They could jump in and take their oil by forcing open the Strait of Hormuz or they could just buy their oil and gas from the United States because, he said
[01:37] disingenuously and wrongly, that the United States is the greatest producer of oil and gas in the world. That's not true. In any event, he closed his speech by saying that if the Iranians don't reopen the Strait of Hormuz in the next two or three weeks, that he's going to be begin attacking Iranian um uh infrastructure, including the electrical grid. That's quite literally the definition of a war crime. You're not allowed to attack
[02:07] infrastructure. International law says so. International law to which the United States is a signatory. So, where do we stand? Well, we're in a war that we're not winning. We're in a war without an exit strategy. And there was a there was a slight change in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rhetoric last week, where a reporter said something about the American-Israeli war against Iran. And he said, "It's not an American-Israeli war against Iran. It's
[02:38] the American war against Iran, and Israel is America's ally." That's not the way I remember this thing starting. Well, we're going to talk about all this with our dear friend, Matthew Hoh. I've known Matthew for many years. Matthew is a former State Department Foreign Service officer, who resigned from the State Department in protest over American escalation of war in Afghanistan. Prior to his assignment in Afghanistan, Matthew took part in the American occupation of Iraq, first in
[03:08] 2004, in 2005 in Salahaddin province, uh with the State Department Reconstruction and Governance team, and then again in 2006 and 7 in Anbar province as a Marine Corps company commander. When not deployed, Matthew worked on Afghanistan and Iraq war policy and operations issues at the Pentagon and the State Department from 2002 to 2005. He has become one of the country's most important, most prominent, most vocal whistleblowers on America's misguided
[03:40] policy in the Middle East and Central Asia. Matthew's writings have appeared in such periodicals as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, CNN, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, USA Today, and elsewhere. And in 2010 he was named the Ridenhour Prize recipient for truth-telling. In 2021, he was awarded as a defender of liberty by the Committee for the Republic here in Washington, D.C. Matthew, welcome back, buddy. Hey, John. Thanks for having me back on. It's good to see you. Uh I got to tell you, I was beside
[04:12] myself watching the president's uh speech to the American people last night. Now, interestingly enough, it appeared to be scripted. Mhm. Did he wing it? Did he write it? Or do people in the White House really believe the things that came out of the president's mouth? Yeah, I I I wonder about this all the time. Uh cuz you see when he's making speeches, he'll say things that nobody in their right mind would ever put down on paper, right? And particularly when he goes uh off the cuff. He's extra He's he's
[04:44] just, you know, goes on his tangents. But I think he probably has a team around him. One that are so sycophantic, so loyal to him, um in lockstep with him, but also too know him so well right now that they know what he wants to say. They understand what he's trying to communicate. And of course, that communication is not based upon any sense of of achievable policy, you know, any uh any any rational argument, any facts. It's based upon improving the
[05:16] president's or or or or or or or demonstrating the president's uh role, his persona. Uh in you know, projecting his ego. Right? I mean, so I And that's what we saw last night. We see this just these mismatches. We see these contradictions constantly. But you see this bravado and this boasting that's just not rooted in anything. And yeah, we're we're in a lot of trouble here, John. You know, we are uh you know, in an empire uh that has been waging these wars that has been uh uh uh bankrupting uh our people. Uh you
[05:48] know, taking investments that are needed in our communities and giving them to corporations and to crooked dictatorships overseas. And we're essentially in an empire that has a mad emperor in charge. And we're we're in a lot of trouble. Matthew, I've been saying for many weeks that to win the United States and Israel would have to overthrow the Iranian government,
[06:19] install a pro-US, pro-Israel government in the what is now the Islamic Republic, something that will never ever ever happen. Uh, and then somehow manage an exit strategy. And I I'm unaware of any exit strategy that exists. For the Iranians to win, they just have to survive. And they've survived for 5,000 years. So, is this a conflict that's winnable by American standards?
[06:51] Well, there's a alternative for the Americans to win that the way in the way the Americans and the Israelis look at this, it's to turn Iran into Syria. Turn Iran into a failed state, dissolve Iran via civil war. So, I I think there is this belief that if we can't get regime change, the next best thing is to make it so that Iran is simply no longer a factor in the Middle East. It's so consumed with Iranians
[07:23] killing Iranians. And whether the government still stands or not, whether it it it it it it resembles Syria or resembles Libya, is of not really great consequence to us because the main thing is that we've taken Iran off the chessboard, if you will. That they're no longer a factor and that if the Iranians are consumed with trying to maintain power, killing other Iranians or just staying staying alive, then they can't support Hezbollah, they can't support Ansar Allah, they can't
[07:55] support the Iraqi resistance, they can't provide any support for Palestinian resistance. And I certainly you made that comment about Netanyahu saying this is America's war and I think Netanyahu is communicating there the way the Israelis do view this in the sense that this war on Iran is a supporting effort to their own efforts for regional hegemony but also the expansion that the the the establishment of greater Israel. So
[08:26] you know way I look at this is when you when you back all this out when you understand it from the Israeli perspective, removing Iran by an American war on Iran allows an annexation of the West Bank to occur, right? So you have to do all these steps, you have to prepare, you have to take out any support whatsoever, whether it's military, financial, moral, political, diplomatic that the Palestinians could have. And so that's how I also see in this this emphasis on Lebanon of course. Now Lebanon of course
[08:58] also falls into that idea or that dream of greater Israel but for the Israelis West Bank has been the goal for decades and so I when you quote Netanyahu there, it does remind me that for the Israelis Iran is not the main effort, it's a supporting effort for them to be able to eventually annex the West Bank. Before I ask you the next question, I want to I want to mention a word from one of our sponsors. Last week the
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[10:31] and how to protect your savings, your assets before things get worse. Go to johnlovesgold.com for your free copy. That's johnlovesgold.com or call 1-888-GOLD-053. Matthew, um I've said this a million times, but I'm going to say it again. Every Israeli Prime Minister from the mid-1980s who came to the United States to see
[11:02] every American president since Ronald Reagan would say, "Please bomb Iran. Please bomb Iran. Please bomb Iran." And every president said, "I'm not going to bomb Iran for you." Until this one. Well, we learned a couple of weeks ago that Benjamin Netanyahu came to see both Joe Biden and before him Barack Obama and said, "If you don't bomb Iran, we're going to do it and we're going to use nukes. And both Obama and Biden said,
[11:34] "Go ahead. Go ahead and do it." They called his bluff. And of course he didn't do it. He apparently threatened Donald Trump with the same thing. "Bomb Iran or we're going to use nukes." And Trump said, "Okay, I'll bomb Iran. Just don't use the nukes." How did we get suckered into this? Was it really that easy just to tell Donald Trump we're going to use nukes if you don't bomb Iran and the next thing we know we're at war with one of the strongest, most populous, and most important countries in the Middle East?
[12:07] Well, you rightly point out John that it took Donald Trump as president to agree to this war. That previous presidents have been pressured on it and they'd all avoided it. Uh George W. Bush seemed to have come close, uh but you know, they they smartly didn't do it. Um and for me, there's a lot of reasons for this war. Certainly the Israelis, you know, they're Assemble everybody in a room who's responsible for this and the Israelis are sitting in the front seats, you know, but there's also other actors, other institutions
[12:39] here, other interests, the military-industrial complex, fossil fuel industry, you know, the tech companies, they see Iran as a place where 92 million people are not on Facebook or Instagram or X, right? So there's there's American commercial interests that see a marketplace available to them. But for me, all of those are just manifestations of the American Empire. For me, this really comes back to this is what empires do. That you know, the United States taking over from the British Empire in the Middle
[13:10] East assumes what Britain was trying to achieve there, what their imperial objectives were. I mean, you go back to the idea of the colonization of Palestine endorsed by the British, propelled by the British to the Balfour Declaration. And then you have Ronald Storrs, who's one of Britain's uh governor generals uh it it in in Palestine, you know, saying in the '20s, "What we're doing here is we're establishing a loyal Jewish Ulster in the midst of a potentially hostile sea of Arabs." I mean, so you see the imperial purposes of this this colony
[13:42] this Western colony in the Middle East. And then, you know, as the United States takes over from the British, uh certainly through the Eisenhower and Kennedy years, there are difficulties with Iran with with conflicts of interest. Uh but then when you get to the Nixon years, you have the establishment of the Nixon doctrine. And Richard Nixon seeing the Israelis uh in the West and then the Iranians under the Shah in the East as being the cops on the beat in the Middle East. And the idea being to contain Arabism. That we're going to use uh Jewish Israel and
[14:15] uh uh uh Persian Iran to contain the Sunni Arabs, right? Because of particularly in the '60s and '70s, the threat of pan-Arabism was of grave concern to the American empire. Uh we you know, then that, you know, develops further. You get into the '80s. You have the establishment of modern Hasbara, uh you know, particularly after Ronald Reagan rebukes uh Israel Menachem Begin following uh Israel's brutal invasion of Lebanon. Uh the Israelis recognize that
[14:47] we need to have more control of the situation. And now you have this other aspect of the United States. It's certainly an empire, but it also is a government of legalized bribery. And the Israelis, just like so many other industries, institution, interest, etc., have recognized that. And they have been successful in essentially, you know, basically, my opinion is the American empire has sold off its organs for the highest bidder. And so Middle East foreign policy has gone to the Israelis. They bid the most. They paid the most for it. You know, just like our health
[15:19] care policies, just like our agricultural policies, right? Just like you name it in the sense of how how does our government decide policy whether it's domestic or foreign, it goes to the highest bidder essentially. Um and so that that's that's how I see the evolution of this and that's how I see you getting to a point then where you have this inertia, whether it's an imperial inertia because again you have now you have this country Iran that has to be repudiated, has to be punished for 1979. It's also standing up against the
[15:50] hegemon. It's standing it's it's a it it's sticking up and and and giving a finger, right, to the empire. You can't allow that. It's supporting other groups that are doing the same. It's ruining our ambitions for dominance, etc. etc. etc. But on the other side end as well then you have this uh uh capture of American Middle Eastern policy uh by the Israel lobby. And so the two things finally uh culminate in Donald Trump's presidency because now you have a president who's malleable enough, who's foolish enough, who's ahistoric
[16:22] enough, however you want to describe him, to go along with this. And I I that to me is how we have arrived in this absolutely ridiculous and stupid uh war. Uh not to me not to, you know, the uh uh uh also to say it's illegal. It's going to be counterproductive. It's immoral, right? Etc. etc. etc. Matthew, I I've got to ask you. I'm a frequent visitor to the Persian Gulf. Um I spent the better part of my career there, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia. I
[16:53] go to the United Arab Emirates relatively regularly. And it seems like the the governments of those countries are of two minds. Or three minds. Number one, they dislike, in some cases they hate, Iran and they distrust Iran. They fear Iran at the same time. But they know that it's a rough neighborhood and they have to live in it. Okay. Number two, the Saudis spent 10 years
[17:23] trying to finally normalize relations with Iran. They did that. Behind the scenes, we're hearing that the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Bahrainis, maybe even the Kuwaitis have been urging the United States to go for it, overthrow this government, and let the chips fall. At the same time, there is a significant US Army presence in Kuwait, in Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates, and in Oman. The
[17:54] headquarters of the Fifth Fleet is in Bahrain, and the US Air Force has the world's largest airbase at Al Udeid in Qatar. Having all this American military presence is supposed to protect these countries from Iran. And it and it hasn't. The Iranians have been able to use these these cheap, domestically built drones, suicide drones, packed with explosives, fly them into hotels, blow up the runways of the airports in Kuwait and Bahrain, blow up
[18:25] fuel storage tanks at Dubai Airport, and essentially, scare the daylights out of everybody. So, on the one hand, do these countries really want this war to continue and for the US to overthrow the Iranian government, or do they want the war to end so life can go back to normal and everybody can start making money again? Or are they going to have to question the wisdom of the US military presence? If the US can't protect them,
[18:56] why be there in the first place? What are your thoughts on this? Yeah, that's a great analysis, John. I'd add to that these countries don't like each other. You know, certainly the conflict between the Saudis and the Emiratis uh, very clear in the last year. you know, the Saudis militarily evicting the Emirates from, uh, Yemen. Uh, it was just a few years ago, four, five years ago, you had, uh, the other Gulf states blockading, uh, Qatar. And that looked like that was going to turn into a war. Uh, so you have these tensions, these
[19:27] conflicts, these this lack of trust, if you will, between these countries themselves. So I think for many years the American presence, them all being vassals in the American empire, uh, was a stabilizing uh, had a stabilizing effect. Uh, your point though, uh, is that the Iranians have demonstrated, uh, to the region that these bases, uh, this American presence doesn't make you safer, it makes you a target. Uh, that the guarantee of security from the
[19:57] Americans was false, it was hollow. Uh, and just as the general agreement that the United States had with the world essentially, uh, following the Second World War, that the United States would guarantee the the freedom of of movement of of critical energy supplies out of the Middle East was what the United States was was was giving the world in exchange for its dominance, right? You let us lead essentially, and we will provide these benefits to you. And that has turned out to be a farce as well.
[20:27] And again, you know, certainly people watching, listening are all saying, "Yeah, that's what happens when you have a declining empire, you know, this is you know, the Iranians are just poking holes and showing us what we all know how how corrupted, how faded, how dysfunctional it was under the facade." Uh, but this question that you're asking, what should the Gulf states be doing? Well, one I I I think these Gulf states recognize that they owe their positions, say particularly the monarch in Manama, the the the the the the the ruling family in in Bahrain, they owe
[20:57] their positions to the American presence, right? I mean, and and certainly, the the other families in the region, uh, you know, more secure, uh, but they also recognize that the good thing they have going is because of their relationship with the United States. Uh, but that's juxtaposed now up against the reality that the United States not just can't protect them, but won't protect them. You know, in this hierarchy of of of of of of states within the empire, they are far below
[21:28] Israel. There's Israel and then there's everybody else. The Ukrainians have learned this out. I mean, we uh, probably I probably said this to you. We've talked about that Ukraine was going to be the next Afghanistan, right? In terms of how we were going to treat allies. And now we're seeing this with the Gulf States. Uh, so, you know, this determination of what the Gulf States want to do is is of course tainted by the fact that you have these corrupt monarchs in power who see that their power has been based in the presence of the United States. So, why are they going to give that up? But they are staring into the stark reality of the
[22:01] jeopardy of maintaining this relationship with the United States. I mean, the the the the harm that's come to them already and that will continue to come this war goes on. Um, and I'm not certain why, uh, anyone would be in favor extending this war cuz continue as the more the war goes on, the more it's in Iran's favor. But, you know, certainly, you know, they have their I'm assuming they have their machinations, how they see a shattered dysfunctional Iran spewing millions of refugees through the region, uh,
[22:31] permanently closing the Straits of Hormuz is somehow in their favor. Uh, I don't I don't really understand, but, um, again, these men owe their positions to, uh, the presence of the United States and I think just as you see with the Europeans wanting to hold on to NATO, wanting to hold on to something that has, uh, uh, put them in power, kept them in power, wanting to keep the status quo. But this, you know, gets to the point then, John, that this war to me is going to be a or maybe, I should say a radically
[23:03] transformative event in history that this will be the event that historians say this is when the American century ends. This is when the 20th century ends and this is where the multipolar world begins. This is where the 21st century begins. Now of course, you know, we're already in the multipolar world but historians like to have something to mark, you know, as a start date in history and I think this could be very much that. I want to I want to ask you one more question about the Strait of Hormuz before we move on to other issues. I do want to talk about NATO and Lebanon as
[23:34] well. But, you know, back in the 1980s, Matthew, uh there was a conflict between, well, Iran and the United States, Iran and the Arab Gulf states and the Reagan administration responded by by putting American flags on on oil tankers carrying Kuwaiti oil and escorting them with the US Navy escorting them through the Strait of Hormuz. Uh right now the Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed.
[24:04] One ship got through last week and it was it was an Indian flag tanker carrying oil to China and the Indian ship paid a toll to the Iranian government. The Iranians allowed them to to go through unmolested. Besides that, 65% of the world's fertilizer goes through the Strait of Hormuz. We're going to get to the point where we're going to go into a global food crisis if if
[24:38] fertilizer can't make its way through the Strait. Do you see the US Navy escorting ships? Do you see the US government reflagging tankers or cargo ships? Do you see the US Navy attacking the Iranians more ferociously and trying to take control of of the Strait of Hormuz. How does this end up working out? You know, in the '80s when we when we reflagged those tankers and escorted them, we had
[25:08] a much more capable navy, a larger navy, of course, but also one that was able to actually have a presence in the Persian Gulf. Our navy is a thousand kilometers away from the Straits of Hormuz right now. We can't get any closer than that. Um I mean, so just one is just a difference in warfare, what's available to adversaries now in terms of missiles and drones and satellite tracking and things like that. But uh you know, the reality too that you have a a superficiality here with the American
[25:38] military. You have a hollowed-out vapid force. You have a defense industry that for years can't produce ships or planes that aren't maintenance nightmares. You have a navy that we can't even put all our ships underway cuz we simply don't have enough sailors to man them. A- as well then too, you see the Gerald Ford, the $13 billion aircraft carrier, the newest and most expensive and largest warship ever built. And uh she's in port now uh because of a of a laundry fire. I mean, so I mean, there's so many we could have
[26:09] a whole conversation just ex- unwrapping that. Where's the damage control? Why every sailor is supposed to be a firefighter? It took you guys 30 hours to put out a dry laundry room fire? Right? I mean, so you know, that >> that, the toilet didn't work. Well, the toilet didn't work. The toilet never worked on that ship. So, but it gets to the point that we have a navy that for $13 billion, you know, damage control is what they're supposed to build those ships around. That's the idea of a warship, supposed to be able to survive contact, survive damage. So, they build these warships
[26:41] with damage control as something that they build around. And then again, this idea that, you know, in the Marine Corps, every Marine is a rifleman, and in the sa- in the navy, every sailor is a firefighter. And it took you 30 hours to put out this fire? You know, so it shows you again the design, the construction, what our forces are actually equipped with, how just that these they're not built for warfare. The purpose of the military-industrial complex is not to build warships that can protect American interests, is to make profits for weapons companies. And the same thing too, you have a force
[27:12] that a personnel force a combat force that can't do the rudimentary basic things that all sailors all navies have required since the dawn of of navies, since the first naval ship took took took to sail. You know, so I mean, I think in that it show it gets to the what you're talking about here about the impossibility of this, the impracticality of this, the fantasy of the United States forcing its way through the Strait of Hormuz, and the fact that all this information was was was knowledgeable. All this was was
[27:42] understood. Nothing occurred in the last 4 weeks that made this any different than the previous 4 weeks were in terms of the actual capacity and capabilities and readiness and abilities of the American military. So you have an American military that can't meet the objectives of the US president. Now this is an objective that the president caused by his disastrous choice to launch a war of aggression, but still the American military cannot achieve the objectives of the president. And I think, you know, again we can get
[28:13] start talking again about decline of the American empire and everything, but this is a real aspect of that. And this is why you see, getting back to your points about the Gulf States and we talk about the Europeans and other nations, a lack of trust, a lack of confidence in the United States. This is why nations are making a decision to leave the American order, right? To embrace this multipolar world. I mean, essentially we're looking at this reality starkly there of the Persian
[28:44] Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz being closed, not even being able to put our ships into the Gulf of Oman, uh because we are trying to fight this war in a 20th century manner, and we're up against a 21st century adversary. So again, you're seeing this this the end of one age and the beginning of another here. You're 100% right about that. The nature of warfare has changed, and it's like it just hasn't occurred to us yet. Before we get to NATO, cuz I have some specific >> It It hasn't It's occurred to John It's occurred to It's occurred to you and I.
[29:15] And it's occurred to These people are smart enough to know it, but they know that changing the status quo means they lose their business model. Right? And whether the business model is a policy-based business model, whether it's it's a campaign-donation-based business model, whether it's it's military industrial. I remember John working in procurement during the Iraq War trying to find technologies to find suicide bombers, going to a meeting and there are all these executives from these defense companies there. And waiting to go into the meeting and
[29:45] hearing these executives talking in the the passageway in the hallway, and you know, saying essentially, "I can't wait for this war to be over so we can go back to business." Right? Business as usual, right? I mean, that's the that's the mindset there. Business as usual, yeah. Before before we go to NATO, I have to ask you about Lebanon. This most recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon has been particularly brutal. The Israelis appear to
[30:16] to be in the process of creating what looks like a safe zone, a no-man's land south of the Litani River. And there are 900,000 internally displaced civilians. Lebanon's already a failed state for a whole bunch of reasons. This just makes it worse. It's a It's a level of human misery that is almost unparalleled in the Middle East right now. Although, I guess you could draw comparisons with with Yemen. Is there any
[30:46] upside to any of this? Is there any good news for the Lebanese? Is there any way to get out of this or are we going to see the continued slow-motion destruction of Lebanon as a country? I think it's the latter. I mean, I I hate to say that, but I just don't see the Israelis pulling back from their objectives here. Again, this objective of Lebanon and certainly you go back to the Israelis and they talked that they spoke of how Israel should go to the Litani River, you know, to 20 km to 30 km or so into into Lebanon.
[31:19] Um I just don't see the Israelis backing away from this. Um this is and many of Israelis have said this, October 7th gave them the best chance they're ever going to have and they're going to capitalize on it. They're going to take advantage of this moment. They finally had an American president who would attack Iran, who would do this work that they need done in order to now carry out these other aspects of greater Israel. They've neutralized Syria by helping to get an Al-Qaeda boss, you know, that's a whole conversation we can have there. I know that
[31:51] that upsets you as much as upsets me, right? You know, and I don't want to shouldn't get us started on that. But, you know, but with the Lebanese, I think with the Lebanese though, it is they are in this position where who's going to remove the Israelis? The Israelis just killed three UN peacekeepers the other day. They don't care. I mean, what's going to force the Israelis out of it? Even if Donald Trump was to end the war tomorrow in Iran, the Israelis are not pulling out of Lebanon.
[32:22] I think this this time this presence there is going to be permanent. It will look, I think, like a no-man's land as you described it. I know there are Israeli settlers who are trying to get in, but again, for me the purposes for the Israelis are to create that buffer zone. I mean again and and many do want the greater Israel project there as well. But the idea being having this buffer zone that their flank, their northern flank is secure so that when they focus on fully annexing the West Bank, which is a project that's already underway,
[32:54] they won't have to provide too much attention to Lebanon. You know, again as a supporting effort the same way too. Hopefully the Israelis are thinking by the time Trump lets up Iran will be if it's still standing and it's not in a civil war then at least it'll be in a place where it can't really provide much support. It can't really affect our operations in the West Bank. It can't fire missiles and drones at us or it would choose not to do so because it's been deterred by our war on them. So yeah, with regards to the Lebanese I
[33:25] really wish I had something other to say but I don't see and the same for the Palestinians. I don't see where the help is going to come from. Yeah. Just as an aside, I had dinner a couple of weeks ago with a senior Turkish government official and we were talking about Syria and I said about President Ahmed al-Jarrah I said, he has to be a CIA asset, right? I mean how can you be a senior Al-Qaeda figure, the the deputy founder of ISIS
[33:58] and then the US supports your your ascension to the presidency of of Syria. He has to be CIA and the Turk said, oh no he's ours. We put him in there. And I said, you know what? That actually makes perfect sense. It it does make sense. Yeah. >> And I I do want to I do want to upset everybody by reminding them of the conversation that he had with David Petraeus though last September where Petraeus the former CIA director did say to him, your success is our success. So
[34:29] just to just to upset anybody who they wasn't going well. Remember that, yeah. That's exactly right. In the meantime, Jews and Christians are being literally massacred. Quite literally massacred, which is exactly what you and I said was going to happen. You know, whether you like Bashar al-Assad or not, whether you like his politics or not, he was the only thing standing between minority communities and complete annihilation. And that's what's happened. So, let me ask you about NATO.
[35:01] Um Donald Trump said last night uh that he is, his words, "absolutely considering withdrawing from NATO." He's not going to withdraw from NATO, but the fact that he would just speak those words weakens the alliance. We also learned last week that in the midst of this bizarro world claim to Greenland, uh the Danish military quietly and literally in the middle of
[35:31] the night sent plane loads of explosives to Greenland to blow up their own airport runways to try to at least temporarily forestall what they believed might be an American invasion. This is Denmark. We're talking about invading Denmark. Has enough damage been done to the alliance that NATO is done? Um do you think the United States will withdraw? Even if it doesn't withdraw,
[36:03] can NATO survive this administration? I think who knows what Donald Trump is going to do, right? Who and it so certainly is a possibility that he would try and withdraw the United States from NATO. It requires an act of Congress to do that. That's not going to happen. >> Yes. Right? So, now you'd have a reduced relationship as long as Trump is in the White House. Uh and I think what the Europeans are counting on is for the Democrats to take control of the White House in '28. Um
[36:35] you know I think for many of those in power throughout Europe, uh again, they are the same mindset. They are living in the 20th century and NATO is a 20th century structure. NATO is not suited for the 21st century. But structures like NATO are what keep people like Starmer, Emerts, and Macron and von der Leyen in power, right? Kaja Kallas, who is I believe who is the foreign minister of the EU is is a must go to bed at night thinking about becoming or
[37:06] replacing Ursula von der Leyen as the head of the EU. And of course in Kallas' mind, if you're paying attention to what she says, the idea for Kallas may be then, and here I'm speculating, but okay, if we lose NATO, then we'll get our EU army. So again, here's another here's another aspect of this where you see this transformative effect of this war, this splintering of Look, the Iraq war in 2003 was incredibly unpopular. But the British sent 45,000 troops to take part in the invasion. The
[37:37] Spanish and the Italians that just closed their space for US with this war had thousands of troops in the Iraq war. And now you're seeing this type of you know, there's a spectrum of course on where the Europeans are, Spain and Italy on one side, but even like the Germans, even Friedrich Merz, who last year declared that the Israelis were doing our dirty work with Iran, and certainly Merz and Starmer and Macron and their governments have as much to blame for this situation because they went along with the
[38:07] disbandment of the JCPOA. They were the ones who pushed the snapback sanctions into effect in the fall. That's was the precipitate cause of the collapse of the Iranian economy, the the collapse of the Iranian rial last winter, right? I mean, like all these things the Europeans have their hands in as well, but they recognize that this war is just too much. I mean, my God, if the Iraq war wasn't too much for them, but this war is too much for them, it shows one just how much of a folly this war is, too,
[38:38] but just how much things have changed. So, the Europeans in power want to hold on to NATO because they believe that those type of structures that keep us in power, they want the status quo. They've got their fingers crossed that Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer or AOC or somebody takes the White House in '28 and then things can go back to normal and the Europeans can be the junior partners in the American empire. Others I think are looking at a sense of, "Okay, if we lose NATO, here's an opportunity for Europe to now come into
[39:10] the multipolar world as its own confederation, as its own block, as its own organism, however you want to describe it." But, you know, those I think anyone who's thinking that way would be like a Callus who sees it for her own ambitions. But, for the most part, those who are ruling in power right now look at NATO as one of those structures that is a good thing. It It keeps them in power. It It is the infrastructure upon which they sit. So, again, looking
[39:40] backwards to the 20th century, and that's one of the reasons why Europe is in the condition it's in. You know, Europe has had a really Why, John? Following the end of the Cold War, the Europeans didn't go on their own way. If they had, we can imagine now a Europe that is a global hub of technology, right? A global maybe maybe a global hub for education, you know, what have you. Instead, the Europeans went along with our wars, they took part in our wars, they embraced our
[40:10] neoliberal fantasies for their economics, right? And now they are countries by and large that are hollowed out, whose people are dealing with housing problems, health care problems, cost of life issues, as well then, too, issues regarding immigration. I mean, you name it, the Europeans are struggling with it right now. And their mindset, uh this goes back to this conversation about NATO looking back to the past, being in the 20th century, their mindset is that we're going to embrace a military Keynesianism, and that will get us out of this.
[40:41] Politically, our identity, particularly with the Russian wars, dependent upon it. That's what we're going to use to distract our population, foreign wars, foreign menaces, right? So, a military a political Keynesianism, if you will, uh through militarization. But then also, too, the main thing is we're going to get our economies out of this through a Keynesianism, but we're going to invest all this money, we're going to practice austerity, we're going to further take from our people, further deny real investments that return something to our people, and we're going to put that money into our weapons industries. And I
[41:11] think everybody knows exactly how that's going to go. Before we move on to uh Palestine, uh another word from one of our sponsors. If there's one thing that we've learned over the last few years, it is that access to medication can change quickly depending on politics, regulation, and corporate influence. That is why it's important to have a pharmacy that focuses on access and transparency, not on bureaucracy. And that's the reason why people are turning to All Family Pharmacy. Instead of scheduling doctor visits,
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[48:28] are being immiserated, they're suffering, and they're slowly dying. And again, of course, hope that the good friend of the Israelis and the Americans, King Hussein, opens his borders or something like that, and that's how they get rid of the problem. One last question for you, Matthew. The Democrats are widely projected to to take the House of Representatives back in November in the midterm elections. The polls are showing as many as 40 seats possibly flipping. Those same polls show that the Democrats
[49:00] have a real chance of winning the US Senate. If they if they win every close race, the Democrats could take the Senate 51-49. But does any of that matter in terms of policy toward Iran, toward Israel, toward Palestine, toward Lebanon? No. No. Um Yeah, it didn't seem so. It will be similar, John, to what we saw when the Democrats took control of the Congress in 2006. And the Democrats felt that allowing the Iraq war to continue
[49:30] would better their chances to take the White House in 2008. And that's what you'll see here, too, as well. Plus also, too, you have many members of the Democratic Party, particularly in the leadership positions, who believe in what the United States is doing, who believe in this Iran war. They certainly they temper their statements or they try and speak out of both sides of their mouth because they understand how unpopular war is, particularly within the Democratic Party. But certainly you see people Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, you know, etc. uh who are supportive of this war
[50:00] and uh you know, so I don't see them doing anything if they come into power next January that limits the president's foreign policy, uh you know, limits his wars, uh you know, I think their triangulation, their calculus will be how do we allow him to keep doing things that will give us a better chance to win the White House in '28, but these things are also what they would believe in. I mean, this is why there are political consequences for war. We've seen it in 2006, 2008, we saw it in 2016, but that just changes the
[50:31] party in power. That just changes the color of the shirt of the person who's sitting in the seat. It doesn't change the imperial structure. It doesn't change the American empire. And you know, you have two parties that are a uniparty when it comes to the imperial, you know, the imperial aspects of the United States. And so, I think regardless of what happens in November, you don't have a change in the war machine or the war state because that is the structure upon which everything is built. Matthew Hoh, thank you so much for for being with us and for explaining these
[51:03] very complicated issues. I I wish I could say that that I was optimistic about things, but like you, I'm really not. And I think that there's no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans on these issues. You know, when when Benjamin Netanyahu comes to Washington, which he does quite frequently, and he goes up to Capitol Hill to see his friends, and Democratic senators are literally running through the hall like O.J. Simpson through an airport in the old '70s commercial, so that they could get a photo op with
[51:34] Netanyahu before he leaves the building, you know we're in trouble. Right. Well, they they they they had the votes according to Ryan Grim and the folks at the at Drop Site News and the as well as at The Intercept, I believe, the Democrats had the votes in the house to pass a war powers resolution. It wouldn't have mattered because the Senate had rejected it, but still you'd have a votes on record on this. And Hakeem Jeffries and the Democratic Party leadership didn't we have that vote. They decided to go on
[52:06] recess, on vacation. What's more important than voting on issues of war and peace for these members of Congress? It's obviously one not getting your name on record, not stopping this war, doing something to stop this war, but also two, the more important thing is getting back home to your districts, shaking hands, and collecting checks, right? Isn't that the truth? Well, Matthew, thanks again for joining us. Always love talking to you, and and thanks for setting us straight on some of these issues. Appreciate it very much. I look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you, John. All the best,
[52:37] buddy. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us for another episode of of Deep Focus. We can only continue to do this because of you. So, thanks for watching, thanks for liking, sharing, subscribing, and all that good stuff. Please keep it up. We'll see you next time.