Would say before i go to you the momentum in the initiative is on the side of iran now not the United States go ahead joe. I think that. Donald trump is totally inscrutable and in a way that started this political genius what i mean by that is that you know weve been talking about donald trump for 4 years for 2 years while he was doing the primaries and for 2 years since hes been president and he has an incredible talent for making people talk about him all the time because he never does what you expect and he does outrageous things and then doesnt follow through with them and nothing is coherent so yes as in your question of course like many observers i see the pressure of the neo cons. Bolton and so on pushing him to do things which he then doesnt do we told us over venezuela he didnt. Well it fizzled out and it was clearly a failure but it was cooked up by bolton and pompei 0 ditto iran so you know what we have servers are left perplexed and i you know i have no special information is it that he is their puppet and that he doesnt know what to do is he playing some clever game its impossible to say what we have is a kind of strange situation where were led to the brink repeatedly we were led to the brink a couple of years ago in april 27th seen over syria we were led to the brink of course in venezuela now weve been sent to the brink again including with absurd false flag operations like the the socalled Mining Operation the grainy video and so on all this nonsense but trump doesnt follow through its a kind of tease its a kind of Political Correctness interrupt us yes and. Whether its a plan or not a plan i just go for john let me go to glenn i mean johns absolutely right its were not were still talking about donald trump and maybe that was going to divine was in the 1st place i think you know the more serious here i think we have to remind our viewers is that iran perceives all of this is that the war has already started this maximum pressure is is hurting the economy it is hurting the middle class it is the economy is hurting ok inside iran sees this is just another step in americas war against the Islamic Republic. And i think for that reason it can be quite important for iran. To well to make sure the. World they can read renegotiate this. Tension as well im not saying that this is a submission to but i do think that they have something to gain by increasing tensions and get americans to sit down because quite accurately as john pointed out. This is to be some confusion about what the Trump Administration is doing and i think for trump he says his Main Objective is simply to put maximum pressure on all of americas adversaries to negotiate Something Else while he said ministration from the pump able to bolton as they are more intraday actually want to go all the way to warsaw in venezuela you know they want to go in. Iran this well so i think the they seem to want to go the same way in terms of putting marks pressure but then at the final stage actually doesnt want to go the last mile while they do which is why you have this you know we were told to the talk show host Tucker Carlson has been talking with the president and if you look at some of the. Tucker carlsons commentary about what was going on right before the pullback he was essentially telling donald trump and i believe he was speaking to him personally to on his broadcast is that if you do this if you follow through on this you will destroy your presidency you will not be reelected let me let me go back to paris to john i mean obviously what what the iranians would want if there is any kind of negotiations is sanction relief i mean thats exactly what they want and this is goes back to my 1st question to you this is a dilemma because trump is all in on maximum pressure it would be very difficult for him politically to withdraw from that and well talk about the media reaction later but this is part of the dilemma if you want he says he wants negotiations but from the iranian side said we had to go she asians with you we came with a nuclear deal and you walked away from it why should we trust you thats the dilemma john. Yes but that is also part of trumps tactic you know his tactic is to go into a room shout a lot of totally outrageous things and then stomp out again and leave everyone wondering what the hell just happened he did that over korea lets not forget he called him rocket man he said he told the United Nations he was going to obliterate korea north korea from the face of the earth and then he went to meet kim jong il that is his tactic and i think its the same with iran he disavowed john bolton publicly in the oval office he said i sometimes have to rein john bolton in and he said we are ready to talk with the iranians in as much as he has a strategy and im not sure that he does but in as much as he does his strategy is to disorient everyone by his completely outrageous behavior and then come in and say im ready to talk and he has done that with the iranians so i dont think its politically impossible for him to climb down on the country all i hope i can what he i agree with i mean what he should do what he should do right now is fire john bolton but fire him and say im taking charge of this right now i mean that would give him a little breathing space with the same time john irans is not going to be understanding iran feels that is it is the United States is an existential threat to the Islamic Republic and it is john. Well i dont think thats what the iranians iranians would want i think if trump did say right mate you know were going to i think they would respond maybe im wrong maybe i dont never go yeah but they would have to be sanctioned really they would have to say we will. Lower the saying let me go to glenn on this but i mean is that because i think i think youve got to tell the north koreans that he did it is it possible but yeah i i think so but again its a very different ball to can get out of this mix pressure because. Iran this is not like these other countries the United States of bombed and invaded the past 30 years it is a large middle power so its it has the ability to inflict. Pain on you not exactly and for this reason thats a limitation for how much pressure of the United States can put on it because it knows that america has a lot to lose if they would actually go to war so i guess for for United States the ideal situation if they could put max pressure in or even like a bloody nose attack where they do a limited strike on iran iran is you know too terrified to retaliate because of the repercussions it would have would have for them if america would then escalate however because iran has so much capabilities it is its quite vital for them to be able to hold up a red line and hold american psychology thats why they have the smallest infringement on their security such as this drone passing into the airspace its imperative for them to respond and do so harshly because if the americans if they will use this military power then they will probably go for this but in those attack however if. If they believe the american that they run this will retaliate. With full force the only thing when they dont have to really dont have to we have with full force and go back to john in paris iran doesnt have to react in full force with irans greatest strength. Thing taking on the United States is fighting asymmetrically so a drone is. Shot or over for example then an american airbase in iraq gets gets attacked or something in syria say this is this is the nightmare for the for the strategists because iran can react you dont know where or how and you cant plan for it john. Well im going to stick my neck out im going to say i mean i think trump is completely unpredictable and like many observers as ive just said i found it impossible to reach him but im going to say stick my neck out and say that hes not going to go for it he didnt go for it over syria hes more or less structured crain hes more or less structured venezuela as far as we know he keeps hes a tease he keeps the neo cons on side by pretending hes with them and then he drops them at the last minute maybe im wrong maybe im being optimistic i think its fascinating analysis because if. You everything youve said is that you cant prove that is incorrect ok so i mean thats fascinating in itself well give you the last word in this block composition trump either because on one hand his the his own one on the other hand the piece president. Obama or bush or clinton doesnt start new wars on the other hand hes looking at his base and is he thinking about the allegedly but on the other hand hes hes pushing almost all countries into conflict the same time hes threatening wars with more than anyone else so its hard to tell if he is in the war of. Words is it is it is it there is the credibility gap i mean john just said you know all of these countries here are so i mean hes just all busy what is it was is saying hes all happy and no cattle well it depends because he wants to put to max pressure on all countries in order to renegotiate americas relationship with the world to reverse the klein however if it would actually go to war with iran and this would drain all of americas focus and resources for the next decade and you know while all other powers to trust negotiate with would be able to walk free china would the rise to global primacy and so it would be it would be the worst thing right 22nd said john before we go go ahead john 20 seconds i totally agree with that and again im look im not like many people ive been deeply disappointed by trump im appalled by the appointment of bolton and and so on but to the extent that he has a Foreign Policy and that he runs us far and. C. Which of course is itself a question yes what glenda said is right trump is focused on china ok i long to escape china and that would be the topic for the next time your im just going to go to a short break and after that short break well continue our discussion on some real news today with r. T. Some time over shows where like the honeypot everyone believe that it was all on stable and on the reliable and russia but they thought that every one was great over there russian businessmen wanted to do business in the west because they feel if some could take everything away from them in russia its now its the opposite they have businesses outside of russia was snatched less is frozen the whole blog nominees didnt whine about it. Its hard to take some from somebody if you know have some replacing. They want to do this interview today and i want to use the market and then they take me. 4 years ago in syria. So how can i tell you stop selling drugs if well hire some to put the money in it back. Then just me all the way in life its almost indecently mccullers peaceful for us now works to us whats a good many security positions open house you know. Jack me again. You see people get all their cars and ill see you coming in the harness seems like the hurry and run into the house like they dont want to they dont want to talk to your kids or me or anything like that. I just want to go all out on the market and believe. Rod just try renaming. The american married to someone give me. One ill show the same wrong. But old clothes just dont call. Me the old bitch get to shape out just they cant get out of jail and in detroit because betrayal. When so many find themselves worlds apart. Just to look for common ground. Welcome back to cross talk where all Things Considered im Peter Lavelle to remind you were discussing iran. And now were joined by alexander me curious in london he is a writer on Legal Affairs as well as editor in chief of the duran dot com alex gold come to the program you i know you heard the 1st half we had with John Laughlin lets switch gears a little bit here i was. Unpleasantly surprised i must say that the media reaction in the media reaction to this pulling back of this attack all has to do about how you perceive donald trump and its really not about the conflict itself all right because you have people that know that a war an american war on iran would be devastating to for the region for the Global Economy but it would be under trumps watch go for it i mean and then of course watching american cable with these low octane thinkers they dont know anything about iran or Foreign Policy all they could do was say that trump doesnt have credibility we can talk about that but it misses the whole point here why the United States needs to feels that compulsion compulsion to go to war all the time go ahead alex and indeed if you go to the media here in rishon and what ive seen of the media in the United States there is a world full lack of analysis of this there is very little discussion a war has led up to this conflict all of potential conflicts and there is even less discussion of what the potential consequences of this conflict would be as you correctly say and as was indeed discussed on the 1st segment of your program. The focus is overwhelmingly on the personality of one man which is donald trump ignoring the fact that there are multiple actors in this matter one in which is of course iran which most definitely does have agency the rain ians are sitting back and calculating and making their own decisions and there seems to be incredibly little interest in. The media generally in finding out what they think and what theyre going to do i saw a segment on a Discussion Program 2 in the United States where it was suggested that even discussing it rainy annoyed years was somehow treasonable yet she said it credibly incredible way of thinking given what how dangerous the situation is becoming you know when thats going to cure it brings up such a great point in this in this is primarily the medias fault is that negotiating with an adversary is treasonous i mean that that that defies the very concept of diplomacy having state craft ok ive come across that too that any kind of negotiations with the iranians is somehow morally wrong and that is a very dangerous supposition. In that they refer to a character dilemma sensible to being able to put yourself in the shoes of the other serious because if you simply divide the world into the right versus wrong good versus evil. You know then you get the rhetoric they have in the u. S. Now or you know irans been behaving we have to teach them a lesson and say i like that word behavior the hey there has or have a dog approach where you know the teacher address a student or parent and child so you have to discipline them in order to get the correct behavior but thats not really how International Relations work you have 2 states with competing conflicting interests what you really need to do than the 6 i mean the interest of both states in order. Find some way to do a compromise. Theres a lot of noise here so you cant really actually have this process is what actually diplomacy is supposed to be all about instead you have good countries are bad if you listen to the bad one its the its a piece meant so taking in to consideration what iran might need it security interest the us appeasement is treason and this is goes against peace so its a really if International Relations diplomacy put on this head because this is not how its supposed to work and furthermore because of this whole focus now on trump to impede stability of the United States to act rationally and not simply irrational would suggest youre able to look at Foreign Affairs and the rational calculation in terms of whats the best way to approach it to maximize their security but what we see is its a domestic politics of the United States that we dictates Foreign Policy lets point out if if you can criticize trump for how hes handling it all hes not the size of enough is too aggressive he did this then if this serves domestic politics then he will do it so essentially Foreign Policy is shaped or even directed. At your door it is this whole mantra about socialism you know thats thats domestically driven in the United States visa be in his way to let me go back to london i got i have a way to get out of this mess here because its certainly a dilemma that trump is a lot of south to be painted into a corner fire pompei all fire bolton and call and said again what do you think we need because of course the way glenn was discussing matters is very much if i may say so a view of International Relations that you can find in europe and you can find in moscow but when shes not very current in the United States the United States isnt doing diplomacy at the moment a lot of it all is a green diplomat and he is the foreign minister of great power and he is someone whos extremely ski. Allt an adept at negotiating compromises and brokering solutions as was recently pointed out to me a good example of how that can happen is the conflict between russia and turkey that existed over syria some years ago when a russian aircraft was shot down and we need not hear anything about military action being taken at that time certain sanctions were imposed but in the end the 2 sides found nothing commonality of interest to negotiate a compromise but that required diplomacy and that is not what were seeing at the moment if i can just say one very quick thing about some of the comments that have been made both by john and by clem i think there is a riddle to this mystery of donald trump and 2 glenn touched on it the riddle is the truck needs to do whatever he must as he thinks to win the 2020 points if he has tookie use the evangelical christians like tents and poincare who are fired up against iran and see things in the black and white terms but donald trump that glenn was talking about and at the same time he has to appease hes our that the other part of hes base which is against war which is what