Transcript of 'Dialogue Works' edition of 26 November 2024

Transcript submitted by a reader

Nima R. Alkhorshid: 0:06
Hi everybody, today is Tuesday, November 26th, and Dr. Gilbert Doctorow is here with us. Welcome back, Gilbert.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Good to see you again.

Alkhorshid:
Let's get started with Russia's new hypersonic missile called Oreshnik, which it seems that iIt's a lot of growing fear in the West, in Ukraine and in the West, in terms of how capable is this missile? What do we know about this?

Doctorow:
Well, one of-- my peers in the alternative media commentaries have spoken about this. One in particular called it a breakthrough, a kind of invention that will change the course of the world. But nobody, to my knowledge, perhaps your listeners will send in comments now explaining where I'm wrong, but nobody among the technical experts who are very widely listened to in alternative media has explained what exactly is new about this and how it differs from what the Russians have had in production and put into the field since 2018.

01:25
What they did in 2018 is they put in the field an ICBM, new intercontinental ballistic missile, called the Sarmat, which was remarkable and which they had largely deployed to replace previous generations of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

And what is remarkable about it is it is a platform for hypersonic missiles, which are carried in its nose cone and which are called Avangard. The Avangard, the missiles that are carried by the Sarmat are what are called gliders. And they come in independently targeted, thus MIRV, and they are traveling at 20 times the speed of sound, 20 Mach. That is a technical achievement that is extraordinary. To find the right solution in terms of composites to, for the surface of this, for it to fly in the middle of plasma, for it to fly in a fireball and hit the earth. That's a fantastic technical achievement.

02:42
Now the present miracle weapon, the Oreshnik, travels at half that speed. In point of fact, hypersonic missiles are those designated which travel more than five times the sound speed. So the Oreshnik is very safely called hypersonic. But what it's coming after, which was launched in 2018 and is now deployed across Russia, the Sarmat, is twice as fast in its Avangard nose cone. Now, as I said, the technical achievement of mastering the fiery entry into the atmosphere and to the point of contact is the achievement that everyone has to note.

03:29
Other aspects of these weapons systems are less extraordinary. Now, what is different between the Sarmat that was described by Putin in the State of the Nation address in 2018 and was put into service shortly thereafter; and the Oreshnik, which was first an experimental form, which was applied against defense industry complexes in the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine, near the city of Dnipro, which is the capital of that oblast. What is the difference? Well, dramatic difference, but not of a technological nature, of a production nature, we call it.

04:21
Why? Well, the Sarmat is a liquid-fuel rocket. And these are, by nature, they are silo-based. They are based underground, and they are maintained in a single place, which means that they are a target known to the enemy. At present, when the United States and any other adversary only has a nuclear weapon, the Sarmat is believed to be safe from a strike, a decapitating strike by the United States and satellites because it is said to be, the silo is said to be nuclear proof.

However, we can easily imagine that in a few years when the United States and others have appropriate hypersonic missiles which can do what the Oreshnik can do-- And what can it do? It can penetrate 200 meters. 200 meters under ground, it wreaks its destruction. So it's hard to say whether a Sarmat silo would survive that. So much for the Sarmat.

05:23
But again, to get a sense of the destructive power of the Sarmat, which is called Satan in the West, the Russian officials describing it recently said that one Sarmat can level the whole of the United Kingdom. It has 12 independently targeted Avangards. You put nuclear weapons on each of them. That's it, bye-bye England. That's the strength of it. I don't think it will take more than a dozen or two of those to wipe out all of the urban part and missile defense systems and missile launch systems in the United States.

06:10
So it is a devastating offensive weapon. What is the Oreshnik? Putin has said that it is a tactical weapon, not a strategic weapon. But if combined with other precision-strike weapons in a united attack, it has a strategic sense. And for that reason, it has been assigned to Russia's strategic nuclear missile forces.

Now, what is unique about it? Well, it's solid-fuel. A solid-fuel missile has a great advantage over a liquid-fuel missile. It requires much less care and custody and protection under ground. It doesn't need to be under ground at all.

06:58
It can be on mobile launchers, which I believe is the situation of the Oreshnik. A mobile launcher can be put anywhere and can be moved all the time. You have a shell game going on. So that an adversary like the United States would not necessarily know where the Oreshniks are being hidden, under which trees and camouflage are they being hidden. Therefore, the notion of a first strike against Russia that would decapitate and remove its nuclear potential is wiped away at once.

You can't do it. Maybe you can knock out submarines. You can detect where many of them are. And you can certainly have a chance to knock out the silos by ICBMs, although as I said, the Sarmat has a specially hardened silo. But there's no way in hell that you're going to catch all those hidden mobile, constantly moving Oreshniks. So that is a dramatic difference.

08:01
The size is smaller, the punch is very big. As I just said, a non-explosive armed, launched Oreshnik that is just acting on the force that physics dictates of mass times velocity, it has sufficient impact strength to go down 200 meters, which is how it destroyed, utterly destroyed, the missile and weapons complex in Dnipro, which incidentally included among its units in factory the production or the rehabilitation facilities of Germany's Rheinmetall. They had a fix-me-up repair center for the damaged Leopards and other armored vehicles that Germany has supplied to Ukraine, damaged on the battlefield, towed back to the center of the country, to this Dnipro, and they were being repaired by German technicians, I suppose, in this Rheinmetall factory.

09:24
Well, the factory doesn't exist. That was the strongest message possible to Mr. Scholz that forget about your country building arms manufacturing units in Ukraine, which you've all been talking about, talking about a storm. We don't have to ship these things from Germany. We'll set up our production facility there. Gone. And Schultz had enough sensible advisors around him to look devastated when the news came in.

09:57
And this is why we heard a change of song from Mr. Scholz, soon after the strike on Dnipro. Just remember that the Americans sweet-talked Scholz, or strong-armed Scholz more likely, into agreeing that in 2026, Germany will host, will be providing bases for American Tomahawk cruise missiles, nuclear-armed, directed at Russia. And if enough of them are sent, the logic is that Germany would be used as a platform for a preemptive first strike, a decapitating strike against Russia as from 2026.

10:40
I would say that Mr. Scholz and all the rest of us would be lucky to live to 2026 if they persist in the insane provocation and strikes against Russia that began with the ATACMS, the United States hitting in Bryansk, a military arms dump, and with the Storm Shadow hitting something not yet identified, also within the Russian Federation. For these moves to be continued is to risk a Russian retaliation that will be not in Ukraine, but against one of the NATO countries. We can talk about which NATO country is rumored to be at the top of the Russian list. But this is the point that the rollout of the Oreshnik is two years ahead of the planned American deployment of Tomahawks in Europe. So for the next two years, Europe is totally exposed, as under the sword of the Russians.

11:58
It's a very peculiar position to be in, and at the same time to threaten the Russians with all kinds of dire attacks, including the latest, which I've seen in today's Financial Times, mentioned the possibility of returning to Ukraine the nuclear weapons which it gave up in the middle of the 1990s as part of the settlement with Russia supervised by the great powers over the independence of Ukraine.

Now if any of these crazy ideas are put into operation, we can expect that the Russians will act on their new nuclear doctrine, which, as I would like to get into a little later in this, resembles very much the American Wolfowitz doctrine at the start of the ]90s, which in strictest terms, to say what it's all about, is that any country which has the capability of striking Russia will be assumed to have the intent to strike Russia and will be treated accordingly.

Alkhorshid: 1313
Which country, As you've mentioned, it would be interesting to know which country is Russia's priority in Europe? Is the United Kingdom? Is Germany?

Doctorow:
I think that the Russians would love to strike now, to strike England, and it can't be ruled out. Certainly, the British have intelligence which warned them that maybe their airfields are vulnerable, exposed to Russian attack. The Russians would love to settle scores with Britain, because they have been the real attack dog of the United States from the very beginning of the Ukrainian conflict. But still in all, even though the Brits only have an army of a paltry 50,000 men, which Mr. Starmer said they're ready to throw into action any time Russians attack Europe, they do have some nuclear missiles, including on submarines, which may still actually work, since the submarines aren't very dependable all by themselves.

14:22
And I don't think that Mr. Putin is ready to risk as a first step a nuclear attack on Britain in response to what it does to their airfields. So let's take a country that is less dangerous or risky for retaliation, which would depend entirely on the exercise of the Article 5 obligations of other NATO countries to defend it, since it cannot defend itself, and in a sense it cannot have a retaliatory strike against Russia that counts for anything. And what country is that?

15:05
Well, Poland. Well, you could also take Romania, and both countries fall into the same spot because both of them are at the origins of Russia's development of weapons like the Sarmat and the Oreshnik. Why do I say that? Because the issue was the supposedly anti-ballistic missile bases set up by the United States in both Romania and Poland, which have dual-purpose capabilities. That is, they can at one moment be programmed to launch an anti-ballistic missile against a supposed Iranian incoming missile; or more likely, they can be launched as an attack missile on the Russian Federation.

16:04
And nobody knows what the latest programming of those missiles is. So Russia has to assume that everything in those bases is directed against itself. And that was, and it was logical, considering that the polls were crowing a week ago about how finally, after five, six, seven years, the construction of this American base carrying this supposed anti-ballistic missile complex, but actually an anti-Russian strike complex, had been opened at last. So very timely for the Russians to wipe it out.

16:49
Now there's an additional reason not to go after Romania. That is the latest elections, in which the man said to be far right and supporting Moscow is the leading, led in the first round and who knows, they win the second round. It would be a real pity to wipe out Romania when somebody is the head of state who actually is sympathetic to me. So I think since the Polish elites are all viciously anti-Russian, are all begging for a bomb on their heads, I think they're the ones to be bombed.

Alkhorshid: 17:26
We've learned that the United Kingdom and France are willing to send their troops to Ukraine, even with Donald Trump in Washington. We know that Donald Trump wants to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine. He wants to do that. But it seems with all that said, these two countries are willing to send their troops to Ukraine. Do you think that would be the case for these two countries? How capable are they going after this plan?

Doctorow: 17:59
Well, Nima, that is a very interesting question. I'm stumped, I'm really stumped, that they could persist in this utter stupidity and self-destructive posture that they are doing. Macron has made it clear that he intends to use SCALP, as the equivalent of Storm Shadow that is manufacturer in France, against the Russian Federation interior. That is setting up France for a direct conflict, not just with Russia and the use of the Oreshnik on sites within France, but also setting up France for a direct conflict with the United States before Trump takes office, knowing that he intends to enter into trade war with Europe. And it seems very peculiar logic that he would make a determined enemy out of this man Trump before he decides exactly how much, the level of tariffs he's going to apply on European products. It's perverse.

19:13
It's stupid beyond description. As to Mr Starmer, well, we've already known ever since he made the use of the Storm Shadow a few days after, three days after the Americans fired ATACMs in Russia, that he has lost all sense of reality, if he ever had one. He's way out of his depth. And I think it's incurable. I don't believe that he will remain in power very long when the cost, price of what he's doing comes home to Britain.

Alkhorshid: 19:52
Gilbert, you've mentioned this new movement in Romania. They're calling pro-Russia, pro-Putin, but at the end of the day, we know these are pro-Romania, pro-the situation, the better situation of the country after all. But how do you see right now the way the things are happening in Romania? Do you think, is it going to have a drastic change in their policy, or they are yet to see that?

Doctorow: 20:25
I think we'll see drastic changes in policy all across Europe, so why not Romania? But when I used the language I did, I should have put it in quotations, which said that I'm citing the "Financial Times". As we know, mainstream media, whether it's "New York Times", "Financial Times" or others, they're always speaking about the "far right" and "great friends of Putin", which is generally speaking rubbish, even for Mr. Orban, to call him a great friend of Russia is nonsense. To say that his peace plan for Ukraine has the support of Russia is utter nonsense. It runs completely against what Mr. Putin has been saying in the last weeks about how this war will end.

21:11
So this language is distorting and is disinformation. No, I'm sure that this lead candidate in the Romanian race is not pro-Russian in any sense of the word, but he is pro-reason and pro-self-preservation. And he knows as well as anybody, better, when I just described two minutes ago, that his country is on the target list because it, along with Poland, is the home to what the Russians have rejected and complained about for eight years, an American attempt to stage a decapitating strike, a first strike on Russia, from these two bases, one in Romania and one in Poland.

Alkhorshid: 21:58
What does Russia's doctrine in terms of nuclear weapons?

Doctorow:
Well, this is an evolving doctrine. The most important thing to observe, this is written in kind of abstract, general, legalistic language. But behind every phrase, there is a concrete measure by NATO, by the United States, that Russia is recognizing as a cause for heightened deterrence and, if necessary, for a nuclear strike on the country involved.

Heightened deterrence. What is that all about? The proper title of the new decree was not about the threshold of nuclear strikes. That's not the title of the piece, Although many people who are talking about it would make you think that's what it's about. The proper title and the largest part of the text is about deterrence. And deterrence, as they say in a lot of the clauses, is a means by which Russia wishes to ensure that its adversaries understand that any measure in this list of possible measures taken by them will get an immediate response from Russia. And so there's no doubt about Russia's intentions to deal with all the darings of provocation and/or early destruction that NATO, and led by the United States, has been talking about or implementing in the last two years. By heightened deterrence, they mean heightened military alert of their nuclear forces, decentralization of decision-making for making a nuclear strike, which has the logic of that, which is very dangerous, of course.

24:13
The lower you go in the decision-making ladder, for ordering a strike, the greater the risk of an irresponsible attack, in the sense of Dr. Strangelove, by some crackpot way down the command structure, who orders an attack when it shouldn't be done. Still in all, if you decentralize the decision-making for pressing a button, it is better than having an automated decision making. And to let artificial intelligence and all the rest of it--

We would be at much greater risk if the Russians put this into a genuine automatic response to a reported threat which might be a misreading, it might be a misjudgment of what is happening, and the world goes up in flames because thanks to an automat. So the Russians are simply saying that if Mr. Putin is-- I mean, these are not the words in the doctrine, but this is the sense of the doctrine-- if Mr. Putin is taken out, there are other people in other locations who will do what's necessary, push the button. Therefore, there will be no way of escaping retaliation from us.

25:36
That is a very important principle, that's stated in black and white. But once again, I say, stated in black and white to those who know how to read these things. The language is always very generic, generalized, and not specific. But behind every article or sub-article, there are specific things.

Let's take another one. As I mentioned, another clause is that any attempt to blockade or limit transport, critically important transport, to any part of the Russian Federation will be a cause for heightened deterrence. And I think it's logical to say the next step would be unleashing nuclear weapons. What are we talking about? None. This isn't a territory on Mars. They're talking about Kaliningrad. If Kaliningrad is further disrupted in this communication, suddenly the Lithuanians have done a pretty good job of causing problems and violating their obligations under agreements to allow truck and train transport from the Russian mainland to supply this enclave between Germany and Poland called Kaliningrad. If that is done, then the Russians will consider it entitling them to unleash nuclear weapons.

27:04
Let me go on to the other conditions. A very important change is here. What is considered to trigger a high nuclear alert is also a strike on Russian bases abroad. That was never a condition for Russia's use of nuclear weapons. And I have this-- in Syria, for example. Any attack on them will be considered a basis for nuclear attack. The creation of missile defense and/or attack missiles or satellite-killing devices positioned in space by an adversary will be a reason for heightened Russian deterrence.

28:03
What are we talking about? Well, there's been a lot of discussion about destroying satellites, blinding satellites. And what is that about? That is related to another clause in the new doctrine, which speaks about any actions taken against early warning systems or command and control systems of the Russian Federation will be, again, a cause for heightened deterrence and preparation for nuclear war.

28:40
This is not an abstract thought off the head, "Let's think about this or that" sort of thinking that goes on in Washington by sophomoric graduates of Yale and Princeton and Harvard who have nice degrees on the wall and don't know anything about anything, who have come up with very nice scenarios, algorithms for defense and offense. No, no, the Russians don't have sophomores from college dreaming up their scenarios. Their scenarios are based on real-life situations. And the measures I've just described fit that category. The Russians will respond to the stationing of anti-ballistic missile systems in space or to satellite killers in space in the way I described.

29:37
So these are various-- there's a whole list of, about ten, conditions that will trigger the Russians declaring heightened military alert. All those other offensive things you can do are to hold military exercises close to the Russian frontier; to build military infrastructure capable of carrying nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction; and where we mean by that biological weapons, chemical weapons near Russian borders. That would also be a reason for heightened deterrence and transition to nuclear strikes. The very important principle in the new doctrine is that-- and this takes into account the overarching problem they're facing with dealing with the United States-- is the use of proxy wars. This is from the whole experience that they've had with the Ukraine war.

30:44
The United States essentially attacking Russia, but not with its own men, not with its own fingers on the button launching this or that, but through the fingers and the territory of Ukraine, a proxy war going on. And so the Russians are saying that any adversary that is in fact an alliance, a bloc of nations will be dealt with as a whole and not by its individual constituent member states. That is to say, the United States will be subject to nuclear attack by Russia if any of the NATO countries should attack Russia, or if Ukraine, armed by the United States, should attack Russia. This is putting in black and white what we have all assumed was the Russian intention.

31:49
Now the intention has become explicit. We will wipe you out if you proceed in these games thinking that we will not identify you as the real actor behind the attacks on us.

Alkhorshid: 32:04
Has the Biden administration received this message, the message of deterrence coming from Russia and the way that you described it, the nuclear doctrine and the situation with Oreshnik hypersonic missiles?

Doctorow:
Well, I don't know if the Biden administration is capable of interpreting anything any more. We assume that Mr. Biden is out to lunch, that he has sidelined himself, or is being sidelined to rest up for the rest of his life during these five weeks or whatever that are left to his administration, and that the actual decisions of his name are being taken by the likes of Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken. Whether they are capable of appreciating what I just said is really an open question. This is the single biggest question facing us all, whether they can take it all in. Now, to give you a little bit of a benefit of the doubt, you would say that the Western media have not highlighted any of what I just said. Regrettably, even the alternative media has been only partial in identifying these threats that I've just gone through.

33:26
So you can forgive these rather stupid people and willfully ignorant people who are making policy for the United States in Washington today by saying that they're not being fed enough far-seeing, insightful information about what these Russian documents or this Russian attack on Dnipro means going forward.

Alkhorshid: 34:03
What do we know from the Russian media about how they feel about Biden's position right now and his administration? Let's put it as a Biden administration, the Biden administration, which is so important, as you've mentioned, we don't know who's in charge in Washington. But let's put it to the Biden administration. Are they concerned that in the next 60 days, less than 60 days, they're going to escalate the situation in Ukraine, or they're talking about that it seems that they're getting to the point-- I'm talking about the way that the Russian media is trying to understand the situation with the West. What's their understanding?

34:47
They understand exactly what we've been talking about. The inability of people in command or speaking on behalf of Biden and giving orders to the US military, bypassing Biden, bypassing the Pentagon, Mr. Austin, they're concerned these people don't get it, and with good reason. At the same time, they're saying a few things which I don't think your audience is hearing otherwise, and I'll say them here. That is, hey, it's less than six weeks that the Biden people have to ruin everything for us. Mr. Trump doesn't come in until January 20th.

Wait a minute. New Congress comes in on the 3rd of January. And so it, they can very easily, motions just to impeach Biden and to strip everybody, acting in his name of real power. As from 3rd of January, the Trump people will be in control of Congress. I haven't heard a word about that from anybody else. Why should we be hearing it from the Russians? Why do they seem to be better constitutional lawyers than people sitting in Washington or New York?

Alkhorshid: 36:10
You know what's so amazing to me right now is the way that the European Union or European countries are behaving, considering what's going on in the United States. They know in less than two months someone else is going to be in power in Washington, but at the end of the day, it doesn't seem that they care about that. Do you think they have some sort of understanding of the people behind the scene, those decision makers in the United States? That's why they're so calm. It doesn't seem that they want to change their policy toward Ukraine.

Doctorow: 36:45
I think you're reading into them more reasonableness than they deserve. What I see here is complete confusion. They are paralyzed. They are the deer in the headlights of an oncoming car.

And so they're making uncoordinated actions which will be a temporary thing during the transition period until it's clear what is coming. So I was speaking this morning at a coffee this morning with a fellow who's very, very clever, very capable, multilingual skilled person who was just fired from his job at the European headquarters here in Brussels, where he was in a kind of think tank or working group on policy issues and foreign affairs issues. And he was fired because finally they had enough of his multipolarism and his unwillingness to only repeat Atlanticist narratives. And I gave him the advice just to sit on his hands for a couple of months and not to apply for any other job until January 20th when the winds blow through here and they turn heads in a different direction, which is sure to happen. But at the moment, the winds in the street are very blustery, but the political winds are at a calm, waiting for the change of administration in Washington.

Alkhorshid: 38:37
Gilbert, let's shift the gear to the conflict in the Middle East. Do you think with the decision of ICC, this arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Galant. What are we going to see in the future in terms of the policy in the West? We have some sort of division right now between the United States and European countries, which is so different. So far in Ukraine, they are totally in line with each other, with the Biden administration. But when it comes to the Middle East, we have some sort of division. How serious is that in your opinion?

Doctorow: 39:11
Well, it's very serious. With only a couple of exceptions, the EU countries are on board with the ICC decision. The biggest exception is paradoxically, surprisingly, Mr. Orban, who refuses to accept the validity of the ICC decision. And the Germans, Mr. Scholz has called for a timeout to consider the validity of the ICC decision before making any final decision to enforce it or not to enforce it. It's hard to imagine Mr. Netanyahu would like to make an excursion abroad to Germany. Nonetheless, Germany is an outlier on this issue, and Hungary is in his camp, in Netanyahu's camp, for reasons that are not entirely scrutable, but I think have to do with Mr. Orban's balancing act not to so enrage the United States that they push through everything further to push him from power or to have him assassinated.

40:22
I think he's buying a little bit of grace with the United States by taking this peculiar position, which is against all sense of morality and marginalizes him further within the European Union. But as you say, there was an enormous divide. The United States has self-isolated on the recent Security Council vote about a resolution to stop arms shipments to Israel, The United States was the one country against that, of 14, I think it was, in favor of it. This is real isolation. This is really pariah status for the United States.

41:16
And so it is on this other question we're discussing, the United States is alone. It can't even buy all these nickel and dime, the countries, island states to prop it up in world opinion. And I think very soon the Latin American language will change from what the international community says because the international community is voting with hands and feet against the United States.

Alkhorshid: 41:50
I think we have to consider that Donald Trump would be, his presidency is four years. That is, everybody in the Middle East is taking that into account. That whatever he says is just for four years, doesn't matter after Donald Trump, they may change their policy. But do you find Donald Trump willing to do something in favor of the United States in the Middle East, in the West Asia, because we know the way that Netanyahu and his administration is implementing is just carrying out these attacks on each and every country. is not in favor of the United States. It's not in favor of what the United States wants in West Asia.

Doctorow: 42:36
If Donald was standing by himself as he did at the outset of his first term in office, then I would say by what he's appointed, the people he's appointed showing a hundred percent pro-Zionist position is really bad news. And to expect the United States to move away from its untenable position today, as isolated as we just discussed, would be unreasonable.

43:02
However, 2024 is not 2016. And a lot has changed in the world, and a lot has changed around Trump, as I've discussed with you in recent chats that we've had on air, that Trump is surrounded by people, some of whom are really very, very smart and very reasonable and very well informed. And none of them is more that way than one of his biggest financial backers and social media backers, Elon Musk. I cannot imagine that Musk will not have an influence, a positive influence, on Trump's policies in West Asia, simply because the guy is very, very smart, and he knows everything we've just been discussing, even if Trump has been insulated from it.

Alkhorshid: 43:59
One of the few people who are important in the Trump administration would be Tulsi Gabbard. What's your take on her? Do you think she's going to be able to influence Donald Trump or maybe to protect Donald Trump from these people that you've mentioned are pro-Zionist, pro-Israel, that they want a bigger war, a major war in the West Asia?

Dctorow:
Well, it's also we have a little problem. She's on the side of the angels in respect to Russia and the Ukraine war and many other defense issues. Unfortunately, she's on the side of the devil when it comes to West Asia and to the Zionist question. Whether she was just buying favor with Trump by agreeing with his people on Israel's right to defend itself, to include massacring everybody around, or whether she deeply has bought into that, I don't know.

45:01
But I would not place any bets at this moment on Tulsi having a positive influence on Trump with regard to policy in West Asia. We have to hope that there'll be other people around him who will have more independence of thinking when they advise him how to handle the ongoing conflict. On the other hand, one thing has to be mentioned, and that is the real possibility that at least half of this problem will disappear in a coming week or two, the half being the war in Lebanon. Not because Mr Netanyahu suddenly becomes morally swayed because he becomes decent, which is impossible, but because they're getting their asses kicked.

45:54
And just listening to people who know much better than I do what numbers are, and I have in mind Colonel Wilkerson, his recent statements saying that extrapolating from the acknowledged losses, deaths by the Israeli military of 800 men in the Lebanon operation to 8,000 men not being wounded in action and explained to us that "wounded in action" today is what would have been "killed in action" in years past when there weren't the means of pulling people off the battlefield, taking them in helicopters to [resuscitate] and so on.

46:38
But these are people who are destroyed and who will be invalids or living off of the financial support of the government for the rest of their lives. And 8,000 people for an army the size of Israel has, or for a population of Israel which is very concerned about all of its own men, even if it doesn't give it down for the lives of others, that is a very big number and unsustainable for Mr. Netanyahu. So we have a reasonable expectation that Netanyahu will graciously accept a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and that at least removes one of the very big horrors of West Asia that Israel has created. That still leaves us with Gaza, of course. That's where Mr. Trump's gaining some wisdom will be of critical importance.

Alkhorshid: 47:44
Just to wrap up this session, Gilbert, I think one of the greatest hopes that the Netanyahu administration has right now is to annex the West Bank or maybe the northern part of Gaza. With what we've seen so far and what we know about the West Asia and European countries, is that possible for Donald Trump to do that for them?

Doctorow: 48:09
Well, I beg off in a way, I'm not a specialist in military equipment. I have by default at the start of this program spoken about it simply because others who know better than I and should have spoken about it, hadn't. The same thing I say here about the Middle East situation. I don't have the depth of expertise to answer your question. And I am not embarrassed about admitting that.

I've been drawn into commentary on the Middle East because Russia is engaged, And Russia is a very big factor, together with China, on how this will all play out. Will there be an attack? We haven't spoken today about Iran. Of course, Iran is a very big issue before the Trump administration, given his and the remarks of his own appointees that are very militant and aggressive with respect to Iran. How this will play out will be largely influenced by what Russia and China do.

49:14
And this question of the resolution of the situation in Gaza is partly dependent on the Houthis. And the Houthis are largely dependent on the Russians. There was an article this past week in the "Financial Times" showing or talking about the Houthi mercenaries who are now in the Kursk region fighting as mercenaries, fighting with Russian uniforms. And they have signed, the "Financial Times" tells us with certainty, under great pressure, the bullets fired over their heads and so on.

50:00
Well, that's very colorful. Who knows, it actually came out. But they had contracts. And the "Financial Times" tells us, "You know, these guys are getting 10,000 euros from their contract at 2,000 euros a month." Well, the guy who wrote this for "Financial Times" wasn't aware that those are the present terms for _anyone_ signing up to fight in the special military operation. So why are those Houthis there?

50:26
Well, very simple. They are pay for the missiles that Russia is delivering to the Houthis to destroy US naval vessels in the Red Sea. Therefore, there's a lot going on behind the scenes, which for a variety of reasons the US government doesn't talk about, because they will become very hot political issues in the Congress and the public at large, and will remove from the control of the White House what little control there is over present policy in West Asia. But this is the only reason why I am presenting myself as a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs. It's the Russian connection, which is not insignificant.

Alkhorshid:
Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much, Gilbert, for being with us today. Great pleasure, as always.

Doctorow: 51:20
Well, thanks for having me.