Alastair Crooke on Iran, Russia, and the widening Middle East conflict
Glenn Diesen interviews former British diplomat and Middle East expert Alastair Crooke on the deteriorating state of diplomacy with Iran and Russia.
Summary
Glenn Diesen speaks with Alastair Crooke, former British diplomat and founder of Conflicts Forum, about the rapidly escalating situation across the Middle East and its intersection with the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Crooke argues that Iran has decisively abandoned any intention to negotiate with the Trump administration, hardening its position through leadership changes, military consolidation, and continued attacks on shipping. He contends that a series of significant US miscalculations — including failure to check weapons inventories before the war, overconfidence in oil price manipulation, and attacks on Iraqi Shia militias during a major pilgrimage — have not pressured Iran but instead destabilised American allies such as Saudi Arabia. Crooke also warns that Israel's internal political crisis, with Netanyahu maneuvering to avoid electoral defeat and possible imprisonment, risks igniting the West Bank and triggering a wider regional explosion. On Russia, Crooke argues that the assassination of two senior air force generals at a Moscow wedding reception is a potential inflection point, and that Russia — like Iran — is moving away from diplomacy entirely, with senior officials now describing the Alaska talks as a deception comparable to the Minsk Accords. Crooke further identifies Japan's yen crisis and the broader bond and debt market as the ultimate financial trigger hanging over the entire situation, warning that Bessant's efforts to prop up the yen are failing and that cascading consequences could dwarf the immediate military conflicts. A notable near-escalation — Ukraine firing on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea shortly after US strikes on Iranian bases there — is discussed as evidence that Washington may be trying to merge the two wars. Both men conclude that Europe and the West are dangerously unprepared for the economic and energy consequences of these converging crises.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and Alastair Crooke's background
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back. Alastair Crooke joins us today, a former British diplomat and expert on the Middle East. I would highly recommend following his Substack, Conflicts Forum — I've left a link in the description. That is at least where I go for the best insights into what is happening in the Middle East. Thank you very much for coming back on.
Alastair Crooke: My pleasure. Always a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Glenn Diesen: You are very well known for doing back-channel diplomacy and negotiating local ceasefires, especially during the Second Intifada, when you served as the security adviser to the EU's foreign policy chief. But unlike many of your colleagues, you recognised that there's a need to include rather than exclude the different Islamist movements — Hezbollah, Hamas — in order to get a sustainable peace. I can assume that's a good way of making enemies in powerful places. But what I see now with this war on Iran is that it's really spreading across the region. It's opening up tensions and conflicts — for example, between the Saudis and Yemen — which would exist quite independent from Iran. And it seems that to put an end to this you would require some complex diplomacy, not just between Washington and Tehran, but attempting to include the different stakeholders in this conflict. So I was wondering, as this war continues to spread and widen, how are you assessing the problem? And which actors do you think have to be involved to put an end to all of this? I know that's a very wide question.
Iran's hardening position and leadership consolidation
Alastair Crooke: I'd like to take it piecemeal rather than do it all at once. First of all, where are we? I think it's pretty clear from Iran's side. We've seen first of all a new statement from the Supreme National Security Council, which is more or less a restatement of the first ten principles that were enunciated ahead of the Islamabad talks — but it differed in a number of points. The language was tougher, saying we're not going to put up with this sort of vulgar language and being called names. At the same time, there was a change in the secretary of the council. The outgoing secretary actually made that statement, which is quite important — it wasn't the new incoming Mohsen Rezaei who made it. It was the outgoing one, who had been nominated by Pezeshkian. He now loses his vote on the Supreme National Security Council, and Rezaei now has a vote as a representative of the Supreme Leader. And then there have been a number of military changes at the same time.
What I think we're seeing is a very concerted consolidation around a leadership and around a vision. And the vision is that Iran is not going to look for a solution with this president. Zarif has always said that outright — that perhaps they'll have to keep the war on until 2029, that the whole resistance bloc will hold until 2029. I don't think that means they are looking for an all-out war. Rather, as Trump has pivoted to moving away from the war toward, as Bessant says, economic pressure — "We don't have to worry about it, economic pressure on Iran will be sufficient, and we can go on manipulating the price of oil so that people don't get too anxious" — in that case, Iran has said: we will go on attacking ships.
And they seem to have got the measure of the game. Because this last Monday, actually half an hour before market opening, instead of Axios with Barak Ravid saying "Oh, a deal is about to come," they targeted a tanker — just half an hour before markets opened — to make a point. They've understood how the manipulation of markets is being done and have responded in their own way. So I think we're going to go into a situation of extended skirmishing between Iran and the United States. Iran is going to put pressure on Trump, and I don't think they intend to negotiate. In fact, they do not intend to negotiate with Trump unless he wants to capitulate completely.
US miscalculations and the regional escalation
So that's a change. Now, you wanted to bring it into the region as a whole. I would say there has been a succession of miscalculations. The first miscalculation by the United States was that they didn't check their weapons inventories properly before starting a war — which you'd think would be one of the most obvious things to do. But then again, if you assume the war is only going to last four days, perhaps they thought it didn't matter. That was a big mistake.
The second big mistake is precisely this: pretending that you don't have to worry about oil or other elements passing through the Red Sea or the Strait of Hormuz. The claim is that actually many more tankers than is understood have been passing through, and that they're managing to manipulate the oil price. Bessant keeps reassuring Trump: "Don't worry about it, the economic pressure is going to be on Iran and they'll eventually capitulate. We can manage the oil price and we can manage the economy." I think this is another big mistake. It's a big mistake because the manipulation of oil prices has actually become a sign of American weakness for the rest of the world. The very obvious management of these prices is not fooling anyone any longer. And it's not preparing people for what is coming.
It's fine for Bessant and others to say, "Look, the oil price — we're managing it down to $87 at the moment or whatever." But the price means nothing. Forget it. You know those nice graphs we had at university — demand and supply and the equilibrium in the middle where the curves cross. What counts most of all is the supply curve, because that is about scarcity and about real things. Demand is something ephemeral that can come and go. But real supplies — and we all know that the real supplies, particularly of the middle distillates that make diesel and kerosene — are largely absent.
Attacks on the Hashd al-Shaabi and the Iraq dimension
So they've turned to the idea of putting pressure on Iran by putting pressure on the region — putting pressure on Iran in Lebanon by promoting the scheme to disarm Hezbollah, which runs completely counter to the memorandum of understanding, the MOU. And they've been doing this by putting pressure on the Hashd al-Shaabi, the PMU, the resistance militia in Iraq, which they attacked in recent days. Saudi Arabia and America attacked them during the Arba'een period, when most Shia were going to Karbala on pilgrimage.
This too has been a succession of really egregious mistakes. I've met the Hashd leaders and I know a little of what they're like — I met them in Karbala. In the West, they're categorised as "Oh, they're just Iranian proxies, switch on, switch off, they do what they're told." That couldn't be further from the truth. These people are really adamant Iraqi nationalists — hard nationalists, proud people, tough, but nationalists. Yes, they're Shia, and of course Iran is the mothership of Shiism in many ways, but that doesn't mean they just take orders from Iran. There's coordination, but they are not simply robotics in the hands of Iran. And they've promised reprisals for the attacks on them.
Why Saudi Arabia and America chose to attack them in the first place is a puzzle. Saudi Arabia said it was because they attacked an Aramco refinery, but the Hashd strongly deny it and I've seen no evidence that they were involved. Maybe they decided to attack them because Saudi Arabia was anxious not to put the finger on the Houthis in Yemen — because that would mean they would have to escalate against the Houthis, and they are really reluctant to go to war with the Houthis. Although now the war in Yemen is coming to Saudi Arabia whether they like it or not. It's there now, and the flames are getting higher almost every day.
The broader regional picture and pressure on US allies
So I think this was an attempt, in all of these areas, to put pressure on Iran. And actually what it's done is the opposite. It hasn't put pressure on Iran. It is putting pressure on all the allies of the United States — like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, all the Gulf states — who are coming under pressure because the tensions are rising. The atmosphere in the region is getting hotter. Actual flames are taking place in many parts, affecting everyone, including the West Bank. What's happening in the West Bank and in Gaza is particularly important — that is the bedrock of a possible flare-up in the Middle East which may come at any time.
So in short, all of those things indicate major mistakes having taken place. And people are not prepared — not prepared for the economic consequences. It's uncanny, and it's not even mentioned in the Western press at the moment. It's assumed that it's all being managed by Bessant with his manipulations of the price.
Trump has pivoted away from Hegseth, blaming him at Camp David and saying, "You misled me about the munitions. I thought this had all been resolved." And he's turned to Bessant. And Bessant is saying, "Look, you don't have to worry. Everything is fine. The Iranians will run out of oil very soon, we just need to keep the blockade, and we will win the war." I believe this is absolutely a mistake. Iran has positioned enough oil and tankers before the start of the war. It's sold 80 million barrels since, is continuing to sell and allow traffic to China, for which it will get paid. So actually, if anything, it's probably slightly ahead of its budget.
Yes, economic pressures will come at some point, but we're not talking about anything imminent. We're talking about months — maybe next year — before we would see some pressures. And again, there's a misreading of Iran: if Iran gets to a point where its situation becomes existential, it has a choice between capitulation or escalation to a bigger war. It will choose escalation to war, I believe. And that's pretty much confirmed if you look at the choice of military leaders who've just been appointed by the Supreme Leader.
US options and the Strait of Hormuz
Glenn Diesen: So what are the options of the United States here? Because as you said, Iran appears to not be on the defensive — at least it has hardened its position in terms of both rhetoric and actions. It doesn't wait for American attacks and try to mirror them. It takes the initiative itself. What can the United States do? The options are hard to read. You have Trump making speeches saying "We already control the Strait of Hormuz and it's wide open," and then you have Bessant arguing "Well, the Strait of Hormuz is not really relevant at all — we'll just reroute everything through underground pipes." It sounds like they're only trying to make the whole thing go away with empty talk, but the situation won't really improve. What is the goal here? What are the possible options? Because if they can't win militarily, and there's no path to peace the US can accept — I mean, when they signed the MOU, they didn't really have any intentions to unfreeze Iranian assets and pay reparations — what is left? What can the United States do?
Alastair Crooke: I think you hit the nail on the head exactly. Trump has been quite good at this during his career — just saying: reality is not the reality that you see in front of you. This is the reality, and I'm managing it and I'm conducting it. And quite often that reality he proclaims bears no relation to what you know. Like when he says, "Oh well, Hormuz is wide open. We're running a wall of steel around Hormuz" — when we know that in these days nothing is moving through.
Saudi Arabia's crisis and the Red Sea
When you look at Saudi Arabia, it has now suffered both ends of its pipeline to Yanbu — the loading area in the Red Sea — being destroyed. The Yemenis are putting a siege on the ports at Yanbu, and any Saudi vessels leaving are being threatened. Either they're turning back, or some are attacked. Even some commercial shipping belonging to Saudi Arabia has been attacked recently, which is going to have a big impact on the Red Sea as a whole. As I understand it, the insurance companies are now going to go up to war premiums for all shipping in the Red Sea — it's not just going to be one vessel, it's going to have a wider effect.
Saudi production is down 74%. They can't sell the oil. They need oil at $100 to break even with their government budget, and they need to be selling the full amount — and it's just collapsed by 74%. At the same time, because of the crisis with Japan, Bessant has made it very clear that no one is allowed to sell US Treasuries. So what does Saudi Arabia do if it can't sell its oil and it can't sell its Treasuries? The only thing that can happen is the United States has to bail it out — saying, "Okay, give us your Treasuries and we'll give you the money and we'll swap it back again in a repo account at a later date," like they're doing with Japan. The UAE, I do not think, has exported any oil. Liquefied gas is not passing through Hormuz either.
So Trump faces more than just one dilemma. It's not just a matter of sitting there and waiting to see Iran get under more and more pressure. Iran has been under pressure for years. It knows how to manage. It's spent decades finding byways and back ways and other ways of living despite all the sanctions on it. And as I say, if they're faced with that existential option, they will escalate.
Israel's internal crisis and the West Bank
What I think we are also going to see, unless we are very fortunate, is an escalation across the region. And I think the most dangerous part of it is going to be in Israel. It's going to be very dangerous in Israel because the elections have become really toxic. There is a big divide opening up between, if you like, the secular Ashkenazi Europeanised Jews who came in search of safety to Israel, and the other part — partly Messianic, National Religious — who are much more Talmudic in their outlook and hardline. The two are almost at the point of violence about the future.
What is really concerning is that the right-wing parties — the polling shows that Israelis as a whole are favouring the right by a clear margin — but most of those right-wing parties, Likud, the National Religious Party, and Ben-Gvir's party — they are not getting the seats. It's not clear why, if the mood is going that way, they're not picking up a better position in the polls. And so what we hear increasingly from that element — Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and others — is that what is needed is an intifada in the West Bank, or some action concerning Al-Aqsa, the Temple Mount, Haram al-Sharif. Because that's the way to win the election. "If the electoral balance is moving away from us, we are not going to concede power."
And Netanyahu is making all the arrangements so that he doesn't have to concede if he loses the election. He's gerrymandering the system, putting his people in place, saying we don't need to obey the Supreme Court on this or that. We record it all on our Substack for people who are interested and following it, because it's very important. At the moment the West Bank has already started — settlers are going in, attacking Palestinian villages. It's very clear that the army is about to go into the refugee camps in the West Bank — not in Gaza, they're already doing that in Gaza, but into the West Bank — to attack the Palestinians there and to really get back to a sort of 1948-type situation in the West Bank where Palestinians leave. They believe this will be the path to winning the election.
The election is very fraught and it's not clear that Netanyahu can win it. He's doing all sorts of manoeuvres like inventing new parties to create circumstances in which no other government can be elected except his — because, as you recall, if he is no longer prime minister, he may have to go to prison.
Yemen, Iraq, and the spreading conflict
So the whole region — and the war between Yemen and Saudi Arabia — is certainly heating up. The Houthis have fired missiles at the Saudi-aligned forces in the south, sending them fleeing. Many missiles, big attacks. The Houthis saw a build-up of forces amongst the Saudi-aligned forces in the south that they saw as preparing the ground for an attack in the north, in Sana'a, on Houthi-controlled territory. So they took action to destroy that build-up and that massing of forces.
And as I say, you have the Hashd al-Shaabi militia in Iraq promising retaliation against Saudi Arabia on the borders of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is moving troops to its borders. You have Iran's incursion into Iraq to smash the Kurdish forces there — because there were reports that the Americans were still looking at whether it would be possible to push the Kurds to try and invade into Iran and seize an area as a sort of sovereign state of Kurdistan. We saw the same thing being done by Ukraine into Russia a little time ago, as you recall, as a pressure point. So the Iranians have come in, killed many, assassinated some of the leaders, and destroyed the munitions and logistics for that.
And the Iraqis have also told the Syrians that if they start — as Trump has been suggesting — being involved in managing Lebanon, and if Shara should be involved in managing the disarmament of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Iraqis are on the Syrian border ready, and they say: "You move against Lebanon, or we move into Syria." That's the equation there.
So all in all, you have a very messy, increasingly heated situation across the Middle East. And far from putting pressure on Iran, it's actually going to put pressure on all the allies — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, all the Gulf states — who will be very anxious at the sudden rustle of Iraqi militancy, of Hezbollah militancy, and across the region, with the Iranians continuing to threaten and perhaps act to destroy the infrastructure of the Gulf states if America tries to destroy the infrastructure of Iran.
Netanyahu is pressing for the United States — and I'm quoting — to destroy the infrastructure such that the state is unable to provide services to its people. I've described that as effectively a slow nuclear bomb rather than a fast one, because that's what it would mean, particularly in the middle of summer, to have no electricity, no water, no facilities. It would be difficult to maintain the situation at all.
The Caspian incident and the merging of conflicts
So it's a very tense situation, and I think the thing to keep an eye on will very much be what happens in the West Bank. If that explodes, it can set off explosions everywhere. Hamas is due to be moved, according to Trump's peace plan, into what they called secure areas — not concentration camps, but effectively that. And to try and disarm them as well. So altogether, a very unsettled area.
And for a moment it looked as if that was going to be merged into the war between Ukraine and Russia, because Ukrainians fired on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea. The point here was that just days before, the Americans had attacked Iranian bases in the Caspian for the first time. And then there was the attack on the Iranian vessel in the Caspian. It looked as if that was about to become part of this conflict. However, it seems that the Ukrainians have now backed off and apologised and backed away from it. Are there people in Washington crazy enough to think that merging the two wars is a good thing?
Glenn Diesen: I think the assumption that they would be able to control such a situation is very difficult, and I think that's part of the hubris. They sit and think they can twist some buttons and dials and essentially control how it escalates and where the conflict is fought. I think we're very close to this whole thing going off the rails, not just in Iran but with the Russians as well. And not even just accidentally. I mean, if I was sitting in Tehran or in Moscow, I would think that giving escalation control to the Americans — allowing them to decide when the fighting begins, when it ends, where to escalate — is very dangerous. You saw the attacks on Jordan, for example. The Americans immediately said, "Oh, this was a surprise attack." But they're in the middle of a war. The assumption was that the Iranians would only mirror the American actions. The fact that they're not — you don't want to give that much control to your opponent.
The Moscow restaurant bombing and Russia's response
And I think the fact that they believe they can merge these two wars into one and maintain complete control — that hubris is also a mistake. Maybe Tehran and Moscow should be a bit more unpredictable. Maybe they should go on the offensive. But I think the attack on the restaurant in Moscow recently is very much more serious than people have recognised. It comes against the backdrop of Ukraine firing missiles at Russians on the beach in the Black Sea — you've seen the videos, everyone in the water swimming and enjoying the sea, and then a missile lands on people lying on their towels sunning themselves. And there was another one on a resort hotel.
What I think is different with this bomb — it was at one of the big tall Seven Sisters buildings in Moscow, which you will know. They're set back, not in a main thoroughfare or a populous area. But at the base of one of those was this Italian restaurant. And two senior generals — air force generals, as I understand it — were taking part in a wedding reception. So the restaurant was closed to the public. Then a woman came bearing what was purported to be a gift to the wedding party. She was stopped by security at the door. And obviously — or at least it seems logical — the person controlling the operation from a safe distance, from a car parked nearby, pressed the button and killed both of them. And injured a lot of people, because the package was filled with ball bearings beside the explosives. People on the terrace were damaged.
Why do I say this is so important? I think it's very important because — and I do not know this, I have no privileged information — but I would bet anything that the Russians will conclude that a Western intelligence service facilitated this operation, provided the intelligence, or provided details about how to identify and know that these two generals were at this party. I don't know it's true. It may not be true. But I would think it's a safe assumption on the pattern we've seen of increasing involvement of European and Western intelligence services in supporting actions against the civilian population. And these assassinations — that they will be thinking about, and I think it could serve as a tipping point.
The Russians won't do anything hurriedly and off the top of their heads, but they will regard this very seriously. And there will come a time — how long can the West, and particularly Europe, go on firing their missiles into civilian areas? It used to be refineries and things, but now it's beaches and clubs. It's now assassinations at wedding parties in Moscow. At what point does Russia say: enough? "If you don't understand the language, if you haven't taken our warnings seriously enough that we will not put up with this, then we will take harsher action which will make it clear to you that we will not accept this continuing."
So I think it could be a serious inflection point. The mood in Moscow is quite different — much more, I think, a different error by Western intelligence services. They think that these missile firings unsettle Russians, make them anxious, make them nervous, make them feel they wish the war was over, make them think that Putin is to blame and that he needs to go. I think they have this 100% wrong. What it does is make Russians deeply angry and wanting this to be stopped. And I think we're seeing the shift in vibe very obviously in the pounding and pummelling that is taking place in Ukraine. But it may not stop at Ukraine if these actions continue.
Russia ends diplomatic engagement
Is this going to bring about the ceasefire that Trump seems to think? Rubio just said, a couple of days ago, very clearly: "These missile attacks are a good thing because it'll put pressure on Putin and he'll have to seriously come to the negotiating table" — and make a ceasefire, which Russia keeps ruling out. At the same time, senior Russian officials are saying very clearly: "No. We're not going to talk to the Americans anymore. We're finished with these negotiations." The foreign minister has said — and I'm paraphrasing — that actually the Alaska talks were a deceit, closer to the Minsk Accords, designed to give Ukraine more time. They were a deceit, and they don't intend to continue these talks. Yes, channels of communication for administrative things will continue with Washington. But no, they are not going to deal with them. They can't be trusted.
So this is where we are. Iran won't talk with the West. Russia is refusing to talk with the West. And when Rubio tried to tell Wang Yi to stay out of Iran, the Chinese foreign minister told him, in quite clearly abrupt tones, to mind his own business. Europe is sort of in its bunker, seeing all the world as antagonistic, seeing it as evil and hostile, and sitting there self-satisfied, thinking it's at the control panel pulling the levers and pressing the buttons to bring about change.
So I think — you were asking me about Iran, but you have to take the bigger picture. And I think ultimately the big picture about Iran is that this whole issue now hangs on the bond market, the debt market. Japan is a potential trigger for something much bigger, because the prospects of keeping the Japanese yen afloat are not looking good. The rescue is going in — Bessant has spent, I think, 90 billion dollars, not of his own money; some of it was selling off euros in order to buy yen. But large amounts are going in and the yen keeps devaluing. And as it devalues, interest rates go up, inflation goes up, and all of the problems become much more exacerbated.
The merging of the Iran and Russia conflicts
Glenn Diesen: Yeah, I think in this regard the war against Iran and Russia has already merged to some extent. The fact that they're taking lessons from each other — the Russians now see what happened in Alaska as being a deceit. And yes, it was a deceit, but instead of seeing it as a one-off, or even in the context of the past 35 years since the end of the Soviet Union, I think they're also looking towards Iran, because all the deals being signed were never intended to be implemented, and all the negotiations seem fraudulent. So one has to ask: when you have these terrorist attacks within Russia, such as this bomb at the restaurant, and you see this in combination with a 40-day campaign of deep strikes in Russia against civilian targets to put pressure on Russia so the civilian population would want to remove Putin — I think they fail to see where the pressure goes. Because I always ask: what are Russia's options? It seems like in Europe we have equated peace with Russian capitulation or defeat. But if Russia sees itself in an existential war, there is no capitulation — there is only escalation. So I just feel the Rubio comment — "Oh, this is good, it's going to make Russia more flexible" — well, not really. This is proving what the Kremlin said all along: that Ukraine in the NATO orbit would make it a frontline state, a proxy for direct attacks on Russia. I just see the Russian position hardening, a bit like what we see in Iran.
I guess my last question is: why — and we're both sitting in Europe — why is there not more reflection upon this? I recently have been using the example of this 40-day campaign against Russia. They did this knowing that the Russians could retaliate, that they could put a naval blockade, that they could shut down Odessa, that they could be much more ruthless against Kyiv, that they know Kyiv doesn't have many more air defence systems. You can see the retaliation coming. We would know that the Russians genuinely see this as an existential threat. It's very hard to convince anyone that this was in our interest. Same with Trump moving away from the MOU. What is happening in the West? There are no discussions about these things. I find this to be — as you said — it's just assumed: we're good, they're bad, and if you don't support the good fighting the bad, then perhaps your sympathies are with the enemy. I don't see any discussions beyond this.
Europe's crisis of confidence and the failure of the geopolitical project
Alastair Crooke: No. And no one says anything. With what's happening in Gaza or in the West Bank — do you hear anything from Western diplomatic circles? A little bit from Spain, maybe, but almost nothing generally. Nothing. It's as if nothing is happening. The threats against the Iranian population — all of these things just blanked out.
I think the only answer to that is that the elites, the establishment, are becoming increasingly nervous and losing confidence in themselves. They're becoming desperate. They're becoming desperate because they can see what's happening to Ukraine. Ukraine was — and still is — the purpose of NATO. After the war on terror, what was the purpose of NATO? What was it about? So it had to be Russia. That was the only way to keep NATO — if you like, the aim was to keep NATO and keep the Americans engaged, just as it's always been: to keep Germany down, to keep the Americans in, as the first Secretary General said. And then the European Union — deeply divided on financial issues and many things — the only thing was to wave the flag of Ukraine and war with Russia, and to use those as the means by which to coerce conformity. The language coming out of Brussels is all about: we have to be in line, we have to accept conformity, no one can say anything that is out of line, because if that happens, then everything falls apart.
So I think that's the crisis they see themselves in. As soon as something happens — a party is elected, or the AfD wins a major town in Germany in the election — then that's the beginning of everything falling apart. And so they're desperate to try and keep it together.
Glenn Diesen: And now the reports on Merz planning to strip German federal states of autonomy if they vote the wrong way — it shows desperation. But it's a good point: if this is the new Europe, it's not a geo-economic project anymore, where we pool our resources for collective bargaining power and try to translate that into political influence. If instead it's a geopolitical Europe dependent on common opposition to Russia — well, if peace breaks out, the whole project could begin to fragment and fall apart. Again, I would suggest that the foundation of having a geopolitical EU was a mistake, but no one's questioning that seed, it seems.
Alastair Crooke: Yeah, you're right. You'll remember the EU talking about itself as being geopolitical actors. Well, it's become absolutely transparent that they're not geopolitical actors. No one is paying any attention. Russia, Iran — no one wants to talk to the Europeans at all. They misplayed that very badly. And they haven't played the rest of it well either. They're at odds — completely at odds with Russia, at loggerheads with China, in bad relations with the United States. The net result of their politics is that they have no friends really at all. And they have no influence on events either.
Glenn Diesen: I remember Romano Prodi, the Italian Prime Minister who was president of the European Commission. About 20 years ago he made a comment that the EU is a giant made of clay — quite big and impressive, but if it tries to move, it can stumble and fall apart. From my perspective, that analogy was a great example of why it can't be a geopolitical power, and why the geo-economic path was the true destiny if it wants to succeed. But again, they walked away from this without much of a discussion.
Closing thoughts
So, any final thoughts before we wrap up?
Alastair Crooke: I think the only real thought is again how unprepared we all are for what is really out there and risking to be triggered at some point. It's going to be far worse because there has been no talking, no preparation, no psychological preparation of people. I think it's going to hit them as a big surprise when suddenly they find that they can't get diesel for their car, or it is rationed, or it is put under some form of priority — prioritising diesel for some people and not for others. I think they're going to find this quite a shock.
Glenn Diesen: No, I agree. With both the Iranians and the Russians realising diplomacy doesn't work, they're both taking a hardline position. We're going to have sooner or later a huge economic crisis, an energy shortage. And I see in this country the largest newspaper has articles — the front article is about where the good restaurants will be and what is popular food this summer. I feel like there's a bunker mentality here. They don't like to see what's coming, and with all this narrative control, if there's nothing good to report, then just don't talk about it. I think that's where we are pretty much. Not good for when you desperately need course correction, but yeah, here we are. Anyway, as always, thank you so much for your time. I always appreciate it.
Alastair Crooke: Thank you. Thank you for the invitation to your programme.