Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Welcome back to Going Underground, broadcasting all around the world from the UAE as neighboring Iran mourned under US bombardment while NATO held its 77th annual summit. Its weaponry was used for genocides in Gaza and Lebanon and bombing fish markets in Iran's Bandar Abbas across the gulf from this Dubai studio, let alone for bombing Russia in a proxy war that has lasted longer than World War I. This is moving in the right direction according to glorified Trump servant and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who said NATO was also willing to play a role against Iran. The absurdly described defensive alliance that bills itself as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Mass murders nowhere near the North Atlantic. It met in Turkey, bordering the countries targeted by NATO nations, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Turkey itself has been hit during Trump's unprovoked war of aggression against Iran, which this week held the largest funeral funeral ceremonies in human history. And as it faces NATO's Greece in a military standoff in the Aegean. It's all not enough, though, for NATO boss and bankroller Trump, though. He wants to invade NATO's Denmark and sanction NATO's Spain, while the NATO vassals want wars on the largest country in the world, Russia, and the richest country in the world by PPP China. This is 105 million people across NATO countries don't even know if they can eat tonight. 170 million don't know if they have somewhere to sleep tonight. Joining me again from Orleans, Massachusetts is a former advisor to the State Department, US Russia Presidential Commission. He's now editor of the Realist Review and a board member and senior advisor to the American Committee for US Russian Accord, James Carden. James, thanks for coming back on Going Underground. Let's just kick off with your assessment of this summit. I mean, it appeared the Americans unhappy that the European, Western European powers weren't supporting war here in West Asia.
And those vassals were annoyed at Trump because he wasn't giving his full commitment to bombing Russia.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Well, I think in typical Trump fashion, what Trump said publicly differed greatly from what Trump said privately. So the first day of the summit, Trump arrived and publicly scolded the alliance for not supporting the American war against Iran.
He publicly threatened to cut off all trade with Spain.
Spain, of course, is a special concern of Israel because Spain has been so outspoken against the genocide in Gaza. But once the closed door sessions got underway, Mr. Trump fell online with the neoconservative agenda and offered, for instance, Ukraine licenses to build Patriot missiles and the like. So Trump talks tough in public and makes his alliance partners nervous and Then behind closed doors, it's all, it's all the same stuff. It's no different from Obama or Biden or even George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. In some ways, the second Trump administration is really the third term for Bush Cheney. And so that's, I think, what we are seeing play out at the summit.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah, he even seemed to be saying things about security guarantees for Ukraine that people automatically do, parallels with Article 5 of the NATO treaty. But I mean, for all that, do you not think that when he gets back home he understands the threat of large scale nuclear conflagration much better than Biden or Obama, who didn't seem to care whatsoever about arming Ukraine to attack within Russia?
Trump has repeatedly said he's frightened by nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: Well, if he's frightened by it, his policy actions do not reflect that. After all, he was the president who ripped up the 1987 landmark IM INF treaty between the United States and Russia in his first term. He ripped up the Open Skies Treaty.
He decided not to renew New Start.
So no, and I think that if he was so concerned about the threat of nuclear war, he would have done a lot more to try to end the conflict in Ukraine than he has. I think it's very clear at this point that he's come under the influence of the American neoconservative lobby that wants endless war in Ukraine and endless war in the Middle East. And I think his policies reflect that. After all, at the summit he announced that he was tired of the, he was going to walk away from the mou, was going to continue to strike Iran.
So this is a president who has absolutely walked away from his America first or make America great again foreign policy agenda. And now it's the same old stuff that we've been seeing since at least 9, 11.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: But then if catastrophic defeat in West Asia arguably can be more expected because the power of the Israel lobby and so on, and his donors, surely he would be thinking about legacy, in which case the pivot to the war in Europe would mean he would try and seek some kind of peace in the opposition to the neocons who want the end of the Russian Federation.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: Yeah, but I don't see that because if you're going to continue to fund the Ukraine war and you're going to hand them access to or the blueprints to build Patriot missiles, that isn't really signaling an end to the conflict. And in fact, the advisors that he now has around him aren't serious about ending the war. They aren't serious about engaging the Russians in diplomacy. So, no, I think that basically Zelensky is walking away quite happy from the Ankara summit.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And they keep talking about they perhaps helped to persuade Trump by saying, look, Zelenskyy's use of drones is signaling great success on the part of the Ukrainian forces. What did you make of that?
[00:06:51] Speaker A: Well, that seems to be the narrative right now is that the. The Ukrainians have the wind at their back, that their drone war is wildly successful, that they are.
They are indeed striking deep within Russian territory. They're hitting energy infrastructure and the like. But the fact of the matter is, is that for every Ukrainian drone strike within Russia, Russia responds not with a drone, but with a missile. And so, again, the Ukrainians are suffering far more in this war than the Russians are. So the Ukrainians are making headlines right now with some spectacular drone incursions deep into Russian territory. But that doesn't change the balance of forces on the ground. This is a losing proposition for them ultimately. But Trump seems to be buying in to the mainstream narrative that the Ukrainians are just a drone away from victory. I don't think that's the case. But unfortunately, Donald Trump doesn't have people around him who are telling him the truth.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And the propaganda media repeating what Mark Rutter is saying, that it's one drone away from peace. I mean, we had the former British Defense Minister, Tobias Elwood on this program making a rare appearance, and he didn't. Even when I said dialogue could be useful as a way of ending this terrible war that's killed so many people, he immediately almost called it a Kremlin talking point.
What is it that these neo kwons in Washington, let alone the entire elite classes of Western Europe, what do they actually want?
[00:08:35] Speaker A: They want a resounding defeat of Russia. They want, actually, a lot of them want to see the dissolution of Russia as a country, and they want regime change.
They would be very happy to see Putin gone. And I think that's the ultimate goal of a lot of these Europeans and neoconservatives. You're right. The European elite, led by Merce and the soon to be departed Starmer and Macron, are absolutely every bit as war hungry as our neoconservatives.
Any hint of diplomacy, any hint of a settlement, they are the first people to stand up and object and call it appeasement and call people who are advocating for an end to this thing to call them puppets of the Kremlin. I think that that's wrong. And I think that that's dangerous. And I think, unfortunately, Donald Trump and the people around him are squarely in that camp.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: Is Russia to blame partly for not imposing fiercer red lines? I mean, we now hear that Finland, of all places, is going to host nuclear weapons.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: I think that the Russians could have done things differently over the past, what is it now, 12 years.
I think that it was probably a mistake since the coup in 2014, since the 2014 Maidan coup.
I think that they probably should have acted sooner in retrospect.
But Putin put his trust in the Minsk process.
And that, I think, in retrospect, from the standpoint of Russian security interests, was probably a mistake, because the Minsk process, as later revealed by the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, simply was used to buy time for the Ukrainians to build up their defenses, to build up their military. And so what you have now is a war that it's quite reminiscent to the First World War with the additional horror of drones, and it makes it very difficult for either side to break through on the ground.
So the choice that both Zelensky and Putin face are either to continue to waste the lives of their young people on the ground in this war or to find some way towards a settlement. And I think that there are reasonable alternatives to war that ought to be pursued, but they haven't been pursued because of the pressure that Washington and Brussels has put to bear on Kiev so far.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: And you think there's no one that shares this analysis at. I mean, you were an advisor in the State Department.
I know that you've been talking about Christopher Landau and Hegset's policy under Secretary Gilbridge Colby. Are these the kinds of ideas that perhaps may be emanating from some corners of the so called deep state in Washington, or is it pretty uniform? No, we can win this. We can end Russia.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: I think it's pretty uniform. I think that Landau, who's the deputy Secretary of state, and Colby, who's the undersecretary for policy at the Pentagon, are outliers in this administration.
They're outliers because they're sensible people.
I think that Trump is relying on people outside advisors, like the neoconservative opinion columnist at the Washington Post named Mark Thiessen, who was an advisor to Bush, Cheney.
I think that Trump relies far too heavily on his son in law, Jared Kushner, who is basically an agent of Israeli influence in the United States.
So I think that Trump has surrounded himself with really bad people. And let's not forget his national security advisor is a hardline neoconservative who also happens to be his secretary of state, who also then happens to be Landau's boss, who is Marco Rubio. And Rubio presumably may well be the Republican nominee for president in 2028.
So the window for responsible action with regard to the war in Russia and Ukraine is closing by the day.
Once you get into the primary season here in the United States, you're going to have calls from the Democratic Party and from the Republican Party to double down because they've fooled themselves into thinking that this thing is winnable for Mr. Zelensky and the Ukrainians. And ultimately it is not.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: James Carden, we'll stop you there. More from the former U.S. state Department advisor to the U.S. russia Presidential Commission after this break.
Welcome back to going underground. I'm still here with the former advisor to the U.S. state Department, U.S. russia Presidential Commission, James Carden. James, you were expressing pessimism about Trump's clear inability to get rid of the influence of the neocons. But I think you also noted that Reagan was unpopular in the first couple of years of his presidency and turned it around. You just see no light here at the end of the tunnel that he may realize after his defeat in the midterms that if he's not impeached, that he has a chance to recover his reputation as his because it's obviously not popular with the American people.
These Clintonite policies of Trump's, you see no possibility that he might try and end the war in Ukraine and just stop funds from the American people going to Zelensky, dictator Zelensky Well, I mean a couple things.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: The first thing with regard to the midterms, I'm not entirely convinced, and I could very well be wrong because my crystal ball is, is is about as bad as everybody else's. But I'm not entirely convinced that there will be a Democratic sweep in November. You should never underestimate Donald Trump when it comes to American politics.
Can he turn it around in his last two years in the way that Reagan did?
I have my doubts.
Again, you should never rule him out. But in order for him to
[00:15:39] Speaker B: do
[00:15:39] Speaker A: that, he is going to have to surround himself with better people. He's going to have to surround himself with people who understand the world and who have a different view of the world and more importantly, have a different, narrower, more narrow conception of American interests. It is not in the American interests to fund a war over basically who gets to govern the Donbas. The Donbas has nothing to do with the United States. There's no strategic interest there whatsoever. It doesn't matter to the United States.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: Well, Trump tries to spell it, of course, by talking about minerals of Ukraine.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: Right. Which is a load of, which is of course a load of nonsense and you know, isn't in the American interest. It doesn't affect the American interest as to who controls or who does not control, say Crimea or who has access to the Sea of Azov.
You know, I grew up a child of the late Cold War. I don't remember Americans being overly concerned that the Soviet Union controlled Crimea or the Donbas or or for that matter, Western Ukraine.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: We did in Britain, I'll tell you that. James?
[00:17:01] Speaker A: Well, yes, you have the church over the Churchill hangover in Britain, which affects British politics to this day.
And, and I think that, I think that's unfortunate.
So no, if Trump is going to turn it around, he's going to need, he's going to need new blood.
Could that happen?
Absolutely, it could happen.
I'm very pessimistic that it will happen because I think if Washington is going to affect a change between Russia and Ukraine, we are going to need partners in Europe. But European elites, as we've discussed, seem absolutely unwilling and unable to bring themselves to negotiate with the other side.
So if there's no room for negotiation, what do you have? You have stalemate and you have more war. And I think that that's basically, that's what's going to happen over the next couple of years.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: I mean, on the other hand, if there was some kind of dialogue and some kind of real peace process, would Germany and Britain in any case sabotage it with the so called false flags claims that for instance, you know, the Bucha massacre and we've seen so Many wars since 1945 catalyzed by freak events that turned out later to be not what they, not what they were what they seemed at first sight to try and engage publics into being passionate about a war they had no business in.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: To me it's a question of, of leverage.
I don't think that a Germany under this person, Merce, who seems to me to be actually crazy, is going to be a good force.
I think that the United States has to leverage NATO and I think that once we threaten to turn off the funding or, or we threaten to walk away, then we'll have some leverage over them. But if we continue to do like we, like we keep doing, which is to, you know, say one thing and then do whatever the Europeans want, we have no leverage. And so, you know, they're going to keep on acting, you know, they're going to keep playing the hawk. And I think that, that that's a mistake. But you know, time will tell.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: I mean it's terrible, of course, the genocide in Gaza and Lebanon, increased violence again in West Asia because of Trump's, the Trump Netanyahu war on Iran. But one effect of that knock on effect of that is the increase in prices for energy and the shortages of energy affecting billions of people around the planet. Does that affect the Ukraine war too, as these Western European powers. I presume you meant Merz was crazy because Germany's cut itself off from its main energy supplier after its. Well, is it the CIA that destroyed the Nord Stream pipeline?
Does the West Asia war impact on the war in Europe as Western European nations become more reliant on Russian energy, even if through a shadow fleet?
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Well, perhaps if the populations in these countries begin to overthrow these governments. So if Mercer is replaced by say AFD or if, you know, if, if Le Pen's party in France comes to power or if reform, if she doesn't go to jail.
Well, of course. Right. Well, they're also, you know, I'm sure that the Germans will outlaw AFD in due course.
You know, it's really going to be up to those populations, those people to decide what course those governments ultimately take and how much pain they're willing to take.
Because I think that one of the things that we have to keep in mind is that energy prices are going to play a key role in the midterms. And so Trump needs to make a decision. Is he going to keep on with this war against Iran on behalf of his friend Netanyahu and then suffer in the midterms because oil prices are out of control? Or is he going to prioritize the well being of his own constituents?
I think that's a very open question.
He's actually said publicly that he isn't really interested in helping the American consumer. Well, if that's the case, then perhaps he should be ready for a major defeat in November. But again, you can never really tell what he's going to do because I think part of the problem is that he himself doesn't really know what he's going to do.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, John Bolton, who I think made a settlement eventually, he's been on this show a number of times, famously said he believes the person who last spoke to him, in which case, I mean, do you think that it's possible that he might leave NATO before the end of his term, as he suggested many times and at the summit he obviously seemed dissatisfied by NATO, although you kind of said that it's all an act.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: I think it's mostly an act.
I think that if he brought in some new people, if he brought in, like a Steve Bannon type of person, or if he mended ties with Tucker Carlson and somehow Carlson became a close, trusted advisor again, then you might see Trump try to distance the US from NATO.
But I just don't think that that's going to happen because Trump's record is actually one of providing jobs and opportunities and platforms to people who are very much ideologically in sync with people like John Bolton.
So, again, if you have a Secretary of State and national security advisor like Marco Rubio, and, you know, basically a very stupid person like Pete Hegseth as your Secretary of Defense, you know, you're not going to see any major changes in American policy. You're just going to see the same old thing.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: And what does it mean for this region? I'm speaking to you from West Asia because you talked about Kushner being an agent of a foreign power and Marco Rubio clearly who has been his political career financed by Israeli linked sources.
Does it just mean ramping up the war regardless of the energy costs that, as you reminded us, Trump said on camera he didn't mind their impact on the American consumer, the inflation?
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I think. Yeah, right. I mean, I think when we talk about the US Iran war, and I'm not suggesting that you just did this, but I think generally speaking, it's a mistake to speak about that war in isolation from its true driver. And the true driver, I believe, of the US Persian conflict is Israel's drive for Greater Israel.
And so the war is inextricably tied to Netanyahu's project, not only of genocide in Gaza, but in his project to remove the Palestinians from the west bank and from southern Lebanon.
Until that is addressed, there will be no progress between the US And Iran.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: And do you think that's understood within the State Department? I should say, of course, the State Department.
Your ambassador in Israel said as much.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: Well, I assume that it is. I don't know what goes on there anymore. And I certainly have very little faith in the people who Trump has appointed to handle West Asia policy.
But, yes, I mean, I think that that's very clear, that this project, this war has nothing to do with the shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz or the totally fictitious idea that the Iranians were this close to, you know, getting themselves a nuke and turning it on Israel has everything to do with Iran's support for the regional proxies that were standing in the way of Greater Israel. So whenever Trump says that this war is about the Iranians can't ever have a nuclear weapon. Well, no kidding. And they weren't on their way to getting one. And they weren't on their way to getting one because the ayatollah, the supreme leader who they just murdered, issued a fatwa against such weapons.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Well, just finally. Sorry, running out of time. I just got to ask you whether the sight of Jelani of Syria, former head of al Qaeda with Trump this week, might have reminded people of the Democrats in the White House. You believe that Hillary Clinton's races may not be over in this environment that you've painted in this interview, that she may well go for the presidency in 2028?
Yeah.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: I would not be surprised because if you look at the field, it's very, very weak. And she and her husband still are very much partly in control of the party. The party is basically controlled by three factions, the Clintons, the Obamas and Nancy Pelosi.
None of the Democrats want Harris to run. Again, no Democrat that I've spoken to in Washington thinks that Gavin Newsom is real or has a chance. So I would not be surprised if she steps in.
They have the money, they have the influence, and she has a lot of goodwill still within the party.
And so if that does happen, then what you will see is are more of these regime change wars that oppose people like Assad and bring radical Islamists such as Jelani into power.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: James Carden, thank you.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: That's it for the show. Our continued condolences to all those of you bereaved or affected by today's NATO nation wars of aggression. We'll be back on Monday with a former senior Pentagon official who advised Pacific Air force commanders and U.S. space Command. Until then, keep in touch via all our social media, if it's not censored in your country. And head to our channel, goingundergroundtv on rumble.com to watch new and old episodes of Going Underground. See you Monday.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: It.
