How Trump lost control of the Iran war

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0:33This is a Global Player original podcast. NATO member countries looked on at Trump's mess and said we want no part of this. What hasn't happened is the regime hasn't fallen. What hasn't happened is the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The long-term forecast of what this is doing to, frankly, the whole rest of the world on energy is staring us in the face. the Iranians still have their boots on the windpipe of that little narrow thing that the oxygen needs to flow through, the Strait of Hormuz. But they're doing it for two reasons. Number one is they want to deflect from all of the tremendous success that we're having in this military operation.

1:20I won't use the word war because they say if you use the word war, that's maybe not a good thing to do. They don't like the word war because you're supposed to get approval. So I'll use the word military operation, which is really what it is. It's called a military decimation. But they don't like the good publicity. They don't like to see us succeed. They want to see our country fail. I'm sure there's someone else who says that they're conducting a special military operation and not a war. Oh, yeah. Vladimir Putin and the invasion of Ukraine. Donald Trump has declared Iran decimated. Is he getting frustrated that they're not relinquishing their power to help him out of his mess?

2:06Welcome to the News Agents.

2:12The News Agents. It's John. It's Maitlis. She still lost her first name. I think it will come back eventually, but not for a little while. It's just a return to form. look where are we now on the who says what who do you believe over what is happening in iran because donald trump says well the only reason the iranians are saying there aren't negotiations is because they would be killed by their own people if they did that so that's the reason but obviously these negotiations are going on a pace and the iranians are saying they're just not There are no negotiations. Sure, there are messages being sent.

2:50And Iran has come out with its own punchy peace plan, which essentially says we retain total control of the Strait of Hormuz. And we want reparations from the Americans and the Israelis for the damage that they have done to our infrastructure with these 10 ,000 raids. But what hasn't happened is the regime hasn't fallen. What hasn't happened is the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. And these were two of the central war aims that Donald Trump said were central when he launched this war nearly four weeks ago. You can't call it a war. Oh, no, sorry. It's a military operation, which is one better than an excursion, which is what he's been calling it for the last three weeks because he keeps confusing incursion which is a military operation with an excursion which is more likely a trip to the sea, a bus trip and so now he's moved away from excursion onto military operation which I think in his head and just to sort of frame this because I have been speaking over the last 24 hours to people who have taken a very different approach to ours which is I don't know what you're saying This has been an absolute military defeat of Iran, right?

4:07There is no way of looking at this that is not a terrible, terrible blow for Iran. You see what Israel is still doing on Iran. You look at today, they've had another strike. They've killed the Iran Navy chief. It is quite easy to draw your kind of, you know, your graph of all the decapitated heads and show all the sort of military strikes and show the fact that Israel has now, it thinks it's so far ahead of military progress that it doesn't actually know what to hit next. And why I think it's important is this is still a perception which I truly believe a lot of the Israeli commanders, high command hold and a lot of the US administration hold.

4:49They don't understand why we're talking about this being such a mess. And I guess the reason why we're talking about it being such a mess is because the long term forecast of what this is doing, not just to America and not just to oil supplies, but to frankly the whole rest of the world on energy, is staring us in the face. And all they're doing is looking at the bombs and the drones right now. This is a tale of two wars. The war being fought by the Americans and the Israelis is a stunning success. Iran has got no air defences left. They've got complete control of the sky. The Iranian Navy, to all intents and purposes, has been sunk completely.

5:30And, you know, they have no operational capacity. The problem is, in Iran's war, the regime has survived. there is still clearly command and control with missiles being fired in directions not just up into the sky and see where they land there's many commands and many controls many commands many controls and the other thing which is absolutely critical to the point that you just made Emily which is the effect on the global economy the Iranians still have their boots on the windpipe of that little narrow thing that the oxygen needs to flow through the Strait of Hormuz so that shipping can resume and 20 % of the world's oil supplies can carry on.

6:14Yeah, and what has been interesting over the last 48 hours or so have been the way that comments by the head of NATO, Mark Rutter, have been received from NATO member states. Rutter was the man who, you'll remember, called Trump daddy at the NATO summit last June who sees himself as the peacemaker, the sort of Trump whisperer. You know, I get this man. I'll bring my NATO members to the table. We'll raise our defence spending to 5%. Don't worry, Mr. President, I've got this in the bag. This time round, European countries and NATO member countries looked on at Trump's mess and said, we want no part of this.

6:52Right. Collective shrug. You do you. I think we'll stay away. We know that Starmer is kind of trying to find, if you like, expertise to solve the problem, but he certainly doesn't want to send warships in. And we haven't anymore got our sort of mine detonationship that probably would have helped Trump quite a lot before this whole thing began. But NATO Secretary General Mark Rutter has suggested that member countries should now be going to the aid of Trump in the Strait of Hormuz and has basically given unequivocal backing for this war with Iran, which is extraordinary if you think about it, because as you say repeatedly, NATO is about defence, right?

7:35It's not about starting things. It's about stopping things. The argument would be that national security is defence, I guess. But we're talking now about economic security. And I don't know whether that's the same as somebody is firing a ballistic missile at your head. And here we are nearly four weeks in and you look at what the next moves might be. And you said something really important a moment ago. I mean, obviously, Emily, everything you say is important. But the bit about, well, they've run out of targets to hit. So, well, if you've run out of targets to hit from the air, then what do you do if you want to win a war you normally would put in land forces?

8:12You'd need to put in hundreds of thousands. I mean, you look at the numbers who fought the Iran-Iraq war in sort of 1990. I mean, there were hundreds of thousands of people. You look at what it took to retake Iraq from Saddam Hussein back in 2003. Iraq is a mile smaller country than Iran. And so you've got these American paratroopers, the 82nd Airborne. Are they going to be parachuted into Khag Island and retake that, which is where Iran's oil supplies go from? I mean, that would be an unbelievably risky operation when the Iranians still have a ton of drones that they can fire directly at these people.

8:51Is there going to be, you know, an assault ship? Two are in the region now. Are they going to kind of launch maritime assault vessels into the area? We just have no idea what the American plan is. So, yeah, they have destroyed the Iranian military. Absolutely. But the Strait of Hormuz is no closer to being opened now than it was on day one. And that is still the economic kind of litmus test of whether we think this operation has been a success or a fail. There is no way that if the Gulf countries can't export their oil that anyone can say, oh, yeah, operation well done. Well, we spent a lot of time in the last couple of weeks talking about the American perspective on this and the UK perspective and even the NATO perspective on what's going on in Iran.

9:38But we want to try and take you right to the heart of an Iranian voice today with Negan Sharagi, who is an Iranian activist and director of the Azadi Network, which has basically focused on the, you'll know, the women life freedom movement in Iran. And Negan, when we spoke before the US military involvement, whatever he's calling it now, incursion, excursion, operational war, I asked you whether you would welcome Trump's involvement in Iran. And I think you were quite skeptical of what that could mean. How are you feeling a month on? It's really hard to be right. And that's really sad at the same time, because I could see, and this is not only me.

10:25I think a lot of people around the world could see that there is no winner in this scenario. If there is a full-on war, which we are heading towards it, you know, with the land invasion as well, this is going to be for both sides. They're going to lose. And the biggest loser of all is going to be the people of Iran and the people of the world. Because what we are predicting and we were predicting is that the economical effect of it is going to be sensed all around the world. It's going to lead to economical collapse in different parts of the world. The inside of the country is impossible to invade Iran in this normal way.

11:06And we've seen it during the Iran-Iraq war, eight years of war with a lot of international support. Iraq and Iran had to come to kind of peace agreement after so many casualties. Then at the same time, you have the Iranian government who has been planning for this scenario for 47 years. The cities, the underground cities they built, the amount of money they spent. And then at the same time, their game is that they're going to win at any cost. and that any cost unfortunately means the life of people of Iran. And I'm really worried at this time and this has been shared in the UN Human Rights Council recently with a lot of other activists saying that we are in an impossible situation.

11:53If there is a stop to this war, the first thing the Iranian government would do is massively crack down inside. We've already seen some executions. They would do more. So you think it's pushed the protests on the street backwards? Completely. Like, it's ridiculous that they're saying, oh, yeah, come to the streets. There would be a time we would ask people to come to the street. Who would go out when there is bombing? When there is the country itself is in the state of war, which means they can arrest you on the streets if you're talking against the regime. So, and I'm not asking you to speak for the Iranian regime at all, Negan, but when you hear Trump saying the war is over, or they've come to the table, or there's a 15 point plan, I mean, do you think Iran is laughing at him now?

12:43Do you think they are taking him seriously? Do you think they're scared of him? What is the perception? And as I say, I know you're not the Iranian government, but you must be picking up sort of feelers from inside the country as to how how they think this is going. I think for for this generation, it means they're winning and they're getting like really proud of the situation, like seeing Trump doing crazy stuff and most probably lying about even having a conversation with them. But then at the same time, you know, their mindset, there is a new head of National Security Guard, right? So his name is Zolgar and he's just been chosen.

13:24And he's like really hard-blind. And there was an interview with him that he talks about during the Iran-Iraq war and then the Khomeini was in power. They're using the sentence from the road to Quds is going through Karbala. And he says that's because Khomeini believe that we have to expand our revolution to far wherever it is. And then it has to include freeing Iraq, that they've already done that, and going to courts. So as an activist, I'm really in an impossible situation to see that their plan is actually happening because they managed to get Iraq, Syria, they got it back. but then it's that kind of war of expansion on this side that they're they're enjoying and then who are these people they're the people who are going against the sanctions so they're making so much money off this war because it's all about you know manipulating markets as well for both sides and just kind of finally i want to know about iranians living through this at the moment because it's so hard, you know, communications are down, internet, limited access, all the rest of it, to try to work out, I mean, it's a sort of, you know, kind of lazy phrase, the average Iranian person.

14:47But I just, you know, what are you hearing from people in Tehran or Isfahan or wherever else? It's horrible. So I've been in touch with different people. And unfortunately, what we are seeing is a dire situation because there are things happening. One is the Iranian contracts are one year, right? So every year, and this Iranian year, so it ended in 20th of March. We have a new year in Iran now. And a lot of people are coming out of work because their contract finished. And the service industry is completely destroyed. So it's one fourth to one third of the economy of Iran is run on service economy.

15:23That's completely gone. People are unemployed. They don't have money to actually buy food, rice, you know, basic ingredients to cook. We've heard that the medicines are low. Iran is not producing medicine anymore. So it has to import it. And there's lack of medicine. There is a big worry that by June we would see a massive, you know, poverty in Iranian society. But that aside, you're hearing the bombing every day. there's like a you know description of these moments especially in tehran because it's been continuously you know bombarded um that people cannot sleep it's a it's a constant tension i've seen a video of a friend of mine's child who's five years old hiding in the bathroom and then they gave him a little tablet and he's playing but seeing that you know what is happening to the next generation what's the life they're going to face that's a really big question and then at the same time every night you know you get out of your house there's a checkpoint that would stop you search your mobile phone if there's anything you said that is against the government there's like this crazy young generation basijis who might even shoot you because they have guns on the checkpoints and we cannot even know if that actually happening or not Negi Chiragi thank you so much for coming in thanks Egan thank you and in a moment we'll be speaking to the UK government about how to stop foreign governments interfering in our elections and maybe a word or two on those missing mobile phone messages

17:10from a range of trusted voices and award winning journalists good morning I'm Nick Ferrari it's time to get to your calls find out the latest news and hear every side of the story. But we're dealing with some people that I find to be very reasonable, very solid. We have a very serious chance of making a deal. The day on which almost all of the world recognized that Donald Trump is a deranged liar. So what on earth happens next? The fallout of the Iran war. Follow it live on LBC. Listen on our free global player app or the LBC app. Less support through telehealth, but it feels overwhelming and rushed.

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18:48Well, we're joined now by the Housing Secretary, Steve Reid. Welcome to the News Agents. Thanks for being here again. Yeah, well, you're very welcome. Look, the Rycroft Review has just landed, which you were instrumental in commissioning. And this is talking about the funding of political parties and where money comes from, and notably from people abroad. What is the broad thrust of this and what difference is it going to make? it's a bit broader than that. It's about protecting our democracy from hostile or malignant actors, primarily hostile states, that want to use the new digital world to funnel money in to influence the outcomes of our elections in their own interests.

19:38So it's fundamentally around that. And the situation, as with media more generally, is constantly evolving and changing. But our legislation, our safeguards, are from some time ago. So I asked Philip Rycroft, as a former senior civil servant, fully politically impartial, to conduct a review for the government into whether our safeguards needed to evolve in the same way that the threat has evolved. His report is about that. So he published the report, and I announced it to the Commons this week. He made 17 recommendations in there. I've accepted the report in general terms. We will work through the recommendations and provide a detailed response to all of them.

20:23Then we will seek to amend the representation of the people bill which is going through Parliament now to bring any changes into force that we require. So come on Sue, tell us what's actually going to change so that people can understand what this is all about. What do you want to see happen? I did have to bring two recommendations forwards and bring them into force this week immediately because if I hadn't done there would be a window to evade the provisions and what those two uh were were crypto um currency uh and donors who are British voters who are based permanently overseas and pay their taxes overseas uh and the reasons I had to take immediate action on those two is because um they would have created uh open doors for money to come in so no cryptocurrency currency donations from here on and the reason is not known not at all from now on um it's a it's a moratorium until parliament is comfortable uh that we can trace the origins of money that comes through crypto so the the the problem with crypto is its traceability you don't know where it comes from so it could be iran it could be the kremlin in russia it could be china it could be whatever but which parties raise money from cryptocurrency well at the moment very few um in the uk and even those that do it's very very limited so it's not and it's not currently a massive problem and there is no uh there's no um there's no evidence to say that previous elections have been distorted by this does labour get money from cryptocurrency donations uh it's not as far as i'm to the tories well i mean the point is we all could be uh i'm not i'm not trying to close down existing windows for the sake of it it's that there is an open door here identified by an independent reviewer through which dark money can be funneled into british politics we know for instance you know when when the iranians closed down the internet the amount of uh of activity on on online activity on certain political topics shrank dramatically so we know that other states are trying to influence our uh politics here is a funnel through crypto through which they can target money into british politics i don't think they would target only one party i think they would try and funnel it through all than any if they could so we have to preserve the integrity of the uk political and electoral system and we do that by closing isn't this the reform party defunding measure i i think that is a very strange thing to say because you're the assumption behind that is if you're a hostile state that wants to weaken the united states labor are petrified and this is why they're doing well richard's heist needs to answer this question then why does he think that if the Russians wanted to weaken Britain and pull our party apart, they would fund reform and reform alone.

23:10What is it about reform that makes them the unique vehicle? But I suppose the reality is, I don't want to play the role of Richard Tice, but I suspect he would say to that, is this nothing to do with the Russians? We've got donors abroad. Crypto is the way most a lot of people now do their transactions this is antediluvian to say that you've got to write a check and it's got to be from a bank in the uk whatever it happens it's very very important that we maintain the integrity of our electoral system so we cannot you know and fundamentally it's this it is for the british people and the british people alone to choose their government we cannot have uh russia or any other hostile state funneling potentially millions of pounds into the system to influence the way that british people vote now i hear richard tice believing that it would only be reform they would target my view is hostile foreign states could target any political party with funding you know we have seen attempts in other parties as well in other ways to to corrupt them our our safeguards have withstood this so far but now we've faced new threats and our safeguards must evolve as the threat has evolved so that is what we're doing So you've also said there'll be a cap on donations from British citizens living abroad at 100 ,000 annually.

24:35Yes, pretty generous. I think it is, isn't it? I mean, until two years ago, if you had been non-resident for more than, I think it was 15 years, you couldn't vote. Now, the Conservatives changed that before the 2024 election. why are we still going along with that system why can you still vote if you don't live here well yeah and indeed when when you know i announced this in the commons yesterday and we did have some mps standing up and saying they thought it should be zero if you're living and paying your taxes abroad and brycroft in his review in brycroft in his review questioned whether it was fair for an individual who does their earnings abroad pays their taxes abroad not in this country, should be able to make game-changing donations into British politics.

25:26He made a recommendation that he believes is proportionate. I've accepted his recommendations. £100 ,000 a year is quite a lot of money. Well, it is an awful... I think most people listening to this would think that is a generous amount of money for somebody who's not in the country. Yeah, but I'm asking you, and you're the minister, Steve. Why aren't you making it smaller then? Well, I'm accepting the recommendation. Philip believed he has come up with a figure that is proportionate because he said that that is a significant donation, but it isn't enough to be a game changer. What he's trying to stop is somebody who no longer has very much to do with his country at all making a donation that is so huge it could change the terms of the political debate.

26:06People who don't live here should be allowed to vote there. Well, I asked Philip to go away and carry out this piece of work and he's made recommendations. he's completely party politically neutral unlike me and I'm accepting his recommendations I think it is proportionate No but on the question of voting on the question of voting do you think people who don't live here who haven't lived here for more than a decade are still fine to vote? Well there's a debate to be had about that. Well what do you think? What do I? I mean I think there is a debate to be had about it I'm not absolutely clear. What do you think?

26:41You're in government Come on, Steve, what do you think? Different countries do it in different ways, don't they? In some countries, if you're abroad and you never go back, you can still vote. In other countries, if you go away, you can't. I think if you're a British citizen, and we don't have that many who are living abroad, I don't see why you shouldn't maintain that connection to your country. But I think the ability to pump millions of pounds into our politics seems to me odd if you're not involved in the political debate here at home. So we've got a proposal. But, I mean, it's not just about whether it's fair to be able to donate.

27:16There's a connection straight back to the conversation we just had about crypto. Because if you were a hostile state, I'll use Russia again as an example, and you wanted to funnel money into British politics and you know you can't do it because of the changes made in crypto, you could do it through that British citizen who is abroad. So another reason for limiting how much they can put in is to reduce the risk of hostile states. because you can't trace money working through a foreign banking system in the same way that we can working through the British banking system. So it's for safety as well.

27:48Let's say this all started with that threat two years ago that Elon Musk was about to donate money to reform. You'll remember that, and there was a big row about Nigel Farage and all the rest of it. Could Elon Musk still donate a million dollars, I think it was, to reform with these changes? It's not these specific changes. is there are other changes in the representation of the people bill going through Parliament now that would prevent that. Is that a no, then? He wouldn't be able to, no. He wouldn't be able to. Even if he did it through Tesla, through a British-based company. If he said of a British company, a British subsidiary.

28:22It has to be a primarily British-owned company with predominantly British directors paying tax. The individual has to be then paying their tax in the UK. So that is to stop. It's not aimed at any one individual. I know this is a very celebrated case but it's not aimed at any one individual that's not the way to make legislation it's in order to stop the risk that a hostile state or individual who wanted to interfere in our politics could set up shell companies and then funnel money in that way so really we're trying to close down opportunities for people who are not British to influence the outcome of British elections that should properly be only for the British electorate Steve can I talk about something else which is your friend and former Chief of Staff to Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney.

29:09And you were with Lewis on Sunday on LBC. Can I just play you a clip of what you said then? Morgan McSweeney's phone has disappeared with many of his messages to Lord Mandelson on it and no backup exists. You do understand why many people will find that very convenient. Well, as I understand it, that was a theft that was reported months before the whole Mandelson situation even began. No backup. Prime Minister's Chief of Staff has no backup of his messages. Well, I don't know what he does or doesn't have in terms of... Doesn't seem ideal, does it? But his phone was stolen and he reported it at the time and it was well in advance of anything happening around the Mandelson situation.

29:47Steve, you said there months before the whole Mandelson situation. Yeah. It was the month after Mandelson had been sacked as our ambassador. It wasn't months before the whole Mandelson, it was... What I was referring to, John, was the humble address, the motion in Parliament that required communications to be published. It was months before that. On September the 16th, the Conservatives had laid down a petition that there should be a full release of the Mandelson files. It was a month after the Tories had started saying, we need to see the paperwork and the messages that were sent in relation to Peter Mandelson's appointment.

30:29And Morgan McSweeney was absolutely key to that. Well, there was no knowing that Parliament was going to pass the humble address and said it passed the humble address. Can I just read you something? This is Kemi Badenock's own words. And this comes from the 10th of September, i.e. the day before Mandelson lost his job. I think it's embarrassing the Prime Minister still saying he has confidence in a man who is brokering deals with convicted child sex offenders while sitting in government. That's a disgrace. This government has repeatedly refused to declare Lord Mandelson's full interests. As part of the appointment, there will have been extensive government vetting covering details and timings of Mandelson's dealings with Jeffrey Epstein.

31:05Will the Prime Minister publish all the documents, including those about Lord Mandelson's interests? that came on September the 10th. This was, I mean, forget the humble address because most people don't understand what that means. You know how politics works. A full month before Morgan McSweeney made that phone call to the police, the leader of the opposition had already asked for all the details and all the messages. I've been in opposition. You know, I was in opposition for a long time, constantly calling for things to be released, to be published, and governments rarely do it. So just because Kemi Badenoch says something, I doubt people even registered that she had said it.