We have just published this short video on YouTube and other channels.
This is the transcript:
There is a supposed Middle East peace plan on the table today. I don't know whether it's going to work. I'm not convinced it will. This plan is uncertain. We don't even know what the terms are, and we don't know if Israel will be bound by it, and that is a requirement that Iran has imposed inside this plan.
The consequence is that the celebrations of peace this morning do look to me to be very misplaced.
Donald Trump needed a peace plan; he needed to get out of the threat of genocide that he had made. He needs to be held accountable for that still, but the reality is that this peace plan may be an illusion.
The fact is that Israel is determined on war, and if it is, this peace plan will fail very obviously within days. Hostilities will resume.
The current belief inside world markets that there is going to be peace, and that the oil price can fall and that share prices can rise, that optimism can return in other words, is completely misplaced, and all of this ignores one essential point.
The USA has surrendered under the terms of this peace plan. We know it has. It has agreed to withdraw from its bases in the Gulf. That looks like a surrender in any normal terms.
It has also agreed to pay reparations to Iran.
It has ceded control of the Straits of Hormuz to Iran.
It is going to allow it to charge shipping to go through those Straits, which was not the case before the 28th of February.
This is a massive failure on the part of Donald Trump. Will the world forget that? Will the US forget that? Will he forget that? Will he try to take retribution in some form? None of this is known.
Can we live with the idea that Iran is now a major world power? Again, we don't know. I don't know. This is a big change in the world order.
This morning, we are living with a peace that looks like something which is dramatically different from anything that we have known before. A diminished USA, an enormously inflated Iran and Israel out of control.
Can we manage this situation? That is the question of the day, and my answer is we can only wait and see. But don't hang your hats on peace as yet.
This looks to me as though this is a temporary pause given to Donald Trump by Iran to let him off the hook with regard to the threat of annihilation that he put in place. That's something that Iran needed Donald Trump to back away from, but it doesn't mean we've got peace, and this peace plan does not look viable to me.
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We have a one-dimensional US President.
Trump is looking for high-speed economic returns in the shape of alleged win-wins designed to attract US investors through massive energy and infrastructure opportunities.
Iran’s 10-point plan proposes using transit fees from the Strait of Hormuz for reconstruction. Trump likes this and he wants US firms to be the primary beneficiaries of these huge rebuilding contracts.
Iran has offered to build 19 additional nuclear reactors. Trump wants these contracts to be awarded to US companies to revive the US nuclear industry.
A permanent deal would unlock an estimated $100 billion in frozen assets, potentially feeding global markets with liquidity and creating new trade routes. Trump is licking his lips accordingly.
Trump sees a peace dividend as the largest strategic economic win since the Cold War ended.
But who will join Trump in following the money? He sees investment as the answer to everything. Who else does?
Cliff – there appears to be a great deal of misinformation in here. I seriously throught about deleting this. I don’t know where you are getting information from but none of this looks to be reliable
Apologies. I thought I was getting reliable sources shown for these claims, but I realise now they are speculative. Lesson learned. Will check more thoroughly in future.
I won’t pretend to know what goes on in the “mind” of the US President, but it is a historical fact that the Israeli “right” do not like peace, and sabotage peace deals, treaties, and “accords” at every opportunity.
Sabotage of peace deals is a well worn Israeli tactic, and it goes back decades. They will and have used any means available, including assassination, even of their own peacemakers.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/biden-official-netanyahu-sabotaged-deals-but-calling-him-out-wouldve-helped-hamas/
https://www.newarab.com/analysis/israels-long-history-rejecting-peace-palestinians
If Richard will excuse a 3rd post- today; To support your post linking the New Arab about the PLO offer in 1988, which it was rejected by Shamir the Israeli Prime Minister. In the 1940s he was part of the organisation called Lehi or the Stern gang by the British mandate authorities. The UN appointed a mediator, Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish diplomat who, during the war, had secured the release of 450 Danish Jews and 30,ooo other prisoners from Theresienstadt camp. The Lehi decided Bernadotte’s proposed peace plan would be disastrous and Shamir was part of the group who decided to have him ambushed and killed. The Lehi also took part in the Dir Yassin massacre in 1948. It should be pointed out that many Israelis and Jews outside Israel were to condemn the assassination of Bernadotte.
But Shamir and Begin ( involved in blowing up the hotel in Jerusalem) became Prime Ministers and managed to convince their American allies that the Palestinians were not a nation. Had the US acted fairly to the Arabs, we probably would not be looking at the present situation.
I’m hoping that elements of the Christian diaspora that surrounds Trump begins to question the close ties with Zionist Israel. This manifestation of increased mobilisation of Christians in the Republican party started I think with Reagan has led to some sort of melding of questionable religious objectives and has to be brought to an end. Some Christians do not see things that way.
Trump has totally compromised his followers and himself. He promised them no more lying wars in the Middle East, and here we are again. In order for the U.S. or anyone else to have Iran for itself means quite frankly wiping the country off the face of the earth, and leaving what is left as some sort of ward for another state to stay there permanently to administer it. It would be impossible as well as unconscionable.
Over confidence in U.S. military prowess has been seen again. Yet again aggression has been used short term. The situation is that, having now waged aggression against the heart of oil supplies for the West and the U.S., economics has gone to war on the ordinary people whom Trump relies on to get him where he is and for the next term.
He knows that if that support falters he could well be toast. To be a fly on the wall in the rooms of the parties trying to sort this out would be something.
The weak spot now, is his relationship with Israel. Will the U.S. continue to support it or cool it?