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[00:00:00] The Y curve with Phil Dobby and Roger hearing.
[00:00:04] Are we on the cusp of a new Middle East war?
[00:00:06] Does the bombing of Yemen by the US and the UK threaten to bring Iran into the crisis caused by Israel and Hamas in Gaza?
[00:00:14] If a small rebel group can threaten to choke off one of the world's major trade archeries,
[00:00:18] threatening the global economic recovery, does the West have any choice but to intervene? The Cape of Africa, I should say, it's taking longer. Obviously, it adds two weeks or more to the journey. That means for those two weeks, there's extra fuel involved in that. All of those containers, of course, now are tied up, which means they can't be used for the next trip. So there's a shortage of supply. And also, some companies are just saying, the extra cost isn't wet, doesn't make it worth our while then. Yeah, exactly.
[00:01:40] And if they go through the Swiss canal, the right side, as far as they're concerned of this conflict. So there's
[00:03:01] a lot of implications. But if Iran does get drawn in our guests who know this. All this in more detail than we do. And that's Shaheen Madaras, who's a security analyst at the international team for the study of security based in Varroney joins us now. So Shaheen, do you, first of all, do you think Britain and America has done the right thing? They, of course, would say that they've got no choice,
[00:04:20] but to have started to take fire against the Houthis.
[00:04:25] But is it was a sensible move, do you think? power with the current state of the warfare and weapons that they had. So they came up with ideas since 1979. They came up with ideas having first of all a very strong missile program. And the second thing that came to their mind in my opinion was to have proxy groups in order to
[00:05:41] somehow extend the boundaries and extend the Houthis, of Hezbollah, of Hamas, of the Islamic Jihad, of Palestine, of Qatayb, Hezbollah in Iraq, of Hashem Shabi in Iraq, more than 40 militias and 40 proxy groups within the region are working under the direct order
[00:07:00] of the Islamic Republic and Ayatollahs in Tehran.
[00:07:03] So the attempt in the past to try and control the just done the same thing as the Saudi. So they're going to be as effective as they, you know, as we've seen over the past decade or so. Yeah, but not necessarily not the same. The situation and the context is quite different. In the other context of the Arabia had no idea where they are. Mostly they had no idea where they are heading.
[00:08:21] They just had a very strong aerial campaign.
[00:08:23] They use that in order to hit the hoses.
[00:08:25] But in the US, UK case, they know exactly the points that the Houthis has crossed the red line, yet somehow US and the UK still have not decided to cross that line to go through a full-scale confrontation. And I don't think UK is somehow guilty for that. It appears that the Biden administration has allowed the Iranian proxies to maneuver so long
[00:09:40] and so far and tends to continue so
[00:09:44] because with the upcoming elections,
[00:09:46] this is not the right are speaking about a pathway that somehow controls and allows 12% of the global world trade and pathway that has a lot to do with the energy market. It's not going to say like that. What I'm saying is that the reason that they are maneuvering so much so far is because of war just against the Houthis then is it that that is a battle against Iran exactly that is a battle against the Islamic Republic and the thing is it's like a delmi know because once you hit the Houthis then you have to go through with Hezbollah then Hamas will be more active than the Islamic Jihad will be more active
[00:12:21] than as always we see the some the militants they could be down even more. So it doesn't solve that problem, does it? No, it doesn't. But when we look at the scenario, it's important to understand that it's not like no one is winning this situation. The country that is winning this situation, in my opinion, is Russia. Because think about it.
[00:13:40] Russia, the same way that the Islamic the OPEC plus somehow betrayed Saudi Arabia at the OPEC plus for the same reason, for the oil price in order to have it increased. The second thing that happened after the October 7 attack, that's benefited Russia, was the fact that the US had to send, like somehow destroying the grain settlements in Ukraine in the regions of Odessa in order to make the global market insecure. They are now doing the same thing through the Islamic Republic within the region. Shahin, I mean, I hear what you're saying, obviously, about Iran being, you know, effect
[00:16:21] almost a kind of puppet of Russia. But in Iran itself, I'm sure they don't think of
[00:16:25] themselves that way. What are they thinking right now because of the sanctions of the international communities. It's the IRGC that you're talking about, the revolution regard. A part of the refraction of the IRGC is thinking like that.
[00:17:40] Whilst the truth is, I think a majority even though it's about an administration, but at that point they have no other choice.
[00:19:01] They have to go through with this.
[00:19:04] That will lead into the demise thing thanks to the proxy groups. This time not in the Persian Gulf region but in the Red Sea region and the Babu Mandab is straight instead of the Hormosus straight. So they are just trying to show their power and they are also trying to put more pressure on
[00:20:21] Israel in order not to completely want that because they don't want how much to be destroyed. But I mean, it sounds like everything you're talking about there is on the roadmap right now. I mean, obviously Israel is out there to destroy Hamas. We've already talked about whether the US are going to be trying to take the Houthis. I mean, all of those proxy groups that you're talking about one by one, it sounds like they may be taken out. Exactly. And that is the reason
[00:21:40] why ceasefire is not a good idea because at this though? When this goes on, you talked about the casualties, every day people across the Muslim world and particularly across the Arab world are seeing this and they will feel angry, they do feel angry and the support for the groups you're
[00:23:00] talking about will just increase and indeed the support for Iran as being the one actor
[00:23:05] in the region that's actually doing something about it. is nothing more than instability. The Islamic Republic of Iran doesn't know how to construct a diplomatic dialogue. All they know is how to create more problems and later use the same problems as leverages and means of diplomacy during their negotiations. When I watch Al Jazeera, though, which obviously comes from Qatar, they are very much pushing for
[00:24:22] for a ceasefire. Obviously, the UN Secretary-General horizontal groups such as Hamas, the order of command exists, but there is also another element in groups such as ISIS and such as Hamas, the territorial factor is quite important and significant because when they use territory,
[00:28:22] the order of command somehow is not going to be appears that there is the fact of understanding between the countries of not attacking each other, not two countries between the Saudi Arabia and the Houthis because they are somehow occupying Yemen, to be honest. So the. What do the Saudis want in all this? Because the Saudis, obviously, historically, have been very much opposed to Iran, opposed to the countries and even if they were during the Cold War the Soviet Union had an embassy in the United States and the United States had an embassy in Moscow
[00:29:42] it didn't mean that they are friends and it didn't mean that they were not on during a historic timeline. You can see that the two countries have actually always been allies of each other. Since the Asian times later during the Shah's period, everything was okay with Israel. They even had an embassy in Tehran. There were collaborations between two countries. I mean, the Iranian people, the Jewish people
[00:31:00] have become in history.
[00:31:01] We have lots of cultural elements in common.
[00:31:04] We actually have no problems,
[00:31:06] but since this 1979 revolution, towards the end of this. You've told us kind of what could happen. What do you think will happen? Do you think there will be that this will escalate into a regional conflict that Iran will be drawn in and that the US, the UK, the West will have to take this kind of action to deal with what's now really an economic as much as the political level? That's the question whether Iran is drawn in or whether Iran has just engineered all
[00:32:22] of this. It sounds like that. But will it now of us with automatic weapon in their hands. But where do they get their supplies from then? I mean, sure, they can just be frozen out of international trade. I mean, if there's... There really are. There are sanctions on Iran already. But clearly not working. And the sanctions are somehow working. But the problem is that in these years,
[00:33:43] they have created lots of pathways through which they manage to procure what they need from view on what's going on. Thank you. Thank you. It was a pleasure. So when you start to hear about what's happening in the Middle East, it makes you appreciate that even though we think Britain is, everything is going wrong here. At least we're not fighting the well, shan't fighting the Scots, we're fighting the North of England. Yes.
[00:35:00] And yet it's all coming down the line. But this country is definitely in a bit of a mess.
[00:35:05] I think pretty much. Just in terms of the sheer logistics.