Leighton Smith Podcast #290 - June 25th 2025 - Ramesh Thakur - The Leighton Smith Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to podcast two hundred and ninety for June twenty five,
twenty twenty five. Ramesh the Kur has contributed to a
number of podcasts, and with very good reason. A quick
survey of his career tells you that and I have
a great respect for his opinions. Now, we left recording
the interview until the very last minute in order to

(00:50):
be as up to date as possible. But first, there
is one aspect that we can cover now. That is
that the accusations that the military action taken by President
Trump is illegal constitutionally so based on the need for
a president to see congressional approval first. Now, while there's
a little more to it than that, we don't need

(01:12):
to dive into the minutia. Now, there are two articles
I'll referred to, and each of them is independent of
the other, but there is a bit of crossover as well.
George Treatment published War and the Constitution on June twenty three,
which would be June twenty four. Here, the US attack

(01:32):
on Iran's nuclear facilities has raised an important constitutional issue.
The US Constitution gives Congress the authority to declare war.
It was a wise and appropriate principle. Wars that perhaps
the most consequential actions a nation can take. They can
put a nation's very survival at risk and endangered military
and civilian lives. Wars also reshape the economy and must

(01:55):
bind nature place some limits on citizens constitutional right to
control government actions. Congress is designed to be the representative
and guaranteur of the right of citizens to govern themselves. Therefore,
the idea was that the US could not wage war
without the consent of Congress, nor avoid war if Congress

(02:16):
deemed it necessary. As commander in chief of the military,
the President could decide how a war would be waged,
but not whether there would be a war. The last
time the United States followed the Constitution in going to
war was in December nineteen forty one, after the Pearl
Harbor attack. Now again then goes into quite a bit

(02:36):
of history of how things have gone basically since then,
but in referring to time the time factor, he says,
But the nature of time and war has changed dramatically,
especially over the last twenty years. A modern Pearl Harbor
might defeat the US military in a few hours. Another
critical change is in communication and transparency. A congressional debate

(03:00):
over going to war in the eighteenth century could unfold
without the knowledge of the would be adversary. Even if
a spy were present, it would take substantial time to
relay the information. Today, by contrast, congressional debates are by
nature public. Even if a secret session were called, spies
in Washington could immediately alert the target nation, introducing a

(03:22):
danger of a preemptive strike on US forces. When you're
getting the picture, but he gets more specific. A congressional
debate over the strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would have
eliminated a fundamental necessity of war, that is, surprise. It
would also undermine a fundamental element in diplomacy. This reality has,

(03:44):
since the end of World War II, shifted the power
to initiate war from Congress to the commander in chief.
If war is imposed on the US, it must respond,
long before Congress is convened to debate and vote on
its response. If the US initiates war. Surprise is essential
for success. Further on, former declarations of war have become

(04:07):
globally obst elite. It talks about the last eighty years
Congress has been sidelined not by conspiracy, but by the
speed and complexity of modern warfare.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
And there's there's quite a.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Bit more detail, including the nine to eleven attacks and examples.
The critical argument here is that at this point in history,
technology has rendered declarations of war obsolete. Checks and balances
are the foundation of the Constitution's architecture, and war is
the most serious of matters. This is not a matter
of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals. Perhaps a new

(04:43):
constitutional convention can solve this problem, but it is hard
to imagine a solution. Let's not forget that George Friedman
was a professor of war at the War College in
Pennsylvania for a number of years.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Now.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
There is a second opinion, and it's from somebody who
I who I have great respect for also, and that
is Jonathan Turley, who who is the Shapiro Professor of
Public Interest Law at George Washington University.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
And the interesting thing.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
About Turley, he gives a great deal. He's called on
by Congress to give opinions on a constant basis legal opinions,
and he appears on Fox under similar terms. But the
interesting thing is he is a registered Democrat, but he's
not one of your left wing nutters, and there's more

(05:36):
and more of those. So he wrote the Claude Reign's
School of Constitutional Law. Democrats denounce s reigning and attackers unconstitutional,
so said a minority leader, Chuck Schumer is particularly shocked.
That's where the Claude Reigned School of Constitutional Law comes from,
the movie where the word shocked was thrown about. Just

(05:59):
in case you didn't know, Chuck Schumer is particularly shocked.
Schumer insisted that no president should be allowed to unilaterally
march this nation into something as consequential as war, with
erratic threats and no strategy. Schumer is the same politician
who was silent or supportive in earlier unilateral attacks by

(06:19):
democratic presidents. In twenty eleven, Obama approved a massive military
campaign against Libya. He says, I represented a bipartisan group
of members of Congress challenging that action. We were unsuccessful,
as were such prior challenges I have long criticized. He
goes on the abandonment of the clear language of the

(06:40):
Constitution on the declaration of wars. Only eleven such declarations
have been made in our history. This has not happened
since World War II in nineteen forty two. Over one
hundred and twenty five military campaigns have spanned from Korea
to Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. It is not a rule

(07:01):
honored solely in the breach. By the way, Hillary clipp
was also involved in one such action. The War Powers
Act has always been controversial and largely ineffectual. Presidents have
long asserted the inherent power to conduct such attacks under
their Article I authority as the designated Commander in Chief

(07:22):
of the Armed Forces. The WPA, which is the War
Powers Act, bars the use of armed forces in such
a conflict for more than sixty days without congressional authorization
for use of military force or a declaration of war
by the United States. There is a further thirty day
withdrawal period, and it gets very complicated with different days

(07:44):
for different things from what have you. Obama also defied
the War Powers Resolution on Syria. He actually did ask
for congressional authorization to take military action in that country
in twenty thirteen. Let me just repeat that for emphasis.
He actually did ask for congressional authorization to take military

(08:05):
action in that country in twenty thirteen, but Congress refused
to approve it.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
So what happened?

Speaker 2 (08:12):
He did it anyway, despite Congress especially denying authorization. Despite
Congress expressly denying authorization for the introduction of US armed forces.
Both Obama and Trump did precisely that. Trump was wise
though to notify Congress. However, what occurs after that is

(08:32):
anyone's guess. What remains has been little more than political
theater and one more paragraph toward the end. In the meantime,
the calls for impeachment are absurd given the prior actions
of presidents in using this very authority. Once again, some
Democrats appear intent on applying a different set of rules

(08:55):
for impeaching Trump than any of his predecessors. Trump can
cite both history and case law in allowing presidents to
take such actions. At most, the line over war powers
is tury. The Framers wanted impeachments to be based on
brightline rules in establishing high crimes and misdemeanors. This is

(09:16):
all part of the claud Rain's School of constitutional law.
Members will once again express their shock and disgust in
the use of the same authority that they once accepted
in prior Presidents Trump has a great number of risks
in this action from global military and economic consequences. The
War Powers Act is not one of them, if history

(09:38):
is any measure. So that's where we'll leave it, and
after a short break, Ramesh. Thekur Buckerlan is a natural
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(10:02):
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(10:22):
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(10:43):
along with the flu vaccination for added protection. And keep
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Always read the label and users directed, and see your
doctor if systems persist. Farmer Broker Auckland.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
LATM.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Smith rames the Kur it's great to have you back
on the podcast, albeit that the subject matter is a
little disturbing.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
I trust you well, well, thank you. I hope you're
will too.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Indeed, I want to start in a different sort of
way on this occasion. I received this email this morning,
which is why it's not in our mail room later on,
and I thought it wasn't a bad way to start,
this author inquires. He says, on the subject of Iran,

(11:40):
I have a couple of questions I haven't heard being asked,
why does an oil rich country need nuclear power? And
if he ran second question, if I Run has enriched
uranium to sixty percent, have they even started building the
nuclear power plant yet or are they just focusing on
an enrichment program. Now, with your background and experience with

(12:06):
nuclear matters, I'm guessing that you're in a position to
comment on that, we'll get onto your background shortly.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Sure, on the first question, why does it need nuclear
power for energy if it has such vast oil reserves,
I think the answer would be two fuld to that. Firstly,
it's always a sensible policy for any country to aim
for energy security by a mix of different sources of energy,

(12:39):
and nuclear if you can afford it and have the
technical means, plays an important part for pretty much every country,
except for self destructive limitations by Australia, where we have
one third of the world's known uranium reserves, are happy
to export it to mind it and export it to

(13:00):
other countries for economic reasons, but by law prohibited for ourselves.
So that's the first part. The second part, of course,
is nuclear is indeed the most green emission friendly sort

(13:21):
of energy we have in terms of its contributions which
are minimal, and it's it's essentially very safe, it's reliable,
it doesn't involve additional transmission lines and all that can
be tailored to existing grid and provides based load power,

(13:43):
so I think there are good reasons for that. However,
this is where you get into the second question. I'm
not sure that Iran has actually and I know it
as research reactors, research reactors. I don't know if it
has nuclear power plants or not. But that's in a
sense irrelevant because to get nuclear energy as a source

(14:04):
of power, you do not need to get beyond a
five percent enrichment at the most. The Iranians have been
enriching up to sixty percent. Now that's slightly misleading, because
what you have is if you take the benchmark of

(14:25):
the now abandoned twenty fifteen nuclear deal with their arm
they were limited to three point six seven percent enrichment,
which has no militarily sensitive implications whatsoever for weapons production.
To get to weapons grade, you need to enrich to
ninety percent. Now. The reason that is completely misleading is

(14:48):
it's not a linear progression in terms of the technical
challenges to go from five percent to ninety percent. Once
you cross five percent, and once you've got to twenty percent,
you have effectively overcome all the technical challenges, and then
it becomes a matter just of keeping on spinning the
centrifugures to purify the uranium. More and more so as

(15:13):
you separate what's called you two thirty eight and collect
you two thirty five, which is what you need to
make bombs, and so that's a matter of time rather
than any technical challenges remaining. So at sixty percent enrichment,
let me put it this way, you are effectively at
ninety nine percent weapon grade achievement already with your purification.

(15:36):
And that's why that is a concern. And no other
country has even tried or is engaged in this level
of purification for the purposes of getting energy. It doesn't
make any sense. So clearly the intent was to achieve
the capability. Having said that, we have to be very

(16:01):
clear and careful. Then in the last few days with
the strikes, there's been a lot of and you'll have
seen the reports on how Trump said that his Director
of National Intelligence, toul Sie Gabbard, essentially didn't know what
she was talking about, and she's wrong when she says
they are not weaponizing. I went back and checked on

(16:22):
her actual statement, and the intelligence community assessment on which
there is consensus across the fifteen or sixteen different agencies,
is quite clear cut. One Iran has not in fact
authorized the making of weapons. Two that said, they have
since the deal collapsed in twenty eighteen, broken free of

(16:47):
the constraints to the deal, and been engaged in expanding
the number of centrifugears, in increasing the purity of enrichment
all the way to sixty percent, in acquiring stockpile, in
upgrading the quality of centrifugures from the first generation to
which they limited to my advanced centrifugures. And none of
this makes any sense than as an an intent to

(17:11):
acquire the technical capability to proceed to rapid warm making
if and when the political authorities in charge direct them
to do so. So it's the two part thing there.
They were rapidly advancing to acquire the capability the materials,
building infrastructure, but there's no indication to suggest that they

(17:32):
had actually decided to cross that threshold, and not the
least because I suspect they wanted to avoid provoking precisely
this sort of military strikes. Okay, it's slightly complex, but
that's where it stood, all right.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
So that gives rise to another question, how long would
it take to get the sixty percent to weapons grade
proper and utilize it.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
That's a very interesting question. You get different answers to that,
but I think there is consensus that that becomes a
matter of weeks rather than months. It might be a
good point to go back to the twenty fifteen nuclear deal.
What had happened was, I think it is a good
starting point. Let's put this way between two thousand and three,

(18:20):
so that's the Iraq War and twenty thirteen when you
had the interim deal with Iran. In that period, the
number of centrifugures that Iran had multiplied from one hundred
and sixty three to nineteen thousand. Okay, this is under sanctions.
Before the deal of the nineteen thousand, around eleven thousand

(18:46):
were installed but not in operation, and around six seven
thousand whatever eleven and a half to seven and a
half were actually being operated. The deal got the numbers
of installed centrifugures by two thirds from nineteen thousand to
six thousand something, and the number of centrifugures in operation

(19:10):
cut it down to half to five four thousand, five
thousand something like that. From memory. More importantly, the stockpile
of envesed uranium at five percent purity or between five
and twenty percent from memory was cut by ninety eight percent,

(19:31):
from ten thousand prologram to three hundred kilograms. The Iraq
heavy reactive plant that was making usonium, which is the
second part of way to the bomb, that was closed
down entirely, the dismantled and separated fuel. The instructure touched
in infrastructure in other words, was put under international IAEA inspection.

(19:56):
IAEA inspectors were given unprecedented access for inspection, which could
be delayed via a small amount, but not indefinitely postponed
because there was but appeal procedures in place for that
as well. And the IAEA also put on electronic oxy
to monitor that the facilities that were under safe storage

(20:19):
were not in fact being breached. So there was an
effective dismantlement control inspection region put in place, and the
goal was essentially to widen to lend in the timeline
from detection to the capacity to acquire weapons if a

(20:40):
decision was made to cross, and that changed from a
matter of weeks or months to at least one year
during which you could do things in response. Since then
they have acquired more enriched material uranium. They have installed
more advanced centrifuges distributed between four THOUGH and the Tance,

(21:02):
mostly in four THO, but some also in the TANS,
and they built up the nuclear Science Center in Isfahan,
particularly with Chani's help. So we believe that the capacity
has reduced to the timeline to a matter of weeks,
maybe three weeks, maybe just over a month, but not
much longer than that. And after the strikes this has

(21:26):
lended again possibly two one to two years, but had
not been eliminated, and that was the concern that they
wanted to degrade its capability, so that we the outside
of the international community, and particularly Israel because it's the
most exposed to this, had time to react to that,
and that's again where we think things stand at the moment.

(21:50):
To be clear, for the have been attacked by the
so called MOP, the massive ordnance penetrator, the GBU fifty
seven is a technical name, which is a thirteen thousand
or thirteen and a half thousand kilogram bomb with the
biggest ordinance we have in the world. It's been used
by the way previously they used in Afghanistan a smaller

(22:11):
version of that. I forget what it's called GVU forty
three or something. So this is the first time it's
been used and it's been successful, but it will take
time to assess the damage with any reliability, and they
had sufficient advance warning that we have good reason to

(22:32):
believe that most of the material in which uranium and
the tooling require the infrastructure was in fact moved out
Furdo and taken somewhere else. They're called that. I think
they're talking about another mountain fortress called Pickaxe or something
which people have suspected but not known about before this.

(22:54):
So the capability has been, as I said, severely degraded,
but Iran has retained the capacity to reconstitute the program.
The regime is still intact, it's not been toppled. And Iran,

(23:14):
I think, was so badly weakened that his response to
the US strikes was symbolic more than substantives. And they
gave advance war in the Americans that they were willing
to hit their base in Qatar. So all the signs
are that Iran was desperate to take a face saving
off ramp, which they have taken. We know that this

(23:38):
strike on Iran using American military capability and technical capability
has been the goal and ambition of a Prime Minister
nad and Yahoo for over a decade to before the
Iran dealing in twenty fifteen. Left alone. The Hamas attack
in Clover twenty twenty three. And in a sense you
could argue that they have succeeded in maneuvering on manipulating

(24:01):
Trump into doing their job for them, Hence the F
bomb word by Trump, but his frustration when the ceasefire
began to be violated Toby both sides, and he just
blew up in exasperation. So surprisingly, Trump has been more
effective than any predecessor, both hitting, hitting hard, restoring the

(24:27):
credibility of American deterrence if you like, and yet at
the same time, so far at least limiting his involvement
to what he wanted to do in time and in targets.
They didn't hit all the targets that they could have.
They haven't destroyed Iran's capacity to export oil, and they've

(24:48):
given them ways out provided they don't actually start weaponizing
and reconstituting it Israel wanted. More So, Trump has been
just as exasperated at Israel. So there's some signs that
Trump doesn't deserve more credit than perhaps he's been given.

(25:09):
He's made it difficult for the Democrats domestically to really
criticize him on this. Nonetheless, I think you know, if
you're dealing with the Middle East, the ghosts of history
are very prominent, and we need to be a bit
careful of the sohol law of unintended and particularly perverse consequences.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
Let's get onto that shortly. Was Trump overreaching when he
made the announcement of the the bombings initially overreaching in
what sense in that had had completely wiped out?

Speaker 3 (25:47):
Yes, I don't think there's evidence to back that up.
But I mean, Trump is Trump. We know he's moombastic.
He you know, any deal he's done is never been
a deal like that in history et cetera, et cetera,
and stuff like that, and certainly in the American system.
I think people discount the element of Nonetheless, the substance

(26:10):
of his claim is correct. He acted decisively, he gave
them time to So, you know, one of the good
things about what Trump has done we haven't seen any
evidence of significant, if any, civilian casualties. So what he
did was a mix of strikes using deception, a misdirection

(26:35):
in terms of timing and calendar decoy is being sent
over Hawaii when in fact the direction of the travelers
the other way around, A mix of the what I
think there was seven B two planes involved the two
bombs eats, so fourteen of these mops, the GBU fifty
seven plus Tomahawk missiles fired from c essentially at Isfahan facilities,

(26:59):
the scientific infrastructure, and then saying we're not going to
do anymore unless you choose to escalate. The fear of
attritional escalation for the moment has abated. It's controlled and
managed escalation where they have demonstrated both the intent and

(27:20):
the capability. Helped im miserably by the fact that the
air differences and the missile launches were totally destroyed and
degraded by Israel in the two weeks leading up to
the US attack, and the fact that, as I said,
Iran's retaliation was limited and signaled in advanced The underlying,

(27:46):
more important and more crucial strategic signaling is we don't
wish to escalate. We accept what you have done, and okay,
it's a defeat for us, it's a meliation for us,
but we retain the capability, and that gives a sufficient
face that we can accept it. That seems to me

(28:07):
to be the condition at the moment. One other thing,
I think the most important recent example of this law
unintended purpose consequence ironically enough is the Hamas attack on
seventh October twenty twenty three. That was barbaric, that was savage,

(28:30):
And on the military front, I think they achieved more
success than they would have dared to dream of. On
the political side and strategic site, it has been a
tremendous setback for the entire cause. Hamas has not quite finished,
but close to it has. Vola is nearly finished in Iran,

(28:51):
Asad is no longer even in serior, let alone in power.
He is hiding somewhere in Russia. Buthis are still around,
but badly affected. Israel has demonstrated unbelievable capability in terms
of intel, in penetration and precision attacks using pages and

(29:12):
talkies and the airplanes and extraordinarily extraordinary attack So it's
so it's king of all the surveys in that sense,
and they have been able to attack Iran directly and
shown that Iran is, in fact, compared to Israel, still
a paper tiger, but you know, you can get paper
cups as well, which are not very pleasant always. So

(29:35):
all that helped Israel achieved complete air dominance and the
Americans were able to come in and attack without fearing
any damage. To themselves. So it's a good one two
combination in team. But do not under estimate the extent
to which Israel is still dependent upon American goodwill as

(29:56):
well as the American supply chain.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
That's that is unquestionable. Look let me let me just
let me put it this way. Let me ask you this.
With the history that's that's what now forty six years
old of Iran Tehran, Yeah, and the developments that have

(30:24):
taken place on the nuclear front and the way they've
played their game. Out of one hundred, how much would
you trust the present administration.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
Of the US now in Iran? I wouldn't you? See?
This is a problem. There is no reason to trust
either the United States or Iran in terms of promises
made and formal agreement signed. And this is where we
get back to the twenty fifteen deed. It was a

(31:00):
multilaterally negotiated deed which the Americans led on their site,
involved all the five permanent members of Security Council plus
Germany and the EU. The deal was then unanimously endorsed
by the Security Council in twenty fifteen. It involved dismantlement
and suspension of Iran's program in return for sanctions lifting

(31:24):
and assistance with nuclear weapons with the sorry lifting of
sanctions and development of the economic development. And there was
a ten to fifteen year period in which there was
an opportunity to pursue diplomatic pathway to the things. This
was unilaterally abandoned by the United States under Trump one

(31:51):
in twenty eighteen, the IAE had repeatedly certified that Iran
was in compliance with the deal. So in twenty eighteen
is the US that puts herself into a position of
non compliance. And I've seen states from Ayado La Kameni
after that, as well as from the North Koreans saying

(32:15):
this means you cannot trust the Americans to honor a
deal that has been signed and other other parties and
compliance with it. You take the example of Kadafi in
Libya who agreed to internationally supervised nuclear disarmament and then
was attacked, taken out, and killed in twenty eleven. At

(32:37):
the time that Trump pulls out, he was engaged in
discussions with the North Koreans, and essentially the North Koreans
and the Iranians and the Russians and Chinese said, what
is the point of even entering into negotiations with the
US when a successor administration can just pull out and
there's no consequences for them. So this effort at abandoning

(32:58):
agreements solemnly made after years of negotiation, that is a
problem on both sides. And the longer term consequence of
this is going to be whichever regime is in power
in Iran, and we have to be careful on that
that it's not personalized or individualized to one leader or regime.

(33:20):
Whoever is in power in Iran and other countries are
going to conclude one the regional bully in the Middle
East has been defanked good. The overpowering bully in the
global neighborhood is out of control. We better look after
ourselves and should we then look at acquiring by Hoko

(33:42):
by Krok nuclear weapons for ourselves. So it's that two
stages thing that varies me as well. That the message
sent out is we don't care about international law. We
don't care about international rules, We don't care about agreements
that we have negotiated and led on. We have the bomb,
we have the military power. You don't like it tough

(34:04):
That not necessarily a good message to send. So I
feel very conflicted in this sense. And in that sense also,
I think actually going directly after Iran and targeting nuclear
scientists and the political leadership is a mixed message being
sent in terms of however, you're into the necessity of

(34:27):
some sort of a rules based order that is governed
by norms.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
So taking all that into account, do you congratulate Donald
Trump for what he's achieved or otherwise?

Speaker 3 (34:41):
No? I do, And I hope he he has the
self belief and he doesn't care for criticisms and whatever
other people say, so he may just go by his
gut instinct and say, you know, I've taken the position
just midpoint between the military adventurism of the New York
on Hawks and the pacifism and passivity of people racked

(35:06):
by indecisiveness and unable to respond challenges. And he said,
you know, not only my threats credible, my deadlines are credible.
You don't respond by the deadline have saidn to you
I have set for you. Then we will react, and
we will react with the means and at a place
of our choosing, with targets of our choosing. So he's

(35:27):
restored that credibility, and that is good. I think restoring
the timeline between having the capability and weaponization that is good.
I mean, there's no question but that Iran has been
a destabilizing force in the least and the number of
statement statements it has made about destroying Israel. You can't

(35:48):
blame Israel, given its particular history and what happened in
October twenty three from being genuinely concerned about that. But
having said that, the danger for Israel has been it
has relied almost entirely on military means, and I think

(36:08):
there has to be a much more sustained effort, with
pressure on all sides to resolve the underlying political problem,
which is, how do you reconcile the existence of Israel
and it's right to exist as a legitimate state with

(36:29):
diplomatic relations with its neighbors, with some sort of recognition
of the decades of suffering of the Palestinians, Because you
cannot have a regional solution that depends primarily upon humiliating
the Palestinians and leaving them weak and disenfranchised and marcialized,

(36:53):
and you cannot have a solution that ignores Israel's legitimate
rights to existence within scure borders in peaceful relations. Now
there's no evidence that Israel is privately accept that, provided
the other side is as well. But I don't think
that undermines my claim about the one country that has
over the decades kept expanding its effective borders defacto borders

(37:17):
is in fact Israel. It hasn't drunk. So I think
we need to somehow try and square that circle. It's
not easy, and I've said to you before, you know,
if you think you understand the Middle East, you've been misinformed.
It's the one thing that has eluded everyone. But because
of his peculiar individual traits, Trump potentially has a better

(37:42):
opportunity to achieve some lasting legacy there than most precedents
I can think of in my time, which goes back
a long way. So yes, I do congratulate him, including
for his restraint and not expanding it and the fact
that he has expressed his exasperation publicly with regard to
Israel as well. That may give some hope to the

(38:03):
other side that, okay, maybe we should look for a deal.
And this is a rare opportunity because he's only got
another tween and a half years or so to go,
So it depends on how it works out. From now
but essentially short term unqualified congratulations, medium to long term
wait and see, but still unbalanced on the positive rather

(38:25):
negative side, would be my assessment, and.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
It's a very good assessment. Just going back to Israel
for for momentarily anyway, the the what do they call it,
the twin two nation state states, its two.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
State solution, two state solution. It's it's out. I don't
understand why people are obsessed on it and on it. Well,
neither it still wants it, nor do the other side.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
Well, I'm very pleased to hear you say that, because
it's been pushed time and time again, and it will
it will still be pushed. It is, it is being
promoted actually.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
Yeah, including by my governments here. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
And it's a it's it's an ignorant approach, is mys
my terminology?

Speaker 3 (39:14):
How can how can you just it's a fact denying approach.
There you go, that'll do.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
But if you wanted to put it into into the
sort of local vernacular of anyway.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
Why why would you expect a country or a.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Or a an attitude and a policy and a belief
that one country needs to be swept off the face
of the earth and expect them to live side by side.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
Now, okay, let me exp I mean, I give you
a very short and blunt answer, but let me just
go back into my professor ordify, I got diplomatic one.
I think there are two factors in response to what
he said. Firstly, we have to go back to October
twenty change its feet, because until then we'd have repeated

(40:09):
cycles of attacks and retaliations, and each time Israel has
had to re establish its escalation dominance, re established deterrence,
but also deterrence based on escalation dominance, the capacity, the
demonstrated and known capacity to control every run of the

(40:30):
escalation ladder that the other side wanted to go to.
So Israel was military dominant, and given the population dynamics,
even if you look at Israel and Iran, what you've
got nine million or so in Israel and ninety million
in Iran, so it's only one tenth year in in population.
And then you had all the others that did the
asymmetry is very powerful. And then narrow geographics, all that exists. Okay,

(40:52):
so they'd gone through it started repeatedly, but what they
experienced in October twenty three, and I don't think most
Western publics have really registered the fact that that actually
was a mini holocaust. And the way to grasp it
is take the entire American casualty tour in Vietnam War

(41:13):
from start to finish, from the early sixties, mid sixties
through to whenever it was until they came out of Vietnam.
The entire casualty was around fifty to fifty four thousand
American troops killed soldier skilled in that war. If you
scale up israel population to the US, then what happened

(41:37):
on seventh October was not an Israeli version of nine
to eleven. It was as if all the American casualties
in Vietnam was suffered in one day. That's the scale
we're talking about. Plus the fact that these were not
primarily military, they were primarily civilian casualties, and the grotesqueness

(41:59):
of the attacks and the sexualized violence and then the
hostage taken. So you have to get trying grasp that
and internalize that to understand the trauma of that on
Israel and what it did was, I think it tripped
their internal taculus that deterrence. Restoring deterrence is no longer enough.

(42:25):
We have to go all out and defeat the enemy.
And they've defeated the enemy piecemeal, compartmentalized the threats, went
after them one by one, first Hamas, then Hesbela, then Iran.
So from that point of view, that is a change
in the fundamental underlying strategy on which the secrecy arrests,

(42:47):
and you can't blame them for that second factor. That
is important, and that is important for our Western publics
to come to terms with. I think the widespread anti
Israel descending into anti Semitic demonstrations on our streets and

(43:08):
within our political system now has had the effect of
bringing home to israelis that element of strategic and loneliness.
They paid a very heavy price for that in the Holocaust,
and it meant we are on our own and we
had better take care of this potential, not just existing
but potential threats and possible threats in the future as

(43:32):
much as we can now. And if you're going to
be criticized like this anywhere, we might as well make
sure that the criticism is worth it in terms of
the security achievements we can implement today. So I think
are the demonstrations and the widespread nature of the demonstrations
has been counterproductive in freeing Israel of trying to worry

(43:54):
about Western public opinion. It made them more determined to
do what they want to do on their own, regardless
of the cost in pr if you like in the West.
So that if we don't understand that, I don't think
we understand that dynamics of the Israeli decision making, and
therefore you're not going to be able to.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Moderate that if you want to work all right, So
just just side stepping here, momentarily explain to me, and
I have a feeling it won't take it long. But
explain to me how the imbecile who won the recent
Australian election, why did even look hasn't even looked apparently
at the at the at the videos, the pictures that

(44:37):
were taken of that day on October seven, might even
might even go near them.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
They haven't done that, neither he nor the Foreign minister.
They haven't. They haven't been to this southern Israel that
was unforgivable. I think they should have gone. I think
you know there are ways of dealing with allies. The
look that I mean not to use the words you

(45:07):
used with regard to Albin easy, but I don't have
a very high opinion of him. I think he is amiable,
but he's totally out of his depth with the foreign
minister of any wrong. I think she's confident, but this
was never her portfolio in opposition, and I think on
this she has been learning on the job and is
still out of her debt as well. I think, yes,

(45:28):
they should have gone there, should have watched the video.
I think they they have fallen into the track of
some sort of a moral equivalence between victim and perpetrator,
which is about to what happened in October twenty three
and not seeing the video. But you know, Greater Thurnberg
and company they refuse to see that video as well,

(45:50):
if you remember.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
Yeah, but sheated a category of her own and not
a decision maker.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
Yeah. So I think all that is true, But unfortunately
I don't see any alternative person, even in the opposition benches,
whom I would have great faith in on this. Well,
but that, you know, the mismanaged, not Israel, and now
he's missed the mismanaged their alliance with the United States

(46:15):
as well. Well.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
That that leads to yet another question. That's a step
further away than where we want to be. But nevertheless,
you mentioned voters, and it's voters who put people like
Albanesi into office the only way you can get there.
So what does it say about the about the intelligence
or the education or the media influence that the population

(46:42):
of Australia and New Zealand and other countries have that
they just don't grasp the reality of the situation.

Speaker 3 (46:53):
I'll disagree with you on that. The reality is the
Labor Party this year got what just around one third
of the VOTs. So Albanesi is Prime Minister and Labor
is in government not because of the people's vote, but
because of the peculiar and uniquely self destructive system of

(47:16):
preferential voting we have here. I can vote for person one,
and person who's number fourteen one of my list can
end up being my representative. Well because of the preference vestiers. Look,
the system is much more to blame for that and
what you see. And this is a general problem. I
think we have talked about this across the West, that
there is a disenchantment and disillusionment from the existing political

(47:39):
systems and the so called uniparties or the so called blob.
No matter who you vote for, you get the same
policies regardless of what their promise in the campaign. So
two thirds of Australians did not vote for it, voted
for parties other than Labor and other than Albanesi as
my minister, and what I've actually referred to this in

(47:59):
writing this. Australia is the second example in recent times,
following the UK of loveless landslides. But they make the
mistake of misinterpreting two thirds of the people putting against
them as a powerful mandate because of the number of
seats they have in parliament. Albanesi has more seats in
Parliament for Labor and more parliamentary control despite having significantly

(48:24):
lower vot share than Kevin Rudd had for example. So
I think we need to be careful that. You know,
it's the system where let me put it away, voters
propose the preference system disposes.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Well, I grew up with the preference system, not in
thew in Australia, you know. Okay, Well, I don't forget
that I am Australian. Yeah, Okay.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
Conversely, don't forget I am in New Zealand and I
was in New Zealand and we went from first past
the post to m and P which has many attractions.
But if you go to this last election, but the
one before when Justin the Atan became PM under the
old first part of the post, John Cuda on a landslide. Well,
I think we keep seeing all of us democratic countries,

(49:14):
but if you do that exercise of putting different systems
in each of the major Western democracies, you'd get a
completely different government formation. Well, it can't be the case
that it is people's choices being reflected in government. It's
the system. Ramesh.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
When when I came to New Zealand, which is a
long time ago, and we were up for the for
the for the vote and m MP became became it,
I argued as hard as I could and gave as
much as I was able to to not having m

(49:51):
MP and for going for the for the preferential approach yep.
And I because I thought it was the best, and
I still think it was the best at the time.
But in all countries there's been we've seen the births
of all these clip on parties that achieve what you
what you've just described. So then taking all that into account,

(50:15):
my question for you is, in your opinion, what is
the best system we could have.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
That's a very good question, But in a sense I don't.
I haven't looked into that in any detail, because before
I would invest time in that, I need to see
how much is possible in Australia, how much is constitution
and how much can be changed. But certainly and there

(50:42):
let me put it this way. I was a photograph
then I had two senior colleagues, one of whom was
a member of the commission that recommended MMP, the later
Richard Mulgan. Another, Anthony Wood, was a resident expert in
New Zealian politics, and they disagreed fundamentally on this. Anthony
was very much in favor of retaining the first but

(51:05):
the post not the least, because he said it's the
most effective system for being able to throw the buses out.
If you don't like that, you've seen that validated in
many countries by now. But I know that I don't
like the Australian system. I don't think it's one the other.
I think in the zeally at the time my sense

(51:27):
was I would have struck a compromise between the two.
I would have had fifty percent of the seats elected
on first past the post and the remaining fifty percent
on some sort of proportional so that you can't try
to combine the two to get the benefit support.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
If you've got proportional, you've got basically what you've got now.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
Lists, Yes, but only half the seats.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
But for only half the seats, you're you're paying people
who are not elected. So you still haven't got you
still haven't gotten an appropriate.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
No, but essentially most people, now, I mean you've got
overwhelming evidence for that, most people for the party rather
than than individual members. Yes, So so the party is
to recognize that.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
How about how about this, how about we elect we
we elect our own members, our own politicians for the
seat that we live in. We elect them individually, like
the Americans.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
Yeah. Well, there are also the multi member constituencies where
you can have that also, so that there are different
ways of looking at it.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
But sorry, so just just to say that the party
doesn't come first, the local electric comes first, and then
and therefore yes, but.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
That if you have only that, then it becomes unworkable
and the whole system fall example, because you have no party,
you don't contvote for a platform, you don't know who's
going to be the leader. Then et cetera. So it did.
If you actually work it through, it becomes unworked will
very quickly. An alternative to that is to have some

(53:11):
sort of a recall system or too far out of line,
you know, you have five percent of the voters in
any constituency demanded recall or re election. That will keep
them in line much better too. Well, what about the
Swiss system. I like the Swiss system, but I'm not
sure that you can replicate that with I guess because

(53:34):
in Australia and New Zealand, but I also look at
the bigger countries. So yeah, But the basic point is
there's two things we need to address. One is other
existing systems in the different countries delivering the best outcomes,
and there's no reason to believe that something that worked
sixty years ago is still good for contemporary conditions. The

(53:57):
second one is how do you ensure integrity of promises
made in campaigns with policies enacted as government. And that's
where a lot of the problem comes in as well.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
Let me climb back on track, yeah, and put some
questions to you. There's a lot said about the population
of Iran rebelling and throwing out somehow getting getting themselves
rid of the current regime. Yep, what chance of that?

Speaker 3 (54:28):
Do you think? This is where we need to be
very careful of what we wish for and go back
to my unintended perverse consequences. You know, in general around
the world, but particularly in the Middle East, history doesn't
move forwards in a linear fashion. It typically skips sideways
and no one knows where exactly it's going to land.

(54:52):
And that is a risk. If we get a change
of regime, the chances are bigger rather than smaller, that
we'll get a more hawkish regime. We are familiar with
the distaste in the US, well, unhappiness in the US
and distaste in Israel with the twenty fifteen utility. But

(55:14):
that was a controversial decision in Iran as well. The
strongly nationalists within Iran. We're not happy with that that.
They said, you know, we don't trust Americans. This is
sipping from the poison chalice yet again, and they felt
vindicated when Trump pulled out in twenty eighteen. So I

(55:38):
think the chances are that if the regime was displaced,
the regime of the Atholas was displaced, it would be
some version of the IRGC. The revolutionary regards who take
over power, and the reports indicate that some powers were
transferred to them by Athola, how many fearing assassination, the

(55:58):
chances of a genuinely democratic outcome would be smaller rather
than greater, from Afghanistan, through Iran, through Libya's Syria even
already today. Interventions and even out of a Spring revolutions

(56:18):
created euphoria in the short term, but have left the
legacy of dysfunctionality, societal breakdown, economic breakdown, po little breakdown, chaos,
and anarchy. And you're really going to have to be
an very strong optimist to believe that we'd get a

(56:41):
different outcome in Iran, and the consequences given this population
would be even worse in terms of the refugee max
mass refugee outflows and the internal civil wars. So i'm
very You know, we didn't like Saddam Hussin, but he
kept the lid on. We didn't like Asad, but he
kept the lid on. We didn't like Adafi, but again

(57:05):
he kept the lid on. It's hard to argue that
has followed in each of these has been better than
the things the regimes are replaced. So I'm a bit
variable going down the path. Yet again we've been down that,
we've seen that movie. It's never got well before. So

(57:25):
if now I think we should also to be fair,
remember that the West has a very bad history in
interfering in Iran, going back to the overthrow of their
democratic government and installing the Shah in power. I think
there were many people outside of the West who who

(57:46):
for decades argue that preservation or democracy in the West
seems to require oppression of people's aspirations in the rest,
and there is an element of truth to that as
well as having said that, I mean I've been to Iran.
There's no question but that there's very little love for

(58:08):
the regime, for the regime of the Atolas amongst the population,
and they very much wanted to have the same sources
of not just lifestyles but core freedoms that we take
for granted in the West, and not to tay for
granted but deride and and and mock in the West. Now,

(58:29):
so that part is there. You know, we've never been
fully happy with the extent of democracy in Singapore, but
if you think about it, for Singapore, it has produced
a lot of good results with a few of the
disfunctionalities of full fledged liberal democracies in the West or

(58:52):
non democracies elsewhere. Did you spend time in Singapore, Well,
I've I've been visiting on an offense state for a
short period. Sim it's Jim Allen I'm thinking of. Actually
he taught it for a bit. He was in Hong Kong.
Not not not to Singapore. He was in Hong Kong.
I know he's in Hong Kong, all right. Well, somebody

(59:13):
was in Singapore. He spent some years in Hong Kong
before he came was in New Zealand. All right.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
I'll double check it from from myself, but I accept
for the present I could be wrong.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
But my memory is that I don't think he spent
time on Singapore in Hong Kong.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
Isn't it interesting actually that the number of people who
went through, if I may put it that way, who
taught at a targo and have dispersed into other parts
of the world simply because New Zealand couldn't hold them.
Your one, Jim Allen's another. There's somebody else I'm trying

(01:00:00):
to think of who was at the University of Tasmania.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Yes, of course, a fine fellow yep.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
That anyway, My point was that we can't hold on
to people because for whatever reason New Zealand doesn't have
enough to enough to offer to retain. So the situation
with Russia and China, their parts in such as they

(01:00:33):
are or were in the Middle East we're currently talking
about and beyond, and also your opinion on how on
earth this current European war is going to sort itself out.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
I think one of the consequences of the last couple
of weeks we to go to Iran is the break
in the Sobal Crink alliance or group China, Russia, Iran,
North Korea. It's going to make the others China and
North Korea, Russia more determined to modernize their nuclear arsenal.

(01:01:11):
It has shown up the emptiness of aligning with this
group for others in that Russia has been displaced from
a releast China and Russia will limit it to expressing
plastitudes Iran as a source of supply of drones for Russia.

(01:01:32):
We'll see how that plays out. I suspect it will
strengthen the relationship between China and Russia. I'm not sure
it has any lasting significance for shaping Chinese behavior visa
VI Taiwan. People are saying it will show the American credibility,
but I don't think that lessons translate across the regions. Conversely,

(01:01:56):
I think it doesn't necessarily work to advantage to have
America distracted yet again by a major crisis in the
Middle East, as opposed to focusing on the Indo Pacific.
Russia has clearly kept at its war in Ukraine. President
Zelenski has kept making odd statements, you know, don't forget us,
don't forget us, we need help still, et cetera. But

(01:02:20):
I think the American the trumpetministration is less receptive to
his pleas than has been the case for the past things.
The other important factor is it shows the strategic irrelevance
of the Europeans as well when it comes to major decisions.
I'm not sure how many of them are even consulted
some or maybe given information in advance, but they've essentially

(01:02:44):
been shown to be hangers on rather than shared decision
making at the table. So we'll see as we speak
how this plays out with the Native summit in the Netherlands.
Now I don't know they're meeting at the Hague or
in Amsterdam, whichever it is, it's I think it confirms

(01:03:05):
that there's the United States and then there's the rest.
It's not going to diminish Trump's transactional approach to diplomacy.
He's most susceptible to flattery, but I think that's not
a lasting benefit. He's prepared to change his mind. He
has shown the ability to keep a secret, and after

(01:03:26):
all the telegram gate and stuff like that, that was
a question mark. But in this they managed to retain
the details secret until the operation was actually implemented. So
that's something for the good as well. It's an opportunity
if you think of the tremendous upheavals, it is an

(01:03:48):
opportunity for significant long term geopolitical game changing decisions for
the Middle least for Europe, less so I think for
the Indo Pacific, and that's probably a good place on
which to land with is that it has broken the
existing mold. What will be the new contrast of the

(01:04:09):
Middle East and Europe and the North Atlantic. Let's fait
and see. I think we are in a better position
now than we were at the start of the year.
I think the Trump administration deserves considerable credit for that
for all the criticisms directed at them. I'm not sure
that it has any major implications long term for what
happens in Russia and China, but if it does, it's

(01:04:32):
going to make them more careful with regard to challenging
or provoking Trump. I think they will be not necessarily
on the best behavior, but on less verse of a
behavior than they have been or were under the Biden administration.
Very interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
So then I think my final question to you is
how do you see the Middle East coming out of
this as we have discussed it and as we know
it's happening. In other words, how will Iran sort this out?

Speaker 3 (01:05:05):
I think they will pause, recover, recuperate. I think there
will be more determined efforts to invest in nuclear weapon capability.
I should have added, by the way, that personally, I
do believe that the Aya tolders and the Islamic clerics

(01:05:28):
actually were a defense against overt weaponization. I have no
reason to doubt that their statements that possessing little and
using nuclear weapons is contrary to core Islamic doctrine, paralleling
the arguments that the Catholic bishops have been in the past,

(01:05:49):
for example, about nuclear weapons and that they were under pressure.
When I was in Iran, I went to Isfahan and
I was taken to the points where they were subjected
to a chemical weapons attacks by So I'm saying, if
you remember, and the point made to me was beyonder
great pressure as victims of weapons of mass destruction, which

(01:06:13):
the West tried to minimize or deny initially, beyond under
great pressure to go down the nuclear path. But if
we don't want to do that, but as a compromise,
we sort of investing in the capability if we ever
do decide to go down that part. That was the message,
not as explicitly as that, but that was the message

(01:06:35):
I got from that. So I think there is reason
to believe that as well. I think they're going to
have to work out a more intet I think to
the Iranians, the Palestinians, Serians obviously a different category. In Lebanon,
our message has to be you're defeated for the foreseable future.
You're not going to be able to challenge Isuel militarily,

(01:06:57):
accept that reality and move on. I think to Israel
the message has to be you can't have a permanent
future based on military superiority. The demographics work against you.
It goes against everything we know about history to believe
that one country can keep nuclear weapons forever and no
other country in the region can get it again or

(01:07:18):
can't get it. Ever, that's not going to happen. There's
been no web, no category of arms in history that
has remained restricted to a few if it's proven to
be effective, either in deterrent or in its operational functions,
So that also the periferation thing is going to be

(01:07:39):
have to looked at. I think one of the biggest
casualties of this is in fact, the lantice work of
international institutions and the norms and rules of laws centered
around them. So I don't think the UN comes out
of this looking very in very good health. That's going
to have to be looked at as well. So, yes,

(01:07:59):
the old system is gone, possibly forever. What's going to
be the new one? At this stage we don't know.
Do we have faith in our leaders to reshape a
new order? I wish I could answer yes on that,
but I don't see the equivalent of the leaders at

(01:08:20):
the end of the Second World War who put in
place a system that did deliver for everyone. And I
mean everyone, and produced a lot of good outcomes across
the board economically, socially, health wise, politically for most of
the world. I don't see that category of leadership anywhere

(01:08:40):
in the world. At the moment, I thought you might
have been toward Trump a little. I do that he's
better than the alternatives, and I think it's a volatility
and unpredictability that varies me. But he seems to be
behaving much better, behaving in the sense of foreign policy

(01:09:01):
decisions as well, much better in the second term, perhaps
having learned from being so bar and being moderated by
its first the experience of the first administration. Right, I
think we have to acknowledge the great geopolitical weight, the

(01:09:24):
gravitational pull, the normative weight to the United States and
pin a hope in its ability to lead the rest
of the world towards a less dangerous and less unstable
and less unpredictable future. And there are you know, they're
all saying every challenge, in every every challengeing crisis is

(01:09:46):
also an opportunity. So maybe he will lead the way
to reconfiguring.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
That that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:54):
Well, that's all we can hope for.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
At the moment, I was going to do this much
earlier in the in the discussion. So I will ask
you finally this it's not a question, it's a it's
a request you're I mean, for instance, you write a
book in published a book in twenty fifteen nuclear weapons
and International Security, just for the sake of people's information.

(01:10:22):
Your association with matters nuclear was quite broad for some time.
You have the authority to comment as you have and
the way that you have. So where did you get that?
Where did you cover off and get that knowledge?

Speaker 3 (01:10:42):
Well, it's a lifetime of professional work on it. I
mean from what I said earlier, it's very clear that
I don't have very anybodries about nuclear power for energy,
provide it. All modern safeguards in design and operation are
meant I met, and I think the apport that's on that.

(01:11:07):
In terms of nuclear arms, I still think they're essentially unusable.
That one of the big reasons they haven't been used
since nineteen forty five is that in fact they are
not usable, and there's all sorts of arguments about that
their only purpose can be deterrence. Even then, there are
major question marks about them. But having said all that,

(01:11:31):
it's a foods gold of an ambition to believe that
you can disarm those who already have the weapons one
by one. I think it has to be a global
effort and a global treaty with a robust inspection and
verification system in which all parties have confidence.

Speaker 4 (01:11:50):
If we had that, the biggest losers actually would be
actors like Russia and China, because, as has been demonstrated,
the United States and the West generally still have unique
technological superiority and capabilities that gives them overwhelming conventional superiority,

(01:12:14):
and they otherwise actors that are less likely to be
interested in wars of aggression than the other side, if
you like. And I also think it's true, but for
his reasons, but I won't go into detail with India
vias of Pakistan. So I think the risks of nuclear
weapons used by bad actors or by accident or by

(01:12:36):
misinformation and missignaling the risks out for any potential benefit.

Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
And I like to see that addressed. But it's not
going to happen suddenly. It's not going to be happened
by ignoring the security concerns that people countries have, and
so it has to be addressed. I think the problem
has been having signed the MPT. The five countries that
were accepted as nuclear weapons then took that as a

(01:13:03):
permanent dispensation to retain nuclear weapons and stop anyone else
from getting it. Well, that didn't work. We may not
have the twenty countries you think the weapons that people
are President Kennedy feared in the sixties, but we do
have more than five. We have nine at the moment.

(01:13:23):
You'd have to be someone completely ahistorical to believe that
it can be restricted to nine if you don't actually
address getting rid of it. One final point on that.
Up until twenty seventeen, I didn't accept it, but I
could see that there's a basis for arguing that the
five countries that had them under the NPT, that's the
United States, United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia, that their

(01:13:48):
possession was at least legal, even if you're not legitimate
in terms of the NPT, because there was no deadline
set under the NPT for them to dismantle. But after
six of the NPT does require them to dismantle disarm,
And to argue that the treaty that came into if
what was it nineteen seventy I think in negotiated and

(01:14:12):
signed in sixty eight in operation since nineteen seventy, so
fifty five years later, that they haven't violated ALTOST six.
It's a very difficult argument to make. But regardless of that,
in twenty seventeen we have TPNW, the Treaty for the
Prohibsion of Nuclear Weapons, which does make it very clear
that as far as the rest of the world is concerned,
in other words, as far as the international community concerned,

(01:14:35):
possession of nuclear weapons by any state is contrary to
existing international law and certainly international maniteer in law, and
we want it dismantled. It doesn't mean you can get
it immediately. It's an aspirational treaty because no country that
has them, and no country that shelters under them, including Australia,
as signed it. But I think you know, and much
like what I was saying about Israel, if you want

(01:14:57):
to have a vision for a path forward, it has
to be a world free of nuclear weapons and the
threat of use of nuclear weapons because and I prefer
to make the argument starting from the point that they
haven't been use because they're not usable and the impact
is negative rather than positive. And if you start from that,

(01:15:18):
you then say, well, how can we make it into
a credible system that reassures everyone, and then we can
more correctly dismantling it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
I could keep talking or listening, because you're doing most
of the talking, for at least another hour, but we
shan't keep it another day. Keep it for another day. Well,
as I was going to say, until we talk again.
But I want to thank you because it's been most informative.
I've learned plenty, and I think that most people who

(01:15:50):
have been listening would have learned plenty. And there have
been so many side roads that I could have taken
that I didn't because I didn't want to keep going
off in all sorts of different directions. It would have
been like a stew But nevertheless, like you say, save
it for another day. So Ramish, you're a good man

(01:16:11):
and I appreciate it. Thank You's been a pleasure.

Speaker 5 (01:16:14):
Thanks Daisy, missus producer.

Speaker 2 (01:16:29):
We're into the mail room for podcast two hundred and ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:16:33):
Amazing Latent two hundred and ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:16:36):
I've got to go back and count up the number
of times we've said that or some.

Speaker 6 (01:16:39):
It is pretty amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:16:41):
It is amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
Now let's see what we have may I lead from Olivia.
This is something that Olivia Pearson, who I had on
the podcast a number of times in the earlier days,
has set out to people who she likes, and I
appear to be one of them. Since twenty sixteen, President
Trump has conducted somewhere in the vicinity of nine hundred

(01:17:06):
political rallies, an astronomical number befitting the man's colossal energy
and courage. At nearly all of them, he has consistently
maintained that he will never let the Islamic Republic of
Iran acquire nuclear weapons. This is simply because he knows
that the regime will use them on Israel and the

(01:17:27):
United States. At these same rallies, Trump has also consistently
stated that he will not involve the US in New
Forever Wars, the force of his focus being America first.
And then she has Then she's sent an address which
is Olivia Pearson p I E. R. S O N

(01:17:48):
dot org slash blog slash Trump acted to fulfill a
long term promise, and I think it's probably worth worth
listening to later.

Speaker 6 (01:18:01):
This is from Bronwyn and her subject is Owen Jennings's letter.
She says, great letter by Owen Jennings sadly becoming increasingly
obvious that Luxon does not work for the New Zealand
people but for some global interest and they will have
some reason for the hasty Gomod regulation which will benefit them,
not us. I'm sure he was installed on purpose, as

(01:18:24):
the media started talking him up as the next National
Party leader as soon as he left her in New Zealand.
As for you asking him whether he wants to be
remembered as badly as Jabsinder and be forced to live overseas,
I doubt he cares. She had her Harvard position lined up,
and I'm sure lux Flakes has a globalist position lined

(01:18:46):
up too, now that he has Prime Minister of New
Zealand on his CV. And that's from bromwan.

Speaker 2 (01:18:52):
Ron, Well, that's some very savage actually, I'm not going
to argue with you. You're entitled to your opinion. I
might share quite a large portion of it. So from
Brett London came up recently. It is subsiding while the
other ind of the island is rising, as also are
regions further north. This situation is the result of settling,

(01:19:16):
for example, continuing to settle since the previous glacier period
melt in Braggetts, No humans needed the weight of the ice,
as many will know, deforms the Earth's crust. Claims of
sea level rise in these and other places, as pointed
out in your article, is very ill advised and misleading

(01:19:37):
to the public perception, while all the while we are
all getting blamed for what are natural processes. Nature will
have the last word whether humans are here or not.
We just aren't that important in the greater scheme of things,
as you know reclimate matters. I can't blame people for

(01:19:57):
absorbing the constant messaging hammering us every day. There is
just so much of it and is pervasive. The credibility
behind the messaging is very shaky given how many it
can be proven to be wrong and over such a
length of time. Our New Zealand government is one of
the worst for what it is doing to the place
in the name of a false god. I have a

(01:20:21):
great week from bread. This government's really no different to
the previous government, is it?

Speaker 3 (01:20:27):
On?

Speaker 2 (01:20:28):
This maybe a slight improvement, but still lacking integrity.

Speaker 6 (01:20:34):
Laden George says. Solar panels and windmills produce direct current.
The grid operates on alternating current. With the fifty cycles
per second frequency. To connect the DC to the grid
requires it to be converted to AC. This requires very
expensive inverters. Once converted, the AC produced must be synchronized

(01:20:58):
with the fifty hertz To do this synchronization, and it
requires an existing AC grid. This lack of synchronization is
what caused the problems of Portugal these so called renewables.
These so called renewables are heavily subsidized. I would suggest
you contact an electrical engineer who can explain this better

(01:21:20):
than a retired electrician. And that's from George.

Speaker 3 (01:21:23):
George.

Speaker 6 (01:21:23):
And if you understand that you're a better man than I, yes,
well I'm a better man than you anyway, Jung.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
At any level, I have my advisor and that's mister Leyland. Um,
so if I'm going to ask anybody, that'll be him.
Dear Layton and Carolyn. When George Friedman said that the
potus doesn't create a crisis, but instead they respond to
the reality that they're trapped in, he really got me

(01:21:53):
pondering do we write history or does history write us?
Given the impossible odds of Donald Trump surviving a fully
weaponized lawfare, a hostile mainstream media two assassination attempts, and
still manage to return for a second presidential term. I'm
beginning to believe that indeed history writes us. People who

(01:22:15):
unjustifiably hate Trump call him a fool. But what they
don't realize is that ultimately God will have the last laugh,
because in a world that has turned completely upside down,
he often chooses the foolish in order to shame the wise.
You don't have to love Trump to accept the fact
that he has done a lot of good in the

(01:22:36):
world in just a short time since becoming Potus two.
And here is a recent development that should get those
self righteously wise people's nickers. In a twist, the government
of Pakistan has formally recommended Donald Trump for the twenty
six Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his decisive diplomatic
interventions during the recent India Pakistan crisis. As George Friedman mentioned,

(01:23:02):
Trump is literally redefining cultural norms, taxes, foreign policy, policy, allies,
and so on. Trump is a purported fool who is
unpredictably effective. If being a fool would make the world
a better place than long live the fools of this world.

(01:23:22):
To quote the indomitable Thomas soul. Thomas sol once said
that a fool can put on his coat better than
a wise man can put it on for him. The
implications of that undermine most of the agenda of the
political left. Thank you, Jim as always very good. As
to the answer of your question, there's no answer this

(01:23:44):
question at the bottom. It doesn't matter. Wants to know
if you managed to take me to the beach last week.

Speaker 3 (01:23:51):
That's funny.

Speaker 6 (01:23:52):
I believe we did.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):
Yeah, I compounded. I do have another letter regarding George Treatment.
Where do I put it, missus producer. It's over here somewhere.

Speaker 6 (01:24:04):
I don't know you've read them all anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:24:07):
Well, anyway, it's from It's from Allison Allison. I'm going
to give it proper consideration and maybe next week pretty
hard hitter.

Speaker 3 (01:24:20):
Thank you. We'll see you.

Speaker 6 (01:24:21):
Next week late and you will thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:24:23):
It's welcome.

Speaker 2 (01:24:40):
Finally, in podcast two ninety, there is a subject that
is getting a lot of attention in well places where
it's happening. Where what's happening what I'm about to talk
about very briefly in Europe, in England in particular, and
the subject is multiculturalism. The cult of multiculturalism is regarded

(01:25:02):
by its debtees as the pinnacle of Western achievement and
the end of European history. After the thesis an antithesis
of domination and enslavement, the warring clans and machine gunning
of millions, the populations of Europe will transcend their inglorious
arrogance and be at one with the enlightened nations.

Speaker 3 (01:25:24):
Of the world.

Speaker 2 (01:25:25):
The despotic superstructures of Europe or shelby subsumed by the
unblemished global majority, the black, brown, and indigenous populations of
the world, and there shall be no oppression, no hatred,
and no poverty. In short, we multiculturalism, and then we die.

(01:25:46):
But devotion to diversity in multiculturalism is a luxury belief
championed by those who are able to isolate themselves from
the consequences of their own liberal attitudes. It is a
theology of sorts, whether it's saints and devils. Despite the
bloodshead and the bankruptcy the torture of the tears, the
disciples continue to believe that diversity is strength. Their faith

(01:26:10):
endures and has only grown deeper in the face of
adversity because of this core conviction it is better to
be dead than racist, as the most recent example, and
really what triggered this commentary. I want to quote you
something that was published on the twenty first of June.
Broadcaster Selina Scott was viciously attacked and robbed by a

(01:26:35):
gang in broad daylight last week. She revealed the EXITV
News at ten Anchor seventy four. Bravely fought back, but
said the ordeal left her chatter and traumatized. She said
she was leaving a Waterstones in Piccadilly, Central London. I
know that shop, I go there when she was struck
on the back of her right knee and thought that

(01:26:57):
she'd been stabbed. A gang of around seven or eight
men and women in expensive sportswear and seemingly of East
Asian origin who were in front of her, then turned
in head derrin. They tried to grab her designer backpack,
which she tightly held onto. Another group then barged into her,
and she realized she was being attacked from both sides

(01:27:17):
at the same time. Selina managed to keep hold of
the bag when she fought back, and the gang walked
off laughing. She later realized they'd managed to unzip the
bag and take a purse which had her driving license,
cards and cash. Miss Scott, a TV icon since the
nineteen eighties who famously at a viewed Donald Trump, slammed

(01:27:40):
the lack of police presence to deter or catch the
criminal thugs. She said she walked up and down some
of London's busiest central areas and did not see a
single officer. The journalist wrote in The Mail on Sunday
that the events were so swift and practiced that it
was clear it was a coordinated assault. She added, I
was right by a busy bus stop, although no one

(01:28:03):
would have known what was going on. It was slick,
brief and clearly engineered to have in the middle of
the crowd. I still feel shattered after what had happened.
I can't believe it happened to me. I am mentally
resilient and physically fit, but if they attacked me in
such a brazen way, they can attack anyone. You're left
feeling not just traumatized, but stupid that you have somehow

(01:28:25):
let it happen. I'm also furious about the lack of
police on our streets. No wonder the gang who set
about me have a sense of impunity. They can do
anything they want because they know that no one will
stop them. So we know that this has been going
on all over England. Actually plenty of it in London,
plenty of it up north. There are many articles that

(01:28:49):
I could quote from. It's just that that one. I
read it and I thought I would to respond to it.
And the article before that, by the way, was written
by Charles Bentley Aster and what I read was only
the first two paragraphs of about five pages. But I
suppose you could say that what the real trigger was.
The real trigger was a book that I have mentioned

(01:29:09):
more than once over the years, published in twenty eleven,
Delectable Lie. A liberal repudiation of Multiculturalism. Now, before you
get exercised about some sort of reference to multiculturalism and
here we go again or whatever, let me point out

(01:29:30):
something to you. It's written by a Muslim in Canada,
a Muslim in Canada. I quote you from the back
of the book. My point is that although multiculturalism once
seemed a very good idea, at least to politicians and
others smitten with the ambition for unity, it is increasingly
shown to be a lie, a delectable lie perhaps. Yet

(01:29:51):
a lie. Nevertheless, that is destructive of the West's liberal,
democratic heritage, tradition and values based on individual rights and freedoms.
This could have been foretold as Indeed, those philosophers and
historians of ideas who viewed freedom as in measures more
important than equality in the development of the West did foretell.

(01:30:14):
They admonished people against the temptation to abridge freedom in
pursuit of equality. Do we do that in this country?
Do you think now? The author Salem Mansur is alm
m An su R is a professor of political science
at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. He

(01:30:36):
is the author of a number of other books, Islam's Predicament,
Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim, and co editor of Indira
Rajiv Years the Indian Economy and Polity nineteen sixty six
to nineteen ninety one. It's also nationally syndicated columnists for
the Sun chain of newspapers in Canada and the recipient

(01:30:59):
of the Stephen S. Wise Humanitarian Award, Profiles Encourage in
two thousand six. You know, it's not a matter of race,
It's a matter of and I've decided this a long
time ago. It's a matter of culture. Basically, people can
change their cultures, but they can't change their race, and

(01:31:21):
the two should be considered separately. Speaking of race not
being being able to be changed. A very fine example
of that, while belief and culture can is ion hersey
Eli and I've been reading quite a bit of her commentaries, Blake.
They are worthy of your time. More power to her.

(01:31:41):
And I know you'll say that we should get her
on the podcast, and I don't disagree. So that will
take us out for podcasts number two hundred and ninety.
We love you, mail, please keep it rolling. Latent at
NEWSTALKZNB dot co dot z, Caravin at newstalksb dot co
dot zid nice things to me, complaints to her. We

(01:32:03):
shall return for podcasts two hundred and ninety one very soon.
In the meantime, as always, thank you for listening and
we shall talk soon.

Speaker 1 (01:32:18):
Thank you for more from news Talks at b Listen
live on air or online, and keep our shows with
you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio.

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Leighton Smith Podcast #290 - June 25th 2025 - Ramesh Thakur

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Leighton Smith Podcast #290 - June 25th 2025 - Ramesh Thakur