Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm Afshan Ratansi and this is New Order. We're broadcasting globally including to nearly 1 1/2 billion on RT India. On this program we examine how the Global south are navigating an increasingly fragmented global landscape shaped by escalating tensions in West Asia, ongoing disruption to trade corridors, volatile energy markets and the wider realignment of geopolitical power.
The Trump Netanyahu war in West Asia has killed, wounded or displaced millions of civilians, harming and restructuring the global economy in real time. Major Global south economies are already absorbing the impact. China, the largest buyer of Iranian oil, has warned against US escalation, while Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov has proved Moscow can help China make up for the energy shortfall crisis. Amidst this, Indian Prime Minister Modi and US President Trump held a 40 minute call, their second since the war Iran and Lebanon began. The conversation reflects the increasingly complex diplomatic balancing act India is managing. Next month, India is set to host a foreign minister level BRICS meeting in New Delhi where both Russia's Lavrov and China's Wang Yi are expected to attend. The gathering will be the first major multilateral test of India's 2026 BRICS presidency since the West Asian war began. April 19 also marks 14 years since India first successfully tested the Agni 5, a nuclear ballistic missile with a range exceed.
The broader context is clear. In a world of renewed great power tension, deterrence and alignment and strategic autonomy, they're all no longer theoretical, they're active choices. Later in the show, New Order's Zahra Khan will bring me your questions and we'll answer as many as we can. But first, joining me from Virginia in the USA is the US State Department's former Chief of Staff, Colonel Larry Wilkerson. Colonel, thanks so much for coming on New Order.
Let's begin with a BRICS dimension to the conflict, as it were. And opposed the idea that Trump is not an idiot. All these people have got it wrong. I personally have interviewed for various shows former EU policy advisors, the former President of Israel, advisors to the UN Secretary General.
They're all saying, you know, Trump is a crazy person and so on, but in fact, he may be a tactical mastermind because the bombing of the China Iran railway may signal a strategy behind what looks like madness to the rest of the world.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: First, let me say categorically that I don't think Trump even hints at this and I don't think he knows about it. I think it's being orchestrated by people behind the scene and I would put my finger without much Evidence, but an inclination and intuition directly on the deputy at the Pentagon right now. But other people in the Pentagon who understand what I'm talking about and who have been planning for this for some time in various and sundry ways. They have been planning for exploiting things like Ukraine, things like the crisis that's building in the Arctic right now and maybe one in the Baltic as well, in order to confront China. And this one gave them on a golden platter an opportunity to go after that baseload southern Bose railroad.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: Does it surprise you? China's apparent inertia with respect to, let alone what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz with respect to the plan to disrupt the Belt and Road initiatives, archery of the China Iran railway. There's no tactical reason or strategic reason for bombing it, I understand.
For as far as you understand it.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: Well, not really, because China is very circumspect and they're winning and they don't want to interrupt that victory and a war would interrupt it or hard action would interrupt it. And they know. They've studied history. You go back and look at World War II, when we drop more ordinance on German and other rail that was serving the Wehrmacht and the Germans in general, then you can shake a stick at they rebuilt it the next day.
So it's not. It's a financial hit, if you will, because you got to pay for the ties and the rails and everything else. But with China, financial is not that serious. So they're not going to take umbrage at this. They will just mark it down in their book of US Eras. And when it gets too high for them to tolerate, then they'll take action. But I doubt even then they'll take military action.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Can we just explain the significance? Sorry, explain the significance to our audience.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Well, what China has done essentially is build railroads that will take about 60 to 70%, probably even more once they get going of all the commerce that it generates and Asia with it off the sea and put it on land. And they did this on purpose. They studied empires of the past.
Several did this. One did it in a really dramatic way and put a couple of other empires that were basically Portuguese, for example, example that were basically maritime empires out of business overnight virtually. Because you drop the cost of commerce so dramatically that people come to your overland routes rather than go by sea. You're also more secure. So they've got four or five railroads right now debouching in the heart of Europe. Two of them are stopped mostly by the Ukraine, special military operation.
But their Intent is to go on to Bremerhaven and Le Havre and other European Atlantic ports and of course to put all the commerce that China produces into the heart of Europe in 16 hours instead of two and a half days and more costs by sea. So kiss the Bab El Mandeb goodbye. You know you won't need to go through the straight of her noose or the you will still coming out for oil and such but maybe not even for that because look what Saudi Arabia is planning right now. They've just shifted all their plans.
The sovereign wealth fund is now going behind a northern pipeline headed for Turkey and Cheon probably but it was going through Israel, was going through Haifa where they would get transshipment fees and they would get product. Not anymore. He shifted it over to going through Syria and on up.
So that's changing too and maybe even the straight up Hormuz, that's the real reason the Saudis are doing this will fall into less use than it is now. Probably a great deal less use given their route to the Red Sea too across near Jeddah. So all of these things are happening right now and look at the pipelines that China is building with Russia. They don't run east, west, they run north and south. So anybody talking about China being hurt and needing petroleum is a fool because all of this is going to come down from Russia in a pinch it's going to come from the Caspian sea. Ultimately there's 100 years of LNG and petroleum underneath the Caspian Sea waiting to be tapped and I get let you know who's going to tap it? Probably ultimately it's not going to be anybody from this end of the world. It's going to be out there. So they are self sufficient for a long time to come. And they're mostly pipelines and railroads much safer and much more controllable.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: And of course Iran isn't going to allow it to happen. I mean in the scenario you just painted there actually all the BRICS countries benefit. I mean Russia benefits.
India wouldn't benefit if the railway bypassed from the Chabahar port Bandarabas way but it would benefit because the region becomes economically more powerful.
But you have been talking to Ted Postol who I know from when he exposed with Cyhersh the fake Syria chemical hoax operation claiming that there were chemical weapons there. Iran can stop the plans of any clever strategist at the Pentagon you suspect anyway, I understand.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: I don't think that's too far a stretch. I think Iran is perched right now exactly where Haaretz said they were that all they have to do to win is not lose. And all the United States and Israel have to do is achieve a spectacular victory, and they aren't going to do that. So Iran's already won. The question is, how much damage is Donald Trump and what's left of the American military going to do in the interim? That's my big question. And how much damage is going to be done to that military, particularly its maritime elements? They have not unleashed anything significant. Significant yet on a US Warship. They could and they might, and that's the end of that warship if they do. And I don't think. Well, we have shown that we realize that with regard to the biggest one, the carrier she is and all others like her are holding off at least 1300 kilometers. And that's not just because of range, because, of course, there are some missiles that can go that far, is because the carrier is so capable of getting up to flight speed so fast that once it has a warning of a missile launch, it can itself defend fairly successfully without subsurface surface or airborne assets.
It'll have them, but they would ultimately fail with a hypersonic missile. But if the carrier moves at the right moment at. At the speed it's capable of achieving, then it's going to be very hard to hit it in that terminal phase.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: Yeah, but I was referring to MIT's Ted Postal, of course, because of the other. The other horror.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: He's done work on that, too. He's done work on that, too. But the thing you're referring to, I think, is Iran's possibility of building a nuclear weapon.
And Ted is very right on that, I think, and I take my experience from Kangsuk Jew and Yigun in North Korea in 2002, October, I believe it was, when we went to present them with an economic package that was robust and that the President and even the Vice President thought would be persuasive in terms of getting them to back off their nuclear program.
And I think it was. Yi Grun looked right at us and said essentially in hunger, which was translated dramatically, we already have nuclear weapons.
So I know how we were fooled by North Korea. I know North Korea in 2002 was working with Iran not just on underground fortifications and how to do them, but also on nuclear weapons, how to match warhead to missile and such.
So Ted, I think is right that if the Iranians want a nuclear weapon, they'll make one.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: And they might be close to being able to make one that can fit on the Karmashar missile.
Do you think previously people said it's good, at least from Trump. He's more open than previous presidents about policy. There's a transparency there about the aims of United States empire, as it were. Do you think he has been open? Does he understand that this is about brics and not about Israel after all, or.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it depends on what you mean by open. I don't think he's open at all. I think he's crucial.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: Destroying a civilization.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I think he's foul mouthed. I don't think he meant that for a minute.
I hope he didn't anyway.
I mean, he's declaring a war crime out of the mouth of the President of the United States for everyone to hear.
I think he's crude, rude, but very savvy, politically speaking domestically.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: Politically, he is more open than this president. You served when you were at the State Department. George W. Bush went through acrobatics along with your boss, Colin Powell.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: Well, he went through acrobatics because he was led through those acrobatics by his intelligence community.
Certain ones of them, not all of them, particularly George Tenet and John McLaughlin.
Trump's not being led around by anybody. Tulsi Gabbard is ruining her future right now, opening a new investigation into the attempt to impeach Donald Trump.
She's beyond me. I can't figure out what she's about anymore, but she's ruined her future completely.
And back to Trump. I think Trump is operating now on a principle of I've got to, despite Bibi Netanyahu's protest to the contrary, find a way to end this and declare victory.
And he's desperate to a certain extent to do that. And Netanyahu is desperate to keep him from doing it. And Netanyahu is operating on a different sheet of music with regard to Lebanon, too. And Trump has got no persuasive power there. And Bibi is about to do himself in in Lebanon, last place I thought he would do himself in. But he's about to do that.
Hezbollah is handing the IDF its worst defeat in a long time, if not ever. Certainly worse than the one they handed him in 2006. And he's reacting by killing more and more innocent Lebanese and tightening the grip that Hezbollah will have eventually on that government because they'll soon get fed up with it, just like they always do, and back away from any negotiations. So these negotiations in Lebanon are arsenal too, as the ones in Pakistan are, but they're all designed to cover Trump's retreat and make it not look like a Retreat.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: Colonel, we'll continue after the break. Keep watching the order.
Welcome back. We have a lot more to cover.
Colonel, we were talking about the West Asian dimension to the current conflict more broadly. I mean, specifically in this part of the world, though, what advice would you give if you were chief of staff to a foreign minister in a global south country as to how to deal with the Trump administration, with Trump, Vance and Rubio?
[00:14:52] Speaker B: Be very simple, really. Stick to your guns, you're winning.
Don't do anything to disturb the victory,
[00:14:58] Speaker A: despite threats that Trump always comes for you and the fact that he did pull through and kidnap Maduro and he has assassinated leaders.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: And that of course is working out really well, isn't it? He claims he owns the oil.
I don't see anybody owning oil really, other than those nasty characters who were raid around Maduro in the first place. They're still there and they're still taking money out of the system.
So I think all the China and India and Russia and all the other countries that are more rapidly moving towards that complex called brics than I would have thought.
And it's principally because of the mistakes we're making, I think, and their fear of those mistakes, as well as their comfort with China and the other members of the organization.
But what's happening in real time is that so much of the commerce of the world is being generated there, so much of the meaningful commerce of the world. When I say that, I mean things like renewables, like EVs, batteries and so forth, all things that are going to be essential if we make or to make it through this period of enormous climate crisis and change, all are being generated there. And they're being generated there for a profit, massive profit in some cases as compared with what we're doing in this country.
So BRICS just has to hold on to what it's got. And watch what Xi Jinping has said in his latest edict, following right on from Deng Xiaoping and all the series of manifestos, if you will, of Chinese communism or Chinese capitalism with communist characteristics, the latest one being I am now going to after triumphing in every field of state power, the one I lack is financial.
And I'm going now to substitute the renminbi for the dollar in world trade. And that's going to make me the number one financial power in the world. And furthermore, it's going to get rid of swift, it's going to get rid of sanctions, it's going to get rid of all the nasty things the empire does to other nations in the world. And that's going to endear, at least momentarily, China to a lot of these other countries because we have so many people, we have almost 2 billion people in the world under sanctions. If we suddenly tomorrow morning decided that we were going to lift sanctions on those 2 billion people, it'd probably take us 10 years to do it because OFAC would have so much trouble sorting through all the different intricacies and such that are involved in sanctions. And Xi Jinping is going to get rid of it. It's going to get rid of the power of the United States to sanction other people. We have killed by one study, and I think it's a good study. We have killed 38 million people in the world, men, women and children, with the women and children being about 50% or better of it through our sanctions.
That's really made the world angry in a significant way. And Xi Jinping is going to do something about it.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a sanctions statistic. I know that's being quoted not on so called mainstream media at all.
But what are the lobbies in Washington that would want Trump to destroy the BRICS dream then? There's nothing as strong as the Israeli lobby because corporate elites presumably would embrace that future you're talking about because given all the resources and the economic dynamism of this region, they're gonna embrace that too. And I mean technically, the waiver on Russian oil expired for India. In the past few days
[00:18:46] Speaker B: I've been watching Israel, Bibi Netanyahu in particular, but Israel in particular with regard to what we just discussed right now, Israel is covering both flanks, as it were.
They're trying to keep warm relations with all those who might be triumphant in a distant future, maybe not so distant future, as well as keep the old guard happy, or at least keep sucking money out of the old guard and keep the Epstein file, enabling them to suck that money out. Because I believe that's the real thing they have over Donald Trump is what is in the Epstein files about him and his wife Melania. That's the real hold that Bibi has on Donald Trump, in my view.
But he's got his eye on both camps. He's looking at Turkey, he's looking at India, he's looking at China. Go back and look at his visitation schedule before he got really admired in this conflict. And I mean the initial October 7 initiated Gaza conflict. He's been making friends all over this world, but particularly in Asia. He's been making contracts in Asia and he sees what might be happening. He's not a stupid person. I'd never say Bibi Netanyahu was a stupid person. Probably one of the most brilliant leaders in the world. Cruel, homicidal, genocidal, Maniacal. Maniacal, maniacal, but extremely smart. And so he's got his eye on both camps. And I think he knows the one is receding and the other is growing. And when the time comes, he'll shift his flag, as will a lot of other people too who are watching this from places like Davos and Geneva and Zurich and other places, even New York and Miami, they are watching it. And when it comes time to jump ship, put their flag somewhere else, they will do so, such as it been for 5,000 freaking years.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Yeah, but we already talked about Saudi Arabian pipelines via Turkey in part one. How on earth is it going to be easy for Israel to be able to navigate this world? I mean, even India is now again talking to its historically close partner of Iran, despite that meeting with Netanyahu. China of course has been condemning Israel and Russia has in recent years distance itself.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: But remember I was talking about pre Gaza. I think the state of Israel is a Jewish state in Levant is done. It's gone. There's no way a Jewish state in Levant can survive now.
Maybe a democracy could survive and it would have Palestinian Arabs, Christians and others in it as well as Jews. And eventually, as Arafat used to opine, from time to time, the Palestinian Arabs are probably going to outnumber the Jews. But that's all right. Even if they're a minority and it's a state that they can have a safe haven in. Remember that was what they were promised, a safe haven. It isn't a safe haven anymore. Anything but the exact opposite. So I think that state's gone. I wasn't saying Netanyahu was smart for the future in terms of what's happening now. I was saying before the October 7th.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: It's a view shared quite widely across the global south, just on the United States. I mean, where does this leave a future US President vis a vis the new order and brics. I mean, assuming what Trump will be arrested on leaving office either way, what will a future president have to do to navigate the new world order?
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Well, he's going to have to.
He's going to have to back up to the time when the Cold War ended and maybe do a little history search and figure out what we should have done at that time is quite clear because we were starting to do it and then along came Bill Clinton and every president after that just murdered it.
We need to look at the world and understand that major power is shifting. And the magnet of that shift is China.
That BRICS is 60 to 70% of the world.
Once it gets its act together and everybody's in there, look what China just did. They offered Manila oil in case they have a problem, and Manila went, wow, okay, let's talk.
That's one of our principal allies in the region being peeled away from us by this very crisis.
So I think what's going to have to happen is we're going to have to accommodate this power shift and then we're going to have to work with Beijing, Moscow, Tokyo, all the other places that have some dog in the fight, and we're going to have to help the global, global south in this regard meet the two challenges we have that are existential for all of us, one of them being nuclear weapons without any treaties, and we're getting ready to spend trillions on new weapons.
China and Russia will follow suit. And the other is the climate crisis. If we don't get together, major powers in the world get together, put aside our differences, put aside our competition to a certain extent, and work on these two problems.
Why even compute? Why even compete?
We won't be here, we'll be gone. Because we'll either blow ourselves up in mushroom clouds all over the place or the climate will kill us.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Colonel Larry Wilkerson, thank you for joining us on New Order.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: Now I'm joined by New Order Zahra Khan to answer some of your questions. Colonel Larry Wilkerson, always important to hear what former chief of staff at the State Department says. Iran not far off from joining India and having nuclear weapons.
[00:24:38] Speaker C: And there were some excellent points that he made. But we have so many questions to get through, none of which you've heard before.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: None of them. Don't give me a mathematical problem.
[00:24:45] Speaker C: That might be one of them. The first one is etsforbutchware, who's asked, how will brics respond to Trump's blockade of Iran? Iranian oil?
[00:24:53] Speaker A: I think they're responding incredibly well to the supposed Trump blockade of the straight reformers. Why is it NATO nation propaganda media, corporate media is lying about Trump's blockade. Ships are getting through on an hourly basis. Shiptracker.com will show you exactly how many ships are getting through. Oil tankers, cargo. There are vessels going through, perhaps ones that are paying the Iranian toll. The media in Western nations lying to their populations that somehow NATO nations have any pull in this region.
[00:25:27] Speaker C: And the next one is Heskinman, who's asked Is America turning into a theocracy and is that form of governance why we're constantly at war?
[00:25:36] Speaker A: It is a religious war, isn't it? All one has to do is listen to Pete Hegseth. While the rest of the global south, the Brics nations, have secular and religious modes of understanding with their populations. Multihead faith, multipolar. The United States singularly evangelical worshiping a strange evangelical Christian viewpoint that is held by a minority of people that worships only one thing, seemingly the destruction of the Arab world and a belief that Israel must expand until all the Jews are eventually killed before select Christians ascend into heaven. That sounds like fundamentalism, a very complex
[00:26:20] Speaker C: thing that is at play right now. AIDream87823 has pointed out that the propaganda machine is clearly shifting gears. And do you think that the power behind the curtain is setting up shop into an anti war crowd early with narratives and people like Jo Kent?
[00:26:34] Speaker A: I love the handles of some of the people asking questions to New Order for a start. But certainly the global population, not just the global south, clearly don't support Trump's the Trump Netanyahu war. And there are billions suffering. Just look at what's happening in India. Look what's happening in Indonesia. All around the Global south, countries with huge populations are suffering. And Joe Kent, the former head of counterterror for the Trump administration, is just one little manifestation of the fact that even in the power bases of the United States, working class people are realizing it's over for US hegemony. And we'll see that at the Indian BRICS Summit this year as India's presidency finally has a chance to shine and show the world a different way forward. The end of NATO empire, the end of Washington hegemony. So it's gonna be an exciting year, despite all the tragedy, all the millions killed, wounded or displaced this year because of what Donald Trump has done.
[00:27:33] Speaker C: Thank you for your answers, Afshin. The questions keep rolling in. We'll continue this next week.
[00:27:37] Speaker A: Thanks, Sara. And that's it from me, Afshin Ratansi on New Order. Remember to follow us on all our social media channels. And here is a question for you. Should Iran pursue the same strategy as North Korea in developing a nuclear deterrent? Let us know your thoughts on X at New Order Underscore tv. Join us every Sunday as we follow the forces reshaping the world in this New Order.
