Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm Ashwin Ratansi and this is my new show, New Order, broadcasting all around the world, including to nearly one and a half billion on RT India. We on New Order will trace how India and its allies sit at the center of a transformation in world history.
More than a million men, women and children have been killed, wounded or displaced because of the Trump Netanyahu war. From Iran to Lebanon to to the south caucuses, it is a war the Global south did not start, has been unable to prevent, but which it is disproportionately paying for through shortages of fertilizer, fuel, food and medicines. The Strait of Hormuz is mined and contested. Iran has targeted Israel's nuclear weapons program. Israel has targeted Iran's nuclear reactor. The IEA says Trump's energy crisis is worse than the two oil shocks of the 1970s combined. After US DNI Morsi Gabbard claimed Pakistan may be the perceived threat after Iran, Pakistan's former High commissioner to India said if the US Touches Pakistan's WMD program, Pakistan would bomb Mumbai and Delhi. India, this year's chair of BRICS says it will not broker peace between the USA and Iran.
the end of the show, New Order, Zahra Khan will be back with us to get questions from you, the viewers, and we'll try and answer as many of your questions as we can at the end of each episode. But first, with me today is a man who gave 155 speeches on the floor of the United States Congress against war with Iran. He served as a congressman for Ohio for 16 years, ran for the Democratic presidential nomination twice, managed RFK Jr. S 2024 presidential campaign, and has spent decades warning that the American empire would eventually consume itself. He calls this war a catastrophe, a circus of miscalculation, and says Iran could be the graveyard of the American empire. Dennis Kucinich, welcome to New Order.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Thank you very much.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: I mean, Dennis, just to kick off, I should say, is the anniversary of the my Lai massacre 55 years ago. Already a primary school in Minab hit after a double tap tomahawk strike on the girls aged 7 to 12. I've got to ask you clearly now, as apparently at the time of this recording, the ground force hasn't invaded yet and they've been examining the impact of oil at $200 a barrel. Why did Trump commit the supreme international crime of aggression?
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Oil's part of it, of course, but it goes beyond that.
This is about a continued reach of ATT to attempting to dominate the Middle east and to dictate Policies not only relating to energy, but relating to currency, to trade, to essentially build out the American empire.
It is folly. It is wrong. It is illegal.
It will be a catastrophe for the world. The American taxpayers, the American people, first of all, many of them already realize that this is a moral collapse that brings this moment about.
And so the Trump administration has proceeded in Iran in a way that is reprehensible.
They've caused Iran to.
They induced Iran in negotiations to give up their enriched uranium, which Iran was ready to do. And then the US Goes ahead while the negotiations are still open, and bombs Iran, kills the leader, igniting a potential religious holy war, kills over 180 people at a school, most of them young girls at the School of Minab, and works with Israel to conduct a policy of assassination and continued bombing that's resulted in the deaths now of almost 2,000 Iranian people.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: You don't give any credence to these very different reasons that Pete Hag said, Donald Trump and the like, even Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, J.D. vance, how they're all talking about the imminent threat, that the enrichment was far beyond what was necessary, that they killed lots of protesters, that I don't know what reasons they gave.
You don't give any. Hold any store by any of those reasons.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: If you look at what Joe Kent, who was an official in the Directorate of National Intelligence, said when he resigned, and this guy's a true American hero, he said that there was no imminent threat, and certainly not to America.
And so there was no reason whatsoever for the United States to make this attack.
This was perfidious because we promised negotiations and then we bombed. And what else happened? We killed the negotiator.
We were instrumental in assassinating Larajani. So.
And then this continued bombing. You know, a friend of mine years ago said, you can bomb the world to pieces, but you can't bomb the world to peace.
And this is not. The US Activity in Iran is not about bringing about peace. It's about bringing about control and subjugation in concert with Israel and. And the objectives to control the region and its resources.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: I mean, I have to ask you, is this a time for neutrality? Countries like Britain, countries like India in the global south have openly said they're neutral. India said we're not a broker as regards peace negotiations, because I know Pakistan, of course, has been involved in shuttling messages between the Iranians and the Americans. Is this a time for neutrality?
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Well, you know, let's look at India. India's position has, I think, Usually been to avoid binary alignment.
It's, it works to have relationship with the US and Europe. It also works to keep the channels open with Iran looks for practical engagement with, with all states.
You know, it's part, it's partition. Its participation in leadership this year in BRICS isn't anti Western, it's basically to create some options. And you know, India is well placed to argue for de escalation, for payment flexibility without abrupt financial rupture and for energy security, for food and fertilizer stability. I mean India's in an excellent place right now.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Generally speaking, the people aren't arguably because of these huge price rises that are affecting the poor disproportionately as they are all across the Global South.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Well, the Global south is getting hit very hard as a result of this aggression against Iran and its attempt to control the Strait of Hormuz.
You know what's happening is you have higher oil prices, higher LNG prices. You have in some states across the Gulf, they're going to have to go to increased military spending. There's more fragile shipping routes, they're stronger alignment now between Iran, we have to recognize this and the anti Western economic partners. But as far as the people, the people of the Global south are getting hit with higher food prices, conflict driven transport disruption, higher fuel prices that are tied to grain prices, for example, edible oils as well as logistics issues.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: Do you think ordinary Americans realize, I mean they're obviously being hit as well, that there's a kind of two tier system here. Iran is exporting more oil than it was before Trump first launched this war. And the passage of ships from India, China, Russia, Iraq, Pakistan, they're moving freely through the Strait of Hormuz. It's just any ship aligned with a country linked to the United States that cannot travel through the strait. So hopefully things will get better in places like India.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Well, but in the Global south you still have countries that are exposed here to higher prices.
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, for example, Sri Lanka.
There's a knock on effect of this aggression and crude prices generally are going to go up.
Now the fact that people can have passage that has some bearing on their insurance and the insurance of the cargo. But let's face it, the Global south and the people of the Global south are going to experience great financial pressure. And as you pointed out, when you have this kind of price instability and the prices go up, the poor bear a disproportionate impact as inflationary pressure as well as knock on price increases as a result of conflict continue to increase.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: I mean, there's only you mentioned Joe Kent, the former director of counterterror chosen by Trump in the Trump administration. You, of course, managed your chief of staff for RFK Jr. The health secretary in the current health secretary in the Trump administration. We haven't seen any other resignations. You think the team around Trump, let alone Trump himself, understand all of that, how it's affecting the poor, these decisions?
[00:10:39] Speaker B: I think the team around Trump is disserving him, that they've led him to believe that there is some victory to be achieved in this. There is no victory.
Iran will not be defeated. Iran will not be conquered. It is folly to even think about it. Those who think about it never don't know anything about the Persian culture. They don't know anything about the Iranian people. They don't know anything about geography. They don't know anything about how Iran has prepared for decades for the moment of a full scale or any type of invasion of their country. So you know, this, this is a moment when if we, if we send troops to Kharg island and nearby islands off the Iranian coast to try to facilitate the opening up of Hormuz Strait, it's already open, but to open it up for American and Israeli interests, our troops could get massacred.
You know, the drones, the missiles, the armaments that Iran possesses.
And we're on the visiting team here.
To me, it is the height of dishonor for an American administration to send young men and women to their certain deaths. In this case, there will be high casualties.
And if we do this, and I am unalterably opposed to everything this administration is doing with respect to Iran, it has started with one lie after another.
And Iran will never trust the United States. Iran, on the other hand, will dictate the terms of this settlement. It's clear to see that the US As a result of this, will have to remove its bases from the region. And that's just the beginning of the effects on the US Position geopolitically here.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Dennis Kucinich, a lot more to get through. We'll do that after this break.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Foreign.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Welcome back to New order.
Dennis, you were talking extremely grimly about the prospect of U.S. casualties. By the time people are watching this interview, perhaps there already will be untold numbers that have been killed, wound or wounded.
But of course, everything we've been talking about in Part one assumes that what the United States is doing is a great strategic error, let alone the moral error. You can't see that there is some strategy in the destruction of, as it were, the new world order that is also part of the plan to destroy Iran.
India was developing the north south transport corridor through Chabahar Port, integrating it with Bandar Abbas in Iran, which would integrate then into China's Belt and Road. This is part of the destruction of brics, which was a Trump aspiration. In any case. You can't see in any way that there's a strategy in this colossal moral mistake or moral sin some are calling it.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: The truth is there's no strategy here. There's no purpose to this war.
There is simply an attempt to,
[00:14:26] Speaker A: using
[00:14:26] Speaker B: the Venezuela experience as a example, to dominate an oil market through seizing the, through upending the sovereignty of Iran and to be able to dictate prices in that market.
That's not going to happen.
The prices are going to go up and Iran is going to be in control of this. And the US has shut itself out by its duplicitous, and I say that word advisedly, it's duplicitous diplomatic conduct.
So what happens with respect to, let's say the petrodollar?
It's going to remain dominant because it does have financial depth. But there is a trend towards diversification and BRICS is, that's what it's about.
BRICS will provide more bilateral local currency level. You'll see greater use of the WAND. Certainly the U.S.
has created that by its adverse foreign policy.
And in addition to that you're going to see reserve diversification, you'll see the interest in non dollar payment systems within BRICS and beyond that. So oil prices are going to go up, food prices are going to go up, it's going to cause an inflationary spiral, it will increase military spending for some areas, it's going to damage the petrodollar and increase the value of, of the trading value of the yuan. Everything about this is a catastrophe. In addition to the fact, you know, let's go back to Gaza and the west bank and Lebanon and Yemen and Syria and Iraq and now Iran. I led the effort against conflicts with almost every one of those countries and I understand that the US foreign policy has gone in the wrong direction. We need to take down this archipelago basis that we have not only in the Middle east but around the world. And the title of your program, New Order, I want to call attention to this, that when the founders of the United States came forward and they cast the first medal that described the U.S.
it's great seal, one side of the Great Seal said novo ordis seclorum. And those words mean, they're Latin words and what they mean A new order follows. The founders believed they were putting together a new order for a republic.
What's happened is that by this administration and others has been absolutely sacrilegious to the founding purposes of the United States. And as a result there will be a comeuppance.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: We like to be constitutional, of course, on this program, but it's a terrible thing that we. My question has to divorce ourselves from morality and the Constitution.
But I have to ask, given that oil is already being bought by India in Chinese Yuan, whether again creating chaos and destruction. You enumerated all the countries that are suffering so greatly, obviously even further afield because of the food prices. All around the world, people are suffering, even in NATO nations, causing utter chaos and destroying the Strait of Hormuz as a means of competing with the economies of this century. India, China, the emerging economies. Is that not some kind of strategy?
Whilst massively subsidizing the military industrial complex of your country and as you said, increasingly militarizing it as the only option now to economies that are growing at speed like India and China.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: I want to leave that an open question, but I want to make a statement that is being ignored about Iran's capability to respond to what the US Is doing. It's not just to stop the ships going through this Strait of Hormuz or to selectively let certain ships pass.
Iran has the capacity to fry the digital infrastructure by attacking these large AI servers.
The United States leaders have not in any way considered the consequences of this attack on the world and they have not considered Iran's counter strike capability.
And that's why everything about this is wrong. This is going to be another chapter in the book that Barbara Tuchman wrote years ago called March of Folly where she characterized that leaders who had a certain, what she called wooden headedness in their decision making brought.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: So you think it's folly and wooden headedness. You don't see it as a deliberate attempt to further impoverish the poor of say, India?
You don't see it as an attempt to impoverish?
[00:20:01] Speaker B: No, the attempt isn't to impoverish. The attempt is to capture supplies and to be able to control supplies.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: But clearly it'll be unusable if the Strait is mined anyway.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: Right, right. That's why it's folly. So you know, look, the poor, not only in the Global south, but here in the United States right now, over 50% of our discretionary spending goes for military spending, doesn't go for education, health care, for housing, the basic. All over this world, people have the Same aspirations. They want their families to be safe. They want to be able to make enough money to feed their family. They want a decent roof over their head. They want access to health care if somebody's ill. They want their children to have a decent education.
That is a common desire for people globally. But the United States, on behalf of certain interest groups or captured by certain interest groups, is roaming about the world looking for fake dragons to slay where the real dragons of poverty, of ignorance, of lack of access to resources exist here at home. Our leaders who have helped make this happen must be held accountable to the International Criminal Court for their activities, including.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: That would certainly be a big hit,
[00:21:27] Speaker B: including the murder of those children in Manhattan by that Tomahawk missile strike.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: Just finally and very briefly, I mean, you already said that.
Your old boss, RFK Jr. When you were chief of staff for his presidential campaign, and Tulsi Gabbard and all the rest of them. You don't have much time anymore for them keeping quiet. But how will the United States repair its relationships with countries all around the world after this war in the peace? Do you think the whole world now sees the United States as a rogue state?
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Yes.
Yes, with the exception of Israel, of course, and Israel's.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: Because that's not what India says or Russia says or China says publicly.
Well, China has been saying that to an extent.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: China has played a very careful game not to embroil itself in these conflicts and to continue to build out an economic infrastructure to facilitate trade globally. They've been very good about that. Russia is not going to enter into this because within their own sphere, they do not want to take their own focus away from matters at home and extend themselves into other areas. Matter of fact, they've not been prone ever to do that.
China, you know, Russia had a base in Syria, one. But for the most part, neither Russia nor China has been establishing bases around the world. Certainly no country ever in modern history has had about 800 military bases. What's that about? Look, we're in an inflection point in world history, and a new order will follow, but it's not going to be the one that's envisioned by the people who are currently in power.
[00:23:15] Speaker A: Dennis Kisenich, thank you.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: And now I'm joined by Zahra Khan with some of your questions. Zahra, an impassioned plea for peace there from former Congressman Dennis Kucinich.
[00:23:32] Speaker C: Very apt given the fact that we're at the month mark of this conflict. And as people who are living in the region that has impacted, I Think peace is on the agenda for everyone. And speaking of something that the congressman was already talking about, brics, one of the first questions from our viewers is Betella, who's asked, do you think BRICS will try to revive the un?
[00:23:53] Speaker A: You know which BRICS member would do that? Clearly, the UN is a disaster. Antonio Guterres has disappeared. We'd love to have him on the next New Order.
India. Would that like. Is that a country that would like to revive the U.N. given that the countries on the U.N. security Council don't include a country that has one and a half billion people?
I mean, it is clearly a flawed institution. But critics of it and people that praised it would always say, okay, it's flawed, but it's still a good place to talk. Well, with the UN Security Council resolutions that have been going through recently with the breaches of Article 51, I don't think international law stands a chance. I suppose India could try and say it better, have a role on the UN Security Council. The question would be who's gonna be kicked off of it? I think Britain and France would have to be kicked off of it.
[00:24:44] Speaker C: Are those the contenders you're suggesting?
[00:24:46] Speaker A: Presumably.
[00:24:47] Speaker C: Next we have Tash from Luzerne who's asked what actually happened in Iran in January 2026, when the protest began between December 28 and the end of January, what really happened?
[00:24:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it's being used as an excuse for the supreme international crime of aggression committed by Israel in the United States. Why was Indian television. Why were Indian television and NATO nation television media propaganda in Western Europe all saying that tens of thousands were killed by the Iranian authorities? The New York Times, owned by the Sulzberger family, has even revealed to us this was a CIA cutout. Classic ploy, makeup killings by the authorities in a country to justify then a complete breach of international law. That's what happened. We know it was a CIA cutout. We know from the casualty figures it was police, it was the authorities in Iran that were suffering the huge numbers of deaths. So don't believe anyone, especially those Iranian Americans that are popping up on television to propagandize for people, takes it than Donald Trump that the casualty figures were anything like that, or if they were, that it was the CIA cutouts and Mossad that was responsible for the deaths that the US is using as a pretext for invasion.
[00:26:02] Speaker C: I mean, it's interesting that you've mentioned mainstream media because critical theory wants to know when it comes to legacy media pundits, they are curious if they're actively lying to cover the tracks of those in power.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: There's no doubt that some legacy media, so called mainstream media owned and linked to NATO nation power, lies deliberately. I could give you a huge list of journalists that I know to be liars.
On the other hand, there are many, many more that are utterly stupid and that believe the press release is given out by authority.
And I suppose there are those that fundamentally are degenerate and arguably evil because what they promote in their articles or their on camera pieces are ultimately the results are. The school in Manha which Congressman Dennis Kucinich referenced there 168 girls incinerated by red hot titanium from Trump's Tomahawk missiles.
[00:27:05] Speaker C: Well, thank you for your answers, Afshin. There's never a dearth of questions from our viewers and I'm sure next week will be the same.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: Keep em coming. Thanks Sara.
And that's it from me, Afshin Ratansi with New Order. Make sure to follow us on social media where you can watch all our shows and hear a question for you. Should India continue its policy of neutrality during this war in Iran? You can answer us on X. And remember, we will be bringing you a brand new show every Sunday. On each show we'll continue to investigate shifting global power in this New Order.
