Iran's Attack on Israel Has Destroyed all of Israel's Calculations | Chas Freeman

an Iranian

attack

on Israel directly to Israel in regards to this

attack

on Israel, how did you find it? What is happening in the mind of the Iranian government. The Iranian army. Well, Israel provoked this attack. Mr. Netanyahu spent the last 35 years hoping to entangle the United States. States supporting a war between Israel and Iran Israel cannot effectively attack Iran without American help because it needs the support of a tanker and a tanker plane. So Mr. Netanyahu has been advocating a war with Iran for a long time with his attack on the Iranian embassy. The serious violation of international law was an affront to the Teran regime that they could not ignore and retaliated, and this has changed almost everything in the Middle East.

Now the Iranian retaliation was very carefully designed so as not to harm anyone in Israel. didn't kill anyone there was an unfortunate B bin girl in the desert who suffered falling debris probably maybe not from the Iranian missile but from the Israeli effort to intercept the missile in any case that's tragic but Iran only attacked military targets And he did. In a very deliberate manner, he gave everyone 72 hours' notice that he was going to mount an attack. He informed the United States. That he was not going to attack the United States. He also warned the Arab Gulf States that if they cooperated in the defense of Israel, they would become a target themselves, and all of this, well, the attack itself took four or five hours for the drones being fired from Iran to cross. neighboring countries and reach Israel, their purpose was not to cause any harm except to um Engage Israeli defense systems uh and basically um uh paralyze them by overloading them while also scanning the locations of radars and missile defense systems for future use if that was necessary uh the drones were followed by a cruise missiles fired at the same time to reach Israel at the same time that the drones did and finally there was a follow-up with ballistic missiles, not the most advanced missiles that Iran has, but curiously apparently They're good enough to attack two air bases and uh. and an intelligence headquarters now the accuracy of these missiles appears to have been very considerable.

According to satellite images, they attacked the base in the south in the net desert from where the Israeli Air Force had launched its attack on Damascus and the Iranian embassy. that what was attacked there was the officers' club swimming pool and an outside building and no one was killed and no damage was caused to the F-35s, which I think Iran gave Israel enough to move and so this was a Con very carefully, cont um choreographed attack what was the purpose of this, first of all, to retaliate to show that Iran could retaliate to alter the policy that Iran has followed for decades of not directly retaliating.

Iran has occasionally authorized its clients in the region. um movements like hollah in in Lebanon or Syria to act on their behalf but they have never directly attacked Israel um and uh obviously now they have made a decision and announced that if Israel continues with the program of assassinations, bombings and so on, Iran will take retaliation, so Israel, which has had a free hand basically because it had what appeared to be a blank check from the United States and an Iranian enemy who was very cautious and did not respond, now has to worry that it has lost control.

US support Mr. Biden has flatly told Israel that we will not support an attack by them on Iran, which means no tankers and, of course, Saudi Arabia and other countries that Israel would have to fly over. I have also told Americans that we will not support. attacking Iran from our territory, so basically Iran has achieved what it has seen for a long time and has neutralized the US presence, of course if the US engages in an Israeli retaliatory attack against Iran two things will happen first or maybe three first. It is quite possible that the Gulf Arabs will expel US forces for violating their instructions not to do this.

Second, Iran would attack the base from which these planes took off, that is, for example, the Bade base in Qatar and other facilities. in the region um second um uh Iran would retaliate against Israel and Iran has announced uh that while they sent approximately 300 missiles in this show of force, what they did did not kill anyone now of course Israel had killed a group of people at the embassy in Damascus, so this was very restrained on Iran's part, but although they sent 300 missiles in this show of force, they would send 1,500 in retaliation, so, in effect, Iran hit Israel with a finger.

Israel felt it, but next time it will be a fist. so Israel is now in a bond. Its internal politics are quite confusing. Polls show that two-thirds of Israelis oppose retaliation against Iran because they understand the consequences. On the other hand, Mr. Netanyahu's government, as I said, has been around for a long time. He wanted to have a war with Iran. There are ways Iran could retaliate without risking counter-retaliation from Iran, but they are very complicated and I think the Israeli government is in a very difficult position. he has in his cabinet, as we know, people who are often described as fascists anyway, they are very bellicose people and they are demanding retaliation, as are some neoconservatives in the United States, but the Biden administration, the Biden administration, has opted for moderation and apparently the Israeli public is also in favor of that, so I think originally we were supposed to have had an Israeli war cabinet meeting yesterday to discuss retaliation, it was postponed to today, I don't know what happened in it, but, um, Israel is now in a different position in the region than it was before knowing that Neto and his administration were trying so hard during this conflict in Gaza to bring the United States into this conflict and attack Hezbollah and They are trying to do something with Hezbollah right now.

The Iranian consulate in Syria is attacked. Do you think what would be the limit for the United States that says that this is the point at which we have to enter this conflict? I don't think Americans want to be in this conflict. You know, Gaza. Genocide is extraordinarily unpopular. The Palestinian question, which was almost forgotten, now occupies a central place in the Middle East. The anguish of the Palestinians is well understood and people sympathize with it. Polls show that Americans are not in favor of continuing the aerial supply of weapons to Israel. uh and now and uh Israel has already lost a lot of support um I think you already know it I have to say uh the political spin that has been given to this exchange which after all began with an Israeli provocation which is the attack on the At the embassy you hear people say that Iran's attack on Israel was unprovoked and you hear people say it was disproportionate but it was not disproportionate and it was unprovoked and I think thoughtful people recognize that, so I don't think May the United States have no desire.

On the other hand, Mr. Biden has a dilemma that has been very clear: he depends on campaign donations from strong supporters of Israel, from the Jewish plutocracy, if you will, so he has to demonstrate, as he said, an ironclad commitment to Israel , for internal political reasons, I don't think the US military is at all enthusiastic about this because not only has Israel lost a free hand in the region, but the US now has to acknowledge that its bases and its true presence. They are hostages of Iran and, uh, of a war, a broader war. Mr. Netanyahu, I think it is, and some members of his cabinet are the only people in the world who want a broader war, so I don't know the answer to his question, but I think. people in the United States would be very reluctant to get more involved in this.

Let me make another point. The only bright spot in all of this from the point of view of Mr. Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces is that they have taken the spotlight off of Gaza, but the IDF continues to carry out executions of civilians, mass murder massacres and genocide and, if you want a potent symbol of that, they just hit the frozen embryos, they intervene in invido, uh, uh. embryos for Palestinian women who are infertile, in other words, depriving a generation of Palestinians of their children. Their entire goal has been to empty Gaza of Palestinians, either to expel them or kill them, and now they are shooting anyone who tries to return. to the northern part of Gaza um and they are talking about developing it for settlements and beachfront properties and so on, etc., this is grotesque um I guess the other point I would like to make about the press's treatment of this is that It is absolutely unacceptable that the United States, Great Britain and France vetoed a resolution condemning the Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy, ​​whether we like Iran or not.

For thousands of years, embassies and diplomats have been given immunity, now by Israel, which has violated almost every international law there is. because there have been no consequences for it, the United States has always protected it, now Israel has even attacked this fundamental principle um and um it may or may not have inspired what happened in Kito with the Ecuadorian invasion of the Mexican embassy but we can see that the end of the International law is developing before us with Israel as the main driver in this process and the United States and other Western countries ready to achieve it.

They are claiming that this attack by Iran against Israel was disproportionate. We've heard the same thing coming from David Cameron in the UK, Sunak, he was talking about this when they talk about how disproportionate what they're targeting, in his opinion, well I think this is an invasion and I suspect the reaction in much of the world is that this is yet another blatant example of Western hypocrisy um because it is manifestly false um so Israel attacks an embassy kills a general and nine other people and wounds many more uh and this is not a violation of international law it does not deserve condemnation uh but Iran very carefully launches an attack with ample warning that attacks only military targets, not civilian targets, and kills no one and is disproportionate.

I mean, this is ridiculous and I think some members of the British Parliament pointed that out, so not everyone is part of the hypo. Hypocritical hypocrisy and deception that basically the G7 is trying to perpetrate, how did they find these Arab states in this conflict between Iran and Israel? We know that Jordan was helping the United States, the United Kingdom, along with France, helping Israel defend itself, certainly, uh. Saudi Arabia has provided intelligence about drones crossing its territory. Jordan attempted to shoot down those drones and apparently allowed the US Air Force, Britain's Royal Air Force and a French contingent to join them. by shooting down those drones, that's very controversial in Jordan, you know, two-thirds of the Jordanian population or the Palestinian refugees and the Palestinians, so this is very controversial and very difficult for Jordan, but Jordan was facing a difficult decision whether He didn't cooperate.

By stopping the drones, the Israeli Air Force would probably have violated its territory and suffered damage, so I think Jordan Jordan's position is understandable, but I want to make a comment here to address what was essentially a performative symbolic attack against Israel that he didn't intend to gather intelligence, he intended to warn Israel about Iran's capabilities, but he didn't intend to kill anyone in order to deal with this. Israel had to mobilize its entire defense apparatus, probably spending just over a billion dollars. To do that, it scared its own citizens over the weekend while they waited for the drones to arrive.

Everyone knew the drones were on the way. Iran made no attempt to hide that the cruise missiles were also obvious, it was the ballistic missiles. that they arrived at the same time as the others that really were the main method of attack and some of them managed to get through the most densely defended places in Israel, so there is a lesson here, without the United States without Great Britain without France this defense would not have been possible and if Iran sends 1,500 missiles nothing the United States or Israel can do will protect the Israelis, then the Israelis now have a moment of sobriety that they need to carefully consider whether their long-term strategic posture, which has depended on scaring the hell out of to everyone around them, to intimidate them with disproportionate and explicitly disproportionate retaliation for anything and sometimes, as in the case of the attack on the embassy in Damascus, it was no provocation, um, you know. without warning and so on no effort to save civilian lives um they can't continue doing this now with impunity there is a real question Israel has murdered about 3,000 people um including I think about 17 Iranian generals uh has been able to do this with impunity I don't think so that I can count on that now um that is to say uh assassination can be met with a counter-murder um that's the implication of what the RI president said um, so um I think there are a lot of questions now We don't know what Israel will do.

I think it has todo something to save face. I know that the chief of the minimal Israeli General Staff, the head of the IDF, General Hali, has done some very sober things. statements that say that Israel, you know, will defend itself against any Iranian attack and so on, but it is not specific and he clearly understands everything that I have said, uh, and he is an intelligent man, he is a responsible man and I think there are people . in the Israeli military who understand very well that with this attack on the embassy Mr. Netanyahu has called into question Israel's freedom to attack others in the long term, the otherI think it is very important that we consider the Israel lobby in the United States as feel about these actions by the Neto administration attacking the embassy right now, bringing more tensions to Israel about what the situation is in that region.

I think, as usual, they support Israel in everything it does, but what is more interesting is that much of the most vocal opposition to Israeli policies is led by American Jews, who want nothing to do with APAC and the lobby and they are demonstrating against it, um, um, one of the long-term effects of the war in Gaza and the settler violence in the West Bank, uh, and now this, uh, is that Israel is losing the support of Jews in North America and Europe, which has been crucial. to its U, its survival, I mean, you know, Isra, there are some things that Israelis have said that are very dark, for example, Israel asks people, they say: Does Israel have no right to exist?

You must recognize Israel's right to exist, but what? By that they mean that no one else has the right to exist in Palestine. This is a positive way of expressing the negative. The negative is that we are going to get rid of all the Palestinians. You know, when they started the project. Their project they said uh a town without land for a land without people well, they are making sure that there are no people, that was always their plan and I don't think there is any doubt about that now if what they have done in Kaza existed. has completely erased it, so I think this has exposed the essence of Zionism, which is racist and genocidal, and no one wanted to accept that.

I mean, I can remember being a big fan of Israel in the 1950s when I thought about it. was something different, but I think more and more people see Israel for what it is: a settler state that has a strategy of intimidating its neighbors rather than making peace with them and that, when given the opportunity to exchange lands for peace, always choose lands not peace maybe that has to come to an end now, you know, I guess, also in terms of Israel's right to exist in settlement activity, the weekend really scared a lot of people in Israel and we know that many people have already left. uh Israel, everyone has passports somewhere else uh, you know, for example, Spain and Portugal have offered passports to anyone who can prove that they had an ancestor expelled in 1492 uh, when, uh, when Spain was united, under Castile and Aragon , so um, there are a million Israelis who have Spanish and Portuguese passports, uh, do you think they will stay in Israel if they think you know, they have a government that is playing Russian roulette with Iran, perhaps acting in a way suicide.

I think this will really have potentially very, very far-reaching effects and it all started with this criminal attack on the embassy in Damascus. I think one of the biggest questions, one of the biggest doubts on our minds right now, is will Israel go? Well, this question, of course, is not a state of mind. Israel has always had a strategy called the Samson option, if you remember in the Bible, Samson, instead of submitting to the Philistines tearing down his temple around him, and their strategy has been if if we if we. uh they will cease to exist, everyone else will go with us, that means everyone because they have built their state on the trauma of the holocost and the belief that everyone who is not Jewish wants to murder them.

You know this is psycho, but it is. It's what they indoctrinate their children to believe, take them to see costumes, and celebrate their own victimization, which was horrible, and what makes it even harder to imagine that they themselves would carry out a holocaust against the Palestinians. but that's what they're doing, so I think in the end it's a real risk and I think it's interesting. Israel, on the one hand, denies that it has a nuclear weapon, on the other hand, it boasts about it and threatens to use it. about others and Israel's problems with Iran basically come from two, two, two, two sources first, Iraq was devastated, so now the only credible enemy that Israel could find is Iran, and Iran actually supports the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian self-determination and has no love for Zionism and has been very outspoken about it, but the second fear is that Iran could be doing exactly what Israel itself did, that is, covertly developing nuclear weapons while lying to everyone and deceives the world about what he was doing and so Israel is basically I'm worried about people behaving the way they do, um and uh, that's ironic.

I think I talked to a lot of people on this podcast. I have some guests who talk about Iran already having nuclear bombs and on the other hand, some people say Iran is on the move. The threshold to obtain a nuclear bomb and in both scenarios this conflict would bring a catastrophe to that region. decision to build a bomb and does not have a program to do so, what it does have is a program to enrich uranium enough to achieve nuclear latency, that is, the ability, if the decision is made to build a bomb, to make that, having the materials available to do that, but apparently no such decision has been made, there is no evidence of that, um and the irony here is that essentially Israel has been giving Iran every reason imaginable to develop a bomb because if Israel he feels free to send the Iranians wherever they are. are whether they are in Iran or in the Iranian embassies abroad or on the ground in the Golan Heights or anywhere else in Lebanon, and then what is Iran supposed to do about it?

Well, Iran has done something, but it has done it very carefully, in a conventional way. No nuclear U, I hope because the religious theocracy in Iran has taken the position and issued a fatwa at this point to the effect that weapons of mass destruction are Haram, they are prohibited in Islam. I hope they maintain this position, but I can see that Israel is putting a lot of pressure on it and, you know, this all started during the Iran-Iraq war, when Iraq was using chemical weapons against the Iranian forces and the revolutionary card of the Republic of Iran asked the leaders at the time to authorize the development of chemical weapons. in response and it was then that he proclaimed that weapons of mass destruction are prohibited to Muslims.

And you know, no one should discount the influence of religion, whether negative or positive. Indeed, we see negative things in the Israel-Palestine issue, but there are also positive effects. uh and um so far Iran has held the line, I hope you continue to do so despite the pressure you are under. The other thing that I think is very important right now is the extent to which the Network Administration and its policy were aimed at simply distracting people from what is happening. is happening right now in Gaza because when it comes to their attack on the Iranian consulate, the Iranian Embassy in Syria, in their opinion, was trying to draw in the United States because they knew that Iran was going to respond to this Hezbollah attack.

I know what they had in mind in those days, but on the other hand we see that this embrace is a great distraction from what is happening right now in Gaza. How much of this attempt was directed at this distraction? I think it was probably a relatively minor factor. The main driver of the decision was, as you suggest, to bring the United States into the war, to wage a broader war. I would say, you know, Israel now has, as I said, some very difficult decisions to make about what it does after having threatened retaliation. What will he do?

You know, one of the things it could do is attack some of the pro-Iran forces in the region. In other words, do what Iran used to do, not attack directly but indirectly because the consequences of a direct attack are too serious, so this could mean an attack on Hezbollah operations in the north, where there are hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have been displaced due to Hezbollah rocket fire in the northern part of Israel or even in Yemen, where the Houthi government has effectively produced a blockade in the Red Sea of ​​shipping going to and from Israel and of forces naval forces of the United States and Great Britain that are protecting this maritime transport.

So I think there are several possibilities for Israel that do not include a direct attack on Iran. But what would be the response to some of the internal opinions that favor retaliation? um and um demonstrate the continuation of what the Germans used to call Comet Shrek, which means horror, that horror has been the essential mechanism for Israeli deterrence, perhaps what is happening can certainly be restored. In Gaza it is so horrible that Israel's reputation for savagery is greater than that of any other country. After this attack on the Iranian embassy, ​​we had the SE of the Iranian army on an Israeli ship in the Horos straight and we know that we had. this conflict between him and on the one hand and the United States and the United Kingdom on the other in the Red Sea and everyone was talking about how important the Red Sea is and how important this operation is for the economy of the world.

For many countries right now this hormone trade seems to me to be much more important when it comes to these

calculations

do you think that at the end of the day we are going to have some kind of sanity on the part of the United States to reduce tension instead of entering as we saw in the Red Sea to confront this, which until now was not so successful. I think it is very clear that the Iranian seizure of the Israeli-owned ship in the Horos Strait was in Canada as a warning that Iran could close the strait and doing so would cut off the world's supply of oil, a large portion of which passes through the strait, and that shipping in the Red Sea is already in danger due to the Houthi intervention. um, I don't know, I mean, if Iran really tried to control the state of Hormuz, I think there would have to be international action against it, um, and the United States would have a hard time staying out, um, so I think, uh, Iran. uh you need to be quite cautious about it and so far they've been really um uh, you know, uh, the US reaction to previous Iranian maneuvers in the Harmos straight has not been strong, um, you know, the lack of reaction to Iranian interference with maritime transport.

The above was one of the reasons why the Gulf Arabs lost confidence in American protection, so this is a very interesting question. I do not know the answer. I don't know the answer at all because they can choose like the Houthis have been doing. This to the Chinese and Russian ships and they let those ships pass and they were simply selecting some ships that would not pass through that part. Iran can do this and not mention an international conflict. Well, let's remember that Iran as part of its symbolic policy. performative retaliation announced that there would be no more, I mean, you know, we have done what we had to do, we do not plan to do anything more, if we are attacked, we will retaliate, but we will do it on a much larger scale. level than we with this attack um but we do not plan to do anything else and as far as we are concerned this matter is finished uh leaving the question to Israel what are you going to do now um under these circumstances uh I would think that Iran retains the option, if there is some kind of retaliation by Israel, to do what the Houthis have done, which is to select shipping connected to Israel, um, you and and, mess with that, while you could exempt other ships, uh, and I don't would do.

It was to interfere with ships that are owned by major naval powers, whether they be China, the United States, Britain or any other U commercial naval power, so I think the other thing we need to keep an eye on is what happens now between Abu Dhabi and so what happens between Rian and tan now they have normal diplomatic relations they have a means of communication they have a common concern they don't want the war to end W Iran has been very careful even in the lead up to this war one of the uh during the atrocities in Gaza uh has tried to contain Hezbollah and comparable forces in the so-called resistance axis uh when they started attacking the United States, Iran advised them to stop uh so I think it became very clear that Iran does not want a broader war, it was very careful in his retaliation so as not to provide a basis for such a war and I don't think he will do anything unless Israel provokes him, but if Israel provokes him.

Iran has now stated outright that it will retaliate, which is very different from what happened before and I think is a fundamental change in the geopolitical dynamics of the region. Now there are others, you know. I mentioned the lack of response. I condemn the attack on the embassy. You know China and Russia are having fun. Talking about this internationally. WannaI mean, what international law? What rule? Forced order. You know, this makes us look very bad in the eyes of the world. and it actually sets a precedent for someone to attack one of our embassies. And if they do, you can bet we won't be as restrained as Iran was.

I think even Mr Cameron, who you, Lord Cameron, who you quoted earlier, did that. Of course, on the one hand, he definitely stated that Iran was acting disproportionately. He did not condemn the attack on the embassy, ​​but on the other hand, when asked what you would do if the British embassy was attacked, he said that we would respond strongly. um so it's very clear that there's a double standard and a lot of hypocracy here and that doesn't improve our reputation or our global influence. The other thing in the conflict in Gaza we know that since they started this conflict the Neto administration has been telling us that they are after killing after getting Hamas out of Gaza, but you know, the problem is that that number matches exactly the number of men.who have killed, whether they were Hamas or not, anyway they just assume that anyone who is a man is Hamas um and uh, so I think one of the dilemmas that the Israeli government faces is that its campaign in Gaza has failed to eradicate Hamas at all um and finally I would say you know Hamas is a synonym for Palestinian nationalism as that word is used in Israel U and um and Hamas actually represents Palestinian nationalism, it won the elections in the last elections in 2006 um and the surveys. show that it has the support of the majority of Palestinians, so I don't think that eradicating Hamas is the possible or real goal.

I think the goal is to depopulate Gaza and we still see, in addition to snipers, killing people who try to go. house and bombs fall on people trying to get food, we see that the trucks are stopped, so, for example, one of the prohibited items is crutches, there are crutches, if there are crutches in a truck, the truck will not be admitted complete. Well, this is totally scandalous and it is typical, it is only intended to continue the starvation of the Palestinians, which is happening. I mean, there is a famine, it is now recognized internationally, and I note that until very recently, at least the Israeli spokespersons said that there is no famine in Kaza, you know well that there is and one of the victims of this war has been U .The truthfulness of Israel now no one believes anything that Israel says.

The immediate suspicion is that it is a lie because some of the lies have been so blatant that it is not. It is possible to give some credence to what the Israeli spokesmen say. We have seen that recently Israel is attacking a core of these people who are trying to help gazin feed gazin and do you think it was a mistake on the part of the Israeli army or do they attack him, the Liber no, it was part of their rules normal confrontation, anything that moves you kill now this is the Jum group that was the Center World kitchen, they were trying to help the Gins, they had reported their movement to the Israel Defense Forces who were known to they communicated with them while the attack was taking place there were three separate very deliberate attacks this was Mr Nan said this was a tragic mistake well if so then there are 36,000 other tragic mistakes that have occurred um and no one believes it is a tragic mistake, it was exact, it was exactly what Israel has been doing to everyone in Gaza by the way the Israel Defense Forces are now helping settlers drive Palestinians out of their villages and murder them .

There is no doubt what is happening and that was not a mistake, regardless of what Netanyahu chooses to call it Turkey, which was a very interesting player in this whole situation when this conflict started in Gaz and after two months, Erdogan started talking by Natho. He called Nao butcher of Gaza and it was when he was talking about Israel and N was so solid that he condemned Israel so strongly but behind the scenes we didn't see Turkey doing anything but recently his party is losing in Turkey that's why they try to convince people in Turkey that we are doing something considering what is happening in Gaza, they put some kind of sanction on the Neto Administration's shipment, they put sanctions or some restrictions on 54 products so that they are not sent to Israel, how do they do it?

You see Turkey's role in this whole situation, well, I think the Turks are very cautious, they don't want to get involved in this, they have, by the way, a very good relationship now with Iran, and I think I appreciate that they certainly don't approve of attacking embassies. with missiles uh and um uh, but I think what they can do is very limited. Let's remember that Turkish involvement in Gaza has been active in the past, there were some Turks killed by the Israelis when they were trying to bring aid to Gaza during a previous war, one of them was an American with dual nationality and the United States did nothing, so I think that Turkey is also very cautious, doesn't it have others? things you want to do and don't want to go on the Israel lobby sites in the United States you don't want your attention diverted to Israel you have problems in the Black Sea there is a war in Ukraine you have problems with grain shipments, now there is the problem in Iraq with the Kurdish area that is about to be bypassed by a pipeline going to Khan in Turkey, um from Iraq, which means that the Kurdish region that has been living off of uh oil exports will no longer have that market. , so the Kurds are the main obsession for the Turks, they are also in trouble and maybe Turkey likes that, but no, I can't explain it, Mr.

Erogan, I sometimes thought when I was mayor of Istanbul. It was very impressive, uh, he was a real advocate of a kind of Islamist democracy parallel to Christian democracy in Europe, um and um, it was all very hopeful, but he made some serious mistakes and did some terrible things, particularly after the supposedly great . U uh and the Gan movement was persecuted all over the world um so Mr. Eran is not very consistent and uh uh I think uh um a lot in this for himself maybe in that sense he is a bit like Mr. Netanyahu, maybe there are cousins ​​in some way and since you talk about the conflict in Ukraine, we know that it seems like just yesterday we heard that the Ukrainian soldiers are surrendering and it is a big change in the face of this conflict in Ukraine, we have not seen this type. of surrendering until now and with the current situation in Ukraine and what is happening with its aid, the aid that goes from the United States from the European Union was 40% when compared to the aid that went to Ukraine in 2023, they reduced by one 40% right now in 2024, it's almost nothing and how do you see the situation right now in Ukraine?

Well, aid, if voted, will boost Ukraine's morale, but it will be of no use on the battlefield. I arrived on time and I think the most significant thing is that among those who have refused to fight there are apparently some of the alter nationalists of Western Ukraine and these have been people who I would say the Ukrainians have been remarkably brave. and Innovative on the battlefield and no one can criticize his performance, but it has reached the point where they are running out of ammunition, they have run out of men, the Ukrainians understand more and more that they have lost the war. and the Russians have been very careful throughout the war whenever the Ukrainians surrendered to treat them very well, they probably would have treated them better than they would have been if they kept fighting for Ukraine, so in these circumstances people you know understand that war is about uh and um they start to behave that way um there is a story in my family that I remember that in these circumstances one of my grandparents was on the border with Germany in the First World War and word spread about that in on the 11th Hour of the 11th day of the 11th month there would be an armistice, so the war would end, so my grandfather, who had grown up partly in Strasbourg while his father did a PhD in Heidleberg, Strawberg, was then part of Germany. um, he was perfectly comfortable speaking French and German as well as English, and he happened to be Russian, so he got up in daong and put on his best uniform, he didn't carry a gun and he walked into Germany, he wanted, he said, I want. being the first American soldier in Germany and he went about 100 meters into Germany and a German militiaman came out as a guard and said in German who are you?

I don't recognize your uniform and my grandfather responded in German, I'm an American Officer, the war is over, don't you know? and the German then said in English what part of the states are you from and my grandfather said Chicago and the Germans said oh I spent 11 years there. I love that city, let's go to the Village and my mother gave us breakfast so they went to the village and he ate um vice versa sausages and eggs and coffee but no one had coffee because the uots were sinking the freighters and it was not a priority to send coffee from Brazil to uh to Europe and uh, so, um, my grandfather asked this guy's wife, this guy's mother, uh, the militiaman said, where do you get your coffee? and he said, oh, well, you know, Herbert Herbert Hoover gives it to the busy Belgians and they sell it to us, etc. nothing has changed when the war seems to be ending, people are taking risks and ukrainians now seem willing to consider surrender, where before they were not and that is a sensible decision, maybe anyway, ukraine is turning out to be a great strategic defeat.

For the West, if you will, for the G7, for NATO, U and um, there are increasing calls, both in Ukraine and outside Ukraine, for a negotiated agreement and I hope there is one, because if this continues, Ukraine will simply is going to suffer. more and nothing will be gained