Welcome back to The Voices of War. Today I’m joined by Richard Atwood, Executive Vice President of the International Crisis Group, independent organization working across active and emerging conflict zones. Their aim is to understand how wars start, how they evolve, and where there might be still space for de-escalation, diplomacy, or prevention. Its work is field-based research and is widely used by governments, international institutions, and policymakers. In this conversation, we draw on the crisis group’s latest report on the top 10 conflicts to watch in 2026 to explore how wars that often appear disconnected are, in fact, increasingly linked by great power competition, shifting alliances in the erosion of the so-called rules-based order. Richard, thank you very much for joining me on The Voices of War. Thanks very much for hosting me, Maz. It’s really great to be on. And Richard is also a host of the excellent Hold Your Fire! Podcast. It’s definitely my go-to on a weekly basis. So, congratulations for that amazing project. It’s really worthwhile. That’s very kind, thank you. Yeah, it’s a bit strange to be on the other side of the mic, actually, but a good experience. Yeah, that’s right. Yes, yes. I’ve experienced that myself. But look, I know our time is short and there’s lots to cover. So I think we’ll get stuck into it. The first conflict you identify in this rather extensive report, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and I think you nailed it on so many levels, is Venezuela. This report was, I think, published merely days before what we saw happened with Maduro but you identified that as a real risk in the near future. So perhaps starting then with Venezuela, what does the US removal of Maduro signal about Washington’s apparent kind of pivot towards spheres of influence, certainly in the Western Hemisphere? And then how consequential is that shift to the rules-based order such as it is? Yeah, yeah, good question. So yeah, as you say, Maz, we put out the piece a few days before the US raid that seized ⁓ Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife. It’s sort of extraordinary military operation really. And I think our entry again, a few days before stands up quite well. You know, the raid itself was a sort of remarkable military feat. I think it’s hard to think of another military in the world that could have done what the US did with the sort of efficiency and competence that it did it. It does appear that the US had, you know, certainly assets on the ground, certainly intelligence on the ground where they were able identify where he was and so forth could take out a lot of the protection that Venezuela had. And again, a sort of remarkable military achievement. I think the big question, course, know, Maz, is what comes next? I this is not a regime change operation which I think some people foresaw. It’s a decapitation raid. It removes Nicolás Maduro, but largely leaves in place the regime, the Chavista regime, named after the former Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, who ruled Venezuela for 15 years or so. And most of the Chavista regime bar Maduro remains in place. The new president, Delci Rodriguez, she and her brother, Jorge Rodriguez, another very influential figure, head of the National Assembly, they’re pragmatic. They’ve been traditionally quite outward facing, have had lot of contacts with diplomats, but they are Chavistas. And there’s other figures, defence minister, Vladimir Padrino, Diosdado Cabello, who is the interior minister who control a lot of the Venezuelan security forces, the colectivos, these sort of pro-regime militias. You know, so it’s still very uncertain what’s going to happen next. The US seems to hope, to the degree it’s articulated, seems to hope that having this sort of flotilla, this massive military buildup in the Southern Caribbean, and basically control over what oil goes in and out, or what oil comes out basically of Caracas, that they’re going to be able to lean on the Chavista government, on D’Arcy Rodriguez, and get concessions from her. That they’re going to be able to push her in a way that… that they want. Precisely what they want is still quite unclear. President Trump himself has talked a lot about Venezuela’s oil. think Venezuela’s oil infrastructure has largely been badly degraded and run down through misrepair, incompetence over many years. For American or other foreign oil companies to invest in building that up to profit from Venezuela’s oil, going to take a lot of money, a lot of time. And I think they’re going to be reticent about investing. They’ve had bad experiences with Chavista governments in the past. how much they can, you know, Trump can actually stimulate foreign investment in Venezuela’s oil sector and how much of the oil, the Chavista government, Delci Rodriguez, for all that she may want to accommodate the U.S., how far she’s going to be able to do that while keeping her sort of movement intact without alienating parts of the movement? Very difficult question. I think the other thing the U.S. might push for this comes to your point about the sort of spheres of influence and the competition with US adversaries is that the Venezuelan government distances itself from certainly from Cuba, which I think, you know, they will be able to purge the security forces of the many Cubans that are there. But how much it distances itself then from Russia, which has traditionally been very close to Venezuela, China, which still has big investments in the country. The Venezuelan government owes a lot of money to China for its oil investments. A lot of money, yeah. So, you know, there there’s some questions. And it’s also still it’s a primary exporter to China for oil as well. Right. I mean, that’s one of the issues. That’s right. It certainly was before Maduro’s fall. That’s right. Before Maduro’s capture. So sort of what that means for Venezuela, China relations, how much they’re going to be able to distance themselves from China. You know, I suspect they, you under pressure, they will be able to do more on that front, maybe than on the oil front, but let’s see. And then you have big questions about whether, particularly Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who’s probably the administration official that’s most interested in genuine political change in Venezuela. how much he’s going to push for a genuine transition that includes part of the opposition. And I think there, you know, a genuine election that threatens the Chavista grip on power, you know, is going to be something that a lot of the sort of hardcore of the movement really oppose. So you’ve got some huge sort of some huge questions about Venezuela’s future. You know, what happens if the US doesn’t get everything it wants is then another military operation, which Trump has threatened. Is that on the cards? Hmm. Or are they just going to sort of accept some concessions and allow Delci Rodriguez to stay in place, maybe a little bit less repressive, but not encourage a genuine transition, which involves some sort of representation of the opposition in the government? I just think we don’t know yet. So there’s still huge uncertainty. would say maybe that, as a, before we talk more maybe about the sort of what the spheres of influence approach means for the rest of Latin America, I would say that maybe the way that the intervention was done, obviously there’s a lot to worry about. I mean, there’s the very hard to justify according to the UN Charter, a complete violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty. Obviously, sovereignty is something that many states in the world, particularly in South America, hold very dear. the intervention wasn’t really the raid on Maduro, wasn’t really ⁓ cloaked in the sort of language that previous operations under previous presidents might have been about sort of democracy or, you know, restoring an anti-dictatorship or restoring democracy. It was, was cloaked very much, at least in the immediate rhetoric in sort of, can do this, it’s our hemisphere, we’re going to do it and we want the oil. So, I think lots to worry about in the way that the operation’s been framed. On the other hand, I do think that a full-blown regime change operation that aimed to topple the government, you know, that that would have been a recipe for instability. Yeah. That you do need the army on board if you’re going to steer Venezuela to more open politics, which again, I think we hope is going to happen. But it is a delicate process to trigger change without causing the army to resist whatever government’s installed or factional infighting within the government, all these other militias, the colectivos that I mentioned, Colombian rebels that are up in the border areas, criminal groups, that doesn’t descend into violence. you know, does require a much more carefully managed transition than just an American imposed regime change. So, I think there is maybe, you know, for all the problems of the intervention, you know, it could, we are still, it is still early days. I think it’s more likely to go wrong than not, but there is an opportunity now that Maduro’s gone, you know, that maybe it will move in a more positive direction. And of course, the direction Venezuela moves in is going to be a big signal across the rest of region. If Venezuela descends into chaos, the US has to get involved again. Again, what that says for the US projection of power is one thing. If they can manage to steer something towards more open politics, a regime, a government that is less isolated, Venezuela’s economic crisis is somehow addressed, more favourable to the US, but more generally gets along better with the rest of the region as well then that’s a sort of different signal that’s being sent to the region. So much does now hinge on what happens next in Venezuela. And there there’s some huge questions still. Absolutely. My reading of it is that Trump is rather pragmatic. mean, as you said, the facade of the kind of US ⁓ democratization of the world has truly fallen off. also he can’t, at the domestic front, he cannot go into regime changes as per the old days. And he explicitly states that he doesn’t want to do that. And he has a tendency to act quickly, ⁓ of just tap into a place and move out. promising that he’s resolved ⁓ the problem. But in this case, I mean, think for him, he sees it only as a win-win. He’s ⁓ not there long-term. He’s managing it from afar. He’s publicly stated that the US is running Venezuela. He’s getting whatever 50 million barrels or whatever it was or $50 million worth of oil or something in that order as a first down payment, I guess, to repay debt to the US. ⁓ has no intention with Machado. I think she’s visiting him tomorrow. We’re speaking on Wednesday the 14th of January. I think she’s visiting him on Thursday with the promise of giving him her Nobel Peace Prize, which he’s said he will accept. So to me, it’s very kind of pragmatic. Go in, we can, why? Because we can. ⁓ Remove Maduro, that’s ⁓ fine enough for much of the world, I guess. ⁓ Take the oil, as he stated. Cut the supply to China, which is of course a benefit. ⁓ And that fits broadly into the kind of ⁓ ‘Donroe’ ⁓ slash former Monroe ⁓ doctrine anyway, as he so describes it. So to me, he’s rather pragmatic, dangerous, but very pragmatic. Yeah, I think that’s right. think, you know, there’s very little time amongst his sort of core supporters, amongst the sort of MAGA ⁓ base for a sort of protracted military entanglement, regimes change, sort of democracy steering involvement in Venezuela. I mean, just doesn’t, nobody in his base wants that. The Americans as a whole are tired of that sort of thing. So, the quick and very effective military operation, you know, that’s obviously something that he can sell. He was also, you know, in the buildup, you know, was a sort of confluence of interests that Marco Rubio obviously wanted the regime gone. He sees it as a step to getting rid of the government in Cuba. It’s a long serving goal of his sort of base in Florida, the Latin America base in Florida. And that coincided with the interest, I think, of Stephen Miller, this sort of ideologue, very close to Trump, who’s the sort of immigration czar. I think he’s deputy national security advisor, or deputy, maybe deputy political advisor. I’m not sure of his exact title. And I think he was more interested in it as a way of sort of signalling to the rest of the region, don’t send us migrants, don’t send us drugs. And there was a sort of confluence of he wanted something spectacular. I think there was a confluence of interests, but that confluence of interests, you know, if the U.S. does get entangled, if the Delci-Rodriguez government, or if she’s unable to give the U.S. the concessions that it wants, whatever it is pushing for, you know, there is still this big question of what comes next. And so Trump has so far been able to keep it very limited. I think that’s exactly right. And has been able to portray it as a success. But what happens if it does get more protracted? What happens if he does fall out with the the Delcey Rodriguez government? What happens if she starts being more intransigent? What happens if she tries to get more and then she can’t? Because again, there’s parts of the Chavista establishment or regime that are pushing back. So think there’s still a lot of questions about whether the US can keep its distance from what’s going to be happening in Venezuela. I mean, I think it’s 30 to 50 billion dollars, sorry, barrels of oil. I’m not sure how regularly that’s produced, but Venezuela sits atop a lot more, of course. The biggest in the world, right? Yeah, I think it depends on how you measure it, but yeah, one of the biggest for sure. I mean, it’s very heavy crude, so it needs a certain type of refinery, but to get the sort of amount of Venezuelan oil out of the ground that would be meaningful. It needs a lot of investment in the oil infrastructure. And that it’s not clear that the companies, again, companies that have been burnt before in Venezuela, it’s not clear they’re really going to want to put the money in without some sort of sense of stability in the country. I it’s a years long investment. Where is Venezuela going to be in two years and three years and four years? It’s almost impossible to say. Yeah. And I did see that ExxonMobil, I think they’ve pretty much ⁓ read that earlier today. They’ve pretty much kind of sent signals that they may not be that interested, which, know, is, again, that might undermine the entire, ⁓ you know, idea, the entire project, because that’s also going to take some time to, you know, as you said, build the infrastructure and actually, you know, get this oil out of there, ⁓ out of the ground. So all of that is very open in the question. And you mentioned Michael Rubio. mean, he’s obviously quite vocal, particularly on Cuba. But how do you think this might kind of translate to Cuba? What might happen to Cuba, but also to Colombia and Mexico, of course, know, the kind of the three main rivals, so to speak, that are left in Latin America. Well, the, you know, maybe let’s start with Columbia. So Gustavo Petro, the Colombian president, you know, has been in a very antagonistic relationship with Trump. I think they spoke the other day. There’s a sort remarkable New York Times ⁓ interview with Trump and Gustavo Petro actually called him during that interview. And they seem to have papered over some of their differences. I think it’s, you know, out of the question, to be honest, that the US does something like what they did in Venezuela to Gustavo Petro. Even though Trump has called him a drug lord and a major smuggler of drugs, which is even more removed from reality than calling Nicolas Maduro a kingpin. There’s a few reasons for that. First of all, there’s… ⁓ Why is that? sorry. Yeah, go. I was gonna say why is that unlikely? Yeah. First of all, there’s a Colombian elections in a few months. you know, there’s a right-wing candidate or there are alternatives to Gustavo Petra that may well win. why, you know, why act now when you can wait and see the outcome of the election? The Colombian and American militaries, know, Colombia is not, you know, a sort of pariah antagonist of the US in the way that Venezuela was. The Colombian and American militaries have very, very close ties, years and years coordinating on. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and counter narcotics on the fight against ⁓ the guerrillas, the FARC, before their peace deal a decade ago. So very, very close ties. Colombia is just a very different country to Venezuela. So I don’t think that they’re going to do anything similar. I think that’s, to be honest, that’s out of the question. There’s some question about whether the US conducts unilateral strikes without the government’s permission on, ⁓ you know, again, drug infrastructure or what they say is drug infrastructure. Mm. Yeah. They might do that, but again, you know, it’s hard to see how they would do that without frustrating or stretching the relationship between the two militaries. But it’s plausible, certainly. mean, something like that is plausible. In Mexico, ⁓ Claudia Scheinbaum ⁓ has actually been very effective at sort of managing the pressure from President Trump. Initially, when he first came to power, there was a lot of, when he first returned to office, there was a lot of talk, there had been a lot of talk in Congress about unilaterally bombing. Mm, yeah. Mexican cartels about the fentanyl labs. of course, the fentanyl, most of the fentanyl that’s killing thousands and thousands of Americans, it does come from Mexico across the border. It certainly doesn’t come from Venezuela. It doesn’t really even come from Colombia. they, know, certainly not the boats in Venezuela. mean, Venezuela, certainly a lot of cocaine went through Venezuela, but that went mostly to Europe. The fentanyl was really coming, the precursors are mostly from Asia, I think, but the fentanyl in itself comes mostly across the border. Certainly not from boats in Venezuela, yeah. So the US does have a fentanyl issue with Mexico. Claudia Sheinbaum has done a lot since Trump came to ⁓ power. She’s extradited a whole bunch of drug traffickers. She’s deployed a whole bunch more Mexican forces up on the border. She’s acted very aggressively against the cartels, cooperated lot with the US security forces. She’s given a lot already to President Trump. And I think if he was going to strike unilaterally at Mexico, Again, it would jeopardize that cooperation. So I think there’s fairly strong reasons why she wouldn’t do that. But of course, the signal, she’s likely to be even more cooperative now. I mean, the signal that it sends is that I think the signal that the US is hoping it’s going to send is that, you know, everyone better do what we say in terms of drugs and migrants and, you know, keeping out China or keeping out Russia. I think that’s the signal they’re hoping this will send. And maybe to some degree it will. Hmm, yeah. I would say, let me come to Cuba in a moment, but I would say that China, US, sorry, the Latin American governments have been working with the US on drugs in particular for many, many years. They have been sort of forced themselves into this drug war, which has driven tremendous violence in parts of the continent. And they’ve mostly done that in cooperation with the US. All this counter narcotics work that they do together, identifying where the smuggling routes, identifying where things are being produced. Is that going to continue if the US bombs unilaterally? So I think there’s some real potential costs for the US in throwing its weight around. then on China, China is now, I think, the second biggest trade partner of several South American countries. Huge investor. And it invests in big infrastructure projects, obviously minerals and rare earths as well, like the Chinese always do. Yeah. Mm, mm. And that’s what the US is particularly worried about. But a lot of governments are going to be very reluctant to cut off the sort of investment, the trade ties with China. You know, in some ways, there’s just been this big Mercosur Europe deal. Now, in some ways, I suspect the US triangle it’s weighed around in the region is likely to lead to more hedging with other countries, not less. So I think there’s some real challenges for the US. Now, whether it’s going to sort of confine its pressure more narrowly and make it about rare earths and Chinese access to minerals and what they call what the US, there’s the National Security Strategy document for the US which came out in early December. And that talks very explicitly about the US’s wanting to call the shots in the Western Hemisphere. That doesn’t call for the Chinese, for example, to get out of Latin America completely. It focuses mostly on what they call sort of sensitive or critical sectors. And I suspect by that, mean hydrocarbons, but also the rare earths and minerals. So there may be pressure on governments that have Chinese investments in that sort of mining to cut those off. again, it’s still early days after the Venezuela intervention since Maduro’s capture. there’s a lot that’s still uncertain about what’s next. And then, just quickly on Cuba. Yeah, what would Cuba look like? mean, I think this is very difficult to say as well, because Venezuela was not a regime change operation aimed at installing Maria Carina Machado, the opposition leader you talked about. think Trump realized, I think maybe Maduro would have wanted that at some points, but I think Trump realized that she didn’t have the support of the army, that it would be too destabilizing to require too many boots on the ground and too much of an intervention to try and impose her. But there is a Venezuelan opposition. There’s a sort of, can imagine that somehow that there would be a transition that involves more of the opposition, know, a transition to a different type of political system. There’s no opposition to that same degree, either in Cuba or really that much of an organized opposition outside Cuba. So sort of what exactly a Cuba intervention would look like, what would it aim to do? Could they find people, you know, that they can work with within the regime? The country is on its knees already because of the sanctions. Certainly the Venezuelan oil is going to be cut. The shipments of Venezuelan oil that sustain the Cuban government, that’s going to be cut. Whether they’re going to pressure Mexico to cut their oil transfers, their oil sales to Cuba, whether the US will apply that pressure on Mexico, that’s uncertain. I think there’s going to be a big economic squeeze, but I struggle to see what pressure, additional pressure than sort of a completely collapsed economy is going to lead to political change in Cuba. know, it’s the protest, any protests are crushed very quickly. The regime has very tight control. So it would certainly be good to have some sort of, a regime change operation, but certainly some sort of political opening in Cuba. The path to it is very, is very uncertain. Yeah. And also if it’s done through kind of pressure and these kind of deals that Trump likes to make, know, seize this or you get 25 % tariffs or a hundred percent tariffs or whatever. ⁓ I think the point you made earlier that that’s likely going to be, you know, hedge these countries more towards, ⁓ you know, other partners ⁓ like China, like Russia. ⁓ Because if you’ve, if you’ve any kind of stability with the U S. chances are you’re not going to roll over and start dealing with the US, especially if they’re putting so much pressure on you and the sanctions, and these kind of conditions upon your government that for many of these governments are just not palatable. I mean, I just don’t see how that long-term can survive. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think there are some governments and leaders that are obviously friendlier to Trump and more ideologically akin to Trump than others in the region. you know, there’s some that, you this big American bailout, you know, certainly, I don’t know whether it was decisive, but it certainly helped Javier Millet and Argentina get elected. Yeah, Argentina, yeah. Whereas others, you know, President Lula obviously in Brazil has, you know, is less ideologically akin. Trump tried to get Jair Bolsonaro’s trial on board to try to rescue him from jail. There’s Lula’s predecessor who tried to overthrow the results of the elections, basically. That didn’t work. So think each country is going to have to navigate a more sort of a US that’s throwing its weight around in their own way. And some will make concessions and some will look to hedge. ⁓ But it’s not that the Venezuela operation shows that the US is prepared to, it can be transgressive, it has this very powerful military, but that’s not That doesn’t mean that the US is going to be able to call the shots everywhere. And Cuba is already isolated. ⁓ It’s isolated. It’s under this economic embargo. Its leaders, especially if they don’t get the Venezuelan oil, I think the economic situation is going to deteriorate further. The conditions are going to be awful. The question is how political change in Cuba is triggered. And there, don’t think there are obvious answers. So just rounding out Latin America, what are the biggest things that you’re watching for? mean, obviously in the report, you’re quite detailed about Venezuela, but what are the things you’re looking out for this year in particular? some key indicators and warnings, I guess, you know, which country is it Venezuela? And then from there we might see, you know, how other countries like Columbia, Cuba, Mexico, et cetera, evolve. I that’s right. mean, think certainly, you know, what comes next in Venezuela is the big question overshadowing much of the region. know, are they going to be able to steer? Does the US want to? And is it going to be able to steer a Delci-Rodriguez government into something that’s better for Venezuela? Now, whether that is, you know, a full transition to an opposition-led government, to a sort of free and fair election, or whether it’s some sort of, you know, stewarded transition where there’s parts of the Delci Rodriguez government, parts of the opposition brought in. Now, I think there’s just lots of questions, but that is sort of the big question because Venezuela’s, what millions of Venezuelans have left over the past year, to mostly some to the US, but mostly to neighbouring countries. It’s been a source of instability across the region for so many years. And, this is sort one of the difficult things about assessing what’s happened so far in Venezuela. And I think you could make the same case about some of Trump’s other policies and other sort of hotspots around the world. You know, obviously again, the Venezuela intervention, there were so many problems with the way it was justified and done and sort of its, the questions about its legality, the way that it was talked about, the violation of sovereignty. But we also, I think, have to keep in mind that what the past decade and a half at least, there have been repeated efforts. Pretty much everything has been tried to resolve this protracted political crisis in Venezuela. ⁓ The Trump administration during his, domestically, yeah, domestically, so ⁓ the Trump administration during his first term, like the rest of the world, recognized Juan Guaido as president, so recognized an opposition leader as president, massive sanctions imposed on Venezuela, the economy collapsed, everybody started leaving. Now, and again, Maduro ended up more entrenched than ever. Biden tried something different. He, ⁓ As in domestically, mean? Yeah. I should say that also during Trump’s first term, was this of failed coup attempt. It’s not clear how much the Americans were involved in that, but it was sort of the most incompetent coup attempt ever. Right? It was this sort of almost incompetent overthrow attempt ever. I mercenaries got caught on a Venezuelan beach by the security forces after about five minutes. mean, was the polar opposite of the military intervention they’ve just done in terms of its efficiency. So there was that as well. And then Biden tried something different, which we very much supported. Yeah, right. I mean, you know, during the, when, when after Russia sort of went into Ukraine in, in, in full scale in, in early 2022, Biden, partly motivated by wanting to get Venezuelan oil onto global markets and keep the oil price down, opened this channel of communication with the Maduro government. It was facilitated by the Qataris. And as part of that, they had this Barbados agreement whereby the U S would ease sanctions, lift sanctions gradually in return for a credible election. So that was a, I think that was an initiative we completely supported. That was the right way to go. But not only did Maduro and the regime stop Maria Carina Machado, the opposition leader who had cleaned up in the opposition primaries, stop her contesting when Edmundo Gonzalez, her sort of proxy who ran for the presidency. By all accounts, they’ve got the numbers, they’ve got the chips to show it, the records from the polling station. By all accounts, he won sort of 70 % of the votes or something. Maduro stole the election and again, ended up more entrenched than ever with the opposition weaker than ever. So it’s not that this intervention comes after Trump’s sort of seizure of Maduro comes after a golden era of peacemaking or crisis management in Venezuela. Now that is, I still think that it was the wrong way to go about it and that it’s more likely now to go wrong than right. That a sort of understanding ⁓ between a Yeah. Yeah. a continued repressive regime and a more extractive US getting out oil. That’s probably even worse for Venezuela than what was before. But there is an opportunity to move Venezuela now in a better direction. And let’s see what happens. Let’s hope for that. Last question on that. Why do you think Machado is going to see Trump and appeasing him with the Nobel Peace Prize? What do you she hopes to get out of it? So I think the, well first of all I think the Nobel committee has said she’s not allowed to hand it over but I’m not sure how much that’s going to matter to either of them but yeah exactly. Yes, they have. Yeah, formally. Yeah. Doesn’t matter. Yeah. I mean, he’s got a he’s got a list of trophies now from FIFA and the Prince of Peace from Israel. Right, exactly. ⁓ So, you know, she had been, from what we, from everything we understand, she’d been very close to Marco Rubio. And, you know, I think she had been promoting this idea that the government was ripe, the regime was ripe to be toppled, right? That a little bit of military pressure, the army would take over, you know, that the opposition had support within the army, that it was a, you know, it was just a matter of a little bit of American pressure. Maybe a bit of military pressure, but certainly a lot of threats. And Maduro’s regime and the Chavista government was there for the taking. The opposition could come in, would enjoy the support of the army, and it would be a smooth transition that didn’t require a lot of American support. Now, I think Trump realized that that was nonsense, basically. I I think to his credit, he realized that actually there was very little sign that the army was going to jump ship, that the army is now so interwoven into the regime so embedded in its corruption, ⁓ so entangled in, it’s not like Maduro was a drug kingpin, but there’s a lot of drugs that go through Venezuela and there’s lot of ⁓ corruption, a lot of graft and a lot of illicit business that happens in Venezuela. And that those networks were much too entrenched for the sort of regime change that Maria Carina Machado was pushing for. Mm. Mm. And I think, you know, I don’t know what she’s going to see him now, I assume to try to persuade him that there needs to be more of a genuine transition. Her position has been that there shouldn’t be, I think her position has been that there shouldn’t be new elections because she says that there were elections last year, Edmund O’Gonzalez won, he’s the legitimate president. You know, I think there’s other opposition figures that are, you know, that are more measured, that believe that there should be a more gradually managed transition, that there should be some sort of pact between parts of the government and parts of the Chavista regime and the opposition, and that it should be more gradual reforms leading then to an election. know, again, questions about whether that’s sort of parliamentary or presidential, all these sorts of usual transitional questions. So I’m not sure where, I mean, that’s from a few days ago. I’m not sure where she stands now, but I’d imagine she’s going to make the case at least for, you know, democratic reform to be on the table and maybe her variant of ⁓ political change to be on the Yeah, lots to watch there. ⁓ Let’s now pivot to Europe ⁓ and Greenland. ⁓ How seriously should Europe take Trump’s or ⁓ stated intent to assert control over the territory? Given, especially given what we’ve seen in Venezuela. Yeah, think, I think, I think very seriously, I don’t think there’s any question about that. Now, Greenland is not Venezuela. mean, Greenland is, you know, an autonomous territory of Denmark, which is one of the US’s most loyal allies and part of NATO. A founding member of NATO, So it’s a very different, very different, exactly, very, very different proposition. But, you know, Trump has said it repeatedly, said it in his first term, he returned to office saying it quite loudly, it then sort of slipped off the agenda or was lower down the agenda as Trump was focused on Ukraine and Gaza and Iran. But now after the Venezuela operation and after this focus, this explicit focus on the Western hemisphere in the national security strategy, it’s back with a bang. He himself has been talking about it. Stephen Miller, the official I mentioned earlier, has been talking about it very vocally. I think Europe has to take this. We all have to take this seriously. Taking it seriously and sort of knowing what it’s going to look like, I think, are two different things. I struggle, and it may be my lack of imagination, but I struggle to see military annexation as the immediate step. I mean, I just don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. This government is very unpredictable. This American administration is very unpredictable, but I don’t see that happening. I suspect there’s going to be pressure. I think there’s already some meetings set up between Rubio and European leaders. I suspect there’s going to be pressure, some serious pressure on Denmark, serious pressure on Europe as a whole. Now, what the Americans are going to push for, I think is unclear. mean, the paths are what they could try to buy, Greenland. think Denmark has made it clear it’s not for sale. think the Greenland government has also said, we don’t want to be sold to the US. So how much pressure they can apply and what that’s going to yield for the ⁓ sales arrangement, I think that’s uncertain. They could push for some sort of independence referendum and then the Danish parliament would have to ratify independence and then the US would sign some sort of agreement with ⁓ Greenland. Yeah. Protectorate of some sort. Yeah. Again, yeah, exactly. mean, I still see that as a complicated path. I mean, there’s a very clever article been written in Foreign Affairs just this week about how maybe it would happen more subtly, not through any of these, but gradually through influence, through investment, through buying off Greenlanders who are sort of more open to being bought and coming under American influence and it would happen sort of by stealth. Maybe, I see that as less likely. mean, think, again, we don’t really know. None of the paths, it’s very hard to track a path. It’s very hard to track a path by which Greenland ends up as part of the US. Yeah, yeah, it’s so hard to predict. Yeah. So we just don’t know. But the sustained American pressure on Europe with all the implications of that for NATO, potentially for Ukraine. Now, I think that’s, that I think is certainly on the cards. I should maybe say, Maz, I mean, Greenland is important for the US’s security, obviously. And I think it’s the, I think it’s the shortest route over from, you know, from parts of Europe, if you want to fire a missile across. It’s important submarine routes. So it’s not that it’s not important for hemispheric defence. Clearly it is. The crazy thing, of course, is that anything the US wants on Greenland, whether it’s more troops, different defence, different weapons systems, different defence systems, even greater sort of concessions in mining the rare earths, which Greenland is very rich in. The US could get all this in negotiations with Denmark, which is extremely loyal,  open to these sorts of concessions, Greenland as well. Trump could get a lot of the things that he wanted through negotiations with Denmark. I mean, really the only, as things stand at the moment, really the only sort of logic for this seems to be sort of one of territorial expansion. it’s Trump’s of expansionist impulse that he wants the map of the US to look does seem the most logical explanation. yeah, think it’s going to, as things stand, and again, things can change very quickly. The European leaders have often done quite good jobs at moving President Trump on Ukraine, some of his proposals for Ukraine, for example. So, things can change quickly. But as things stand today, again, of mid-January, it does look like there’s going to be concerted pressure on Denmark by the US to give the US greater control over Greenland. How do you interpret European response so far? My reading is that it’s been quite assertive, especially Denmark. I mean, I think just yesterday they’ve basically changed their rules of engagement that they are to open fire on US forces if they come into Greenland. And I think the UK and France, think, are even whispering about putting troops in as a buffer, basically, to disincentivize any moves by the US. So what you read on the kind of cohesion, unity of the European response? I haven’t got the latest on this. things may have changed. Things are changing very quickly. I would say that on both Venezuela and the initial talk about Greenland, certainly on the Venezuela operation, which again, I don’t think there’s many international lawyers that would say that it’s a an operation that’s consistent with the UN Charter. And yet Europeans leaders were very quiet on Venezuela. I mean, they really hedged on Venezuela, not all of them, but many of them. Denmark, as you say, ⁓ the ⁓ Danish have been very, very strong on Greenland. haven’t, mean, they’re now mustering the rest of Europe is now sort of mustering its response to Greenland. And I’m not sure exactly where things stand at the moment. The challenge that European leaders face is that, you know, for all that these are powerful, rich, you know, in some cases, nuclear armed countries, they still need the US. I mean, that’s just a reality. They need the US, especially in Ukraine. And the fact that as well and for European security writ large… As a security blanket, basically. mean? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s not the nuclear umbrella, but the US is the most important factor in NATO, the most important deterrence against Russia. And for all that Trump has cast aspersions over NATO and ⁓ cast aspersions about what he would do in the event of an attack on a NATO member, it’s still a huge deterrent. Certainly, Putin’s calculations, it’s still up there in President Putin’s calculations. the US, sorry, Europe needs the US still for continental defence. And in Ukraine, and European leaders really do see Ukraine as extremely important, if not existential to their own security. They do not want a deal that Trump tries to impose on Ukraine. Obviously, President Zelenskyy, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, doesn’t want to deal like that either. Ukrainians don’t want to deal like that either. But Europeans do not want a deal that leaves Ukraine without a means to defend itself. And Russia emboldened, you know, being able to dictate what happens in politics in Kiev and from there, you know, sort of emboldened moving and probing further into other parts of Europe. the Russians, you know, the drones, the drones, the hybrid stuff, the jamming of planes, the interference in politics. mean, already the Russians are probing quite aggressively, not just even beyond the full-scale war in Ukraine. And I think for Europe, what happens in Ukraine and what sort of that war ends is just seen as so important for European security that they felt face a real balance. Now, and of course, there’s lots of ways you can point holes in their thinking. we can talk more about sort what the peace talks in Ukraine have entailed, but one of the sticking points is that President Zelenskyy and the Europeans are pushing for US security guarantees for Ukraine. Now you could say, now what good are US security guarantees when the US is threatening to annex Greenland and NATO member? But Zelenskyy believes and Europeans believe that the US security guarantees still matter in Ukraine. And they believe that they are a real deterrent against Vladimir Putin going further for all Trump’s unreliability. And I think they’re right. I think it matters to the Russians. US security guarantees matter to the Russians; they would be a deterrent. So, I think there’s all sorts of sort of, you know, what seem like inconsistencies, but they’re not necessarily wrong. So, you know, I think Europe is in a difficult position. I mean, I would say that the, you know, the Trump doctrine, the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ of the US calling the shots in the Western Hemisphere, the US sort of, you know, being the dominant force in the Western Hemisphere. This does not necessarily translate into a spheres of influence policy in other parts of the world. I mean, I think that is extremely important. Just because the US gets to do it in the Western hemisphere does not necessarily mean that Trump believes that Russia should be able to do it in Eastern Europe, let alone that China can do it in the Asia Pacific. I think the signal’s still on Europe and certainly the signals on Asia, which maybe we can come to. And I think these are still mixed signals. Even on Europe, where I think that, you know, in some ways the writing is on the wall for Europe, needs to do step up more in its own defence. The US is no longer a reliable, you know, reliable guarantor of Europe, its security. I think the writing is on the wall there, but sort of how quickly that happens. You know, Trump, clearly this national security strategy had a sort of overt disdain for European elites and the sort of civilizational threat that many in the Trump administration appear to believe Europe faces. But there’s no sign yet that Trump is going to pull out of NATO, for example. Again, Greenland would potentially jeopardize the Alliance, course, but he hasn’t beyond Greenland, he hasn’t said that. The Ukraine, you know, the first meeting with Zelenskyy was a catastrophe, obviously, and it’s just awful to watch. And Trump clearly doesn’t have sort of the Ukrainian cause, let’s say, deep in his heart. I mean, I think that’s obvious. But he is still providing American intelligence to Ukraine. I’m not sure if any of the Biden approved money or weapons is still left, but certainly the Europeans are able to buy American weapons and give those to Ukraine. Yeah. And for all the diplomacy, you know, I actually thought the idea of the U.S. talking to Russia and the shuttle diplomacy between Russia and Ukraine, I mean, the way it’s been done, we can talk about, but the actual idea of doing that wasn’t a bad principle. That’s not a bad, it’s not a bad idea. The way it’s been done has been, has been very muddled, but so far the U.S. has not imposed on Ukraine, on Europe, a deal that is fully on Russia’s terms. mean, the pattern of the diplomacy so far, you know, and again, you can criticize lots about the way it’s been done and the signals that Trump has sent to Ukraine and to Europe. But the pattern of the diplomacy so far has been that, know, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy, talks to Putin often over several hours, over several times, comes up with a deal that seems Russia’s deal, seems to lean Russia’s way, very favourable to Russia. Putin doesn’t actually say that he agrees with that deal. So, it’s not clear whether it’s already been agreed with the Russians. The Europeans and the Ukraine then go to Washington, talk to President Trump, talk to others that are more sympathetic in the administration to European security, manage to get a more sort of measured balance deal on the table. That goes back to Russia and Putin then rejects that. That’s been the pattern so far and it’s happened a few times. So, I think we know the sticking points at the moment. They’ve been the sticking points for some time. Right now, Putin, think, has been calling on Ukraine to pull out of the areas of the Donbass that it still controls, which is what 20 % of Donetsk and parts of Luhansk. And these are heavily fortified areas, which Ukraine sees as very important to its own defence. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Sorry, there’s been calls for him to withdraw by whom? Well, think that’s the latest demand. think where the negotiations have currently stood, that’s one of the sticking points that the Russians want the Ukrainians to pull out of the rest of Donbass. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I misunderstood. Thought it was the other way for the Russians to pull out. I thought, okay. That’s, that’s, that’s news to me. No, I probably didn’t explain it well. No, no. I just misheard what you said. Yeah, that makes sense. Because that’s what, that’s my understanding is that Putin wants more than he’s got already as part of the deal. So that, you know, Ukrainians have to willingly kind of withdraw from parts of their territory. It’s really strange that you don’t see the spheres of influence. My read, and I’m nowhere near as well read as you are, but my read was especially with Witkoff spending so much time with Putin. And I think the Chinese foreign minister was there at the same time as well, which wasn’t very publicized. But it appears that there may have been kind of chats between the three. My read on Trump and how he talks about Putin and engages with Putin is that he’s very much in the spheres of influence. He wants to shut down Ukraine,  just close that war as quickly as he possibly can so he can focus on China. I’m not sure what that means for Taiwan, but  I suspect that he’s quite comfortable with China doing China, Russia doing Russia, US doing US, and that he gets deals between the three to kind of achieve this kind of division of the globe. And of course, supporting Israel in the Middle East as the pillar of power there. That’s my read. perhaps I’m too naive in seeing rationale in Trump, because he’s so flamboyant and everything changes every single day. But I do feel that there’s at least attempts of this 4D chess being played. I just don’t know that that’s all going to work out as he hopes. Yeah, it’s easily plausible, as you say. I mean, it’s not completely out of the question that that’s where we end up. But I would say it’s too early to make a prediction. And again, Trump’s clear intention to dominate the Western Hemisphere means he’s going to give Russia free rein in Eastern Europe, again, let alone China and the Asia Pacific and maybe come to China and… But are the threats of further Russian expansion into Europe really credible? I mean, yes, I know it’s been talked about and Poland’s been quite vocal about it. I Poland is a monstrous military as well. We’ve seen how much Putin has struggled in Ukraine since 22. How realistic do you think that it is that Putin actually wants to expand further westwards? I think that’s a really good question. I mean, certainly European leaders worry that he does. Now, what Russian expansion looks like, of course, a big question. Certainly, he does not want a Georgia, Moldova, still some questions about, and Ukraine. He does not want these to be clearly not part of NATO. I that’s out of the question. But how close to the West, what sort of influence the West has rather than governments in which he’s able to call the shots, a bit like Belarus. I think, you know, so for those countries that are very close to Russia, I think that’s what President Putin would like. I think he would like to be able to, you know, he doesn’t, obviously the NATO expansion was a huge deal for him. Precisely what he wants in some of the other countries, you the Baltics in particular, you other countries that are close. I mean, I think he just, you know, I don’t think we really know. But I don’t think if you’re looking at it from the perspective of European security, I don’t think it’s a stretch to have to plan for a potential threat of Russia wanting to exert greater influence in these countries’ politics. As Putin would articulate it to stop them being a threat to him, but as those countries would see it meddling in their politics and meddling in their democracies and stopping them having the sovereign right to exercise their own decisions about what their foreign policies and what their strategic positioning looks like. So precisely what it looks like, again, I don’t see that if there is a deal that leaves the Ukrainian army weak and doesn’t involve security guarantees. Exactly. So again, I tend to think that the Ukrainian army is a more important deterrent than the security guarantees, but that’s not necessarily what Russia thinks. So, but, you know, if there was a deal on Russia’s terms in Ukraine, and it was from there able to dictate politics in Kiev, you know, undermine Ukrainian democracy, that this immensely powerful and, you know, adapt a drone warfare Ukrainian army comes sort of closer to Russian control. You know, and from there, they start looking into Moldova and start doing sort of more aggressive intelligence ops in other parts of Eastern Europe. That’s a big, big threat for Europe. That’s not a wild scenario based on President Putin’s track record. So, I mean, I understand very much the, the question though is sort of whether I think that the, and again, always we have to caveat this with the Trump administration is quite unpredictable. There’s different currents within the administration. Yeah, of course. Now where policy ends up is often a battle between different parts of the administration with then Trump coming in over the top. So, we always have to caveat and say it’s a very unpredictable administration. My sense is that the signals are clear to Europe that Trump wants Europe to step up more in its own defence. He’s needled greater defence spending out of Europe, which I think is a good thing, was overdue. But whether that means he’s really going to pull out of NATO or sell NATO, sell Europe out to a Russia sphere of influence over parts of the Eastern parts of the continent. I don’t think we’re not there yet at all. I don’t think we’re there. I think the signals are much more mixed than that. And as for the Asia Pacific, I think the signals, well, first of all, what’s maybe been one big surprise of the past year is that China, except for the tariffs and the Asia Pacific as a whole, have not really been the focus of this administration this time around. If you compare this to Trump’s first term, where you had all the stuff with North Korea. Now this big, where Trump really changed the thinking in the US about China as a strategic adversary. This year, he’s been much more focused on Europe and the Middle East, which I think, and now the Western hemisphere, which maybe was a surprise. But the signals he sent in the Asia Pacific, again, I you’re there, Maz, so you probably know this better than I do, but the signals that he sent to me seem mixed. On the one hand, he has imposed very high, very steep tariffs on allies. Yeah, yeah. He clearly sees Xi, I think, as an economic adversary rather than a geopolitical adversary. I think he would like a big trade deal with Xi. Certainly, allies are very worried about what he might give up for a good trade deal with China. And it’s not that, you again, if the Ukrainian cause is not deep in his heart, I think it’s fair to say that the Taiwanese defence is also not something that he feels as strongly about as maybe most of his predecessors. No, it’s a business deal. On the other side of the ledger, he’s just given $11 billion worth of weapons to Taiwan, to China’s fury. Admittedly, when China then conducted this extremely aggressive drills around the island, Trump didn’t say very much. I think the US strategic ambiguity is a good thing, so you don’t want him to be too committed to the island’s defence, but you don’t want him to signal that he’s not going to defend it either. So, the strategic ambiguity is important. Trump hasn’t actually changed that yet. And then he’s had good meetings with, you know, he’s had good meetings with the Australian government, your government, you know, with the South Koreans, with the Japanese, with the Philippines. You know, he’s had reasonably warm meetings. I personally, you know, I do think he wants to trade deal with Xi, but I struggle as things stand. And again, it may be my lack of imagination. Yeah. But I struggle as things stand to see Trump, you know, seeding primacy in Asia, you know, certainly seeding to China, Taiwan’s chip high-end chip industry, which the American military still relies on, but seeding primacy of a region, which is what responsible for half a global trade, these shipping lanes, you know, from around the South China Sea, you know, through the first island chain. I mean, this is a hugely strategic area. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I struggle to see that still. again, maybe lack of imagination, but I think Trump would like allies to do more. that’s different to actually sort of being prepared to tolerate the Asia Pacific as a Chinese sphere of influence. And obviously the allies would, other Asian countries get a say in that as well. I mean, maybe the last qualification that I’d put on the spheres of influence idea is that Trump has just gone to Congress. I think fairly recently and asked for $1.5 trillion in defence spending next year. Well, was $900 billion this year. It was $1.5 trillion. That’s nearly double. I mean, it’s a massive hike. That is not a defence budget that’s hemispheric defence. don’t think, you know, I think let’s talk about the golden, you know, Trump’s Golden Dome. But, this is, for me, is a defence budget that is global power projection, not hemispheric defence. Yeah. I think for all the signals on the Western Hemisphere are very clear. And I’m not saying that it couldn’t go somehow that he tries to stitch up a deal with Xi in China, and certainly that Russia ends up more influential in Eastern Europe. Those things can definitely happen. But I don’t think we should read from the Venezuela operation that that’s sort of preordained. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s really interesting. I again, it’s so complex and it is all about guessing. I do tend to agree with the China piece. I mean, that, he wouldn’t just let it go. And I also think the second order effect of a lot of the things that he’s doing right now impact China. You know, Venezuela oil exports, as we’ll get to next Iran, you know, oil exports. So, in these kind of second order effects, you know, he’s taken actions that at face value seem support one certain narrative, but then when you scratch below the surface, you actually realize that there’s a cost within that action to China, kind of, well, directly, but not overtly, so to say. And I guess that, in fact, that’s probably a good way to pivot to the Middle East and Iran. And I think it’s fair to say that attacks on Iran are all but imminent, given what’s happening domestically. But perhaps the first question I want to ask on that is how do you read the, I mean, the mainstream media in the West is kind of presenting all of this as grassroots kind of resistance and revolution and, you know, trying to take down the Shah, the Ayatollah. But then when you read elsewhere and, you know, even Mike Pompeo has made it quite public in his X tweet, you know, highlighting that, you know, happy new year to everybody in Iran and also the Mossad agents along the ground. But of course, Israel has also made it quite public and many public figures in Israel have talked about Mossad actions in kind of inciting this uprising. So, what’s your read firstly on this kind of the conflict between what, you know, we’re seeing in the mainstream media and the kind of narrative that’s projected there, but then also these kind of competing narratives that don’t feature in the Western public discourse but certainly feature elsewhere. I mean, both can be true to some degree, right? I mean, think there’s no way that these are not genuine expressions of fury at a completely incompetent, repressive, brutal government that’s driven Iran into the ground, the economy into the ground, living conditions, the cost of living, water shortages in Tehran. I just a disastrous legacy and the fury. And these protests are not just… Yeah, yeah, no doubt. They’re not just a narrow segment of society. were started by the bazaaris, by the small merchants, which are traditionally the core of the regime’s support base. So, they’re across the country. They’re widespread. They’re not one demographic. And they are a genuine expression of anger at the way the country has been run. And this may not be the regime in its death throes, but it definitely, in its twilight, it cannot regain legitimacy. Yeah. It’s also a government regime that has spent billions, billions of dollars on a nuclear program, has just been destroyed mostly. I’m sure we’ll talk about this 400, apparently 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium still floating around, whereabouts unknown. But the nuclear program, most the centrifuges, I most of it’s all been destroyed. Billions of dollars wasted there, billions of dollars wasted on proxies, proxy forces in Hezbollah, propping up the Assad government. Hezbollah now on its knees, Assad government thankfully gone. The Houthis are still powerful. you know, and this is, the sort of tenets of the regime, you know, there’s nothing to look to for success there. I it’s been a disastrous government and people are really, really angry. I think that’s 100 % true. Now, does that mean that, you know, there’s no Mossad agents on the ground, you know, doing things or shaping the nature of the protests or putting Israeli flags in people’s hands or making them chant in Favor of Reza Pahlavi, who’s the son of the Shah, who’s had this remarkable, in some ways, this apparent surge in popularity outside the country. Of course that’s possible. Of course it’s plausible. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, think said a couple of days ago, better that the regime is toppled by revolution than we have to do it militarily. Mm-hmm. So, I think it’s possible to see an Israeli hand in some of this, but there’s no way that this is also not primarily, mostly an expression of frustration, anger at a failing government. No, of course. Yeah. I think my question, sorry, I think my question more comes with the kind of increase in violence. And I think there’s, you know, Drop Site News and a bunch of others have kind of talked about the fact that that was unusual based on the protests in the past, that all of a sudden mosques are burnt down, that, you know, scores of police officers are killed, shot, in some cases beheaded. You know, rather the escalation went from, as you said, you know, the Bazaaris, due to the fall in the currency and the value in currency, that’s kind of where it started. And then it kind of transformed and morphed very quickly and very rapidly into a very violent uprising, one that, and this is my naivety, I haven’t been able to confirm this, but apparently at least is not really usual in protests of the past in Iran, i.e. you know, kind of mosques are burnt or kind of heritage sites or cultural sites are destroyed, which of course then have, you know, much, much more, much bigger, much broader kind of inflaming effect on the population. And I guess the accusation, at least in that case is that, you know, certainly Mossad has had a hand in it. And, you know, again, we don’t know, and I completely agree. And without a shadow of a doubt, there’s a grassroots uprising, rightly, the Iranian people are standing up. It’s just the merging, using the will of the people to then achieve another strategic intent by somebody like Israel and of course supported by the US. So again, I haven’t been following it as closely maybe, and so I haven’t heard those stories of, you know, mosques being burnt and other things. I mean, so I just don’t know so much about that. And I suspect it’s even if, it’s also, I think it’s very difficult to know sort of what’s happening on the ground and who’s instigating what. You know, as we… Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. Internet’s been shut down. Yeah, right. Exactly. I mean, our team can’t talk to their family members who are there. There has over the past few days, and again, we’re speaking on the 14th of January, but over the past few days, there’s been a massive regime crackdown. So, if there has been violence by protesters against the security forces or against sort of regime infrastructure, there’s been a massive, yeah, mean, estimates vary, but certainly thousands… Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thousands. Well, even the regime said 2000. So, you know, and some estimates go up to 12,000. Yes. Three, was it? Yeah. OK, so if they’re saying three, you can bet your bottom dollar …whether it’s six or 12 is unclear. But even the regime said three, think. Yeah, three. So that’s what the regime said. Yeah, exactly. So yeah. that it’s, you know, at least three times that. It’s horrible. And that’s a level, you know, don’t forget, 700 civilians killed in the 12-day war with Israel last June. you know, mean, these are numbers that dwarf that war. You know, it does, you know, and as we talk again, this may well, you know, things may well change, but the protests seem to have subsided. Some of that’s the information that we’re getting from, you know, people there that they seem to have subsided. So that, you know, the regime may have, the government may have sort of brutalized its way out for now. And there isn’t an armed opposition, right? I mean, for all the protesters may have been more violent. And again, I haven’t followed those stories so closely, but there isn’t a sort of armed opposition. The big question now is, have indeed the protests, of, have their ferocity and intensity subsided? But the next question is, of course, what is President Trump going to do? Is he going to, and he’s built up now this idea repeated rhetoric about help is coming, that we’re going to do something. I’m not sure what his options. I can imagine that a few days ago when you could imagine people in Trump’s, President Trump’s ear talking to him about the regime that’s on its last legs. These protests are really gathering pace. You could do a quick operation like you’ve done in other places and then you’d get credit for, yeah, you’d get credit for toppling the… Yeah, knock the domino over. I think it’s going to be harder to convince him of that now. On the other hand, he has sort of built up this idea that the US is going to intervene and it’s easily plausible that they do. You know, what would they do? I guess the most plausible is if they do conduct military, because there’s lots of other non what they would call non kinetic options, right? I they could do cyber stuff to stop the regime communicating to allow the protesters, could protesters communicate, they could put Starlink over, I’m not sure if they’ve done that. Mm-hmm. There’s all sorts of things they could do. I think a full oil embargo is sort of more difficult. They, I don’t think they have the assets to sort of seize boats going through the Straits of Hormuz. I think that they’re too much in the Western hemisphere at the moment. So that’s sort of complicated. If they do bomb, I guess they would hit sort of revolutionary guards and regime infrastructure. But sort of the idea that that’s going to lead to or increase chances of the regime being toppled. You know, I mean, the police, the security forces have been using small guns, you know, often fired close up in people’s faces to repress the from what I understand to repress the protests. So, it’s not that the infrastructure is so important to being able to the repressive apparatus. Yeah, so, you know, I’m not sure how much that is actually going to change dynamics. Again, very unpredictable. And we don’t really know, of course, what a what a sort of wave of strikes on IRGC infrastructure might do. We just don’t know. But it’s very hard to see, I think, how that would sort of make a toppling of the regime more likely. And again, sort of what the Venezuela option, I think, know, is what people talk about. I mean, I struggle to see the Venezuela option in Venezuela. So, I should caveat what I say with that. But I find it even harder to see in, you know, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of Dios Dado Cabellos and Vladimir Padrino’s. There’s not a lot of Delci Rodriguez’s, I think, within the Iranian regime. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. Yeah. So, I just don’t know whether some sort of bridge thing is possible. I there’s certainly, I think there’s certainly voices within the, on the civilian side of the Iranian governing structure, maybe even within the revolutionary guards, there’s voices that recognize that things have to change. mean, the regime doesn’t really have a way out except for sanctions relief. The only, and I think it’s going to be difficult now for the Trump administration to engage on the nuclear program, on the ballistic missiles, which of course is a huge concern to the Gulf countries and Israel, on the support for proxies. It would be hard for the US to do a deal with Iran on all those without some element now of political reform. I that would be sort of selling out the protesters. the government, the only real, the government’s lost all, the regime has lost all its legitimacy. And it’s hard to see it getting that back as it currently stands. I think some sort of political reform, but when and how and what that means, think again, huge questions and all the usual problems of a country that’s been under this sort of authoritarian repressive rule for so many years, what follows and how to steer something that’s not worse, think some huge, huge, difficult questions. And without getting in there and doing a regime change with boots on the ground. Well, and even then, that hasn’t tended to work very well either. I mean, you can imagine trying to do that in Iran. That would be disastrous. You know, I do think it’s worth pointing out that the interests of Israel and the interests of the Gulf Arab monarchies and the interests of the US are different. I mean, I think Israel, there’s many in Israel that would be quite happy with a weak Iran collapsing in on itself. I think that’s misguided. And again, there are these supposed fissile material, this nuclear this highly enriched uranium floating around. it’s easy to see that that may be misguided. But certainly, for the rest of the Gulf and for the US, no one has any interest in an Iran at war with itself, unstable with the remnants of the ballistic missile program, remnants of the nuclear program, a disaster for the region. And you are talking about a region where most of the Arab capitals, not all, but most of the Arab capitals are really looking to sort of turn a page on these very destructive wars over the past 15, well, really starting with the Iraq war in 2003, but certainly the post Arab Spring Wars, they’re really wanting to turn a page on that. And the idea of having to deal with an Iran in flames, I think that’s a very, very worrying thought to many in the region. Yeah. Yeah. So, what influence do you think then Israel will have on what happens next? Because I tend to agree. I mean, I think they absolutely want a weakened, you know, potentially, you know, divided up Iran. I mean, I think that’s, you know, being the modus operandi around the region, you know, for a long time now, I mean, even just last year was that they bombed seven countries across the region. And of course, we’re seeing what’s happening and we’ll get to that in a minute as well to Gaza and the West Bank. I think it’s hard to argue that Israel doesn’t want further attacks on Iran. They’ve said it from June onwards, know, there should go back. Various key leaders in the military and the government have called for it. Bibi was in New York again for the fifth time to see Trump on the 31st, 30th or 31st of December, whenever it was. You know, it to me, seems as though that’s absolutely part of the bigger plan. And of course, Bibi’s got elections potentially this year as well. you know, he’s got potentially a limited timeframe within which he acts in support of whatever the bigger, you know, the greater Israel project might be. So certainly before this latest wave of protests in Iran, we worried that at some point this year, maybe not immediately, but at some point this year, the Israelis would go back in to try to take out whatever ballistic missiles programs, if they felt that that was, Iran was already saying that it was reconstituting those. And for Israel, actually, the ballistic missiles are almost as, if not more worrying than the nuclear program. These ballistic missiles did quite a bit of damage to Israel during the 12th day. Well, I think that’s the other thing that’s not really discussed. I think that the 12-day war, I mean, Israel was a day or two away from running out of ammo. And it was Israel that ultimately put pressure on Trump to kind of close this off and let’s call it evens. Which again, that’s not something that we really discussed in the West, but Israel certainly, yes, of course, it caused a lot of damage in Iran, but it also took a lot of damage. Certainly, it took a lot of damage. I don’t know how far they were to actually running out of the Iron Dome and I can’t remember the other, is it a killer shield, the other defence system? Which in the end, is very reliant on US weapons and supplies, ammunition supplies, missile defence supplies. The ballistic missiles caused a lot of damage in Israel for sure. And, you know, we’re extremely disrupted. mean, many Israelis have to spend days in shelters, know, hiding in shelters, extremely, extremely worried. So certainly, the ballistic missiles did a lot of damage. I’m not completely convinced that Israel wanted to stop the war when it did. I suspect that actually Trump, you know, Trump, Trump going in and bombing the nuclear sites… He forced them to turn the planes around, didn’t we? Yeah, he stopped them in the end. I think Netanyahu would have liked to sense blood basically and sense that the regime was sort of, you know, was vulnerable and they would have liked to carry it out a few more days to inflict as much damage as they could while they had the chance. But it is true that the ballistic missile certainly did a lot of damage in Israel and more than was initially reported. think the reporting subsequently has shown that that was the case. The ballistic missiles could obviously, for the way that Iran responded after the 12 day war to the US coming in, was this sort of performative strike on the Al Udeid air base in Qatar, signalled in advance, easily stopped. I think for many in the Gulf, the idea of more serious strikes on US bases and US assets or even US partners from Iran, you know, as a regime backed into a corner, using everything it has sort of seeing its survival on the line. Now that is the scenario that they most fear. I mean, obviously another scenario would be some sort of radioactive damage in the Gulf, which, you know, many of them depend on for the sort desalinated drinking water, obviously also extremely dangerous. So, you know, the ballistic missile program and, you know, the danger of cornered Iran lashing out, I think is still a real one. And they’ve also said it explicitly as well. I mean, the regime, various figures in the regime and from the Ayatollah down, Khamenei down, they’ve signalled it that, know, pre-emptive strikes might be on, you know, that they will read threats as intention,  you know, and that pre-emptive strikes are even on the cards, which of course could be, know, bluffing and bolstering or whatever. But it’s again, a little bit different to what Iran has, how Iran has postured itself in the past. Yeah, I mean, personally, I think that that’s that is just posturing because for Iran, I think the regime’s back has to be really against the wall for it to go all in like that, because it’s I mean, it’s affected. It’s suicide. And I mean, it’s the US it’s the end of the I think I mean, who knows exactly what happens. But I think if there’s you know, if there’s a full-on Iranian assault on parts of the Gulf or on the US air bases on you know, or even on Israel, you know, I think it’s the, I think it’s, would, it would bring upon, yeah, it would bring upon Iran such a, such a response from the US.  So, I mean, I should just say also with the, with the, the, you know, with the danger of Trump, the US administration now striking Iran, I’m not sure that they have the assets in place right now. So again, we’re talking on Wednesday and it may easily happen, but I’m not sure it’s going to happen immediately. So, I think, and then again, it sort of depends, do the protests subside more? Does Trump still see the rationale for doing it? You know, I think there are still some pretty big questions there. Right. I’m glad to hear you’re more hopeful, more hopeful than I am. Perhaps I’m too much in a bulbble. No, don’t get me wrong, Marz. It’s clearly, yeah, yeah. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I clearly they’re signalling that they’re going to do something. It seems more likely than not. But whether it’s going to happen immediately and the more time goes by, maybe the incentive for doing it changes if the protests are losing steam. I just think we’re not quite clear yet, but I may be eating my words. Anyway, I’ve left both options open. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s right. Yeah. No, I mean, I mean, it is, it is really reading the tea leaves. But let’s now just, since we’re talking about Israel anyway, let’s talk about Israel, Palestine and the supposed ceasefire, which of course is, is, better than, you know, what happened up until then. But we know that more than 400 people have been killed since the ceasefire, more than a hundred children have been killed as Israel was still denying the right amount of aid to come in or the aid that’s there to come in for various reasons. And of course, the aggressive expansion of settlements in the West Bank approved by the Knesset and pushed by the Knesset against JD Vance, who’s being called as the ‘Bibi-sitter’, spending a lot of time in Tel Aviv. So again, how do you read what’s happening in the occupied territories, Gaza more broadly, especially since it’s broadly fallen out of the headlines? But how do you read what’s actually happening on the ground and what’s likely to occur there over the next 12 or so months? Yeah, know, you say, it’s obviously good that there’s the ceasefire, to the extent that still being violated, as you say, but it’s obviously good that there’s a ceasefire and this, you know, sort of inexcusable level of violence and killing and destruction that we’ve seen sort of after Hamas’s massacres in southern Israel, that we’ve seen Israel’s assault on Gaza involve, that for now is over. Obviously, that’s a good thing. The danger, I think, is that things in Gaza remain stuck where they are. And where they are at the moment is that Israel controls more than half of the strip, the yellow line, which divides east to west areas that are controlled by Israel and areas in which Hamas has reinserted control. Conditions, as you say, the Palestinian-held areas, conditions still very bad. It’s the winter. Obviously, we’ve probably seen images of sort of tents underwater and all this sort of stuff. I mean, no reconstruction at all. There’s a lot more aid getting in, to be honest, life-saving aid and food and other things people are talking about, sort of food circulating now in markets. So, it’s definitely not as bad as it was, but still shortages of essential materials and that sort of stuff, there’s a real danger that this sort of remains stuck where it is. The main points of the ceasefire deal, the initial phase was again, stopping the fighting and then the release of the remaining hostages, including the bodies of the hostages that had died in exchange for the Palestinian prisoners. To get beyond that phase, the ceasefire deal left a lot that was ambiguous. In particular, it didn’t clarify flesh out a lot of the details on the governance of Gaza and the security arrangements for Gaza. Now it envisages this Board of Peace, is, you know, since wasn’t completely clear in the actual plan itself, but since then, it’s become clear that this is envisaged as a sort of head of state body on which Trump will sit. It won’t actually do much on a day-to-day basis. It will sort of be a steering type of body that will have an executive now as that’s become clear. And it looks like Bulgarian diplomat, former UN envoy, think he’s now heading or working at an Emirati Institute, Nikolai Mladanov. He looks like he will be head of the executive part of the Board of Peace. The reports are that they’re going to announce this at Davos, which is next week. So, let’s see. So, they may announce this and I think they’re very close. I mean, to be honest, they’re talking about a Palestinian committee that talks about forming a Palestinian governance body for Gaza predated Trump’s plan. But you know, it looks like they’re close to getting a group of 12 or 14 Palestinians, the names cleared to then be a Palestinian governance in Gaza. Now, what’s still not completely clear is the relationship between the Board of Peace and this executive body and the Palestinian committee in Gaza that’s responsible, presumably for sort of more day-to-day management. Exactly who’s doing what? From what I understand, it’s sort of the the executive body will do more of the big decisions about money and spending and contracting and reconstruction. And more of the day-to-day management is done by the Palestinian committee. But obviously, you know, the more that Palestinians have agency and control in deciding their futures and running their daily business and deciding on what the future of Gaza is going to look like, obviously, the more that they get that, the better. So I do think that maybe going to be maybe, you know, again, there is a big maybe, maybe there’s going to be some steps forward and out soon on the governance side. And don’t forget, this is three months in, so this has not moved quickly. Maybe. And that would be a good thing, I think. The big challenge, even if that happens, is on the security side, because the core ambiguity or the core fudge on the security side of the ceasefire deal, which was the sequencing of Hamas, if not disarming, at least decommissioning its heavy weaponry, which is sort of what people are talking about now. It’s not going to give up all its small arms because everyone in Gaza has small arms. But Hamas decommissioning of its heavy weaponry, who to, how, the sequencing of that and the Israeli pullback from the yellow line to out of Gaza or near the borders of Gaza and the entrance of serious reconstruction material so that the rubble can be turned into cleared. Yeah. Gaza turned into something that’s inhabitable again. You know, the sequencing of that is still completely unclear. The takers for the international security force that’s envisaged or international stabilization force, the ISF that’s envisaged, you know, it’s unclear. No one wants to commit troops to forcibly disarm Hamas.  And it’s, nobody can, I mean, if Israel, you know, committing what much of the world views as a genocide, couldn’t disarm Hamas. It’s very unlikely that a force of other countries can. The disarmament of Hamas Yeah. And most of them, you know, inexperienced, not battle-hardened, most of them. Yeah, well, I mean, they’re talking, there could be some that are battle-hardened. It’s more that Hamas’ disarmament has to be, any sort of disarmament or decommissioning by Hamas has to be part of a negotiation. It’s going to have to be negotiated with Hamas itself. Hamas itself are undergoing their own leadership elections. I think there’s some, it’s not completely clear who’s going to come out on top of that. But this sort of question about the sequencing again of Israeli pulling back and allowing reconstruction aid in and Hamas is decommissioning or demilitarization. You know, again, Hamas is not going to want to give up its weapons without a clear sense of its future. It wants to survive and it’s said it doesn’t want to give up its weapons unless it’s part of a sort of political process and give itself its weapons to a Palestinian, know, to some sort of Palestinian entity. Mm-hmm. So, I think there’s space to work with, know, if there was a sort of, you know, think Hamas has been willing to do some things like not carry weapons, you know, obviously there will be controls on borders to stop weapons getting in. But of course, you know, most of its weapons are now, I assume, come from coming from unexploded ordinance that the Israelis have left. So, you know, I think there’s ways to compromise on that. But at the moment, there’s not a lot of signs that anyone is interested in a compromise. I think the only way through that obstacle would be the same way that the ceasefire came about, which was basically after the Israeli strike at the Hamas offices in Doha, which was this extraordinary violation of Qatar’s sovereignty. Then that basically led Arab Gulf powers and other Arab and other Muslim majority countries to collectively go to President Trump and say, like, enough is enough. We’ve got to stop this. And, you know, he then imposed that the deal that they’d come up with Trump was changed a bit and sort of ended up more in Israel’s favour. But it was Trump imposing it on Netanyahu. I think the only way to get through this obstacle of, you know, how you then sequence the Hamas decommissioning or basically, you know, how you start Gaza’s reconstruction, even while, you know, the questions about Hamas’s weapons are uncertain or, you Hamas disarmament hasn’t fully happened. You get through that, I think is only going to happen with that sort of collective Arab government and Muslim government pressure. And I don’t see that at the moment. mean, as you say, everyone’s distracted. Obviously, Iran is distracting now, but the Trump administration itself is distracted, was distracted, Venezuela, Greenland. So, as you say, Gaza has sort of been forgotten. And I think there is a real danger that maybe there’s some movement on the governance side, but Gaza remains in this sort of limbo of Israel controlling half of the strip and then Hamas essentially controlling the other half in Palestinians living in these terrible squalid conditions, no real recovery and more of them wanting to get out. There’s a real danger that that’s where it ends up. I’m not sure that Israel has a strong incentive to compromise to get beyond that scenario. Yeah, that’s right. I mean, it was brought up again recently to Trump as well. And he’s, he’s, he’s made, again, comments in line with that. if people want to leave, yeah, that’s a great idea. You know, we, we’ll, give them somewhere to go. And that’s really my fear. I, I, you know, perhaps I can say this, and you can’t, I don’t know, but I don’t trust Netanyahu at all in his intentions. I mean, he’s got a greater Israel project in mind. I can’t interpret it any other way. We’re seeing what’s happening in the West Bank as well. That’s a push now while the world is again distracted. It’s a continuation of what’s been happening, but it’s been accelerated. I just can’t read it any other way, including the kind of campaign certainly in Australia to suppress any opposition post the Bondi terrorist attack. There’s been a lot of lobbying in Australia in suppressing and now ultimately banning protests in support of Palestinians because there was a conflation directly between the protests in Sydney with incentivizing the acts of those two terrorists against Jews in Bondi, which again, that’s part of a narrative that I really don’t like. it’s happening in the UK, of course, in the US, although we’re seeing support for Israel in US is really plummeting. Perhaps not necessarily on the Hill just yet, but certainly in the general population, public, certainly in the of in the podcasting world and in the alternate media space. It’s certainly taken a big hit and certainly especially amongst Trump supporters. And I think he’s also aware of that. I think it’s all it all is going to make for an interesting year, I think, given the midterms are up in the US as well. So definitely a space to watch. perhaps given the time, perhaps we’ll quickly pivot. ⁓ Sorry, yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe that’s just, there was a lot there. I think on global opinion on Israel, I think for Israel, obviously the most worrying is the fact that European support for Israel has, and certainly for this Israeli government has really taken a hit. In the US, which Israel still completely depends on for its, you know, its security. Israel has lost the younger generation of the democratic party, 100 % and even many mainstream Democrats. On the right, it’s more complicated and some of it, I think we have to acknowledge is driven by genuine antisemitism. But there is also a lot of anger at, you know, what’s happening in Gaza. And there’s a big camp that’s sort of why we’re giving this sort of warmongering Israeli Prime Minister American support and why are we sending our taxpayer dollars to support this government. Well, it’s the kind of split between the MAGA and America First now. That’s really the kind of the split, you know, the MAGA that’s the original MAGA and now the America First is really splitting away from that. Marjorie Taylor Greene. I mean, she’s a prime example of a absolute Trump megaphone who then totally pivoted and is publicly calling out Israel. Yeah. That’s right. And why is America supporting Israel so much? You know, never mind, you know, the, the, the kind of popular culture figures, you know, like your Tucker Carlson’s, your Candace Owens, your Megan Kelly’s and who were, you know, a huge piece of Trump’s victory. I mean, there’s no denying that certainly amongst the younger population, they have pivoted. I mean, I don’t know if you follow any of that, but, I mean, they have pivoted completely. They are anti-Israel. These are still influential figures Among certain demographics. And of course, the polling shows all that as well. And Trump’s got to be reading that and thinking about it very hard as to how he deals with that. I think Israel’s loss of support among some parts of the US is absolutely clear. How that translates into support, don’t forget that on the right, the drop in support for Israel doesn’t necessarily translate into sympathy for the Palestinians or Palestinian self-determination support. So, know, whether this, how much change this actually changes US policy, how quickly, whether that happens in time for, you know, for the Palestinians, I think there’s some big questions about that. Netanyahu’s own intentions have always been quite, I think, quite difficult to read. I mean, compared to, let’s say, you know, Itamar Ben-Gvir or Bezalel Smotrich, you know, these far-right ministers that he Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, that’s right. We’re very explicit. Yeah, I mean, they’re very clear on, they want to retake Gaza. They want to expel the West Bank and Gaza. So, I know there is a question now more broadly in the region about Israel since the Hamas’ 7th of October attacks, now more than two years ago. Israel has changed the balance of force in the region, undoubtedly. Iran is now much, much weaker. Hezbollah is a shadow of former self. Hamas is still around, again, much, much, much, much weaker. And, you know, I don’t think this was deliberate. The Israelis didn’t expect, you know, a former Al Qaeda commander to topple President Assad in Syria, but that happened as well. And, you know, that’s a good thing. And I’m not sure that… Well, they supported ISIS troops in Syria. Yeah, I mean, I think they were okay with Assad, to be honest. I for all that Assad was supposedly part of the Axis of Resistance, think they sort of like, you know, I don’t think that the Israelis had a strong view of Assad. I mean, what they didn’t like was his proximity to Iran and the fact that Iranian forces were all over Syria. But I don’t think, yeah, so, no, and I’m not sure, just because, you know, again, obviously, we’d prefer that this sort of stuff didn’t happen militarily. But I’m not sure that Assad’s departure in Syria,  the weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon, I’m not sure that these are bad. These are not bad things per se. They’re an opportunity for the region. In some ways, Syria is, there’s plenty that can still go wrong, but in some ways, Syria is the positive news story of the last of the past year, the way that the country’s, for all the problems and the various outbreaks of ethnic violence, it’s undoubtedly a vastly better place than it was under Assad. Yeah, yeah, and the sanctions lifted, I mean that of course, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, think the sanctions lifted, a real bright spot in Trump’s Middle East policy, actually, the fact that he was prepared. It’s hard to imagine another president doing that, he was prepared early on to meet a guy who was a designated US terrorist, lift US sanctions. Two weeks before the meeting, you were what is a 10 million dollar on his head, bounty on his head. Right, right. So extraordinary. And that lifting of the US sanctions has been really important. And Trump’s envoy, actually, Tom Barrack, who’s the ambassador to Turkey, but also the envoy, sort of de facto envoy to Syria and Lebanon, has been very, I think, very supportive of the Syrian government and is really looking for an Israeli-Damascus deal. Now, Israel has been bombing, as you said, has been bombing Syria as it has other countries since Assad’s fall. But immediately when what was Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, President Shara’s movement, seized power, Israeli embarked on this sort of wave of bombings, taking out a lot of the military infrastructure. And they bombed chemical weapons of the former regime. And then when there was this bloodshed, this fighting in Sweida between the Druze and forces loyal to the government, Israel got involved again then. And it was only the US that sort of brought that to a calm. I think the US is now hoping that there is going to be a deal between Syria and Damascus. It’s a deal that’s very strong on Israel’s terms. It’s nothing about the Golan Heights, or it would be a sort of largely demilitarized area south of Damascus, where Damascus, the Syrian government would limit the forces that are sent in. Israel would gradually withdraw. I that’s they’re sort of working out the details and how much it would withdraw is still uncertain from the area that it seized over the past year. And there would be some sort of sort of security autonomy maybe for the Druze in Sweida. So, it’s a deal that I think the Israelis could sign, but this is a sort of strategic question for Israel. Is it going to sort of look for ways to reintegrate itself into the region to do deals after these military victories, or does it sort of want to be surrounded by countries that are weak and unstable and sort of, with the way it has the freedom of operation to bomb where it wants, but that, you know, again, let’s see what happens in Iran, because obviously in Iran is very uncertain what’s going to happen of the future. But if Iran, if the regime does survive, you know, a weak Syria, a weak Lebanon, you know, it’s only a matter of time before Iran sort of moves back in. So, I think it’s a question for Israel. Is it going to try to do deals with its neighbours? Is it going to allow for reasonably strong states or centralized states or states that are not collapsed on its borders? Or does it want to live in a region where it’s surrounded by weak states and has the freedom of operation to acting militarily where it feels the need to? Well, in my view, I’m pretty, pretty, pretty convinced that it’s the latter. But I do hopenthat I’m wrong in that regard. So, just kind of pivoting a little bit broader from Israel. One of the interesting kind of recent developments is the tensions growing tension between UAE and Saudi Arabia. Perhaps you can give us a bit of an insight as to what you see there and what firstly, what are the origins and you know, we’re seeing that now really come to kind of manifest in Yemen. What’s going on, why and how does it tie into the broader regional, I guess, kind of security apparatus? Well, the origins, yeah, it’s interesting to see this. I the origins go back a bit further, but the relations have really become strained over Sudan’s war, where the Emirates have been supporting the rapid support forces, the RSF, paramilitary force that’s battling the Sudanese army that has been battling for some time now the Sudanese army. The Emirates deny that they’re supporting the RSF, but the UN has documented it. mean, there’s loads of documentation that show Emirati weapons shipments going to the RSF, to Hemedti, the leader of the rapid support forces. The Saudis, they hadn’t initially overtly supported the Sudanese armed forces. They’d sort of initially remained fairly neutral. But Turkey, Egypt, to some degree Iran had supported the SAF, the Sudanese Armed Forces. mean, the Sudanese Armed Forces were also the recognized government so they can buy weapons on the open market. They don’t need weapon supplies in the same way. And I think the Saudis have become increasingly frustrated at the Emirati backing of the RSF. Hmm. And it’s heavier weaponry that’s been going in really since the army took back Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. There’s even heavier weaponry going in. It’s long-range drones, long-range missiles, long-range drones. I’m not sure about the missiles, certainly long-range weapons have been going in. And there’s been times where those have hit Port Sudan, the Red Sea coast. And the Red Sea coast is obviously for the Saudis. This is vital for the whole Red Sea basin, vital for their own security. Sudan is a neighbour. So, this is really a threat for the Saudis. Now, the last trip that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, when he went to Washington last, Sudan was on the agenda, certainly behind closed Now, shortly after that, early December, I think it was, the STC, the Southern Transitional Council, which is a Southern separatist group in Yemen, based in Aden, which the Emiratis have also backed as part of the anti-Houthi alliance, launched this offensive into areas controlled by other parts of that anti-Houthi alliance, but which are backed by Saudi. So, this is not an offensive against the Houthis, which are kind of Iran backed, but which have this sort of tacit understanding now, tacit ceasefire with the Saudis and have sort of, you know, stopped this cross border exchange with the Saudis. Right. But it was an advance by the STC into areas that are controlled by Saudi backed groups. Now, from the perspective of Riyadh, I think that they felt this was a reaction to what they thought was an Emirati perception that the Crown Prince had used the meeting with Trump to complain about Emirati backing of the RSF in Sudan. Now the Saudis deny that they did use that meeting for those purposes. The Emiratis deny that the STC offensive has anything to do with that meeting, but that’s sort of the narrative. Certainly, the Saudis see that offensive by the STC as linked to what happened in the competition in Sudan. Now, since then, I think the, you know, and it’s unthinkable that the STC would have advanced in the way they did without some degree of Emirati backing and green light. I mean, I think that’s out of the question. Of course, we don’t know what the truth of it is, what the Emirati motives were, but this is the sort of story that was going on. I remember I was in Doha at the time, the Doha Forum at the time when this happened. This was one of the ideas that were going around, that this was the sort of ideas that were circulating at the time, that this was again, of Emirati frustration at this meeting between Saudi Crown Prince and the Trump administration, which people thought would actually lead the Trump administration to get more involved in mediating a solution to the Sudan war, which didn’t actually happen, more involved in pressing the Emirates to stop backing the RSF, to push the, you know, to curb its arms supplies to the RSF. That hasn’t actually happened, but I think that was the perception. And that this STC operation was a sort of reaction to that. But I should say, we don’t know. Right. I mean, I’m just telling you the various versions of the different sides. I think this fits into a broader pattern where I think from the Saudis perspective, and from the perspective of other Arab countries, the Emirates are backing separatist forces in Yemen. They’re backing the RSF, which again, many Arab governments see as a sort of paramilitary force opposed to the central state in Sudan. And this sort of backing of non-state forces, of sort of centrifugal forces, you could say, forces that are not committed to unified states, you know, is very dangerous in the region. And this sort of Emirati adventurism, as they would see it, is a destabilizing factor in the region. I think, you from the, you could argue also that the forces that are being supported in principle by, you know, by, you know, the Sudanese army is itself not, I don’t think it’s fair to see the Sudanese army as the state. mean, it’s also one of the belligerents in the war. So it’s not that these are, know, obviously the Saudis are supporting the internationally recognized government in Yemen, but the internationally recognized government in Yemen and the allied forces control quite a small part of the country compared with what the Houthis, if you take out the areas that are controlled by the Houthis and the area controlled by the SDC. So again, I mean, think it’s, you know, it is more complicated than that, but certainly, you know, the Saudis are not alone in seeing Emirati support for various sort of non-state armed groups, militias, paramilitaries around the region as a destabilizing force. And, you know, I think relations have got very, very, you know, very tense. Obviously, these are countries with a lot of ties, they’re very close brotherly relations, as they would say, but the relations have got quite difficult. And what the implications particularly for Yemen, I think the Saudis put a lot of pressure on the Emirates to pull out of Yemen. I think they’ve said they will, but whether they have, I’m not quite up to date on that. The STC has certainly pulled back from where it was. And there was a Saudi, I think, strike on vessels, I think, bringing weapons to the STC, So what this means for the Horn, I think, is complicated because although it’s quite easy to sort of plot a path to where you have different factions in the Horn. And I think one of the scenarios we are most worried about in the Horn is a wider escalation in the Horn. The Sudan’s war escalates, all the Eritrea and Ethiopia start fighting, and this turns into some sort of regional conflagration of which there’s different factions. Broadly speaking, we could imagine something like Eritrea combined with the Sudanese armed forces, Ethiopia with the RSF, each with their external backers and then things escalate from there. I mean, I think that is a scenario that we’re worried about. But I would say that it is more complicated. I mean, the Saudis have very close relations with Isaias Afwerki, the Eritrean president, but it’s not that they don’t also have good relations with Abiy Ahmed, the Ethiopian president, the Emirates, they tend to support the Somaliland, they have close ties to Somaliland in Somalia, they have close ties to some of the federal states in Somalia, but they also have good ties and reasonably good relations with Hassan Sheikh, the president of Somalia. So, the ties go across sides. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not a clear, it’s not, it’s not clear who’s, who’s actually fighting whom and on behalf of whom. Yeah. It’s not that they just because they have closer relations to one side have no relations with the other. So I think it’s more sort of more complicated than an easy split, but it easy to see. Yeah, so what could be the motivation of the Emirates in particular? Because of course with the Somaliland and Israel recently recognizing Somaliland I mean, there’s you know, the Abrams Accords is a big piece of the puzzle as well, but you know beyond that what could be motivating the Emirates to you know, keep fuelling some of these conflicts? I think the overall Emirati strategy is slightly separate. But if you look at the relationship with the RSF, I think it is a good question why the Emirates are continuing to support the RSF when there’s quite a lot of reputational damage that they’re incurring because of this. And again, I should say they do deny supporting the RSF. I think initially, seems to be quite, Hemedti, the leader of the RSF, fought with both the Saudis and the Emirates against the Houthis in Yemen. But he’s always been close to Emirati leaders. There’s a lot of the gold that’s taken out that goes through the Emirates. Some people sort of say it’s all about gold. I think it’s more strategic. I think it’s more about, there was a time also when it looked as though the RSF might be able to take the whole country. That would have given the Emirates huge influence in an extremely influential country. Hmm. You know, not just in the Horn of Africa. Don’t forget Sudan reaches into, you know, to the Horn, to East Africa, to the Sahel, to North Africa. It’s extremely important. And it’s on the Red Sea, which is hugely important. So, there was a time when the RSF looked like it might, you know, it might take the whole of Sudan, which again would have given the Emirates a lot of influence. So, I think it’s more, and the Emirates of course would say that this is a lot still about the Muslim Brotherhood, that the Sudanese government which is true, has close ties to Islamists. It’s propped up by Islamist militias. A lot of the Bashir Islamists are fighting alongside, and part of the Sudanese Armed Forces coalition that fights the RSF. And the Emirates still have this, the same fear of the Muslim Brotherhood or dislike of the Muslim Brotherhood that drove a lot of their interventions during the Arab Spring, their interventions in Libya, that drove a lot of their policy at that time. Mm-hmm. That is still an important factor in Emirati policymaking, the fear of the Muslim Brotherhood. But it is also more, I think, now, or as much now about strategic influence in Africa and having partners and allies that it can deal with in what is an increasingly important, strategically important part of the world. This has been a time when many Gulf countries and Turkey, when other Gulf countries and Turkey and other outside countries have been increasing their ties to different African capitals and their involvement in particularly the Horn, but in other parts of the continent as well. So, you know, there is this sort of struggle for influence, you know, that has fuelled the Sudanese war, but is also shaping a lot of the politics in other parts of the region as well. Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s so complex. mean, and it doesn’t get anywhere near as much attention as it should globally. But of course, you know, especially, you know, horrors in Sudan. But I think on that note, Richard, think we’ve yeah, please go. Maz, I would just say maybe one last thing, is that I think there is still, certainly now in Saudi Arabia, since the, and it’s been a pivot, quite a clear pivot that the Crown Prince has made since the, I don’t know if you remember the Aramco attacks when Iran hit or the Houthis hit Saudi oil infrastructure and the US sort of didn’t come to the Saudi’s, this was on Trump’s first term, didn’t come to the Saudis aid. There has really been a Saudi pivot away from fighting in Yemen, confrontation with Iran. They’ve sought to improve their relations with Iran. Obviously now with the protests, things are very uncertain, but the deal that they did with Iran has largely kept the Gulf. And through China, wasn’t it? was China that break that… Well, it was actually brokered. I mean, a lot of the preparatory work was done by Amman, by Iraq, and then the Chinese came in rather like the Trump administration is coming in on some of these other deals and sort of sealed the deal. Yeah, right. Okay. For the handshakes. But the Chinese plan played an important role. They had influence in both countries. And that deal has been important to keeping the Gulf out of this post-October the seventh escalation, mostly out of it. So, the Saudis have pivoted and I think they are interested in a stable, they are looking for a more stable region. And I think from their perspective, from the perspectives of others in the region. Now, the more interventionist approach of the Emirates backing armed groups, different armed groups, different parts of the region, I think they see that as it’s something that they want to move away from now and they’re looking for a more stable region. Yeah. I think it’s, it fair to say that a direct confrontation between Saudi Arabia and the UAE is probably very, very unlikely. Oh, yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that would be extraordinary. Yeah, I think that’s very unlikely. And I think they will try to manage their relations as best they can themselves bilaterally, maybe within the GCC, but certainly bilaterally. And, again, there’s long ties and you know, they would see each other as countries that have a lot of shared interests and are very close to each other. I think it’s more. No, I think it’s more that, if those relations are tense, it makes it harder to imagine what a peaceful settlement in Sudan looks like or harder to get to, again, some sort of transition in Yemen. Again, we’re quite a long way away from that at the moment, but some sort of transition in Yemen because you do need the anti-Houthi forces reasonably aligned to then deal with the Houthis and then work out what Yemen’s future is going to hold. It’s more that the complicated relations then have an impact on some of the different war zones, which again, Saudi would see as its neighbourhood. I mean, Yemen is bordering Sudan just across the Red Sea. So, these are very important countries for the kingdom. Wonderful. think on that note, Richard, think we’re still some conflicts we haven’t covered, but we might have to leave those for another episode as we’ve well and truly gone over the time that we thought we would. But I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. And I think you have an excellent ability to weave in and connect all these different conflicts, which I think given how unstable the world is right now is much needed. And I’ve certainly appreciated it. So, thanks so much. Really appreciate it. Very kind. Thanks, Maz. It’s been great to be on the other side of the mic for once. I really appreciate it. Thank you. You’re a natural. We’ll be in touch. I don’t know about that, but thanks anyway.