THE VOICES OF WAR — Dr. Samir Puri

Episode: March 12, 2026

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (00:04) Welcome back to The Voice of War. Today I’m once again speaking with Dr. Samir Puri, geopolitics expert, bestselling author, and up to recently, the director of the Center for Global Governance and Security at Chatham House. Among many other notable achievements, Samir is a former UK Foreign Office diplomat, and he also taught war studies at King’s College London. He’s the author of several acclaimed books, including Westlessness, The Great Global Rebalancing, which explores the shifting balance of power in today’s world.

This is Sami’s third appearance on the Wars of War, so it’s great to have him back. Sami, good to see you again.

Samir (00:37) But really pleased to be back. It’s always a good conversation. So looking forward to this one.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (00:40) Excellent. So I think we’ll kick this one off straight away. So you’ve recently returned from the Raisina dialogue in New Delhi, where a number of notable speakers made remarks about the current state of global affairs, particularly, of course, the war in Iran. And in your recent substack, you reflected on some of those, including comments by the Iranian deputy foreign minister, as well as the Israeli foreign minister who dialed in. So to get us started, perhaps you can summarize the two positions represented there and what they tell us about how each side understands this war.

Samir (01:11) It’s quite something to actually be in the room with Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Saeed Khatibzadi. As he told us, he was outside of Iran when the attacks began. And he was in Geneva talking to the Omanis and the Americans as part of the diplomatic push. The Americans were still effectively using the smoke screen right up until the attack. But the India connection is interesting. It’s because the Iranian warship was torpedoed after it finished an exercise with the Indian Navy and it was torpedoed just off the coast of Sri Lanka. I’ll tell you the thing that everyone had an overdose of news on Iran, US, Israel. The thing that really struck me, Maz, is that the Indians didn’t take a side on this. And the Indians are miffed because the Americans torpedoed this Iranian ship after this exercise in India. They’re miffed because Narendra Modi had actually spoken to Benjamin Yasin-Yahu in person.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (02:08) Days before, yeah.

Samir (02:33) about three days before the attack was launched and was not told that the attack was being launched. So, you know, the Indians were nonetheless an interesting conduit because they are in the BRICS partnership with Iran. So they have this existing connection. And Jai Shankar, the Indian external affairs minister when he was on stage at Rycena, sort of gave a position and expressed a of the human view and the humanity of these Iranian sailors, some of whom had lost their lives, some of whom have been small number have been saved. Also, other Iranian ships are actually docked in India. And it’s just an interesting counterpoint to the of the more warmongering rhetoric, which is to realize that, know, Pete Hegseth is overly, I think he’s tragically overly enthusiastic with the slaughter that’s ensuing. But what’s actually happening is he’s over happy with the overmatch the American military has with the Iranians.

And there are other perspectives. the Iranian regime is not a loved regime around the world. That’s pretty odious. But the idea that it might actually end up gaining some sympathy votes in global audiences was quite an astonishing thing. And of course, the other question you made, which was the Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sarr, he spoke by video link, and is inevitably determined to see this through to some kind of ultimate victory, but without specifying what the ultimate victory was other than the continued destruction of the Iranian military and regime.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (03:31) Hmm. Yeah. Well, that’s, think that’s one of the key issues here is we don’t actually know what, what the objectives are. You know, we keep hearing from Trump is, is obviously declaring victory ever so slightly, ⁓ or his demanding absolute unconditional surrender. Whilst, as you mentioned, we’ve got Pete Hegsett, on the other side, promising that it’s going to be the biggest barrage of all. but we actually don’t even know what the objective is. mean, it’s, know, they keep saying it’s not regime change that it’s, you know, destroying their nuclear capacity, which apparently was done last year, but also destroying their ballistic missiles, destroying their Navy, destroying their links to, you know, their proxies, Hezbollah, Houthis, et cetera. None of which seems to have been achieved, yet there’s this kind of conflicting parallel narratives being deployed, for lack of a better word, one by Trump and one by the likes of Hexed. So how do you make sense of what is the ultimate actually objective here by the US? And then of course Israel, although Israel I think is a little bit clearer as to what the objective is.

Samir (04:35) Yeah, I think I think you’ve nailed it in the way you ended the question is that there’s only strategic confusion in the USA. There isn’t in Israel among the Nassim Yahu group. mean, Nassim Yahu has been trying to get American presidents to intervene militarily against Iran for years, decades even. It’s 2013. He held up that cartoon of the.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (04:50) Well, as you said, 40 years, this is, yeah.

Samir (05:00) Yeah, so the strategic vision is in the US because the Moro Lago speech when Trump started the invasion. on that weekend, it declared regime change as one of the goals. Iranians rise up, take back your country. You won’t have another chance for generations. But the Israelis are setting the tempo and the Israelis have got a much more achievable objective, which is just as much degradation, destruction of Iranian military capabilities as you can possibly achieve for as long as this war can continue. For the Americans, that is not actually that great a strategic objective to pursue.

Firstly, because they’ve not articulated in that way. And secondly, because it doesn’t leave the Americans in a stronger position region, it actually leaves them with potentially hugely overburdened Middle Eastern defense commitments to their Gulf allies. If you assume that Israel can defend itself, the question then of course is where are the defense solutions, the air defense solutions that they come from for those Gulf countries? the South Koreans manufacturing an air defence system which is doing very well according to media reports. But ultimately ⁓ it really pulls in the opposite direction to a couple of Trump’s strategic objectives geopolitically, one of which was to avoid costly entanglements in wars, even if he doesn’t have boots on the ground, this is still against that objective. And the second is not so much a pivot to Asia, but a reorientation to the pacing threat which was the Chinese military. Now, Hegseth will almost certainly, if you were to ask him this, would say, well, this is would say worse of the effect this is a live fire demonstration of the potency of our armed forces, therefore there’s a deterrent effect of the Chinese. But the other side of it is it’s enormously draining of American military resources, attention and scarce anti-missile interceptors and other interesting and important pieces of equipment. So it’s very hard to see how the US will emerge from this in a strategically emboldened position. I think Trump has fallen into that hubristic pattern of two wars. Venezuela is a very short, sharp intervention, which is clean. It’s created this hubristic sense that’s led to this massive over investment into this conflict. It’s the same thing as George W. Bush from Afghanistan to Iraq or Vladimir Putin from Syria to Ukraine, 2022. I mean, these things, you when they play in the minds of individual leaders, the ego is boosted to such an enormous extent and the costs and the risks of failure start to drop.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (07:09) Hmm. Hmm.

Samir (07:21) in very personalized leadership settings where there aren’t the checks and balances, that ⁓ this sort of folly of entering another war after you’ve actually finished the previous one properly is very much a ⁓ pattern that we’ve seen in modern history.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (07:34) Yeah, it’s really strange to analyze the motivations of Trump. mean, yes, of course, he was the one that withdrew from the JCPOA and essentially knew that deal good, bad, or otherwise as it was. It was a deal that IAEA at least acknowledged that Iran was complying despite there was question marks of the enriching beyond need for civilian use, et cetera. So yes, of course, were question marks. But then also, even in the US, as you fully well know, he’s under a lot of pressure that this is Israel’s war. And I think you rightly point out the fact that there’s a domestic pressure there for him that he needs to figure out, understand, resolve, not least because he’s got midterms coming up. But I think also Netanyahu’s got elections potentially coming this year as well. So I think the blend of those really kind of puts a question mark on what is actually motivating this war, because it just does not make sense from a, as you absolutely nailed it. geostrategically just doesn’t make any sense. Not least because of the partners that he’s damaging, ⁓ long-term allies ⁓ in the GCC, but also the, and we’re seeing some of the very short-term effects of this in the kind of oil spikes and, you know, the reserves being released and so on and so forth. ⁓ How do you interpret that? I mean, is this just folly or is he, you know, being pushed and prodded and, you know, potentially even blackmailed? into doing something this dangerous that has potentially long-term consequences for the whole world.

Samir (09:09) You know, this war is many things, but one thing it is certainly for someone like Pete Hegseth is a way to exercise the demons of defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan. But paradoxically, it’s been so ill construed, it lacks clear objectives and there’s no real exit ramp for the Americans without any kind of humiliation ⁓ being avoided. I think it actually risks achieving the exact opposite, which is debilitating America’s strategic reputation globally. Because this is not just simply a live fire weapons display, which you get to show how tactically brilliant the US is. And that in itself has value. What it will show is that the United States government is liable to engage in military activities for misconstrued goals, is likely to inflame situations, is not a stabilizing force, ⁓ is so effectively both the arsonist and the firefighter in which it sets aflame the region, but then has to step in.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (10:01) Hmm.

Samir (10:04) to save those gulf states and everybody can see that that is the sequence that’s going to unfold. And on one hand, you might think, the Americans will continue to sell themselves as virtuous for committing to stand against the raid. On the other hand, this was meant to, I think in Trump’s rather simplistic reading situation, end the Iranian problem once and for all, it’s probably just going to start a brand new chapter. I mean, you don’t need to be an expert in the theocracy of the Iranian Revolutionary Regime to realize it has quite apocalyptic millenarian ideology surrounding it in its 47 or so years of existence. Well, this attack coming out of nowhere, coming on the basis of duplicity, given that there were negotiations taking place, brokered by the Omanis, as I heard from Saeed Khatibzadi at the Raisina dialogue, a session taking place in Geneva just before. So that plus, of course, Trump withdrawing from the JCPOA, the nuclear deal in 2018, means that the Iranian

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (10:39) Hmm.

Samir (10:59) government, no matter how odious it is, has a legitimate claim to say that negotiations have been backed out of, been used as a smokescreen, have been used implicitly. And at the same time, we’ve got the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed, if I calculate correctly, just a year before he would have been the same age as the Ayatollah Khamenei when he died in 1989. So these, you know, these are very much, you know, figureheads of the Iranian revolution. It’s only the third leader that they’ll have of the Iranian revolution, third cleric leading it. And there had to be a succession anyway, given how old Ali Khamenei was. And that succession has been hastened as long as ⁓ his successor, Assad, isn’t killed in quick succession by the Israelis and the Americans over the next few weeks. The Iranian regime will emerge ⁓ emboldened, obviously debilitated in terms of military ability, but more fanatical than it probably has been since the Iran-Iraq war, given the gravity of what is being experienced and suffered by Iranians across different parts of the country.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (11:58) Hmm. Hmm.

And it would seem to me also that it has a lot of leverage. It’s definitely not down and out. mean, I think the confusion with Trump and Hexed is that they think that military might and air power will win this war. Whereas for Iran or the regime, it’s ultimately survival. And they have ample opportunities ⁓ to really impact global trade, oil, regional countries, to undermine the trust that has been established over decades. across the GCC as being a safe hub for finance, ⁓ tourism, et cetera. even just a threat of ⁓ bombing the Strait of Hormuz has closed it. And then of course, that’s the insurance companies that are now playing a much bigger role in whether oil will actually flow through there. So there’s this kind of really big impact, ⁓ the kind of cascading impacts that are affecting be much further beyond. Strait of Hormuz alone and Iran just has to you know, even just threaten it let alone the amount of munitions They still hold ballistic missiles and drones and so on and so forth

Samir (13:09) No, you’re right. it’s not it’s technically not the Iranians have shut down straight to four moves. It’s the fact that shipping insurers ⁓ are unable to ensure the transit of ships. That is one of the functional things actually does close straight. And I think there’s been among the many pieces of overconfidence. The Bab al-Mandab straight is also the Red Sea. When the Houthis in Yemen, this is a different patch of the waters, started launching rockets.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (13:28) Mm.

Samir (13:37) and started to try to take out ships and there was quite a successful protection mission, anti-Houthi mission to try to reopen that and protect that. think again somewhere in the American administration if there have been cautious voices they’ve not been heeded, ⁓ defending the Straits of Hormuz is a much grander undertaking and fighting against the Iranians is a much grander undertaking than fighting against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen. They’re not even comparable. mean A vastly debilitated Iranian regime in which it doesn’t really have offensive military capability to strike Israel or the Gulf, but can still attack ships on the Straits of Hormuz is foreseeable because the munitions required to strike the ship off their own coast are clearly going to be not necessarily of the most sophisticated nature. This is considerable leverage for the Iranians and it’s It’s very, very difficult to foresee this war headed to a negotiator settlement because Trump’s Bellico’s rhetoric will not allow negotiation. He’ll presumably just want a hard stop at some point. But if the Iranians don’t stop firing, then he won’t get a hard stop. And that will leave Trump in the atrocious position of having effectively been ⁓ sunk into this ⁓ unrecoverable situation in which they have to continue to police the Straits of Hormuz violently from the air.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (14:47) Hmm.

Samir (15:01) and that will leave the Americans in a smaller forever war, not a forever war with boots on the ground, but a forever war in which their policing actions around the Straits of Hormuz have to continue in perpetuity.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (15:11) Yeah, yeah, yeah, I that’s, I think your point about it, miscalculation about killing the leader ⁓ that will carry and also, you know, the martyrdom concept of Shia Islam, you know, that it’s about revenge. It’s not, know, Iran gets a say in when this war stops. And I think that was a gross miscalculation. It also takes me to the, I guess, deployments of allies, you know, so we are seeing what can be described as the kind of biggest Western military concentration in the area since certainly since Iraq. ⁓ Two US carrier groups in their third one ready to deploy. ⁓ The Brits have sent I think a carrier group or as well but certainly know that the French Francis sent Charles to go Australia. ⁓ Certainly UK has reinforced some of its bases with jet fighters and so on Australia sent one of our most notable strategic assets as described by our government to ⁓ police the ⁓ air above the UAE. Although I question that given how many radars have already been either destroyed or damaged by Iran. So suspect it’s part of the ISR ⁓ platforms as well to support, I guess, provide early warning. ⁓ beyond just the UAE. How do you interpret these deployments and what is the risk that you see here, despite the fact that I know that certainly UK and Australia have said that theirs are only defensive missions. They won’t be participating in any offensive action. But how do interpret that? And of course, it give us much bigger risk of kind of expanding this into a much bigger regional and God forbid a world war?

Samir (17:03) The risk of course is if any allied countries, whether the UK, Australia, if any of their naval vessels actually suffer damage, which is unlikely given that, you know, the UK, albeit to Cyprus, sending Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon, which is kind of resondetra is aerial defense. has a serious anti-ballistic missile system, C-Viper, on board. So it’s not like these navies are going to send sitting ducks, but there is a risk there. It’s quite a difficult position, isn’t it? So you’ve got this US ally, which has launched this war with the Israelis. And, you know, what are going to do? Start criticizing Trump for doing it? Well, then he’ll come back with double the infective and you don’t really get anywhere. So then you declare a mission which is much more narrowly construed as defensive, which is, think, to get to the heart of your question is actually quite an essential point, which is which navies are going to guarantee security of transit through the Straits of Hormuz for the next difficult few weeks and months? and including after any hostilities end, let’s say the bombing of Tehran ends, that Israel continues bombing Lebanon, which is a very possible medium term situation. And then as we’ve already said, the Iranians still pose a grave threat to passing shipping traffic, or indeed actually make it on that threat, even after the guns fall silent. That is going to be quite an interesting multinational security undertaking. ⁓ Again, far, far bigger than the anti-Houthi ⁓ or anti-Somali pirate multinational security undertakings over the Red Sea and Horn of Africa from recent years, but probably something of that nature in terms of burden-shifting. Or it’s entirely guaranteed by the US, which may be a battling outcome of all this, in which Trump will then face accusations he’s actually incurred for the US a huge bill. Because parking to US carrier strike groups ⁓ in theatre for a period of time is an extraordinarily expensive thing to do. the cost, the financial cost associated, I feel about the second world cost of the economy, the actual costs of maintaining this level of operation to weaken but not destroy, to anger but not totally extinguish the Iranian theocratic regime, which appears to be where we’re headed.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (19:18) Yeah, which is scary and as you said, no end in sight. What do you make, just focusing a little bit on the blocks, which ⁓ you discussed extensively in your Westlessness book, ⁓ but the EU, know, Mautz and von der Leyen and so on, they’ve broadly supported, know, supported the war against their better judgment, I suspect. But then there are countries like Spain, which is absolutely going the other way. mean, it’s kicked out the Americans from the bases in Spain, has withdrawn its ambassador. ⁓ Even countries like Italy, they’ve held back somewhat, but are quite firm that, you know, consider this to be an illegal war. ⁓ Even as far as countries like Slovenia, Ireland, Croatia, ⁓ you know, country, and Austria as well, I think was quite vocal. They’ve actually stood up. So on one hand, we’ve got the kind of EU apparatus and the leadership of the EU ⁓ drawing some sense of camaraderie with the US, reservedly, ⁓ to be sure. But then you’ve got other countries in the block that are really kind of very opposed to what they perceive. And I wholeheartedly agree with them, is an illegal war.

Samir (20:39) Yeah, think legality is…

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (20:40) What’s the, what’s the, what do you perceive as the effect of that? Yeah. Sorry.

Samir (20:44) Yeah, the legal point is almost immaterial for the Trump administration. mean, it’s a game of power, not permission. So if they can get away with doing it, they will. You mentioned Mertz in Germany. Germany, of course, historically has a very, very complex position in terms of whenever it issues judgment in policy terms on contemporary Israeli policy because of its very, difficult World War II history. I’m not saying that it’s always beholden to this point, but Israel tends to get the benefit of the doubt. from German policymakers, not so Spain. And I think the European reaction to this is just, you know, even for the Germans privately, this is disaster because it distracts from what they see as their principal security effort, which is the war in Ukraine that Russia is maintaining four plus years after the full scale invasion began. So again, is, again, Vladimir Putin will consider this to be another indirect lifeline just the 7th October her mass attacks provide an indirect lifeline especially on the fracturing the moral consensus that his invasion was the most heinous singular point of aggression that’s taking place in modern geopolitics. In this instance there’s probably less I think the Iranians distracting sort of global anger. I think it’s more global confusion but also the impacts on oil making it a more rarefied commodity yet again and as practical effects while I was in India the Indian government and Indian press were of course reacting to the fact that Trump had released that ban that he had unilaterally placed on India buying Russian oil, giving them four week window to continue doing that. Now, ultimately, I don’t think any kind of ban had actually ever really come to force. Right, this is a strange thing in terms of Trump delivering his edicts. Of course he tried to do that to pressure

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (22:22) And Sri Lanka, think as well. And they just said we didn’t need the permission. Yeah.

Samir (22:36) Putin to come to the terms of ending the war in Ukraine. But going back to your point about the Europeans, this is an absolute catastrophe because you are in NATO attached at the hip to this absolutely errant bull in the china shop that is ⁓ riding rush-shod over everything and there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s nothing you can do about it. ⁓ For the UK, this became quite a neuralgic issue over the use of UK bases. whether Diego Garcia sovereign bases in Cyprus or bases on mainland UK. And the government has I think quite laudably said we won’t join the invasion, but we will contribute to defensive action against anything the Iranians launch. But it’s an absolute, absolute mess in terms of the notion of a further mess in terms of notions of Western unity. This just brings us straight back to that point about blocked and having written the book, Westlessness. ⁓ back in late 2024, it’s just astonishing to see how rapidly the disintegration of common Western positions is coming to pass. I you’d have thought the trend lines would lead some parts of the West to draw different conclusions about the evolving geopolitics over time, but the idea that Spain would break ranks so rapidly, not only on this issue, but also on reaching a minimum level of ⁓ percentage UDP on defense, that goes back to last year’s Hague NATO summit, the Spanish with the laggards. they just don’t want to do it. They got an exemption and I think this is a continuation of that policy so you can’t blame them for consistency but I think this is a rapid acceleration of trends that would otherwise have taken the best part of decade to manifest I think more solidly which is the inability to rally around the US president for the western countries. Now we’ve got walking on eggshells because of his personality

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (24:05) Yeah. And they got an exemption for it though as well, didn’t they?

Samir (24:30) tiptoeing around the issue that there’s a fundamental disagreement that means there’s no common Western position on these critical geopolitical issues, yet another critical geopolitical issue.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (24:41) Yeah, yeah, yeah, as you might say, yet another. ⁓ What’s your biggest fee for Europe or EU? Let’s not say Europe, but the EU in particular as a block.

Samir (24:52) think the biggest fear is that it’s actually not specifically to do with Iran. I think that it becomes over committed with regards to Russia, Ukraine. And I think the biggest fear I’ve always had is the excessively emotive understanding of that war, rather than the cold clear headed strategic analysis that’s required to understand why that war came to occur, what its dynamics are suggesting about how it ends and how to live with an aggrieved, very, very violent Russia at your doorstep. I’m not saying give in, I’m not saying surrender, but I think the, don’t know what it’s going to take for Europeans to come to realistic understanding as to what they need to do because the Trump administration has got another, I mean, end of 2028 is the election. you know, it’s, it’s just about three years left. Even if Trump is rendered a less singularly influential figure within the US political. domestic political environment, you’re still going to have to live with his personality stamped all over US foreign policy. And there will be a legacy because there will be no reset button to press in 2028. So I think it’s really that it’s the inability ⁓ for the Europeans to be able to understand how fast the world is changing around them. And I would sort of say in my travels, you know, writing the book, Westlessness, and sort of thinking about this, say the Europeans on aggregate in general, I by far the least matured group of people in understanding geopolitical change in the whole world. I put Australia way higher than Europe only because of proximity to China. Doesn’t matter whether people draw conclusions, China’s a diversity arrival or we should engage with China. That’s a personal opinion. The point is the quality of the debate. Quality of the debate is, I think, actually very far advanced in something like Australia, there’s an understanding of changing demographics, changing regional economic flows. what the perils are of adopting policies that may be made sense in the 90s, but doing that now. I think in Europe, it’s just going to take, I think, a generational change. We just don’t have the same post-immediate post-Berlin war generation of politicians who are all in their 50s and 60s dominating the show or being the ones who judge who can have a voice. Because ultimately, that’s the way politics works. There’s a sense that even with freedom of speech, there’s a certain sort of accepted narratives or not. So I think Europe, probably it will happen with a bit of generational change. This should speed it up, but never underestimate the European ability to move like a snail when everybody else is running laps like a hare.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (27:23) Hmm.

Yeah. Just to pick up on the Australia piece, I’m really, I was really interested in to hear that because that’s a surprise to hear that, especially with this war, because it was our prime minister Albanese, that was the first foreign leader, think within three hours, ⁓ who sanctioned the war, ⁓ threw his support behind it. And then when questioned, both our foreign minister and ⁓ Penny Wong and the PM, when asked on the legality, both of them said it’s up to Israel and the US. to determine the legality of this war we supported. So perhaps I’m naive in seeing the blatant truth in that.

Samir (27:57) Yeah, I think, yeah, I think, yeah. Yeah, I think I mean, obviously, the Iran position, every every Western G7 or allied is basically in deep, deep trouble. You can’t win either way. And the conclusion that most of them will have drawn, except for Spain, is listen, if the Iranian regime, which is an international sponsor of terrorism is degraded, well, we didn’t start this war. But if that is the outcome, then then so be it. But I think there’s more thinking about sort of the wider geopolitics and general sort of repositioning. And the idea that Mark Kahn’s speech is either a revelation or a statement of the obvious. think that’s probably the test, isn’t it? You sit down with a group of policymakers or people in the public and they either say, well, that’s what he’s saying is new, or there’s, oh my God, this is, well, we’ve been living in the matrix now. Now we see the light.

Vedran ‘Maz’ Maslic (28:47) Yeah, okay, I see what you’re saying. I in that sense, I guess Australia is really, I guess, stepping up and, and, and reading the tea leaves and, saying, and perhaps mainly in the unreliability of the US. conscious of our time, it would be remiss of me not to mention China, especially your understanding of, again, the blocks. Perhaps even if you, if if you have the capacity to include bricks in general, but how do you perceive China, mean, my best guess is they’re capturing the moral high ground and enjoying the show.

Samir (29:21) I think the Chinese don’t like a violent disorder. And I think, you even if, you know, on the one hand, the Americans are further discrediting themselves as placing to a certain set of expected Chinese narratives that US moral superiority as it’s been periodically assumed from the 1990s onwards is not an infinitely defensible position. And actually, it’s potentially a serious liability. So that part’s proven. But on the other hand, the massive disruption to oil supplies. I think 75 % of oil that is consumed in some of the Asian countries comes through the straight-forward moves. So this is probably affecting Southeast Asia more than it is China specifically, but this is not a good thing for China in terms of massive destabilization. The other thing I think that is probably quite awkward for China is the inclusion of Iran in the BRICS, which took place in 2024, so not very long ago, the tranche of expansion that BRICS had then. If the theocratic regime playing our thought forward, if the theocratic regime survives in a very weakened state, then the extent to which it becomes a serious international liability within the BRICS is considerable because it’s in this halfway house where the US president has effectively called for that regime to end. It hasn’t ended, it’s limped on. And then in future BRICS summits, there’ll be this sort of awkwardness of, well, do you want to be photographed next to the Iranian leader? Can the Iranian leader