Um, but before that, I mean, a really

strange subject in a sense because I'm

obviously not a a war correspondent. God

forbid. I'm far too fearful and

squeamish um and fond of my own bed. But

I have over the years covered military

engagements. I've shared I've had

conversations with you about various

military engagements of of um varying

degrees of of seriousness and indeed

length and and we've spoken to military

veterans. you spoken to experts. You you

have always been able, I think, to get a

handle on what is going on, haven't you?

You you've always been able to real

obviously not in Gaza because no

journalists were allowed in, but in the

in the sort of sense of the the bigger

international picture, you've always

been able to get an idea of what was

going on. And I think more

diplomatically

than militarily, you've you've known

what the aims were. Whether they were

achievable or not is in many ways moot.

You've known what the aims were. You've

known what the endgame would probably

involve. And when it is reported that X

has happened uh and that report has its

roots in the White House, then you would

be minded to think that it's probably

true. Don't attack me for being naive. I

am aware that presidents have lied um

and continue to do so. But generally

speaking, my faith in the fourth estate,

which is a fancy pants way of saying the

media, the British media, my faith in

the fourth estate is rarely higher than

when it comes to foreign affairs.

Um with a few obvious and glaring

exceptions.

And I noticed on the way home yesterday

that a thing I thought was funny wasn't

very funny at all.

I have been doing this joke and I think

it's quite a good joke about it's Monday

so it must be a ceasefire. It's Tuesday

so it must be a threat to bomb Iran back

to the stone age. It's Wednesday so it

must be that the victory is complete and

the war is over. It's Thursday and it

must be that Iran needs to stop

attacking despite having an obliterated

army. Iran needs to stop attacking us.

Otherwise, we will do such things. What

they are, I know not. But they shall be

the terror of the earth. And now it's

Friday, and as you just heard in

Dominic's news bulletin, the US and Iran

are very close to a deal, but not there

yet. Except it's not a deal. It's a memo

of understanding. And it's impossible to

say when or if the two sides would

finalize uh any sort of arrangement

which they would probably call a deal or

at least the White House would, but

would be technically a memo of

understanding and is almost certain to

return to a status quo that would be

inferior from a Western point of view to

the situation that was in place before

Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump

attacked unprovoked Iran. And it will be

almost certainly inferior to the deal

that was signed by um Barack Obama or

signed when Barack Obama was president

of the United States of America, which

Donald Trump elected to explode the

minute that it became um the minute that

he became president.

And I I like these conversations. We've

been lucky enough over the years to

speak to some very clever people and um

very well-informed people, much better

informed than I am. And I don't say that

through any sort of sense of false

modesty. It's one of the things I love

most about my job. Sometimes we wade

into territory about which I I'm not

ignorant, but I don't know anywhere near

as much as you may do. And we get

extraordinary calls um from all sorts of

people whether they're former members of

the American the US diplomatic corps or

whether they are world authorities on

matters maritime with a deep and and

long understanding of what the straight

of Hormuz um represents and and how it

can and can't be navigated and and of

course um people who who who understand

Middle Eastern politics in a way that

you need to be a little bit more

dedicated to a single issue than most of

us can be. Um uh and yet we get the

calls. People ring us up and and it's

stopped.

It's stopped

the articles, the the the um analyses.

And I remember I have a look at even if

it's a cursory look, I have a look at

every single newspaper every day. I

don't really open the Express, but I

have a look at all the other newspapers

every day. Um and there's no no

particular beef with the Express. it's

just never got anything in it that isn't

already in the mail. Uh I I I look at

most of the newspapers every day and I I

lean towards the ones that have got good

foreign desks. Oddly, the Telegraph is

still pretty near the top of the tree on

that. Ditto. The Guardian, less

surprisingly, um because they haven't

gone mad on their comment pages in the

way that the Telegraph has. The Times

does a decent job. There are some very,

very good foreign correspondents. The

same is true of course of broadcast and

I don't watch broadcast news quite as

closely as I follow print and online. Um

but I don't think I've been seeing many

detailed and expert analyses of the

ongoing conflict in the Middle East on

the telly either or listening to it on

the radio. And it's not fatigue

because we are still getting quite a lot

of detail about what's going on for

example in Ukraine. Uh the latest

figures, if you haven't seen them,

involve estimates that half a million

Russian troops have been killed. Half a

million Russians have died at the altar

of Vladimir Putin's epic and

uncontrollable arrogance. Half a million

human souls. Half a million sons and

daughters, wives and husbands.

Extraordinary really to reflect upon

that almost unthinkable number. But we

still know where where borders are. We

still know where the fronts are. We

still know about drone attacks, one

overnight landing in Romania. The the

the because it's a it's a military

engagement. The diplomatic side of it is

fairly easy to unpick. It's almost a

battle between good and evil. So, it

lends itself to um

uh

kind of quite quite simplistic but I

think authentic analysis. And I think

not long ago, America versus Iran would

have felt a little bit like that to many

people in the West. The United States

has gone to battle against a theocratic,

murderous regime that hangs its own

citizens for fun. I mean, pick a side,

lads. It's not exactly difficult, is it?

And yet, who here would confidently

state that you can trust the White House

more on this than you can the Islamic

Revolutionary Guard? I'm not even

joking. I wish that I was. Who here can

confidently state that the White House

that claims it's a ceasefire on a

Monday, a new war on a Tuesday, a

victory on a Wednesday, a negotiation on

a Thursday, and an imminent deal on a

Friday, who here can claim that that

outlet is more trustworthy than the

Islamic Revolutionary Guard, a

collection of crackpots and murderers,

the likes of which, thankfully, the

world rarely sees.

And yet here we are having very little

clue

as to what is going on.

I said to you yesterday again in

retrospect, I mean these are it is a

good joke that Monday, Tuesday,

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday thing,

right? It's it's funny because it's

true. All it needs is a sort of Craig

David reference to be elevated to an

even greater comedic level. But the

other thing that that that I said to

you, the really scary thing

is that one day it will be true. So

there's five days and five different

narratives.

Let's go up to eight days, Tuesday of

next week, Monday of next week, and and

eight different narratives. And one day

it will be true. So one day soon, what

the White House has said will be true.

But not because of anything that the

White House has done or anything that

the White House has achieved or anything

that the White House has negotiated

because the shakeddown will be complete

and Donald Trump's attempts to protect

his own honor, protect his own um

uh vanity. I don't even know he would

have come to a personal internal

compromise that allows him to pretend

that it was a worthwhile exercise and

that he has come out on top. There is no

prospect of that happening. There is no

earthly way that the status quo at the

end of this will leave the United States

in a stronger position and Iran in a

weaker position than the status quo at

the beginning.

So

what what what do we do now?

H have have have

we broken something really valuable

here?

When when you look at this continuing

conflict, when you look at I mean

there's a ceasefire and there isn't a

ceasefire. There's a ceasefire in Gaza

apparently, but Benjamin Netanyahu has

announced that he's going to take over

70% of the territory. Um I hope it's

quick enough for some people that the

speed of that attempt at ethnic

cleansing. I I I look at the situation

in Iran and I don't think it can be

analyzed because the White House, Donald

Trump, has successfully

broken everything. He's broken every

traditional

trope. He's broken every way in which

we, the public, can actually get a

handle on what is happening. How on

earth do we process as either punters or

professionals, how do we process the

fact that the story on Monday is

different from the story on Tuesday is

different from the story on Wednesday is

different from the story on Thursday is

different from the story on Friday

and it's nearly quart 10 which means

Keith will be pointing at his watch in a

minute and I haven't got close to asking

you a question because I don't think you

can answer that. That's not me being

conceited. I don't think I can answer

it. I don't think there is an answer.

How how do you process a world in which

the truth doesn't exist anymore on an

issue as important as they tell us

nuclear potential in the Middle East?

It's mad, right? So here is the only

question we can ask and through the lens

of this question

I think perhaps or hopefully we will get

a little bit more insight and we have to

keep doing this. You know that phrase

flooding the zone Farage is doing it at

the moment with his secret 5 million

quid. He's throwing in so many stories.

Stop pointing at your watch, Keith. He's

throwing in so many stories and so many

different accounts. He's even introduced

Russian spies to the mix now. He's just

hoping that by creating this sort of

tsunami of boulder dash, then we'll all

get so distracted by the boulder dash

that we'll lose sight of the kernel of

truth at the center of the story, which

is that he secretly trousered 5 million

quid from a foreignbased billionaire

whose fortune would expend exponentially

increase if he introduced the policies

that he announced shortly after

trousering the 5 million quid he will he

will introduce when he's prime minister.

That's the beginning, the end, and the

middle of the of the story. You know, if

he'll if he'll praise the IRA for 87

quid, what the hell is he going to do

for 5 million? It's the only question

that we should really be worrying about.

But when you flood the zone,

you you can't really make sense of

anything.

So,

what's happened? 034560973.

What has Donald Trump done in the Middle

East and why? With the specific

reference to um

Iran, what has he done and why did he do

it? 034560973

is the number that you need. They they I

mean I I don't know how you cling to

loyalty to the Trump project at a time

like this because he lies to you 99% of

the time and on the one occasion when

he's not lying. It's an accidental

issue. It's a coincidence. But just step

right back to the beginning. Benjamin

Netanyahu's been trying to attack Iran

for years. Every other president of the

United States of America has quite

rightly said, "Don't be stupid." Somehow

Trump got got got persuaded into it,

cajjol into it, conned into it, bullied

into I don't know.

and and he went in and what did he think

was going to happen? Why did he do it?

And what has happened? This is a

president who promised no wars. A pro a

president who promised no wars in the

Middle East. I've stopped analyzing it.

I've stopped discussing it with you

because the zone has been flooded. Let's

try and unflood the zone a bit together

today. Let's just try and work out how

we got to where we are. How have we got

to a place where there's a ceasefire on

a Monday, a threat to return Iran to the

stone age on a Tuesday? A declaration of

complete victory and obliteration of the

enemy on a Wednesday, a warning that if

the enemy doesn't stop fighting despite

being obliterated, then we'll have to

start hitting them even harder on a

Thursday. And any minute now, we're

going to have a ceasefire. Uh we're

going to have a deal. We're going to

have a memorandum of understanding. Any

minute now, we're gonna it's all going

to be finished on a Friday. I'm going to

say that again. I may get my words

slightly mixed up because I haven't got

a 2020 memory, but it's a ceasefire on a

Monday. It's a threat to bomb the place

back to the stone age on a Tuesday. A

threat of absolute genocide on a

Tuesday, although apparently that

depends on how quickly it happens. Um,

it's a a warning on a Wednesday. No, a

declaration of epic victory on a

Wednesday. They've absolutely

obliterated the opposition. And yet on a

Thursday they claim that the opposition

is hurting them badly enough to make

another threat of retaliation. And on a

Friday it's announced that they've

almost got to the ceasefire that they

last announced on Monday. That is

absolutely bonkers. It is almost beyond

comprehension, let alone articulation

and analysis. So what we do is we rewind

back to the beginning and we try and

work out how this happened by asking

what has happened. Why? Why? What

happened? What has happened?

What has actually happened?

034560973

is the number that you need. How how

have we ended up? And you can bring the

media into it. You can bring the White

House into it. You can bring the

Republicans into it. You can bring

Benjamin Netanyahu's regime into it. How

have we ended up in a world where

someone can start a war and then offer

up in the space of a week five different

stories about what is going on in that

war. Five different stories about what

is going on in that war. And listen, I

think I'd have poo pooed some of the

financial answers to this question a

month ago. I'm not poo pooing them now.

There's there can't be that much smoke

without any fire. the the way in which

these bets are placed either on the

prediction markets or the stock market

and then he announces that it's almost

over and oil goes up and then he

announces that it isn't and oil goes

down and then it is and it goes up and

it goes it's like a bloody penny whistle

but I just want your explanation of what

happened why it started and why what

happened subsequently happened. All

right, and listen this is a big ask. I

appreciate that especially on a very

sweltering Friday but if we look away

from this stuff it only ever seems to

get worse. It never gets better. And the

clever people have stopped talking about

it because there there is nothing for

the clever people to do. What's the

point of writing a thousand words on

Monday about an imminent ceasefire when

on Tuesday they start bombing again? Or

what's the point of writing a thousand

words on a Wednesday about how he's

going to bomb them back to the stone age

when on a Thursday he claims that

they've already been obliterated?

Is there method in the madness? Hit the

numbers now. You will get through.

034560973.