Jiang Xueqin: Trump’s World Order & Normalising Insanity (Transcript)

Of course, outside, the wars continued very fiercely. So again, much like what we’ve seen over the past 30-plus years. But do you see the rise and fall of Pax Romana following a similar trend as what has happened to the United States, or do you see other similar signs with other rise and decline of civilizations?

JIANG XUEQIN: Right, so I would say it’s very similar. The fall of Pax Romana and the fall of Pax Americana are very similar. So it’s easy to romanticize and have nostalgia for the Roman Empire, and many do, but we have to remember that the vast majority of the population of the Roman Empire were slaves or peasants, and they lived very brutal lives. And we have a similar situation in Pax Americana where, yes, there’s a certain global elite, maybe 10% of the population, that are much better off than before. But at the end of the day, you also have a majority of the global population, especially in the Global South, that are suffocating under American hegemony.

And what we know about empires is that they always produce structural contradictions that will lead to their collapse. So the idea that the world would continue to sell its resources cheaply to America in order to finance America’s very high standard of living was not sustainable in the long term. I mean, the American middle class, just an individual member of the American middle class, lived better than the Roman Emperor. You could go have any food from around the world at any time of the year. You could drive 2 cars, you have air conditioning, you lived in a big villa. So ultimately, at the end of the day, this was bound to collapse because of the structural contradictions.

Social Decay and the Crisis of Legitimacy

GLENN DIESEN: But I guess the internal and external seem to be quite connected. That is, with the imperial overstretch of the United States, it diverts a lot of resources from the core to the periphery of the empire. And it seems like a lot of American society has been hollowed out. I was wondering, how would you assess it? Do you look mostly at the economic, or do you see the political instability being a source of the economic problems? How do you link the social decay within? Because there seems to be a destabilization of the social aspect, and one could also argue moral collapse, which if there’s a problem on the perceived moral standing of the state, you can see a political legitimacy crisis down the road. I was wondering, how do you see these things hanging together?

JIANG XUEQIN: Right. So there are certain trends these past few decades that are leading to a crisis of legitimacy and authority in America.

So the first is the demographic crisis where you have the baby boomers, which for the longest time was the largest political cohort in America. They control all the wealth, they control all the political power and all the status in America. And they, because of Pax Americana, they can live a lot longer than the average life expectancy. So during the time of the baby boomers, when they’re growing up, maybe the life expectancy for the average American was 72 years old. And now the baby boomers, a lot of them, maybe 10% of them, will live to at least 100 years old. And so with that, you have the lack of social mobility in America. There are no opportunities for young people, and young people now are choosing a life of degeneracy, gambling, rather than one of hard work, because from their perspective they have absolutely no opportunities to rise because the big boys have monopolized everything. And so they need to gamble in order to make it rich. And so because young people refuse to work, the only way to sustain the economy is to bring in immigrants, whether it’s legal or illegal. Illegal people cross through the Mexican border, and there’s about 20 million of them in America right now. And then you have millions who come legally for the H-1B visa program, which is basically slavery if you look at it very carefully. And young people now refuse to have children. So now you’re even more dependent on immigration. And again, this is very similar to what happened to the Roman Empire when women just refused to have children and they were forced to import immigrants in order to feed the economy. So that’s one, the demographic crisis.

Then the second problem is financial crisis, which is that America no longer makes things. All it does is gamble and speculate. Wall Street controls the economy of America. Everyone is focused on the stock market and no one’s focused on factories. Thomas Piketty writes about this in his book Capital in the 21st Century, where eventually the crisis of capitalism is that you make more money from rent-seeking than you do from actual production. And this is a problem America faces right now. No one makes anything anymore. No one works anymore. Everyone’s a degenerate gambler. So that’s the second major crisis.

And the third major crisis is just elite overproduction, meaning that you have too many wealthy people competing for too few positions of power and status. So if you look at Washington, D.C., you can see there’s almost civil war going on between the old guard, financial oligarchy and the new guard, which is a tech oligarchy who want to bring in AI and the data centers.

And so there are multiple crises going on in America. But again, what’s really important for us to appreciate is that this is all indicative of an empire in decline. It follows a similar pattern in history. And once an empire is in decline, it’s only a matter of when it will die. It’s not a matter of if it will die.

The American Dream, Oligarchy, and Possible Pathways

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, well, the American oligarchy is an interesting feature because traditionally, or at least over the past 200 years, we always saw if the Europeans had two powerful oligarchs, the assumption was that they took the money from us and we would end up chopping off their heads or in some other form of brutal social justice, if you will. But in the United States, they always had a different sentiment. That is, if they saw people being wealthy, at least the rhetoric was that they earned it. So it created some stability, but temporary perhaps.

The premise was always that, yes, some are rich, some are poor, but the key thing was always to have the social mobility. You can start off with having nothing in your pockets and you could become rich. The American dream, essentially. But once that social mobility is gone, there’s no reason to assume the oligarchy would be treated any less favorably in the United States as other places in the world.

But how do you— we would say that the US Empire, the Pax Americana, is declining or dying. What happens then if you would draw your lessons from history? Are we talking about the American Civil War or simply a retreat of empire? I mean, I know we don’t have a crystal ball, but what are the possible pathways? Essentially what I’m asking.

The Decline of Empires and the Crisis of Legitimacy

JIANG XUEQIN: If history is a guide, then the American Empire will fight to its last dying breath. And the way it will do so is by sending young people to die in wars overseas in order to maintain its empire. That’s what Athens did. That is what the Romans did. That’s what the British did in World War I and World War II.

And so what I would predict is that eventually you will have a national draft in order to continue this war in Iran, because America continues its bombardment of Iran, which is what it’s doing right now. Eventually it will run out of expensive munitions and aircraft, so it must send in young men to die to maintain this war.

If it does that, then it will create a crisis of legitimacy in America because a lot of young men who refuse to go die for Israel. They believe that it is Israel that has provoked this war in the Middle East, and they do not want to fight for the Zionists. And so this would cause a lot of conflict, local conflict in America. It’d be very similar to the Vietnam War.

Already we’re seeing anti-Zionist movements in America. So in New York City, you have Mayor Mindani. And we can see a major anti-Zionist political movement emerging in New York City. And we expect this to happen in other major cities as well. We can also expect maybe a political revolution to happen within the Democratic Party that would make it much more left-orientated. Right now, the Democratic Party is very beholden to the Zionists as well as the oligarchs, the financial elite. So we can expect that you’re going to have this major political rupture emerge in America over the next few years.

Also, an empire in decline, the political system loses its moral authority, loses its legitimacy so that a tyrant like Julius Caesar can arise and say, “Aren’t you better off with a king who will redistribute wealth and who will cancel your debt?” And quite honestly, at that time, the majority of the citizens of the Roman Republic agreed with him. And that’s why you have the rise of the empire.

So I can see possibly Donald Trump in 2028 try to obtain a third term. And you’d be surprised that there’ll be a sizable majority of the American population who support Donald Trump obtaining a third term because they see it as the only way, the only path to get rid of the oligarchy that has now captured America. And because of that, we should see a lot more political violence. And again, this is just how empires behave when they’re in decline. They are overstretched overseas, fighting these pointless wars they can’t possibly win. And internally, they have crisis of legitimacy as well as moral authority.

Europe on the Brink

GLENN DIESEN: Well, do you see a similar trend in Europe? Because it feels perhaps Europe is— things are worse. Again, we see the economic decline, but unlike the Americans, there’s no technological sovereignty or any cohesive economic model moving forward. They’re also having, again, unprecedented warmongering. Well, not unprecedented, at least over the past decades. They only speak in the language of war. Very many can language, less acceptance of dissent.

We see this authoritarian wing growing as they try to keep people more in check. I would argue also some ideological subversion, that is, the old status quo isn’t delivering anymore, so we see this new, very overt efforts in changing very basic beliefs, values, political views, and essentially replacing old institutions, structures. Again, it’s whether or not it’s successful or if it’s just temporarily holding back the tide, making matters much worse. I personally believe this is going to cause a massive legitimacy crisis. But do you see Europe kind of moving in the same direction, or are they ahead or behind Americans?

JIANG XUEQIN: I think Europe is far ahead of America. I think that Europe in many places, Britain, France, they’re on the brink of a civil war right now because they’ve let in too many immigrants. The political system has become very authoritarian. Right now in England, you’re much more likely to get arrested for complaining about crime on social media than if you commit a crime. And the system has become extremely bureaucratic. Overbearing. People have lost faith in the political system.

So Keir Starmer has resigned, but everyone knows that his replacement will just be another puppet of the oligarchy. So it doesn’t really matter. You’re still going to have, you’re still going to invest in this war in Ukraine. You’re still going to let in too many immigrants. You’re still not going to deal with crime. You’re still going to have an overbearing bureaucracy, so nothing will change.

And eventually, at some point, the people will get enough and they will rise up, and we will see a cascade effect throughout Europe. We don’t know where the first spark will be. It’s hard to guess. But once the first spark is lit, then I think that it’d be very hard for the current European political elite to maintain power.

The Dividing Lines of Civil Conflict

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, now it’s possible this civil war. I mean, people, I forget the expression, people always voting for economic sound policies, they’re voting for peace, they’re voting for more conservative values, but essentially what they get is war, pride, mass immigration, and political leadership which ignores national interest for global institutions where they have a nice position. How do you see it in a civil war? What will be the dividing lines here though? Is it ethnic groups? Is it class struggle? Is it people against elites? Nationalists versus globalists? How do you see the divide?

JIANG XUEQIN: I think it’ll be just a total breakdown in society. And you can have multiple conflicts on multiple fronts. The problem with the world today is the opinion, the will of the majority of people no longer matter. In America and Europe, you have this very old, out of touch bureaucracy that is insular and which engages in delusion.

The Europeans think they’re winning this war in Ukraine. They think that the next day there’ll be a coup against Putin, Russia will collapse, and then the Europeans will be able to collect all this reparations from Russia. The American elite in Washington, D.C. think they are just like a day away from winning this war in Iran. They think that eventually China will surrender and allow Wall Street to cannibalize the financial system of China. So they don’t really care what other people think. All they care about is what their friends in this bubble think. And if you don’t agree with them, then you are kicked out of this bubble unceremoniously.

Look, the reality is if you look at what’s happening in American media, Larry Ellison, one of the richest men in America, he’s bought CBS News, he’s bought CNN. He’s installed Bari Weiss to run both organizations. And Bari Weiss is destroying both organizations, or she’s destroyed CBS News. We can expect her to destroy CNN as well. A lot of journalists complain that they are no longer objective and that they become partisan.

And you ask yourself, why would Larry Ellison, who’s not a dumb guy, why would he spend this much money buying CBS News and CNN, both of which are dying organizations? And the answer is because from their perspective, only the opinions of baby boomers matter now. As long as they’re able to get this small cohort of the population, these baby boomers who overwhelmingly support Israel and war in Iran, as long as they’re able to control them, then they can do whatever they want because they control everything else. They control the financial system. They control the political system. They control the military.

And so we’re in a situation where the elite are in a bubble. They’re becoming much more deluded day by day, and they are intent on carrying out their agenda. And in this process, everyone else is going to fight over the crumbs.

And so in Europe, you might have sectarian violence, but you also might have political violence where the left fight against the right. You might have revolutionaries. So you may have seen the news of this shooter in Montreal. He tried to shoot the Pornhub offices. And there were a couple people who got shot in the crossfire and who died. But what’s interesting is that he left behind a manifesto. In the manifesto, he railed against capitalism and he said that all symbols, all representatives of the political order, of the oligarchy, including police officers, including point executives, deserve to be targeted.

Now, what people don’t appreciate is how coherent and how articulate the manifesto is. So there’s always going to be a small minority of the population, not that many, maybe 100 a year, who will take arms and try to overthrow the oligarchy because they think it’s a just cause. They’re willing to martyr themselves for the cause. And we can expect these numbers to only increase over time.

Think of Tsarist Russia at the end of the 19th century. You had organized groups like the People’s Will. You had a lot of anarchist organizations and they were targeting the Tsar and they succeeded in killing Tsar Alexander II and they succeeded in killing a lot of aristocrats. And so this violence that’s coming, it will just be complete chaos.

Normalising Insanity

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, whenever I speak to people and the topic of possible civil war comes up, people often treat it as being hyperbolic or very unlikely. But, you know, all the indicators— that’s despite the indicators showing that this is the direction headed. They’re like, maybe not tomorrow, but the indicators are there and they’re getting worse.

So you can see in the polling in the US that people expect more violence, more resentment towards other groups. You hear concerns about civil war from the top branch of the French military, from British politicians. Yet, if you argue that a civil war might be coming, again, people think this might be hyperbolic. I think this shows a weakness in human nature, that is the assumption that the status quo is always permanent. So we always had a turbulent history, but now it’s actually the end of history logic. But it’s only been 35 years since we were locked in a struggle with the Soviet Union. And the assumption that this period would somehow last forever, it’s still cemented in people’s minds. But sorry, you were going to say something.

JIANG XUEQIN: Yeah, look, let’s go back in time 10 years ago, okay? If 10 years ago in the year 2016, if I told you that in Britain people would be arrested for their social media tweets, that the United States would invade Iran for no reason, that people would be canceled for some silly speech they make, that there would be a global lockdown over this virus and people would be forced to be vaccinated. In 2016, people would think you would just be insane. They would just lock you up for just being absolutely delusional. Like, these things would just be unimaginable to anyone in 2016, including us.

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, you can also, if you’re going back to 2016, said, “Well, in a few years NATO’s going to be assisting with the long-range strikes deep into Russia. We’re going to supply the weapons, the intelligence. We’re going to have some contractors on the ground operating the weapons. We’re going to use our own territory to attack the northern parts of Russia.” I think also most people would have said, “No, we’re a defensive alliance. Where is this coming from?”

JIANG XUEQIN: So the world is already insane. The problem is that we’ve normalized this insanity. Look at what’s happening in Gaza. Look at what Israel is doing in the Middle East. Just declaring war all over the place. Israel is in Lebanon and now they’re declaring, they’re considering war against Türkiye and Egypt. The world is just insane. But unfortunately we have the capacity to very quickly normalize insanity. And like a year from now, I think things will be a lot worse and then we will just normalize that. And because we’re able to normalize this insanity, we just dig the hole deeper and deeper.

If at this point we’re like, you know, enough— what’s happening in Gaza is atrocious. Ukraine launching drone strikes against Moscow is atrocious because it could lead to nuclear war. The Americans invading Iran and forcing the global economy to collapse. If all of us got together and said, “This is enough, this is all insane,” then this insanity would stop. But because we unfortunately have a habit of normalizing this insanity, it just gets worse and worse for us.

The Escalation in Ukraine

GLENN DIESEN: How do you see what’s happening now with Ukraine? Because this has now escalated in a big way. And what I keep hearing from Moscow is that it can’t continue like this. They made a mistake by allowing their deterrence to be weakened to such an extent. And again, some are saying we have to escalate heavy against the Ukrainians. Others are saying, well, that’s the proxy, you should go after the puppet masters in the NATO countries. Respect to what it is, it doesn’t appear that the war will stay the same. We’re going to continue to escalate.

And another thing is the Americans appear to now be moving away from the diplomatic path, and they’re now taking a more overt role in Ukraine. In other words, Trump has definitely made this his war as well long ago. Where do you see this going though? Because in the media in Europe, they’ve returned to “Ukraine is winning” and “NATO is not involved.” But also we’re supplying hundreds of thousands of drones. So however one wants to make sense out of this.

Ukraine’s Escalation and NATO’s Role

JIANG XUEQIN: I think you’re absolutely right. I think that this can only escalate. This past month, there’s been a massive escalation in that Ukraine has crossed many red lines. So Ukraine targeted this student dorm in Luhansk, killing about 6 people. There’s been this massive drone strike against Moscow. A lot of Russia’s oil refineries have been targeted in strikes. Crimea is under siege right now, and a lot of people are leaving Crimea. So it seems Ukraine is very intent on escalating this war.

And you’re absolutely right in that there’s no way that Ukraine is doing this by itself. Ukraine basically ran out of momentum like a year ago, and the morale among Ukrainian forces are very low. So we can expect that it’s the Europeans, NATO, that is providing all these munitions, all these drones, all this targeting, all this intelligence, all this strategy. And I would not be surprised if a month from now or two months from now, there’s a major Ukrainian offensive, a ground offensive against Russia.

But if I’m Russia, I would actually be patient and strategic about this because if the Europeans believe that this war can be won and if Ukraine is taking the offensive, then I would assume that the Ukrainians are going to bet big on an offensive. And so I would let them come. To take the fight to them opens a can of worms. I would just let the Ukrainians exhaust themselves, and I believe that’s what the Russians will do.

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, I keep looking at the Crimea. It looks as if they could be planning a crossing, at least in the Zaporizhzhia or Kherson region, that is across the Dnieper — well, not just on this side, but also from the Odessa or sorry, Kherson region trying to cross over. But they seem to be softening targets in preparation.

JIANG XUEQIN: Yes. Let them come because they’ll be encircled, right? They want to go in to encircle the Russian forces, but they don’t have the manpower. They don’t have the morale. They don’t have the political will to commit. And so let them come and let them exhaust themselves. And this has been what’s been happening for the past few years. That’s why the Ukrainian forces have been so depleted.

Russia’s Strategic Position and NATO’s Endgame

GLENN DIESEN: Well, let’s say tomorrow the Ukrainian army collapses, or begins to collapse, Russia pushes through all the front lines, it makes it all the way to the Dnieper River from north to south. Or as Putin said, the objective now is Donbas and Novorossiya, which would be the southern regions. But if this is achieved, then what? I mean, you would think that then the Ukrainians would say, okay, we don’t want to do this anymore. But again, it’s not Kyiv that’s running this war, it’s being run out of the West.

So why would the West give up an opportunity? This is a large territory, it’s a lot of Ukrainians under essentially NATO control. In NATO, we can use the Ukrainians to strike Russia with long-range missiles. All we have to do is supply weapons and they can continue to pound Russia. Why would NATO accept any peace agreement? They sabotaged all of them since 2014. Would they end just because Russia seized some territory?

JIANG XUEQIN: It’s a sunk cost policy, right? The Europeans have already invested billions of dollars into this war. They think that once this war is over, they’ll have control over all of Ukraine’s resources and they’ll be able to force Russia to pay reparations. And so they’ve already sucked in a trillion dollars and they’re willing to suck in another trillion, $10 trillion into this war. So the Ukrainians will not give up. And you may have known that the Ukrainians plan to recruit about 100,000 foreign mercenaries. This is just the way this war is going to be fought for the next few years.

The Europeans will continue to support Ukraine. They will continue to invest resources into Ukraine. Again, it’s hard for me to believe that given the casualties, given the losses that Ukraine has suffered these past few years because of their counteroffensives, it’s very hard for me to believe that Ukrainians are fighting this war by themselves. I would not be surprised if there were many special forces, European special forces, embedded within the Ukrainians right now. And definitely you have a lot of European weaponry with the Ukrainians.

So these long-range strikes against Moscow — it’s not Kyiv that’s doing this, it’s Brussels that’s doing this, it’s NATO that’s doing this. For all intents and purposes, NATO is already in the war. And once they’re in the war, then sunk cost fallacy takes over and they will fight to the bitter end. And the bitter end does not mean that Moscow marches against Paris and London and Brussels and Berlin. What it means is the Europeans invest so much into this war and this war is so unwinnable they’re forced to announce a national draft. And then this will provoke a revolution in Europe. So that’s the resolution to this war, not on the battlefield, but in the streets of Paris, London, Berlin, Brussels.

Trump’s Strategy: Outsourcing or Ending the War?

GLENN DIESEN: You’ve seen a difference though in the European and American position because it’s unclear to me what exactly the US is aiming for, because again, its role in Ukraine is growing. But has the goal of the Trump administration simply been to outsource the war to the Europeans? Are they looking to put an end to it because they need to work with Russia as they have other priorities such as the Middle East, China, the Western Hemisphere? Are they just ramping up a favorable negotiation position, or do you see their position essentially being aligned completely with the Europeans, that is just to drain Russia to the last Ukrainian?

JIANG XUEQIN: Well, it’s more than drain Russia, it’s drain all of Europe. So we go back to the beginning of this conversation — an empire in decline, what they do is they cannibalize their allies, right? So from the American perspective, this war between Europe and Russia, if it goes on forever, that’s great. Why? Because first of all, I can sell more weapons to the Europeans and I can finance it and force the Europeans to go into debt. They will prop up the US dollar. I can sell them resources, LNG, that they desperately need. And they can only get LNG from America right now, right?

And what’s happening in this war in Ukraine, it’s targeting Russia’s oil export facilities. So now Russia can’t export oil, right? So now East Asia is dependent on American oil and LNG resources, right? So from the American perspective, they don’t care who wins this war as long as this war continues.

America Cannibalizing Its Allies

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, and this cannibalizing of allies and partners — we’ve seen this being a key feature over the past few years now, especially in the second Trump administration, but I would also put it in the Biden administration. The Europeans now are defining energy security as only buying American, which is very strange. You’re supposed to diversify your suppliers. But again, all those people who studied energy security as being cheap, reliable energy dependent on diversifying suppliers — all those textbooks apparently have to be rewritten to saying, well, cut yourself off from your main supplier, which is Russia, and bet everything on more expensive, unreliable energy from the United States.

But also the trade deals — the Europeans are willing to give up everything, including their dignity, to appease Washington. But you see also in East Asia, Trump telling Taiwan that they should move semiconductor factories to the US, the South Koreans should invest more in the United States, move production. How do you see the cannibalization of allies? Because it seems like the opposite of what happened after the Cold War. After World War II, America always saw benefits in being a frontline state — they would make sure that West Germany was stronger than East Germany, that Taiwan was wealthier than mainland China, that South Korea was more prosperous than North Korea. It was a good time to be a frontline state. But these days, how do you see this going? Because it’s not sustainable.

JIANG XUEQIN: At the end of the day, the world is a zero-sum game. For the West to have achieved their standard of living after World War II, you needed to exploit the Third World. And now that the Third World has risen, and the West is extremely corrupt, then for America to maintain its standard of living, it needs to cannibalize and exploit its allies, right? So that’s what’s happening.

And so as you point out, before America protected Europe and Japan, and now it basically wants to throw Europe and Japan to the wolves, right? To force Japan to confront China, even though it may not be in Japan’s best interest to do so. It’s going to force Europe to confront Russia. And in the process, America will sell Europe and Japan the energy, the resources, the weapons it needs in order to help maintain the American Empire. This is blatant cannibalism, and all empires behave like this.

And so the only way to save Europe is if there’s a global revolution on the streets. And when that happens, then America will probably send in forces to attack Europe. This is just how empires behave. And hopefully this doesn’t happen, but this is just how empires behave historically.

Iran, the MOU, and the Strait of Hormuz

GLENN DIESEN: Just my last question. You already touched a bit on Iran, but overall, where do you see this going? Because there were many people who were excited about the MOU, the Memorandum of Understanding, even though I think most people will recognize there was no way the US would actually implement this. There was no way they could control Israel. Where is this going? Because now they’re back to fighting. Lebanon, of course, looks like it’s being set up for civil war. The Iranians are not going to be strung along and essentially allow the Americans to pick and choose what part of the MOU they follow. So where does this leave us?

JIANG XUEQIN: The MOU — this is my analysis. I think the sticking point is Lebanon, right? Because the Americans basically give the Iranians a lot of incentives, but Lebanon is a sticking issue because Iran demands that Lebanon also be part of whatever peace settlement that they agree with. And they want Israel to withdraw from Lebanon. Israel’s not going to do that.

And so these next few months, what America wants to do is create a wedge issue between the IRGC and the Iranian political establishment. What America wants to do is basically destroy the proxies, right? There are 3 proxies right now. You’ve got the Shia militias in Iraq, you have Hezbollah in Lebanon, and you have the Houthis in Yemen, right? And the way that the IRGC controls power in Iran is by controlling the Strait of Hormuz. So the American strategy moving forward is to dislodge the IRGC from the Strait of Hormuz while at the same time simultaneously destroying the proxies.

We’re already seeing that — there’s now a peace treaty between Lebanon and Israel, which is going to provoke a civil war targeting Hezbollah. I would not be surprised if Syria comes in and attacks Hezbollah from the north, and then Israel comes in from the south, and then the Lebanese government attacks Hezbollah from within. So Hezbollah is in a lot of trouble. It’s very hard for the IRGC to protect Hezbollah.

You have this coup happening right now in Baghdad where the prime minister has arrested a lot of his political opponents, and he’ll be doing this without American support, right? So I wouldn’t be surprised if they want to destroy these Shia militias in Iraq. We are now hearing that Saudi Arabia is arming tribespeople in Yemen to go against the Houthis. And at the same time, we’re seeing these airstrikes against IRGC air defenses in the Strait of Hormuz. So I would not be surprised if they attempt a ground landing in order to dislodge the IRGC from the Strait of Hormuz.

If you’re able to accomplish all these goals at once, then Iran would basically be forced to surrender because the last holdout is really the IRGC. If President Pezeshkian had his way, they would have signed the MOU right away. They wouldn’t have had that Lebanon clause in there, right? So that’s the strategy moving forward.

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, I was thinking the same — that the US could promise the world, this is a very sweet deal for the Iranians, but the better the deal, the more likely the Iranians would try to hold on to it, even if one thing is violated. In other words, if you can give Iran this great deal if they just step away from, allow Lebanon to be destroyed by the Israelis, then yeah, that would be a good approach. But of course, once Lebanon is destroyed, Iran stands by a lot weaker. There’s no guarantee. Indeed, I would say it’s very unlikely that the US will actually fulfill its obligations under the MOU.

Islamic Extremism and the Anglo-American Empire

JIANG XUEQIN: The IRGC cannot afford for Hezbollah to fall. The Shia militias, Houthis, but Hezbollah is so critical to the forward defense of the IRGC because only Hezbollah threatens Israel. So if Hezbollah falls, then America can divert all its attention to a ground invasion of Iran, possibly as early as next spring, from two directions, from Pakistan and from Iraq. And already I think that the Americans are arming the Kurds as well as the Sunni militia forces in Iraq, preparing for a full-scale ground invasion of Iran.

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, Trump actually suggested that it would be better to use this al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria, that is, Jalani, to take out Hezbollah in Lebanon instead of the Israelis. I mean, I remember all those years when all the news were filled with the idea that, well, we have to help the people of Syria who’s been killed by their own government. And people always buy this narrative, and it doesn’t matter what the consequences are.

Look where we are now. We put in place an al-Qaeda leader to rule Syria, which is massacring the minorities, which Trump now envisions using to, again, destroy Lebanon. And there’s no lessons learned. We still have to pretend as if, well, in Ukraine, we really, really just want to help the Ukrainians. I mean, it’s so absurd, but we keep— no wonder the same script is used because it works every time, no matter if it’s Afghanistan, if it’s Iraq, if it’s Libya, it doesn’t matter. It’s always the same script, but people always buy it. It’s kind of impressive.

JIANG XUEQIN: Look, there’s overwhelming evidence that both Al-Qaeda and ISIS were American creations. And then you go back to the time of the British Empire. There’s overwhelming evidence that the Wahhabis and all these Islamic extremists were creations of the British Empire. So Islamic extremism is the creation of the Anglo-American Empire, and they are not indigenous to Islam, no matter what these bigots say about Islam.

GLENN DIESEN: Well, we ran out of time, so I wanted to thank you very much for your great analysis, and yeah, always look forward to it.

JIANG XUEQIN: Okay, thanks, thanks, Glenn.

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