Shadowing Practice: ‘Licking Putin’s Boot!’ Witkoff’s Russia Deal & Netanyahu’s Iran War Plan - Learn English Speaking with Video
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You are a humanitarian also, sir.
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That's not serious diplomacy.
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That is just bootlicking of the worst possible kind.
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I am beyond despair in trying to work out what his motivation is.
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I hate conspiracy theories, but maybe Putin does have something on it.
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By any metric, this war has been absolutely disastrous.
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Rita has been a mouthpiece for the Islamic Republic of Iran for decades.
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If you have an argument, please make it.
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I'm sorry that it offends you when I point out that you were a tool of the Iranian regime.
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That's just a fact.
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You're just embarrassing yourself.
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Shut your mouth.
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President Trump's approval rating is now lower than at any point in either of his two presidencies.
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Barely 31 % of Americans think he's doing a good job.
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In fact, he's less popular today than he was in the aftermath of January 6th, when most of the world accused him of inciting an insurrection.
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With the midterm elections in just 13 days, Trump is betting on war to avoid a wipeout.
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His envoy, Steve Witkoff, is in Moscow today to fix a face -to -face meeting between Putin and Ukraine's Zelensky.
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He opened with a grovelling address to the dictator, who seemed to embarrass even the Kremlin commissars watching behind him.
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You talk so much about my president and President Trump being a humanitarian.
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You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that.
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Well, last night the US president again made clear where his blame lies for the failure to end a war
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he said he'd solve in a day.
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It's not with the man who started it.
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Ukraine has to want to settle this war.
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Zelensky has to want to settle this war.
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And if he doesn't, I think it's going to be a very bad thing.
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Look, we have given tremendous amounts to Ukraine.
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We've got nothing back other than high diesel.
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We have given probably, possibly more money to Ukraine than almost anybody over the years.
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Hundreds of billions of dollars.
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We've got nothing back.
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and the American taxpayers are tired of it, we want Zelensky to make a deal.
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Well, the glaring problem here, besides rewarding an aggressor who's wanted for crimes against humanity,
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is that Zelensky's position is shared by the vast majority of Ukrainians.
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A ceasefire deal might freeze the conflict where it is, but surrendering territory in a permanent agreement would need a referendum.
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And if Putin's bombs and drones do pause for long enough to let it happen, the answer would be no. What Trump does get right is
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that American voters are sick of it all are sick of high gas prices too.
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And to be clear, the main reason for both is not Ukraine, but Iran.
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And every indication is now that attacks on Tehran will resume as soon as the elections are done.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing an existential election of his own next week, shared this phone call with Trump.
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I'm so grateful for this incredible endorsement.
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You've been an incredible leader of the free world of America.
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By far the greatest friend Israel has ever had and will have in the White House.
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and all of civilization is emboldened by your boldness.
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Donald, we have a job to finish.
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You said it, and we'll finish it together.
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We'll finish it, and no one else will do it.
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Actually, I actually crafted that one myself.
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That wasn't one that was put out by some guy writing something that was crafted by a hero warrior.
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You've been treated unfairly, but we will prove that.
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We will prove that very soon.
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I think you're terrific.
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We have a job to finish and we will finish it soon, he said, shortly after an unannounced visit by US War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
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One way or another, the Ukraine war may soon reach a fragile end.
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The least popular war in US history, however, is only just beginning.
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We have an exceptional panel waiting in the wings to debate all this.
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We begin with a man who is uniquely qualified to opine about illegal
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Middle Eastern wars based on disputed claims of serious weapons technology.
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Alistair Campbell.
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Hello, Piers.
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How are you?
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Not interviewed you for a long time.
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Beautiful segue.
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For our American viewers, we used to lock horns when I was editor of the Daily Mirror, and you were the communications chief for Tony Blair.
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So for seven years, we probably spoke most days, shouted at each other quite regularly.
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But we both, I think, in our careers, we both were mirror men at some stage.
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We both in our careers, I think, displayed the qualities which are the basis for your new books.
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And before we get to wars, your specialist subject, perseverance is the word you've come up with for this new book.
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There it is.
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What is perseverance?
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Perseverance, this is the definition I want to see in the dictionary within a year.
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Noun, the ability of an individual, group or organisation to turn any situation,
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setback or meaningful experience into a positive opportunity to grow, to advance and secure their core interests and beliefs.
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There you go.
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That's what it is.
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So it's basically...
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You've got to have perseverance and you've got to have resilience.
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What's the difference between the two things?
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I think both...
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I think perseverance
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and resilience are negative concepts you pers you you would never say i was watching this great film
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and i persevere to the end yes i would okay
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i think it is a positive actually okay
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i think perseverance is the it's the rocky balboa thing right i read the speech a lot to my kids
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which is when he has it out with his son
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and he says life's tough it will beat you down
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if you let it yeah
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and the way to win at life is not how hard
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you can hit it's how hard you can get it get back up and keep moving okay okay that
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That is perseverance and that she is resilience.
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So I think they're both positives.
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OK, there was a very, very good review of this book in a Ukrainian paper, The Lviv Herald.
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I thought you'd been scouring.
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I know.
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Scouring around.
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It's on the thing.
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It just popped up.
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And in fact, the review was always as long as the book, I've got to tell you that.
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But he said his definition of what he thought I was saying was that perseverance says you just keep going.
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Resilience is about recovery.
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Persevillance is about learning from both to take yourself to the next stage in a better, more positive way.
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That's how I see it.
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So, I mean, I hate to say this, Piers, because as you say, we've had quite a few bust -ups over our...
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And good times.
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And very good times.
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I always respected you as a very good operator.
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Yeah.
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We fell out big time over Iraq.
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We did, we did.
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Well, no, I don't think we fell out.
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Well, unlike a lot of people, I never thought you lied about Iraq.
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I didn't, and I didn't say that.
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I felt that we disagreed about whether we should have gone to the war, and you were wrong about it.
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I mean, the weapons of mass destruction never turned up.
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That was my central point of contention about it all.
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But unlike a lot of people that like to constantly say you deliberately lied, I don't think you did.
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I just think you got it wrong.
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And also, the other thing I'll say in your defence is that I knew that at the time.
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So you could have that very, very strong argument, whereas there were people in the media, some of them have mentioned in this book,
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who basically wanted to try to destroy me, which makes you Percivalian.
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Anyway, Piers, look, you see that?
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That's the title of the book, Percivalian.
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Yeah.
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Here's a little present for you.
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Go on.
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Because you are such a self -obsessed sort of narcissist...
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Coming from you, Jesus Christ.
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I've written a book where one letter changed...
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Oh, look!
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Piers the Villiers.
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Look, Piers, let me tell you something.
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Let me tell you.
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Your guys have just pointed out to me, but it says Piers Evil.
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I hadn't noticed that.
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Of course you hadn't.
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Of course you hadn't.
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Anyway, that is the only copy.
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I love it.
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That's yours.
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It's probably going to sell more than the other one.
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Let's take the premise of this and apply it to what's going on now.
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Because actually, Donald Trump, I would say, I always say this about him because I've known him very, very well.
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I've known him 20 years.
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Whether you like him or not, agree with him or not, have a pathological hatred of him or not,
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the things you probably can't disagree with are that he has, as a human being, remarkable powers of perseverance and resilience.
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100%.
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I mean, indisputably.
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Totally.
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I mean, the way he's come back from being prosecuted, being shot...
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Losing an election.
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Losing elections, all these things.
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You've been in that position.
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But for any leader to come back, especially as president of America, hardly any ever come back and win again, right, after they've lost.
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So how is it that he can be the personification of your book?
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And yet, if I asked you personally what you think of him, I presume you'd say you hate him.
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Yeah, well, I've got no time for him at all.
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I think he's doing massive damage to the world.
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And I think he's got terrible values.
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But, and I say in the book, that Percivillians can be bad people too.
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And that's why I think for me, to make it a positive word, there has to be values and integrity attached to it.
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And I say, when I watch that, I know we're going to talk about it later, but when I see Steve Whitcoff with that thing today,
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it just makes me feel sick.
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Well, calling Putin a humanitarian is repulsive.
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So I accept he's got extraordinary powers of resilience and perseverance.
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But I'll tell you where I think perseverance comes in.
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So let's just bring it closer to home.
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You mentioned Tony Blair, and I know that, you know, whatever differences you had,
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you thought Tony Blair was an exceptional prime minister, certainly an exceptional politician.
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Why did Tony last 10 years and Keir Starmer lasted too?
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It's not just because he was a better communicator.
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I think Tony instinctively got this sense of, if bad stuff happens, how do I use this to get good?
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How do I use it to get even stronger?
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Whereas Keir, he's got resilience, which is a different thing.
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Resilience will just get you so far.
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It gets you through the crisis.
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I don't think he even had resilience.
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Personally, I quite like Keir Starmer.
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We got on well.
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We're both Arsenal fans and so on.
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I think with Tony Blair, the difference between him and Starmer is that
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Tony Blair hit the ground running with a plan.
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In 1997, the new
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Labour felt like a revolution.
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And you guys hit the ground and did bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, and they were very popular policies.
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And actually that first term in particular was incredibly successful, right?
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The turmoil began, actually, with the Iraq war.
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But even after the Iraq war, you won again, right?
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Which I think that was resilience.
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But to start with, you've got to have a plan.
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If you're a leader, and Trump, you know, the interesting thing for me is I spoke to Trump the morning after he won,
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literally a few hours after he'd been declared winner.
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And we had maybe a five, ten -minute chat. And...
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I said, what's going to be different this time?
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He said that he's going to have people around him who are going to be loyal,
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because the first time he felt the cabinet was full of disloyal people who then caused him a lot of damage.
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He's definitely shown he's done that.
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But he was going to hit the ground running.
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He'd had four years to wait for this, and he had a plan.
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And he came out with a blizzard of executive orders, largely very popular, attacking all the woke stuff, shutting the border to all the illegal...
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As you said at the top there, he's now got the lowest ratings ever.
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No, no, I'm going to come to...
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Because the values piece has never been there.
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Well, it's not that.
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It's just he bet the bank on things which I think have turned out to be disastrous, notably the Iran war.
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Now, again, I'm not being facetious when I say you guys bet the bank in a way, in a similar way by invading Iraq in 2003.
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Do you see parallels here?
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And is the reality that when you go to war,
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you can have all the plans in the world, but reality takes charge? and then things can spiral beyond any leader's control.
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Well, I think that if you go through our whole entire term in office, I do think there's a possibility that because Sierra Leone went well,
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because Kosovo went relatively well, that once 9 -11 happened and it was clear
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that the Americans were going to do Afghanistan and possibly going to do Iraq after that,
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I recognise that we maybe got pulled into that in a way that, looking back, wasn't necessarily the right thing for us.
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But at the same time, as you and I argued at the time, I remember Tony Blair always saying,
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if we're going to disassociate ourselves from our closest ally, because it wasn't like it is now, we were like that in so many ways,
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over a fundamental policy of strategic importance to them, it's got to be over something where we're 100 % clear...
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But the interesting thing, see, you touch on suggesting a little bit of hubris was involved, which I think it was,
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because military conflicts had gone well.
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No, so I'm saying exactly.
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So that's your point.
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My point about Trump is I think the same sequence of events happened here.
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Venezuela?
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Well, the 12 -day war last year with Iran was very clinical, very successful, hardly any kickback from the Iranians,
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which made him, and then you have Maduro being kidnapped
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and taken out in the middle of the night with no loss of American lives.
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And so I think Netanyahu hit him at the perfect time psychologically to say,
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look, they did nothing last year after the 12 -day war of any significance.
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They're there for the taking.
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And if we take them now, you know, it's going to...
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This will be the moment.
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The regime will fall.
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People will rise up.
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We saw them try in January.
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I think all this was hubris, playing into Trump's sense that this is going to be easy.
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What you saw with that clip you just saw there of Netanyahu on the phone, Putin plays Trump like a fiddle and Bibi plays
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Trump like a fiddle.
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And I think what happened was that Netanyahu wanted to do this for his own purposes.
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He persuaded Trump this was the time to do it.
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Trump, who famously doesn't really listen to advice, there's a reason why previous presidents have not done what he did in Iran.
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It's because they worried that they would close the Strait of Hormuz as an immediate reaction.
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And he was warned that.
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And he says, well, I'm different.
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I can do this in a different way.
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So I think whether it's Ukraine, which, as you said in your opener, going to sort in 24 hours or this,
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I think it's more than hubris with him.
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And don't forget, I know that, you know, fair play to you.
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You've never accused us of bad faith.
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Going back to Iraq, Tony Blair was convinced that Saddam Hussein was a bigger threat.
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That was not fair.
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I remember Colin Powell, who was one of the people I've interviewed who I most respected.
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I remember him on television.
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At the UN?
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Yeah, saying he's got weapons of mass destruction and he's going to use it.
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And we said the same.
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Now, we did, contrary to the way it was presented afterwards, there were caveats in the documents that we put out there.
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And also, it was not the only reason why we went to war.
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But I completely understand.
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But if you had your time again, I mean, the same way that I think if Trump could go back to the middle of February,
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there's no chance, knowing what he knows now, he would do what he did.
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If you had your time again, I imagine neither you nor Tony Blair would make that same decision again.
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I would hope you wouldn't.
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Knowing that he had no weapons of mass destruction.
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Oh, if you knew that.
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Knowing what you know now, I don't think you would have invaded, right?
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Well, I think if you'd have known beyond any doubt...
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Yeah, which we do now.
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No, but if you'd known then...
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I'm talking about knowing now.
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Yeah, but you're asking me to say...
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Why are you hesitating?
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Because you're asking me to totally reframe the basis...
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Not really.
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The pretext for the...
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It wasn't the only pretext, though.
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No, but the main pretext for going to war was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
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Knowing now, today, many years later, so we're 23 years on, knowing now that he didn't, you wouldn't have taken that decision.
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If we had known, without any doubt at all, that there were no weapons there, I don't think that would have happened.
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Right.
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Now, and as I said earlier, it wasn't the only reason.
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There was this part of the idea...
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But that's why the intelligence part of all this is to me so crucial,
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because governments and prime ministers and presidents take decisions based on information flow, which if it turns out to be flawed...
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becomes incredibly problematic and a lot of people die.
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Yeah, it does, and that's what happened.
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But I do think the Iran thing is different because I think actually what
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Trump was doing in this circumstance, he was ignoring the intelligent flows.
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My sense is actually the intelligence people would probably say, no, this isn't the way you want to go.
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But he decided for his own reasons.
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And I think this is what's so difficult.
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I mean, I know you know him, I don't know him, but my sense of watching it is
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that it's almost impossible to work out the rationale behind a lot of the decisions that he makes.
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I honestly, I am beyond despair in trying to work out what his motivation is in relation to Ukraine.
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And I hate conspiracy theories, but I'm even moving to that sort of sense, maybe Putin does have something on him.
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Or certainly, this is in the end about big business deals.
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Before we bring the panel in, because it's really interesting territory for you to be part of a panel about all this.
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But the enormity of leadership when you're running a country, when you take decisions, the biggest decision must be whether they go to war, ultimately.
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Given your acknowledgement that if you knew what you knew today, we wouldn't have gone to war against Iraq,
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which I'm sure would have to be the case, how do you feel on a human level about the enormous consequences of what happened?
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A million people being killed in that Iraq war,
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for example, the rise of ISIS out of the embers of it all and the mayhem they caused and so on.
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On a human level, how do you, Tony Blair and others, How do you feel about the consequence of those kind of actions?
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I think Tony is in a different position.
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And I think if you had him here now, he'd actually be pretty much saying, you know, we did the right thing.
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And I can say we did the right thing in the context of what we were being told at the time.
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And I will always defend
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Tony on that basis because he gets accused of so much else besides.
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But I'll be honest, I mean, often I feel, you know, I still dream about it.
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I spoke to you on the day that David Kelly, his body was found, the civil servant who took his own life.
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I said I felt I'd been hit by a two -ton truck.
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I do know families of people whose sons lost their lives.
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So how I feel about it is deep down, you'd wish it had never happened.
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I mean, the worst thing for them all was, like, my brother, as you know, went to war in Iraq.
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and the disillusionment which came over him when he realised there were no weapons of mass destruction was really palpable.
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For me, I felt very angry for him.
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Yeah, I get that.
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But one of the worst moments of my entire time was
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when somebody from the security services came to see me after Saddam had fallen.
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By the way, the world is a better place without him in charge, so let's just put that out there.
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And said, how difficult would it be for you guys
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and for Tony Blair if it turns out that we don't find these weapons.
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And I said, very, very difficult.
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So I was always aware of that.
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But how I feel about it is...
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I mean, you know, I do the podcast with Rory Stewart
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and we did a two -hour special a couple of years ago on one of the anniversaries.
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And I try to be nuanced about it because the fact is that politics is so much done in black and white.
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And, you know, I know it's a big part of my life and a big part of my reputation.
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And I have regrets about what didn't happen.
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In other words, I have regrets about the fact
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that we didn't have the aftermath planned as well as we should have done because we were trusting the Americans too much.
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Maybe we should have learned at that time you can't necessarily trust them the way that you want to.
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And likewise, I also think, just from the political perspective, I think I've, not least through Percivilians,
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I think I've got a strong reputation, which has withstood all that got thrown at me over that, but I'm also aware that
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Tony, who I like and he's still a good friend and I think a great
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Prime Minister, that his reputation has taken a deep scar because of it as well.
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Yeah.
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And you've just got to live with that.
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Let's bring in the panel.
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Joining Alistair is Trida Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute, Jim Hansen, the Chief Strategist of the Middle East Forum,
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and Will Chamberlain, host of Counterweight.
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Well, welcome to all of you.
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To tee it up, I mean, Alistair, You were in Oslo this week when Zelensky was over there with Steve Witkoff and the Norwegian Prime Minister.
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Here we have Vladimir Putin illegally invading Ukraine nearly five years ago now.
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Where do you think we are with this war?
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I just don't know, because I've lost my capacity to judge what's going on in this.
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Watching that clip at the top of your show,
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Witkoff, It strikes me where I think we are is that Donald Trump has basically several times said to Vladimir Putin,
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I'm going to help you win this war.
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I am basically on your side.
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It feels like he's on Putin's side.
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And the last few days with the satellite getting shut off, the sanctions, the sanctions relief.
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the diesel deal and all this stuff, it feels to me like he's more on his side than ever.
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And the way they treat
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and talk about Zelensky as though he's some kind of rogue actor
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when he is the victim in this war and Putin is the aggressor.
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So I've reached the conclusion, and I hate to say this because I want to be able to respect the United States president,
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I've reached the conclusion that
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Trump and Putin have got some sort of future deal carving out this whole thing.
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They both believe that they, as powerful regional leaders, should be in far greater control than they are of the entire region.
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And that's why, for now, Europe has really, really, really got to get real about this.
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I don't think we can look at the Americans right now as an ally in this, and that's terrifying.
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Well, Will Chamberlain, you'd be grimacing there.
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What's your response to that?
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Well, I think that's ridiculous for two reasons.
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First off, President Trump has been extremely supportive of the Ukrainian government, sanctioning Rosneft and Luke oil for the first time in a long time.
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He put a 25 % tariff on India for buying Russian oil.
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Meanwhile, the British government is still buying Russian diesel.
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They're doing so.
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It's being shipped down to India and Turkey, but they're still buying it the same way America is buying it.
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Moreover, a big part of the problem here is
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that we have this huge increase in diesel prices
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that isn't helped by the fact that the net zero policies
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that Alistair has been a primary advocate of are responsible for the UK seeing its refineries go down from 18 to 4.
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And for your own domestic energy production to be anemic when it could be very much more bountiful.
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So I think that it's kind of ridiculous to say that this is like the Americans' fault.
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And Trump's now on Putin's side when he's taken a slew of much more aggressive actions than Obama did,
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for example, while also advocating for the very policies that make the UK dependent on imports for all its energy.
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But Will, when you see Steve Wyckoff representing the United States of America,
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your country, looking across the table to Vladimir Putin and calling him a great humanitarian,
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do you not share the same vomiting view of that that I did?
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I mean, I don't vomit about it.
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It's just diplomacy, right?
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We have to do diplomacy with the Russians.
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Trump is trying to manage the war in Iran, the war in Ukraine, and domestic political environment.
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Do you think Putin's a humanitarian?
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No, of course not.
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What do you think he is?
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Very simply, no, I don't.
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What do you think he is?
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No, I don't think he's a humanitarian.
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Do you think he's a dictator?
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Is he a dictator? Of course.
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OK, so why is America sucking up to a dictator?
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Well, because unfortunately, diesel prices are six bucks a gallon.
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I mean, the same reason that you're talking about what a mistake it was for America to go into Iran,
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despite the fact that I don't think you have any defense of the Iranian regime, Piers.
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But, you know, we have to, essentially, we're managing a number of different crises and world oil prices.
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And, I mean, you're saying we've got to withdraw.
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The Iran war is a huge mistake.
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I mean, the other incoherent part about Alistair's position, if I may briefly,
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is Alistair says the big mistake they made in Iraq was the fact they were wrong about weapons and mass destruction.
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If they were right, then the war would have been justified.
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Well, guess what?
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But Iran had a massive nuclear enrichment program.
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I don't think anybody denies that.
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And so if the idea is you would have been right, Alistair, to go into Iraq if you were right about weapons of mass destruction,
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how can you then say we are wrong when, in addition, our own war has cost far less than blood and treasure?
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Well, I mean, my response to that would be that after the 12 -day war last summer,
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we were assured by the president of the United States that the Iranian nuclear program had been put back, quote, decades.
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It turned out it wasn't even eight months, right?
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So I think there's been a lot of bullshit spewed about all this.
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Can I also say, Pierce, I do also think that the JCPOA, which I think was a very, very good piece of diplomacy,
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I think when you look at the work that went into
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that and set it against what Kushner and Wyckoff have done in the various wars that
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Trump has deputed them to settle, I think you'd have to say that nobody wants these wars to go on.
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Trump was elected on no more forever wars, and I think that was a sensible position to take.
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And now we're into this war that he started with Netanyahu and now seems unable to stop.
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And I think then to try to blame Zelensky for the
418
effect on gas prices in the U .S as a result of that is just a form of madness.
419
You talk about serious diplomacy, saying Putin is that he's a humanitarian.
420
That's not serious diplomacy.
421
That is just bootlicking of the worst possible kind.
422
And Putin's laughing at them.
423
Putin's laughing at that.
424
Well, I mean, we gave weapons to Zelensky with explicit instructions not to use them on Russian oil,
425
because, you know, I think we're in a position to do that.
426
We've been, I mean, the primary funder of the Ukraine war for a very long time.
427
We've been a huge supporter of it.
428
We've given, we've done a lot to Russia, I guess I said, more than other countries have before.
429
And so when Zelensky just ignores our instructions and starts using it - Well, what about Putin ignoring all the instructions too,
430
and bombing away Ukraine's refineries?
431
What's the difference?
432
Well, that's why we put sanctions on him in the first place.
433
That's why we've been aiding the Ukrainians.
434
But for American aid, obviously, Ukraine would have faced far, far more serious consequences.
435
We haven't been on Russia's side in this war.
436
And the suggestion that we are is absurd.
437
I don't think it's absurd at all.
438
I think it's sounding more and more like your administration is on Putin's side.
439
Trump is.
440
Whether the administration is, I don't know.
441
But yeah, silence is cowardice if you don't agree with it.
442
And let's bring in a treaty party.
443
Welcome to Uncensored.
444
There's a lot going on here.
445
You've got the Ukraine war raging way longer than anyone, least of all Putin, anticipated it would rage.
446
A lot of that down to the very Percivillians, which Alistair talks about in his book.
447
They've been remarkably resilient, I think, the Ukrainians, and deserve great credit for doing that.
448
But you have the Iran war also raging much longer than Donald Trump thought it was going to be lasting.
449
We talked about two to three weeks and it would be all over.
450
It seemed naive at the time it seems preposterous now.
451
When you look at it in totality, how big a hole has
452
Trump got himself into?
453
And are we going to see at the midterm elections the
454
kickback from the American public by him losing both the House and the Senate?
455
By any metric, this war has been absolutely disastrous for the United States, the strategic position for the stability in the region.
456
And I To compare this war with the Iraq war, it's important to note that in the Iraq war,
457
the United States won the war militarily within three weeks.
458
It also achieved its political objective by getting rid of Saddam Hussein.
459
In this war, none of the objectives, whether military or political, have been achieved.
460
It's now also clear
461
that the United States has huge difficulties sustaining a war with the country at Iran's technological level
462
that can shoot a lot of missiles for more than 40 days.
463
What does that do then to the U .S.'s ability to be able to instill confidence in allies elsewhere,
464
such as in Taiwan, that the U .S actually can protect them?
465
So I think this has created such massive problems for the U .S in a strategic level
466
that goes beyond just what happens in the war itself with Iran.
467
And I think this is going to have obviously consequences in the midterm elections already we're seeing where the polls are.
468
But I think there's also a scenario in which if the Republicans do not lose the Senate, the conclusion will be, well,
469
actually, this wasn't so bad because the House was likely going to be lost anyways.
470
And as a result, the political cost of having started this disastrous war actually will not be felt particularly strongly.
471
It may actually reinforce the administration's belief that they are on the right track, even though all other pieces of evidence shows that they're not.
472
Let's bring Jim Hansen in.
473
Jim, welcome back to Uncensored.
474
Amid all this, we've also got Elon Musk and what he has been or has not been doing with his Starlink technology.
475
The Wall Street Journal this morning, a pretty bombshell report, said that contrary to all the public denials,
476
Elon was behind the restrictions to Ukraine's access to Starlink.
477
And it says that he discussed it with Donald Trump
478
and they agreed to slow down the technology so that it made Ukraine less capable of defending itself against Russian missile attacks.
479
And the Russians immediately bombarded them and were able to get through very quickly and easily as a result.
480
You know, if that is true, that is something we should all condemn, isn't it?
481
It's just contemptible to leave Ukraine in that position deliberately by turning down the speed of a system designed to help them.
482
I think what technology the United States and our partners use to help Ukraine is up to us,
483
and how that plays out is a decision made for U .S strategic interests, not Ukrainian.
484
I'd like to just answer quickly, Trita Parsi's claim that the United States has achieved none of our objectives militarily or otherwise.
485
The lack of an Iranian nuclear program, the destruction of their military,
486
the destruction of their industrial complex designed to build more military components begs to differ.
487
And at this point, they're still clinging to power, you know, the regime is.
488
And that's to the advantage.
489
Shrita has been a mouthpiece for the Islamic Republic of Iran for decades.
490
And so we will definitely get the anti -American, pro -Iranian view from him.
491
And I think that's kind of sad, given that he runs an institute in the United States,
492
the Quincy Institute, started by George Soros and the Koch Institute.
493
You couldn't even answer a question for more than 30 seconds without starting personal attacks.
494
I'll answer his question.
495
I'm talking - I didn't interrupt you.
496
Go ahead and let me finish.
497
If you have an argument, please make it.
498
But if you're going to make personal attacks, I'm not going to let you talk - Please understand that you're actually undermining your own position.
499
Good God.
500
All right, look, I'm sorry that it offends you when I point out that you were a tool of the Iranian regime.
501
That's just a fact.
502
The U .S has done much better than your - would you let me talk?
503
If you don't, you're just embarrassing yourself.
504
Seriously, if you have a factual argument, please make it.
505
I'm eager to hear it.
506
Are you scared of the truth?
507
I'm eager to hear what you have to say.
508
Shut your mouth and let me speak.
509
The point is, you're telling the Iranian position, as you always have.
510
You're undermining U .S foreign interests, and I find that offensive for someone who sits in the United States.
511
slithered away from farra violations you should have been caught by
512
and now acts as
513
if you're giving advice the world should listen to you no
514
one should listen to the u .s position let me
515
i i'm done with him for a second to be fair jim
516
you have to go over each other jim to be clear
517
you have launched a pretty savage personal attack at him
518
i think we should out of respect for another panelist let him at least respond to what you've said
519
so uh he did while i was talking which was a bit disrespectful.
520
You went personal and savage pretty quickly.
521
So I think he's entitled to feel a bit aggrieved.
522
Trina, respond to what Jim has said about you personally.
523
These are just completely preposterous accusations that people are making because they don't actually have any real arguments to make.
524
I mean, I joined this debate because I thought
525
that Jim would actually be able to put forward some proper arguments as to why this war apparently is achieving tremendous results.
526
I think all facts begs to differ.
527
Now let's just debate the facts in that case.
528
The destruction of the Iranian nuclear program shows high.
529
There are destructions of Iran's military facilities, etc. That is absolutely correct.
530
Those are tactical achievements.
531
We're talking about strategic achievements, things that actually lead to a different situation in the region,
532
a different capacity for the Iranians to be able to achieve their objectives.
533
None of that has been achieved.
534
It doesn't matter how many times the Pentagon says that 90 percent of Iran's launchers have been destroyed.
535
They clearly have not.
536
And had they, this would need to be a stepping stone towards achieving something else.
537
But we haven't seen any of that taking place.
538
And as a result, it is the strategic level results that we're debating right now.
539
And those are simply not there.
540
OK, Jim, my problem with what you said about putting back the Iranian
541
nuclear program is this could all have the complete reverse effect in the sense
542
that we knew how much enriched uranium they had.
543
It was being controlled under the agreements that Obama put through, which were widely condemned by Republicans.
544
OK, I would argue America's in a worse position now in terms of controlling Iran's nuclear aspirations.
545
We're now reading that there are members of this new
546
Iranian regime who actually think the big lesson from all this is they need to have a nuclear deterrent.
547
And so you could end up with them advancing now towards something
548
that maybe they didn't plan to do in the first place.
549
And as we sit here, Jim...
550
Why were they enriching uranium?
551
As we sit here, we've gone from last summer, after the 12 -day war, that the nuclear program being put back decades.
552
We're now told it was so imminent in February, it was two weeks away from apparently having a nuclear bomb,
553
that they had to be attacked and invaded.
554
And now we sit here, they've still got every tiny bit of their enriched uranium.
555
They're talking openly about whether they should develop a nuclear weapon.
556
It's hard to see the win here.
557
And where's the win?
558
I will explain that, first of all, if we were still operating under the JCPOA,
559
Iran would have no limits at this point on the number of centrifuges they could run, which TRETA lobbied for and Alistair lobbied for.
560
Both of them were making certain that there was a path to a fully legitimate nuclear program for Iran with the JCPOA.
561
So President Trump threw that out the window because that was an absurd thing to allow.
562
Now, what we've done now is destroyed the bulk of the Iranian nuclear program, the bulk of the Iranian military industrial complex.
563
How do you know?
564
Because it's visible from space.
565
Why should we believe that? But Jim, why should we believe that claim now
566
when we were told this had all happened last summer and it turned out to be bullshit?
567
There has been enough destruction to set them back, decade at least.
568
Now, here we go again.
569
So now it's decades again.
570
But how do you know that?
571
I don't see any evidence of that.
572
I was told that we were told, in fact, Trump was told by Netanyahu in the White House Situation Room right before the war started.
573
Look, they're there for the taking.
574
You saw what happened last summer.
575
They've got no way of responding.
576
We can take out the Ayatollah now.
577
And when you do, with our help, then the regime will collapse.
578
ILGC will collapse.
579
People will rise up.
580
And they'll all be too distracted to think about the Strait of Hormuz.
581
None of that happened other than the Ayatollah got taken out and replaced by his even more hardline son.
582
That would have been ideal.
583
It didn't happen.
584
Fact, you don't get to take the outcome of the war before you start it.
585
Now, what did happen is the region is now united.
586
Iran is no longer the hegemon with their axis of resistance and all of their proxies pushing things their direction.
587
All of their proxies are more or less destroyed.
588
Their ability to project power is minimal.
589
Well, hang on, just to be clear.
590
Sorry, the Houthis are a proxy of Iran.
591
They're not looking very destroyed to me.
592
It looks to me like they're attacking
593
Saudi Arabia with impunity and they're controlling the strength of Bab al -Mandeb.
594
They're fighting the Saudis and the Saudis and Israelis who are providing them intelligence and now potentially Turkey.
595
might be joining that conflict against the Houthis.
596
President Trump asked the people who live in the region, the Gulf states, Israel, Turkey,
597
and others, to go ahead and take care of their own region.
598
He said, I'll take down Iran a few notches.
599
Would have been nice if it was all the way down.
600
Didn't happen.
601
But he took them down a few notches for sure.
602
They are no longer capable.
603
Their country's broke.
604
They've got zero revenue coming in.
605
And yet astonishingly, the regime remains completely in charge.
606
There have been zero uprisings from the public.
607
They control indisputably the Strait of Hormuz, whatever Trump says about that.
608
They do not.
609
The Wall Street Journal reported today the amount of oil coming out of the region is the same as before.
610
And try and pretend to me that you've got control of it.
611
You haven't.
612
They've got more, as much oil coming out now as there was between the strait
613
and between the pipelines and other ways out of the Gulf than there was at the start of the war.
614
The Wall Street Journal reported that yesterday.
615
So the strait is not under Iranian control the U .S changed the entire balance of power, and now the other people in the region,
616
whose neighborhood it is, are taking action and are united against Iran.
617
Actually, I would say they're all feeling extremely vulnerable.
618
I mean, Alistair, to bring you back here on the geopolitical aspect of all this,
619
if you talk to anybody at any higher level in Saudi Arabia, in Qatar, in the UAE, in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, any of them,
620
they're all very, very twitchy about what's happening here, because the Iranian strategy of attacking the Gulf states, attacking their refineries, you know,
621
helping the Houthis and Saudi and so on.
622
All these things are having a really serious material effect on
623
the business model of the Gulf states moving out of oil to safety, sunshine, tourism, sport, entertainment.
624
All that right now is dead in the water.
625
This has enormous implications for the whole region.
626
And they're all responding in different ways.
627
And a bit like us in Europe, they're all having to respond to a changing relationship with the United States.
628
So you mentioned the Houthis there, and the Saudis thought that the Americans would immediately come to their aid on the back of that,
629
and Trump said no, because we're too busy with what we're doing in relation to Iran.
630
And what I find...
631
I'd really like to ask Jim this, and, you know, I like the way you sort of lumpied there with Triti there,
632
but let me just ask you this.
633
Genuinely, do you...
634
Can you honestly, hand on heart, say that the reason for the rise in oil prices that is affecting your midterm elections,
635
that is sort of really making things hard on the affordability front for American people, that that is more to do with Ukraine than Iran.
636
Because I just find it incredible that
637
Trump is now moving the goalposts on this so far and in a way that I think is what's pushing him towards,
638
frankly, whatever's been said before, I think throwing Zelensky under a bus, basically saying to Zelensky, you're now on your own, you cannot depend on us.
639
And I also, most from a European perspective, hit back at this notion that the Americans have given so much.
640
Since Trump came in for the second term, the big funders of Ukraine's defence have been the Europeans.
641
I think that should at least be recognised.
642
Will, on this, look, I want to play a clip.
643
This is from Zelensky when he sat in this studio with me last week.
644
And he talked about this demand for him to go, which Trump made and Elon Musk made.
645
And he said this.
646
Moving me. and but
647
but it decision of course of our people yes no trump
648
no musk no anybody in the world can can choose the president
649
or elect in other countries
650
but this is not the problem of the president i mean this moving me
651
and uh i'm sure the new man or woman
652
will defend our country because we are i mean this where it's our as i said it's our home
653
Now he's taught
654
Will today on Fox News about agreeing with the principle of having a freeze in the war on the current lines.
655
It's been misinterpreted by some people as meaning he'd give that away.
656
He's not talking about giving anything away.
657
He's talking about having a ceasefire and a freeze where the war currently is
658
because it's basically hardly moved now for many months and the death toll is absolutely horrific.
659
Let's just play just to be clear exactly what he said to Fox.
660
Let's watch it.
661
WOULD YOU ACCEPT A PEACE DEAL
662
THAT FREEZES EVERYTHING THE WAY IT IS RIGHT NOW WHERE YOU STILL KEEP 75 %
663
OR MORE OF YOUR COUNTRY REGARDLESS OF HOW IT STARTED WOULD YOU BE WOULD YOU ACCEPT WHERE IT IS RIGHT NOW?
664
YES.
665
RIGHT NOW WE HAVE TO FREEZE AND I THINK THIS IS REAL WAY TO END THIS WAR.
666
WE CALL IT CASE FIRE OR STOP KILLINGS LIKE PRESIDENT TRUMP CALLED IT.
667
FREEZE AND STOP.
668
AND OF COURSE THIS IS MINIMUM WHAT WE NEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY.
669
THEN OF COURSE WE WILL GO TO PRESIDENT AND TO EUROPEANS AND WE WILL ASK SECURITY GUARANTEES.
670
THE MOST IMPORTANT IS PEACE AND ALSO SECURITY PEACE.
671
Now, just to go with that, I'll play another clip from my interview with him where he clarifies what he meant about giving up any territory.
672
Is your position, just to push you on this, is your position as the president of Ukraine,
673
that in those negotiations, you would never agree to any territory being given to the Russians?
674
Or is your position that it's negotiable?
675
In other words, obviously you don't want to give the whole Donbass, but is there a deal to be done that would involve potentially some
676
Ukrainian land being given to Russia?
677
I think in your question,
678
yes, there is an answer why some big guys want to change me.
679
Because I will never accept
680
Ukrainian land as Russian land.
681
Yes, I am a realist, and I understand that people are more important than one kilometer or two kilometers.
682
It's not about kilometers.
683
I mean, it's about land and homes.
684
Well, you know, I think it's pretty clear what Zelensky is saying here.
685
He wants the killing to stop, to freeze things where they are, and then get into proper negotiation.
686
But he's damned if he should give up an inch of Ukraine territory.
687
And frankly, why should he?
688
You wouldn't expect America to give up any territory if they'd been invaded, right?
689
Yeah, I think that's perfectly reasonable.
690
And I think that's why ultimately the United States has been broadly supportive of Ukraine in this war, why we've provided them so much financial,
691
military, intelligence support for many years now.
692
That said, I think if everybody's making a big deal out of this diesel deal and saying it's a betrayal of Ukraine,
693
I expect people like Alistair to start actually backing real policies for their own energy independence.
694
Like, is Alistair going to say
695
that it's time for Britain to get rid of its carbon tax
696
and its 78 percent tax on oil production
697
and its ban on oil exploration and its ban on fracking
698
so that it can be pull its own weight in terms of energy?
699
And if not, then I feel like this is all just green virtue signaling on the one hand
700
and whining about the fact that
701
President Trump is both concerned with supporting Ukraine
702
and concerned with global oil prices
703
and just like you're not willing to do anything about oil prices by changing your own ridiculous green virtue signaling,
704
we are going to try and deal with oil prices and the Ukraine war is not our only policy concern.
705
Okay, well, I quite like the idea of leaving it hanging that Alistair may be a green virtue signaller.
706
Thank you so much for that.
707
So we'll leave it there.
708
Alistair, thanks for coming in.
709
Thank you, pleasure.
710
The book, just to give it another plug.
711
Another little plug.
712
There you are, guys.
713
Per civilians.
714
Zelensky's got it.
715
The world, the world needs now.
716
The world, the world needs now.
717
Yeah, yours has got a question mark in the end of it.
718
Yeah.
719
I think, actually, that if you called it
720
Peers of Illience, you'd probably sell more copies.
721
Thank you to all my panel, and thank you to you, Alice.
722
Thank you.
723
Well, don't forget, this week we're proudly launching the Uncensored Club.
724
Ad -free episodes, extra content, early access, Q &As, and everything else you've asked for.
725
There's a massive founding members discount available now, as is this interview with Uncensored favourite Dave Smith, which our members will get first.
726
I'm not voting for a socialist, I'm not voting for a woke democrat, and I'm not voting for a neocon.
727
If there was a ballot and on the ballot is Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong,
728
at a certain point, I don't want to get into an argument about which one is worse than the other.
729
I want to just, I want to reject the entire system.
730
Don't launch a war of choice sold on lies on behalf of a foreign country and then lose the war.
731
Now, I'm not defending anything Putin or Assad did.
732
They were both very bad guys.
733
But if you had to be trapped on a desert island for a calendar year with one of the following, who would you choose?
734
Adam Sosnick, Douglas Murray or Natasha Hausdorff?
735
Jeez, dude, that's such a...
736
Well, General Keith Kellogg, the former US Special Envoy for Russia and Ukraine, joins me now.
737
General, thank you very much indeed for joining me on Uncensored.
738
Where do you think this war in Ukraine, first of all, currently is?
739
Because you've got Putin claiming he's making great advances, and you've got Zelensky telling me, no, they've got it pretty well frozen now,
740
the front line, and they've been putting up a hell of a fight, and they're not going to give an inch.
741
Yeah, Pierce, thanks for having me.
742
It's great to be with you this morning.
743
Look, I think you played just a minute ago the take from Zelensky this morning
744
on Fox News when he talked about the fight ongoing in Ukraine.
745
And when you look at what's happening there, the Russians really are not winning.
746
What they got at the initial invasion, which is about so much of the land, which is Lujan, Donetsk, Provence,
747
Saipur, Asia, and Khrushchev, and discounting Crimea, they've only gained about 1 % of the land.
748
And Ukrainians have counterattacked in that.
749
So they've got so much of Lujan, so much of Donetsk.
750
They want the rest of Donetsk or the Donbass area.
751
And then they'll call it a day.
752
Zelensky isn't willing to give that up, and I understand why.
753
I have physically been on that ground.
754
That is the last defensible terrain before Kharkiv and Kiev, and he doesn't want to give it up because he's got the three fortified cities there.
755
So from a military perspective, I understand what he's doing, and they're not losing ground.
756
And I believe when President Trump, he kind of says, well, the Russians are invincible, they're going to go forward, they've got massive amounts of manpower.
757
I'M A BIG BELIEVER IN HISTORY.
758
I LOOK AT 14, 15 WITH AGEONCORT, WHAT THE BRITISH DID AGAINST THE FRENCH TOTALLY OUTNUMBERED.
759
I SEE WHAT THE GREEFES DID AT THERMOPOLY WHEN THEY WERE OUTNUMBERED EVEN THOUGH THEY LOST.
760
THERE'S A FAMOUS STORY ABOUT THE 300 SPARTANS.
761
LOOK, I WAS PHYSICALLY IN THE FIRST GULF WAR,
762
PIERCE, WHEN WE WENT THERE WITH 4 ,000 TROOPS AND WE WERE FACING 300 ,000 AND FOUR REPUBLICAN GUARD DIVISIONS.
763
AND YOU CAN'T JUST COUNT NUMBERS.
764
It's, as Bonaparte once said, it's morale is three is to one and the fighting heart of the Ukrainians.
765
And I think what Zelensky is saying right now, let's freeze in place.
766
I think that's a good approach.
767
We should tell the Russians this is what we'll accept it.
768
Now, we've got to, basically, we call it the Wells Declaration here in the United States, where we never admit that a country that takes land,
769
an adversary that takes land by force, you get the land du jour.
770
The fact, though, they're on it physically.
771
BUT FOR EXAMPLE, IN WORLD WAR II, WE NEVER RECOGNIZED THAT THE SOVIET UNION TOOK LITHUANIA AND WAS GOING TO KEEP IT.
772
WE NEVER SAID IT.
773
WE SAID, YEAH, YOU OWN IT BECAUSE YOU'RE PHYSICALLY ON THE LAND.
774
BUT LEGALLY, BY DEJOUR, YOU DON'T.
775
AND I THINK YOU HAVE TO BE VERY CLEAR ABOUT WHAT THIS MEANS ABOUT THE LAND AND WHAT ZELENSKYY IS SAYING.
776
I UNDERSTAND WHAT HE'S SAYING.
777
WE WILL NEVER LEGALLY GIVE THAT LAND UP.
778
AND HE CAN'T BECAUSE THAT'S UP TO THE RADA.
779
BUT WE 'LL ACKNOWLEDGE THE FACT THAT THEY'RE DE FACTO.
780
IN THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE AND THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD,
781
THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD,
782
THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD,
783
THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE WORLD, THE COMPREHEND.
784
LET ME GIVE YOU A DATA POINT.
785
THE SOVIET UNION IN AFGHANISTAN SPENT 10 YEARS.
786
THEY LOST 18 ,000 AND WENT HOME.
787
NOW THEY 'VE LOST 1 .2 TO 1 .4 MILLION DEAD OR WOUNDED AND THAT'S ALMOST A CONSERVATIVE NUMBER.
788
I THINK SOMEBODY HAS GOT TO TELL PUTIN THIS IS A DONE DEAL.
789
JUST DECLARE VICTORY.
790
GO HOME.
791
CALL IT A DAY.
792
YOU HEAR A LOT OF PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT THAT AS WELL.
793
I RECENTLY TALKED TO PEOPLE IN PAKISTAN WHEN I WAS THERE JUST RECENTLY they kind of said the same thing, just call it a day.
794
But in that arrangement, what you're saying is that they would keep the territory they've taken, but it wouldn't be officially declared Russian territory.
795
Correct.
796
You de facto, you physically are on the ground.
797
Got it.
798
I understand that.
799
But by de jure, by law, we're not going to say you now own this terrain.
800
It's now Russian territory.
801
Just call it a day, call it a ceasefire.
802
And do you think the Ukrainians, do you think notwithstanding their very strong positioning about all this, do you think if it came to it,
803
Zelensky would agree to that kind of deal
804
if he got the safety security guarantees he needs for the rest of the country?
805
I do.
806
I think he's very serious.
807
And being in Ukraine and talking to leaders there, they're very serious about stopping the killing, as President Trump said, in a ceasefire in place.
808
I really do believe that.
809
Look, they're tired of war.
810
They've been at this for five years.
811
I THINK THE PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO HAVE A CEASE FIRE IN PLACE,
812
UNDERSTAND WHAT THE CONDITION WILL BE ON THE FACT THAT THEY DEFACTO OWN THE LAND.
813
THEY'RE NOT GOING TO PUSH IT BACK.
814
JUST STOP IT RIGHT NOW WHERE IT'S AT.
815
THE KREMLIN, AS WE 'VE BEEN TALKING, THE KREMLIN HAS ANNOUNCED IT'S READY TO RESUME TRI -LATERAL PEACE TALKS BETWEEN RUSSIA, THE U .S.
816
AND UKRAINE IN MID -NOVEMBER.
817
PUTIN SAID THIS TO STEVE WITKOFF.
818
How did you feel about Wyckoff looking at Putin and calling him a great humanitarian?
819
Well, look, Steve Wyckoff speaks for himself.
820
And he speaks how he feels it is with him, one -on -one with Putin.
821
But he's speaking for America, really, if he's on camera, isn't he?
822
Well, a lot of times, let's be honest about it, people say things based on what they feel.
823
And sometimes they don't really account for how it impacts everything globally.
824
And I'll leave Steve to answer the comments he makes for himself.
825
I'm not going to make any comments like that at all.
826
Just quickly on Iran, you know, I look at, I try and be objective about this.
827
I've looked at it from day one and thought it was an ill -conceived war to start.
828
And I feel that even more strongly now.
829
Do you think if President Trump had a do -over knowing how things were going to play out,
830
not least on the.. domestic prices of cost of living in America,
831
do you think he would have agreed to go to war with the Israelis against Iran?
832
Well, look, that's a lot to unpack.
833
Look, there is...
834
Nobody can doubt what the Iranians were heading to on the enrichment of uranium.
835
Under the original
836
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Jikpoa, they were authorized to enrich uranium at 3 .67%.
837
They were enriching at least at 60, maybe to 80 % of uranium.
838
You have to ask yourself a question.
839
Why are you doing that?
840
What's the purpose of enriching uranium to 60 to 80 percent?
841
And I think the president was right.
842
If we had thought this before, like with North Korea, we could have probably stopped having another nuclear state.
843
So I think the president is right on this.
844
We cannot let Iran get a nuclear weapon.
845
Look, we shouldn't let any more countries have a nuclear weapon.
846
And I think when you get a nuclear weapon, if you develop one, then you don't know what the outcome is going to be.
847
And you treat, Pierce, you treat a nuclear state significantly different than a non -nuclear state.
848
Because if they get nuclear weapons, that impacts the United States globally and the world globally.
849
And here's the thing you have to ask yourself.
850
If Iran did get a nuclear weapon, does that mean the Saudis will not get one?
851
We know the Israelis have one.
852
Are the Emiratis going to get one?
853
They're not going to sit quietly with Iran having a nuclear weapon.
854
And so they were, you know, along the developmental stages to get a nuclear weapon.
855
And for what reason?
856
Are they going to get a nuclear weapon?
857
And I think just the enriching of uranium was at such a level, you have to ask yourself a question, why were you going there?
858
And, you know, the United States presidents have talked, the last several presidents, about Iran not having a nuclear weapon.
859
PRESIDENT TRUMP IS THE FIRST ONE WHO TOOK ACTIONS TO ENSURE
860
OR TRY TO ENSURE
861
THAT THEY'RE NOT GOING TO GET A NUCLEAR WEAPON WITH HIS BOMBING TO THE SITES AT FORDO OR OTHER PLACES AS WELL.
862
NOW, I THINK, YOU KNOW, YOU MADE AN EARLIER COMMENT TO YOUR PANEL, WHICH I THINK IS REALLY ACCURATE.
863
HOW DO YOU REALLY KNOW?
864
I THINK THAT'S IMPORTANT AS PART OF THE PROCESS OF GETTING TO A PEACE PROCESS.
865
WE GUARANTEE OR THEY GUARANTEE THAT THE IAEA WILL GET ON THE GROUND AND PHYSICALLY LOOK AT THEIR SITES,
866
THEIR SITES, BASICALLY WITHOUT SAYING IT WILL TAKE 24 HOURS OR 48 HOURS,
867
PUT SOMEBODY PHYSICALLY ON THE GROUND THAT CAN LOOK AT THEIR SITES AND HAVE A GOOD UNDERSTANDING OF THEIR SITES.
868
I'M KIND OF LIKE YOU ARE.
869
I DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING TO PHYSICALLY PUT MY EYES ON IT
870
AND MAKE SURE THAT THOSE SITES ARE CLEAR
871
AND ALSO CUT DOWN ON THE CENTRIFUGES THAT THEY 'VE GOT AS DO WITH THEIR PEOPLE AS WELL.
872
I THINK THAT OUGHT TO BE PART OF ANY PEACE DEAL YOU COME UP WITH.
873
I AGREE RIGHT NOW WITH WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH IRAN IN THE SENSE
874
THAT IT'S VERY HARD TO DEAL WITH A THEOCRATIC GOVERNMENT WHICH YOU ARE.
875
WE DON'T KNOW IF THE SUPREME LEADER IS REALLY STILL ALIVE.
876
WE HEAR THAT THE SUPREME LEADER SAYS THIS THROUGH STATEMENTS BUT WE HAVEN'T SEEN HIM.
877
HE HASN'T GIVEN US PROOF OF LIFE IT IS A GOVERNMENT.
878
WE DON'T KNOW THAT.
879
YOU HAVE PEOPLE THAT ARE REALLY HARD ABOUT IT.
880
WHEN HE MADE THE COMMENTS AT THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY WHICH WERE REALLY HARD.
881
YOU LOOK AT A RACHI WHO IS THE FOREIGN MINISTER WHO IS HARD CORE.
882
HE SAID THIS IS HOW YOU NEGOTIATE WITH AMERICA OR ANYBODY ELSE.
883
WHEN HE WROTE THE PRINCIPALS OF NEGOTIATION FOR IRAN.
884
ABLE TO BE ABLE TO MAKE SURE THEY DON'T HAVE A POTENTIAL FOR A NUCLEAR WEAPON.
885
I APPLAUDED HIM FOR THAT.
886
WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE END STATE, WOULD I HAVE DONE IT DIFFERENTLY?
887
SURE I WOULD.
888
I'M A HARD CORE GUY AND I UNDERSTAND THAT.
889
IN THE SENSE WHEN YOU GO TO WAR, YOU GO TO WAR.
890
YOU BASICALLY TRY TO FINISH THE JOB AND FINISH THE JOB.
891
I WOULD TAKE IT TO EXTREME TO GIVE YOU LEVERAGE WHAT YOU WANT TO DO.
892
I HAVE SAID REPEATEDLY ON AMERICAN TV THAT LOOK, TAKE SOMETHING LIKE CARGILAND.
893
WHY?
894
90 % OF THEIR EXPORTS COMING OUT OF THAT.
895
IT'S DEFENSIBLE.
896
IT'S 16 MILES OFFSHORE.
897
ARE YOU GETTING SHOT AT?
898
OF COURSE YOU DO.
899
BUT NOW I OWN SOMETHING THAT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO GET BACK
900
THAT BASICALLY IS ECONOMICALLY IMPORTANT TO YOU AND I OWN IT.
901
IT'S LIKE OWNING YOUR HOUSE.
902
YOU'RE PAYING RENT ON IT.
903
AND I UNDERSTAND THAT.
904
NOW, DOES THAT MEAN WE'RE GOING TO PUT BOOTS ON THE GROUND IN IRAN?
905
NO. It doesn't mean that in Iran proper, but it means certain select targets you go after and you close them off.
906
Now, much more than the blockade.
907
The problem is now we're controlling.
908
I mean, I understand the rationale.
909
But the problem, it seems to me, is what the Iranians would almost certainly do is they would then target refineries in the Gulf states.
910
That is the problem.
911
They've been waging this asymmetric war where if America did do that,
912
I think they would go and do some big hits on the Gulf states on their refineries.
913
And, you know, if they hit a desalination plant or something, the consequences could be catastrophic.
914
So I think that I'm sure that is weighing on Trump's mind.
915
General, we've got to leave you there.
916
Fascinating to talk to you.
917
Great to have you on Uncensored.
918
Thank you very much.
919
For a long time now we've been racking our brains about how we can bring
920
you even more uncensored without making our small team work 24 hours a day instead of the current 23.
921
And with that lofty goal in mind, we are thrilled to announce the Uncensored Club.
922
It's the new home of extra content which only you get to see.
923
You might have tried.
924
What in the hairy depths of Harry Hell is going on?
925
He was not intrinsically nasty.
926
Can he put a curse on you?
927
I can't put cares on my brother.
928
He's a very good man.
929
Plus, app -free episodes and exclusive insights, as well as priority access to AMAs, live events and big interviews.
930
Without me.
931
You can support the show that you love most or get the hold on.
932
We know that you watch and listen to all of our shows for all sorts of different reasons,
933
and we've made sure there is something here for everybody.
934
The unsaid submission has always been to inform, educate, irritate and entertain by giving you every side of every story.
935
Real, honest opinions you might not find anywhere else.
936
You may disagree with my views.
937
Some of our guests and our hosts do too.
938
But that's the point.
939
We're independent and nobody tells us what to say.
940
If that sounds like you, well, join the club.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “‘Licking Putin’s Boot!’ Witkoff’s Russia Deal & Netanyahu’s Iran War Plan”. This video has 939 sentences and 10905 words to shadow. The speech runs for 56:25. The speaker talks fast, about 193 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| destruction noun | /dɪsˈtɹʌkʃən/ | The act of destroying. |
| resilience noun | /ɹɪˈzɪl.ɪ.əns/ | The mental ability to recover quickly from depression, illness or misfortune. |
| humanitarian adjective | /hjuˌmæ.nəˈtɛ.ɹi.ən/ | Relating to people's welfare. |
| physically adverb | /ˈfɪz.ɪ.kli/ | In a physical manner. |
| regime noun | /ɹəˈʒiːm/ | Mode of rule or management. |
| freeze verb | /ˈfɹiːz/ | Especially of a liquid, to become solid due to low temperature. |
| uranium noun | /ˌjuː.ˈɹeɪ.ni.əm/ | The element with atomic number 92 and symbol U. A radioactive silvery-grey metal in the actinide series. |
| gulf noun | /ɡʌlf/ | A hollow place in the earth; an abyss; a deep chasm or basin. |
| strategic adjective | /stɹəˈti.dʒɪk/ | Of or pertaining to strategy. |
| diesel noun | /ˈdisəl/ | A fuel derived from petroleum (or other oils) but heavier than gasoline/petrol. Used to power diesel engines which burn this fuel using the heat produced when… |
| diplomacy noun | /dɪˈpləʊməsi/ | The art and practice of conducting international relations by negotiating alliances, treaties, agreements etc., bilaterally or multilaterally, between states… |
| objective noun | /ɒbˈd͡ʒɛk.tɪv/ | A material object that physically exists. |
| bang noun | /ˈbæŋ/ | A sudden percussive noise. |
| invade verb | /ɪnˈveɪd/ | To move into. |
| strait noun | /stɹeɪt/ | A narrow channel of water connecting two larger bodies of water. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). | |
| work out verb | /ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/ | To calculate. |
| come back verb | To return to a place. | |
| come up with verb | To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it. | |
| fall out verb | To come out of something by falling. | |
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| play out verb | To play (a game etc.) to its conclusion. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- How do I use it to get even stronger?
- I said, what's going to be different this time?
- Do you see parallels here?
- What's your response to that?
- Do you think he's a dictator?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | we've been aiding · has not been doing · they've been putting |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has been · have given · You've been |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is shared · is emboldened · was put |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | man who started · man who is · qualities which are |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 260 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: aftermath /ˈæf.tɚˌmæθ/, mouthpiece /ˈmaʊθˌpiːs/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: destruction /dɪsˈtɹʌkʃən/, regime /ɹəˈʒiːm/, reputation /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/, conclusion /kənˈkluːʒən/, instruction /ɪnˈstɹʌkʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: resilience /ɹɪˈzɪl.ɪ.əns/, humanitarian /hjuˌmæ.nəˈtɛ.ɹi.ən/, uranium /ˌjuː.ˈɹeɪ.ni.əm/, diplomacy /dɪˈpləʊməsi/, reputation /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like destruction, resilience, humanitarian.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.