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Announcing that “A whole civilization will die tonight,” Donald Trump threatened on April 7, 2026 to destroy “every bridge in Iran” and “every power plant … burning, exploding, and never to be used again.” His intention to continue committing war crimes is driving the world toward a Financial Winter as devastating as the Great Depression. Iran’s April 8 response called his bluff, laying down the terms for ending the conflict and opening the Strait of Hormuz. Oil-importing countries will need to compel U.S. and Israeli compliance with these terms in order to avoid economic crisis.

We are seeing the economic version of what the 1960s called Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).[1] The term referred to the military standoff that avoided the global Nuclear Winter that would have occurred if the world’s leading powers had used atomic weapons against each other. The possession of atomic bombs by both the United States and Soviet Union assured that they would not attack each other as long as the arms race maintained nuclear parity. The resulting balance of terror made the U.S.-Soviet Cold War relatively peaceful as far as fighting among the world’s most heavily armed adversaries was concerned. Their mutual restraint enabled America to wage its wars in Southeast Asia and Latin America without threatening world conflagration.

Today’s world is threatened with a more economic kind of global collapse. Iran is defending itself against the prospect of U.S. and Israeli military attack by threatening to destroy OPEC’s oil and gas trade if its survival as a sovereign country is endangered.

“This threat is confronting the world with a fateful choice: Either countries will suffer a deep depression if Trump follows through on his threat to destroy Iran and seize its oil – in which case Iran’s retaliation will destroy OPEC’s energy trade on which many countries have become dependent – or they must actively move to prevent the U.S. attack.”

In the 1960s it was understood that an atomic attack by either of the major powers would not be survivable by them in meaningful terms. But today’s economic version of MAD has no such restraint on America’s floundering attempts to reverse the loss of its economic power that has left it with few major levers to exert control over other countries. Its main leverage is its ability to threaten countries with economic and financial chaos, by closing off the U.S. market to their exports and by blocking their access to oil and gas from Russia, Iran and (until just recently) Venezuela in its drive to force reliance on its own energy supplies and Arab OPEC oil under its control.

This threat of trade disruption has worked best against America’s closest allies. President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs of April 2, 2025 imposed exorbitant levies that Trump offered to relax on the condition that other countries sign “giveback” agreements in the form of agreeing to impose trade and financial sanctions on America’s designated enemies, headed by Russia and Iran, and to shift their oil purchases to the United States.

This is not the first time that U.S. strategists have broken the rules of international relations that America itself had put in place in 1945 to shape the post-World War II economic order. Controlling 75% of the world’s monetary gold, it dictated creditor-oriented rules of international finance, and also rules of free trade as a means of breaking up Britain’s imperial preference trade restrictions. These rules prevented other countries from following protectionist policies to protect their agriculture and industry as the U.S. itself was doing. The United States also created a global military presence, promising to protect the world against the specter of Soviet military attack and to prevent countries enacting strong government controls or socialist policies that would pose an alternative to the U.S.-backed system of international finance, trade and private investments.

But now that the United States has de-industrialized and become debt-ridden, it has abandoned and indeed reversed these rules that served it eighty years ago. What U.S. officials call national security strategy is how to recover and maintain America’s control over other countries by weaponizing the dollar-centered financial system and its foreign trade. And instead of protecting other countries and their economic sovereignty, its attempt to enforce its dominance disruptively and militarily has become a threat to the entire world’s security. And unlike the balance of power that Mutually Assured Destruction had established, most other countries have not mounted any symmetrical check to U.S. bullying by isolating themselves from America’s weaponization of its trade and financial relations.

In the present crisis Iran’s main defense to the U.S. attack has been to block OPEC oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz, and even to threaten to directly destroy OPEC production. These acts have confronted the world’s oil-importing countries with a crisis of their economies if they do not act to counter the U.S. threat to Iran’s sovereignty, which indeed is threatening their own economic and financial sovereignty.

America’s attempts to preserve its ability to weaponize the world’s oil trade

Prior to Trump’s tariffs, U.S. strategists had already used the threat of causing economic chaos by weaponizing its control of the international oil trade. Imposing trade sanctions against Iranian, Russian and Venezuelan oil producers left the United States able to deprive countries accepting its diplomacy of access to the oil and gas needed to power their factories, heat and light their homes and offices, drive their transportation, and produce fertilizer to increase their agricultural productivity. Oil became the world’s major trade choke point.

An early step in putting this control in place was the U.S. CIA’s and Britain’s MI6’s overthrow of Iran’s Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 to prevent that country from regaining control of its oil. He was replaced by a brutal military dictatorship under the Shah, who protected U.S. control of Iran and its oil. After the Shia religious leadership led the successful fight to overthrow the Shah (mosques being one of the few places where public assemblies could not be prevented), the United States imposed crippling trade and financial sanctions against Iran in 1979.

Similar sanctions were imposed to isolate and injure Venezuela after its elected leaders sought to control their nation’s oil. And in February 2022 the United States imposed trade sanctions against Russia’s oil and gas exports to Western Europe and in September 2022 destroyed most of the Nord Stream pipeline. These attacks enabled America to force the former customers of Russia and Venezuela into reliance on U.S. oil and natural gas exports at much higher prices, crippling German and other European industry and chemical companies.

With Russian oil isolated by sanctions and America securing a quick military victory over Venezuela by capturing its President Nicolas Maduro and his wife on January 3, 2026, the only major source of oil to be brought more directly under U.S. control was the Middle East (now and henceforth better referred to as West Asia). Arab OPEC countries account for some 20% of the world’s oil production, 30% of its oil trade and 40% of its trade in natural gas, and also one third of its fertilizer and half of the seaborne sulfur trade (necessary to make sulfuric acid for mining extraction of ores).

Glenn Diesen: Welcome back. Today we are joined by Professor Michael Hudson to discuss how the war against Iran is impacting the global economy. So thank you as always for coming back on the program.

Michael Hudson: Well I’m glad to be back Glenn.

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Glenn Diesen: So we often discuss the deteriorating state of the U.S. economy as well as the global economy, which is now based obviously on a foundation which is no longer sustainable. The U.S. knows this is the case. Some countries try to adjust to new realities. Others are trying to delay. Others are trying to reverse what has happened. But this war against Iran really seems to intensify all these dangerous symptoms, which we speak of.

And it seems like the world can’t really go back to the way it was after this war. I was wondering how do you assess it? Because this war impacts the global economy on so many levels. Energy, obviously, fertilizers are key, but how do you see the ramifications of this war?

Michael Hudson: Well, we’ve discussed before how I think this is World War III, precisely because energy, fertilizer, and the other exports of oil-producing countries are so important for the entire world. That makes it a war that has worldwide implications. And despite the fact that in the last hour or two, the stock market in the U.S. has gone up a thousand points because they imagine that somehow what has happened is all reversible and that when Donald Trump says, “Well, Iran is talking about making an agreement and there are signs on the internet that Iran says, well, all we’re trying to do is protect ourselves” that somehow the world will go back to the way it was, not only before the attack, but really back to the 19th century, maybe the 18th century. This isn’t simply a war in Iran. This is a war that, as we’ve discussed, it’s a war by the United States to maintain a choke point on the entire world economy by controlling oil because everybody needs it. And the reason it went to war with Iran is the same reason why last month it went to war with Venezuela and kidnapped the president and took Venezuelan oil under U.S. control so the United States can decide who will get this oil from Venezuela and who will get the money from the oil exports, the United States.

Now, the United States, as I think we’ve discussed, realizes that in order to base its foreign policy on the ability to cut off oil shipments to the world, it has to, number one, prevent any other country’s sovereignty from being able to export oil that’s not under U.S. control. And so, so far, the United States has imposed sanctions first on Iran that remain in place, secondly, on Venezuela, which are now relieved, and finally on Russia. So, the only place where America’s allies that agree to impose sanctions on Russia can get their oil is from places that the United States controls. That’s why the United States was so insistent, last week, in trying to control the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the Saudi and OPEC oil is exported apart from the Saudi pipeline.

Well, Donald Trump apparently has listened to his military advisors that said, “Look, any troops that we try to grab the Strait of Hormuz islands to control it are going to be sitting ducks. And this is not a defensible situation. And at any rate, Donald, don’t you want to just grab the oil?” And Donald Trump has said that, yes, the real aim that we’re in Iran and have waged war has nothing to do with Iran wanting to get an atom bomb because it hasn’t been trying to get an atom bomb. It has really nothing to do with Iran’s foreign policy. It just wants American oil just like it wanted to grab Iraq’s oil and has grabbed Iraq’s oil.

So all of this, this fight is an attempt to use oil and control of its exports in the same way that Donald Trump has used his tariff policy of saying, “We will create chaos in your economies if you don’t agree to follow what U.S. diplomats ask you to do” in the form of what Trump called give backs for his access to the U.S. economy by reducing tariffs to a less extreme level. Well, he’s saying the same thing basically now. He wants to grab Iran’s oil, and with that, he will complete the long attempt by the United States stretching for OPEC since, I guess 2003, to take control all of the OPEC, the Arab monarchy’s oil. And Iran was the last country of all of these: Iraq, Syria, Libya, the whole range of oil exporters. So now the United States alone is seeking control of the Near Eastern oil.

Well, that’s supposed to give it a stranglehold. The problem is that Iran is not going to allow itself to be conquered, even though it said that it’s willing to permit oil exports again and to stop blocking them if other countries will guarantee its security. What it means by security is: number one, removal permanently of all U.S. military bases in the Middle East. And of course, the largest military base is Israel, which, of course, the United States is not going to do. Iran will also insist for its security that all of the sanctions that have been imposed by America’s allies by Europe, Japan, Korea, and others be relieved. Until these sanctions are removed, until the United States removes its presence and, in effect, surrenders and admits that it’s lost the war with Iran, the world is not going to go back to the way it was.

And even if, somehow, miraculously the United States would say, all right, we’ve given up our foreign policy. We are no longer going to be the United States as an imperial power. We’re going to be just another country following the rules of law that the United Nations lay down. You know, we’re going to go back to a normal world. Even if it were to do this obviously impossible policy, the fact that the oil has been interrupted and the helium supplies that were coming out of the Middle East have been blown up. There are no cutters. Helium is already cut.

And so the foreign companies that were obtaining helium before, certainly here in the United States and throughout the world, have all put cutbacks on helium. There are cutbacks on fertilizers. And although Iran is permitting oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz in payment for $2 million per ship, it’s not permitting fertilizer exports. And so you’re having the world going into the planting season. So no matter what happens, the world is going to be in the most serious depression since the Great Depression of the 1930s. No matter what happens, there is no way of avoiding this depression. And that’s what’s so crazy about the stock market and its recovery. It’s as if somehow they can’t come to terms with the fact that the actions taken by the United States and Israel are irreversible. Who’s going to pay for the reparations to Iran for all of the damage done to make them whole? All of this is going to probably take at least the balance of this year to work out. To answer your question, the U.S. economy and the rest of the world are going into a very serious depression.

Glenn Diesen: The energy aspect of this whole thing, you see some clear consistency coming from the United States over the past decades, but Trump has often been more, what we’ll call it blatant or honest opposed to his predecessors, where he very openly said “In Syria we want their oil we want their energy, in Venezuela we want their oil,” and, of course, the latest now with Iran “We want their oil.” Well you know that other leaders, other presidents are thinking the same but it’s interesting that it’s being said in such an open way. How do you see this impacting the financial system, and to what extent will be energy trade linked to the U.S. financial system, because again with such a financialized economy, if something goes wrong there, something could unravel in the United States it seems.

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The US-Israeli war on Iran is transforming the geopolitical order, and could even unleash a global economic crisis. The conflict has caused the largest oil shock in history, disrupting global markets and driving up fuel and food prices.

To better understand the implications for the world, Geopolitical Economy Report editor Ben Norton interviewed economist Michael Hudson, who discussed how Iran is challenging US dollar dominance and undermining Washington’s control over the global oil market, which has been a key pillar of US foreign policy.

BEN NORTON: The war that the United States and Israel launched against Iran is having a massive impact on the global economy.

Every country on Earth is being affected, because this US-Israeli war has caused the largest oil shock in history — larger than the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979.

The effects are especially pronounced in Asia, which gets the majority of its oil imports from the Persian Gulf.

The Philippines has declared a national emergency, and it is now rationing energy, because it does not have enough oil, due to this war.

Japan also imports much of its oil from the Middle East, or West Asia. And this is why Tokyo has carried out the largest ever release of oil from its reserves.

Moreover, the 32 member countries of the International Energy Agency, the IEA, unanimously agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from their emergency reserves.

However, this is only a short term band-aid measure. It’s not a long-term solution.

This is why the global price of oil only went down a little bit in response to the news of countries releasing oil from their reserves. And since then, the oil price has continued rising, because as long as this US-Israeli war on Iran continues, there are going to be massive disruptions in the energy market.

Given that oil is the most important commodity on Earth — and it’s used in many other products, and it’s used in all aspects of society in order to transport food and other goods — world leaders are now warning this could cause a global recession.

The head of the International Energy Agency said it very clearly. He warned that the US Israeli war on Iran has been a “major, major threat” to the global economy.

This war is causing not just gasoline prices to go up, but also food prices to go up, because so many fertilizers and chemicals used in fertilizers come from the Persian Gulf region.

It is also likely going to lead to higher interest rates, which will lead to increases in mortgage rates, and other rates on loans that are taken by average people. So this is going to hurt the poorest people the most.

So to make sense of how this war is going to impact the global economy, today we will be speaking with the renowned economist Michael Hudson, who is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire.

Michael Hudson has been writing articles and doing interviews explaining how this war is going to reshape the world economically and geopolitically.

In particular, Michael has argued that this war has meant that “multipolar oil markets are now a reality”.

This is because Iran is directly challenging the global dominance of the US dollar, and in particular the petrodollar system — the fact that, for decades, the vast majority of oil in the global market was priced and sold in dollars. Iran is now challenging that

In response to this US-Israeli war of aggression, Tehran close down the Strait of Hormuz, which is the single most important oil transit chokepoint on Earth.

Every day, about 20% of the globally traded oil passes through this narrow strait — or at least 20% of global oil did pass through, before the US and Israel started this war.

Now Iran is telling countries that, if they want to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, they have to agree to sell oil not in US dollars, but rather in China’s currency, the yuan.

This is why some media outlets, such as the South China Morning Post, are now saying that this “Iran war could boost China’s ‘petroyuan’ and weaken US dollar dominance”.

Given the massive geopolitical and economic consequences of this war, I thought Michael Hudson would be the perfect guest.

So without further ado, we are going to play some highlights of what Michael said, and then we will go straight to the interview.

(Highlights)

MICHAEL HUDSON: Iran has said this is a phase change: we are now forever going to control the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, and we are going to control the oil trade.

That means that, instead of the United States’ plans to use oil as a chokepoint on other countries to enforce their compliance with American foreign policy, it is now Iran that is in control of this chokepoint, and it can impose sanctions on the US and its allies, sanctions on Israel, sanctions on the Europeans, or any other allies of the United States.

So it has turned the tables on the whole US attempt to use oil as a means of control. Now what is at issue is Iran being able to achieve what the United States has based all of its foreign policy on: control of the international revenues from oil exports.

…

The American philosophy is, number one, you bomb civilians, you break all the rules of international law which are against that. You bomb civilians to demoralize them.

And if you concentrate, as Trump did, along with Israel, a few weeks ago, you bomb the schools, you bomb the hospitals. That’s American policy in foreign countries.

It’s most visible in the case of Israeli policy, in Gaza, and now the West Bank as well. And it is the same policy that the United States has followed in Iran.

Well, the idea was that this would demoralize the population, and the Iranian population would want to get rid of the ayatollahs and say, “We don’t want to be bombed anymore; we want to save the children; let’s make a deal and appoint a leader favorable to the United States so that it will stop bombing us”.

Well, this was nonsense from the beginning, but it was the guiding spirit of American foreign policy: bomb a country, and that will lead to a regime change, and a collapse.

…

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NIKA

Hello, everyone. We are very happy to invite back Michael Hudson and Professor Steve Keen to the David Graeber Institute. Steve Keen is an economist and author, one of the few who warned about the 2008 crisis in advance. He is known for his critique of mainstream neoclassical theory and his models of debt deflation and financial instability. Michael Hudson is an American economist and historian of debt at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His work on finance, rent, and deindustrialization deeply influenced David Graeber’s own thinking on empire, tribute, and the politics of debt.

Today we will explore the deepening crisis and possible scenarios of how it might unfold, specifically in the context of the ongoing war, which increasingly resembles the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — to me personally. My question to Michael and Steve is: inflation, hyperinflation, or deflation? Which scenario do they think will happen? We start with Michael Hudson.

MICHAEL HUDSON

If you look at the stock and bond markets today, the world is expecting that the war in Iran is not going to last more than a month or so. It’s a world war because the entire world is dependent on oil and liquefied natural gas — for fertilizer, energy, electricity, heating, cooking, glassmaking, and helium. Helium and natural gas were provided to much of the world by Qatar, as part of the Arab OPEC countries. But their billion-dollar installations to liquefy natural gas — which took four years to build — have just been bombed by Iran, because Qatar is hosting US military bases used to bomb Iran.

Iran has said: if you try to destroy our oil industry, we will make sure the entire world oil, gas, helium, and energy industry shuts down and causes a Great Depression — as a result of oil prices doubling. That will trigger a balance of payments crisis for America’s allies, not only in Europe, but in Korea, Japan, and the Philippines, which are already taking emergency measures.

Trump clearly intends to deliberately create a world economic crisis lasting at least four years — as World War I and World War II did. He thinks this will put America in the driver’s seat: America is self-sufficient in gas and oil. Other countries will have to buy from us. And if they do, we’ll require them to impose sanctions against Russia, Iran, and anyone else we’ve designated as an enemy.

Meanwhile, the ten-year US Treasury bond rate has gone over 4.5%, and the 30-year rate is over 5%. Wall Street has figured that if oil export prices double, that’s inflationary. But all of this is junk economics.

Of course oil prices are going up — so much so that Asia and the Global South will look like Germany after the US stopped it from buying Russian gas. Germany’s glass industry shut down. The fertilizer industry shut down. The automobile industry is cutting back — Mercedes and others are moving to China.

Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum are raising the price of agricultural combines and tractors. Farmers in the US face the same problem as farmers everywhere: higher fertilizer costs, higher harvesting equipment costs, higher gasoline costs.

What Wall Street doesn’t take into account: Yes, energy and energy-related prices are going up. But this will shut down industries and cause a huge depression. Layoffs. Governments will have to divert revenues to help families afford electricity and gas — which means cuts to social spending. Unemployment. People getting poorer and poorer. That’s not inflation. That’s deflation.

Prices will rise for oil, steel, aluminum, fertilizer, gas, and helium, while other prices in general fall. We’re facing the biggest collapse since the Great Depression. That is the deliberate aim of US foreign policy. They’ve gamed it out. They think that no matter how much this hurts the American economy, it will hurt labor by lowering its wages, by causing unemployment and making people desperate. It’s a godsend for the class war.

When companies have to cut production, how will they pay their debts? Workers — euphemized as “consumers” — are already paying over 30% interest on credit card fees and penalties. Student debt defaults are rising. Medical debt is the fastest-growing cause of bankruptcy in the United States. Mortgage rates have gone way up.

This is a new form of class warfare. It’s not employers against labor, because industry and labor are suffering together trying to survive. It’s the financial class against the rest of the economy. Finance, insurance, and real estate — the FIRE sector — is where almost all US GDP growth has occurred, while the real economy has shrunk.

Thisactually is a replay of debates from the mid-eighteenth century: How was Britain going to deal with the fact that creditors spend their money on luxury imports rather than domestic production? London was getting rich, not the rest of England.

NIKA

Michael, I want to include Steve. What do you think about Michael’s description?

STEVE KEEN

If there’s one person I agree with, it’s Michael. When you first asked me about this, I said: inflation initially, then deflation. Michael has given the historical context. Let me share some statistical elements.

The absolute foundation of the economy is energy. What I’m showing is energy use in petajoules on the left axis, and gross world product on the right. The two lines match almost perfectly. And crucially: it’s one-for-one. A 5% fall in energy produces a 5% fall in gross world product.

What’s happening now: roughly 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas has been cut off. Together with the loss of oil from the Strait of Hormuz and other supply disruptions, we could be looking at something of the order of a 10% fall in global energy — which implies a 10% fall in GDP. My shorthand: labour without energy is a corpse; capital without energy is a sculpture.

Now, that collapse is going to raise oil prices — conventional thinking agrees on that. But we’re also in a financialized economy. And this is where Michael and I differ from mainstream economists, because they completely ignore private debt. They obsess about government debt. They don’t even look at private debt.

In America right now, private debt is around 140% of GDP — still enormous. That’s the burden Michael was talking about, on households and corporations. If they find they can’t make as much profit because of higher oil prices, if unemployment rises — they won’t be able to service that debt. And what you’ll likely see is the same as 2007-08, only on steroids: a complete collapse in credit-driven demand.

Workers can’t pass on oil price increases into higher wages. Industrial capitalists can’t necessarily pass them on either. So what happens? People cut their prices, hoping to keep customers. But their neighbour is doing the same thing. Everybody is trying to pay down debt — which destroys money, slows the economy, and causes deflation.

Irving Fisher said it beautifully in the 1930s — what I call Fisher’s paradox: the more debtors pay, the more they owe. The real burden rises as the price level falls. That’s what leads to Great Depressions.

And here’s the horrific part: if fertilizer supply falls by 20%, food production probably falls by more than 20% globally. That means enough food for about 6 billion people — and there are 8 billion. We may be looking at a global famine this year.

Just as the anarchist who pulled the trigger that killed the archduke had no idea what he’d set off — I think Trump is the same. He has no idea of the consequences. He’s behaving like a mafia boss, squeezing money from ups and downs in the market. But the rest of us will live with the unintended consequences.

Nima Alkhorshid: Hi, everybody. Today is Wednesday, March 25, 2026, and our dear friends, Richard Wolf and Michael Hudson, are here with us. Welcome back, Rich and Mike.

Richard Wolff: Good to be here.

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Nima Alkhorshid: Let me start with just updating what is happening right now on the battlefield between the United States and Iran. Moments ago, we learned from the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. Hear what she said about the current state of the war against Iran.

[CLIP START]

Karoline Leavitt (clip): Operation Epic Fury has been a resounding military triumph. More than 9,000 enemy targets have been struck to date. Compared to the start of the operation, Iran’s ballistic missile attacks and drone attacks are down by roughly 90%. The United States is also annihilating the Iranian regime’s navy. We have destroyed more than 140 of their naval vessels, including almost 50 mine layers. This is the largest elimination of a navy over a three-week period since World War II. Again, let me reiterate: this is the largest elimination of a navy on the face of the planet in a three-week period since World War II.

[CLIP END]

Nima Alkhorshid: And let me bring what the former MI6 chief, Sir Alex Younger, said to The Economist, his assessment of what’s going on between the United States and Iran.

[CLIP START— Alex Younger, The Economist interview]

Host (clip): Who has the upper hand right now?

Alex Younger (clip): Iran. I regret having come to this conclusion because, like many MI6 officers of my generation, we’ve faced the violence and brutality of the IRGC for most of our careers.

Host (clip): That’s the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Alex Younger (clip): So there is no love lost between us, and I shed no tears for Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the beginning of this war. But the reality is the U.S. underestimated the task. And I think, as of about two weeks ago, lost the initiative to Iran.

In practice, the Iranian regime has been more resilient than I think anyone would have expected. They took some good decisions, actually, as early as last June, about dispersing their military capability and delegating the authority for the use of those weapons, which has given them significant extra resilience against this incredibly powerful air campaign.

They have embarked on what’s technically called “horizontal escalation”, i.e., firing rockets at anybody within range, which at the time, honestly Shashank, I thought was nuts, but in fact, has been a very good way of putting a direct price on the US.has sort of worked. And then they’ve understood the significance of the energy war and held the straits at threat and globalized, and essentially not internationalized, just globalized the conflict in a way that gives them some weapons.

So, you know, they’ve played a weak hand pretty well. My second point is that Donald Trump has said some stuff that will have confirmed something they knew already, which is that they’re in a civilizational war in their terms. They’re in a war of existence. Donald Trump made it very clear that he wanted to see them up against the wall, basically. Whereas America has embarked on a war of choice. And in those terms, I think that’s imbued them with more staying power than the US and, certainly, US counterparts. And they know that now. And I think that really is giving them the whip hand.

[CLIP END]

Nima Alkhorshid: Yeah, you know that Donald Trump was asking, they’re sending proposals through Turkey, Pakistan, but so far, all these proposals were rejected by the Iranian side. And they have published a symbolic video responding to Donald Trump. Here is that video.

[CLIP START]

A video plays; the line “One revenge for all” appears.

[CLIP END]

Nima Alkhorshid: It says one revenge for all. And here is somehow the summary of what’s going on. I want to start, Richard, with you. What is your understanding of what Donald Trump is trying to do?

Richard Wolff: At this point, I would argue that Mr. Trump’s major activity is trying to get out of the very deep hole he dug himself into. It is beyond my comprehension, and I’m hoping that you, Nima, or you, Michael, can help me here. How the United States government could undertake this, what does he call it, excursion, how they could do that without going through the mental procedure? What if they close the Strait of Hormuz? What if that interferes with 20% of the world’s oil transport? What if that drives up the price of oil again? They didn’t do that? They didn’t prepare for that? They clearly have no answer.

For three weeks, basically now they have no passage through the Strait of Hormuz, and there doesn’t seem to be anything they can do about it. I am mystified. I do not understand, unless what we have here is really not so much a war of choice, but a war whose purpose was to take the headlines away from the Epstein case, and to take the headlines away from the fast-deteriorating economic situation here at home, inflation, poor jobs, stagflation, all of that, and focus us on an adventure which he imagined would be as headline-grabbing as three days of following the abduction of Maduro in Venezuela. And maybe he thought he could sort of have a nice version of that all over again, so that the arguments that advisors must have given him didn’t make any difference. I am mystified.

But to be more direct and answer your question, I agree with you. The last line of that video from Iran says it all. This is a war of choice by the statement of our leader. It’s an existential threat to Iran, which everybody knows. The last 75 years have been, with the exception of the time of the Shah, and the Shah was seen as an imposition on Iran by the United States. But other than that, it’s been sabotage, attacks. Iran doesn’t have to persuade anyone that it is at risk of destroying itself if it does not come up with some way to stop the United States. So you have an utterly unequal struggle here. The Americans, rich, militarily overdeveloped, and what are they going to do in Iran if their existence is at stake? That very difference is very dangerous.

I want to remind people: the almighty British Empire decided to militarily put down the revolt in North America. No one dreamed that that would be a struggle, but there were resources that could be grabbed by the colonists here that defeated the British Empire. We are watching something that should remind people of that.

So, yes, they disperse their missile launchers and their drone airports all over the country. They have those wonderful mountains and they have this vast territory easy to hide. They can do something which has not been discussed except in a few military journals that I’m aware of that, It turns out for a few hundred dollars, you can build something that, from the electronic eye in the sky looks like a missile launcher, but isn’t one. It’s a decoy. And you can then, if you’re the United States and you rely on electronics, you can send a $10 million missile package to destroy a $500 decoy. And then you can have Karoline Leavitt tell you, we have knocked out one of them. No, you haven’t. Nothing of this sort. She’s so underdeveloped in her job, she can’t even anticipate what I’m saying, which she ought to have. She ought to have said something to recognize you’ve been knocking out lots of decoys.