This episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, hosted by Ben Meiselas, examines how Iran is building regional diplomatic and military ties as fears of a wider war with the United States grow. Meiselas covers reported US warnings to Gulf countries about possible strikes after the midterm elections, Iranian officials' statements on diplomacy, and Iran's talks with Russia, including nuclear cooperation with Rosatom.
He also discusses meetings in Tehran with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, China's remarks at the United Nations, and disputes over control of the Strait of Hormuz. Listeners will hear the host's arguments that the Trump administration's claims are misleading, presented as his own commentary rather than established fact.
In this episode Ben Meiselas
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Iran is outmaneuvering Donald Trump and his despicable regime. Iran is running laps around Donald Trump. So the Trump regime has told the various Gulf countries that in a very short order, the Trump regime is about to engage in, quote, an intense renewal of the Iran war. It could come very soon. It could come right after the midterms. I'm going to show you how Iran is responding. You have Iran's President Pahlavi meeting with Vladimir Putin in Russia. I'll talk to, talk to you about what went down there. You have the Iran meetings in Tehran with other regional countries. We'll talk about what went down there. We'll talk about what went down between Iran and Russia's state-owned nuclear corporation, Rosatom. We'll talk about what Iran is doing with China right now and China's statements in the United Nations. We'll talk about with the Omani foreign Minister had to say. I'll show you what Trump's statements were as well and what the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson had to say. Why don't I start with the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson who had the following to say? Washington's contempt for diplomacy is once again laid bare. Trump's admission that he never believed in the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding and considered it a waste of time exposes the hollowness of their diplomatic commitments.
For Iran, this is nothing new. Washington has a long record of reneging on its commitments in treating international obligations as disposable whenever they become inconvenient. There is absolutely no justification for European states and other apologists for Washington to continue whitewashing US misconduct and shielding it from accountability. Broken commitments cannot be excused. International law cannot be applied selectively, and no amount of political spin can absolve Washington of accountability. Now, this comes as the reporting from the Wall Street Journal and others with Trump officials saying the following to various Gulf countries. The US has told several Gulf Arab countries, be prepared for short, intense military campaigns after the US midterm elections. It's being reported by the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. Here are some details. There were a growing number of indications that US and Israel are readying to launch a new round of heavy combat operations against Iran following the Israeli elections. There was no clear winner of the Israeli elections. You had Eisenkot's party, Yashar, getting lot of seats. You had Likud getting a lot of seats. Then you had the Arab nation parties getting about 18 to 19 seats. The question is, will Eisenkot, Yashar, and the Arab nations be able to form a government?
Will there be a Netanyahu caretaker government? And will Netanyahu try to create a security incident to prevent Eisenkot and the Arab nations from forming, uh, a government over there where Eisenkot would be the prime minister? The US military has sent additional Patriot systems to Israel. Now, this is very notable because the Middle East Arab nations really need the Patriots. I mean, you see that Saudi Arabia is lacking Patriot interceptors, by the way. You see Ukraine is lacking Patriot interceptors and has been asking for it. But where is the Trump regime sending Patriot interceptors to? Israel, which is probably the most defended country that there is. I mean, they've received tons of interceptors already. I mean, they have their Iron dome system there, and they have all of this U.S. funding. So more interceptors, which Trump told Zelensky we don't have them for Ukraine, they're going— suddenly they exist for Israel right now. That's a sign that strikes are imminent. U.S. forces in the region have been restocking munitions and aircraft are preparing for strikes. Donald Trump was saying earlier this week, we may do a little epic fury. You know, when you say we may do a little epic fury, you know, the other side in the war has a say over how they're going to respond.
And you could lie to these small crowds that you speak in front of, whether it's in Texas or Mississippi or elsewhere, that the Iranian military is destroyed and that you don't know who the Iranian leadership is and that they're all killed and you don't know who to talk to. But guess who does know who to talk to? Every other country knows who to talk to in terms of the Iranian leadership. The question is just, should they be talking to Mohsen Razai, the top adviser to Ayatollah Mojtaba Will they be talking with President Pazeshkian, Iran's president? Will they be talking to Foreign Minister Araghchi with his deputy, Gharbabadi? Will they be talking to the parliament leader, MB Ghalibaf? It's more of a question of who the conversations will be with. We know who all of these players are. And we know that in the past 24 hours, Iran's president, Pazeshkian, for example, attended a gas export conference in Moscow and then met on the sidelines of said conference with Vladimir Putin. and the Al Thani leadership of Qatar, where they spoke continuing escalating cooperation with Russia and with Qatar. Pesesky thanked Putin yesterday for Russia's support on political security and economic matters.
What do you think that means? Political security and economic matters. Okay. It means Russia's clearly helping Iran. No one's hiding this fact. Donald Trump wants to pretend that's not taking place so he could do all of these deals with Russia to benefit himself. himself, not deals that actually are in the interest of the United States. Quite the contrary. They're purported deals that would hurt the United States but funnel money to Donald Trump and his oligarchs. Donald Trump— while Donald Trump says he doesn't know who Iran's leadership is, President Pozhansky of Iran said during this meeting with Putin, US actions in the region are pushing Iran and Russia toward greater multilateral cooperation and deeper engagement with other countries facing unilateral US sanctions. Quote, we are capable of resolving our problems in the region without depending on the United States, Pozheshchian said, adding that Washington's participation is not indispensable to addressing regional challenges. Yesterday, we also heard a statement that was released after Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei met with his top advisor, Mohsen Razai, and the Ayatollah issued a statement also saying the main focus needs to be on building regional partnerships and regional security that pushes out the United States.
And as I reported yesterday, and I'll just reiterate again, Omani's foreign minister, Badr al-Busayadi, he said during a speech in Cambridge earlier this week that it was a major mistake that Gulf security arrangements were built around excluding Iran and relying on the United States, and that the script needs to be flipped to have security arrangements that rely on Iran and push out the United States and foreign influence. As I've been describing too, there is a broader security architecture that is being arranged right now as the United States' power dwindles. As Donald Trump again says, oh, Russia's not doing anything with Iran. Well, I'll tell you, this happened as well during that meeting between President Pesevsky of Iran and Putin. There was a major deal and a major announcement made with Rosatom. Rosatom is the Russian nuclear company which already has the joint venture with Iran at the Bushehr nuclear power plant. Rosatom announced they'll increase their employees at the Bushehr nuclear plant to 700. This comes while Iran's President Puzhetsky was in Moscow. In addition, The Rosatom CEO, Alexei Likhachev, confirmed that there would be additional Bushehr nuclear power units would be under construction. Additional agreements would be entered between Iran and Russia to develop small-scale nuclear power sites as well.
Russian personnel at Bushehr will increase. They're working on developing also 8 more nuclear power plant units in other areas of Iran. So a lot more nuclear deals. So this is what's going on in the real world, not Donald Trump's fake fantasy world where he thinks that Iran is begging for a deal and that they are so desperate and that Donald Trump will decide when this, when this war ends. No, Iran is very carefully rearranging the security architecture in the region. And so not only did you have Oman's foreign minister, Abu Saeedi, say that, but remember earlier this week what also happened. In Tehran, you had the meeting with Saudi Arabia's defense minister, Turkey's top intelligence officer, Pakistan's leader, Field Marshal Asim Munir. So you have all of that taking place, you know, in Tehran. You have that taking place in Moscow. And these are the developments that are taking place that I think we need to be focused on. Also, Ansar Allah, the Houthis, continue to advance. moving east in Yemen. The Taiz governor is saying that basically Taiz has been completely controlled right now by the Houthis. I think in the next day or two, we'll be able to officially say that Taiz is controlled by— is being controlled by the Houthis at this point.
And with all of this taking place, you have the White House basically begging for $200 billion more for the war in Iran from Congress. It's why the upcoming midterm elections though are very, very critical as well, because, you know, I think that you're going to see if Democrats can take control of the Senate and the House, the Democrats are going to continue to say, no, we're not funding this never-ending war. We're going to hold all of these hearings about what's really happening. There was another Pentagon report yesterday claiming that actually they were revising the The cost of the war from the previous count was $43.6 billion. They now say actually it's $47.1 billion. They're making up these numbers, folks. The actual cost is somewhere closer to $500 billion because they're not including the damages to US bases in the region. And with Trump, when you learn and you like study his fraud in the past, all you have to do is take a number and multiply it by about 10, depending on which way is he trying to overstate or is he trying to understate. Take the number and either decrease it by a multiple of 10 or increase— divide it by 10 or increase it by a multiple of 10, depending on what he's trying to do.
That's his MO with everything in life. And so I believe the number's closer to $400, $500 billion, because again, they're not even including damage to all of the bases. And all of the US military bases in the region were destroyed. Now, going back to the United Nations, let me show you what the ambassador to the United Nations from China had to say, where China warned against another round of US military strikes, expressed major concern over repeated missed opportunities of the United States ignoring diplomacy. Also, the Chinese representative declared that Washington's withdrawal from the JCPOA and subsequent maximum pressure campaign were the root cause of the crisis taking place. So China strongly calling out the Trump regime here. Let's play this clip. And with all of that going on, you had Donald Trump speaking in Texas. Here he was saying, um, you know what, one, he was acting like Iran was in the room, like that he was scared of Iran. He's like, did you hear that noise? That noise could be Iran. Is Iran coming after me? That's what he said during the speech. Play this clip.
He was the boss and his brother was killed. Brother worked for the firm. And, well, I'm hearing this now. Is that okay? Are we having— could that be Iran dropping something? Do you hear that? A lot of noise going on. What the hell are they doing over here? Is that excavation, excavation, demolition, or bombs? It's one of the 3.
And then he said, You'll see what we'll do to Iran in a couple of weeks. Just you watch. Just you watch. Here, play this clip.
And that's us. It's not me. It's all of us together. There's never been anything— the trade, the military. We rebuilt our military. Venezuela, Iran. You'll see Iran in a couple of weeks, if you don't mind. But all of the things we've done, the job now.
And then he said, but I can end this war whenever I want to end this war. It's on my terms. Here, play this clip.
It could be over whenever I want it to be over. Somebody asked me before, when will the war in Iran end? I said, whenever I want it to end.
Now, while you had Iran's president meeting with Putin in Russia and announcing all of this nuclear cooperation and military cooperation, we also learned— hat tip to Alex Refuglo with the reporting here— that US and Russian teams have been discussing a sweeping slate of potential energy and commercial deals beyond simply the Russian diesel sales, beyond simply the Lukoil sales of its foreign assets, in addition to the Nord Stream gas deals that the Trump regime is talking about. But also we're talking about potentially, you know, uranium deals and data center deals. And basically Donald Trump wants to spend the remainder of these 2 years figuring out how he and Putin can do more deals together while the catastrophic war in Ukraine continues to escalate as well. Iran continues to strike more tankers in the Strait of Hormuz as well. And then CENTCOM is posting over and over again how it's false for Iran to say that the US doesn't control the Strait of Hormuz. Of course the US controls the Strait of Hormuz. Did you see the photo that Admiral Brad Cooper posted over the weekend where he was in a helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz?
Yeah, it's undated, but doesn't that show we control the Strait of Hormuz? No, it shows he took a photo of a guy in a helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz. The aircraft carriers for the United States are thousands of kilometers away, deep in the Arabian Sea. We don't have Navy destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz. We all know what the price of diesel and gas is. Like, Like, this is, this is not a strat— we should never have been involved in this catastrophic war in the first place, but it's not a strategy just to pretend we're controlling the Strait of Hormuz just for the hell of it. Like, that's not a strategy. It's just more fraud, and which is what Donald Trump's done his whole life. Like, we all know you don't control it. It's, it's so weak and pathetic that while you have Iran in Moscow meeting with Putin meeting with Al Thani, meeting with all these other gas-exporting countries, bragging about their gas exports and bragging about broader economic cooperation, while you have Iran hosting meetings in Tehran with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, while you have that activity taking place, and we clearly know that Iran is developing massive more amounts of ballistic missiles, drones, upgraded drones, cruise missiles, that we just have a regime here that lies about everything.
Oh, we're, we're We're beating them. They're all— they're begging. They're not. They're not. They're not. Let's just, let's just exercise common sense and logic here, people. Anyway, that's what I got for you now. Hit subscribe. Let's get your copy of WTF America: The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy. Thanks for watching, everybody.
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MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on how Iran is working to outmaneuver Donald Trump ahead of a potential post-midterm invasion, holding regional talks with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, engaging Russia, and seeking broader Chinese support at the United Nations.
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