Now on Overnights, Professor David Flett analyzes the important events of the week. Oh finally, some insanity shall prevail. How are you good, Professor?
Well, there you Phil and how are you.
I'm very well. I'd like to talk to you about a lot of things. We're pretty much on the same page with this article. Another great one you've written in the Spectator enriching Beijing flirting with Tehran. Let's talk about that certainly.
Well. The government, the Australian government, which is led a hard lived leader. He comes from the hard left, was the American's the far left, and he is breaking away to some degree from American policy. And I'm not surprised that he is obviously not prepared. He doesn't want to go to the White House. He knows he'll be he'll be in difficulties there when he appears before the President. And this idea of slipping it in on the sidelines
of the G seven was never a good idea. There would never be enough time to deal with the problems appropriately. But he just doesn't want to see the President. And I'm sure he's delighted by the fact that the President has gone off. Do you believe that Okay, right, that's my view. I don't think it's at all disappointed. I think he's delighted because the last thing he wants is to have to face the President, and he's going to
try and cover it with peripheral matters. But the President was going to really come to the very important issues, particularly of the fact that we are just not attending to our defense, we've let it run down terribly, and that this is a government which shows a real sheepishness in relation to Beijing. I think they're very happy to be the quiet tributary state Beijing and not disbehave in any way. And we saw that when the Chinese Communists came with their navy and started a firing exercise in
our waters in our economic zone. That didn't tell us about it, and we had to rely on a civil aviation pilot to tell us that this was going on. And then they went round the country where they obviously were conducting an intelligence operation in relation to our ports
and what we're doing. And it's extraordinary when you look at the situation in relation to climate change, and I must say once again we said we're having a very cold winter for a world in which the climate's supposed to be warming, and we've had a very moderate suhow we don't have the heat waves that we used to have. But there's an obsession with this. But scientists to support the view that man is contributing to climate change all agree.
Nobody challenges the puposition that what we're doing is not going to change the climate in the slightest. We're spending this enormous amount of money, We're running down industries. We're changing what was a cheap and reliable grid, We're changing that to something which is expensive and something which is unreliable. And nobody's benefiting except for a few people who are supportive of this, particularly those in the political class who are behind candidates and who are making a lot of
money out of renewables. But the only organization which is profiting from all this enormously is the Communist Party of China. It's extraordinary, And why are they doing this. Why do they take the view that we must be very quiet and say nothing when the Chinese navy behoves provocatively. We've
just got to accept all this. And then, in relation to what's happening in the Middle East, they've pulled away very much from American policy when we were asked to provide a ship, not because the Americans needed a ship, but because they wanted it is a multi national fleet to go there and deal with the hootsies, who are terrorists funded by Tehran. The government refused to send one, which is the first time I think we've done anything like that. And we're pulling away from Israel. We seem
to be treating Israel. Israel is the hostile country, whereas everybody knows, and Trump has been the one to work this out, that America and Israel can't allow Tehran to have atomic weapons because they're very open a gender is and they now that in the maxims, the slogans that they pronounce regularly, death to Israel and death to America.
And we know that this dangerous, quite insane regime will do terrible things if they get nuclear weapons, and they seem to be intent, or there seem to be intent. They are intent on getting them, and Israel cannot tolerate that because as Netanyo who said, they had one holocaust in the previous century and they're not going to have another holocaust.
You know, I was thinking about the other day too. Just moving back to China. I saw this story Orrancy and End's website. China's aircraft carriers send message in the open Pacific for the first time, and bigger and more powerful ships are coming. It's just there on a website like it's hidden.
Yes, And the leader has made it very clear that he wants to know by twenty seven whether the Chinese forces are in a position to take Taiwan.
Well, that seems to be the date that's bandied around a lot too, because a lot of people have said, you know, under the cover of darkness, with this current distraction, that you know, we can look at that. But I'd heard twenty twenty seven bandied around a few times.
Oh yeah, several times. And it would be an obvious thing to do if you were going to do this, to do it when the United States is engaged heavily in the Middle East, that would be the ideal time. But as I've been arguing that column for a long time, there is an axis which is Moscow, in Tehran, Beijing, and Piangyang. And that axis is an axis which is completely against our concepts of Western civilization and democracy and
the rule of law. It presents a very rival view of the world, and it's something which goes completely against what we believe in.
So what do you think is going on? Then? For the last month, the Chinese aircraft carriers operating closer and closer to us and further from their own shores. Are they testing their technology testing the waters start?
Without doubt they are, and they're testing what they can do in the event of the struggle. And the news has come out recently that communication devices have been found in solar panels and turbines and even electric cars, which would allow those engaging to turn off the power to these things, and that they're also have been looking at the ways in which we communicate with the rest of
the world. Jim Moole and warned that if there were an invasion of Taiwan, we might not know about it because we might find that our communications with the world have been turned off, which would be very easy to do. But you know, when you don't you have the ships that can cut through these things. There have been cases which have occurred in Europe where cables have been cut. They think by well they know by Russian vessels that
these powers are considering. They're contemplating the ways in which they should react if there is a breakouts of hostilities concerning for example, concerning Taiwan, as there have been breakouts, as there is a continuing war in the Ukraine, there is a war in the Middle East.
And as you've said time and time again on this program, but of course on your articles as well, that Albanisi and the government just seemed to be turning a blind, iron ignorant i to this.
Yes, they just don't seem to accept that these are the serious problems. Well, what we've got now is this ridiculous idea that they're calling both sides to de escalate and go into negotiations. There was a stage in the Second World War when the principal powers came together and they said, what the position is of the West in relation to Germany and Japan was unconditional surrender. There were going to be no negotiations. There was going to be no way in which there could be any any conditions
imposis by either powers. They would be just they would have to be absolutely defeated, which of course they were.
There is a time in struggle when that happens, and President Trump, probably against the wishes of Israel, insisted on sixty days in which Tehran had the opportunity the choice of voluntarily stopping the development of atomic weapons or having it imposed on them, and on the sixty first day, Israel attacked because Israel cannot tolerate Tehran having nuclear weapons, because they know that these will be exploded over Israel and be worse, probably than what happened in the Second World War.
Let's talk about history repeating after this, you don't mind holding on a moment, certainly so just before the break, we were talking about history repeating. You know, it feels, it feels for the casual observer that here we are staring into the abyss. And I mentioned that to you off air when we were having a channel moment ago, and you said, well, you know, nineteen fourteen. Are we looking at some kind of repeat of history that goes back to then back to nineteen fourteen.
It is possible. There's no requirement that this will happen, there's no there's no promise that this will happen, but it could happen. And if the resistance is such that a number of powers in this axis of evil decide to act together, then there could be a well, I suspect that they won't. I suspect that, as with the fall of the regime in Syria, Moscow will remain silent because they're over committed. In relation to the Ukraine. I doubt that the Chinese Communists will have been very careful
since since Korea and Vietnam. When they were defeated effectively by another communist country in Vietnam, they realized that their armies weren't weren't tried and tested, and that's why they went back and they've they built up their armies, but of course they still know that they haven't yet been tried in the field. But they have advanced remarkably in ensuring that they have the latest of everything in relation
to their weapons. They've been very good in getting the necessary intellectual property, often taking it from the United States and then using it and with their very good scientists, developing it even further, so that they are very much, very powerful in relation to military matters, and they do
it more cheaply than the West does. They do it without the problems that you have in the West of environmental considerations and the need to have the approval of various levels of public authorities, and they're able to take advantages that are just not available to us.
So, if you're going to draw a parallels between nineteen fourteen, has the spark that ignited the conflict already happened or is this still a possibility.
I think we've gone further than ever, or further than at any time since the Cuban affair. Remember the Cuban affair where the Russians were establishing bases in Cuba.
Yeah, Christie, if I think that was wasn't it?
That's right? Yes, And they could reach the United States with weapons there if they installed the missiles and so on, And Kennedy issued an ultimatum, and the Russian ships continued
to approach the United States. The world watched in horror, and fortunately the Russians turned around, they pulled their forces back, and the Americans made some concessions in Turkey, they reduced some bases there, and the Russians did not proceed further with the very dangerous basis that they were going to build in Tuma.
Well, because the solution to that was Kennedy offering them to not have a loss of face. Are we in a position where we have diplomatically the opportunities to do that now?
I don't think the Iranian mullers are worried about face. I think they are worried, however, that they've been reduced remarkably by the ingenuity of the Israelis. The Israelis have really been able to destroy, as they say, decapitate a lot of the power in Iran. They've been apparently instructed by Trump not to kill the Supreme Leader, which obviously is within the within their you know, they could do
that because they have done some remarkable things. And remember, for example, when they used or they use all of the mobile phones of those who were acting for the regime and they use them as bombs.
That's right, the blackberries and the pages.
Yeah, yes, the pages, and this was this was a remarkable thing. And the fact that they have been able to penetrate into Iran, They've been able to get into places and have people eliminated who are running these affairs, that has really shocked the Iranians. The government in Iran is very unpopular. We foolishly, under Carter pulled the rug under the Shah. The Shah was an authoritarian leader. He argued, he said, well, this is the only way you can rule Iran. You've got a rule it with a certain
degree of strength, but he really advanced the country. And when you look back on films and photographs of life in Tehran at the time of the show, women were dressed completely in the Western style. They were looking very attractive and up to date. They were taking part in
life and being involved in businesses and other activities. Since this crowd of muellers have come in, they've turned everything back to something belonging very much to the past, and they are really hated, seems as far as I can see from what I've been reading, by the Iranian people
and their hold over the country's weakened. And it's a question as you said earlier, to an extent of face, not that the regime worries about it, but face before the Iranian people, and if they're seen as being weak, this will only encourage Iranians to take action against them.
So do you think that this is what this is all about, then regime change? And if that's the case, I mean previously with Iraq and Afghanistan that didn't go down too well.
No, I think that if they do that well. For example, in Afghanistan, the Americans handled it very badly. As you say, there was a move to bring back the king and restore what was the old system of running Afghanistan, which is what they did. But they rejected that and established bulli in place people who should not have been running the country, and it certainly didn't work. And a similar thing happened in the Iraq. They're not very good.
No, well, there was never a contingency or an in game or any kind of plan. From what I could gather, the.
Old powers from Europe are much better at this. The British work and the French were by bringing in people from the existing ruling class and ruling through them. But the Americas just allowed anybody to come in whom they thought might be a good rule of the country, and they weren't the sort of people that should be doing that. We saw that in Vietnam, we saw that in Iraq, and we saw that in Afghanistan.
Well, history just repeats itself on that, doesn't it, over and.
Over And although no power, particularly the British, was able to take Afghanistan, the way they ruled most of India and many of their colonies was through the existing ruling class, as did the French, and that worked very well, and quite often it produced a better form of government at the time, because it allowed for the modernization of the country and the elimination of practices which weren't acceptable in
a modern society. Of course, for example, in India they got rid of suti, which was that there's an obligation on the widow to jump on the sumial power of the man who died, and that so offended the British they made us illegal, and it was of course obviously very good for the women of India.
The article in the Spectator this Thursday, it's called enriching Beijing flirting with Tehran. Let's talk again next week if we're still here.
And I was very interested in Keith Suter's comment about the Shah.
Yes, well, there was a quote from you once again where there are no guarantees. I liked that quote too, you've given us because that applies to everything I think he does.
Indeed, quickly, thank you, David, Thank you.