argument for your consideration.

First, United Nations no longer represents the world as it is.

It has a representational problem.

The world has changed.

The UN has not changed to match it.

Second, the UN has an efficacy problem.

That is, on the major issues of the day, in terms of moving the needle, it has been either irrelevant or peripheral.

With all due

Mm-hmm

... 12 billion, 29 billion, whatever it is, but there is certainly going to be a release of assets.

Iran has made it absolutely clear.

Now, the White House is trying to massage this and saying, "Well, Iran is not being given any money," and so on and so forth, but the fact of the matter is that Iranian assets frozen by the United States are gonna be handed over to Iran.

Now, that's, in my book, giving somebody money.

And then the sanctions are going to be lifted, but not all at once, on a phased basis.

Now, the procedure for doing that, how quickly and at what pace and over what period of time, has to be worked out, right? I should just add one quick thing about phase one.

Mm-hmm.

What do you reveal in this, this article here, and, and what do you make about this spin that each side is, is telling us? And how is that gonna get this to, uh, a situation where we can get the Strait of Hormuz back open?

Right.

So my read, Danny, is that the Iranians have long since, uh, stopped taking President Trump's threat to use force seriously.

I think-

Man, I don't know how I could, um, assist you unfortunately.

Okay.

Okay, hold on.

Okay.

What do we know about that? They're obviously quite concerned that this is a real possibility at this point.

Yes.

So I'll put my cards on the table and say that I've long been a proponent of European strategic autonomy.

I made this argument first in the book I wrote in 2007 and most recently.

in an article that I wrote for an outfit called the Institute for Arts and Ideas in London.

Having said that, this has been a catalyst because I think NATO has fundamentally had to realize that the day will come when it cannot rely on American protections.

Here are a couple of things that have happened.

First, of course, Ukraine, because, of course, Ukraine has been heavily dependent on arms and intelligence from the United States during the war with Russia.

Just tell me what we're seeing and the significance of it.

I think that the Iranians have prepared for this.

They may go out on fighting, but I think we're in for a long war.

And a lot more people are going to start dying, unfortunately.

This is no longer a war just with Iran.

It's become a regional war.

And what is happening that affects the rest of the world, a couple of examples.

What do you think we should expect from here?