Peace Talks & Trust Issues: Iran, Russia, and the Wars With No End in Sight

What is hot though, is the rest of the world, and I think the kind of lingering ongoing conflicts that we're going to discuss today, none of which have any sort of resolution in sight and all of which are getting worse in a somewhat indefinable way, but definitely getting worse.

So what would you like to talk about?

Yeah.

Well, I think it's, it's worth noting how exhausting it all is to follow, and I think that a- as tiring as it is for us, I think we should spare a thought for some of the world leaders involved and how tired they must be, particularly one who appears to be losing his battle with consciousness more and more frequently at the moment.

Day 88 of the Iran war, we're hearing that the internet blackout has ended for Iranians, whilst lots of headlines are focusing on the threats around the value of trust in these peace talks.

And I know that the c- the phrase peace talks doesn't always sit well with you anyway, but there's even suggestion in the last sort of few minutes that if there were a, a sort of draft deal in place, then Tehran would consider reopening the, the Strait.

So firstly, let's start with the internet blackout because I think that that's the most recent thing to, to happen.

What do you think has pushed them over the edge to flick the internet back on?

Well, I think that probably this frustration with the kind of no end in sight of this conflict, but I do want to emphasize that the internet blackout was not because of the conflict.

The internet blackout has been in place since January, and it was because of the uprising of the Iranian population, often against the financial situation of the state pre-conflict.

So this conflict itself, as you mentioned, it's on day 88.

Most of those days have been in this kind of ceasefire, this unknown territory where no one trusts each other.

You know, the risk of escalation is super high.

There's seemingly no resolution that's different than it would've been on day one, even of the conflict, let alone day one of the actual ceasefire with these variations there.

In Iran, things are obviously getting quite difficult, so there is a few different avenues that you might remember that people were very eager to think would lead to an uprising in Iran, right? And I, and I always think that it's incredibly shortsighted to presume that the population of Iran was going to try to overthrow this incredibly entrenched now really militarized system that is leading Iran.

And the internet blackout was the Iranian government itself's response to what happened in January where thousands of people were killed.

They're still actually killing people, you know, who'd been in prison because of those, those protests in January and December.

And this internet blackout has effectively really destroyed some of the financial basis and even just the, you know, the everyday life of Iranians.

And it certainly has prevented how Iranians are going to communicate with the rest of the world about the circumstances within Iran at the moment.

So I think it's welcome, of course, that there's this conduit to how normal Iranians are living their life and, and we'll be able to, to, um, have a, have a, a longer peek into that.

But I do want to m- make sure that we distinguish here between, uh, the conflict itself and then this particular result.

But I, and I also wanted to mention that there's always this strange lingering hope that somehow they're going to revolt.

So, you know, whether it would be the Kurds or the Azeris, which was, you know, one of the, one of the long shots that people were presuming early in the conflict would somehow rise up and take on the state.

There's also this sense that if the blockade continues, that Iran is going to run out of storage for its own oil and gas.

And so that also seems to be a little bit of a Hail Mary that's not going to particularly happen.

What is hot though, is the rest of the world, and I think the kind of lingering ongoing conflicts that we're going to discuss today, none of which have any sort of resolution in sight and all of which are getting worse in a somewhat indefinable way, but definitely getting worse.

So what would you like to talk about?

Yeah.

Well, I think it's, it's worth noting how exhausting it all is to follow, and I think that a- as tiring as it is for us, I think we should spare a thought for some of the world leaders involved and how tired they must be, particularly one who appears to be losing his battle with consciousness more and more frequently at the moment.

Day 88 of the Iran war, we're hearing that the internet blackout has ended for Iranians, whilst lots of headlines are focusing on the threats around the value of trust in these peace talks.

And I know that the c- the phrase peace talks doesn't always sit well with you anyway, but there's even suggestion in the last sort of few minutes that if there were a, a sort of draft deal in place, then Tehran would consider reopening the, the Strait.

So firstly, let's start with the internet blackout because I think that that's the most recent thing to, to happen.

What do you think has pushed them over the edge to flick the internet back on?

Well, I think that probably this frustration with the kind of no end in sight of this conflict, but I do want to emphasize that the internet blackout was not because of the conflict.

The internet blackout has been in place since January, and it was because of the uprising of the Iranian population, often against the financial situation of the state pre-conflict.

So this conflict itself, as you mentioned, it's on day 88.

Most of those days have been in this kind of ceasefire, this unknown territory where no one trusts each other.

You know, the risk of escalation is super high.

There's seemingly no resolution that's different than it would've been on day one, even of the conflict, let alone day one of the actual ceasefire with these variations there.

In Iran, things are obviously getting quite difficult, so there is a few different avenues that you might remember that people were very eager to think would lead to an uprising in Iran, right? And I, and I always think that it's incredibly shortsighted to presume that the population of Iran was going to try to overthrow this incredibly entrenched now really militarized system that is leading Iran.

And the internet blackout was the Iranian government itself's response to what happened in January where thousands of people were killed.

They're still actually killing people, you know, who'd been in prison because of those, those protests in January and December.

And this internet blackout has effectively really destroyed some of the financial basis and even just the, you know, the everyday life of Iranians.

And it certainly has prevented how Iranians are going to communicate with the rest of the world about the circumstances within Iran at the moment.

So I think it's welcome, of course, that there's this conduit to how normal Iranians are living their life and, and we'll be able to, to, um, have a, have a, a longer peek into that.

But I do want to m- make sure that we distinguish here between, uh, the conflict itself and then this particular result.

But I, and I also wanted to mention that there's always this strange lingering hope that somehow they're going to revolt.

So, you know, whether it would be the Kurds or the Azeris, which was, you know, one of the, one of the long shots that people were presuming early in the conflict would somehow rise up and take on the state.

There's also this sense that if the blockade continues, that Iran is going to run out of storage for its own oil and gas.

And so that also seems to be a little bit of a Hail Mary that's not going to particularly happen.