0:00

Thanks for listening to The Rest Is Politics.

0:02

Sign up to The Rest Is Politics Plus

0:04

to enjoy ad-free listening and receive a weekly

0:07

newsletter. Join our members' chat room and gain

0:09

early access to live show tickets. Just go

0:11

to therestispolitics.com. That's therestispolitics.com. What

0:31

will it mean for India and the world?

0:34

I've been trying to get inside his head. Listen

0:37

now to The Modi Raj from The

0:40

Economist, wherever you get your podcasts. A

0:44

lot can happen in three years, like

0:46

a chatbot may be your new best

0:48

friend. But what won't change? Needing health

0:50

insurance? UnitedHealthcare Tri-Term Medical Plans, underwritten by

0:52

Golden Rule Insurance Company, offer flexible, budget-friendly

0:54

coverage that lasts nearly three years in

0:56

some states. Learn more at uh1.com. What

1:00

is the Rest Is

1:03

Politics? Welcome

1:06

to The Rest Is Politics, special edition

1:08

with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair

1:10

Campbell. And what's special about it, Rory,

1:13

is that we did a live stream yesterday,

1:15

which we stuck with it, even though you

1:17

were on a train with a

1:20

bit dodgy Wi-Fi. And we talked

1:22

about all sorts of things beyond the election. But

1:24

the sound quality is a bit irritating for

1:26

people to put out on the general feed.

1:28

So we're going to briefly recap, not

1:31

the election stuff, because that's already kind of

1:33

slightly out of date, frankly, some of it.

1:35

But we're going to talk about Israel,

1:37

Hezbollah, Russia, North

1:39

Korea, China, and also stuff that's been going

1:41

on in Germany. So kick off with Hezbollah.

1:44

Well, so the big news

1:46

there is that senior Israeli

1:48

generals have now signaled that

1:50

they're bringing together plans to

1:52

launch a campaign against Hezbollah.

1:55

And Hezbollah is this very

1:57

large terrorist armed group located.

1:59

in southern Lebanon, much

2:02

larger than Hamas, much

2:05

better armed, much more directly supported by

2:07

Iran. And that

2:09

would represent a huge transformation

2:11

in Israel's war plans. So at the

2:13

moment, they're responding to October the 7th

2:15

by going to Gaza where the attacks

2:17

came from. Instead

2:19

of going west, they would shift

2:21

north and go into southern Lebanon.

2:23

And the foreign minister has

2:26

said in a

2:28

total war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and

2:30

Lebanon will be hit hard. So there's

2:32

a real stepping up of rhetoric. Many,

2:34

many things to talk about here. There's

2:36

the question of what would that

2:38

campaign look like? Can Israel do

2:41

it? How would the international community respond?

2:44

But first over to you, your thoughts and your

2:46

sense of this whole thing? Well,

2:48

I think the point about how the international

2:50

community would respond, I suppose it depends partly

2:52

where they are already on this. I

2:55

think it does make it harder for

2:58

the Americans, for example, to maintain the

3:00

level of support, because essentially what Israel

3:03

is saying is that they're having to open, even

3:05

though there's been quite a lot going on on

3:07

this front already, but open a new

3:09

front. And in a situation

3:11

that will make the region even more difficult,

3:13

even more dangerous. And I think,

3:16

you know, there will be parts, I'm certain there

3:18

will be parts of the American system that will

3:20

be thinking, I think, you know, isn't Netanyahu just

3:22

kind of now, I

3:25

don't mean this in a bad way. Well, I suppose I do in a

3:27

way using the war to that

3:31

made that the utterly defining purpose of his

3:33

government, because of course, everybody you talk to in

3:35

Israel, including people that are quite close to

3:37

Netanyahu, basically thinks that as

3:39

soon as there's a general election, he's

3:41

gone. And meanwhile, you've got what's going

3:44

on in Gaza continuing

3:46

to do a lot, quite

3:48

a lot of damage to Israel's standing in

3:50

the world. Just yesterday, UN Human Rights Office

3:53

saying that they focused

3:56

on six what they call emblematic airstrikes,

3:58

which they are saying system. systematically violated the

4:01

laws of war requiring that

4:03

civilians and civilian infrastructure are

4:05

properly protected. So that's the kind of, I

4:07

think the part of the backdrop to this,

4:10

we should always point out and lots of our pro

4:13

Israeli people point this out as always

4:15

point out as it were, this is

4:17

all in direct response to what happened

4:19

on October 7th, which was unforgivable. But

4:22

I think this now gives the sense

4:24

that they're taking it to a

4:26

different place and it's going to become much, much more

4:28

difficult for the world to deal with it. Yes.

4:31

The reason why Israel might do

4:34

it is firstly that there

4:37

have been a lot of Hezbollah missiles

4:39

firing into Northern Israel. 10 civilians

4:43

have been killed, 15 soldiers have

4:45

been killed and about 60,000 Israelis

4:47

living in settlements, sorry, living in

4:49

villages in Northern Israel have moved

4:52

South. The

4:54

second reason they might do it is a

4:56

sense that Hezbollah represents a much

4:58

bigger threat to Israel than Hamas. And

5:00

so there are people in the Israeli

5:03

government who think we're going to have

5:05

to go after them sometime and we

5:07

might as well go after them now. But

5:09

one of the reasons, Rory, they represent a bigger threat

5:11

is because they have bigger support from

5:15

players in this region who

5:18

frankly, what will

5:20

the Iranians think of it as having? Will

5:22

they think it sort of brings them further

5:25

in or will they try and stay

5:27

further out? It just, I think, poses an

5:29

awful lot of very difficult ways. It's

5:31

incredibly dangerous. I'm going to be incredibly dangerous

5:33

thing to do. So stepping back from

5:35

the rationale for doing, unbelievably dangerous. So firstly,

5:38

Hezbollah is a very considerable enemy, much

5:40

better equipped, much better trained than Hamas. I

5:42

mean, their fighters have really

5:44

active combat experience in Syria. They were the

5:46

people who turned the Syrian war. They

5:49

have a lot more anti-aircraft missiles,

5:51

they're able to shoot down UAVs.

5:54

If a full war started, they would try to

5:56

be landing rockets right in the middle of Haifa.

6:00

Iran has been a

6:02

very strong supporter of Hezbollah. They've created Hezbollah,

6:04

they fund Hezbollah. I remember the

6:07

Iranian rockets were flying over a few weeks ago.

6:09

Remember the standoffs around the killings of Iranian diplomats

6:11

in the embassy in Damascus. So, there's

6:13

a big question about dragging Iran further,

6:15

and particularly at a time when almost

6:17

certainly the next Iranian president

6:20

is going to be somebody closely connected

6:22

with the Revolutionary Guard. So,

6:25

very very dangerous. Also, Israel will

6:27

almost certainly lose its remaining connections

6:29

to a lot of the other

6:31

regional countries that might support this.

6:34

And it's going to be very difficult for Israel to do. The reservists

6:37

have been called up three times already,

6:39

and this means that we're in

6:41

a position in which people are talking

6:44

about having to conscript the ultra-orthodox

6:46

community, and Israel will only be able

6:48

to go into Lebanon with

6:50

equipment support from the United States. This will

6:52

be all about the United States, and it's

6:54

going to play deeply into the

6:57

question of is America getting behind this at a

6:59

time when Biden's special envoy has been in Lebanon

7:01

calling for peace and trying to get people back

7:03

to this peace plan that Biden announced two weeks

7:05

ago, which is meant to be about the release

7:07

of hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza. So,

7:09

it could lead to

7:11

a much more militarized situation, could lead to

7:13

Israel being ever more marginalized in an ever

7:15

more violent fight. But of course, from the

7:17

point of view of the Israeli far-right and

7:19

many people in Israel, they increasingly see

7:21

this as an existential fight for survival. Over to

7:24

you on North Korea. Well,

7:26

and this kind of is related

7:28

because of course, the other thing that it

7:30

does is it further reduces,

7:33

if you like, Ukraine in terms of

7:36

the international agenda. And

7:38

Zelensky, I think, does an extraordinary

7:40

job at keeping Ukraine as close

7:42

to the forefront of other leaders'

7:44

minds as he can, but it

7:46

gets harder when all this other

7:49

stuff's going as well. And meanwhile,

7:51

Vladimir Putin flies off to Pyongyang,

7:53

first visit to Pyongyang in

7:56

24 years, almost a quarter

7:58

of a which

8:00

he and Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea,

8:03

signed lots of diplomatic

8:06

and military relationships.

8:09

Essentially, almost it seemed to me, taking

8:12

the NATO principle and attack on one

8:14

as an attack on all, just the two of

8:16

them, but an attack on one of us, that

8:19

means an attack on the other. Kim

8:22

Jong-un doing something that Xi Jinping has not

8:24

done, essentially

8:26

saying full support for

8:28

Putin in his invasion of

8:30

Ukraine and his claims on Ukraine. And

8:35

pretty extraordinary kind of theater to this,

8:37

Putin arrived at 3 a.m.,

8:40

right, in the dead of night. Kim

8:42

Jong-un is there to give him a

8:44

big hug, honor guards, the whole of

8:47

Pyongyang, just huge posters of the

8:50

two leaders together, very, very

8:52

kind of flaunting this

8:54

newfound special relationship. And of course, part

8:56

of it is about the

8:58

continuing suspicions that Russia

9:01

is taking ammunition

9:03

and other military supplies from

9:05

North Korea in

9:07

exchange for money and in

9:09

exchange for further support. And Xi Jinping,

9:12

little bit skeptical about the whole thing. Yeah,

9:16

it is traumatic. I mean, we're so far and

9:18

deep into this that we almost take it for

9:20

granted, but the point is

9:22

that Russia was prepared to

9:24

criticize North Korea relatively recently to

9:27

criticize its missile tests. It's

9:29

one of the few subjects where the Security Council

9:31

actually stayed together. You know, North

9:33

Korea being a nuclear threat, destabilizing the region.

9:35

So this is a big change. And it's

9:38

not just Putin turning up. He turns up with his foreign minister,

9:40

Sergei Lavrov, and as you say, first visit 24 years, and

9:43

the Russians could involve themselves in providing

9:45

support for North Korean submarines, support

9:47

for ballistic missile launch. So

9:50

given that North Korea is one of the most

9:52

dangerous tinderboxes in the world, putting

9:54

the support of Russian technology behind

9:56

it is really gonna destabilize further.

9:59

Yeah. And the response to China

10:01

is absolutely fascinating in this because of course, they

10:04

both want to have close relations

10:06

with China because China is so

10:08

powerful. But

10:12

I was told that when Putin

10:14

went to Beijing last May, I

10:16

think it was, that

10:19

the original plan was for Putin to

10:21

fly back to Moscow via Pyongyang to

10:23

drop in and see Kim Jong-un then. And

10:25

the Chinese said, no, hold on a minute, you're not doing that

10:28

because that looks like we're too much

10:30

part of the thing. And this is

10:32

interesting what China will be thinking of this because

10:35

of course, China has its own problems economically and

10:37

trying to deal with some of the political fallout

10:39

from decisions that are made in the West. So

10:42

this is one that I don't know, I've been in Germany

10:44

and France, as you know, I don't know how much coverage

10:46

this has been getting in the UK, but it's

10:49

quite a big deal. And just quickly before

10:51

we bring you on to Germany, why

10:54

has this all changed? It's changed because

10:56

as Russia gets more and more isolated,

10:58

as the sanctions build up, as is

11:00

excluded from world trading systems, payment systems,

11:03

it is falling back

11:06

on the only allies that's got left, which

11:08

are places like North Korea. And this

11:11

is all part of the world solidifying

11:13

into these much more violent confrontational blocks

11:15

than would have been the case before

11:18

the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Over

11:20

to you on Germany. Tell us a bit about

11:22

Germany. Well, so briefly on Germany,

11:24

talking of increasing violence,

11:28

there's an organization in the US in Germany, it's

11:30

called the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

11:34

And they, as you know, have a post-war

11:36

written constitution, they take it very, very seriously,

11:38

constitutional courts and so forth. And

11:40

this organization, BfV, which

11:43

is sometimes compared to MI5, but

11:45

there are similarities, but there are

11:47

also differences. But they produce an annual

11:49

report, and this annual report, which was published

11:51

a few days ago, is reporting

11:54

with data, the surge in

11:56

far right violence, surge in

11:59

Islam, Islam the extremism and also

12:01

increasing cyber attack from Russia

12:03

and China, which led to the interior minister, Nancy

12:06

Fazer, actually talking about

12:08

what she called a significant threat

12:11

to German democracy. And so for

12:13

example, far right offenses,

12:15

the number of extremist crimes as they're

12:17

called, increased to

12:19

almost 40,000, 25% rise in offenses of far

12:21

right people and organizations. Quite

12:30

a considerable growth in people that they believe

12:32

are prepared to use violence. And

12:35

above all, both on the hard left and the

12:37

hard right, hostility to

12:39

Germany's rule of law, which of course, includes

12:41

things like the Constitutional Court.

12:44

So genuinely quite worrying. And

12:46

also the fact that both

12:49

the war in Ukraine and the war

12:52

in the Middle East, that these are

12:54

being exploited on both sides,

12:57

both to, if you like, found the flames

12:59

of anti-Semitism, but also

13:01

to find the flames of Islam and Islamism

13:03

as well, of

13:05

anti-Islam. So really

13:08

quite a disturbing read. It's a

13:10

long, long report. I read the

13:13

summary and it's really, it's

13:15

quite a worrying thing, particularly as you know, we

13:17

see the far right operating

13:19

pretty successfully in America, the

13:22

role that Farage is playing in the UK

13:24

election right now, some of the changes

13:26

that have been in the European elections. I

13:29

think people should take this pretty seriously. Well,

13:31

just to conclude then, so thank you. And

13:33

a reminder that while we're all focused on

13:36

the UK elections, there is an enormous amount

13:38

going on around the world. The stakes for

13:40

democracy are very, very high. And we're going

13:42

to have to get back into these subjects in

13:44

more detail when we come through this electoral period.

13:46

But thank you, Alistair, for that short update. Now,

13:48

just on a lighter note, Roy, that was all

13:50

a bit heavy, but I've just noticed in this

13:52

room that I borrowed to do the podcast,

13:55

look what's sitting in front of me. Oh, it's

13:57

a very beautiful blue and white Chinese pot in

13:59

the...