All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in the Middle East and let's talk about the

assassination of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, as well as as many other Hezbollah top commanders and officials,

as well as an Iranian Republican Guard, top commander who was with

Nasrallah at the time when southern Lebanon was bombed and the Nizirala was killed.

So what are your thoughts with everything that is happening in the Middle East, this escalation

that is pushing us towards a full out war between Iran and Israel?

Some people would argue that we are already in a war between Iran and Israel, which will, of course, pull in many other countries, most notably

the United States. Anyway, your thoughts? Well, I think the first point to start with is that

things are going very much along the trajectory that we discussed in various programs we have

been doing, going all the way back

to Netanyahu's visit to the United States, and he's addressed to Congress.

If you remember, we said at the time, and I want to remind everybody, we said at the time

that this came directly after the changes in the Democratic Party

as to who would be leading the Democratic Party into the elections in November.

We said that there is now clearly a power vacuum in Washington.

Netanyahu was seizing his opportunity.

He's been working towards a major conflict with Iran for some time, not just Iran, Hezbollah, all of the various other militias.

He clearly wants or wanted to expand the war in some ways. The war that has been way, you know, going on in Gaza since last October.

It hasn't, that war hasn't gone terribly well. So he's been looking to expand the wall and he's been taking this very strong stance and that given that this is so

some wider conflict in the Middle East between Israel, Hezbollah, Israel, Iran, a conflict that

will draw in other countries. To me, to us, it looked all but inevitable. And we see that, in fact, Netanyahu has taken steps that lead us exactly to that point.

So the first step that he took, almost directly after the trip to the United States and the meeting with Congress, was the assassination in Tehran of Ismail Haniyah,

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