(Ret.) Col Chris Wyatt: Iran clings to its enriched uranium as US regroups to hit harder…

After weeks of war and a fragile ceasefire, Iran's atomic energy chief, Mohammad Eslami, says his country will not curtail its enriched uranium programme. In this interview with Chris Steyn, US intelligence analyst, retired Colonel Chris Wyatt warns: “They don't want to give it up. Well, this won't end unless that is given up.” He adds: “No one's leaving the Gulf. This gives the US a respite to - after six weeks of 24-hour day combat - to re-group and be ready to hit Iran even harder.” Col Wyatt lists the military objectives that have been achieved to date. He also comments on Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon. He reacts to reports that Russia is doubling its main oil revenue because of the war. Lastly, he slams President Cyril Ramaphosa for his “insulting” conduct during the presentation of the credentials of US Ambassador Brent Bozell III..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.092)After weeks of war and a fragile ceasefire, Iran's atomic energy chief, Mohammad Eslami, says his country will not curtail its enriched uranium programme. I speak to US intelligence analyst, retired Colonel Chris Wyatt. Welcome Chris.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (00:23.01)Well, thank you, Chris. I think fragile is a generous term. What ceasefire? Iranians have broken it since before it started. They agreed to it, broke it immediately afterwards and have been breaking every waking moment since then, attacking neighbouring countries. They have no intention, as I suspected, of honouring this sort of thing. They're just buying time and I don't know if they're going to get much time. I don't think Trump will tolerate this for very long. You mentioned the uranium. They don't want to give it up. Well, this won't end unless that is given up.Yeah, I don't know what's going to happen. Remember when we first talked about this, I said six weeks. Well, just shy of six weeks, the military objectives were achieved, which is my expectation. And Trump agreed to a ceasefire. So I don't know what's going to happen now, but if Iran does not play ball, then it's back to the bombing campaign, at least for a few weeks, because Trump has a little bit of time before the War Powers Act kicks in and restrains his freedom of maneuver. Once that happens, he'll need authorisation from Congress. But I suspect he may argue that this is a continuation of the war on terrorism and that Congress has already authorised such action. That's debatable legally, but I think it really doesn't matter because it'll give him an excuse to continue the campaign if he wants to, and all they can do is take him to court or try to impeach him. If they try to impeach him, that's a months-long process. They don't have two-thirds vote in the Senate for a trial, so they won't be able to impeach him. And as far as the courts, this won't rise to the Supreme Court immediately. They're in session now and have heard oral arguments from cases over the past few weeks that it started last year. It would be an urgent case. I think that Trump will probably be able to continue the campaign if he wants to. But there are questions about legality and freedom of maneuver.Chris Steyn (01:58.77)But if Iran's enriched uranium is still safe... and was that not the whole point of the war? to destroy it? Then what has Trump achieved?Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (02:10.476)Well, that wasn't the whole point of the war. See, once again, just like the Gulf War, the media has allowed and the administration has allowed people to run with a narrative that's simply false. The Gulf War wasn't about weapons of mass destruction. It was one of 17 things that were mentioned. And in fact, there were weapons of mass destruction discovered in Iraq during that war. People dispute that. Special forces troops came across chemical weapons stockpiles.In addition to that, Iraqis fired Scud missiles into Kuwait when the campaign kicked off in 2003. The Scud missile is a weapon of mass destruction, which was banned by the United Nations, and Iraq claimed that they dismantled all of them. Well, that was a pure poppycock and a lie. Just like the Iranians here have talked about, they don't have any missiles that can reach as far as locations like Diego Garcia, yet they fired missiles and nearly reached that, well beyond the capability, hundreds of miles beyond what they claimed that they had. They're untrustworthy.Yeah, the uranium was one of the issues. But for the military campaign, it wasn't one of the objectives and goals. There were three goals for that. The destruction of Iran, basically the destruction of Iran's ability to target and threaten its neighbours. And so, neighbours of course being all the Gulf states and then of course Israel. So the military objectives were quite clear. They've never changed despite the media's lies about it. And I said this all along, the goals were to destroy the Navy, destroy the Air Force, destroy their missile capabilities. Now I don't know the current state or the missile programme. But it's been devastated and that's obvious. They're not firing hundreds of missiles per day or shooting hundreds of drones. They're demonstrably reduced and that's a consequence of using a lot of them and others having been destroyed. So we heard the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff talk about 13,000 targets were struck during the six-week campaign. 4,000 of them were dynamic. Those 4,000 dynamic targets were typically uh... missile launcher platforms that were pulled out, were about to fire and they were destroyed by aircraft that were flying unmolested over the skies of Iran because we had air dominance…and people are going to… aircraft shot down uh... yeah, shoulder fire missile it's not impossible and you know there's thousands of those on every battlefield. The fact that only two aircraft were shot down by hostile fire in a campaign which thirteen thousand targets were struck which means there were thousands of sorties is pretty militarily impressive and also the…Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (04:22.542)…crazy rescue operation of 155 aircraft. And you know, and as this thing was winding down, people were accusing Trump of committing war crimes, which he didn't do. Attacking bridges and power stations does not violate the Geneva Conventions. It does not violate the land and law warfare. Those are legitimate military targets. Now, if you go after a mosque or a school that's not being used for military purposes, that is a war crime. But attacking bridges is not a war crime. But there were actual war crimes being committed by the Iranians.mSearch and rescue helicopters are not legitimate targets. Neither are medical medevac helicopters or aircraft. And the Iranians shot at and damaged two of the very expensive search and rescue planes, which is a war crime. They've also been targeting, indiscriminately targeting hotels, tourist locations, apartment buildings throughout the Middle East. These are war crimes. Yet no one talks about that. And now the US did hit on that primary school that was located on a naval base appears to have been unintentional mistakes. So it's not a war crime. There's no intent there. It's a tragedy. It's not a war crime. But Iran has been committing war crimes and the press is just giving them a free pass. Yeah. So we'll see what happens.Chris Steyn (05:31.281)Well, despite the ceasefire Israel is still hitting Lebanon.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (05:38.604)It was interesting to see the prime minister of Pakistan who played the role of mediator in this situation since we don't have diplomatic relations with Iran since 1979. Typically in the past our negotiation went through the Swiss interest section. Switzerland handled anything we wanted to pass to Iran and vice versa. But Pakistan has a vested interest in this and so they've been playing this role. The prime minister said that this entire region includes everything, including Lebanon. Well, Israel who said they're fine with what President Trump did, reaching a ceasefire. They'll support that with Iran, but said that Lebanon is not part of this. It's off the table from the outset. They disavowed that they were part of it. They weren't in the negotiations. They weren't consulted, and they're defending themselves in their view. That's their view. So they launched the largest single day of strikes in Lebanon after the ceasefire was announced.And then in response to that, Iran reneged on the opening the Straits of Hormuz. They let two ships through and then they closed it down again. And they said this is because the US has violated the ceasefire. The US hasn't violated the ceasefire. Iran is the one that fired 35 missiles and 17 drones at UAE, attacked the Saudi pipeline with a drone, attacked Kuwait with missiles, the ones who shut down the Straits of Hormuz. And now they're saying that they're not going to turn over the uranium. Well, these are all violations of the ceasefire and they run around proclaiming victory. I got to tell you, Chris, yesterday I woke up to the news from Iran that we lost the war and from the media in America, we lost the war. We lost the war. Look, this comes down to the question of when does a conflict end? War termination. It's not a military objective. It's not up to the military to decide when a conflict ends. It's up to politicians to decide when a war ends. And that's typically when wars are lost. And that remains to be seen if this war has been lost. But from a military standpoint, it's an unbelievable amazing success that's never been achieved before, not even in Kosovo. I mean, the United States has destroyed over 90% of the Iranian Navy. It is sitting at the bottom of the Arabian Gulf or the Indian Ocean. They have destroyed their entire Air Force. Not a single aircraft gets in the air to do air interdiction or do any attacks. They can't threaten their neighbours with bombs from aircraft. Most of their missile defenses or missile systems are obliterated. Their factories have been wiped out. You know, 801 drone facilities have been destroyed and over 400 other systems…Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (07:52.643)Their industrial base for enriching the uranium has been eviscerated. So I don't know how we lost the war. That's impossible. But again, winning a war comes down to political solution. And that's not decided yet. So we'll have to see where that goes.Chris Steyn (08:08.139)Meanwhile, Russia seems to have doubled its main oil revenue during the war.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (08:15.808)In the last few weeks, well, I'm sure because the revenue is down to a trickle because so many people were sanctioning their oil and Trump was talking about releasing sanctions. I don't know that that actually happened. It was just talk. So, yeah, I'm not surprised, but this is the same thing, you know, when Biden came in office, he talked tough about Iran, but he didn't do anything about Iran and his idiotic rainbows and fairy tale unicorns of green energy, which is a fantasy. There's no such thing as green energy. Every energy causes pollution. Every energy has an offset, particularly solar, which causes more carbon emissions in the production of solar panels and the transportation delivery of them than what is consumed by hydrocarbon fuels over a period of 12 to 15 years before you break even. Meanwhile, all that carbon is released into the environment. You've gained nothing. It's even worse. But this is a fantasy. And that fantasy and that interruption in the exploration, drilling, and processing of hydrocarbon energy in the US and around the world as a consequence of this drove up energy prices. We were paying $6 a gallon for gasoline under Joe Biden after we were paying $1.78 when Trump had been president just months before. Within a year, it was driven up that high because of his feckless policies and his idiotic foreign policy over Myanmar, which overthrew the civilian government nine days after he became president. And then, you know, the Russians moving 75,000 troops to the Belarus border. He did nothing about it. And then the invasion took place a year later.All these policies led to a crisis in the energy markets. Oil spiked up to 150, $160 a barrel. And Iran scored hundreds of billions of dollars of windfall profits. That was 10, 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, 90, $100 billion of profits because of the doubling and nearly tripling of the price of oil. A similar thing is what you're alluding to now with Russia. I don't know how much more money Russia is making, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are making more money because the Chinese, if they can, are buying as much Russian oil as they can get because they're in trouble. China, South Korea, Japan rely overwhelmingly on oil that comes out of the Strait of Hormuz, as well as European countries. All these countries that said that they weren't going to do anything about the straits, then they said they'd participate, and I have no idea what they're doing now. They're the ones who are suffering. But look, we all suffer in the end because there's a knock-on effect. If those economies can't produce, if they can't buy, well, then we can't sell them our goods and services, and South Africa can't sell them the raw commodities, and we all pay a price.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (10:34.638)So ultimately there's a knock on effect here, but when it comes to energy, America doesn't need oil from the Middle East. We produce more oil than any country in the world, including Saudi Arabia by a few million barrels a day, more than them, several million now. And we're the world's largest energy producer. So we don't need the world's energy, we have our own, and we actually are one of the largest exporters of energy, but that doesn't mean we're not affected by this. Oil is a fungible commodity, the price is driven by the Brent benchmark or the West Texas Light Intermediate, all of which are affected by supply and demand around the country. But you'll notice that the moment Trump mentioned the ceasefire, the world's economy is hungry for this nonsense to be over. And the price of oil dropped $26 a barrel within hours. And the stock markets rebounded yesterday. The Hang Seng was up 3.49. The South Korea index was up 7%. The Nikkei 225 was up 5.5%. And in the US, the Dow jumped 1,300 points in early trading. Now, that's stock markets. That's kind of speculation in some respects. But the point is that the world is hungry to move on from this and hopefully we will move on from it. But it doesn't look promising. Iran seems to have no interest in a ceasefire. They're just being provocative. Eventually it's, you know, if Trump has the ability, they're going to be very sorry they did this. You know, people talk about this gives Iran a chance to refit. What do you think's happening right now at bases in Bahrain and in Dubai and in all locations where American aircraft are located? Missiles are being transported. They're being loaded into warehouses. Crews are rehearsing, crews are training… are being refueled, troops are being positioned. All this is happening right now. No one's leaving the Gulf. This gives the US a respite to, after six weeks of 24-hour day combat, re-crypt and be ready to hit Iran even harder. And you would think if rational people let Iran, it would make them think. And in fact, in the end, a very interesting article… talks about how Iran came to the table and how we reached a ceasefire. And if their sources are correct, and they seem to have a varied number of sources from within Pakistan and also some in Iran and elsewhere, this came down to the new Ayatollah basically just before the deadline saying just get to ceasefire. They were that desperate for it to stop. They were that close to collapse. So we'll see what happens.Chris Steyn (12:46.373)Hmm. Well, I've bought a bicycle.I'm ready.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (12:53.144)So Chris, Chris, Chris, you bought a bicycle because of petrol prices?Chris Steyn (12:58.481)Well, anyway.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (12:58.958)Yeah, it's a look. I mean, I appreciate that. You know, I actually topped off my vehicle with petrol a few days ago because I'm doing consulting right now and I'm driving back and forth every morning, which I don't normally do these days. And I was on fumes. So I went and topped it off. And then the price of oil dropped $26 a barrel yesterday. So much for that plan.Chris Steyn (13:22.149)Meanwhile, here Chris, President Cyril Ramaphosa has finally accepted the credentials of US Ambassador Brent Bozell IIIColonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (13:34.895)Well, Chris, I would not take exception, but you use the word finally. Let me give my take on that. So Bozell has been in the country for about two and a half months. And for some people, they said that's finally, it's a long time. You know, I did content in which I criticised President Ramaphosa about this, but not for that reason. That's not unusual. It's not unusual for an ambassador to be in a country two, three, even sometimes four months before they're able to present their credentials before the head of state. So that in itself is not unusual. However, the South African government has talked endlessly about how the relationship with America is important and they want to improve the relationship and they're trying to work with the Americans. And as I've told you many times in this programme, there is no trade representative, there is no trade delegation, there has been no effort to lower the tariffs. And by default, South Africa's tariffs went from 30 to 10% because of the Supreme Court's decision on what's going off the tariffs. So they have made no effort whatsoever. They've also made no effort to appoint an ambassador to come here. And they've made no effort to repair the relations, which deteriorated not because of Donald Trump, but because of the actions of the ANC and the Government of National Unity. So, you know, about the final thing, if South Africa values the relationship with the United States, the world's superpower, the largest economy on the planet, the second largest trading partner, the one country that South Africa has a trade surplus with to the tune of about $8 billion a year. I mean, that's, that's insane. You wouldn't want to curry a relationship with that, they would have received him within a few weeks of him arriving. And they would have done it with the US coming in alone. But instead, they throw the United States in with everybody else, you're no more special than anybody else. By the way, we're gonna do yours the same day we do the ambassador from Cuba. Now, that's an intentional slight, which most people aren't picking up on, but it's obvious. And then Ramaphosa gets up and lectures these ambassadors about, well, you, we respect international agreements and we expect countries to respect sovereignty, yada, yada, yada. But isn't it South Africa who doesn't follow international agreements? Aren't they the country that shipped combat helicopters to a sanctioned warlord in Benghazi a few months ago? And that's the third time that we know about this publicly… this has happened in 18 months. Isn't it South Africa's whose citizens went to Russia and fought illegally as mercenaries to kill Ukrainians in a conflict that South Africa claims it's neutral in? Isn't it South Africa, and I can run through a whole list, a host of other things where they violate international norms and laws that they claim. So they lecture the incumbents, but…Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (15:58.031)…the intent was to insult America based on the language….pretty obvious, talking about Iraq, Iran, Israel, and US. So that was insulting. And then he says, when I appoint an ambassador, I expect my ambassadors and high commissioners to go to your countries and be respectful and work. Excuse me? Have you ever heard of this guy called Ibrahim Rasool? I think he was appointed by you the second time. I know Zuma might have appointed him when Obama was there, but you're the guy that appointed him and it came there. And oh, by the way, it was a bizarre process that violates diplomatic norms. You don't send an ambassador designate to a country days before an incoming administration is coming in. That's a no-no. Yet they did that and they colluded with the Biden administration to install him as an ambassador days before Trump became the president. And so he could run around and do the nonsense he was doing publicly, insulting America and insulting President Trump.Look, this was people who were, you know, some of the press in South Africa, well, this is a new dawn, perhaps relations are thawing. They're not thawing. This is nonsense. This was Ramaphosa pretending he's an important statesman at the world stage. But the bottom line is exactly what I predicted as well. I said that the South African would accept his credentials. He would become ambassador and they would look for every opportunity to embarrass the United States through him. They've already done it with a ridiculous demarche a few weeks ago for an act that didn't happen. Meanwhile, the Iranian embassy in South Africa is publishing those vile, repulsive, and disgusting things on its Twitter account with the endorsement of their ambassador from Iran. And not once has DIRCO called Iran in for its undiplomatic behavior. This is all a setup. And there is no new dawn in relations here. The ANC has no interest in good relations with the United States, and they don't care how many jobs are lost, how much fruit doesn't get sold, how many bottles of wine don't get sold, how many cars don't get in. They don't care. They don't care how many jobs are lost…They do not care because they've decided that they're going to hitch their star to the communist and the fascist in Brazil, in Cuba, in Russia, in China, in Iran, and that's their future. Well, that is an apocalypse for South Africans and it's sad to see.But yes, Brett Bozell is now the fully accredited ambassador in South Africa and the South African newspapers were very friendly to him. Well, look at this. He's falling in love with South Africa.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (18:18.478)Well, of course he's falling in love with South Africa. Who wouldn't fall in love with South Africa? It's an amazing country with a really screwed up political dispensation.Chris Steyn (18:26.523)Thank you. That was US intelligence analyst, retired Colonel Chris Wyatt speaking to BizNews. I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, Chris.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (18:37.048)You're very welcome, Chris. Look forward to our next conversation and hopefully this conflict will be over and the world can get back to the business of producing goods and services to feed the world and we can all have peace again. I hope. God bless and take care.

(Ret.) Col Chris Wyatt: Iran clings to its enriched uranium as US regroups to hit harder…

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