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In a wide-ranging interview with Chris Hedges on George Galloway’s Mother of All Talk Shows, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former Middle East correspondent argues that Donald Trump has been drawn into a war long sought by Benjamin Netanyahu—without a clear exit, without strategic control, and without understanding the regional forces now shaping the conflict.
Hedges argues that Washington no longer determines the pace or outcome of escalation: that leverage now lies with Iran, whose asymmetric response threatens oil flows, Gulf infrastructure, and wider U.S. regional influence. The interview moves beyond battlefield claims to a larger warning: that this war could accelerate the erosion of American hegemony, deepen the crisis of Israeli deterrence, and push global power further toward a multipolar order shaped increasingly by China and Russia.
Hedges described the current escalation not as a controlled American intervention but as the outcome of years of pressure from Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli strategic doctrine, which has long sought direct U.S. military confrontation with Tehran. In his view, Trump accepted assumptions that Iranian resistance would collapse quickly under pressure, an assumption Hedges says fundamentally misread both Iran’s political structure and its military planning.
“The Americans are no longer determining the outcome of this conflict,” Hedges said, arguing that Tehran now holds the central leverage because it can shape the pace and cost of escalation through asymmetric pressure rather than conventional battlefield victory.
At the center of that leverage is the Strait of Hormuz, through which a major share of global oil shipments passes. Hedges warned that even limited disruption there would trigger economic consequences far beyond the battlefield, especially across Europe and Gulf energy markets. In his assessment, Iran does not need full military superiority to impose severe strategic costs; it only needs to sustain enough pressure to force economic pain on Washington and its allies.
He also argued that Gulf states now face the consequences of hosting American military infrastructure without receiving the protection such arrangements were meant to guarantee. Bases once presented as deterrence, he said, have become immediate targets in any widening confrontation.
On Israel, Hedges suggested that military censorship itself reveals the seriousness of the damage being absorbed. He noted that while public information remains limited, the intensity of censorship indicates that strikes have reached far deeper than Israeli authorities are prepared to publicly acknowledge.
Because of Israel’s size, he argued, even limited sustained strikes produce disproportionate psychological and strategic effects. Iran, by contrast, prepared for prolonged attrition over many years, including deeply buried missile systems designed specifically to survive early strikes.
Hedges also linked the war to larger political changes inside the United States. He argued that after years of destruction in Gaza and growing public anger over civilian casualties, support for Israel inside American political culture is no longer politically automatic in the way it once was.
“This war,” he suggested, “may accelerate that decline.”
The longer the conflict continues, Hedges said, the more room opens for outside powers. He argued that both Russia and China have clear strategic reasons to ensure Iran remains capable of sustaining pressure, because prolonged conflict weakens U.S. regional authority and further exposes the limits of American military reach.
For Hedges, the larger significance is not simply whether Trump can claim victory, but whether Washington has already entered a confrontation whose political, economic and geopolitical consequences now extend beyond its ability to dictate the outcome.
“The danger,” he suggested, “is that power entered this war assuming control — and discovered too late that control had already slipped away.”
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