Matt Frei

And it will carry on trying to do so.

And Congress only comes in, really, when it comes to either impeachment proceedings, which they would be daft to try again unless they were assured of a conviction of Trump in the Senate, which is unlikely, or when it comes to the power of the purse.

But even the power of the purse hasn't prevented

uh trump from conducting a very costly war in iran so i don't think he really cares that much about the midterm elections i think he

is quite happy to carry on this thing as long as he can claim at some stage that he has done more than Barack Obama, which may be true.

I mean, it may result in that at the end of the day, but as I said before, and it's an incredibly costly journey to get to an incremental victory.

I think that's a really important one because...

First of all, Beijing has again sort of managed to wriggle itself into a much stronger position than people thought it was in.

Although China relies much more on oil from the Strait of Hormuz and natural gas to keep their vast factories that supply the world with all sorts of things going and then keep their population in employment,

They have also been very strategic in all sorts of things, including the storage of oil.

So their strategic oil reserves are massive and they were built up over years precisely because of this kind of scenario.

So they're living off those oil reserves and they've been quite smart at using the Pakistanis to establish a land route for exports and imports to Iran.

And the Pakistanis obviously are also part of this.

By the way, both Iran and Pakistan are part of China's Belt and Road project.

So that is very much China's sphere of influence.

What is America's sphere of influence in the Middle East at the moment?

I mean, it's Israel and the Israelis are doing their own thing, much to the annoyance of the Trump administration at times.

And then you've got the Gulf states who thought they were Donald Trump's best buddies, who were basically thrown under the bus on February the 28th.

They weren't even consulted about a war in which they themselves have had to suffer.

Well, Donald Trump says the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire will be extended by three weeks after talks at the White House.