Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of the antiwar organization CODEPINK, speaks with Chris Hedges about her recent visit to Cuba as part of one of the many humanitarian delegations that have visited the island in response to the severe economic blockade imposed by the Trump administration. Benjamin describes the current situation as “dire”, the worst she has experienced in her 50 years of solidarity work with Cuba, referring to the escalation of the blockade as a “medieval siege.”

The fuel shortages have had deadly impacts, imposing nationwide power outages. Sanctions and the blockade have created shortages of food, medicine and other necessities. Benjamin recounts, “People can’t go to work because the buses aren’t working or if they got to work, there’s no electricity or no materials.” She says that doctors and teachers are leaving the country because their salaries are too low to survive.

The U.S. media blame the hardships in Cuba on its communist government, but Benjamin shares the advancements that have been made since the Revolution, despite enduring more than sixty years of U.S.-imposed sanctions. A poor country of ten million, Cuba created a once-enviable universal healthcare system and an excellent education system that is free to residents. Now, many of those gains, such as reductions in infant mortality and improvements in life expectancy, are deteriorating under the boot of American imperialism.

Delegations have traveled to Cuba from all over the world this year to bring solar panels, medicines and other necessities. Palestinians participated in the delegation that Benjamin helped to organize, and they witnessed many similarities between Cuba and Gaza. In addition to the shortages, another similarity is the growing power of the Cuban-American lobby that supports the blockade, which is modeled on the Israeli-American lobby, AIPAC.

Despite this, the situation in Cuba is so severe that even many members of Congress can no longer deny the cruelty of the situation. There are two new pieces of legislation in Congress that CODEPINK and other Cuba solidarity organizations support. Benjamin urges people to take action in any way that they can because she believes Cubans will not be able to endure the hardships of the blockade for much longer.

The whole world is watching as negotiations begin today in Islamabad, Pakistan between Iran and the United States following an agreement to cease military action for two weeks. The negotiations are based on a ten-point plan outlined by Iran and approved by the United States as a basis for the talks.

Israel has not been invited to the negotiations, which are being conducted indirectly and with a great deal of skepticism by the Iranian team. The outcome of these talks will impact the entire global economy and the fate of millions of people in West Asia, six million of whom have already been forcibly displaced by US and Israeli aggression in recent years.

Chris Hedges discusses the peace talks with former British Diplomat Alastair Crooke, who has participated in past negotiations between Palestinian groups and Israel and who studied the rise of Islamic groups in the region. Crooke explains that the current Islamabad talks are rife with contradictions and are impeded by a failure of the West to understand that the goal of Iran, in the defense of its sovereignty, is “to blow up the existing paradigm” that has plagued Iran for nearly 50 years, which Crooke describes as a “revolutionary objective” that has both financial and cultural elements.

Many factors have led to Iran maintaining a position of strength throughout the recent US-Israeli aggression, which gives it an advantage in these talks. Meanwhile, Israel is in a position of weakness as it fights on multiple fronts with a military in a state of collapse and a population in distress. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a court case, which could result in his imprisonment, and an upcoming election.

And for the United States, Crooke explains that its miscalculated war on Iran has backfired, leading to the rise of the Chinese Yuan, the decline of the petrodollar, significant losses of its infrastructure in the Middle East and a conflict that, like the Vietnam War, is being fought on difficult terrain for which the US is not prepared. Hedges compares this situation to the Suez Crisis in 1956 that accelerated the decline of the British Empire. When asked if the US is likely to restart the war on Iran, Crooke responds with “What’s really left to the United States militarily to do that would be a game changer?”