Eli Lake and Andrew Sullivan Debate the Iran War

What you're about to hear is a conversation slash debate with my old friend Andrew Sullivan. He needs no introduction. He is one of the great writers of our era.

And Andrew and I have a pretty deep disagreement about the current Iran War. So this is an opportunity to hear me put through my Paces so to speak as I jab and parry with Andrew Sullivan is very good at this kind of thing. And we won't see you soon enough as we prepare more bonus content and work on the next season of breaking history. So enjoy.

“Welcome to another podcast. This one coming to you in the, well, who knows? I don't know where we are in this war. I think we are 12 days in, I'm just speaking on Wednesday, maybe 11 or 12 something like that.”

You two weeks by the time you're hearing this. And so some of the things that we're going to talk about today may be new to the time you hear this, because things happen fast. But with any luck, we're not going to be talking about the specific nitty gritty of what might happen the next couple of days.

And more about how we got here, what this tells us about where we are, what the future is, et cetera, et cetera.

Thank you for subscribing. If you haven't subscribed, please do, because if you don't, this conversation is going to peter out at some point, when you most want it not to, at least that is the instructions given. We have some great guests coming up. We have Derek Thompson coming on to talk about abundance. We have Matt Goodwin, who just ran for parliament in the UK on the reform ticket, talking about the political earthquake in the United Kingdom. So, Derek is coming on. We're going to talk about conservatism, how we've seen it evolve over the last time, over our last couple of decades. And our lifetime, Tom Holland, is coming on to talk about the Christian roots of liberalism.

Jenkins is coming on to talk about privacy, the public private distinction, which to my mind is intensely important to liberal democracy, and she's going to talk about that to an Adrian Waldrich, my old friend from Oxford, actually, has written a terrific book on the lost genius of liberalism. Adrian is one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. And it sounds like a very invigorating book. Everything Adrian does is invigorating. He's also an absolute trip, so I'm really psyched to have an old friend of mine on the podcast. I always like that. It's nice to have people on that you know speaking of which.

“On the on the the question of Israel and the war in Iran and the United States and Trump and all the other issues, it's a pretty tense, difficult time. I think we're all on edge.”

I think whenever something like this happens, especially when no one was really well, a lot of people were not expecting it. It was a surprise to a lot of people on Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago. And there's a lot of anger and polarization and tension. It looks like the polling, I mean, it's hard to tell really, but it's certainly not, it's certainly one of the least popular ones that we've ever started. The question of Israel is hovering over it. This is given people like Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens are pretty astonishing little PR opportunity.

So, and I needed to talk to someone I wouldn't get to upset with because if you truth be honest, I am upset about this. I can't keep my emotions.

“I mean, they're under control, but I also don't feel like a writer should disguise if he's enraged. And I think that's roughly how I felt the last couple of weeks and how a lot of other people are feeling.”

Well, Eli Laker has been my friend for a hell of a long time, and he's a completely lovely person and a manch hilarious, funny, whole bunch of interests that he wouldn't believe. He will send me occasional AI songs that he's created that are amusing in their way.

So, he has an incredible mastery of history, and he has a podcast is still going on right?

Yes, we're taking a little bit of a hiatus, but we're going to do it in season, so the next one will be like five or six chapters of a big theme that we'll announce soon.

It's also the subject he's, I mean, I've taken an interest in this topic because I, this part of my job, but for Eli, it's been following the stuff like a hawk from, well, in more ways than one. From the get-go, he's the former national security correspondent for the Daily Beast, and Newsweek, he's a former colonist for Bloomberg view. And now he's a reporter for the free press, a contributing editor, a commentary magazine, and the host of his own podcast, the re-education. And what's got breaking history now? It's cool for people. It was re-education before. Okay. Yes. Well, that's it's not the same as the rest of the street, which is Tom Hollywood. Yes, which is very good, but it's the other one that's really amazing. Hardcore history at Dan Carlin. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, gee. It is the OG and Chris has got me. Chris has won the he got me on to that quite early when we were doing our road trips. Oh, they're sitting me down. I'd be listening to all about Sulla. Incredible. Oh, yeah.

The spider on the fall of the Republic of France. And that's when I was writing about the fall of the Republic. And it's you know, it's also that period is a lot going on. Yeah, Rome is an incredibly complex society. And lots of stuff is happening at once. And now we, we even better understand how climate was also crucial in all of this. Yeah, how in fact the Roman Empire was really. Really benefited from a period of of mild fertile climate in the Mediterranean, which ended roughly in the fourth of its centuries when we had this hideous shift. So climate change. That's work. We're not getting off.

But we're supposed to still be like nice to see. Thank you very much. First time we saw each other. We was at the Lucy cake concert here in town after which I had a a urinary emergency.

I thought I'm really, way we we I decided not to take a pee after the show because the lines were so long and then we couldn't find a car and then we were halfway to fucking Virginia, but it's time couldn't find it was so I had to I shouldn't confess to a crime on the air. But anyway, somebody, something took a, a, a, a, a pounding from my bladder. Anyway, Eli, we're going to briefly talk about your bio because you've been here before, but it's not your parents. Well, my, my mother who is still alive taught French and Spanish and high school, but she was also constantly educating herself.

“Well, she got a master's and that's what's I think on a master's plus 60, but she applied one year for a, I think I made share this before a Rockefeller grant.”

Right, where she studied in the Pyrenees with the Basics and learn the Bascline, which she grew up though. She grew up in Philadelphia like I did. Okay, so my father, so we're, we, and I guess I would make me second generation because their parents emigrated from Ukraine. Well, the Gallo settlement was known to pale, the border lines and Lake at one point was lacquer neck, but it was shortened in the emigration process. As it, as it is, if you have a thought of going back to Lacanic, that would be kind of like a pretty hot, a pretty hard core Eli, like, is a great writer's name.

It's like, very, I, so I kind of, I'm stuck with it.

It's great. It's really simple. Yes, it's got three syllables. You'll always remember at Eli is a very right.

“And it's, and it's like you hear it and you're like, oh, Jewish first name, why?”

Second name. No, you think you look, oh, no, they obviously fix that. Yeah. Maybe John Stuart, maybe not, maybe not. Oh, right. Not, if not related to the Scottish Monics, if any way far as one can tell.

When did you first think about as a kid, really? What were the first things that you were told about Israel?

I'm just curious as to, as to the environment in which you go up because I do think that some of the things that that are not working in our nationalists, because you don't fully understand the full context of where people are coming from. And they come from very different places and they're going to arrive at different conclusions on that.

“So I just want to get a better sense of what were you taught? How did you grow up to think of this, it's a foreign country?”

It's a long way away. How did that come up in your childhood and adolescence and education? Well, my parents were on the left. And we grew up in the neighborhood in Philadelphia called Germantown, which was, they were many co-ops. There was, and it was actually, it was very nice. Like all the parents would get together and they would put on like Halloween shows. And I did not go to a traditional, we didn't belong to a traditional synagogue.

We were secular humanists, which is a version, a kind of god-optional version of Judaism.

Yeah, my bar mitzvah was not traditional anyway. You would kind of give up a presentation of talk.

“And so I gave a talk on Jewish perspectives on nuclear proliferation.”

What? Yes, at 13. And I was, it was very left and you have like a mentor. Oh, that's exactly the scratch of the record. So what have you been taught up to the age of 13 that has you able to give a lecture about Israel and non-cliffe. But wasn't Israel and non-cliffe?

I was doing the Reagan administration. It was like, you know, I was parroting at the time. I was talking points about the need for direct negotiations with the Kremlin. So, you know, this, this would have been 1985. So it was right before a piece of comic in the war.

I did the Cold War. But at the same time, I went to a summer camp called Camp Galileo, which you can probably guess from the name, was both part of the labor Zionist tradition. So this is something that we're telling you about the name.

It was for the land, for the Galileo and Israel.

Okay. Okay. So these are, these are, this is part of something called Habanim Dwarr. They still exist. It's a, these are Kibut's model camps in America. Where, you know, it's a strong emphasis on, of course, a kind of Zionism.

But it's, it's, it's the Zionism of, you know, David Ben Gurian and not, you know, one of, you know, one of, one of my personal heroes, Monarch and Bagan. So it's not the revisionist Zionism. It's a, it's teaching in the words of Hitchens, teaching Jews to be farmers. Something like that.

No, no, it's true, actually. So that we all had, I mean, I'll just to give you an example. The, the, there were two things that were very much emphasized, not just Israel's Zionism, but also collectivism. So if you, you know, I don't know if you went to sleep away camp when you were a kid.

So when you go to sleep away camp, your parents send care packages.

But this became known as Kupah, which was shared with the rest of the book. So nobody, so your parents sending you, you know, cookies or candy or whatever, was not your personal property. He put into a collective pool for your book. So, you know, and, and the, and the books were, you know, there was Boney, which is builders

or co-tream or rowers, it was all emphasis. And why is the idea of workers and physical labor? Why is this in a foreign language? Uh, that's Hebrew, yeah. You're in Philadelphia.

Correct. The camp, we, we didn't speak Hebrew. Okay. We had, but it just, it was the name of the camp. It was okay.

It's part of the labor Zionist movement. And it's, and it's, it is a, And that's still going on in the 80s.

“Yes, and it's, I think it's might still be going on now.”

I don't know if it still exists now. But I know that, I, and weirdly, I didn't kind of getting back to the theme of my barbids, but I became completely freaked out by the day after and threads. You must remember that. Yeah, that was a lot of people was scared.

So I was like convinced them, I was going to be some nuclear hot. I mean, I was, I was, I was, you know, I, So I couldn't stop talking about it. And I was, for that reason, unpopular in the camp. And, but let's go swimming on a rope.

Well, Eli wants to talk about the non-properation treaty in the mean one. Me too. There's a little, there's a little gathering over there for the NPT people. Right. There's, there's, we of one, right.

So, so yeah, so this was, and, and then looking back at it, it was, it was, I would say there were all kinds of levels of indoctrination, but not just Zionism is a very left-wing indoctrination. So that we had, you know, I mean, we had an activity one day. I remember it was stock market day where we were told the camp was being taken over by a corporation

and you all get shares in the camp. And they set up a stock thing. And of course, all values of the shares crashed. And we were told, speaking of Kupai, should say, that was what you could redeem your certificates for at the end. And, you know, these are, you know, these are like nine, ten, eleven, twelve,

they went your own.

“Don't you need to, you in a little bit of a little bit of a couple of times.”

So then, yes, and then at one point, it's all worth nothing. And then there are break up discussion groups and say, what have we learned? Anyway, that's a, this is a real thing. Good God. Yeah, no, I mean, and it's interesting as you, as you go back and you realize,

that there's a lot of, you know, summer camp is can be quite political, not just for, not just for Zionist Jews. But as I said, it was the Kibut's model. And you wouldn't call yourself a red diaper baby. You were more like a piece that could hit me baby.

Yeah, I mean, we, but we, I mean, I grew up where we had people, we had neighbors who went to Nicaragua and stayed with Sandinist as it came back and told us about, you know, the Civil War in Nicaragua and the evils of the contours and things like that. So well, I was embedded in the new republic, writing about why the contours need to be supported.

Yes. You were not in the same position as I was. And no, I mean, I was a little Latin, a lot. I wasn't for the country. I mean, but it was one of the very earliest things that new republic.

But everyone else did. On retrospect, I do agree with the contours, but okay. Right. Like I'm going back. We can imagine that in 1985, the new republic is not,

it was actually this scondal that the new republic came out and door stage the contours. Right. Right. It was like, at the time, you could see cartoons and the Washington Post of people being

directed to the contours section of a restaurant and the anti-contour section. Right. That was the, that was the polarisation of that period. So here's, here's the question. It's a very basic quick cut to the chase.

How then does a piece Nick hippie become such a ferocious defender of the state of Israel

“and a defender of war, the wars that you believe in necessarily to defend the state of Israel?”

How did that transition happen? I'm just curious as to when that began to happen, when you began to. Well, I think it's a process. I mean, one thing I noticed in the early 90s when I was an undergraduate was that I came into college identified as very much on the left.

I mean, you could dig this up if you went through the Trinity newspaper, the tripod archives. They wrote a column. What's called why I'm a socialist? There's nothing like it's so weird. There's so many people, so many of cones who once wrote essays like that.

Sure. Well, I think I'm one of the last of them. Well, it was a tradition though.

The younger, like my friend Matt Kahnetti never went through this base.

I've talked to him about it. Like he never went through it. Okay, but it's also some of it's of age. I mean, I'm 53. So I actually have a memory of what it was like to live in a world with a Soviet Union,

to understand the ideological conflict and to be around people who still had, who believed in the idealism of socialism. And then I think a big part of it was kind of living through the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. So that kind of cured you've left.

Yeah, but I want to say that there's, there's a difference though, because as being raised kind of on the Jewish laughter should say, one constant vigilance about the refuse next to Jews were not allowed to leave the Soviet Union. The Tantra landscape was a hero in my household. It deservedly so.

Absolutely. He's one of the, one of the great figures in my view of the 20th century. And then I think there was also this, this sense about Israel where you really begin to see it I think after the '67 War, particularly the European left, but then by the 90s when I'm in college, I was uncomfortable, I become uncomfortable with the direction of things. I thought it was not nearly as pronounced as it is today about where if you wanted to be a good standing

member of the left, you kind of had to be anti-Zionist or against Zionism. But I also, in the 90s, wouldn't it be more expressed as support for the Palestinians and anti-Zionism? I think the bulk of it didn't want to, okay, wanted a two-state solution. I would say that.

“Well, that's what we're going to say right once we have the beginning of this two-state solution.”

I supported it in the 90s, like as many people did. The two-state solution was supposed in 1947. It's a lot older than that. Well, sure, no. Arguably was proposed in the Peel Commission for that, even.

But my point is that once you had renewed emphasis on it after the Madrid conference, and then obviously Oslo, like everybody. I mean, it was a weird thing because I come to Washington in '94 at the end of '94. I mean, I'm sure you remember this. I was not writing about it at the time, but like everybody was pretty much.

I mean, who were the whole doubts? There were a few, I guess. But you know, you had a pack briefing conservative think tanks on the importance of Oslo, you know, solution. Well, I just remember a moment in your public where

Charles Farmer wrote a column, and this is why the Palestinians will never

assure this that and the other. And the day before it went to press, they did. That's right. It's a scramble. I just remember that particular moment.

Charles was right. The first time it seemed as though we can get into that.

“Well, you could tell, honestly, the money at the time was also, you could feel just”

horrified at the idea of peace in the Middle East. It's like, this is, well, no, I'm, I'm not being a little facetious there, obviously. But the idea of this might be settled in some tube to stay solution really unnerved. I think a lot of Israel supporters at that point. I don't know about, well, okay.

You know, it's hard for me to say because. Well, I just heard them. I don't know. I heard them. You were there at the New Republic.

But listen to the conversations. And this was, there was. 9/11 was my kind of, I'm like a post 9/11 new Republic. So I don't, I wasn't in that period. I was not, I wasn't in that world.

I was covering, I was a newsletter reporter covered general EPA. So the majority of liberal Jews was psyched about the US. How to collage.

And it was a huge breakthrough.

But there was a faction quite clearly quite deep that saw.

“So a wrong, especially as, as the future enemy.”

And, well, Robin, the, the, the great, you know, the martyr. I could, you could say of of Oslo. Was absolutely ringing the alarm about Iran. Iran and its proxies in Lebanon. And it's.

And it's a must. And it's a must. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a lot of joy. And these were organizations that were. Also against the peace process on the, you could say the behest of Iran.

And, and he, because for obvious reason, Iran was a real rival to Israel in the region. It actually has the potential to be a real, you know, it's a big country. It's got a big economy. It's a serious player.

“If they are dedicated to to hostility towards Israel, it's a problem for Israel.”

Well, yeah, I would slightly say it as we're going to get into our disagreement soon. But I would say the problem with, because, you know, in this period officially Saudi Arabia was also against the recognition of any Jewish state. And in a serious way, not in, I mean, in Syria, it is now. But I mean, we know that there's enormous cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia. There's a kind of secret alliance.

But in that period of the 1990s, this was still the aftermath of, what it knows, the three knows after the six day war from all of the Arab states. No peace, no recognition. There's another one, which is not occurring to me right now. I feel embarrassed.

But there was a sense, let's say in the mid 90s, late 90s, that the threats to Israel were coming from Iraq, Iran, and Iran's proxy. So when you, you go back and see that document, the clean break document, which was a sort of near conservative document from 96. Let's discuss. Yes.

Well, I'd say, let's discuss, because there you have it. You have this grand strategy. Is it? There's let me finish. Okay.

Let's just explain what this is.

“Grand strategy from Israel that we have, the problem with Iraq, which you need to get rid of, because it's an Amazon.”

But we mainly have the problem of Iran.

That's a third, but Syria was another place they wanted to deal with.

So they came up with a strategy of absolutely fucked the Oslo Accords that their non-starter assumed that they're not going to work. Now we need to aggressively clean break from Oslo. That's what that was the context, that's what they meant by clean break. In order to really create a more resilient Israel that was strategically much more secure, militarily much more secure, and could do what it wanted in the occupied territories.

Well, that was its core, because they also wanted to populate the occupied territories to take them over at some point. I have to go back. I have not read the Clean Break promo for many years, but I remember writing about it, because it's a big story in the aftermath of the Iraq war. And the argument was, and you see it now revived by people like Dave Smith, the comedian podcaster, that this was the road map, and low and behold, look all these countries were taken out.

I have to say it doesn't, like, it's kind of ridiculous, because the Iraq war was explicitly about the failure of Saddam Hussein to comply with all of the previous UN Security Council resolutions,

having to do with disarming after the first call for, as you know.

And I don't think anybody's saying that this document was every government officially America referred to it every time. No, no, no, no, no, no one's saying that. No, no, neither am I saying there's some grand plot here. Oh, no, no, I might obvious from the 90s on was there was a, it's not an Israeli document. It is a, it's a US document. It's not, it's a think tank document. Right. Okay. It's the product for a new American century. Yes. And some of

those people, is that Israeli or is that American or is it come off? Can you tell the difference? It's Americans who have a view of the Middle East that are defense intellectuals or policy intellectuals. And some of those people like David Worms or Paul Wolfwitz went into the next administration, but that does not, you know, I, every time this brings up just to give you a sense, at the same time the product for a new American century was writing, you know, issued the Clean

Break memo. Dick Cheney was the CEO of Haliburton, and he was part of a, I don't, of a group business interest called USA Engage. And his, and that think that organization had a policy prescription that said, let's lift every sanction on all of these countries because more American

overseeing policies that were the opposite of that many ways. So I don't know what, you know,

“it's, it's very kind of date and time specific. I think it was a reflection of the”

undeniable connection between authoritarian regimes and the support of terrorism as a tool of safe state crap. And I think it was addressing those things again. I have not read it in a long time. No, I'm not trying to, I would have, I would have, I'm just trying to say that there was a faction, it's called the faction, that clearly saw the possibility of a settlement of the Palestine situation as a threat. They did all they could to undermine the peace process and also, and

and wanted a strategy whereby, as I said, Israel would eventually knock out all of its owners. Well, I would come, I would come, become supreme in the region. I would, I would counter on that as well, because one of the, I mean, the Israeli Prime Minister for two years in the 90s, Benjamin Nanyahu, who who emerges after a wave of terrorist attacks following this assassination of Rabine, and you have the liquid government. You know, he's somebody who's on the Israeli right,

and the Israeli right is sort of skeptical of Oslo, but he ends up as Prime Minister. Even though I know you're going to mention, he said something that was recorded to some supporters at one point

“in, like 2001 or something, but he ends up signing the Why River Accord. Well, what was that?”

Is that he said? What he said is we can move the American public or something, whatever. However, I will, that's just a, that's okay. Putty in my hand. Listen, why would he say politicians say all kinds of things that you're talking to. I don't believe, by the way, and we'll get into this, that Israel can do that, and I think there's plenty of examples of recent and, you know, recent history and lots of recent history of Israel, not getting one at once,

and we can, we can kind of list them, including under Trump. But the point is, is that he, as Prime Minister, signs the Why River Accords, and is still very much within the Oslo paradigm, and so that when he is, he loses the election in 99 to A. Who'd Barack, Barack has an Oslo peace process that he then tries to kind of finish the deal. And so when you're talking about enemies of peace, or people who wanted to get rid of it, I mean, I think we have to then

also count Yasser Arafat in that equation, who does not ever give a counter offer in, you know, as A. Who'd Barack gives, according to Bill Clinton, and almost everybody with the exception of Rob Malley, who was a junior guy in that, in the peace team, the most attractive offer that

“Israel could possibly give. And even if you want to say, well, that's still not good enough,”

but there was no counter offer at the Second Camp David talks from Arafat. And then what's worse

is that then this is followed by what's known as the Second Interfata of which I don't, we can, we can debate about, I don't, I don't want to get into whether it was planned, but it was certainly Arafat did not use his influence to try to reign it in. I can't say there were plenty of factions. Yeah, more dominant actually on the Palestinian side than on the Israeli side, they didn't want a two-state solution to work. Right, that's the, that's including about the leader of

of the chairman of the Palestinian Authority and the president. And I don't think Netanyahu ever, ever, but even at the start of his career thought a two-state solution was where he he personally wanted Israel's to go, but, but look, there are differences of opinion within Israel on this. Yeah, well, okay, what I'm saying is that Arafat was attacked by Sherone in the post-Beroch elections for his agreement to kind of, I guess, codisels or addendums to the Oslo agreement.

Notice the Y River Accords. He was painted as somebody who was not a true opponent of the two-state solution as Sherone was Mr. Security. And that had a residence with Israeli voters

during this horrific period known as the second-in-to-fata in the aftermath of the ashes of of Oslo.

Now, do I think that Netanyahu desperately wants the two-state solution and understands that issue of the way? Of course he doesn't. He doesn't agree with it. He doesn't think it's particularly important. He's in top part, he just isn't. Correct. However, there, but I would also listen there if you would also point out that much like Trump, Netanyahu is also ideologically quite flexible. So when Americans elected Obama that made the peace kind of trying to

revive the peace negotiations, or two-state solution, a priority, you got pretty much a compliant netanyahu. I'm not kidding you. I'm 100% sure there's a bigger number of problems. The four

just to make sure that the atmosphere was poisoned as possible, then they spend the time. I sat there

“in a light. They did all they could to prevent. You think he just did it because you think he did”

it because Obama was elected or you think he did it because there was again another rocket war that was launched by Hamas. Hamas was in the middle. Because the commitment to settling the West Bank to occupying it annexing and making it part of Israel is fundamental to Benjamin Netanyahu. And any two-state solution would prevent that. He has been dedicated. He said so himself to killing the two-state solution. He's entire political career. Okay, so when...

So let's not talk about him when Obama went Obama. I mean just let me just say this because this is where my patience began to really run dry with my Israelis. Obama comes in after this catastrophe in Iraq War. And want to with great public support, reorient us to get us slightly built balance in the Middle East. And the Israelis do everything they can to destroy that president and that president. Oh come on. They absolutely did it. I know they did not. With my own eyes.

Absolutely not. I 100% disagree. The first term of Obama you have... When does the foreign I know this country's president come to the US Congress to rally the Congress against the sitting president of the United States? Okay, you're mixing apples and oranges and andres. So let's just talk about two different things. We started talking about Oslo and we started talking about a two-state solution. And the historical record supports this.

You can look up his Barylon University speech which was given under the pressure of the Obama administration. And you could also see that he agreed to a settlement freeze in order to get

Mahmood Abbas to come to the table. All of that is true. Mahmood Abbas by the way never really

came to the table. But let's leaving us now then you're talking about the second term and you're talking about an Iran deal which he absolutely was trying to sabotage because he saw it

“as a disaster for Israeli security. And those are I think two very different things. I do not think”

it was a matter of Israel trying to destroy Obama's presidency. I think it was Israel saying that or Netanyahu and I think it was Netanyahu clearly looking at what was being negotiated without Israel at the table and saying that this is a death warrant for us. This is the term sabotage. When does an ally sabotage another ally? You did. You did. You think but didn't you first use it? No. Okay. Maybe check the tape. Okay. I would say he said it was the fact that we all assumed

that happened. Okay. He did try and sabotage it and I'm just asking. So we're talking about the Iran deal. Yes. We're talking about JCPOA. We're talking about the successful achievement of Iran agreeing not to be a danger to us with respect to nuclear weapons out clearly Netanyahu was terrified that there might be a more balanced American approach to the Middle East in which we might actually be able to balance the Sudanese and the Shiites.

And we wouldn't, or in time, Middle East and policy wouldn't be entirely premised on ending the two-state solution. No. No. What Israel and not just Israel, but many good-faith patriotic American critics of this particular deal argued was that you went into these negotiations trying to neutralize an ill-begotten and illegal nuclear program, an industrial size nuclear program, and you ended up with a deal where Iran was able to keep its ill-begotten

nuclear program in exchange for a promise not to build weapons. And that itself was hardly

a guarantee that they wouldn't. But the rest of the world of the revolutionary regime

was also, again, is that lies constantly and violates all kinds of other diplomatic agreements. And so the idea that you would allow them to keep their mass banks of centrifuges. You have provisions in them from when they can upgrade their centrifuges. And not only that, you lift the limits after 15 years or 10 years, in some cases, to the amount of low-end rich uranium they can have, which gives them-- I know that wasn't good enough for Israel, but certainly good enough for

“America. I don't think it was good enough for anybody. Well, I think it was, I'm saying,”

I know, in the process that deal throws out. You know, the understanding that other American allies who wanted nuclear energy, like the United Arab Emirates, the old deal was that you can have

exemption for the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world that, by the way, right after,

I want to just make a nuclear agreement. We would never make an exemption for the NPT for anybody,

would we? Well, Israel hasn't signed in the NPT. Oh, that's the-- that's the-- that's not why they haven't signed? That's your rhetorical slide of hand. But our rhetorical slide of hand-- these people have an illicit, and when nuclear bomb-- they say you can sign the nuclear non-proython from the other point of view. The belief-- I mean, you wrote your bomb, it's the essay on the non-plifricity. Here is one of the biggest violators of the non-proyricity. And you could say

the non-evilator gradient sign it, but that's a completely similar. Well, there's another important to stay on a nuclear-- they developed a nuclear bomb. Yes, thanks to American desires and will. Well, and available. And also, let me just do it. Under the law, the United States is not allowed to sell arms to people who have illicit nuclear weapons. Okay, that's-- then we have another little pass to make that an exemption. Now, I just-- there's a-- there's a-- there's a-- there's a--

there's a-- there's a lot of-- there's a lot of-- there's a lot of-- there's a lot of--

have we had any-- it's a brilliant achievement that nuclear illicitly nuclear armed Israel never gets

“calls on it in this country. Ever? Yes. There's a reason for that. What's the reason for that?”

Well, it goes back to the Nixon administration and the aftermath of the six-day war, which is when Israel most people believe mastered it's-- I always like to say Israel went nuclear somewhere between Sergeant Pepper and the White album. But there was an agreement-- those are days that Elon knows very well. Anyway, I'm not-- I'm wearing a dropout of his wearing a t-shirt of John and Yoke for God's sake. Yes. In their-- in their-- in bad repairs. Yes. Okay, I'm wearing a t-shirt

that says "grumpy daddy." Yeah. We're now both grumpy daddy's. I'm getting grumpy. But under under-- under Richard Dixon, a secret agreement between Nixon and gold to my heir who was the prime minister, that Israel

would never announce publicly that it had a nuclear program. But of course, everybody-- I mean,

the Americans knew there's a series of how the world became to know, but like, you know, probably-- Israel's Arab neighbors understood by the 73 war. And the world knew because of

“more than five in A&U who was the defector who talked, I think, at the time of London and gave an”

interview saying he worked on the nuclear weapons program. My point here is that it was in America's interest at that point once Israel had the nuke for that Israel would not be-- was it declared nuclear power at that point? Why? Because then you avoid the potential for an open arms race in the Middle East. Well, surprise. Surprise. Yes. I mean, if someone in a region acquired a nuclear weapon, the people in the region like Jesus Christ, only one country has a nuclear weapon. They can

do what the fuck they want, because they have a veto. What we need to do, obviously, someone has to get a balance to this. Is that the entire argument of non-proliferation? No. So Israel went ahead unilaterally. Correct. Unilaterally altered tremendously the balance of power in the Middle East. Yes. By getting a nuclear weapon, and then asked the United States to make sure no one else ever in the region ever gets one to balance them. Well, no. I think the fuck could we do that.

United States. No. Israel acquired a nuclear weapon because all of its neighbors, since its inception, have tried to destroy it and said so openly. And so when it's developing a nuclear weapon, literally all of its neighbors, ironically, not Iran, because it has good relationships with Shah, the Muhammad Shah, the father of Resopalavi. But the point is that, of course, they developed a nuclear weapon because they needed to have the ultimate kind of deterrent. But instead of having

a situation where Israel was an open and so layered nuclear power, what you had is the sort of understanding that it would not acknowledge that it had nuclear weapons, because then that was sort of the best they could do. And that, by the way, can you have in favour of an answer? No, I mean, even after no reason. Oh, no. Go back to the first thing I said. The reason that it was failed is because from its inception, the state of Israel was the, all of its neighbors have pledged

“to try to destroy it. Sure. Sure. Okay. Okay. So that's why. Yes. So why, but by the same argument,”

why can't Iran have a nuclear weapon? Because no one's pledging to try to destroy Iran, including Israel, I'm sorry, we don't know what anybody will do. The whole point, the whole point, this is the whole point you, you can't possibly think that the point of having a nuclear weapon is mutually assured destruction. We tolerate the Chinese Communist having a weapon. We had

of course. But actually, I'm not sure it would have been a great thing if only one country in the

“world had nuclear weapons forever. I think it would be a very destabilizing thing. Well,”

I'm a great, but, but, but I think if you have only one country in a volatile region like the Middle East, that is nuclear arms, all the other countries are going to feel extremely vulnerable. And it is entirely reasonable for them to take extra measures to make sure they're on the only way to be protected when you have a threatening nuclear power. There's talking about, by the way, the way that he's ready to talk about what they're going to do to the regime is to get your

own nuclear weapon. I mean, it's a perfectly, I'm for the United States. Israel has from the United States point of view. There are two possible obstacles to ability in that region. One is to allow someone else to get a nuclear to balance it out. All the other is to do the unthinkable, which says tell Israel, if you don't get rid of the nuclear weapon, we're withdrawing our support

for you. Okay, except, no, except, is first of all, it doesn't work that way. We don't,

why doesn't it work that way? Israel's not a satropy of America. I mean, that's the first thing. It has its own, why are we giving it? Why do we, why do we, why do we, why do we, we can talk about this in another segment, but I'm, I'm, I'm when we actually get to the Iran war. So maybe, you know, you can, you can, you can posit here for the non-paying listeners, I guess, but, but the, the point is, I would agree at this point that I would end this up today.

I would completely change the dynamics of the relationship. I would like Israel as back. I like it all paid back.

“I think Israel is paying it back, Andrew.”

We are the interests. I mean, I mean, you know, Israel absolutely is paying it back. This is like a thing. When you think of Trump, thanks to me. You think of Israel as a boat anchor?

Israel is the best ally militarily that America has right now.

It's an absolute per second.

Okay, Trump is basically breaking up NATO because they're not doing their fair share. He's demanding pay back for all of it. With Israel, it's like, how much more money can I give you? Why? Why is this a difference between his relationship to a NATO ally like Germany's or Poland who

have to cough up their own money to do all of this. And he actually almost breaks up NATO for that principle. But when it comes to Israel, it's like, how much money do you need? All right, what's the first of all? I'm not entirely sure that I would say that.

I agree with you that his reckless and insane brief and hopefully, hopefully brief and no more fixation with Greenland was an embarrassment as an American. So, I remember you wrote very passionately about that, but I would just say that you're putting me in a weird position because I don't think the Trump is necessarily trying to destroy NATO.

I think what Trump is trying to say is you are announcing on America to defend Ukraine from Russia. When Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a direct security challenge to you and you are not footing the bill. And there are deeper questions here Andrew about the readiness of European militaries even, and the ability for Europe to project power in a situation like even on its own

continent that from a hard power analysis is a problem. Then I'm saying now, let's compare to Israel.

“First of all, you have to look at the fact that Israel in the last 20 or so years has become”

a leader in just because it encompasses so many things what's called defense tech innovation. So in that respect, I'll just give you one example. As I'm sure you've followed in the Iran war right now, we are facing a kind of terrible math problem. It's cheaper to make ballistic missiles than it is to produce interceptors for our missile

defense systems and we and the cupboard is bare and we cannot help defend Ukraine and Israel and Saudi now and Qatar and the Gulf States and also have enough interceptors for any eventual problem we might have in the Pacific with China. All of that is a problem that defense nerds have been writing about now for the last few years, but nobody should know it's a serious issue.

Israel has developed a technology known as the Iron Beam which shoots out missiles with a laser which is far more cost-efficient.

What is in Israeli technology that will the first person in line is America to use for now.

Trump has a lot of bad ideas, I think one of his good ideas is something he calls golden dome which is this missile defense for America. If you could have missile defense for America that used Israeli laser technology like Iron Beam, then that's an example of how Israel is paying back with its enormous innovation

kinds of innovations that Israel's done that will keep American America's military at the leading edge and with the qualitative and quantitative advantage over its rifles. So you're saying they're more important than NATO allies than they would have said

that I would not have had their own troops for first of all, I'm sure Israel would have

sent its troops to die if they were asked, but of course for reasons that we both understand they were not sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. But the point is, that Trump is prepared for countries that have sent their own sons and daughters to die in coercion forces countries that have been allied with the United States.

He's still better say you're still not paying enough, you're still not doing your fair share and it is not even any point imaginable that he could ever say such a thing to these railways. We have an example that because Netanyahu publicly said he'd like to face out the military aid and Trump objected to it.

Now what? No, let's get to what? What?

“Why is this country why every rule break for this one place?”

Why would Trump object to it?

Now without getting into kind of conspiratorial reasons for that, I think there is one reason for it, which I don't think by the way, is a good one because we are fundamentally in agreement that Israel should give up the subsidy. That is my position. I know what's talking about that substantive question.

I'm talking about double standards. Okay. I'm giving you in which I'm telling you. I'm understanding. Why?

Unless. I'm making some bizarre exception for this country. I'm not making a bizarre answer to it. The vast majority of money that Israel spends through that subsidy is spent on American Carmen.

This is also so what? Well, so why?

I can pay for it themselves.

Sure.

“Why have we been paying it for them for so long?”

We don't do that for anybody else. I think that we pay for it. Why did Chuck Schumann say, I am, my job is Senate Majority Leader of the United States, and my job is to get a Israel. He's just outright, so that's his number one, one of his number one jobs.

Okay. Okay. Until very recently, Israel was in a very precarious position where it was, again, before The Abraham Accords, you could argue, I mean, the subsidy really starts in earnest as part of the Camp David Accords from at the end of the 1970s.

I don't want to get. No, but I'll say there's a subsidy point. Wait, wait a second. Wait, wait a second. Wait, wait a second.

Wait, wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second.

Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second.

Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. years, but I'm saying that that was originally baked into the pretty remarkable peace agreement that was negotiated the one great accomplishment of the Carter administration, you know, only six

years after the 1973 war. So that was part of, as you know, being a former citizen of the United Kingdom, that often subject of the United Kingdom that oftentimes, one of the tools of diplomacy,

“especially forgetting peace agreements, is a bit of a bribe. I believe it was a called King”

George's Calvary is the name of it like readjust. Yeah, because that means you're nothing else for Israel. We don't really end up with a bribe that I understand to go to peace. Again, not drive them. It was part of the agreement. All the bribe. Well, I'm saying it's part of the terms of the agreement. Again, it's, it's. Look, Israel, I'm trying to get a good deal. Let's put it that way. They you can not only do they do, do they do they do they, I feel like I'm not really

throwing my back in because I don't support the subsidies. So it's like, you know, way away with you, I agree with you that they should, I'm happy to be with you, but I also think that like there's, and then again, the investment, if you will, pays off and that we have this remarkable ally that is developed all these technologies that are incredibly valuable, again, are right, that sales pitch, many, many telling me about that sales pitch. That's, that's a serious argument. I just gave you

very specific. And I, example, I can take advantage of your demand argument. All right, I agree. And you say that they're doing more better work in advancing a military technology than say, Germany or Britain. All right, we say they are. And then why don't, frankly, I don't succeed, you know, the answer to that. But anyway, we're not that far apart. I just think that most Americans, looking at all this, and this is what's been happening last few years, I was just thinking

of to say, wait a minute, so many of these things are sort of an exception in this case. And you are, and I used to say, they're not. They're beginning to figure this out. They're like, well, why are we paying for that defense? We're not paying for NATO. We don't pay them. In fact, we're asking more from the, anyway, I'm just saying that that is a part of what's going on. Two more

in countries like Korea, Japan, Germany, etc. Is a kind of a subsidy in that is in contributes

to the defense of those countries, and yet it's never spoken about in those terms. So this I also

would say is more of a narrative of all the money that we know occupying is. A superpower. So you think, okay, it's part of being a superpower, okay? It's a different arrangement to have, you know, our forces, garrison in Germany than it is to simply pay for part of the Israeli defense budget. But I'm just saying it is, this is what, you know, to, to, to, to quote James Brown, the cost to be the boss that this is part of being a global power. And again, a lot of it, almost all of it is

spent on American stuff. So that affects our economy. It's, it's good for our, to, to have, you know, if you're building. If they can pay for it, yeah, well, we are an agreement in the end that they can pay for it, okay? But I just, I'm interesting to kind of like, you know, what are the odds of them paying for in the next 10 years? I hope that it, as, I would say, the demonstration of the two air forces working kind of as co-equal allies in the war at least is an example of why it should end as soon as

“humanly possible. I would like to have it end as soon as possible because Israel is, is, is, is this point a full ally?”

And then the other side of it's, but one one more thing that I think, I think, you like, this is my podcast. I'm very, but I just make one more thing, I'm going to move just one more thing to think about, and then I'll move on very quickly. For those who do not like Israel's policy, when you eliminate a subsidy like that, and Israel is no longer dependent on, I think, a quarter, or more of its defense budget being part of an American subsidy, that also provides less visibility

and less influence into Israel as a matter, of course. So there is a double-edged sword there that you also purchase a degree of influence and also visibility into Israeli military planning. It's, it's, you bring up the next topic. Okay. So the benefit is we have all this influence in Israel. Correct. Well, so, yeah. That is, this superpower that is primarily responsible for this country's survival, existence in many ways. I mean, not entirely, but it's, it's an underwriter.

“Okay. I think we can say that. And over the years, it's asked some things of the state of Israel,”

let's say a kid, right? Yeah. So obviously the nuclear stuff was not something the United States wanted. Well, that was before there was any subsidy whatsoever. I know, I know, I'm just who went now the relationship. Okay. I'm talking about, I'm talking about the, whether we have any influence there. Yeah. So we obviously were a key underwriter of there, existence when they, when they just told us to go for fuck ourselves and got themselves a nuclear bomb.

And certainly, we're not willing to give it up afterwards. The other question that we had was, you, we understand you defended yourselves in 674 and 73. And in many ways, many of us admired that defense. But what's happened is that you now occupy a bunch of territory that if you stay there,

means there will never be a two state solution. And therefore, do not do not change the

demographics of it to make it so that there are more Jews. And so that eventually you'll claim it as your own, because that is only going to fuel desperation. On the part of the Palestinians, it's going to give the sense that they have no chance whatsoever. It's going to make them more violent, terroristic. And, and it's also against the Geneva conventions that we understand and we do do not seize land and then populate it with your people so that you will get a majority,

so that you'll be able to control the area now. We've asked, we've asked that again and again, and again, and again, and again, and every single time they have told us to go fuck yourself, go fuck yourself, go fuck yourself. - No, they haven't. - Yes, they have. - How cruel they are. - Why is failing government participate in it? - Why is failing government participate in it? - How many settles are there now on the West? - I don't know, you tell me,

because if I don't know, why would you care? Do I don't know where the family has rail? - I don't know where the family has rail. - I don't know where the family has rail. I don't know where the weather was banked, because no one ever talks about the West Bank. - People talk about it all the time. - They do not. - Absolutely. - How much have we talked about it since this war where they were on started? - Not at all, but in fact, it's a brand opportunity. - Why don't we talk about it? - Okay, it's a war where they were on.

“- So this is the only thing I want to say. - My point is this, we have no influence.”

- That's not true. - If only influence we have is so pathetic to know none of the major issues in which we have disagreements.

- How much have we talked about? - How much have we talked about? - In his first term.

all the settlements from Gaza and then Hamas takes over. - I mean, you have to look at this from the

perspective. - I'm still talking about West Bank, you just say it's a subject. - Well, and they also dismantled five settlements in that process, known as disengagement under Sharon. After him, Ahood Omar gets to the point where he can offer at the end of the Bush administration another offer of a kind of final two-state solution and Abbas is either too weak or too ordinary and he

“and as that is rejected. Then there is this experience in the Israeli polity, which I think you”

have to account for, which is that every time they've withdrawn from territory like Gaza or for that matter Southern Lebanon, which happened Southern Lebanon, of course, happens at the end of the 1990s in 2000 and then Gaza happens in 2005-2006 and when that happens or 2005 rather, what replaces it? - Fanatics. - Armed fanatics. - As those who told people... - On behalf of everyone, you're going to radicalize them even further. - No, no, these, no, this is when they leave.

This is when they leave. So they get out of Gaza. It's briefly under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian Authority loses a legislative election to Hamas, Hamas, then says that they're going to take over Gaza. They do and they turn it into a military state and grant taking the entire population of Gaza hostage and launch a series of wars with Israel, did I, for Southern Lebanon, with Gaza? - That is an argument to keep it under, it's not an

argument to actually add population to it. When you say adding population to it, deliberately, I mean, I'm just listening to the people in the actual cabinet of the current Prime Minister, and again, no, you're not going to say that I don't agree with them. No, they are the government of Israel. - Okay. - And they are speaking for the government of Israel. And they say our goal is greater Israel, get rid of these Palestinians, get rid of these Arabs entirely. And they are engaging in

a policy upon believable harassment, violence, intimidation against people from their own lands in the West Bank. And it's, of course, it's something that any person in the world will say stop during this. My point is if we have all this influence, we've asked them to stop. How is it there now, four times as many people there as they were when this whole process started? And it's

now completely unstoppable. And the government itself says it's deliberate, it will never stop,

we will continue until we have a majority, and then these other people will just go somewhere else. - Well, there is a formula that is originally under Oslo, and conceivably, if you had a policy in leadership that was interested in actually ending the conflict, that there would be the equivalent of landswops, because you would have areas that were majority Jewish, and then you would have other parts of pre-67 Israel, and it could be an agreement. - The second point of the second line,

specifically in the second point, which I would not that. - The second point I would make is that what's your own proved in the mid-2000s? Was that Israel was capable of completely withdrawing, again, five settlements in the West Bank and every settlement in Gaza? And so that

“if there was a peace-office offer, I think it would be very painful. It certainly couldn't happen”

under this current political arrangement, but the good news about Israel is that they have lots of elections and things can turn. Now, my view is plainly, I want to say one of the levels said here. I think that's Smotric and Ben Gavier are Judeo-Fascists, and that frightens me, and I want to be totally open with you, because we're not just having a kind of formal debate, where I'm supposed to be taking this line, you're taking another side. So I want to

concede that when Netanyahu initially decided that he would allow himself to run with political parties inspired by the late Marqahana, I was completely against it, and I also thought it was a violation of the principles of the Lekud party, or the Lekud coalition, I should say, that was founded by Monak and Bacon. Monak and Bacon would leave the connecite when Kahana for his two years as member of connecite spoke as a kind of protest, because he did not believe in

“that kind of thing. Now, I would like for at a certain point, and I think it's quite possible that”

you could see any number of scenarios. In fact, we saw it in 2021, I think, is the year when we saw

the kind of unity government that included the first Arab party, Monster Abbas, that actually

was part of the ruling coalition, so it's quite possible that you could see another majority in its Fakakda electoral system, and you would see, you know, Gavir and Smotric, and that crowd

to do things, I need to say that I'm with you. There is no question to my mind that Israel

“is the most functioning good place in the Middle East to be and to live. And there is no question”

in my mind that it is an astonishing, staggering achievement. And no question in my mind that that they technologically help us in terms of the military, or that for the most part, the intelligence, too. That's where I'm going to talk about. I don't trust these people any further than I can throw them. So yes, it's as far as they tell us the intelligence they have, and probably withhold

other intelligence they have, sure, but they're not going to ever act in our interests and never have.

And I despise him most. I do think the Palestinian leadership has been remarkably stupid and counterproductive. Okay. Great. All those things. Wow. And I also believe as you know, that's right here. What happened on September 7 was an absolutely horrifying thing. I said so at the time. I was genuinely personally horrified by it. And all those, I've never, I've always grew up, brought to be a believer and a friend of the port of Israel. It is the last 20 years that

“I've just had enough. So I'm in this relationship. I'm done. And I think a lot of us here are done.”

The polling will tell you, I'm not the only one who's sick to death of this stuff the way they're

trees. And the, the sound of this stuff really is to me, by far the most important because it is

not much to ask, just don't add to them. And they just refuse. And yes, when, in addition to that, we've seen them publicly define the purpose of this in terms of what Gavir and Smurcher have been saying, it is truly disgusting. And it becomes very difficult for us to support a lot of country and call them Western when they are engaged in that kind of rhetoric and that kind of ethnic cleansing campaign. It's just, and when I see that there's nothing we've been able to do

to get that to stop that, that's when I'm like, okay. So I'm like, this is what we have to

cause it's a fox like. Okay. We did that. We done that. We've done that. We've worn two years ago.

We had that. Let's get to it. Let's say that nonetheless, I do think that Israel owes us one for that just to a great say. Without the United States, fucking arms, the bombs that we gave them, fair. Or diplomatic cover, all the other shit. I would just take a little bit here, which is to say. And then you're not doing this. Okay. But one of the lazy memes that has come out, I'm not going to die in another war for Israel, which I have a lot of problems with, because what the Israelis

certainly, we gave them the arms that they needed. And we've held some arms in order to try to get them to do certain things, but fails. But the Israelis, how much is Israeli having that? Zero. But the Israelis fought a war. And the Israelis are flying with American air force, you know, side by side. We're, it's not a matter of, oh, go attack this country for us. It is

“very much of, I think, a joint project. And that's why when we saw what was happening Gaza,”

many of us felt personally and Americans, complicit, because the investment was such that even though we wouldn't have to war, we were funding and the war and giving the weapons and we had no say over it. And for many of us, I know we disagree about this, but for many of us, it was absolutely uncomfortable in its impact upon civilians. And I'm not going to have that argument again, but I'm just trying to show you that's how we see it. Okay. But you would also argue that, but so that

the war was started by him, of course. And wage in such a way where I would almost say that the civilian casualties were inevitable. Nothing is inevitable. But even you, that way, I'm not, we're not going to, we've discussed this in millions of years. I'm not going to, but I don't agree. The way, would you agree the way or the world agrees, Eli, just for a minute, just ask yourself, why no one agrees with you. I agree. And the only reason you can say the Indian Prime Minister

just came to Israel in a very, very poll, I mean, I could go to the list and he would say areas in which they don't cooperate with or saved nice things about Israel. I just did. Other people can but owning what they did there is it's, it's, it's a heartbreak and the end of our relationship with Israel, it will, I think, we'll see that in our relationship with Israel. I'm a patriotic

So anyway, as someone who loves our country, I hope that we can take you to have this fruitful

“partnership with us. We, I mean, I supported Israel's war against Gaza until it became quite”

obviously just complete, saturation, massacre. And we couldn't stop it. But nonetheless, I felt American, United States did its part. So then we get to the point where there's some remaining issues about the possibility of Iran's nukes. Okay, that's another legitimate question. Israel has that we, as their partners, support. So we then go the extra mile, join with them, in strikes upon these nuclear facilities, to remove that threat, which we are told by the President

himself has been removed, that it's been obliterated. So at that point, I'm like, "Well,

there we go. We're done. Thanks. Why else do they want? We've got the West Bank. We've got destruction of Gaza. We've got embassy moved to Jerusalem. We've got structural control of the

“ground. I think the embassy moved to Jerusalem in that bucket. I don't understand it.”

As things that Israel has gotten from us. Okay. But I don't understand why I'm just saying, okay. I'm just saying these are just what that's so, so like you, we care a lot about craftsmanship at breaking history. How things used to be made and whether that still matters today.

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It's a homicide. Absolutely. The blame game in this family went round and round. This is bloodesticker, the Ferris wheel. I would don't see how anyone can look at this story and think they were happy. Follow and listen to bloodesticker, the Ferris wheel on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. So what did we get back? What did we get back? Okay. No, he's going to say, no, okay. The fundamental is the one you want to be saying. Can you see the after

Iran, can you just see that he's the plan? I'm sorry. After all those things that we've given them including support and gossip, including all this aid, including getting rid of the new

“clear size, that even that was no enough. Oh, please. Oh, please. Okay. So I think you're more”

happy to be on it. Okay. Let's take a step back. I fundamentally disagree with you that disarming and defanging Iran and hopefully resulting in a regime change in Iran is exclusively and is rarely interest. It is an American interest 100%. And when you listed your or you're explaining, you know, that this is Israel's war, I found myself thinking to myself that you're leaving out lots of other people, including the American interest, just to why that it is

totally unacceptable to have an Iran and this particular regime with nuclear weapons. But they don't have nuclear weapons. But they were obliterating. Okay. So let's let's let's let's let's let's let's let it. Can we just okay. But let's let we just so them. But this is actually going to be really willing to address

I agree with your critique of the lack of any kind of process domestically, including going to

Congress. And we can that's a little bit more complicated because I'm going to say that that is an a norm that has eroded before Trump. Of course, under Obama, I might add as well as others. So

“but I think it was a mistake that you had 16 different reasons as to why we're doing the war and that”

different Trump would say something differently every day. I mean, this starts with why do you think he says something different every day? That's my question. Okay. Well, this is a deeper question. And I want to get back to it. I want to get back to our debate, but I'm happy to give you my excellent answer. I still want to have some idea why he's doing this. I think it goes back to the fact that as a young man Donald Trump was personal friends with and taken in with the flimflam of

Norman Vincent Peel, you know who he is, the power of positive thinking. This is something that Trump before he's a politician and he's just a developer is this idea that if you believe it, if you wish hard enough, it is a reality. And I get into this in a podcast I did. Okay. Where G is that because the man is a tell me why you think he went to war. Oh, okay. So let's get to the war part. But I'm saying if you wanted to why he's explanation keeps changing,

it's because he is a classic kind of bullshitter. He presents a panorama of even a reality he wants you to believe. Okay. That is partly true and partly false and what inserves whatever he wants it to be in the moment. Which of course is that incredibly good in wartime. Well, it's bad in wartime. I'm agreeing with you is it's bad in wartime. But my point is that that of my point is for someone else. Sure. But what's the real reason he went to war after we've

gotten rid of the nukes. Well, always the point. Okay. Because first of all, the Iranians say you are

giving the speech. You're a president right now. You're doing this the right way. You're actually certainly in the American planet. Before the fact, after with the bullcap, the four of the fact we obliterated the nukes. You can't retract that. We've said that very much on the right. We obliterated the nukes on this is why we have to go into an open-ended regime change war with Iran. This is what's happened since we got rid of those nukes that made me believe we need to do it.

“Okay. Well, I think the person who came closest to this was Marco Rubio. And what Marco Rubio”

said, which was not quoted when he was talking to the reporters and so forth, was that there, well, I think there was a belief during the 12-day war and Operation Middine Hammer, which I might add, the reason there was no risk to those B2 bombers is because these rallies had taken out all of the air defense systems. Let's just be straight with that. But the that there

was a belief that this was the regime would be demoralized. They could never get back to where they

were before. We'd taken out enough of the program. They wouldn't try to restart. Instead, what they were doing is rapidly building up their missile capabilities and stockpiles so that they would have what the phrase from Rubio was a conventional weapon shield in order to protect their nukes to eventually make the race for a nuclear weapon. So that was the art. So there

“was a gamble, I guess, in June, that such a demonstration of force would demoralize them and that's why”

he was, I think, trying to get a sort of agreement with them, no nuclear deal, no nuclear ever, nothing, nothing, nothing. And the Iranians themselves miscalculated and they said, no, we have an errand right to enrichment. We can do all this and it didn't work out. And that is why we went to war because he believed that war because of the conventional, the conventional arms. They could rebuild sufficiently at some point to protect a potential future nuclear program. That would make

them invulnerable because of the math problem we discussed earlier about interceptors and so forth. Well, they didn't make that a while. Obviously, in advance. In fact, it certainly made a bunch of different arguments. And it's only been one of many arguments they've made, so subsequently. So I, I just, well, you know, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, we do that. But then, then we have to ask ourselves how did it happen. Especially when we're talking about a Middle East regime change war,

which is not nothing in American political history. No. It has an actual lineage. It has probably one of the most decisive moments in American history in the 21st century when we went to war with Iraq, which is probably written about thought about more sure. I mean,

in the face of what I thought I knew, more cautious in the way that one throws ones of weight around

“in the world. Since then, we also had the experience of Libya, which was another catastrophe.”

And I, this is bipartisan. Obama, I, I did not give Obama an inch on this stuff. Either, you know, I, I'm not, I'm an equal opportunity bash around this thought. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. I agree. Now, someone in that administration didn't think he was a big deal. I won any response for you that I was re-weaved you that this is a big deal. So when we had a violation of the war powers act that we developed after Vietnam, and it is, oh, no, I said,

violation of the spirit of the war powers act. I want to say that. You could, I mean, yes. Okay. And I want to check out speaking the idea. This is a strike. This is a war. I mean, agreed. Is ludicrous. Okay. So I mean, you could not understand why some of us are mad that this is sprung on us in a way that what I, what I, what I, what I vigorously, what I'm saying is this is not about an imminent nuclear threat. There is no imminent nuclear threat. And here's my other point

that without that imminent nuclear threat, you would never have persuaded the American people.

You would never have persuaded the American Congress. You would have never have gotten support for this war. You don't have it any more. I'm not entirely sure, but let's, oh, here's my suspicion. Okay. These people know they can't win that. They also look and they see where the polling is going. They know this is their last chance. Well, okay. So they then go into a serious attempt to persuade the president, I just say, so this is, you're talking about has done enough. Yes. Okay,

don't know. Has done enough. There's a list of this. This is where I, I'm, I'm going to a part of it. And we know that, we know that Netanyahu visited him again and again. And again, we

“know that, that from every report, this was a key objective of these Israeli government to get us”

into this second war after the 12th day of war two to obliterate their conventional threat.

So, okay. So I, I just, fundamental point in which we were told that the implication here is that Trump was not strong enough or didn't have his own reasons to resist lead the, misled. What are you talking about? Do you really think misled with cough and charity, Kushner, ever going to be on this broke us with Iran? I don't think Iran was, do you think we're going to go change or ever change? Oh, we don't recommend going. All right. What does that have to do with anything? I would

say that your argument that it was Israel discounts the following. One, Iran is an enemy of the United States. It is killed Americans. It is killed Americans and has been an, a belligerent against the United States since it's founding as the Islamic Republic in the 79 Islamic Revolution. That's number one. We haven't gone to war every one. Correct. Number two, in the sense that there was an opportunity now that Iran's proxy network that it established in the Middle East, which also not in America's

interest, and I'll get to this also not in our other Gulf allies interests was wrecked by Israel. In the sense that it still hadn't rebuilt its air defenses. In the sense that it's still, it was in the process of rapidly acquiring lots of conventional missiles to be as conventional steel, but had not yet finished that. This was an opportunity to knock out an adversary when it was going to be far less costly than if we had waited. Well, okay. Let's just take that point for a minute.

“That's still against international law under any circumstances. Okay. What?”

Thank you. Thank you for that. Just that acknowledgement that you don't give a fuck about it. It's national law is meaningless in these contexts. And that also goes, I don't want to get into international law. You want to get into international law. I am happy to get into international law. But I wouldn't to go to the entire absolute level. I want to look at the entire board. Okay. Iran as a regime has lived entirely outside of and in contravention of international law by

every measure of how it uses to fight. So I have a problem right now with international law as we understand it because it is requiring in many ways for kind of, let's just call them, you know, good guys citizen countries to play by rules where it's adversaries are clearly violating them. And this is a problem. It's a constant problem. It's a constant problem that we can see it with, you know, it's not as high stakes, but you look at China's behavior with its manipulation of its

currency and its manipulation of its exports and so forth. And what it means for them to be in the world trade organization. That is an example of how we are asking everybody else to play by

gets away with it. And as we look at Russia's based on Ukraine and so forth. Because we, we make

that we, we also understand the broader benefits of some structure of international order. And it's not sure that that we have some respect for boundaries for nation states or we will be in complete chaos. In other words, that you, you might have a short term interest in violating them, but we know the long term consequences of those violations is the collapse of all order and therefore you do so with great, great reluctance. I would argue that we're in a League of Nations moment right now,

where you have effectively the end of of international law and meaningful sense. Listen, when you want to agree, we've already agreed that Iran's nuclear capacity has been pretty much wasted,

“certainly we take a long time to reconsider that the only thing they're doing, how dare they”

as a sovereign country on themselves conventionally to protect themselves from these countries that

are invading. By secondly, it's, we're not talking about just, I don't like how it is out of the blue preemptive. What's the aggression? Brutal aggression, which have no immediate threat, no justification on anything that's asked for the law, not having been thought through. I'm not with any understanding of whether it will do more good than harm. Okay, but what do you do when you have an adversary like Iran that painstakingly over two generations built up effectively an alternative state

inside of Lebanon? It deprive, it destroyed Lebanese sovereignty with Hezbollah and the same organization. It is a problem of our interest in the United States. It's plenty of things Iran does horribly in the region, right? Okay, our interest in that compared to our interest in what's happening in Eurasia or is happening in the Pacific is is minimal and yet we are, look, where we're

“minimal. It's a lot less. I would argue, I think you've got it all wrong. Because I think you've got it all wrong.”

Taking care of. Once Israel is basically has complete military hegemony over the Middle East

at this point, it has regional supremacy. It's major rival doesn't have any nukes anymore. It is it is it's reeling. That's the moment you said you said it precisely because of that weakness that we chose to strike. And striking, again, illegal against national law, we also did something we didn't Israeli did that violates our law violates all international law, which is to assassinate the entire leadership, but another country. Yes. When is anybody else done that? Well, not quite like that.

In the last 50 years. The Soviet Union sent Spetsas and killed or kidnapped the leader of Afghanistan before they invaded. Okay, that's nothing like this. This is one of the greatest war crimes.

“Oh, in terms of international law. It's a geopolitical misunderstanding. I know you, that's what you would think.”

And of course you say. I don't understand how you know. We didn't sit here and say if you're not in this day crime that they killed. Yes, I come on. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. But because if the principle now is, we cannot object and we'll not object to any power going into any other country and assassinating their entire leadership. We have no standing now to say we're against that under international law. I feel like Thomas Morden, you break down all these laws. We wait till it comes back at you. Okay.

And I would say I would counter another country came in assassinated our top leadership. Yes. You think we, again, it's such a thing to you are. You are make it hard and you're making it hard and you're making it hard and you're making it hard and you're making it hard and you're making it hard. You're making it hard. You're making it hard because you're pretending that the leadership of the Islamic Republic is somehow like any other nation stated isn't we have court documents that they had attempted to

not only assassinate President Trump. They attempted to assassinate my salinear shot and they have, by the way, done it in Europe and America. They have sent their agents. This is a revolution pretending to be a country. So in my view, ideally, there would be some sort of international body in which I don't know. I mean, I'm just spitballing here where, you know, you could say for the following reasons, this regime has relinquished the benefits of the sovereignty

that we would afford to other nation states because of its actual behavior, whether it is hollowing out the sovereignty of Lebanon, whether it is aiding and assisting the survival of Bashar Assad when he is in the middle of using chemical weapons against his own civilians, whether it is, frankly, the great threat to the Republic of Letters by issuing a Fatwa against

benefits of sovereignty. It would have been nice if there was some way that we could have made that case before the United Nations or something like that and explained that this is a special kind of operation or special example, a special case or something along those lines. But it is not the same as simply going and taking out the top leadership of Belgium and you know it. Iran is a

revolutionary. It's not a status quo power. So international war does not make those distinctions.

Well, then that is a weakness right now of international war and I would go back to a manual country. And probably if we hadn't, if we hadn't gotten involved in Iran in the 50s in the first

“whole world, I wouldn't like to run that up. I would like that. That's how I would look at it.”

Okay, I'm not going to go about that. I'm just going to say the amount of damage this country is done to the country of Iran is really incapable of losing. The damage has been done by, no, I'm sorry, the damage was done by Ayatollah Ruhola Humani when he stole a popular revolution and turned his country into a medieval, theocratic police state. And in so doing the first victims, of course, were the Iranians themselves and the rest of the region. And frankly, the rest of the world,

if you count their four days into assassination of internal of domestic opposites opponents, whether they were Kurdish leaders in Austria, or Germany, or the former Prime Minister in Paris, you can go through the list from its very beginning. They have been to defend me to defend the activities or anything. But I'm saying it was here about what you do about a state that is committed to it's violating an undermining end, what you make, and spreading an Islamic revolution. Sure, that

you are defended well against it, that so far as it does have a risk of a nuclear thing of

“getting, or ICBMs that could reach us, it can't. And you contained it. That's what we did with”

the Soviet Union. That's what we've done with a million other disgusting regimes. And one of the things

we found out in Iraq is that sometimes containing a regime may be preferable to unboxing it and blowing it up and seeing what happens next. So those are the concerns I have. The other concern I have is that obviously, once the nuclear capacity had been removed and the ICBMs are way off, the threat to America is over. The threat to Israel is not in many ways for the conventional reasons. So Netanyahu then makes an extra effort to ask for more after the

after the 2025 bombings. And then lobbying very hard for this. Lindsey Graham is shuffling back and forth from his home base in Israel, occasionally visiting South Carolina. Oh my god. I'm on it fucking weird. The dude is popping up there. I don't want to fucking hold it. I don't understand.

“I don't understand. You and I have a very, you and I have a disagreement I think about America's”

national interest, which is to be expected in a vibrant democracy. People can have disagreements about what they want the interest is. This is sound of me lighting my second joy here. Okay. I, you and I have a discount. You and I have a disagreement. What I, what I present and I caught a little bit of it there for me. But I hear it all the time from everybody from John Mirosheimer to Tucker Carlson, is that somehow only one side of that debate is really interested in America's interest and the other

side has placed a country ahead of the national interest. Whereas my argument has always been that

A, the US Israel alliance is very much in America's national interest and that Iran and getting rid of the Iranian regime when there is a golden opportunity to do so is also in the American national interest. I accept, by the way, that people disagree with me, but I don't accuse you of somehow being disloyal as an American in some way. I did not forget this oil, because they're, you specifically in your piece of account. I completely understand that you think that this is the interest of

90s. Okay, as much as Israel and why can't we see Graham? Lindsey Graham also thinks that. Why can't it happen? I can also objectively say simply as a matter of geography that it is much, that the Israel has a much greater interest in what happens in Iran in the United States as I would say. But say anything about Germany and Ukraine, for example. Okay, no, we are a long, long, long way away. We spend an awful amount of money and three billion dollars a day

as seems like at this point. Okay, so we're having an argument then not so much about okay, I want to just get to something that didn't count. I want to make a point. It's a short thing. It's complicated. It's not just Israel that has an interest in ending the Islamic republic. No, of course not. Okay, it's millions of millions of Iranians. Okay, thank you. It's what in terms of a domestic politics and international politics. I don't want to let the

Saudis off the hook because they were neutral publicly, but then we found out that Muhammad bin Salman, the Crown Prince, had been pushing Trump as well. Okay, so, and if you look at, let's put it all

others. The opinions of Gulf nation shakes and so forth would, would I think be quite influential and they were all privately saying go ahead and do it. So it's not just Israel that's saying it.

“That's internationally. And then domestically, I just think that you're looking at, I think,”

a lot of Americans would just simply say, yeah, I remember the hostage crisis. I remember co-bar towers. I remember the marine barracks. I remember the IEDs. I mean, there are so many things that the Iranians have done over the years that I think they would say, yeah, of course, it's an interest in all of your fancy notions and so forth. So I just want to push back on this idea that it was just just Israel. No, it wasn't just Israel. But as I, but then I wasn't just Israel.

I will grant a kernel of truth. But it was Israel. It was Israel in leading the charge to accomplish something that Naniah who said he's been trying to accomplish for 40 years. You can't, they wanted this, they lobbied for it. They have every right to lobby for it. You know, I'm just another little illegitimate here. My worry is that you could lobby for it, but then it just happened and we

“don't disagree about this. The fact that it was just now, but but here's the thing. It's because”

of this very close alliance that at some point, this is what they have told us this is true, that these are really said, we got this phenomenal intelligence about the leadership. We're going

to go for it. And, and what Rubio and Trump both independently said, and what, no, you're basically

saying that's on what Tucker says, Trump said to him, and then Trump himself publicly said, later. Yes, we agree. All right. All right. Let's just, no, I'm, I'm based on these tools along to New York Times and Washington Post. Yeah, the New York Times quoted Tucker is saying, after he's also had it. Okay. I don't think anybody doubts that Naniah who tried to get the United States to go to this war, right? Of course not. Sure. He wasn't the only one, but he was

“incredibly important. I think in, I was in and out of the White House all the time. The point is this,”

and this is the critical moment. We're going to kill these people at that moment, whether you

like it or not, you're in the war. I don't think, by the way, that's so that that does not, I'm just telling you that this explanation, and I understand that Rubio said a version of it, and then walked it back and so forth. I just don't think that that's what happened, and I'm saying this is not just an argument, but I'm saying it as a matter of accuracy. This is the same guy that basically did, did they send it to the person they tell? I'm not too about the fact, yes,

they've been, they've been, they've been, they've been, they've been, they've been also having these negotiations, but I mean, this is, we were all told this was about, you know, leverage and pressure and blah, blah, blah. No, we were not told that. I'm telling you, that's what I'm saying. No, this starts, no, I'm sorry, this is not okay, let's, all right, let's do it, let's do it, let's do it, okay. Here's the critical thing, when they got this intelligence, and they were going to do this, could we have said no, you can't do that, because that will bring us into the war, and we're not ready for it. Absolutely. Why do we not?

Because Trump supported, they thought it was great, okay, so let me explain what I think happened, okay,

we and these were those whatever asked us, if that's okay. Let me, let me, let me, first of all, the fact that they said, we've got this intelligence to share it, and they said we want to go

would tell me that, yes, they were giving them lots of lead time, given they found out about it, I guess, like eight days before, and they shared it immediately in the CAA confirmed it, and so, sure, this is not a, we have a secret thing, they've got the intel eight days before the meeting, that my interest, yes, they came upon that they, there was going to be this meeting on that Saturday, Martin first, they have a fine to prepare us for this, they did, they absolutely did, they shared it through the intelligence

channel public, I mean, you know, oh, oh, oh, oh, the smoke school, the American people, you know, on the American people side, that is, I know, it's not who cares, I'm with you, I think they should have prepared us more, but I just want to go back a little bit, I just kind of imagine this ever happening in other scenario, I just, okay, let me, very hard time in the morning, let me let me get the Britain says we're going to attack so and so, and you said, well, what? And you say we're going to do it, all right, and we'll be involved, we'll take that thing, we'll follow you on what happened.

That's, that's, that's, that's, okay, let me explain. Trump opens the door to military participation at the end of 2025, when the bizarre merchants go out in the streets and we begin to see another uprising throughout the country against the mollus. Now he does something, which I think was a result of him not having a real policy making process when it comes to national security matters.

He put the American, America's prestige behind the idea of the treatment of the Iranians who were in the streets demonstrating, very unusually for him fair enough, he normally likes the other side in those countries. I was, okay, fine, to get I, in Tiananmen Square, he was on the side of the tank. Oh, this is, these are, there's a matter of history, you're right, I think he was, but the point is, is that in this particular case,

“so I don't believe a, I didn't believe a word of it myself. Okay, fine, you don't believe a word of it, but I'm just saying that's what happened and you would agree with that, okay. Yeah.”

All right, so what was the response from the regime? They slaughtered most estimates are 30,000. By the way, let me just, in the interest of, honestly, I don't know what the number is, because it's very difficult to get, but we know it was several thousand at the very least.

And probably, it was a lot in 48 hours. It was a horrifying toll. Let's put it this way. It was a horrifying toll. It's kind of unprecedented, even for this brutal regime.

And it was suggested, by the way, that they have total, could, a monopoly of force of arms, and that kind of level of, of decimation, right, not that word, the killing of so many people. Yeah, but the slaughter. So quickly, it just means, okay, God. So what I would glean from that, if I had to have a brain, is actually, no, this regime is still fucking in charge here. It's going to be very large. Okay, I'm not disagreeing with you that, I think, as a sort of a fair point. But anyway, the point is that you have the president on,

making a promise repeatedly in this period. No response. He tried to then gloss it over saying, we stopped the hanging of 800 and some odd people, but he lost face. Now, we've covered Trump now. We were in the Trump era for space. I don't think anybody, I don't think anybody's here. He lost face. They killed a bunch of people when he told the regime not to.

I, well, I, yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't think he could get less, whether he is or not.

Well, I don't, I don't, I don't think he was in his heart. I'm not asking what he was in his heart. I'm saying, he said, don't do it. They did. Okay. Okay. And so then we have these negotiations, suddenly it's all about, you know,

“they're nuclear weapons. It all looks, you know, who knows what the hell's going on here?”

But what the reality was is that he, he made a promise before and he could do anything about it because again, we didn't have the assets in place to back up the threat. That is what happened. So we do have the assets. I'm saying so. I said, well, from to back up the threat that if you kill the protesters, I'm targeting you, which is essentially what he said. Okay. So he's bluff was called. His bluff was called and he did not have his time. He did not have the hard way of the time.

Right. He didn't have the assets in place. Okay. So he sends the assets there. And then starts the negotiations over, I mean, we're told it's over. Nuclear missiles and support for terrorism and then it depends on every day. It's about something else. They're not going very well. And I, and one issue, I'm interested in because I'm neither of us can know what that happened.

“I think that one thing it does can, I mean, they didn't witchcraft and Kushner did not seem to have real experts with them.”

I've read a couple of pieces that said they just genuinely misunderstood of nuclear facility that they, they thought could possibly eventually at some point lead to nuclear bombs and could not. And they didn't have the, the expertise with them to be able to do that. And of course, of course, this is very quick. I mean, I think these issues can get insanely complex. Right. I mean, caught notice. But anyway, regardless, regardless, there was a,

they don't go in that well. There was a negotiation. Now, a cynical interpretation could mean that the negotiations were rules and a cover to put the assets in place, which took some time. I, I think that might be true. I don't know. But then there's this other part of it, which is that what the Israelis showed,

and we have to go back to June of 2025.

Initially, Trump did give the Israelis a green light, but the first message from the Trump administration was,

"We're neutral. We're not in this. Do not attack any Americans. That was Rubio statement." Trump doesn't say anything for 12 hours. Then you get the results of that first red wedding is what the Israelis called it from Game of Thrones, where they took out 40 top generals within the first hours of the strike. And Trump thought that was the coolest thing in the world.

And some have described this in my reporting as "America's First FOMO War", which is that he wanted the glory of what he saw as a successful military operation,

wanted Trump to use the bunker-buster technology that only the United States has to get the facilities in Fordo and Isfahan that are deeply buried under the earth. And Trump was happy to do it because he said, "Wait a second." And the way I described it in my upcoming piece for commentary, which will be on a couple days, is that the Israelis were offering him an opportunity to place a large bat on a fixed fight,

which is that they had achieved a level of intelligence penetration of Iran,

“which I think we can say real world events, not just an even before the June 25 war,”

has shown that the Israelis have accomplished something that I don't know there's any parallel in the history of modern espionage. I suppose when still doesn't make them safe, does it? Well, they've been studying Iran. They've been destroying half the subtle Lebanon. They've decimated the new exhibit that's still vulnerable to.

Or you could say they're fighting a fanatic revolutionary kind of movement,

which is, which greets death as a kind of noble end to life, because if, you know, I mean, there's all kinds of explanations for it. I would say it's somewhat ideological. And whereas we're only fighting for death and destruction, because these are equally good enough.

You're quoting heck of death here, I suppose. Yes, okay. So let's justify this war on the grounds that we can screw over someone weaker than us, because we can. And that is also, I tell the damage is doing to, I don't know.

You know, I'm just telling you what the Secretary of Defense is saying, and how it is being heard across the world. I believe that the Secretary of Defense is on his own supply, and that it is induced. He shouldn't necessarily, he should not be talking about the war series business.

But let's, he shouldn't be defense secretary.

And I'm not going to call him war secretary.

He should not be defense secretary. It's an absolute force. Sure, I, I want to get back to the, what I think, the, I think my understanding of what happened is that after the Israeli's demonstrated in the June 25 war, Trump said, "Oh my God, that is so cool.

We have a chance to take out these enemies of America once and for all, and that it was not this pushing Trump reluctantly to do Israel a favor. It was rather, let's take advantage of this opportunity. You guys know what the hell you're doing. We, none of us can know for sure.

I'm going to think of that. That is a little bit more. But I do think with that far apart. Okay. I'm not, I don't know.

But you're going to think how that would be very surprising. You've done Israel and other favor. Israel's doing America favor, at least in Trump's size. Israel is doing American enormous favor because it has, it has wired this country for sound in a way

that gives a kind of advantage. And that, because if you would have just said, and I didn't know this, let me put it like this. If you just said, here's the plan. We want to knock off the regime, but we're not going to have any ground trips,

and we're going to do it by the air. I would say that's insane. You can't do that. You have to have a ground force to manage the cast. How do you know what's going on?

“I think the only way that you could get around to saying is that”

there's things that you do not understand about the level of penetration that Israel has of the regime and Iranian society, and that will actually make this possible to pull off. I can absolutely believe. Let me just say that.

Okay. I think all of that could is almost certainly part of the truth, right? Okay. Of course, the Israelis are also really good at working people. And we're going entirely how to appeal to Trump.

They've probably done a million studies of this.

There are masses. They can penetrate the entire regime of Iran. They penetrate it. This administration as well, they know exactly what makes this guy tick. They've almost certainly got a strategy for getting him to do what they want to do.

And all I'm saying is that then you also have the sheer serendipity of luck timing. You know, this happens suddenly. History is like that. You suddenly, they're going to meet in eight days' time. That changes.

That's, that's how it's three works. So it's a mess. It's a mix of these things. But it is a function partly of, let me put this way. It's a function of poly-Israel's pressure, Saudi pressure.

Israel persuasion of Trump. Look how cool we are.

“Israel and then, but then here's the thing.”

It starts with this moment. So I think Rubio said, no, no. Israel didn't determine this war. The term of the timing of this war. Yeah.

And that's what I was saying too. Yes. That's what I'm not. But that matters too. Because if the timing means you don't get to explain the rest of an hour.

In fact, by virtue of the nature of the initial crime, the initial assassination

The whole point was it was surprised, right? So you could not. So that just simply meant we were in whether we liked it or not. And we couldn't tell anyone. I couldn't tell anyone in advance.

But the president could have given a speech in January that said, right now we are conducting negotiations that I hope work.

But I have my doubts to finally and thoroughly disarm an enemy of the United States for nearly 50 years.

And let me explain to you what we are concerned about. Right now, we have an opportunity. Iran does not have functional proxy networks throughout the Middle East as it did three years ago. It is rebuilding its conventional missiles. But we believe that if it gets past a certain point, it will be too costly to use military force

to stop them from acquiring a nuclear weapon. And that is an unacceptable outcome for us. And therefore, we are asking Congress to give us the authorization. We hope not to use to go to where he could have said that without getting into any of that special entity. And he wouldn't be gone.

New authorization. And maybe you're right. Well, he would look to that and say, what the fuck maybe he wouldn't have. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know.

“I think it was 2016 to 19 in the house anyway.”

The war powers resolution. It was very close. Which they won. But okay. I know.

But I'm just saying it was close.

And as much as you can imagine if they'd be given a chance to think about this. They would have said no. So anyway. That's what it's like. Whether by luck design.

By the way, by the way, similar thing happened in Libya. There was a vote in Libya. And then Obama went ahead and went somewhere. And even more grievous violation of the Libya. Okay.

And let me. Okay. I've got to give me credit. I've got to have to Obama. So let me let me now in the list now.

We're in the war now. I just want to. Okay. I want to.

“I want to get back to a note of comedy when we're done.”

This point. We're really comedy. I'll give him comedy with a team. Oh, comedy. Oh, I then forget that.

Okay. So he like let me let me just let's talk about the war itself. Okay. Let me tell you how I what the thoughts go through my head. Okay.

One thought is I pray. I pray to God that some good comes of this. It's possible. I don't I think it's unlikely. But I don't have it.

When my Iranian friend texts me and says, I've just lost all hope and everything. Everything I've ever fought for is destroyed. And he's like, you know, green revolution liberal. Because he fears that this actually has hurt his cause.

Now others feel otherwise. And my my said him. You never know. And things can happen. And I didn't.

Night at even nine. No one expected. But. So I feel that. I then also feel.

I see civilian inevitably civilian collateral damage. I don't think we're doing it deliberately. But there's if you're hitting police stations if you're hitting. You're going to hit schools that hot schools have been hit. Hospital didn't hit that awful.

First day tragedy in which 150 school girls would kill.

It's probably the worst. Accident in terms of us in in decades. And I feel at the same time that this is going on as people are now experiencing. Increase prices. This is not good.

This feels very destabilizing. It's it's it's not yet in any way clarifying. My fear is. My hope is the miraculous happens and it may. And I pray for it.

My fear is that this entrenched is the regime.

“And I think that's the way it's going to be.”

And I think that's the way it's going to be. I think that's the way it's going to be. I think that's the way it's going to be. I think that's the way it's going to be. I think that's the way it's going to be.

I think that's the way it's going to be. I think that's the way it's going to be. I think that's the way it's going to be. I think that's the way it's going to be. The oil price stuff.

I mean, some ways American people, I think, this is sort of going to be interesting. On the one hand, America said like Iran, the regime, nor should they. So there's some element in fact them, right? At the same time, the Iraq situation in very fresh people's minds. And they're, you know, Joe Rogan is having the kind of response to Rogan would have.

And he's not the only one. All right. Okay. Yeah, I'm just one last thing. And then, of course, the American public however, if there's one thing, they don't really care about the constitution very much.

But they do care about the price of gas. Sure. And so that is, that is seems to be. We don't know, we talked from day to day, what could be happening when this air is.

Okay. I would just say it's far too soon to know. But a couple points I would make.

“I think when Trump uses about boots on the ground, what he really means is slippers on the ground,”

meaning special operators. I don't think, I think that the reason that the Iraq war became unpopular. I mean, there were two things. One is we didn't find the weapons of mass destruction that were promised. In this particular case, I don't think there's any doubt that Iran intended to build a weapon of mass destruction, the ultimate one.

The second point is that it really, more than the more than the pre-war intelligence being wrong.

It was that American soldiers and not, and we're just volunteers, were training police officers in Carbola. They were manning checkpoints in Baghdad and Basra. And this is the thing that was so frustrating was that the bulk of the war were Americans who were sitting ducks for a vicious insurgency that combined the poisonous

extremism of al-Qaeda and later ISIS with the cruel efficiency and expertise of the remnants of the bath estate. And that added to that the Iranian-backed fanatic insurgency on the she-aside was a nightmare for most Iraqis and a perilous and horrible environment for any soldier. So that was where the war really became a failure. What the hell were we doing? We weren't equipped to do it.

It's not what we thought we were going to do. We thought we were going to liberate and get out.

“I think there is zero chance that Donald Trump will in any circumstance commit Americans to nation building or peacekeeping.”

So that's the first thing. Now that itself opens up a can of possibilities that we just don't know. But yeah, we have to be honest. It could be another, it could be a serious of a war, except in a much larger country. You know, I would imagine that the CIA and the Mossad are competent enough to secure the enriched uranium

that is buried underneath Isfahan and Fordo, or I think mainly Isfahan. And get rid of it and make sure that they don't have, I think it's 20% enriched uranium that they still have a stockpile they can have to get through the sort of rubberized remains or something to get to it. So what about handheld anti-aircraft rockets? What about any number of conventional weapons that in the hands of a terrorist group at an airport?

Would be an absolute disaster. So there's a lot of risk here. I go back to the fact that I've heard and I would imagine that again, the Mossad has the country under NMRI. So if that can be translated into preventing those outcomes, I would hope that it would be. But again, it's an unknown. So I'm just being on, I think I see that's a possibility and I cannot say.

“But as for regional stability, I think I differ with you in an important way.”

The source of regional instability was a revolutionary regime in Tehran.

It was the state policy since its inception to support an Islamic revolution throughout the Middle East. And it was adapted to all enough that they could support Sunnis and Shia. And that is a source of instability. We have an offer. Obviously, he talked with sources of stability is the creation of a brand new state in 1948, which completely, completely convulsed the entire kingdom in a way, Andrew.

No, let me finish. Okay. That we're still grappling with. It's not like this is the only revolutionary moment.

Zionism is a revolutionary moment in 1948.

I'm talking about we're in 2026. I know. I'm just saying that by 1979, which is a dearly Egypt is real peace. Okay. And it's followed by Jordan, the Abraham Accords, the status quo of Sunni powers, have made their peace with Israel. It's a run that is the axis of resistance.

It's, it run is the center of that. If you remove that, that is a golden ticket for America to finally get out of the Middle East. And then focus on the Pacific. If you get that, then I also think, and this is one of the reasons to get back to why I'm in favor. And by the way, you can look it up, everybody on Google, I wrote about it. I think dozen years ago for the Daily Beast, when nobody said it, I wrote a piece quoting,

"Pro Israel Defense Experts" saying it's time to end this up city. So I think it was one of the first in the pro Israel's lidism camp to raise this at least recently.

Okay. Okay. Okay. We're good. Okay. I just wanted to general. What I think, what does that all take? To make the deeper point is real, then your right becomes the regional headgemon.

Okay. Because the balance to it, Iran, the revolutionary regime, is no longer there.

I don't think that Israeli hegemony in the Middle East is bad for peace, is bad for any of these things. I think Iranian regional hegemony, or competition for regional hegemony, is terrible for those things. So if you have a chance to finally knock it out and put in something in place. And finally, I just would say, I've been covering the Iranian movement, as I see it, to get their country back, the democratic opposition for nearly 30 years now. And I've been writing about it for 25 years.

And I would just say that there is a long tradition in Iran that goes back to the end of the 19th century of a demand. They still have a constitution, whether it's still the Islamic constitution is still technically the original one. And I think that there is an opportunity. It's not Iraq. Iraq is a fake country that was made after World War I. Iran has been around for, you know, since the cabinet Persian empire, the bad guys of Herodides. And they have, I think, the Iranian people do not want to live under these people.

“I think they are the first victims of this regime. So I understand that you call it crime, but that's why I actually think it's an active liberation.”

If it ends, as I hope it does, which is in a color revolution, and I don't think it's out of the question.

Well, we'll see. My thoughts just about that Iraq war and the Iran war is that the Iraq war was, you know, the process was correct, but it was built upon a false press. Absolutely. You can say the process was right, and it was strategically uplender. And but also the premise was wrong that the WMD issue was wrong. So, so this, and so we went to war in a way that wasn't kosher, you know what I mean. This time we went to war without even being asked. Last time, once we broke a country, we felt obliged as a responsible actor on the world stage, not to let it just completely collapse and walk out.

Now we're fine with that. Now we've adopted the idea that we can go in a break a country and just let it go. But see, when you say, now we think we can go in a break a country, I would argue that this country is absolutely broken. Well, sure, you could have said that about Iraq too. Well, I mean, that's what the reasons why I'm not as guilty as it is. And I'm just saying how many of that was Iran?

If 100,000 Iranians die in the next year or so because of this, it would be a terrible tragedy.

Well, I know, but it's okay for you.

“Well, I mean, I think you have to distinguish between, that's my idea.”

That's why I think IRGC commanders versus Iranian food vendors. And we should acknowledge that we now have confirmation that a terrible strike and accidental strike, something like 132. I mean, I don't know the exact number of school children were killed in an Errant Tomahawk strike. It's a terrible tragedy. War is serious.

It's not. It's not. It shouldn't be meamed as the White House did recently agree with that. It's, and there's something about that. These are the point where the character and justifications of the people conducting the war make it illegitimate.

Even if you think the. I really think that this is because it's an historic moment, Andrew. But that if we can, if we can say, Islamic revolution 1979 to 1926 are our, our rest in pieces. It's such a bigger accomplishment that in some way,

it doesn't matter the personality or the process.

“Because that will be part of his legacy because that's how we judge presidents.”

Oh, I could give a shit about his legacy to be honest with you. I'm just, I am. No, I am desperate not to see another human catastrophe unfold in Middle East because we. I'm not going to be a human. I'm going to be a human.

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“In five years, I can invite you to take Ron and be amazing.”

I've been watching the dish.

As you know, we joined the Green Revolution. The dish fused itself with the communications, the twitter stream of the Green Revolution. We were part of it. We breathed it. We lived it day and night.

At least five or six uprising since the Green Revolution. I do know that. Because it makes sense. Of course. And now they have an air force.

And now they have an air force. But when those very people of weeping with me, I have mixed feelings Eli and look. I pray that they're there. There is at least in place.

Trump said it. Bebe is saying it all the time now. You look at it. The Israelis are hitting the sea. All the instruments of local pressure.

The provincial level. We've seen it all the time. And we've also been the message has been stay home. It's far too dangerous. And we'll give you the signal to come out in the streets.

Now, I'm seeing an air campaign directed at. Layers of the regime authority of a revolution. I think it's mixed. I think obviously it's mixed. It's both things to feel at the same time.

Yes.

First of all, you are feeling you are under attack by a foreign power.

And that is not going to make you say, yeah, you're going to have an interesting defensive response there. It was going to have some responses. A patriot to a foreign country coming into your country. Then you're also going to hope that this might get rid of this fucking awful place.

But then you're also afraid of what might happen. If everything falls apart, that's the other. That's the other one. It's the other one. And look.

It's a society.

“You have to think anyone asks for air strikes.”

You saw it a while. Sure. I'm not saying you're on some wooden like it. I'm just saying it's a whole bunch of emotions that could go a whole lot of different directions. Which is just to say it depends on how it's going to end.

And it ends with something better. I'm not saying it's going to be a green revolution again. A color revolution. I'm saying if it ends with something better. I will be delighted as you will not.

And we must guard against that idea.

If the ends always justify the means, we are screwed.

They do not always justify the means. But they have to be factored in when judging the mean course. Of course. Of course. Thank you so much.

You're listening. Junior Goldberg. Tom Holland, Tiffany Jenkins, Derek Thompson, Jeff Tuben. Adrian Wultridge coming up. I hope you have a great weekend.

I'll be snoozing. I hope. And we'll see you all next week. God bless. (upbeat music)

But what I want to tell you today, I don't want to get a lot of students.

“The semester by Tag Lab Trapücher Soft behind the internet.”

I'm so sorry. You can say that. You can say that.

I don't understand. EGAL!

Zauberwort Verlusfortrag!

Make the whole thing like this.

“And when they then work, he says, "Catchin!"”

That's right! Save! Like this, Steuja! Hold your money back! Now, cost a lot.