Breaking: America and Israel at War with Iran

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Yet, customers' tests on Shopify.com.de. Alright, we're recording a bonus pot save the world episode because, as I'm sure listeners and viewers have seen, the United States and Israel are once again at war with Iran. So we're going to update you on everything we know as of Saturday afternoon. So this started at Saturday at 115 a.m. Eastern Time, which is 9 a.m. Tehran Time.

The US and Israel launched Air Strikes on Iran.

“The US military is calling this Operation Epic Fury.”

It's so totally epic then that Trump launched the war from his country club in Florida. Target so far include the Supreme Leader of Iran is compound. These really say the Supreme Leader, I told a comment a dead and that Netanyahu was shown footage of his body. That's in news reports. Iran says that's false. We'll find out, I guess.

But as we've noted, the Supreme Leader is 86. So he was about to regime change himself. But his death would be a massive seismic event in Iranian history, given the role he plays in their system. It sounds like he was specifically targeted by the Israelis and not by US forces.

And that they also targeted the Supreme Leader's son, but he may have survived. President Pizechian was reportedly targeted as well. Again, Iranians say he's liable. We'll find out that the timing of the strikes were reportedly based on intelligence about when senior regime officials would all be meeting. Israel said they had about three gatherings of Iranian officials simultaneously.

Israel said 200 jets bomb 500 targets. They did it during the daylight because they thought that would be a surprise. Israel said it killed the head of Iran's IRGC, the Minister of Defense, so to much of other top military officials. And it seems like the US is confirming that they agreed that about 5 to 10 top Iranian leaders are now dead.

The US said they hit 900 targets in the first 12 hours.

They were focused on military sites, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,

command and control facilities, air defense targets, missiles, drone sites, military airfields. Iranian state TV says that one air strike hit a girl's elementary school and killed 85 people. Obviously, we can't confirm that, but Senkham says they're looking into those reports. So Iran so far as responded by firing missiles and drones at Israel. Something this shy fired off about 300 of them. They fired at US bases. They fired at civilian

targets as well in the UAE Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan. Most of these Iranian missiles in drone seem to have been taken out by air defense systems, but there are some pretty scary videos out there on social media of either Iranian ballistic missiles or Iranian drones striking targets, including civilian targets like a high-rise building in Bahrain or a hotel in Dubai. On Saturday, Iran's Revolutionary Guard announced that "no ship is allowed to pass the Strait of Hormuz"

so they're saying they're going to close the Strait of Hormuz. We'll see if Iran can deliver on that promise, but if they are able to, the economic impact would be massive through every day about 20 million barrels of oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz. It's about one fifth of the world supply than there's other shipping. Trump released a video statement about all of this this morning. In it, Trump kind of played all the hitspan when it comes to US Iran tensions. He talked

about the US embassy personnel being held hostage in 1979, talked about the 1983 Marine barracks bombing. He claimed that Iran was involved in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, which is just not true.

“Someone should tell a guy to that. I think they take credit. He also once again claimed that Iran”

will soon be able to reach the US with its ballistic missiles, which again is a lie. Here's an excerpt of Trump. I think this is the section of the speech that seemed to most specifically lay out the

goals of this conflict. Let's watch. There's always been the policy of the United States

in particular my administration that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon. We saw repeatedly to make a deal. We tried. They wanted to do it. They didn't want to do it. Again, they wanted to do it. They didn't want to do it. They didn't know what was happening. They just wanted to practice evil. We're going to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally again obliterated. We're going to annihilate their navy

we're going to ensure that the region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties that often happens in war. Through the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces and all of the police, I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons

people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. When we are finished take over your government, it will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for

generations. For many years, you have asked for America's help, but you never got it. No president

was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want. So let's see how you respond. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass. OK, so Ben, let's pause there. Just get your reaction so what you've seen so far into events in the world and also Trump's speech. What do you make of it? Yeah, it's always reassuring to have a president launch in a legal and unnecessary. We're wearing a baseball cap in the middle

“of the night at Marlaga, but we're on that side for the moment. I think the headline here is”

that this is the regime change war. We've walked up to this precipice with Trump several times and each time he took a more limited action whether it was assassinated in Custom Soleimani

or whether it was the 12 day war when you know he bombed nuclear sites principally. But this is

clearly based on rhetoric and targets like an effort to change the Iranian regime. Now the problem with that though is that even though that's clear, nothing is clear about what the end game is, right? Even if the supreme leader is killed, the Iranian regime is a very deep regime. He mentioned the IRGC, the police and the military, that's millions of people who run their arms in the Iranian regime. And so whether this devils into civil conflict and chaos or whether some IRGC

led regime emerges, we have no greater clarity today than we did before this began about how the U.S. sees this thing ending. And we do see already some of the consequences that could come from this war. We're only one day in, but we've already seen Iran, unlike last time where they showed some pretty calibrated restraint, it seems like they're firing missiles in all directions. They're trying to exact a cost on the Gulf countries for hosting U.S. bases or just to kind of create a

sense that if we burn you burn too, they're launching missiles at not just bases at Israel as well. And so we're seeing the beginning of what could be a kind of regionalization of this conflict. And so this is a very dangerous moment. And I have no reassurance from Trump or anybody around him that there's a plan for how to land this plane beyond. We're going to go in there and destroy as much of this regime as we can before becomes kind of almost politically unsustainable for us

to be bombing this country. Then we'll stop and you, Iranians rise up, but if those Iranians are massacred again, if it turns into a civil war, there's no plan B. Yeah, it just, it's not clear to me that Trump realizes that he started something. He's not able to stop because he has Trump is doing a round of interviews. He's like NBC, Axios, a bunch of other outlets. He told Axios, he has several offerings to end the conflict. One of the quotes was, "I can go long and take

over the whole thing or end it in two or three days until the Iranians see you in a few years if you start rebuilding." In any case, it will take them several years to recover from this attack.

It's like, I mean, first of all, no, you can't take over the entire country unless you send

“in troops to occupy the country and if that's on the table, you should probably tell us. Second,”

we don't know really if Trump is actually thinking about offerings or if Brock reviewed in this five-minute call was like, "Hey, what's your offer?" And he was like, "I got a bunch of them." Trump also told Axios that he asked his team to compile every Iranian-linked attack around the world in the last 25 years. Clearly, that was sort of reflected in the speech he made, but if you have to do that, it seems like you're really struggling to justify why this has to happen.

Now, and I think all of that just speaks to your point, which is like, "We have no idea what's going to happen next. This could end quickly or this could go on for a long time." And by the way, thank you for watching this episode of Hot To The World, please subscribe on wherever you get podcasts or on YouTube because we're going to be covering this story really, really closely, and we're not going to like mindlessly refer to a fucking neocon talking point, so a lot of other news outlets

“are this morning, it's just like it's very hard to watch. No one seems to remember the rock”

war or be learning the lesson, so please subscribe to Pottaith The World. Ben, I also noticed that that Reuters had a story that the CIA assessed before the strikes that even if Iran's Supreme Leader were killed in the operation, he would likely just be replaced by hard-line figures in the IRGC. So, again, like, the end goal is not clear, and I noticed this morning, again, like Trump has been lying about Iran's nuclear program in ballistic missile programs.

Gideon Sarr, Israel's Foreign Minister, said that this military action was urgently needed because, quote, "delay would have allowed the Iranian regime to reach a level of immunity for its nuclear program as well as to engage in the mass production of long-range ballistic missiles." But that's just its false, that is absolutely a lie, like no expert, no one I've seen

Yeah, I mean, the war is illegal domestically and internationally. The war is unnecessary,

“as a matter of timing. The threats that they're pointing to do nothing to explain.”

I mean, the fact that in that, you know, litany that Trump gave, he was talking about roadside bombs and Iraq 10 years ago, is that a reason to go to war now? I mean, obviously, those are terrible things that happen, but it's an absurd reason to launch a war now. The only new pretext they developed is this ICBM threat, which is totally false. Iran has long had an ICBM program. It cannot hit the United States with an ICBM, is nowhere near being able to do that and doesn't

have a nuclear weapon. And so it matters that this is being done on our false pretenses with very little public support and no legal basis because it's not a very strong footing

to take the country into a war of regime change in the country over 90 million people.

Now, we know Israel wants this. I mean, BB Netanyahu has been pushing for this for a very long time. And he finally got this kind of window with Trump because he sees that Trump is a guy that is willing to ignore Congress and public opinion. Trump's a guy who frankly has done what BB Netanyahu

“is wanted to do before, whether it was moving the U.S. embassy to drew some of the 12-day war.”

And one thing that I was thinking about, Tommy, is that it doesn't matter how many days he bombs Iran. We are in a forever war with Iran. One way to think about this is the 12-day war was not a 12-day war. Like this is still part of the war. Once you start bombing a country, like this is the same war as the 12-day war that's happening. Just because you periodically stop bombing doesn't mean you're not in a forever war. And so Trump can spin it however he wants

to mag a supporters from Tucker Carlson, you know, his own vice president who have the political

identities based on opposing this. But the reality is that we are in this. And the world is

going to see, you know, whatever happens in Iran next, they're going to see as the responsibility of the United States and Donald Trump personally. And as we talked about whether it's civil conflict, refugee flows in other countries, major energy disruptions in the states of foreign moves, you know, periods of calm, followed by periods of dramatic violence. I mean, this could go all kinds of ways. But the one thing we know is that Iran is now added to that list of

forever wars. And it's the biggest country yet that we've tried to do this in. And we're doing it with no boots on the ground. And we're doing it in conjunction with Israel, which we've also never done. We've never done a regime change war like literally with the Israelis. So that is going to create impressions in the world too. And I just think, you know, there's no real discussion this by Trump.

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“And so to that point, there will absolutely be Iranians. I think we're happy about the”

spring leader being dead or the regime toppling, and I'm sure the US and Israel will amplify those voices, especially on people in cities, people in Tehran, who understandably hate the regime, but we have no idea what the majority of the Iranian people think, especially people in rural areas. We don't know how they will react. We don't know what's going to come next. If the spring leader is in fact dead and there's a massive power vacuum and potential for civil war and other

problems, so I mean, I just feel like this is all ahead of us. A Basirachi Iran's form minister was on NBC News this morning. Here's a little piece of what he had to say then.

You can not do regime change while millions of people are supporting these so-called regime.

Look, in the past 47 years, the United States has tried everything from coup, from sanctions, eight years of war by Saddam Hussein, supported by the United States and many others,

“and then 12-day war snapback in the security council and terrorist operations.”

They have tried everything and all of them failed and I don't know why they don't understand their failures. So if they want to repeat failed experience, they won't get any better result. If Americans want to talk to us, they know how they can contact me. We are certainly interested for de-escalation. This is not our war. This is an imposed war against us. This is a war of choice by the United States and they have to pay for that and I will they will-

So pretty to find out there still, we'll see if that tone holds over the next few days. Ben, I've been struck by Iran's decision or the how they've responded. I mean, like they've been targeting densely populated urban areas, filled with civilians, they've been hitting targets in places like Bahrain and Dubai, which in the near term seems like the best possible way to get the entire Gulf to value against you. That said, maybe the calculus is just like let's up the cost of this war

in every way. Let's inflame these populations so if we can turn them against their governments for supporting the US and not in Israel and not Iran. I've also seen reports that Iran is fired at Saudi oil infrastructure. I'm not sure if those are true. It doesn't tell me if hit anything yet. The big question I have is how long will these the Iranians be able to retaliate in what will it look like? Fox News says Iran fired about 300 missiles today. They have 2,000

long range missiles and 2,000 shorter range missiles total. I'm confident that the US and Israel have taken out a bunch of those and they will methodically take out as many of the missiles and drones as they can. But that could take a while and you're not guaranteed to get all of them. We also don't really know what the Iranian Navy will be able to do and maybe just the near threat of going after shipping in the street of Hormuz will be enough to choke off oil flows. We should

watch the Houthis. We should watch Hezbollah. All these proxy groups including some that might be abroad or in American cities is something to worry about. Then again as we talked about last week, like Iran has some pretty advanced cyber capabilities. We don't know if and how they might

“use those. A lot of this is just like I think wait and see for a while here.”

The first point is that Iraqis is not clear who he even reports to and to take an order.

The Iranians have been bomb now twice in the middle of a nuclear negotiation where they are making concessions. So the idea that that's a path way to de-escalation seems less likely to me. You laid out well what their options are for response. They're not going to do all of them. So we're not suggesting that all these things will happen but they are all available paths. You know, ballistic missiles, drones, asymmetric attacks including terrorist attacks,

proxy attacks across the region, cyber attacks, all these things are kind of in the Iranian kit. And the question is essentially do they try to kind of empty the magazine here in the early days or do they kind of periodically do these kind of ways of strikes and try to make this war hurt hurt for people in Israel and the United States in the region over time. I agree with you. It's interesting that there are strikes on the Gulf countries and they hit just about every one

except Oman and that was interesting Oman was when there was not hit. Some of them were just strikes at U.S. military facilities and that makes sense and no surprise. These other strikes that include like drone attacks, you know, like as you referenced on places

so long as we are under attack, you are not secure. And yes, they're taking the risk that

certainly the Gulf governments now will probably feel potentially more inclined to allow the U.S. to use bases to attack Iran thus far a lot of the Gulf countries have opted out of that or maybe even participate themselves. But you also make the point that the U.S. doing this in conjunction with Israel, you know, the publics in these countries will surely be mad at Iran

“for what they're doing, but also I think we'll blame Israel, there's no love for the region”

as well as United States for launching this war. And essentially the sense that the U.S. and Israel are involved in kind of a strategy of creating chaos in the region, you know, whether it's the strikes in Lebanon or Syria or Yemen or now Iran, there's this kind of moving wrecking ball of chaos

that is harming people. And we should be, you know, that school, I guarantee you the number one

image of the war being consumed around the world. Well, if not number one, it's certainly up there, is the image of this, yes. Yeah, those parents screaming because they're, their children that school, it's a horrifying video. And so look, so in a weird way, Iran is kind of reinforcing the chaos strategy, you know, it's like, see, look what's happening. We have no choice, but to kind of poor gasoline on this fire that was set. And again, it's going to make them a lot of enemies. But

I think that their view is like we have to set as many fires as we can to make this war feel as uncomfortable for people as we can. But to me, the ultimate future of the war will be determined inside of Iran, inside the politics of Iran. And that we don't know how that's going to play out at all. Yeah, it doesn't seem like they've decided they have to up the cost. I mean, anyone who is saying that in advance was right. So Ben, I know like nobody in the United States

cares about hypocrisy or anymore or, you know, lies, but we should just point out that Trump explicitly ran against regime change wars and wars in the Middle East in particular. In 2011, he had this to say about a war with Iran and Obama. Let's watch. Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective.

“So the only way he figures that he's going to get reelected, and as sure as you're sitting there,”

is to start a war with Iran. In August of 2013, Trump tweeted, quote, "The president must get congressional approval before attacking Syria. Big mistake if he does not, G.D. events were to not bed with the headline in the Wall Street Journal. This is from January 2023. Trump's best foreign policy not starting any wars. He asked my support in 2024 because I know he won't recklessly send Americans to fight overseas. Tulsi Gabbard used to sell Ben, no war with Iran,

T-shirts. And now just to, you know, make sure she was fully humiliated. There's images of her sitting in the situation room watching the war unfold. That's like the the kids table hosted by J.D. Vance while Trump's out of Mara Logo. David Sachs, who is not really relevant to this debate, but as someone we personally find, uh, both some tweeted in March of last year, what did

“removing Saddam, good off you side? Get us K.O. Civil War genocide. The rule for regime change”

operations in Middle East is they don't flip a country from bad to good. They flip a country from bad to worse. Pretty good point there from David Sachs. Again, the war started. It is what it is, but I do think it is worth pointing out how much Trump lied and how we ran against this because David parts of maga will go along with anything he doesn't says. I understand that, but a significant percentage will not. They think this is a bad idea because they don't want to see American

service members killed. They don't want to spend the money. They feel like we are getting led around on our foreign policy by Net Yahoo and the Israeli government. And those are things that will be harmful to Trump politically. Yeah, I mean, this is going to be a real cleavage inside of his coalition, right? I mean, this is, again, it's not a secondary issue for a lot of people, you know, Tucker Carlson's Steve Bannon. I mean, really the leading lights, uh, such as they are,

of maga. And look, what's amazing about this is that one of Trump's most effective

arguments was this one against any favourites. It was central to his rise, right? We need dismantled Jeb Bush on the debate stage in 2015 over Iraq, but we don't know other Republican would. That's when he moved to the front of the pack. Like he would not be president without his kind of repeated opposition to this idea for ever worse. In the first term, too, he was much more careful about, you know, the United States getting complex. He's now bombed seven or eight countries.

I've lost track in just the first 13 months of his second term. And he's proving to be not the kind of disruptive, corrective to American and Purilism and Wars of Aggression and Forever Wars.

target seeds going after are kind of the, the old in the closet, you know, targets of, of,

“of hard-line Republicans like Lindsey Graham, then his wayla, Iran, Cuba, you know, this is, this”

is all the ancient history in the Republican hawk cupboard is coming out. And people know that, you know, and nobody asked for this. And, and tell me, I'd say just to take another point that doesn't get to discuss much, the price tag for this thing. I was talking to, I was, while I was talking to somebody today, he was suggesting to me that if it's just even like a few weeks, tens of billions, right? This, this, this massive amount of military force moving and deploying in the Middle East,

and then all these munitions being used, maybe the damage it's being done, we saw it some damage to our facility in Bahrain. I mean, do, do Americans want us to be spending tens of billions of dollars to aggrandize Donald Trump to go along with BB Netanyahu's obsession with, you know, killing the Supreme Leader and moving the Iranian regime? No, they don't. And look, normally, I kind of roll my eyes at when you hear from like military people that were our stockpiles

or running lower this or that, because like, you know, look, we, we have a lot of weapons, but experts will tell you that we really are running seriously low on interceptor missiles for missile defense systems. We're running low on the, on the Tomahawk missiles, the T-Lams. If there is a war with China, God forbid, or if we need to respond to them taking Taiwan, like we will be dangerously low on munitions. The Chinese are happy about this. And yes, Trump told us he would end the war in

Ukraine in 24 hours. And instead, he has launched two regime change wars in the first two months of

“2026. Like, I, I, we have to be able to prosecute that case, Ben. And what, which, I think,”

brings us to the Democratic Party's response so far. So, like candidly, most responses I've seen have been pretty weak. There's some exceptions that we should talk about. They have been focused on the process and Trump's obligation to come to Congress for a vote before going to war, which of course is true, but it's like not my main issue with going to war with Iran. Some Democrats have focused on Trump, you know, not explaining his strategy or making the case. Again, I agree with them, but not the

issue. So, like, what I just want to see from Democrats is go at the heart of why this is a bad idea. I want them to say, there is no urgent threat from Iran's nuclear or ballistic missile program to the United States. Talk about how regime change wars have ended disastrously, both for the US, for the countries we launched them in, for the rest of the world, look at the migration crisis in Europe. Like, Trump has started something he cannot control. It doesn't matter what he tells

you and he now owns the consequences. And then there's just the fact that, like, Americans don't want this. There was a U.K. of poll very recently. Like, earlier this month that asked, "Do you support or oppose the US using military force to attack Iran?" 27% of adults supported it. 24% were not sure. 49% were somewhat or strongly opposed. That include 54% of independent to opposed in 19% of Republicans who oppose the war. So, keep making that case. Like, Trump ran

against this. Democrats have to make that argument. Like, there's a war power as vote next week, which, again, good on Rokana and Thomas Massey for pushing this. But it's a little late, guys. You know, this is what you and I were complaining about last week. Yeah. And yelled at by people on Twitter. But, you know, it's like, now it's not the time for, you know, long statements that are four paragraphs of throat clearing about how bad Iran is before we get to the heart of the matter,

which is this being a catastrophically bad idea. So, I don't know. What's with your advice for

Democrats who might be figuring out what to say? Well, first of all, you're right, because we saw this

build up for weeks. Good on Rokana for table in this resolution. But to the people who are telling us over working it through the process, well, like, you just proved the point that if you really cared about this thing, you know, you would have fought like hell to get a vote on this before Trump actually bomb the country. Kind of speaks to how Congress has been absent on this thing that they're going to have a vote after. I want to pick out some of the people who've been good and I'm not going

to be able to, you know, name check everybody. But, like, Tim Kane and Chris van Holland and the Senate and long term consistent both of them about war power. King in particular. Yeah. Yeah. criticize Democrats criticize the Republicans. Yeah. And not just war powers though, he, you know, you know, as diverse people as Tim Kane, Chris van Holland and AOC, you know, like, had different components where they're like, it's illegal. It's unnecessary. They lied about the reasons to do it.

And it ignores the lessons of history of regime change wars in the Middle East. So, that's an objection on policy, process history, all of it, right? That's the kind of case you can make.

“Jason Crowe, I think, made a very powerful case as a veteran, where he's like, not only is it's not”

what the American people want. You know, this doesn't lower prices. But time and again, working class people have been screwed because they have to foot the bill for these wars by fighting in them or paying the taxes for them. You know? So, there's a kind of populist message that things is important. It's not just like politics. It's true. You know, it is fundamentally true. And so, I think no defensiveness, the process is one piece of a much bigger picture here as to

it's interesting to me, Tommy, that you mentioned that the polls fluctuated 70 to 80% of Americans

“are opposed to this. You also saw a public opinion poll for the first time the other day that”

more Americans sympathize with Palestinians than Israelis. And that is an overwhelming majority among Democrats. And let's just name the fact that oftentimes the people who seem the most reluctant to oppose this war are those Democrats who are most supportive of Israel and Congress. And so, we should just not be afraid to talk about the fact that this is part of the dynamic here. Because there's a very clear correlation between people who take a PAC money and who have been supportive

of a BB in the end of the past who are going to either vote no on that resolution or have been going to pretty deep it about this. And look, Donald Trump, you know, people including us gave him credit for, you know, getting tough with Netanyahu sometimes. But that's out the window now. He's just gone to war in part because BB in the end of one didn't do. So, like, don't ever tell me again about how Donald Trump uses this leverage. Like the Democratic Party can be the anti-war

“party, can be the party once it changed a dysfunctional relationship with Israel, change a dysfunctional”

approach to the Middle East that learn the lessons of history and that is saying it's time to stop spending money on this stuff and start investing in the things that Americans actually want us to be doing. And I also saw these really are using the occasion of this war to once again cut off aid into Gaza. So, they're just like, there's so many bad things happening right now. Positive world is brought to you by Helix. Look, it's getting a little colder out there.

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at select Quote.com/world. Go to date and get started. Select Quote.com/world. Ben, let's talk with the international reaction before we kind of have any concluding thoughts. There's a big roundup of people, kind of countries and leaders responding. Like the UN Secretary General condemned the attack. The Canadians were like full-throated and their support, Mark Carney was full-throated and his support. So were the Australians.

It was like fully in support of what Trump was doing. Prime Minister Kier-Starmer over in the UK

“notably said that the UK is refused to participate in the attack, which I think is made a lot of”

headlines in the UK. But like I don't know, his tone, but he condemned the Iranians primarily for responding. And then there was a joint statement with the UK, Germany, and France that was mostly about the Iranian response. The Turks called them both sides to de-escalate. China called on Iran sovereignty to be respected, Russia denounced the attack in all the ways to expect.

to Trump in this moment. But then anything jump out of you and particularly what the

“fact you make of the Canadians and the Australians being like so for this?”

So those are the ones that jumped out to me and look you're right. I think privately you get these leaders in a room and they did not want this to happen. Because they're aware of all the consequences. I mean if the Europeans, you know, I don't even know, you can read their statements over and over again and have no idea what the fuck their position is. Right. You are a manual Macron, like it's kind of word salads, you know, about how bad the Iranians are, but we need

to have consultations and we're concerned. But you know, they're the ones by the way you're good at getting refugees, like on this if it goes really south. But to me, what stood at the Mark Carney, who we, you know, praised a lot and has gotten a lot of praise, he stood up at Davos

and said that the international order was broken and it because it only worked for the powerful

countries and therefore the middle powers had to have their own views on things. And I think

“what's really disappointing about his statement is I guess he was only talking about trade. I guess”

we don't care if we, you know, the United States just goes around bombing countries with impunity and Israel goes around much more than United States, even bombing countries in impunity. So why not stand up to Trump on this one? Like what, what is the purpose of, and he doesn't even have to be full-throwed in opposition, but that statement tilted towards support as it Albanese is. So I, I don't know, I was a little disappointed in that because it's like everything else, like if Trump

feels like he can do these things and, you know, the democratic world is going to kind of fall into line or at least kind of be pretty passive about it. It just lowers the bar and I'm doing it. And that, that's the thing is he could be doing this again and again, right? In Iran could kind of keep bombing again and again, we could do this in Cuba, you know, Greenland could come back in the picture, Panama, like all these other places. And so yet to be thinking ahead to creating some

guardrails around what Trump is doing. Yeah, and look, you and I recorded an episode yesterday about how Afghanistan and Pakistan went to our at war. You know, the Pakistan, you said, we are an open war, full-throwed war with Afghanistan. There are millions of people who, you know, are getting pushed across either border, Iran shares the big border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. If Iran descends into civil war or chaos, as you said earlier, like a lot of people will be harmed.

A lot of people will become refugees. We'll get pushed out of the country. There could be massive refugee flows. It's just, you know, like this is like, we're like minute one of the game here. And it seems like Trump is already trying to spike the ball with all these phone calls and, you know, bragging to press, and etc. But I don't know. So look, I guess we'll wait and see if the spring leader is really dead. We'll wait and see who will take his place. If that is the case.

Any other things you're watching in the next kind of 12, 24 hours? Well, so if the supreme leader's dead, I would definitely, how is that announced? Who announces it? Is there a succession plan? I mean, I think we'll get a pretty quick understanding of the kind of political strategy and

“dynamic inside the Iranian leadership. So I think that's an important thing to watch. Do Iranians”

heed Trump's call to kind of rise up and, you know, start to create like a civil conflict, essentially, you know, so that there are clashes in the streets, just like there are clashes in the- Yeah, I love when the American leaders in Netanyahu call on mostly unarmed Iranians to rise up and fight their military. And that will then well for them. I'm sure. But sorry, continue. No, that, yeah, when Netanyahu particularly, let me speak directly to the Iranian people, you know.

The secret, you know, the Kurdish areas and the bulk areas of Iran, I get, you know, a lot of people may not follow this, but there are kind of longstanding separatist movements in those regions. Do they start to try to rise up, which could threaten the territorial integrity of Iran? So there's a lot to watch. I think that I want to just echo something you said to me, like, we tend to consume these things in new cycles and even Trump loves that 12-day war, right? Like,

this is going to play out for years, you know, and it's going to look terrible sometimes and make look fine at other times. But like, we're in-we're-you could argue that we're in this war now because we had a coup that we sponsored in 1953 in Iran.

That looked great on the first day too, in, like, look where we are now. And so we just have to

recognize this is going to unfold, like, over a long period of time. Yeah, and this thing might end up feeling cost-free to Americans again because no U.S. service members are hurt or killed. I pray to God that no U.S. service members are hurt or killed or Americans abroad. But there is already an enormous cost to the Iranian people. Like, hundreds are probably dead or wounded already. I mean, this story about, you know, the strike on a

girl school is horrific. Iran is a country that was dealing with an economic crisis. Tehran is a place where they're about to run out of water because of climate change and

There was this massive crackdown on protesters, you know, a couple months back, which Trump

is sort of cynically making part of his messaging about why he had to bomb them again. Like, again, I'm sure there are some Iranians who are in the streets who hate the regime who will be happy that the Supreme Leader is taken out and just sort of hope for something better. I just, my fear with all of this having been through Iraq and Afghanistan and the Arab Spring and just a lot of turmoil is that the guys with the guns tend to end up on top. And in this case,

the guys with the guns aren't much better than, you know, the Iatola and the Supreme Leader and the religious figures who have been in charge of Iran since, you know, 1979 or, you know,

“in the '89, I think, in terms of coming as tenure. Yeah, I mean, I think you probably”

know, Tommy, too, people in the Iranian diaspora who are very supportive of this military

intervention. I understand, like, the anger and trauma that people feel in the diaspora, I just sincerely believe that the United States and Israel bombing Iran to bring about regime change, you know, creates more risks, frankly, than it does opportunities. And principally, the reason I believe that is to your point. When I think of the places where there have been, you know, regime change, let's expand it beyond even US wars to Arab Spring, right?

Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, I'm leaving some out. But in every case, Sudan, where the people that rise up, in every case, you either had, like a civil war, there was hugely destabilizing and disruptive and, and a loss of life, or you had the guys with guns, come back and be even more repressive, right? Like the Egyptian government that emerged was more

“oppressive even than Mubarak, right? And so that's, that's why we sincerely, like, just don't”

think this is the right way. It's not out of any sub, you know, no love for this regime. It's been horrible for the Iranian people. But I think we just have to learn from history. And I just want to come back to why you mentioned it, Thomas, don't you? And if you have a final thought on this, the media coverage, some of it's very good, but some of it is just, what are we doing here, people? Like, like, you had people credibly referring to these really statement that this was like a preemptive

strike, like preemptive. I know, preemptive. What, what, that's a rock war language. It's almost like they were trolling the US media and just being a stenographer for this fucking bullshit. Especially when we told you, like, the nuclear infrastructure was, quote unquote, totally and completely obliterated in June of last year. The President of the United States said that. It's like, come on, guys, just like be a little more credulous of anything this guy says,

or then it, yeah, who's as, yeah. All right, well, like, thank you guys for watching, or listening to this, please subscribe to Pateva World, wherever you get your podcast or here on YouTube. I don't know if we'll be back tomorrow, but we'll be watching this very closely, we'll be covering this all week long, so we appreciate you guys watching and sharing this, and, you know, let us know what else you want to hear, and we appreciate it.

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